The flow of Western ideas will follow the flow of Western capital. If China wants to compete with the US in markets other than 'cheapest labor items', they will have to adopt the Internet and digital economy fully.
Wire the entire nation and they will not be able to stop the flow of information into, out of and within their borders.
That information/idea flow, more than anything else, will help change China for the better.
MFN would help our large telecom suppliers (Lucent, Nortel [yes, I know they are Canadian], Uniphase, Corning, Cisco and the like) bid favorably on China's large network infrastructure plans. Unicom is spending a LOT of money on their network. --
Charles E. Hill
While the geek public has been ranting over DMCA since its inception, the general public was exposed only through corporte PR and spin.
"Hackers are bad. They are the cause of the high prices on CDs, videos, DVDs, books, tapes, etc. Poor starving artists. Evil hackers."
Adobe's insistance on the arrest has presented the opportunity to push our views of the DMCA into the more general public via the news media. What was an obscure little argument all of a sudden becomes cause celebre that needs to be exploited.
The MSNBC article makes the wonderful point that it is not the application on the law that is the problem, but the law itself.
America has advanced further into the realm of a corporate state than most people realized. What big business wants, big business gets.
This opportunity shouldn't be wasted with irrational rhetoric and ranting. If the spotlight of the mainstream media continues to shine on this issue, it should be used to show the DMCA for what it is -- a frontal assault by Corporate America on the Constitution and the Freedoms of our Citizens.
Technically they are supposed to wait until someone commits a crime before arresting you. If the presentation was a violation of the DMCA, then they couldn't arrest him UNTIL HE MADE THE PRESENTATION.
I thought there were costs built into blank CDs to offset some of thus. Does this mean the prices of blanks will decrease?
Also, since this wonderful copy protection prevents piracy, will the cost of a CD go down because of the increase in revenue on more sales of "originals"? --
Charles E. Hill
Many of those anti-smog and fuel-efficiency laws are/were American only -- with maybe a couple of the other techno-advanced nations on the wagon.
There is a HUGE market for cheap, modifiable autos in CALA (Central America/Latin America) Asia and EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Afica) -- less so in Western Europe. The VM Beetlw is a HUGE seller in Mexico and other countries.
Likewise, these "old" computers can find welcome homes in schools, non-1st world countries and several other places.
Besides, wasn't the industry whining not too long ago about a slump in PC sales. Not because there wasn't anything new, but that there wasn't any reason to BUY anything new.
Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, Paint Shop, Corel Draw, etc. don't tax my 833 MHz PC so why do I need a 1.7 GHz one?
Non-professional audio and video editing need more RAM and HD space more than fasster CPUs.
It was at least 5 years after the releases of the Commodore 64/Atari 800 and later the Amiga and Atari ST that the systems were pushed to the limits by the software.
Hell, the "demo" that came with my NVidia TNT2 card has graphics that blow away any of the games today. Yet it is considered "obsolete" by the GForce 2 series and GForce 3. Snickered at by serious game players.
That "old/obsolete" hardware has more life in it regardless. Bring on the $500 whiz-bang systems. My local school would love to have my "old" dual-P3 800 MHz PC -- they're running P75s now!
Finally -- he was talking about a 1988 (13-year old) PC. 13-years in computers is like 50-years in cars.
It didn't affect *everyone* for seven days -- just a percentage. Some people were back up quicker than that.
I don't know the percentage -- and I don't think MS will ever give a concrete answer other than "a small percentage", which is what I remember seeing in one of the articles.
Nope, I'm in the clear. I gave them the entire machine and software -- I retained nothing.
From the EULA:
SOFTWARE TRANSFER. You may permanently transfer all of your rights under this WULA only as part of a sale or transfer of the COMPUTER, provided you retain no copies,...
In my case it is a small ( 40 students) private school and they have no problem with non-MS -- as long as I can make it work.
I am volunteering to teach "Introduction to Computers" as an adult ed class starting in August and will be using Linux boxes (ThinkNICs) with Star Office/Open Office run from NFS. There are about 10 people signed up right so far.
I've also got a deal with a local wholesaler where students can purchase a "real" PC (without monitor) for $349 -- including GNU/Linux preinstalled.
I want to see if I can get a setup (server PC and a bunch of ThinkNICs) solid then offer some to one of the local public schools that is screaming for donations.
My mistake. I have nothing against the BSD licenses at all (I use OpenBSD for my mail server).
What I should have said was "free of per-user/per-use/per-seat" fees. I want to be able to install the software on any number of educational systems without additional cost.
I've donated a couple of old PCs (and their respective Win95 licenses) to my kid's school. I've considered installing some Linux boxes (ThinkNICs) to assist but...
When I walked in the class there was a shelf full of (properly purchased -- for the most part) Windows educational software. None of that would run on Linux. Not much point installing a PC that couldn't run any of their existing programs.
I am in the process of gathering as much educational (elementary, middle & high school) software for Linux as possible so I can present them with an alternative.
Ideally GPL, since it will be installed on 8-10 workstations. (That's the "for the most part" part of the Windows software -- they own 1-2 copies of each, not 8-10.)
Does anyone have FIRST HAND experience with educational software for Linux that they could recommend? Not just a site that promotes the stuff, but specific programs that are worthwhile.
I'm aware that it is very very difficult to vaporize Pu and U -- witness the mostly intact crew cabin in the Challenger disaster.
The PERCEPTION that a big explosion could vaporize it is the problem.
As far as eating a gram of it -- the problem isn't eating it but inhaling the dust into your lungs. The Sarin would kill me quick -- but you'd wish you were me after a short while.
There are things a lot worse than a quick death. --
Charles E. Hill
It's not the radiation most people are worried about. When you vaporize (like in a big rocket explosion) a whole bunch of Plutonium or Uranium it turns to dust -- and is one of the most toxic substances known to man!
A cloud of that dust wafting over Disney from an explosion over Cape Canaveral is the bigger worry. --
Charles E. Hill
I would like to point out that the tendency of rockets to explode is in most cases related to the chemical fuel itself. Remove that (by replacing it with a nuclear booster) and you remove the majority of the explosions.
However, there is still the problem of rockets veering off course and being remotely detonated over the South Atlantic. --
Charles E. Hill
I've heard of a more practical idea, which is a chemical first stage (surface to orbit), followed by a nuclear upper stage (to achieve escape velocity). The nuclear materials need not be activated until the vehicle is verified to be safely in orbit, which provides a "fail-safe" capability. Furthermore, when inactive, nuclear cores based on Uranium are basically inert, a lot more safe than the Plutonium thermal generators that have already flown on dozens of missions.
"Activated" has nothing to do with it. The main complaint of the anti-nuke people are that in the event of an explosion the Uranium/Plutonium would be blown into a power -- which is unbelievably toxic. It has little to do with the amount of radiation released on use -- which can be shielded.
And I don't know what you mean "activated". Fissionable Uranium is fissionable uranium whether it is on the launch pad or in high trajectory. In powder form it is one of the most toxic substances known to man.
If you mean "start the reaction", then again I would point out that it isn't the reaction that is the main complaint (but will be brought up).
Living in Central Florida, I sort of have a vested interest in not seeing a cloud of plutonium/uranium dust come floating over from the Cape.
(But I do think nuclear powered rockets are a good idea.)
--
Charles E. Hill
Not the point. I would have had to pay for Office97 regardless. I didn't have a choice.
Yes, I did just that -- take an install disk for Office95 and install it.
It required me to uninstall Office97 then reinstall Office95 (on 60 machines) since Dell automatically installed 97 regardless. Waste of time, waste of effort, waste of money.
In 1996 I was hired to relocate a division of a large company (about 512 on the Fortune list at that time) from New York to Orlando, FL.
One of the tasks was to purchase and configure new PCs -- about 60 of them. Dell was the vendor we eventually settled on, but the others had the same policies.
---
Me: How much for the PC?
Dell: $1,500
Me: We are debating between Office 95, Office 97 and WordPerfect Office? How much for each.
Dell: Well, we no longer offer Office 95 and Office 97 is included with the price of the PC.
[NOTE: Office 97 has been release only a month before, yet even though I had 5,000 PCs currently running Office 95 I couldn't get more copies from the vendor. Remember the "bug" in 97 that botched Word 95 backward compatibility? That made my life hell for a year.]
Me: Okay, how much for the PC with Wordperfect Office?
Dell: That's $1,949 each.
Me: Um, okay. How much for the PC WITHOUT MS Office?
Dell: $1,500
Me: So, MS Office is free?
Dell: No, our contract with Microsoft REQUIRES a copy of Office 97 WITH EVERY PC WE SELL TO A BUSINESS. If you were a home user you would have the choice of MS Works, though.
----
So, explain that to the bean counters. To use WordPerfect it would have cost us $29,700 ($495 * 60).
What choice is THAT? EVERY major vendor had the same deal. We couldn't go elsewhere other than to build my own PCs -- and I damn well didn't have the time for THAT.
THAT is a monopoly. They took away my choice. That is why estimates put MS Office at 95%+ of the Office Suite market in the U.S. & Canada.
Great. So when Japan is first with something, you say "They're fools for rushing into the market... we'll one-up them later... Rah! Rah! USA!!". When the Japanese one-up the US on a US-born technology, you say "Japan is a country of copycats... they never produce anything original."
So which one is it?
It's not an either/or situation. I never said they were a nation of copycats -- though they do have a deserved reputation of taking other ideas and perfecting/polishing/mass marketing them. They make some fantastic stuff.
I wasn't blasting them for being first -- just pointing out to the original poster that first doesn't necessarily mean best. Sometimes it does -- sometimes it doesn't. So, it can't be used as an argument where first == best.
Absolutes are so difficult to prove and so often wront, that as a general rule of thumb, I never use the word never.
3G (broadband) wireless access in progress, while the U.S. is still arguing over which part of the spectrum to allocate.
Sorry, wrong argument. Japan picked a format, manufactured and sold HDTV (analog) years before the US and Europe settled on a (digital) standard. It cost Japan billions of dollars before they junked it all for the U.S. version.
Being first out of the gate with a new technology isn't always the best. The others can sit and watch where you make your mistakes and then one-up you.
--
Charles E. Hill
Re:Make a decision, folks
on
ORBS Forks
·
· Score: 1
Some censorship is good, some is bad.
I censor what by children (ages 11, 11, 12) see and hear. They can't watch X-rated movies or some R-rated. There is speech I don't want them to hear.
However, I censor less and less as the years go by. Right now, I censor what they are too ignorant & young to comprehend properly. As they grow and learn, I explain more and censor less. By the time they are adults, it will no longer be my job to censor anything from them. It will then be their own problem.
I censor things from myself. For example, I've got a block on that Goat Sex link that pops up hourly in Slashdot posts:-)
However, as an adult I resent anyone else making a decision to decide what *I* can and cannot see, hear, read, etc. (With the exception of possible National Security items & military plans, etc.)
Partial censorship can be good. I don't have to worry about hardcore porn showing up on Network TV when my kids are watching (FCC Censorship). However, if I want to see it I can always watch one of the adult channels or rent a DVD. It isn't blocked completely, just regulated. Think of a city/county zoning law.
Finally, ORBS and private commercial enterprise (Anti-SPAM software, ISPs that block SPAM, etc.) are the proper way to go. I know people who'd pay an extra $5 a month to their ISP if they offered to block most of the SPAM coming in.
Gov't laws and regulations are not the way to go. I fear what a "well meaning" Senator or Congressman can inadvertantly do much more than a spammer.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually this is a good argument for MFN.
The flow of Western ideas will follow the flow of Western capital. If China wants to compete with the US in markets other than 'cheapest labor items', they will have to adopt the Internet and digital economy fully.
Wire the entire nation and they will not be able to stop the flow of information into, out of and within their borders.
That information/idea flow, more than anything else, will help change China for the better.
MFN would help our large telecom suppliers (Lucent, Nortel [yes, I know they are Canadian], Uniphase, Corning, Cisco and the like) bid favorably on China's large network infrastructure plans. Unicom is spending a LOT of money on their network.
--
Charles E. Hill
"Hackers are bad. They are the cause of the high prices on CDs, videos, DVDs, books, tapes, etc. Poor starving artists. Evil hackers."
Adobe's insistance on the arrest has presented the opportunity to push our views of the DMCA into the more general public via the news media. What was an obscure little argument all of a sudden becomes cause celebre that needs to be exploited.
The MSNBC article makes the wonderful point that it is not the application on the law that is the problem, but the law itself.
America has advanced further into the realm of a corporate state than most people realized. What big business wants, big business gets.
This opportunity shouldn't be wasted with irrational rhetoric and ranting. If the spotlight of the mainstream media continues to shine on this issue, it should be used to show the DMCA for what it is -- a frontal assault by Corporate America on the Constitution and the Freedoms of our Citizens.
--
Charles E. Hill
Technically they are supposed to wait until someone commits a crime before arresting you. If the presentation was a violation of the DMCA, then they couldn't arrest him UNTIL HE MADE THE PRESENTATION.
Until that point, it wasn't a crime.
--
Charles E. Hill
I thought there were costs built into blank CDs to offset some of thus. Does this mean the prices of blanks will decrease?
Also, since this wonderful copy protection prevents piracy, will the cost of a CD go down because of the increase in revenue on more sales of "originals"?
--
Charles E. Hill
Correct. The "real" website is http://www.sealandgov.com/
--
Charles E. Hill
Not going to the web site too often, I *have* gone to .org site thinking it was the "official" site.
--
Charles E. Hill
Many of those anti-smog and fuel-efficiency laws are/were American only -- with maybe a couple of the other techno-advanced nations on the wagon.
There is a HUGE market for cheap, modifiable autos in CALA (Central America/Latin America) Asia and EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Afica) -- less so in Western Europe. The VM Beetlw is a HUGE seller in Mexico and other countries.
Likewise, these "old" computers can find welcome homes in schools, non-1st world countries and several other places.
Besides, wasn't the industry whining not too long ago about a slump in PC sales. Not because there wasn't anything new, but that there wasn't any reason to BUY anything new.
Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, Paint Shop, Corel Draw, etc. don't tax my 833 MHz PC so why do I need a 1.7 GHz one?
Non-professional audio and video editing need more RAM and HD space more than fasster CPUs.
It was at least 5 years after the releases of the Commodore 64/Atari 800 and later the Amiga and Atari ST that the systems were pushed to the limits by the software.
Hell, the "demo" that came with my NVidia TNT2 card has graphics that blow away any of the games today. Yet it is considered "obsolete" by the GForce 2 series and GForce 3. Snickered at by serious game players.
That "old/obsolete" hardware has more life in it regardless. Bring on the $500 whiz-bang systems. My local school would love to have my "old" dual-P3 800 MHz PC -- they're running P75s now!
Finally -- he was talking about a 1988 (13-year old) PC. 13-years in computers is like 50-years in cars.
--
Charles E. Hill
Wow. I was always taught that run-on sentences were an ERROR, not something to award a prize for.
--
Charles E. Hill
It didn't affect *everyone* for seven days -- just a percentage. Some people were back up quicker than that.
I don't know the percentage -- and I don't think MS will ever give a concrete answer other than "a small percentage", which is what I remember seeing in one of the articles.
--
Charles E. Hill
Nope, I'm in the clear. I gave them the entire machine and software -- I retained nothing.
...
From the EULA:
SOFTWARE TRANSFER. You may permanently transfer all of your rights under this WULA only as part of a sale or transfer of the COMPUTER, provided you retain no copies,
--
Charles E. Hill
In my case it is a small ( 40 students) private school and they have no problem with non-MS -- as long as I can make it work.
I am volunteering to teach "Introduction to Computers" as an adult ed class starting in August and will be using Linux boxes (ThinkNICs) with Star Office/Open Office run from NFS. There are about 10 people signed up right so far.
I've also got a deal with a local wholesaler where students can purchase a "real" PC (without monitor) for $349 -- including GNU/Linux preinstalled.
I want to see if I can get a setup (server PC and a bunch of ThinkNICs) solid then offer some to one of the local public schools that is screaming for donations.
--
Charles E. Hill
My mistake. I have nothing against the BSD licenses at all (I use OpenBSD for my mail server).
What I should have said was "free of per-user/per-use/per-seat" fees. I want to be able to install the software on any number of educational systems without additional cost.
--
Charles E. Hill
I've donated a couple of old PCs (and their respective Win95 licenses) to my kid's school. I've considered installing some Linux boxes (ThinkNICs) to assist but...
When I walked in the class there was a shelf full of (properly purchased -- for the most part) Windows educational software. None of that would run on Linux. Not much point installing a PC that couldn't run any of their existing programs.
I am in the process of gathering as much educational (elementary, middle & high school) software for Linux as possible so I can present them with an alternative.
Ideally GPL, since it will be installed on 8-10 workstations. (That's the "for the most part" part of the Windows software -- they own 1-2 copies of each, not 8-10.)
Does anyone have FIRST HAND experience with educational software for Linux that they could recommend? Not just a site that promotes the stuff, but specific programs that are worthwhile.
--
Charles E. Hill
I'm aware that it is very very difficult to vaporize Pu and U -- witness the mostly intact crew cabin in the Challenger disaster.
The PERCEPTION that a big explosion could vaporize it is the problem.
As far as eating a gram of it -- the problem isn't eating it but inhaling the dust into your lungs. The Sarin would kill me quick -- but you'd wish you were me after a short while.
There are things a lot worse than a quick death.
--
Charles E. Hill
Correct -- or even on the pad.
It might be worth considering going 100% nuclear booster, but I don't think the American public is ready to deal with that.
--
Charles E. Hill
It's not the radiation most people are worried about. When you vaporize (like in a big rocket explosion) a whole bunch of Plutonium or Uranium it turns to dust -- and is one of the most toxic substances known to man!
A cloud of that dust wafting over Disney from an explosion over Cape Canaveral is the bigger worry.
--
Charles E. Hill
I would like to point out that the tendency of rockets to explode is in most cases related to the chemical fuel itself. Remove that (by replacing it with a nuclear booster) and you remove the majority of the explosions.
However, there is still the problem of rockets veering off course and being remotely detonated over the South Atlantic.
--
Charles E. Hill
"Activated" has nothing to do with it. The main complaint of the anti-nuke people are that in the event of an explosion the Uranium/Plutonium would be blown into a power -- which is unbelievably toxic. It has little to do with the amount of radiation released on use -- which can be shielded.
And I don't know what you mean "activated". Fissionable Uranium is fissionable uranium whether it is on the launch pad or in high trajectory. In powder form it is one of the most toxic substances known to man.
If you mean "start the reaction", then again I would point out that it isn't the reaction that is the main complaint (but will be brought up).
Living in Central Florida, I sort of have a vested interest in not seeing a cloud of plutonium/uranium dust come floating over from the Cape.
(But I do think nuclear powered rockets are a good idea.)
--
Charles E. Hill
Not the point. I would have had to pay for Office97 regardless. I didn't have a choice.
Yes, I did just that -- take an install disk for Office95 and install it.
It required me to uninstall Office97 then reinstall Office95 (on 60 machines) since Dell automatically installed 97 regardless. Waste of time, waste of effort, waste of money.
--
Charles E. Hill
Interesting concept -- destroy the entire package and name every user. It brings the definition of "clueless" to a whole new level.
It is the comment about "do you know any lawyers that work for free?" that tells the story.
--
Charles E. Hill
--
Charles E. Hill
Wrong.
In 1996 I was hired to relocate a division of a large company (about 512 on the Fortune list at that time) from New York to Orlando, FL.
One of the tasks was to purchase and configure new PCs -- about 60 of them. Dell was the vendor we eventually settled on, but the others had the same policies.
---
Me: How much for the PC?
Dell: $1,500
Me: We are debating between Office 95, Office 97 and WordPerfect Office? How much for each.
Dell: Well, we no longer offer Office 95 and Office 97 is included with the price of the PC.
[NOTE: Office 97 has been release only a month before, yet even though I had 5,000 PCs currently running Office 95 I couldn't get more copies from the vendor. Remember the "bug" in 97 that botched Word 95 backward compatibility? That made my life hell for a year.]
Me: Okay, how much for the PC with Wordperfect Office?
Dell: That's $1,949 each.
Me: Um, okay. How much for the PC WITHOUT MS Office?
Dell: $1,500
Me: So, MS Office is free?
Dell: No, our contract with Microsoft REQUIRES a copy of Office 97 WITH EVERY PC WE SELL TO A BUSINESS. If you were a home user you would have the choice of MS Works, though.
----
So, explain that to the bean counters. To use WordPerfect it would have cost us $29,700 ($495 * 60).
What choice is THAT? EVERY major vendor had the same deal. We couldn't go elsewhere other than to build my own PCs -- and I damn well didn't have the time for THAT.
THAT is a monopoly. They took away my choice. That is why estimates put MS Office at 95%+ of the Office Suite market in the U.S. & Canada.
--
Charles E. Hill
So which one is it? It's not an either/or situation. I never said they were a nation of copycats -- though they do have a deserved reputation of taking other ideas and perfecting/polishing/mass marketing them. They make some fantastic stuff.
I wasn't blasting them for being first -- just pointing out to the original poster that first doesn't necessarily mean best. Sometimes it does -- sometimes it doesn't. So, it can't be used as an argument where first == best.
Absolutes are so difficult to prove and so often wront, that as a general rule of thumb, I never use the word never.
--
Charles E. Hill
Sorry, wrong argument. Japan picked a format, manufactured and sold HDTV (analog) years before the US and Europe settled on a (digital) standard. It cost Japan billions of dollars before they junked it all for the U.S. version.
Being first out of the gate with a new technology isn't always the best. The others can sit and watch where you make your mistakes and then one-up you.
--
Charles E. Hill
Some censorship is good, some is bad.
:-)
I censor what by children (ages 11, 11, 12) see and hear. They can't watch X-rated movies or some R-rated. There is speech I don't want them to hear.
However, I censor less and less as the years go by. Right now, I censor what they are too ignorant & young to comprehend properly. As they grow and learn, I explain more and censor less. By the time they are adults, it will no longer be my job to censor anything from them. It will then be their own problem.
I censor things from myself. For example, I've got a block on that Goat Sex link that pops up hourly in Slashdot posts
However, as an adult I resent anyone else making a decision to decide what *I* can and cannot see, hear, read, etc. (With the exception of possible National Security items & military plans, etc.)
Partial censorship can be good. I don't have to worry about hardcore porn showing up on Network TV when my kids are watching (FCC Censorship). However, if I want to see it I can always watch one of the adult channels or rent a DVD. It isn't blocked completely, just regulated. Think of a city/county zoning law.
Finally, ORBS and private commercial enterprise (Anti-SPAM software, ISPs that block SPAM, etc.) are the proper way to go. I know people who'd pay an extra $5 a month to their ISP if they offered to block most of the SPAM coming in.
Gov't laws and regulations are not the way to go. I fear what a "well meaning" Senator or Congressman can inadvertantly do much more than a spammer.
--
Charles E. Hill