And those of us who do TRY and make a difference get to bitch to.
Most of the people I have to deal with don't care. They use Windows because they've always used it and it's what everyone else uses. They don't want to have to learn a new OS, or have to start using all new apps.
I was having a discussion with someone the other day about how Linux isn't ready for the mainstream desktop yet. It's not, there are still a few key things missing (availability of apps equivelent to the things they use every day [ones that work just like drop-in replacements], easy software installation and uninstallation [some distros do this better than others], etc.), and even the idea that a lot of people have the Linux is for geeks.
It's a lot closer now than it's ever been, and a lot of these things are being addressed, but for the time being, there is no compelling reason for most people to switch from Windows. They're used to it, it comes installed on their new PC, and it works for them. The average user doesn't really care what EULAs they have to agree, or that MS is a monopoly. They want a product that works, and MS (like it or not) has done that for a lot of people. They've learned to live with the crashes (which are far less frequent in 2K/XP), and they're so used to the Windows interface and system that changing their OS offers no benefit to them.
Don't get me wrong, I don't like MS and I'm very disappointed in this decision, but we have to step back from being idealists and look at the reality a bit.
Of course, that's just been my experience, having never been able to get some Linux exposure in a corporate setting, you will almost certainly have a different experience. For everyone, YMMV. It depends as much on the kind of people you deal with, as well as the situation.
Perhaps that's true by the letter of the judgement, but I don't see it happening that way in practice.
They can refuse to release anything they want, and if the DOJ tries to go after them again, MS will probably get another slap on the wrist like they did here.
No doubt it would be good, but most people people don't care and won't change anything. As a result, most sites won't change anything either, and so something like OpenNIC has a massive uphill battle just to gain any kind of acceptance.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great idea, but as with most things discussed on/. it's not easy (by any means) to convince the average user.
Except he's right. While CNN consists of a whole lot of people, the organization is only one thing, therefore the singular 'is' should be used, as opposed to the plural 'are'.
If it was "CNN reporters are..." that would be right.
It seems to be that more and more in today's society, people don't matter. MONEY matters. The RIAA is doing anything and everything it can to make more money, and politicians are taking 'contributions' (which to me consitutes bribery in many cases) to introduce/help push/vote for legislation that screws people while allowing companies to make more money.
The problem is of course that your software will be vulnerable to virii and buffer overflows.
Palladium will not make buffer overflows disappear. They're still going to happen in the code, it's a fact of life, what Palladium would do would be to run the application in an addess space where no other apps can access it; nothing would stop an app from writing to it's own memory.
No form of protection like Palladium can elimate bugs, all it can do it limit their effect, which is what Palladium hopes to accomplish (the way I see it, anyway).
At my college (Stevens Inst. of Tech.), we have a new Events system, flat panel LCDs in a couple of places around the campus, showing the same thing you'd see on the events site. I walked by one the other day with a nice NetBIOS spam message on it, had a good laugh, recorded the IP of the computer (for solely reference purposes, of couse:-) ).
Never happened to me though, but then I run a firewall (and just disabled the Messenger service).
The TGV is electrified, the main attraction of these new locomotives is that they allow high-speed trains to run over existing track, most of which is non-electrified. Saves a lot of cost on electrifying an untold number of miles of track.
The trains are high-speed, but over most of the NEC there's something like an 80mph speed limit (the Acelas are capable of about 120, IIRC). I don't remember the reasons for this, although my guess is that the line was never designed for high speed trains.
I ride the NJ Transit NEC trains sometimes, and when an Acela flies by it causes a fair bit of shaking in the NJT train. I assume this is one of the reasons the Acela runs slower than it's capable of.
That's where the problem is. Most of the major players involved in some way with the DMCA are in favor of it, most of it's opponents don't have the resources to fight them.
Sure, there are plenty of other wealthy people/corportations who COULD help in the fight, but there's no reason for them to do so. Why help out people like us at their expense, unless they're helping themselves too?
You'd want to have a lawyer who completely understands the law, and has faced judges before. Not to say you don't know a fair bit (I don't know either way), but you'd definitely want to be sure that what you're arguing is actually covered in the law, and covered the way you use it.
In addition, if you lose, you're stuck paying court fees at a minimum, which can get hefty in some cases.
How big an audience can the "now-visually-impaired-but-once-target-shooters" be?
Don't get me wrong, you make a perfectly valid point about not knowing your target audience, but most of the examples I've seen posted (I chose yours to reply to) end up with a rather limited scope for the unexpected users they cite.
That said, I do support people making their sites accessible to the visually impaired, but we do need to stop and consider the feelings of the majority of the target audience. Supposing the target-shooting site has a very neat dynamic menu system (hypothetically) and a lot of content that gets neatly organized under these menus, and is difficult to sort any other way. Is it worth inconviencing (my guess, which is nothing more than a complete stab in the dark) 90+% of the target audience for the convience of a few visually impaired users?
One thing that turns people away from sites is poor navigation, this holds true for everyone, disabled or not (it's their client's interpretation that affects their perception). Granted, I'm sure that most sites could have their navigation tweaked to be mostly usable by everyone, but in many cases it's not really worth the effort (in the minds of the webmasters).
That said, I would be very upset/disappointed/pissed if I were ever in an accident where I lost my sight, and would love to see more people create accessible sites.
Does Palladium have a way to detect if a copyrighted work's copyright has expired? If not, how is that legal? If so, how do they plan to protect this against hackers/pirates?
Given Microsoft's notorious security record, how confident are they that Palladium will work 100% on the first try?
If it doesn't work, who is going to be repsonsible for replacing the 'broken' hardware and software? Who's going to have to bear the costs? If a large company upgrades all their PCs to Palladium-enabled machines, and there's some flaw in the hardware, are they going to have to effectively repurchase the systems, or will Microsoft/hardware vendor foot the bill?
(This was mentioned as part of another post, but I'm going to paraphrase it here.)
Microsoft has been ruled a monopoly in federal court for unfair practices by bundling it's software with its OS. What firm assurance (not a EULA or other agreement that includes a provision for retroactively applying changes) is Microsoft offering that they won't use the Palladium capabilities to pursue this same line?
On a tangential note, does anyone know if they are planning to do something like this at any other colleges/universities? I'd like to see this sort of lecture at my college.
Some disappointed scientists
on
Space Junk Tracked
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I know that when it was first realized that this was space junk, a lot of scientists got excited at the possibility that it would hit the moon, and they'd get a chance to get some more mileage out the Apolla-era seismic detectors on the moon.
Slashdot Mirror
Most of the people I have to deal with don't care. They use Windows because they've always used it and it's what everyone else uses. They don't want to have to learn a new OS, or have to start using all new apps.
I was having a discussion with someone the other day about how Linux isn't ready for the mainstream desktop yet. It's not, there are still a few key things missing (availability of apps equivelent to the things they use every day [ones that work just like drop-in replacements], easy software installation and uninstallation [some distros do this better than others], etc.), and even the idea that a lot of people have the Linux is for geeks.
It's a lot closer now than it's ever been, and a lot of these things are being addressed, but for the time being, there is no compelling reason for most people to switch from Windows. They're used to it, it comes installed on their new PC, and it works for them. The average user doesn't really care what EULAs they have to agree, or that MS is a monopoly. They want a product that works, and MS (like it or not) has done that for a lot of people. They've learned to live with the crashes (which are far less frequent in 2K/XP), and they're so used to the Windows interface and system that changing their OS offers no benefit to them.
Don't get me wrong, I don't like MS and I'm very disappointed in this decision, but we have to step back from being idealists and look at the reality a bit.
Of course, that's just been my experience, having never been able to get some Linux exposure in a corporate setting, you will almost certainly have a different experience. For everyone, YMMV. It depends as much on the kind of people you deal with, as well as the situation.
Yes, I know I do, found that out on a trip to SC on spring break earlier this year.
Perhaps that's true by the letter of the judgement, but I don't see it happening that way in practice.
They can refuse to release anything they want, and if the DOJ tries to go after them again, MS will probably get another slap on the wrist like they did here.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great idea, but as with most things discussed on /. it's not easy (by any means) to convince the average user.
But it's also a fairly simple matter to tell the web server NOT to serve that document. A simple .htaccess file would have done the trick,
Inertia. ICANN has been in charge for so long it's going to be damn hard to overcome that.
Except he's right. While CNN consists of a whole lot of people, the organization is only one thing, therefore the singular 'is' should be used, as opposed to the plural 'are'.
If it was "CNN reporters are..." that would be right.
It seems to be that more and more in today's society, people don't matter. MONEY matters. The RIAA is doing anything and everything it can to make more money, and politicians are taking 'contributions' (which to me consitutes bribery in many cases) to introduce/help push/vote for legislation that screws people while allowing companies to make more money.
Who cares about prior art? You'd probably still get the patent granted, given the way the USPTO seems to be working these days.
Palladium will not make buffer overflows disappear. They're still going to happen in the code, it's a fact of life, what Palladium would do would be to run the application in an addess space where no other apps can access it; nothing would stop an app from writing to it's own memory.
No form of protection like Palladium can elimate bugs, all it can do it limit their effect, which is what Palladium hopes to accomplish (the way I see it, anyway).
And suddenly the game is only playable on one computer, seeing as a different computer has a different MAC address.
Free-as-in-beer means it doesn't cost anything.
I think he meant use a GNU/Linux system to find the drivers.
Never happened to me though, but then I run a firewall (and just disabled the Messenger service).
Because Bush Sr. didn't fight a war with MS, and Bush Jr. doesn't see a need to finish anything.
The TGV is electrified, the main attraction of these new locomotives is that they allow high-speed trains to run over existing track, most of which is non-electrified. Saves a lot of cost on electrifying an untold number of miles of track.
The trains are high-speed, but over most of the NEC there's something like an 80mph speed limit (the Acelas are capable of about 120, IIRC). I don't remember the reasons for this, although my guess is that the line was never designed for high speed trains.
I ride the NJ Transit NEC trains sometimes, and when an Acela flies by it causes a fair bit of shaking in the NJT train. I assume this is one of the reasons the Acela runs slower than it's capable of.
That's where the problem is. Most of the major players involved in some way with the DMCA are in favor of it, most of it's opponents don't have the resources to fight them.
Sure, there are plenty of other wealthy people/corportations who COULD help in the fight, but there's no reason for them to do so. Why help out people like us at their expense, unless they're helping themselves too?
You'd want to have a lawyer who completely understands the law, and has faced judges before. Not to say you don't know a fair bit (I don't know either way), but you'd definitely want to be sure that what you're arguing is actually covered in the law, and covered the way you use it.
In addition, if you lose, you're stuck paying court fees at a minimum, which can get hefty in some cases.
Don't get me wrong, you make a perfectly valid point about not knowing your target audience, but most of the examples I've seen posted (I chose yours to reply to) end up with a rather limited scope for the unexpected users they cite.
That said, I do support people making their sites accessible to the visually impaired, but we do need to stop and consider the feelings of the majority of the target audience. Supposing the target-shooting site has a very neat dynamic menu system (hypothetically) and a lot of content that gets neatly organized under these menus, and is difficult to sort any other way. Is it worth inconviencing (my guess, which is nothing more than a complete stab in the dark) 90+% of the target audience for the convience of a few visually impaired users?
One thing that turns people away from sites is poor navigation, this holds true for everyone, disabled or not (it's their client's interpretation that affects their perception). Granted, I'm sure that most sites could have their navigation tweaked to be mostly usable by everyone, but in many cases it's not really worth the effort (in the minds of the webmasters).
That said, I would be very upset/disappointed/pissed if I were ever in an accident where I lost my sight, and would love to see more people create accessible sites.
Does Palladium have a way to detect if a copyrighted work's copyright has expired? If not, how is that legal? If so, how do they plan to protect this against hackers/pirates?
If it doesn't work, who is going to be repsonsible for replacing the 'broken' hardware and software? Who's going to have to bear the costs? If a large company upgrades all their PCs to Palladium-enabled machines, and there's some flaw in the hardware, are they going to have to effectively repurchase the systems, or will Microsoft/hardware vendor foot the bill?
(This was mentioned as part of another post, but I'm going to paraphrase it here.)
Microsoft has been ruled a monopoly in federal court for unfair practices by bundling it's software with its OS. What firm assurance (not a EULA or other agreement that includes a provision for retroactively applying changes) is Microsoft offering that they won't use the Palladium capabilities to pursue this same line?
On a tangential note, does anyone know if they are planning to do something like this at any other colleges/universities? I'd like to see this sort of lecture at my college.
I know that when it was first realized that this was space junk, a lot of scientists got excited at the possibility that it would hit the moon, and they'd get a chance to get some more mileage out the Apolla-era seismic detectors on the moon.
Oh yeah, forgot that the Borg have no gender ;)
The 'other' category includes Steve Ballmer, I'd guess, but who else?