they'll be sending lawyers to beaches and the countrysides and sue people who illegally share their music by not using headphones... seriously, what's the difference between this and having a stack of CD and connect a very powerful AMP to all the speakers in the company?
Well, as far as ASCAP/BMI restrictions go, playing the music over a machine with attached speakers (boombox) is not a public performance requiring ASCAP or BMI fees. If the speakers are not attached to the amp, it's considered a PA system, thus a public performance is occurring... Thus, fees.
So in a situation where you use a PA amp, that could be argued to be a public performance... A boombox probably couldn't be.
What's sad is that this seems like a crazy standard for playing music in a workplace... Consider that playing CDs on a PC generally involves speakers that aren't attached to the machine. (My laptop excluded...)
Does that mean my company should be liable for an ASCAP/BMI fee for the "public performance" on my PC's "public address" speakers? That seems sort of silly...
Is that it's the easiest to install of the lot. A little background: I just started futzing with Linux recently. I've done 3 linux installs. Two were nightmares that never actually technically ended, and one was flawless, simple, and took under 30 minutes.
The one that went off without a hitch on the first try? Mandrake. It detected all of my crappy second-hand non-standard Gateway hardware no sweat, suggested sizes for partitions and went off on its merry way. 27 minutes later it was rebooted and prompting me for my login and password...
Damn, if I had known Mandrake was so easy I would've used it the first time...
I believe that the FDA did not approve the implants, but rather decided that they are not medical and therefore not under the jurisdiction of the FDA. There's a big difference between being unregulated by the FDA and being approved by the FDA.
Also, FDA stands for "Food and Drug Administration," not "Federal Drug Administration."
Come on, that's 8th Grade Civics material right there...
Could be a good step in creating more competition in the broadband market... but then again given the PUC's track record, maybe we're all in for rolling DSL blackouts."
Having the various states "roll their own rules" for DSL is the dumbest possible solution to "not enough available broadband."
The effects will be:
- Higher prices. Companies will be forced to comply with different regs in California than the rest of the world, this means that Californians will pay the extra costs on their bill. - Less service available. What businessman in his right mind would enter a market that is about to be heavily regulated by a group of west-coast liberals?
So if you want to keep DSL out of your neighborhood for another five years, by all means, make up your own rules.
As I recall, SQL Server simply pukes if you try to put the database on a network volume until version 7.0... Not sure about 2000, didn't get around to using it prior to my layoff.
Just to clarify: Do you want to have the database FILES sit on the NAS box or install SQL Server on the NAS box? One might be possible, but unwise. The other would be both impossible and unwise.
Removing them would result in a slower, much-less user friendly Windows that would be a support nightmare."
So their argument appears to be that, if we try to enforce the law, they'll make their "stripped" Operating System such a joke (it costs $20, but there's no GUI) as to be useless, de facto forcing everybody to buy the full version.
This isn't a troll or a flame...I've supported Windows for a living in the past. It's ALREADY a support nightmare. Any indication by MS that they're "going to make it worse" in a stripped down version of Windows is a serious threat... Imagine if your already sky-high Windows support costs went up 40% overnight...
The best thing that could happen to the ulcers of IT people would be for Windows (and Microsoft itself) to go the way of the Do-Do bird.
You can support 700 users on a decent dual desktop system with Linux, what's this guy thinking?
I would tend to agree, but it's also possible they're planning a large acquisition and need the horsepower to support a few thousand new employees instantly.
In these crazy days of "Merge merge merge" you never know...
My wireless router is at about eye level, about a foot away, on a shelf here in my office. If that sucker was putting out 100 watts I probably wouldn't have it so close to my head anymore...
The big difference between Coke and Microsoft is that Coke isn't a monopoly.
Coke is selling products in an industry with competition. MS is not. Coke cannot put a grocery store out of business, whereas MS could squash Dell like a bug if they cut off the "Windows air supply."
Microsoft is a monopoly, pure and simple. Locking their competitors out of the marketplace is CLEARLY using their monopoly leverage to maintain said monopoly. I'm not sure how anybody could see it any other way (short of being paid off like George W. and Company...)
More virus-like that the company might admit
on
Spy v. Spy
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· Score: 4, Insightful
If I found that someone had installed unauthorized spyware on my machine and broke my anti-spyware, I would be suing not just the individual who installed it on my machine in the first place, but also the company that makes the spyware.
And would you also sue a binocular manufacturer if someone spys on your wife in your backyard?
In this country, based on the lawyer-fication (and simultaneous puss-ification) of the United States, intent often has a lot to do with whether you win or lose in court.
To win a lawsuit against somebody who built a product that was used to commit a crime, you have to prove the manufacturer intended the product to be used to commit a crime. While it would be hard to argue that the binocular manufacturer intended the product to be used illegally, it might not be so tough with the Spyware. Consider that Spyware has only one function, to collect data without the knowledge of the person under surveillance.
Further, if you check out the web-site, you'll see that the Spyware referred to in the article has a "remote stealth install" method, rather similar to an Outlook/VB Script virus.
You send the victim (er, your husband) an email with the "stealth installer" executable attached. If your target is an average Outlook user who double-clicks on every attachment he gets, all he'll see is...Well, nothing. According to their web-site when the target clicks on the stealth installer the software is up and running in a few seconds without alerting the target to its presence.
No, it's not "technically" a virus, it's a trojan horse. As far as I know, there's no special legal protection given to authors of Trojan Horses who sell them for profit.
This sort of research and experiments would apply to manned missions to other planets: Places the trip would be measured in years.
If I'm not a vegan (and I'm not) on this trip, and all I get is vegan food, no beef, chicken, or fish, I'm gonna' go ape shit. I mean, it's gonna' be one ugly scene. Sorry, but I'm making a big enough sacrifice (possibly even dying in the effort) to go on this 3 year journey to Mars. Come Saturday night, I want a goddamn steak. Period. More meat, for the meat eaters.
Also, (offtopic) a good way to keep the population from reaching 10 billion is to bomb Africa and South America with condoms. Maybe the odd instructional pamphlet.
...By law, you have the right to not put your Social Security Number on your driver's license.
I wonder if the SSN gets encoded on the magnetic stripe if you request it not be on the face of the license?
Then, buried way down at the end is this little gem...
"It's the same information as the front of the license," said Frank Mandelbaum, chairman and chief executive of IntelliCheck, a manufacturer of license-scanning equipment based in Woodbury, N.Y. "If I were to go into a bar and they had a photocopier, they could photocopy the license or they could write it down. They are not giving us any information that violates privacy."
Any sane person would point out that the bouncer "could" record the information by photocopying, yes, but he couldn't do so without being detected.
Also, because one use of the technology (license) would allow overt data collection doesn't necessarily mean that you SHOULD have the god-given right to collect data surreptitiously with the same technology.
Unfortunately, in anti-trust law, there is this (IMHO absolutely insane) doctrine, that the purpose of the law is purely remedial and not at all punitive. That is, you can only use anti-trust law to "correct" for the anticompetitive behavior of a company. You can't actually punish the company.
I'm not sure you can really seperate the two. If the judge wishes to "correct the monopoly," it has to be possibble to get Linux on a workstation from Dell and Gateway, and other mainstream manufacturers. The reason Microsoft put prsesure on Dell (to stay vaguely ontopic here) is that (whether accurate or not) Dell is seen by consumer-level buyers as a quality PC.
Having Linux available on Dell systems could have legitimized (in the consumer-mind) something that Microsoft wished to keep on the fringe, Linux on the desktop.
Anything that "corrects the monopoly" (or at least levels the OS playing field) will destroy Microsoft since, as numerous other posters have pointed out, nobody with large amounts of money to spend on OS and hardware really wants to buy Microsoft, they just sort of have to. In fact, few people besides Microsoft want them around at all.
How else can you correct the monopoly? Keep in mind that MS has a track record of "settling" antitrust matters, only to violate said settlement when it is convenient to their business plan to do so.
I was as shocked as anybody. I went in to buy toilet paper and a dog toy, and decided for fun to see what software they had. To my surprise, on the top shelf, displayed prominently right beside Windows XP and Office XP, were boxed distros of Mandrake, Red Hat, and SuSE. I almost had a heart attack. (I don't go to the electronics area at Walmart, well, ever. Except for yesterday.)
Also, this part of the article misses the point and will confuse those "non-tech savvy" folks it hoped to enlighten:
The risk for Walmart.com is that some customers shopping for a deal may unwittingly buy the computer and discover later that they
have to buy a version of Microsoft Windows, which could cost hundreds of dollars.
Truth is Windows costs hundreds of dollars whether it's pre-bundled with the hardware or not, and it always has. The difference is many users don't notice that cost when they pay as a portion of their pc's purchase price rather than actually handing the cashier a product that rings up $299.99.
...I read this part of the article and couldn't help but wonder...If it's not the Feds, and it's not the dissenting states...who then, Superman?
"The plaintiffs
are not here to punish Microsoft," Sullivan said. "The plaintiffs' goals are to make Microsoft behave properly."
The "remedy" phase of an anti-trust case is like the "penalty" phase of other criminal trials: It's when the punishment is meted out.
So why aren't the plaintiffs seeking punishment? They should be there to punish Microsoft. Their goal is to solve the problem and prevent future violations of the law. If they aren't truly seeking punishment, then it strikes me the states might be hedging their bets: Waiting to see if the judge will enforce a harsh remedy (and face the wrath of the Bush administration and the Ashcroft goon squad.) If the judge won't do that, they'll be able to easily sell out for a cheap "PR Win" against MS where they settle and the majority of people who don't know enough about computers to care will say "Good, they took care of that Microsoft thing. Now I can go back to the net without worrying my porn will be cut off."
It's also laughable to me that MS' lawyers can argue, with a straight face, that evidence of on-going criminal conduct is somehow "irrelevant" to the penalty phase of their trial. I do my best to avoid situational logic, so the best way to decide if this isn't a completely bullshit argument is to replace Microsoft with Lenny the Mobster.
If Lenny the Mobster is charged with operating a sports book, and while out on bail on these charges (which he has since been convicted of,) he set up a NEW sports book, that would certainly seem like relevant evidence to me in considering whether the defendant had any intention of obeying the law in the future, and whether a stronger sentence might be needed to reform him.
Microsoft should not get special treatment. Microsoft has broken the law. Multiple times. They have been convicted multiple times, despite doing everything they could to worm out of responsibility including:
1) Lying (IE couldn't possibbly be unbundled) 2) Buying off the Bush administration 3) Buying off much of Congress
If it was Lenny the Mobster charged with murder, racketeering, or anything else, they could (and have, in the past) use everything including the kitchen sink against him. Why does Microsoft deserve preferential treatment?
MS is like a child, defiant to the last that it deserves no punishment. That's basically the argument they're presenting in court: They don't want to make the changes proposed by the dissenting states because those changes would end most of their monopolies in 6-18 months. MS seems to be arguing that there should be a lesser punishment simply because they say so.
When this all works itself out, and MS is over (or sold, divested, whatever) there will be a collective hangover. Things will be weird for a few months, but ultimately more healthy.
Think of it like ending a relationship with a crazy girl: Yeah, you lose great sex for a little while (millions of video games) but you also get all the heartache and bullshit of dating a crazy girl (autoexecution of VBScripts in emails, gaping web-server security flaws)...
Yeah, it hurts at first, but ultimately you're a better, stronger person with (hopefully) an open, easy to use OS with lots of games, groovy programming environments, and other fun multimedia content the likes of which hasn't even been invented yet.
In other words, the rich pageant of computing that's been prommised for the last decade, but never delivered by Microsoft.
use of lasers to kill/wound/maim/blind soldiers is illegal under international law. Not to say it's never done, but as a recongnized capability-- I doubt it.
Now that it's a crime to have a Death Ray, on criminals will have Death Rays...
Macs typically cost more than a Windows PC, but only up-front. With Macs, you can employ a pay-once, use forever school of thought. Not the case the other way around.
Anybody who doubts me should consider the costs of:
- Seperate Microsoft CALs for everything under the sun.
- Down-time caused by virii, worms, and other compromise.
- Bandwidth costs associated with said worms. (Anybody still paying a Code Red debt? Anybody go out of business because of it?)
- Down-time due to hardware failure caused by use of cheap/shoddy/no-name components.
- Hour wasted re-installing OS 2-3 times annually (3-5 times annually in an office/heavy use scenario)
- Time wasted installing/finding/troubleshooting device drivers when installing hardware.
I'm not saying there won't ever be a hardware problem or support issue to arise on a Mac, because there will be, but I'm saying there are a number of hidden costs in Windows PCs.
When you factor in those hidden costs, and factor in the lowest bang for your buck prices at Apple in history, Macs become much more attractive for regular business users, not just web-designers, programmers, and graphic artists. Are you telling me that whatever Unix apps your company runs couldn't get ported to OS X or accessed as a web-application?
Data-processing workers or secretarys could even live with sub-$1000 iMac systems. Beef them up with OS X and 512 meg of RAM and you've got more than ample resources to run Office v.X and email, which is about 99% of my mom's job (and since most people know as much about computers as my mom, that's a good measureing stick.)
-TV banner ads... as much as you hate them on the web, I'm sure they're not far off for TV.
-ghost-overs... just like the ghost-image of the network logo on the bottom right corner of almost every program these days. How long until these are used for advertising?
Major League Baseball is already doing this: They've had advertisements super-imposed on the wall beside the batter on national broadcasts for the last two seasons.
When I first heard about it, it sounded pretty irritating. But then I was watching a Fox Saturday game of the week first season they had it, and didn't even notice it was there until the fourth inning. If it's done tastefully, and you're totally immersed in the content, it won't be so bad.
The key that keeps it from being distracting to the game is that the ads don't change when they're on the screen. So if you're watching a guy bat, you'll never be waiting for the pitch, then suddenly get distracted by the super-imposed ad changing from Schick to Pepsi, for example.
Uproar is not over the current mechanics...
on
Read the Fine Print
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· Score: 5, Insightful
...But over the wording of a license agreement that allows MS to do anything they want to your computer.
Is this such a bad thing? OK so you have to trust Microsoft here but how else can Windowsupdate work?
Windowsupdate scans your computer for required updates and, depending on your settings, it downloads the appropriate updates and presents a notification on the taskbar that they need to be installed. One click and the updates are installed.
There's no justification for needing legal authority to install anything, as the system functions today. To "need" this level of authority, Microsoft would have to argue that THEY, not you, are in fact installing the software in question. In my opinion, (not a lawyer) that's crazy.
In order for the software to be installed, you (a person of sound mind and body) have to take the active step of saying "Yes." You're doing it. It's one-click installation, but you made the choice.
Unless future versions of Windows Update will automatically install things? I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Got Code Red Part 44 after the Code Red Part 43 patch auto-installed? "Sorry, you agreed we could install anything we want, including buggy, poorly-tested code."
After all, Microsoft would never release a patch that opened up new holes in the feature it was supposed to fix. (Or in other random products.) Anyone claiming contrary will be burned as a witch.
Is that, as a Mac OS X user, I have a program called "Fire" which does MSN, ICQ, Yahoo!, Jabberr, irc, and AOL Instant Messenger in one program. This is so beneficial if you want to use multiple services but don't want 50 programs running. Why don't they move against Fire? Is it that there's not many people (ie. not enough Mac OS X users) to matter yet? Or is that phase two of their "Sue Everybody" plan?
I recently had the "opportunity" to use Photoshop on a Power Mac G4. I was stunned at how slow and unresponsive it was when compared to its performance on my Athlon XP system. Same thing for the OS/X GUI. It was glacial compared to the snappy response to which I have become accustomed. Games that fly on my PC look like slide shows on most Power Mac G4 systems.
Please mention specific hardware configurations for all comparisons...
Return to Castle Wolfenstein is a joke on my three year old Pentium II. Compare with the first-gen iMac at my buddies house which plays "Return to Wolfenstein" beta about a million times better. I won't say it's as good as my G4-500 powerbook, (the iMac did have 512 meg of RAM) but it's acceptable. My Pentium II 350, meanwhile, is a joke running the Windows version.
Charging people a little extra to connect multiple computers can bring in a little more money to keep the company afloat. And tracking down violators will--hopefully--result in those people agreeing to pay the extra amount. Comcast is not trying to alienate customers, they are trying to keep customers happy by staying in business
This is bogus reasoning. A team of network engineers could never in a million years "Detect" and "force to pay" enough NAT users to make paying that team of network engineers a profitable venture.
Look at he numbers: Team of network engineers (assume 5) @ $40/hr each. That $200/hr for the team. Weekly, you're paying $8,000. That means that, to make money, the team must find people with (and convince them to pay for) "extra" machines connected.
By my math, at $6 per machine, they'd have to "sell" about 440 extra IPs per week, and for those 440 "sales", those users must continue paying for at least three months. Otherwise, they're losing money on the operation.
If AT&T Broadband called and said I had to remove my firewall or pay extra, I know what my response would be...
(Starts with "F", ends with "u" and has "uck Yo" in the middle.)
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Well, as far as ASCAP/BMI restrictions go, playing the music over a machine with attached speakers (boombox) is not a public performance requiring ASCAP or BMI fees. If the speakers are not attached to the amp, it's considered a PA system, thus a public performance is occurring... Thus, fees.
So in a situation where you use a PA amp, that could be argued to be a public performance... A boombox probably couldn't be.
What's sad is that this seems like a crazy standard for playing music in a workplace... Consider that playing CDs on a PC generally involves speakers that aren't attached to the machine. (My laptop excluded...)
Does that mean my company should be liable for an ASCAP/BMI fee for the "public performance" on my PC's "public address" speakers? That seems sort of silly...
Is that it's the easiest to install of the lot. A little background: I just started futzing with Linux recently. I've done 3 linux installs. Two were nightmares that never actually technically ended, and one was flawless, simple, and took under 30 minutes.
The one that went off without a hitch on the first try? Mandrake. It detected all of my crappy second-hand non-standard Gateway hardware no sweat, suggested sizes for partitions and went off on its merry way. 27 minutes later it was rebooted and prompting me for my login and password...
Damn, if I had known Mandrake was so easy I would've used it the first time...
Also, FDA stands for "Food and Drug Administration," not "Federal Drug Administration."
Come on, that's 8th Grade Civics material right there...
Having the various states "roll their own rules" for DSL is the dumbest possible solution to "not enough available broadband."
The effects will be:
- Higher prices. Companies will be forced to comply with different regs in California than the rest of the world, this means that Californians will pay the extra costs on their bill.
- Less service available. What businessman in his right mind would enter a market that is about to be heavily regulated by a group of west-coast liberals?
So if you want to keep DSL out of your neighborhood for another five years, by all means, make up your own rules.
As I recall, SQL Server simply pukes if you try to put the database on a network volume until version 7.0... Not sure about 2000, didn't get around to using it prior to my layoff.
Just to clarify: Do you want to have the database FILES sit on the NAS box or install SQL Server on the NAS box? One might be possible, but unwise. The other would be both impossible and unwise.
So their argument appears to be that, if we try to enforce the law, they'll make their "stripped" Operating System such a joke (it costs $20, but there's no GUI) as to be useless, de facto forcing everybody to buy the full version.
This isn't a troll or a flame...I've supported Windows for a living in the past. It's ALREADY a support nightmare. Any indication by MS that they're "going to make it worse" in a stripped down version of Windows is a serious threat... Imagine if your already sky-high Windows support costs went up 40% overnight...
The best thing that could happen to the ulcers of IT people would be for Windows (and Microsoft itself) to go the way of the Do-Do bird.
I would tend to agree, but it's also possible they're planning a large acquisition and need the horsepower to support a few thousand new employees instantly.
In these crazy days of "Merge merge merge" you never know...
My wireless router is at about eye level, about a foot away, on a shelf here in my office. If that sucker was putting out 100 watts I probably wouldn't have it so close to my head anymore...
The big difference between Coke and Microsoft is that Coke isn't a monopoly.
Coke is selling products in an industry with competition. MS is not. Coke cannot put a grocery store out of business, whereas MS could squash Dell like a bug if they cut off the "Windows air supply."
Microsoft is a monopoly, pure and simple. Locking their competitors out of the marketplace is CLEARLY using their monopoly leverage to maintain said monopoly. I'm not sure how anybody could see it any other way (short of being paid off like George W. and Company...)
In this country, based on the lawyer-fication (and simultaneous puss-ification) of the United States, intent often has a lot to do with whether you win or lose in court.
To win a lawsuit against somebody who built a product that was used to commit a crime, you have to prove the manufacturer intended the product to be used to commit a crime. While it would be hard to argue that the binocular manufacturer intended the product to be used illegally, it might not be so tough with the Spyware. Consider that Spyware has only one function, to collect data without the knowledge of the person under surveillance.
Further, if you check out the web-site, you'll see that the Spyware referred to in the article has a "remote stealth install" method, rather similar to an Outlook/VB Script virus.
You send the victim (er, your husband) an email with the "stealth installer" executable attached. If your target is an average Outlook user who double-clicks on every attachment he gets, all he'll see is...Well, nothing. According to their web-site when the target clicks on the stealth installer the software is up and running in a few seconds without alerting the target to its presence.
No, it's not "technically" a virus, it's a trojan horse. As far as I know, there's no special legal protection given to authors of Trojan Horses who sell them for profit.
This sort of research and experiments would apply to manned missions to other planets: Places the trip would be measured in years.
If I'm not a vegan (and I'm not) on this trip, and all I get is vegan food, no beef, chicken, or fish, I'm gonna' go ape shit. I mean, it's gonna' be one ugly scene. Sorry, but I'm making a big enough sacrifice (possibly even dying in the effort) to go on this 3 year journey to Mars. Come Saturday night, I want a goddamn steak. Period. More meat, for the meat eaters.
Also, (offtopic) a good way to keep the population from reaching 10 billion is to bomb Africa and South America with condoms. Maybe the odd instructional pamphlet.
I found my card in the basement of a house I was moving my mother into. I don't even know WHO'S name is on it. All the better.
I wonder if the SSN gets encoded on the magnetic stripe if you request it not be on the face of the license?
Then, buried way down at the end is this little gem...
Any sane person would point out that the bouncer "could" record the information by photocopying, yes, but he couldn't do so without being detected.
Also, because one use of the technology (license) would allow overt data collection doesn't necessarily mean that you SHOULD have the god-given right to collect data surreptitiously with the same technology.
I'm not sure you can really seperate the two. If the judge wishes to "correct the monopoly," it has to be possibble to get Linux on a workstation from Dell and Gateway, and other mainstream manufacturers. The reason Microsoft put prsesure on Dell (to stay vaguely ontopic here) is that (whether accurate or not) Dell is seen by consumer-level buyers as a quality PC.
Having Linux available on Dell systems could have legitimized (in the consumer-mind) something that Microsoft wished to keep on the fringe, Linux on the desktop.
Anything that "corrects the monopoly" (or at least levels the OS playing field) will destroy Microsoft since, as numerous other posters have pointed out, nobody with large amounts of money to spend on OS and hardware really wants to buy Microsoft, they just sort of have to. In fact, few people besides Microsoft want them around at all.
How else can you correct the monopoly? Keep in mind that MS has a track record of "settling" antitrust matters, only to violate said settlement when it is convenient to their business plan to do so.
Fuck it, I'm moving to the Netherlands.
Also, this part of the article misses the point and will confuse those "non-tech savvy" folks it hoped to enlighten:
Truth is Windows costs hundreds of dollars whether it's pre-bundled with the hardware or not, and it always has. The difference is many users don't notice that cost when they pay as a portion of their pc's purchase price rather than actually handing the cashier a product that rings up $299.99.
The "remedy" phase of an anti-trust case is like the "penalty" phase of other criminal trials: It's when the punishment is meted out.
So why aren't the plaintiffs seeking punishment? They should be there to punish Microsoft. Their goal is to solve the problem and prevent future violations of the law. If they aren't truly seeking punishment, then it strikes me the states might be hedging their bets: Waiting to see if the judge will enforce a harsh remedy (and face the wrath of the Bush administration and the Ashcroft goon squad.) If the judge won't do that, they'll be able to easily sell out for a cheap "PR Win" against MS where they settle and the majority of people who don't know enough about computers to care will say "Good, they took care of that Microsoft thing. Now I can go back to the net without worrying my porn will be cut off."
It's also laughable to me that MS' lawyers can argue, with a straight face, that evidence of on-going criminal conduct is somehow "irrelevant" to the penalty phase of their trial. I do my best to avoid situational logic, so the best way to decide if this isn't a completely bullshit argument is to replace Microsoft with Lenny the Mobster.
If Lenny the Mobster is charged with operating a sports book, and while out on bail on these charges (which he has since been convicted of,) he set up a NEW sports book, that would certainly seem like relevant evidence to me in considering whether the defendant had any intention of obeying the law in the future, and whether a stronger sentence might be needed to reform him.
Microsoft should not get special treatment. Microsoft has broken the law. Multiple times. They have been convicted multiple times, despite doing everything they could to worm out of responsibility including:
1) Lying (IE couldn't possibbly be unbundled)
2) Buying off the Bush administration
3) Buying off much of Congress
If it was Lenny the Mobster charged with murder, racketeering, or anything else, they could (and have, in the past) use everything including the kitchen sink against him. Why does Microsoft deserve preferential treatment?
MS is like a child, defiant to the last that it deserves no punishment. That's basically the argument they're presenting in court: They don't want to make the changes proposed by the dissenting states because those changes would end most of their monopolies in 6-18 months. MS seems to be arguing that there should be a lesser punishment simply because they say so.
When this all works itself out, and MS is over (or sold, divested, whatever) there will be a collective hangover. Things will be weird for a few months, but ultimately more healthy.
Think of it like ending a relationship with a crazy girl: Yeah, you lose great sex for a little while (millions of video games) but you also get all the heartache and bullshit of dating a crazy girl (autoexecution of VBScripts in emails, gaping web-server security flaws)...
Yeah, it hurts at first, but ultimately you're a better, stronger person with (hopefully) an open, easy to use OS with lots of games, groovy programming environments, and other fun multimedia content the likes of which hasn't even been invented yet.
In other words, the rich pageant of computing that's been prommised for the last decade, but never delivered by Microsoft.
Did Lucifer happen to run Windows 2000, because I have theorized that satan himself must have conceptualized the Win2k DNS arrangements...
Yeah, I was surprised that it was modded as insightful too...I mean, it was just a joke.
Also, please lighten up, dude. See previous paragraph about it being "just a joke."
I can't believe nobody busted my ass for spelling the word "only" wrong.
Now that it's a crime to have a Death Ray, on criminals will have Death Rays...
Something to think about.
Macs typically cost more than a Windows PC, but only up-front. With Macs, you can employ a pay-once, use forever school of thought. Not the case the other way around.
Anybody who doubts me should consider the costs of:
- Seperate Microsoft CALs for everything under the sun.
- Down-time caused by virii, worms, and other compromise.
- Bandwidth costs associated with said worms. (Anybody still paying a Code Red debt? Anybody go out of business because of it?)
- Down-time due to hardware failure caused by use of cheap/shoddy/no-name components.
- Hour wasted re-installing OS 2-3 times annually (3-5 times annually in an office/heavy use scenario)
- Time wasted installing/finding/troubleshooting device drivers when installing hardware.
I'm not saying there won't ever be a hardware problem or support issue to arise on a Mac, because there will be, but I'm saying there are a number of hidden costs in Windows PCs.
When you factor in those hidden costs, and factor in the lowest bang for your buck prices at Apple in history, Macs become much more attractive for regular business users, not just web-designers, programmers, and graphic artists. Are you telling me that whatever Unix apps your company runs couldn't get ported to OS X or accessed as a web-application?
Data-processing workers or secretarys could even live with sub-$1000 iMac systems. Beef them up with OS X and 512 meg of RAM and you've got more than ample resources to run Office v.X and email, which is about 99% of my mom's job (and since most people know as much about computers as my mom, that's a good measureing stick.)
Major League Baseball is already doing this: They've had advertisements super-imposed on the wall beside the batter on national broadcasts for the last two seasons.
When I first heard about it, it sounded pretty irritating. But then I was watching a Fox Saturday game of the week first season they had it, and didn't even notice it was there until the fourth inning. If it's done tastefully, and you're totally immersed in the content, it won't be so bad.
The key that keeps it from being distracting to the game is that the ads don't change when they're on the screen. So if you're watching a guy bat, you'll never be waiting for the pitch, then suddenly get distracted by the super-imposed ad changing from Schick to Pepsi, for example.
There's no justification for needing legal authority to install anything, as the system functions today. To "need" this level of authority, Microsoft would have to argue that THEY, not you, are in fact installing the software in question. In my opinion, (not a lawyer) that's crazy.
In order for the software to be installed, you (a person of sound mind and body) have to take the active step of saying "Yes." You're doing it. It's one-click installation, but you made the choice.
Unless future versions of Windows Update will automatically install things? I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Got Code Red Part 44 after the Code Red Part 43 patch auto-installed? "Sorry, you agreed we could install anything we want, including buggy, poorly-tested code."
After all, Microsoft would never release a patch that opened up new holes in the feature it was supposed to fix. (Or in other random products.) Anyone claiming contrary will be burned as a witch.
Is that, as a Mac OS X user, I have a program called "Fire" which does MSN, ICQ, Yahoo!, Jabberr, irc, and AOL Instant Messenger in one program. This is so beneficial if you want to use multiple services but don't want 50 programs running. Why don't they move against Fire? Is it that there's not many people (ie. not enough Mac OS X users) to matter yet? Or is that phase two of their "Sue Everybody" plan?
Please mention specific hardware configurations for all comparisons...
Return to Castle Wolfenstein is a joke on my three year old Pentium II. Compare with the first-gen iMac at my buddies house which plays "Return to Wolfenstein" beta about a million times better. I won't say it's as good as my G4-500 powerbook, (the iMac did have 512 meg of RAM) but it's acceptable. My Pentium II 350, meanwhile, is a joke running the Windows version.
This is bogus reasoning. A team of network engineers could never in a million years "Detect" and "force to pay" enough NAT users to make paying that team of network engineers a profitable venture.
Look at he numbers: Team of network engineers (assume 5) @ $40/hr each. That $200/hr for the team. Weekly, you're paying $8,000. That means that, to make money, the team must find people with (and convince them to pay for) "extra" machines connected.
By my math, at $6 per machine, they'd have to "sell" about 440 extra IPs per week, and for those 440 "sales", those users must continue paying for at least three months. Otherwise, they're losing money on the operation.
If AT&T Broadband called and said I had to remove my firewall or pay extra, I know what my response would be...
(Starts with "F", ends with "u" and has "uck Yo" in the middle.)