I'm not sure I want my neighborhood viewable on the Web from ground level. And are they going to edit all the people out? I don't see how they could.
I would suggest then that you don't go out in public. And maybe you should buy up all the land around your neighborhood and make it private. Or maybe you could just wait for Google to show up and do the same thing, then you'd feel ok about it and think about how empowering it will be for you to be able to browse down to "virtual peeping tom" and see what's going on in your house when you're not around.
(BTW people have this same complaint about Google groups: the posted to usenet before the advent of the pervasive web and the idea that some corporation would come along and violate the usual standards of post expiration was abhorrent. But because it's Google and they won't Do No Evil(*), that's ok. Ask any slashdotter.)
* - For some values of evil that are of a nuisance to Google executive and Google's profits.
I often wonder why people can't voluntarily submit themselves to whatever they want.
Many reasons. Probably the first and foremost are snake oil salesmen. Followed closely by the fact that while people will say they want a particular experimental treatment, what they really want is a cure. If what they end up getting is an experimental treatment that gives them cancer, makes their legs fall off, or just drains their bank account, they'll be suing the researches post haste.
As far as gross surgical procedures go, you can pretty much do any of that that you want. You're a guy and you want breast implants? No problem, just get out the check book. Want your fingers chopped off? Sure thing. You might have a hard time finding a doctor to do it for you, but it's not illegal like it is to start a regimine of experimental drugs.
Or maybe it's just a way for them to manage licenses? Like you purchase a license to view a movie. They send you the.WMV and the license to view the file. You upgrade your computer and want to migrate all your purchases to the new machine. So you request to remove the license from the current system.
TIFF is a container format. It has zip to do with the actual encoding of the image. In particular you can encode JPEG inside of a TIFF file. Additionally the JPEG standard specified a lossless compression algorithm. (Even in the original spec.)
Because the discontinuities caused by your shitty spelling and grammar break the flow of information from your words into your reader's heads. Overall you reduce the quality of the communication between you and your reader. Additionally it shows disrespect for your reader that you don't give enough of a fuck to actually take the time to present them with a well written statement.
But go ahead and write like a moron. It just reduces people's impression of you regardless of your actual technical skill and intelligence.
Strange, none of those examples were hypothetical sales (which the **AA is counting). If you physically steal an object the prior owner can't sell it anymore, nor do they have the benefit of using it. If you download a song, the **AA can *still* sell as many copies as they want to. Downloads also aren't equal to a hypothetical sale. With a service, like a haircut, there's an agreement of payment upon its completion. If I download a song from a random person non-affiliated with the **AA, there is no such agreement.
The only reason you are arguing is because you aren't willing to admit you are totally and completely wrong. It has nothing to do with hypothetical v. real, service v. product. The law says if you want to get a piece of IP (song, movie, book, etc.) then you have to pay the price asked for it. If I were an artist and made a product I can expect that everyone who wants that product will pay me. It has nothing to do with how hard it is to make a copy of my work. It has nothing to do with whether you would have paid the price I am asking for my work. It is exactly like going to someone who provides a service, receiving that service and then having to pay for it.
When you download a song, movie, piece of software, etc. you get the product. As such if you choose not to pay then you are depriving the person who has a legal right to sell/copy/distribute that product whatever payment they are entitled to receive. The argument that you wouldn't have bought it is exactly as valid as going to a barber, getting the haircut/shave and then arguing that you wouldn't pay for a haircut and shave so you aren't going to pay for a haircut and shave.
BTW I never said anyone is stealing, I said someone is being deprived of something.
I just don't see how it's relevant to copyright infringement, because no artist is given a contract saying that X number of their albums WILL be bought by consumers, whereas any employee has a contract stating that X hours worked equals Y dollars in paycheck.
Some artists receive exactly the deal you describe, ie. they will be advanced X number of dollars to be repaid against royalties. Some employees are paid on commission. But all artists are given a particular "contract" by the government. That contract states that anyone who wants to legally have a copy of the artists work will have to pay the artist what the artist is asking. Effectively a "paid on commission" situation.
The actual issue that people who created things years ago have stopped doing any interesting new work or contributing to society, yet still expect to get paid?
So what you are saying is you want what they created but you don't want to pay for it? Ie. you see that it has value but you want that value for free? Got it.
Or the actual issue that these copyrights do nothing but stifle everything except "approved creativity". Ask Apotheosis about that one.
So intead of going back to the original folk material they wanted to go off from Orff's unique derivative of that work. And they wanted it for free? Got it.
Maybe the actual issue of companies like Disney leeching off of public domain works and parlaying them into a profit, but then lobbying to keep their work out of the public domain and giving others the same benefit they had?
So go out there and create your own derivative work from those original public domain sources. Oh wait, what you mean to say is that you want to take Disney's rendition of those public domain works and use that? Only you don't want to pay for it? Got it.
Admit it. You're a cheap bastard who wants free shit. I'm fine with that. But don't try and rationalize that crap.
There's a big difference between saying "no I did not have relations with this woman" while knowing you did, and saying "I swear to uphold the constitution", and then doing something which in your opinion doesn't violate the constitution and then having someone else determine that it does.
One could argue that one was not lying because spraying cum over some chick's face and dress is not having relations in your own opinion. But this is all a moot point due to the fact that on both articles of impeachment that were brought against President Clinton by the House of Representatives, he was acquitted in trial in the Senate:
The Senate voted on the Articles of Impeachment on February 12, with a two-thirds majority, or 67 Senators, required to convict. On Article I, that charged that the President "...willfully provided perjurious, false and misleading testimony to the grand jury" and made "...corrupt efforts to influence the testimony of witnesses and to impede the discovery of evidence" in the Paula Jones lawsuit, the President was found not guilty with 45 Senators voting for the President's removal from office and 55 against. Ten Republicans split with their colleagues to vote for acquittal; all 45 Democrats voted to acquit. On Article II, charging that the President "...has prevented, obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice"..., the vote was 50-50, with all Democrats and five Republicans voting to acquit.
Put it in a different context: You can kill someone in self defense. If a court decides that the person who was creeping around in your house in the middle of the night, the one that you accidentally shot in the head while attempting to shoot in them in the arm, wasn't actually a threat to you then you did the crime and you will have to face whatever penalties the law indicates are appropriate for your crime. Even though a) it was an accident, and b) you thought your life was at risk. You can't just say "Oops, sorry. I'll not do that anymore."
While I would be completely willing to put my testicles in a thousand ton vice if Bush were found guilty (ie. I do not think 67 senators would vote to remove him from office), I think he should have to go through the processes and be subjected to the public scrutiny that comes along with it.
Under your definition, it seems like I'm "stealing" from a music store if I tape record a song from the radio and don't feel the need to buy the CD later. They're being deprived of a sale either way, right?
You clearly don't understand my point. A music store buys the right to make up to 100 sales when they purchase 100 CDs from a distributor. That distributor bought the right to make up to X thousand sales when they purchased X thousand CDs from a manufacturer. That manufacturer bought the right to make up to Y tens of thousands of sales when they entered into a contract with the publishing company. Which bought the right to make up to Z millions of sales when they worked with the artist to produce the work. The radio station bought the right to play a particular song X number of times. But that is completely seperate from the music stores situation. The music store only loses out when you take one of the specific CDs that represent one of their specific sales. But they aren't going to miss the CD, they will miss the sale of that CD.
(2): I could just as easily buy the CD from a friend or from a store that sells used CDs, in which case the RIAA has lost nothing.
Absolutely. And while some artists have said that they would like to be paid every time a CD is bought or sold regardless if it's the exact same CD being bought and sold, the laws and courts say otherwise. People who would argue that someone is being deprived when you download a song would not argue that anyone is being deprived when you sell your lawfully obtained CD. You bought the right to sell up to 1 CD when you buy 1 CD from a music store.
What I'm disputing is that copyright infringement necessarily deprives anyone of a sale.
Certainly it doesn't deprive them of a sale. It deprives them of having their expectation to be compensated for their work being satisfied. Just like if your employer decided not to pay you for the last two weeks work doesn't deprive you of money, it just deprives you of having your expectation of being compensated for your work being satisfied.
Without getting too political, Bush has lied under oath as well. He swore to uphold the constitution, but then ordered that people be held without access to courts, attorneys, etc. It went to the Supreme Court and was deemed that those orders violated the constitutional rights of the people being held and the Bush administration then said "ok, we'll stop doing that." But the thing is, just because Bush felt that it was constitutional doesn't mean that it's OK until a court says otherwise. It means that he was in violation of those constitutional rights all along. Bush should be impeached for breaking his oath.
Sure you are depriving someone of something. You are depriving a number of people of having their expectation of being paid for offering their work being satisfied. Exactly like if you went to a store and stole a CD, it's not the CD they are feeling deprived of, it's the sale of that CD. Just like if you go to a barber and don't pay him, it's not his time you've stolen, it's the expectation that he'll be paid for his time that isn't being met. Just like when someone takes out a line of credit in your name, it's not your identity being stolen, it's the expectation that you are held accountable to what you do and not what someone else does that is violated.
Businesses and people who offer services or products are not concerned with being deprived of things, it's being deprived of the sale of the thing.
Get over the language games and talk about the actual issue.
We all bear some small responsibility for building a society in which we reward good behavior.
No because it's not a matter of reward v. punish. People aren't poodles to have their noses rubbed in a pile of shit when they do something bad and given a biscuit when they do something good.
Your "reward" is that society lets you continue to be a part of it, you can have friends, you can have access to health care, you can get an education. The day that someone thinks that they should be rewarded for not being a sociopathic loser is the day we need to start hauling people to the antarctic and leaving them naked on the ice sheet. If they survive maybe they'll have an appreciation for what "reward" they receive when living in a society.
As long as I'm not allowed to use my style of parenting on someone else's kids then those kids' behavior is the sole responsibility of their respective parents.
This covers everything quite clearly. No law. Libel and defemation statutes are unconstitutional.
Not to mention the Fair Credit Reporting Act (you know, the law that says you have the right to see what companies are saying about you and correcting errors in their statements.) And let us not forget the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 "HIPAA, Title II" (the law that says that businesses can't tell the world that you have crabs.) Then there is the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act "GLBA" (the law that says banks and credit card companies can't tell everybody how much money you have, or don't have as is the current norm in the United States.) Or what about California SB 1386 "mandatory reporting act" (the one that requires that a company inform you if your private details have been leaked/stolen.)
You decide, we take a bunch of junior high punks whose parents have failed to teach them even a basic amount of respect and responsibility, smack their asses and then fine the parents of said mental infants; or we let Choicepoint and friends buy and sell every last detail of your life and many details of someone else's life attributed to you.
Personally I think that the parents of said children should be held up to the tune of $100,000/yr with an annual 3% increase to account for inflation. Or if the parents don't want to butch the fuck up and do the right thing, then emancipate the children and put them to fucking work and let them provide this lady with $100,00/yr + inflation adjustments.
It's amazing how many parents get bent into the most interesting shapes when teachers let out that little Freddie is failing basic math. Which is likely information that most every other student in the class already knows, but they don't want any kind of restriction on the behavior of their uncontrolled brats.
What the fuck? You are claiming the judge is stupid or unknowledgable and yet here you are clearly showing your own raging ignorance. Here's a little hint for you... Judges do not investigate. They do not collect evidence. It is the job of the parties in the case to show up and present their side. If they do not do so then the rules indicate that they automatically lose. To sit here and claim the judge is dumb because he is following the law just goes to show how little you know about the situation.
Humans on Earth are causing A LOT of "human traffic".
What I really want to know is what kind of idiot criminal syndicate is going to ship people to mars just to sneak the across a border and make them work in sweatshops and brothels?
However for 100 MBit connections or maybe even for 1GBit connections a PC based router could be just the ticket. There is a lot of space under your 32GBit connection that a PC based router could handle just fine and dandy.
Sort of. You average COTS PC has 1 PCI bus. Which clocks in at a mighty 1.05 Gbit/s. That single bus has to carry traffic from your NIC to memory, your CPU has to eyeball it, then send it back out over that same bus to another NIC. You have to transfer twice as much data over the PCI bus as you are routing for every stream. Best case you'll be guaranteed that you'll only get 500 MB out of those GB cards of yours.
But that's not even a real concern. One thing this thread has shown is that the vast majority of/. readers just don't know squat about routing. The real measure of a router's capability is measured in packets-per-second. What do you think is going to happen to your PC when it gets hit with a stream of small packets at wirespeed? I'm talking 1+ MPPS. You've got 2000 CPU cycles to get the data from the card, into ram, eyeball it, make a decision on where to send it, and get it onto that card before your next packet is ready to come off the incoming port. (And don't forget to take away from your 2000 CPU cycles the cost of the guaranteed data cache miss on every new packet.)
Anybody who is claiming to route gigabit (or even multiple 100 Mb) networks on a PC is full of it.
Would server hardware be able to handle as much, if not more than the cisco asics (2800's mostly) I've got?
You are ignoring the other half of the equation. Specialized hardware typically requires less power to do a given task than general purpose hardware to do the same task. Ie. a 600 Mhz P2-generation Celeron + Hauppage PVR150 MPEG2 encoder with 192 MB RAM that sits at 97% idle while converting analog tv to 720x480 MPEG2 vs. a 2.2 Ghz Athlon 64 X2 with 2 GB RAM that cannot convert analog tv to 720x480 MPEG2 in realtime.
So, yeah. It is very likely that a high-ish end PC will be able to compete evenly with a low-ish end Cisco router, but you're going to pay more in power. More than you'd pay up front? Dunno. But if your business relies on your net connection being there and working properly, then I'd go with the Cisco, solely for the fact that Cisco has motivations to make sure their shit works that OSS developers don't.
If you like I can easily demonstrate my opinion by making your brakes what I think are half as "good," but I could not recommend that you take me up on my offer, because. ..
If your argument is only supported by an intentional act on your part then you lose. It's like arguing that clean drinking water is bad for you because you can put someone in concrete over-shoes and chuck them in and they'll drown.
If she'd to pay for support (my brothers and i doing it for free) she'd have it much cheeper if she had a knowledgeable *nix administrator.
I don't know what world you live on, but here on Earth Unix Administrator's command a higher salary than Windows Administrators. Now if by "knowledgeable *nix administrator" you mean some dude who feels the rush from typing "apt-get install the_greatest_software_evar!!!!!!!", then perhaps you are right. She can probably find a highschool nerd who'll help her out for $5/hour and a chance to talk to a live woman.
Google is doing the only thing they can do to protest: they're refusing to provide a service. They're not slaves, you know.
No, they are certainly not slaves. They are infantile, petulant billionaires. They want all information to be free so they can put an advertisement on it. Well except for information about their nuevo rich founders like Eric Schmidt. And information about their own assessment of their business health, ie. industry standard guidance about their projected earnings. Or information that would prevent them from doing business in an emerging market like China. And information about technologies that they don't want anyone else to use without paying such as that restrained by Google's patent portfolio. Or information about what people search for and what links people click on, they hold that very tightly to themselves. Or information about supposed click-fraud.
Google isn't your friend. They've never been your friend. They don't care about you. They don't care about freedom. They just want money. Even Google's philanthropic arm is for profit. End of story.
Slashdot Mirror
I would suggest then that you don't go out in public. And maybe you should buy up all the land around your neighborhood and make it private. Or maybe you could just wait for Google to show up and do the same thing, then you'd feel ok about it and think about how empowering it will be for you to be able to browse down to "virtual peeping tom" and see what's going on in your house when you're not around.
(BTW people have this same complaint about Google groups: the posted to usenet before the advent of the pervasive web and the idea that some corporation would come along and violate the usual standards of post expiration was abhorrent. But because it's Google and they won't Do No Evil(*), that's ok. Ask any slashdotter.)
* - For some values of evil that are of a nuisance to Google executive and Google's profits.
Many reasons. Probably the first and foremost are snake oil salesmen. Followed closely by the fact that while people will say they want a particular experimental treatment, what they really want is a cure. If what they end up getting is an experimental treatment that gives them cancer, makes their legs fall off, or just drains their bank account, they'll be suing the researches post haste.
As far as gross surgical procedures go, you can pretty much do any of that that you want. You're a guy and you want breast implants? No problem, just get out the check book. Want your fingers chopped off? Sure thing. You might have a hard time finding a doctor to do it for you, but it's not illegal like it is to start a regimine of experimental drugs.
Or maybe it's just a way for them to manage licenses? Like you purchase a license to view a movie. They send you the .WMV and the license to view the file. You upgrade your computer and want to migrate all your purchases to the new machine. So you request to remove the license from the current system.
Maybe someone should read the patent in question?
Sorenson hasn't been "quicktime" for years. Now what you want is H.264.
TIFF is a container format. It has zip to do with the actual encoding of the image. In particular you can encode JPEG inside of a TIFF file. Additionally the JPEG standard specified a lossless compression algorithm. (Even in the original spec.)
Because the discontinuities caused by your shitty spelling and grammar break the flow of information from your words into your reader's heads. Overall you reduce the quality of the communication between you and your reader. Additionally it shows disrespect for your reader that you don't give enough of a fuck to actually take the time to present them with a well written statement.
But go ahead and write like a moron. It just reduces people's impression of you regardless of your actual technical skill and intelligence.
The only reason you are arguing is because you aren't willing to admit you are totally and completely wrong. It has nothing to do with hypothetical v. real, service v. product. The law says if you want to get a piece of IP (song, movie, book, etc.) then you have to pay the price asked for it. If I were an artist and made a product I can expect that everyone who wants that product will pay me. It has nothing to do with how hard it is to make a copy of my work. It has nothing to do with whether you would have paid the price I am asking for my work. It is exactly like going to someone who provides a service, receiving that service and then having to pay for it.
When you download a song, movie, piece of software, etc. you get the product. As such if you choose not to pay then you are depriving the person who has a legal right to sell/copy/distribute that product whatever payment they are entitled to receive. The argument that you wouldn't have bought it is exactly as valid as going to a barber, getting the haircut/shave and then arguing that you wouldn't pay for a haircut and shave so you aren't going to pay for a haircut and shave.
BTW I never said anyone is stealing, I said someone is being deprived of something.
Mossauiai (however you spell that) and Hamdi certainly are US citizens.
Some artists receive exactly the deal you describe, ie. they will be advanced X number of dollars to be repaid against royalties. Some employees are paid on commission. But all artists are given a particular "contract" by the government. That contract states that anyone who wants to legally have a copy of the artists work will have to pay the artist what the artist is asking. Effectively a "paid on commission" situation.
So what you are saying is you want what they created but you don't want to pay for it? Ie. you see that it has value but you want that value for free? Got it.
So intead of going back to the original folk material they wanted to go off from Orff's unique derivative of that work. And they wanted it for free? Got it.
So go out there and create your own derivative work from those original public domain sources. Oh wait, what you mean to say is that you want to take Disney's rendition of those public domain works and use that? Only you don't want to pay for it? Got it.
Admit it. You're a cheap bastard who wants free shit. I'm fine with that. But don't try and rationalize that crap.
One could argue that one was not lying because spraying cum over some chick's face and dress is not having relations in your own opinion. But this is all a moot point due to the fact that on both articles of impeachment that were brought against President Clinton by the House of Representatives, he was acquitted in trial in the Senate:
Put it in a different context: You can kill someone in self defense. If a court decides that the person who was creeping around in your house in the middle of the night, the one that you accidentally shot in the head while attempting to shoot in them in the arm, wasn't actually a threat to you then you did the crime and you will have to face whatever penalties the law indicates are appropriate for your crime. Even though a) it was an accident, and b) you thought your life was at risk. You can't just say "Oops, sorry. I'll not do that anymore."
While I would be completely willing to put my testicles in a thousand ton vice if Bush were found guilty (ie. I do not think 67 senators would vote to remove him from office), I think he should have to go through the processes and be subjected to the public scrutiny that comes along with it.
You clearly don't understand my point. A music store buys the right to make up to 100 sales when they purchase 100 CDs from a distributor. That distributor bought the right to make up to X thousand sales when they purchased X thousand CDs from a manufacturer. That manufacturer bought the right to make up to Y tens of thousands of sales when they entered into a contract with the publishing company. Which bought the right to make up to Z millions of sales when they worked with the artist to produce the work. The radio station bought the right to play a particular song X number of times. But that is completely seperate from the music stores situation. The music store only loses out when you take one of the specific CDs that represent one of their specific sales. But they aren't going to miss the CD, they will miss the sale of that CD.
Absolutely. And while some artists have said that they would like to be paid every time a CD is bought or sold regardless if it's the exact same CD being bought and sold, the laws and courts say otherwise. People who would argue that someone is being deprived when you download a song would not argue that anyone is being deprived when you sell your lawfully obtained CD. You bought the right to sell up to 1 CD when you buy 1 CD from a music store.
Certainly it doesn't deprive them of a sale. It deprives them of having their expectation to be compensated for their work being satisfied. Just like if your employer decided not to pay you for the last two weeks work doesn't deprive you of money, it just deprives you of having your expectation of being compensated for your work being satisfied.
Without getting too political, Bush has lied under oath as well. He swore to uphold the constitution, but then ordered that people be held without access to courts, attorneys, etc. It went to the Supreme Court and was deemed that those orders violated the constitutional rights of the people being held and the Bush administration then said "ok, we'll stop doing that." But the thing is, just because Bush felt that it was constitutional doesn't mean that it's OK until a court says otherwise. It means that he was in violation of those constitutional rights all along. Bush should be impeached for breaking his oath.
Sure you are depriving someone of something. You are depriving a number of people of having their expectation of being paid for offering their work being satisfied. Exactly like if you went to a store and stole a CD, it's not the CD they are feeling deprived of, it's the sale of that CD. Just like if you go to a barber and don't pay him, it's not his time you've stolen, it's the expectation that he'll be paid for his time that isn't being met. Just like when someone takes out a line of credit in your name, it's not your identity being stolen, it's the expectation that you are held accountable to what you do and not what someone else does that is violated.
Businesses and people who offer services or products are not concerned with being deprived of things, it's being deprived of the sale of the thing.
Get over the language games and talk about the actual issue.
No because it's not a matter of reward v. punish. People aren't poodles to have their noses rubbed in a pile of shit when they do something bad and given a biscuit when they do something good.
Your "reward" is that society lets you continue to be a part of it, you can have friends, you can have access to health care, you can get an education. The day that someone thinks that they should be rewarded for not being a sociopathic loser is the day we need to start hauling people to the antarctic and leaving them naked on the ice sheet. If they survive maybe they'll have an appreciation for what "reward" they receive when living in a society.
As long as I'm not allowed to use my style of parenting on someone else's kids then those kids' behavior is the sole responsibility of their respective parents.
Not to mention the Fair Credit Reporting Act (you know, the law that says you have the right to see what companies are saying about you and correcting errors in their statements.) And let us not forget the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 "HIPAA, Title II" (the law that says that businesses can't tell the world that you have crabs.) Then there is the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act "GLBA" (the law that says banks and credit card companies can't tell everybody how much money you have, or don't have as is the current norm in the United States.) Or what about California SB 1386 "mandatory reporting act" (the one that requires that a company inform you if your private details have been leaked/stolen.)
You decide, we take a bunch of junior high punks whose parents have failed to teach them even a basic amount of respect and responsibility, smack their asses and then fine the parents of said mental infants; or we let Choicepoint and friends buy and sell every last detail of your life and many details of someone else's life attributed to you.
Personally I think that the parents of said children should be held up to the tune of $100,000/yr with an annual 3% increase to account for inflation. Or if the parents don't want to butch the fuck up and do the right thing, then emancipate the children and put them to fucking work and let them provide this lady with $100,00/yr + inflation adjustments.
It's amazing how many parents get bent into the most interesting shapes when teachers let out that little Freddie is failing basic math. Which is likely information that most every other student in the class already knows, but they don't want any kind of restriction on the behavior of their uncontrolled brats.
What the fuck? You are claiming the judge is stupid or unknowledgable and yet here you are clearly showing your own raging ignorance. Here's a little hint for you... Judges do not investigate. They do not collect evidence. It is the job of the parties in the case to show up and present their side. If they do not do so then the rules indicate that they automatically lose. To sit here and claim the judge is dumb because he is following the law just goes to show how little you know about the situation.
The era of a "main Internet backbone" ended about 10 years ago. There is no backbone to speak of anymore.
What I really want to know is what kind of idiot criminal syndicate is going to ship people to mars just to sneak the across a border and make them work in sweatshops and brothels?
Sort of. You average COTS PC has 1 PCI bus. Which clocks in at a mighty 1.05 Gbit/s. That single bus has to carry traffic from your NIC to memory, your CPU has to eyeball it, then send it back out over that same bus to another NIC. You have to transfer twice as much data over the PCI bus as you are routing for every stream. Best case you'll be guaranteed that you'll only get 500 MB out of those GB cards of yours.
But that's not even a real concern. One thing this thread has shown is that the vast majority of
Anybody who is claiming to route gigabit (or even multiple 100 Mb) networks on a PC is full of it.
You are ignoring the other half of the equation. Specialized hardware typically requires less power to do a given task than general purpose hardware to do the same task. Ie. a 600 Mhz P2-generation Celeron + Hauppage PVR150 MPEG2 encoder with 192 MB RAM that sits at 97% idle while converting analog tv to 720x480 MPEG2 vs. a 2.2 Ghz Athlon 64 X2 with 2 GB RAM that cannot convert analog tv to 720x480 MPEG2 in realtime.
So, yeah. It is very likely that a high-ish end PC will be able to compete evenly with a low-ish end Cisco router, but you're going to pay more in power. More than you'd pay up front? Dunno. But if your business relies on your net connection being there and working properly, then I'd go with the Cisco, solely for the fact that Cisco has motivations to make sure their shit works that OSS developers don't.
If your argument is only supported by an intentional act on your part then you lose. It's like arguing that clean drinking water is bad for you because you can put someone in concrete over-shoes and chuck them in and they'll drown.
I don't know what world you live on, but here on Earth Unix Administrator's command a higher salary than Windows Administrators. Now if by "knowledgeable *nix administrator" you mean some dude who feels the rush from typing "apt-get install the_greatest_software_evar!!!!!!!", then perhaps you are right. She can probably find a highschool nerd who'll help her out for $5/hour and a chance to talk to a live woman.
No, they are certainly not slaves. They are infantile, petulant billionaires. They want all information to be free so they can put an advertisement on it. Well except for information about their nuevo rich founders like Eric Schmidt. And information about their own assessment of their business health, ie. industry standard guidance about their projected earnings. Or information that would prevent them from doing business in an emerging market like China. And information about technologies that they don't want anyone else to use without paying such as that restrained by Google's patent portfolio. Or information about what people search for and what links people click on, they hold that very tightly to themselves. Or information about supposed click-fraud.
Google isn't your friend. They've never been your friend. They don't care about you. They don't care about freedom. They just want money. Even Google's philanthropic arm is for profit. End of story.