They hire people under the H1B visa, give them plenty of experience of MS's culture, enabling them to replicate the culture in overseas development centres. Is this an abuse of the system? Depends on how you look at it. It's subjective.
So he doesn't have a clue what he's talking about. Up to Windows 3, the version and the name correlated.
95 was version 4. So was 98 (4.1) and ME (4.9).
XP was version 5. Vista was version 7. Each substantialy different from their predecessor.
Presumably Microsoft has some internal policy of when they have a new version
The workstation/server versions started their numbering at 3 for various reasons that make sense to MS marketing. NT3.5 = version 3, NT4 = version 4, Windows 2000 = version 5. At this point the consumer and server versions merged.
MS may well be on version 6.1 of their code. It may have evolved into version 7 by the time it's released. This is similar to the Linux kernel releases being extremely similar to the development versions that precede them.
There were plenty of kids who were pissed off when Blizzard devalued the level 60 epic mount training. I'm sure there will be plenty more when they devalue the level 70 epic flying mount training after WotLK has been out for awhile.[1]
that's unfortunate but there's not really a strong grounds for complaint. It's like the people who buy an iPod the day before a price drop.
There has to be some middle ground here. The lock in to WoW is "I've invested all this time to get the stuff I've gotten, might as well keep playing...". They have to provide at least the illusion that a player's stuff is his or hers.
Quite true. Of course, if you let people think they own something then it shgouldn;t come as a surprise if they think they own it.
You don't really own your character; the game company does--your character is subject to the alterations and whims of the company as needed, and access is even based upon whether they let you or not. They can kick you off if you are selling gold, selling your account, being a jerk, or because they simply don't like you.
Very true. At least assuming that's what the terms and conditions say. But it's really not that simple. Real people don't base concepts such as ownership on abstruse legal documents. It's a factor, but it actually comes down to a more abstract set of social conventions. My email address belongs to yahoo. Yet I just called it "my email address". My car actually belongs to a finance company. If someone stole it I'd treat it as theft of my own property, as would most other people (possibly even the finance company). Many people "own" a house that strictly speaking belongs to a bank.
Online users have a similar claim to some form of ownership. They have put considerable effort into creating their character and a lot of work improving his stats and acquiring valuable items. Say what you want about the legal rights. People are going to be understandably pissed off if all that work goes to waste, and pointing at the T&C's isn't going to make it seem much less unfair.
It is constitutional. Although it isn't perfect, the current regime does promote the the creation of "science and useful arts" (in the sense that this archaic phrase was intended). Publishers spend large amounts of money on movies, music, literature, and computer software that they very likely wouldn't without copyright and as such the law does do as intended. Since you can't categorically prove that another method would promote a better form of creativity, we can only assume that the wise men representing us have worked out the best solution they can conceive.
Of course this argument would only apply if politicians saw the constitution as a guide for making laws rather than an obstacle. I really don't know what the motives are for most of them. Perhaps they genuinely consider remixes to be minor and trivial insignificances and think mainstream popular media is all that it really important. Or perhaps they just take money from the lobby groups and don't let what the constitution says worry them.
No! If I'm vague and general I can claim my rightful credit as a seer if this happens. If I'm too specific people will nitpick on the points where I'm wrong.
Right now this process is quite expensive, so this isn't going to be a problem, but I can imagine this getting cheaper.
Some people are going to be using this to make 3D copies of cheap plastic items they own. Another poster mentioned Warhammer miniatures, and I could imagine lots of other small but expensive items being copied.
Once someone with money takes notice of this, I guarantee a legal battle tying to make it illegal.
Fair enough, but you'd be able to rebuild the entire Picadilly and Circle line for less than the cost of these anti terror measures, have change left over to rebuilt the WTC, and still have plenty to spend on unglamorous public safety schemes.
The most substantial economic cost caused by terrorism was probably lack of faith in air travel after the 9/11 attacks. I don't know how much this affected the economy as a whole. Presumably at least some of the money not spent on air travel was spent on something else.
And yet plenty of artists DO care whether they get reimbursed for their work. And it's their copyright to control.
Not in practice.
If an artist doesn't mind people copying their stuff, they can always release it under a Creative Commons type license. An artist who has released an album via traditional means, however, is protected by copyright,
And if it's released it will be copied. If they object so strongly, nobody is forcing them to release it at all. Since they release it with the full knowledge that it will be copied, they clearly do better out of it than if they choose not to.
Any attempt to get around it is just someone justifying their own bad behavior to themselves to salve a guilty conscience.
Why do you think I care about a guilty conscience? I copy stuff because I like it. I buy stuff because I like it and think it's worth buying. Some publishers don't like my attitude. Most creators I've met are actually pretty much okay with it. The publishers want to get rich. The creators want to make a living. The creators do make a living. The publishers aren't as rich as they'd like. Like I care.
It's true. He even made a video recording of a speech on the matter (and other topics, most prominantly fidelity) and left instructions that it should be posted to youtube when it comes into existence. You can watch it here.
True. And people are missing the fringe benefits. It's also keeping the tigers out of my bedroom, protecting me from cheese falling from the moon and ensuring my molecules don't fall between the gaps in the molecules of the road.
Can't meet your challenge. I do remember that one of the last terror attack victims - John Tulloch - said "not in my name, Tony", when The Sun decided to use his image to support the governments draconian legislation.
"Terrorism", when looked at number of deaths per year, is basically a total non-issue. How many people have been killed by terrorism in the UK in the last 50 years?
I know it's a rhetorical question but I've just been looking this up myself. This includes the IRA, so just under 2000 including terrorists being killed, according to Wikipedia. That's 40 a year. Slightly higher than the number of tea cosy related accidents.
In the last 5 years, there have been roughly 100 deaths related to Terrorism in the UK. The death rate under the IRA was slightly higher at about 50 per year. Let's take that higher figure and assume some 500 deaths over the next 10 years.
So, to fight this, we have a £1 billion database, a £12 billion surveillance program, and an ID cards scheme costing £18 billion. £31 billion for fighting those 500 deaths, or £62 million per death presumably prevented.
Perhaps if this £31 billion was spent on subsidising healthy food or teaching kids to cook properly and healthily, we could see a drop in the several thousand heart disease related deaths each year. If it was spent on road safety perhaps we could see a drop on the 3000 or so people killed on the roads each year.
I'm not sure on the specifics. I think it's just a matter of the potential cost to the abuser.
One factor that will affect things though, is if one side files lots of pointless briefs, and wins on the basic merits of the case, they may not get costs for the more tenacious points, and may lose if the points were deliberately wasting the courts time. There's a certain amount of discretion on the judges and the losing side is entitled to object to various costs.
Actually as it works out, in countries where the loser pays, it's actually better. It's true that people will not sue unless they are fairly certain of winning, but that's not a bad thing.
How could I sue a large company in the US if they can just keep filing more and more briefs that have to be responded to, adding to my costs? If they do this in Canada, they'll end up having to pay for my costs as well as their own.
I can imagine this being advertised on late night TV. "And who can forget 'Windows shutdown noise'. With a running time of almost 3 minutes. Samples from Windows is not available in the shops, but you can order it now."
IOW, the way it is supposed to work is that they should, whenever the expected lawsuits are less expensive, shut down the DRM servers, and effectively render useless that which their customers have purchased?
That's exactly how it works. Then Walmart gets sued, ordered to pay compensation to the plaintiffs, and everyone's happy. The victims are compensated and Walmart no longer has to maintain the DRM servers.
You know, I need to start manufacturing things with built-in self destruct switches and simply blow up my customers purchases when I need more sales. =)
Your customers will be able to sue you for the cost of replacing the devices. Not really going to be a great business model.
Slashdot Mirror
They just download it.
I do care. I resent the implication that I'm either a pirate or stupid.
They hire people under the H1B visa, give them plenty of experience of MS's culture, enabling them to replicate the culture in overseas development centres. Is this an abuse of the system? Depends on how you look at it. It's subjective.
It's not slander. It's libel if anything. And it's opinion so it's not that either
If you're going to count different versions of Windows 3 as version 3, then 95, 98 and Me are the same version as each other.
If you're going to count NT and Windows desktop as the same product line then you might as well include MS-DOS.
So he doesn't have a clue what he's talking about. Up to Windows 3, the version and the name correlated.
95 was version 4. So was 98 (4.1) and ME (4.9).
XP was version 5. Vista was version 7. Each substantialy different from their predecessor.
Presumably Microsoft has some internal policy of when they have a new version
The workstation/server versions started their numbering at 3 for various reasons that make sense to MS marketing. NT3.5 = version 3, NT4 = version 4, Windows 2000 = version 5. At this point the consumer and server versions merged.
MS may well be on version 6.1 of their code. It may have evolved into version 7 by the time it's released. This is similar to the Linux kernel releases being extremely similar to the development versions that precede them.
There were plenty of kids who were pissed off when Blizzard devalued the level 60 epic mount training. I'm sure there will be plenty more when they devalue the level 70 epic flying mount training after WotLK has been out for awhile.[1]
...". They have to provide at least the illusion that a player's stuff is his or hers.
that's unfortunate but there's not really a strong grounds for complaint. It's like the people who buy an iPod the day before a price drop.
There has to be some middle ground here. The lock in to WoW is "I've invested all this time to get the stuff I've gotten, might as well keep playing
Quite true. Of course, if you let people think they own something then it shgouldn;t come as a surprise if they think they own it.
You don't really own your character; the game company does--your character is subject to the alterations and whims of the company as needed, and access is even based upon whether they let you or not. They can kick you off if you are selling gold, selling your account, being a jerk, or because they simply don't like you.
Very true. At least assuming that's what the terms and conditions say. But it's really not that simple. Real people don't base concepts such as ownership on abstruse legal documents. It's a factor, but it actually comes down to a more abstract set of social conventions. My email address belongs to yahoo. Yet I just called it "my email address". My car actually belongs to a finance company. If someone stole it I'd treat it as theft of my own property, as would most other people (possibly even the finance company). Many people "own" a house that strictly speaking belongs to a bank.
Online users have a similar claim to some form of ownership. They have put considerable effort into creating their character and a lot of work improving his stats and acquiring valuable items. Say what you want about the legal rights. People are going to be understandably pissed off if all that work goes to waste, and pointing at the T&C's isn't going to make it seem much less unfair.
True that. In the case of Patrick Stewart and Bruce Willis, it probably helps that they both play alpha males, and are highly successful in real life.
It's the only way. A lot of balding celebrities are considered sexy. Absolutely all of them have extremely short hair.
They could.
And people could spend their money on more important things than luxury cars and big TVs.
People want them though and they want a cure for baldness.
But will this always be the case? Is it impossible that improvements in the system and in the plastics will result in something of better quality?
It is constitutional. Although it isn't perfect, the current regime does promote the the creation of "science and useful arts" (in the sense that this archaic phrase was intended). Publishers spend large amounts of money on movies, music, literature, and computer software that they very likely wouldn't without copyright and as such the law does do as intended. Since you can't categorically prove that another method would promote a better form of creativity, we can only assume that the wise men representing us have worked out the best solution they can conceive.
Of course this argument would only apply if politicians saw the constitution as a guide for making laws rather than an obstacle. I really don't know what the motives are for most of them. Perhaps they genuinely consider remixes to be minor and trivial insignificances and think mainstream popular media is all that it really important. Or perhaps they just take money from the lobby groups and don't let what the constitution says worry them.
No! If I'm vague and general I can claim my rightful credit as a seer if this happens. If I'm too specific people will nitpick on the points where I'm wrong.
Right now this process is quite expensive, so this isn't going to be a problem, but I can imagine this getting cheaper.
Some people are going to be using this to make 3D copies of cheap plastic items they own. Another poster mentioned Warhammer miniatures, and I could imagine lots of other small but expensive items being copied.
Once someone with money takes notice of this, I guarantee a legal battle tying to make it illegal.
Fair enough, but you'd be able to rebuild the entire Picadilly and Circle line for less than the cost of these anti terror measures, have change left over to rebuilt the WTC, and still have plenty to spend on unglamorous public safety schemes.
The most substantial economic cost caused by terrorism was probably lack of faith in air travel after the 9/11 attacks. I don't know how much this affected the economy as a whole. Presumably at least some of the money not spent on air travel was spent on something else.
And yet plenty of artists DO care whether they get reimbursed for their work. And it's their copyright to control.
Not in practice.
If an artist doesn't mind people copying their stuff, they can always release it under a Creative Commons type license. An artist who has released an album via traditional means, however, is protected by copyright,
And if it's released it will be copied. If they object so strongly, nobody is forcing them to release it at all. Since they release it with the full knowledge that it will be copied, they clearly do better out of it than if they choose not to.
Any attempt to get around it is just someone justifying their own bad behavior to themselves to salve a guilty conscience.
Why do you think I care about a guilty conscience? I copy stuff because I like it. I buy stuff because I like it and think it's worth buying. Some publishers don't like my attitude. Most creators I've met are actually pretty much okay with it. The publishers want to get rich. The creators want to make a living. The creators do make a living. The publishers aren't as rich as they'd like. Like I care.
It's true. He even made a video recording of a speech on the matter (and other topics, most prominantly fidelity) and left instructions that it should be posted to youtube when it comes into existence. You can watch it here.
True. And people are missing the fringe benefits. It's also keeping the tigers out of my bedroom, protecting me from cheese falling from the moon and ensuring my molecules don't fall between the gaps in the molecules of the road.
Can't meet your challenge. I do remember that one of the last terror attack victims - John Tulloch - said "not in my name, Tony", when The Sun decided to use his image to support the governments draconian legislation.
"Terrorism", when looked at number of deaths per year, is basically a total non-issue. How many people have been killed by terrorism in the UK in the last 50 years?
I know it's a rhetorical question but I've just been looking this up myself. This includes the IRA, so just under 2000 including terrorists being killed, according to Wikipedia. That's 40 a year. Slightly higher than the number of tea cosy related accidents.
In the last 5 years, there have been roughly 100 deaths related to Terrorism in the UK. The death rate under the IRA was slightly higher at about 50 per year. Let's take that higher figure and assume some 500 deaths over the next 10 years.
So, to fight this, we have a £1 billion database, a £12 billion surveillance program, and an ID cards scheme costing £18 billion. £31 billion for fighting those 500 deaths, or £62 million per death presumably prevented.
Perhaps if this £31 billion was spent on subsidising healthy food or teaching kids to cook properly and healthily, we could see a drop in the several thousand heart disease related deaths each year. If it was spent on road safety perhaps we could see a drop on the 3000 or so people killed on the roads each year.
Why are we worrying about terrorism?
I'm not sure on the specifics. I think it's just a matter of the potential cost to the abuser.
One factor that will affect things though, is if one side files lots of pointless briefs, and wins on the basic merits of the case, they may not get costs for the more tenacious points, and may lose if the points were deliberately wasting the courts time. There's a certain amount of discretion on the judges and the losing side is entitled to object to various costs.
Actually as it works out, in countries where the loser pays, it's actually better. It's true that people will not sue unless they are fairly certain of winning, but that's not a bad thing.
How could I sue a large company in the US if they can just keep filing more and more briefs that have to be responded to, adding to my costs? If they do this in Canada, they'll end up having to pay for my costs as well as their own.
I can imagine this being advertised on late night TV. "And who can forget 'Windows shutdown noise'. With a running time of almost 3 minutes. Samples from Windows is not available in the shops, but you can order it now."
IOW, the way it is supposed to work is that they should, whenever the expected lawsuits are less expensive, shut down the DRM servers, and effectively render useless that which their customers have purchased?
That's exactly how it works. Then Walmart gets sued, ordered to pay compensation to the plaintiffs, and everyone's happy. The victims are compensated and Walmart no longer has to maintain the DRM servers.
You know, I need to start manufacturing things with built-in self destruct switches and simply blow up my customers purchases when I need more sales. =)
Your customers will be able to sue you for the cost of replacing the devices. Not really going to be a great business model.