same reason why marketing companies use children in study groups to find out how to better exploit them into getting their parents to buy more useless garbage... oh did i say useless garbage, i meant "learning aids"
there are planes flying around (if you don't know which then you probably aren't allowed to know) that carry equipment worth multiples of the airframes that carry them. the cameras aren't just getting better, also the racks that carry them (with some pretty fancy stabilization). conventional innocent-looking aircraft make better surveillance platforms than something that looks like its out of star trek, simply because they don't arouse suspicion. slow aircraft are also better because less correction for movement is required by the tracking systems.
So I'm always surprised when Space Nutters think there are magical materials and fantasy technologies out there...
I guess if you're ignorant anything can surprise you.
Ever heard of blended wing bodies, carbon and silicon aerogels, aerospikes, feathering, single crystal turbine blades, biosteel, not to mention advances in avionics. Regulatory requirements have also evolved in the last 40 years, particularly in crashworthiness, dynamics/flutter, EMI, fire prevention/retardants, fatigue, lightning protection, operational requirements, etc.
I'm sure little progress has been required in going from a 45,000 lb thrust engine in the 747 to an 80,000 lb thrust engine in the A380.
There's more to an airplane than wings and a fuselage. If you had to fit people inside computers I doubt they would have changed in appearance much in the last 40 years either. If anything aircraft are getting bigger so as to fit more people. Your comparison is ridiculous at best.
an even better security measure would be to allow the user to prevent access to a certain permission, while still allowing the app to think it has that permission (call it "permission spoofing"). that way if the app doesn't really need the permission, it will work just fine without it. worst case is the app stops working and you have to restart (or uninstall) it.
If you're using flash then you're already dumb by default, along with anyone who enables Java in their browser.
Javascript could be a possible vector, but seems like a bit of a long shot.
I think the majority of malware development on Andriod is probably focused on the ignorance of users just installing apps that require ridiculous permissions. If the user wants an app/game enough, they are likely to accept whatever permission it says it needs regardless of whether it actually needs them or not.
Security of Android would be greatly improved if the Market installation front-end made it clearer about the consequences of certain permissions and helping users understand the likelihood of any given app "requiring" a certain permission or whether a permission is unnecessary for the type of app such that there is a possibility of that app having a darker purpose. Maybe highlighting permissions with higher security risks that aren't usually really needed by apps in the same category would be a positive step.
i don't think the Android situation is any worse than Windows (or even Linux) because in Windows, if the installation program requires admin privileges you have to allow it or you can't install the program, and if you allow it the program can pwn the entire computer. At least Android breaks down privileges into specific functions. Unfortunately the consequence of this is increased difficulty for users knowing what the various permissions actually mean.
i think his key point was "The best kept secrets are those that can be hidden in plain view", which is true (if a rather obvious oxymoron)
the hard (impossible?) part is actually being able to hide something in plain view
the best that sysadmins can achieve in their time and budget is probably a mixture of conventional authentication with a bit of "security by obscurity", as the aim of many security specialists isn't to make a system totally secure but to simply make it more secure than it was before so as to reduce the likelihood of it being pwned by the majority of script kiddies and botnets. "security by obscurity" isn't really a bad thing, its just bad on its own. When combined with other security measures it can add a little bit to the effort required by any potential hacker.
banks often pay hackers to find security exploits for them as the old saying goes "better the devil you know", so if you want the best (tested) security, maybe hire a team from DefCon
While I agree that carbon dioxide isn't a problem and that climate change has likely been going on since Earth's formation, there are environmental impacts of human activity that should be kept in check for our own benefit (and for future generations), such as CO, SOx and NOx.
Unless environmental considerations are put into the corporate balance sheet somehow (tax, trading scheme, whatever) there will be little incentive for corporations to reduce their environmental impacts.
Things like EPA limits aren't an incentive because corporations will do what they have to to meet those requirements and nothing else. Perhaps more aggressive annual reductions in EPA limits would be a possibility though.
I'm sure there are plenty of ideas out there as to how companies can be more accountable for their environmental impact, and how to reduce the environmental effects of urbanization (prime concern being atmospheric inversion).
In places where there are no limits or incentives, there is no limit to the damage (including to the health of local populations) that corporations will be quite happy to inflict in the name of profit.
i mostly agree with you (except about the nonsense bit of course). it seems rather obvious that my outlook and attitude would be different if i were living in less fortunate circumstances, but you're still welcome to highlight it.
I don't think we would be "better off" fighting it out, but if electricity was turned off, particularly in modern nations that depend on it, citizens would mostly be ill-prepared and unable to cope, so would likely resort to primitive instinctual behavior.
Most people wouldn't normally even contemplate looting to acquire food, but if you're starving and there are ten other people vying for the same can of food, regardless of how moral you are in your cozy chair now, there is a good chance you would be doing as much harm as necessary to the other people to get that can of food (even if those other people were little kids or women).
The alternatives would be starving to death, suicide, or looking elsewhere, but in a situation where you were only one of millions of starving people, your outlook would be pretty hopeless.
People already living in impoverished countries are much more adapted to a lifestyle without an abundance of convenient food. These people do have a lower life expectancy, but from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Regional_variations it is apparently primarily due to diseases like malaria and HIV. There is no cure for HIV (that I'm aware of), but it's more under control in modern countries more due to higher level of education and simple measures like use of condoms/diaphragms or barrier creams/ointments than advanced medical technology. Our education of STDs is the best weapon against these diseases; if you know someone is infected with HIV, you don't have unprotected sex with them (if you're unaware of the risks of HIV, you're more likely to have unprotected sex with them anyway, regardless of availability of contraception).
Malaria is transmitted by the mosquito, so elimination of stagnant water, physical barriers (cloth or nets) etc can reduce the chance of infection, but if you're unfamiliar with this (as is likely the case in poor countries with little/no education), you're risk of infection increases. If the level of education in poorer countries was equivalent to that in countries like Australia or the US, the life expectancy in poorer countries would increase (even without electricity).
You're idea of a grand primitive battle is also a bit extraneous. Not everyone strives for the highest living standard possible. Many people aim to improve their standard of living to some extent, but I don't think its any sort of battle. Most people are quite used to living within their means and they are comfortable with that.
People who aren't used to having electricity are unlikely to die from their lack of it, and even those that are used to having electricity who all of a sudden lose it are at most likely to suffer some level of withdrawal similar to any addiction.
Even with our advanced medical technology, unfit people still suffer. Medicine may be able to keep them alive, but many of our medicines are merely treatments for which the primary purpose has little to do with helping those who need them. The entire modern medicinal industry revolves around profit (duh!). There are possibly cures to some diseases but it would be much more profitable to market treatments that must be taken regularly for life than to offer some one off cure. I would go so far as to say that some modern bugs may have either been manufactured or at least artificially spread to establish a broad market for their treatment. You might think that no company could ever get away with such a thing, especially in the mighty home of the free, but "freedom" can also be used for evil, and i
fair enough... maybe what i meant was "help to prevent further climate change due to human industrial activity"... dude, read between the lines. I’m not your fucking 2nd grade teacher, and you're not mine either.
and how do you know climate change has been going on that long? have you gone back in time 4 billion years ago and planted data loggers to measure climate metrics and then dug them up recently to plot the trend? you may be right, and it seems logical (i personally doubt that humanity will do any long term damage to the earth), but just because some discovery channel doco says something doesn't necessarily make it true.
my opinion of the "global warming/climate change" debate is more relevant on a localized scale, such as in heavily populated regions (eastern seaboard of US, Europe, India, China, Mexico City, etc) where atmospheric inversion due to pollutants (not just excessive levels of CO2, but CO, NOx, and SOx) has become a major problem.
the whole climate change bandwagon was started by wealthy power brokers who were afraid that acid rain might damage the paint on their Bentleys
it would increase after the population reached a sustainable level, with those remaining being the ones that got off their fat lazy asses to fend for themselves... survival of the fittest
by the way, I’m not advocating turning off electricity... i enjoy a good bickering on/. as much as the next geek, and I’m definitely not a tree-hugging bong-smoking hippie environmentalist
it's brought out some entertaining (if predictable) responses though
i said turn off electricity, not pretend like it never existed... moron
we live longer due to medical help, but increases in life expectancy are mainly due to some key discoveries like penicillin, increased access to healthcare professionals, and increased awareness of the causes of common ailments, none of which require electricity
much of the need for more advanced medical technology has come about because of the things i already mentioned (environmental effects of industrialization and urbanization), amongst others like smoking, binge drinking, drugs, lack of exercise, poor diet, foreign diseases (international travel and shipping, and deforestation), etc.
i care as much about human life as most other humans, including yourself no doubt (though I’m sure you would do your best to put yourself on some kind of moral pedestal)
to prevent climate change once and for all, simply turn off all the electricity around the world
think of how much heat is generated from voltage down stepping
also, without electricity mass de-urbanization would occur due to lack of refrigeration (people would be forced to move near to where produce is grown) so atmospheric inversion would gradually dissipate, along with reduction of introduction of new vehicles and precision equipment
life expectancy would probably increase due to reduction in stress from lifestyle simplification, healthier diets (more basic vegetables and unprocessed foods) and increased exercise due to reduction in availability of petroleum products for vehicles
world dominance would gradually shift from modern centers of civilization to the third world due to their reduced dependence on electricity
there would be wide scale civil unrest in large centers of population dependent on electricity, and starvation, murder and suicide would be rampant until a sustainable population density is reached
As far as I know, those who marketed and advertised it, no matter how complicit, are safe. It's also possible that allowing distribution of a dangerous product serves the interests of society (ex: alcohol, tobacco)
you're getting a bit pedantic here. advertising agencies merely speak on behalf of their clients - they are an instrument - like a megaphone (which is why the client would be in trouble, not the advertiser). although if the client is a big fish with a lot to lose you can bet the advertiser would have to defend themselves in court, and if they didn't have their ducks in a row they would go down too.
I was also referring to things that would violate OH&S legislation by not advertising them as being dangerous (more things like if you supply drum full of chemicals to some factory, and a worker gets injured because they weren't aware it was full of dangerous chemicals - because the dangerous chemical wasn't marked - then the supplier of that drum would face criminal prosecution for violation of OH&S requirements.
in a sane legal system, knowingly causing death and diseases by conspiring to deceive hundreds of millions of people would cause some penalty all by itself
in Australia, James Hardie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hardie#History_2 is still paying victims of diseases resulting from exposure to asbestos in products it manufactured years ago. You can be sure that if a legal loophole is discovered that requires compensation for smoking related illnesses, there will be a class action like the world has never seen. I wouldn't write off the possibility. Legal systems are slow to evolve and process things. While it may seem that cigarette and alcohol companies are off the hook, it may be another 20 to 50 years, but the legal system may eventually catch up with them. Many smoking related illnesses aren't understood well enough for use in prosecution of cigarette companies, whereas in the James Hardie case the evidence was a little more clear. Cigarettes and alcohol also provide governments with a handy revenue stream from taxes (which is possibly criminal in itself because governments may be profiting from the deaths of smoking victims).
interests of the public, ones that are supposed to be protected by criminal law, still can not trump the sanctity of "free speech"
i understand all those words, but i don't really understand what you're saying there (sorry). i assume by public interests protected by criminal law refers to things like murder, rape, fraud, drink driving, etc. I don't see how these can be trumped by free speech. If a guy commits rape (for example), a well paid lawyer might save him, but free speech won't do much for him at all. You may be free to say "not guilty" in court, but it doesn't mean you're not going to spend a long time locked away behind bars.
Your freedom to speak could land you in perjury (if you are found to have lied in court), it could have you charged with sexual discrimination (if you speak inappropriately to a female coworker), if you verbally abuse a police officer, cause a domestic disturbance (yelling and carrying on at home so loud that it disturbs the neighbors), screaming "bomb" on an airplane when there isn't one, name-calling to a young African-American man with a 9 mm pistol in Harlem, New York at midnight, etc. That's what I meant about "you're mouth writing checks that your body can't cash".
Dell is shit anyway (and so are most other Windows OEMs)
Just buy a mobo from your local pyewta corner shop and you're all good. There will always be Taiwanese companies making mobos for sale on their own (which means no UEFI lock-in).
Replacing a mobo is a piece of cake nowadays. You don't even need to buy CPU goop in a separate tube any more (it comes pre-gooped on CPUs now)
br
i dunno why everyone jumping up and down. maybe its a slow news day, or maybe everyone has no life and we need to bash microsoft to keep things interesting. i love a good dot-slashing too, but i'd rather pick a target that is more easily upset:P
Slashdot Mirror
*parks "geekmilf.com" domain*
same reason why marketing companies use children in study groups to find out how to better exploit them into getting their parents to buy more useless garbage... oh did i say useless garbage, i meant "learning aids"
erm... satellites, which the sr-71a and u-2 are both not
http://orbitingfrog.com/satellites-on-google-earth
there are planes flying around (if you don't know which then you probably aren't allowed to know) that carry equipment worth multiples of the airframes that carry them. the cameras aren't just getting better, also the racks that carry them (with some pretty fancy stabilization). conventional innocent-looking aircraft make better surveillance platforms than something that looks like its out of star trek, simply because they don't arouse suspicion. slow aircraft are also better because less correction for movement is required by the tracking systems.
...or lost in the steel and glass canyons
So I'm always surprised when Space Nutters think there are magical materials and fantasy technologies out there...
I guess if you're ignorant anything can surprise you.
Ever heard of blended wing bodies, carbon and silicon aerogels, aerospikes, feathering, single crystal turbine blades, biosteel, not to mention advances in avionics. Regulatory requirements have also evolved in the last 40 years, particularly in crashworthiness, dynamics/flutter, EMI, fire prevention/retardants, fatigue, lightning protection, operational requirements, etc.
I'm sure little progress has been required in going from a 45,000 lb thrust engine in the 747 to an 80,000 lb thrust engine in the A380.
There's more to an airplane than wings and a fuselage. If you had to fit people inside computers I doubt they would have changed in appearance much in the last 40 years either. If anything aircraft are getting bigger so as to fit more people. Your comparison is ridiculous at best.
an even better security measure would be to allow the user to prevent access to a certain permission, while still allowing the app to think it has that permission (call it "permission spoofing"). that way if the app doesn't really need the permission, it will work just fine without it. worst case is the app stops working and you have to restart (or uninstall) it.
If you're using flash then you're already dumb by default, along with anyone who enables Java in their browser.
Javascript could be a possible vector, but seems like a bit of a long shot.
I think the majority of malware development on Andriod is probably focused on the ignorance of users just installing apps that require ridiculous permissions. If the user wants an app/game enough, they are likely to accept whatever permission it says it needs regardless of whether it actually needs them or not.
Security of Android would be greatly improved if the Market installation front-end made it clearer about the consequences of certain permissions and helping users understand the likelihood of any given app "requiring" a certain permission or whether a permission is unnecessary for the type of app such that there is a possibility of that app having a darker purpose. Maybe highlighting permissions with higher security risks that aren't usually really needed by apps in the same category would be a positive step.
i don't think the Android situation is any worse than Windows (or even Linux) because in Windows, if the installation program requires admin privileges you have to allow it or you can't install the program, and if you allow it the program can pwn the entire computer. At least Android breaks down privileges into specific functions. Unfortunately the consequence of this is increased difficulty for users knowing what the various permissions actually mean.
i think his key point was "The best kept secrets are those that can be hidden in plain view", which is true (if a rather obvious oxymoron)
the hard (impossible?) part is actually being able to hide something in plain view
the best that sysadmins can achieve in their time and budget is probably a mixture of conventional authentication with a bit of "security by obscurity", as the aim of many security specialists isn't to make a system totally secure but to simply make it more secure than it was before so as to reduce the likelihood of it being pwned by the majority of script kiddies and botnets. "security by obscurity" isn't really a bad thing, its just bad on its own. When combined with other security measures it can add a little bit to the effort required by any potential hacker.
banks often pay hackers to find security exploits for them as the old saying goes "better the devil you know", so if you want the best (tested) security, maybe hire a team from DefCon
our devices will be vulnerable
only if you're dumb enough to install apps like "HotNakdChyX" from "WeRHaXorZ" that require every permission possible
do not ignore my veins!
maybe its not the weather that is out of whack, but our expectation of it.
maybe the seasons have decided they don't want to conform any more to the three monthly slots we've allocated for them.
While I agree that carbon dioxide isn't a problem and that climate change has likely been going on since Earth's formation, there are environmental impacts of human activity that should be kept in check for our own benefit (and for future generations), such as CO, SOx and NOx.
Unless environmental considerations are put into the corporate balance sheet somehow (tax, trading scheme, whatever) there will be little incentive for corporations to reduce their environmental impacts.
Things like EPA limits aren't an incentive because corporations will do what they have to to meet those requirements and nothing else. Perhaps more aggressive annual reductions in EPA limits would be a possibility though.
I'm sure there are plenty of ideas out there as to how companies can be more accountable for their environmental impact, and how to reduce the environmental effects of urbanization (prime concern being atmospheric inversion).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inversion_(meteorology)#Consequences_of_a_thermal_inversion
In places where there are no limits or incentives, there is no limit to the damage (including to the health of local populations) that corporations will be quite happy to inflict in the name of profit.
i mostly agree with you (except about the nonsense bit of course). it seems rather obvious that my outlook and attitude would be different if i were living in less fortunate circumstances, but you're still welcome to highlight it.
I don't think we would be "better off" fighting it out, but if electricity was turned off, particularly in modern nations that depend on it, citizens would mostly be ill-prepared and unable to cope, so would likely resort to primitive instinctual behavior.
Most people wouldn't normally even contemplate looting to acquire food, but if you're starving and there are ten other people vying for the same can of food, regardless of how moral you are in your cozy chair now, there is a good chance you would be doing as much harm as necessary to the other people to get that can of food (even if those other people were little kids or women).
Refer to Maslow's hierarchy of needs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs
The alternatives would be starving to death, suicide, or looking elsewhere, but in a situation where you were only one of millions of starving people, your outlook would be pretty hopeless.
People already living in impoverished countries are much more adapted to a lifestyle without an abundance of convenient food. These people do have a lower life expectancy, but from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Regional_variations it is apparently primarily due to diseases like malaria and HIV. There is no cure for HIV (that I'm aware of), but it's more under control in modern countries more due to higher level of education and simple measures like use of condoms/diaphragms or barrier creams/ointments than advanced medical technology. Our education of STDs is the best weapon against these diseases; if you know someone is infected with HIV, you don't have unprotected sex with them (if you're unaware of the risks of HIV, you're more likely to have unprotected sex with them anyway, regardless of availability of contraception).
Malaria is transmitted by the mosquito, so elimination of stagnant water, physical barriers (cloth or nets) etc can reduce the chance of infection, but if you're unfamiliar with this (as is likely the case in poor countries with little/no education), you're risk of infection increases. If the level of education in poorer countries was equivalent to that in countries like Australia or the US, the life expectancy in poorer countries would increase (even without electricity).
You're idea of a grand primitive battle is also a bit extraneous. Not everyone strives for the highest living standard possible. Many people aim to improve their standard of living to some extent, but I don't think its any sort of battle. Most people are quite used to living within their means and they are comfortable with that. People who aren't used to having electricity are unlikely to die from their lack of it, and even those that are used to having electricity who all of a sudden lose it are at most likely to suffer some level of withdrawal similar to any addiction.
Even with our advanced medical technology, unfit people still suffer. Medicine may be able to keep them alive, but many of our medicines are merely treatments for which the primary purpose has little to do with helping those who need them. The entire modern medicinal industry revolves around profit (duh!). There are possibly cures to some diseases but it would be much more profitable to market treatments that must be taken regularly for life than to offer some one off cure. I would go so far as to say that some modern bugs may have either been manufactured or at least artificially spread to establish a broad market for their treatment. You might think that no company could ever get away with such a thing, especially in the mighty home of the free, but "freedom" can also be used for evil, and i
fair enough... maybe what i meant was "help to prevent further climate change due to human industrial activity"... dude, read between the lines. I’m not your fucking 2nd grade teacher, and you're not mine either.
and how do you know climate change has been going on that long? have you gone back in time 4 billion years ago and planted data loggers to measure climate metrics and then dug them up recently to plot the trend? you may be right, and it seems logical (i personally doubt that humanity will do any long term damage to the earth), but just because some discovery channel doco says something doesn't necessarily make it true.
my opinion of the "global warming/climate change" debate is more relevant on a localized scale, such as in heavily populated regions (eastern seaboard of US, Europe, India, China, Mexico City, etc) where atmospheric inversion due to pollutants (not just excessive levels of CO2, but CO, NOx, and SOx) has become a major problem.
the whole climate change bandwagon was started by wealthy power brokers who were afraid that acid rain might damage the paint on their Bentleys
actually you wouldn't see anything cos your TV wouldn't work any more... bye bye CNN
it would increase after the population reached a sustainable level, with those remaining being the ones that got off their fat lazy asses to fend for themselves... survival of the fittest
/. as much as the next geek, and I’m definitely not a tree-hugging bong-smoking hippie environmentalist
by the way, I’m not advocating turning off electricity... i enjoy a good bickering on
it's brought out some entertaining (if predictable) responses though
knowledge already gained with the benefits of electricity need not be forgotten if electricity is turned off
21st century medicine is required for 21st century health problems
i said turn off electricity, not pretend like it never existed... moron
we live longer due to medical help, but increases in life expectancy are mainly due to some key discoveries like penicillin, increased access to healthcare professionals, and increased awareness of the causes of common ailments, none of which require electricity
much of the need for more advanced medical technology has come about because of the things i already mentioned (environmental effects of industrialization and urbanization), amongst others like smoking, binge drinking, drugs, lack of exercise, poor diet, foreign diseases (international travel and shipping, and deforestation), etc.
you'll no doubt disagree, but whatever...
i care as much about human life as most other humans, including yourself no doubt (though I’m sure you would do your best to put yourself on some kind of moral pedestal)
to prevent climate change once and for all, simply turn off all the electricity around the world
think of how much heat is generated from voltage down stepping
also, without electricity mass de-urbanization would occur due to lack of refrigeration (people would be forced to move near to where produce is grown) so atmospheric inversion would gradually dissipate, along with reduction of introduction of new vehicles and precision equipment
life expectancy would probably increase due to reduction in stress from lifestyle simplification, healthier diets (more basic vegetables and unprocessed foods) and increased exercise due to reduction in availability of petroleum products for vehicles
world dominance would gradually shift from modern centers of civilization to the third world due to their reduced dependence on electricity
there would be wide scale civil unrest in large centers of population dependent on electricity, and starvation, murder and suicide would be rampant until a sustainable population density is reached
the world would become a much bigger place again
As far as I know, those who marketed and advertised it, no matter how complicit, are safe. It's also possible that allowing distribution of a dangerous product serves the interests of society (ex: alcohol, tobacco)
you're getting a bit pedantic here. advertising agencies merely speak on behalf of their clients - they are an instrument - like a megaphone (which is why the client would be in trouble, not the advertiser). although if the client is a big fish with a lot to lose you can bet the advertiser would have to defend themselves in court, and if they didn't have their ducks in a row they would go down too.
I was also referring to things that would violate OH&S legislation by not advertising them as being dangerous (more things like if you supply drum full of chemicals to some factory, and a worker gets injured because they weren't aware it was full of dangerous chemicals - because the dangerous chemical wasn't marked - then the supplier of that drum would face criminal prosecution for violation of OH&S requirements.
in a sane legal system, knowingly causing death and diseases by conspiring to deceive hundreds of millions of people would cause some penalty all by itself
in Australia, James Hardie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hardie#History_2 is still paying victims of diseases resulting from exposure to asbestos in products it manufactured years ago. You can be sure that if a legal loophole is discovered that requires compensation for smoking related illnesses, there will be a class action like the world has never seen. I wouldn't write off the possibility. Legal systems are slow to evolve and process things. While it may seem that cigarette and alcohol companies are off the hook, it may be another 20 to 50 years, but the legal system may eventually catch up with them. Many smoking related illnesses aren't understood well enough for use in prosecution of cigarette companies, whereas in the James Hardie case the evidence was a little more clear. Cigarettes and alcohol also provide governments with a handy revenue stream from taxes (which is possibly criminal in itself because governments may be profiting from the deaths of smoking victims).
interests of the public, ones that are supposed to be protected by criminal law, still can not trump the sanctity of "free speech"
i understand all those words, but i don't really understand what you're saying there (sorry). i assume by public interests protected by criminal law refers to things like murder, rape, fraud, drink driving, etc. I don't see how these can be trumped by free speech. If a guy commits rape (for example), a well paid lawyer might save him, but free speech won't do much for him at all. You may be free to say "not guilty" in court, but it doesn't mean you're not going to spend a long time locked away behind bars.
Your freedom to speak could land you in perjury (if you are found to have lied in court), it could have you charged with sexual discrimination (if you speak inappropriately to a female coworker), if you verbally abuse a police officer, cause a domestic disturbance (yelling and carrying on at home so loud that it disturbs the neighbors), screaming "bomb" on an airplane when there isn't one, name-calling to a young African-American man with a 9 mm pistol in Harlem, New York at midnight, etc. That's what I meant about "you're mouth writing checks that your body can't cash".
Dell is shit anyway (and so are most other Windows OEMs)
:P
Just buy a mobo from your local pyewta corner shop and you're all good. There will always be Taiwanese companies making mobos for sale on their own (which means no UEFI lock-in).
Replacing a mobo is a piece of cake nowadays. You don't even need to buy CPU goop in a separate tube any more (it comes pre-gooped on CPUs now)
br i dunno why everyone jumping up and down. maybe its a slow news day, or maybe everyone has no life and we need to bash microsoft to keep things interesting. i love a good dot-slashing too, but i'd rather pick a target that is more easily upset
money talks and bullshit walks... free
micro$oft > ireland > bahamas > bermuda > fiji > russia > china > angola > columbia > italy > etc > etc (whatever the chain is)
i really doubt that the mightly US government gets much dosh from redmond