Yep. Fell for that one. But two things distinguish my trolling from his (so I can feel somewhat morally superior)
1. I am unwilling to use a broad brush to paint all small town dwellers as technophobic morons. 2. He/she IS an asshole.
Besides, what the hell else should I do with karma? It's meaningless around here unless one is a moderator. Meta-moderation doesn't seem to matter one way or the other.
Well, you just proved that theft does equal piracy and that piracy equals theft. Using your examples, either method deprives the producer and/or distributor of their share of revenue on the software product in question.
By shoplifting you deprive both. By piracy, you deprive the producer.
Sounds like you've got a beef with small towns more than you have a reasonable argument to proffer. Having grown up in and near small towns, the people there are not always decrepit morons, as you spew forth in your diatribe.
What they are is separated from a source of learning and knowledge in technology applicable to their problems. Frequently, the people working in city government have other businesses to run as well, and so their attention is split between good governance and business interests. A lot of them are decent, hardworking individuals who have a lot of knowledge in specific areas, but not a lot of time to spend covering broader interests.
Technology related businesses ignore the small town - there is not enough return for the investment, and there is a lack of workforce that is adequately trained to handle even the more common aspects of modern technology. This is not the small town's fault though, there are other more immediate concerns.
I suggest you stop spending money on your computers and instead, use it to buy some therapy, because you, sir, appear to be the moron here, an asshole, and a troll.
Actually, it's more like your neighbor going through your fridge, making you produce receipts. At least the police have legal authority in some cases (ie., drugs, stolen merchandise).
A few apps? Try several hundred thousand applications. Remember, the software base for Microsoft doesn't include just a few big name applications, but literally hundreds of thousands of applications in many languages.
The specialized modules necessary to make a modular Windows run with ALL of the currently existing applications could well lead to a bigger bloat that currently exists.
It is not realistic to modularize Windows at this point. If this had come up 10 years ago, then it might have been realistic. Now, I would hazard a guess that it would not only be technically infeasible, but would pretty much shut down the software market on this platform for good.
Like it or not, many people not only use Microsoft products, but actually prefer them to others. My primary reason for using big name software company applications is that there are very compability problems when dealing with the largest percentage of the consumer base.
The problem is that eventually this stuff just stops being used. Sure it's a interesting idea, but how much work is it really to just turn the coffee on yourself?
It would be interesting to see what percentage of the public uses this gadgetry after a year of ownership.
When Jobs returned to Apple, he worked to stifle competition from alternate hardware vendors. As for the bundling issue, the packages included on the MacOS include a fair amount of software that has nothing whatsoever to do with the OS itself.
It doesn't really matter about Linux - the bundling is done by distributors. Since there is no one underlying Linux company, the bundling issue doesn't really apply.
There's also something to be said in here about information overload - with the multitude of sources for news, it becomes difficult to filter out the noise. Of course, in that process we ignore some media sources that may be useful.
I agree that the problem will not go away overnight. But I also think that it's going to just get worse. Technology has made communication so simple and fast that we can spout off opinion left and right, without stopping to think about it first.
And what happens to my.com site, which is basically a portfolio? Under which classification does it fall? It's not a business, but it is business related, yet it also has personal stuff on there as well.
It's too late - the cat is well out of the bag and it definitely doesn't want to go back in. We can't create new TLD's without approval, and the alternate systems aren't easily accessible without adding software to your system (AFAIK).
So what now?
Re:please restrict fair use
on
Coding Fair Use
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I don't see anything wrong with having to ask permission to cite or quote. It allows the creator to have some say in how portions of his/her content is distributed. At least for printed material, it can provide some psychological security against being quoted out of context.
The problem comes in that we, as a whole, are no longer reasonable in allowing permission. Who was to blame first in the whole RIAA/P2P debacle? Pick a side - it doesn't matter, really. Everyone has chosen their positions, no one is willing to budge, and the only thing that will ever solve this is one big courtroom brawl.
Frankly, I'm so disgusted with the whole mess, I've stopped buying music, downloading, or providing music to anyone.
When did we, as a society, lose our ability to be "reasonable"?
Even if this is an endangered bird, unless it was cooked up in a vat in some lab somewhere, it still doesn't say dick about cloning or cloning technology.
While freezing the file formats would be good for everyone else except Microsoft, it would tilt the "playing field" in the other direction and give all the advantage to competitors, who presumably would not have to freeze their file formats. This is neither reasonable or fair.
Oh, wait. I forgot, this isn't about reasonable or fair - it's about ruining Microsoft at any cost.
You might be able to get around that issue by making it illegal to post the code in a manner that can provable cause harm to another computer system, if a clear warning is not given.
Posting the source, as such, would not be illegal, if you warned others that they would be accessing a virus. However, posting a binary or distributing it through email would then be illegal.
The problem with the whole thing is that it fails to cover intent and/or damage. Much better if one can trace down the "patient zero" and determine who they got infected from, and then slam that sucker for everything that he or she is worth.
A simple jail sentence does not seem to be enough. Why not go after them for a percentage of the economic damage?
Shame on you! Those asteroids are a natural resource that should be protected for all ages. Just because we're raping the ecosystem and pillaging the natural resources of Mother Earth, or Gaeia, as I like to call her, does not give us the right to rape and pillage outer space.
We need to set up a commission to study and develop plans for the immediate eradication of all tidal forces, especially those killer, destructive ones!
Human settlement may be more widely spread than previously thought, but recent world events lead me to believe that civilization is probably not possible.
Can't comment on MRE's, but as the grandchild of a military officer, I have eaten at both the Officer's Mess Hall and the Enlisted Mess Hall and found the food to be pretty good. Kinda high in fat and cholesterol, but not bad at all.
This is mainly going to benefit (if you can call it that) the Oracle's and Microsoft's of the world, ie., those companies that already have an inside line on government contracts. I fail to see how this would help anyone's situation who is in a company that doesn't list in the Fortune 1000.
Besides, this is a middle-management switchover, not a pit crew kind of thing. The bright people in government (there are a few) won't go because their departments need them and they already get the outside involvment that they need, and the turtles of the Government IT sector won't go because they like it where they are.
This isn't a jobs program - very few of those that are out of work now will enter the program, since they don't have a current corporate job. All this is is a wage slave swap (your plantation workers for my plantation workers).
Wait, you want to nominate a guy who is against patents to the Patent Advisory Board? They already have enough problems getting things done, he would completely halt the process.
Aside from which, we know his feelings about software patents, but his stance on other patents has never been given? Does he believe there is such a thing as a legitimate patent?
This would be the equivalent of putting the Taliban in charge of Equal Rights (A bit harsh, but you get the idea).
Slashdot Mirror
Yep. Fell for that one. But two things distinguish my trolling from his (so I can feel somewhat morally superior)
1. I am unwilling to use a broad brush to paint all small town dwellers as technophobic morons.
2. He/she IS an asshole.
Besides, what the hell else should I do with karma? It's meaningless around here unless one is a moderator. Meta-moderation doesn't seem to matter one way or the other.
Well, you just proved that theft does equal piracy and that piracy equals theft. Using your examples, either method deprives the producer and/or distributor of their share of revenue on the software product in question.
By shoplifting you deprive both. By piracy, you deprive the producer.
Sounds like you've got a beef with small towns more than you have a reasonable argument to proffer. Having grown up in and near small towns, the people there are not always decrepit morons, as you spew forth in your diatribe.
What they are is separated from a source of learning and knowledge in technology applicable to their problems. Frequently, the people working in city government have other businesses to run as well, and so their attention is split between good governance and business interests. A lot of them are decent, hardworking individuals who have a lot of knowledge in specific areas, but not a lot of time to spend covering broader interests.
Technology related businesses ignore the small town - there is not enough return for the investment, and there is a lack of workforce that is adequately trained to handle even the more common aspects of modern technology. This is not the small town's fault though, there are other more immediate concerns.
I suggest you stop spending money on your computers and instead, use it to buy some therapy, because you, sir, appear to be the moron here, an asshole, and a troll.
Oh, so Microsoft is not allowed to make decisions on behalf of the users, but the open source community is?
Give me a break.
This is a common practice on all operating systems and in all software, whether you like it or not.
I think the reverse case was a given.
Actually, it's more like your neighbor going through your fridge, making you produce receipts. At least the police have legal authority in some cases (ie., drugs, stolen merchandise).
A few apps? Try several hundred thousand applications. Remember, the software base for Microsoft doesn't include just a few big name applications, but literally hundreds of thousands of applications in many languages.
The specialized modules necessary to make a modular Windows run with ALL of the currently existing applications could well lead to a bigger bloat that currently exists.
It is not realistic to modularize Windows at this point. If this had come up 10 years ago, then it might have been realistic. Now, I would hazard a guess that it would not only be technically infeasible, but would pretty much shut down the software market on this platform for good.
Like it or not, many people not only use Microsoft products, but actually prefer them to others. My primary reason for using big name software company applications is that there are very compability problems when dealing with the largest percentage of the consumer base.
What the heck is a hob?
:)
^---- Stupid American
The problem is that eventually this stuff just stops being used. Sure it's a interesting idea, but how much work is it really to just turn the coffee on yourself?
It would be interesting to see what percentage of the public uses this gadgetry after a year of ownership.
You have raised an interesting point.
When Jobs returned to Apple, he worked to stifle competition from alternate hardware vendors. As for the bundling issue, the packages included on the MacOS include a fair amount of software that has nothing whatsoever to do with the OS itself.
It doesn't really matter about Linux - the bundling is done by distributors. Since there is no one underlying Linux company, the bundling issue doesn't really apply.
There's also something to be said in here about information overload - with the multitude of sources for news, it becomes difficult to filter out the noise. Of course, in that process we ignore some media sources that may be useful.
I agree that the problem will not go away overnight. But I also think that it's going to just get worse. Technology has made communication so simple and fast that we can spout off opinion left and right, without stopping to think about it first.
And what happens to my .com site, which is basically a portfolio? Under which classification does it fall? It's not a business, but it is business related, yet it also has personal stuff on there as well.
It's too late - the cat is well out of the bag and it definitely doesn't want to go back in. We can't create new TLD's without approval, and the alternate systems aren't easily accessible without adding software to your system (AFAIK).
So what now?
I don't see anything wrong with having to ask permission to cite or quote. It allows the creator to have some say in how portions of his/her content is distributed. At least for printed material, it can provide some psychological security against being quoted out of context.
The problem comes in that we, as a whole, are no longer reasonable in allowing permission. Who was to blame first in the whole RIAA/P2P debacle? Pick a side - it doesn't matter, really. Everyone has chosen their positions, no one is willing to budge, and the only thing that will ever solve this is one big courtroom brawl.
Frankly, I'm so disgusted with the whole mess, I've stopped buying music, downloading, or providing music to anyone.
When did we, as a society, lose our ability to be "reasonable"?
Birds lay eggs. Big deal ...
Even if this is an endangered bird, unless it was cooked up in a vat in some lab somewhere, it still doesn't say dick about cloning or cloning technology.
The bird laid an egg. So does this story.
Who's in charge around here, anyway?
While freezing the file formats would be good for everyone else except Microsoft, it would tilt the "playing field" in the other direction and give all the advantage to competitors, who presumably would not have to freeze their file formats. This is neither reasonable or fair.
Oh, wait. I forgot, this isn't about reasonable or fair - it's about ruining Microsoft at any cost.
Two wrongs do not make a right.
You might be able to get around that issue by making it illegal to post the code in a manner that can provable cause harm to another computer system, if a clear warning is not given.
Posting the source, as such, would not be illegal, if you warned others that they would be accessing a virus. However, posting a binary or distributing it through email would then be illegal.
The problem with the whole thing is that it fails to cover intent and/or damage. Much better if one can trace down the "patient zero" and determine who they got infected from, and then slam that sucker for everything that he or she is worth.
A simple jail sentence does not seem to be enough. Why not go after them for a percentage of the economic damage?
Shame on you! Those asteroids are a natural resource that should be protected for all ages. Just because we're raping the ecosystem and pillaging the natural resources of Mother Earth, or Gaeia, as I like to call her, does not give us the right to rape and pillage outer space.
We need to set up a commission to study and develop plans for the immediate eradication of all tidal forces, especially those killer, destructive ones!
Human settlement may be more widely spread than previously thought, but recent world events lead me to believe that civilization is probably not possible.
Can't comment on MRE's, but as the grandchild of a military officer, I have eaten at both the Officer's Mess Hall and the Enlisted Mess Hall and found the food to be pretty good. Kinda high in fat and cholesterol, but not bad at all.
This is mainly going to benefit (if you can call it that) the Oracle's and Microsoft's of the world, ie., those companies that already have an inside line on government contracts. I fail to see how this would help anyone's situation who is in a company that doesn't list in the Fortune 1000.
Besides, this is a middle-management switchover, not a pit crew kind of thing. The bright people in government (there are a few) won't go because their departments need them and they already get the outside involvment that they need, and the turtles of the Government IT sector won't go because they like it where they are.
This isn't a jobs program - very few of those that are out of work now will enter the program, since they don't have a current corporate job. All this is is a wage slave swap (your plantation workers for my plantation workers).
I think you will find that when the bottom line is threatened, Americans can focus on a problem in a way thats slightly scary.
You just have to make it a convincing threat.
(Hey, somebody around here has to stick up for us).
Wouldn't that seriously impair your ability to click on link?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH!
How many TV shows are there? How many shows are there that suck? How many shows are there that don't suck?
...
Now
How many books are there?
Do the math.
I guess you explained to him that this is a huge gaping security hole? Have you taken it over his head to his boss? Have you spoken to corporate IT?
Wait, you want to nominate a guy who is against patents to the Patent Advisory Board? They already have enough problems getting things done, he would completely halt the process.
Aside from which, we know his feelings about software patents, but his stance on other patents has never been given? Does he believe there is such a thing as a legitimate patent?
This would be the equivalent of putting the Taliban in charge of Equal Rights (A bit harsh, but you get the idea).