Restricting the other guy's rights is one of the more popular political themes of the world--Both in the West and in the "Culturally Different" places. Democracy is useful, but it's not a magic wand that makes authoritarianism disappear.
Actually democracy can be highly effective at dealing with authoritarian governments before they become a danger to both their own citizens and the rest of the planet. The problem is that too many people equate democracy with elections. Even elections where there is either only one candidate or all the candidates are so similar you might as well cast a vote at random.
What is not real is the suggestion that human liberty and freedom is culturally dependent. That is a lie used by repressive governments to justify policies that really only serve their own interests.
Left to their own devices most governments (and government menbers, especially where it is possible to create the job of "professional politican") will tend to do this. Many countries appear to lack effective means to prevent a repressive government comming in through the "back door".
There have been many attempts in Western nations to repress individual rights because of the "common interest", and these rightly strike us as barbaric.
Several of these attempts, even as recently as the last hundred years, have been sucessful. With the technique of "we need to restrict everyone's rights (except our own) to protect against some threat or other from #bad_people." still appears to work fairly well.
This message really needs to get out more. Recently I've been seeing a lot of GPL programs with click-through license agreements (mostly windows programs using one of the major windows installers).
Most likely there is a design assumption in the Windows installer that all software must have an EULA. Together with the person putting together the bundle, who may not even be the copyright holder of the program, confusing the GPL with an EULA.
I don't have the URL but it was over a year ago that I read how Bill wanted a car imported and that it was sitting at the dock for months and months because he was not supposed to import the car. He hired a bunch of lawyers and they worked with their representative to have a law written up so Bill could get his car. The law was then tied in with some others that were sure to get passed and the whole bunch ended up going through.
Sounds like an example of the problem of riders being attached to legislation.
All other viruses are actually *caused* by usability *flaws*. This includes those viruses that come as.pif or.zip files, and spyware that installs itself by instructing users to click "yes" on IE warning dialogs.
A warning dialogue which "crys wolf" is also not very good for warning either.
The problem is not that users are stupid, the problem is that usability is bad. Truly usable software would always inform the user of the consequences of their actions in a way the user can understand, and not allow various ways of "tricking" the user into running something dangerous.
Assuming that it should be possible for a user to do something dangerous in the first place. A big problem with Windows is the lack of demakation between "user" and "service" tasks. Of the kind which is commonplace with most machines.
Being able to click on a single file and have a fairly standard installer sequence pop up would be ideal for GUI, but I'd even settle for a standard CLI method, hold the endless switches and dependencies please.
With the vast majority of computer systems end user installable software (including Malware) is not a desirable "feature". In some cases, e.g. turning an ATM into a jukebox it is very undesirable.
Ah, but many many mor people than not *do* use fonts. Happy with command line? Fine, no one is stopping you. But you don't represent 70 or 80% of the other computer users who do use fonts and do like a nice standardized user interface experience.
Do you ever see people moaning about the fonts on an ATM? How about those on a cash register? Or those on a telephone... These kind of things are used by far more people than PCs.
This I don't get. One of the strengths of Linux is options. I don't use a computer the same way as the guy next to me, why should we be stuck with the same interface?
Computers are frequently used as "embedded systems" or in process control where the user interface may not remotly resemble a WIMP GUI. With such a UI being in the catagory of "excess baggage"...
Much more money in PC games though I'm afraid. And as always, money talks.
Really? Where can you buy an airliner, capable of seating a few hundred passengers, for a few tens of USD? When did governments hand out huge amounts of "corporate welfare" to computer games companies too?
Perhaps if DirectX actually was inferior, and if it wasn't the primary or only API for 90% of the games out there, you'd have a point.
Or more to the point a lot of computers are never used for playing video games in the first place. Given the level of "convergance" between movies and computer games it's quite possible that Linux was highly involved in the production of quite a few of these DirectX games:)
A "real musician" has to eat, because they make their living making music. That's their choice in this life.
Then they should accept the consequences of their choices. No-one forced them to become a musician and no-one forced them to do nothing else. Plenty of musicans do perfectly well working a "day job", especially since most of their potential audience also works in the day...
A "real musician" has the right to be successful from their music.
There is no God given right for anyone to "be successful" or even "earn a living" from doing anything.
As if it hasn't been tried a few thousand times? Every single time, Microsoft has either bought the company in question and either integrated it or disbanded it, or created enough vaporware and FUD to shut it down. Remember Go, anyone? Where do you think Visio, Excel and Exchange comes from?
This kind of approach is most effective against proprietary software. It dosn't tend to work anything like so well against OSS, hence Microsoft spewing all sorts of anti-GPL FUD.
In reality the CEOs, VPs, executive board members, and controlling shareowners are a collective group of greed freaks who have no scruples about lecherously milking the company and the consumer base dry. There's no way around it and no law that can prevent it.
There is a quite simple solution, if they break the law put them in jail. Or if you must insist on the fiction of a corporation as a "person" then send the corporation to a corporate prison.
MS got to be market dominant (which is NOT a true monopoly) by making genuinely good programs.
When was this? Microsoft's history of dodgy deals with PC suppliers goes back quite a long way. Operating in a competitive marketplace appears to be something Microsoft has put a lot of effort into avoiding.
Even though it's in violation of the Fair Use provisions of the Berne Convention? I don't think you can write something into a contract that violates a federal law,
Laws trump contracts, not the other way around. You can write whatever you like into a contract, but unless it is allowed to be part of a contract by applicable statute and case law then that clause is completly unenforcable. Trying to sue someone for breaching a void term in a contract will at best get the case thrown out of court (at worst the judge can have you locked up.)
Many terms of service, lisencing agreements and other "contracts" (I use this term loosely, as both parties do not have the option to negotiate in these cases) often contain clauses that are not legally enforceable.
It's basically a matter of "bluff calling" on the assumption that most people will not know what actually is and isn't legally enforcable. Quite possibly not even every lawyer would give the correct interpretation.
Why not? If I buy a CD that clearly says on the outside "By buying this, you agree not to make any copies, even a backup" - I have no problem buying it and making a backup. If they find out and want to take me to court, I believe they'll find that my actions are well within the confines of fair use. Now I both have the item I wanted, and I have successfully evaded their the terms of their "contract".
You havn't so much "evaded" the contract as made a case that it is null and void under the "law of the land".
In other words, if you don't agree to the terms of the contract, there are plenty of other ways to register your disagreement without denying yourself the use of the product/service.
The only terms you need ever agree to in the first place are those which are "legal" in the first place. Hence a well written contract will contain a clause to the effect that if any part of it is voided by statute or case law (either now or in the future) then the rest of the contract still stands. (Unless the resulting "rump" would fail the legal definition of "contract".)
It's because the Fat Cat's hire people to convince congress that it's a good idea to pass these stupid anti-competitive laws and no one ever let's the mass public know so they can elect people into office who will not allow such evil laws as the DMCA.
Even if the US public wanted to put people into office who would do something else they would have a hard time. Since the process of getting people's names onto ballot papers ("Primary elections" being a good way to eliminate radical candidates whilst giving the appearance of increased democracy), even increasingly the process of voting, is something the same "Fat Cats" can influence.
This school does have two computer labs with Linux, one is locked away from the rest of the LAN, on its own subnet and firewall, and the other has removable hard-drives, and they disconnect the room from the LAN before they install the linux drives!
Something which would make far more sense to do before running Windows on them...
Gun control aims at crimes of opportunity. Some guy drives by a liquor store and notices there is only one person manning the counter. So he pulls out his gun and robs the place.
With such an "impulse robber" never realising that the shop they intend to rob is full of club shaped objects made out of glass and filled with liquid. With the "gun control" meaning that they have little risk of getting shot in the robbery attempt...
All guns are legal when they're manufactured. Gun control legislation, among other things, restricts the number of weapons that can be stolen and used illegally.
That's the theory. In practice it dosn't do much to restrict black market firearms. Someone intending to use a firearm for something illegal is not likely to be worried if their gun is "legal" or not. If an armed robber gets caught they are going to be tried for committing or attempting an armed robbery...
Personally I would at least like to see all people who are closely connected with the current US federal administration (diplomats and presidents included) be forced to go through the process of having their photo and fingerprints taken whenever they try to travel to any other country.
In this senario should the US Government be sent the bill for the cost of countries setting up a "passport control" point outside of US Embassies?
The US is also the biggest foriegn aide spender in the world, has done more to rebuild countries after major wars/catastrophies than the UN ever has/will/can,
In some cases this would be a case of the hooligan who broke your windows offering to have them repaired. So long as you accept their choice of glazier and glass... As for the UN they might be able to do more if certain countries, including the US, paid their membership fees on time. Typically countries tend to be (re)built by their peoples anyway.
But yeah, the US, a country of 250+ individuals,
It's more like 300 million individuals, who are quite happy to let a much smaller number (probably less than 10,000) do all sorts of daft things.
can be boiled down to: "they" don't want to do anything about Isreal/Palestine. "They" don't care about any world conflict.
One of the biggest problems with the Zionist/Arab conflict is the "foriegn aide" that money dosn't always go to "rebuild" countries it frequently goes towards destroying them and keeping them in a destroyed state. Conflicts are going to be a lot more bloody if there is a "patron" throwing arms and money at some (or all) of the protagonists. So called "aid" provided by the US Government can turn out to be "coroprate welfare" to the US arms industry.
These laws aren't meant to actually "work". They are just trying to maintain the illusion of safety.
Real security and safety are hard. Sometimes a measure to increase security, e.g. profiling, will actually result in decreased security.
The "bad guys" already know how to get around these kind of things, and each new measure will be cracked within months, if not days, of implementation.
Assuming that any "cracking" is actually needed.
The U.S. is THE biggest arms dealer in the world. They have absolutely NO interest in resolving the Mideast thing, or any other conflict for that matter.
Including terrorism against the US, since that is key to justifying shredding the US Constitution.
The Mexican border is probably pretty tight compared to the Canadian border, but there's not too many Canadians crossing over looking for the "good life"
Currently it looks more likely that it would be the Canadians who would want to make crossing the US/Canadian harder:)
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Restricting the other guy's rights is one of the more popular political themes of the world--Both in the West and in the "Culturally Different" places. Democracy is useful, but it's not a magic wand that makes authoritarianism disappear.
Actually democracy can be highly effective at dealing with authoritarian governments before they become a danger to both their own citizens and the rest of the planet. The problem is that too many people equate democracy with elections. Even elections where there is either only one candidate or all the candidates are so similar you might as well cast a vote at random.
What is not real is the suggestion that human liberty and freedom is culturally dependent. That is a lie used by repressive governments to justify policies that really only serve their own interests.
Left to their own devices most governments (and government menbers, especially where it is possible to create the job of "professional politican") will tend to do this. Many countries appear to lack effective means to prevent a repressive government comming in through the "back door".
There have been many attempts in Western nations to repress individual rights because of the "common interest", and these rightly strike us as barbaric.
Several of these attempts, even as recently as the last hundred years, have been sucessful. With the technique of "we need to restrict everyone's rights (except our own) to protect against some threat or other from #bad_people." still appears to work fairly well.
This message really needs to get out more. Recently I've been seeing a lot of GPL programs with click-through license agreements (mostly windows programs using one of the major windows installers).
Most likely there is a design assumption in the Windows installer that all software must have an EULA. Together with the person putting together the bundle, who may not even be the copyright holder of the program, confusing the GPL with an EULA.
I don't have the URL but it was over a year ago that I read how Bill wanted a car imported and that it was sitting at the dock for months and months because he was not supposed to import the car. He hired a bunch of lawyers and they worked with their representative to have a law written up so Bill could get his car. The law was then tied in with some others that were sure to get passed and the whole bunch ended up going through.
Sounds like an example of the problem of riders being attached to legislation.
All other viruses are actually *caused* by usability *flaws*. This includes those viruses that come as .pif or .zip files, and spyware that installs itself by instructing users to click "yes" on IE warning dialogs.
A warning dialogue which "crys wolf" is also not very good for warning either.
The problem is not that users are stupid, the problem is that usability is bad. Truly usable software would always inform the user of the consequences of their actions in a way the user can understand, and not allow various ways of "tricking" the user into running something dangerous.
Assuming that it should be possible for a user to do something dangerous in the first place. A big problem with Windows is the lack of demakation between "user" and "service" tasks. Of the kind which is commonplace with most machines.
Being able to click on a single file and have a fairly standard installer sequence pop up would be ideal for GUI, but I'd even settle for a standard CLI method, hold the endless switches and dependencies please.
With the vast majority of computer systems end user installable software (including Malware) is not a desirable "feature". In some cases, e.g. turning an ATM into a jukebox it is very undesirable.
Ah, but many many mor people than not *do* use fonts. Happy with command line? Fine, no one is stopping you. But you don't represent 70 or 80% of the other computer users who do use fonts and do like a nice standardized user interface experience.
Do you ever see people moaning about the fonts on an ATM? How about those on a cash register? Or those on a telephone... These kind of things are used by far more people than PCs.
This I don't get. One of the strengths of Linux is options. I don't use a computer the same way as the guy next to me, why should we be stuck with the same interface?
Computers are frequently used as "embedded systems" or in process control where the user interface may not remotly resemble a WIMP GUI. With such a UI being in the catagory of "excess baggage"...
Much more money in PC games though I'm afraid. And as always, money talks.
Really? Where can you buy an airliner, capable of seating a few hundred passengers, for a few tens of USD? When did governments hand out huge amounts of "corporate welfare" to computer games companies too?
Perhaps if DirectX actually was inferior, and if it wasn't the primary or only API for 90% of the games out there, you'd have a point.
:)
Or more to the point a lot of computers are never used for playing video games in the first place. Given the level of "convergance" between movies and computer games it's quite possible that Linux was highly involved in the production of quite a few of these DirectX games
A "real musician" has to eat, because they make their living making music. That's their choice in this life.
Then they should accept the consequences of their choices. No-one forced them to become a musician and no-one forced them to do nothing else. Plenty of musicans do perfectly well working a "day job", especially since most of their potential audience also works in the day...
A "real musician" has the right to be successful from their music.
There is no God given right for anyone to "be successful" or even "earn a living" from doing anything.
As if it hasn't been tried a few thousand times? Every single time, Microsoft has either bought the company in question and either integrated it or disbanded it, or created enough vaporware and FUD to shut it down. Remember Go, anyone? Where do you think Visio, Excel and Exchange comes from?
This kind of approach is most effective against proprietary software. It dosn't tend to work anything like so well against OSS, hence Microsoft spewing all sorts of anti-GPL FUD.
In reality the CEOs, VPs, executive board members, and controlling shareowners are a collective group of greed freaks who have no scruples about lecherously milking the company and the consumer base dry. There's no way around it and no law that can prevent it.
There is a quite simple solution, if they break the law put them in jail. Or if you must insist on the fiction of a corporation as a "person" then send the corporation to a corporate prison.
MS got to be market dominant (which is NOT a true monopoly) by making genuinely good programs.
When was this? Microsoft's history of dodgy deals with PC suppliers goes back quite a long way.
Operating in a competitive marketplace appears to be something Microsoft has put a lot of effort into avoiding.
Even though it's in violation of the Fair Use provisions of the Berne Convention? I don't think you can write something into a contract that violates a federal law,
Laws trump contracts, not the other way around. You can write whatever you like into a contract, but unless it is allowed to be part of a contract by applicable statute and case law then that clause is completly unenforcable. Trying to sue someone for breaching a void term in a contract will at best get the case thrown out of court (at worst the judge can have you locked up.)
Many terms of service, lisencing agreements and other "contracts" (I use this term loosely, as both parties do not have the option to negotiate in these cases) often contain clauses that are not legally enforceable.
It's basically a matter of "bluff calling" on the assumption that most people will not know what actually is and isn't legally enforcable. Quite possibly not even every lawyer would give the correct interpretation.
Why not? If I buy a CD that clearly says on the outside "By buying this, you agree not to make any copies, even a backup" - I have no problem buying it and making a backup. If they find out and want to take me to court, I believe they'll find that my actions are well within the confines of fair use. Now I both have the item I wanted, and I have successfully evaded their the terms of their "contract".
You havn't so much "evaded" the contract as made a case that it is null and void under the "law of the land".
In other words, if you don't agree to the terms of the contract, there are plenty of other ways to register your disagreement without denying yourself the use of the product/service.
The only terms you need ever agree to in the first place are those which are "legal" in the first place. Hence a well written contract will contain a clause to the effect that if any part of it is voided by statute or case law (either now or in the future) then the rest of the contract still stands. (Unless the resulting "rump" would fail the legal definition of "contract".)
It's because the Fat Cat's hire people to convince congress that it's a good idea to pass these stupid anti-competitive laws and no one ever let's the mass public know so they can elect people into office who will not allow such evil laws as the DMCA.
Even if the US public wanted to put people into office who would do something else they would have a hard time. Since the process of getting people's names onto ballot papers ("Primary elections" being a good way to eliminate radical candidates whilst giving the appearance of increased democracy), even increasingly the process of voting, is something the same "Fat Cats" can influence.
This school does have two computer labs with Linux, one is locked away from the rest of the LAN, on its own subnet and firewall, and the other has removable hard-drives, and they disconnect the room from the LAN before they install the linux drives!
Something which would make far more sense to do before running Windows on them...
Gun control aims at crimes of opportunity. Some guy drives by a liquor store and notices there is only one person manning the counter. So he pulls out his gun and robs the place.
With such an "impulse robber" never realising that the shop they intend to rob is full of club shaped objects made out of glass and filled with liquid.
With the "gun control" meaning that they have little risk of getting shot in the robbery attempt...
All guns are legal when they're manufactured. Gun control legislation, among other things, restricts the number of weapons that can be stolen and used illegally.
That's the theory. In practice it dosn't do much to restrict black market firearms. Someone intending to use a firearm for something illegal is not likely to be worried if their gun is "legal" or not. If an armed robber gets caught they are going to be tried for committing or attempting an armed robbery...
Personally I would at least like to see all people who are closely connected with the current US federal administration (diplomats and presidents included) be forced to go through the process of having their photo and fingerprints taken whenever they try to travel to any other country.
In this senario should the US Government be sent the bill for the cost of countries setting up a "passport control" point outside of US Embassies?
The US is also the biggest foriegn aide spender in the world, has done more to rebuild countries after major wars/catastrophies than the UN ever has/will/can,
In some cases this would be a case of the hooligan who broke your windows offering to have them repaired. So long as you accept their choice of glazier and glass...
As for the UN they might be able to do more if certain countries, including the US, paid their membership fees on time.
Typically countries tend to be (re)built by their peoples anyway.
But yeah, the US, a country of 250+ individuals,
It's more like 300 million individuals, who are quite happy to let a much smaller number (probably less than 10,000) do all sorts of daft things.
can be boiled down to: "they" don't want to do anything about Isreal/Palestine. "They" don't care about any world conflict.
One of the biggest problems with the Zionist/Arab conflict is the "foriegn aide" that money dosn't always go to "rebuild" countries it frequently goes towards destroying them and keeping them in a destroyed state.
Conflicts are going to be a lot more bloody if there is a "patron" throwing arms and money at some (or all) of the protagonists. So called "aid" provided by the US Government can turn out to be "coroprate welfare" to the US arms industry.
These laws aren't meant to actually "work". They are just trying to maintain the illusion of safety.
:)
Real security and safety are hard. Sometimes a measure to increase security, e.g. profiling, will actually result in decreased security.
The "bad guys" already know how to get around these kind of things, and each new measure will be cracked within months, if not days, of implementation.
Assuming that any "cracking" is actually needed.
The U.S. is THE biggest arms dealer in the world. They have absolutely NO interest in resolving the Mideast thing, or any other conflict for that matter.
Including terrorism against the US, since that is key to justifying shredding the US Constitution.
The Mexican border is probably pretty tight compared to the Canadian border, but there's not too many Canadians crossing over looking for the "good life"
Currently it looks more likely that it would be the Canadians who would want to make crossing the US/Canadian harder
With good software to do face recognition, it's easy to compare photos of against pictures of known terrorists.
You first have to get hold of such "good software". Which may be a harder task than finding an honest politican.