Like you, I don't exactly represent a very good cross-section of society either...
But my wife certainly does. She is about to get her own dedicated Tivo, just so she can start recording all of her "Trading Spaces," "Ground Force," "Changing Rooms" home redecorationg shows. It'll be a hard-drive full of estrogen in no time.
She's "just a chick," but she can't go back to watching TV the old way.
See Betamax, Newtown, Commodore, the Edsel, etc etc.
See also Telephone, Television, Electricity... Just because a product is first to market (or in this case, defining a market) does not mean it is doomed to failure. If you look at the companies that have invested in Tivo, you see that they'll survive (even if that means they are simply acquired). They have a best-of-breed product, a regonizable brand, and the market that they have defined is set to explode.
You've heard the song... 500 channels and there's nothing on.
Really, the problem isn't that there isn't anything on. The problem is that there's so much on, that it becomes increasingly impossible to filter the noise, and find that which is truly appealing to you, the viewer.
Tivo makes this possible. You don't tell it what time you want to record something. You tell it what show to record, regardless of when it is on. You tell it what genres you like, what actors you prefer, what directors meet your expectations. It does the rest.
You can not appreciate how this device will transform your relationship with television. It makes television useful, and entertaining, and it does this by catering to you, as an individual, rather than by allowing a television network to pour some target demographics into the plot generation device so that the program hits all of the right population segments.
I'm no longer "White males, 25 - 35, with a household income between X and Y."
Since I got Tivo, now I'm just me, and I watch the shows that appeal to me, and I watch them when my schedule allows me to.
Actually, I think that viewing habits tracking is a great thing. I would imagine that it has the Neilsen people in a tizzy (if not a tizzy, then at the very least, they are concerned).
Everyone who owns a Tivo essentially has the potential to become "A Neilsen Family." There is no screening process. The geek in the basement of the Science building... The networks will know that Star Trek, X-Files, and Firefly get watched.
I hate it when I find a show that I really like, only to learn that the Neilsen families don't. That show is toast. With Tivo, these shows have a chance.
In addition to the other replys, DirecTV has just assumed full responsibility for the DirecTivo units.
The Tivo monthly fee has been reduced to under $5/month. If you have the "Total Choice Premier" tier of DirecTV service, the monthy Tivo fee has been eliminated completely.
For me, it was a wash. I upgraded my monthly DirecTV service, and dumped my Tivo fee. Now I get every channel. My second DirecTivo unit should be arriving in a manner of days (The Series 2 DirecTivo unit), and I couldn't be happier.
Incidentally, the DirecTV / Tivo combo units are far less expensive than the standalone Tivo units, and offer greater functionality.
Because they record the already digitally encoded DirecTV stream, they do not require MPEG encoder hardware. They are less costly to manufacture. They also have dual-tuners.
The Series 2 DirecTivos (Hughes HDVR2) should be hitting store shelves next week. They go for $199, vs. $350 for the standalones.
If you're a DirecTV subscriber, you should absolutely give it a try.
Re:A users perspective of Red Hat 8 and KDE
on
Red Hat 8.0 Released
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
For perspective, I'm not a RedHet user. I prefer Debian on servers, and have been utilizing Mandrake on Desktop/EyeCandy machines.
Having said that, I read the summary that you've written about RedHat, and their KDE modifications. I think it's very well written, and very comprehensive. I would have a hard time disagreeing with any of the conclusions that you've drawn.
I hope that some of the complainers take the time to read it as well.
RedHat is simply trying to put forward the best that Linux has to offer, which will invariably result in the subjective assessment of various competing applications. Some applications are simply more refined than others, and as a result, they've been elevated to "default" status. The alternatives are still present.
As for trying to unify the appearance of the completing desktop environments, that too is a step that most people see as inevitable. It certainly makes life easier for the new users, and OS converts. I know that from an aesthetic perspective, I'd like my KDE and GNOME apps to have a similar appearance, regardless of which desktop I happen to be running.
These are for the most part cosmetic changes, and the end result is a better overall distribution.
I was not a big investor, by any stretch of the imagination.
By the time I was going to unload, the entertainment value of crashing exceeded the amount of money I would have been able to recoup.
I took a few deep drags off the oxygen mask that had convieniently dropped from the ceiling as we lost cabin pressure, and coasted into the drink like a trooper.
It was such a shame. There they sat, king of the mountain, having essentially created the market for high end PC graphics... When I bought their stock, I never imagined there would come a time when Voodoo wasn't synonymous with 3D.
Then, one day in early '99, I saw the news that NVidia would be powering the Xbox, and I knew that there would be no rebound for 3dfx.
Keep in mind that the US government has secrets dating back in time from way before the Kennedy assassination. 4 years is way too short for secrets like that.
That's funny... I'd say that 4 years is far too long for secrets like that.
One flaw however... Does it surprise anyone that the kind of people that are calling an ISP for tech support aren't saavy enough to have a dedicated 2nd phone line for their Internet connectivity?
It just seems like that statistical sample comes from an already poisoned pool.
Of course, maybe it's just me, and I'm a techno-bigot.
Spoken like a person that has never owned or used an ISDN connection...
The loop charge for having ISDN runs $40 or $50 bucks a month, depending on your location (In Bell Atlantic/Verizon land, I used to pay $40.). That cost is incurred before you even attempt your first call.
The killer is the usages fees... $.02/minute/B-Channel during the day. $.01/minute/B-Channel during the evening.
Those charges add up quickly. If you initiate the call during the day, your 128Kbps ISDN connection costs:
$2.40/hr...
That's $57.60/day...
$403.20/week...
$1728.00/month (30 days)
0ver $20,000 annually.
Sometimes you can get what is locally called "Centrex" service, where you have no usage fees, but that is not always the case. If, for example, you got 128Kbps ISDN Internet service from your local carrier (Again, Verizon as my local example), the charge you over $400/month.
DSL may exceed the $40 line charge of ISDN, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.
I'm not trying to harsh your mellow, or anything. I simply have intimate knowledge of Cisco's licensing practices because I've worked for resellers and partners, and deal with their products every day.
I will preface this with a simple statement: I am not a lawyer, but I sometimes play one on Slashdot.
That it is legal "in your opinion" does not make it so. It may make it difficult for Cisco to prove "intent" if they ever decided to prosecute you, but it doesn't mean that you aren't violating the terms of the software license. (And I'm not saying Cisco is coming after you... They most certainly are not.)
You can buy a Cisco router (or PIX) without signing or clicking through a license agreement (for example, buying one used via eBay, or some other auction site). The fact remains that you are not licensed to use the product (The seller does not have the power to transfer the license, and he (or someone upstream) agreed to the terms).
As for "Clicking" to accept a license as you would while installing a software application, there is no equivalent while running router or PIX code.
Cisco's terms are that you run a specific version of code on a specific platform (The platform is licensed for a specific version of IOS/PIX Code, with a specific feature set). You are not allowed to run different versions, nor are you permitted to "upgrade" all similar platforms to the "highest feature set" for which you have a valid license.
Does that mean that it's illegal to run zebra and BGPd? Cause those are developed by cisco, it's perfectly emulating sysco software...
I'm sure the IETF would be surprised to learn that...
Cisco did not "develop" BGP. They contributed to the RFCs which propose the standard, but it's not owned by them.
As a follow up, Zebra mimics Cisco's configuration interface. It has an IOS-like command structure.
It is not, under the hood, IOS, nor does it use any IOS code.
Further, Zebra only implements RFC based routing protocols (RIPv1 and v2, OSPF, BGPv4, etc). These are open specifications, and form the basis for the behavior of Routers from Cisco, Nortel, and everybody else. Zebra is an open source implementation of these same specifications, which again, uses an interface very much like that of Cisco IOS. Zebra has no implementation of IGRP or EIGRP, both of which are Cisco proprietary routing protocols. (There are no non-Cisco implementations of these protocols to the best of my knowledge.)
Haven't we discussed this again and again on Slashdot? You cannot prevent someone from copying an interface.
I think that, for the purposes of this discussion where:
You are building a machine for the express purpose of running code that you don't want to pay for, and
You are obtaining code to run on a machine that is not licensed to run that code
...you are committing a crime. Even if we're only talking about a licence agreement (a civil contract), if you enter into it without the intention of honoring it, you are committing fraud.
It's not like you don't have a choice in choosing other firewall solutions. For the same $400, you could build a number of different platforms and utilize free code to build a firewall (and that's the approach that a lot of us take).
I'm not sure if you were implying that Cisco was a monopolist or not, or if your comment was a thinly veiled shot at Microsoft. The two companies are very different, and the landscapes they play on bear little resemblance.
Is Cisco a monopoly? I don't think they are. They have a tremendous market share, without a doubt, and they are in a number of different markets.
That said, they have a slew of competition, not only in general, but in each market where they are a player.
In the Firewall space, you have Checkpoint, Raptor, and a couple of other "Enterprise" players, plus a countless number of smaller vendors marketing "Firewall appliances" of one sort or another. The VPN space is the same (with pretty much the same players competing. Can you even get a firewall with no VPN capabilities any more?). In the Core router space, you have Juniper (!), and several other carrier class would-be competitors. In the enterprise routing space, you have 3com, Nortel, Enterasys (Formerly Cabletron). In the enterprise switching space you've got HP, Enterasys, and others. In IP Telephony, there's NEC, 3Com, and others.
Cisco is where they are for a few reasons. They make products that are reliable, share a very consistant interface across platforms (within a product type... Configuring a 7200VXR is very much like configuring a 2621 router, making the entire line very "supportable"), and have a phenominal customer support organization.
Microsoft on the other hand, is where they are because they made business agreements that got their OS installed on every Intel based computer whether it was used or not, they made exclusive licensing agreements which prevented the adoption of competing products, and have customer support (which costs only $400/phone call, whether they fix your problem or not).
Disclaimer: I make my living working with Cisco products, but I am not a Cisco employee.
If you have ever downloaded Cisco code from CCO, then you know that once you select the software that you want, you are presented with a page detailing the licensing agreement. At the bottom of the page, there are two hyperlinks.
The first hyperlink says "ACCEPT," and clicking through will present you with the download page for the software that you want.
The second hyperlink says "DECLINE," and clicking through will present send you back to the previous page.
The agreement states:
Unless otherwise expressly provided in the documentation, Customer shall use the Software solely as embedded in, for execution on, or (where the applicable documentation permits installation on non-Cisco equipment) for communication with Cisco equipment owned or leased by Customer
That's pretty clear.
It's also pretty clear that because you need a CCO account to even get to the Software Download page, that you're having clicked on the "ACCEPT" link means that you are indeed accepting the terms of the license.
I don't care what you do, but if you're stealing, or failing to adhere to an agreement that you made, don't take offense when someone calls you a criminal because that is in fact what you are.
Well that's a lovely emotional reaction, filled with zeal and enthusiasm. Whatever happens, don't let facts stand in the way of your opinions.
For starters, what you see as exploitation, people in the 3rd world see as progress. When you have literally nothing, and you are presented the opportunity to earn $2.00 a day, you would see it the same way. That crappy factory job is better than every other prospect that faces those people.
Secondly, do you want to be the one that tells them that they can no longer sift through waste materials to earn a living because it's not "ecologically friendly?" Right now, they have a means of taking care of themselves. It's not something that you or I would do, but it's all they've got. You'd like they to stop because it's bad for the environment (an environmnet that, to this point, hasn't done much to take care of them). You tell them. Tell them they can't feed their families because it's too risky.
Third, if you think that it was simply the fact that they hadn't been told that it wasn't ok to suicide bomb the world trade center, then you're retarded. There are fundamental differences in the outlooks of the people that inhabit the middle east. Take for example the conflict between the Syrians and the Israelis. During their last conflict, when towns had been bombed out, the Syrians left the destroyed remains of their villages to serve as a reminder. Do you know what the Israelis did? They rebuilt. That is as telling an example as I can provide.
The middle east is a very interesting part of the world, because it demonstrates what happens when you turn a third world nation into a first world nation in terms of immediate regional economic prosperity. The Arab states (Saudi Arabia, as an example) have plenty of money, thanks to the oil that sits beneath them, but they skipped over the traditional path of economic development. They never had a manufacturing base. They lack an organic technological capability. In short, they lack maturity as an economic power. (I'm not speaking in generalities... I've spent a year of my life in SA. I've seen it first hand.)
The sudden prosperity of the region has been a boon to them, but it has left them vulnerable to the inevitable. What happens to them when the oil runs out? They have nothing else going for them. They will simply fade back to their previous irrelevance.
The economic progress in Asia is completely different. Take a look at Japan. 60 years ago, they were a feudal society. Where are they today? An economic world leader, and they got that way the same way that the United States did. They became a manufacturing giant. It helped to elevate them to where they are today.
Look at Hong Kong. Look at Taiwan. They are poised to do the same thing. China will be in the same boat once they put the last nail in the coffin of communism.
That leads into your comment about immigration. Once opportunity seeds itself in a region, people no longer need to get away in order to prosper. Immigration , legal or illegal, doesn't concern me. I am concerned about the root cause. It is the lack of economic opportunity that forces people to abandon the nations of their birth. Circumstance can change in a single generation.
I know that as a European, you are overly sensative to matters of living conditions, and the environment. I also know that you may have difficulty seeing things as being dynamic, or prgressive, because you live in a country where things are as they have been for many generations.
You can afford to stay "no more progress" because things for you are pretty good. You cannot tell people in the 3rd world that they can make "no more progress," because things for them are simply awful.
In time, as more factories open, and the workforce begins to have choices about where to go to work, working conditions will improve. Right now, they have a labor rich environment. This "exploitation" can only last until the labor supply becomes tighter, and it will happen. Once it does, the employers will have to compete for that labor pool, and they will do so by offerring better wages, and safer working environments. It is the natural progression, and there's simply no effective way to take a shortcut.
Of course the company doing the shipping is making a profit. Should they haul this stuff overseas at a loss? Tough to stay in business if you stay in the red.
At any rate, this reply is really about your parting comment:
It isn't the kids fault if he's sewing up sneakers either.
Presumably, you're taking some kind of pot shot at Nike, or some other company that has set up it's manufacturing facilites in the far east (Malaysia comes to mind).
Of course it's the kid's fault he's sewing up sneakers, and you know what? He's damn lucky.
What kind of work do you think he'd have been doing had Nike (or other nameless third world exploiters) not set up the factory? Ever been to southeast Asia?
I have, and I can tell you what he'd have been doing. He'd have been stuck out in a swampy field, trying to coax a yak to pull a plow through a rice paddie. Or he'd have been in what passes for a city, selling drugs, or himself to tourists with a penchant for young hairless boys. That "sweatshop" looks like a crappy job to you and I, but to him, it represents a measure of workplace safety not seen in that part of the world, and a much better wage that most of his alternatives.
The point is that you cannot compare human existance between first world and third world nations.
Manufacturing is the bootstrap by which a third world nation advances. Work conditions, better wages, additional benefits... These things come later. When you consider that for almost all of human history, existance is a brutish, violent, and impoverished state, maybe you can try to wrap your head around the idea that this represents tremendous progress.
Hey, China is accepting money that allows the dumping of all that crap. Do you think that after some evil capitalist recycling company collects all this stuff, puts it into containers, and loads it on a ship, they cast off from the pier and follow whatever course the wind blows?
What sucks is that the Chinese people have to put up with the bullshit governmnet that they've got. (And actually, with a billion odd citizens, you'd think they'd find the means of toppling it, but they haven't so far.)
Nobody is saying that it isn't sad, or tragic, to see anyone living in those kind of conditions.
All I'm saying is that the fact that all that waste has ended up in several impoverished villages in China is no accident. Sure, we produce a lot of waste, and much of it is comprised of substances that pose health risks, but China's government is actively collecting money to accept this waste material.
If blaming someone makes you feel better, how about starting there.
(This post is not a direct response to you, GMD... It's more of a "something needs to be said," and I was as far down the page as your post kind of thing.)
Slashdot Mirror
And even if Tivo dies, it's pretty well known that you can duplicate the "Tivo Service" from the internet, if you travel in the right circles.
If Tivo went under, this particular hack would become wide spread.
They do have the best product of it's type, and I want them to succeed because they deserve to. I'm an idealist. I'll take meritocracy every time.
If they perish, that'd be a sad thing, but I'd start utilizing one of the competing products. I can't go back to the before-times.
They only offer the $9.95/month subscription: False.
The new price is $5/month; If you subscribe to DirecTV's "Total Choice Premier" tier, Tivo is now free.
But my wife certainly does. She is about to get her own dedicated Tivo, just so she can start recording all of her "Trading Spaces," "Ground Force," "Changing Rooms" home redecorationg shows. It'll be a hard-drive full of estrogen in no time.
She's "just a chick," but she can't go back to watching TV the old way.
See also Telephone, Television, Electricity... Just because a product is first to market (or in this case, defining a market) does not mean it is doomed to failure. If you look at the companies that have invested in Tivo, you see that they'll survive (even if that means they are simply acquired). They have a best-of-breed product, a regonizable brand, and the market that they have defined is set to explode.
You've heard the song... 500 channels and there's nothing on.
Really, the problem isn't that there isn't anything on. The problem is that there's so much on, that it becomes increasingly impossible to filter the noise, and find that which is truly appealing to you, the viewer.
Tivo makes this possible. You don't tell it what time you want to record something. You tell it what show to record, regardless of when it is on. You tell it what genres you like, what actors you prefer, what directors meet your expectations. It does the rest.
You can not appreciate how this device will transform your relationship with television. It makes television useful, and entertaining, and it does this by catering to you, as an individual, rather than by allowing a television network to pour some target demographics into the plot generation device so that the program hits all of the right population segments.
I'm no longer "White males, 25 - 35, with a household income between X and Y."
Since I got Tivo, now I'm just me, and I watch the shows that appeal to me, and I watch them when my schedule allows me to.
"Select" "Play" "Select" "3" "0" "Select"
You'll hear three "Tivo Tones" letting you know that the command has been accepted. You can disable the feature by entering the same sequence.
Everyone who owns a Tivo essentially has the potential to become "A Neilsen Family." There is no screening process. The geek in the basement of the Science building... The networks will know that Star Trek, X-Files, and Firefly get watched.
I hate it when I find a show that I really like, only to learn that the Neilsen families don't. That show is toast. With Tivo, these shows have a chance.
The Tivo monthly fee has been reduced to under $5/month. If you have the "Total Choice Premier" tier of DirecTV service, the monthy Tivo fee has been eliminated completely.
For me, it was a wash. I upgraded my monthly DirecTV service, and dumped my Tivo fee. Now I get every channel. My second DirecTivo unit should be arriving in a manner of days (The Series 2 DirecTivo unit), and I couldn't be happier.
Incidentally, the DirecTV / Tivo combo units are far less expensive than the standalone Tivo units, and offer greater functionality.
Because they record the already digitally encoded DirecTV stream, they do not require MPEG encoder hardware. They are less costly to manufacture. They also have dual-tuners.
The Series 2 DirecTivos (Hughes HDVR2) should be hitting store shelves next week. They go for $199, vs. $350 for the standalones.
If you're a DirecTV subscriber, you should absolutely give it a try.
Having said that, I read the summary that you've written about RedHat, and their KDE modifications. I think it's very well written, and very comprehensive. I would have a hard time disagreeing with any of the conclusions that you've drawn.
I hope that some of the complainers take the time to read it as well.
RedHat is simply trying to put forward the best that Linux has to offer, which will invariably result in the subjective assessment of various competing applications. Some applications are simply more refined than others, and as a result, they've been elevated to "default" status. The alternatives are still present.
As for trying to unify the appearance of the completing desktop environments, that too is a step that most people see as inevitable. It certainly makes life easier for the new users, and OS converts. I know that from an aesthetic perspective, I'd like my KDE and GNOME apps to have a similar appearance, regardless of which desktop I happen to be running.
These are for the most part cosmetic changes, and the end result is a better overall distribution.
Good for RedHat, and good for Linux.
I'd say the 128/kbps line serves as it's own bandwidth cap, and that's quite a limitation in and of itself.
I was not a big investor, by any stretch of the imagination.
By the time I was going to unload, the entertainment value of crashing exceeded the amount of money I would have been able to recoup.
I took a few deep drags off the oxygen mask that had convieniently dropped from the ceiling as we lost cabin pressure, and coasted into the drink like a trooper.
It was such a shame. There they sat, king of the mountain, having essentially created the market for high end PC graphics... When I bought their stock, I never imagined there would come a time when Voodoo wasn't synonymous with 3D.
Then, one day in early '99, I saw the news that NVidia would be powering the Xbox, and I knew that there would be no rebound for 3dfx.
That's funny... I'd say that 4 years is far too long for secrets like that.
(This post provided by a formerly proud TDFX shareholder, and recipient of said letter... *grumble**grumble*)
(Moderators? Anyone paying attention?)
One flaw however... Does it surprise anyone that the kind of people that are calling an ISP for tech support aren't saavy enough to have a dedicated 2nd phone line for their Internet connectivity?
It just seems like that statistical sample comes from an already poisoned pool.
Of course, maybe it's just me, and I'm a techno-bigot.
The loop charge for having ISDN runs $40 or $50 bucks a month, depending on your location (In Bell Atlantic/Verizon land, I used to pay $40.). That cost is incurred before you even attempt your first call.
The killer is the usages fees... $.02/minute/B-Channel during the day. $.01/minute/B-Channel during the evening.
Those charges add up quickly. If you initiate the call during the day, your 128Kbps ISDN connection costs:
Sometimes you can get what is locally called "Centrex" service, where you have no usage fees, but that is not always the case. If, for example, you got 128Kbps ISDN Internet service from your local carrier (Again, Verizon as my local example), the charge you over $400/month.
DSL may exceed the $40 line charge of ISDN, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Tell me again... How is ISDN cheaper than DSL?
I will preface this with a simple statement: I am not a lawyer, but I sometimes play one on Slashdot.
That it is legal "in your opinion" does not make it so. It may make it difficult for Cisco to prove "intent" if they ever decided to prosecute you, but it doesn't mean that you aren't violating the terms of the software license. (And I'm not saying Cisco is coming after you... They most certainly are not.)
You can buy a Cisco router (or PIX) without signing or clicking through a license agreement (for example, buying one used via eBay, or some other auction site). The fact remains that you are not licensed to use the product (The seller does not have the power to transfer the license, and he (or someone upstream) agreed to the terms).
As for "Clicking" to accept a license as you would while installing a software application, there is no equivalent while running router or PIX code.
Cisco's terms are that you run a specific version of code on a specific platform (The platform is licensed for a specific version of IOS/PIX Code, with a specific feature set). You are not allowed to run different versions, nor are you permitted to "upgrade" all similar platforms to the "highest feature set" for which you have a valid license.
I'm sure the IETF would be surprised to learn that...
Cisco did not "develop" BGP. They contributed to the RFCs which propose the standard, but it's not owned by them.
As a follow up, Zebra mimics Cisco's configuration interface. It has an IOS-like command structure.
It is not, under the hood, IOS, nor does it use any IOS code.
Further, Zebra only implements RFC based routing protocols (RIPv1 and v2, OSPF, BGPv4, etc). These are open specifications, and form the basis for the behavior of Routers from Cisco, Nortel, and everybody else. Zebra is an open source implementation of these same specifications, which again, uses an interface very much like that of Cisco IOS. Zebra has no implementation of IGRP or EIGRP, both of which are Cisco proprietary routing protocols. (There are no non-Cisco implementations of these protocols to the best of my knowledge.)
Haven't we discussed this again and again on Slashdot? You cannot prevent someone from copying an interface.
It's not like you don't have a choice in choosing other firewall solutions. For the same $400, you could build a number of different platforms and utilize free code to build a firewall (and that's the approach that a lot of us take).
I'm not sure if you were implying that Cisco was a monopolist or not, or if your comment was a thinly veiled shot at Microsoft. The two companies are very different, and the landscapes they play on bear little resemblance.
Is Cisco a monopoly? I don't think they are. They have a tremendous market share, without a doubt, and they are in a number of different markets.
That said, they have a slew of competition, not only in general, but in each market where they are a player.
In the Firewall space, you have Checkpoint, Raptor, and a couple of other "Enterprise" players, plus a countless number of smaller vendors marketing "Firewall appliances" of one sort or another. The VPN space is the same (with pretty much the same players competing. Can you even get a firewall with no VPN capabilities any more?). In the Core router space, you have Juniper (!), and several other carrier class would-be competitors. In the enterprise routing space, you have 3com, Nortel, Enterasys (Formerly Cabletron). In the enterprise switching space you've got HP, Enterasys, and others. In IP Telephony, there's NEC, 3Com, and others.
Cisco is where they are for a few reasons. They make products that are reliable, share a very consistant interface across platforms (within a product type... Configuring a 7200VXR is very much like configuring a 2621 router, making the entire line very "supportable"), and have a phenominal customer support organization.
Microsoft on the other hand, is where they are because they made business agreements that got their OS installed on every Intel based computer whether it was used or not, they made exclusive licensing agreements which prevented the adoption of competing products, and have customer support (which costs only $400/phone call, whether they fix your problem or not).
Disclaimer: I make my living working with Cisco products, but I am not a Cisco employee.
The first hyperlink says "ACCEPT," and clicking through will present you with the download page for the software that you want.
The second hyperlink says "DECLINE," and clicking through will present send you back to the previous page.
The agreement states:
That's pretty clear.
It's also pretty clear that because you need a CCO account to even get to the Software Download page, that you're having clicked on the "ACCEPT" link means that you are indeed accepting the terms of the license.
I don't care what you do, but if you're stealing, or failing to adhere to an agreement that you made, don't take offense when someone calls you a criminal because that is in fact what you are.
We were stuck with Unary. Try coding with all one's! We were waiting for the Sumerians to finish up the specs for Zero!
Binary indeed. Good day Sir.
For starters, what you see as exploitation, people in the 3rd world see as progress. When you have literally nothing, and you are presented the opportunity to earn $2.00 a day, you would see it the same way. That crappy factory job is better than every other prospect that faces those people.
Secondly, do you want to be the one that tells them that they can no longer sift through waste materials to earn a living because it's not "ecologically friendly?" Right now, they have a means of taking care of themselves. It's not something that you or I would do, but it's all they've got. You'd like they to stop because it's bad for the environment (an environmnet that, to this point, hasn't done much to take care of them). You tell them. Tell them they can't feed their families because it's too risky.
Third, if you think that it was simply the fact that they hadn't been told that it wasn't ok to suicide bomb the world trade center, then you're retarded. There are fundamental differences in the outlooks of the people that inhabit the middle east. Take for example the conflict between the Syrians and the Israelis. During their last conflict, when towns had been bombed out, the Syrians left the destroyed remains of their villages to serve as a reminder. Do you know what the Israelis did? They rebuilt. That is as telling an example as I can provide.
The middle east is a very interesting part of the world, because it demonstrates what happens when you turn a third world nation into a first world nation in terms of immediate regional economic prosperity. The Arab states (Saudi Arabia, as an example) have plenty of money, thanks to the oil that sits beneath them, but they skipped over the traditional path of economic development. They never had a manufacturing base. They lack an organic technological capability. In short, they lack maturity as an economic power. (I'm not speaking in generalities... I've spent a year of my life in SA. I've seen it first hand.)
The sudden prosperity of the region has been a boon to them, but it has left them vulnerable to the inevitable. What happens to them when the oil runs out? They have nothing else going for them. They will simply fade back to their previous irrelevance.
The economic progress in Asia is completely different. Take a look at Japan. 60 years ago, they were a feudal society. Where are they today? An economic world leader, and they got that way the same way that the United States did. They became a manufacturing giant. It helped to elevate them to where they are today.
Look at Hong Kong. Look at Taiwan. They are poised to do the same thing. China will be in the same boat once they put the last nail in the coffin of communism.
That leads into your comment about immigration. Once opportunity seeds itself in a region, people no longer need to get away in order to prosper. Immigration , legal or illegal, doesn't concern me. I am concerned about the root cause. It is the lack of economic opportunity that forces people to abandon the nations of their birth. Circumstance can change in a single generation.
I know that as a European, you are overly sensative to matters of living conditions, and the environment. I also know that you may have difficulty seeing things as being dynamic, or prgressive, because you live in a country where things are as they have been for many generations.
You can afford to stay "no more progress" because things for you are pretty good. You cannot tell people in the 3rd world that they can make "no more progress," because things for them are simply awful.
In time, as more factories open, and the workforce begins to have choices about where to go to work, working conditions will improve. Right now, they have a labor rich environment. This "exploitation" can only last until the labor supply becomes tighter, and it will happen. Once it does, the employers will have to compete for that labor pool, and they will do so by offerring better wages, and safer working environments. It is the natural progression, and there's simply no effective way to take a shortcut.
At any rate, this reply is really about your parting comment:
Presumably, you're taking some kind of pot shot at Nike, or some other company that has set up it's manufacturing facilites in the far east (Malaysia comes to mind).Of course it's the kid's fault he's sewing up sneakers, and you know what? He's damn lucky.
What kind of work do you think he'd have been doing had Nike (or other nameless third world exploiters) not set up the factory? Ever been to southeast Asia?
I have, and I can tell you what he'd have been doing. He'd have been stuck out in a swampy field, trying to coax a yak to pull a plow through a rice paddie. Or he'd have been in what passes for a city, selling drugs, or himself to tourists with a penchant for young hairless boys. That "sweatshop" looks like a crappy job to you and I, but to him, it represents a measure of workplace safety not seen in that part of the world, and a much better wage that most of his alternatives.
The point is that you cannot compare human existance between first world and third world nations.
Manufacturing is the bootstrap by which a third world nation advances. Work conditions, better wages, additional benefits... These things come later. When you consider that for almost all of human history, existance is a brutish, violent, and impoverished state, maybe you can try to wrap your head around the idea that this represents tremendous progress.
What sucks is that the Chinese people have to put up with the bullshit governmnet that they've got. (And actually, with a billion odd citizens, you'd think they'd find the means of toppling it, but they haven't so far.)
Nobody is saying that it isn't sad, or tragic, to see anyone living in those kind of conditions.
All I'm saying is that the fact that all that waste has ended up in several impoverished villages in China is no accident. Sure, we produce a lot of waste, and much of it is comprised of substances that pose health risks, but China's government is actively collecting money to accept this waste material.
If blaming someone makes you feel better, how about starting there.
(This post is not a direct response to you, GMD... It's more of a "something needs to be said," and I was as far down the page as your post kind of thing.)
This is the first time I've ever heard anyone say that Asbestos is not cancer causing.
Is that true? Anyone?
The best topic in weeks had to be the Haiku thread.