But of course. You're going to hell^Wprison. There is no place in the society for those who help others commit heinous crimes of Natalie Portman picture sharing!
Bah, few years ago SPA used an "advanced" audit software, that would scan only C: drive. That's right, install stuff on D: an they weren't able to find it...
And some businesses using illegal copies set their computer to boot to Linux by default, so the auditor would get scared away. I was told this was quite successful tactic.
By making software makers liable for security holes in their programs, you kill free and low-cost software. Nobody smaller than a large corporation would dare releasing networking software, out of fear that they'd be sued for millions in damages caused by a tiny bug.
This would very much depend on the actual law. If the law would, AS IT IMHO SHOULD, tie the maximum liability amount to the sale price, free software developers would be safe.
I believe that it would be enough to force the liability amount to be just 2x sale price to force worst offenders (Hi Bill!) to work on the quality of their products.
It's really turned into a great app. Not only is it not playing catch-up with Internet Explorer anymore, but I'd argue that they are beating it with some of its new features like tabbed browsing.
Not so great IMAO... While tabbed browsing is nice, there are definitely two things that are serious problems. First, speed (or rather lack of it), second - "standards compliant" JavaScript aka "incompatible with rest of the world" JavaScript. I still HAVE to use IE because of that.
Well... you only really stated three things (fusion, cloning and AI) of which cloning has materialized. It is also arguable that AI has materialized in some capacity (Neural networks based upon the human brain, perhaps? Still being tested but they might work out...) and here we have fusion maybe materializing. So all three have basically materialized to some extent. There's been plenty of progress.
Sure there is plenty of progress and I even started to believe that we'll get these things at all;-)
However, they still are at best experimental. What use is of fusion power if it's generated for a microsecond and output is lower that amount put to start reaction? The real AI, sentient computers if you prefer, is still a loooooooong way ahead even though people made quite smart programs (neural nets are amazing but it's still bacterial level of intellect). Cloning is here, they can repeatedly clone animals; sure it's not mass production and some (quite some) time will pass before it will be.
I will agree that fusion power has materialized when, and only when, some science team builds a reactor able to work for a week without breakdown and giving more power than was put in to start it. From the various articles I see that it's a very long way to go, unless there is some unlikely breaktrough (like, being able to sustain fusion reaction by power of voodoo;-)).
Its easy to forget things like this once they materialize. How about GUI's, 3D accelerators which have a fill rate of 1 billion+ pixels per second (GF3 Titanium 500) and CPUs which are measured in gigahertz rather than megahertz?
Well, I do remeber MDA times;-) Electronics is an exception in that it delivers - but remeber, that it's mostly because the field is already deeply researched. All these CPUs, GPUs, *RAMs are not scientific advancement; only clever application of the facts we know about electrons, silicon, etc. The research is done, engineering steps in and builds stuff. When will that happen to fusion power? I hope it'll be in my lifetime...
For years I hear the same, fusion/cloning/AI/whatever will be available within a decade. Of all that, cloning is the only thing that materialized so far.
Why didn't anyone see this coming? What are all our tax dollars being spent on if not to prevent incidents like this? I can see where ONE hijacked plane could slip by, but FOUR? This is inexcusable.
They were sticking their collective noses into affairs of other nations. How could they imagine, that some of the people reviled by US media and politicians would strike back?
While I do not support such ways of getting even, America gets what it's government wanted. Play with fire, get burned. Fuck with "terrorists"(*), get terrorized.
(*)Terrorist: any person or state not liking US govt interference in his matters and vocal about that.
Actually, there is no proof whatsoever that Gagarin has ever been to orbit.
"His" autobiography contains memories like "in the orbit everything was just the same as on Earth" (zero-g, anyone heard about it?); there is no record of any orbital launch on that day (and US had capability to detect such occurence); flight trajectory data published was nonsense (half orbit in 15 minutes, other half in hour - good speed control)...
And when it comes to "dead in training", in the Soviet Empire it could mean anything - from getting killed by drunk driving to dying in failed launch to being executed for straying off Party line.
So the first CONFIRMED manned flight was American.
It is taxing a form of free speech, which I suspect the Polish constitution has provisions for because
(having read part of it) it seems somewhat modeled on the US constitution... Basically, software,
like books or music, is a form of creative expression. If I write a book and give it to you for free, if
the government decides it's as entertaining as a $30 Steven King novel, should they be able to go
and tax you for a $30 purchase you never made?
You got this soooo wrong...
If the tax office, or worse, the Ministry of Finances, decides it wants to tax something, they just do it.
Example: In the beginning of GSM telephony here, one of the networks made a promotion, giving customers who subscribed 601 minutes free (their "area code" is 601). The taxmen wanted to treat this as a gift and demanded payment of tax from these customers. Didn't matter whether someone used a single minute or not.
The only thing they were utterly unsuccessful with is raising the tax on copyright payments received by writers and journalists. Only because at any attempt even their most friendly newspapers turned against them.
It is taxing a form of free speech, which I suspect the Polish constitution has provisions for
Also please note, that the freedom of speech is understood in European way in Poland. Meaning it's not absolute like Americans have it. Speak against the church and you're guilty of "harming religious feelings", call the govt [censored to avoid jail] and you're in for "slander of the state official".
This sort of action would be enough to create a public out cry from the universities and the
developers.
So what? Our "great" govt is not going to be scared by some people protesting. They just want our money and they are going to get it - at any cost (to the citizens).
They managed to ruin country with so called reforms and now they HAVE TO grab more money to support the new, "more efficient" system.
Besides, the tax offices are known for their creativity. Three(?) years ago, they decided that CDs included with computer magazines should be taxed (they shouldn't be, as they're the part of publication and publications are still tax-free), and managed to extort such invalid tax for a year; only to have to return it with interest when they lost the case (and who paid for that? of course not the jerks that invented such scheme).
I would also be curious to know how Poland treats non-profit organizations?
It entirely depends on whether the organization's run by the friends of people in power, then they can borrow money and stuff and not return it. Communism may be formally outlawed here, but the communist way of thinking is still popularn among the governemnt and it's employees.
Oh yes, and we still have a wonderful telecom monopoly, so posting this comment is going to cost me some 25 cents.
And once again, how exactly are the planning to put a value on free software? Comparison to microsloth products?
Exactly that! Their idea is to tax it as if it had the price of similar micro$oft "product". Let's say, Linux at the level of NT Server or StarOffice as M$Office.
Like, say, tell them to write Carnivore lookalike using freely available libraries (team one) and method for passing data without detection (temat two).
but what are the consequences of writing a bad review? Not getting the software sent in the future? Well, if the software warrants a bad review, why the heck would one want more free copies of it?
Ah, if it were only for not getting next bad piece of software, we'd be seeing reviews like "And again, the jerks from Eleeto Software sent me this piece of crap..." The real consequences are more like loss of ads = loss of revenue for the publisher. If it's from some small company that can afford only classifieds, no problem. But if we're talking about some big PR spender (like those bunch from Redmond) it's all different... if THEY decide to withdraw full-page ads, it's serious fall of magazine's income. And they will do that, if the reviewer bashes their product (rightfully or not doesn't really matter). I've seen how it works. The more honest will just not publish reviews that are too negative. Those less hones, will just order staff to write a praise for any crap.
...what next Apple computer will NOT have? There was one without floppy drive, now what - maybe next generation Apple won't have, say, hard disk (who needs them anyway) or CPU (it only makes heat) or maybe it's truly revolutionary design. Like empty case?
The reason it isn't a user option is that if it were, malicious code could disable it.
Seeing how they describe adding more extensions to the list, I'll bet the well written code will still be able to disable this. Just wait 2-3 months, for next worm...
The IFF file format family, originally defined by Electronic Arts, and forming the basis of AIFF, AVI and MOV files does exactly this. MS is aware of this technique (after all it used it in AVI), but either through poor engineering chice or malice chose to impose frequent file format incompatibilities on users of Office.
GREED is the answer. They are not that stupid, nor evil for evil's sake. They want our $$$ and will do anything, short of sending armed thugs, to get that. Look at the marketing drivel... They'd say it's incompatible because the new version is so new and advanced and whatnot. But from old DOS MSWORD to the newest one, the only new feature I found useful was addition of spellchecker for my language. Who the fsck needs talking paperclip? But no, I will have to upgrade to read the junk my boss or PHB types in the company send around. btw: Way back in the past I was using editor called QR-Tekst. The format was proprietary but mostly textual and simple. A coworker wrote QRT to Quark Xpress converter without problems. Even before the company started giving away format description. Later, they made the Windoze version and un-m$-like, the format only had small change to accomodate font names. It was still readable (some formatting was lost) with old version. Another fine company that cared for the customer and went out of business for that.
From the thechnical point of view, this is possible, without any problem. A well thought out standard like XML (or even good old HTML) might allow this.
However, on Redmond-style business POV, this is a big no-no. What, open the formats and allow competitors to easily exchange data? Who would buy bloatware like Office then?
The problem is not technical but political, unfortunately. And until M$ is destroyed it will surely remain so.
Slashdot Mirror
Opps. Did I just fall afoul of the DMCA?
But of course. You're going to hell^Wprison. There is no place in the society for those who help others commit heinous crimes of Natalie Portman picture sharing!
Bah, few years ago SPA used an "advanced" audit software, that would scan only C: drive. That's right, install stuff on D: an they weren't able to find it...
And some businesses using illegal copies set their computer to boot to Linux by default, so the auditor would get scared away. I was told this was quite successful tactic.
This would very much depend on the actual law. If the law would, AS IT IMHO SHOULD, tie the maximum liability amount to the sale price, free software developers would be safe.
I believe that it would be enough to force the liability amount to be just 2x sale price to force worst offenders (Hi Bill!) to work on the quality of their products.
Not so great IMAO... While tabbed browsing is nice, there are definitely two things that are serious problems. First, speed (or rather lack of it), second - "standards compliant" JavaScript aka "incompatible with rest of the world" JavaScript. I still HAVE to use IE because of that.
What do you expect? They are going crappy all the way.
For most people FastTrack was alternative to Gnutella, a better than "the real thing" alternative. Now MusicCity is going to lose customers big time.
I still remeber, what they promised - an integrated client for BOTH Gnutella AND FastTrack. That would be killer app. Now it's killed app.
Sure there is plenty of progress and I even started to believe that we'll get these things at all
However, they still are at best experimental. What use is of fusion power if it's generated for a microsecond and output is lower that amount put to start reaction? The real AI, sentient computers if you prefer, is still a loooooooong way ahead even though people made quite smart programs (neural nets are amazing but it's still bacterial level of intellect). Cloning is here, they can repeatedly clone animals; sure it's not mass production and some (quite some) time will pass before it will be.
I will agree that fusion power has materialized when, and only when, some science team builds a reactor able to work for a week without breakdown and giving more power than was put in to start it. From the various articles I see that it's a very long way to go, unless there is some unlikely breaktrough (like, being able to sustain fusion reaction by power of voodoo
Well, I do remeber MDA times
Within reach in the next decade, yeah right.
For years I hear the same, fusion/cloning/AI/whatever will be available within a decade. Of all that, cloning is the only thing that materialized so far.
Show me the proof or go away. Now.
(No proof? I'm hardly surprised.)
They were sticking their collective noses into affairs of other nations. How could they imagine, that some of the people reviled by US media and politicians would strike back?
While I do not support such ways of getting even, America gets what it's government wanted. Play with fire, get burned. Fuck with "terrorists"(*), get terrorized.
(*)Terrorist: any person or state not liking US govt interference in his matters and vocal about that.
Actually, there is no proof whatsoever that Gagarin has ever been to orbit.
"His" autobiography contains memories like "in the orbit everything was just the same as on Earth" (zero-g, anyone heard about it?); there is no record of any orbital launch on that day (and US had capability to detect such occurence); flight trajectory data published was nonsense (half orbit in 15 minutes, other half in hour - good speed control)...
And when it comes to "dead in training", in the Soviet Empire it could mean anything - from getting killed by drunk driving to dying in failed launch to being executed for straying off Party line.
So the first CONFIRMED manned flight was American.
--
You got this soooo wrong...
If the tax office, or worse, the Ministry of Finances, decides it wants to tax something, they just do it.
Example: In the beginning of GSM telephony here, one of the networks made a promotion, giving customers who subscribed 601 minutes free (their "area code" is 601). The taxmen wanted to treat this as a gift and demanded payment of tax from these customers. Didn't matter whether someone used a single minute or not.
The only thing they were utterly unsuccessful with is raising the tax on copyright payments received by writers and journalists. Only because at any attempt even their most friendly newspapers turned against them.
Also please note, that the freedom of speech is understood in European way in Poland. Meaning it's not absolute like Americans have it. Speak against the church and you're guilty of "harming religious feelings", call the govt [censored to avoid jail] and you're in for "slander of the state official".
System changes, but thoughtcrime remains.
--
So what? Our "great" govt is not going to be scared by some people protesting. They just want our money and they are going to get it - at any cost (to the citizens).
They managed to ruin country with so called reforms and now they HAVE TO grab more money to support the new, "more efficient" system.
Besides, the tax offices are known for their creativity. Three(?) years ago, they decided that CDs included with computer magazines should be taxed (they shouldn't be, as they're the part of publication and publications are still tax-free), and managed to extort such invalid tax for a year; only to have to return it with interest when they lost the case (and who paid for that? of course not the jerks that invented such scheme).
It entirely depends on whether the organization's run by the friends of people in power, then they can borrow money and stuff and not return it. Communism may be formally outlawed here, but the communist way of thinking is still popularn among the governemnt and it's employees.
Oh yes, and we still have a wonderful telecom monopoly, so posting this comment is going to cost me some 25 cents.
--
There lies the problem :-(
--
Like, say, tell them to write Carnivore lookalike using freely available libraries (team one) and method for passing data without detection (temat two).
--
The real consequences are more like loss of ads = loss of revenue for the publisher. If it's from some small company that can afford only classifieds, no problem. But if we're talking about some big PR spender (like those bunch from Redmond) it's all different... if THEY decide to withdraw full-page ads, it's serious fall of magazine's income. And they will do that, if the reviewer bashes their product (rightfully or not doesn't really matter).
I've seen how it works. The more honest will just not publish reviews that are too negative. Those less hones, will just order staff to write a praise for any crap.
--
They are getting obsolete day by day. How many QuakeWorld servers are still running? Not much, compared to the "old days".
I hope someone will keep them alive, to show some day in the future, how it all started...
Or maybe they will become classics like movies?
--
...what next Apple computer will NOT have? There was one without floppy drive, now what - maybe next generation Apple won't have, say, hard disk (who needs them anyway) or CPU (it only makes heat) or maybe it's truly revolutionary design. Like empty case?
Oops, now Apple thugs will gome to get me :-)
--
Seeing how they describe adding more extensions to the list, I'll bet the well written code will still be able to disable this. Just wait 2-3 months, for next worm...
From the thechnical point of view, this is possible, without any problem. A well thought out standard like XML (or even good old HTML) might allow this.
However, on Redmond-style business POV, this is a big no-no. What, open the formats and allow competitors to easily exchange data? Who would buy bloatware like Office then?
The problem is not technical but political, unfortunately. And until M$ is destroyed it will surely remain so.
Nice idea.
:-(
But it kinda loses it's appeal, when you have to add decent monitor etc