I was citing Coulter to bring this into the publishing realm. But you are right. Her Dale Earnhardt whininess has not gotten anyone killed and that makes Bush's Lies (or the lies fed to him) much much worse.
I still believe that he actually believed they were there. Whether Donald Rumsfeld and Cheney did I am not sure but I am reasonably convinced that he did believe it. In either case the falsehood still holds though, and people are still dying.
Well if Ann Coulter can go to press with a book claiming that the NY Times didn't acknowledge the death of Dale Earnhard Jr. and the Bush Whitehouse lets in a Fake News agency to punt easy questions what more can be expected?
The "Million Little Pieces" incedent is minor as far as I am concerned. The lack of real fact-checking has gotten so bad that there is a whole industry of debunkers and debunker-debunkers. Take Ann Coulter for instance. Her grasp of reality (or at least the difference between truth and fiction) is minimal at best. A whole army of coulter-debunkers have grown up who devote time to debunking her claims (my favorite is The Daily Howler. In turn a whole army of Coulter Defenders has grown up to attack these debunkers.
At first I was annoyed by this phoenomenon, and then bored by it. Initally I assumed that the people who publish Coulter would care that her lies slandered their good name. And then I realized that they didn't care. They were making money off of her and the people both defending and attacking her. And, at the end of the day most people only believe those that say what they want to hear anyway.
While I was initially inclined to see this as bad publishing I now see this as a bigger problem.
I don't care about CNN. It's the idea that my tax dollars are being spent on sending military personnel to influence "news" that I might read and be swayed by. If people are taking my tax dollars and then spending them on advertising dedicated to making me give them more tax dollars. In this case it would be spending tax dollars to convince me that the war, war in general, is good, going well, should continue, etc.
Any bias in the information, especially bias placed by those who should answer to me clearly is unacceptable.
I think you underrate the significance of this. The NSA may or may not field interns to learn how telcos work. So long as they do not a) listen in on any calls, b) change any calls, and c) give bias in any way then this is different.
CNN is a news organization whose role is to disseminate fair and accurate news. As such their role as a neutral player means that they must or should present the news accurately and without bias. We the American Taxpayers turn to them to learn, among other things what it is our military is doing and how well they are doing it so that we may make informed decisions as voters.
They included, during wartime, people whose sole job is to present false or misleading information to support specific ends. Their specic role is to bolster public perception of the military in order to boost their ends. This is entirely orthagonal to the role of a news organization.
The U.S. Military is not, or should not be allowed to propagandize the American People. Restrictions were put in place following the revalations about lies that led to and sustained the Vietnam war (see the Pentagon Papers). Accurate information is necessary for democracy to function without it abuses of power cannot be recognized and checked. If the U.S. Military is lying to the American people then this represents a fundamental danger to our democracy and cannot be tolerated.
If CNN was biased or even gave the appearence of bias in any way then they have surrendered their status as an unbiased source of news. They cannot be trusted and should not.
CNN had until 2000 played host to members of Psyops who helped in the presentation of news for the U.S. Public. This has been characterized as a training program for Psyops and no more. While it is unclear whether they actually directed CNN to report the news in one way or another. Their role in "packaging" the news is. As such it represents a long history of such biasing work. See articles here and here.
Charitable donations, especially public ones can often have other purposes. To whit, Gates has donated a great deal to help AIDS victims. All that money, however, is being used to help fund the costs of prescription meds and to protect the IP "rights" of the companies that hold them. With his power and weath he could force a debate about such "rights" and point out that a) AZT and other retrovirals were developed and tested exclusively with U.S. Taxpayer dollars and that as such the drug companies have no "rights". This, if successful, would lead to the drugs being available at cost not the 1000%+ markup currently used to "protect profits" and probably help many more victims.
But such a change would threaten microsoft's IP claims. It would not do so directly but it would call into question the basis of IP in the first place. So he doesn't do it. Instead his donations help to shore up the IP system and indirectly his own wealth.
There has also been a long history in Washington of charitable donations for influence. Jack Abramoff, Tom Delay, and Roy Blunt made a great deal of use in this area with those seeking favor donating to charities of thir choosing. The donors were not so much investing in a Jewish Day school as Blunt, DeLay and Abramoff's good will. This good will had a direct payoff for the donors later (as well as being tax deductable). Similarly for Blunt, DeLay and Abramoff their ability to score funds raised their status, got them invited on paid speaking tours and helped make them money.
I am not asserting that every donation is a cynical ploy. In part I believe that Bill Gates wants to make the world a better place on one level. But not every public or private donation is "all about the children". Sometimes charity is about profit.
I heard an interview on the radio yesterday in which a woman who supported it (an "Ordinary American" said that she trusted Bush because a) he "was a christian" and b) he was only spying on those "other people" from the middle east "where all the trouble is coming from.
This summed up the numbers for me perfectly. For most people Shrub's claim that he is spying on "terrorists" or "bad people" or whatever is code for "people not like you", or "Muslims". Most people who support this do so because they assume that it isn't their phones being tapped and so its okay. Most of them assume that the only would be terrorists are muslims and that they are secure.
What they don't realize is that once this is permitted any law can be broken. Bush can spy on "us" without a warrant just as them. Once we've crossed the line people can start spying on anyone Atheists, Homosexuals, Communists, Pacifists (they already have done this), Mormons... People are comfortable because it is "Us" against "the bad people" and Bush is carefully playing that line. What people need to have explained to them is that they too can be considered "bad people".
Lest we forget prior to 9/11 America faced another unprovoked unwarranted terrorist attack. This attack claimed the lives of innocent Men, Women, and childen to no good end. The attackers: Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols two white, "Christian", midwesterners. Both military veterans with "average" jobs. In short "Ordinary Americans".
Much as people would like to pin it on "The muslims" and attack the middle east again, prior to 9/11 white "Christian" terrorists had killed more innocent Americans than Middle-Eastern Jihadists.
During the 1960's many Americans were comfortable with (or largely ignorant of) the government's spying on Communist Subversives. People accepted crackdowns because it was on people "not like them". The biggest prosecution of the time was the Rosenbergs east-cost Jewish intellectuals. The catch was people woke up one day to discover that the primary targets of government spying were: Martin Luther King Jr., and Rosa Parks. Instead of hunting commies the FBI had gone hunting Civil Rights activists, pacifists, artists, "Oridinary Americans".
Note that I'm not leaving aside A and the long tortured history of despots (Hitler, King Philip, The Kings of England France and Spain...) using the name of Christ (or indeed any religious figure) to justify their crimes. I just think the latter is a more prevelant sentiment.
Now the challenge is, What to do? The answer of course is tell people! Those of us who are Americans must know "Ordinary Americans" who think that this is okay, who trust Bush or who just don't know about it because the trust FoxNews and CNN to tell them "The truth".
Fox and CNN cannot be trusted we have to tell them "The truth", and then tell them again and again until they tell their friends and so on. Shouting online is, in the grand scheme of things pointless. A letter to the editor (takes ten minutes to type) is easy. Printing up some flyers that explain it and handing them out on a streetcorner for an afternoon is still pretty easy, and it'll get you some sun.
An unhappy but necessary conversation with Grandma, Mom, Dad, Uncle Bill, whoever we know who feels that this is "Okay" will suck but don't you want them to know the truth? I personally have an Uncle who told me that his only annoyance with the Iraq war was that Bush "had to lie" to make it happen. The fact that "they hate us" should have been sufficient reason to attack Iraq. He feels that the American People are just too nice. I don't imagine that it'll be asy to convince him (I'm shure I'll hate it) but only convincing him (and people like him) to change his mind will have any effect. Shouting to the crowd online will take time but change no real moods.
By my commentary I meant private flash drives being brought into a secure environment. I didn't say that the military does not use such drives. They are, as you noted quite useful. Rather I meant that one cannot, by default, bring their own flash drive, iPod, etc. into a secure area (that is to say almost all military bases).
The U.S. Military has pretty direct rules for dealing with these things, don't bring them. While I would never want to see that enforced everywhere the simple fact of the matter is, that is the only foolproof policy (and even it isn't perfect). Unless companies are willing to be draconian, and can find people who'll a) put up with that and b) obey, then they will lose some data.
While I fully expect some companies to try it I expect that some of them (the smaller, nimbler more sensible ones) will discover what many have about filtering e-mail/web access in the office. In general it costs more than it saves in sick days and general wasted money.
I wasn't actually assuming that there would be a workaround per se. What I was doing was pointing out the problem for windows users that this raises. In order to test code you have to run new binaries. If you are required to constantly sign each interim binary that will only a) lengthen the development process unnecessarily, and b) raise the pssibility of bad "signed" drivers getting out which then invalidates the purpose of the signatures. If some workaround say a Windows Developer Edition is provided then that will be a new product but also a potential avenue for unsigned binaries on the system.
That's it no open source drivers on Windows Vista.
It's not unlike the early "Analog Hole" legislation beinbg proposed by "Fritz" Hollings. The legislation attempted to link DRM and national security and, in one form, would have required a license to program a computer, possibly even certification of each binary prior to development.
The question is, how long until a workaround is found? When developing code I don't like the idea of signing each interim binary before testing it that would just lengthen the whole cycle pointlessly. Sooner or later somebody will find a way around this but not without much frustration, perhaps a specially signed "Developer Edition" of the OS.
"Ban" means proscribing the game by law so that noone could obtain it. This would be a patent and offensive violation of the constitutional right to free speech. As such it makes for a noticable headline.
"Boycott" means that people who agree with them shouldn't buy it for themselves or others. It is a) legal, b) more likely, c) unsurprising, and d) less likely to generate pagehits.
I would argue that your friend might be right, sometimes. It seems to me that sticking with old hardware, connections, etc. can work if a) the tool works for you, and b) the tool didn't become obsolete due to some inherent security flaw.
IMHO the argument should really be phrased as: If you don't need it, don't open yourself to security holes. If you run a PC don't run servers (or an OS that runs them without your consent) unless you need to. If you don't need always-on connections then don't get it. I find that many people, and companies, open themselves up to security holes because they buy new "upgrades" when they don't need them.
For that matter there is another benefit that you didn't mention: power. If you don't keep your connection, and pc up all the time that saves a lot of power. Unless your PC is actually doing something (running servers, crunching numbers) then you should just turn it off. You'll probably pay a lot less each month for it, and Mother Earth will love you more. I personally unplug my TV and Radio when I'm not using them as they still use a lot of power in "sleep mode". When I started doing that my power bill nearly halved.
1) WRT the Apple Game comparison. I made no comparisons between Windows and MacOS nor did it "blind me" to Apple's true nature. Apple is a hardware company and the hardware industry is highly compeitive, values secret information and so on. But the fact of the matter is that the Apple Secrets were specs not full vlsi layouts so they did not help Apple's Competitors in any way. While your latter point about customers waiting holds some weight it doesn't hold a lot. Apple had already indicated that new designs were on the shelf ready to be announced and the knowledge of that is what causes real purchase delays. More information would not have a significant effect in my opinion.
2) My comparison between Apple and the RIAA. It was not flamebait. Apple has sued less people than the RIAA yes and that was implicit in my comparisons. Apple has also chosen to go after a specific subset of its fans while the RIAA has chosen to go after pretty much anyone even the dead. You need to recognize the difference between intentional flamebait and a subtle distinction.
3) With respect to creative fiction I think that you are incorrect. In the case of creative fiction snippets of the fictuion are the product itself. In that case while it may whet the appetite for some it also represents a direct giveaway of the product involved. Reverse engineering takes work.
The concept of a "Bridge Position Both Sides could live with" is a fallacy. There is no "bridge position" between software patents and no software patents. There is only yes or no and only the CEO of SAP will benefit from yes, and then only for a while.
His dialogue is disengenious this is a blatant power grab.
Only time will tell, though, if what they are doing is legal.
No, We the People will tell whether this was legal. It wasn't and isn't. As Cringley noted in his article, the taps were made without the authorization of the FISA court. It is the FISA court which covers exactly these kinds of things. Therefore they are illegal. There exists no special holes in the statutes for presidents who are too lazy, and no openings for things that do not meet the standard.
The very reason that we have a FISA court is to provide some oversight of the process itself and to ensure that the shotgun approach so favored by past presidents is not done.
It still shocks me that people are debating this or, worse yet, accepting Bush's half-assed lines about "inherent authority". These taps are a patent violation of both the letter and the Spirit of the FISA law. What the hell more do we need?
I think that the more apt comparison would be between this and Apple. As you say a leaked image of a Magic Card cannot really be used by most players. Yes there are *some* who might print it out but those people are likely photocopying whole decks anyway so they are not really lost revenue (0 - 0 = 0). Similarly there is little competitive advantage in that competing game companies are not able to rush better products to market based upon this information, nor is anyone going to make a knock-off. Again, they would have anyway, just a few weeks later.
I see this a lot like Apple's lawsuits over leaked Mac specs. The leaks didn't cost them anything, nor did they help their competitors in any way. All that they did was a) piss off Steve because the secret is out, and b) challenge "intellectual property".
It is the latter that I think is at issue. Prima-donna execs are nothing new. Andrew Carnegie refused to have candid shots of his nose available publicly. But with the view that "intellectual property" is everything this kind of nonsense is growing. The lawsuit is not an outgorwth of actual harm but the illusory perception of "lost value" through lost secrets even though the actual value (selling cards) wasn't threatened in any way.
The real question is, will this piss off anyone enough for them to stop buying Magic cards and, if this is the case will the company notice or will they blame "leak piracy" like the RIAA. Ironically Apple's suits haven't hurt their fanbase in any way while the RIAA, who is losing money but not as much as they claim, is hurting theirs.
Whenever the topic of Microsoft's security (or lack thereof) comes up the Windows codebase is mentioned. Many both inside and outside of the company seem to attribute most of the existing security problems to the trouble of maintaining old Windows code and backwards compatability. Gates himself drove this point home by flogging the point that Vista would be built "from the ground up".
What gets mentioned less is Microsoft's development model. Books such as "I Sing the Body Electronic" by Fred Moody paint a picture of a corporate culture focused on high-pressure development cycles, fast turnaround on new features, heavy code re-use, and a dependence upon of contract workers. This seems expecially relevant given the fact that the recent WMF bugs (which made non-tech news) were not "old" features relative to the age of Windows.
My question is; How much is the codebase to blame for problems and how much is the culture? And, what are you doing about them?
Point but in the case of Marijuana most states ban the growth of the plant not only the feds. That is why states have the power to licence growers for medicinal uses.
While IANAL I don't think that simply growing a plant in your backyard invokes the commerce clause. The clause is only invoked when you wish to transfer said plant across state lines or international borders. Unless the plant emits pollution that crosses said lines the feds can't get involved.
The Federal dollars is an issue that is true. But then it is the elected senators and congressmen that voted for it. If you feel that your state senators are expanding the power.
Personally I feel that the idea of the overly invasive feds is often overdone in some areas and underdone in others. I feel that the federal government is accorded too much power when it comes to the "Drug War" and some other domains. Usually when people start screaming the "Feds have too much power" they are complaining about environmental laws and in that case I think that it does matter. Air pollution moves. Coal Slurry from West Virginia makes people sick in Virgina. Water use in Las Vegas affects water availability in New Mexico and California.
Article II Section 8 grants the Legislative Branch (Congress) the power to " To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;" This is what is known as the Commerce Clause
Also in that same section: "To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof." This allows them to actually do the above.
That would grant them say the ability to prohibit U.S. Businesses from engaging in commerce of proscribed types with select foriegn nations. This has been done with Cuba, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, the USSR...
"Shift" is a funny word. And you only welcome it I suspect because you believe that you will either a) not feel it, or b) be part of tyhe "rapture" that gets to go to heaven and watch the rest of us die horribly. Either way I don't welcome it. I don't want to die. I don't want my friends to die. I don't want there to be wars that consume starving diseased populations in endless battles. Jesus didn't speak about "shifts" the notions of the rapture came from wandering preachers in the last century.
In a world where some 2/3 of the population lives in a fe miles from sea level, our population is growing exponentially, much of our airable land is now unusable, and much of our weather has been growing increasingly unpredictable it is foolish, even egotistical to speak of "shifts" let alone to welcome them.
and bad fiction at that. In it he created cardboard "environmentalists" who sought to kill off large swaths of the earth's population as part of a tempter tantrum. One of his characters does nothing after being stabbed in the arm with a needle by some strange man and then dies, and yet he was supposed to be one of the best and brightest. The ringleader of the awful plot is has a man killed in the middle of Tower Bridge (the main bridge in London) at Noon and then stands over the corpse and yet doesn't get caught.
Much has been made of his "references", and the idea that he has backed up his bad fiction. If you peruse them you will see that a) they are not exhaustive, b) they favor unjournaled papers by anti-global-warming researchers (no attempt it made to see the science only the editorializing) and c) they include odd references to books on witchcraft and papers (such as the argument that greenland was once warmer) which do not prove his case at all.
The book was commissioned, bought, and paid for by Rupert Murdoch whose FoxNews network has made much of this money denying the state of the environment. Like Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter Michael Crichton has made himself a tool of Murdoch. He has a line to sell and won't let the truth stand in his way.
If you want reasonable discussion of global warming go seek real scientists not an editorial hack. If you want a spy/crime novel go read some old Ian Flemming.
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I was citing Coulter to bring this into the publishing realm. But you are right. Her Dale Earnhardt whininess has not gotten anyone killed and that makes Bush's Lies (or the lies fed to him) much much worse.
I still believe that he actually believed they were there. Whether Donald Rumsfeld and Cheney did I am not sure but I am reasonably convinced that he did believe it. In either case the falsehood still holds though, and people are still dying.
Well if Ann Coulter can go to press with a book claiming that the NY Times didn't acknowledge the death of Dale Earnhard Jr. and the Bush Whitehouse lets in a Fake News agency to punt easy questions what more can be expected?
The "Million Little Pieces" incedent is minor as far as I am concerned. The lack of real fact-checking has gotten so bad that there is a whole industry of debunkers and debunker-debunkers. Take Ann Coulter for instance. Her grasp of reality (or at least the difference between truth and fiction) is minimal at best. A whole army of coulter-debunkers have grown up who devote time to debunking her claims (my favorite is The Daily Howler. In turn a whole army of Coulter Defenders has grown up to attack these debunkers.
At first I was annoyed by this phoenomenon, and then bored by it. Initally I assumed that the people who publish Coulter would care that her lies slandered their good name. And then I realized that they didn't care. They were making money off of her and the people both defending and attacking her. And, at the end of the day most people only believe those that say what they want to hear anyway.
While I was initially inclined to see this as bad publishing I now see this as a bigger problem.
I don't care about CNN. It's the idea that my tax dollars are being spent on sending military personnel to influence "news" that I might read and be swayed by. If people are taking my tax dollars and then spending them on advertising dedicated to making me give them more tax dollars. In this case it would be spending tax dollars to convince me that the war, war in general, is good, going well, should continue, etc.
Any bias in the information, especially bias placed by those who should answer to me clearly is unacceptable.
I think you underrate the significance of this. The NSA may or may not field interns to learn how telcos work. So long as they do not a) listen in on any calls, b) change any calls, and c) give bias in any way then this is different.
CNN is a news organization whose role is to disseminate fair and accurate news. As such their role as a neutral player means that they must or should present the news accurately and without bias. We the American Taxpayers turn to them to learn, among other things what it is our military is doing and how well they are doing it so that we may make informed decisions as voters.
They included, during wartime, people whose sole job is to present false or misleading information to support specific ends. Their specic role is to bolster public perception of the military in order to boost their ends. This is entirely orthagonal to the role of a news organization.
The U.S. Military is not, or should not be allowed to propagandize the American People. Restrictions were put in place following the revalations about lies that led to and sustained the Vietnam war (see the Pentagon Papers). Accurate information is necessary for democracy to function without it abuses of power cannot be recognized and checked. If the U.S. Military is lying to the American people then this represents a fundamental danger to our democracy and cannot be tolerated.
If CNN was biased or even gave the appearence of bias in any way then they have surrendered their status as an unbiased source of news. They cannot be trusted and should not.
CNN had until 2000 played host to members of Psyops who helped in the presentation of news for the U.S. Public. This has been characterized as a training program for Psyops and no more. While it is unclear whether they actually directed CNN to report the news in one way or another. Their role in "packaging" the news is. As such it represents a long history of such biasing work. See articles here and here.
Charitable donations, especially public ones can often have other purposes. To whit, Gates has donated a great deal to help AIDS victims. All that money, however, is being used to help fund the costs of prescription meds and to protect the IP "rights" of the companies that hold them. With his power and weath he could force a debate about such "rights" and point out that a) AZT and other retrovirals were developed and tested exclusively with U.S. Taxpayer dollars and that as such the drug companies have no "rights". This, if successful, would lead to the drugs being available at cost not the 1000%+ markup currently used to "protect profits" and probably help many more victims.
But such a change would threaten microsoft's IP claims. It would not do so directly but it would call into question the basis of IP in the first place. So he doesn't do it. Instead his donations help to shore up the IP system and indirectly his own wealth.
There has also been a long history in Washington of charitable donations for influence. Jack Abramoff, Tom Delay, and Roy Blunt made a great deal of use in this area with those seeking favor donating to charities of thir choosing. The donors were not so much investing in a Jewish Day school as Blunt, DeLay and Abramoff's good will. This good will had a direct payoff for the donors later (as well as being tax deductable). Similarly for Blunt, DeLay and Abramoff their ability to score funds raised their status, got them invited on paid speaking tours and helped make them money.
I am not asserting that every donation is a cynical ploy. In part I believe that Bill Gates wants to make the world a better place on one level. But not every public or private donation is "all about the children". Sometimes charity is about profit.
I heard an interview on the radio yesterday in which a woman who supported it (an "Ordinary American" said that she trusted Bush because a) he "was a christian" and b) he was only spying on those "other people" from the middle east "where all the trouble is coming from.
This summed up the numbers for me perfectly. For most people Shrub's claim that he is spying on "terrorists" or "bad people" or whatever is code for "people not like you", or "Muslims". Most people who support this do so because they assume that it isn't their phones being tapped and so its okay. Most of them assume that the only would be terrorists are muslims and that they are secure.
What they don't realize is that once this is permitted any law can be broken. Bush can spy on "us" without a warrant just as them. Once we've crossed the line people can start spying on anyone Atheists, Homosexuals, Communists, Pacifists (they already have done this), Mormons... People are comfortable because it is "Us" against "the bad people" and Bush is carefully playing that line. What people need to have explained to them is that they too can be considered "bad people".
Lest we forget prior to 9/11 America faced another unprovoked unwarranted terrorist attack. This attack claimed the lives of innocent Men, Women, and childen to no good end. The attackers: Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols two white, "Christian", midwesterners. Both military veterans with "average" jobs. In short "Ordinary Americans".
Much as people would like to pin it on "The muslims" and attack the middle east again, prior to 9/11 white "Christian" terrorists had killed more innocent Americans than Middle-Eastern Jihadists.
During the 1960's many Americans were comfortable with (or largely ignorant of) the government's spying on Communist Subversives. People accepted crackdowns because it was on people "not like them". The biggest prosecution of the time was the Rosenbergs east-cost Jewish intellectuals. The catch was people woke up one day to discover that the primary targets of government spying were: Martin Luther King Jr., and Rosa Parks. Instead of hunting commies the FBI had gone hunting Civil Rights activists, pacifists, artists, "Oridinary Americans".
Note that I'm not leaving aside A and the long tortured history of despots (Hitler, King Philip, The Kings of England France and Spain...) using the name of Christ (or indeed any religious figure) to justify their crimes. I just think the latter is a more prevelant sentiment.
Now the challenge is, What to do? The answer of course is tell people! Those of us who are Americans must know "Ordinary Americans" who think that this is okay, who trust Bush or who just don't know about it because the trust FoxNews and CNN to tell them "The truth".
Fox and CNN cannot be trusted we have to tell them "The truth", and then tell them again and again until they tell their friends and so on. Shouting online is, in the grand scheme of things pointless. A letter to the editor (takes ten minutes to type) is easy. Printing up some flyers that explain it and handing them out on a streetcorner for an afternoon is still pretty easy, and it'll get you some sun.
An unhappy but necessary conversation with Grandma, Mom, Dad, Uncle Bill, whoever we know who feels that this is "Okay" will suck but don't you want them to know the truth? I personally have an Uncle who told me that his only annoyance with the Iraq war was that Bush "had to lie" to make it happen. The fact that "they hate us" should have been sufficient reason to attack Iraq. He feels that the American People are just too nice. I don't imagine that it'll be asy to convince him (I'm shure I'll hate it) but only convincing him (and people like him) to change his mind will have any effect. Shouting to the crowd online will take time but change no real moods.
By my commentary I meant private flash drives being brought into a secure environment. I didn't say that the military does not use such drives. They are, as you noted quite useful. Rather I meant that one cannot, by default, bring their own flash drive, iPod, etc. into a secure area (that is to say almost all military bases).
No, Nope, Nada.
The U.S. Military has pretty direct rules for dealing with these things, don't bring them. While I would never want to see that enforced everywhere the simple fact of the matter is, that is the only foolproof policy (and even it isn't perfect). Unless companies are willing to be draconian, and can find people who'll a) put up with that and b) obey, then they will lose some data.
While I fully expect some companies to try it I expect that some of them (the smaller, nimbler more sensible ones) will discover what many have about filtering e-mail/web access in the office. In general it costs more than it saves in sick days and general wasted money.
I wasn't actually assuming that there would be a workaround per se. What I was doing was pointing out the problem for windows users that this raises. In order to test code you have to run new binaries. If you are required to constantly sign each interim binary that will only a) lengthen the development process unnecessarily, and b) raise the pssibility of bad "signed" drivers getting out which then invalidates the purpose of the signatures. If some workaround say a Windows Developer Edition is provided then that will be a new product but also a potential avenue for unsigned binaries on the system.
That's it no open source drivers on Windows Vista.
It's not unlike the early "Analog Hole" legislation beinbg proposed by "Fritz" Hollings. The legislation attempted to link DRM and national security and, in one form, would have required a license to program a computer, possibly even certification of each binary prior to development.
The question is, how long until a workaround is found? When developing code I don't like the idea of signing each interim binary before testing it that would just lengthen the whole cycle pointlessly. Sooner or later somebody will find a way around this but not without much frustration, perhaps a specially signed "Developer Edition" of the OS.
No wonder there wasn't much fanfaire.
"Ban" means proscribing the game by law so that noone could obtain it. This would be a patent and offensive violation of the constitutional right to free speech. As such it makes for a noticable headline.
"Boycott" means that people who agree with them shouldn't buy it for themselves or others. It is a) legal, b) more likely, c) unsurprising, and d) less likely to generate pagehits.
I would argue that your friend might be right, sometimes. It seems to me that sticking with old hardware, connections, etc. can work if a) the tool works for you, and b) the tool didn't become obsolete due to some inherent security flaw.
IMHO the argument should really be phrased as: If you don't need it, don't open yourself to security holes. If you run a PC don't run servers (or an OS that runs them without your consent) unless you need to. If you don't need always-on connections then don't get it. I find that many people, and companies, open themselves up to security holes because they buy new "upgrades" when they don't need them.
For that matter there is another benefit that you didn't mention: power. If you don't keep your connection, and pc up all the time that saves a lot of power. Unless your PC is actually doing something (running servers, crunching numbers) then you should just turn it off. You'll probably pay a lot less each month for it, and Mother Earth will love you more. I personally unplug my TV and Radio when I'm not using them as they still use a lot of power in "sleep mode". When I started doing that my power bill nearly halved.
1) WRT the Apple Game comparison.
I made no comparisons between Windows and MacOS nor did it "blind me" to Apple's true nature. Apple is a hardware company and the hardware industry is highly compeitive, values secret information and so on. But the fact of the matter is that the Apple Secrets were specs not full vlsi layouts so they did not help Apple's Competitors in any way. While your latter point about customers waiting holds some weight it doesn't hold a lot. Apple had already indicated that new designs were on the shelf ready to be announced and the knowledge of that is what causes real purchase delays. More information would not have a significant effect in my opinion.
2) My comparison between Apple and the RIAA.
It was not flamebait. Apple has sued less people than the RIAA yes and that was implicit in my comparisons. Apple has also chosen to go after a specific subset of its fans while the RIAA has chosen to go after pretty much anyone even the dead. You need to recognize the difference between intentional flamebait and a subtle distinction.
3) With respect to creative fiction I think that you are incorrect. In the case of creative fiction snippets of the fictuion are the product itself. In that case while it may whet the appetite for some it also represents a direct giveaway of the product involved. Reverse engineering takes work.
The concept of a "Bridge Position Both Sides could live with" is a fallacy. There is no "bridge position" between software patents and no software patents. There is only yes or no and only the CEO of SAP will benefit from yes, and then only for a while.
His dialogue is disengenious this is a blatant power grab.
No, We the People will tell whether this was legal. It wasn't and isn't. As Cringley noted in his article, the taps were made without the authorization of the FISA court. It is the FISA court which covers exactly these kinds of things. Therefore they are illegal. There exists no special holes in the statutes for presidents who are too lazy, and no openings for things that do not meet the standard.
The very reason that we have a FISA court is to provide some oversight of the process itself and to ensure that the shotgun approach so favored by past presidents is not done.
It still shocks me that people are debating this or, worse yet, accepting Bush's half-assed lines about "inherent authority". These taps are a patent violation of both the letter and the Spirit of the FISA law. What the hell more do we need?
I think that the more apt comparison would be between this and Apple. As you say a leaked image of a Magic Card cannot really be used by most players. Yes there are *some* who might print it out but those people are likely photocopying whole decks anyway so they are not really lost revenue (0 - 0 = 0). Similarly there is little competitive advantage in that competing game companies are not able to rush better products to market based upon this information, nor is anyone going to make a knock-off. Again, they would have anyway, just a few weeks later.
I see this a lot like Apple's lawsuits over leaked Mac specs. The leaks didn't cost them anything, nor did they help their competitors in any way. All that they did was a) piss off Steve because the secret is out, and b) challenge "intellectual property".
It is the latter that I think is at issue. Prima-donna execs are nothing new. Andrew Carnegie refused to have candid shots of his nose available publicly. But with the view that "intellectual property" is everything this kind of nonsense is growing. The lawsuit is not an outgorwth of actual harm but the illusory perception of "lost value" through lost secrets even though the actual value (selling cards) wasn't threatened in any way.
The real question is, will this piss off anyone enough for them to stop buying Magic cards and, if this is the case will the company notice or will they blame "leak piracy" like the RIAA. Ironically Apple's suits haven't hurt their fanbase in any way while the RIAA, who is losing money but not as much as they claim, is hurting theirs.
Whenever the topic of Microsoft's security (or lack thereof) comes up the Windows codebase is mentioned. Many both inside and outside of the company seem to attribute most of the existing security problems to the trouble of maintaining old Windows code and backwards compatability. Gates himself drove this point home by flogging the point that Vista would be built "from the ground up".
What gets mentioned less is Microsoft's development model. Books such as "I Sing the Body Electronic" by Fred Moody paint a picture of a corporate culture focused on high-pressure development cycles, fast turnaround on new features, heavy code re-use, and a dependence upon of contract workers. This seems expecially relevant given the fact that the recent WMF bugs (which made non-tech news) were not "old" features relative to the age of Windows.
My question is; How much is the codebase to blame for problems and how much is the culture? And, what are you doing about them?
Point but in the case of Marijuana most states ban the growth of the plant not only the feds. That is why states have the power to licence growers for medicinal uses.
While IANAL I don't think that simply growing a plant in your backyard invokes the commerce clause. The clause is only invoked when you wish to transfer said plant across state lines or international borders. Unless the plant emits pollution that crosses said lines the feds can't get involved.
The Federal dollars is an issue that is true. But then it is the elected senators and congressmen that voted for it. If you feel that your state senators are expanding the power.
Personally I feel that the idea of the overly invasive feds is often overdone in some areas and underdone in others. I feel that the federal government is accorded too much power when it comes to the "Drug War" and some other domains. Usually when people start screaming the "Feds have too much power" they are complaining about environmental laws and in that case I think that it does matter. Air pollution moves. Coal Slurry from West Virginia makes people sick in Virgina. Water use in Las Vegas affects water availability in New Mexico and California.
Article II Section 8 grants the Legislative Branch (Congress) the power to " To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;" This is what is known as the Commerce Clause
Also in that same section: "To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof." This allows them to actually do the above.
That would grant them say the ability to prohibit U.S. Businesses from engaging in commerce of proscribed types with select foriegn nations. This has been done with Cuba, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, the USSR...
"Shift" is a funny word. And you only welcome it I suspect because you believe that you will either a) not feel it, or b) be part of tyhe "rapture" that gets to go to heaven and watch the rest of us die horribly. Either way I don't welcome it. I don't want to die. I don't want my friends to die. I don't want there to be wars that consume starving diseased populations in endless battles. Jesus didn't speak about "shifts" the notions of the rapture came from wandering preachers in the last century.
In a world where some 2/3 of the population lives in a fe miles from sea level, our population is growing exponentially, much of our airable land is now unusable, and much of our weather has been growing increasingly unpredictable it is foolish, even egotistical to speak of "shifts" let alone to welcome them.
and bad fiction at that. In it he created cardboard "environmentalists" who sought to kill off large swaths of the earth's population as part of a tempter tantrum. One of his characters does nothing after being stabbed in the arm with a needle by some strange man and then dies, and yet he was supposed to be one of the best and brightest. The ringleader of the awful plot is has a man killed in the middle of Tower Bridge (the main bridge in London) at Noon and then stands over the corpse and yet doesn't get caught.
Much has been made of his "references", and the idea that he has backed up his bad fiction. If you peruse them you will see that a) they are not exhaustive, b) they favor unjournaled papers by anti-global-warming researchers (no attempt it made to see the science only the editorializing) and c) they include odd references to books on witchcraft and papers (such as the argument that greenland was once warmer) which do not prove his case at all.
The book was commissioned, bought, and paid for by Rupert Murdoch whose FoxNews network has made much of this money denying the state of the environment. Like Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter Michael Crichton has made himself a tool of Murdoch. He has a line to sell and won't let the truth stand in his way.
If you want reasonable discussion of global warming go seek real scientists not an editorial hack. If you want a spy/crime novel go read some old Ian Flemming.