OK, so that's understandable from a support perspective. The Microsoft support desk wouldn't want to deal with any random crap loaded up by the manufacturer, particularly if some of that random crap made the system unstable.
Except that Microsoft expect the retailer/OEM to provide support to customers in the first place.
Not to mention that IE/WMP are tied into Microsoft Update, along with Windows and Office. Yes, a few other companies offer automatic updating of everything (And OS X does the same with all Apple applications), but the fact that by default all the bundled apps are kept up to date without big dialogs going "New version! Update now!" is handy for stopping those bloody family members complaining.
You mean like "apt-get" does. Also Windows Update isn't big dialogue box free anyway. If anything a random pop up asking to reboot the machine is more of a problem than an update notification which appears when an application is started.
Microsoft knows, and has always been able to see, what is "right" and what isn't. But like all large commercial enterprises they don't give a flying fuck about right and wrong.
Actually corporations are ment to place profit above all else. If the aditional profits likely to result from breaking a law are likely to be greater than the likely losses from fines and lawsuits then they could argue an "obligation" to break the law. Even to treat fines as a "cost of doing business". Note also that lawsuits against a large corporation have little to no effect on their business. Simply the cost of paying some lawyers, not something which will disrupt a business. Whereas for an individual (or a small business) a civil case (as either plaintiff or defendent) may easily mean lost wages or having to shut down a business. Being accused of a criminal matter almost certainly will be disruptive to a person's life.
First off, people should be aware that MS was also fined 500 million euros,
The problem with fining a monopoly is that they can simply pass the costs onto their customers. Unless the fine is large enough to cause Microsoft immediate cash flow problems they are likely to laugh it off.
It used to be that the power button was just a switch that did the same thing as unplugging it, to save you the inconvenience. They've now thoughtfully removed that feature; if you really want it OFF, you have to go back to unplugging it again. All of this coincided with a preponderance of clocks.
But quite often without any mechanism to ensure that the clock keeps time when the power is removed.
My pet peeve is the almost unlimited combination of wall wart connectors, polarity, output voltage, output current, etc. Wouldn't it be so much easier if there was some sort of standard wall wart power supply with a standard connector?
Or even for computers to have power outputs to power their external peripherals under software control.
You are making the assumption that the only cost is the direct cost of the extra energy, and missing all the indirect costs that we currently don't pay for, namely the polution.
Insisting that people replace a working machine with one which consumes slightly less energy could have the indirect effect of increasing pollution. In the same way that banning nasty, but effective, chemical A subsituting less nasty, but also less effective, chemical B can lead to more pollution since considerably more of B is needed to do the job.
Although I agree with you, check the past 4 or 5 years, and see if any tragedies have occured due to decompression at altitude. Look for things like "Senator Wellwood" "Payne Stewart" or "Greek air tragedy".
Assuming the latter means the Helios Airways 737 (5B-DBY) there was no decompression since the plane never pressurised in the first place. Maintanance had left the plane in a state where it's pressurisation system was inoperative. The flight crew not only missed this on their pre-flight check, but also continued to climb after the warning horn went off. The other two don't involve commercial airliners.
I am more than willing to deal with the "hassle" of getting carded when I go to buy booze if it means that Little Joey 6-Pack will have a slightly harder time getting a case of Old Milwaukee, drinking 4 of em, and wrapping mom's Suburban around a telephone poll.
The actual problem here appears to be people driving whilst drunk. Which is something which can happen to drivers of any age.
How about being asked that after you showed your USMC miltary ID, typical jarhead haircut, with blonde hair and blue eyes and them wanting to strip seach you because you had network crimpers in your bag. The worst part was the crimpers I needed for the job I was going to, yet they where taken since I was told they can be used as a "blunt" weapon.
As if someone from the military dosn't know better ways to make improvised weapons than using a crimp tool as a club.
Which brings me to your point "the terrorists know the things we're missing." Well yes, and I often wonder about where all the terrorists are. Most murders go unsolved, for instance, as do most robberies, etc. etc. A skilled criminal network (think Hell's Angels) gets caught rarely, and they're doing some pretty sophisticated law breaking, over long periods.
Your example of a skilled criminal network probably isn't the best. It would be even easier to hide criminal activity inside "legitimate business" as well as the difficulty of even detecting crimes carried out by crooked police officers.
And then we have some really bullshit rules. Grandma can't take her knitting needles along, but I can carry all the pens and pencils I want. Yeah, this really makes sense...
That's because the people who make the rules don't know what they are doing. Most likely they just want to be seen to be doing something.
But when I have to show up HOURS ahead of my scheduled flight just to get to the terminal, when - after I've made it to the terminal early to insure an early seat selection (yeah, I usually fly Southwest) - I stand a chance of being dragged out of line for some TSA goon to paw through my carryons, when it's actually just about as fast for me to drive 500 miles as it is to fly to the same destination?!?
In which case it would probably improve your safety far more to have stricter driving tests and more traffic cops.
As I understand it the argument "a firearm will cause a plane to crash" is related to the possibility of explosive decompression, that being so your WWII example doesn't really stand up as very few WWII aircraft had pressurized cockpits/crew areas, off the top of my head there's the B29 and a few high flying reccy aircraft.
The most that a bullet will do is make a bullet size hole in the plane. This will simply let a bit of air out, less than a badly worn door seal. To compensate the pressurisation controller will just close the outflow valve a little. It would take a lot of bullet holes (somewhere they could not be plugged) to mean a leak large enough to cause the cabin altitude to climb. At 10,000 feet a horn in the cockpit would go off (assuming the pilots had missed the sound of automatic weapons fire in the back) at 14,000 feet the oxygen masks in the PSUs automatically deploy. The idea of a single bullet causing a huge hole in the side of an airliner is a Hollywood myth (busted by the professionals). Bullets are far more dangerous to the passengers and crew than anything else.
The whole point of this discussion is that trading personal liberty for the proposed security is a red herring. You just lose liberty, and dont gain any real security, other than the fairytale type.
You may actually be less secure. e.g. you have the risk of being killed by "security forces" in addition to that of being killed by terrorists.
No one was prepared for what might happen. No one at the FAA was watching planes with an eye to which ones were weapons.
Guess no-one at the FAA reads books, watches movies or TV. The idea of using a passenger plane as a guided missile has come up several times in these media. Most notably the first episode of X-Files spinoff "The Lone Gunmen" where a 727 is targeted to hit 2 WTC. So far as identifying which ones were weapons it would be a case of checking which planes were only generating a primary radar return. Even small aircraft (which may not be required to carry transponders) entering congested airspace is a hazard to navigation. Anyway normal procedure if contact is lost with an airliner is contact the military
If I were a terrorist and got myself a nuke for the purpouse of hurting the US, why would I go through all the trouble of also getting a long range missile, learning to operate it properly, and risk it being detected and shot down?
Considering also that a long range missile is a less reliable machine that a nuclear weapon. So far as the risk of it being detected you'd best launch it from a country you dislike as much as the US and leave PDQ.
It would be so much easier to just ship it to any coastal city in plain sight. In a normal cargo container or in a perfectly normal-looking rereational boat.
Then you can put it on a truck. Which would enable delivery to a target without warning and most likely more accuracy than you could get with a missile anyway.
A second issue is that it is patently impossible to prevent lethal weapons from being carried onto planes. Walking canes for the elderly, large bars of soap when combined with long-sleave shirts, and even leather socks (or other maybe coat sleaves) and large numbers of coins could all be used to make improvised, lethal weapons.
Or a bottle of water...
Are hand searches of our luggage reasoanble when the passenger is not present? I am not sure (there are far better solutions to this problem that don't cause concerns about arbitrary government actions against individuals).
There's also problems here with the people who perform such searching. If they are criminals they could steal from the luggage or use it for smuggling, even bomb attacks against planes.
Whether it's justifiable to curtail freedom for the purpose of safety isn't even the right argument, though, because that's not what they're doing.
It's also mistaken to assume that there is a simple relationship between "freedom" and "safety".
They're curtailing freedom for the appearance of safety,
Which can quite easily reduce actual safety.
dedicating their time and money (or rather, your money if you live or work here)
Since time and money are finite resources this means that they are not available for other things.
towards measures that are highly visible, highly intrusive -- and fundamentally useless.
Against criminals and terrorists highly visible systems tend to be the easiest to subvert. i.e. test their own members with same techniques and find the operative most able to give a false negative.
So how many people will get searched as terrorists because their voice is shaky because they're cheating on their wife, didn't tell their parents they were going to costa rica with their friends, or told their employer they were going to a family reunion?
Or who are doing nothing wrong but have a phobia about flying...
I think that the old saying 'You get what you pay for' applies here. Having read the $200 page, it seems to assume that generating the hydrogen is free. It's also scaled for a car, not a diesel semi.
Such a system might make more sense on a locomotive or a marine diesel.
The idea that it'll benefit every IC engine is also hooky, especially with the 21% claim.Also given that spark ignition and gas turbines have very different combustion mechanisms.
Oddly enough, I believe Chrysler had a concept Charger that ran on some 'alternative fuel'. I forget when it was exactly or what it ran on. It may have even had an orange paint job.
With or without the "Stars and bars" on the roof. Anyway there can't be that many left, the Dukes of Hazzard wen't through at least 3 an episode.
Second of all, am I the only one who finds it ironic that a DRM program designed to protect someone's copyrighted information is itself infringing on someone's copyright?
It's ironic, but hardly unexpected.
I guess if Sony wants to fight those evil copyright violators they should start by putting themselves in jail.
...not its CDs. They have done more to damage their image and profits with this story than they would have saved by installing its spyware.
Probably also increased the amount of their material being pirated. Since those wanting to listen to those artists are likely to prefer a "clean" copy.
The code isn't included as executable, but as metadata usable in identifying LAME.
In which case copyright infringement is more likely.
Same as antivirus vendors shouldn't be kept liable for installing millions of viruses and copyrighted code from multiple spyware programs, just because the antivirus contains sniplets of the original code used in identifying the threats.
Most likely they could be. Just that malware producers are unlikely to sue.
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OK, so that's understandable from a support perspective. The Microsoft support desk wouldn't want to deal with any random crap loaded up by the manufacturer, particularly if some of that random crap made the system unstable.
Except that Microsoft expect the retailer/OEM to provide support to customers in the first place.
Not to mention that IE/WMP are tied into Microsoft Update, along with Windows and Office. Yes, a few other companies offer automatic updating of everything (And OS X does the same with all Apple applications), but the fact that by default all the bundled apps are kept up to date without big dialogs going "New version! Update now!" is handy for stopping those bloody family members complaining.
You mean like "apt-get" does. Also Windows Update isn't big dialogue box free anyway. If anything a random pop up asking to reboot the machine is more of a problem than an update notification which appears when an application is started.
Microsoft knows, and has always been able to see, what is "right" and what isn't. But like all large commercial enterprises they don't give a flying fuck about right and wrong.
Actually corporations are ment to place profit above all else. If the aditional profits likely to result from breaking a law are likely to be greater than the likely losses from fines and lawsuits then they could argue an "obligation" to break the law. Even to treat fines as a "cost of doing business". Note also that lawsuits against a large corporation have little to no effect on their business. Simply the cost of paying some lawyers, not something which will disrupt a business. Whereas for an individual (or a small business) a civil case (as either plaintiff or defendent) may easily mean lost wages or having to shut down a business. Being accused of a criminal matter almost certainly will be disruptive to a person's life.
First off, people should be aware that MS was also fined 500 million euros,
The problem with fining a monopoly is that they can simply pass the costs onto their customers. Unless the fine is large enough to cause Microsoft immediate cash flow problems they are likely to laugh it off.
It used to be that the power button was just a switch that did the same thing as unplugging it, to save you the inconvenience. They've now thoughtfully removed that feature; if you really want it OFF, you have to go back to unplugging it again.
All of this coincided with a preponderance of clocks.
But quite often without any mechanism to ensure that the clock keeps time when the power is removed.
My pet peeve is the almost unlimited combination of wall wart connectors, polarity, output voltage, output current, etc. Wouldn't it be so much easier if there was some sort of standard wall wart power supply with a standard connector?
Or even for computers to have power outputs to power their external peripherals under software control.
You are making the assumption that the only cost is the direct cost of the extra energy, and missing all the indirect costs that we currently don't pay for, namely the polution.
Insisting that people replace a working machine with one which consumes slightly less energy could have the indirect effect of increasing pollution.
In the same way that banning nasty, but effective, chemical A subsituting less nasty, but also less effective, chemical B can lead to more pollution since considerably more of B is needed to do the job.
Although I agree with you, check the past 4 or 5 years, and see if any tragedies have occured due to decompression at altitude. Look for things like "Senator Wellwood" "Payne Stewart" or "Greek air tragedy".
Assuming the latter means the Helios Airways 737 (5B-DBY) there was no decompression since the plane never pressurised in the first place. Maintanance had left the plane in a state where it's pressurisation system was inoperative. The flight crew not only missed this on their pre-flight check, but also continued to climb after the warning horn went off. The other two don't involve commercial airliners.
I am more than willing to deal with the "hassle" of getting carded when I go to buy booze if it means that Little Joey 6-Pack will have a slightly harder time getting a case of Old Milwaukee, drinking 4 of em, and wrapping mom's Suburban around a telephone poll.
The actual problem here appears to be people driving whilst drunk. Which is something which can happen to drivers of any age.
How about being asked that after you showed your USMC miltary ID, typical jarhead haircut, with blonde hair and blue eyes and them wanting to strip seach you because you had network crimpers in your bag. The worst part was the crimpers I needed for the job I was going to, yet they where taken since I was told they can be used as a "blunt" weapon.
As if someone from the military dosn't know better ways to make improvised weapons than using a crimp tool as a club.
Which brings me to your point "the terrorists know the things we're missing." Well yes, and I often wonder about where all the terrorists are. Most murders go unsolved, for instance, as do most robberies, etc. etc. A skilled criminal network (think Hell's Angels) gets caught rarely, and they're doing some pretty sophisticated law breaking, over long periods.
Your example of a skilled criminal network probably isn't the best. It would be even easier to hide criminal activity inside "legitimate business" as well as the difficulty of even detecting crimes carried out by crooked police officers.
And then we have some really bullshit rules. Grandma can't take her knitting needles along, but I can carry all the pens and pencils I want. Yeah, this really makes sense...
That's because the people who make the rules don't know what they are doing. Most likely they just want to be seen to be doing something.
But when I have to show up HOURS ahead of my scheduled flight just to get to the terminal, when - after I've made it to the terminal early to insure an early seat selection (yeah, I usually fly Southwest) - I stand a chance of being dragged out of line for some TSA goon to paw through my carryons, when it's actually just about as fast for me to drive 500 miles as it is to fly to the same destination?!?
In which case it would probably improve your safety far more to have stricter driving tests and more traffic cops.
As I understand it the argument "a firearm will cause a plane to crash" is related to the possibility of explosive decompression, that being so your WWII example doesn't really stand up as very few WWII aircraft had pressurized cockpits/crew areas, off the top of my head there's the B29 and a few high flying reccy aircraft.
The most that a bullet will do is make a bullet size hole in the plane. This will simply let a bit of air out, less than a badly worn door seal. To compensate the pressurisation controller will just close the outflow valve a little. It would take a lot of bullet holes (somewhere they could not be plugged) to mean a leak large enough to cause the cabin altitude to climb. At 10,000 feet a horn in the cockpit would go off (assuming the pilots had missed the sound of automatic weapons fire in the back) at 14,000 feet the oxygen masks in the PSUs automatically deploy.
The idea of a single bullet causing a huge hole in the side of an airliner is a Hollywood myth (busted by the professionals). Bullets are far more dangerous to the passengers and crew than anything else.
The whole point of this discussion is that trading personal liberty for the proposed security is a red herring. You just lose liberty, and dont gain any real security, other than the fairytale type.
You may actually be less secure. e.g. you have the risk of being killed by "security forces" in addition to that of being killed by terrorists.
No one was prepared for what might happen. No one at the FAA was watching planes with an eye to which ones were weapons.
Guess no-one at the FAA reads books, watches movies or TV. The idea of using a passenger plane as a guided missile has come up several times in these media. Most notably the first episode of X-Files spinoff "The Lone Gunmen" where a 727 is targeted to hit 2 WTC.
So far as identifying which ones were weapons it would be a case of checking which planes were only generating a primary radar return. Even small aircraft (which may not be required to carry transponders) entering congested airspace is a hazard to navigation. Anyway normal procedure if contact is lost with an airliner is contact the military
If I were a terrorist and got myself a nuke for the purpouse of hurting the US, why would I go through all the trouble of also getting a long range missile, learning to operate it properly, and risk it being detected and shot down?
Considering also that a long range missile is a less reliable machine that a nuclear weapon. So far as the risk of it being detected you'd best launch it from a country you dislike as much as the US and leave PDQ.
It would be so much easier to just ship it to any coastal city in plain sight. In a normal cargo container or in a perfectly normal-looking rereational boat.
Then you can put it on a truck. Which would enable delivery to a target without warning and most likely more accuracy than you could get with a missile anyway.
A second issue is that it is patently impossible to prevent lethal weapons from being carried onto planes. Walking canes for the elderly, large bars of soap when combined with long-sleave shirts, and even leather socks (or other maybe coat sleaves) and large numbers of coins could all be used to make improvised, lethal weapons.
Or a bottle of water...
Are hand searches of our luggage reasoanble when the passenger is not present? I am not sure (there are far better solutions to this problem that don't cause concerns about arbitrary government actions against individuals).
There's also problems here with the people who perform such searching. If they are criminals they could steal from the luggage or use it for smuggling, even bomb attacks against planes.
Whether it's justifiable to curtail freedom for the purpose of safety isn't even the right argument, though, because that's not what they're doing.
It's also mistaken to assume that there is a simple relationship between "freedom" and "safety".
They're curtailing freedom for the appearance of safety,
Which can quite easily reduce actual safety.
dedicating their time and money (or rather, your money if you live or work here)
Since time and money are finite resources this means that they are not available for other things.
towards measures that are highly visible, highly intrusive -- and fundamentally useless.
Against criminals and terrorists highly visible systems tend to be the easiest to subvert. i.e. test their own members with same techniques and find the operative most able to give a false negative.
So how many people will get searched as terrorists because their voice is shaky because they're cheating on their wife, didn't tell their parents they were going to costa rica with their friends, or told their employer they were going to a family reunion?
Or who are doing nothing wrong but have a phobia about flying...
I think that the old saying 'You get what you pay for' applies here. Having read the $200 page, it seems to assume that generating the hydrogen is free. It's also scaled for a car, not a diesel semi.
Such a system might make more sense on a locomotive or a marine diesel.
The idea that it'll benefit every IC engine is also hooky, especially with the 21% claim.Also given that spark ignition and gas turbines have very different combustion mechanisms.
Oddly enough, I believe Chrysler had a concept Charger that ran on some 'alternative fuel'. I forget when it was exactly or what it ran on. It may have even had an orange paint job.
With or without the "Stars and bars" on the roof. Anyway there can't be that many left, the Dukes of Hazzard wen't through at least 3 an episode.
Second of all, am I the only one who finds it ironic that a DRM program designed to protect someone's copyrighted information is itself infringing on someone's copyright?
:)
It's ironic, but hardly unexpected.
I guess if Sony wants to fight those evil copyright violators they should start by putting themselves in jail.
Or into political office
...not its CDs. They have done more to damage their image and profits with this story than they would have saved by installing its spyware.
Probably also increased the amount of their material being pirated. Since those wanting to listen to those artists are likely to prefer a "clean" copy.
The code isn't included as executable, but as metadata usable in identifying LAME.
In which case copyright infringement is more likely.
Same as antivirus vendors shouldn't be kept liable for installing millions of viruses and copyrighted code from multiple spyware programs, just because the antivirus contains sniplets of the original code used in identifying the threats.
Most likely they could be. Just that malware producers are unlikely to sue.
"We had to destroy the IP rights to protect them."
Or even: "Our IP rights are important, but stuff anyone elses".
This kind of thing isn't exactly suprising.