I am of the opinion that what Comcast has done, in regards to its cable television theft problem, is perfectly legit. They own the cable box, they own the cable television distribution. People are modifying Comcast's equipment and also stealing the bread and butter of Comcast. They deserve what they get for stealing.
Of course, the sad thing is that those areas of Michigan aren't known for having the highest of income levels. Those 16 households that didn't contact Comcast are probably barely treading water over their debt. Then they receive some gigantic, "We believe that you have stolen our cable for 2 years" bill, which probably amounts to a few grand or more.
Some people believe that if they ignore something, it will go away. That is probably what those 16 households were thinking... I know, it is bizarre to think that way, but people do think that way.
What Comcast should do, is simply refuse to service those "customers". It would probably be a much more fiscally responsible thing to do. If those people are to the hilt with debt. Comcast will get stuck with a giant lawyer bill and those people will be forced to declare bankruptcy and may end up losing everything that they barely own. 16 families out in the street.
First off, if you live in the city then you wouldn't see the wild cats. Secondly, perhaps you are forgetting that in the 60's it was rather posh to have big cats for pets. Then there were a series of attacks by leased big cats and some laws were put into place to license the owners of those exotic animals.
Everytime a law like that is enacted, people simply go to the woods and release their "domesticated" animals. There have been more than enough sighting and video footage, not to mention dung samples, that prove that there are some wild big cats running about England.
Besides, you must be daft to think that England is nothing but populated spaces. The last time I looked at anything about England cities only covered a small portion of the countryside.
As for them taking over the planet? No, I don't see that happening. I see them hiding, like big cats and attacking humans with a cunning that we may not quite understand. Perhaps, they are just big dumb lizards. However, they could be more or at least some of them could be more.
I am personally not scared of much, other than our own human stupidity. We are not the most powerful of creatures to exist. We do have our minds, but a mind doesn't mean anything if we are trapped in an alleyway without something to use as a weapon.
You see, in order for a human to be dangerous, we need to use a tool. If we haven't a tool, then we really aren't all that dangerous. Kung-Fu won't do jack against a 20 foot tall raging carnivore, hell it wouldn't do jack against a smaller rabid animal.
The only fear that I have is our own stupidity will be our undoing.
However, if some scientists are right and the Dinosaurs were warm-blooded, we could have a spot of trouble. They would also be more aclimated to our time since they would have been created in our time already exposed to the micrsoscopic bugs that we have all around us.
You see, when they were being developed in the "womb" they are given exposure to the diseases that the mother creature was exposed to. This would help them create immunity to the diseases that are prevelant.
Of course, they may require more oxygen to breath than us. Which, might mean they take deeper breaths. This could lead to higher percentages of asthma afflicted Dinosaurs...
Then there would be the scientists mucking about with their genetic make-up so that they would better survive our modern climate. All for the good of science and mankind mind you. They would be foolishly creating a super species of Dinosaur without even thinking of the consequences of their actions.
I have noted that people rarely consider the consequences of their actions. I must say that I am indeed one of those people. Although, I have yet to really do something truly terrible and idiotic...
I believe that instincts would win out over any training that we could give such an animal. It took thousands of years to domesticate the dog and sorta domesticate the cat.
I highly doubt that a giant carnivore like a T. Rex would simply roll over and let one scratch its belly.
Imagine if a few of them got loose in the countryside. If they were able to hide and reproduce, like the many wild jungle cats running around in England these days, we would have a serious problem on our hands.
In time, these "domesticated" carnivores would become the wild carnivoruous creatures that they evolved into millions of years ago.
Anyone that thinks otherwise should start talking to Lion and Tiger trainers to find out how "trusting" they are of all their cats.
Heck, recently a zoologist had her arm torn off by a "domestic" lion or tiger while giving a tour to her family. This lion or tiger, probably saw this zoologist every single day. She probably fed and cared for this big cat all of the time. Still the damnable thing TORE off her arm. It didn't even give a second thought.
You think that a "domestic" T. Rex will never do such a thing?
I saw astory about the possibility that the Tasmania Tiger never really became extinct. They just "disappeared".
The show displayed some evidence of the possibility of one of those creatures having been shot dead in the 60's, plus some interesting film from the 70's(?) that showed a creature running, that based upon the make-up of the Tasmanian Tiger, could almost be nothing else.
It would be interesting to see if Scientists could recreate cush a creature, although there is a place where we really should draw the line, otherwise we may end up with some bizarre Jurasic Park in real life.
While it could be exciting, I don't think that it would be quite as fun as the movie. You know, sice real people could be eaten by real dinosaurs.
Dangerous animals should never be cloned. Only a few "non-dangerous" animals should be. Not for anything other than scientific curiosity.
There is little to no need to have thousands of Whooly Mammoths running about. Unless of course, we are going to use them as a food source. But who wants to run around in a loin clothe or naked after some giant hairy elephant? Besides, it would probably cost to much to feed a herd of those creatures...
Pass a law that states that all minors should be kept locked up in little rooms until after they hit the age of 21. You know, because if they are allowed to exist within society there is a mild possibility that they could be exposed to the wrong things.
That would probably also give those parents, that have no real desire to be involved, let alone raise their children, the right to keep their children locked up and safe, just like they want them to be.
I read that Bruce played the part of the ring announcer near the beginning of the film. I am so glad that they included that portion of Spider-Man's creation...
If you didn't know anything about MS Word, then you shouldn't bother continuing to live. MS Word is the basis of our modern society. Without MS Word, we Couldn't have the US Constitution! Without MS Word, we wouldn't have wonderful, powerful laws like the DMCA.
Geeze, they even teach MS Word in school these days. MS Word is the only application that you are allowed to even write in. I think that they should outlaw every other method of generating text. Especially that dreadfully awful and bland thing called "vi" and that other one called "emacs". I mean who the heck wants to use a word processor with a name like either of those?
My mouth feels funny just saying those words...
(Of course, if you wish to buy a bridge. I happen to own a few that I would be willing to sell...):)
While you could end up looking at a higher-interest rate single loan. These companies can typically help you get into a lower monthly payment.
At that point, you can do some serious saving and once you have a comfortable amount of extra savings, which should be much more than 3 months of living expenses, then start paying more on that single loan.
That is my suggestion. However, I am not a professional and must state that my above statement has to be taken with a large grain of Rock Salt. I offer no warranty, or claims that your debt issues will be resolved by following the aforementioned advice. Any choice that you make, is a choice that you make.
I get a Ninja Android robot body just like Walt Disney's Brain will have one day. Then I can follow the Ninja Android Body's purpose, which is to flip out and kill people.
Then nobody would mess with me!
I could simply be walking down the street as a Ninja Android and people would look at me and say stuff like, "Damn, he is so cool."
Of course, I would have to flip out and kill them then, nobody would be allowed to say "damn" near me. I wouldn't get into any trouble either!
You know, because a Ninja's purpose is to flip out and kill people. Since I would do that, I would be fulfilling my purpose.
Being an ultra-sophisticated Android Ninja sorta precludes being a mammal. Of course, since only Disney employees will bow down to him, he will have to fight all of the time, just a like a real Ninja.
His brain was kept intact to be inserted into a ultra-sophisticated Ninja android whose purpose is to flip out and kill people!
The preliminary work with the animatronics of the Hall of Presidents and that home of the future thing were just the beginning. The additional work with that Robin Williams, voiced Time-Travel Robot thing is a closer step...
Soon, Walt will return for us to bow down to his greatness! Otherwise, he will just flip out and kill people, just like a real Ninja!
To have one's girlfriend like the look of Linux when running a nice desktop, like KDE. Although, I have to say that it is even better when your lady just loves Linux for its UNIX roots. (kinda like my lady.) Well, actually she is really interested in learning UNIX, Linux and Networking. (She is finishing a masters in MIS, specifically SAP and in finds it not quite technical enough.)
I prefer to have higher bitrate MP3s than most of the MP3s that are available through those services.
For instance, many of the files that I have downloaded are set at 96, 119 or 128 bitrates. While those are not bad, they are not perfect either.
I am less concerned about space, having many hard drives and often rip CDs to 192 bitrates. I have Bose Computer Speakers and a Soundblaster Live! Sound card. You can tell the difference, if you have a good ear.
I like Ebert's plan to take that protected CD and play it from your stereo to your computer in jack. However, I own not a single stereo system.
In the car, I listen to NPR. At home, I sometimes listen to music, from CDs that I have bought and subsequently stored in a safe place after turning them into MP3s. If I wish to listen to a radio station, again it is NPR and streamed off of the internet.
I normally never buy music. When Napster was out, I checked it out. Downloaded a few songs, used the chat feature and was turned on to a few more bands and groups. I downloaded their songs and later found myself buying them at the local music store.
Now that Napster is gone. I am back to listening to the music that my friends listen to. Sometimes, I pick up something that they listen. My listening circle has greatly shrunk these days.
All I can say is way to go RIAA! They get less of my money these days. Which works for me as it is always nice to save a few bucks.
Knowing that something works and being the one to make the decision means nothing when you are but one member of a nearly 900+ person IT division that is built in some strange highschool/machiavelian heirarchy that shuns the ability to critically think and only accepts "yes-men" for the positions between you and the decision makers.
In this IT "wonderland", the people at the top have no idea what is like to attempt to support someone that has no computer experience or desire to use a computer through the process of an application installation. Even with perfect instructions that HAND-HOLD them through every single CLICK of the mouse! The end-users still have trouble with this.
This is a project built without focus groups by people that have no desire to interact with the end-users. They talk up new technology and sell it like it will fix everything. All it has done so far is chew up more bandwidth, cost money and require radical changes midstream (Several Times). These are things that you just do not do with a production system that supports thousands of users.
When a problem is found, there is not a single person to take responsibility for that mistake. The mistake floats around for a few weeks/months (YES MONTHS) before someone or group does something about it. This is typically done without letting anyone know that it has been fixed, because if anyone knew, then responsibility could be put upon someone.
This is the most bizarre companies that I have ever worked for. They are a popular company as well. Most people see their product every single day. (If they go outside and drive a car that is...) That is all of the hints that I feel safe coughing up.
...designed for the consumer market, not the corporate market. So, it really is no wonder that it was simply found to be inadequete for the needs of the corporate users.
Of course, it probably didn't help that the reputation of people with the following addresses. (You know there is that stigma about people that use AOL.):
Editor_in_Chief_Time@aol.com
Technology_Correspondent_Time@aol.com
Enough of the fun though. This problem is not an isolated incident with AOL. This type of thing is how most large businesses are run. Someone high-up gets this hairbrained idea and then pushes it through. Regardless of how inadequete the technology is and how difficult the transition can be.
I work in a situation similar to that right now. It used to be that the outlying vendors, of this major corporation, used to interact with ordering replacement units, checking on warranty status and recieving corporate memos through a satellite connection on dumb terminals.
Now, someone has gotten the bright idea that they need to change from dumb terminals, to having full blown MS Windows machines running a web browser to perform those same tasks. These days, the time to perform the simplest task takes nearly three times what it used to (For both relearning and simply downloading nearly one hundred times the old amount of data.)
The other major problem is, instead of dumb terminals that the end-users are unable to fiddle with. They now have MS Windows machines that they are responsible to maintain, which is the farthest thing from their mind.
To them, the new stuff is hard, slow and a royal pain in the rear.
Unfortunately, someone got a bug in their rear to push forward this great new technology. So, that is what is happening. I can see them going back to the way it used to be in about 5 to 10 years, after they "recoup" the losses in development and find out how much money it is going to cost them to have phone support staff handle the call volume.
Well, whenever it is posted to Slashdot, the FTP servers get swallowed up for a good week or so.
My local cable operator ties into the OC3 that runs a few blocks behind my house. I typically get 3megabit+ downloads from the colleges at the other end of the OC3. That is until a new Linux ISO appears on their servers...
It is kinda nice living along the line between a military base, a GIANT Automaker campus and the state colleges. Because of that, I typically receive much higher than a full T-1 Line download.
I am very impressed with the tools that they are inlcuding in this release. The best is the ability to RIGHT-CLICK on a folder and then LEFT-CLICK on SHARE!!!
That is the greatest feature to add to Linux. The medium sized computer manufacturer that I work for is very interested in being able to use Linux in their Server products. Since most of their technical staff and clients have no interest in learning how to configure Samba, this will be a great help.
Now, all they will have to do is have me or a few of the other techs, go by the machines, or SSH into them to update them on occasion.
Mandrake is truly bringing Linux to the masses.
With this one feature, the market share and thus the potential number of commercial products for Linux can and hopefully will increase dramatically.
In the article, it mentions that those systems will need to be brought up and conected to the internet. Based upon the intelligence of most criminals, do you think they will know how to alter a Linux password?
Again, do you think that they will know that there is a Linux partition if that is only accesible with a boot disk?
One last thing. If a thief of my laptop actually knew how to overcome what you have described. Why the hell would he/she hook the system up to the internet? They would peruse my hard drive for files they might like, then wipe the drives clean and put what they want on the machine. Then and only then would they hit the internet with the laptop.
Does that make it clearer as to why that software is useless to me?
-- .sig seperator --
The problem that I am referring to is how useless that software would be for me, since the thief would be unable to access my system, let alone get it on the internet without wiping the hard drive.
They are software solutions. They require the operating system to be operating and they rely on the stupidity of the thief.
What happens when your stolen laptop is running a "secure" operating system? In the case of my laptop, I am dual-booting both Windows 2000 Professional and Red Hat Linux 7.2. I have both OSes password protected.
The only method for the crooks to be able to use my machine would be to either replace the hard drive, fdisk the drives and reinstall an operating system. So, how would these wonderful software solutions work in my case? Oh, that's right, they won't ever work for me.
These services are only good for those that are running insecure operating systems on their laptops, or "secure" operating systems that have no passwords and save the last user account information in the login scren.
I find it sorta funny that Mundie would actually state something along the lines of, "There is this notion that people should have a choice."
How I find that funny is that in the past he has proclaimed how "Un-American" the GPL and OSS is. Of course, I believe that he never claims that MS is a for American standards of freedom, choice. A number of his statements are the sort of thing that one would expect from a dictatorship or the "American idea" of what the old Soviet Block was and may actually have been.
MS will indeed ship you, on their ticket, a replacement CD. Of course, it is no easy matter to get a CD from them, you have to be pretty darn cranky. You also must have registered the software in your name to them.
However, once you do that, they actually follow normal terms for the license of a product.
Slashdot Mirror
I am of the opinion that what Comcast has done, in regards to its cable television theft problem, is perfectly legit. They own the cable box, they own the cable television distribution. People are modifying Comcast's equipment and also stealing the bread and butter of Comcast. They deserve what they get for stealing.
Of course, the sad thing is that those areas of Michigan aren't known for having the highest of income levels. Those 16 households that didn't contact Comcast are probably barely treading water over their debt. Then they receive some gigantic, "We believe that you have stolen our cable for 2 years" bill, which probably amounts to a few grand or more.
Some people believe that if they ignore something, it will go away. That is probably what those 16 households were thinking... I know, it is bizarre to think that way, but people do think that way.
What Comcast should do, is simply refuse to service those "customers". It would probably be a much more fiscally responsible thing to do. If those people are to the hilt with debt. Comcast will get stuck with a giant lawyer bill and those people will be forced to declare bankruptcy and may end up losing everything that they barely own. 16 families out in the street.
Way to go Comcast.
First off, if you live in the city then you wouldn't see the wild cats. Secondly, perhaps you are forgetting that in the 60's it was rather posh to have big cats for pets. Then there were a series of attacks by leased big cats and some laws were put into place to license the owners of those exotic animals.
Everytime a law like that is enacted, people simply go to the woods and release their "domesticated" animals. There have been more than enough sighting and video footage, not to mention dung samples, that prove that there are some wild big cats running about England.
Besides, you must be daft to think that England is nothing but populated spaces. The last time I looked at anything about England cities only covered a small portion of the countryside.
As for them taking over the planet? No, I don't see that happening. I see them hiding, like big cats and attacking humans with a cunning that we may not quite understand. Perhaps, they are just big dumb lizards. However, they could be more or at least some of them could be more.
I am personally not scared of much, other than our own human stupidity. We are not the most powerful of creatures to exist. We do have our minds, but a mind doesn't mean anything if we are trapped in an alleyway without something to use as a weapon.
You see, in order for a human to be dangerous, we need to use a tool. If we haven't a tool, then we really aren't all that dangerous. Kung-Fu won't do jack against a 20 foot tall raging carnivore, hell it wouldn't do jack against a smaller rabid animal.
The only fear that I have is our own stupidity will be our undoing.
--
Yeah, until you are the zookeeper showing off the zoo to your family... Then you lose an arm...
Of course, we will never know for sure.
However, if some scientists are right and the Dinosaurs were warm-blooded, we could have a spot of trouble. They would also be more aclimated to our time since they would have been created in our time already exposed to the micrsoscopic bugs that we have all around us.
You see, when they were being developed in the "womb" they are given exposure to the diseases that the mother creature was exposed to. This would help them create immunity to the diseases that are prevelant.
Of course, they may require more oxygen to breath than us. Which, might mean they take deeper breaths. This could lead to higher percentages of asthma afflicted Dinosaurs...
Then there would be the scientists mucking about with their genetic make-up so that they would better survive our modern climate. All for the good of science and mankind mind you. They would be foolishly creating a super species of Dinosaur without even thinking of the consequences of their actions.
I have noted that people rarely consider the consequences of their actions. I must say that I am indeed one of those people. Although, I have yet to really do something truly terrible and idiotic...
--
I believe that instincts would win out over any training that we could give such an animal. It took thousands of years to domesticate the dog and sorta domesticate the cat.
I highly doubt that a giant carnivore like a T. Rex would simply roll over and let one scratch its belly.
Imagine if a few of them got loose in the countryside. If they were able to hide and reproduce, like the many wild jungle cats running around in England these days, we would have a serious problem on our hands.
In time, these "domesticated" carnivores would become the wild carnivoruous creatures that they evolved into millions of years ago.
Anyone that thinks otherwise should start talking to Lion and Tiger trainers to find out how "trusting" they are of all their cats.
Heck, recently a zoologist had her arm torn off by a "domestic" lion or tiger while giving a tour to her family. This lion or tiger, probably saw this zoologist every single day. She probably fed and cared for this big cat all of the time. Still the damnable thing TORE off her arm. It didn't even give a second thought.
You think that a "domestic" T. Rex will never do such a thing?
--
I saw astory about the possibility that the Tasmania Tiger never really became extinct. They just "disappeared".
The show displayed some evidence of the possibility of one of those creatures having been shot dead in the 60's, plus some interesting film from the 70's(?) that showed a creature running, that based upon the make-up of the Tasmanian Tiger, could almost be nothing else.
It would be interesting to see if Scientists could recreate cush a creature, although there is a place where we really should draw the line, otherwise we may end up with some bizarre Jurasic Park in real life.
While it could be exciting, I don't think that it would be quite as fun as the movie. You know, sice real people could be eaten by real dinosaurs.
Dangerous animals should never be cloned. Only a few "non-dangerous" animals should be. Not for anything other than scientific curiosity.
There is little to no need to have thousands of Whooly Mammoths running about. Unless of course, we are going to use them as a food source. But who wants to run around in a loin clothe or naked after some giant hairy elephant? Besides, it would probably cost to much to feed a herd of those creatures...
--
Pass a law that states that all minors should be kept locked up in little rooms until after they hit the age of 21. You know, because if they are allowed to exist within society there is a mild possibility that they could be exposed to the wrong things.
That would probably also give those parents, that have no real desire to be involved, let alone raise their children, the right to keep their children locked up and safe, just like they want them to be.
--
I read that Bruce played the part of the ring announcer near the beginning of the film. I am so glad that they included that portion of Spider-Man's creation...
If you didn't know anything about MS Word, then you shouldn't bother continuing to live. MS Word is the basis of our modern society. Without MS Word, we Couldn't have the US Constitution! Without MS Word, we wouldn't have wonderful, powerful laws like the DMCA.
Geeze, they even teach MS Word in school these days. MS Word is the only application that you are allowed to even write in. I think that they should outlaw every other method of generating text. Especially that dreadfully awful and bland thing called "vi" and that other one called "emacs". I mean who the heck wants to use a word processor with a name like either of those?
My mouth feels funny just saying those words...
(Of course, if you wish to buy a bridge. I happen to own a few that I would be willing to sell...)
--
While you could end up looking at a higher-interest rate single loan. These companies can typically help you get into a lower monthly payment.
At that point, you can do some serious saving and once you have a comfortable amount of extra savings, which should be much more than 3 months of living expenses, then start paying more on that single loan.
That is my suggestion. However, I am not a professional and must state that my above statement has to be taken with a large grain of Rock Salt. I offer no warranty, or claims that your debt issues will be resolved by following the aforementioned advice. Any choice that you make, is a choice that you make.
--
I get a Ninja Android robot body just like Walt Disney's Brain will have one day. Then I can follow the Ninja Android Body's purpose, which is to flip out and kill people.
Then nobody would mess with me!
I could simply be walking down the street as a Ninja Android and people would look at me and say stuff like, "Damn, he is so cool."
Of course, I would have to flip out and kill them then, nobody would be allowed to say "damn" near me. I wouldn't get into any trouble either!
You know, because a Ninja's purpose is to flip out and kill people. Since I would do that, I would be fulfilling my purpose.
--
Being an ultra-sophisticated Android Ninja sorta precludes being a mammal. Of course, since only Disney employees will bow down to him, he will have to fight all of the time, just a like a real Ninja.
His brain was kept intact to be inserted into a ultra-sophisticated Ninja android whose purpose is to flip out and kill people!
The preliminary work with the animatronics of the Hall of Presidents and that home of the future thing were just the beginning. The additional work with that Robin Williams, voiced Time-Travel Robot thing is a closer step...
Soon, Walt will return for us to bow down to his greatness! Otherwise, he will just flip out and kill people, just like a real Ninja!
It's funny, laugh.
---
.sig seperator
---
To have one's girlfriend like the look of Linux when running a nice desktop, like KDE. Although, I have to say that it is even better when your lady just loves Linux for its UNIX roots. (kinda like my lady.) Well, actually she is really interested in learning UNIX, Linux and Networking. (She is finishing a masters in MIS, specifically SAP and in finds it not quite technical enough.)
I prefer to have higher bitrate MP3s than most of the MP3s that are available through those services.
For instance, many of the files that I have downloaded are set at 96, 119 or 128 bitrates. While those are not bad, they are not perfect either.
I am less concerned about space, having many hard drives and often rip CDs to 192 bitrates. I have Bose Computer Speakers and a Soundblaster Live! Sound card. You can tell the difference, if you have a good ear.
--
.sig seperator
--
I like Ebert's plan to take that protected CD and play it from your stereo to your computer in jack. However, I own not a single stereo system.
In the car, I listen to NPR. At home, I sometimes listen to music, from CDs that I have bought and subsequently stored in a safe place after turning them into MP3s. If I wish to listen to a radio station, again it is NPR and streamed off of the internet.
I normally never buy music. When Napster was out, I checked it out. Downloaded a few songs, used the chat feature and was turned on to a few more bands and groups. I downloaded their songs and later found myself buying them at the local music store.
Now that Napster is gone. I am back to listening to the music that my friends listen to. Sometimes, I pick up something that they listen. My listening circle has greatly shrunk these days.
All I can say is way to go RIAA! They get less of my money these days. Which works for me as it is always nice to save a few bucks.
--
.sig seperator
--
Knowing that something works and being the one to make the decision means nothing when you are but one member of a nearly 900+ person IT division that is built in some strange highschool/machiavelian heirarchy that shuns the ability to critically think and only accepts "yes-men" for the positions between you and the decision makers.
In this IT "wonderland", the people at the top have no idea what is like to attempt to support someone that has no computer experience or desire to use a computer through the process of an application installation. Even with perfect instructions that HAND-HOLD them through every single CLICK of the mouse! The end-users still have trouble with this.
This is a project built without focus groups by people that have no desire to interact with the end-users. They talk up new technology and sell it like it will fix everything. All it has done so far is chew up more bandwidth, cost money and require radical changes midstream (Several Times). These are things that you just do not do with a production system that supports thousands of users.
When a problem is found, there is not a single person to take responsibility for that mistake. The mistake floats around for a few weeks/months (YES MONTHS) before someone or group does something about it. This is typically done without letting anyone know that it has been fixed, because if anyone knew, then responsibility could be put upon someone.
This is the most bizarre companies that I have ever worked for. They are a popular company as well. Most people see their product every single day. (If they go outside and drive a car that is...) That is all of the hints that I feel safe coughing up.
--
.sig seperator
--
Of course, it probably didn't help that the reputation of people with the following addresses. (You know there is that stigma about people that use AOL.)
Editor_in_Chief_Time@aol.com
Technology_Correspondent_Time@aol.com
Enough of the fun though. This problem is not an isolated incident with AOL. This type of thing is how most large businesses are run. Someone high-up gets this hairbrained idea and then pushes it through. Regardless of how inadequete the technology is and how difficult the transition can be.
I work in a situation similar to that right now. It used to be that the outlying vendors, of this major corporation, used to interact with ordering replacement units, checking on warranty status and recieving corporate memos through a satellite connection on dumb terminals.
Now, someone has gotten the bright idea that they need to change from dumb terminals, to having full blown MS Windows machines running a web browser to perform those same tasks. These days, the time to perform the simplest task takes nearly three times what it used to (For both relearning and simply downloading nearly one hundred times the old amount of data.)
The other major problem is, instead of dumb terminals that the end-users are unable to fiddle with. They now have MS Windows machines that they are responsible to maintain, which is the farthest thing from their mind.
To them, the new stuff is hard, slow and a royal pain in the rear.
Unfortunately, someone got a bug in their rear to push forward this great new technology. So, that is what is happening. I can see them going back to the way it used to be in about 5 to 10 years, after they "recoup" the losses in development and find out how much money it is going to cost them to have phone support staff handle the call volume.
--
.sig seperator
--
Well, whenever it is posted to Slashdot, the FTP servers get swallowed up for a good week or so.
My local cable operator ties into the OC3 that runs a few blocks behind my house. I typically get 3megabit+ downloads from the colleges at the other end of the OC3. That is until a new Linux ISO appears on their servers...
It is kinda nice living along the line between a military base, a GIANT Automaker campus and the state colleges. Because of that, I typically receive much higher than a full T-1 Line download.
--
.sig seperator
--
I am very impressed with the tools that they are inlcuding in this release. The best is the ability to RIGHT-CLICK on a folder and then LEFT-CLICK on SHARE!!!
That is the greatest feature to add to Linux. The medium sized computer manufacturer that I work for is very interested in being able to use Linux in their Server products. Since most of their technical staff and clients have no interest in learning how to configure Samba, this will be a great help.
Now, all they will have to do is have me or a few of the other techs, go by the machines, or SSH into them to update them on occasion.
Mandrake is truly bringing Linux to the masses.
With this one feature, the market share and thus the potential number of commercial products for Linux can and hopefully will increase dramatically.
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In the article, it mentions that those systems will need to be brought up and conected to the internet. Based upon the intelligence of most criminals, do you think they will know how to alter a Linux password?
Again, do you think that they will know that there is a Linux partition if that is only accesible with a boot disk?
One last thing. If a thief of my laptop actually knew how to overcome what you have described. Why the hell would he/she hook the system up to the internet? They would peruse my hard drive for files they might like, then wipe the drives clean and put what they want on the machine. Then and only then would they hit the internet with the laptop.
Does that make it clearer as to why that software is useless to me?
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The problem that I am referring to is how useless that software would be for me, since the thief would be unable to access my system, let alone get it on the internet without wiping the hard drive.
They are software solutions. They require the operating system to be operating and they rely on the stupidity of the thief.
What happens when your stolen laptop is running a "secure" operating system? In the case of my laptop, I am dual-booting both Windows 2000 Professional and Red Hat Linux 7.2. I have both OSes password protected.
The only method for the crooks to be able to use my machine would be to either replace the hard drive, fdisk the drives and reinstall an operating system. So, how would these wonderful software solutions work in my case? Oh, that's right, they won't ever work for me.
These services are only good for those that are running insecure operating systems on their laptops, or "secure" operating systems that have no passwords and save the last user account information in the login scren.
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I find it sorta funny that Mundie would actually state something along the lines of, "There is this notion that people should have a choice."
How I find that funny is that in the past he has proclaimed how "Un-American" the GPL and OSS is. Of course, I believe that he never claims that MS is a for American standards of freedom, choice. A number of his statements are the sort of thing that one would expect from a dictatorship or the "American idea" of what the old Soviet Block was and may actually have been.
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A tale of a mighty trip.
That started from mainland China, aboard these giant ships, aboard these giant ships...
The skipper was a brave and powerful Admiral...
The mapper was a Venetian...
They set off from a Chinese port upon 500 men manned ships, upon 500 men manned ships...
The world was big giant unknown, they sailed to Australia...
They visited the Americas and mapped the whole darn way, and mapped the whole darn way...
Christopher Columbus, that dude named Magellan too...
Let known in their logs and manuscripts...
They used the Chinese maps, they used the Chinese maps...
So, what does this all tell us lads?
I say it shows the Chinese had, the best fleets before 1492, the best fleets before 1492...
*Takes a bow...*
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MS will indeed ship you, on their ticket, a replacement CD. Of course, it is no easy matter to get a CD from them, you have to be pretty darn cranky. You also must have registered the software in your name to them.
However, once you do that, they actually follow normal terms for the license of a product.
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