As a gay man I can tell you that you are patently WRONG. When you and your wife co-sign on a mortgage it is as a single taxed entity- mine is not.
If you are called into court your wife can not be called to testify against you against her will- my boyfriend can.
For $50 you can get all the paperwork you need to be a single legal & financial entity. Last year it cost me and my partner over $1000 to get what we can.
The medical insurance I get from my company for my boyfriend is taxed & any money I "give" him to pay for things is taxed as income. You and your wife do not have this problem.
Constitutional amendments ensure that when they look at our paperwork they are not allowed to view it as a marriage or "like a marriage".
If your wife is in a hospital and needs life saving actions taken the fact your marriage covers it all. I have to have SEVEN different Medical Powers of Attorney to get near equivalence in just 46 of the states. Even then mine can be challenged because there is no reciprocity across state lines, yours can not.
My boyfriend and I are not allowed to get the same benefits tax wise you and your wife can. Only one of us can claim the tax deduction on the house, the other is left to pay higher taxes. If we switch it back & forth each year we get audited by the IRS- an increased cost. They are NOT ALLOWED to look at us as a couple, so they can not just skip the audit.
Upon the death of one of us the ENTIRE estate of the other will be taxed as it passes to the other. Yours will not be. So we loose equity and value.
I have listed several civil, medical, and financial ways in which paperwork WILL NOT cover cover everything.
So, what you don't seem to realize is that you don't know what your talking about.
Oh, and MOST states is not EVERY state like yours.
Funny how the MPAA and others want the government out of their business and insist on letting "market forces" decide what is going to be served by the MPAA members. However when they want other companies to do things they want a government mandate!
If the MPAA thinks this is really a valuable proposition, then let them recruit consumer electronics manfs and marked the equipment as able to get "special early release movies". If users like this they will purchase the equipment and it will become a defacto standard.
I say we use their arguments against government regulations against them, just quote them.
Did not work for me. I got tired of my Mom having problems & bought her a Mac. It took only three months for her to be really frustrated by the difficulty she was having in getting things to work software wise- she did not want to learn a different app, she wanted to use the same one her friends had. Then there was the case of software she wanted not being available- especially apps that require data exchanges with others. She does genealogy work for the family but it went poorly on the MAC.
What ended up happening was she got Parallels from the Apple store (their recommendation) and now she just has problems with the Windows on her Mac. Now she just has a very expensive PC... *sigh*
The point- make sure moves to Ubuntu & MAC will work for your users. If you are not the ONLY person they talk to about their PC then a change in OS may not work.
I think you missed his point. Many feel we need to regulate the banks so that we don't let them get so big that a failure of one would bring down our economy or other banks and sectors in mass. One of the basic tenants of the Free Market/ Capitalist system is to ensure competition. If we let a bank get so big that it is a cornerstone or major support of our entire economy (CitiBank, Bank of America, etc) then letting it fail is not as reasonable or acceptable a premise because the pain is no longer on the investors but the population as a whole. We have seen in this economic collapse that allowing financial institutions to become interwoven and then having them make up a large segment of our economy means that a failure in one part can bring it all down. However, if we limit the bank size (like they used to be for 50 years) to a smaller percentage of deposit and loan market and don't let them insure their own loans or be in insurance then if we let them fail they hurt the risky investors (as intended) and not the entire nation.
Personally, neither system seems very good to me, however the limited size of banks seems the least objectionable IMHO.
I am ok with nearly everything stated but the Safari item. Presenting an update is fine with me- provided the software is already installed! Instead what happened was that they presented (and continue to do so) updates to software NOT INSTALLED and do so by default. This means that many people get NEW software not previously requested, presented to them as an update that they need/ should have for software they dont have(but soon will). That I take issue with.
I doubt much will be done. First of all states and even the US Govt is pushing for this kind of logging. Plus, all logs generated since the lawsuit would be unable to be edited or have your data purged as the US court order would trump EU law. Finally, if you are accessing the US version of Google's system then most courts would argue that you are accepting US jurisdiction over your data and request.
Don't take this to mean I agree with them, but keep in mind that when international rules/ laws are in conflict the winner is the guy who holds the goods- in this case the servers are in the US. The one good thing is that if you are accessing sites specific to your language/ nation then those sites should be in compliance with the requisite laws... we hope!
My issue with Foxmarks is that it does not do everything that Google Browser Sync does. Having an encrypted copy of my passwords and bookmarks and cookies was nice. I dont save banking or high-security passwords anyway, but all of those fourm and other site usernames & passwords- nice!
Ok, I have to call you on this one a bit. To point they paid Stern in stock, so that is not debt carried on their books. While it is true they have more debt, but a big part of that has to do with the way XM was financed. Check their history they have gone bankrupt or been part of bankrupt groups on a number of occasions- that let them get rid of some of their debt. Also, XM has/had Honda and GM backing them so they were able to get/ acquire listeners easier. When my dad purchased his Yukon it came with XM for free paid for by GM for three months.
Thats what I get for not paying attention while typing out a response in a rush. A good review edit always helps, but being in the middle of several other task and answering questions hurts ones train of thought and obviously I did not check carefully. Oh well, the point was made and hopefully received with out too much difficulty.
Are you kidding me! The studio's would LOVE this. For most users they would be unable to "steal" the content and upload it to others. They would have the majority of the users paying per VIEWING (OnDemand) and they would be able to update the movie trailers and ads. This would be a dream for the studios, the loss would be for the end users. No more taking your DVD to a friends to watch, or sharing or passing on Disney movies from one family to another.
No, the real looser in this battle of the stupid is the consumers. If this takes too long we all loose. I personally hope that Sony looses, but that is just because I am tired of their proprietary storage formats they are always pushing on us.
Given that he stated he
"screamed a huge lispy "Yes!" I do not see why you straight guys are so surprised. Lighten up- besides it leaves just one more woman out there to turn you down.
Or is you are jealous that he might be getting some when you are not?
The same cable company that billed me for two locations after moving my service, canceling the accounts, getting a refund and a letter. Yes, Comcast billed me after we moved for my old Apartment and new home. When they were unable to get the billing right we canceled the service. They still billed us and then realized their mistake (many, many phone calls later) and sent us a refund and a letter saying the problems had been resolved... Three months later we get a call from a collection agency saying we are deadbeats and owe money!
The cable companies can not get their systems right, their data is suspect and I think should be challenged as such. Personally, I think everyone laid off from AOL's billing department was hired by Comcast.
There are three major and important facts that proponents of Universal Heathcare ignore when pointing to Germany, Sweden, etc...
1. The US is both population wise and land wise considerably larger- at last estimate over 300 million people. This means the logistical and administrative demands of any such system would be orders of magnitude larger than anything Germany (82m ppl), England (60m ppl), or Sweden (9m ppl) have thus making the program harder to manage and much more expensive.
2. Germany, England and Sweden are central government countries. They have a strong national government with mutiple parties working in coalitions and the Prime Minister is selected from this. This allows for things to work "all in one direction". However, the US is fragmented with a weakened federal government (though stronger over the last 50 years) and many fragmented states with no single direction or goal- and often opposit goals. This would make it both politically and socially difficult to implement a single Universal Heathcare without it being very regonal, complex, and beholden to local politics thus negating many of the advantages of "national heathcare".
3. The US has no National will. It is far easier to geta majority of 80, 60 or especially 9 million people to have a single set of goals or objectives. Especially when that social structure has been in existance for over a thousand years, they all speak the same language and they share common cultural and social norms. The US is to use a cliche a melting pot only 200 years old- getting five random people in a room that have anything in common is nearly impossible in a big city. Trying to find commonality beyond Nation & Citizenship for 300 million in this country is pipe dream.
Antoher issue is Univeral Healthcare does not solve the litigation issue in this country, but that is a whole nother topic.
So, that said what do I think the solution is? Univeral Healthcare laws. Too many of our basic healthcare laws are done state by state thus making it an administrative and paperwork nightmare. Meeting the laws in each state, region and area drive the cost of Healthcare and Insurance up. We need to allow people to pool their insurance- without requiring the involvment of their employer, and we need to standardize the laws across the nation thus lowering the adminstrative and legal cost for both insurers and providers. Once this is done the free market competition in insurance will help drive down cost as each insurer demands lower prices for drugs, medical equipment, and even procedures.
I wish people would stop listing "doesn't play on iPod" as a reason the service is no good. If the Apple Fan Boys are not happy that does it not play well with iPod - then complain to APPLE! This is not the sites fault, it is the fault of APPLE which REFUSES to license FairPlay to anyone. While this is Apple right, dont hold that against others. I dislike MS as much as most, but at least their system gives me SOME choices in different sales sites, different players, etc. Apple makes all the choices for me- iPod and iTunes - and nothing else. I for one would like say... a changeable battery!
PS: Before you get all up in a huff saying "iPod's support MP3's" well yeah but like it or not (and I for one do not) none of the major RIAA companies will license music for non-DRM download. Get over it, that is not a valid argument as a way to have other sites support iPod and we all know it.
I think that something that this article seriously misses is that FOSS groups usually do not have the money/ resources to check for existing name trademarks (especially in multiple countries) and they also lack the money/ resources to purchase used names. There are plenty of marketing/ product companies that hold on to names until a buyer comes along. Companies like Microsoft, Adobe, etc have the people and resources to check for existing trademarks, copyrights, etc or buy exixting ones off of other companies. Just look at the troubles FireFox had and that was with the backing of a major FOSS player like Mozilla. Add on top of that the cost of purchasing the domain name for a popular/ more intuitive product name and it becomes obvious why so many FOSS groups choose unusual names. These people are programmers and technophiles, not lawyers and marketroids and most projects have no budget at all.
While I generally applaud increasing or adding to our general use of technology in helping to solve US educational deficiencies or to just help keep our educational system in tune with the world; on this one I have to call into question the logic of a technological solution to a social / infrastructure issue. As much as school is an educational institution, for many it is also a social institution, and while many home schooled groups do resolve this missing ingredient of regular social interaction among peers many do not. School is where our children learn (or fail to) how to interact, respond to, and respect others and other groups. That aside, I think the greater concern is that we are looking to technology to resolve a financial issue rather than a methedoligy or substance issue. Providing home schooling for moral, ethical, or simply quality issues is one thing, but providing it as a means to lower fuel cost comes across to me as fixing the symptom and not the problem.
If we want to reduce our fuel cost for schools, let's look at mass transportation. We need to consider doing like the MTA's (Mass Transit Authorities) and switch to cleaner, more efficient fuels for schools buses (CNG, etc). In metro areas we need to encourage having kids ride the metro bus system instead of maintaining two bus systems (school and general transit). We could place a "school official" (a.k.a- the current bus driver) on each MTA bus that picks up kids, and then they would be responsible for safety and counting fares. This would reduce fuel and maintenance cost for both the school system and the MTA, it would also introduce social change in our society by removing the stigma of riding public transportation. Over all it would be a benefit to many, and in rural areas the application of alternative fuels and more efficient modern buses would most likely be a better solution than attempting to build out some expensive county wide internet/ multimedia network infrastructure.
Trying to solve a social/ infrastructure problem in life by throwing more technology at it generally does nothing but complicate the situation. Social & infrastructure problems require a social or infrastructure solution. Technology is not the end all be all solution- the tech bubble should have taught us that.
She shot her self in the foot on that one, because the company policy is that users are not allowed to install software. So, when she complained to my boss that I removed it he asker her if she installed it. She replied yes (all of this was over email) and he just forwarded her email to her boss, with a link to the companies policy on installing non-work related software. She was repremanded and a general email reminder was sent out.
The good that came from that is now the managers are considering letting us lock down the boxes the rest of the way so users can not install software! We are a company that used to be a small company that has grown so... we are just getting around to adopting standard practices like locking down systems.
I just walked by her and smiled, and then proceded to set the home page to Weather.com for the user next to her.
If Microsoft is going to rate spyware based on the actions taken by end users, then the product is flawed from the begining. If most users knew what caused/qualified/ acted as spyware they would not get it in the first place. I can not tell you how many times I have removed some WeatherBug or other program, and the user goes "Why, I like getting the weather" and I have to explain that all of the Pop-UPs are from the WeatherBug and they say "Why? It is just for the Weather!". I actually had one user complain to my boss that I was trying to keep her from getting the Weather!
My point being, most users don't know or understand what is in the programs, and so the determination of their adware/ non-adware status should not be left up to them.
Additionally, what is going to stop the AdWare networks from running bots that mark their programs as Keep or Ignore and thus flooding the SpyWareNet with false info.
If the change comes becuse of user feed back, then the system is flawed. If the change came because MS got paid, or threatened to be sued then MS is just corrupt.
And I will answer, as I actually read not only the article but also the story on Slashdot (being the heritic I am for reading the story and article!)
The reason this has ANYTHING to do with MS is that this is not a gay rights bill it is an EMPLOYMENT bill and being one of the biggest EMPOLOYERS in Washington state they are VERY interested in an EMPLOYMENT bill for Washington state.
As for why this is on Slashdot... I would say two reasons, one it is about MS and second because with the erosion of civil rights (or the perception of loss by some people) Slashdot is monitoring things more.
This is not an attempt to flame, but I think this clarification needs to be put out there.
Looks like lead laced paint may just make a comeback after so many years being scorned. Dupont may have just found a way to dispose of all that "hazardous waste" they have buried somewhere!... just dont lick the walls!
That is not true at all. Just because a US Bank note is legal for debts, does not mean that the seller has to accept it. Case in point my landlord... they will not take my rent in cash. My options are to get a check/ money order of some type or move elsewhere.
However, the number one group purchasers of music in the US is teenagers. Until most teenagers have bank cards/ credit cards they will still accept cash as they will not risk loosing their biggest (and often most mindless) customers.
I think this news opens up a great opportunity for Slashdot readers and Sys Admins in general. This would be a great time to be able to put questions to them such as:
1. What are you doing to track down spammes.
2. What can we do to assist? Is there some type of site, or address we can send information to assist in tracking down offenders.
No, what would be great is if we could convince RIAA that SCO has an immense collection of copyprotected MP3's. Then we need to convice SCO that RIAA is running hundreds of Linux servers to search for violaters.
Then stand back and let them sue eachother into oblivion.... ahhh we can dream!
Slashdot Mirror
As a gay man I can tell you that you are patently WRONG. When you and your wife co-sign on a mortgage it is as a single taxed entity- mine is not.
If you are called into court your wife can not be called to testify against you against her will- my boyfriend can.
For $50 you can get all the paperwork you need to be a single legal & financial entity. Last year it cost me and my partner over $1000 to get what we can.
The medical insurance I get from my company for my boyfriend is taxed & any money I "give" him to pay for things is taxed as income. You and your wife do not have this problem.
Constitutional amendments ensure that when they look at our paperwork they are not allowed to view it as a marriage or "like a marriage".
If your wife is in a hospital and needs life saving actions taken the fact your marriage covers it all. I have to have SEVEN different Medical Powers of Attorney to get near equivalence in just 46 of the states. Even then mine can be challenged because there is no reciprocity across state lines, yours can not.
My boyfriend and I are not allowed to get the same benefits tax wise you and your wife can. Only one of us can claim the tax deduction on the house, the other is left to pay higher taxes. If we switch it back & forth each year we get audited by the IRS- an increased cost. They are NOT ALLOWED to look at us as a couple, so they can not just skip the audit.
Upon the death of one of us the ENTIRE estate of the other will be taxed as it passes to the other. Yours will not be. So we loose equity and value.
I have listed several civil, medical, and financial ways in which paperwork WILL NOT cover cover everything.
So, what you don't seem to realize is that you don't know what your talking about.
Oh, and MOST states is not EVERY state like yours.
Funny how the MPAA and others want the government out of their business and insist on letting "market forces" decide what is going to be served by the MPAA members. However when they want other companies to do things they want a government mandate!
If the MPAA thinks this is really a valuable proposition, then let them recruit consumer electronics manfs and marked the equipment as able to get "special early release movies". If users like this they will purchase the equipment and it will become a defacto standard.
I say we use their arguments against government regulations against them, just quote them.
-JLKirk
Did not work for me. I got tired of my Mom having problems & bought her a Mac. It took only three months for her to be really frustrated by the difficulty she was having in getting things to work software wise- she did not want to learn a different app, she wanted to use the same one her friends had. Then there was the case of software she wanted not being available- especially apps that require data exchanges with others. She does genealogy work for the family but it went poorly on the MAC.
What ended up happening was she got Parallels from the Apple store (their recommendation) and now she just has problems with the Windows on her Mac. Now she just has a very expensive PC... *sigh*
The point- make sure moves to Ubuntu & MAC will work for your users. If you are not the ONLY person they talk to about their PC then a change in OS may not work.
I think you missed his point. Many feel we need to regulate the banks so that we don't let them get so big that a failure of one would bring down our economy or other banks and sectors in mass. One of the basic tenants of the Free Market/ Capitalist system is to ensure competition. If we let a bank get so big that it is a cornerstone or major support of our entire economy (CitiBank, Bank of America, etc) then letting it fail is not as reasonable or acceptable a premise because the pain is no longer on the investors but the population as a whole. We have seen in this economic collapse that allowing financial institutions to become interwoven and then having them make up a large segment of our economy means that a failure in one part can bring it all down. However, if we limit the bank size (like they used to be for 50 years) to a smaller percentage of deposit and loan market and don't let them insure their own loans or be in insurance then if we let them fail they hurt the risky investors (as intended) and not the entire nation.
Personally, neither system seems very good to me, however the limited size of banks seems the least objectionable IMHO.
I am ok with nearly everything stated but the Safari item. Presenting an update is fine with me- provided the software is already installed! Instead what happened was that they presented (and continue to do so) updates to software NOT INSTALLED and do so by default. This means that many people get NEW software not previously requested, presented to them as an update that they need/ should have for software they dont have(but soon will). That I take issue with.
I doubt much will be done. First of all states and even the US Govt is pushing for this kind of logging. Plus, all logs generated since the lawsuit would be unable to be edited or have your data purged as the US court order would trump EU law. Finally, if you are accessing the US version of Google's system then most courts would argue that you are accepting US jurisdiction over your data and request.
Don't take this to mean I agree with them, but keep in mind that when international rules/ laws are in conflict the winner is the guy who holds the goods- in this case the servers are in the US. The one good thing is that if you are accessing sites specific to your language/ nation then those sites should be in compliance with the requisite laws... we hope!
My issue with Foxmarks is that it does not do everything that Google Browser Sync does. Having an encrypted copy of my passwords and bookmarks and cookies was nice. I dont save banking or high-security passwords anyway, but all of those fourm and other site usernames & passwords- nice!
Google Browser Sync you will be missed!
Ok, I have to call you on this one a bit. To point they paid Stern in stock, so that is not debt carried on their books. While it is true they have more debt, but a big part of that has to do with the way XM was financed. Check their history they have gone bankrupt or been part of bankrupt groups on a number of occasions- that let them get rid of some of their debt. Also, XM has/had Honda and GM backing them so they were able to get/ acquire listeners easier. When my dad purchased his Yukon it came with XM for free paid for by GM for three months.
Just injecting some info.
Thats what I get for not paying attention while typing out a response in a rush. A good review edit always helps, but being in the middle of several other task and answering questions hurts ones train of thought and obviously I did not check carefully. Oh well, the point was made and hopefully received with out too much difficulty.
Are you kidding me! The studio's would LOVE this. For most users they would be unable to "steal" the content and upload it to others. They would have the majority of the users paying per VIEWING (OnDemand) and they would be able to update the movie trailers and ads. This would be a dream for the studios, the loss would be for the end users. No more taking your DVD to a friends to watch, or sharing or passing on Disney movies from one family to another.
No, the real looser in this battle of the stupid is the consumers. If this takes too long we all loose. I personally hope that Sony looses, but that is just because I am tired of their proprietary storage formats they are always pushing on us.
Or is you are jealous that he might be getting some when you are not?
I find my cut off point to be far easier than any of this... I eat what taste good!
The same cable company that billed me for two locations after moving my service, canceling the accounts, getting a refund and a letter. Yes, Comcast billed me after we moved for my old Apartment and new home. When they were unable to get the billing right we canceled the service. They still billed us and then realized their mistake (many, many phone calls later) and sent us a refund and a letter saying the problems had been resolved... Three months later we get a call from a collection agency saying we are deadbeats and owe money!
The cable companies can not get their systems right, their data is suspect and I think should be challenged as such. Personally, I think everyone laid off from AOL's billing department was hired by Comcast.
There are three major and important facts that proponents of Universal Heathcare ignore when pointing to Germany, Sweden, etc...
1. The US is both population wise and land wise considerably larger- at last estimate over 300 million people. This means the logistical and administrative demands of any such system would be orders of magnitude larger than anything Germany (82m ppl), England (60m ppl), or Sweden (9m ppl) have thus making the program harder to manage and much more expensive.
2. Germany, England and Sweden are central government countries. They have a strong national government with mutiple parties working in coalitions and the Prime Minister is selected from this. This allows for things to work "all in one direction". However, the US is fragmented with a weakened federal government (though stronger over the last 50 years) and many fragmented states with no single direction or goal- and often opposit goals. This would make it both politically and socially difficult to implement a single Universal Heathcare without it being very regonal, complex, and beholden to local politics thus negating many of the advantages of "national heathcare".
3. The US has no National will. It is far easier to geta majority of 80, 60 or especially 9 million people to have a single set of goals or objectives. Especially when that social structure has been in existance for over a thousand years, they all speak the same language and they share common cultural and social norms. The US is to use a cliche a melting pot only 200 years old- getting five random people in a room that have anything in common is nearly impossible in a big city. Trying to find commonality beyond Nation & Citizenship for 300 million in this country is pipe dream.
Antoher issue is Univeral Healthcare does not solve the litigation issue in this country, but that is a whole nother topic.
So, that said what do I think the solution is? Univeral Healthcare laws. Too many of our basic healthcare laws are done state by state thus making it an administrative and paperwork nightmare. Meeting the laws in each state, region and area drive the cost of Healthcare and Insurance up. We need to allow people to pool their insurance- without requiring the involvment of their employer, and we need to standardize the laws across the nation thus lowering the adminstrative and legal cost for both insurers and providers. Once this is done the free market competition in insurance will help drive down cost as each insurer demands lower prices for drugs, medical equipment, and even procedures.
My 2 cents
I wish people would stop listing "doesn't play on iPod" as a reason the service is no good. If the Apple Fan Boys are not happy that does it not play well with iPod - then complain to APPLE! This is not the sites fault, it is the fault of APPLE which REFUSES to license FairPlay to anyone. While this is Apple right, dont hold that against others. I dislike MS as much as most, but at least their system gives me SOME choices in different sales sites, different players, etc. Apple makes all the choices for me- iPod and iTunes - and nothing else. I for one would like say... a changeable battery!
PS: Before you get all up in a huff saying "iPod's support MP3's" well yeah but like it or not (and I for one do not) none of the major RIAA companies will license music for non-DRM download. Get over it, that is not a valid argument as a way to have other sites support iPod and we all know it.
I think that something that this article seriously misses is that FOSS groups usually do not have the money/ resources to check for existing name trademarks (especially in multiple countries) and they also lack the money/ resources to purchase used names. There are plenty of marketing/ product companies that hold on to names until a buyer comes along. Companies like Microsoft, Adobe, etc have the people and resources to check for existing trademarks, copyrights, etc or buy exixting ones off of other companies. Just look at the troubles FireFox had and that was with the backing of a major FOSS player like Mozilla. Add on top of that the cost of purchasing the domain name for a popular/ more intuitive product name and it becomes obvious why so many FOSS groups choose unusual names. These people are programmers and technophiles, not lawyers and marketroids and most projects have no budget at all.
JM2C
While I generally applaud increasing or adding to our general use of technology in helping to solve US educational deficiencies or to just help keep our educational system in tune with the world; on this one I have to call into question the logic of a technological solution to a social / infrastructure issue. As much as school is an educational institution, for many it is also a social institution, and while many home schooled groups do resolve this missing ingredient of regular social interaction among peers many do not. School is where our children learn (or fail to) how to interact, respond to, and respect others and other groups. That aside, I think the greater concern is that we are looking to technology to resolve a financial issue rather than a methedoligy or substance issue. Providing home schooling for moral, ethical, or simply quality issues is one thing, but providing it as a means to lower fuel cost comes across to me as fixing the symptom and not the problem.
If we want to reduce our fuel cost for schools, let's look at mass transportation. We need to consider doing like the MTA's (Mass Transit Authorities) and switch to cleaner, more efficient fuels for schools buses (CNG, etc). In metro areas we need to encourage having kids ride the metro bus system instead of maintaining two bus systems (school and general transit). We could place a "school official" (a.k.a- the current bus driver) on each MTA bus that picks up kids, and then they would be responsible for safety and counting fares. This would reduce fuel and maintenance cost for both the school system and the MTA, it would also introduce social change in our society by removing the stigma of riding public transportation. Over all it would be a benefit to many, and in rural areas the application of alternative fuels and more efficient modern buses would most likely be a better solution than attempting to build out some expensive county wide internet/ multimedia network infrastructure.
Trying to solve a social/ infrastructure problem in life by throwing more technology at it generally does nothing but complicate the situation. Social & infrastructure problems require a social or infrastructure solution. Technology is not the end all be all solution- the tech bubble should have taught us that.
Just my thoughts....
She shot her self in the foot on that one, because the company policy is that users are not allowed to install software. So, when she complained to my boss that I removed it he asker her if she installed it. She replied yes (all of this was over email) and he just forwarded her email to her boss, with a link to the companies policy on installing non-work related software. She was repremanded and a general email reminder was sent out.
The good that came from that is now the managers are considering letting us lock down the boxes the rest of the way so users can not install software! We are a company that used to be a small company that has grown so... we are just getting around to adopting standard practices like locking down systems.
I just walked by her and smiled, and then proceded to set the home page to Weather.com for the user next to her.
*Smiles*
If Microsoft is going to rate spyware based on the actions taken by end users, then the product is flawed from the begining. If most users knew what caused/qualified/ acted as spyware they would not get it in the first place. I can not tell you how many times I have removed some WeatherBug or other program, and the user goes "Why, I like getting the weather" and I have to explain that all of the Pop-UPs are from the WeatherBug and they say "Why? It is just for the Weather!". I actually had one user complain to my boss that I was trying to keep her from getting the Weather!
My point being, most users don't know or understand what is in the programs, and so the determination of their adware/ non-adware status should not be left up to them.
Additionally, what is going to stop the AdWare networks from running bots that mark their programs as Keep or Ignore and thus flooding the SpyWareNet with false info.
If the change comes becuse of user feed back, then the system is flawed. If the change came because MS got paid, or threatened to be sued then MS is just corrupt.
And I will answer, as I actually read not only the article but also the story on Slashdot (being the heritic I am for reading the story and article!)
The reason this has ANYTHING to do with MS is that this is not a gay rights bill it is an EMPLOYMENT bill and being one of the biggest EMPOLOYERS in Washington state they are VERY interested in an EMPLOYMENT bill for Washington state.
As for why this is on Slashdot... I would say two reasons, one it is about MS and second because with the erosion of civil rights (or the perception of loss by some people) Slashdot is monitoring things more.
This is not an attempt to flame, but I think this clarification needs to be put out there.
Looks like lead laced paint may just make a comeback after so many years being scorned. Dupont may have just found a way to dispose of all that "hazardous waste" they have buried somewhere! ... just dont lick the walls!
You must be new here or have you forgotten... no one on /. actually reads the article!
That is not true at all. Just because a US Bank note is legal for debts, does not mean that the seller has to accept it. Case in point my landlord... they will not take my rent in cash. My options are to get a check/ money order of some type or move elsewhere.
However, the number one group purchasers of music in the US is teenagers. Until most teenagers have bank cards/ credit cards they will still accept cash as they will not risk loosing their biggest (and often most mindless) customers.
I think this news opens up a great opportunity for Slashdot readers and Sys Admins in general. This would be a great time to be able to put questions to them such as:
1. What are you doing to track down spammes.2. What can we do to assist? Is there some type of site, or address we can send information to assist in tracking down offenders.
Lets get an interview.
Just my thoughts.
No, what would be great is if we could convince RIAA that SCO has an immense collection of copyprotected MP3's. Then we need to convice SCO that RIAA is running hundreds of Linux servers to search for violaters.
Then stand back and let them sue eachother into oblivion.... ahhh we can dream!