Thoughts are physically existent, otherwise they could not exist, and would not affect our universe. Clearly, I am thinking and slamming your reply, so they are physically existent!
Anyway. That's not the point of this.
The point is that you're pretty much right. Someone could find a slick way to patent water and start suing smaller companies that deal with it, who would either have to give in or be bankrupted with legal fees.
I feel no sympathy for any company that creates artifical scarcity using anything similar to region-codes.
Leave it to them to decide not to bring a game to the US and then complain whenever people from the US import it from Japan or Europe, saying that we're making them lose money.
We're buying their product. At a higher price than normal. And WE get bitched at?! Why should I have to wait a year or more for a game if I can read Japanese and want to play it when it comes out in Japan?
Why should I have to import a DVD player if I move to Japan or Europe? Oh, I know. So that they can make more money by locking out entire continents.
In retrospect, I still have no sympathy. And I'm actually surprised that the US doesn't have 5 region codes.
This has been going on for a long, long time. I've heard of this as long as they've been giving out gift cards for the store. Especially since Wal-Mart likes to do it for returns, and isn't too picky about if the product you're returning is actually yours or not....
Double standards are part of having a shitty government. They will say, "You want to build here? Ok, we'll give each of these people $5,000 to 'git." to a big developer. If you're a startup or some average citizen, they'll say something like, "And make all those people move out? It would cost so much to fairly compensate them, and they would be resistant to moving! Those houses and folks are old, let them be."
Consequently, if I said someone was violating my copyright for a song, I'd be laughed at and no one would do anything about it. But when the RIAA says it, the fucking FBI is beating on people's doors!
You'll get access to that fiber line when they can profit from you having access to it, and more than pay for their original costs of bringing it into the area.
If a company wants to tell me what I can and can't do with my free time, then I will be billing them for my free time. Since my free time is worth a lot to me, I will be expecting a raise. $20 an hour 24/7 will be just fine.
Otherwise, I reserve the right to date, have sex with, go out with, hang out with, etc, with any of my co-workers when we are off the clock.
This falls under 'human rights'. Which you cannot sign away.
You better hope your system is smart enough. The first time it shoots down a hotshot pilot that was skimming the water in their F-18 or a limping helicopter it'll be all over the news.
"Robotic Gun Friendly Fire Accident Kills Two Pilots"
Then its back to square one.
What I suggest is having one (or more) people that are on some kind of 'defense computer' duty, where they sit around with a headset on (like a VR headset) so that they can track/respond to targets with no outside interference.
Software assistance isn't so bad when you can click cancel and it takes all of one second out of your life. In a combat situation? What if something outside of the plan happened? Which often does during times of war and/or duress.
We have to send the info to the person, and follow-up every day to make sure its been done. Because the job of customer service isn't serving the customer, but making sure the workers in our company do their damn jobs.
If I walk into a store, steal something, and leave..
The manufacturer is still responsible if I am injured by using it for its intended purpose. If I hit a tree (a reasonable tree, not something made of steel) with an axe, and the handle flies off and gives me a concussion, the manufacturer is responsible.
If that manufacturer could release a patch (lets say, a small piece of metal that clips to the wood) to fix the problem, they would do so, and even if you had stolen the axe, they would fix it for you. Either they try to say that you stole the axe and take it away/call the police on you, or they fix it.
Considering this is software, formatting your machine or making the data useless/hard to access it a crime within itself.
When you send them something, the clock is ticking. Its now 'their baby'. You've done what you need to do, and call them back (within reason) to make sure they're doing something about it.
If anyone bitches at you for it not being done, pass the buck to the team that's supposed to take care of it. If they bitch at you still, just shrug it off. According to the rules, you've done your job.
Only its totally not. Practically anyone can do an oil change and keep their car running. This would be like you stole a car from a car replicator that worked off of nearly-free energy, and then took it in because they were all recalled to have a few bits and pieces installed to correct its tendency to burst into flames, and its tnedency to let people start the car without the key. Also corrected would be its tendency to open the throttle all the way and steer sharply to the left.
So you see, they're issues of PUBLIC SAFETY not 'your system could be compromised if someone created a program and you had to run it by double clicking it 6 times.' but 'someone has your system without a doubt within 5 minutes of running unpatched'
I will keep using my computer. Because I'm a gamer. Granted I'm not one of those gamers that has to have the latest and greatest, I cannot get by with a.
I'm fine with the sound, and the power my machine consumes. I can easily turn it off, or turn the fans down if I really need the silence. All in all, it does not bother me that much. But the notion that I'm 'in the wrong' for needing the power is stupid. What about render farms? What about servers? What about gamers?
I mean, what if you were playing World of Warcraft, and there was a big sign for Coca Cola in the middle of Orgrimmar, that captured your screen and furthur reduced FPS as you approached it. You'd probably avoid Orgrimmar. Also, since that's a vital city to play as the Horde, you'd probably end up quitting. gg.
Because we all know that this is an acceptable solution to PC noise.
In fact, no one should need a computer over 1GHz! Therefore, we should not make power supplies or parts that are meant to supply something over a simple processor, video/sound card, and hard drive.
Hell, while we're at it, lets do away with the PC altogether. After all, its not necessary for you to live, is it?
TV, too. And anything else in our lives. Because NO ONE would have to have a use for them.
They could separate the head and the body unit from each other and just pump fresh oxygen into the head. The suit could possibly have recycled oxygen that's cooled for temperature control.
That way the hands could be a bit easier to move due to the lower pressure. The suit could also be just a touch baggy.
If I were the government, i'd have a weak-security honeypot sitting out there somewhere with faked UFO documents. That way when someone see's them, they'll think, "Big Bird is a front for communication to other aliens to tell them that we're already owned by the greys!"
The funny part comes when they try to go to the media.
Microsoft has already won. Now they make profits whenever any large computer manufacturer sells a computer. They could shut down now and pay their employees for the next few years off the profits from new computers alone.
I've had one ticket. In this ticket, I was not even speeding. I was doing 55, in a 55, on the interstate.
Coming around a rather brisk curve, I saw a cop sitting on the side of the road, nose angled toward the road. It was a divided interstate with a fairly high concrete wall.
The asshole in front of me (also doing 55) slams on his brakes, while another car in the passing lane flies by the cop doing at least 80. How do I know this? You'll see.
Guess what happens? Cop pulls out, turns on his lights, pulls up behind me, and pulls me over. For going 80 in a 55.
First, he wrote my car's color down incorrectly (purple) when my car is an obvious red. Guess who's car is purple?
So naturally I took it to court, sure that I wasn't going to have to pay their stupid $300+ fine.
The judge told me a different story. I showed him the copy of the ticket with the incorrect color on my car. My name wildly misspelled, etc.
I explained to him that it would have been impossible for me to be going 55 at the time, since there was a car in front of me that slammed on its brakes that was doing 55.
The judge pretty much bitchslapped me right out of the court. $300+ fine, court costs, traffic school, and if I had any more tickets within a short amount of time, I'd have my licence revoked.
Note, this is my first ticket. I've not even had a warning. Been pulled over a few times, but those were for random searches and a sobriety test (was changing CDs and slowed down so I wouldn't run off the road).
Somehow that warrants me to have to pay $500. With court costs and traffic school, thats what it came to.
I went to traffic school. I faxed them the certificate.
A month after I was supposed to get the traffic school cert faxed, I get a notice in the mail. I have a new court date. This one is so that they can remove my licence and charge me with various crimes and such.
I call, they refused to tell me why. I get to court, and just happened to have brought this certification. They even called the company to ask, and it took them ten minutes to find my record. The judge let me go (same one as before!) with no harm done, but he looked pretty pissed off about it.
All in all, its probably better to just pay your tickets. When we get cameras, then you can go to court.
Is anyone else nervous of the prospect of being forced to upgrade?
At least with video cards, (usually) you don't HAVE to have the newest DirectX capability. What if all of a sudden WMP decided that anything below 2GHz was too slow to play media and demanded that you upgrade?
Microsoft could pull a lot of bullshit with that, since the own the operating system. They could just choose to disable various video/sound APIs until you upgrade. And it would be completely legal for them to do so, that is, if the EULA applies.
I think I've heard it called 'treasure hunting' before. Especially at places with huge IT departments in the building that just can't seem to find somethings that are taking a few IPs. Usually it ends up being a laptop in someone's bag hitting the internet, or a WAP in an abandoned office is serving warez to someone in the building next door.
At my job, the work isn't really hard, there's just a never-ending amount of it.
Most of the people where I work don't even have internet access. By most of the people..I mean the ones with computer access. Even if it would make their jobs easier. We're the only department there with internet access. Because we require it.
The other departments and managers are getting jealous, and are whining that we don't REALLY need it, that all we do is sit around and play games.
So if I'm eating lunch, I can expect all kinds of crazy stares and people telling me I'm not allowed on the internet unless I'm on lunch. Every day.
Even then they bitch about everything I look at. Slashdot? "Whats that?! Are you hacking something?!" Fark? "Are you looking at naked women?! That will get you fired in a heartbeat!" etc.
Of course, a third of the people in my department take all of 10 calls a day, as oppoosed to 40-50 that the others take, because they find ways to be unavailable.
The thing that worries me isn't that the warez sites are being closed down, but who's closing them down.
Notice that the article pretty much says that the US took the lead. Now, I wonder why they might be doing that? How much money does the government receive from various association? Hmm, I think a lot.
Now said associations are pressing their rent-a-congressmen into action against people in foreign countries.
I wonder when we'll start having people sent here to stand trial for something that wasn't really even a crime there? Better yet, when will we be able to take their belongings and their families belongings when they end up in a form-letter-lawsuit from one of said associations?
The US is now a bunch of jack-booted thugs leaning against a wall in an alley behind some massive corporate entity. Cigarettes rolled up in its sleeve just waiting for one of the suits to come and ask for a favor.
What if I made a car company called Fjord? With vehicle names like the Mustaung and the EFF-150? I got a pretty good idea what would happen. This should be an open and shut case.
Not only that, but they're trying to make money off of google's name. Trying to make money and cause damage at the same time. This is illegal.
Slashdot Mirror
Define 'physically existent'.
Thoughts are physically existent, otherwise they could not exist, and would not affect our universe. Clearly, I am thinking and slamming your reply, so they are physically existent!
Anyway. That's not the point of this.
The point is that you're pretty much right. Someone could find a slick way to patent water and start suing smaller companies that deal with it, who would either have to give in or be bankrupted with legal fees.
I feel no sympathy for any company that creates artifical scarcity using anything similar to region-codes.
Leave it to them to decide not to bring a game to the US and then complain whenever people from the US import it from Japan or Europe, saying that we're making them lose money.
We're buying their product. At a higher price than normal. And WE get bitched at?! Why should I have to wait a year or more for a game if I can read Japanese and want to play it when it comes out in Japan?
Why should I have to import a DVD player if I move to Japan or Europe? Oh, I know. So that they can make more money by locking out entire continents.
In retrospect, I still have no sympathy. And I'm actually surprised that the US doesn't have 5 region codes.
This has been going on for a long, long time. I've heard of this as long as they've been giving out gift cards for the store. Especially since Wal-Mart likes to do it for returns, and isn't too picky about if the product you're returning is actually yours or not....
Never works like that.
Double standards are part of having a shitty government. They will say, "You want to build here? Ok, we'll give each of these people $5,000 to 'git." to a big developer. If you're a startup or some average citizen, they'll say something like, "And make all those people move out? It would cost so much to fairly compensate them, and they would be resistant to moving! Those houses and folks are old, let them be."
Consequently, if I said someone was violating my copyright for a song, I'd be laughed at and no one would do anything about it. But when the RIAA says it, the fucking FBI is beating on people's doors!
You'll get access to that fiber line when they can profit from you having access to it, and more than pay for their original costs of bringing it into the area.
With the exception of substance abuse or crime..
If a company wants to tell me what I can and can't do with my free time, then I will be billing them for my free time. Since my free time is worth a lot to me, I will be expecting a raise. $20 an hour 24/7 will be just fine.
Otherwise, I reserve the right to date, have sex with, go out with, hang out with, etc, with any of my co-workers when we are off the clock.
This falls under 'human rights'. Which you cannot sign away.
You better hope your system is smart enough. The first time it shoots down a hotshot pilot that was skimming the water in their F-18 or a limping helicopter it'll be all over the news.
"Robotic Gun Friendly Fire Accident Kills Two Pilots"
Then its back to square one.
What I suggest is having one (or more) people that are on some kind of 'defense computer' duty, where they sit around with a headset on (like a VR headset) so that they can track/respond to targets with no outside interference.
What's cheaper in the mind of a shortsighted executive that can only see ahead to about a three to six month range?
Having you put in jail for threats of terrorism to shut you up about their secrets, or paying the IT guys overtime to fix the holes?
Software assistance isn't so bad when you can click cancel and it takes all of one second out of your life. In a combat situation? What if something outside of the plan happened? Which often does during times of war and/or duress.
Same thing at my job.
We have to send the info to the person, and follow-up every day to make sure its been done. Because the job of customer service isn't serving the customer, but making sure the workers in our company do their damn jobs.
If I walk into a store, steal something, and leave..
The manufacturer is still responsible if I am injured by using it for its intended purpose. If I hit a tree (a reasonable tree, not something made of steel) with an axe, and the handle flies off and gives me a concussion, the manufacturer is responsible.
If that manufacturer could release a patch (lets say, a small piece of metal that clips to the wood) to fix the problem, they would do so, and even if you had stolen the axe, they would fix it for you. Either they try to say that you stole the axe and take it away/call the police on you, or they fix it.
Considering this is software, formatting your machine or making the data useless/hard to access it a crime within itself.
Issue an ultimatium.
When you send them something, the clock is ticking. Its now 'their baby'. You've done what you need to do, and call them back (within reason) to make sure they're doing something about it.
If anyone bitches at you for it not being done, pass the buck to the team that's supposed to take care of it. If they bitch at you still, just shrug it off. According to the rules, you've done your job.
Only its totally not. Practically anyone can do an oil change and keep their car running. This would be like you stole a car from a car replicator that worked off of nearly-free energy, and then took it in because they were all recalled to have a few bits and pieces installed to correct its tendency to burst into flames, and its tnedency to let people start the car without the key. Also corrected would be its tendency to open the throttle all the way and steer sharply to the left.
So you see, they're issues of PUBLIC SAFETY not 'your system could be compromised if someone created a program and you had to run it by double clicking it 6 times.' but 'someone has your system without a doubt within 5 minutes of running unpatched'
I will keep using my computer. Because I'm a gamer. Granted I'm not one of those gamers that has to have the latest and greatest, I cannot get by with a .
I'm fine with the sound, and the power my machine consumes. I can easily turn it off, or turn the fans down if I really need the silence. All in all, it does not bother me that much. But the notion that I'm 'in the wrong' for needing the power is stupid. What about render farms? What about servers? What about gamers?
What a good way to alienate your gamers.
I mean, what if you were playing World of Warcraft, and there was a big sign for Coca Cola in the middle of Orgrimmar, that captured your screen and furthur reduced FPS as you approached it. You'd probably avoid Orgrimmar. Also, since that's a vital city to play as the Horde, you'd probably end up quitting. gg.
Because we all know that this is an acceptable solution to PC noise.
In fact, no one should need a computer over 1GHz! Therefore, we should not make power supplies or parts that are meant to supply something over a simple processor, video/sound card, and hard drive.
Hell, while we're at it, lets do away with the PC altogether. After all, its not necessary for you to live, is it?
TV, too. And anything else in our lives. Because NO ONE would have to have a use for them.
They could separate the head and the body unit from each other and just pump fresh oxygen into the head. The suit could possibly have recycled oxygen that's cooled for temperature control.
That way the hands could be a bit easier to move due to the lower pressure. The suit could also be just a touch baggy.
If I were the government, i'd have a weak-security honeypot sitting out there somewhere with faked UFO documents. That way when someone see's them, they'll think, "Big Bird is a front for communication to other aliens to tell them that we're already owned by the greys!"
The funny part comes when they try to go to the media.
Microsoft has already won. Now they make profits whenever any large computer manufacturer sells a computer. They could shut down now and pay their employees for the next few years off the profits from new computers alone.
I've had one ticket. In this ticket, I was not even speeding. I was doing 55, in a 55, on the interstate.
Coming around a rather brisk curve, I saw a cop sitting on the side of the road, nose angled toward the road. It was a divided interstate with a fairly high concrete wall.
The asshole in front of me (also doing 55) slams on his brakes, while another car in the passing lane flies by the cop doing at least 80. How do I know this? You'll see.
Guess what happens? Cop pulls out, turns on his lights, pulls up behind me, and pulls me over. For going 80 in a 55.
First, he wrote my car's color down incorrectly (purple) when my car is an obvious red. Guess who's car is purple?
So naturally I took it to court, sure that I wasn't going to have to pay their stupid $300+ fine.
The judge told me a different story. I showed him the copy of the ticket with the incorrect color on my car. My name wildly misspelled, etc.
I explained to him that it would have been impossible for me to be going 55 at the time, since there was a car in front of me that slammed on its brakes that was doing 55.
The judge pretty much bitchslapped me right out of the court. $300+ fine, court costs, traffic school, and if I had any more tickets within a short amount of time, I'd have my licence revoked.
Note, this is my first ticket. I've not even had a warning. Been pulled over a few times, but those were for random searches and a sobriety test (was changing CDs and slowed down so I wouldn't run off the road).
Somehow that warrants me to have to pay $500. With court costs and traffic school, thats what it came to.
I went to traffic school. I faxed them the certificate.
A month after I was supposed to get the traffic school cert faxed, I get a notice in the mail. I have a new court date. This one is so that they can remove my licence and charge me with various crimes and such.
I call, they refused to tell me why. I get to court, and just happened to have brought this certification. They even called the company to ask, and it took them ten minutes to find my record. The judge let me go (same one as before!) with no harm done, but he looked pretty pissed off about it.
All in all, its probably better to just pay your tickets. When we get cameras, then you can go to court.
Non-compete clauses are now common for EVERY job except entry level ones. I've only had one job out of 5 without them.
Is anyone else nervous of the prospect of being forced to upgrade?
At least with video cards, (usually) you don't HAVE to have the newest DirectX capability. What if all of a sudden WMP decided that anything below 2GHz was too slow to play media and demanded that you upgrade?
Microsoft could pull a lot of bullshit with that, since the own the operating system. They could just choose to disable various video/sound APIs until you upgrade. And it would be completely legal for them to do so, that is, if the EULA applies.
I think I've heard it called 'treasure hunting' before. Especially at places with huge IT departments in the building that just can't seem to find somethings that are taking a few IPs. Usually it ends up being a laptop in someone's bag hitting the internet, or a WAP in an abandoned office is serving warez to someone in the building next door.
At my job, the work isn't really hard, there's just a never-ending amount of it.
Most of the people where I work don't even have internet access. By most of the people..I mean the ones with computer access. Even if it would make their jobs easier. We're the only department there with internet access. Because we require it.
The other departments and managers are getting jealous, and are whining that we don't REALLY need it, that all we do is sit around and play games.
So if I'm eating lunch, I can expect all kinds of crazy stares and people telling me I'm not allowed on the internet unless I'm on lunch. Every day.
Even then they bitch about everything I look at. Slashdot? "Whats that?! Are you hacking something?!" Fark? "Are you looking at naked women?! That will get you fired in a heartbeat!" etc.
Of course, a third of the people in my department take all of 10 calls a day, as oppoosed to 40-50 that the others take, because they find ways to be unavailable.
The thing that worries me isn't that the warez sites are being closed down, but who's closing them down.
Notice that the article pretty much says that the US took the lead. Now, I wonder why they might be doing that? How much money does the government receive from various association? Hmm, I think a lot.
Now said associations are pressing their rent-a-congressmen into action against people in foreign countries.
I wonder when we'll start having people sent here to stand trial for something that wasn't really even a crime there? Better yet, when will we be able to take their belongings and their families belongings when they end up in a form-letter-lawsuit from one of said associations?
The US is now a bunch of jack-booted thugs leaning against a wall in an alley behind some massive corporate entity. Cigarettes rolled up in its sleeve just waiting for one of the suits to come and ask for a favor.
What if I made a car company called Fjord? With vehicle names like the Mustaung and the EFF-150? I got a pretty good idea what would happen. This should be an open and shut case.
Not only that, but they're trying to make money off of google's name. Trying to make money and cause damage at the same time. This is illegal.
Unless you're selling cigarettes.