Re:The humans rights violations are irksome
on
China Enters Space
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· Score: 1
One of the reasons that no real proper communist revolutions haven't taken place is that in place of Communism (as defined in the Manifesto), a Totalitarian system emerged. Just look at Stalin. He ran the country as a dictator, and the means of production were state controlled. That is NOT Marxism.
Also, every third world nation that ever revolted toward communism would have US sponsored counter-revolutions a few weeks later.
Would communism work in the real world? I have no idea. As far as I'm concerned, Capitalism doesn't work either. Freedom is totally relative in this world, especially these days where information is more abundant them it's ever been.
Yes, but it is getting better by the day. And you missed ATI, who is one of the biggest OEM providers of graphics cards. ATI All-In-Wonders are very popular for their versatility (even if I wouldn't touch one with a 30 foot pole). Drivers are getting better by the day, just watch the glx-dev mailing list. In fact, wander over to the GLX site right now.
On another note, I'm glad to see the newest games hitting the Linux market. Kudos to id for Q3 and to Loki for all them sweet strategy games.
Read this please. I wrote it, on how censorship is NOT the way to deal with first posts. Karma will bite users for it, you can filter the AC's.. So where's to be gained by censoring?
OK, are you people done raving and foaming at the mouth? Deleting posts, banning users for just first posting, preventing first posts.. Does the term CENSORSHIP mean anything to you?
Moderation is not censorship, just filtering. Browse at 1 or 2, and you'll never see a first post. Or an AC post for that matter, unless it gets scored up on it's own merit.
First posts are a neccesary evil. You don't have to read them. You can block them WITHOUT censoring. So lets not get all huffy over it!
The mormons did that (ok, well, they made a whole new Book, same concept though).
And the Bible has been changing and changing for a very long time now. After taking a Classics course (god what a waste of time) you can see just how things like old texts change. The KJ bible is close, but noone can say that it is a truly perfect translation of the original texts.
My bad on the mixup of past and present, it's just that the T-Buffer stuff has been going around for a while now.
'Hardware Anti-Aliasing' was a buzzword that was flying around a while ago in the 3D world. In fact, if I look on the back of my original Monster 3d box, antialiasing is on the feature list. One of the ways to antialias is by rendering the image at 4x the display resolution and sample down. Other ways exist as well.
'Full Screen' antialiasing can be done many ways, and isn't a hardware feature as much as it is just something that takes a lot of fillrate. The tbluf.exe program I spoke of before did this too. There was a marked difference between the anti-aliased image and normal one too, it was quite interesting. All the T-Buffer features are simply fill-rate heavy features. However, being fill-rate heavy, this makes 3dfx ideal to deal with them, because they've always been about pushing pixels over anything else.
The best part is that it's true to the real Paper clip. It's annoying, wastes time loading, comes up FAR too often.. Surfing back and forth across the page, every time I hit the main page, it was up again, annoying me. I was about to get mad when it occured to me just how true to life it was, and I haven't stopped laughing yet!
I was speaking historically. In fact, if you look at what I said, I made no reference to upcoming products at all. This will be 3dfx's first 32 bit output product.
And a T-Buffer is a joke. Any OpenGL compliant card can do what the T-Buffer can do. Find tbluf.exe (I can't remember where I found it sadly).
Hmm. Granted, 3dfx has seriously fallen off the boat recently. They had the Best of the Best with the Voodoo/Voodoo2, but then the TNT came along and challenged them with not speed, but looks. T-Buffers are a joke. A product without 32 bit colour is a joke too.
And as far as a half-a-gen behind, that was the G200. It was an ok card, but just didn't push the pixels or the triangles fast enough. Now, the G400 is one sweeeet product. And I don't even have a MAX, but it's plenty fast enough, even in 32 bit color on this Celeron 400. And DualHead.. Well, once you're used to 2 monitors, you won't go back. You said it yourself, if you're making 40 fps, you're happy. The G400 will do that for you, and look awfully nice too.
Ok, like it or not people, we don't WANT Win9x/NT/CE or Win32 to be GPL'ed. Why not? Well, we want to see other operating systems have a chance in the marketplace. We want to see Be sell copies because it's a pretty damn cool Posix compliant OS. Ditto to QNX.
So if we GPL the Win32 source code, how can these commercial OS'es implement it without some legal guffaw? The world would be a better place if every x86 OS could run Win32, so lets try to pick a license that lets every OS run it. Instead of leaving out the BSD's and whatever commercial systems as well.
And why is this insightful? Though I should point out in counterpoint of this previous post that nVidia has NEVER reached the hype of their products in the past. The TNT was supposed to be a TNT2. That's why they never released any GeForce specs until release was imminent.They didn't need to release 'real' specs though, they had Tom to blatantly plug the NV10 long before it existed.
And on the other hand, 3dfx has never failed to meet their specs. Even though their products have severly lacked in many departments (AGP texturing, 32 bit colour), at least they didn't play the Hype Game that nVidia did.
And I don't buy 3dfx products anymore. My first accelerator was an original Voodoo Graphics, that cost me close to $300(cdn). Since then it was an i740 (hey, I was on a budget) and now a G400. And the G400 is the best card I've ever had the pleasure of using, it's fast, pretty (environmental bump mapping BABY!) and more Open Source friendly (specs vs un-improvable open source driver). Granted, 3dfx is definitely the least open source friendly.
Every point you make is perfectly true. But as for alternate word processors, what do you do when your work-done-at-home is expected to be in Microsoft Word 2000 file format?
And OTOH, I honestly can't see myself paying $500+ for a copy of Adobe Photoshop just to make some pretty graphics or $250 to create pdf files. Sure, you shout 'Go get GIMP and do your gfx for free!' to which I say 'GIMP doesn't do quite as much,' and that is perfectly true. Why is this program worth $500 to me, who's just looking to do some graphics work for webpages? Who exactly is it worth $500 to ANYWAY? I hardly see profit by volume here.
This isn't to say that I'm opposed to paying for software. I pay for my games especially, I honestly think that Half Life was worth $60, because I'm still playing it today. But am I going to pay $500+ dollars for a spreadsheet/wordprocessor (MS Office)? I think not.
Of course, is any of this grounds for pirating software? Given the choice between pirating and going without, I take choice #2. I also run Linux, so I get to have a lot of stuff for Free. Morality is relative. To me, not all software is worth paying for. Buggy programs that don't live up to expecations, to me, aren't worth the money you are expected to pay for them.
So where do I stand in the end? Well, I'm not adamantly opposed to Warezing. Most people don't even harm people by doing it. Why do I say that? Well, most warezers just warez software because they can. Does little Billy Warezer really need SoftImage or 3D Studio Max? Lord no. And he's not going to even create anything so significant and money-making with his half-working warez copy that the parent company should care. He's not profiting from the piracy, because he's not doing anything with the software he has.
And worry not. Like I said, most warez is half-working. Recent games that play online have keys (like Half-Life), so if you want to get the most from the game (play online), you have to BUY a copy. And hell, the main reason I bought HL was because the Warezed OEM ver I got was SO FSCKING AMAZING. If it's good enough, it will be paid for. Darwinism applied to software.
Here's what gets me. He claims that if he spent all his time defending himself against derogatory posts, he'd be doing it until sometime in the next lifetime (of course, what does that say about the person? but that's not my point).
My point is that here was a list of some of the most commonly asked questions. All the common rumors. Had he actually answered these questions and not dogded them, he could have saved himself a half a lifetime of dogding and answering. This was almost a chance for his redemption. And instead, he calls the lot of us a bunch of unintelligent ignoramuses (sp?).
Of course, a lot of the questions posed in the original forum were very flamebait, but the ones that made it into the interview were thought out, and worth answering. What an ego to think he can put himself above all of/. by labelling every one of us a f1r$T p0$T bunch of whiners.
Well what else can they sell in a Store-In-A-Store? I mean, at least Apple can demo G4's and Powerbooks and iMacs and look fancy. MS? Well, you can play with Win98 which is what you'd play with on ANY demo computer in ANY retail store that sells PC's.
So we'll see the products that need the most pushing (because MS doesn't have a monopoly with MSN), instead of what doesn't need selling because it's everywhere already (thanks Judge Jackson!).
I don't know about everyone else, but I thought the preceeding post was pretty lame. I thought the points it raised were totally uninteresting and not thought provoking in the slightest. IMNSHO, this didn't need to be posted. But that's just me. Fell free to moderate me down now!
(the preceeding text was tounge in cheek if you couldn't tell, and if i need to explain what i said.. sheesh)
Well you see, that's part of the issue. MS holds onto Win32 very tightly. I'll bet you that if Wine ran every MS program flawlessly tomorrow that the next release of Office would mysteriously 'not work' (some change in Win32 that the Office installer would patch into Windows)
Just like what happened with DR-DOS. Windows 3.1 was written for DOS. And should have run on ANY DOS. And in the end, it DID run on DR-DOS, but MS sent copies to the magazines that gave warnings and errors on DR-DOS machines. So that killed DR-DOS, bad press.
I feel that MS should be forced to open up Win32. Then other operating systems could implement it. We'd see operating systems that wouldn't require Windows, just Win32. Like when programs didn't need MS-DOS, just DOS.
Intel based PC operating systems are the most common in the home. Last I checked, Big Iron Unix hardware wasn't sold with the home user in mind. Apple is the closest thing to 'competition' and the reason that there's more Intel PC's is the openness of the architecture. Clones, clones, clones. Cheap clones. That's what the home market is all about.
Friend, this is all about the HOME MARKET. I can't go out and buy an OpenVMS system that I can take home at a decent price and expect it to be a PC. Note what PC stands for: Personal Computer. Personal. I think it's fair to define the market of Personal Computers as to only be Intel-based PC's because that's the vast majority that's out there and it's the system that's cloned and sells at the best price.
One of the issues floating around BIND lately has been it's use of RSA authentication. Of course, RSA is patented (yuck). Debian has dealt by redistributing BIND without the RSA stuff. Does this version follow suit? More non-free stuff?
Well, if seems to be a liability if it's so easily exploited. Scripting (like AppleScript) is a Good Thing(tm), but it's implementation has to be careful. Created locally, a script should have full permissions.. But a script that is being auto-execed from an attachment or something should NOT be so permissioned.
Was it a lie? The statement "DR-DOS may not be compatible with Windows" is completely true. Since Microsoft does not have access to the source of DR-DOS, they have no control over it, and so they cannot guaruntee its compatibility. I don't see how that is a lie. Also, I have read that that message existed only in development releases, and that the commercial product did not contain this message
Firstly, the final product did not contain this. However, the versions sent to reviewers DID have it. So all the magazines wrote "Whoa, watch out DR-DOS users, this thing doesn't work!"
Also I can't see the source to NT, yet I can write a program that runs on it. So why should MS have to see the source code to DR-DOS to know if Windows 3.x would work in it? If anything, this is why there are STANDARDS. This is why DEVELOPMENT DOCS exist. They are good things. And if MS really wanted to make sure DR-DOS worked (oh, I'm killing myself that's so funny) then they would have gone to the makers of it and said "Hey, your version of DOS spits this exception error at us, what's up with that?" Your argument holds no water.
I explained it before, self perpetuating, self fufilling. That's how monopolies work, that's why governments often need to get involved. Here we go again:
Step One: MS gains control of OS market through bullying the OEMs.
Step Two: As there is only One True OS, there is only One OS to code for, at least if you want to SELL a product.
So this leads to Step Three: New OS's can't succeed in this market. Why? First, the OEMs are controlled by MS, so the OS can't get around onto a lot of computers. If it's not on a lot of computers, the number of developers, and hence apps for it, is minimal. So with no apps, the OS fails. It does not fail because it is inferior, it fails because it does not exist in a market where even being better can get it ahead.
Consumers don't always WANT Windows. They want the OS that runs the apps, and MS has made that OS. They've achieved that illegally. So we sum up ONCE more. The Gov't is involved because this is a situation where market forces no longer wield power.
Are you ignorant? Through controlling the OEMs illegally, you REMOVE the consumer choice of OS. Will you listen? I'll spell it out in very short word:
MS made OEMs use Windows. Customers buying from OEMs have to use Windows because of OEM control.
That's controlling one outlet of distribution. It would be like Ford owning every car sales lot in the country. You can only get Ford cars that way.
You seem to be pro-capatalist, but dammit, do you not understand how the capitalist system should revolve around the CONSUMER? Adam Smith didn't like Government intervention, because Consumers would control the economy through where they put their money. But if you can't put your money anywhere but in MS's pocket, you DON'T HAVE CHOICE. Choice is the key behind a capatalist economy. Capitalism is NOT about corporations exploiting people for money (in theory).
2 points.. First, building a computer 100x stronger then all of D.net would be difficult at best. Was there not a deepcrack machine at the last DES test? It was strong, yes, but it still didn't have the power of D.net. These machines both benefit and suffer from Moore's law. They get faster as time goes on, but by the time you've invested and built one of these ubercrackers, it's not the best solution, faster systems and stronger crypto would be the norm.
Second point, the time it takes to brute force something should be taken into consideration when encrypting the data in the first place. If you have data that only needs to be secure for a month before it's a moot point, then you can say RC5-64 is good enough.
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One of the reasons that no real proper communist revolutions haven't taken place is that in place of Communism (as defined in the Manifesto), a Totalitarian system emerged. Just look at Stalin. He ran the country as a dictator, and the means of production were state controlled. That is NOT Marxism.
Also, every third world nation that ever revolted toward communism would have US sponsored counter-revolutions a few weeks later.
Would communism work in the real world? I have no idea. As far as I'm concerned, Capitalism doesn't work either. Freedom is totally relative in this world, especially these days where information is more abundant them it's ever been.
Yes, but it is getting better by the day. And you missed ATI, who is one of the biggest OEM providers of graphics cards. ATI All-In-Wonders are very popular for their versatility (even if I wouldn't touch one with a 30 foot pole). Drivers are getting better by the day, just watch the glx-dev mailing list. In fact, wander over to the GLX site right now.
On another note, I'm glad to see the newest games hitting the Linux market. Kudos to id for Q3 and to Loki for all them sweet strategy games.
Tell it like it is =)
For anyone who wants to see a satire of political correctness gone too far, see this.
Read this please. I wrote it, on how censorship is NOT the way to deal with first posts. Karma will bite users for it, you can filter the AC's.. So where's to be gained by censoring?
OK, are you people done raving and foaming at the mouth? Deleting posts, banning users for just first posting, preventing first posts.. Does the term CENSORSHIP mean anything to you?
Moderation is not censorship, just filtering. Browse at 1 or 2, and you'll never see a first post. Or an AC post for that matter, unless it gets scored up on it's own merit.
First posts are a neccesary evil. You don't have to read them. You can block them WITHOUT censoring. So lets not get all huffy over it!
The mormons did that (ok, well, they made a whole new Book, same concept though).
And the Bible has been changing and changing for a very long time now. After taking a Classics course (god what a waste of time) you can see just how things like old texts change. The KJ bible is close, but noone can say that it is a truly perfect translation of the original texts.
My bad on the mixup of past and present, it's just that the T-Buffer stuff has been going around for a while now.
'Hardware Anti-Aliasing' was a buzzword that was flying around a while ago in the 3D world. In fact, if I look on the back of my original Monster 3d box, antialiasing is on the feature list. One of the ways to antialias is by rendering the image at 4x the display resolution and sample down. Other ways exist as well.
'Full Screen' antialiasing can be done many ways, and isn't a hardware feature as much as it is just something that takes a lot of fillrate. The tbluf.exe program I spoke of before did this too. There was a marked difference between the anti-aliased image and normal one too, it was quite interesting. All the T-Buffer features are simply fill-rate heavy features. However, being fill-rate heavy, this makes 3dfx ideal to deal with them, because they've always been about pushing pixels over anything else.
The best part is that it's true to the real Paper clip. It's annoying, wastes time loading, comes up FAR too often.. Surfing back and forth across the page, every time I hit the main page, it was up again, annoying me. I was about to get mad when it occured to me just how true to life it was, and I haven't stopped laughing yet!
I was speaking historically. In fact, if you look at what I said, I made no reference to upcoming products at all. This will be 3dfx's first 32 bit output product.
And a T-Buffer is a joke. Any OpenGL compliant card can do what the T-Buffer can do. Find tbluf.exe (I can't remember where I found it sadly).
Hmm. Granted, 3dfx has seriously fallen off the boat recently. They had the Best of the Best with the Voodoo/Voodoo2, but then the TNT came along and challenged them with not speed, but looks. T-Buffers are a joke. A product without 32 bit colour is a joke too.
And as far as a half-a-gen behind, that was the G200. It was an ok card, but just didn't push the pixels or the triangles fast enough. Now, the G400 is one sweeeet product. And I don't even have a MAX, but it's plenty fast enough, even in 32 bit color on this Celeron 400. And DualHead.. Well, once you're used to 2 monitors, you won't go back. You said it yourself, if you're making 40 fps, you're happy. The G400 will do that for you, and look awfully nice too.
Ok, like it or not people, we don't WANT Win9x/NT/CE or Win32 to be GPL'ed. Why not? Well, we want to see other operating systems have a chance in the marketplace. We want to see Be sell copies because it's a pretty damn cool Posix compliant OS. Ditto to QNX.
So if we GPL the Win32 source code, how can these commercial OS'es implement it without some legal guffaw? The world would be a better place if every x86 OS could run Win32, so lets try to pick a license that lets every OS run it. Instead of leaving out the BSD's and whatever commercial systems as well.
And why is this insightful? Though I should point out in counterpoint of this previous post that nVidia has NEVER reached the hype of their products in the past. The TNT was supposed to be a TNT2. That's why they never released any GeForce specs until release was imminent.They didn't need to release 'real' specs though, they had Tom to blatantly plug the NV10 long before it existed.
And on the other hand, 3dfx has never failed to meet their specs. Even though their products have severly lacked in many departments (AGP texturing, 32 bit colour), at least they didn't play the Hype Game that nVidia did.
And I don't buy 3dfx products anymore. My first accelerator was an original Voodoo Graphics, that cost me close to $300(cdn). Since then it was an i740 (hey, I was on a budget) and now a G400. And the G400 is the best card I've ever had the pleasure of using, it's fast, pretty (environmental bump mapping BABY!) and more Open Source friendly (specs vs un-improvable open source driver). Granted, 3dfx is definitely the least open source friendly.
Anyway, that was my rant. I'm happy now.
Every point you make is perfectly true. But as for alternate word processors, what do you do when your work-done-at-home is expected to be in Microsoft Word 2000 file format?
And OTOH, I honestly can't see myself paying $500+ for a copy of Adobe Photoshop just to make some pretty graphics or $250 to create pdf files. Sure, you shout 'Go get GIMP and do your gfx for free!' to which I say 'GIMP doesn't do quite as much,' and that is perfectly true. Why is this program worth $500 to me, who's just looking to do some graphics work for webpages? Who exactly is it worth $500 to ANYWAY? I hardly see profit by volume here.
This isn't to say that I'm opposed to paying for software. I pay for my games especially, I honestly think that Half Life was worth $60, because I'm still playing it today. But am I going to pay $500+ dollars for a spreadsheet/wordprocessor (MS Office)? I think not.
Of course, is any of this grounds for pirating software? Given the choice between pirating and going without, I take choice #2. I also run Linux, so I get to have a lot of stuff for Free. Morality is relative. To me, not all software is worth paying for. Buggy programs that don't live up to expecations, to me, aren't worth the money you are expected to pay for them.
So where do I stand in the end? Well, I'm not adamantly opposed to Warezing. Most people don't even harm people by doing it. Why do I say that? Well, most warezers just warez software because they can. Does little Billy Warezer really need SoftImage or 3D Studio Max? Lord no. And he's not going to even create anything so significant and money-making with his half-working warez copy that the parent company should care. He's not profiting from the piracy, because he's not doing anything with the software he has.
And worry not. Like I said, most warez is half-working. Recent games that play online have keys (like Half-Life), so if you want to get the most from the game (play online), you have to BUY a copy. And hell, the main reason I bought HL was because the Warezed OEM ver I got was SO FSCKING AMAZING. If it's good enough, it will be paid for. Darwinism applied to software.
Here's what gets me. He claims that if he spent all his time defending himself against derogatory posts, he'd be doing it until sometime in the next lifetime (of course, what does that say about the person? but that's not my point).
/. by labelling every one of us a f1r$T p0$T bunch of whiners.
My point is that here was a list of some of the most commonly asked questions. All the common rumors. Had he actually answered these questions and not dogded them, he could have saved himself a half a lifetime of dogding and answering. This was almost a chance for his redemption. And instead, he calls the lot of us a bunch of unintelligent ignoramuses (sp?).
Of course, a lot of the questions posed in the original forum were very flamebait, but the ones that made it into the interview were thought out, and worth answering. What an ego to think he can put himself above all of
Well what else can they sell in a Store-In-A-Store? I mean, at least Apple can demo G4's and Powerbooks and iMacs and look fancy. MS? Well, you can play with Win98 which is what you'd play with on ANY demo computer in ANY retail store that sells PC's.
So we'll see the products that need the most pushing (because MS doesn't have a monopoly with MSN), instead of what doesn't need selling because it's everywhere already (thanks Judge Jackson!).
I don't know about everyone else, but I thought the preceeding post was pretty lame. I thought the points it raised were totally uninteresting and not thought provoking in the slightest. IMNSHO, this didn't need to be posted. But that's just me. Fell free to moderate me down now!
(the preceeding text was tounge in cheek if you couldn't tell, and if i need to explain what i said.. sheesh)
Well you see, that's part of the issue. MS holds onto Win32 very tightly. I'll bet you that if Wine ran every MS program flawlessly tomorrow that the next release of Office would mysteriously 'not work' (some change in Win32 that the Office installer would patch into Windows)
Just like what happened with DR-DOS. Windows 3.1 was written for DOS. And should have run on ANY DOS. And in the end, it DID run on DR-DOS, but MS sent copies to the magazines that gave warnings and errors on DR-DOS machines. So that killed DR-DOS, bad press.
I feel that MS should be forced to open up Win32. Then other operating systems could implement it. We'd see operating systems that wouldn't require Windows, just Win32. Like when programs didn't need MS-DOS, just DOS.
Intel based PC operating systems are the most common in the home. Last I checked, Big Iron Unix hardware wasn't sold with the home user in mind. Apple is the closest thing to 'competition' and the reason that there's more Intel PC's is the openness of the architecture. Clones, clones, clones. Cheap clones. That's what the home market is all about.
Friend, this is all about the HOME MARKET. I can't go out and buy an OpenVMS system that I can take home at a decent price and expect it to be a PC. Note what PC stands for: Personal Computer. Personal. I think it's fair to define the market of Personal Computers as to only be Intel-based PC's because that's the vast majority that's out there and it's the system that's cloned and sells at the best price.
One of the issues floating around BIND lately has been it's use of RSA authentication. Of course, RSA is patented (yuck). Debian has dealt by redistributing BIND without the RSA stuff. Does this version follow suit? More non-free stuff?
Well, if seems to be a liability if it's so easily exploited. Scripting (like AppleScript) is a Good Thing(tm), but it's implementation has to be careful. Created locally, a script should have full permissions.. But a script that is being auto-execed from an attachment or something should NOT be so permissioned.
2 Cents.
Was it a lie? The statement "DR-DOS may not be compatible with Windows" is completely true. Since Microsoft does not have access to the source of DR-DOS, they have no control over it, and so they cannot guaruntee its compatibility. I don't see how that is a lie. Also, I have read that that message existed only in development releases, and that the commercial product did not contain this message
Firstly, the final product did not contain this. However, the versions sent to reviewers DID have it. So all the magazines wrote "Whoa, watch out DR-DOS users, this thing doesn't work!"
Also I can't see the source to NT, yet I can write a program that runs on it. So why should MS have to see the source code to DR-DOS to know if Windows 3.x would work in it? If anything, this is why there are STANDARDS. This is why DEVELOPMENT DOCS exist. They are good things. And if MS really wanted to make sure DR-DOS worked (oh, I'm killing myself that's so funny) then they would have gone to the makers of it and said "Hey, your version of DOS spits this exception error at us, what's up with that?" Your argument holds no water.
I explained it before, self perpetuating, self fufilling. That's how monopolies work, that's why governments often need to get involved. Here we go again:
Step One: MS gains control of OS market through bullying the OEMs.
Step Two: As there is only One True OS, there is only One OS to code for, at least if you want to SELL a product.
So this leads to Step Three: New OS's can't succeed in this market. Why? First, the OEMs are controlled by MS, so the OS can't get around onto a lot of computers. If it's not on a lot of computers, the number of developers, and hence apps for it, is minimal. So with no apps, the OS fails. It does not fail because it is inferior, it fails because it does not exist in a market where even being better can get it ahead.
Consumers don't always WANT Windows. They want the OS that runs the apps, and MS has made that OS. They've achieved that illegally. So we sum up ONCE more. The Gov't is involved because this is a situation where market forces no longer wield power.
Are you ignorant? Through controlling the OEMs illegally, you REMOVE the consumer choice of OS. Will you listen? I'll spell it out in very short word:
MS made OEMs use Windows. Customers buying from OEMs have to use Windows because of OEM control.
That's controlling one outlet of distribution. It would be like Ford owning every car sales lot in the country. You can only get Ford cars that way.
You seem to be pro-capatalist, but dammit, do you not understand how the capitalist system should revolve around the CONSUMER? Adam Smith didn't like Government intervention, because Consumers would control the economy through where they put their money. But if you can't put your money anywhere but in MS's pocket, you DON'T HAVE CHOICE. Choice is the key behind a capatalist economy. Capitalism is NOT about corporations exploiting people for money (in theory).
2 points.. First, building a computer 100x stronger then all of D.net would be difficult at best. Was there not a deepcrack machine at the last DES test? It was strong, yes, but it still didn't have the power of D.net. These machines both benefit and suffer from Moore's law. They get faster as time goes on, but by the time you've invested and built one of these ubercrackers, it's not the best solution, faster systems and stronger crypto would be the norm.
Second point, the time it takes to brute force something should be taken into consideration when encrypting the data in the first place. If you have data that only needs to be secure for a month before it's a moot point, then you can say RC5-64 is good enough.