Getting rid of paper currency in the US woudln't deter crime. The currency of the black market would change to something more portable, like Euros. Are there any economists who could speculate on what impact (if any) it would have on the US economy if US currency were no longer common in the global underground economy?
Do you have a link to the info on this "Plug and Play Manager"? Since you worked at Symantec, I'm sure you didn't get this copy protection service confused with the Plug and Play service that Windows is always running, but I'm curious to know if there's some relationship (Could the CD run something that does something funky to the PnP on Windows boxes?). What version of Windows were you running?
I'm really curious about this and want to dig in more, hopefully I can get more info without having to <shudder> purchase a Switchfoot CD:)
When electrodermal wires are placed on people's arms and fingertips to study their skin conductance patterns and the subjects then hear a few obscenities spoken clearly and firmly, participants show signs of instant arousal.
As a member of the "fuck as a comma crowd", swear words still have meaning, but that meaning has been severely diluted. I remember blushing the first time I heard a dirty joke, 25 years later, I doubt that there are any swear words or dirty jokes that would have the same affect.
I didn't pace myself and now I've used them all up. And I'm not even middle aged yet. What I'm I going to do when I really need to express myself? I need some new, improved, really vile words for when I'm really angry.
After repeated terrorist attacks, what company would want to move in? Who would want to work in a building that people routinely try to level?
You would think that the first attack on the WTC would have scared people away, the feeling of helplessness when evacuating from the 80th floor must be simply terrifying (when I heard about the people in wheelchairs made me phisically ill), but I think New Yorkers tend to just accept that they are likely to be killed in a terrorist attack, natual disaster, bridge/tunnel failure or violent crime. They know that evacuating Manhattan is fairly hopelss and that people living/working at the top of a high rise are one bad fire or earthquake from the end, but you could also get pushed onto the rails of the subway or killed for your winter coat. They accept the risks and move on.
Who in their right mind would equip an office building with a fire-suppression system that could extinguish a fire caused by enough jet fuel to take a 767 across the continent?!
Apparently, the structural engineer that worked on the WTC would, he's quoted as saying I designed it for a 707 to smash into it.
4. ceramic gun
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Alley/7931/ ce ramicguns.html
Compromise the security people themselves, by having your own people as security moles. They see their friends coming through, they don't mention what they see on the X-ray. I don't know enough about airport security to guess the difficulties involved.
I remember seeing Coolio on a talk show saying that he used to work airport security at LAX when he was a crackhead. Seriously. If you can get and hold down a job as airport security while addicted to crack then pretty much anything's possible. And it's probably not very hard to bribe any current crackheads on the job.
Unfortunately, a plea of not guilty will not lead to a legal examination of the DMCA either, at least not directly. The court's duty is to enforce the existing law, not to ratify or amend it. As I understand American law, the judge is not at liberty to simply say, "Well, this law is clearly unfair. Therefore we'll just have to release Mr. Skylarov." His only duty is to determine whether or not Skylarov violated the DMCA, and issue an appropriate sentence.
Perhaps the judge can't just proclaim the law as unfair and set Skylarov free, but the jury can refuse to convict him for any reason - even if they just don't like the law in question. If the trial is in Frisco, then there's a good chance that there will be some geeks on the jury (especially since there are so many out of work geeks there these days)
http://www.erowid.org/freedom/jury_nullification /j ury_nullification.shtml
http://www.fija.org/
http://civilliberty.about.com/cs/jurynullificati on /
(please disreagard the previous psudo post, I accidentally hit return when the focus was on the "Submit" button)
Unfortunately, a plea of not guilty will not lead to a legal examination of the DMCA either, at least not directly. The court's duty is to enforce the existing law, not to ratify or amend it. As I understand American law, the judge is not at liberty to simply say, "Well, this law is clearly unfair. Therefore we'll just have to release Mr. Skylarov." His only duty is to determine whether or not Skylarov violated the DMCA, and issue an appropriate sentence.
Perhaps the judge can't just proclaim the law as unfair and
I think you missed the point. This is not (for example) Brazil saying that noone in Brazil can use M$ software. This is (again, for example) a Brazilian government agency, like their Commerce agency, saying that the Commerce agency will only use free software.
It would be like the US State Department announcing that the State Department will no longer use M$ products and they're going to be installing Linux. The WTO, or any other global organization, has no place to step in and say "You can't do that." It's the internal choice of a goverment agency.
No, I got the point, but you missed my point.
Like in the Massachussetts-Burma example, the Mass government decided that they wouldn't buy products or services from Burmese companies or from companies who do business with Burma. It was a purchasing policy descision that was internal to the Mass state govenment that had strong public support. Mass citizens and companies could do buisiness with Burma all they wanted, they just wouldn't win any contracts from the state govenment. The EU and Japan then whined to the WTO who had some sort of WTO trial. Eventually, under pressure from the Executive and Legislative branches (who were under pressure from the WTO) our "conservative" Supreme Court put the smack down on Mass and it's state's rights - IIRC the reasoning was something about the constitution not explicitly granting states the power to engage in foriegn policy and not wanting to dimishing the president's power to negotiate for the country.
Lesson: Any municipality within any WTO member-country making any internal purchasing policies that don't conform to the WTO notion of "free trade" can and will get smaked down.
If Massachusetts can't refuse to do business with Burma, California and Canada can't ban specific chemicals and the EU can't refuse to purchase homone fed beef or genetically modified foods, then odds are, the WTO isn't gonna go for these governments banning closed source software.
http://www.indg.org/Burma.htm
http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/WTOandWar.ht ml
http://www.zmag.org/Bulletins/peffwng.htm
The FBI claims that Sklyarov is the copyright holder and that being the copyright holder makes him the responsible party. Elmsoft denies that Sklyarov is the copyright holder.
Which makes me wonder, if I were a pornographer from say, Amsterdam, and I used 16 year old models in my work (legal), and I sold distribution rights for one of my copywritten works to a 3rd party who then tried to resell the work in the US (illegal), would they be content to lock up the seller and throw away the key, or would they feel the need to go after me as well?
Are copyright holders now obliged to monitor any party that they sell rights to and somehow revoke rights if that party violates some law somewhere?
Does this mean that I can purchase the rights to do a public screening of "Dirty Dancing" and then show it in Afganistan and some representative of the movie studio would be extradited to Kabul and tried by the Taliban?
but their hotmail username (at very least) would be recorded.
And we all know how hard those are to get.
It's not like they make you produce a stamped letter from a notary public, or even enter a credit card number, before they give you an account. Or did you really think that suzi3952@hotmail.com (the hot young co-ed) was a real person?
Let's say, for example, a bank robber got caught, was tried and found guilty but was still out on bail before sentencing. While out, he commits another bank robbery. Most people would jump all over this story saying that he has no respect for the law or court systems, that he was out of control and beyond rehabilitiation. In short, they'd be crying out for "life without parole."
And on top of that people would be bitching up a blue streak that the guy was out on bail in the first place.
(Not like they let people out on bail during the time between a guilty verdict and sentencing anyway.)
Basic Economic law:
You have to earn more than you spend. This has nothing to do with national laws.
I don't know about where you live, but here in the US there are millions of people living in violation of that "Economic Law". Ever hear of credit cards? Consumer debt? Chapter 11? Fair Credit Reporting Act?
Also, laws governing situations where someone is living beyond their means vary from state to state (although most of them are national).
But the computer industry did not vote MS into power.
Technically, you're correct, since there are no explicit elections for "evil bastard" per se. But quite a few members of the computer industry voluntarily work for Microsoft and even more develop products that run on, work with, fix up or otherwise use Microsoft products.
If the majority of voters in the US really wanted to "thow the bums out" at any cost, it could be done. Similarly, if every geek in the industry really wanted to kill M$ at any cost, it could be done.
From the article:
In a separate move affecting Java, Microsoft is tightening security settings in its new Windows and Office programs that in some cases will also disable Java programs. Microsoft's new products will now screen out Java as a possible carrier of computer viruses in e-mail and, under high-security settings, in Web-browsing software.... "We treated our own technology exactly the way we have treated Java," he said. The security settings are fully customizable by the user or by a computer-system administrator, he noted. "We made the default setting the highest possible and want the customer to be able to then make an informed choice," Culp said.
Does this incude Active X? In pre-XP releases selecting the "high" internet security level still didn't turn off Active X, the user has to set a "custom" security level to disable it. I doubt that M$ would really do anything about Active X since all kinds of stuff breaks when you disable it but since M$ claims to be concerned about security...
You're thinking of college. We need to acknowledge that there are two distinct tracks in HS. Those who will be continuing their education and those who won't. Concepts can be useful to those who are continuing on, but some students NEED to learn skills. And you may know that if someone knows one word processor, they can likely figure out another, but does the hiring authority for an entry level job know this? Maybe not. A lot of folks might shrug off someone who has no MS experience for someone who does.
Everyone needs to learn the concepts. Reading, writing and arithmatic (and critical thinking and problem solving) are important for functioning as an adult in society, regardless of your job/profession.
And among the students who won't go on to college, it is not clear cut that they will be using an expensive office suite at their crappy, low paying jobs. Off the top of my head I've seen telemarketers, data entry folks, random hospital clerical staff, clerical staff at the DMV and other municipal offices, bank tellers and customer service reps all using various proprietary systems. And of course, the construction workers, waitresses, sweater folders, plumbers, assembly line workers and orderlies don't seem to be using any computers at all.
In fact, the only jobs I've seen specifically requiring MS office experience are secritarial positions, but now that the bubble burst, I imagine the HS grads will once again get stiff competition from the people who can't get a better job with their English BA (hey, remeber the 80's).
On the other hand, the HS grad may benefit from knowing how to use free software to set up the $499 computer they got on sale at Best Buy, since they can't afford to buy and upgrade software that cost half as much as thier computer.
What really torques me off about the situation is that as soon as the pharmacutical lobby complained, our "liberal" vice-president Gore was threatening to impose sanctions on South Africa if they allowed the manufacture of generic AIDS drugs.
Of course, back when South Africa had apartheid, imposing sacntions would have been "premature" and "counterproductive". Immoral bastards, the lot of them.
I would be psyched to pay 2 bucks a episode. I would also be happy to pay 5 bucks per channel.
Either would be way better than my current deal of paying 40 bucks a month to watch "The Daily Show" and "Southpark" or my future deal of 55 bucks a month for "The Daily Show", "Southpark" and "The Sopranos".
When I moved to my new place and got the cable turned on I somehow got all the premium channels without paying for them. I never subscribed to the movie channels before because I really wouldn't get much out of it: I've never found myself wishing that I had, say, Showtime so I could watch whatever they happened to be showing at that time (softcore porn).
Anyway, it was months before I even discovered that I had the extra channels and then I came accross The Sopranos and then I got addicted and watched HBO illegally for one hour a week (well sometimes 2 hours cuz I'd get sucked into the next show which always had some sensational expose). So the season is over, haven't watched HBO since but one day I get a call from an AT&T telemarketer trying to sell me movie channels and I was in a hurry and blew them off. A week later I noticed that the HBO was gone! Now, I'm not complaining, but I am knida bummed cuz now I *HAVE* to get HBO once the 4th season starts and AT&T will probably make it as painful as possible: "Well, I think that for a $40 dollar installation fee we can send someone out sometime on the 18th.. Mwhahhahhhaa"
Yeah, they installed the GPS to locate stolen cars, only to discover the "stolen" cars squished by giant anvils, blown up by giant sticks of dynamite and cumpled at the bottom of giant ciffs.
Since all the missing cars were totalled they had to come up with some other way to justify the cost of the GPS.
A lot of times the laws are written such that you can get a ticket for driving above a "reasonable speed" even if you're going lower than the posted speed limit. These exceptions are especially for weather, traffic and light conditions. It rarely happens, but if you're going the speed limit in a snowstorm, driving into the sun or in really heavy traffic, technically, you could get a ticket.
Now, does anyone really *need* to upgrade to XP? Come on!
Today, no. In a few years, maybe. When all the new games only look good and run properly with Active X 10 (Active X X?) and wouldn't you know, dispite M$'s best efforts, it can only be supported on Win XP or "better" OSes (really, they tried, honest.). Or when a new HW bus comes out that makes FireWire look like USB and makes USB look like the parallel port and the new standard simply can't be ported to Win 9X or NT.
I can see it now... "Fine, don't upgrade to XP (or YQ or ZR)! Have fun downloading your 10 Gigapixel photos over a USB line, and playing Quake 7 at 3 fps, suckers."
Or how about when you buy a new machine? If you don't build your own system you'll probably pay for XP or W2K whether you like it or not. And then what? Retire your old Win box to use the old licence on your new machine? It's a retail licence, right? Oh, well no worries, I'm sure that retail copies of NT and 98 will be available forever.
(note to the flamers, I'm not saying that M$ dosen't have a right to behave this way)
I found this bit of the AP article quite ironic...
Since Bush took office in January, more than seven months after Penfield's breakup order, he has given no indication of how he would handle the mammoth suit he inherited from President Clinton
except to say that he is, in general, ``unsympathetic'' to lawsuits.
Fleischer underlined that point Thursday: ``The president believes people should work hard to enter into agreements and the president believes there's too much litigation in our society, generally speaking.''
I started to laugh, but was overwhelmed by anger or rightous indignation or something.
distribute the Software, in whole or in part, in conjunction with any Publicly Available Software
I think that this is just an example they provide, since they also say "By way of example but not limitation of the foregoing" right before they say that.
MS never prohibit using these tools. If they did, MS could be sued for product tying; and tool distributors could obtain an injuction to stop any distribution of this EULA dead in its tracks.
It's really difficult to say for sure, since the language of the EULA is a major headache, but here's why I think that they are either prohibiting the use of free dev tools with the SDK or trying to imply that they are:
(i) not distributing such Software, in whole or in part, in conjunction with Potentially Viral Software (as defined below); and (ii) not using Potentially Viral Software (e.g. tools) to develop Recipient software which includes the Software, in whole or in part.
Note that part (i) discusses distribution of the SDK and part (ii) discusses *use* of the SDK. Seems to me, part (ii) is saying don't use "Potentially Viral" tools to develop code that incudes any part of the SDK - whether or not it's being distributed!
Now this begs the question "what is Potentially Viral Software?" but there is no software in existance that meets their definition so that would imply that the entire clause is meaningless, right? But they then go on to imply that "Potentially Viral Software" includes pretty much everything under the sun (anything free, open, GPLed, etc.) in the "By way of example but not limitation of the foregoing" clause by saying you can't distribute with all the listed stuff.
It's very odd, they say -
(a) don't distribute our stuff with X
(b) don't develop using our stuff and X
(c) therefore you can't distribute our stuff with Y
This seems to imply that Y is a member of X and therefore you can't develop using their stuff and Y. But since the definition of X does not seem to really incude Y, it makes me wonder if (a) and (b) are really meaningless and the only actual statement is (c)?
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Getting rid of paper currency in the US woudln't deter crime. The currency of the black market would change to something more portable, like Euros. Are there any economists who could speculate on what impact (if any) it would have on the US economy if US currency were no longer common in the global underground economy?
Do you have a link to the info on this "Plug and Play Manager"? Since you worked at Symantec, I'm sure you didn't get this copy protection service confused with the Plug and Play service that Windows is always running, but I'm curious to know if there's some relationship (Could the CD run something that does something funky to the PnP on Windows boxes?). What version of Windows were you running?
:)
I'm really curious about this and want to dig in more, hopefully I can get more info without having to <shudder> purchase a Switchfoot CD
When electrodermal wires are placed on people's arms and fingertips to study their skin conductance patterns and the subjects then hear a few obscenities spoken clearly and firmly, participants show signs of instant arousal.
As a member of the "fuck as a comma crowd", swear words still have meaning, but that meaning has been severely diluted. I remember blushing the first time I heard a dirty joke, 25 years later, I doubt that there are any swear words or dirty jokes that would have the same affect.
I didn't pace myself and now I've used them all up. And I'm not even middle aged yet. What I'm I going to do when I really need to express myself? I need some new, improved, really vile words for when I'm really angry.
After repeated terrorist attacks, what company would want to move in? Who would want to work in a building that people routinely try to level?
You would think that the first attack on the WTC would have scared people away, the feeling of helplessness when evacuating from the 80th floor must be simply terrifying (when I heard about the people in wheelchairs made me phisically ill), but I think New Yorkers tend to just accept that they are likely to be killed in a terrorist attack, natual disaster, bridge/tunnel failure or violent crime. They know that evacuating Manhattan is fairly hopelss and that people living/working at the top of a high rise are one bad fire or earthquake from the end, but you could also get pushed onto the rails of the subway or killed for your winter coat. They accept the risks and move on.
Who in their right mind would equip an office building with a fire-suppression system that could extinguish a fire caused by enough jet fuel to take a 767 across the continent?!
0 10 911kamin-towers.story
Apparently, the structural engineer that worked on the WTC would, he's quoted as saying I designed it for a 707 to smash into it.
http://chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-
4. ceramic gun/ ce ramicguns.html
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Alley/7931
Compromise the security people themselves, by having your own people as security moles. They see their friends coming through, they don't mention what they see on the X-ray. I don't know enough about airport security to guess the difficulties involved.
I remember seeing Coolio on a talk show saying that he used to work airport security at LAX when he was a crackhead. Seriously. If you can get and hold down a job as airport security while addicted to crack then pretty much anything's possible. And it's probably not very hard to bribe any current crackheads on the job.
Unfortunately, a plea of not guilty will not lead to a legal examination of the DMCA either, at least not directly. The court's duty is to enforce the existing law, not to ratify or amend it. As I understand American law, the judge is not at liberty to simply say, "Well, this law is clearly unfair. Therefore we'll just have to release Mr. Skylarov." His only duty is to determine whether or not Skylarov violated the DMCA, and issue an appropriate sentence.
n /j ury_nullification.shtml
i on /
Perhaps the judge can't just proclaim the law as unfair and set Skylarov free, but the jury can refuse to convict him for any reason - even if they just don't like the law in question. If the trial is in Frisco, then there's a good chance that there will be some geeks on the jury (especially since there are so many out of work geeks there these days)
http://www.erowid.org/freedom/jury_nullificatio
http://www.fija.org/
http://civilliberty.about.com/cs/jurynullificat
(please disreagard the previous psudo post, I accidentally hit return when the focus was on the "Submit" button)
Unfortunately, a plea of not guilty will not lead to a legal examination of the DMCA either, at least not directly. The court's duty is to enforce the existing law, not to ratify or amend it. As I understand American law, the judge is not at liberty to simply say, "Well, this law is clearly unfair. Therefore we'll just have to release Mr. Skylarov." His only duty is to determine whether or not Skylarov violated the DMCA, and issue an appropriate sentence.
Perhaps the judge can't just proclaim the law as unfair and
I think you missed the point. This is not (for example) Brazil saying that noone in Brazil can use M$ software. This is (again, for example) a Brazilian government agency, like their Commerce agency, saying that the Commerce agency will only use free software.
It would be like the US State Department announcing that the State Department will no longer use M$ products and they're going to be installing Linux. The WTO, or any other global organization, has no place to step in and say "You can't do that." It's the internal choice of a goverment agency.
No, I got the point, but you missed my point.
Like in the Massachussetts-Burma example, the Mass government decided that they wouldn't buy products or services from Burmese companies or from companies who do business with Burma. It was a purchasing policy descision that was internal to the Mass state govenment that had strong public support. Mass citizens and companies could do buisiness with Burma all they wanted, they just wouldn't win any contracts from the state govenment. The EU and Japan then whined to the WTO who had some sort of WTO trial. Eventually, under pressure from the Executive and Legislative branches (who were under pressure from the WTO) our "conservative" Supreme Court put the smack down on Mass and it's state's rights - IIRC the reasoning was something about the constitution not explicitly granting states the power to engage in foriegn policy and not wanting to dimishing the president's power to negotiate for the country.
Lesson: Any municipality within any WTO member-country making any internal purchasing policies that don't conform to the WTO notion of "free trade" can and will get smaked down.
If Massachusetts can't refuse to do business with Burma, California and Canada can't ban specific chemicals and the EU can't refuse to purchase homone fed beef or genetically modified foods, then odds are, the WTO isn't gonna go for these governments banning closed source software.
t ml
http://www.indg.org/Burma.htm
http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/WTOandWar.h
http://www.zmag.org/Bulletins/peffwng.htm
The FBI claims that Sklyarov is the copyright holder and that being the copyright holder makes him the responsible party. Elmsoft denies that Sklyarov is the copyright holder.
Which makes me wonder, if I were a pornographer from say, Amsterdam, and I used 16 year old models in my work (legal), and I sold distribution rights for one of my copywritten works to a 3rd party who then tried to resell the work in the US (illegal), would they be content to lock up the seller and throw away the key, or would they feel the need to go after me as well?
Are copyright holders now obliged to monitor any party that they sell rights to and somehow revoke rights if that party violates some law somewhere?
Does this mean that I can purchase the rights to do a public screening of "Dirty Dancing" and then show it in Afganistan and some representative of the movie studio would be extradited to Kabul and tried by the Taliban?
It's madness.
but their hotmail username (at very least) would be recorded.
And we all know how hard those are to get.
It's not like they make you produce a stamped letter from a notary public, or even enter a credit card number, before they give you an account. Or did you really think that suzi3952@hotmail.com (the hot young co-ed) was a real person?
Let's say, for example, a bank robber got caught, was tried and found guilty but was still out on bail before sentencing. While out, he commits another bank robbery. Most people would jump all over this story saying that he has no respect for the law or court systems, that he was out of control and beyond rehabilitiation. In short, they'd be crying out for "life without parole."
And on top of that people would be bitching up a blue streak that the guy was out on bail in the first place.
(Not like they let people out on bail during the time between a guilty verdict and sentencing anyway.)
Basic Economic law:
You have to earn more than you spend. This has nothing to do with national laws.
I don't know about where you live, but here in the US there are millions of people living in violation of that "Economic Law". Ever hear of credit cards? Consumer debt? Chapter 11? Fair Credit Reporting Act?
Also, laws governing situations where someone is living beyond their means vary from state to state (although most of them are national).
And I bet that, if you get some weird bug, he'd personally look at the problem, bang out some code, recompile the modules, and send you the diffs.
But my weird MS bugs get to go to the super spiffy "replicate any problem known to man" lab?
But the computer industry did not vote MS into power.
Technically, you're correct, since there are no explicit elections for "evil bastard" per se. But quite a few members of the computer industry voluntarily work for Microsoft and even more develop products that run on, work with, fix up or otherwise use Microsoft products.
If the majority of voters in the US really wanted to "thow the bums out" at any cost, it could be done. Similarly, if every geek in the industry really wanted to kill M$ at any cost, it could be done.
From the article: ... "We treated our own technology exactly the way we have treated Java," he said. The security settings are fully customizable by the user or by a computer-system administrator, he noted. "We made the default setting the highest possible and want the customer to be able to then make an informed choice," Culp said.
...
In a separate move affecting Java, Microsoft is tightening security settings in its new Windows and Office programs that in some cases will also disable Java programs. Microsoft's new products will now screen out Java as a possible carrier of computer viruses in e-mail and, under high-security settings, in Web-browsing software.
Does this incude Active X? In pre-XP releases selecting the "high" internet security level still didn't turn off Active X, the user has to set a "custom" security level to disable it. I doubt that M$ would really do anything about Active X since all kinds of stuff breaks when you disable it but since M$ claims to be concerned about security
You're thinking of college. We need to acknowledge that there are two distinct tracks in HS. Those who will be continuing their education and those who won't. Concepts can be useful to those who are continuing on, but some students NEED to learn skills. And you may know that if someone knows one word processor, they can likely figure out another, but does the hiring authority for an entry level job know this? Maybe not. A lot of folks might shrug off someone who has no MS experience for someone who does.
Everyone needs to learn the concepts. Reading, writing and arithmatic (and critical thinking and problem solving) are important for functioning as an adult in society, regardless of your job/profession.
And among the students who won't go on to college, it is not clear cut that they will be using an expensive office suite at their crappy, low paying jobs. Off the top of my head I've seen telemarketers, data entry folks, random hospital clerical staff, clerical staff at the DMV and other municipal offices, bank tellers and customer service reps all using various proprietary systems. And of course, the construction workers, waitresses, sweater folders, plumbers, assembly line workers and orderlies don't seem to be using any computers at all.
In fact, the only jobs I've seen specifically requiring MS office experience are secritarial positions, but now that the bubble burst, I imagine the HS grads will once again get stiff competition from the people who can't get a better job with their English BA (hey, remeber the 80's).
On the other hand, the HS grad may benefit from knowing how to use free software to set up the $499 computer they got on sale at Best Buy, since they can't afford to buy and upgrade software that cost half as much as thier computer.
What really torques me off about the situation is that as soon as the pharmacutical lobby complained, our "liberal" vice-president Gore was threatening to impose sanctions on South Africa if they allowed the manufacture of generic AIDS drugs.
Of course, back when South Africa had apartheid, imposing sacntions would have been "premature" and "counterproductive". Immoral bastards, the lot of them.
I would be psyched to pay 2 bucks a episode. I would also be happy to pay 5 bucks per channel.
.. Mwhahhahhhaa"
Either would be way better than my current deal of paying 40 bucks a month to watch "The Daily Show" and "Southpark" or my future deal of 55 bucks a month for "The Daily Show", "Southpark" and "The Sopranos".
When I moved to my new place and got the cable turned on I somehow got all the premium channels without paying for them. I never subscribed to the movie channels before because I really wouldn't get much out of it: I've never found myself wishing that I had, say, Showtime so I could watch whatever they happened to be showing at that time (softcore porn).
Anyway, it was months before I even discovered that I had the extra channels and then I came accross The Sopranos and then I got addicted and watched HBO illegally for one hour a week (well sometimes 2 hours cuz I'd get sucked into the next show which always had some sensational expose). So the season is over, haven't watched HBO since but one day I get a call from an AT&T telemarketer trying to sell me movie channels and I was in a hurry and blew them off. A week later I noticed that the HBO was gone! Now, I'm not complaining, but I am knida bummed cuz now I *HAVE* to get HBO once the 4th season starts and AT&T will probably make it as painful as possible: "Well, I think that for a $40 dollar installation fee we can send someone out sometime on the 18th
Yeah, they installed the GPS to locate stolen cars, only to discover the "stolen" cars squished by giant anvils, blown up by giant sticks of dynamite and cumpled at the bottom of giant ciffs.
Since all the missing cars were totalled they had to come up with some other way to justify the cost of the GPS.
A lot of times the laws are written such that you can get a ticket for driving above a "reasonable speed" even if you're going lower than the posted speed limit. These exceptions are especially for weather, traffic and light conditions. It rarely happens, but if you're going the speed limit in a snowstorm, driving into the sun or in really heavy traffic, technically, you could get a ticket.
Now, does anyone really *need* to upgrade to XP? Come on!
... "Fine, don't upgrade to XP (or YQ or ZR)! Have fun downloading your 10 Gigapixel photos over a USB line, and playing Quake 7 at 3 fps, suckers."
Today, no. In a few years, maybe. When all the new games only look good and run properly with Active X 10 (Active X X?) and wouldn't you know, dispite M$'s best efforts, it can only be supported on Win XP or "better" OSes (really, they tried, honest.). Or when a new HW bus comes out that makes FireWire look like USB and makes USB look like the parallel port and the new standard simply can't be ported to Win 9X or NT.
I can see it now
Or how about when you buy a new machine? If you don't build your own system you'll probably pay for XP or W2K whether you like it or not. And then what? Retire your old Win box to use the old licence on your new machine? It's a retail licence, right? Oh, well no worries, I'm sure that retail copies of NT and 98 will be available forever.
(note to the flamers, I'm not saying that M$ dosen't have a right to behave this way)
I found this bit of the AP article quite ironic ...
Since Bush took office in January, more than seven months after Penfield's breakup order, he has given no indication of how he would handle the mammoth suit he inherited from President Clinton
except to say that he is, in general, ``unsympathetic'' to lawsuits.
Fleischer underlined that point Thursday: ``The president believes people should work hard to enter into agreements and the president believes there's too much litigation in our society, generally speaking.''
I started to laugh, but was overwhelmed by anger or rightous indignation or something.
distribute the Software, in whole or in part, in conjunction with any Publicly Available Software
I think that this is just an example they provide, since they also say "By way of example but not limitation of the foregoing" right before they say that.
MS never prohibit using these tools. If they did, MS could be sued for product tying; and tool distributors could obtain an injuction to stop any distribution of this EULA dead in its tracks.
It's really difficult to say for sure, since the language of the EULA is a major headache, but here's why I think that they are either prohibiting the use of free dev tools with the SDK or trying to imply that they are:
(i) not distributing such Software, in whole or in part, in conjunction with Potentially Viral Software (as defined below); and (ii) not using Potentially Viral Software (e.g. tools) to develop Recipient software which includes the Software, in whole or in part.
Note that part (i) discusses distribution of the SDK and part (ii) discusses *use* of the SDK. Seems to me, part (ii) is saying don't use "Potentially Viral" tools to develop code that incudes any part of the SDK - whether or not it's being distributed!
Now this begs the question "what is Potentially Viral Software?" but there is no software in existance that meets their definition so that would imply that the entire clause is meaningless, right? But they then go on to imply that "Potentially Viral Software" includes pretty much everything under the sun (anything free, open, GPLed, etc.) in the "By way of example but not limitation of the foregoing" clause by saying you can't distribute with all the listed stuff.
It's very odd, they say -
(a) don't distribute our stuff with X
(b) don't develop using our stuff and X
(c) therefore you can't distribute our stuff with Y
This seems to imply that Y is a member of X and therefore you can't develop using their stuff and Y. But since the definition of X does not seem to really incude Y, it makes me wonder if (a) and (b) are really meaningless and the only actual statement is (c)?