and there is not always an alternative program that can be used to replace a windows-environment program.
For education purposes there usually is. They'll probably want basic word processing and internet. And while StarOffice may not be the greatest office suite, it's more than adequate. Firefox is certainly a decent application.
Why not? If someone clearly doesn't realise something is a crime, and there's no way for them to know, why treat them as though they are evil?
Certainly this appears heavy handed because of the possible punishment, but that's not Microsoft's fault or problem.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Microsoft has the ability to solve this. They have little to gain from this guy going to prison.
They haven't even analysed the evidence yet. Obce they do, they have to decide whether to punish him, and if they do, they have to decide what the punishment should be, and whether his conduct justifies complete remopval of his livelyhood.
Freedom of religion should not be extended to religions that are clearly made up.
Yes it should! Simple because it's not possible to make any disitinction between a real religion and a made up one.
What it should not do is permit religions priviledges. I should be as free to interfere with the running of a religious institution as I am to interfere with the running of Starbucks (Which I can do to an extent, but quite rightly only within certain limits).
Some religion. Despite my being a libertarian, I think the Germans are right on this one. It's not a religion. It's a subversive organization that needs to be monitored by the state because it has been known to use force and criminal behavior to advance its agenda, which is not even remotely religious.
True. But the US constitution doesn't allow the US to determine what is and isn't a religion on a case by case basis. The German constitution clearly isn't so specific.
You know, I think this is the wrong argument. Whether Scientology is a religion or not is beside the point. Some neo-pagan religions have as much legitimacy, but are not nearly as widely criticised.
The problem is, the behaviour of the organisation. They are hostile, and aggressive, known to harrass critics, and also known for complete abuse of the legal system. If any established religion did the things that the scientologists did, this wouldn't mean they aren't a religion. It would still mean they are a dangerous cult.
I'd like to see a few commercial versions of BSD. By all accounts it's quite nice, but installing the last version I tried (FreeBSD, I think) seemed a little more cryptic than I'm used to.
Not likely to happen though. Linux is too much of a brandname for anyone to give up on it, has good hardware support, and Linus is a lot more easy going about this sort of thing than the FSF, so any restrictions on ditribution are not going to apply to the kernel anyway.
Linux is pretty unconcerned about the whole patent thing. Novell can continue to use the kenrel. This is all most people care about.
Virtually all the FSF owned stuff has an alternative. Either commercial, or under a different licence (or possibly simply forked from their current version, if this is a GPL2/3 difference). Novell can use that instead. They also have the resources to develop alternatives. Most of the rest of the distributers really aren't as fanatical about this issue as the FSF. They have other concerns. What if they see it as more convenient to use the same version as Novell? It would make the FSF pretty much redundant. And I suggest that the distributors prefer GPL2. It offers more freedom for them.
They might be able to do this, but it would be something of an own goal.
I'm not sure she is a customer though. She seems to be more of a person who absolutely refuses to be a customer. I suspect their free service is seen as advertising. If somene is'nt willing to upgrade for any reason then why bother?
Whenever something is free, I try to work out where the catch is. Nobody will spend money giving away a free email service. Lycos is quite clearly hoping to tempt you into their paid subscription service. Fair enough. They're clearly going to do everything poissible to encourage you to do that. I say good luck to them. I find lycos useful for disposable email addresses, so they're not going to get me to convert. I'm most likely a cost to them. If I'm going ot be a freeloader, the last thing I expect is customer service. They'd prefer to get rid of anyone who obviously isn't going to upgrade.
I always wonder why companies do this. Why did they partner with Aardman in the first place? Surely it was the British humour that made Chicken Run and the W&G shorts successful.
It's pretty useful for marketting purposes though. You can extend the sales by a worthwhile amount from the free publicity, and the "Academy award winner" on the DVD cover.
Quite a bit actually. Mostly just effects, but IMDB says "The movie contains a considerable amount of CGI of all kinds, from drifting fog through to the bunny rabbits in the Bun-Vac. In all, there are over 700 shots that contain some kind of digital effects work.". But spiritted away had a lot of computer generated backgrounds. This is when CGI is used properly - when you don't really notice it.
Hmmm.. now, my understand of an IED is that it's made with components that are easily avaialble. So they were suspicious because these things had easily available components in them. Don't most things?
Oh right. I think I see what you're saying. Because this patent might or might not be used, you disapprove of patents in general, so Microsoft should have all its patents taken away for a completely unrelated reason.
Yeah. So are you suggesting that MS have the intention of preventing their competitors from doing what would appear to be anti-consumer behaviour.
Well, okay. I see how there's an issue of priciple here, but I really can't get all that riled up about MS preventing its essentially non-existent competitors from doing something they don't have any interest in doing, and would hurt me if they did.
Someone at MS comes up with an idea for DRM drivers. MS decides to patent it, because their policy is to patent any patentable invention.
As a result, Microsoft is now going to start charging everyone who ever uses Windows for the right to use drivers, or something. Come off it. There's no indication they're even going to use this, and they're certainly not going to make it mandatory. They could lock out driver developers in all sorts of ways without relying on DRM if they wanted to. They prefer to have a wide selection of competitively priced hardware because they need hardware sales to sell their software.
Sony lost revenue, the publishers lost revenue, the developers lost revenue, and everyone in the distribution chain lost revenue.
No they didn't. The lossess would be the same as if the piracy didn't happen.
Saying otherwise is attempting a semantic argument to justify the desire to have free entertainment.
Who needs to justify this desire? Of course I desire free entertainment. The studios desire as much money as is possible to get from me for as little work as possible.
Okay - here's two possibilities; No piracy. Nobody in Brazil can afford PS2 games. Sony don't sell any PS2s there. Total Brazillian revenue = $0
Piracy; everyone is Brazil can afford PS2 games. Sony waits for component prices to go down to where they make a profit on every console sold, and start selling the console in Brazil. They don't bother to advertise, so sell a single console at $2 profit. The buyer pirates all the games he can, but finds he can't get a pirate copy of "King of the mushroom people" so buys a legit copy giving Sony $2 profit. Total Brazillian revenue = $4.
Their market is Bill Gates, and he makes subtantially more than the average African makes. Average African nation, that is.
But perhaps it's not as bad asss it sounds. They seem to have made decent inroads. The dielel may well just have been an extremely obvious spin-off that in no way distracts from the anti-malaria stuff.
It just needs to appeal to a large enough minority. How popular are train sims? Or even Civ type strategy games? Most gamers really aren't interested, and for perectly legitimate reasons. Some people love them though. And there's a lot less competition at that level. Rather competing with 100 other titles for 90% of the market, you could compete with a handful for 10% of the market. It's a safe investment. Niches can be profitable.
And original games often have a much wider appeal than the games types I mentioned. Everyone loved Lemmings. They liked Pikmin too.
You know why we don't get original games? Because they don't let game designers design them. All the ideas come from studio chiefs or publishers wanting to make the next Doom or Half-life. If you have an original idea what do you do with it? If you work for EA, you'll be ignored. If you work for a small studio, everyone, including the big boss might love it, but nobody's going to publish it.
Slashdot Mirror
The other $1M goes to 'goodwill funds' that will be used for response training and public outreach.
Spend the whole lot on training. Since these gys can't tell the difference between a bomb and An led panel, I'd say they need it.
and there is not always an alternative program that can be used to replace a windows-environment program.
For education purposes there usually is. They'll probably want basic word processing and internet. And while StarOffice may not be the greatest office suite, it's more than adequate. Firefox is certainly a decent application.
Why knowingly? Ignorance is not an excuse;
Why not? If someone clearly doesn't realise something is a crime, and there's no way for them to know, why treat them as though they are evil?
Certainly this appears heavy handed because of the possible punishment, but that's not Microsoft's fault or problem.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Microsoft has the ability to solve this. They have little to gain from this guy going to prison.
When?
They haven't even analysed the evidence yet. Obce they do, they have to decide whether to punish him, and if they do, they have to decide what the punishment should be, and whether his conduct justifies complete remopval of his livelyhood.
Freedom of religion should not be extended to religions that are clearly made up.
Yes it should! Simple because it's not possible to make any disitinction between a real religion and a made up one.
What it should not do is permit religions priviledges. I should be as free to interfere with the running of a religious institution as I am to interfere with the running of Starbucks (Which I can do to an extent, but quite rightly only within certain limits).
Some religion. Despite my being a libertarian, I think the Germans are right on this one. It's not a religion. It's a subversive organization that needs to be monitored by the state because it has been known to use force and criminal behavior to advance its agenda, which is not even remotely religious.
True. But the US constitution doesn't allow the US to determine what is and isn't a religion on a case by case basis. The German constitution clearly isn't so specific.
You know, I think this is the wrong argument. Whether Scientology is a religion or not is beside the point. Some neo-pagan religions have as much legitimacy, but are not nearly as widely criticised.
The problem is, the behaviour of the organisation. They are hostile, and aggressive, known to harrass critics, and also known for complete abuse of the legal system. If any established religion did the things that the scientologists did, this wouldn't mean they aren't a religion. It would still mean they are a dangerous cult.
I'd like to see a few commercial versions of BSD. By all accounts it's quite nice, but installing the last version I tried (FreeBSD, I think) seemed a little more cryptic than I'm used to.
Not likely to happen though. Linux is too much of a brandname for anyone to give up on it, has good hardware support, and Linus is a lot more easy going about this sort of thing than the FSF, so any restrictions on ditribution are not going to apply to the kernel anyway.
Linux is pretty unconcerned about the whole patent thing. Novell can continue to use the kenrel. This is all most people care about.
Virtually all the FSF owned stuff has an alternative. Either commercial, or under a different licence (or possibly simply forked from their current version, if this is a GPL2/3 difference). Novell can use that instead. They also have the resources to develop alternatives. Most of the rest of the distributers really aren't as fanatical about this issue as the FSF. They have other concerns. What if they see it as more convenient to use the same version as Novell? It would make the FSF pretty much redundant. And I suggest that the distributors prefer GPL2. It offers more freedom for them.
They might be able to do this, but it would be something of an own goal.
It's a politicians answer. Don't answer the question. Answer another question that sounds similar
I'm not sure she is a customer though. She seems to be more of a person who absolutely refuses to be a customer. I suspect their free service is seen as advertising. If somene is'nt willing to upgrade for any reason then why bother?
Whenever something is free, I try to work out where the catch is. Nobody will spend money giving away a free email service. Lycos is quite clearly hoping to tempt you into their paid subscription service. Fair enough. They're clearly going to do everything poissible to encourage you to do that. I say good luck to them. I find lycos useful for disposable email addresses, so they're not going to get me to convert. I'm most likely a cost to them. If I'm going ot be a freeloader, the last thing I expect is customer service. They'd prefer to get rid of anyone who obviously isn't going to upgrade.
being an asshole (NOT A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT,
If it's not barred by law, then it's still an inherent right.
I always wonder why companies do this. Why did they partner with Aardman in the first place? Surely it was the British humour that made Chicken Run and the W&G shorts successful.
It's pretty useful for marketting purposes though. You can extend the sales by a worthwhile amount from the free publicity, and the "Academy award winner" on the DVD cover.
Quite a bit actually. Mostly just effects, but IMDB says "The movie contains a considerable amount of CGI of all kinds, from drifting fog through to the bunny rabbits in the Bun-Vac. In all, there are over 700 shots that contain some kind of digital effects work.". But spiritted away had a lot of computer generated backgrounds. This is when CGI is used properly - when you don't really notice it.
How did you manage to misspell Blu-ray seven times in a single post when it's in the story title?
By adding an 'e'
"consistent with an improvised explosive device,"
Hmmm.. now, my understand of an IED is that it's made with components that are easily avaialble. So they were suspicious because these things had easily available components in them. Don't most things?
An extra 5 seconds of ad time used to clarify what the drugs does doesn't sound like a waste of air time to me.
Well, air time is pricey. Your extra 5 seconds have cost the drugs company $20000 every time the ad is shown.
Don't take the comment in the summary too seriously. UK tax law is different. Prizes aren't subject to income tax in the UK.
Oh right. I think I see what you're saying. Because this patent might or might not be used, you disapprove of patents in general, so Microsoft should have all its patents taken away for a completely unrelated reason.
Yeah. So are you suggesting that MS have the intention of preventing their competitors from doing what would appear to be anti-consumer behaviour.
Well, okay. I see how there's an issue of priciple here, but I really can't get all that riled up about MS preventing its essentially non-existent competitors from doing something they don't have any interest in doing, and would hurt me if they did.
Someone at MS comes up with an idea for DRM drivers. MS decides to patent it, because their policy is to patent any patentable invention.
As a result, Microsoft is now going to start charging everyone who ever uses Windows for the right to use drivers, or something. Come off it. There's no indication they're even going to use this, and they're certainly not going to make it mandatory. They could lock out driver developers in all sorts of ways without relying on DRM if they wanted to. They prefer to have a wide selection of competitively priced hardware because they need hardware sales to sell their software.
Sony lost revenue, the publishers lost revenue, the developers lost revenue, and everyone in the distribution chain lost revenue.
No they didn't. The lossess would be the same as if the piracy didn't happen.
Saying otherwise is attempting a semantic argument to justify the desire to have free entertainment.
Who needs to justify this desire? Of course I desire free entertainment. The studios desire as much money as is possible to get from me for as little work as possible.
Okay - here's two possibilities; No piracy. Nobody in Brazil can afford PS2 games. Sony don't sell any PS2s there. Total Brazillian revenue = $0
Piracy; everyone is Brazil can afford PS2 games. Sony waits for component prices to go down to where they make a profit on every console sold, and start selling the console in Brazil. They don't bother to advertise, so sell a single console at $2 profit. The buyer pirates all the games he can, but finds he can't get a pirate copy of "King of the mushroom people" so buys a legit copy giving Sony $2 profit. Total Brazillian revenue = $4.
Also doesn't make business sense.
Their market is Bill Gates, and he makes subtantially more than the average African makes. Average African nation, that is.
But perhaps it's not as bad asss it sounds. They seem to have made decent inroads. The dielel may well just have been an extremely obvious spin-off that in no way distracts from the anti-malaria stuff.
It just needs to appeal to a large enough minority. How popular are train sims? Or even Civ type strategy games? Most gamers really aren't interested, and for perectly legitimate reasons. Some people love them though. And there's a lot less competition at that level. Rather competing with 100 other titles for 90% of the market, you could compete with a handful for 10% of the market. It's a safe investment. Niches can be profitable.
And original games often have a much wider appeal than the games types I mentioned. Everyone loved Lemmings. They liked Pikmin too.
You know why we don't get original games? Because they don't let game designers design them. All the ideas come from studio chiefs or publishers wanting to make the next Doom or Half-life. If you have an original idea what do you do with it? If you work for EA, you'll be ignored. If you work for a small studio, everyone, including the big boss might love it, but nobody's going to publish it.