I can share files flawlessly back and forth between 2000 and 2003 and XP and even 97
You're lucky. Trust me on this, I used to work tech support for a large financial institution, just as they made the switch from NT4/Office 97 to XP Pro/Office XP. I got plenty of calls:
Word suddenly deciding that documents were password protected when in fact they weren't.
Word XP claiming that a document had become corrupted when Word 97 could still open it.
Formatting going haywire after the migration.
I must agree with other posters here, even a Word-to-Word migration isn't flawless, and certainly the problems getting all Word docs loaded in OOo can be replicated getting old Word docs loaded in a newer Word version.
the approximate speed of the car can easily be determined.
The approximate speed being some 60 mph, not even 120 km/h. On an open road, that's a normal speed, even sedate for an Italian (I hate stereotypes, but they do drive like lunatics generally). Especially considering that the Italians operated under the (mis)understanding that the US troops knew they were coming.
A default installation of Redhat or Fedora Core allows no more than 5 services to the outside world (time, ssh, apache, X, time are the most common).
A default install? Desktop or server? Red Hat hasn't had these services active and unfirewalled in its default workstation install since 8.0. I flat out don't believe you.
Because there are not thousands upon thousands of automagic worms hammering unfirewalled linux (yet again another reason to use a hardware firewall) boxes. But windows boxes are a different story due to it's popularity
Yes of course. That is why I see so many infected Apache servers attacking our systems. That popularity myth has been debunked so many times before, the fact that you keep bringing it up marks you as either an MS shill or terminally stupid. Don't bother with further replies, this is not going anywhere.
The amount of services opened to the outside public (beyond 127.0.0.1 only) are far less than a typical Suse, Redhat, and even Slackware installation.
This is bullshit. Even a Linux distribution from the same vintage as Windows XP runs fewer unnecessary services listening on outside connections by default. Anyone who has ever installed both Windows and a Linux distribution since then will acknowledge that, except for the Microsoft shills.
Tell me oh great wizard, if what you say is true, why is the survival time of a default WinXP install so much lower than that of a default Linux install?
So you are saying that openBSD, Linux, BeOS, and every other OS has NO need whatsoever for additional firewall protection at the hardware router level?
In the enterprise? Sure, no doubt. As a home machine connected directly to the Internet? Nope. There is enough protection available out of the box with ipf, netfilter and just plain not running extraneous services. None of these things are offered on Windows XP by default. Even the built-in packet filter (which still has some serious deficiencies) only runs by default and before the network is up in Service Pack 2.
And if you equate security with hardware firewalls only, then I posit that it is you who has no clue about security at all.
The primary way to activate a copy of windows is through the default "activate via the internet" option.
And that sounds like someone who is being a nuisance on the Internet. Do you know what the survival time for a freshly installed WinXP installation is? Short enough that running the activation procedure might leave your machine zombie'd before the activation is even done.
Remember, a slippery slope argument is only fallacious if the causality between the steps is unclear or non-existent.
Also remember, when free-speech activists decried the DMCA proposal because of its chilling effect, they were shouted down with "slippery slope fallacy!" as well. Yet one of the first to use the DMCA was the Church of Scientology to take down critics' sites.
And of course the fact that all your software saves in different default directories and sometimes even refuses to remember the directory you last saved in during the same session[1] makes no difference. The fact that the file selector only shows the last part of the pathname doesn't matter either, not even if the same exact directory structure exists in C:\Documents and Settings\Username or in your network logon share. Noooo, it's all the user's fault.
Sometimes I get so sick and tired of you Microsoft fanboys.
Mart
[1] Microsoft Powerpoint XP on Windows XP Pro SP1, for example.
If I own the copyright on a work, I can forbid others from using the it.
In exchange for being allowed to use my works, I can demand arbitrary concessions from other parties.
Actually, both statements are wrong.
You cannot forbid other people from using your work. You can only forbid distribution. As long as someone has gotten a copy of your work in good faith, even though the distributor did not distribute it with permission, you can not forbid him to use your work, you only have recourse to the distributor. That is what 'fair use' and 'first sale' are meant to convey. Of course, the anti-circumvention provisions in the DMCA and the EUCD muck this up, but that is beyond the basics.
You cannot demand arbitrary concessions. A contract that demands unlawful or unreasonably onerous concessions will not be upheld by the courts, and may even be deemed null and void by law.
Next time, please get a clue before opening your mouth, OK?
Most shops won't accept [Euro] notes bigger than 50.
There is a reason for that: forgery. The ECB went for the security-through-obscurity route when forgery-proofing their bills. There are over 20 characteristics that distinguish a real Euro note from a fake one, unfortunately the banks only saw fit to disclose half of them, leading to the situtation that currently only banks can distinguish fake from real.
Of course, shopkeepers can't do so, but since the bank won't accept forged notes that businesses accepted in good faith, they end up being liable for the damage. Therefore shops decided en masse to no longer accept large denominations. The way things are going, the EUR 50 note will have to be redesigned, or it will end up being on the black list too.
Of course, the ECB could just publish all anti-forgery characteristics. But then, the argument goes, the forgers have it easier. Funny that the Dutch didn't seem to have that problem. As far as I know the central bank always published all details, confident that the measures were good enough to stop forgeries, and making it easy on businesses to detect the occasional ones. This suggests strongly that the anti-forgery measures on the Euro bills are just plain not good enough.
You are free to sell binary-only software for Linux. Linux users are free to say they don't want your software because it's binary only.
By saying so, no-one's freedom is curtailed. Your ability to make a profit in the Linux market is curtailed. However, it is not the job of the market to shift to your demands, it is your job to shift to the market's demands, up to and including not selling in certain markets.
Obviously, in your example, the Linux userbase has grown enough to be an interesting market. Now it is your job to figure out a marketing plan to make your product interesting for that market. That may including offering source code with your product. Tough. Adapt, or let the competition cut you out. Stop demanding that people give up their freedom for your profit.
I am 27 years old and live in the US, and had never heard the acronym "TSA"
I am slightly older than you and live in Europe, yet I knew what the TSA was, and I knew it before this story, just from the regular news. This suggests one of two things:
The news in the United States is so far gone down the drain that they don't cover important current events anymore. And I would say that the establishment of the TSA and the measures to give it teeth in the past 3 years were current events, and given their impact on anyone ever wanting to travel by air (which I am told is a substantial part of the US population), I'd classify it as important current events as well.
You are either too lazy or dumb to follow the news at all.
I am more than willing to extend the benefit of doubt to you, but that does paint a fairly bleak picture of the press in the USA. And I leave you with the chilling implications of the fact that your entire press seems to be nothing but government mouthpieces.
I gave a very specific criterium as to why I consider your links not trustworthy. I did empathically not call the authors of the linked articles shills.
Yet you try to smear me, you strawman my arguments, and you answer no points. Your posts show a pattern that strongly resembles the well-documented Scientology doctrine on how to attack critics. You also don't deny being a Scientologist.
Were this a newsgroup, I'd have ploinked you by now as reasoning with clams is hopeless.
Oh, and by the way, those reports in that Google page you link to also mention that Germany may well be right in regarding the CoS with suspicion. The reports of the UNHCR also document the accusation that the CoS tries to discredit critics, and that there are allegations of misuse of power, undue pressure on members to donate time and money and outright fraud.
The reports as such accept nothing but the fact that Scientology is considered a religion in some countries, including the United States. The reports of 'persecution' are nothing but a restatement of the position of the CoS, and are admitted as such in most of the reports you link to. And in fact, in some of those links the criticisms against the CoS are repeated just as strongly as their 'persecution' argument.
As for your 'respected scholars', I can find lots of 'scholars' who defend creationism who are respected. You do not say respected by whom. The fact that none of them see fit to address the criticisms against Scientology, nor the well-documented depredations of this 'cult', not even to dismiss this criticism and that the conference where these papers were presented was organised by a well known shill for Scientology, shows that these guys are at best misguided, and at worst shills themselves. And given that information, your linking to them with your own arguments given so far is shilling.
And regardless of your backpeddling, you did try to strawman me into an anti-religion stance. Another CoS tactic, by the way, documented in those very links to the UNHCR you gave yourself.
Operation Footbullet again? I did see you did not deny being a Scientologist.
Those reports don't all seem to say what you imply they say.
A typical trick, using a link to sound authoritive in the hopes that your opponent will not read the linked material carefully. Why do you attempt such a tactic?
Also, your first paragraph is an obvious strawman. I did not say that everyone who doesn't attack every religion is an apologist. I stated very clearly that your linked material carries the strong implication that these folks are apologists for the CoS. I did not say anything about other religions.
Why don't you come right out and admit that you are a Scientologist?
For the other readers, parent is referring to CESNUR, a seemingly objective site. Unfortunately, this site is merely the product of one man, Massime Introvigne. And Google shows up some very interesting things about Mr. Introvigne.
For one, he is an IP lawyer. And what is the CoS favourite avenue of attack?
It appears that aforementioned links are, if not straight from the CoS, at least from some of their apologists.
To be quite fair, it is common practice in Mystery cults to keep the secrets of the higher grades of Initiation from its lower members. In ordinary practice, there is no need to enforce this secrecy as the lower initiates wouldn't understand the material anyway, but sometimes for whatever reason a vow of secrecy is required from the higher Initiates (cf the Freemasons).
So, on the face of it, there is no reason to not respect Scientology's copyrights. There is however a major fly in the ointment: there is a strong suspicion that Scientology is not a legitimate Mystery cult, but in fact a scam operation that aims to extract the maximum amount of money from its members. As such it is possibly a criminal organisation, and publication of evidence pointing in that direction is in the public interest. Jurisprudence in most Western states says that the public interest trumps copyright protection (in fact, this was one of the arguments in this case).
I often copy a URL and then expect to highlight-and-paste in the Location bar of my browser; Unfortunately, highlighting replaces what I put in the clipboard intentionally, and I paste the URL I'm trying to remove!
Try this trick: highlight the URL you want to paste, and instead of pasting it into the location bar, middle-click anywhere on the active webpage that's not a hyperlink. In all Mozilla derivatives (and as far as I know, in Konqueror derivatives as well), the browser will open a new page using your highlighted selection. Depending on settings, it might open a page in a new tab though, but that's about the only snag I've ever run into.
This trick has worked on *nix platforms ever since Netscape Navigator, and I can't live without it. I even find myself attempting it when I'm sitting at a Windows machine.
Indeed they are. Chirac is officialy right of centre, the so-called socialism in France comes from the Prime Minister and his cabinet, and is strongly watered-down by a moderate right-wing President and a strong right-wing minority in parliament. As for Blair, any pretense that New Labour is left-wing went out of the window when he continued the Conservative policy of selling off communal assets and making the common man pay the price.
suggest you come to america for a year or so. Midwest, not the pseudoEurope of New York or California. Just to let you know, those you consider right, we consider majorly LEFT.
This is why even the moderate right in Europe considers the United States as Hard Right to Right Extremist. Don't fool yourself, you don't have a left wing in the US anymore. Hence anything left of right-of-centre is perceived as godless communism by you.
And yes, doing steps 1 and 2 save major amounts of money. Increases in efficiency tend to happen when privatisation is done right.
I'll leave aside the truth about saving money or achieving an increase in efficiency, that's another discussion. What does seem to happen is that things that used to benefit the lower half of the population are now gone, and that those on a median income or below are paying ever more for ever less service, while a tiny minority of fat cats has gotten rich on lucrative deals taking over the state services on a dime, and giving themselves enormous bonuses out of the resulting profits.
As I said, the reality is that the voters have voted for their new overlords, and they seem to think that this is the natural order of things. I do not however see any libertarians protest that the improved efficiencies have not led to lower prices and/or better service for the same price. This is what economic theory predicts after all. Instead I see 'libertarians' defend the state of affairs where a rapacious few cream off the profits and keep them for themselves, and even use them to buy government influence to keep this scam going (for plenty examples go read some of the community Wi-Fi threads of the past week, or today's drug patent story).
Libertarians? Don't make me laugh. All I ever see them do is defend PRIVILEGE over LIBERTY. That makes the lot neo-feudalists in my book.
[...] the ancient observation that democracies tend to break down once the people realize that they can vote themselves money.
You know, from out here in Europe that observation does not seem to apply.
For the past 20 years or so we have been voting in centrist-to-right governments that were dedicated to:
Break down the welfare state.
Privatise all state services.
Sit up and be nice to the corporations.
All these measures were sold to the voting public as 'necessary'.
That in the end this was merely an excuse for a gigantic shift in the welfare state from citizien welfare to corporate welfare seems to have been lost on the voters, but the fact remains that the likes of Blair, Schröder, Chirac, Aznar and Kok were not voted in by citizens trying to vote themselves money.
I have the sneaky suspicion that that ancient observation has more characteristics of unchallengable dogma than as an accurate observation of reality.
I am not paying merely the true cost of the service. I am paying the cost plus the CEOs bonus. And the CEO of our local telco has consistently been one of the highest paid CEOs here.
Do remember that a state- or communally-owned telco does not need to make a profit, but a privatised telco does. Where does that profit come from if you privatise a state-owned telco? Right, from raising prices and cutting costs. I see you only looked at my higher prices argument, but cut out the remarks about deteriorated service. You quip about true cost is just that: a quip, if you can't address the entire argument.
Now go away. Why is it that you closet libertarians always seem to defend corporations no matter what? They're just as bad as the government. The nineteenth century called: the Anarchists want their name back.
And as for you, you don't even have the courage to post under a nickname. Anonymous Coward indeed.
Slashdot Mirror
You're lucky. Trust me on this, I used to work tech support for a large financial institution, just as they made the switch from NT4/Office 97 to XP Pro/Office XP. I got plenty of calls:
I must agree with other posters here, even a Word-to-Word migration isn't flawless, and certainly the problems getting all Word docs loaded in OOo can be replicated getting old Word docs loaded in a newer Word version.
Mart(Emphasis mine)
Accusing you of being partisan? Why on Earth would we want to do such a thing?
Mart
I can think of one: Citrix. MS has licensed parts of their codebase for Windows Terminal Server, if I am not mistaken.Of course, that is the only example that I can think of, so it tends to confirm your general observation.
MartThe approximate speed being some 60 mph, not even 120 km/h. On an open road, that's a normal speed, even sedate for an Italian (I hate stereotypes, but they do drive like lunatics generally). Especially considering that the Italians operated under the (mis)understanding that the US troops knew they were coming.
MartA default install? Desktop or server? Red Hat hasn't had these services active and unfirewalled in its default workstation install since 8.0. I flat out don't believe you.
Yes of course. That is why I see so many infected Apache servers attacking our systems. That popularity myth has been debunked so many times before, the fact that you keep bringing it up marks you as either an MS shill or terminally stupid. Don't bother with further replies, this is not going anywhere.
MartThis is bullshit. Even a Linux distribution from the same vintage as Windows XP runs fewer unnecessary services listening on outside connections by default. Anyone who has ever installed both Windows and a Linux distribution since then will acknowledge that, except for the Microsoft shills.
Tell me oh great wizard, if what you say is true, why is the survival time of a default WinXP install so much lower than that of a default Linux install?
MartIn the enterprise? Sure, no doubt. As a home machine connected directly to the Internet? Nope. There is enough protection available out of the box with ipf, netfilter and just plain not running extraneous services. None of these things are offered on Windows XP by default. Even the built-in packet filter (which still has some serious deficiencies) only runs by default and before the network is up in Service Pack 2.
And if you equate security with hardware firewalls only, then I posit that it is you who has no clue about security at all.
MartAnother reason why I don't use Windows. What's the use of an OS that needs third-party protection to be safe to use?
So installing Windows both means asking 'Mother may I' and buying extra protection. Do you mind if I pass?
MartAnd that sounds like someone who is being a nuisance on the Internet. Do you know what the survival time for a freshly installed WinXP installation is? Short enough that running the activation procedure might leave your machine zombie'd before the activation is even done.
MartRemember, a slippery slope argument is only fallacious if the causality between the steps is unclear or non-existent.
Also remember, when free-speech activists decried the DMCA proposal because of its chilling effect, they were shouted down with "slippery slope fallacy!" as well. Yet one of the first to use the DMCA was the Church of Scientology to take down critics' sites.
Go get a logic class will you?
MartAnd of course the fact that all your software saves in different default directories and sometimes even refuses to remember the directory you last saved in during the same session[1] makes no difference. The fact that the file selector only shows the last part of the pathname doesn't matter either, not even if the same exact directory structure exists in C:\Documents and Settings\Username or in your network logon share. Noooo, it's all the user's fault.
Sometimes I get so sick and tired of you Microsoft fanboys.
Mart
[1] Microsoft Powerpoint XP on Windows XP Pro SP1, for example.
Actually, both statements are wrong.
Next time, please get a clue before opening your mouth, OK?
MartThere is a reason for that: forgery. The ECB went for the security-through-obscurity route when forgery-proofing their bills. There are over 20 characteristics that distinguish a real Euro note from a fake one, unfortunately the banks only saw fit to disclose half of them, leading to the situtation that currently only banks can distinguish fake from real.
Of course, shopkeepers can't do so, but since the bank won't accept forged notes that businesses accepted in good faith, they end up being liable for the damage. Therefore shops decided en masse to no longer accept large denominations. The way things are going, the EUR 50 note will have to be redesigned, or it will end up being on the black list too.
Of course, the ECB could just publish all anti-forgery characteristics. But then, the argument goes, the forgers have it easier. Funny that the Dutch didn't seem to have that problem. As far as I know the central bank always published all details, confident that the measures were good enough to stop forgeries, and making it easy on businesses to detect the occasional ones. This suggests strongly that the anti-forgery measures on the Euro bills are just plain not good enough.
MartYou are free to sell binary-only software for Linux. Linux users are free to say they don't want your software because it's binary only.
By saying so, no-one's freedom is curtailed. Your ability to make a profit in the Linux market is curtailed. However, it is not the job of the market to shift to your demands, it is your job to shift to the market's demands, up to and including not selling in certain markets.
Obviously, in your example, the Linux userbase has grown enough to be an interesting market. Now it is your job to figure out a marketing plan to make your product interesting for that market. That may including offering source code with your product. Tough. Adapt, or let the competition cut you out. Stop demanding that people give up their freedom for your profit.
MartAnd scarier is someone who obviously hasn't bothered to pay attention to the news.
And even scarier still are the morons who mod this up as 'Informative'.
MartI am slightly older than you and live in Europe, yet I knew what the TSA was, and I knew it before this story, just from the regular news. This suggests one of two things:
I am more than willing to extend the benefit of doubt to you, but that does paint a fairly bleak picture of the press in the USA. And I leave you with the chilling implications of the fact that your entire press seems to be nothing but government mouthpieces.
MartI gave a very specific criterium as to why I consider your links not trustworthy. I did empathically not call the authors of the linked articles shills.
Yet you try to smear me, you strawman my arguments, and you answer no points. Your posts show a pattern that strongly resembles the well-documented Scientology doctrine on how to attack critics. You also don't deny being a Scientologist.
Were this a newsgroup, I'd have ploinked you by now as reasoning with clams is hopeless.
Oh, and by the way, those reports in that Google page you link to also mention that Germany may well be right in regarding the CoS with suspicion. The reports of the UNHCR also document the accusation that the CoS tries to discredit critics, and that there are allegations of misuse of power, undue pressure on members to donate time and money and outright fraud.
MartThe reports as such accept nothing but the fact that Scientology is considered a religion in some countries, including the United States. The reports of 'persecution' are nothing but a restatement of the position of the CoS, and are admitted as such in most of the reports you link to. And in fact, in some of those links the criticisms against the CoS are repeated just as strongly as their 'persecution' argument.
As for your 'respected scholars', I can find lots of 'scholars' who defend creationism who are respected. You do not say respected by whom. The fact that none of them see fit to address the criticisms against Scientology, nor the well-documented depredations of this 'cult', not even to dismiss this criticism and that the conference where these papers were presented was organised by a well known shill for Scientology, shows that these guys are at best misguided, and at worst shills themselves. And given that information, your linking to them with your own arguments given so far is shilling.
And regardless of your backpeddling, you did try to strawman me into an anti-religion stance. Another CoS tactic, by the way, documented in those very links to the UNHCR you gave yourself.
Operation Footbullet again? I did see you did not deny being a Scientologist.
MartThose reports don't all seem to say what you imply they say.
A typical trick, using a link to sound authoritive in the hopes that your opponent will not read the linked material carefully. Why do you attempt such a tactic?
Also, your first paragraph is an obvious strawman. I did not say that everyone who doesn't attack every religion is an apologist. I stated very clearly that your linked material carries the strong implication that these folks are apologists for the CoS. I did not say anything about other religions.
Why don't you come right out and admit that you are a Scientologist?
MartShouldn't that be: "I have thetans to exorcise"?
For the other readers, parent is referring to CESNUR, a seemingly objective site. Unfortunately, this site is merely the product of one man, Massime Introvigne. And Google shows up some very interesting things about Mr. Introvigne.
For one, he is an IP lawyer. And what is the CoS favourite avenue of attack?
It appears that aforementioned links are, if not straight from the CoS, at least from some of their apologists.
MartTo be quite fair, it is common practice in Mystery cults to keep the secrets of the higher grades of Initiation from its lower members. In ordinary practice, there is no need to enforce this secrecy as the lower initiates wouldn't understand the material anyway, but sometimes for whatever reason a vow of secrecy is required from the higher Initiates (cf the Freemasons).
So, on the face of it, there is no reason to not respect Scientology's copyrights. There is however a major fly in the ointment: there is a strong suspicion that Scientology is not a legitimate Mystery cult, but in fact a scam operation that aims to extract the maximum amount of money from its members. As such it is possibly a criminal organisation, and publication of evidence pointing in that direction is in the public interest. Jurisprudence in most Western states says that the public interest trumps copyright protection (in fact, this was one of the arguments in this case).
MartTry this trick: highlight the URL you want to paste, and instead of pasting it into the location bar, middle-click anywhere on the active webpage that's not a hyperlink. In all Mozilla derivatives (and as far as I know, in Konqueror derivatives as well), the browser will open a new page using your highlighted selection. Depending on settings, it might open a page in a new tab though, but that's about the only snag I've ever run into.
This trick has worked on *nix platforms ever since Netscape Navigator, and I can't live without it. I even find myself attempting it when I'm sitting at a Windows machine.
MartThis is why even the moderate right in Europe considers the United States as Hard Right to Right Extremist. Don't fool yourself, you don't have a left wing in the US anymore. Hence anything left of right-of-centre is perceived as godless communism by you.
I'll leave aside the truth about saving money or achieving an increase in efficiency, that's another discussion. What does seem to happen is that things that used to benefit the lower half of the population are now gone, and that those on a median income or below are paying ever more for ever less service, while a tiny minority of fat cats has gotten rich on lucrative deals taking over the state services on a dime, and giving themselves enormous bonuses out of the resulting profits.
As I said, the reality is that the voters have voted for their new overlords, and they seem to think that this is the natural order of things. I do not however see any libertarians protest that the improved efficiencies have not led to lower prices and/or better service for the same price. This is what economic theory predicts after all. Instead I see 'libertarians' defend the state of affairs where a rapacious few cream off the profits and keep them for themselves, and even use them to buy government influence to keep this scam going (for plenty examples go read some of the community Wi-Fi threads of the past week, or today's drug patent story).
Libertarians? Don't make me laugh. All I ever see them do is defend PRIVILEGE over LIBERTY. That makes the lot neo-feudalists in my book.
MartYou know, from out here in Europe that observation does not seem to apply.
For the past 20 years or so we have been voting in centrist-to-right governments that were dedicated to:
- Break down the welfare state.
- Privatise all state services.
- Sit up and be nice to the corporations.
All these measures were sold to the voting public as 'necessary'.That in the end this was merely an excuse for a gigantic shift in the welfare state from citizien welfare to corporate welfare seems to have been lost on the voters, but the fact remains that the likes of Blair, Schröder, Chirac, Aznar and Kok were not voted in by citizens trying to vote themselves money.
I have the sneaky suspicion that that ancient observation has more characteristics of unchallengable dogma than as an accurate observation of reality.
MartI am not paying merely the true cost of the service. I am paying the cost plus the CEOs bonus. And the CEO of our local telco has consistently been one of the highest paid CEOs here.
Do remember that a state- or communally-owned telco does not need to make a profit, but a privatised telco does. Where does that profit come from if you privatise a state-owned telco? Right, from raising prices and cutting costs. I see you only looked at my higher prices argument, but cut out the remarks about deteriorated service. You quip about true cost is just that: a quip, if you can't address the entire argument.
Now go away. Why is it that you closet libertarians always seem to defend corporations no matter what? They're just as bad as the government. The nineteenth century called: the Anarchists want their name back.
And as for you, you don't even have the courage to post under a nickname. Anonymous Coward indeed.