You're engaging in a contract. Your side is to hand over money, their side is to prove that they are indeed providing the product as described on the box.
If they were unwilling to prove that (especially in the light of the many incidents of pre-packaging factory theft they have) it's easy - there shall be no sale.
Restocking charges are only applicable if the product in the box is exactly what is on the box and you then don't want it. If the product inside the box is NOT as described on the box you're dealing with what could be called fraud and you could offer Best Buy at that point the option of aborting the sale (free of charge) or you call the police as they were about to defraud you.
If it IS the product, well, the reason you're standing at the cash register is to buy it so recharging charges are moot.
You have no obligation to go along with attampted fraud, and the more police visits they get for fraud the more they would have an incentive to fix the problem instead of passing the problem onto customers.
You know, people used to the Unix world often make fun of Windows admins being 1 trick ponies or some such, but they often don't seem to know how much there is outside their comfy bubble -either- it seems, reading various posts under this article.
Maybe it's because:
(a) I know a lot of people who wouldn't consider a Windows box viable for being exposed to the Internet. As a matter of fact, I know quite a few *very* big companies that have that written into their IT policies, and I think there's general a serious lack of confidence in Microsoft's ability to put something safe together. The recent shenanigans with Auto Update provide evidence that that lack of confidence is still not misplaced (not to mention Vista in general).
(b) they don't *need* to use anything else:-)
(c) they appreciate using methods that are based on open, published standards that are platform independent. Their choice of running Windows should not impose that requirement on someone else. VPNs are too cumbersome, and to run a terminal farm just for file delivery is IMHO a little bit OTT, especially compared to the established simplicity of SFTP.
I'm happy to admit I prefer Unix on a server. In terms of setup I think both take as much time (Windows, when done right, is also not a 5 min job), and I can't see why I should sponsor Microsoft if I can invest that money in other, more relevant areas. I have to worry less (no, 'not at all' - less) about security, and I can give developers a copy of the live platform without worries about license costs etc, on a laptop. That's all a lot more work on Windows.
Also, when the going gets tough I would really like a test comparing out-of-memory performance between the platforms. Unix hitting swap feels more responsive, but as I have a preference for Unix I suspect bias in myself and rather see an unrigged, independent comparison. I think MS trying to avoid comparisons in their EULA gives the impression they have something to worry about which is IMHO silly. I'm not even sure that clause is legal in most countries, it's probably lawyers trying it on. Anyway, I digress.
I don't think it's a debate about sysadmins per se - more about what comes by default. You're absolutely right, there are tons of SFTP apps to be had for Windows, even free. The point made is that it would have been little effort to include one.
The OS will also be used to "power" web servers (I use the word with some reservation). SSH would allow users to upload sites with a degree of control instead of cleartext FTP which also discloses passwords.
So maybe you don't use it as a sysadmin, but for external end users I think using SMB is a little bit too much of a risk, and https PUTs won't allow you to upload a whole site or scripts.
I spent years doing technical security, but that eventually turns to box shifting. Sure, there are very clever tools out there, but what good is that going to do my clients if they still leave a laptop ready to be stolen, and use passwords an 8 year old can guess?
And that's again just the technical side. We have a setup which advises on all sorts of security, and doing the anti-kidnap coaching is a serious eye opener for someone who's been living on the command line. It puts it all in perspective (although the driving part is *seriously* cool to do just for the hell of it:-).
IMHO, security is NOT a process (I know this is sacrilege:-). Security is about people, and as long as we don't start from that angle a lot of people will still make a lot of money - but not address the real issue.
I've started coaching CEOs on security, privacy and IT, and that works because it impacts decisions in a positive way. But we've got a little while to go yet..
There is no argument why a mobile phone operator cannot generate this anonymised data and sell it to GPS companies. They know how many cells are in the area and how they move already, so it's more a matter of how to package that data and sell it - this would also be more cost effective than cells having to phone out to report where they are under a separate system - this works anywhere.
Users could then subscribe to a service like the Tomtom Traffic service which works with a quick data call to uptain localised data status - as the user pays for that it's not hard to develop a cost/benefit model for it. At the moment (AFAIK) this service uses traffic reports which - if I go by what my radio tells me - are never quite up to date.
Logically, all the building blocks exist - it's a matter of putting them together and avoiding privacy issues. Given the enormous (and IMHO ill judged) appetite for too much details about individuals I think we're quite a way off yet:-).
Look at the bright side: the rates you're going to get as a service engineer must be astonomical. Danger money, rapidly declining supply of people, scared clients. And you get to sell them new bullets as well.
Even since that Prof in Thailand came up with a guard robot I saw this one coming. OK, Kevlar: check. Helmet: check. Load list: che.. Ah. Maybe I'll wait a while before answering that call. Who came up with fitting this thing with Stingers?
Actually, you gave me an idea. I wonder what the EU standards committee is making of OOXML and especially the shenanigans MS used to totally break the global ISO process - given that they have just been given a massive fine for monopoly position abuse..
AFAIK it's an EU directive of many years ago that everything should go digital.
The only problem was that no government wanted to be the one to tell pensioners to throw away their televisions, so it's been 'phased' in to avoid the political upset..
I do sales - however, I have my own company. And we sell because we listen to the customer, and given them what they need. Not more, not less.
Having said that, the very reason I started on my own was precisely because I was working for a big bucks consultancy and I was forced to choose between committing outright fraud by charging a customer for days I didn't work on their project or taking a hit on the hours I clocked and thus on my salary and job prospects. Such fraud is extremely common and is encouraged by incentive systems which don't appear to do anything but mouth ethics instead of enforcing them.
Given the type of work I was doing ethics were quite important, so in the end I gave up the fight and resigned. I cannot and will not do something that dishonest, and the irony is that clients now want me PRECISELY because I don't, and I earn quite a bit more because of it. Client have problems finding people they can trust, and the level of mistrust of grey amorphous consultancies is rising - more or less proving my point (having said that, I may be picking up skewed statistics because I keep picking up cases where clients go screwed and found out).
I'm straying offtopic here, but if you really want to kick the shins of, say, a bank or a consultancy in Europe you should ask them how many hours staff file on their timesheets. If it looks like a clean 37.5 or 40 hours a week you know that you can get them for falsifying primary records, and they do that to avoid the EU working hours directive. They're all at it..
Back to the topic: not all sales people are dishonest, but it depends VERY much on the incentive model and enforcement of ethics. You have to keep into account human nature. A sales person who doesn't have a drive to sell is useless, but you have to reign in the nature of the beast.
We've hit a core question here. If fails, restart and probe properly, if not, leave well alone (IMHO).
I give away my age here, but when the Apple ][ got its first disk drives the floppies as well as the mechanisms were dead unreliable, not helped by us punching a hole in the floppy and using the unverified side which made it worse. However, in half a year or so, clone drives came out (yes, I kid you not, CLONES. Apple clones!) which were a lot better apart from where we could resist the temptation to use the wrong sides of floppies. A good friend of me then produced a much faster disk OS by simply reducing the waitstates and repeat readings - whihc was OK due to improved hardware. The same happened with TCP/IP - originally that happened over unreliable modems.
I can't recall the time when a piece of hardware failed on me other than when I tipped over an external USB drive (duh) so it's at leats in my case an exception rather than rule. So my position is that we should get a little bit realistic about just how good the kit is we use these days. Even laptops are much better - and by leaving a fallback algorithm in place (it failed so do it again the slow way) it ought to be possible to get rid of 50% of the bootup time. Zap Windows and kill services you don't need (and again those probes) and you'll get probably rid of another 30% or so. That was also the main advatnateg of a static kernel - it knew what was around. Sure, the modular approach is much better and flexible, but why not build the kernel module structure on first boot (maybe with a BIOS checksum as trigger?) and then make that a sort of 'hibernated' kernel from which you restart?
All desktop, of course. A server needs to probe properly (IMHO).
My main bone of contention with the bootup checks is that they test for somethign new where 99% of the time such 'new' doesn't exist. Once a box is stable, all that will go in and out is USB devices and the odd CD or DVD, so it would immensely speed things up if we could register the device status somewhere and thus get rid of all this useless probing.
We're running machines that are clocked in the GHz, yet bootup is still no faster than an ancient 80386 at 25MHz - despite Linux BIOS demonstrations that were so fast to come online they had to slow it down because the hard disks hadn't quite spun up yet.
When we get to the OS, the same observation applies. There too are wait states which only exist because of the default assumption of change. Why not give the user the option to lock that state so you don't have to probe for it other than (as said) USB, DVD and maybe a new DHCP lease? That was what suspend is trying to do as well, but that is made more complex by the need to come out of it and (again) check if something has changed other than time..
About the only time you'd need to trigger a full check is unplanned shutdown because such a drop may have caused damage. Just my 2 cents, of course. I haven't designed hardware or coded in a good 2 decades now so I may be a little bit rusty:-).
This makes me even more worried about cell phone radiation - that does heat up as well.
Why can't we invent something that is good for you? Oh, wait, Guinness. OK then.
I agree with one writer - do you really need to open the skull for that or can you just generally cool the blood? Or is that not localised enough? As long as it helps I think it doesn't matter - I'm pretty positive that those that suffer this will be ready to do about anything to control the problem, I know I would.
I got that FON adaptor with a Skype phone, and it took me all of 30 seconds to decide not to install it.
Given the current security climate I'm really not going to give someone a chance to (a) identify where I live and if I'm around (look at their status info on the web - having an access point means you've got kit to steal) and (b) to put a remote controlled listening device on my traffic. The FON adaptor is a small Linux box, and I don't know what it does. Worse, someone else controls it and can flash the thing at any time.
Nope. Not interested in contributing to an 802.11 version of Echelon:-).
Obligatory jokes about 'taking the piss' aside, that is brilliant. It's the ultimate 'machine that does ping' (to name an old sketch) to keep management amused, but also provides real data. I bet that screen will go ballistic when you get Slashdotted (also a good way to visualise DDoS, maybe?).
I was about to say that it's a sort of etherape on steroids, but I've just realised your visualisation could benefit etherape instead (if you don't know etherape, look it up. No tools identifies a virus infection quicker).
t should be high on the list of any company operating in any country in the world to ensure that they comply with the local laws
Well, yes, but you're talking about Microsoft here. They're trying to BE the law, I guess that's the only way to overcome the tiny problem of being a multiple times convicted monopoly.. I'm waiting for a sign that MyEthics has made it out of alpha there, but there seem to be serious interoperability issues with the rest of Microsoft..
cuador and Venezuela embracing Linux dont make their governments any less corrupt or self-serving.
Yes, but it's annoying for MS regardless - such corrupt Governments and STILL no way to buy themselves in. That's quite an example for the OOXML ISO process, no?:-)
Sorry, I have no backing for that number (I picked it up during a presentation on this very topic and I have had what these guys made in my hand - it's stunningly good and intelligent work).
However, I suspect part of this simply stems from malnutrition - eyesight seems to get hit pretty quickly when there are issues about food and drinking water quality.
I do agree with many observers who say they should have better facilities instead of an XO, but I also think that's limited thinking. Who is going to teach how to do this themselves? You need both basics installed and the education to keep it going and build on such a foundation. Even if just a couple of people had an elevated understanding of the basics you would start to turn this human misery towards a the beginning of a solution (we're a looong way off yet). Just helping them isn't a long term solution - that's creating a dependency again. Helping them to help themselves is what we should be aiming for - they have a right to set their own live as much as we have.
This is why I am very impressed and very supported by the XO project. It goes miles beyond just being a new geeky toy - I have the deepest respect for the breadth of the thinking behind it.
As this is Slashdot, an obligatory message (just to annoy some people:-): THIS is innovation. Contrasts rather seriously with what Microsoft has been flogging you so far, no?:-)
---
New thinking, we need new thinking! The old thinking has run out!
The manufacturing costs of those glasses is complete peanuts which is why I want to set something up where they can be bought in volume. Bear with me, I'm working on it although the supplier is probably also cooking up new ways to bring them to market.
Where you're wrong is that you consider the law the thing to fight. I can see that becoming a necessity in the US where you're currently only a democracy in name, not in deed (there is a large amount of irony in trying to force 'democracy' on Iraq, for instance, without a prior vote, but I digress).
Laws are the glue of society, but it has become apparent that in the US there is this strange impression that people have rights, but no obligations. It doesn't work that way, and copyright law is a nice example of that. The timed monopoly was given to allow an artist to profit from their work. What the RIAA et al have tried their best to bury is that there was a reason for such a granted monopoly to have an expiry date: the greater good should be allowed to benefit from this contribution. All we have now is the right, not the obligation to support the greater good afterwards.
What you're asking for is anarchy. Where do you stop if you start ignoring one law? Why not all? Why drive on the right? Why can't I kill that guy that just cut me up on the highway? Who says I have to pay for something I take from the shop? Laws aren't just there to annoy you - they also make society possible. Without laws you wouldn't be able to take a food supplier to task for adding chemicals to the food (sorry, wrong example, you still have Monsanto). There are also laws to stop people abusing the law, but since you allow Bush to exempt himself from so many you have set the scene for HUGE problems. Explain to me why you indict a man for lying about a blowjob, but not one for taking the whole nation to a war and to destroy any standing and trust you had in the world, on information he KNEW to be false. If it wasn't for people like Randy Pausch showing the better side of the US nature (and there is, despite Washington doing their best to obscure it) many would have given up hope.
However, I think we agree on something as well - democracy is really about deciding together. If copyright law is no longer working for the voting majority then there MUST be discussion about change, something that is slowly starting to penetrate teh thick skulls in Washington (you're voters, remember). I just don't think that behaving like a thief without any morals gives you any credibility. Those who are taking the RIAA to task do the right thing - they follow the agreed rules. The RIAA has the problem that they haven't - and they'll pay for that eventually, but it takes a lot of people to make it happen.
The Xmas "Buy No Music day" is IMHO a good idea to send a signal to both politicians and the RIAA members. The politicians see something they can win votes on, the RIAA members will know they're on thin ice and it hurts them where it counts: shareholder wallets.
However, although the RIAA needs some very clear signals, it would IMHO be foolish to do it in a method that would allow them to neutralise you by sticking you in prison.
Slashdot Mirror
You're engaging in a contract. Your side is to hand over money, their side is to prove that they are indeed providing the product as described on the box.
If they were unwilling to prove that (especially in the light of the many incidents of pre-packaging factory theft they have) it's easy - there shall be no sale.
Restocking charges are only applicable if the product in the box is exactly what is on the box and you then don't want it. If the product inside the box is NOT as described on the box you're dealing with what could be called fraud and you could offer Best Buy at that point the option of aborting the sale (free of charge) or you call the police as they were about to defraud you.
If it IS the product, well, the reason you're standing at the cash register is to buy it so recharging charges are moot.
You have no obligation to go along with attampted fraud, and the more police visits they get for fraud the more they would have an incentive to fix the problem instead of passing the problem onto customers.
Alternatively - Best NOT Buy HERE. Easy..
Hokayy. Let me play devil's advocate here..
:-)
You know, people used to the Unix world often make fun of Windows admins being 1 trick ponies or some such, but they often don't seem to know how much there is outside their comfy bubble -either- it seems, reading various posts under this article.
Maybe it's because:
(a) I know a lot of people who wouldn't consider a Windows box viable for being exposed to the Internet. As a matter of fact, I know quite a few *very* big companies that have that written into their IT policies, and I think there's general a serious lack of confidence in Microsoft's ability to put something safe together. The recent shenanigans with Auto Update provide evidence that that lack of confidence is still not misplaced (not to mention Vista in general).
(b) they don't *need* to use anything else
(c) they appreciate using methods that are based on open, published standards that are platform independent. Their choice of running Windows should not impose that requirement on someone else. VPNs are too cumbersome, and to run a terminal farm just for file delivery is IMHO a little bit OTT, especially compared to the established simplicity of SFTP.
I'm happy to admit I prefer Unix on a server. In terms of setup I think both take as much time (Windows, when done right, is also not a 5 min job), and I can't see why I should sponsor Microsoft if I can invest that money in other, more relevant areas. I have to worry less (no, 'not at all' - less) about security, and I can give developers a copy of the live platform without worries about license costs etc, on a laptop. That's all a lot more work on Windows.
Also, when the going gets tough I would really like a test comparing out-of-memory performance between the platforms. Unix hitting swap feels more responsive, but as I have a preference for Unix I suspect bias in myself and rather see an unrigged, independent comparison. I think MS trying to avoid comparisons in their EULA gives the impression they have something to worry about which is IMHO silly. I'm not even sure that clause is legal in most countries, it's probably lawyers trying it on. Anyway, I digress.
I don't think it's a debate about sysadmins per se - more about what comes by default. You're absolutely right, there are tons of SFTP apps to be had for Windows, even free. The point made is that it would have been little effort to include one.
The OS will also be used to "power" web servers (I use the word with some reservation). SSH would allow users to upload sites with a degree of control instead of cleartext FTP which also discloses passwords.
So maybe you don't use it as a sysadmin, but for external end users I think using SMB is a little bit too much of a risk, and https PUTs won't allow you to upload a whole site or scripts.
It's not a stable form of energy, it'll give you fairly dirty spikes and sudden but short peaks. And don't even get me started about brownouts..
:-).
Sorry, couldn't help myself, which is an unintentional pun in itself
I spent years doing technical security, but that eventually turns to box shifting. Sure, there are very clever tools out there, but what good is that going to do my clients if they still leave a laptop ready to be stolen, and use passwords an 8 year old can guess?
:-).
:-). Security is about people, and as long as we don't start from that angle a lot of people will still make a lot of money - but not address the real issue.
And that's again just the technical side. We have a setup which advises on all sorts of security, and doing the anti-kidnap coaching is a serious eye opener for someone who's been living on the command line. It puts it all in perspective (although the driving part is *seriously* cool to do just for the hell of it
IMHO, security is NOT a process (I know this is sacrilege
I've started coaching CEOs on security, privacy and IT, and that works because it impacts decisions in a positive way. But we've got a little while to go yet..
If I recall correctly they had a little problem a while back.
:-)
Maybe that's why they're diversifying, and I would presume they'll continue to work with Ford - they're in good company then
It's one of many ..
There is no argument why a mobile phone operator cannot generate this anonymised data and sell it to GPS companies. They know how many cells are in the area and how they move already, so it's more a matter of how to package that data and sell it - this would also be more cost effective than cells having to phone out to report where they are under a separate system - this works anywhere.
:-).
Users could then subscribe to a service like the Tomtom Traffic service which works with a quick data call to uptain localised data status - as the user pays for that it's not hard to develop a cost/benefit model for it. At the moment (AFAIK) this service uses traffic reports which - if I go by what my radio tells me - are never quite up to date.
Logically, all the building blocks exist - it's a matter of putting them together and avoiding privacy issues. Given the enormous (and IMHO ill judged) appetite for too much details about individuals I think we're quite a way off yet
It's quite helpful to watch as a primer/refresher: the wonderful animation about Trusted Computing. Simple, good, understandable.
Look at the bright side: the rates you're going to get as a service engineer must be astonomical. Danger money, rapidly declining supply of people, scared clients. And you get to sell them new bullets as well.
Even since that Prof in Thailand came up with a guard robot I saw this one coming. OK, Kevlar: check. Helmet: check. Load list: che.. Ah. Maybe I'll wait a while before answering that call. Who came up with fitting this thing with Stingers?
"cock-a-mamie" - that's from eons back :-).
Actually, you gave me an idea. I wonder what the EU standards committee is making of OOXML and especially the shenanigans MS used to totally break the global ISO process - given that they have just been given a massive fine for monopoly position abuse..
AFAIK it's an EU directive of many years ago that everything should go digital.
The only problem was that no government wanted to be the one to tell pensioners to throw away their televisions, so it's been 'phased' in to avoid the political upset..
I do sales - however, I have my own company. And we sell because we listen to the customer, and given them what they need. Not more, not less.
Having said that, the very reason I started on my own was precisely because I was working for a big bucks consultancy and I was forced to choose between committing outright fraud by charging a customer for days I didn't work on their project or taking a hit on the hours I clocked and thus on my salary and job prospects. Such fraud is extremely common and is encouraged by incentive systems which don't appear to do anything but mouth ethics instead of enforcing them.
Given the type of work I was doing ethics were quite important, so in the end I gave up the fight and resigned. I cannot and will not do something that dishonest, and the irony is that clients now want me PRECISELY because I don't, and I earn quite a bit more because of it. Client have problems finding people they can trust, and the level of mistrust of grey amorphous consultancies is rising - more or less proving my point (having said that, I may be picking up skewed statistics because I keep picking up cases where clients go screwed and found out).
I'm straying offtopic here, but if you really want to kick the shins of, say, a bank or a consultancy in Europe you should ask them how many hours staff file on their timesheets. If it looks like a clean 37.5 or 40 hours a week you know that you can get them for falsifying primary records, and they do that to avoid the EU working hours directive. They're all at it..
Back to the topic: not all sales people are dishonest, but it depends VERY much on the incentive model and enforcement of ethics. You have to keep into account human nature. A sales person who doesn't have a drive to sell is useless, but you have to reign in the nature of the beast.
And be WILLING to do that..
We've hit a core question here. If fails, restart and probe properly, if not, leave well alone (IMHO).
I give away my age here, but when the Apple ][ got its first disk drives the floppies as well as the mechanisms were dead unreliable, not helped by us punching a hole in the floppy and using the unverified side which made it worse. However, in half a year or so, clone drives came out (yes, I kid you not, CLONES. Apple clones!) which were a lot better apart from where we could resist the temptation to use the wrong sides of floppies. A good friend of me then produced a much faster disk OS by simply reducing the waitstates and repeat readings - whihc was OK due to improved hardware. The same happened with TCP/IP - originally that happened over unreliable modems.
I can't recall the time when a piece of hardware failed on me other than when I tipped over an external USB drive (duh) so it's at leats in my case an exception rather than rule. So my position is that we should get a little bit realistic about just how good the kit is we use these days. Even laptops are much better - and by leaving a fallback algorithm in place (it failed so do it again the slow way) it ought to be possible to get rid of 50% of the bootup time. Zap Windows and kill services you don't need (and again those probes) and you'll get probably rid of another 30% or so. That was also the main advatnateg of a static kernel - it knew what was around. Sure, the modular approach is much better and flexible, but why not build the kernel module structure on first boot (maybe with a BIOS checksum as trigger?) and then make that a sort of 'hibernated' kernel from which you restart?
All desktop, of course. A server needs to probe properly (IMHO).
.. because you'll be in jail for that time.
I hope you realise that's more than 2 Paris Hiltons, or do we measure it in Nicole Ritchies these days?
Sorry, missed the switch to metric..
My main bone of contention with the bootup checks is that they test for somethign new where 99% of the time such 'new' doesn't exist. Once a box is stable, all that will go in and out is USB devices and the odd CD or DVD, so it would immensely speed things up if we could register the device status somewhere and thus get rid of all this useless probing.
:-).
We're running machines that are clocked in the GHz, yet bootup is still no faster than an ancient 80386 at 25MHz - despite Linux BIOS demonstrations that were so fast to come online they had to slow it down because the hard disks hadn't quite spun up yet.
When we get to the OS, the same observation applies. There too are wait states which only exist because of the default assumption of change. Why not give the user the option to lock that state so you don't have to probe for it other than (as said) USB, DVD and maybe a new DHCP lease? That was what suspend is trying to do as well, but that is made more complex by the need to come out of it and (again) check if something has changed other than time..
About the only time you'd need to trigger a full check is unplanned shutdown because such a drop may have caused damage. Just my 2 cents, of course. I haven't designed hardware or coded in a good 2 decades now so I may be a little bit rusty
This makes me even more worried about cell phone radiation - that does heat up as well.
Why can't we invent something that is good for you? Oh, wait, Guinness. OK then.
I agree with one writer - do you really need to open the skull for that or can you just generally cool the blood? Or is that not localised enough? As long as it helps I think it doesn't matter - I'm pretty positive that those that suffer this will be ready to do about anything to control the problem, I know I would.
I got that FON adaptor with a Skype phone, and it took me all of 30 seconds to decide not to install it.
:-).
Given the current security climate I'm really not going to give someone a chance to (a) identify where I live and if I'm around (look at their status info on the web - having an access point means you've got kit to steal) and (b) to put a remote controlled listening device on my traffic. The FON adaptor is a small Linux box, and I don't know what it does. Worse, someone else controls it and can flash the thing at any time.
Nope. Not interested in contributing to an 802.11 version of Echelon
Obligatory jokes about 'taking the piss' aside, that is brilliant. It's the ultimate 'machine that does ping' (to name an old sketch) to keep management amused, but also provides real data. I bet that screen will go ballistic when you get Slashdotted (also a good way to visualise DDoS, maybe?).
I was about to say that it's a sort of etherape on steroids, but I've just realised your visualisation could benefit etherape instead (if you don't know etherape, look it up. No tools identifies a virus infection quicker).
Class, I'm impressed.
Maybe the fact that they don't supply any helmets with the thing is a hint :-).
Sorry, too much caffeine..
t should be high on the list of any company operating in any country in the world to ensure that they comply with the local laws
Well, yes, but you're talking about Microsoft here. They're trying to BE the law, I guess that's the only way to overcome the tiny problem of being a multiple times convicted monopoly.. I'm waiting for a sign that MyEthics has made it out of alpha there, but there seem to be serious interoperability issues with the rest of Microsoft..
cuador and Venezuela embracing Linux dont make their governments any less corrupt or self-serving.
:-)
Yes, but it's annoying for MS regardless - such corrupt Governments and STILL no way to buy themselves in. That's quite an example for the OOXML ISO process, no?
Sorry, I have no backing for that number (I picked it up during a presentation on this very topic and I have had what these guys made in my hand - it's stunningly good and intelligent work).
:-): THIS is innovation. Contrasts rather seriously with what Microsoft has been flogging you so far, no? :-)
However, I suspect part of this simply stems from malnutrition - eyesight seems to get hit pretty quickly when there are issues about food and drinking water quality.
I do agree with many observers who say they should have better facilities instead of an XO, but I also think that's limited thinking. Who is going to teach how to do this themselves? You need both basics installed and the education to keep it going and build on such a foundation. Even if just a couple of people had an elevated understanding of the basics you would start to turn this human misery towards a the beginning of a solution (we're a looong way off yet). Just helping them isn't a long term solution - that's creating a dependency again. Helping them to help themselves is what we should be aiming for - they have a right to set their own live as much as we have.
This is why I am very impressed and very supported by the XO project. It goes miles beyond just being a new geeky toy - I have the deepest respect for the breadth of the thinking behind it.
As this is Slashdot, an obligatory message (just to annoy some people
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New thinking, we need new thinking! The old thinking has run out!
The manufacturing costs of those glasses is complete peanuts which is why I want to set something up where they can be bought in volume. Bear with me, I'm working on it although the supplier is probably also cooking up new ways to bring them to market.
Where you're wrong is that you consider the law the thing to fight. I can see that becoming a necessity in the US where you're currently only a democracy in name, not in deed (there is a large amount of irony in trying to force 'democracy' on Iraq, for instance, without a prior vote, but I digress).
Laws are the glue of society, but it has become apparent that in the US there is this strange impression that people have rights, but no obligations. It doesn't work that way, and copyright law is a nice example of that. The timed monopoly was given to allow an artist to profit from their work. What the RIAA et al have tried their best to bury is that there was a reason for such a granted monopoly to have an expiry date: the greater good should be allowed to benefit from this contribution. All we have now is the right, not the obligation to support the greater good afterwards.
What you're asking for is anarchy. Where do you stop if you start ignoring one law? Why not all? Why drive on the right? Why can't I kill that guy that just cut me up on the highway? Who says I have to pay for something I take from the shop? Laws aren't just there to annoy you - they also make society possible. Without laws you wouldn't be able to take a food supplier to task for adding chemicals to the food (sorry, wrong example, you still have Monsanto). There are also laws to stop people abusing the law, but since you allow Bush to exempt himself from so many you have set the scene for HUGE problems. Explain to me why you indict a man for lying about a blowjob, but not one for taking the whole nation to a war and to destroy any standing and trust you had in the world, on information he KNEW to be false. If it wasn't for people like Randy Pausch showing the better side of the US nature (and there is, despite Washington doing their best to obscure it) many would have given up hope.
However, I think we agree on something as well - democracy is really about deciding together. If copyright law is no longer working for the voting majority then there MUST be discussion about change, something that is slowly starting to penetrate teh thick skulls in Washington (you're voters, remember). I just don't think that behaving like a thief without any morals gives you any credibility. Those who are taking the RIAA to task do the right thing - they follow the agreed rules. The RIAA has the problem that they haven't - and they'll pay for that eventually, but it takes a lot of people to make it happen.
The Xmas "Buy No Music day" is IMHO a good idea to send a signal to both politicians and the RIAA members. The politicians see something they can win votes on, the RIAA members will know they're on thin ice and it hurts them where it counts: shareholder wallets.
However, although the RIAA needs some very clear signals, it would IMHO be foolish to do it in a method that would allow them to neutralise you by sticking you in prison.
Just IMHO, of course..