You should pirate Windows and not have to worry about it. Like so many other people.
See, Microsoft? Your policies are pissing people off. It WILL cost you money in the long run. Maybe not today, or tommorow, but sometime next week. The small amount of annoyance, over time, is what drives competition and customers to said competition.
The only reason Microsoft holds on is because of the arm twisting and threats.
Mergers usually happen before everyone knows all the facts. Rather than being good for the customers and saying, "Do stuff as usual until we come up with new rules.." its "Don't do anything until we come up with new rules.."
This is obviously retarded. They end up losing a lot of money during the merger because of this. Another problem is that a lot of companies will say something like, "Ok. Now that you're a part of us, go make us some money. Bitch." Never mind that they pretty much just cut the throat of the company, leaving it with very little ability (or authority!) to do anything.
I second that idea. FFA PVP on farmers and cheaters. On all characters. On all accounts. On all new characters. Everywhere. Forever.
Bliz would still be earning money from them for a while until they realized there's a conga line at the graveyard waiting for them to spawn. Oh, killing them gives honor.
How long before this device opens and something launched automatically into a ballistic trajectory directly into someone's chest because of a system error?
Well, its not that viruses have gotten dumber, its that virus scanners have gotten smarter. Why take the time to code a polymorphic program that can be detected in memory anyway? 100% of it would have to be polymorphic.
Why should ANYONE be allowed to patent genes? This means that instead of you know..patening the process..not only will we have to pay a ton of money to get that nasty cystic fibrosis gene changed to a normal copy, we'll have to pay a ton because someone 'owns' the normal copy!
Since everyone has the chemicals required to make the gene somewhere in their bodies, the real fee will probably be with licencing. You know..you want to correct this gene in people? Fine, $100,000 a person. Don't like it? Tell them to get insurance.
Why'd you have to release this story? Now sex workers all over the world will be killing each other to get their hands on these drugs. Eventually their diseases will become super-strains and come back with a vengence!
Not only do you have to pay the tollbooth to get to the island, but you have to tell them where you're going so that they can decide whether your destination has paid them enough money to let you by without hassle. What? They haven't? Get on over in the 'Normal' lane. Yeah, the one with the 20 mile traffic jam.
Companies are only fond of statistics that involve dollar amounts. So a dollar amount should be put on first-revision failures.
Whats that? Your product tends to catch fire? There's millions lost in lawsuits, replacement, etc. Something that COULD have been fixed with a few more weeks or days of testing..
Car has a tendency to floor the accelerator, multiple times per day on its own? Billions. SOmething that COULD have been fixed with a few more weeks or days of testing..
A good example is the Sound Blaster Audigy 4 / X-Fi sound cards. There's a horrible problem with crackling/popping/system slowdown when using these cards. It took Creative 6+ months to acknowledge that the problem wasn't with people's machines. I'd say a good 50% or more of the people who bought the card have this problem. I hear there's a class action lawsuit gearing up from people who've replaced everything they own that's near their computers because Creative has blamed the problem on that. There's a story of a man that has tested it on literally 20+ computers and on 15 of the 20, the problem is there. With a fresh install of Windows XP on each machine.
"I suppose it's probably safe to trust that the makers of your LiveCD aren't putting little rootkits into the image that automatically get installed to the existing OS image on the hard disk."
And thus, your stash is found, your company/country loses, and you go to jail for 20 years based off of a chat log.
With the potential for the Chinese (or whoever's puppeting that server) to gain a lot of money from dumb people this way..
What is the limit before the government does something about it? I mean we could do it any number of ways. Covertly..overtly..fast..slow..with a side of fries..whatever you want.
Whats it going to take to make us drop a server like an armed drunk charging an officer?
Might keylogging/screen monitoring run afoul of surveilence laws? I mean the whole point is you're being watched without being known.
I'd rather have a camera in the bathroom watching me than spyware on my PC recording everything I type. Including passwords and personal messages off of company time (lunch break, etc).
Take a good look at Final Fantasy XI. On the server I played on, it would literally take days of crystal farming to get one piece of equipment that you had to have (or you had to kill one weak enemy at a time and hope not to die). This was mainly due to inflation.
On the other hand, crystal prices were up. They went up 70% in the time I played the game.
It wasn't the main reason I stopped playing, but it was #2 or #3.
In WoW, the farmers are getting out of hand. It used to be one or two here and there, and now its more like 5 per area. And they get their friends to spam you if you don't leave. Also, they threaten to report you for taking their area. After that, they follow you around and become a pain in the ass. If its a PvP server, they'll attack you over and over until you leave.
The Internet is the Internet because its a global network. If these ISPs lost common carrier status, they'd wall off the Internet and set up their own private network a la BBSes of the past.
Of course there would still be links to the Internet at large, but they would be heavily filtered and monitored. No more P2P, VOIP, games, etc. Plain, vanilla webpages. They'd probably block all competitors, all other companies that are affiliated with them, differing political views, etc.
Think of it as surfing the Internet today in which every packet must be pre-approved by a religious zealot before it can leave your computer or before it can enter your computer.
There's a shitty person in your guild. You KNOW there is. And s/he's been on many, many runs. Not doing a whole lot or playing his class well. Guess what? He 'deserves' the item more than you, never mind that you're the same class and bust your ass on every run to help out..
Like real life, eh? He's got seniority. Unless he's simply horrible, he'll probably get promotions before you. Doesn't matter your skill. I know this first hand. There are people who got there way after I did (when I was temp), but since I was temping, they will be first in line for promotion. Nevermind that I know the job better and am better AT the job. I'll probably be answering to them eventually..
What do you think businesses are? Boss raids against the economy. Trying to pull loot to distribute so that everyone gets a little piece, but the higher on the totem pole you are, the more 'piece' you get. Armies? Raid groups. Teams? Raid groups. You name it.
You rarely see a one-person business stay one-person. Why do I want to kill normal monsters at 5 silver a pop when I could team up with another person and kill elite monsters at 15-20 silver a pop?
You have to remember that that which inconviences us is their opportunity.
You know, "By the way, you must have a new cellular node in your car to let us know which CD you're playing. The CD player has to be one of the new approved $300+ models that we can decide can no longer play CDs if we catch you playing something we've deemed as pirated. The node itself will cost $200, with a $10 a month subscription fee. This just makes things more convenient for you by allowing you to play our CDs in your car."
If they had their way, CDs would be copy protected and require a CD key to play (a la Windows or PC game keys), would require an internet or modem connection to phone home on each play (like Steam), and would occasionally be completely unavailable to play due to server problems..
They would completely have no problem with forcing this upon the customer. When confronted, they would shrug and say that it allows them to serve their customers better. By the way, if you buy the 'Special Edition' CD, its authorizations are listed on a different server that doesn't go down quite as often.
And if you play the CD in another computer, the key is invalidated and you must purchase a new one.
It would be retarded for them to charge anything. Suddenly Joe Sixpack has to get out his credit card and pay to play an online game that he just paid $50 for, after just having made fun of us PC gamers for doing the same thing with something like World of Warcraft.
How fun would it be if you had to pay $10 a month to play HL2 online? Or even BF2?
Upcoming: Terms of Service for hardware. Not just X-Boxes anymore. Watch pirated movies? Risk having your videocard bricked by whoever you boght it from via threats from MS/MPAA/etc.
$300 down the drain if you're a gamer. Even more if you're that unlucky..
More that 'can't' be refunded because you 'knew the terms and accepted them when you opened the box'.
Lovely, eh? What if your car's engine lost all oil whenever you put non-spec tires on it? Or a non-(insert car mfg.) sound system?
Technically, 'spyware' is any kind of software that sends any information over the internet about your computer or data. For example, all filesharing programs allow people to 'spy' on what you have shared.
Warden isn't as bad as people thing. Its one of the main reasons I still play the game. Namely because they have a framework in place to detect hacks/cheats/etc that would have ruined the game by now. Who the hell wants to play a game that you know you're screwed in because you don't cheat?
You know, like Dark Age of Camelot. No matter where you are, there's a group of 30 people running at you at Warp 6 ready to mow you in one hit. Not only do they know where you're at, but know your race/class/level/guild and equipment. Without you even being in view distance. Not what I want to see happen to WoW.
Its no longer JUST email that we have to worry about, or downloading a seedy exe file from a porn site. Remember that flaw in Windows images? Yeah, its being used for spyware installation. What about the flaw in the way Windows handles videos that make it possible to insert executable code? Yeah, its being used for spywar einstallation.
So if I break into your house in the middle of the night and offer you great savings on various pills, and you physically have to force me out of the house..is it still breaking and entering? I mean you wouldn't have 'let' me in if you didn't want my great offers!
If spyware/adware is put into ANYTHING that isn't an obvious executable file, it should be labelled deceptive and illegal. Whoever then created said product should be punished, or the website's abuse department should be contacted (spammed by unique sources) with requests to take it down.
Everyone that gets on the second season's show will have one common trait: Either full-out OCD or boarderline. My friend, can sit and play World of Warcraft for 12 hours at a time. And he's not even a 'fanatical' player of the game. What about these people? 20 hours a day? For their one shot at being on TV?
The real question is..will the producers have enough Mountain Dew?
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You should pirate Windows and not have to worry about it. Like so many other people. See, Microsoft? Your policies are pissing people off. It WILL cost you money in the long run. Maybe not today, or tommorow, but sometime next week. The small amount of annoyance, over time, is what drives competition and customers to said competition. The only reason Microsoft holds on is because of the arm twisting and threats.
Mergers usually happen before everyone knows all the facts. Rather than being good for the customers and saying, "Do stuff as usual until we come up with new rules.." its "Don't do anything until we come up with new rules.."
This is obviously retarded. They end up losing a lot of money during the merger because of this. Another problem is that a lot of companies will say something like, "Ok. Now that you're a part of us, go make us some money. Bitch." Never mind that they pretty much just cut the throat of the company, leaving it with very little ability (or authority!) to do anything.
I second that idea. FFA PVP on farmers and cheaters. On all characters. On all accounts. On all new characters. Everywhere. Forever.
Bliz would still be earning money from them for a while until they realized there's a conga line at the graveyard waiting for them to spawn. Oh, killing them gives honor.
How long before this device opens and something launched automatically into a ballistic trajectory directly into someone's chest because of a system error?
Well, its not that viruses have gotten dumber, its that virus scanners have gotten smarter. Why take the time to code a polymorphic program that can be detected in memory anyway? 100% of it would have to be polymorphic.
Why should ANYONE be allowed to patent genes? This means that instead of you know..patening the process..not only will we have to pay a ton of money to get that nasty cystic fibrosis gene changed to a normal copy, we'll have to pay a ton because someone 'owns' the normal copy!
Since everyone has the chemicals required to make the gene somewhere in their bodies, the real fee will probably be with licencing. You know..you want to correct this gene in people? Fine, $100,000 a person. Don't like it? Tell them to get insurance.
Thus, our insurance rates rise 200% overnight.
Why'd you have to release this story? Now sex workers all over the world will be killing each other to get their hands on these drugs. Eventually their diseases will become super-strains and come back with a vengence!
Basically..what Viv is saying..
Not only do you have to pay the tollbooth to get to the island, but you have to tell them where you're going so that they can decide whether your destination has paid them enough money to let you by without hassle. What? They haven't? Get on over in the 'Normal' lane. Yeah, the one with the 20 mile traffic jam.
Companies are only fond of statistics that involve dollar amounts. So a dollar amount should be put on first-revision failures.
Whats that? Your product tends to catch fire? There's millions lost in lawsuits, replacement, etc. Something that COULD have been fixed with a few more weeks or days of testing..
Car has a tendency to floor the accelerator, multiple times per day on its own? Billions. SOmething that COULD have been fixed with a few more weeks or days of testing..
A good example is the Sound Blaster Audigy 4 / X-Fi sound cards. There's a horrible problem with crackling/popping/system slowdown when using these cards. It took Creative 6+ months to acknowledge that the problem wasn't with people's machines. I'd say a good 50% or more of the people who bought the card have this problem. I hear there's a class action lawsuit gearing up from people who've replaced everything they own that's near their computers because Creative has blamed the problem on that. There's a story of a man that has tested it on literally 20+ computers and on 15 of the 20, the problem is there. With a fresh install of Windows XP on each machine.
Google everyone. By screename and real name.
That way if whoever you're hitting on is going to on the most wanted list, you can remember to carry a gun and get some before they go to jail.
Might even be a reward for them!
He's going to jail.
Fraud is a serious offense. Even if no damage is done and its just a proof of concept.
"I suppose it's probably safe to trust that the makers of your LiveCD aren't putting little rootkits into the image that automatically get installed to the existing OS image on the hard disk."
And thus, your stash is found, your company/country loses, and you go to jail for 20 years based off of a chat log.
Assumptions do that..
With the potential for the Chinese (or whoever's puppeting that server) to gain a lot of money from dumb people this way..
What is the limit before the government does something about it? I mean we could do it any number of ways. Covertly..overtly..fast..slow..with a side of fries..whatever you want.
Whats it going to take to make us drop a server like an armed drunk charging an officer?
Might keylogging/screen monitoring run afoul of surveilence laws? I mean the whole point is you're being watched without being known.
I'd rather have a camera in the bathroom watching me than spyware on my PC recording everything I type. Including passwords and personal messages off of company time (lunch break, etc).
Take a good look at Final Fantasy XI. On the server I played on, it would literally take days of crystal farming to get one piece of equipment that you had to have (or you had to kill one weak enemy at a time and hope not to die). This was mainly due to inflation.
On the other hand, crystal prices were up. They went up 70% in the time I played the game.
It wasn't the main reason I stopped playing, but it was #2 or #3.
In WoW, the farmers are getting out of hand. It used to be one or two here and there, and now its more like 5 per area. And they get their friends to spam you if you don't leave. Also, they threaten to report you for taking their area. After that, they follow you around and become a pain in the ass. If its a PvP server, they'll attack you over and over until you leave.
My suggestion is to get some high-quality music in the first place. This Britney Spears stuff isn't going to cut it..
The Internet is the Internet because its a global network. If these ISPs lost common carrier status, they'd wall off the Internet and set up their own private network a la BBSes of the past.
Of course there would still be links to the Internet at large, but they would be heavily filtered and monitored. No more P2P, VOIP, games, etc. Plain, vanilla webpages. They'd probably block all competitors, all other companies that are affiliated with them, differing political views, etc.
Think of it as surfing the Internet today in which every packet must be pre-approved by a religious zealot before it can leave your computer or before it can enter your computer.
Most of the time, those lessons are true.
There's a shitty person in your guild. You KNOW there is. And s/he's been on many, many runs. Not doing a whole lot or playing his class well. Guess what? He 'deserves' the item more than you, never mind that you're the same class and bust your ass on every run to help out..
Like real life, eh? He's got seniority. Unless he's simply horrible, he'll probably get promotions before you. Doesn't matter your skill. I know this first hand. There are people who got there way after I did (when I was temp), but since I was temping, they will be first in line for promotion. Nevermind that I know the job better and am better AT the job. I'll probably be answering to them eventually..
What do you think businesses are? Boss raids against the economy. Trying to pull loot to distribute so that everyone gets a little piece, but the higher on the totem pole you are, the more 'piece' you get. Armies? Raid groups. Teams? Raid groups. You name it.
You rarely see a one-person business stay one-person. Why do I want to kill normal monsters at 5 silver a pop when I could team up with another person and kill elite monsters at 15-20 silver a pop?
You have to remember that that which inconviences us is their opportunity.
You know, "By the way, you must have a new cellular node in your car to let us know which CD you're playing. The CD player has to be one of the new approved $300+ models that we can decide can no longer play CDs if we catch you playing something we've deemed as pirated. The node itself will cost $200, with a $10 a month subscription fee. This just makes things more convenient for you by allowing you to play our CDs in your car."
If they had their way, CDs would be copy protected and require a CD key to play (a la Windows or PC game keys), would require an internet or modem connection to phone home on each play (like Steam), and would occasionally be completely unavailable to play due to server problems..
They would completely have no problem with forcing this upon the customer. When confronted, they would shrug and say that it allows them to serve their customers better. By the way, if you buy the 'Special Edition' CD, its authorizations are listed on a different server that doesn't go down quite as often.
And if you play the CD in another computer, the key is invalidated and you must purchase a new one.
It would be retarded for them to charge anything. Suddenly Joe Sixpack has to get out his credit card and pay to play an online game that he just paid $50 for, after just having made fun of us PC gamers for doing the same thing with something like World of Warcraft.
How fun would it be if you had to pay $10 a month to play HL2 online? Or even BF2?
Upcoming: Terms of Service for hardware. Not just X-Boxes anymore. Watch pirated movies? Risk having your videocard bricked by whoever you boght it from via threats from MS/MPAA/etc.
$300 down the drain if you're a gamer. Even more if you're that unlucky..
More that 'can't' be refunded because you 'knew the terms and accepted them when you opened the box'.
Lovely, eh? What if your car's engine lost all oil whenever you put non-spec tires on it? Or a non-(insert car mfg.) sound system?
Technically, 'spyware' is any kind of software that sends any information over the internet about your computer or data. For example, all filesharing programs allow people to 'spy' on what you have shared. Warden isn't as bad as people thing. Its one of the main reasons I still play the game. Namely because they have a framework in place to detect hacks/cheats/etc that would have ruined the game by now. Who the hell wants to play a game that you know you're screwed in because you don't cheat? You know, like Dark Age of Camelot. No matter where you are, there's a group of 30 people running at you at Warp 6 ready to mow you in one hit. Not only do they know where you're at, but know your race/class/level/guild and equipment. Without you even being in view distance. Not what I want to see happen to WoW.
Its no longer JUST email that we have to worry about, or downloading a seedy exe file from a porn site. Remember that flaw in Windows images? Yeah, its being used for spyware installation. What about the flaw in the way Windows handles videos that make it possible to insert executable code? Yeah, its being used for spywar einstallation.
Porn sites? Spyware.
Warez sites? Spyware.
Mistyped URL sites? Spyware.
Spam email? Spyware.
So if I break into your house in the middle of the night and offer you great savings on various pills, and you physically have to force me out of the house..is it still breaking and entering? I mean you wouldn't have 'let' me in if you didn't want my great offers!
If spyware/adware is put into ANYTHING that isn't an obvious executable file, it should be labelled deceptive and illegal. Whoever then created said product should be punished, or the website's abuse department should be contacted (spammed by unique sources) with requests to take it down.
Everyone that gets on the second season's show will have one common trait: Either full-out OCD or boarderline. My friend, can sit and play World of Warcraft for 12 hours at a time. And he's not even a 'fanatical' player of the game. What about these people? 20 hours a day? For their one shot at being on TV?
The real question is..will the producers have enough Mountain Dew?