Get real. Every Microsoft OS is inferior to every competing system I've seen. They don't even seem to care about quality at all. It's more the attitude "how do I manipulate the market so everyone has to buy my product." This is why Microsoft is "#1"
Your example is a straw man. Windows is better because it is more poplular?
Well, I guess that means I have to run out and buy the latest Britney Spears album. I suppose the crappy Disney "comedy" Bringing Down the House is the best movie ever! It topped the box office charts. Then I'll have to go see Agent Cody Banks too, because it was second! Ooohhh! I just saw the "Dipsy Doodle Hairdresser System" on an infomercial. 10 million units sold. I should go buy one now. It must be better than going to a real barber shop!
Popularity has nothing to do with the quality of the product or how useful it is. Many people just go with whatever is in front of them--would you take a 2 hour bus/train ride just to see a better independent film, when you can just go to a theater which is a 10 min walk away? Many people are fooled by marketing. Many people (like you) say "it's popular, so it must be the best!!!" Many people either don't have the time or don't know how to make informed decisions.
None of these mean the product is any better just because someone chooses to buy it. It's like saying lots of people are living in the ghetto, so it must be a nice place to live. Or, many people invested in Enron, so it must be a great stock.
The AA's like to make things scarce.... Buy Beauty and the Beast now for a limited time, and then it goes back in the vault for 50 years.
The artificial scarcity problem they cause is much more insidious than this. They do everything they can to control the means of distribution and limit the ability of competitors. This is the whole reason behind their support for DRM and war on the internet. It has little to do with protecting their copyrights.
Well, there are some p2p systems which do the sort of things you mentioned. Most people don't know about them because off all the hype which says P2P is only for "free" movies and music--much of the hype is spread by the MPAA and RIAA themselves.
Off the top of my head, The Circle had an IRC like chatting system, a group messaging system (kind of like Usenet, kind of not--could distribute blogs with it), and last time I checked, they were working on a system which works with apt-get to distribute Debian packages via The Circle. I'm sure there are other systems like it, but probably not many. Read below for the reason.
The problem with P2P networks is that they are mostly used for piracy. This is not a property of the protocol but of the people who have chosen to use the protocol.
I think the situation consists more of people who have been chased out of using the protocol. Who would want to use (or create) a system if there is significant risk of being sued / attacked because of what others do on it, or because an organization has delcared war on this type of system? Then you are only left with people who want to use it for illegal purposes.
"Large, violent, highly organized criminal groups are getting rich from the theft of America's copyrighted products," Valenti said. "Only when governments around the world effectively bring to bear the full powers of the state against these criminals, can we expect to make progress."
When I read this, I thought the Valenti must be talking about his own organization. After all, they're a bunch of thugs who want to take freedom away from the world (through domination of communications), hold all copyrighted material hostage (not just their own), and use this situation to steal money. Who are the real terrorists?
Your analogy is off. It would work if, for example, he owned an album called "Masters of Noize 1970" and was downloading songs from a new album called "Masters of Noize 2003." He made it quite clear he was downloading songs from old albums he already owned.
Your analogy would be more accurate if it went something like this: "I alread paid for my 1970 Civic, it's obsolete now, because Honda keeps suing anyone who makes replacement parts, changes the oil, or tries to repaint the body. Why should they be allowed to sue people out of business for fixing my car?"
Not to target you specificly, a lot of people don't seem to get the real issues here.
But let's not forget that there are legitimate concerns about the pirating of software and music.
Let's not forget about the legitimate concerns of the general public. The DMCA and DRM have very real consequences to the public's right to free speech, free press (meaning the ability to pubilsh), and copyrights. When I say copyrights, I mean everyone's copyright. Right now, this post I write is copyrighted under the Berne Convention. Documents and recordings created by the general public are worth many times more than your piddly little music and video game companies.
Someone who shoots a video with their camcorder should be able to copy the video without restrictions--they own the copyright. Someone who writes a document in MS Word 2010 should be able to copy, print, and transfer the document to any computer running any wordprocessing program. An email created by Outlook 2010 addressed to a specific person should be readable by that person no matter what email client he/she uses. The DMCA, Palladium, and other mechanisms will prevent the common person from doing such things.
...including requiring Web-page viewers to give a credit card number, would unfairly require adults to identify themselves before viewing...
This is much more of a problem than just "violating" your privacy by identifying yourself. There is a real risk of credit card fraud here. Anyone remember the stories about the so called "free" pr0n sites asking for a CC# (under this law) so they could verify age, then charging the person's card because they put a clause somewhere in the fine print?
Would you really want to give out your CC# to every site which has "PG" "PG-13", or "R" rated content? That's probably half the sites on the internet. This is a stupid law. IIRC this is the law where the same standard also applies to any site which you can post messages or give out personal information. (Right now they just require playing with cookies) There goes the other half.
M$ Winders "works out of the box" because someone installs it for you at the factory. Vendors who make desktop computers with linux could easily make them work "out of the box." The big question is: will they stay working? I have found M$ shit doesn't. I can't count how many times the PoS has changed my system settings and screwed my config. Linux doesn't automaticly change settings.
Nearly all of my rare crashes in Linux have been traced back to either massive misconfigurations or hardware problems. I can't say the same about M$'s software.
If you don't want to compile your own kernel for SCSI emulation but think you have to, then get a clue. Slackware has the module for SCSI emulation precompiled, and they're one of the most "do it yourself" distros out there.
Oh yeah. You are so "intelligent" you have to hide behind the AC mask so everyone won't know all the lame posts you wrote. You are so "intelligent" you type words twice--or did IE do that? After all Microsoft knows their users need more more emphasis.
Oh my Gawd! Now I've seen everything. An AC accusing someone who hates Microsoft of group-think! Here's a clue: M$ + computers = group-think!!!
Only a clueless idiot or someone who has never really tried another operating system would even think about liking M$ systems. I'd rather go back to my Atari 130XE than a computer running anything by M$. In fact, the 130XE would probably run faster and do more even though it's clock speed is about 1 MHz and it only has 128k of RAM!
They're lost to me. I haven't seen any of them yet, nor am I sure where to look if they've been published. Will they be published? I found an old article which seems to indicate so, but nothing more. I didn't search very hard though.
...and how long until Hollywood tries to declare copyright on them, and the only way you will "see" them is through the eyes of a low brow movie.;-)
And why, in the case of the Library of Alexandria?
Religious ferver. It was burned to the ground by followers of Christ.
Don't worry, I'm sure the MPAA, RIAA, and Microsoft will help the modern world overcome such heresy, but with DRM rejection certificates instead of book burning.;-)
I tried a Google search, but didn't find anything very interesting. A little more info at an article titled "Ancient maths revealed". Some possibly interesting links (at bottom of page). An article at BYU which goes into slightly more detail about the multi-spectral imaging technology. Though your "religious ferver" comment may apply here. If BYU does create a digital archive, will they really release lesbian poetry?
Yes, but this project doesn't solve all the problems of the database. It just solves the problem of making sure the objects are backed up on disk. The searching and other database problems are not solved. However, many of them are / can be solved with the packages already included with the java runtime or by the programmer implementing the database.
The first problem I see with this method is the lack of a powerful and flexible querying method.
Maybe I don't understand this well enough (the Prevaylor site is down), but if this is really a database based upon objects, and you can access them as normal objects, then any good programmer can make a "powerful and flexible querying method." You can write your own hashtables, searching functions, or whatever.
One of the most powerful features of SQL databases is their capability for searching. No where in the article did I see anthing about advanced querying of the objects.
Because they probably didn't put any searching routines into Prevayler. From the SourceForge page: "Ridiculously simple, Prevayler provides transparent persistence for PLAIN Java objects." You write the searching routines.
Even if there is, I'm sure its no where near as fast as a MySQL or Oracle. The author states that it is several orders of magnitude faster, but I bet it is this much faster only on fetch routines where you already know what object you are looking for.
Ever hear of hash codes and hash tables? You write the code yourself. How do you think MySQL and Oracle do it? They have code which does the searches. With this system you cut out the middleman. It'll have its own weaknesses and strengths, so every manager will have to decide if this system will fill their needs.
At first glance, I see two weaknesses and two strengths to this system. Weaknesses: a) you'll have to be more of a programmer to implement a database. b) the database has to be small enough to fit in memory. Strengths: a) infinitely flexible. b) really fast for anything which will fit in RAM.
Web hosting services won't want this. (they usually have many customers, and all their databases won't fit in RAM at once.) Big e-commerce sites won't want this for their customer databases. (again, probably won't fit in RAM) They may be able to use it for their product data, unless it's really huge--such as Barnes and Noble. I'm sure it'll be quite usable for most small businesses. The need for a programmer may seem like a huge obstacle, but I'm sure if Object Prevalence gets big, there'll be a book called "Object Prevalence in Java for Dummies" in no time.
I don't think you know how encryption works. Encryption only works to keep a third party from decoding it. If her friends have the key, they can easily decode the message and send the plaintext to anyone they want.
Unless you are saying she should have encrypted it with a secret key (which only she has) and sent the message to her friends. Then it wouldn't make sense because why would she send a message to her friends if they couldn't read it?
The problem is once you bought it, you can't take it back. In the EULA, it says if you want a refund you have to take it back to the store and not Aiptek. It comes with software, so many stores will not give you a refund, just an exchange for the same item. I think the guy bought it from CompUSA, so even if he does convince them to take it back (unlikely), a 15% fee is charged.
There is no way to win, except find out about their EULA before you buy. I don't see how you can, except to talk to someone who's already bought it. After finding out about this I looked at their website and couldn't find any mention of the EULA or its restrictions. Nor anywhere else...
It's getting more and more that the hardware vendors want to let you "buy" their product, but then claim they "own" it afterwards, and you are only allowed to use it with their permission. Aiptek actually made a "hardware" EULA for their Pencam. It says (among other things) you cannot let others (except your immediate household) use it. You don't find this out until you open the box and read the manual...
You misunderstand what a cease-and-desist letter is all about. But regardless, if you are doing nothing wrong there is no harm.
If the BSA sent a false complaint to your ISP / hosting provider saying you violated copyright laws, there would be no harm? Even if they take down your site or cut off your internet access?
Whats wrong with that? Do you prefer they eliminate the middle step and go straight to the FBI when you learn about your illegal copy of Office?
If they went straight to the FBI with a false complaint like this, they'd probably end up in jail.
get together and charge the BSA with fraud. After all, the BSA claimed they represented the copyright owners of OpenOffice, didn't they? As far as I can tell, they don't.
I'd ask them how they can be so stupid as to file DMCA complaints based only upon the results of a search bot. They need to check the results to see if there is a real case of infringement, and not send false complaints.
Slashdot Mirror
Get real. Every Microsoft OS is inferior to every competing system I've seen. They don't even seem to care about quality at all. It's more the attitude "how do I manipulate the market so everyone has to buy my product." This is why Microsoft is "#1"
Your example is a straw man. Windows is better because it is more poplular?
Well, I guess that means I have to run out and buy the latest Britney Spears album. I suppose the crappy Disney "comedy" Bringing Down the House is the best movie ever! It topped the box office charts. Then I'll have to go see Agent Cody Banks too, because it was second! Ooohhh! I just saw the "Dipsy Doodle Hairdresser System" on an infomercial. 10 million units sold. I should go buy one now. It must be better than going to a real barber shop!
Popularity has nothing to do with the quality of the product or how useful it is. Many people just go with whatever is in front of them--would you take a 2 hour bus/train ride just to see a better independent film, when you can just go to a theater which is a 10 min walk away? Many people are fooled by marketing. Many people (like you) say "it's popular, so it must be the best!!!" Many people either don't have the time or don't know how to make informed decisions.
None of these mean the product is any better just because someone chooses to buy it. It's like saying lots of people are living in the ghetto, so it must be a nice place to live. Or, many people invested in Enron, so it must be a great stock.
The artificial scarcity problem they cause is much more insidious than this. They do everything they can to control the means of distribution and limit the ability of competitors. This is the whole reason behind their support for DRM and war on the internet. It has little to do with protecting their copyrights.
Well, there are some p2p systems which do the sort of things you mentioned. Most people don't know about them because off all the hype which says P2P is only for "free" movies and music--much of the hype is spread by the MPAA and RIAA themselves.
Off the top of my head, The Circle had an IRC like chatting system, a group messaging system (kind of like Usenet, kind of not--could distribute blogs with it), and last time I checked, they were working on a system which works with apt-get to distribute Debian packages via The Circle. I'm sure there are other systems like it, but probably not many. Read below for the reason.
I think the situation consists more of people who have been chased out of using the protocol. Who would want to use (or create) a system if there is significant risk of being sued / attacked because of what others do on it, or because an organization has delcared war on this type of system? Then you are only left with people who want to use it for illegal purposes.
Alright!!! I think you found the solution. Convert the show into a pr0n site!!! Yeah! ;-)
Yeah, it's funny. From the article:
When I read this, I thought the Valenti must be talking about his own organization. After all, they're a bunch of thugs who want to take freedom away from the world (through domination of communications), hold all copyrighted material hostage (not just their own), and use this situation to steal money. Who are the real terrorists?
Ahhh...but it does. They just don't want you to find out.
Your analogy is off. It would work if, for example, he owned an album called "Masters of Noize 1970" and was downloading songs from a new album called "Masters of Noize 2003." He made it quite clear he was downloading songs from old albums he already owned.
Your analogy would be more accurate if it went something like this: "I alread paid for my 1970 Civic, it's obsolete now, because Honda keeps suing anyone who makes replacement parts, changes the oil, or tries to repaint the body. Why should they be allowed to sue people out of business for fixing my car?"
Not to target you specificly, a lot of people don't seem to get the real issues here.
Let's not forget about the legitimate concerns of the general public. The DMCA and DRM have very real consequences to the public's right to free speech, free press (meaning the ability to pubilsh), and copyrights. When I say copyrights, I mean everyone's copyright. Right now, this post I write is copyrighted under the Berne Convention. Documents and recordings created by the general public are worth many times more than your piddly little music and video game companies.
Someone who shoots a video with their camcorder should be able to copy the video without restrictions--they own the copyright. Someone who writes a document in MS Word 2010 should be able to copy, print, and transfer the document to any computer running any wordprocessing program. An email created by Outlook 2010 addressed to a specific person should be readable by that person no matter what email client he/she uses. The DMCA, Palladium, and other mechanisms will prevent the common person from doing such things.
Obviously, you don't know anything about Bill Gates. ;-)
From the article:
This is much more of a problem than just "violating" your privacy by identifying yourself. There is a real risk of credit card fraud here. Anyone remember the stories about the so called "free" pr0n sites asking for a CC# (under this law) so they could verify age, then charging the person's card because they put a clause somewhere in the fine print?
Would you really want to give out your CC# to every site which has "PG" "PG-13", or "R" rated content? That's probably half the sites on the internet. This is a stupid law. IIRC this is the law where the same standard also applies to any site which you can post messages or give out personal information. (Right now they just require playing with cookies) There goes the other half.
M$ Winders "works out of the box" because someone installs it for you at the factory. Vendors who make desktop computers with linux could easily make them work "out of the box." The big question is: will they stay working? I have found M$ shit doesn't. I can't count how many times the PoS has changed my system settings and screwed my config. Linux doesn't automaticly change settings.
Nearly all of my rare crashes in Linux have been traced back to either massive misconfigurations or hardware problems. I can't say the same about M$'s software.
If you don't want to compile your own kernel for SCSI emulation but think you have to, then get a clue. Slackware has the module for SCSI emulation precompiled, and they're one of the most "do it yourself" distros out there.
Oh yeah. You are so "intelligent" you have to hide behind the AC mask so everyone won't know all the lame posts you wrote. You are so "intelligent" you type words twice--or did IE do that? After all Microsoft knows their users need more more emphasis.
Oh my Gawd! Now I've seen everything. An AC accusing someone who hates Microsoft of group-think! Here's a clue: M$ + computers = group-think!!!
Only a clueless idiot or someone who has never really tried another operating system would even think about liking M$ systems. I'd rather go back to my Atari 130XE than a computer running anything by M$. In fact, the 130XE would probably run faster and do more even though it's clock speed is about 1 MHz and it only has 128k of RAM!
They're lost to me. I haven't seen any of them yet, nor am I sure where to look if they've been published. Will they be published? I found an old article which seems to indicate so, but nothing more. I didn't search very hard though.
...and how long until Hollywood tries to declare copyright on them, and the only way you will "see" them is through the eyes of a low brow movie. ;-)
Don't worry, I'm sure the MPAA, RIAA, and Microsoft will help the modern world overcome such heresy, but with DRM rejection certificates instead of book burning. ;-)
I tried a Google search, but didn't find anything very interesting. A little more info at an article titled "Ancient maths revealed". Some possibly interesting links (at bottom of page). An article at BYU which goes into slightly more detail about the multi-spectral imaging technology. Though your "religious ferver" comment may apply here. If BYU does create a digital archive, will they really release lesbian poetry?
Yes, but this project doesn't solve all the problems of the database. It just solves the problem of making sure the objects are backed up on disk. The searching and other database problems are not solved. However, many of them are / can be solved with the packages already included with the java runtime or by the programmer implementing the database.
Maybe I don't understand this well enough (the Prevaylor site is down), but if this is really a database based upon objects, and you can access them as normal objects, then any good programmer can make a "powerful and flexible querying method." You can write your own hashtables, searching functions, or whatever.
Because they probably didn't put any searching routines into Prevayler. From the SourceForge page: "Ridiculously simple, Prevayler provides transparent persistence for PLAIN Java objects." You write the searching routines.
Ever hear of hash codes and hash tables? You write the code yourself. How do you think MySQL and Oracle do it? They have code which does the searches. With this system you cut out the middleman. It'll have its own weaknesses and strengths, so every manager will have to decide if this system will fill their needs.
At first glance, I see two weaknesses and two strengths to this system. Weaknesses: a) you'll have to be more of a programmer to implement a database. b) the database has to be small enough to fit in memory. Strengths: a) infinitely flexible. b) really fast for anything which will fit in RAM.
Web hosting services won't want this. (they usually have many customers, and all their databases won't fit in RAM at once.) Big e-commerce sites won't want this for their customer databases. (again, probably won't fit in RAM) They may be able to use it for their product data, unless it's really huge--such as Barnes and Noble. I'm sure it'll be quite usable for most small businesses. The need for a programmer may seem like a huge obstacle, but I'm sure if Object Prevalence gets big, there'll be a book called "Object Prevalence in Java for Dummies" in no time.
I don't think you know how encryption works. Encryption only works to keep a third party from decoding it. If her friends have the key, they can easily decode the message and send the plaintext to anyone they want.
Unless you are saying she should have encrypted it with a secret key (which only she has) and sent the message to her friends. Then it wouldn't make sense because why would she send a message to her friends if they couldn't read it?
How long does it take to compile XFree86? I'm stuck with a 500MHz CPU. :-(
The problem is once you bought it, you can't take it back. In the EULA, it says if you want a refund you have to take it back to the store and not Aiptek. It comes with software, so many stores will not give you a refund, just an exchange for the same item. I think the guy bought it from CompUSA, so even if he does convince them to take it back (unlikely), a 15% fee is charged.
There is no way to win, except find out about their EULA before you buy. I don't see how you can, except to talk to someone who's already bought it. After finding out about this I looked at their website and couldn't find any mention of the EULA or its restrictions. Nor anywhere else...
It's getting more and more that the hardware vendors want to let you "buy" their product, but then claim they "own" it afterwards, and you are only allowed to use it with their permission. Aiptek actually made a "hardware" EULA for their Pencam. It says (among other things) you cannot let others (except your immediate household) use it. You don't find this out until you open the box and read the manual...
If the BSA sent a false complaint to your ISP / hosting provider saying you violated copyright laws, there would be no harm? Even if they take down your site or cut off your internet access?
If they went straight to the FBI with a false complaint like this, they'd probably end up in jail.
Sued? I thought perjury lands one in jail?
Funny, I didn't see them on the list. Are they a silent member?
get together and charge the BSA with fraud. After all, the BSA claimed they represented the copyright owners of OpenOffice, didn't they? As far as I can tell, they don't.
I'd ask them how they can be so stupid as to file DMCA complaints based only upon the results of a search bot. They need to check the results to see if there is a real case of infringement, and not send false complaints.