Oh bulldust, the electricity grids in many other countries were built by governments and are not protected - how on earth can you possibly claim that the EU represents proof that governments are automagically pure and saintly and do things right, when almost every other country is a glaring counter-example that disproves your point? This borders on insanity.
I put forth that if it's true what you claim, that it's been 'done right' in Europe, it probably has more to do with the fact that it is simply in the culture of Europeans to think carefully, to think long-term, and to plan accordingly, in most things they do. European private companies would probably exercise similar diligence, simply because they're European.
So if somebody is trying to sell you insurance, do you also assume that risks don't exist?
Whether or not the risk is real enough is something for scientists/physicists/engineers to determine; it has completely independent of whether or not somebody stands to make money from it. People have been making money selling solutions to actual problems for a very long time; the presence of a financial incentive doesn't automatically mean snake oil, as you seem to presume. In fact, the presence of financial incentive doesn't allow you to derive any conclusions at all - your thinking is highly unscientific.
And anyway, it's for the energy companies themselves to decide if the risk is real enough or not; they don't seem to be forcing this on anyone.
IIRC, my first Linux (or might've been UNIX) experience went something along the lines of:
telnet
$ dir command not found
$ help command not found
$ quit command not found
$ help command not found
$ exit
Was '95 and, as I recall, would've been a Mud server running on a 386. Went back confused to the admin, was pointed out to try "man", and was on my way.
Yeah. I recently moved from a crummy polluted inland rat-race city to a beautiful coastal more relaxed and cleaner well-run city, and everyone told me crap like "if you're not happy here, you're not going to be happy there, because your problems are internal"... well, surprise, I *am* a lot happier. Much happier. Haven't missed the old place (though I lived there over 30 years) for one minute. And I almost believed those idiots.
It's not a mental illness merely to want to see your grandchildren (even extremely badly) or to become angry at being denied this simple thing by your very son. I bet if you subjected most "normal" people to this, a significant percentage would exhibit behaviour you might deem to be "stalking", and then treating those people as freaky "stalkers" no doubt makes it worse --- have you ever considered that maybe we "create" stalkers by *treating* otherwise normal people as if they're freaks? Of course you get true nutcases, but these are actually rare, I suspect most cases are caused by paranoid imaginations turning into self-fulfilling prophecies. Our "OMG change the locks" hyper-paranoid culture is alienating. Calling someone a bunch of times if you're legitimately angry (e.g. being denied seeing your own grandchild) isn't necessarily "stalking" by a long shot. The summary and articles are light on details, but 49 times in one day is just the worst case scenario, it's difficult to gauge how bad it really was, but it could be that the son is just being an asshole here.
If users mainly want the "familiar experience", then just give them the familiar experience - it's that simple - there is no good reason why a Linux-based Netbook, in 2009, can't have a similar interface and layout for most of the main functionality to Windows XP, which is now so ancient there has been plenty of time to create window managers that are clones to the pixel (or "similar but better").
Microsoft's other main so-called "monopoly benefit" here is application compatibility. But again, in 2009, why is this still such a major problem? Especially since, again, XP has not exactly been much of a "moving target" lately, hell it's been sleeping. If users want application compatibility, give them application compatibility - find out why it's so hard for ISVs to put their apps on Linux, and *fix* that.
Bottom line, give users what they want and they'll flock to you, don't give users what they want and they won't. If they want a familiar experience and application compatibility for most apps, they won't care if it's Windows or Linux, they'll look at the price tag. But if you're definitely NOT giving users what they want, then don't blame "Microsoft's monopoly".
The jobs of the people who wrote this report *depend* on there being a serious threat. It's in their interest to make as if there is a major threat. If their report simply said, "things are actually all basically OK, not much really to worry about", they'd be out of a job the next day.
No doubt a report like this also gets used when justifying budget allocation requests, so that entire departments can be set up and allocated taxpayer money to sit around and "solve" the very pretend-threat they trumped up in the first place, and write still more reports about all 'teh scary internetz people'.
You might as well be paying these people to dig holes and fill them in again, over and over.
Another name might be "welfare job".
Government bureaucrats always trump up problems, so that they can justify being given ever money to 'solve' them. I don't even think it's about power; just plain old money.
... you make available for your private commercial gain.
You are implying Google is making money at everyone's expense here, and is the only one benefitting. That's funny, because the only reason what Google is doing has commercial value at all is that *that's what massive numbers of people actually want and find useful*. Apparently the majority of people do ultimately want such information about the entire world easily and readily available, otherwise Google wouldn't make much money at all. People bitch when its their own house being photographed, but I don't hear anybody bitching when they're using it for directions and to help find their way in a foreign neighbourhood etc. What everybody basically wants is the entire world in there except their own little neck of the woods. You can see this doesn't make sense.
The benefits don't outweigh the negatives, and the potential for abuse is too high. You seem to think a system needs to work 100% or it's not working. Nonsense, we can certainly tolerate the odd incident here and there, like we do with everything else in life. The idea of Windows computers controlling things like the electricity grid and nuclear power stations sounds scary to me too, but if it was really such a problem as to warrant this kind of intervention, there would be incidents all the time. Things are working fine, stop being scared.
Autism can lead to lower income. I have friends with autistic kids, and trust me, special care for such kids can be extremely expensive, dealing with the problems of an autistic kid takes up more time, and drags down family and puts stress on relationships... all things that can lead to lower income. Plus, if there is a genetic basis, then the parents are probably more likely to have learning difficulties too in the first place, so they'll be likelier to have ended up in lower earning jobs (just as their kids would someday).
Forget all this nonsense about determining 'whether or not an image is child porn' - it's not just irresolvable, it's a complete red herring, designed to distract you. Far more simply, let's get back to basics: A crime should have a victim. Period.
Wow, what a narrow, blinders-on, individual-centric view of the effects of no power. No video games or mp3s. Gee. Have you considered how mines would be able to operate without electricity for sustained periods? Oh, they won't - complete collapse of mining. Or hospitals? Refineries? Water treatment plants? Do you know what happens to an aluminium smelter if it doesn't get constant power? Manufacturing plants? Hint, thousands of businesses will simply go under, especially if other countries are still up to pick up the slack. Data centers? The refrigeration of food in transit and at your mall? Oops, massive amounts of food going off. Those city dwellers won't be so funny to you when they're starving and rioting. How about the effects of unemployment heading up above 20 or 30% as the economy collapses, what are you going to buy candles with when nobody has jobs? I've seen a small taste of this with the South Africa electricity crisis last year, and it did seriously bad damage to our economy; many businesses did go under, many more had to lay off much of their staff, mining operations were badly affected and had to be scaled back, a large number of people lost their jobs, our exports were harmed. Problems with water processing led to poor water quality, people getting sick, damage to systems, leakages causing severe pollution spills etc. Problems at refineries caused shortages of fuel for airplanes, almost causing temporary halting of operations at airports at time. Investors pulled out money on a large scale. Major projects were halted, some businesses went elsewhere. Construction came screeching to a crawl as it relies heavily on electricity. Sorry, but you're an idiot if you think the worst part of major electricity shortages would be no video games.
I'm reminded very much of the 2004 tsunami. Suffice to say, humans will wait until a huge disaster happens, even though, like the tsunami, it's entirely predictable and can be prevented relatively easily (by modern standards). Then they'll implement these kinds of warning systems after the disaster. Too many people think like Tenebrousedge, it's a flaw in our brains. We had a major electricity crisis last year in South Africa, with severe power shortages, and trust me, the effects of major widespread grid failures would be incredibly catastrophic, even if you live in Alaska, there are so many knock-on effects and catch-22's and so on (e.g. you need electricity to mine coal that is necessary to produce electricity).
It's no joke; when I was last at Heathrow, I tried to buy an electrical adapter for Belgium, and the girl asked "where's Belgium, is that in Europe?" She then went to ask her colleagues, and they debated the issue amongst themselves for a while. This was at a place in an *airport* that *specifically* sold electrical adapters for multiple countries.
I don't think it's ironic, it's just obvious. I don't know about the "4 times from legit software" claim, but if it is true, it is certainly the exception, or he's buying from fishy sources, as in all my years in the industry I've never personally seen it happen ever that someone got infected from legit software they purchased. I hardly pirate any software at all and I've had the antivirus block several installs pre-emptively, and I once had a really nasty infection from a torrented Photoshop, was damn near impossible to remove, easily a full day's work.
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Oh bulldust, the electricity grids in many other countries were built by governments and are not protected - how on earth can you possibly claim that the EU represents proof that governments are automagically pure and saintly and do things right, when almost every other country is a glaring counter-example that disproves your point? This borders on insanity.
I put forth that if it's true what you claim, that it's been 'done right' in Europe, it probably has more to do with the fact that it is simply in the culture of Europeans to think carefully, to think long-term, and to plan accordingly, in most things they do. European private companies would probably exercise similar diligence, simply because they're European.
So if somebody is trying to sell you insurance, do you also assume that risks don't exist?
Whether or not the risk is real enough is something for scientists/physicists/engineers to determine; it has completely independent of whether or not somebody stands to make money from it. People have been making money selling solutions to actual problems for a very long time; the presence of a financial incentive doesn't automatically mean snake oil, as you seem to presume. In fact, the presence of financial incentive doesn't allow you to derive any conclusions at all - your thinking is highly unscientific.
And anyway, it's for the energy companies themselves to decide if the risk is real enough or not; they don't seem to be forcing this on anyone.
IIRC, my first Linux (or might've been UNIX) experience went something along the lines of:
telnet
$ dir
command not found
$ help
command not found
$ quit
command not found
$ help
command not found
$ exit
Was '95 and, as I recall, would've been a Mud server running on a 386. Went back confused to the admin, was pointed out to try "man", and was on my way.
Hehe ... you should've seen me before!
Yeah. I recently moved from a crummy polluted inland rat-race city to a beautiful coastal more relaxed and cleaner well-run city, and everyone told me crap like "if you're not happy here, you're not going to be happy there, because your problems are internal" ... well, surprise, I *am* a lot happier. Much happier. Haven't missed the old place (though I lived there over 30 years) for one minute. And I almost believed those idiots.
It's not a mental illness merely to want to see your grandchildren (even extremely badly) or to become angry at being denied this simple thing by your very son. I bet if you subjected most "normal" people to this, a significant percentage would exhibit behaviour you might deem to be "stalking", and then treating those people as freaky "stalkers" no doubt makes it worse --- have you ever considered that maybe we "create" stalkers by *treating* otherwise normal people as if they're freaks? Of course you get true nutcases, but these are actually rare, I suspect most cases are caused by paranoid imaginations turning into self-fulfilling prophecies. Our "OMG change the locks" hyper-paranoid culture is alienating. Calling someone a bunch of times if you're legitimately angry (e.g. being denied seeing your own grandchild) isn't necessarily "stalking" by a long shot. The summary and articles are light on details, but 49 times in one day is just the worst case scenario, it's difficult to gauge how bad it really was, but it could be that the son is just being an asshole here.
If users mainly want the "familiar experience", then just give them the familiar experience - it's that simple - there is no good reason why a Linux-based Netbook, in 2009, can't have a similar interface and layout for most of the main functionality to Windows XP, which is now so ancient there has been plenty of time to create window managers that are clones to the pixel (or "similar but better").
Microsoft's other main so-called "monopoly benefit" here is application compatibility. But again, in 2009, why is this still such a major problem? Especially since, again, XP has not exactly been much of a "moving target" lately, hell it's been sleeping. If users want application compatibility, give them application compatibility - find out why it's so hard for ISVs to put their apps on Linux, and *fix* that.
Bottom line, give users what they want and they'll flock to you, don't give users what they want and they won't. If they want a familiar experience and application compatibility for most apps, they won't care if it's Windows or Linux, they'll look at the price tag. But if you're definitely NOT giving users what they want, then don't blame "Microsoft's monopoly".
The jobs of the people who wrote this report *depend* on there being a serious threat. It's in their interest to make as if there is a major threat. If their report simply said, "things are actually all basically OK, not much really to worry about", they'd be out of a job the next day.
No doubt a report like this also gets used when justifying budget allocation requests, so that entire departments can be set up and allocated taxpayer money to sit around and "solve" the very pretend-threat they trumped up in the first place, and write still more reports about all 'teh scary internetz people'.
You might as well be paying these people to dig holes and fill them in again, over and over.
Another name might be "welfare job".
Government bureaucrats always trump up problems, so that they can justify being given ever money to 'solve' them. I don't even think it's about power; just plain old money.
Moderators, how can you mod something down that you clearly didn't understand.
(GenericForm(X)!=news therefore X!=news) = FALSE
Sorry, I misunderstood you ... still asleep.
Never mind the article, it's right there in the summary: "it will not cause a rise in sea level because it is already floating, scientists say"
... you make available for your private commercial gain.
You are implying Google is making money at everyone's expense here, and is the only one benefitting. That's funny, because the only reason what Google is doing has commercial value at all is that *that's what massive numbers of people actually want and find useful*. Apparently the majority of people do ultimately want such information about the entire world easily and readily available, otherwise Google wouldn't make much money at all. People bitch when its their own house being photographed, but I don't hear anybody bitching when they're using it for directions and to help find their way in a foreign neighbourhood etc. What everybody basically wants is the entire world in there except their own little neck of the woods. You can see this doesn't make sense.
The benefits don't outweigh the negatives, and the potential for abuse is too high. You seem to think a system needs to work 100% or it's not working. Nonsense, we can certainly tolerate the odd incident here and there, like we do with everything else in life. The idea of Windows computers controlling things like the electricity grid and nuclear power stations sounds scary to me too, but if it was really such a problem as to warrant this kind of intervention, there would be incidents all the time. Things are working fine, stop being scared.
I'm South African and have never heard of that rule. Then again, I don't get out much.
Autism can lead to lower income. I have friends with autistic kids, and trust me, special care for such kids can be extremely expensive, dealing with the problems of an autistic kid takes up more time, and drags down family and puts stress on relationships ... all things that can lead to lower income. Plus, if there is a genetic basis, then the parents are probably more likely to have learning difficulties too in the first place, so they'll be likelier to have ended up in lower earning jobs (just as their kids would someday).
Not to mention, more importantly, the fact that you always lose real e-mails (false positives) to spam filters - that affects everyone.
Forget all this nonsense about determining 'whether or not an image is child porn' - it's not just irresolvable, it's a complete red herring, designed to distract you. Far more simply, let's get back to basics: A crime should have a victim. Period.
Wow, what a narrow, blinders-on, individual-centric view of the effects of no power. No video games or mp3s. Gee. Have you considered how mines would be able to operate without electricity for sustained periods? Oh, they won't - complete collapse of mining. Or hospitals? Refineries? Water treatment plants? Do you know what happens to an aluminium smelter if it doesn't get constant power? Manufacturing plants? Hint, thousands of businesses will simply go under, especially if other countries are still up to pick up the slack. Data centers? The refrigeration of food in transit and at your mall? Oops, massive amounts of food going off. Those city dwellers won't be so funny to you when they're starving and rioting. How about the effects of unemployment heading up above 20 or 30% as the economy collapses, what are you going to buy candles with when nobody has jobs? I've seen a small taste of this with the South Africa electricity crisis last year, and it did seriously bad damage to our economy; many businesses did go under, many more had to lay off much of their staff, mining operations were badly affected and had to be scaled back, a large number of people lost their jobs, our exports were harmed. Problems with water processing led to poor water quality, people getting sick, damage to systems, leakages causing severe pollution spills etc. Problems at refineries caused shortages of fuel for airplanes, almost causing temporary halting of operations at airports at time. Investors pulled out money on a large scale. Major projects were halted, some businesses went elsewhere. Construction came screeching to a crawl as it relies heavily on electricity. Sorry, but you're an idiot if you think the worst part of major electricity shortages would be no video games.
I'm reminded very much of the 2004 tsunami. Suffice to say, humans will wait until a huge disaster happens, even though, like the tsunami, it's entirely predictable and can be prevented relatively easily (by modern standards). Then they'll implement these kinds of warning systems after the disaster. Too many people think like Tenebrousedge, it's a flaw in our brains. We had a major electricity crisis last year in South Africa, with severe power shortages, and trust me, the effects of major widespread grid failures would be incredibly catastrophic, even if you live in Alaska, there are so many knock-on effects and catch-22's and so on (e.g. you need electricity to mine coal that is necessary to produce electricity).
You *admit* you nothing about the topic, then proceed to shoot your mouth off with a strong opinion about it anyway. I never get that.
It's no joke; when I was last at Heathrow, I tried to buy an electrical adapter for Belgium, and the girl asked "where's Belgium, is that in Europe?" She then went to ask her colleagues, and they debated the issue amongst themselves for a while. This was at a place in an *airport* that *specifically* sold electrical adapters for multiple countries.
Windows 7 isn't even a product.
I don't think it's ironic, it's just obvious. I don't know about the "4 times from legit software" claim, but if it is true, it is certainly the exception, or he's buying from fishy sources, as in all my years in the industry I've never personally seen it happen ever that someone got infected from legit software they purchased. I hardly pirate any software at all and I've had the antivirus block several installs pre-emptively, and I once had a really nasty infection from a torrented Photoshop, was damn near impossible to remove, easily a full day's work.
Yeah, I read that and actually thought "sounds a bit like paranoid schizophrenia".