Want to buy from us directly? Sure, give us a call at 1-800-999-3355 (WWW-DELL). Wanna peek at our machines, be wowed at how nice they look, then call us from home when you're ready to buy? Head into Walmart (and Costco, and eventually, K-Mart, Fred Meyer, Target and Fry's...). Wanna buy a machine straight from Walmart? Sure, grab that little tag and bring it to the counter.
So Dell's listening to their customers who are saying "I'm not comfortable calling in an order for something as complex as a PC." How is this a bad thing?
The thing is, the constitution is clear on this. The states don't have a right to charge taxes on stuff shipped across state lines. Why are we even having this discussion?
Because a combination of poor public schooling, glorification of ignorance, and greed-worship in the past few decades has led to a group of semi-elected leaders who barely understand their own responsibilities, but know if they just ignore them for a Liiiiiiiitle bit longer, they can buy that solid gold Yacht they always wanted, and THEN all the cool kids will like them.
Next week press titles "238 patches and upgrades on Debian and Ubuntu repositories", "OSDL sponsored study proves that OSS has the highest reaction time in terms of patch release", "RMS & Linus to give speech about strengths of OSS development ; Ballmer responds throwing chairs".
You're forgetting some other important ones:
"Linus Torvals demands to see proof of Linux patent violations." "All of Europe calls for a ban on Software Patents, again." "IBM claims Windows violates 15,302 IBM Patents, demands reasonable fee of $1 per patent per copy of Windows sold."
Today we are going to be traveling along road X and going to destination Y around noon. Boy, it is going to be hot. While there, we are going to be picking up an informant. He would be in big trouble if he is found out.
No, that's not the reason for this.
The reason for this is that the Administration is painting a picture of poor abused soldiers being robbed blind by the evil, evil Democrats who want to steal their money and make them stay there without any armor or weapons or food. And these poor, poor soldiers love Iraq and the mission sooooo much that they just never, ever wanna go home. Ever!
Of course, the reality is that these soldiers and national guardsmen are pretty much sick and tired of being there, know just as well as anyone else that the whole affair is a lost cause, and frankly want to go home. NOW. Or rather, months and months ago when their tours SHOULD have been up, but were not due to shady probably-illegal-definately-immoral "stop loss" tricks to keep them there.
You can't have a misinformation or propaganda campaign starring soldiers if you let the soldiers actually talk. See: Tillman, Pat (and coworkers) or Lynch, Jessica. No, you have to silence them all, save a select few you can bully or bribe into towing administration line.
Simply put, this is a measure to shut the soldiers and their families up and keep their true feelings from coming to light, so the Administration can continue to lie about them. Nothing more.
let's apply this to any other controversial morally loaded topic:
"a university expelling students for getting abortions is not curtailing freedom, they are protecting their medical resources" "a university blocking democratic websites is not curtailing freedom, they are protecting their political interests".
"A university expelling students for constantly checking hundreds of books out and ripping out all but 1 or 2 pages of them is not curtailing freedom, they are protecting their university resources."
P2P is a privilege, not a right. Internet access is a privilege, not a right. Heck, NETWORK ACCESS is a privilege, not a right.
If the school wanted to be REAL jerks about it, they could just cut the entire dorms off from the network entirely, and make everyone who wants to use the school network connection do so in the computer labs, on school provided computers (which would be locked down).
Simply put, the school IT resources are there for educational use, not so some yuppyspawn twit can download the latest Eminem album. We wouldn't be crying 1st amendment rights if some twit got punted from the library for looking at porn or playing Quake 4, why in the world is abusing the school's Network resources any different?
I think Boing Boing needs to get a lawyer and get to suing.
If they're going to sue, they need to start with those jokers at Smartfilter.
They use it at my workplace, and it blocks things completely at random. BoingBoing posted some critical articals on Smartfilter and instantly got on their shit list -- Boing Boing is now permanently blocked as "nudity", a blatantly false category designed to get people in trouble for even trying to view it.
If you report the inaccuracy, they claim to fix it, only to ignore it and keep them blocked.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if Boston was just using Smartfilter and this is just a symptom of a much larger problem. Smartfilter is, IIRC, the official filter of choice for the US and Iranian governments for blocking naughty content from their masses -- ever since the Republicans managed to con their way into forcing all library machines into being filtered ("Think of the Children" covering the fact that Libraries are poor people's only way to get on the net) Smartfilter has been a bit of a fun toy to play with.
In the middle of the 2006 elections, for example, out of the blue Liberal blogs and Political Canidate websites in Swing States suddenly found themselves blocked as being "curse words" or "mature" or "forums" or other similarly flimsy excuses. Pretty sneaky -- get a censorship filter installed where poor people (who typically vote Democratic) are going to be forced to go through it, then just start randomly blocking political "dissidents" that you don't like. And since Smartfilter has a very, very strict policy (now, anyway) about not REMOVING, only RECATEGORIZING websites... well, yeah.
A spokesperson for Microsoft was quoted as saying :
This is only an issue if you're downloading and watching porn. You should be watching only wholesome media, like "What About Bob", instead.
People are modding this as flamebait, but I've seen far, FAR too many IT professionals take that stance with Spyware / Malware. I've seen a system get all sorts of nasty winlogon-enabled Spyware within minutes of being hooked up to a network, with no action on the user's part. Not only that, in a world where banner ad companies can get infected with trojans the idea of people only getting infected if they're doing something "shady" on their machine is utterly absurd.
I'm not sure on that. I have a few folders that have a large number of photos in them (500 - 2000), if I open them in Windows Vista the computer essentially stops responding. A progress bar appears behind the address bar but the actual Explorer window won't respond -- for example, I cannot sort via size or filetype, it simply ignores me. If I try to open one of these files, the computer does not respond. Eventually, after 5-10 minutes, all open attempts will "fire off" at once.
The same "bar" appears whenever I change the window's sorting type. Want to switch from Filename sort to Filetype Sort, no problem, just give us a half hour...
This did not happen in XP, at all, no matter how many files I had in a single folder.
This is pretty much a deal breaker for me, I cannot have a system that cannot even sort a file list without needing to take up 5-10 minutes on a 2 ghz machine. Absolutely pathetic!
Translation: Gateway and Dell definitely won't honor the warranty and wish to remain free from bad press until they are forced to reveal the truth.
Incorrect. Dell won't support the OS (and shouldn't), but they will indeed support the hardware. Most Dells have onboard diagnostics just for this very reason -- Windows diags are worthless if you can't boot, after all -- and every Dell drivers CD has a copy of the Diagnostic partition on it.
Heck, you can even download an ISO of that drivers CD off Support.Dell.com if needed.
It's kind of annoying that extremists can't seperate themselves from peaceful protesters. I mean, if you want to throw stones at cops, do it when they are beating up on civilians, or taking bribes, or driving through red lights without the siren on. Don't go fuck up a peaceful protest.
Funny, I always thought the guys starting those riots were undercover cops. Say, the type that would go cross country and violate who knows how many laws to spy on innocent civilians wanting to use their free speech rights.
C'mon, it's easy.
1. Get a cop to dress up in street clothes. 2. Enter protest. 3. Throw a rock, push some people around, start a fistfight, whatever 4. The protest turns into a riot, the cops come down and beat the crap out of whomever they want, arrest everyone else, and go home.
Also, unlike their proposed port breakage, it can easily be turned off if you don't care about it.
Oh, how quaint, you think they're actually going to let you / your ISP turn it off. haha. No, no, that's not the point of something like this. The point of something like this is to segregate the content in hopes of finding some way to block it in the future. Since you know, once you have it all labeled as pornographic / obscene / liberal / etc, it's MUCH easier to sneak in annoyances and filters that keep you from accessing it.
For example, they'll either require all ISPs to block the "porn ports" unless someone can prove their age at all times. Got children? Well, sorry, we can't risk them being corrupted, so, gotta block that port for you by default.
Or require the ports be blocked during "family hours" (defined as 6 AM to 4 AM).
Or require all ISPs require people to specially log in for each and every webpage / picture loaded on the "porn port". To make sure you're really trying to corrupt yourself.
Or some other stupid regulation that essentially blocks it. It's the same thing with the Tiper Sticker -- it's not BLOCKING music they don't like, it's just flagging it for parents. Then the stores just refuse to sell it en-mass. Spread the blame out enough and no one's at fault.
And in case you don't seem to agree... The Republican Congress of yesteryear forced through legislation that required filters be placed on all publicly accessible computer. If you want to use a PC at a library, you have to go through the same Censorware that the Iran government uses to keep their citizens in the dark.
Well, not tooo long after this was pushed through, suddenly liberal and left wing sites started getting blocked as "mature" or "adult content". DailyKOS, most political blogs in swing states, Left wing candidate sites, etc -- all suddenly blocked out of the blue, with no way to get past them without harassing the librarian for each and every page you want to view. Essentially cutting off access to these sites for anyone not wealthy enough to own a PC and Internet Connection.
I see no difference with those shinanigans and an attempt to start "flagging" porn websites in a different way -- except that this new way is going to have a whole lot of extra people to blame.
And remember, blame enough people and no one's at fault.
Wikipedia article has a link and says "Although Xiph.Org states it has conducted a patent search that supports its claims, outside parties (notably engineers working on rival formats) have expressed doubt that Vorbis is free of patented technology."
Given that the USPTO seems to like giving patents for, you know, anything as long as it says "software", "internet", or "paradigm shift", I have no doubt at all that someone has a patent on something stupid, like "creation of music using digital file input" which would cover it.
Oh snap, I'm now an outside party that has expressed doubt that Vorbis is free of patented technology*.
* Note: The patents involved are probably stupid, invalid, submarine patents that would be thrown out if the USPTO wasn't intentionally under-funded.
Let me preface this by saying that I am a conservative Christian. Now, I have done some research and found out that most electronic devices that emit photons and audio waves have a switch which allows me to turn them off. The effort required to do that is even less than it is for me to get incensed and make a complaint. Why don't other people get this? Don't want to see it? Turn it off. Don't want the kids to see it? Turn it off.
Most of these people complaining are not doing so by their own violation, but rather, they are doing so after being told/commanded to by their social and religious leaders. Simply put, they're told about the ad/book/game/tv show/etc in church, around the coffee table, by their old friends, etc, and the Alpha of the group has them all write letters off to whomever they think might cowtow to them, trying to essentially blackmail the stations into submission.
The truly sad thing is that it works -- and that the attack drones don't even have to have ever seen the show to begin with. (Or do you really believe a few hundred thousand conservative Christians listen to Howard Stern and got upset about it?) It's rather sad that the Moral Majority has been reduced to trained howler monkeys, ready to fling poo on command, but, well, there ya have it.
They do the same thing with pretty much anything they don't like. Music, video games, websites, you name it. And it's only going to get worse now that they succeeded once against Howard Stern.
Further, I'm willing to bet that paying the tax would not protect you from a civil suit from the RIAA.
Given that being dead doesn't even protect you from a civil suit from the RIAA, I somehow doubt you not breaking any mere mortal laws would slow them down, either.
Hey, after all, it didn't stop them from attacking AllOfMP3, either. Or The Pirate Bay. Or any other site that they just don't like, eh?
Fudge. Apparently I need to go pick one up in the lab tomorrow and dig in the BIOS.
Looking through the Simulators and T/Ds I didn't see it, nor did the guy I was speaking with. Since I hadn't heard of Intel VT before that call, I just wrote it off as a completely unsupported option with no way to turn it on. (Something a few coworkers concurred with, once seeing the "We don't support it" announcement.)
Thanks guys, I had written that off as a lost cause, Hopefully I can bring a solution to the guy tomorrow.:)
Ever been to a store that says "Due to the high cost of credit card transactions, we cannot accept them on totals under $5?"
That's because Visa, MC, etc all charge for transferring money around. Sure, they could charge you $0.01, and end up paying $2 for the transfer to their accounts. Total profit: -1.99 USD.
Per Downloader.
Steve Jobs may be a lot of things, but a foolish businessman is not one of them.
Well, the Poweredge Servers are a bit of a different beast. I was speaking more along the lines of the desktops (specifically the Opti and PWS lines), which, uh, apparently I was wrong on.... Huh.
Well, Color me surprised! Guess it's time to ask a few senior techs for clarification -- I know at this time we're not "supporting" it, but I can find no rhyme nor reason to which ones have it in the BIOS and which ones don't.
VT is not currently supported by Dell, either. There is no way to turn it on in any Dell system's BIOS, nor is there an ETA on a firmware update coming out to enable it.
To be honest though, it's one of those features you'd never notice is gone unless you were looking for it.
(Full disclosure for ethics: I work for Dell as a Gold Tech Support Agent. In my 5 months here at Dell, I've had only one call about Intel VT, which was -- in an odd quirk of fate -- just yesterday.)
Conservatism has Fox News, and Talk Radio, Liberals have ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, PBS and NPR.
The same ABC that put out that "Path to 9/11" conservative hit-job on Bill Clinton? The one that just made stuff up out of this air?
THAT is a "liberal network?" A "liberal network" puts out a fake Documentary blaming Clinton for a huge failure on Bush's watch? (A failure purpotrated by the patron saint of the right, Ronny Reagan) How in the world do you reconcile that?
1. The actually genuinely concerned consumer activists, who don't realize Fairplay is really as good a DRM system as we're probably ever going to get, consumer-wise. 2. The people who are royally pissed that THEIR DRM isn't the stuff being shoved down everyone's throats.
Of course, #2 has some sub camps, based on motivation. - There are the people who are just royally pissed that they aren't getting the online music sales or MP3 player sales they "deserve" since they're "in the industry", so they obviously deserve a competition free environment. Forever. (The "real" music publishers.) - There are the people who are royally pissed that the DRM doesn't include a rootkit, doesn't cost $5 a song, allows you to play the songs more than once, allows you to move your music onto normal CDs, onto multiple players, etc. (The anti-fair use people.) - And there are the people who are pissed that the iNdustry (iPod, iTunes, etc) seems to be propping up Apple, which they thought they had killed off so long ago that no one would notice them borrowing features and themes from OS X for their new big name Operating System release... (The Windows die-hards, not all of which are centered in Redmond.)
All 3 of these camps can easily afford to pay for an astroturfing campaign, so... Who knows?
The fact that they started using a newer version of the strap does not imply the old one was defective. Perhaps the old strap was perfectly suitable for normal use, as instructed in the manual (I don't know, I don't own a Wii). If Nintendo found that a larger subset of their users than first expected like swinging their wiimote much more vigorously than instructed, then updating the strap to be a little stronger to accommodate those users is a smart business decision (fewer complaints from users about weak straps is good for the product's image among that demographic).
No, they very specifically state that this is NOT a recall. They're replacing all NEW straps with the new one, but if you are really concerned about it, you can call and get a replacement, new one.
Simply put, the wrist strap is there in case you are silly enough to let go of the Wiimote during play, which you are NOT supposed to do.
My gut is telling me these charming lawsuits are coming from a group of people (Homo Sapiens Moronicus) who think they're actually supposed to throw the Wiimote as a baseball or bowling ball, and the strap is supposed to keep it from getting away from you.
This is NOT how you're supposed to actually use the darned thing, but hey, I guess this is the downside to bringing gaming to a wider audience. (That, and Nintendo daring to have a hugely successful holiday product).
I do not see the benefits actually, can anyone explain?
"Well gee, I have a great idea for a MMORPG, but, man, creating the engine, the server software, the UI, it's all so daunting. I wish I could just, you know, find a basic GPLed package and maybe work on creating one myself from a base, or at least get some sorta idea how the whole "client-server" thing works. Yeah, I won't be the next Everquest but I'd settle for being the next Asheron's Call."
Don't underestimate the importance of this, if it succeeds. Neverwitner Nights has shown us that if people are given tools to release their creativity, the community can come through with some pretty amazing experiences.
Back when I worked at an ISP with a shared bandwidth broadband solution, we would politely suggest that to the college jackasses downloading Bittorrent without setting it up to be network friendly (like we asked/demanded/etc). It really does work quite well.
Slashdot Mirror
Nah, Dell's still just as direct.
Want to buy from us directly? Sure, give us a call at 1-800-999-3355 (WWW-DELL).
Wanna peek at our machines, be wowed at how nice they look, then call us from home when you're ready to buy? Head into Walmart (and Costco, and eventually, K-Mart, Fred Meyer, Target and Fry's...).
Wanna buy a machine straight from Walmart? Sure, grab that little tag and bring it to the counter.
So Dell's listening to their customers who are saying "I'm not comfortable calling in an order for something as complex as a PC." How is this a bad thing?
The thing is, the constitution is clear on this. The states don't have a right to charge taxes on stuff shipped across state lines. Why are we even having this discussion?
Because a combination of poor public schooling, glorification of ignorance, and greed-worship in the past few decades has led to a group of semi-elected leaders who barely understand their own responsibilities, but know if they just ignore them for a Liiiiiiiitle bit longer, they can buy that solid gold Yacht they always wanted, and THEN all the cool kids will like them.
Next week press titles "238 patches and upgrades on Debian and Ubuntu repositories", "OSDL sponsored study proves that OSS has the highest reaction time in terms of patch release", "RMS & Linus to give speech about strengths of OSS development ; Ballmer responds throwing chairs".
You're forgetting some other important ones:
"Linus Torvals demands to see proof of Linux patent violations." "All of Europe calls for a ban on Software Patents, again." "IBM claims Windows violates 15,302 IBM Patents, demands reasonable fee of $1 per patent per copy of Windows sold."
To Whom it May Concern:
Today we are going to be traveling along road X and going to destination Y around noon. Boy, it is going to be hot. While there, we are going to be picking up an informant. He would be in big trouble if he is found out.
No, that's not the reason for this.
The reason for this is that the Administration is painting a picture of poor abused soldiers being robbed blind by the evil, evil Democrats who want to steal their money and make them stay there without any armor or weapons or food. And these poor, poor soldiers love Iraq and the mission sooooo much that they just never, ever wanna go home. Ever!
Of course, the reality is that these soldiers and national guardsmen are pretty much sick and tired of being there, know just as well as anyone else that the whole affair is a lost cause, and frankly want to go home. NOW. Or rather, months and months ago when their tours SHOULD have been up, but were not due to shady probably-illegal-definately-immoral "stop loss" tricks to keep them there.
You can't have a misinformation or propaganda campaign starring soldiers if you let the soldiers actually talk. See: Tillman, Pat (and coworkers) or Lynch, Jessica. No, you have to silence them all, save a select few you can bully or bribe into towing administration line.
Simply put, this is a measure to shut the soldiers and their families up and keep their true feelings from coming to light, so the Administration can continue to lie about them. Nothing more.
let's apply this to any other controversial morally loaded topic:
"a university expelling students for getting abortions is not curtailing freedom, they are protecting their medical resources"
"a university blocking democratic websites is not curtailing freedom, they are protecting their political interests".
"A university expelling students for constantly checking hundreds of books out and ripping out all but 1 or 2 pages of them is not curtailing freedom, they are protecting their university resources."
P2P is a privilege, not a right. Internet access is a privilege, not a right. Heck, NETWORK ACCESS is a privilege, not a right.
If the school wanted to be REAL jerks about it, they could just cut the entire dorms off from the network entirely, and make everyone who wants to use the school network connection do so in the computer labs, on school provided computers (which would be locked down).
Simply put, the school IT resources are there for educational use, not so some yuppyspawn twit can download the latest Eminem album. We wouldn't be crying 1st amendment rights if some twit got punted from the library for looking at porn or playing Quake 4, why in the world is abusing the school's Network resources any different?
I think Boing Boing needs to get a lawyer and get to suing.
If they're going to sue, they need to start with those jokers at Smartfilter.
They use it at my workplace, and it blocks things completely at random. BoingBoing posted some critical articals on Smartfilter and instantly got on their shit list -- Boing Boing is now permanently blocked as "nudity", a blatantly false category designed to get people in trouble for even trying to view it.
If you report the inaccuracy, they claim to fix it, only to ignore it and keep them blocked.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if Boston was just using Smartfilter and this is just a symptom of a much larger problem. Smartfilter is, IIRC, the official filter of choice for the US and Iranian governments for blocking naughty content from their masses -- ever since the Republicans managed to con their way into forcing all library machines into being filtered ("Think of the Children" covering the fact that Libraries are poor people's only way to get on the net) Smartfilter has been a bit of a fun toy to play with.
In the middle of the 2006 elections, for example, out of the blue Liberal blogs and Political Canidate websites in Swing States suddenly found themselves blocked as being "curse words" or "mature" or "forums" or other similarly flimsy excuses. Pretty sneaky -- get a censorship filter installed where poor people (who typically vote Democratic) are going to be forced to go through it, then just start randomly blocking political "dissidents" that you don't like. And since Smartfilter has a very, very strict policy (now, anyway) about not REMOVING, only RECATEGORIZING websites... well, yeah.
A spokesperson for Microsoft was quoted as saying :
This is only an issue if you're downloading and watching porn. You should be watching only wholesome media, like "What About Bob", instead.
People are modding this as flamebait, but I've seen far, FAR too many IT professionals take that stance with Spyware / Malware. I've seen a system get all sorts of nasty winlogon-enabled Spyware within minutes of being hooked up to a network, with no action on the user's part. Not only that, in a world where banner ad companies can get infected with trojans the idea of people only getting infected if they're doing something "shady" on their machine is utterly absurd.
Searching is way faster,
I'm not sure on that. I have a few folders that have a large number of photos in them (500 - 2000), if I open them in Windows Vista the computer essentially stops responding. A progress bar appears behind the address bar but the actual Explorer window won't respond -- for example, I cannot sort via size or filetype, it simply ignores me. If I try to open one of these files, the computer does not respond. Eventually, after 5-10 minutes, all open attempts will "fire off" at once.
The same "bar" appears whenever I change the window's sorting type. Want to switch from Filename sort to Filetype Sort, no problem, just give us a half hour...
This did not happen in XP, at all, no matter how many files I had in a single folder.
This is pretty much a deal breaker for me, I cannot have a system that cannot even sort a file list without needing to take up 5-10 minutes on a 2 ghz machine. Absolutely pathetic!
Translation: Gateway and Dell definitely won't honor the warranty and wish to remain free from bad press until they are forced to reveal the truth.
Incorrect. Dell won't support the OS (and shouldn't), but they will indeed support the hardware. Most Dells have onboard diagnostics just for this very reason -- Windows diags are worthless if you can't boot, after all -- and every Dell drivers CD has a copy of the Diagnostic partition on it.
Heck, you can even download an ISO of that drivers CD off Support.Dell.com if needed.
It's kind of annoying that extremists can't seperate themselves from peaceful protesters. I mean, if you want to throw stones at cops, do it when they are beating up on civilians, or taking bribes, or driving through red lights without the siren on. Don't go fuck up a peaceful protest.
Funny, I always thought the guys starting those riots were undercover cops. Say, the type that would go cross country and violate who knows how many laws to spy on innocent civilians wanting to use their free speech rights.
C'mon, it's easy.
1. Get a cop to dress up in street clothes.
2. Enter protest.
3. Throw a rock, push some people around, start a fistfight, whatever
4. The protest turns into a riot, the cops come down and beat the crap out of whomever they want, arrest everyone else, and go home.
Also, unlike their proposed port breakage, it can easily be turned off if you don't care about it.
Oh, how quaint, you think they're actually going to let you / your ISP turn it off. haha. No, no, that's not the point of something like this. The point of something like this is to segregate the content in hopes of finding some way to block it in the future. Since you know, once you have it all labeled as pornographic / obscene / liberal / etc, it's MUCH easier to sneak in annoyances and filters that keep you from accessing it.
For example, they'll either require all ISPs to block the "porn ports" unless someone can prove their age at all times. Got children? Well, sorry, we can't risk them being corrupted, so, gotta block that port for you by default.
Or require the ports be blocked during "family hours" (defined as 6 AM to 4 AM).
Or require all ISPs require people to specially log in for each and every webpage / picture loaded on the "porn port". To make sure you're really trying to corrupt yourself.
Or some other stupid regulation that essentially blocks it. It's the same thing with the Tiper Sticker -- it's not BLOCKING music they don't like, it's just flagging it for parents. Then the stores just refuse to sell it en-mass. Spread the blame out enough and no one's at fault.
And in case you don't seem to agree... The Republican Congress of yesteryear forced through legislation that required filters be placed on all publicly accessible computer. If you want to use a PC at a library, you have to go through the same Censorware that the Iran government uses to keep their citizens in the dark.
Well, not tooo long after this was pushed through, suddenly liberal and left wing sites started getting blocked as "mature" or "adult content". DailyKOS, most political blogs in swing states, Left wing candidate sites, etc -- all suddenly blocked out of the blue, with no way to get past them without harassing the librarian for each and every page you want to view. Essentially cutting off access to these sites for anyone not wealthy enough to own a PC and Internet Connection.
I see no difference with those shinanigans and an attempt to start "flagging" porn websites in a different way -- except that this new way is going to have a whole lot of extra people to blame.
And remember, blame enough people and no one's at fault.
Wikipedia article has a link and says "Although Xiph.Org states it has conducted a patent search that supports its claims, outside parties (notably engineers working on rival formats) have expressed doubt that Vorbis is free of patented technology."
Given that the USPTO seems to like giving patents for, you know, anything as long as it says "software", "internet", or "paradigm shift", I have no doubt at all that someone has a patent on something stupid, like "creation of music using digital file input" which would cover it.
Oh snap, I'm now an outside party that has expressed doubt that Vorbis is free of patented technology*.
* Note: The patents involved are probably stupid, invalid, submarine patents that would be thrown out if the USPTO wasn't intentionally under-funded.
Let me preface this by saying that I am a conservative Christian. Now, I have done some research and found out that most electronic devices that emit photons and audio waves have a switch which allows me to turn them off. The effort required to do that is even less than it is for me to get incensed and make a complaint. Why don't other people get this? Don't want to see it? Turn it off. Don't want the kids to see it? Turn it off.
Most of these people complaining are not doing so by their own violation, but rather, they are doing so after being told/commanded to by their social and religious leaders. Simply put, they're told about the ad/book/game/tv show/etc in church, around the coffee table, by their old friends, etc, and the Alpha of the group has them all write letters off to whomever they think might cowtow to them, trying to essentially blackmail the stations into submission.
The truly sad thing is that it works -- and that the attack drones don't even have to have ever seen the show to begin with. (Or do you really believe a few hundred thousand conservative Christians listen to Howard Stern and got upset about it?) It's rather sad that the Moral Majority has been reduced to trained howler monkeys, ready to fling poo on command, but, well, there ya have it.
They do the same thing with pretty much anything they don't like. Music, video games, websites, you name it. And it's only going to get worse now that they succeeded once against Howard Stern.
Further, I'm willing to bet that paying the tax would not protect you from a civil suit from the RIAA.
Given that being dead doesn't even protect you from a civil suit from the RIAA, I somehow doubt you not breaking any mere mortal laws would slow them down, either.
Hey, after all, it didn't stop them from attacking AllOfMP3, either. Or The Pirate Bay. Or any other site that they just don't like, eh?
I'm sorry, buy if you consider investing in virtual property in a Video Game a good idea, you have absolutely no business managing your own funds.
What about people who pay $10,000+ for a cleverly worded domain name?
Well.
:)
Fudge. Apparently I need to go pick one up in the lab tomorrow and dig in the BIOS.
Looking through the Simulators and T/Ds I didn't see it, nor did the guy I was speaking with. Since I hadn't heard of Intel VT before that call, I just wrote it off as a completely unsupported option with no way to turn it on. (Something a few coworkers concurred with, once seeing the "We don't support it" announcement.)
Thanks guys, I had written that off as a lost cause, Hopefully I can bring a solution to the guy tomorrow.
Ever been to a store that says "Due to the high cost of credit card transactions, we cannot accept them on totals under $5?"
That's because Visa, MC, etc all charge for transferring money around. Sure, they could charge you $0.01, and end up paying $2 for the transfer to their accounts. Total profit: -1.99 USD.
Per Downloader.
Steve Jobs may be a lot of things, but a foolish businessman is not one of them.
Well, the Poweredge Servers are a bit of a different beast. I was speaking more along the lines of the desktops (specifically the Opti and PWS lines), which, uh, apparently I was wrong on. ... Huh.
Well, Color me surprised! Guess it's time to ask a few senior techs for clarification -- I know at this time we're not "supporting" it, but I can find no rhyme nor reason to which ones have it in the BIOS and which ones don't.
VT is not currently supported by Dell, either. There is no way to turn it on in any Dell system's BIOS, nor is there an ETA on a firmware update coming out to enable it.
To be honest though, it's one of those features you'd never notice is gone unless you were looking for it.
(Full disclosure for ethics: I work for Dell as a Gold Tech Support Agent. In my 5 months here at Dell, I've had only one call about Intel VT, which was -- in an odd quirk of fate -- just yesterday.)
The same ABC that put out that "Path to 9/11" conservative hit-job on Bill Clinton? The one that just made stuff up out of this air?
THAT is a "liberal network?" A "liberal network" puts out a fake Documentary blaming Clinton for a huge failure on Bush's watch? (A failure purpotrated by the patron saint of the right, Ronny Reagan) How in the world do you reconcile that?
Your cognitive dissonance is showing.
Well, there's 2 camps here.
1. The actually genuinely concerned consumer activists, who don't realize Fairplay is really as good a DRM system as we're probably ever going to get, consumer-wise.
2. The people who are royally pissed that THEIR DRM isn't the stuff being shoved down everyone's throats.
Of course, #2 has some sub camps, based on motivation.
- There are the people who are just royally pissed that they aren't getting the online music sales or MP3 player sales they "deserve" since they're "in the industry", so they obviously deserve a competition free environment. Forever. (The "real" music publishers.)
- There are the people who are royally pissed that the DRM doesn't include a rootkit, doesn't cost $5 a song, allows you to play the songs more than once, allows you to move your music onto normal CDs, onto multiple players, etc. (The anti-fair use people.)
- And there are the people who are pissed that the iNdustry (iPod, iTunes, etc) seems to be propping up Apple, which they thought they had killed off so long ago that no one would notice them borrowing features and themes from OS X for their new big name Operating System release... (The Windows die-hards, not all of which are centered in Redmond.)
All 3 of these camps can easily afford to pay for an astroturfing campaign, so... Who knows?
The fact that they started using a newer version of the strap does not imply the old one was defective. Perhaps the old strap was perfectly suitable for normal use, as instructed in the manual (I don't know, I don't own a Wii). If Nintendo found that a larger subset of their users than first expected like swinging their wiimote much more vigorously than instructed, then updating the strap to be a little stronger to accommodate those users is a smart business decision (fewer complaints from users about weak straps is good for the product's image among that demographic).
No, they very specifically state that this is NOT a recall. They're replacing all NEW straps with the new one, but if you are really concerned about it, you can call and get a replacement, new one.
Simply put, the wrist strap is there in case you are silly enough to let go of the Wiimote during play, which you are NOT supposed to do.
My gut is telling me these charming lawsuits are coming from a group of people (Homo Sapiens Moronicus) who think they're actually supposed to throw the Wiimote as a baseball or bowling ball, and the strap is supposed to keep it from getting away from you.
This is NOT how you're supposed to actually use the darned thing, but hey, I guess this is the downside to bringing gaming to a wider audience. (That, and Nintendo daring to have a hugely successful holiday product).
I do not see the benefits actually, can anyone explain?
"Well gee, I have a great idea for a MMORPG, but, man, creating the engine, the server software, the UI, it's all so daunting. I wish I could just, you know, find a basic GPLed package and maybe work on creating one myself from a base, or at least get some sorta idea how the whole "client-server" thing works. Yeah, I won't be the next Everquest but I'd settle for being the next Asheron's Call."
Don't underestimate the importance of this, if it succeeds. Neverwitner Nights has shown us that if people are given tools to release their creativity, the community can come through with some pretty amazing experiences.
After a user buys a copy of Vista, Microsoft receives no more money from the user.
... at least for a while.
It would probably be economically wise to spend time in developing another product.
Not to mention, if you never fix the bugs, the customers just might be willing to pay for your next OS.
No, but you can do that in XP and (presumably) Vista using the excellent Netlimiter program.
http://www.netlimiter.com/
Back when I worked at an ISP with a shared bandwidth broadband solution, we would politely suggest that to the college jackasses downloading Bittorrent without setting it up to be network friendly (like we asked/demanded/etc). It really does work quite well.