Intellectual property rights are only put in place to encourage the creation of new creations, not to form an exclusive monopoly for the life of a corporation which in fact discourages and prevents the progress of science and useful arts.
That used to be what copyright and patents were for. Now, they are intellectual "property." Even the name belies the modern day purpose: to ensure the near perpetual private ownership of an idea of work of art.
I mean, the Linux community has been bitching about this too. It sounds like an Nvidia Optimus laptop. The fact of the matter is that Nvidia is the villian in this story, not Linux. Search around a bit (hint: maybe Linus has a thing or two to say).
Two weeks ago, it would have been "yeah, like the NSA is just amassing all of our search and call records." But, since we (the "conspiracy theorists") were right, it's time to change to some new objection. Well, I can't hit a moving target. You are 100% right, that will probably never happen. But, it could. And, there are literally an unbounded number of doomsday scenarios.
It is far more likely that in the future this data will be used to round up even more "criminals" (and, of course, you'll mentally tell yourself that you don't do anything bad enough to get that kind of attention, and that is exactly the problem with trying to argue with you and your lot, but I digress). All the government has to do is declare war on something that you do (or, even worse, have done). Sure, you can't be prosecuted ex post facto, but you can be prosecuted under any of a number of increasingly vague laws that will have already been long in place.
Or, whatever, we can just keep rolling the dice and watching American Idol content with the fact that the lives damaged by the US "justice" system are collateral damage and part of living in safe society. We can continue to lose our grip on freedom of speech, though, assembly and the press. We can continue to give up our privacy for ill-defined threats and wars on concepts. We can keep on keeping on, ever praying that they don't come for us, if that's what kind of dude you are.
Shouldn't the unlocked multiplier version be a primium product? This is annecessary step backwards. I think most people who are interested in a K-series would be more willing to pay a premium. Who in their right mind would EVER give up VT-d for an unlocked multiplier? Maybe they just want to kill the tradition once and for all.
Come on/., we can't mod up such a blatant misunderstanding of a technical issue.
Since it's algorithmic filtering, we are all being tracked, just not in a personal, hands on way. Plus, if the data is retained, hey can examine your life with increasing levels of detail in the future. Building a huge database of all this data is even WORSE than tracking, because it enables all sorts of later analysis with increasingly powerful computers and increasingly sophisticated algorithms.
Most people fear things that are very unlikely to happen: -Death from terrorism -Death from oppressive government
No one fears death from oppresive government. We fear loss of quality of life and God given liberties at the hands of an oppressive government, something which is highly likely to happen. If anything, the American experiment is the abberation and living under government oppression is the norm. Regardless, it looks like the American experiment is failing, and we'll be just like every other country (if we already aren't) where the government decides what you can say, where you can assemble and what the press dictates, and gives you no right to privacy.
I know that these are your specific complaints against Windows, and that's fine, but I am going to piggyback on this to talk more generally since most of your complaints are fairly generic or can be generalized.
1. Windows has a terrible interface, both Windows 7 and 8 have ugly, inflexible displays.
"ugly" is in the eye of the beholder - frankly, I find KDE and Gnome to be ugly (especially the font rendering... shit, it's 2013, can't you figure out how to render fonts yet?)
Last I knew, the font rendering thing was a patent problem. Apple and MS have a bunch of patents and they license them to each other. This is almost certainly an oversimplification on my part.
As far as flexibility, Windows is a lot more flexible that any Linux I've tried when it comes to multi-monitor setups without me having to muck with configs. And my settings don't randomly get lost.
This has not been my experience, but YMMV.
4. Malware and adware is thick on Windows.
Windows 7 has made tremendous strides forward when it comes to security. I'm no Microsoft apologist, but when they try to improve things three things bite them in the ass: (a) backwards compatibility (aka "my Windows 95 program can't do X! Why doesn't it work, stupid Microsoft!"); (b) users who insist on running with elevated privileges. (c) complaints when good stuff gets implemented (such as PatchGuard, which antivirus vendors went crazy about).
Up until now, Microsoft Security Essentials would auto-update. Now, if you don't agree to left microsoft install software at will (if you don't choose "install updates automatically"), MSE will not update its definitions without user interaction. This is a step backwards.
5. Windows doesn't come bundled with common tools I use, such as a compiler, OpenSSH, productivity suite, etc.
And cars don't come bundled with gasoline. And houses don't come bundled with furniture. And groceries don't come bundled with chefs.
You are seriously complaining because Windows doesn't come bundled with stuff? And wasn't bundling stuff what got Microsoft into trouble before?
It's an Operating System, which means user space apps and kernel. Windows has very few user space apps and the ones that are bundled are most likely viewed as strategic, rather than practical for the user. To add insult to injury, Windows is very expensive.
10. Windows lacks a good, advanced file system like ZFS.
NTFS is a pretty decent filesystem. It doesn't have flashy features and it's not hip, but it gets the job done, it's reliable and you know what... those are the two primary considerations for a filesystem. At least for most people.
Emphasis mine.
11. Windows has poor driver support, requiring hardware be bundled with driver discs that take a long time to load and include apps that nag the user.
You're joking, right? Windows hardware support is excellent and it comes bundled with not only a boatload of drivers, but offers a way of automatically downloading and installing drivers for new devices. Don't blame Windows if some vendors don't want to allow Microsoft to ship drivers, or if their hardware requires a super-special driver to set a hardware register to the length of the lead hardware engineers penis before it will work. As for the driver discs, you'll find that they almost always bundled with crap - the vendor's "custom" scan toolkit, a copy of Acrobat, a manual in PDF form, etc.
The "don't blame the OS, it's the vendor's fault" argument never seems to enchant when its used to defend GNU/Linux (in fairness, why should it; it doesn't enchant here either).
Fortunately, we live in a time when we can just flout the unconstitutional and undemocratic copyright laws. The sad part (and this is also to the big corporations boon) is that it actually hurts the little guy who wants copyright protection. The average pirate doesn't see the difference between pirating a 50 year old Beatles record (copyright held by God knows who anymore, the estate of Michael Jackson?) and a brand spanking new one, because, legally, there is no difference.
I, too, am a phone thrower. I have been super impressed with the durability of my iphone in the $30 apple bumper (that is not sarcasm, but $30 is ridiculous). I have absolutely throttled the thing at the ground more than once. I will stop doing that from now on. Promise! But, I digress.
The onscreen keyboard is fine... in landscape mode. In portait mode, it makes me want to murder people. You have to be like 4 years old to use a keyboard that size. I haven't owned a phone with a physical portait keyboard in like 8 years (the venerable Moto Q), and I wouldn't buy one these days. How hard would it be to ALWAYS let me use the landscape onscreen keyboard? I'd even choose it if the app didn't rotate and I had to read sideways. Using the portrait keyboard is that bad.
Also, I might actually like the portrait keyboard if I had swype (yes, I like swype). I had iSwype installed for a while (an unofficial swipe clone for iOS), but it had a few bugs which I couldn't get over (and swype is pretty limited without some learning capability which iSwype doesn't have).
20 years is the blink of an eye. Time remains to see what the result will be. I will say this: if you have no leverage, you really will be fucked if there ever is a war.
I will, however, counter your argument as simply as it ever could be by pointing out that regardless of how many rifles, handguns, etc. you own, you will never be able to defeat a military that has the ability to wipe you off of the face of the earth with a few keystrokes.
That's a pretty bold statement. Just because you hear people say it a lot doesn't make it true. The world has a long history of the little guy winning in wars. No weapon trumps manpower. Evenmoreso, because a weapon can be used by whoever holds it. It supposes that in a hypothetical revolution the revolutionaries would not be able to subvert the military in many cases. We live in a tenous balance and it benefits both the people and the powers that be that we don't war. I mean we see neckbeards and teenagers hacking into major security companies. The fact of the matter is, a weapon is a weapon, and in a war, it doesn't matter who "owns" it. All that matters is who actually possess it at that moment.
This is simply about personal empowerment -- the ability to shoot at those who 'threaten' you, the comfort that 'if you had to' you could take the life of another human being. It's thinly-veiled psychopathy that becomes blatant once you actually kill somebody.
So basically evey human society until modern times was basically populated with psychopaths? Right. You're right. You're so right, you're more right than basically the entirety of human history. You'll have to let me know how it feels sometime.
I love this guy. Americans have long held fast to one truth (which I wholeheartedly believe in):
Freedom is not free.
It's not only a piece of war propaganda, but one of the very founding principles of our great (once greatest) nation. There is a cost to freedom. The world is going digital: and that means cyberwarfare and hacking and all sorts of nefarious things. And, I know some security people who like to ask "How will we solve this?" The answer is the same as it always has been: with the sword. We are a country that believes (at least on paper) that power can only be granted by the people. So, having an armed populace makes sense.
And, I'll finish it off. I wholeheartedly believe that NRA line: the world would be safer if more good people packed heat. But, the real problem is this: our government cannot be trusted. They fuck us over and over. In my 30 years I have NEVER been rewarded for trusting my government. I have no problem with gun control in theory. But, I don't trust the government. They are constantly reneging and changing the rules. If I can't trust my government, I want my guns. Period. And, I trust my fellow countrymen a lot more than I do my government (who has been turing police against us my entire life). That's all there is to it. I want the people around me to have guns.
Have you found windows to crash often? I haven't. Not 8, not 7 and not XP (at least less than ubuntu in XPs case). I really dislike windows and I don't use it (I use Ubuntu), but one thing windows users seem to be missing is the crashstravaganza that is ubuntu/unity/compiz. Oh, you've got like several tasks going, because you know, computers? Let's just crash compiz or completely lock up. LOL. Now spend the next hour saving everything, rebooting and opening everyhing back up. Awesome!
I like tinkering with my PC, but I don't want to have to tinker with every device I buy.
Tell me about it. I've had the Nook Simple Touch for a year and a half, and while it's rooted, I've never really gotten most of the cool hacks you see online to work (e.g. multi-touch). It's like if you want to spend a weekend on it without doing anything else, sure, you'll probably get it to work. Then I think about how much I make at work, and how much I could get paid just working a weekend. Then I could buy the most expensive e-reader in the world and still have money for ice cream.
I say unregulate civilian drones, and BAN military and government drones.
-Hack
Why can't we both have drones? Rules and regulations that are proper for civilians are also proper to place upon police (since they are also civilians). Same goes for all weapons bans. We're taking away the citizenry's constitutional (that is to say natual, God-granted) right to own useful weaponry and arming our police forces to the teeth so they can shoot our compatriots' dogs and seize their property. I don't want American exceptionalism to be another failed experiment and in 100 years the world is back to having NO government where the people come first (you might argue that that's already where we are).
That's pretty much how I read it. Eric Schmidt is already the worst person in tech. He is one of the greatest threats to the American way of life, traditionally rooted in the idea that humans have many natural rights, not the least of which is privacy. He also seems to be a very real threat to the already well eroded foundation that government power is granted only by the people. I seriously hope he chokes to death, and I mean that.
Slashdot Mirror
Intellectual property rights are only put in place to encourage the creation of new creations, not to form an exclusive monopoly for the life of a corporation which in fact discourages and prevents the progress of science and useful arts.
That used to be what copyright and patents were for. Now, they are intellectual "property." Even the name belies the modern day purpose: to ensure the near perpetual private ownership of an idea of work of art.
I mean, the Linux community has been bitching about this too. It sounds like an Nvidia Optimus laptop. The fact of the matter is that Nvidia is the villian in this story, not Linux. Search around a bit (hint: maybe Linus has a thing or two to say).
Oh. I am totally confusing VT-x for VT-d.
As an engineer, I use virtualization constantly. My workstation at work runs linux and has a Windows 8 VM running 90% of the time.
The government is inefficient. That's why, in the US, we've privitized our spying apparatus!
Two weeks ago, it would have been "yeah, like the NSA is just amassing all of our search and call records." But, since we (the "conspiracy theorists") were right, it's time to change to some new objection. Well, I can't hit a moving target. You are 100% right, that will probably never happen. But, it could. And, there are literally an unbounded number of doomsday scenarios.
It is far more likely that in the future this data will be used to round up even more "criminals" (and, of course, you'll mentally tell yourself that you don't do anything bad enough to get that kind of attention, and that is exactly the problem with trying to argue with you and your lot, but I digress). All the government has to do is declare war on something that you do (or, even worse, have done). Sure, you can't be prosecuted ex post facto, but you can be prosecuted under any of a number of increasingly vague laws that will have already been long in place.
Or, whatever, we can just keep rolling the dice and watching American Idol content with the fact that the lives damaged by the US "justice" system are collateral damage and part of living in safe society. We can continue to lose our grip on freedom of speech, though, assembly and the press. We can continue to give up our privacy for ill-defined threats and wars on concepts. We can keep on keeping on, ever praying that they don't come for us, if that's what kind of dude you are.
Guh. Premium, not primium! And annecessary = unnecessary. I suck.
Shouldn't the unlocked multiplier version be a primium product? This is annecessary step backwards. I think most people who are interested in a K-series would be more willing to pay a premium. Who in their right mind would EVER give up VT-d for an unlocked multiplier? Maybe they just want to kill the tradition once and for all.
Come on /., we can't mod up such a blatant misunderstanding of a technical issue.
Since it's algorithmic filtering, we are all being tracked, just not in a personal, hands on way. Plus, if the data is retained, hey can examine your life with increasing levels of detail in the future. Building a huge database of all this data is even WORSE than tracking, because it enables all sorts of later analysis with increasingly powerful computers and increasingly sophisticated algorithms.
Most people fear things that are very unlikely to happen:
-Death from terrorism
-Death from oppressive government
No one fears death from oppresive government. We fear loss of quality of life and God given liberties at the hands of an oppressive government, something which is highly likely to happen. If anything, the American experiment is the abberation and living under government oppression is the norm. Regardless, it looks like the American experiment is failing, and we'll be just like every other country (if we already aren't) where the government decides what you can say, where you can assemble and what the press dictates, and gives you no right to privacy.
I know that these are your specific complaints against Windows, and that's fine, but I am going to piggyback on this to talk more generally since most of your complaints are fairly generic or can be generalized.
"ugly" is in the eye of the beholder - frankly, I find KDE and Gnome to be ugly (especially the font rendering... shit, it's 2013, can't you figure out how to render fonts yet?)
Last I knew, the font rendering thing was a patent problem. Apple and MS have a bunch of patents and they license them to each other. This is almost certainly an oversimplification on my part.
As far as flexibility, Windows is a lot more flexible that any Linux I've tried when it comes to multi-monitor setups without me having to muck with configs. And my settings don't randomly get lost.
This has not been my experience, but YMMV.
Windows 7 has made tremendous strides forward when it comes to security. I'm no Microsoft apologist, but when they try to improve things three things bite them in the ass: (a) backwards compatibility (aka "my Windows 95 program can't do X! Why doesn't it work, stupid Microsoft!"); (b) users who insist on running with elevated privileges. (c) complaints when good stuff gets implemented (such as PatchGuard, which antivirus vendors went crazy about).
Up until now, Microsoft Security Essentials would auto-update. Now, if you don't agree to left microsoft install software at will (if you don't choose "install updates automatically"), MSE will not update its definitions without user interaction. This is a step backwards.
And cars don't come bundled with gasoline. And houses don't come bundled with furniture. And groceries don't come bundled with chefs.
You are seriously complaining because Windows doesn't come bundled with stuff? And wasn't bundling stuff what got Microsoft into trouble before?
It's an Operating System, which means user space apps and kernel. Windows has very few user space apps and the ones that are bundled are most likely viewed as strategic, rather than practical for the user. To add insult to injury, Windows is very expensive.
NTFS is a pretty decent filesystem. It doesn't have flashy features and it's not hip, but it gets the job done, it's reliable and you know what... those are the two primary considerations for a filesystem. At least for most people.
Emphasis mine.
You're joking, right? Windows hardware support is excellent and it comes bundled with not only a boatload of drivers, but offers a way of automatically downloading and installing drivers for new devices. Don't blame Windows if some vendors don't want to allow Microsoft to ship drivers, or if their hardware requires a super-special driver to set a hardware register to the length of the lead hardware engineers penis before it will work. As for the driver discs, you'll find that they almost always bundled with crap - the vendor's "custom" scan toolkit, a copy of Acrobat, a manual in PDF form, etc.
The "don't blame the OS, it's the vendor's fault" argument never seems to enchant when its used to defend GNU/Linux (in fairness, why should it; it doesn't enchant here either).
I admit I've never seen the particular value of the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
At the risk of alienating fellow civil-libertarians
riiiight
It sounds like if you're a YouTube fan and own a WM8 phone it feels pretty good.
It is absolutely bizarre. It's like the whole country has stockholm syndrome.
Fortunately, we live in a time when we can just flout the unconstitutional and undemocratic copyright laws. The sad part (and this is also to the big corporations boon) is that it actually hurts the little guy who wants copyright protection. The average pirate doesn't see the difference between pirating a 50 year old Beatles record (copyright held by God knows who anymore, the estate of Michael Jackson?) and a brand spanking new one, because, legally, there is no difference.
The government is inefficient, that's why, here in the US, we've privatized it!
I, too, am a phone thrower. I have been super impressed with the durability of my iphone in the $30 apple bumper (that is not sarcasm, but $30 is ridiculous). I have absolutely throttled the thing at the ground more than once. I will stop doing that from now on. Promise! But, I digress.
The onscreen keyboard is fine... in landscape mode. In portait mode, it makes me want to murder people. You have to be like 4 years old to use a keyboard that size. I haven't owned a phone with a physical portait keyboard in like 8 years (the venerable Moto Q), and I wouldn't buy one these days. How hard would it be to ALWAYS let me use the landscape onscreen keyboard? I'd even choose it if the app didn't rotate and I had to read sideways. Using the portrait keyboard is that bad.
Also, I might actually like the portrait keyboard if I had swype (yes, I like swype). I had iSwype installed for a while (an unofficial swipe clone for iOS), but it had a few bugs which I couldn't get over (and swype is pretty limited without some learning capability which iSwype doesn't have).
20 years is the blink of an eye. Time remains to see what the result will be. I will say this: if you have no leverage, you really will be fucked if there ever is a war.
I will, however, counter your argument as simply as it ever could be by pointing out that regardless of how many rifles, handguns, etc. you own, you will never be able to defeat a military that has the ability to wipe you off of the face of the earth with a few keystrokes.
That's a pretty bold statement. Just because you hear people say it a lot doesn't make it true. The world has a long history of the little guy winning in wars. No weapon trumps manpower. Evenmoreso, because a weapon can be used by whoever holds it. It supposes that in a hypothetical revolution the revolutionaries would not be able to subvert the military in many cases. We live in a tenous balance and it benefits both the people and the powers that be that we don't war. I mean we see neckbeards and teenagers hacking into major security companies. The fact of the matter is, a weapon is a weapon, and in a war, it doesn't matter who "owns" it. All that matters is who actually possess it at that moment.
This is simply about personal empowerment -- the ability to shoot at those who 'threaten' you, the comfort that 'if you had to' you could take the life of another human being. It's thinly-veiled psychopathy that becomes blatant once you actually kill somebody.
So basically evey human society until modern times was basically populated with psychopaths? Right. You're right. You're so right, you're more right than basically the entirety of human history. You'll have to let me know how it feels sometime.
I love this guy. Americans have long held fast to one truth (which I wholeheartedly believe in):
Freedom is not free.
It's not only a piece of war propaganda, but one of the very founding principles of our great (once greatest) nation. There is a cost to freedom. The world is going digital: and that means cyberwarfare and hacking and all sorts of nefarious things. And, I know some security people who like to ask "How will we solve this?" The answer is the same as it always has been: with the sword. We are a country that believes (at least on paper) that power can only be granted by the people. So, having an armed populace makes sense.
And, I'll finish it off. I wholeheartedly believe that NRA line: the world would be safer if more good people packed heat. But, the real problem is this: our government cannot be trusted. They fuck us over and over. In my 30 years I have NEVER been rewarded for trusting my government. I have no problem with gun control in theory. But, I don't trust the government. They are constantly reneging and changing the rules. If I can't trust my government, I want my guns. Period. And, I trust my fellow countrymen a lot more than I do my government (who has been turing police against us my entire life). That's all there is to it. I want the people around me to have guns.
Have you found windows to crash often? I haven't. Not 8, not 7 and not XP (at least less than ubuntu in XPs case). I really dislike windows and I don't use it (I use Ubuntu), but one thing windows users seem to be missing is the crashstravaganza that is ubuntu/unity/compiz. Oh, you've got like several tasks going, because you know, computers? Let's just crash compiz or completely lock up. LOL. Now spend the next hour saving everything, rebooting and opening everyhing back up. Awesome!
I know this is /., but geez, split hairs much?
I like tinkering with my PC, but I don't want to have to tinker with every device I buy.
Tell me about it. I've had the Nook Simple Touch for a year and a half, and while it's rooted, I've never really gotten most of the cool hacks you see online to work (e.g. multi-touch). It's like if you want to spend a weekend on it without doing anything else, sure, you'll probably get it to work. Then I think about how much I make at work, and how much I could get paid just working a weekend. Then I could buy the most expensive e-reader in the world and still have money for ice cream.
I say unregulate civilian drones, and BAN military and government drones.
-Hack
Why can't we both have drones? Rules and regulations that are proper for civilians are also proper to place upon police (since they are also civilians). Same goes for all weapons bans. We're taking away the citizenry's constitutional (that is to say natual, God-granted) right to own useful weaponry and arming our police forces to the teeth so they can shoot our compatriots' dogs and seize their property. I don't want American exceptionalism to be another failed experiment and in 100 years the world is back to having NO government where the people come first (you might argue that that's already where we are).
That's pretty much how I read it. Eric Schmidt is already the worst person in tech. He is one of the greatest threats to the American way of life, traditionally rooted in the idea that humans have many natural rights, not the least of which is privacy. He also seems to be a very real threat to the already well eroded foundation that government power is granted only by the people. I seriously hope he chokes to death, and I mean that.
OOPS! their != there