"How is this juicy? Gates and Ballmer have been asked by the people who own their company and all of the intellectual property if they have any plans of giving it all away for free. They said essentially "no", because then there'd be no business to speak of and all of your investments would be worthless."
From the transcript: "As in prior years, we have the company store here in an adjoining room, so that you have an opportunity to go in and purchase Microsoft products."
But I thought they OWNED the company? They have to purchase products that were the fruit of intellectual property that they OWN?
Did you happen to read the "owners" question? It seemed they thought the open-source model was better, and that Microsoft was "maybe on the wrong side of that trend of long-term?" Seems juicy to me.
"This was one of the last acts that the Clinton government did."
No shit, fuckwit. I was pointing out that the last act of EVERY presidency is pardoning a bunch of people that do not deserve pardons. Your bias against Clinton was showing through by trying to nitpick on HIS pardons.
"Also, there was a mere observation that the Clinton government was known to be corrupt while any speculation about Bush being corrupt is just that."
Sure. Let's see who has benefited from Dubya and Asscop. Microsoft for one. Have Microsoft executives been to the White House? Of course they wouldn't even THINK about talking about the years long anti-trust case. Of course not. Then there were the pharmaceutical executives, and lo and behold here comes a prescription drug card proposal that only benefits the manufacturers and not the pharmacies! Coincidence?
Then there were the secret energy meetings which produced an energy plan that looks like it was written by Ken Lay from Enron. "The Clinton government was known to be corrupt." At least Clinton tried to hide it a little better. Dubya is a cracker who is destined to be a one-termer just like his Daddy.
Oh, to answer your 'wonderful' point that, "We're comparing Clinton's administration which started this case to Bush's which abandoned the case", the reason that Bush abandoned the case was MONEY IN HIS POCKETS. i.e. BRIBERY.
"It is fact, however, that the Clinton administration pardoned several criminals who had contributed to the democratic campaign funds. It's only flamebait if you're clueless and don't watch the news at all. Go read up about this on cnn.com or your favorite news site. This was one of the last acts that the Clinton government did."
As opposed to Nixon being pardoned and all of the pardons that Reagan and DubyaDaddy doled out to Iran-Contra criminals.
I would advise you to go read up on that, because it is obvious that you are too young to have experienced them. Maybe your daddy can tell you about it. You can never deny that the 8 years under Clinton were the most prosperous for America, *EVER*.
You cannot deny the fact that the best thing to happen to Microsoft in 10 years was to have Dubya elected.
This is not the most balanced way to do anything. The government has WON. *They* should dictate the terms of any 'settlement'. Microsoft is having their cake and eating everybody elses too.
Hopefully the state attorney generals, who didn't receive all the campaign contributions that Dubya did, will not surrender. Why surrender when you have won the war?
"Continue to enjoy POP3 e-mail service, with an option to switch to the world's largest Web-based e-mail service, MSN Hotmail®, via MSN Internet Explorer and get up to nine e-mail screen names for you and the rest of your family. (Due to the Microsoft anti-spam initiative, customers are restricted to use their mail services. Therefore, POP3 service is only available when using MSN Explorer, Microsoft Outlook, or Microsoft Outlook Express.)"
You do know that Micro$oft products are the main cause of the many worms and viruses that plague the Internet. I absolutely REFUSE to use Micro$oft products to retrieve or send mail. This applies to everybody in my organization. Outlook is BANNED.
Please tell me how POP3 service, which is a standard that is not controlled by Micro$oft, can be controlled by Micro$oft? Are you saying that my Unix box cannot speak POP3 to your servers? My Unix box knows how to speak POP3!
Another thing...My company is not going to spend any time or money installing Outlook or any other Micro$oft product to use your service. If that is required, we will need to be released from our contract with no penalties.
Thanks in advance for your timely response.
P.S. Anti-spam? Micro$oft, Hotmail, MSN, etc, are the largest distributors of SPAM on the Net! Talk about an oxymoron!
"We're not talking about a bunch of farmers with pitchforks and torches, we're talking about a legitimate, large company."
Bwahahahahhaha. And as we have seen with Microsoft, 'legitimate' takes on a whole new meaning when that company has been 'convicted' of breaking laws itself. The Supreme Court of the US held up their conviction as well.
Law enforcement powers are not meant to be held by private companies. That is taking free market capitalism a wee bit too far.
Uh, the reason why we do not let vigilante justice reign supreme, is because "evidence" is sometimes very subjective, and judicial oversight keeps witchhunts from occuring.
And those "pirate" servers are usually small to medium sized businesses servers who would lose money and time if you "shut them down". The servers are being hijacked, but you would probably say it is their problem since they didn't patch their crappy Micro$oft serverware they probably pirated in the first place.
Of course you probably know these things which is why you posted your flamebait as an AC. And here I am, hook, line, and sinker.
Actually, the DoJ did not threaten anybody. At least not in this case. It was the RIAA that sent the letter to Felten saying if he published his research he could be prosecuted under the DMCA.
Asscroft and the DoJ were sued because they are the enforcers of the seriously flawed law called the DMCA.
What is particularly 'interesting' or 'insightful' about suggesting that Microsoft give up 25 billion dollars in revenue? At least the comment finally got modded down to the flamebait that it is.
Nobody, not even noone, would just give away 25 billion dollars because they might lose 10% of it. If you do the math, that would mean a 100% loss.
I'd be happy if Microsoft had the huevos to not even bother to dispute the charges and just pulled all of it's software out of the U.S., flipping them the bird and leaving them to scramble for dry ground.
Wasn't it Jefferson that wrote in the Federalist papers about the 'tyranny of the majority'? I hate the fact that if I question what the head cracker Dubya says or does I am somehow 'unpatriotic'.
There is a great line that I think Jello Biafra says at the beginning to an Ice-T song:
"The number one enemy of progress is questions."
And that is exactly what Asscroft said the other day when a senator had the gall to question the constitutionality of some of the provisions in MATA. "If you aren't with us, you must be against us."
No, MR. Asscroft, we are Americans who refuse to let the terrorists win by letting you take our freedoms without a fight.
From what I understand, you cannot read the EULA until you have purchased the product, opened the shrink wrap, and placed the CD in your CD-ROM and begun the install process.
So, if you end up disagreeing with the EULA, you cannot take it back because most stores do not allow returns of opened software if there was no defect.
Anyhow, I had the same concern that others who had been drinking in the car would set off the sensor. The article explained that the sensor would only work in a small area. And by placing the sensors strategically around the driver's seat, they only pick up the driver's 'emissions'.
I still disagree with the whole concept. If you have been convicted of DD, then whatever punishment that they give you is probably warranted. Having a homing beacon for cops in your car is not.
"How would you like to get pulled over on your way to work for having minty fresh breath?"
I've had the pleasure of messing around with a handheld breathalyzer. One of the weirdest things that we figured out was that a person would blow a.05 to.15 if they had just eaten a cinnamon roll. Maybe somebody has some insight on to why in the world that would happen, but imagine being pulled over for eating a pastry.
Maybe the cop would just confiscate it and let you go.
I am sure there will be a plethora of websites with step-by-step instructions on how to disable the offensive sensor for every model of car that installs them.
The only thing I want my car emitting is exhaust fumes and heat.
They are different. Guns kill. That is what they are for. Sex is hopefully not used as a weapon. Kids do not have hormonal urges to use guns. Well, actually, maybe in W. Virginia.
I consistantly reject your analogy between guns and sex. From Pulp Fiction(with a little embellishment): "Guns and sex are not the same thing. They aren't in the same ballpark. Hell, they aren't even the same sport."
Arguments against full disclosure are like arguments against sex education. Sure, there is this thing called 'sex', but we aren't going to tell you how to do it, or how to protect yourself. The whining about eEye overlooks one important aspect: CodeRed was not written by a script-kiddie. It may have been deployed by a script-kiddie, but it definitely was not written by one.
Let's say that eEye just released an advisory that said there was an overflow in the processing of default.ida. No more information than that. It would not take a skilled hacker very long to find the buffer overflow, and then exploit it. It doesn't matter if eEye says little or everything. The skilled hackers are going to find the hole themselves.
I believe the current system works as well as it can and should. When somebody finds a bug, they usually report it to the company, let them play with it for a week or so, work up a patch or workaround, and then it is posted publically on Bugtraq or some such list. Then somebody might write a proof-of-concept or an exploit, but will leave one part intentionally broken here or there so only people that can read the code and understand what is going on can fix it and use it. Bugtraq keeps companies accountable for their products security. Without it, there would definitely not be the same diligence at most companies responding to security concerns.
If you are going to teach sex, don't just say 'save it for marriage'; teach about condoms so people aren't caught with their pants down.
And those rich people were extremely prosperous under Clinton. I do find something wrong when 70% of Dubya's tax cut goes to only 1% of the country. People can whine all day about how the top 1% pays xx% of the taxes, but that doesn't change the fact that I am not getting anywhere close to the kind of break that they are. It was payoff to his biggest contributors. Just like the new energy plan which is Corporate Welfare for big oil.
"If you do not accept that fundamental truth then, frankly, you don't belong in this country."
Whether I belong here or not is not predicated on my beliefs. Having an exclusionary attitude like that is not very American.
Stem cells : "I am for it as long as there are basic ethical checks imposed on it.
No... not to please religious types but to prevent research from degenerating into Mendele style cruelty."
I can agree with you there. I am interested in knowing what you consider 'basic ethical checks'. Do you think it is the job of the executive branch to decide what those 'basic ethical checks' are? I, personally, do not. Hopefully congress will take up the issue and broaden the researchers options.
Your last comment almost seems like a intentional invocation of Godwin's Law, but oh well.
"Who gives a fuck about your mental masturbation...
He is the president and , guess what, will be better remembered than Clinton ( not to even mention Carter)"
I guess you cared enough to respond. And I doubt any president will be remembered like Clinton will be remembered. America had 8 years of prosperity never seen before under Clinton. And he didn't try to derail the economy with a rich man's tax cut like Reagan and Bush.
Back to stem cells, I am for research. What's your opinion?
I bet money before the announcement that Dubya would try to have it both ways. Which is exactly what he is trying to do. If you are going to permit the research, why tie the researchers hands with this silly, arbitrary 60 cell line limit? It's rediculous. Especially considering a conservative estimate is over 100 cell lines existing already. Where the hell did he get this 60 number from?
Also, who gives a shit if the pope wants to cry crocodile tears over a handful of cells? The catholic church had no problem with abortion when Aquinas decided that ensoulment happened at 40 days for boy children and 80 days for girls. Abortion was just fine up until 'quickening' which is around 4-5 months. Anti-choice is a new concept, just like having 'In Gh0d we Trust' on our money.
This just proves that Dubya is a full blown hypocrite, like most anti-choicers. If they truly believed they were killing 'human beings', then there would be no justification whatsoever for stem cell research, or abortion for the mother's health, rape, or incest. If they do support that, then they are supporting the wanton slaughter of millions of PEOPLE$#@!
Let's forget also about the hundreds of thousands of embryos that are discarded because of fertility treatments. Think of all the narcissistic anti-choicers that have 20 embryos created to implant 5 that only 1 makes it to full term. That's 19 people killed for the benefit of one. Republicans and anti-choicers need to keep their hypocritical mouths shut and go petition to have mentally retarted people put to death, like in the great state of Texas.
It still boggles my mind that we elected(or the supreme court selected) a president whose only accomplishment was having a daddy that was president. Dubya will be a one termer like his daddy, which provides me with some solace.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah! It's obvious that the normal guy on the street doesn't give a rat's ass about his privacy, or he wouldn't be on the street!
"How is this juicy? Gates and Ballmer have been asked by the people who own their company and all of the intellectual property if they have any plans of giving it all away for free. They said essentially "no", because then there'd be no business to speak of and all of your investments would be worthless."
From the transcript: "As in prior years, we have the company store here in an adjoining room, so that you have an opportunity to go in and purchase Microsoft products."
But I thought they OWNED the company? They have to purchase products that were the fruit of intellectual property that they OWN?
Did you happen to read the "owners" question? It seemed they thought the open-source model was better, and that Microsoft was "maybe on the wrong side of that trend of long-term?" Seems juicy to me.
I didn't know that for something to be funny it had to be true.
Thanks for clearing that up.
See my email address? If you wish to continue our discussion, use it.
You said, speaking of pardons:
"This was one of the last acts that the Clinton government did."
No shit, fuckwit. I was pointing out that the last act of EVERY presidency is pardoning a bunch of people that do not deserve pardons. Your bias against Clinton was showing through by trying to nitpick on HIS pardons.
"Also, there was a mere observation that the Clinton government was known to be corrupt while any speculation about Bush being corrupt is just that."
Sure. Let's see who has benefited from Dubya and Asscop. Microsoft for one. Have Microsoft executives been to the White House? Of course they wouldn't even THINK about talking about the years long anti-trust case. Of course not. Then there were the pharmaceutical executives, and lo and behold here comes a prescription drug card proposal that only benefits the manufacturers and not the pharmacies! Coincidence?
Then there were the secret energy meetings which produced an energy plan that looks like it was written by Ken Lay from Enron. "The Clinton government was known to be corrupt." At least Clinton tried to hide it a little better. Dubya is a cracker who is destined to be a one-termer just like his Daddy.
Oh, to answer your 'wonderful' point that, "We're comparing Clinton's administration which started this case to Bush's which abandoned the case", the reason that Bush abandoned the case was MONEY IN HIS POCKETS. i.e. BRIBERY.
Thanks for playing!
"It is fact, however, that the Clinton administration pardoned several criminals who had contributed to the democratic campaign funds. It's only flamebait if you're clueless and don't watch the news at all. Go read up about this on cnn.com or your favorite news site. This was one of the last acts that the Clinton government did."
As opposed to Nixon being pardoned and all of the pardons that Reagan and DubyaDaddy doled out to Iran-Contra criminals.
I would advise you to go read up on that, because it is obvious that you are too young to have experienced them. Maybe your daddy can tell you about it. You can never deny that the 8 years under Clinton were the most prosperous for America, *EVER*.
As opposed to a corporation running everything.
Look, *you* are the one that voted for somebody whose only qualification for office was that his daddy spent one miserable term there.
THAT is being an idiot, idiot.
You cannot deny the fact that the best thing to happen to Microsoft in 10 years was to have Dubya elected.
This is not the most balanced way to do anything. The government has WON. *They* should dictate the terms of any 'settlement'. Microsoft is having their cake and eating everybody elses too.
Hopefully the state attorney generals, who didn't receive all the campaign contributions that Dubya did, will not surrender. Why surrender when you have won the war?
This is disturbing -
"Continue to enjoy POP3 e-mail service, with an option to switch to the world's largest Web-based e-mail service, MSN Hotmail®, via MSN Internet Explorer and get up to nine e-mail screen names for you and the rest of your family. (Due to the Microsoft anti-spam initiative, customers are restricted to use their mail services. Therefore, POP3 service is only available when using MSN Explorer, Microsoft Outlook, or Microsoft Outlook Express.)"
You do know that Micro$oft products are the main cause of the many worms and viruses that plague the Internet. I absolutely REFUSE to use Micro$oft products to retrieve or send mail. This applies to everybody in my organization. Outlook is BANNED.
Please tell me how POP3 service, which is a standard that is not controlled by Micro$oft, can be controlled by Micro$oft? Are you saying that my Unix box cannot speak POP3 to your servers? My Unix box knows how to speak POP3!
Another thing...My company is not going to spend any time or money installing Outlook or any other Micro$oft product to use your service. If that is required, we will need to be released from our contract with no penalties.
Thanks in advance for your timely response.
P.S. Anti-spam? Micro$oft, Hotmail, MSN, etc, are the largest distributors of SPAM on the Net! Talk about an oxymoron!
"We're not talking about a bunch of farmers with pitchforks and torches, we're talking about a legitimate, large company."
Bwahahahahhaha. And as we have seen with Microsoft, 'legitimate' takes on a whole new meaning when that company has been 'convicted' of breaking laws itself. The Supreme Court of the US held up their conviction as well.
Law enforcement powers are not meant to be held by private companies. That is taking free market capitalism a wee bit too far.
Uh, the reason why we do not let vigilante justice reign supreme, is because "evidence" is sometimes very subjective, and judicial oversight keeps witchhunts from occuring.
And those "pirate" servers are usually small to medium sized businesses servers who would lose money and time if you "shut them down". The servers are being hijacked, but you would probably say it is their problem since they didn't patch their crappy Micro$oft serverware they probably pirated in the first place.
Of course you probably know these things which is why you posted your flamebait as an AC. And here I am, hook, line, and sinker.
Actually, the DoJ did not threaten anybody. At least not in this case. It was the RIAA that sent the letter to Felten saying if he published his research he could be prosecuted under the DMCA.
Asscroft and the DoJ were sued because they are the enforcers of the seriously flawed law called the DMCA.
To be completely anal, of course.
What is particularly 'interesting' or 'insightful' about suggesting that Microsoft give up 25 billion dollars in revenue? At least the comment finally got modded down to the flamebait that it is.
Nobody, not even noone, would just give away 25 billion dollars because they might lose 10% of it. If you do the math, that would mean a 100% loss.
Score 3 "Interesting"?
I'd be happy if Microsoft had the huevos to not even bother to dispute the charges and just pulled all of it's software out of the U.S., flipping them the bird and leaving them to scramble for dry ground.
Wasn't it Jefferson that wrote in the Federalist papers about the 'tyranny of the majority'? I hate the fact that if I question what the head cracker Dubya says or does I am somehow 'unpatriotic'.
There is a great line that I think Jello Biafra says at the beginning to an Ice-T song:
"The number one enemy of progress is questions."
And that is exactly what Asscroft said the other day when a senator had the gall to question the constitutionality of some of the provisions in MATA. "If you aren't with us, you must be against us."
No, MR. Asscroft, we are Americans who refuse to let the terrorists win by letting you take our freedoms without a fight.
From what I understand, you cannot read the EULA until you have purchased the product, opened the shrink wrap, and placed the CD in your CD-ROM and begun the install process.
So, if you end up disagreeing with the EULA, you cannot take it back because most stores do not allow returns of opened software if there was no defect.
Do I have this right?
They are called 'blow n gos' down here is Texas.
Anyhow, I had the same concern that others who had been drinking in the car would set off the sensor. The article explained that the sensor would only work in a small area. And by placing the sensors strategically around the driver's seat, they only pick up the driver's 'emissions'.
I still disagree with the whole concept. If you have been convicted of DD, then whatever punishment that they give you is probably warranted. Having a homing beacon for cops in your car is not.
"How would you like to get pulled over on your way to work for having minty fresh breath?"
.05 to .15 if they had just eaten a cinnamon roll. Maybe somebody has some insight on to why in the world that would happen, but imagine being pulled over for eating a pastry.
I've had the pleasure of messing around with a handheld breathalyzer. One of the weirdest things that we figured out was that a person would blow a
Maybe the cop would just confiscate it and let you go.
I am sure there will be a plethora of websites with step-by-step instructions on how to disable the offensive sensor for every model of car that installs them.
The only thing I want my car emitting is exhaust fumes and heat.
Scored '4' insightful? What is insightful about attacking strawmans and non sequitors? He didn't even read the article.
The only thing grass-roots going on in is in your pipe.
They are different. Guns kill. That is what they are for. Sex is hopefully not used as a weapon. Kids do not have hormonal urges to use guns. Well, actually, maybe in W. Virginia.
I consistantly reject your analogy between guns and sex. From Pulp Fiction(with a little embellishment): "Guns and sex are not the same thing. They aren't in the same ballpark. Hell, they aren't even the same sport."
Arguments against full disclosure are like arguments against sex education. Sure, there is this thing called 'sex', but we aren't going to tell you how to do it, or how to protect yourself. The whining about eEye overlooks one important aspect: CodeRed was not written by a script-kiddie. It may have been deployed by a script-kiddie, but it definitely was not written by one.
Let's say that eEye just released an advisory that said there was an overflow in the processing of default.ida. No more information than that. It would not take a skilled hacker very long to find the buffer overflow, and then exploit it. It doesn't matter if eEye says little or everything. The skilled hackers are going to find the hole themselves.
I believe the current system works as well as it can and should. When somebody finds a bug, they usually report it to the company, let them play with it for a week or so, work up a patch or workaround, and then it is posted publically on Bugtraq or some such list. Then somebody might write a proof-of-concept or an exploit, but will leave one part intentionally broken here or there so only people that can read the code and understand what is going on can fix it and use it. Bugtraq keeps companies accountable for their products security. Without it, there would definitely not be the same diligence at most companies responding to security concerns.
If you are going to teach sex, don't just say 'save it for marriage'; teach about condoms so people aren't caught with their pants down.
"Prosperity IS created by rich people."
... not to please religious types but to prevent research from degenerating into Mendele style cruelty."
And those rich people were extremely prosperous under Clinton. I do find something wrong when 70% of Dubya's tax cut goes to only 1% of the country. People can whine all day about how the top 1% pays xx% of the taxes, but that doesn't change the fact that I am not getting anywhere close to the kind of break that they are. It was payoff to his biggest contributors. Just like the new energy plan which is Corporate Welfare for big oil.
"If you do not accept that fundamental truth then, frankly, you don't belong in this country."
Whether I belong here or not is not predicated on my beliefs. Having an exclusionary attitude like that is not very American.
Stem cells : "I am for it as long as there are basic ethical checks imposed on it.
No
I can agree with you there. I am interested in knowing what you consider 'basic ethical checks'. Do you think it is the job of the executive branch to decide what those 'basic ethical checks' are? I, personally, do not. Hopefully congress will take up the issue and broaden the researchers options.
Your last comment almost seems like a intentional invocation of Godwin's Law, but oh well.
"Who gives a fuck about your mental masturbation ...
He is the president and , guess what, will be better remembered than Clinton ( not to even mention Carter)"
I guess you cared enough to respond. And I doubt any president will be remembered like Clinton will be remembered. America had 8 years of prosperity never seen before under Clinton. And he didn't try to derail the economy with a rich man's tax cut like Reagan and Bush.
Back to stem cells, I am for research. What's your opinion?
I bet money before the announcement that Dubya would try to have it both ways. Which is exactly what he is trying to do. If you are going to permit the research, why tie the researchers hands with this silly, arbitrary 60 cell line limit? It's rediculous. Especially considering a conservative estimate is over 100 cell lines existing already. Where the hell did he get this 60 number from?
Also, who gives a shit if the pope wants to cry crocodile tears over a handful of cells? The catholic church had no problem with abortion when Aquinas decided that ensoulment happened at 40 days for boy children and 80 days for girls. Abortion was just fine up until 'quickening' which is around 4-5 months. Anti-choice is a new concept, just like having 'In Gh0d we Trust' on our money.
This just proves that Dubya is a full blown hypocrite, like most anti-choicers. If they truly believed they were killing 'human beings', then there would be no justification whatsoever for stem cell research, or abortion for the mother's health, rape, or incest. If they do support that, then they are supporting the wanton slaughter of millions of PEOPLE$#@!
Let's forget also about the hundreds of thousands of embryos that are discarded because of fertility treatments. Think of all the narcissistic anti-choicers that have 20 embryos created to implant 5 that only 1 makes it to full term. That's 19 people killed for the benefit of one. Republicans and anti-choicers need to keep their hypocritical mouths shut and go petition to have mentally retarted people put to death, like in the great state of Texas.
It still boggles my mind that we elected(or the supreme court selected) a president whose only accomplishment was having a daddy that was president. Dubya will be a one termer like his daddy, which provides me with some solace.