How inappropriate...however it would be cool if the parent post got modded "+5, Troll" as it is a masterful example of trolling.
Sincerely, HOW exactly does.NET eliminate a "whole class of security vulnerabilities" from Windows. Are you referring to buffer overflows and such? Seems to me that lately that's been the LEAST of problems in the windows worm-fest (almost none involve security breaches related to overflows).
I am not extremely well versed in the underlying architecture of.NET except in that it seems to be "Java done right (according to Microsoft)". Pray tell me, what does the "integrated security environment" do to make Windows inherently more secure than anything else?
Seems to me it's primary benefit would be to streamline the process and provide a common security layer for ALL.NET applications. Do you mean that since it is a uniform system it will be easier to secure and as such more people will secure their systems. "Security by Simplicity" if you will--make it too hard and people will give up or incorrectly secure the system and leave it vulnerable, hence a simpler setup is more secure. Is that your argument?
Seems like a good theory but one that can bite a gigantic chunk out of your ass if you aren't careful. The whole.NET architecture seems to force all applications to rely on the integrity of the.NET framework and security environment. The apps are all.NET CLR "managed code" but low-level drivers and code in the.NET framework itself at some level are going to rely on C and assembly I would think. What happens if there is a vulnerability there? A security bug in the.NET Application Framework somewhere wouldn't just make IIS or Outlook or IE vulnerable, it could make EVERY DAMN.NET APP vulnerable! "Central" and "Intetgrated" security model seems to me to translate to "single point of failure".
Maybe I'm just missing something here, but I really don't see how.NET is the MS Saviour of security. About all I've seen is a change in philosophy to "services closed by default" etc but nothing MEANINGFUL. And we still have to wait at least TWO YEARS until Longhorn to see it working to it's fullest advantage (thatever that is). How is something that's realistically that for out on the horizon fix the very serious flaws in the platform that have to be dealt with today?
Well, being.com is a COMmercial operation they are entitled to offer domains to anyone who will pay.
Not that I think that's appropriate behaviour on the part of governments and such. The city gov't where I live wasted THOUSANDS because they wanted a.com official website, and it was to the point where they were going to brand the whole city public works after some silly.com address (any other people in Calgary remember the whole stupid "CalgaryCity.com" rebranding fiasco?).
This kind of thing is stupid, irresponsible use of tax dollars by the govenrnment. The domain resellers aren't at fault--to them governments are just another paying customer. I'd say that having some governing body ENFORCE TLDs would be like having the lunatics running the asylum.
On another note... No... even worse, why are they using a.ca address when it's clearly a corporate website?
So long as the corporation is Canadian owned or is registered and has permanent physical operations in Canada then IT IS FULLY ENTITLED to a.ca name. And the reason the domain you want seems non-sensical in relation to the content perhaps it is because the original business was re-named or bought out and for transitional purposes they retained the domain. It's not that uncommon.
Perhaps CIRA should follow the.UK example and offer.co.ca, but banning corporate sites from.ca would be absurd. That or maybe I would find such regulation-from-on-high very distasteful.
I think they are hoping to tie up the courts to the point where they are too busy to throw the book at the SCO executives while at the same time counting on their legal carpet-bombing strategy nets them some settlement profits.
Linux, which runs well on inexpensive Intel processor-based servers, has become increasingly popular despite SCO's actions. Linux has even spread to the Web site of the U.S. District Court in Nevada, where SCO filed its suit against AutoZone, according to site monitoring firm NetCraft.
Soooo...if the courts threaten to dismiss SCOs case and/or charge them with fraud, they can just sue the court system itself!
...given the political climate here. In fact I'll bet the broadcast flags could be used (abused?) even MORE in Canada than the US. (I can just picture it...you have exceeded your viewing limit of foreign programming so your TV will only permit you to watch Peter Mansbridge read the news and re-runs of "The Beachcombers", "The Red Green Show" and "North of 60".)
It's a little known fact that by law ALL televisions sold in Canada sized 60 cm or over (20"+...not sure why the smaller ones are exempt) must be equipped with V-Chips (to allow blocking of content rated at a certain threshhold). By default it is set at maximum to let all content through and I don't think many consumers are even aware of the feature, much less know how to set it. Many TVs in the US include it too since although it is not required by law, it consumers percieve it as a convenient feature that hasn't impacted the cost of the TV, and as such they can sell the same model continent-wide.
Given the lack of concern over such mandates in Canada, and the fact that it is a small market compared with the US it wouldn't make economic sense to make non-crippled equipment just for Canada (it would actually cost a fair bit more since it wouldn't be volume production). Besides that there would be political pressure by the US on manufacturers not to do it and on the Canadian govenrment to legislate broadcast flags.
Digital sattelite is a good example--it existed for years in legal limbo and new legislation brought in under pressure from Canadian and American entertainment industries made American set-ups illegal--EVEN IF YOU WERE A FULLY-PAYING DIRECT TV CUSTOMER. Now if you don't want to break the law you are limited to ExpressVu or StarChoice--domestic choices subject to Canadian-content quotas and blocked from carrying most premium American programming (it is illegal in Canada to view HBO, Showtime and so on--even if you were willing to pay full subscriptions to them--because they have not been granted permission to broadcast in Canada).
HDTV might follow the same route...the gov't will drag its feet until it becomes popular to get "hacked tv's". They will be so common that industry groups and the US with bitch and moan loudly enough that new laws will be passed in Canada.
Honestly, what USEFUL, INTELLIGENT actions are we taking in North America (and specifically the USA) to keep jobs here? We all want secure, high paying jobs doing whatever we please so we can enjoy life in a big house and drive a big SUV to Wal-Mart and fill it full of cheap products and a tank full of cheap fuel.
In return for this lifestyle, Americans want the world to lap up its goods and its culture and like it. Send us grain, oil and money. Otherwise, you Indians can just stay home and farm, pull around rickshaws, drink Coke, eat McDonalds, watch our movies and listern to our music.
If Free trade threatens that comfortable little ideal to hell with it seems to be the prevailing thought in the US when times are tough. And when someone makes a counter argument that there are acutal BENEFITS to free trade and the resulting effects it's dismissed as being of benefit only to big multinational corporations. What a shallow, selfish inward-looking attitude. It's sickening.
Last I checked Coke, Microsoft and Compaq are all still headquartered in the US. Last I checked, the fortunes of those companies still had a direct effect on Mr. and Mrs. Jones' retirement funds (Where the hell to you think your penion income is from?). Last I checked, they were among the largest taxpayers in their juristictions (ask city council in Redmond to balance their budget without the tax contribution Microsoft makes).
You have to ask yourself: what are you afraid of? Why can't you see the good in progress? Why does a top-tier nation like the US want to hoard each and every job that can be had? Do we really NEED to hang onto such menial jobs as those being farmed out to India? Really, call centre and assembly line operators and the like are thankless, menial jobs requiring little in the way of special skill.
The same can be said about the code-monkey jobs and animation jobs there. Have you ever had to spend weeks on end coding Java or C++ to a strict set of specifications? Have you ever been on an animation crew doing in-betweens or colouring? I've done both and both are DAMN TEDIOUS. I'd have thought that as Americans we'd aspire to higher things anyways.
The world's a big place, there's enough of that kind of work to go around and still allow everyone to prosper to some degree, and if Free Trade can do that without government paws digging around with Soviet-style interference then all the better.
With all things in life there must be balance. I understand why you were compelled to offer the insights you've gained in the past decade or so to an idealistic young programmer. He certainly needs a dose of reality, after all it certainly isn't evil to charge for programming and closed software can definitely have value. After all, we all have to earn our keep somehow.
However in your case it seems the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. You worked hard for your education and to further your career. For some reason (perhaps your own current state of affairs or the state of the industry in general) you have become jaded. Free Software is "a lie", "exploitation", "idoicy" and "bigotry"? The more you go on the more incendiary your statements become, and you decend to the same level as those who label all closed software companies "evil".
Free software (as in freedom of source code access, not absence of monetary value) is none of those things. It is important to the whole industry. Its purveyors generally do not deceive, exploit or wish to put university-educated software professionals out of work. Without Free Software, technology would not progress as fast, end products would be of lower quality and the somputer industry as a whole would not be as mature as it is today.
How can giving away valuable code add value to the industry? It has the effect of commoditising the industry--it does to software what reverse-engineering the IBM PC and busting open its specifications did to hardware in the PC industry. At the start of the "PC revolution" a handful of companies dominated the industry (IBM, Apple, Commodore, Atari). Interoperability was low and in hindsight it is apparent that the operating tactics of these players hindered progress. If IBM and others continued to make closed-architecture, proprietary systems the PC industry would still be a cottage industry.
Today, the software industry is on the cusp of a similar change. We have one dominant player and a collection of smaller ones which closely guard their source and in some cases do what they can to block interoperability, innovative ideas and advancement in general. What logical reason is there for three incompatible standards for instant messaging for example? Will children starve if Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL clients talked to one another? Is it really such a calamity that Star Office an open Microsoft Word documents?
Free Software fits this bill nicely. Yes all software has value, but is the operating system really worth half the cost of the hardware it is running on? Should a full-featured office suite double the cost of a system? Sometimes it seems like buying a car, only to be forced to pay $5000.00 for a tank of fuel. Generic software like OSes on PCs, word processors, music and video players, web browsers, drawing programs, programming languages/tools and so on are general purpose, commodity workhorses. Their monetary value is LOW, and as time goes on their costs will dissolve away into the cost of a machine. They are (or should be) componenets like memory modules and power supplies. If the free software community is not allowed to address that demand, it will be addressed by hundres of millions of east Indians for pennies a day by closed source developers (how is that for exploitation?).
Open source allows commoditasation to happen effectively, where projects start up, diverge and recombine to eventually become best-of-breed. That point in time is today. The Free Software world now has a viable selection of commodity tools to choose from and it's time for software engineers to add real value to the industry. A mature software industry will be SERVICE based and CUSTOMER oriented, not TECHNOLOGY based and PRODUCT oriented. Highly educated professionals will be engineering the next generation of microprocessor, developing new protocols, doing highly-customised work to meet specific needs (making Wal-Mart's supply chain work, making GMs assembly plants build
Parent post makes a good point. Microsoft has a history of misdirecting resources and misplacing priorities. The proper solution would be (would have been perhaps since the horse left the stable years ago) to engineer things from the bottom up to be secure against virus attacks. Although no system is perfect, Linux, *BSD, All UNIX variants, MacOS etc have FAR fewer problems and consequently a much smaller market for anti-virus software (even in proportion to their market shares).
This reminds me of... well... every release of Windows after 95 and NT4 where MS boasted about the new Windows booting up and shutting down "faster than ever!". Somehow it escaped MS that perhaps a better way to reduce wasted time on startup and shutdown by making the damn system more stable so frequent reboots were not required! And as far back as DOS 6.2, rather than streamlining their system they opted to integrate DoubleSpace compression into the OS.
*sigh* Oh well, I've always considered anti-virus software to be like most lawyers: parasitic waste of money but unfortunately a neccesary evil at times. Therefore I give kudos to anyone and anything that can reduce or eliminate the need to (legally) pay for the crap. Maybe MS will feel extra charitable and give away integrated virus protection for win2k also. Until then I'll only pay for Norton AV for business (to stay legal) and use free Grisoft AVG at home.
I hope Symantec, McAfee et al don't bitch and whine about this development, get up, dust themselves off and redirect efforts to software that is acually USEFUL and does not take advantage of a poorly designed OS (perhaps security, encryption, privacy and so on, being they already have some involvement there)
...like this? Doesn't look like free-as-in-speech but it's only $200 so I'd say it qualifies as "cheap". This outfit is pretty local (to me anyways) and has been offering a POS system of some kind on Linux for a few years now.
As for OPEN SOURCE...POS seems to be an area lacking in a high profile solution (where OS has Linux and BSD, WWW has Apache, DBMS has MySQL and PostgreSQL). There is one aspect of a POS system where you may run into legal barriers in releasing source code and that is direct interfacing with credit/debit card systems (POSpad hardware, Datapac networks and so on).
You can legally reverse engineer the comms but in order to use the system on a live network it needs to be approved by the financial institution. To be approved requires you to obtain the specs and sample user-acceptance-test scripts prior to development. To obtain (ie. **BORROW** since you must return these on demand and cannot copy them without permission) these materials you must sign an NDA which could possibly close up a portion of your system's code (you'd have to make it modular and do the NVidia-type idea).
Once development is complete you must perform the U.A.T. under the bank's supervision, and if you score 100% you are granted access to the real system with a proper merchant ID and Terminal ID(s) set up on their mainframes to work with the MAC ID's burned into the firmware of your POSPads and modems.
Not a very hack-friendly system. Of course, the NDA may allow the software to be open-source, but if anyone so much as changes one byte and recompiles (such that the checksum of the binary files differ) that party must sign the same NDA and do the entire U.A.T. AGAIN.
Sooooo....cheap/free/Free POS is a good idea, but integrated credit or debit support would be a PITA (FYI = Pain In The A$$). Perhaps a bank has a gateway interface for CC auth that is open source but I'm not aware of it. That is definitely not the case when interfacing with retail POSpads that I'm aware of.
Au contraire. For several years (notably prior to the filing date on this MS patent) browsers have been capable of interpreting and executing multiple script segments in a single HTML file. Not only that, but there was no requirement that the language attribute had to be the same for all of them--one could be javascript and the other VBscript, both in the same file.
Besides the fact that doing that would just be loopy (unless it was to optimise for say...both Netscape and IE by running one or the other script), unfortunately my own personal example of that "prior art" was seeing IE handle it years ago, so it is possible that MS invented the concept in its attempt to "embrace" Javascript support and "extend" IEs capabilities by adding VBscript interpretation.
Might seem like a silly thing to patent, but if someone can file for a patent on the application of a laser pointer as a feline exercise and entertainment device then pretty much anything is fair game in the US patent office.
Yes, it is the rule rather than the exception FOR SPECIFIC CASES. For example, if you worked for Microsoft and you wrote a video game during the weekend you could run into a snag if you tried to sell it on the side--even if you worked in the receiving dock of a warehouse and weren't paid to write a single byte of code.
Microsoft makes money producing and publishing software of all sorts (not just games) so regardless of what your position in Microsoft is or what time of day or week you did the coding, you could very well be "conducting Microsoft business" as defined by the employment contract. Most likely you would be compensated for that work if you disclose it up front (my employer pays good bonuses through an "innovation rewards" type of program). Of course, with Microsoft it might be a different story--just ask Wes Cherry how much he got for creating the Solitare game packed with all verstions of Windows from 3.0 upwards.
However, there are limits to what employers can legally claim from their employees. For example:
1. The employer CANNOT force employees to hand over inventions, copyrights, patents, etc. that the employee owned prior to being hired (IP ownership clauses CANNOT BE RETROACTIVE).
2. Employers CANNOT restrict an employees activity outside company time in matters unrelated to the employer's business--in most cases there is explicit legislation in place preventing that, and in others courts have generally ruled in the employees favour.
This means that if said MS employee on the loading dock still had some income rolling in from a shareware game he wrote in High School or released a code library that was incorporated into competitor's software before he was hired by Microsoft, his employer CANNOT assert ownership over that material. Generally this limitation is enforced in law to prevent current employers from compelling employees to violate NDA's made with previous employers (especially competitors).
Also, if this guy decided to sell real-estate, (or Amway or whatever) on the side, provided it isn't software related, MS has no claim to the income he derives from those activities, nor to the techniques he uses to be successful.
In your employer isn't as all-encompassing as Microsoft, you'd likely be able to make money selling your videogame, even if you're a programmer for them. For example, if you program for an industrial controls company. When in doubt, however, it IS best to cunsult with a lawyer.
...Since I know a lot of people who DO neglect their cars. A LOT of people think that it's time to change the oil when the oil light comes on and would not give it any thought before then. Those same people only pay attention to tires when they go flat or it's time to out the Winter set on, and will drive both their sets of tires until they're bald. You can forget about them thinking about ATF, flushing the cooling system once in awhile or changing brake pads before they wear out and grind rivet grooves into the rotors.
Car makers have done a WAY better job in usability and reliability than PC/software makers. Even east-European and South Korean cars made today are better than almost all PCs on the market today. I've heard the argument that people ought to have computer operators licenses--after all, we all learn the rules of the road and obey them to avoid fatal accidents...well, MOST of the time...But ponder what it would be like if Microsoft and Intel made cars and see how many people would die on the highways:
1. You'd have to take your car in for monthly service to remove tar-like deposits from your engine and have the ignition control system 'defragmented'.
2. The location of the gas, brake and clutch would change with each new model year, and each model would be different as well. Also, the steering wheel would be a different size or shape and the gears on the gearshift would chage orders.
3. The leading carmaker would make their new cars use a different fuel, and using the wrong fuel in the wrong car would make the engine catch fire. The new fuel is meant to "increase performance and relibility" of their new models but conveniently destroys competitors models and their own older models.
4. You will be forced to buy a brand new car after 5 years because they stop making parts for it, and use legal tactics to keep anyone else from using their precious obsolete IP to make replicas.
5. Cars spontaneously crash much less than they did a few years ago, but they still often stall on the side of the road for no apparent reason, you cant turn on the headlights while using cruise control and it's common knowledge that when the turn signals stop working, you must fully shut of the car and all occupants must exit and shut the doors behind them, wait 30 seconds then get back in and re-start the car. These problems have existed for 20 years but are of such low priority that they linger on.
6. Every car is required by the manufacturer to be equipped with OnStar-style tracking system "for safety reasons". It's handy when your call stalls so frequently and it costs nothing extra. However, the OnStar system is polluted with marketers broadcasting spam to all the cars, which make your radio tune to stations you don't like and interfere with vital engine systems, reducing your top speed to 50 km/h and increasing gas consumption 400%. Time to "get the engine defragged" again...
...or is he/she just a deluded Michael Jackson fan? Flamebait? Come on it's a damn joke, grab a sense of humour.
Seriously though, I think the information is "valued" based upon accessibility. It is very easy to get names, addresses and listed phone numbers, and not much more work to get government registry information (such as what kind of car you drive, hunting and fishing permits and as you state gun possession permits). That stuff's by and large a matter of public record.
Sex offender history is tougher to get. Good ol' Texas might post a list of offenders on the internet, but in other jusristictions it can take a bit of time and money to get such information. And even in Texas, records may be sealed to protect the innocent. There is also more of a demand for that information than for info on who owns a gun. It's not that people want to market that info--it's required for background checks should someone apply to be a daycare worker, schoolteacher and so on.
Really, so what if someone owns a gun anyways--I care about as much as if he owns a Chevrolet. What a person owns and what he does with it in the bounds of the law is his own business. If, however, it is a CRIME to carry a concealed weapon in his juristiction, or a criminal background check reveals possession of a stolen weapon, domestic violence, or other crimes of that nature...well then it would be quite a concern to me.
Motorola might have issues with having their trademark associated with a movie about a chip designed to sabotage the systems it is installed in--ingenious plot or not.
I must be an extra extreme extremophile--as are the approx. 10,000 rabbits that infest my neighbourhood! In the past couple weeks it has gotten as cold as almost -40 Celcius. At -2 we just suck it up and put on a sweater when we have to go outside--fer cryin out loud that's about +30 F for the Metrically challenged out there--that ain't cold at all...
...when they are MicroSerfs holed up on their cubicles coding all the time. I think it's similar to what happens to politicians and civil servants. They lose touch with reality and "normal" people and forget that very few people are keen (or even have the knowledge) to tap out arcane commands and know when to be suspicious about certain situations on the computer. Linux developers have been clueless in this area for a long time--although they are improving where Microsoft has gotten stagnant.
I figured it was best not just to laugh at or complain about the issue--it would be more effective to send my suggestion to MS in response to the KB article. Maybe there's a slim chance they'll take a page from the open-source community and actually LISTEN to constructive suggestions. I like the idea of a pop-up alert, so maybe someone could send MS the suggestion. This is what I submitted:
While I appreciate Microsoft's attempts at keeping its users informed about good security practises, I'm not convinced that the suggestions in Knowledge Base Article 833786 are very effective security measures as they are much too impractical and inconvenient for the end user to carry out. Most users are much too accustomed to clicking on links and would quickly tire of typing URLs and lengthy scripting code in the address toolbar. Should these particular bugs in IE be difficult or impossible to fix, might it not be possible to create a "security toolbar" to show more clearly the SSL/TLS encryption and security status, as well as provide URL verification buttons that automate the process outlined in the article? You could develop that in hours and have it distributed via Windows Update in days...
Everyone knows our society is increasingly information driven and information dependent," bill sponsor Howard Coble (R-NC) said in a statement. "We rely on accurate, timely information to make many of the decisions we must reach in a day, an hour, or a minute, and increasingly, this information comes from electronic databases."
"Without the minimal protection afforded by this legislation, we run the risk that new databases will not be created and made available to the public, thereby depriving the public of one more information source."
Maybe "depriving the public of one more information source" would be a GOOD think...in this day and age info is next to worthless because supply far exceeds demand and the quality of most is utter crap.
I for one, would be HAPPY to be deprived of one more spammer's email database, telemarketer's call list or direct-marketer's snail-mail database...
This bill is so wrong headed...these database operators seem to think they're entitled to owning the info they store in their systems. For the most part IT'S NOT THEIRS TO OWN...you can't own the fact that the clear daytime sky is blue. You can't own my vital statistics, or my street address. You have no right to and you never should because you didn't create those facts and they were never sold to you. All you did is set up a computer to store the facts and programs to sort, retrieve and utilise them. Current law protects that already and you deserve no further protection.
...as though Microsoft is holding them at gunpoint to use it by giving it away.
That's not happening now...the gun-pointing starts when Longhorn or the next MS Office comes out and MS goes around to the recipients of their "charity" and asks that they upgrade. If they don't seem interested in upgrades they may face audits in the future.
That's what MS did to schools in their own back yard--they sold software at deep educational discounts and in some cases donated it. Then years later they sent out audit requests. If there was so much as one license violation (and in schools that is highly likely) they'd have to pay for the deficiency in licensing PLUS the cost of the audit. The only way to avoid the risk would be to pay school staff to perform an internal audit--also too expensive for broke school districts.
The article states MS is also donating cash, and BillG himself stated ther is "no lock-in" and the cash can be used to invest in Linux solutions if they so wished. However, given how MS operates the intention here is to make the MS path the path of least resistance. For example: "Here are 20 licenses for XP Pro and $25000 for your school. Have fun! What? You use Linux and wish to take more cash in lieu of XP Pro? Sorry, can't do that--if you want anything at all you have to take it all. Besides, with Win XP you can take ful advantage of the regional Exchange server we donated to your government, and the ActiveX in the school intranet server won't work with Linux."
Developing nations are full of efficient, resourceful people (too bad they aren't goverened by those people, but whatever). They are not accustomed to wasting anything. If they get software with the cash (which would presumably be used for hardware or other infrastructure), tossing it aside would be wasteful so they would use it. MS is hoping to take advantage of that fact to penetrate new markets.
Executed in a certain fashion, corporate philanthropy can look generous on the surface, but be used to cook the books or avoid taxes, as well as gain a market advantage. Good thing starving Africans are getting the free software, because a Gigabuck of stuff given away in Europe or Japan would be called DUMPING....
man.. defending MS.. next thing you know I'll be going to church..
I'd say going to church would be a REALLY good idea after defending MS. After all, when you dance with the devil like that you risk ummmm...getting burned...so to speak.
Cripes, man, what are you talking about? If I vote, which lawyer (most politicians are lawyers) should I vote for? The entire root of the problem is that lawyers have been allowed to make law. Voting is a sham. It's a way for us citizens/children to make token gestures and claim "look Mommy, I'm helping!"
If you don't like lawyers running the country then get off your ass and run for some form of public office, or join in an effort to recruit a non-lawyer candidate and support him/her, either monetarily or by volunteering. Voting is essential--it is not a sham in the slightest, and if your political beliefs MEAN something to you MUST vote...and make a case to as many others as possible as to why they should vote the same. And for crying out loud...not ALL politicians are lawyers...some very prominent ones happen to have been actors;-)
So the voters' continually elect lawyers to write law, and it's the voters who shoulder all the blame because they should know better than to elect lawyers?
Ummmmm....YES. The ONLY reason governments are so infested with lawyers is that they tend to be persuasive, good debators and notoriously opportunist and the public is too apathetic, ill-informed or gullible to know or care about a candidate's background. More non-lawyers need to care enough about their nation's government to run for office. The public needs to care enough to do their homework and reject/oppose bottom-feeding lawyer candidates during electoral-district nominations/primaries/whatever your nation calls them at the party level.
Add to that, voters MUST make INFORMED votes on election day. Not enough people vote these days, especially in North America, and the ones that do tend to vote for a party out of tradition/habit/comfort instead of for the best candidate (in the US whole states seem to be Democrat or Republican, and the presidency hinges on a handful of "swing states", and in Canada---especially in Central Canada this is epidemic...to the point there are "Grit families" and "Tory families" and support is multi-generational, and in other cases whole provinces vote en-masse in one direction).
And we wonder why the US president is always in bed with corporate lobbyists, and Canadian Prime Ministers are always self-serving, filthy rich lawyers from Quebec who funnel grant money from the government to party supporters.
I dunno, I thought Beauty and the Beast, Lion King, Lilo and Stitch, Atlantis and Treasure Planet were all pretty good (both in story and quality of production).
Thing is, I think Michael Eisner has a misperception that CGI is where it's at, when in fact I think that Disney films have been hit-and-mess for decades (and still are) and by chance the latest CGI films just happened to shine brighter recently.
A better strategy would be to stop franchising every damn film to death. Disney pours millions into TV series spin-offs, movie sequels and even more straight-to-video sequels. Every good idea is exploited to death until diminishing returns result in money-losers.
Take Lilo and Stitch, for example. It was very entertaining, visually appealing and a departure from the now-tired formula Disney typically executes in its 2-D features. The marketing machine made millions on merchandising already (toys, clothes and so on). There is a sequel and series to be released. FOR HEAVENS SAKE DISNEY...STOP THERE! The toys, a sequel and a Saturday Morning cartoon on ABC for awhile is just fine...I don't need to see six more movies and toys for ten more years like you did with Lion King! THE SAME GOES FOR FINDING NEMO---just because it's a CG film doesn't make it a franchise with unlimited shelf life. Maybe that's why the CG films HAVE been successful--they've put more of the resources into original films--only Toy Story has been overdone to any degree and none to the extent some of the 2D films have.
Somebody should tell Mr Eisner that his Florida studio didn't let him down--it was the rooms full of pinheads in the boardroom and marketing departments--all well trained in economics but with no creativity or imagination at all. And those are the people he listens to most.
Upon discovering this as the manager I'd have fired Juan. And if his cousins didn't have green cards I'd report them to INS. There are a lot of HONEST immigrants out there that would appreciate the job (not to mention citizens). Hard working or not, Juan was putting his bosses ass on the line should INS or whatever government agency catches Juan screwing the system. ESPECIALLY if management became aware of his scheme and neglected to remedy it.
A big part of the solution to management treating its workers like cattle is for the workers to stop behaving like stupid cows, come to work on time and to an honest days work. I know there are many that do, but it's the bad ones that spoil it for all. In turn, management should openly reward employees for good, honest work instead of crapping on everyine because of the problems 25% of the staff make being bottom-feeders.
If low-level workers had a better work ethic there would be more trust between management and labour. There was more at one point but work ethic has slid a lot since the "good old days".
Juan should've been up front with his boss about needing to work so much that his family would have to fill in, and his family should've made sure that they could all get green cards should they be required to work. Your friend/his boss was not doing him any favours looking the other way. He was exploiting the situation for cheap labour and if he was REALLY concerned about Juans' welfare he'd have rewarded his hard work by training him for a better job and promoting him (to the cook lines or to server or whatever), or at least paid him a humane wage so he wouldn't have to work two full time jobs to support himself.
If a _Swiss_ watch that's less than $100 that happens to have some nifty little feature on it illicits this sort of tirade then I think it's time to have that sizeable inferiority complex examined by a certified professional.
Or perhaps if those that care for you could organise an intervention...
"Getting there first" is NOT all that matters in ANY of those cases.
If someone knowingly registers a domain in the name of an existing person, trademark or company for the sole intent of deceiving others for personal gain, it's AGAINST THE RULES.
If someone knowingly files a patent for an obvious applicaton or previously invented device, ANYONE who can demonstrat prior art can have that patent REVOKED.
Widespread, public-domain works also CANNOT be copyrighted unless perhaps you were the original author of said works.
Trademarks as they are applied to day are perhaps too liberal, however one CANNOT register a common word or characteristic as a trademark...One cannot own the mark "Red(tm) Ketchup" just so he can try to extort money from Heinz because of the hue of its biggest product.
That is the original SPIRIT of the law, however I agree with you to a point---the LETTER of the law in this regard has been perverted for the purpose of lining the pockets of gredy corporate and political mavens.
The present George Washington, if he got the domain first, definately should keep it.
But then again, JRR Tolkein, Pamela Anderson and a number of other famous people do not and never have been employed by Alberta Hot Rods, nor do they own any portion of said company, and the most certainly received no portion of income that may have been made from said company's operations.
So, unless the proprietor of Alberta Hot Rods happens to be named George Washington, then I'd say the descendants of the 1st US president--no matter HOW distantly related, have every right to make a case to snatch the domain away for themselves...unless a present G.W. turns up (who would ovbviously have the strongest case of all of them).
Imagine if a pioneer family homesteaded there in the 1880s and over generations they worked hard and built a grand country home that became a local heritage site, and that they eventually donated/leased/etc some or all of the estate to the local county with the understanding it would be made into a public park for all to enjoy.
Then picture the 1980s, and the county (in conjucntion with MeMeMe Corp.) start to build a six lane road through the pristine parklands, lined on either side with neon-lit, loud flourescent strip malls, gas stations and fast food joints. Word gets back to Joe Pioneer the 4th. Methinks the "pioneer family trust" may wish to have serious words with the County and MeMeMe Corp. over the abandondment of the original understanding/arrangement.
I'd say that sums up Tolkein vs Alberta Hot Rod more accurately.
Slashdot Mirror
How inappropriate...however it would be cool if the parent post got modded "+5, Troll" as it is a masterful example of trolling.
.NET eliminate a "whole class of security vulnerabilities" from Windows. Are you referring to buffer overflows and such? Seems to me that lately that's been the LEAST of problems in the windows worm-fest (almost none involve security breaches related to overflows).
.NET except in that it seems to be "Java done right (according to Microsoft)". Pray tell me, what does the "integrated security environment" do to make Windows inherently more secure than anything else?
.NET applications. Do you mean that since it is a uniform system it will be easier to secure and as such more people will secure their systems. "Security by Simplicity" if you will--make it too hard and people will give up or incorrectly secure the system and leave it vulnerable, hence a simpler setup is more secure. Is that your argument?
.NET architecture seems to force all applications to rely on the integrity of the .NET framework and security environment. The apps are all .NET CLR "managed code" but low-level drivers and code in the .NET framework itself at some level are going to rely on C and assembly I would think. What happens if there is a vulnerability there? A security bug in the .NET Application Framework somewhere wouldn't just make IIS or Outlook or IE vulnerable, it could make EVERY DAMN .NET APP vulnerable! "Central" and "Intetgrated" security model seems to me to translate to "single point of failure".
.NET is the MS Saviour of security. About all I've seen is a change in philosophy to "services closed by default" etc but nothing MEANINGFUL. And we still have to wait at least TWO YEARS until Longhorn to see it working to it's fullest advantage (thatever that is). How is something that's realistically that for out on the horizon fix the very serious flaws in the platform that have to be dealt with today?
Sincerely, HOW exactly does
I am not extremely well versed in the underlying architecture of
Seems to me it's primary benefit would be to streamline the process and provide a common security layer for ALL
Seems like a good theory but one that can bite a gigantic chunk out of your ass if you aren't careful. The whole
Maybe I'm just missing something here, but I really don't see how
Well, being .com is a COMmercial operation they are entitled to offer domains to anyone who will pay.
.com official website, and it was to the point where they were going to brand the whole city public works after some silly .com address (any other people in Calgary remember the whole stupid "CalgaryCity.com" rebranding fiasco?).
.ca address when it's clearly a corporate website?
.ca name. And the reason the domain you want seems non-sensical in relation to the content perhaps it is because the original business was re-named or bought out and for transitional purposes they retained the domain. It's not that uncommon.
.UK example and offer .co.ca, but banning corporate sites from .ca would be absurd. That or maybe I would find such regulation-from-on-high very distasteful.
Not that I think that's appropriate behaviour on the part of governments and such. The city gov't where I live wasted THOUSANDS because they wanted a
This kind of thing is stupid, irresponsible use of tax dollars by the govenrnment. The domain resellers aren't at fault--to them governments are just another paying customer. I'd say that having some governing body ENFORCE TLDs would be like having the lunatics running the asylum.
On another note...
No... even worse, why are they using a
So long as the corporation is Canadian owned or is registered and has permanent physical operations in Canada then IT IS FULLY ENTITLED to a
Perhaps CIRA should follow the
I think they are hoping to tie up the courts to the point where they are too busy to throw the book at the SCO executives while at the same time counting on their legal carpet-bombing strategy nets them some settlement profits.
They have a few more tricks up their sleeve...from another news(.com)^2 article:
Linux, which runs well on inexpensive Intel processor-based servers, has become increasingly popular despite SCO's actions. Linux has even spread to the Web site of the U.S. District Court in Nevada, where SCO filed its suit against AutoZone, according to site monitoring firm NetCraft.
Soooo...if the courts threaten to dismiss SCOs case and/or charge them with fraud, they can just sue the court system itself!
...given the political climate here. In fact I'll bet the broadcast flags could be used (abused?) even MORE in Canada than the US. (I can just picture it...you have exceeded your viewing limit of foreign programming so your TV will only permit you to watch Peter Mansbridge read the news and re-runs of "The Beachcombers", "The Red Green Show" and "North of 60".)
It's a little known fact that by law ALL televisions sold in Canada sized 60 cm or over (20"+...not sure why the smaller ones are exempt) must be equipped with V-Chips (to allow blocking of content rated at a certain threshhold). By default it is set at maximum to let all content through and I don't think many consumers are even aware of the feature, much less know how to set it. Many TVs in the US include it too since although it is not required by law, it consumers percieve it as a convenient feature that hasn't impacted the cost of the TV, and as such they can sell the same model continent-wide.
Given the lack of concern over such mandates in Canada, and the fact that it is a small market compared with the US it wouldn't make economic sense to make non-crippled equipment just for Canada (it would actually cost a fair bit more since it wouldn't be volume production). Besides that there would be political pressure by the US on manufacturers not to do it and on the Canadian govenrment to legislate broadcast flags.
Digital sattelite is a good example--it existed for years in legal limbo and new legislation brought in under pressure from Canadian and American entertainment industries made American set-ups illegal--EVEN IF YOU WERE A FULLY-PAYING DIRECT TV CUSTOMER. Now if you don't want to break the law you are limited to ExpressVu or StarChoice--domestic choices subject to Canadian-content quotas and blocked from carrying most premium American programming (it is illegal in Canada to view HBO, Showtime and so on--even if you were willing to pay full subscriptions to them--because they have not been granted permission to broadcast in Canada).
HDTV might follow the same route...the gov't will drag its feet until it becomes popular to get "hacked tv's". They will be so common that industry groups and the US with bitch and moan loudly enough that new laws will be passed in Canada.
Honestly, what USEFUL, INTELLIGENT actions are we taking in North America (and specifically the USA) to keep jobs here? We all want secure, high paying jobs doing whatever we please so we can enjoy life in a big house and drive a big SUV to Wal-Mart and fill it full of cheap products and a tank full of cheap fuel.
In return for this lifestyle, Americans want the world to lap up its goods and its culture and like it. Send us grain, oil and money. Otherwise, you Indians can just stay home and farm, pull around rickshaws, drink Coke, eat McDonalds, watch our movies and listern to our music.
If Free trade threatens that comfortable little ideal to hell with it seems to be the prevailing thought in the US when times are tough. And when someone makes a counter argument that there are acutal BENEFITS to free trade and the resulting effects it's dismissed as being of benefit only to big multinational corporations. What a shallow, selfish inward-looking attitude. It's sickening.
Last I checked Coke, Microsoft and Compaq are all still headquartered in the US. Last I checked, the fortunes of those companies still had a direct effect on Mr. and Mrs. Jones' retirement funds (Where the hell to you think your penion income is from?). Last I checked, they were among the largest taxpayers in their juristictions (ask city council in Redmond to balance their budget without the tax contribution Microsoft makes).
You have to ask yourself: what are you afraid of? Why can't you see the good in progress? Why does a top-tier nation like the US want to hoard each and every job that can be had? Do we really NEED to hang onto such menial jobs as those being farmed out to India? Really, call centre and assembly line operators and the like are thankless, menial jobs requiring little in the way of special skill.
The same can be said about the code-monkey jobs and animation jobs there. Have you ever had to spend weeks on end coding Java or C++ to a strict set of specifications? Have you ever been on an animation crew doing in-betweens or colouring? I've done both and both are DAMN TEDIOUS. I'd have thought that as Americans we'd aspire to higher things anyways.
The world's a big place, there's enough of that kind of work to go around and still allow everyone to prosper to some degree, and if Free Trade can do that without government paws digging around with Soviet-style interference then all the better.
Clemens,
With all things in life there must be balance. I understand why you were compelled to offer the insights you've gained in the past decade or so to an idealistic young programmer. He certainly needs a dose of reality, after all it certainly isn't evil to charge for programming and closed software can definitely have value. After all, we all have to earn our keep somehow.
However in your case it seems the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. You worked hard for your education and to further your career. For some reason (perhaps your own current state of affairs or the state of the industry in general) you have become jaded. Free Software is "a lie", "exploitation", "idoicy" and "bigotry"? The more you go on the more incendiary your statements become, and you decend to the same level as those who label all closed software companies "evil".
Free software (as in freedom of source code access, not absence of monetary value) is none of those things. It is important to the whole industry. Its purveyors generally do not deceive, exploit or wish to put university-educated software professionals out of work. Without Free Software, technology would not progress as fast, end products would be of lower quality and the somputer industry as a whole would not be as mature as it is today.
How can giving away valuable code add value to the industry? It has the effect of commoditising the industry--it does to software what reverse-engineering the IBM PC and busting open its specifications did to hardware in the PC industry. At the start of the "PC revolution" a handful of companies dominated the industry (IBM, Apple, Commodore, Atari). Interoperability was low and in hindsight it is apparent that the operating tactics of these players hindered progress. If IBM and others continued to make closed-architecture, proprietary systems the PC industry would still be a cottage industry.
Today, the software industry is on the cusp of a similar change. We have one dominant player and a collection of smaller ones which closely guard their source and in some cases do what they can to block interoperability, innovative ideas and advancement in general. What logical reason is there for three incompatible standards for instant messaging for example? Will children starve if Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL clients talked to one another? Is it really such a calamity that Star Office an open Microsoft Word documents?
Free Software fits this bill nicely. Yes all software has value, but is the operating system really worth half the cost of the hardware it is running on? Should a full-featured office suite double the cost of a system? Sometimes it seems like buying a car, only to be forced to pay $5000.00 for a tank of fuel. Generic software like OSes on PCs, word processors, music and video players, web browsers, drawing programs, programming languages/tools and so on are general purpose, commodity workhorses. Their monetary value is LOW, and as time goes on their costs will dissolve away into the cost of a machine. They are (or should be) componenets like memory modules and power supplies. If the free software community is not allowed to address that demand, it will be addressed by hundres of millions of east Indians for pennies a day by closed source developers (how is that for exploitation?).
Open source allows commoditasation to happen effectively, where projects start up, diverge and recombine to eventually become best-of-breed. That point in time is today. The Free Software world now has a viable selection of commodity tools to choose from and it's time for software engineers to add real value to the industry. A mature software industry will be SERVICE based and CUSTOMER oriented, not TECHNOLOGY based and PRODUCT oriented. Highly educated professionals will be engineering the next generation of microprocessor, developing new protocols, doing highly-customised work to meet specific needs (making Wal-Mart's supply chain work, making GMs assembly plants build
Parent post makes a good point. Microsoft has a history of misdirecting resources and misplacing priorities. The proper solution would be (would have been perhaps since the horse left the stable years ago) to engineer things from the bottom up to be secure against virus attacks. Although no system is perfect, Linux, *BSD, All UNIX variants, MacOS etc have FAR fewer problems and consequently a much smaller market for anti-virus software (even in proportion to their market shares).
... well ... every release of Windows after 95 and NT4 where MS boasted about the new Windows booting up and shutting down "faster than ever!". Somehow it escaped MS that perhaps a better way to reduce wasted time on startup and shutdown by making the damn system more stable so frequent reboots were not required! And as far back as DOS 6.2, rather than streamlining their system they opted to integrate DoubleSpace compression into the OS.
This reminds me of
*sigh* Oh well, I've always considered anti-virus software to be like most lawyers: parasitic waste of money but unfortunately a neccesary evil at times. Therefore I give kudos to anyone and anything that can reduce or eliminate the need to (legally) pay for the crap. Maybe MS will feel extra charitable and give away integrated virus protection for win2k also. Until then I'll only pay for Norton AV for business (to stay legal) and use free Grisoft AVG at home.
I hope Symantec, McAfee et al don't bitch and whine about this development, get up, dust themselves off and redirect efforts to software that is acually USEFUL and does not take advantage of a poorly designed OS (perhaps security, encryption, privacy and so on, being they already have some involvement there)
...like this? Doesn't look like free-as-in-speech but it's only $200 so I'd say it qualifies as "cheap". This outfit is pretty local (to me anyways) and has been offering a POS system of some kind on Linux for a few years now.
As for OPEN SOURCE...POS seems to be an area lacking in a high profile solution (where OS has Linux and BSD, WWW has Apache, DBMS has MySQL and PostgreSQL). There is one aspect of a POS system where you may run into legal barriers in releasing source code and that is direct interfacing with credit/debit card systems (POSpad hardware, Datapac networks and so on).
You can legally reverse engineer the comms but in order to use the system on a live network it needs to be approved by the financial institution. To be approved requires you to obtain the specs and sample user-acceptance-test scripts prior to development. To obtain (ie. **BORROW** since you must return these on demand and cannot copy them without permission) these materials you must sign an NDA which could possibly close up a portion of your system's code (you'd have to make it modular and do the NVidia-type idea).
Once development is complete you must perform the U.A.T. under the bank's supervision, and if you score 100% you are granted access to the real system with a proper merchant ID and Terminal ID(s) set up on their mainframes to work with the MAC ID's burned into the firmware of your POSPads and modems.
Not a very hack-friendly system. Of course, the NDA may allow the software to be open-source, but if anyone so much as changes one byte and recompiles (such that the checksum of the binary files differ) that party must sign the same NDA and do the entire U.A.T. AGAIN.
Sooooo....cheap/free/Free POS is a good idea, but integrated credit or debit support would be a PITA (FYI = Pain In The A$$). Perhaps a bank has a gateway interface for CC auth that is open source but I'm not aware of it. That is definitely not the case when interfacing with retail POSpads that I'm aware of.
Au contraire. For several years (notably prior to the filing date on this MS patent) browsers have been capable of interpreting and executing multiple script segments in a single HTML file. Not only that, but there was no requirement that the language attribute had to be the same for all of them--one could be javascript and the other VBscript, both in the same file.
Besides the fact that doing that would just be loopy (unless it was to optimise for say...both Netscape and IE by running one or the other script), unfortunately my own personal example of that "prior art" was seeing IE handle it years ago, so it is possible that MS invented the concept in its attempt to "embrace" Javascript support and "extend" IEs capabilities by adding VBscript interpretation.
Might seem like a silly thing to patent, but if someone can file for a patent on the application of a laser pointer as a feline exercise and entertainment device then pretty much anything is fair game in the US patent office.
Yes, it is the rule rather than the exception FOR SPECIFIC CASES. For example, if you worked for Microsoft and you wrote a video game during the weekend you could run into a snag if you tried to sell it on the side--even if you worked in the receiving dock of a warehouse and weren't paid to write a single byte of code.
Microsoft makes money producing and publishing software of all sorts (not just games) so regardless of what your position in Microsoft is or what time of day or week you did the coding, you could very well be "conducting Microsoft business" as defined by the employment contract. Most likely you would be compensated for that work if you disclose it up front (my employer pays good bonuses through an "innovation rewards" type of program). Of course, with Microsoft it might be a different story--just ask Wes Cherry how much he got for creating the Solitare game packed with all verstions of Windows from 3.0 upwards.
However, there are limits to what employers can legally claim from their employees. For example:
1. The employer CANNOT force employees to hand over inventions, copyrights, patents, etc. that the employee owned prior to being hired (IP ownership clauses CANNOT BE RETROACTIVE).
2. Employers CANNOT restrict an employees activity outside company time in matters unrelated to the employer's business--in most cases there is explicit legislation in place preventing that, and in others courts have generally ruled in the employees favour.
This means that if said MS employee on the loading dock still had some income rolling in from a shareware game he wrote in High School or released a code library that was incorporated into competitor's software before he was hired by Microsoft, his employer CANNOT assert ownership over that material. Generally this limitation is enforced in law to prevent current employers from compelling employees to violate NDA's made with previous employers (especially competitors).
Also, if this guy decided to sell real-estate, (or Amway or whatever) on the side, provided it isn't software related, MS has no claim to the income he derives from those activities, nor to the techniques he uses to be successful.
In your employer isn't as all-encompassing as Microsoft, you'd likely be able to make money selling your videogame, even if you're a programmer for them. For example, if you program for an industrial controls company. When in doubt, however, it IS best to cunsult with a lawyer.
...Since I know a lot of people who DO neglect their cars. A LOT of people think that it's time to change the oil when the oil light comes on and would not give it any thought before then. Those same people only pay attention to tires when they go flat or it's time to out the Winter set on, and will drive both their sets of tires until they're bald. You can forget about them thinking about ATF, flushing the cooling system once in awhile or changing brake pads before they wear out and grind rivet grooves into the rotors.
Car makers have done a WAY better job in usability and reliability than PC/software makers. Even east-European and South Korean cars made today are better than almost all PCs on the market today. I've heard the argument that people ought to have computer operators licenses--after all, we all learn the rules of the road and obey them to avoid fatal accidents...well, MOST of the time...But ponder what it would be like if Microsoft and Intel made cars and see how many people would die on the highways:
1. You'd have to take your car in for monthly service to remove tar-like deposits from your engine and have the ignition control system 'defragmented'.
2. The location of the gas, brake and clutch would change with each new model year, and each model would be different as well. Also, the steering wheel would be a different size or shape and the gears on the gearshift would chage orders.
3. The leading carmaker would make their new cars use a different fuel, and using the wrong fuel in the wrong car would make the engine catch fire. The new fuel is meant to "increase performance and relibility" of their new models but conveniently destroys competitors models and their own older models.
4. You will be forced to buy a brand new car after 5 years because they stop making parts for it, and use legal tactics to keep anyone else from using their precious obsolete IP to make replicas.
5. Cars spontaneously crash much less than they did a few years ago, but they still often stall on the side of the road for no apparent reason, you cant turn on the headlights while using cruise control and it's common knowledge that when the turn signals stop working, you must fully shut of the car and all occupants must exit and shut the doors behind them, wait 30 seconds then get back in and re-start the car. These problems have existed for 20 years but are of such low priority that they linger on.
6. Every car is required by the manufacturer to be equipped with OnStar-style tracking system "for safety reasons". It's handy when your call stalls so frequently and it costs nothing extra. However, the OnStar system is polluted with marketers broadcasting spam to all the cars, which make your radio tune to stations you don't like and interfere with vital engine systems, reducing your top speed to 50 km/h and increasing gas consumption 400%. Time to "get the engine defragged" again...
...or is he/she just a deluded Michael Jackson fan? Flamebait? Come on it's a damn joke, grab a sense of humour.
Seriously though, I think the information is "valued" based upon accessibility. It is very easy to get names, addresses and listed phone numbers, and not much more work to get government registry information (such as what kind of car you drive, hunting and fishing permits and as you state gun possession permits). That stuff's by and large a matter of public record.
Sex offender history is tougher to get. Good ol' Texas might post a list of offenders on the internet, but in other jusristictions it can take a bit of time and money to get such information. And even in Texas, records may be sealed to protect the innocent. There is also more of a demand for that information than for info on who owns a gun. It's not that people want to market that info--it's required for background checks should someone apply to be a daycare worker, schoolteacher and so on.
Really, so what if someone owns a gun anyways--I care about as much as if he owns a Chevrolet. What a person owns and what he does with it in the bounds of the law is his own business. If, however, it is a CRIME to carry a concealed weapon in his juristiction, or a criminal background check reveals possession of a stolen weapon, domestic violence, or other crimes of that nature...well then it would be quite a concern to me.
(6-hz at double voulme) COLD FIRE
Motorola might have issues with having their trademark associated with a movie about a chip designed to sabotage the systems it is installed in--ingenious plot or not.
I must be an extra extreme extremophile--as are the approx. 10,000 rabbits that infest my neighbourhood! In the past couple weeks it has gotten as cold as almost -40 Celcius. At -2 we just suck it up and put on a sweater when we have to go outside--fer cryin out loud that's about +30 F for the Metrically challenged out there--that ain't cold at all...
...when they are MicroSerfs holed up on their cubicles coding all the time. I think it's similar to what happens to politicians and civil servants. They lose touch with reality and "normal" people and forget that very few people are keen (or even have the knowledge) to tap out arcane commands and know when to be suspicious about certain situations on the computer. Linux developers have been clueless in this area for a long time--although they are improving where Microsoft has gotten stagnant.
I figured it was best not just to laugh at or complain about the issue--it would be more effective to send my suggestion to MS in response to the KB article. Maybe there's a slim chance they'll take a page from the open-source community and actually LISTEN to constructive suggestions. I like the idea of a pop-up alert, so maybe someone could send MS the suggestion. This is what I submitted:
While I appreciate Microsoft's attempts at keeping its users informed about good security practises, I'm not convinced that the suggestions in Knowledge Base Article 833786 are very effective security measures as they are much too impractical and inconvenient for the end user to carry out. Most users are much too accustomed to clicking on links and would quickly tire of typing URLs and lengthy scripting code in the address toolbar. Should these particular bugs in IE be difficult or impossible to fix, might it not be possible to create a "security toolbar" to show more clearly the SSL/TLS encryption and security status, as well as provide URL verification buttons that automate the process outlined in the article? You could develop that in hours and have it distributed via Windows Update in days...
Everyone knows our society is increasingly information driven and information dependent," bill sponsor Howard Coble (R-NC) said in a statement. "We rely on accurate, timely information to make many of the decisions we must reach in a day, an hour, or a minute, and increasingly, this information comes from electronic databases."
"Without the minimal protection afforded by this legislation, we run the risk that new databases will not be created and made available to the public, thereby depriving the public of one more information source."
Maybe "depriving the public of one more information source" would be a GOOD think...in this day and age info is next to worthless because supply far exceeds demand and the quality of most is utter crap.
I for one, would be HAPPY to be deprived of one more spammer's email database, telemarketer's call list or direct-marketer's snail-mail database...
This bill is so wrong headed...these database operators seem to think they're entitled to owning the info they store in their systems. For the most part IT'S NOT THEIRS TO OWN...you can't own the fact that the clear daytime sky is blue. You can't own my vital statistics, or my street address. You have no right to and you never should because you didn't create those facts and they were never sold to you. All you did is set up a computer to store the facts and programs to sort, retrieve and utilise them. Current law protects that already and you deserve no further protection.
...as though Microsoft is holding them at gunpoint to use it by giving it away.
That's not happening now...the gun-pointing starts when Longhorn or the next MS Office comes out and MS goes around to the recipients of their "charity" and asks that they upgrade. If they don't seem interested in upgrades they may face audits in the future.
That's what MS did to schools in their own back yard--they sold software at deep educational discounts and in some cases donated it. Then years later they sent out audit requests. If there was so much as one license violation (and in schools that is highly likely) they'd have to pay for the deficiency in licensing PLUS the cost of the audit. The only way to avoid the risk would be to pay school staff to perform an internal audit--also too expensive for broke school districts.
The article states MS is also donating cash, and BillG himself stated ther is "no lock-in" and the cash can be used to invest in Linux solutions if they so wished. However, given how MS operates the intention here is to make the MS path the path of least resistance. For example: "Here are 20 licenses for XP Pro and $25000 for your school. Have fun! What? You use Linux and wish to take more cash in lieu of XP Pro? Sorry, can't do that--if you want anything at all you have to take it all. Besides, with Win XP you can take ful advantage of the regional Exchange server we donated to your government, and the ActiveX in the school intranet server won't work with Linux."
Developing nations are full of efficient, resourceful people (too bad they aren't goverened by those people, but whatever). They are not accustomed to wasting anything. If they get software with the cash (which would presumably be used for hardware or other infrastructure), tossing it aside would be wasteful so they would use it. MS is hoping to take advantage of that fact to penetrate new markets.
Executed in a certain fashion, corporate philanthropy can look generous on the surface, but be used to cook the books or avoid taxes, as well as gain a market advantage. Good thing starving Africans are getting the free software, because a Gigabuck of stuff given away in Europe or Japan would be called DUMPING....
man.. defending MS.. next thing you know I'll be going to church..
I'd say going to church would be a REALLY good idea after defending MS. After all, when you dance with the devil like that you risk ummmm...getting burned...so to speak.
Cripes, man, what are you talking about? If I vote, which lawyer (most politicians are lawyers) should I vote for? The entire root of the problem is that lawyers have been allowed to make law. Voting is a sham. It's a way for us citizens/children to make token gestures and claim "look Mommy, I'm helping!"
;-)
If you don't like lawyers running the country then get off your ass and run for some form of public office, or join in an effort to recruit a non-lawyer candidate and support him/her, either monetarily or by volunteering. Voting is essential--it is not a sham in the slightest, and if your political beliefs MEAN something to you MUST vote...and make a case to as many others as possible as to why they should vote the same. And for crying out loud...not ALL politicians are lawyers...some very prominent ones happen to have been actors
So the voters' continually elect lawyers to write law, and it's the voters who shoulder all the blame because they should know better than to elect lawyers?
Ummmmm....YES. The ONLY reason governments are so infested with lawyers is that they tend to be persuasive, good debators and notoriously opportunist and the public is too apathetic, ill-informed or gullible to know or care about a candidate's background. More non-lawyers need to care enough about their nation's government to run for office. The public needs to care enough to do their homework and reject/oppose bottom-feeding lawyer candidates during electoral-district nominations/primaries/whatever your nation calls them at the party level.
Add to that, voters MUST make INFORMED votes on election day. Not enough people vote these days, especially in North America, and the ones that do tend to vote for a party out of tradition/habit/comfort instead of for the best candidate (in the US whole states seem to be Democrat or Republican, and the presidency hinges on a handful of "swing states", and in Canada---especially in Central Canada this is epidemic...to the point there are "Grit families" and "Tory families" and support is multi-generational, and in other cases whole provinces vote en-masse in one direction).
And we wonder why the US president is always in bed with corporate lobbyists, and Canadian Prime Ministers are always self-serving, filthy rich lawyers from Quebec who funnel grant money from the government to party supporters.
I dunno, I thought Beauty and the Beast, Lion King, Lilo and Stitch, Atlantis and Treasure Planet were all pretty good (both in story and quality of production).
Thing is, I think Michael Eisner has a misperception that CGI is where it's at, when in fact I think that Disney films have been hit-and-mess for decades (and still are) and by chance the latest CGI films just happened to shine brighter recently.
A better strategy would be to stop franchising every damn film to death. Disney pours millions into TV series spin-offs, movie sequels and even more straight-to-video sequels. Every good idea is exploited to death until diminishing returns result in money-losers.
Take Lilo and Stitch, for example. It was very entertaining, visually appealing and a departure from the now-tired formula Disney typically executes in its 2-D features. The marketing machine made millions on merchandising already (toys, clothes and so on). There is a sequel and series to be released. FOR HEAVENS SAKE DISNEY...STOP THERE! The toys, a sequel and a Saturday Morning cartoon on ABC for awhile is just fine...I don't need to see six more movies and toys for ten more years like you did with Lion King! THE SAME GOES FOR FINDING NEMO---just because it's a CG film doesn't make it a franchise with unlimited shelf life. Maybe that's why the CG films HAVE been successful--they've put more of the resources into original films--only Toy Story has been overdone to any degree and none to the extent some of the 2D films have.
Somebody should tell Mr Eisner that his Florida studio didn't let him down--it was the rooms full of pinheads in the boardroom and marketing departments--all well trained in economics but with no creativity or imagination at all. And those are the people he listens to most.
Upon discovering this as the manager I'd have fired Juan. And if his cousins didn't have green cards I'd report them to INS. There are a lot of HONEST immigrants out there that would appreciate the job (not to mention citizens). Hard working or not, Juan was putting his bosses ass on the line should INS or whatever government agency catches Juan screwing the system. ESPECIALLY if management became aware of his scheme and neglected to remedy it.
A big part of the solution to management treating its workers like cattle is for the workers to stop behaving like stupid cows, come to work on time and to an honest days work. I know there are many that do, but it's the bad ones that spoil it for all. In turn, management should openly reward employees for good, honest work instead of crapping on everyine because of the problems 25% of the staff make being bottom-feeders.
If low-level workers had a better work ethic there would be more trust between management and labour. There was more at one point but work ethic has slid a lot since the "good old days".
Juan should've been up front with his boss about needing to work so much that his family would have to fill in, and his family should've made sure that they could all get green cards should they be required to work. Your friend/his boss was not doing him any favours looking the other way. He was exploiting the situation for cheap labour and if he was REALLY concerned about Juans' welfare he'd have rewarded his hard work by training him for a better job and promoting him (to the cook lines or to server or whatever), or at least paid him a humane wage so he wouldn't have to work two full time jobs to support himself.
If a _Swiss_ watch that's less than $100 that happens to have some nifty little feature on it illicits this sort of tirade then I think it's time to have that sizeable inferiority complex examined by a certified professional.
Or perhaps if those that care for you could organise an intervention...
"Getting there first" is NOT all that matters in ANY of those cases.
If someone knowingly registers a domain in the name of an existing person, trademark or company for the sole intent of deceiving others for personal gain, it's AGAINST THE RULES.
If someone knowingly files a patent for an obvious applicaton or previously invented device, ANYONE who can demonstrat prior art can have that patent REVOKED.
Widespread, public-domain works also CANNOT be copyrighted unless perhaps you were the original author of said works.
Trademarks as they are applied to day are perhaps too liberal, however one CANNOT register a common word or characteristic as a trademark...One cannot own the mark "Red(tm) Ketchup" just so he can try to extort money from Heinz because of the hue of its biggest product.
That is the original SPIRIT of the law, however I agree with you to a point---the LETTER of the law in this regard has been perverted for the purpose of lining the pockets of gredy corporate and political mavens.
The present George Washington, if he got the domain first, definately should keep it.
But then again, JRR Tolkein, Pamela Anderson and a number of other famous people do not and never have been employed by Alberta Hot Rods, nor do they own any portion of said company, and the most certainly received no portion of income that may have been made from said company's operations.
So, unless the proprietor of Alberta Hot Rods happens to be named George Washington, then I'd say the descendants of the 1st US president--no matter HOW distantly related, have every right to make a case to snatch the domain away for themselves...unless a present G.W. turns up (who would ovbviously have the strongest case of all of them).
...if I ever heard one.
I'd put it more like this:
Imagine if a pioneer family homesteaded there in the 1880s and over generations they worked hard and built a grand country home that became a local heritage site, and that they eventually donated/leased/etc some or all of the estate to the local county with the understanding it would be made into a public park for all to enjoy.
Then picture the 1980s, and the county (in conjucntion with MeMeMe Corp.) start to build a six lane road through the pristine parklands, lined on either side with neon-lit, loud flourescent strip malls, gas stations and fast food joints. Word gets back to Joe Pioneer the 4th. Methinks the "pioneer family trust" may wish to have serious words with the County and MeMeMe Corp. over the abandondment of the original understanding/arrangement.
I'd say that sums up Tolkein vs Alberta Hot Rod more accurately.