Ok, have it your way. Your water, electricity, and gas will be off shortly. Have fun digging your well, buying gas for your generator, and cooking in your fireplace.
Most utilities, whether publicly or privately owned, are subsidized by taxes and billed by use. This "government service" likely comes from your property taxes. For most of the country almost all property taxes go to education and little to utilities.
I'm against most US socialist programs, especially at the federal level, but for things which are so common that an unregulated monopoly can wreak havoc on a capitalist society it's necessary.
That's not communist or communist-like. Education, health care, and pensions aren't property (strictly speaking). Restrictions on the trade of physical property would be communist. But these are social concepts and considered necessities in some societies, hence it's socialism to have the government control them (as in who gets what).
For things which are necessities or become ubiquitous the government regulates or takes control of them as public utilities. The internet is certainly at the level where some states might consider them utilities. Therefore at some point they should be allowed to offer them as such. Right now we're in that in-between stage; it's not as common as the telephone but it's getting there.
Microsoft allegedly opened up Windows APIs last year... Now, Devos claims that Microsoft's disclosures remain sufficiently inaccurate and incomplete for developers to continue using his own documentation.
Devos claims that Whirling Dervishes has discovered hidden Windows interfaces that are crucial for the development of such applications, but whose existence is denied by Microsoft. Not much change there then, post-lawsuit. These and other interfaces which Devos says should have been part of the API disclosures are used in NSELib, and he proposes to make public full documentation on how to use them.
At any company time is money. It's impossible to switch a corporate desktop with no cost whatsoever. Even a competent SuSE person is going to spend at least a little time installing and setting up a desktop. Time spent on that is time not spend on other corporate work. Even 5 minutes per desktop is a lot when multiplied by 6,000. Hence it costs in terms of man-hours (i.e. productivity not used towards making the company money). And it directly costs money if that person's time is billable to a customer.
If you're on a mobile device and browsing the web for information the sites with the most valuable info will likely be mostly text (aside from ads). If you're on a mobile device and browsing for media entertainment you'll probably want something specifically targeted to your device's size.
The moral of the story is sites which want to provide pure information should be mostly text and should not be too strict in their formatting (i.e. let the browser decide a lot for you and use relative sizes). Those that want to provide multimedia need to target devices because their media will have a different experience on each type of device.
I think the traditional PC is close to saturation. Where the money is are in things like media center/home theater PCs, secondary computers, and specialized machines. Since most everyone has a PC, the real quest is to use PC technology to replace other existing gadgets.
This is true only in the "western" world. Asia and Africa have massive growth potential for any PC related technology. Only when the PC reaches world-wide saturation will we see a really quick change in companies pushing new kinds of technologies to replace it.
Time has told us that people are never happy with a single, limited, box - when games consoles went up against home computers, the latter won. Games consoles only came back when it became normal to have both a computer and a console.
I don't think the popularity (or lack there of) of game consoles ever had anything directly to do with their single limited use. PCs were "winning" when they had better hardware, better games, and networking. Consoles came back when they caught up with hardware, expanded their game offerings, and allowed more human competition.
In the games division it's whatever gives the best experience that wins. Most people don't care if the machine can be used for other purposes. When they want to play games they'll pay for the best method.
Actually if you read up on mag stripes you will find that they contain more than that. The data (tracks) of the cards often contain your name and other bits of information the bank finds handy. How else do you explain the "Hello Mr/Ms...." on the reciepts some places have.
Wrong. Standard analog credit card mag stripes have space for 16 numbers. Some banks may store more info (somehow remaining backwards compatible for card readers) but the standard does not. Your statement about personalized info on receipts prooves you don't know what you're talking about. Credit card readers can not read anything custom to any one bank. You get personalized info on receipts when data is transmitted from the card-holder's bank to the merchant bank to the merchant POS.
As a former MasterCard employee I can tell you this is not at all true for MasterCard debit cards. The MC debit cards are simply other products (as they call them) all with the same minimum fraud guarantees. Other products may offer more protection, but the basic credit card fraud rules still apply. Banks can offer additional protection on top of that if they choose.
From the customer's perspective MC debit cards are supposed to provide 2 major benefits: use them anywhere MC credit cards are accepted (i.e. transactions go through the same network) and fraud protection.
Last time I checked the merchant contracts specify that they can't ask you for an ID. The credit card companies don't want to make it any harder to use plastic than paper and coins. Usually the extra ID is only requested for minorities which makes it even more wrong.
Next time this happens report it to your bank. If enough complaints are entered for a merchant their bank can revoke their contract to offer card purchases.
It actually has little to do with Starbucks. It's MasterCard's policy (i.e. in the contract with each bank) that purchases under $20 don't require authentication. It's up to the vendor if they want to follow that policy. Credit card companies want their plastic to be used in place of cash for every purchase. For tiny amounts it makes little sense unless the plastic is easier to use than paper and coins. So they (along with the banks) cover the cost of fraud under $20 in order to get much more business.
Similarly merchants are not allowed to deny purchases below a certain amount. Any of those signs "No credit card purchases below $10" are a breach of contract. Merchants don't want to pay the credit card fee for such small purchases, but if they want to allow credit card use at all they must.
You obviously haven't read any of his books or articles on his background. He gets more and more media attention as he finds more and more things going wrong with the legal system. His "stunts" draw direct attention to real problems. His contributions have helped software developers more than any other lawyer I can think of. Before most people knew his name he was helping convict Microsoft of illegal activities. He's also the first to really explain the problems in the legal system as relating to computers to everyone.
Developers in the US are definitely better off with him in the spotlight.
Lessig is quite intelligent. He knows what he's doing is an experiment. He also knows we'll never really know if such a thing is a good idea until someone tries it. While some technical documentation is written this way a book such as his probably has not.
Also, with a wiki a few good editors could go through what's entered and edit as desired. I'm sure Lessig will have no problems finding an editor or two to help.
You're quite possibly right, but I hope you're wrong.
The reason is the average user is now caring about security. The average user has never cared about standards compliance. They just want to see things that look good. It's only the developers (a much smaller community and many not Microsoft customers) that complain about standards.
Funny thing is CSS2.1 isn't the future. It's existed for over a year. So whoever said they're waiting for 2.1 is either misinformed or lying. If they wanted to support it they could have started a year ago.
If they're total assholes why are you with a business using VB6? I agree they're assholes, so I quit after 10 years of development on MS platforms and switched to a company exclusively using open source. Maybe you should do the same.
Not directly. But VBA will be phased out to be replaced with.NET "extensions". From Microsoft's standpoint it's.NET or nothing. Microsoft won't be offering anything else (yes, C++ remains but that's mostly for themselves and so others link to.NET from their legacy apps). They won't be rewriting all of their apps in.NET any time soon, but they expect you to.
Solar, wind, hydro, and tidal are not viable options for complete replacement of oil. Do the math like they have here. Do you want to see windmills taking up entire states' full of land and killing millions of birds a year? Or how about solar panels on the roof of every building but still nowhere near enough for the whole electric grid. Let's throw in hydro and tidal and devastate more ecology. Why not try everything without knowing the full consequences of our actions?
Extreme environmentalists cry for all this stuff without thinking enough about it. Every "environmental" source such as these actually hurt the environment while not even solving the problem. The only reasons nuclear is frowned upon are political. Nuclear plants can be made extremely safe and far from most civilization. Fix political problems like what to do with spent cells. Don't waste effort on things that won't completely eliminate the need for oil.
1. No. The person who caught it first just happened to be a nice guy and reported it. In fact Microsoft wouldn't even respond to his initial notifications.
2. AFAIK the emails were being sold without users being informed. It wasn't in the privacy statement or license agreement. It's only after it went to press that MS temporarily stopped.
3. Really? I don't make stuff up. I back up every statement with information from good sources: http://www.msversus.org/node/8 (includes links to sources) Packet sniffers have proven multiple times that MS apps send more information than is disclosed to users.
Sure bias clouds/. discussions. But not any of my statements.
I mean, they know as well as we do about the possibilities of it splitting into multiple varieties, but aside from that...
From the large enterprise and government perspective Linux splitting into multiple varieties SHOULD NOT MATTER. Let's say a huge organization goes with IBM using Linux. Linux breaks into multiple camps. IBM can keep the client happy no matter what because they can take their version of Linux as far as they want. And if the client isn't happy he can take his version of Linux with him and have someone else maintain it.
The only reason Unix splintering was bad was because each flavor was strictly controlled by a different group. Linux is owned by everyone and no one. Feel free to hire a company to add features to your version.
FTA: "From a corporate perspective, we are not confident where Linux is right now today. A large enterprise needs to be sure because it relates to securifying [sic] the environment."
Microsoft exposed every detail of every Passport account over the internet with a simple URL. The person who found this was able to read any credit card numbers he desired. MSN used to sell e-mail addresses to advertisers which may then be used for spamming (they may still do this, haven't heard). Media Player (9?) transmits information about the movies or music you play even when you change the setting to prevent it.
Still think Microsoft hasn't done anything wrong with personal information?
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, have it your way. Your water, electricity, and gas will be off shortly. Have fun digging your well, buying gas for your generator, and cooking in your fireplace.
Most utilities, whether publicly or privately owned, are subsidized by taxes and billed by use. This "government service" likely comes from your property taxes. For most of the country almost all property taxes go to education and little to utilities.
I'm against most US socialist programs, especially at the federal level, but for things which are so common that an unregulated monopoly can wreak havoc on a capitalist society it's necessary.
That's not communist or communist-like. Education, health care, and pensions aren't property (strictly speaking). Restrictions on the trade of physical property would be communist. But these are social concepts and considered necessities in some societies, hence it's socialism to have the government control them (as in who gets what).
For things which are necessities or become ubiquitous the government regulates or takes control of them as public utilities. The internet is certainly at the level where some states might consider them utilities. Therefore at some point they should be allowed to offer them as such. Right now we're in that in-between stage; it's not as common as the telephone but it's getting there.
What do you think the "open" in "open source" means?
An article from 2003:
Microsoft allegedly opened up Windows APIs last year... Now, Devos claims that Microsoft's disclosures remain sufficiently inaccurate and incomplete for developers to continue using his own documentation.
Devos claims that Whirling Dervishes has discovered hidden Windows interfaces that are crucial for the development of such applications, but whose existence is denied by Microsoft. Not much change there then, post-lawsuit. These and other interfaces which Devos says should have been part of the API disclosures are used in NSELib, and he proposes to make public full documentation on how to use them.
At any company time is money. It's impossible to switch a corporate desktop with no cost whatsoever. Even a competent SuSE person is going to spend at least a little time installing and setting up a desktop. Time spent on that is time not spend on other corporate work. Even 5 minutes per desktop is a lot when multiplied by 6,000. Hence it costs in terms of man-hours (i.e. productivity not used towards making the company money). And it directly costs money if that person's time is billable to a customer.
If you're on a mobile device and browsing the web for information the sites with the most valuable info will likely be mostly text (aside from ads). If you're on a mobile device and browsing for media entertainment you'll probably want something specifically targeted to your device's size.
The moral of the story is sites which want to provide pure information should be mostly text and should not be too strict in their formatting (i.e. let the browser decide a lot for you and use relative sizes). Those that want to provide multimedia need to target devices because their media will have a different experience on each type of device.
I think the traditional PC is close to saturation. Where the money is are in things like media center/home theater PCs, secondary computers, and specialized machines. Since most everyone has a PC, the real quest is to use PC technology to replace other existing gadgets.
This is true only in the "western" world. Asia and Africa have massive growth potential for any PC related technology. Only when the PC reaches world-wide saturation will we see a really quick change in companies pushing new kinds of technologies to replace it.
Time has told us that people are never happy with a single, limited, box - when games consoles went up against home computers, the latter won. Games consoles only came back when it became normal to have both a computer and a console.
I don't think the popularity (or lack there of) of game consoles ever had anything directly to do with their single limited use. PCs were "winning" when they had better hardware, better games, and networking. Consoles came back when they caught up with hardware, expanded their game offerings, and allowed more human competition.
In the games division it's whatever gives the best experience that wins. Most people don't care if the machine can be used for other purposes. When they want to play games they'll pay for the best method.
Actually if you read up on mag stripes you will find that they contain more than that. The data (tracks) of the cards often contain your name and other bits of information the bank finds handy. How else do you explain the "Hello Mr/Ms ...." on the reciepts some places have.
Wrong. Standard analog credit card mag stripes have space for 16 numbers. Some banks may store more info (somehow remaining backwards compatible for card readers) but the standard does not. Your statement about personalized info on receipts prooves you don't know what you're talking about. Credit card readers can not read anything custom to any one bank. You get personalized info on receipts when data is transmitted from the card-holder's bank to the merchant bank to the merchant POS.
As a former MasterCard employee I can tell you this is not at all true for MasterCard debit cards. The MC debit cards are simply other products (as they call them) all with the same minimum fraud guarantees. Other products may offer more protection, but the basic credit card fraud rules still apply. Banks can offer additional protection on top of that if they choose.
From the customer's perspective MC debit cards are supposed to provide 2 major benefits: use them anywhere MC credit cards are accepted (i.e. transactions go through the same network) and fraud protection.
Last time I checked the merchant contracts specify that they can't ask you for an ID. The credit card companies don't want to make it any harder to use plastic than paper and coins. Usually the extra ID is only requested for minorities which makes it even more wrong.
Next time this happens report it to your bank. If enough complaints are entered for a merchant their bank can revoke their contract to offer card purchases.
It actually has little to do with Starbucks. It's MasterCard's policy (i.e. in the contract with each bank) that purchases under $20 don't require authentication. It's up to the vendor if they want to follow that policy. Credit card companies want their plastic to be used in place of cash for every purchase. For tiny amounts it makes little sense unless the plastic is easier to use than paper and coins. So they (along with the banks) cover the cost of fraud under $20 in order to get much more business.
Similarly merchants are not allowed to deny purchases below a certain amount. Any of those signs "No credit card purchases below $10" are a breach of contract. Merchants don't want to pay the credit card fee for such small purchases, but if they want to allow credit card use at all they must.
(I used to work for MasterCard)
Actually, my understanding is that the mag stripe contains the PIN unencrypted.
That's incorrect. The mag stripe contains only the 16 digits of the card. (I used to work for MasterCard).
You obviously haven't read any of his books or articles on his background. He gets more and more media attention as he finds more and more things going wrong with the legal system. His "stunts" draw direct attention to real problems. His contributions have helped software developers more than any other lawyer I can think of. Before most people knew his name he was helping convict Microsoft of illegal activities. He's also the first to really explain the problems in the legal system as relating to computers to everyone.
Developers in the US are definitely better off with him in the spotlight.
Lessig is quite intelligent. He knows what he's doing is an experiment. He also knows we'll never really know if such a thing is a good idea until someone tries it. While some technical documentation is written this way a book such as his probably has not.
Also, with a wiki a few good editors could go through what's entered and edit as desired. I'm sure Lessig will have no problems finding an editor or two to help.
You're quite possibly right, but I hope you're wrong.
The reason is the average user is now caring about security. The average user has never cared about standards compliance. They just want to see things that look good. It's only the developers (a much smaller community and many not Microsoft customers) that complain about standards.
Funny thing is CSS2.1 isn't the future. It's existed for over a year. So whoever said they're waiting for 2.1 is either misinformed or lying. If they wanted to support it they could have started a year ago.
If they're total assholes why are you with a business using VB6? I agree they're assholes, so I quit after 10 years of development on MS platforms and switched to a company exclusively using open source. Maybe you should do the same.
Not directly. But VBA will be phased out to be replaced with .NET "extensions". From Microsoft's standpoint it's .NET or nothing. Microsoft won't be offering anything else (yes, C++ remains but that's mostly for themselves and so others link to .NET from their legacy apps). They won't be rewriting all of their apps in .NET any time soon, but they expect you to.
IIRC the largest oil deposit known on earth is in Canada. Problem is it's basically blended in with sand and it's much more expensive to extract.
And the best part is it's a much easier place for the US to invade. *ducking*
Sarcasm kids, just sarcasm.
Solar, wind, hydro, and tidal are not viable options for complete replacement of oil. Do the math like they have here. Do you want to see windmills taking up entire states' full of land and killing millions of birds a year? Or how about solar panels on the roof of every building but still nowhere near enough for the whole electric grid. Let's throw in hydro and tidal and devastate more ecology. Why not try everything without knowing the full consequences of our actions?
Extreme environmentalists cry for all this stuff without thinking enough about it. Every "environmental" source such as these actually hurt the environment while not even solving the problem. The only reasons nuclear is frowned upon are political. Nuclear plants can be made extremely safe and far from most civilization. Fix political problems like what to do with spent cells. Don't waste effort on things that won't completely eliminate the need for oil.
1. No. The person who caught it first just happened to be a nice guy and reported it. In fact Microsoft wouldn't even respond to his initial notifications.
/. discussions. But not any of my statements.
2. AFAIK the emails were being sold without users being informed. It wasn't in the privacy statement or license agreement. It's only after it went to press that MS temporarily stopped.
3. Really? I don't make stuff up. I back up every statement with information from good sources: http://www.msversus.org/node/8 (includes links to sources) Packet sniffers have proven multiple times that MS apps send more information than is disclosed to users.
Sure bias clouds
I mean, they know as well as we do about the possibilities of it splitting into multiple varieties, but aside from that...
From the large enterprise and government perspective Linux splitting into multiple varieties SHOULD NOT MATTER. Let's say a huge organization goes with IBM using Linux. Linux breaks into multiple camps. IBM can keep the client happy no matter what because they can take their version of Linux as far as they want. And if the client isn't happy he can take his version of Linux with him and have someone else maintain it.
The only reason Unix splintering was bad was because each flavor was strictly controlled by a different group. Linux is owned by everyone and no one. Feel free to hire a company to add features to your version.
FTA: "From a corporate perspective, we are not confident where Linux is right now today. A large enterprise needs to be sure because it relates to securifying [sic] the environment."
Need we say more?
Microsoft exposed every detail of every Passport account over the internet with a simple URL. The person who found this was able to read any credit card numbers he desired. MSN used to sell e-mail addresses to advertisers which may then be used for spamming (they may still do this, haven't heard). Media Player (9?) transmits information about the movies or music you play even when you change the setting to prevent it.
Still think Microsoft hasn't done anything wrong with personal information?