Uhm, your saying passive (second hand) smoking is worse than being the actual smoker? In your argument you are basically saying that the active smoker never breathes when they are not inhaling. That is..silly. It is MUCH worse to be an active participant than taking in the smoke second hand.
Doesn't mean second hand smoke isn't a problem.. it's just not the problem you made it out to be:)
Just out of curiosity.. if not democracy, then how exactly do you intend to allow for a reasonable peaceful society to exist? If your 'against the system' are you anti-democracy? Or are you just against the system as it stands in America, in which case wouldn't voting for a candidate that wants to radically change the system (pick a third party candidate) be the rationale (and responsible) course of action?
Your mistaking suboptimal design for wrong design.. Just because something is suboptimal, it doesn't mean it's bad. Often in the context in which it exists (a human eye socket) it is not only correct, but very good at what it does. After all, you can hardly argue that the design choice (whether made by I.D. or Evolution) has done little to limit the advancement of our species.
1) It's OK to steal from companies that have executives that make a lot of money.
2) It's NOT OK to steal from companies that don't.
Did I get that right?
That's quite a rationalization.. the fact is that stealing is stealing. It doesn't matter where the money goes, or whose pocket it goes into. There is nothing wrong with being wealthy. I run a software company, I'm quite wealthy, but that doesn't mean you should be able to steal from me.
How does throwing money make a cure magically appear? Do you think we haven't cured cancer because god feels like we haven't spent enough on it yet?
Our obsession with military and military technology may be a bit scary, but it's not an either/or for curing cancer or anything else for that matter. Cancer research has a LOT of funding, and very little success to show for it.
This password problem is a killer. I work with the MS Office formats (reading/writing them) as part of my job. The basic problem with password protected files isn't that we CAN'T open them.. the problem is that it's probably illegal (under the DMCA) for us to even try. Our customers have begged and pleaded for password protected files, but we just can't provide them... which is a serious problem for us and open office as well.
Unemployment in the IT sector is up (due to both outsourcing AND the struggling economy), so who cares if the people with jobs are getting a bit more money?
They are worried that open source developers are too much "hacker" and too little "engineer," cobbling together solutions without going through a structured software engineering process (such as requirements, specification, and analysis).
Does a structured engineering process really result in better software? The general trend has been towards less structure (so called 'agile development processes'), rather than more in commercial settings. The community based design process found in open source software seems to be quite ideal, actually. It's a community effort with peer review built in. Most design and architecture decisions undergo trial by community before making it into the codebase, and that has resulted in some really great code. KDE depends largely on this process, and it works quite well for them.
I think your wrong. Your assumption (as I understand it) is more or less "since the people downloading these don't value them at the price being charged, they aren't really affecting anything by downloading it". That, in a simplistic economics sense, is true. However, what your argument doesn't address are those that above the deman curve, those who would (under normal circumstances) buy a particular DVD.
The availability of downloadable content has the net effect of artificially bottoming out the price point. It allows those who would normally value a particular DVD at some price to get that product for nothing. That DOES have a real effect on the production curve, it does very little to translate either supply or demand (both do remain constant), but it does allow significant numbers of those who would normally purchase a product to circumvent the economic process altogether.
My problem with the RIAA/MPAA/et al. has never been the fundamental argument. File sharing does have a real affect on their bottom line.. they have every right to defend it. The problem lies in the fact that they insist on making sweeping, emotional arguments to motivate their decisions. They overstate damanges by including EVERY POSSIBLE consumer, not just those that are A) downloading INSTEAD of purchasing and B) would purchase the product without access to it on a downloadable basis. This innacurate measurement allows them to convince people that file sharing HAS to be stopped, as this is clearly a multi billion dollar problem by their math.
Joe is an idiot. Credit can be a very valuable tool for building wealth. I went to college, had a $100 a week job, lived within my means and came out no worse for wear. I have a very good credit rating... all because I took personal responsibility for my money management.
You act as if the credit company pointed a gun at Joe and said 'buy Joe.. buy!', when in fact it's Joe's job to have the willpower to use his credit wisely. I'm sorry, the credit companies are doing nothing wrong here... people make their own beds with credit cards, and blame the credit companies when they are forced to lie in them.
No, her basic premise is sound economics. What outsourcing really does is grow the economies of those other countries. The money going into those economies results in higher economic spending power among the outsourcees. They in turn buy more goods, which employs more people in their local economy. This causes economic growth... at the same time it provides the ability for people in these countries to start their own business, utilizing cheaper local professionals, to produce products and outcompete the American companies. That sounds scary... but the net gain is cheaper goods and services for US as well. This in turn enables all of us to have more spending power and allows OUR economy to grow as well. This creates more jobs.. etc.. etc..
It's the concept of competitive advantage. The workers in India have a competitive advantage as they can do the IT jobs cheaper, and ostensibly at or near the same quality level. By allowing them to take that advantage they win (their economy grows), but they also begin producing products that out-compete the more expensive American products. This is the exact same cycle we saw with Japanese cars (which has come full circle with those companies opening up manufacturing plants in the United States).
Fortunately terrorism isn't a threat in the US. The chances of dying of terrorism here are less than the chances of being killed by lightening or many other things. We shouldn't worry about it.
While true, it doesn't mean terrorism isn't a threat. Getting struck by lightning is a fairly remote possibility, but I don't wander around outside during thunderstorms. Terrorism is something we need to deal with, and terrorists are clearly fixated on aircraft. I have no issues with tight security at airports and doing everything we can to make it as difficult to pull of more plane related terrorist attacks. It's just good common sense... While your chances of dying in a terrorist attack are slim, even one life lost that could have been prevented is more than I'm willing to stomach.
Wouldn't they have to know your starting point? Even if they KNEW exactly where you where when the device was started, the system doesn't even work then..
In an urban area, even over a small amount of time, various factors are going to greatly confuse that approach. Hell, wheel slippage alone will gradually throw the mapped position far out of whack from the actual position. Parking lots, interchanges, and a whole host of other situations will only make it worse. Short of attaching GPS to these things, I don't see how they can POSSIBLY know what the speed limit of where you are driving actually is.
I'm betting their more interested in top speeds (do you ever break 80?), and amount of driving time. If you keep your top speed down below some sort of cieling and (more importantly) don't drive very much your insurance might be quite low indeed. I really think this is less about speeding, and more about simply being out and about. This rewards the homebody more than anyone else.
Just like everyone else.. what's special about dial-up that you can't use a firewall? It's the same protocol and same set of dangers, only the connection isn't persistent.
It's a problem with open source software in general. One of the roadblocks to patent "enforcement" is provability. In order to prove infringement you have to go through a rather laborous process of getting at the code that was used to implement it. This process is expensive, time consuming, and more often than not doesn't bear any fruit at all. In order to prove that Microsoft infringes on a algorithm level patent is going to require a LOT of effort just to get to the point where you can see if they actually infringe.
With open source software you simply look at the code. In this case the "openess" of open source software is a severe detriment. The biggest roadblock to patent enforcement is essentially removed.
At the same time you have the question of liability. While I can technically be liable for using a close source product that infringes, it's probably much easier (and more lucrative) to go after the company actually making the software. In the case of open source software, however, there is no central entity to pursue. Since everyone "owns" the code, everyone is potentially a target (see: SCO). Generally the person who wrote the code is actually the LAST one you'd sue (no $$$), while a big user (like the city of Munich) is a potentially profitable target.
I ask you.. how the hell are you going to prevent him from driving? Prison at least lets us keep an eye on him without employing someone to follow him around every day.
If you have such little regard for human life that you watch DVD's while you drive.. then you deserve to spend time in jail where we can be sure you aren't out driving at all. It's that simple.
(Note: I have no idea if this guy was ACTUALLY watching a DVD while driving.. thus the IF)
The form factor means you can pull one out in a meeting without hiding behind a laptop screen, you can pass it around more easily to show people ideas and you can get information into it quicker.
This is what people don't "get" with tablets. They are PERFECT for situations where collaboration is important. Architects have to love these things (who are constantly manipulating things slightly and sharing that with a customer). Really anything that requires multiple people to look at the same screen is ideal for a tablet. It's not meant to REPLACE a laptop, but rather enable more optimal work in new and different situations.
Just FYI: "Substantially similiar" is a legally valid term that is suggesting that the code is a derivative work of the SCO code.
In order to violate copyright they don't need to be identical copies. Instead they need to show that they are substantially similiar (there it is) to each other, implying that the Linux version is derived from the original SCO code. At what point something stops being a derived work is a whole different mess...
One common example of this type of copyright dispute is in housing floorplans and architecture. Often someone will see a floorplan they like in a magazine (copyrighted), and move a few things around and have blueprints drawn from that. That's an infringement on the original copyright, because the resulting work is really just a derived form of the original.
SCO's claims fail on a number of levels, but your 'analysis' is more or less incorrect.
It's not like Microsoft is any position to cut off the worlds leading supplier of desktop computers either. Microsoft NEEDS Dell. Since Microsoft is so dependent on cross-selling revenues (all of the software they sell on TOP of the OS), cutting off a major supplier really isn't an option.
(Incidentally they feed us BS saying that the real reason they issue cards is because those customers who have them tend to be more loyal and spend more than on your standard everyday credit card, but if that was the case why charge so much interest?)
Just FYI, there are two parties at work here. The retailer (such as BestBuy) and the credit issuer (I beleive BestBuy uses GE Credit).. So BestBuy doesn't have it's own credit agency. They just essentially stamp their name on a card issued by a 3rd party. The 3rd party sets the rate, and for these specialty retail cards they generally do it at a REALLY high rate, because that's in their best interest. The store is pushing these cards for the obvious reasons (they do tend to lock people into buying at the store, they provide a goldmine of customer data, and they provide a means to do all sorts of special promotions), which makes it easier for the issuer to slip in those obnoxiously high interest rates.
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Uhm, your saying passive (second hand) smoking is worse than being the actual smoker? In your argument you are basically saying that the active smoker never breathes when they are not inhaling. That is..silly. It is MUCH worse to be an active participant than taking in the smoke second hand.
Doesn't mean second hand smoke isn't a problem.. it's just not the problem you made it out to be:)
Just out of curiosity.. if not democracy, then how exactly do you intend to allow for a reasonable peaceful society to exist? If your 'against the system' are you anti-democracy? Or are you just against the system as it stands in America, in which case wouldn't voting for a candidate that wants to radically change the system (pick a third party candidate) be the rationale (and responsible) course of action?
Your mistaking suboptimal design for wrong design.. Just because something is suboptimal, it doesn't mean it's bad. Often in the context in which it exists (a human eye socket) it is not only correct, but very good at what it does. After all, you can hardly argue that the design choice (whether made by I.D. or Evolution) has done little to limit the advancement of our species.
I call BS... anyone who has actually been married knows that once your married your searching for porn actually INCREASES.
This is such fascinating ethics to me..
Let me understand:
1) It's OK to steal from companies that have executives that make a lot of money.
2) It's NOT OK to steal from companies that don't.
Did I get that right?
That's quite a rationalization.. the fact is that stealing is stealing. It doesn't matter where the money goes, or whose pocket it goes into. There is nothing wrong with being wealthy. I run a software company, I'm quite wealthy, but that doesn't mean you should be able to steal from me.
How does throwing money make a cure magically appear? Do you think we haven't cured cancer because god feels like we haven't spent enough on it yet?
Our obsession with military and military technology may be a bit scary, but it's not an either/or for curing cancer or anything else for that matter. Cancer research has a LOT of funding, and very little success to show for it.
AND he got to brag about it to more than a million people..
He's a genius, no doubt.
This password problem is a killer. I work with the MS Office formats (reading/writing them) as part of my job. The basic problem with password protected files isn't that we CAN'T open them.. the problem is that it's probably illegal (under the DMCA) for us to even try. Our customers have begged and pleaded for password protected files, but we just can't provide them... which is a serious problem for us and open office as well.
Unemployment in the IT sector is up (due to both outsourcing AND the struggling economy), so who cares if the people with jobs are getting a bit more money?
Speaking as someone with a job in IT.. I do.
Thanks.
They are worried that open source developers are too much "hacker" and too little "engineer," cobbling together solutions without going through a structured software engineering process (such as requirements, specification, and analysis).
Does a structured engineering process really result in better software? The general trend has been towards less structure (so called 'agile development processes'), rather than more in commercial settings. The community based design process found in open source software seems to be quite ideal, actually. It's a community effort with peer review built in. Most design and architecture decisions undergo trial by community before making it into the codebase, and that has resulted in some really great code. KDE depends largely on this process, and it works quite well for them.
I think your wrong. Your assumption (as I understand it) is more or less "since the people downloading these don't value them at the price being charged, they aren't really affecting anything by downloading it". That, in a simplistic economics sense, is true. However, what your argument doesn't address are those that above the deman curve, those who would (under normal circumstances) buy a particular DVD.
The availability of downloadable content has the net effect of artificially bottoming out the price point. It allows those who would normally value a particular DVD at some price to get that product for nothing. That DOES have a real effect on the production curve, it does very little to translate either supply or demand (both do remain constant), but it does allow significant numbers of those who would normally purchase a product to circumvent the economic process altogether.
My problem with the RIAA/MPAA/et al. has never been the fundamental argument. File sharing does have a real affect on their bottom line.. they have every right to defend it. The problem lies in the fact that they insist on making sweeping, emotional arguments to motivate their decisions. They overstate damanges by including EVERY POSSIBLE consumer, not just those that are A) downloading INSTEAD of purchasing and B) would purchase the product without access to it on a downloadable basis. This innacurate measurement allows them to convince people that file sharing HAS to be stopped, as this is clearly a multi billion dollar problem by their math.
Joe is an idiot. Credit can be a very valuable tool for building wealth. I went to college, had a $100 a week job, lived within my means and came out no worse for wear. I have a very good credit rating... all because I took personal responsibility for my money management.
You act as if the credit company pointed a gun at Joe and said 'buy Joe.. buy!', when in fact it's Joe's job to have the willpower to use his credit wisely. I'm sorry, the credit companies are doing nothing wrong here... people make their own beds with credit cards, and blame the credit companies when they are forced to lie in them.
No, her basic premise is sound economics. What outsourcing really does is grow the economies of those other countries. The money going into those economies results in higher economic spending power among the outsourcees. They in turn buy more goods, which employs more people in their local economy. This causes economic growth... at the same time it provides the ability for people in these countries to start their own business, utilizing cheaper local professionals, to produce products and outcompete the American companies. That sounds scary... but the net gain is cheaper goods and services for US as well. This in turn enables all of us to have more spending power and allows OUR economy to grow as well. This creates more jobs.. etc.. etc..
It's the concept of competitive advantage. The workers in India have a competitive advantage as they can do the IT jobs cheaper, and ostensibly at or near the same quality level. By allowing them to take that advantage they win (their economy grows), but they also begin producing products that out-compete the more expensive American products. This is the exact same cycle we saw with Japanese cars (which has come full circle with those companies opening up manufacturing plants in the United States).
Fortunately terrorism isn't a threat in the US. The chances of dying of terrorism here are less than the chances of being killed by lightening or many other things. We shouldn't worry about it.
While true, it doesn't mean terrorism isn't a threat. Getting struck by lightning is a fairly remote possibility, but I don't wander around outside during thunderstorms. Terrorism is something we need to deal with, and terrorists are clearly fixated on aircraft. I have no issues with tight security at airports and doing everything we can to make it as difficult to pull of more plane related terrorist attacks. It's just good common sense... While your chances of dying in a terrorist attack are slim, even one life lost that could have been prevented is more than I'm willing to stomach.
Physics would tend to disagree..
Wouldn't they have to know your starting point? Even if they KNEW exactly where you where when the device was started, the system doesn't even work then..
In an urban area, even over a small amount of time, various factors are going to greatly confuse that approach. Hell, wheel slippage alone will gradually throw the mapped position far out of whack from the actual position. Parking lots, interchanges, and a whole host of other situations will only make it worse. Short of attaching GPS to these things, I don't see how they can POSSIBLY know what the speed limit of where you are driving actually is.
I'm betting their more interested in top speeds (do you ever break 80?), and amount of driving time. If you keep your top speed down below some sort of cieling and (more importantly) don't drive very much your insurance might be quite low indeed. I really think this is less about speeding, and more about simply being out and about. This rewards the homebody more than anyone else.
Just like everyone else.. what's special about dial-up that you can't use a firewall? It's the same protocol and same set of dangers, only the connection isn't persistent.
It's a problem with open source software in general. One of the roadblocks to patent "enforcement" is provability. In order to prove infringement you have to go through a rather laborous process of getting at the code that was used to implement it. This process is expensive, time consuming, and more often than not doesn't bear any fruit at all. In order to prove that Microsoft infringes on a algorithm level patent is going to require a LOT of effort just to get to the point where you can see if they actually infringe.
With open source software you simply look at the code. In this case the "openess" of open source software is a severe detriment. The biggest roadblock to patent enforcement is essentially removed.
At the same time you have the question of liability. While I can technically be liable for using a close source product that infringes, it's probably much easier (and more lucrative) to go after the company actually making the software. In the case of open source software, however, there is no central entity to pursue. Since everyone "owns" the code, everyone is potentially a target (see: SCO). Generally the person who wrote the code is actually the LAST one you'd sue (no $$$), while a big user (like the city of Munich) is a potentially profitable target.
That's why Linux is such a risk..
I ask you.. how the hell are you going to prevent him from driving? Prison at least lets us keep an eye on him without employing someone to follow him around every day.
If you have such little regard for human life that you watch DVD's while you drive.. then you deserve to spend time in jail where we can be sure you aren't out driving at all. It's that simple.
(Note: I have no idea if this guy was ACTUALLY watching a DVD while driving.. thus the IF)
(3) The same reason people climb K2
Uhm.. isn't that the 'ideology of adventure'?:)
The form factor means you can pull one out in a meeting without hiding behind a laptop screen, you can pass it around more easily to show people ideas and you can get information into it quicker.
This is what people don't "get" with tablets. They are PERFECT for situations where collaboration is important. Architects have to love these things (who are constantly manipulating things slightly and sharing that with a customer). Really anything that requires multiple people to look at the same screen is ideal for a tablet. It's not meant to REPLACE a laptop, but rather enable more optimal work in new and different situations.
Just FYI: "Substantially similiar" is a legally valid term that is suggesting that the code is a derivative work of the SCO code.
In order to violate copyright they don't need to be identical copies. Instead they need to show that they are substantially similiar (there it is) to each other, implying that the Linux version is derived from the original SCO code. At what point something stops being a derived work is a whole different mess...
One common example of this type of copyright dispute is in housing floorplans and architecture. Often someone will see a floorplan they like in a magazine (copyrighted), and move a few things around and have blueprints drawn from that. That's an infringement on the original copyright, because the resulting work is really just a derived form of the original.
SCO's claims fail on a number of levels, but your 'analysis' is more or less incorrect.
So your essentially saying that you should commit perjury? THAT's solid ground to be on.
It's not like Microsoft is any position to cut off the worlds leading supplier of desktop computers either. Microsoft NEEDS Dell. Since Microsoft is so dependent on cross-selling revenues (all of the software they sell on TOP of the OS), cutting off a major supplier really isn't an option.
(Incidentally they feed us BS saying that the real reason they issue cards is because those customers who have them tend to be more loyal and spend more than on your standard everyday credit card, but if that was the case why charge so much interest?)
Just FYI, there are two parties at work here. The retailer (such as BestBuy) and the credit issuer (I beleive BestBuy uses GE Credit).. So BestBuy doesn't have it's own credit agency. They just essentially stamp their name on a card issued by a 3rd party. The 3rd party sets the rate, and for these specialty retail cards they generally do it at a REALLY high rate, because that's in their best interest. The store is pushing these cards for the obvious reasons (they do tend to lock people into buying at the store, they provide a goldmine of customer data, and they provide a means to do all sorts of special promotions), which makes it easier for the issuer to slip in those obnoxiously high interest rates.