A country is fighting to save the lives of its citizens, and in the process violating international agreements. Heck! We wanted to end WWII, so we killed 400,000 + men, women, and children at Hiroshima and Nagazaki in 1945.
Was that "cost" warranted to save the lives of millions of US servicemen who might have been killed in combat invading Japan? As far as the US is concerned, probably. As far as Japan is concerned, absolutely not.
Likewise, Brazil is fighting a killing disease on a grand scale. Is the "cost" of violating international patent protection (profit protection really) warranted in the effort to potentially prevent the slow and horrible death of millions of Brazilians? I can guarantee that if I was the president of Brazil, I would say: "That was the easiest decision I ever made", just like what Roosevelt is reported to have said after ordering the anihilation of 400,000 men, women, and children in a nuclear holocaust.
[On a complete tangent, Hitler would have been so proud of the speed and efficiency of our euthanasia program--instead or bringing the people to the hellish place, you bring the hellish place to them. 400,000 in three days: that comes to about 290,000,000 in 6 years.]
Re:here's the instructions how to do it
on
Hotmail Hacked
·
· Score: 1
Visionized writes:
"What would be really interesting is to show an example hacking the rest of the sites that use Passport type technology"
I think there should be at least some contracts with major industries first, so that MS can be royally sued by much larger and wealthier corporation for making a defective product and advertizing it as "God's gift to mankind", when they get hacked and 30 million US credit card numbers are leaked to China by a 3l337 15 year-old.
Of course, that would spell doom on.NET faster than anything Sun Microsystems could do.
Not, of course, that I am advocating that sort of behavior. There is a reason people should wear seatbelt: accident DO happen.
We're under the FDIC and another half dozen government agency. We get audited 2 times a year. We call the cops they're here before we can hang up the phone. The FBI is on our side. We just suspect someone of doing something fishy, the LAPD is all over them. We see a bank account doing something fishy, the FBI is all over it. We don't disclose unnecessary data with our vendors. They have to sign enormous non-disclosure agreements.
Do you know what happens to someone who forges a check? It's a felony, with jail time (ten+ years) and a hefty fine. IANAL, (someone come up with the figures)
Heck, banks already have people's information. Names, address, phone numbers, employers, dob, ssn, drivers licenses, credit cards, bank accounts, mother's maiden name etc... It doesn't get more private than that.
Yes there's fraud, but not too much that the system isn't generally trusted.
And banks never ever reveal that info to anyone except to law enforcement.
Just as there is a "minimal", "standard", and "custom/advanced" setting for installing programs, there whould be the same thing for the ui. That way, when you first buy your pc, you select "Average person" and all the things are intuitive with big corny icons and nothing you can damage the machine with. A few months down the road, you decide to switch to "Computer savvy Person" and get more effective tools, etc. Later, you pick "Power User" and get the really neat tools that don't pop up "Are you sure?" when you want to delete a directory, and with which you can customize most everything. Finally, you get "Guru/admin" where everything is allowed and you can just tinker it to your heart's content.
Now, Gnome and KDE are going from "Guru/Admin" down to "power user", but they need to get to the "computer savvy" and "average person" to really capture market share.
All I'm saying is that the UI complexity level should be a setting that can be easily modified.
Oh, and in order for my company to deploy a linux ui, there should be a "I hate computers" / Moron" (run that by marketing first) setting, and the computer will give you almost no choice, run one or two apps, not let the user customize anything (especially not toolbars) and be kiosk-like. There should be no Scan Disk, booting, nothing. You press power, you get a splash screen that says "wait", then the (l)user does his/her stuff, and when done, just hit the power switch on the power strip next to the PC.
Man, if we had that with Mozilla 1.0 and StarOffice, we would get 120 copies tomorrow morning (well, Monday).
A question:
Would you trust a bank to hold the data?
What if a bank was offering a data system able to selectively release information, with your consent, to third parties, making the third party sign the confidentiality agreement with the bank (a federally insured institution) when they use your data. Misuse of the data would immediately consitute a federal crime, complete with FBI agents and all...
Yeah, you're right, windows app with built-in browser.
But then I gave examples of good applications that don't need built-in browsers. I just wanted to show that a PC can still be productive without using the IE DLLs.
Mozz may be 0.92 but it's more stable than IE5.5 AFAIAC.
Something else: Windows Scripting Host uses the IE script rendering engine...
Windows games? I don't play games on Windows (I'm married now).
In reality, at work (win95/98/2k env) I use many features of IE for WSH and scripts autoupdate/reporting via the intranet.
Yeah, I agree... Although when I look at Dune (Volume 1) I tend to look at it through the lens of the whole series, and then it's not so good anymore.
I have not read Clockwork Orange, but saw the flick, and liked it.
Ultimately, movies are made for money. They cost so much to make, they have to make some. Sort of like dot-coms. A personal page does not _ever_ have to be profitable, but a dot-com business does.
I am still wondering as to why people want to make movies out of books. They are two completely different mediums. It's sort of like composer putting Shakespeare's King Lear to music. What's that all about?
Dune is one of the best book series of all times, right up there with LOTR and a few others. But it's not so much the style, or the motion, that makes it great, it's the undercurrent. It's so deep on so many levels that it makes you think, _really_think_, about your own life, your own beliefs, your own preconceptions.
Books are an immersive technology, sort of like coding, going into wizard mode, where the world stops spinning and you're transcended to another place and time. Movies don't achieve this level, ever. This level is what book authors aim for, and when they succeed, they are rewarded with god-like fame.
But movies are about money, and are meant to be understood by the masses (even within a particular genre). Books, however, are a lot more selective, and not too many people have read the last book of Dune and understood why Duncan left in the No-Ship taking the BT couple with him.
Movies are made for money, to make money, to increase viewer share. Really great books, on the other hand, are meant to reflect the deepest thoughts of incredibly talented and imaginative individuals.
I rented the Dune miniseries last fall, and altough I am a great Herbert fan, that movie sucked. It was just barely okay. It went through the motion, but never engaged the viewer into deep mode. I have read the Dune series 6 times (all 2000+ pages) and I will read it at least 10 more times in my life (once every 3 years or so). I guarantee I will not see that miniseries Dune movie ever again.
People should just learn to enjoy books. It's amazing what that does for one's ability to write BTW.
As far as the Dune books to movies, I don't see why they have to be done in order. If it was up to me, and if I was to make movies of these books, I would go: 5, 4, 6, 1, 2, 3.
Oh, and you can just ignore the prequels/sequels written by those other two. They never ever reach the deep levels.
Try Maia, by Richard Adams. He gets pretty close. It's a bit boring at times, but it is immersive, and very well written.
Let's not forget that children are pressed into slavery in Ghana to work at cocoa farms, and that Ghana produces 90% of the world's cocoa, 30% of which is exported to the United States and used in cereal and chocolate bars. (Source: National Public Radio, 2 days ago)
Microsoft just makes software. Right?
I don't think so. They promote an ideology that is fundamentally against human nature (sharing with other people) and against the founding principle of society (people working together toward a common goal). Not only that, but they admonish people to resist sharing with others, explaining that this sharing will result in a less-than-ideal environment for corporations and other for-profit entities. Not only that, but they are attempting to enlist the government of the most economically and militarily powerful nation on Earth in their effort to stamp out this most profound human characteristic in the name of profits.
Microsoft's efforts strikes at the very core of human nature by attacking what makes us men, what has made man the builder of civilizations.
Microsoft is a corporation, a legal entity, a person in the eyes of US law, but Microsoft is not a person in the eyes of mankind, because it lacks the very characteristics of men everywhere: the ability for compassion, for selflessness, for pity, for empathy, for self-sacrifice.
Microsoft, the corporation, is but a piece of paper in a file cabinet in the office of the Secretary of State of Washington State. Yet, by amassing cash, it becomes powerful: can have spokespersons, can termminate employees, can own assets (land, buildings, vehicles, cash), and can influence political processes with cash and non-cash contributions (stuff for schools).
Microsoft corporation, in order to remain powerful, will do whatever it needs to do to keep amassing cash. This is the reason for its existence, and it will cease to exist when it can no longer amass cash. It is not enough to have some; it must continually aquire more, to insure it's own survival.
Microsoft corporation is a prime example of the struggle between man's core characteristics and corporations self-serving behavior.
Microsoft (and what it represents) is a powerful non-human entity attempting to make men forget that they are human and instead yield their assets to the corporation, without the corporation being accountable to them.
This is why this fight is so important. It's not about money (people in general understand that money only goes so far toward happiness), it's about being better human beings, and being free from oppressive systems.
I think it has everything to do with marketing. It's _IBM_ DB2, _Microsoft_ SQL 2000, _Oracle_ 8i (or 9, but who's counting).
If I tell my boss I want to use PostgreSQL (which doesn't honestly sound terrific in english--hard to tell how to write it unless you know it) then he'll say: What's that? Translation: I don't know how it relates to the real world, so forget it. Instead he'll say: let's get some more user licences for MS SQL 2000.
Instead, if I say, let's use the Red Hat Database (he *has* heard of Red Hat, as anyone who read the wsj has) and I say it's free, supported, and does not require any kind of licensing, and yadda yadda... DARPA... NASA... *buzzwords galore*... Then he'll go for it.
It has nothing to do with developers, it has everything to do with middle to upper management feeling comfortable using an officially supported database for business critical applications (i'd like to know what is *not* business critical at my company)
I use a rented cell-phone to call my ex girlfriend, and she mentions that she had been depressed and had used drugs, but is feeling much better now and stopped, and got enrolled in college, and met a nice guy who's doing his internship in neurology at Cedar Sinai Medical Center, and she really thinks he's the real thing, and I tell her I'm happy for her.
Now, my cell phone company calls the cops and charge me $450 for using the phone to do something illegal (discuss the use of drugs)
Guess what? I'll pay, and I'll NEVER use them, or any affiliated companies, services, subsidiaries, franchises, spinoffs... You know why, because it's an invasion of my provacy and they're not the police.
If I speed in front of a police car and he lets me slide, what right does a rental company have to find me guilty of a crime, and fine me, without due process, without my attorney present. They are just like Communist China, and they're anti-American. The US Constitution sets limits on the ability of law enforcement to restrain or fine US Citizens. If a company fines US Citizens without the due process of law as outlined in the US Constitution, they are in violation of the United States Constitution, and as such should be heavily punished.
If this had happened in China, the US government would be up in arms (even more so than they are now) and the Chinese would feel the "heat", as they say.
I am not sure this would work. There are a lot of people (myself included) who never register products.
Also, what if you do a reinstall? Does it ask to register again?
Also, this is extra work. Any tech who has to intall linux on 20 machines will not want to register each install.
Besides, no one needs to know what I do or don't do with my machines.
What about dual-boot machines?
I think that cold-calling would not work. I don't do phone surveys. I hate them (do you somewhat agree? do you somewhat disagree? Arrghh!)
Besides, for companies, the survey should be more refined: it should ask the preferred OS for specific tools, not servers. for example:
- Mail server
- Internet servers
- Intranet servers
- FTP servers
- Print servers
- File servers
- Application servers
- SQL db servers
etc.
Then we would get a much better view of what people are using in the Enterprise.
And forget asking the users. you need to ask the sysadmins. (our users think everything runs NT--mostly, but not all:)
I agree completely. The FAA has aeronautical engineers (they can't be cheap) review aircraft safety. Why can't the USPTO have network and software engineers review patents (that potentially affect the livelihood of millions of people)? Because of COSTS? Come on people...
As far as charging more for patent applications, that doesn't work. It crowds out the small entrepreneurs and inventors. I would rather see a system where the patent office will receive like 1% of sales of the protected item. That way, if the thing never makes money, then it'll be cheap, but if it makes a lot of money (1-click comes to mind) then the patent office will be awash in cash.
I wouldn't worry about it. It just means we can enforce US laws on 6 billion people instead of just 280 million. Woahhh the lawyers are going to have fun.
If I were to violate Chinese law (which I am doing now because their laws are bad) what do you think is going to happen? Nothing. We got our airmen back.
Now, I can guarantee you that the US governement will get involved in how the Chinese make laws. The Chinese will huff and puff (same as with human rights) saying it's an internal issue and that as a Sovereign Nation, they won't be told what to do internally. To which the US will kindly reply: not so, Chairman, your laws affect the freedom of US citizens, thanks to The Hague Treaty, which you signed. So no more silly laws and we'll not recognize Taiwan's 65+ years of independance--which by the way is longer than yours by a hair.
The US will use that as a way to strongarm all nations into becoming Starbucks-drinking SUV-driving commercial-centric (read corporate-capitalistic) satellite-states of the US, ensuring basic human rights, work rights, and voting rights.
This is a grand coup for US companies, some of which are much more powerful than most countries.
Oh, and thanks to the unproven missile-defense system, we'll feel tall in our technological shoes, so if China or whoever wants to play that game, we'll gladly support dissident movements withing their countries with hundreds of billions of dollars of highly advanced military weaponry, training at some of our finest training centers, while drowning their currency to triple-digit inflation (so they can't import food and medecine) with an economic embargo (see Cuba, North Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam for examples of that policy).
Some people might consider this critical of the US, but I simply state my opinion, and I am free to do that under US laws, so there...[wink]
By the way, It will be found unconstitutional in the US at some point, and the other large countries will just let it fall by the wayside. Smaller countries will mess with each other with it (Zaire and Rwanda come to mind), but that'll be an improvement to killing each other's citizens.
Unfortunately for that theory, Americans have a way of uniting behind the efforts of Armed Forces Personnels (personal beliefs and politics aside). And since US embassies are protected by US military personnel, they are in fact much more inviolate when you realize that they not only carry the wrath of US military intervention but also the full condemnation of the US population. And US recrimination and tenacity can last a long time (see Korea, Cuba, Viet Nam, Iraq).
Slashdot Mirror
tag. Let the browser size the right size of the screen. Modify the
tag instead with a css if you don't want a large line break.
A country is fighting to save the lives of its citizens, and in the process violating international agreements. Heck! We wanted to end WWII, so we killed 400,000 + men, women, and children at Hiroshima and Nagazaki in 1945.
Was that "cost" warranted to save the lives of millions of US servicemen who might have been killed in combat invading Japan? As far as the US is concerned, probably. As far as Japan is concerned, absolutely not.
Likewise, Brazil is fighting a killing disease on a grand scale. Is the "cost" of violating international patent protection (profit protection really) warranted in the effort to potentially prevent the slow and horrible death of millions of Brazilians? I can guarantee that if I was the president of Brazil, I would say: "That was the easiest decision I ever made", just like what Roosevelt is reported to have said after ordering the anihilation of 400,000 men, women, and children in a nuclear holocaust.
[On a complete tangent, Hitler would have been so proud of the speed and efficiency of our euthanasia program--instead or bringing the people to the hellish place, you bring the hellish place to them. 400,000 in three days: that comes to about 290,000,000 in 6 years.]
Visionized writes:
.NET faster than anything Sun Microsystems could do.
"What would be really interesting is to show an example hacking the rest of the sites that use Passport type technology"
I think there should be at least some contracts with major industries first, so that MS can be royally sued by much larger and wealthier corporation for making a defective product and advertizing it as "God's gift to mankind", when they get hacked and 30 million US credit card numbers are leaked to China by a 3l337 15 year-old.
Of course, that would spell doom on
Not, of course, that I am advocating that sort of behavior. There is a reason people should wear seatbelt: accident DO happen.
I emailed the webmistress. She said a text link would be fine, instead of a banner.
Now, she would say that no?
So what you're saying is that it's undeniably slower. It may not be noticeably slower to the user, but it will be slower in cpu cycles.
Everybody listen up: When saying that Java is slow, qualify that statement thus:
"Java is slow, when compared to natively compiled software."
Is that fair to say, mister Convince Me ?
BTW, PHB likes that. Now he goes around saying: "Java is slow, java is slow". He never qualifies his statement (or he wouldn't be a PBH).
Well, I work at a bank.
We're under the FDIC and another half dozen government agency. We get audited 2 times a year. We call the cops they're here before we can hang up the phone. The FBI is on our side. We just suspect someone of doing something fishy, the LAPD is all over them. We see a bank account doing something fishy, the FBI is all over it. We don't disclose unnecessary data with our vendors. They have to sign enormous non-disclosure agreements.
Do you know what happens to someone who forges a check? It's a felony, with jail time (ten+ years) and a hefty fine. IANAL, (someone come up with the figures)
Heck, banks already have people's information. Names, address, phone numbers, employers, dob, ssn, drivers licenses, credit cards, bank accounts, mother's maiden name etc... It doesn't get more private than that.
Yes there's fraud, but not too much that the system isn't generally trusted.
And banks never ever reveal that info to anyone except to law enforcement.
You're so right.
Just as there is a "minimal", "standard", and "custom/advanced" setting for installing programs, there whould be the same thing for the ui. That way, when you first buy your pc, you select "Average person" and all the things are intuitive with big corny icons and nothing you can damage the machine with. A few months down the road, you decide to switch to "Computer savvy Person" and get more effective tools, etc. Later, you pick "Power User" and get the really neat tools that don't pop up "Are you sure?" when you want to delete a directory, and with which you can customize most everything. Finally, you get "Guru/admin" where everything is allowed and you can just tinker it to your heart's content.
Now, Gnome and KDE are going from "Guru/Admin" down to "power user", but they need to get to the "computer savvy" and "average person" to really capture market share.
All I'm saying is that the UI complexity level should be a setting that can be easily modified.
Oh, and in order for my company to deploy a linux ui, there should be a "I hate computers" / Moron" (run that by marketing first) setting, and the computer will give you almost no choice, run one or two apps, not let the user customize anything (especially not toolbars) and be kiosk-like. There should be no Scan Disk, booting, nothing. You press power, you get a splash screen that says "wait", then the (l)user does his/her stuff, and when done, just hit the power switch on the power strip next to the PC.
Man, if we had that with Mozilla 1.0 and StarOffice, we would get 120 copies tomorrow morning (well, Monday).
A question:
Would you trust a bank to hold the data?
What if a bank was offering a data system able to selectively release information, with your consent, to third parties, making the third party sign the confidentiality agreement with the bank (a federally insured institution) when they use your data. Misuse of the data would immediately consitute a federal crime, complete with FBI agents and all...
Yeah, you're right, windows app with built-in browser.
But then I gave examples of good applications that don't need built-in browsers. I just wanted to show that a PC can still be productive without using the IE DLLs.
Mozz may be 0.92 but it's more stable than IE5.5 AFAIAC.
Something else: Windows Scripting Host uses the IE script rendering engine...
Windows games? I don't play games on Windows (I'm married now).
In reality, at work (win95/98/2k env) I use many features of IE for WSH and scripts autoupdate/reporting via the intranet.
Mozilla and Star Office and Macromedia do NOT need IE DLLs to run... Right?
So why should the IE files be there taking up valuable disk space that could be used for MP3s.
BTW, Winamp does not require IE either...
Yeah, I agree... Although when I look at Dune (Volume 1) I tend to look at it through the lens of the whole series, and then it's not so good anymore.
I have not read Clockwork Orange, but saw the flick, and liked it.
Ultimately, movies are made for money. They cost so much to make, they have to make some. Sort of like dot-coms. A personal page does not _ever_ have to be profitable, but a dot-com business does.
I am still wondering as to why people want to make movies out of books. They are two completely different mediums. It's sort of like composer putting Shakespeare's King Lear to music. What's that all about?
Dune is one of the best book series of all times, right up there with LOTR and a few others. But it's not so much the style, or the motion, that makes it great, it's the undercurrent. It's so deep on so many levels that it makes you think, _really_think_, about your own life, your own beliefs, your own preconceptions.
Books are an immersive technology, sort of like coding, going into wizard mode, where the world stops spinning and you're transcended to another place and time. Movies don't achieve this level, ever. This level is what book authors aim for, and when they succeed, they are rewarded with god-like fame.
But movies are about money, and are meant to be understood by the masses (even within a particular genre). Books, however, are a lot more selective, and not too many people have read the last book of Dune and understood why Duncan left in the No-Ship taking the BT couple with him.
Movies are made for money, to make money, to increase viewer share. Really great books, on the other hand, are meant to reflect the deepest thoughts of incredibly talented and imaginative individuals.
I rented the Dune miniseries last fall, and altough I am a great Herbert fan, that movie sucked. It was just barely okay. It went through the motion, but never engaged the viewer into deep mode. I have read the Dune series 6 times (all 2000+ pages) and I will read it at least 10 more times in my life (once every 3 years or so). I guarantee I will not see that miniseries Dune movie ever again.
People should just learn to enjoy books. It's amazing what that does for one's ability to write BTW.
As far as the Dune books to movies, I don't see why they have to be done in order. If it was up to me, and if I was to make movies of these books, I would go: 5, 4, 6, 1, 2, 3.
Oh, and you can just ignore the prequels/sequels written by those other two. They never ever reach the deep levels.
Try Maia, by Richard Adams. He gets pretty close. It's a bit boring at times, but it is immersive, and very well written.
Let's not forget that children are pressed into slavery in Ghana to work at cocoa farms, and that Ghana produces 90% of the world's cocoa, 30% of which is exported to the United States and used in cereal and chocolate bars. (Source: National Public Radio, 2 days ago)
Microsoft just makes software. Right?
I don't think so. They promote an ideology that is fundamentally against human nature (sharing with other people) and against the founding principle of society (people working together toward a common goal). Not only that, but they admonish people to resist sharing with others, explaining that this sharing will result in a less-than-ideal environment for corporations and other for-profit entities. Not only that, but they are attempting to enlist the government of the most economically and militarily powerful nation on Earth in their effort to stamp out this most profound human characteristic in the name of profits.
Microsoft's efforts strikes at the very core of human nature by attacking what makes us men, what has made man the builder of civilizations.
Microsoft is a corporation, a legal entity, a person in the eyes of US law, but Microsoft is not a person in the eyes of mankind, because it lacks the very characteristics of men everywhere: the ability for compassion, for selflessness, for pity, for empathy, for self-sacrifice.
Microsoft, the corporation, is but a piece of paper in a file cabinet in the office of the Secretary of State of Washington State. Yet, by amassing cash, it becomes powerful: can have spokespersons, can termminate employees, can own assets (land, buildings, vehicles, cash), and can influence political processes with cash and non-cash contributions (stuff for schools).
Microsoft corporation, in order to remain powerful, will do whatever it needs to do to keep amassing cash. This is the reason for its existence, and it will cease to exist when it can no longer amass cash. It is not enough to have some; it must continually aquire more, to insure it's own survival.
Microsoft corporation is a prime example of the struggle between man's core characteristics and corporations self-serving behavior.
Microsoft (and what it represents) is a powerful non-human entity attempting to make men forget that they are human and instead yield their assets to the corporation, without the corporation being accountable to them.
This is why this fight is so important. It's not about money (people in general understand that money only goes so far toward happiness), it's about being better human beings, and being free from oppressive systems.
In short: it's a struggle to be human and free.
No wonder some people are obsessed with it.
I think it has everything to do with marketing. It's _IBM_ DB2, _Microsoft_ SQL 2000, _Oracle_ 8i (or 9, but who's counting).
... DARPA... NASA... *buzzwords galore*... Then he'll go for it.
If I tell my boss I want to use PostgreSQL (which doesn't honestly sound terrific in english--hard to tell how to write it unless you know it) then he'll say: What's that? Translation: I don't know how it relates to the real world, so forget it. Instead he'll say: let's get some more user licences for MS SQL 2000.
Instead, if I say, let's use the Red Hat Database (he *has* heard of Red Hat, as anyone who read the wsj has) and I say it's free, supported, and does not require any kind of licensing, and yadda yadda
It has nothing to do with developers, it has everything to do with middle to upper management feeling comfortable using an officially supported database for business critical applications (i'd like to know what is *not* business critical at my company)
Contract.
Let's say I make a contract with you that you agree to pay me $300,000 for me not to call the police if you kill someone.
Then you kill someone, and I don't tell, and you pay me $300,000.
Guess what? We both go to jail, you for murder, me for accessory, contract or no contract, because NO contract is valid if it violates the law.
I use a rented cell-phone to call my ex girlfriend, and she mentions that she had been depressed and had used drugs, but is feeling much better now and stopped, and got enrolled in college, and met a nice guy who's doing his internship in neurology at Cedar Sinai Medical Center, and she really thinks he's the real thing, and I tell her I'm happy for her.
Now, my cell phone company calls the cops and charge me $450 for using the phone to do something illegal (discuss the use of drugs)
Guess what? I'll pay, and I'll NEVER use them, or any affiliated companies, services, subsidiaries, franchises, spinoffs... You know why, because it's an invasion of my provacy and they're not the police.
If I speed in front of a police car and he lets me slide, what right does a rental company have to find me guilty of a crime, and fine me, without due process, without my attorney present. They are just like Communist China, and they're anti-American. The US Constitution sets limits on the ability of law enforcement to restrain or fine US Citizens. If a company fines US Citizens without the due process of law as outlined in the US Constitution, they are in violation of the United States Constitution, and as such should be heavily punished.
If this had happened in China, the US government would be up in arms (even more so than they are now) and the Chinese would feel the "heat", as they say.
Yah, unfortunately you're sooo right...
Long live America (I mean it, not just sarcastically)
I am not sure this would work. There are a lot of people (myself included) who never register products.
:)
Also, what if you do a reinstall? Does it ask to register again?
Also, this is extra work. Any tech who has to intall linux on 20 machines will not want to register each install.
Besides, no one needs to know what I do or don't do with my machines.
What about dual-boot machines?
I think that cold-calling would not work. I don't do phone surveys. I hate them (do you somewhat agree? do you somewhat disagree? Arrghh!)
Besides, for companies, the survey should be more refined: it should ask the preferred OS for specific tools, not servers. for example:
- Mail server
- Internet servers
- Intranet servers
- FTP servers
- Print servers
- File servers
- Application servers
- SQL db servers
etc.
Then we would get a much better view of what people are using in the Enterprise.
And forget asking the users. you need to ask the sysadmins. (our users think everything runs NT--mostly, but not all
I agree completely. The FAA has aeronautical engineers (they can't be cheap) review aircraft safety. Why can't the USPTO have network and software engineers review patents (that potentially affect the livelihood of millions of people)? Because of COSTS? Come on people...
As far as charging more for patent applications, that doesn't work. It crowds out the small entrepreneurs and inventors. I would rather see a system where the patent office will receive like 1% of sales of the protected item. That way, if the thing never makes money, then it'll be cheap, but if it makes a lot of money (1-click comes to mind) then the patent office will be awash in cash.
I wouldn't worry about it. It just means we can enforce US laws on 6 billion people instead of just 280 million. Woahhh the lawyers are going to have fun.
If I were to violate Chinese law (which I am doing now because their laws are bad) what do you think is going to happen? Nothing. We got our airmen back.
Now, I can guarantee you that the US governement will get involved in how the Chinese make laws. The Chinese will huff and puff (same as with human rights) saying it's an internal issue and that as a Sovereign Nation, they won't be told what to do internally. To which the US will kindly reply: not so, Chairman, your laws affect the freedom of US citizens, thanks to The Hague Treaty, which you signed. So no more silly laws and we'll not recognize Taiwan's 65+ years of independance--which by the way is longer than yours by a hair.
The US will use that as a way to strongarm all nations into becoming Starbucks-drinking SUV-driving commercial-centric (read corporate-capitalistic) satellite-states of the US, ensuring basic human rights, work rights, and voting rights.
This is a grand coup for US companies, some of which are much more powerful than most countries.
Oh, and thanks to the unproven missile-defense system, we'll feel tall in our technological shoes, so if China or whoever wants to play that game, we'll gladly support dissident movements withing their countries with hundreds of billions of dollars of highly advanced military weaponry, training at some of our finest training centers, while drowning their currency to triple-digit inflation (so they can't import food and medecine) with an economic embargo (see Cuba, North Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam for examples of that policy).
Some people might consider this critical of the US, but I simply state my opinion, and I am free to do that under US laws, so there...[wink]
By the way, It will be found unconstitutional in the US at some point, and the other large countries will just let it fall by the wayside. Smaller countries will mess with each other with it (Zaire and Rwanda come to mind), but that'll be an improvement to killing each other's citizens.
Always optimistic thanks to sci-fi...
Unfortunately for that theory, Americans have a way of uniting behind the efforts of Armed Forces Personnels (personal beliefs and politics aside). And since US embassies are protected by US military personnel, they are in fact much more inviolate when you realize that they not only carry the wrath of US military intervention but also the full condemnation of the US population. And US recrimination and tenacity can last a long time (see Korea, Cuba, Viet Nam, Iraq).
I am a realist-pacifist.
Agreed, It was jest, mostly.
Besides, if I was going to go throught that trouble, I would just write a better app.
So if I own an MS program and I want to make it run on Linux, it's okay for me to reverse-engineer it to get it to work on my box?
Interesting...
close enough :)
Funny you should say that. Law is genereally thought of as a "code" by which citizens should abide.
mmmmm....