...at which point people will
A: Decide it is an acceptable proposition and do it.
B: Decide it is not acceptable and not buy the new PC/upgrade.
C: Use some other OS. Linux, pirate copy of WIN 9X, OSX, other OS I am forgetting.
In any case, the end user makes the decision. It will probably be good for alternative OS's. I like to think of the French Revolution as a nice parallel. The people put up with a lot, but eventually the Ruling Class lost it's collective head. The market will work it's magic, even if it's too slow for our tastes. We all switched, others can and will too.
I use it, and have not had major problems. No cash missing or the like. However, I can't use my credit card with them, and they can't/won't tell me why. I can tranfer funds from my bank account, but that takes 3-5 days.
Summary: PayPal works for me, but is inconvenient and their customer service is bad. Takes about a week to get an emailed response from them. I use it only when there is no other option.
We live in a Republic, not a Democracy. We elect leaders to lead as they see fit, not according to polls, although that has changed drastically in the last 20 years. The republic was set up to prevent the majority of people making idiotic decisions that affect the country, or forcing thier will on the minority.
The digital citizen would be smart, civil and rational, outgrowing labels like "liberal" or "conservative", engaged in civics, technology, business and government; transcending dogma and cant.
It sounds to me like this is a vision of a great homogenization, and that the only reason this hasn't happened yet is that people haven't had free access to information.
This isn't going to happen in cyber-space, meat-space or deep-space. People have their own views and perspectives on issues.
Some feel crime will go down if people can carry guns, others envision a "WestWorld" type cityscape where battles rage continuously. Just because I have access to charts and graphs of crime rates and concealed carry statistics doesn't mean I can change either sides mind.
I am the same guy offline as I am online, except I don't make my wife call me "El_Smack."
Talking to you via electrons and pixels vs. sound waves and ink doesn't change anything. That is the point that has been, and I fear, still is lost on many who think the Net will fundamentally change people and how they interact.
Is the RIO Volt. It is about $140 US, plays regular audio CD's and any MP3's I have downloaded incuding VBR ecoded files, has had no problems with CD-R or CD-RW, gets about 13 hours of play from 2 AA batteries, and best of all, is firmware upgradeable. And RIO is releasing firmmware in response to requests from users, like a more variable volume and a user defined equalizer setting. So for realtivly cheap, I can have 650M of music with me, and more if I take a couple cd's with me.
When people flood onto the net for info after a big news story hits, where do most of them go? To CNN.com, ABCnews.com, FoxNews.com, etc. Did my homepage go down from millions of hits by people who wanted my take on it all? No.
The net is growing in popularity as a way for Old Media to distribute it's content, but it's the same content as what's on TV.
You do get more choices, though. At least I can choose to go to www.SomeDudesNews.com. But I didn't, not when I really wanted to know what was going on. I went to CNN, just like everyone else. That's why the nets' impact on all this is minimal at best.
Our mighty technological superiority over Iraq was useful until we beat them down till we had no more targets large enough to justify using half million dollar missles on. At that point, you send in the ground troops, and incur casualties. Afghanistan is already at the point where ground troops are necessary, so our tech doesn't give that big of a percentage advantage. Look for 20 to 1 kill ratios (U.S. to Osama) when the fighting gets up close and personal, rather than the zero casualties we are used to.
"Oppressing other countries? When Iraq saw us destroy their cities?" Why did we bomb Iraq? Was it to remake them in our image, or was it because a man who had the military might to back him up decided to remake one of our allies in his image?
Your ignoring the fact that Iraq invaded Kuwait shows your willingness to ignore reality and pretend that the US brought this on itself.
Did the US go in to occupy Iraq after it's defeat and force them to live out Judeo-Christian ethic of right and wrong? No.
Did we ask Kuwait to adopt our system of government in return for protection? No.
Do we give a crap what Afghanistan, China and other countries with histories of Human Rights abuses do within their own borders? Yes, because we believe in basic human rights.
Do we attempt to show them our way of doing things but leave the final decision up to them? Yes.
Do we stand idly by and watch of allies get beat on by dictators? No.
Do we sit around and wring our hands impotently while our soil is attacked? Hell No.
Peace is not found through pacifism. Peace is earned through defeating those that would destroy you. As much as we wish it were not true, there are those who would destroy our way of life. Let them preach against the evils of the West. Let them convert people to their way of thinking by persuasion and argument. Let them show us a better way. They are free to do that. But if they harm us, attack our innocents and destroy our lives, then we have the right to retaliate with whatever force we deem fit.
No one has the right to do what those terrorists did, but they gave us the right to make sure it never happens again.
...this in the amendment. Look under TitleVIII, terrorism.
Relevant clipped text:
"(a) IN GENERAL.--(1) Upon an application made under section 3122(a)(1) of this title, the court shall enter an ex parte order authorizing the installation and use of a pen register or trap and trace device if the court finds that the attorney for the Government has certified to the court that the information likely to be obtained by such installation and use is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation. The order shall, upon service of the order, apply to any entity providing wire or electronic communication service in the United States whose assistance is required by effectuate the order." My emphasis added.
This can be applied to much more than the 'net. I am glad to live in Utah, so I can NOT vote for the Honorable Sen. Hatch next election.
Excite.com has a poll about what freedoms people would compromise to be free from attacks like this. Travel, Speech, Privacy, None, All or Not Sure. Only 54% said "None". 9% said "All". It is to be expected that people are scared and jumpy right now, but I hope these poll numbers change for the better over the next couple of weeks.
If the idea is to keep the "dangerous" info from the general public and script kiddies, and thereby make the internet less vulnerable to attacks, they are barking you the wrong tree. The good sys admins keep up on this kind of stuff and close the holes within a day, if not a couple of hours of finding out about security issues. The lazy ones let it go for weeks/months and they get hit by 31337 H4X0RS. My point is, even months after an exploit is commonly known, people still haven't patched to fix it. Giving a few days extra notice won't help.
...it is learned that advertisers and marketers are obtaining data from the DMV about which roads have the most traffic. JonKatz is outraged, and a "Your Privacy is in Jeprody" article follows.
Kinda. Meteorologists have put up remote weather stations all over the place, and they transmit data this way. That's how they know how much snow fell in BFE Utah last night.
Find out how much snow fell in BFE Utah last night. http://utdmp.utsnow.nrcs.usda.gov/
Ask yourself "If they made me a part owner/partner of the company, would I stay?" If the answer is no, bail. If the answer is yes, go ask to be made a part owner/partner. If they turn you down, bail. If they say yes, then you have a stake in a company that you want to work for. It's a win/win situation for you either way.
Probably not long. Most of the western United States is wired together in one BIG power grid. SoCal gets a whole bunch of power from Glen Canyon Dam, the one that created Lake Powell, and it's right on the border of Utah and Arizona. Much of Utah, Arizona and Nevada gets power from this source. I know that Utah's power companies are trying to hike prices because we sell so many Mega(giga? terra?)watts to California that it is creating a shortage for us. And due to Fedral Regulations, one state can't simply pull the plug on another.
This attitude comes from thinking "all potential money is mine. If you affect my potential profit, it is the same as stealing from me."
If the authors and publishers are upset about this, they would blow a gasket if they knew that friends and I sometimes swap books. Kinda the first, low tech version of Napster. I should have patented it.
.
.
...that the present can almost never compete with the past. Case in point, I went out to buy myself real, stand up coin-op arcade games of Asteroids and Joust. For that money I could have bought 4 PlayStation 2's, or 1 very nice PC, and played much more advanced games. But the new stuff, even if it is better, can't compare with the memories evoked by the "flap" sound. You will never see Star Wars I, II, or III through the same eyes that watched Star Wars IV, V or VI. My parents don't feel the same way about Star Wars as I do, because they were 30, had 2 kids and a mortgage when they it first. Just like me when I saw, and was disappointed by, Episode I. I won't expect Episode II to make me 7 again, so I'll probably enjoy it. Only the past can compete with the past.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, why are we taking advice from Dr. Seuss's alter ego?
Now Microsoft will get Slahdotted. One more reason for them to hate us. *sigh*
This is more like saying sure we'll sell you a car but to drive it on the privately owned road, you must belong to a special club.
...at which point people will
A: Decide it is an acceptable proposition and do it.
B: Decide it is not acceptable and not buy the new PC/upgrade.
C: Use some other OS. Linux, pirate copy of WIN 9X, OSX, other OS I am forgetting. In any case, the end user makes the decision. It will probably be good for alternative OS's.
I like to think of the French Revolution as a nice parallel. The people put up with a lot, but eventually the Ruling Class lost it's collective head.
The market will work it's magic, even if it's too slow for our tastes. We all switched, others can and will too.
I use it, and have not had major problems. No cash missing or the like. However, I can't use my credit card with them, and they can't/won't tell me why. I can tranfer funds from my bank account, but that takes 3-5 days.
Summary: PayPal works for me, but is inconvenient and their customer service is bad. Takes about a week to get an emailed response from them. I use it only when there is no other option.
We live in a Republic, not a Democracy. We elect leaders to lead as they see fit, not according to polls, although that has changed drastically in the last 20 years. The republic was set up to prevent the majority of people making idiotic decisions that affect the country, or forcing thier will on the minority.
The digital citizen would be smart, civil and rational, outgrowing labels like "liberal" or "conservative", engaged in civics, technology, business and government; transcending dogma and cant.
It sounds to me like this is a vision of a great homogenization, and that the only reason this hasn't happened yet is that people haven't had free access to information.
This isn't going to happen in cyber-space, meat-space or deep-space. People have their own views and perspectives on issues.
Some feel crime will go down if people can carry guns, others envision a "WestWorld" type cityscape where battles rage continuously. Just because I have access to charts and graphs of crime rates and concealed carry statistics doesn't mean I can change either sides mind.
I am the same guy offline as I am online, except I don't make my wife call me "El_Smack."
Talking to you via electrons and pixels vs. sound waves and ink doesn't change anything. That is the point that has been, and I fear, still is lost on many who think the Net will fundamentally change people and how they interact.
Is the RIO Volt. It is about $140 US, plays regular audio CD's and any MP3's I have downloaded incuding VBR ecoded files, has had no problems with CD-R or CD-RW, gets about 13 hours of play from 2 AA batteries, and best of all, is firmware upgradeable.
And RIO is releasing firmmware in response to requests from users, like a more variable volume and a user defined equalizer setting. So for realtivly cheap, I can have 650M of music with me, and more if I take a couple cd's with me.
When people flood onto the net for info after a big news story hits, where do most of them go? To CNN.com, ABCnews.com, FoxNews.com, etc. Did my homepage go down from millions of hits by people who wanted my take on it all? No.
The net is growing in popularity as a way for Old Media to distribute it's content, but it's the same content as what's on TV.
You do get more choices, though. At least I can choose to go to www.SomeDudesNews.com. But I didn't, not when I really wanted to know what was going on. I went to CNN, just like everyone else. That's why the nets' impact on all this is minimal at best.
Our mighty technological superiority over Iraq was useful until we beat them down till we had no more targets large enough to justify using half million dollar missles on. At that point, you send in the ground troops, and incur casualties. Afghanistan is already at the point where ground troops are necessary, so our tech doesn't give that big of a percentage advantage. Look for 20 to 1 kill ratios (U.S. to Osama) when the fighting gets up close and personal, rather than the zero casualties we are used to.
Now I will have to use both hands to run the laptop. No more Pr0n surfing for me. :(
"Oppressing other countries? When Iraq saw us destroy their cities?"
Why did we bomb Iraq? Was it to remake them in our image, or was it because a man who had the military might to back him up decided to remake one of our allies in his image?
Your ignoring the fact that Iraq invaded Kuwait shows your willingness to ignore reality and pretend that the US brought this on itself.
Did the US go in to occupy Iraq after it's defeat and force them to live out Judeo-Christian ethic of right and wrong? No.
Did we ask Kuwait to adopt our system of government in return for protection? No.
Do we give a crap what Afghanistan, China and other countries with histories of Human Rights abuses do within their own borders? Yes, because we believe in basic human rights.
Do we attempt to show them our way of doing things but leave the final decision up to them? Yes.
Do we stand idly by and watch of allies get beat on by dictators? No.
Do we sit around and wring our hands impotently while our soil is attacked? Hell No.
Peace is not found through pacifism. Peace is earned through defeating those that would destroy you. As much as we wish it were not true, there are those who would destroy our way of life. Let them preach against the evils of the West. Let them convert people to their way of thinking by persuasion and argument. Let them show us a better way. They are free to do that. But if they harm us, attack our innocents and destroy our lives, then we have the right to retaliate with whatever force we deem fit.
No one has the right to do what those terrorists did, but they gave us the right to make sure it never happens again.
...this in the amendment. Look under TitleVIII, terrorism.
Relevant clipped text:
"(a) IN GENERAL.--(1) Upon an application made under section 3122(a)(1) of this title, the court shall enter an ex parte order authorizing the installation and use of a pen register or trap and trace device if the court finds that the attorney for the Government has certified to the court that the information likely to be obtained by such installation and use is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation. The order shall, upon service of the order, apply to any entity providing wire or electronic communication service in the United States whose assistance is required by effectuate the order." My emphasis added.
This can be applied to much more than the 'net. I am glad to live in Utah, so I can NOT vote for the Honorable Sen. Hatch next election.
Excite.com has a poll about what freedoms people would compromise to be free from attacks like this. Travel, Speech, Privacy, None, All or Not Sure. Only 54% said "None". 9% said "All". It is to be expected that people are scared and jumpy right now, but I hope these poll numbers change for the better over the next couple of weeks.
Those "dummies" got to sell the same game over and over.
Buy once, sell many. Not so dumb after all.
If the idea is to keep the "dangerous" info from the general public and script kiddies, and thereby make the internet less vulnerable to attacks, they are barking you the wrong tree. The good sys admins keep up on this kind of stuff and close the holes within a day, if not a couple of hours of finding out about security issues. The lazy ones let it go for weeks/months and they get hit by 31337 H4X0RS. My point is, even months after an exploit is commonly known, people still haven't patched to fix it. Giving a few days extra notice won't help.
...it is learned that advertisers and marketers are obtaining data from the DMV about which roads have the most traffic. JonKatz is outraged, and a "Your Privacy is in Jeprody" article follows.
Kinda. Meteorologists have put up remote weather stations all over the place, and they transmit data this way. That's how they know how much snow fell in BFE Utah last night. Find out how much snow fell in BFE Utah last night. http://utdmp.utsnow.nrcs.usda.gov/
If any system will ever gain self-awareness *without* it's programmers permission, ala sky-net, it will be a search engine.
Ask yourself "If they made me a part owner/partner of the company, would I stay?" If the answer is no, bail. If the answer is yes, go ask to be made a part owner/partner. If they turn you down, bail. If they say yes, then you have a stake in a company that you want to work for. It's a win/win situation for you either way.
Probably not long. Most of the western United States is wired together in one BIG power grid. SoCal gets a whole bunch of power from Glen Canyon Dam, the one that created Lake Powell, and it's right on the border of Utah and Arizona. Much of Utah, Arizona and Nevada gets power from this source. I know that Utah's power companies are trying to hike prices because we sell so many Mega(giga? terra?)watts to California that it is creating a shortage for us. And due to Fedral Regulations, one state can't simply pull the plug on another.
This attitude comes from thinking "all potential money is mine. If you affect my potential profit, it is the same as stealing from me." If the authors and publishers are upset about this, they would blow a gasket if they knew that friends and I sometimes swap books. Kinda the first, low tech version of Napster. I should have patented it. . .
...that the present can almost never compete with the past. Case in point, I went out to buy myself real, stand up coin-op arcade games of Asteroids and Joust. For that money I could have bought 4 PlayStation 2's, or 1 very nice PC, and played much more advanced games. But the new stuff, even if it is better, can't compare with the memories evoked by the "flap" sound. You will never see Star Wars I, II, or III through the same eyes that watched Star Wars IV, V or VI. My parents don't feel the same way about Star Wars as I do, because they were 30, had 2 kids and a mortgage when they it first. Just like me when I saw, and was disappointed by, Episode I. I won't expect Episode II to make me 7 again, so I'll probably enjoy it. Only the past can compete with the past.