the restrictions on cigarette ads are covered by a different piece of law and the FCC doesnt have the power to control content on cable TV (and indeed subscription sattelite TV is also not under the FCC rules for stuff like this)
Why not just get rid of these phone taxes and instead fund emegrency services (911 etc) via a property tax of some kind. (e.g. every property owner must pay a fixed tax or perhaps a %age of the value of their property or something).
I dont understand why the PC game companies dont just put everything into DVD type cases (like they have for the XBOX and Playstation 2 and GameCube). For things that have too much stuff (e.g. multiple disks) to fit into the DVD case, do what they do with DVD box sets for TV and put them into cases like that. Get rid of the !@##!@@#! waste of space boxes.
It started when microsoft created Visual Basic way back when. They invented this new thing called a VBX. a VBX was basicly a custom control in a DLL file and had hooks where VB could talk to the control and where the control could talk to VB. The VBX evolved along with Visual Basic through versions 2,3 and 4 on the 16 bit platform. Also, some other programs (including 16 bit versions of Visual C++) were able to embed VBX files.
Next we have OLE. This started out with OLE 1.0 and advanced to OLE 2.0 and to COM. The OCX (as it was known) developed from a merger between the VBX and OLE. It started out as a way to embed controls into an app just like a VBX. There was a 16 bit version of the OCX (that never took off) and the 32 bit version. The ActiveX control is the evolution of the OCX.
ActiveX controls are NOT bad, they are a good idea. What was a bad idea was implementing support into Internet Explorer for embedding ActiveX controls. And for implementing VBScript to talk to those controls. I have yet to see one use of ActiveX on the internet that could not be done some other way.
Thankfully, I seem to be able to avoid ActiveX controls in my own use, the only place I have seen them lately is on some Microsoft sites.
As for those who say that some banks and such use ActiveX, well if I found a secure site that required IE to function, I would take my business elsewhere.
or similar rom download site is all the instances where the rights are owned by too many people to make it fesable.
Firstly, there may be the need to get permission from the manufacturer of the console or arcade board to relase it. Secondly, there may be items in the game that the company doesnt own (e.g. licenced games, BIOS roms, licenced code/art/sounds/etc) Thirdly, the company may not have something it can release. (whilst there is MAME + starroms, there are many reasons including piracy and loss of controll as to why most companies wouldnt want their games on sites like that)
The right way to treat encryption is the same way they treat safes and lockboxes.
If the police are searching your house (with a warrant) and they find a safe, there are rules about when they can and cant force you to open that safe.
The same rules should apply to any ecrypted information they find. For example, if they have an encrypted email or file, the same rules should apply as apply to them finding a safe in your house.
As for this new data retention crap, are the cops going to pay for the huge servers and disks required to hold all this information? And the people to keep everything going?
There are some US things that are going be very difficult to change to metric.
For example, car speedometers measure in miles per hour. Therefore, speed limits need to be in miles per hour. Unless you can change all the speed limit signs AND all the speedometers into kilometers per hour (AND educate all the drivers in america), it is going to be difficult to change this.
Its highly unlikely that EA would have paid what they did unless they were getting an exclusive licence.
Its a simple matter of economics for both EA and the NFL. The NFL wasnts as much money as possible for the licence (which means that they need to offer an exclusive licence). They dont really care who licences it.
EA wants to keep making and selling Madden so it had to spend what it spent to get the licence (or risk being outbid by a competitor)
Thank god EA doesnt have a monopoly on the Australian V8 Supercar Championship Series. Their V8 Challenge game was crap. They didnt have the complete team lineup. Nor did they have the complete selection of tracks (and those they did have sucked)
I havent played either of the Codemasters V8 games so I dont know if they are any better but EAs certainly sucked:)
and they will continue to suck untill such time as they stop using the Internet Explorer rendering engine and switch to the gecko rendering engine (a very large chunk of which was written by people paid by AOL to work on it)
Although I suspect that (in addition to any "some sites dont work" arguments), there is also an argument (a potentially valid one too) that the gecko rendering engine uses more system resources (disk, CPU, RAM etc) than the IE rendering engine does (remember, IE has large parts of itself loaded into RAM on startup thanks to its integration with Explorer)
If software patents dont get through in the EU, there is nothing stopping anyone from taking stuff that is patented in the US under their broken system and using it legally. This includes competitors of the company that holds the US patent. Also, with the power of the Internet and global commerce, it is very difficult to sue for violation of the US patent by people who the patent applies to since there are too many to catch.
The job of government is to use the right tool for the job. If that tool is Microsoft software, thats fine.
What is needed, however, is an insistance on Open Standards whenever possible (for example, I doubt you will find a police dispatch system built around Open Standards). And then have a competitive tender process. If Open Source can show a better outcome than Microsoft software, it should be used. But if Microsoft software is the better alternative, use it.
Its likely the case that the larger colledge who bought you out was already using MS office, Outlook and IE for everything and didnt want to have the hassle of maintaining 2 different software setups. Therefore, the setup with the larger installed base (which is probobly the MS setup) becomes the supported setup which evertone uses.
Although conversly those same people would (for some rediculous reason) rather buy a shiny new dell or HP instead of taking the time to clean all the spyware and crapware off their old machine to make it run better.
Another factor with cars is the big auto workers unions.
For example, recently, Holden (a division of General Motors) wanted to bring the Holden UTE (kind of like a pickup truck only smaller and a lot more sporty looking) over to america along with the Holden Monaro sports car. But General Motors faced opposition from the auto unions and ended up not being able to bring the UTE over at all and bringing less Monaros (which were rebadged as the Pontiac GTO) over.
Any arguments about "the US has a lame propriatory standard because they are so spread out" is garbage. Here in australia, we have GSM and it works just great even out in the bush (certainly along all the major highways and in most outback towns and such)
I think part of it is that the US (and particularly US corperations) dont want the same standards as other places in the world so they can maintain control over things (for example, if the US used the same GSM standard as Europe, Australia etc, it would be a lot harder for the US wireless operators to control what phones are used on their service since they would have to allow people with existing phones from overseas to connect)
Thats why we need to push for much greater adoption of Sender Permitted From (SPF). That should prevent fake email addresses from being used. Unfortunatly, large ISPs and email providers dont seem to want to implement SPF records for their mailservers.
One that takes all the good things from the different networks and makes them into the ultimate P2P app.
It should have: 1.complete open unencumbered protocol specs 2.Open Source reference implementation 3.Complete encryption of all files shared along with random files being stored in random locations (i.e. like Freenet has where its next to impossible for anyone to tell exactly what files a given person is actually sharing). It should be designed such that even the owner of the machine has no way to know who is downloading what from their machine. 4.Good search feature so you can find what you want easily (including an equivelent of the ed2k:// links so websites and stuff can link to files on this network) 5.communication features (ala IM/chat) that let you find and talk to other network users. 6.Encrypted network traffic. A great way to do this would be to encapsulate everything with SSH so that anyone in the middle only sees SSH requests. This makes it harder for service providers to shape or block it without harming all those who use SSH for its many many legitimate purposes such as CVS and remote access. 7.It should feature downloading from multiple sources if available (i.e. spread the load around) 8.It should feature a built-in program similar to peer-guardian and other such programs that can block IP address ranges owned by the copyright police (with the database being totally open for all to see as well as ways to add your own local entries if you want). Certainly this would be incorporated into the protocol specs and the reference implementation. 9.It should be deasigned to be totally non-relient on any one central server or servers. and 10.It should be designed such that it does not require large system requirements (e.g. big CPU usage, large RAM usage, big disk space requirements etc) and so that it doesnt have undue bandwidth requirements (i.e. no more than current P2P apps require)
Because its Open Source (and Open Specifications too), there is no central target to go after like there is with kazza or napster or audiogalaxy. Development of clients can happen in many countries and in many places making it impossible to stamp out. (plus, if its popular, it will be mirrored in plenty of places simply through that fact alone)
Because its encrypted and goes over SSH (or something else standard if SSH is not sutable), its difficult to block this without getting legitimate users of that service annoyed
Because it has the encryption and "files can be anywhere" features of Freenet its much harder for the copyright police to link files to machines/IP addresses (which makes figuring out who to sue harder) Also, this means that it would be possible to show (even in a court of law) that you didnt know that your file share contained copyrighted material, child porn, terrorist stuff, music not produced by the RIAA cartels or whatever else that the government who holds juristiction over the machine in question has decided to declare "illegal" this week.
Because it has IP blocking (like Peer-Guardian etc) its easier to find where the copyright police are scanning from and stop them from connecting to your machine
What is likely to happen is that ISPs will simply bump up their prices to cover the cost of processing all those notices. And amend their terms of service so that when they process and act on a fake takedown notice there is nothing the customer can do against them.
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the restrictions on cigarette ads are covered by a different piece of law and the FCC doesnt have the power to control content on cable TV (and indeed subscription sattelite TV is also not under the FCC rules for stuff like this)
Why not just get rid of these phone taxes and instead fund emegrency services (911 etc) via a property tax of some kind. (e.g. every property owner must pay a fixed tax or perhaps a %age of the value of their property or something).
I use Miranda and it works great.
Open Source.
Windows native (no GTK)
Does everything I need it to.
Plenty of plugins.
etc.
I dont understand why the PC game companies dont just put everything into DVD type cases (like they have for the XBOX and Playstation 2 and GameCube).
For things that have too much stuff (e.g. multiple disks) to fit into the DVD case, do what they do with DVD box sets for TV and put them into cases like that.
Get rid of the !@##!@@#! waste of space boxes.
It started when microsoft created Visual Basic way back when.
They invented this new thing called a VBX.
a VBX was basicly a custom control in a DLL file and had hooks where VB could talk to the control and where the control could talk to VB.
The VBX evolved along with Visual Basic through versions 2,3 and 4 on the 16 bit platform.
Also, some other programs (including 16 bit versions of Visual C++) were able to embed VBX files.
Next we have OLE. This started out with OLE 1.0 and advanced to OLE 2.0 and to COM. The OCX (as it was known) developed from a merger between the VBX and OLE. It started out as a way to embed controls into an app just like a VBX. There was a 16 bit version of the OCX (that never took off) and the 32 bit version.
The ActiveX control is the evolution of the OCX.
ActiveX controls are NOT bad, they are a good idea.
What was a bad idea was implementing support into Internet Explorer for embedding ActiveX controls. And for implementing VBScript to talk to those controls.
I have yet to see one use of ActiveX on the internet that could not be done some other way.
Thankfully, I seem to be able to avoid ActiveX controls in my own use, the only place I have seen them lately is on some Microsoft sites.
As for those who say that some banks and such use ActiveX, well if I found a secure site that required IE to function, I would take my business elsewhere.
or similar rom download site is all the instances where the rights are owned by too many people to make it fesable.
Firstly, there may be the need to get permission from the manufacturer of the console or arcade board to relase it.
Secondly, there may be items in the game that the company doesnt own (e.g. licenced games, BIOS roms, licenced code/art/sounds/etc)
Thirdly, the company may not have something it can release. (whilst there is MAME + starroms, there are many reasons including piracy and loss of controll as to why most companies wouldnt want their games on sites like that)
The right way to treat encryption is the same way they treat safes and lockboxes.
If the police are searching your house (with a warrant) and they find a safe, there are rules about when they can and cant force you to open that safe.
The same rules should apply to any ecrypted information they find.
For example, if they have an encrypted email or file, the same rules should apply as apply to them finding a safe in your house.
As for this new data retention crap, are the cops going to pay for the huge servers and disks required to hold all this information? And the people to keep everything going?
ok, I wasnt aware of that (being australian).
ok, heres an example.
Gaspumps display in Gallons and Gas is sold in Gallons.
Changing all those pumps to diplay in Litres would be expensive.
There are some US things that are going be very difficult to change to metric.
For example, car speedometers measure in miles per hour. Therefore, speed limits need to be in miles per hour.
Unless you can change all the speed limit signs AND all the speedometers into kilometers per hour (AND educate all the drivers in america), it is going to be difficult to change this.
There are many other such examples.
Its highly unlikely that EA would have paid what they did unless they were getting an exclusive licence.
Its a simple matter of economics for both EA and the NFL.
The NFL wasnts as much money as possible for the licence (which means that they need to offer an exclusive licence). They dont really care who licences it.
EA wants to keep making and selling Madden so it had to spend what it spent to get the licence (or risk being outbid by a competitor)
I am sure that that could be construed as anti-competitive (i.e. sony leveraging their PS2 monopoly to advance their sports games)
Thank god EA doesnt have a monopoly on the Australian V8 Supercar Championship Series.
:)
Their V8 Challenge game was crap.
They didnt have the complete team lineup.
Nor did they have the complete selection of tracks (and those they did have sucked)
I havent played either of the Codemasters V8 games so I dont know if they are any better but EAs certainly sucked
and they will continue to suck untill such time as they stop using the Internet Explorer rendering engine and switch to the gecko rendering engine (a very large chunk of which was written by people paid by AOL to work on it)
Although I suspect that (in addition to any "some sites dont work" arguments), there is also an argument (a potentially valid one too) that the gecko rendering engine uses more system resources (disk, CPU, RAM etc) than the IE rendering engine does (remember, IE has large parts of itself loaded into RAM on startup thanks to its integration with Explorer)
If software patents dont get through in the EU, there is nothing stopping anyone from taking stuff that is patented in the US under their broken system and using it legally. This includes competitors of the company that holds the US patent.
Also, with the power of the Internet and global commerce, it is very difficult to sue for violation of the US patent by people who the patent applies to since there are too many to catch.
The job of government is to use the right tool for the job.
If that tool is Microsoft software, thats fine.
What is needed, however, is an insistance on Open Standards whenever possible (for example, I doubt you will find a police dispatch system built around Open Standards).
And then have a competitive tender process.
If Open Source can show a better outcome than Microsoft software, it should be used. But if Microsoft software is the better alternative, use it.
Its likely the case that the larger colledge who bought you out was already using MS office, Outlook and IE for everything and didnt want to have the hassle of maintaining 2 different software setups. Therefore, the setup with the larger installed base (which is probobly the MS setup) becomes the supported setup which evertone uses.
Although conversly those same people would (for some rediculous reason) rather buy a shiny new dell or HP instead of taking the time to clean all the spyware and crapware off their old machine to make it run better.
Another factor with cars is the big auto workers unions.
For example, recently, Holden (a division of General Motors) wanted to bring the Holden UTE (kind of like a pickup truck only smaller and a lot more sporty looking) over to america along with the Holden Monaro sports car. But General Motors faced opposition from the auto unions and ended up not being able to bring the UTE over at all and bringing less Monaros (which were rebadged as the Pontiac GTO) over.
Any arguments about "the US has a lame propriatory standard because they are so spread out" is garbage.
Here in australia, we have GSM and it works just great even out in the bush (certainly along all the major highways and in most outback towns and such)
I think part of it is that the US (and particularly US corperations) dont want the same standards as other places in the world so they can maintain control over things (for example, if the US used the same GSM standard as Europe, Australia etc, it would be a lot harder for the US wireless operators to control what phones are used on their service since they would have to allow people with existing phones from overseas to connect)
One factor is the american obsession with BIG.
BIG cars most notably.
But also BIG TVs and such.
Thats why we need to push for much greater adoption of Sender Permitted From (SPF).
That should prevent fake email addresses from being used.
Unfortunatly, large ISPs and email providers dont seem to want to implement SPF records for their mailservers.
One that takes all the good things from the different networks and makes them into the ultimate P2P app.
It should have:
1.complete open unencumbered protocol specs
2.Open Source reference implementation
3.Complete encryption of all files shared along with random files being stored in random locations (i.e. like Freenet has where its next to impossible for anyone to tell exactly what files a given person is actually sharing). It should be designed such that even the owner of the machine has no way to know who is downloading what from their machine.
4.Good search feature so you can find what you want easily (including an equivelent of the ed2k:// links so websites and stuff can link to files on this network)
5.communication features (ala IM/chat) that let you find and talk to other network users.
6.Encrypted network traffic. A great way to do this would be to encapsulate everything with SSH so that anyone in the middle only sees SSH requests. This makes it harder for service providers to shape or block it without harming all those who use SSH for its many many legitimate purposes such as CVS and remote access.
7.It should feature downloading from multiple sources if available (i.e. spread the load around)
8.It should feature a built-in program similar to peer-guardian and other such programs that can block IP address ranges owned by the copyright police (with the database being totally open for all to see as well as ways to add your own local entries if you want). Certainly this would be incorporated into the protocol specs and the reference implementation.
9.It should be deasigned to be totally non-relient on any one central server or servers.
and 10.It should be designed such that it does not require large system requirements (e.g. big CPU usage, large RAM usage, big disk space requirements etc) and so that it doesnt have undue bandwidth requirements (i.e. no more than current P2P apps require)
Because its Open Source (and Open Specifications too), there is no central target to go after like there is with kazza or napster or audiogalaxy.
Development of clients can happen in many countries and in many places making it impossible to stamp out. (plus, if its popular, it will be mirrored in plenty of places simply through that fact alone)
Because its encrypted and goes over SSH (or something else standard if SSH is not sutable), its difficult to block this without getting legitimate users of that service annoyed
Because it has the encryption and "files can be anywhere" features of Freenet its much harder for the copyright police to link files to machines/IP addresses (which makes figuring out who to sue harder) Also, this means that it would be possible to show (even in a court of law) that you didnt know that your file share contained copyrighted material, child porn, terrorist stuff, music not produced by the RIAA cartels or whatever else that the government who holds juristiction over the machine in question has decided to declare "illegal" this week.
Because it has IP blocking (like Peer-Guardian etc) its easier to find where the copyright police are scanning from and stop them from connecting to your machine
What is likely to happen is that ISPs will simply bump up their prices to cover the cost of processing all those notices.
And amend their terms of service so that when they process and act on a fake takedown notice there is nothing the customer can do against them.
The real problem is that a lot of people, faced with someone they didnt like (Howard) and someone they knew nothing about (Latham) went with Howard.
Something about "better the devil you know" or something.
Besides, John Howard kept spreading all those lies about Interest Rates.
I want to see an election where polititions arent allowed to say anything bad about the other guy.
Greater regulation of universities and other institutions offering courses.
Particularly in various fields where having qualifications is important.
Just have some simple rules about what an institution must do in order to be able to legally issue degrees and stuff.
Although most of the phony degree scams I have seen tend to be for crappy degrees anyway.