Most USian friends I have introuced or refered to themselves as gringos (I am Mexican) which I found extremely funny.
Yes, gringo used to be derogatory (insults are the weapon of last resource of the defeated in unjust battles, but I digress) but as with many of these terms, it became the common term.
You will be hard pressed to find anybody in Mexico refering to any USians other than as gringos, and this will in most cases not be derogatory.
They do not want just to ensure we don;t copy their below par software.
They want to control how you play your media, they want to control the mechanisms to start trust relationshios with other entities ("secure" computing) and to decide which hardware can be connected or not (they will be actively working to close the "analogue hole").
MS is aiming to make you pay for a device fully controlled by them. I can't think of an apt car analogy because no car company would dare to mistreat their costumers so badly (but that is explained by a healthy competition in the car industry).
If MS was making no money from regular people, they would not bother with all this nonsense copy protection.
Any company with a few dozen of machines or more will eventually standarize to a single configuration in order to save support costs and will not be thinkering with hardware without any good reason. They are the less likely to be fooling around with hardware and the less likely to be pirating software given the stiff penalties. So copy protection here is frankly menaingless.
In the other hand individuals are the ones that copy and share software. MS very well could release their personal edition software with watered down server capabilities (diks and print sharing constrained, no possibility of the machine becoming a domain controller, etc) and allow people a free range (as they did with all versions prior to XP I believe). That viral character of the OS made it popular amongst users (paired with MS's draconina strategy with hardware providers).
MS seems to be finally digging its own grave, I just don't understand how it is that nobody there seems to realize hopw much they are bothering their costumers (not me, I stopped using their wares long time ago).
Do you realize that for hundreds and even thousends of years cultures like Faraonic Egypt, classic Greece, Rome, Persia, the Ottomans, the Maya, the Inca developped on those countries you mention while people in colder climates lived in huts in what can be only kindly described as townships?
Your monumental ignorance about universal history is only matched by the idiotic conclussions reached by your uninformed, baseless arguments.
First the scientists were ridiculed (What? Global climate change? You should be joking).
Once the scientific foundation of the problem has been stablished, then the economic impact of fighting climate change was given as an excuse ("No US jobs should be lost" was the mantra of a well known individual with too much power but many bad advisers and dubious industry connections on his past).
Now that a reputed economist says that doing nothing would bring a recession of monumental proportions, here we are, doubting the expert again (many people have hinted to this already, but this seems to be tying up everything together).
What else is needed so some pople stop wasting our time and allow the rest of us to get on with the bussiness of minimize the effects of climate change?
Doing nothing, as confirmed by scientists and now economists, is not the rational option.
The more you polute, the more you are harming other people.
It is just fair that irresponsible poluters pay by means of taxation for their lack of social conscience.
It is all good and trendy to grab the "free will" and "capitalism" monikers while at the same time using adjectives completely unrelated to the issue at hand.
Just for your information anyway, marxist countries destroyed completely the environment in many places (Chernobyl being the most egregious example), Eastern Europe is filled with examples of how pollution and environmental destruction where not high in the political agenda of true marxists.
But keep using the scare tactics (Booooh! The marxists are coming!) it is amusing to still find pople so ideologically incompetent.
The reality is that sensible people are realizing something needs to be done, and taxing poluters is one way to keep freedoms (nobody is banning irresponsible car owners) while trying to curb a problem.
If this is the best god, the all powerfull been,could do when communicating his, sorry, its will, lets say that a communications expert is sorely needed to give it a helping hand.
Many self confessed Christians will point to obscure Bible translation issues to ensure that they can kill somebody else when it suits them (the current war in Iraq is a shinning example of this. All the US leadership calls itself religious, mostly Cristian, but they have no qualms ordering the assasination of hundreds of thousends of innocent people)
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This nonsensical idea some US people have that companies should persue profits no matter what is complete nonsense.
If the company stablish as a guiding operational principle not to deal with dictatorships there is nothing to stop them doing exactly that.
.... that is a bit extreme.
That still does not absolve them of anny illegal or immoral practices their company may be pursuing.
:-P :-)
FF is. That makes it much more apealing to people technically inclined.
Ford does not have a monopolic position on the market where they compete.
MS does, that puts a lot of legal tabs on what they can do.
Most USian friends I have introuced or refered to themselves as gringos (I am Mexican) which I found extremely funny.
Yes, gringo used to be derogatory (insults are the weapon of last resource of the defeated in unjust battles, but I digress) but as with many of these terms, it became the common term.
You will be hard pressed to find anybody in Mexico refering to any USians other than as gringos, and this will in most cases not be derogatory.
It does it regularly with European companies as well.
This may be a surprise to USians, but is by no means an isolated incident.
If you work for one that does you should be telling them to stop such nonsense.
I own my computer, it is no bussiness of theirs what I do with it.
Which is why I have not bought MS stuff for 10 years.
MS wants free reign in our computers.
They do not want just to ensure we don;t copy their below par software.
They want to control how you play your media, they want to control the mechanisms to start trust relationshios with other entities ("secure" computing) and to decide which hardware can be connected or not (they will be actively working to close the "analogue hole").
MS is aiming to make you pay for a device fully controlled by them. I can't think of an apt car analogy because no car company would dare to mistreat their costumers so badly (but that is explained by a healthy competition in the car industry).
If MS was making no money from regular people, they would not bother with all this nonsense copy protection.
Any company with a few dozen of machines or more will eventually standarize to a single configuration in order to save support costs and will not be thinkering with hardware without any good reason. They are the less likely to be fooling around with hardware and the less likely to be pirating software given the stiff penalties. So copy protection here is frankly menaingless.
In the other hand individuals are the ones that copy and share software. MS very well could release their personal edition software with watered down server capabilities (diks and print sharing constrained, no possibility of the machine becoming a domain controller, etc) and allow people a free range (as they did with all versions prior to XP I believe). That viral character of the OS made it popular amongst users (paired with MS's draconina strategy with hardware providers).
MS seems to be finally digging its own grave, I just don't understand how it is that nobody there seems to realize hopw much they are bothering their costumers (not me, I stopped using their wares long time ago).
Do you realize that for hundreds and even thousends of years cultures like Faraonic Egypt, classic Greece, Rome, Persia, the Ottomans, the Maya, the Inca developped on those countries you mention while people in colder climates lived in huts in what can be only kindly described as townships?
Your monumental ignorance about universal history is only matched by the idiotic conclussions reached by your uninformed, baseless arguments.
Neither an environmentalist.
And before I am accussed of nost listening to his message, I have heard the guy, read his book and he is just in a state of denial.
First the scientists were ridiculed (What? Global climate change? You should be joking).
Once the scientific foundation of the problem has been stablished, then the economic impact of fighting climate change was given as an excuse ("No US jobs should be lost" was the mantra of a well known individual with too much power but many bad advisers and dubious industry connections on his past).
Now that a reputed economist says that doing nothing would bring a recession of monumental proportions, here we are, doubting the expert again (many people have hinted to this already, but this seems to be tying up everything together).
What else is needed so some pople stop wasting our time and allow the rest of us to get on with the bussiness of minimize the effects of climate change?
Doing nothing, as confirmed by scientists and now economists, is not the rational option.
And you know it.
.... that fuel inneficient cars were socially irresponsible. If not for the issue of global warming, then because polution, oil consumption, etc.
Any half informed person could deduce such profilgate vehicles will have their comupance sooner or later.
The more you polute, the more you are harming other people.
It is just fair that irresponsible poluters pay by means of taxation for their lack of social conscience.
It is all good and trendy to grab the "free will" and "capitalism" monikers while at the same time using adjectives completely unrelated to the issue at hand.
Just for your information anyway, marxist countries destroyed completely the environment in many places (Chernobyl being the most egregious example), Eastern Europe is filled with examples of how pollution and environmental destruction where not high in the political agenda of true marxists.
But keep using the scare tactics (Booooh! The marxists are coming!) it is amusing to still find pople so ideologically incompetent.
The reality is that sensible people are realizing something needs to be done, and taxing poluters is one way to keep freedoms (nobody is banning irresponsible car owners) while trying to curb a problem.
And the operating system you are refering to is not yours, it is ours (and to some point, nobody's).
Actaully he is not a promoter of Linux, but that seems to be escaping you and many other people that have no idea what they are talking about.
And that is most Christians.
No ambiguites for Spanish speaking folk.
Which I think adheres to the spirit of Jesus message.
But I am an atheist, so I just laugh at religious people from the sidelines.
... not murder.
If this is the best god, the all powerfull been,could do when communicating his, sorry, its will, lets say that a communications expert is sorely needed to give it a helping hand.
... then god's communications skills are sorely lacking ....
Many self confessed Christians will point to obscure Bible translation issues to ensure that they can kill somebody else when it suits them (the current war in Iraq is a shinning example of this. All the US leadership calls itself religious, mostly Cristian, but they have no qualms ordering the assasination of hundreds of thousends of innocent people)
Just because it is a free service it gives nobody else the right to snoop in what other people are doing.