I'm not sure how phone companies work, but isn't verizon a monopoly in the area they work?
The reason why monopolies are and should be regulated is to protect the consumer, since they have no choice in the matter, and cannot turn to a competitor who would offer them a better deal (one the consumer likes better for whatever reason).
Yes, the corporation has rights, but I think the rights of the millions of consumers easily supercede it.
Not that it means anything in the US, look at Microsoft, they are an acknowledged monopoly but the penalties against them are so small and nonthreatening that they still use their market share to leverage themselves into other markets, and bully computer manufacturers into using and only using their product.
This'll case will be a good sign where the country is heading, I wouldn't be surprised that in fifty years there will be a two tier citizen ship in this country - the 1st class corporations and everyone else.
I believe there is a special level of hell for these people that Dante has failed to mention.
But anyway, you know that story about those guys trying to get 1 million aol cd's together to ship back to AOL hq, why not print out all spam mails, write down the reply NO! on it and mail it back to him and show him how it feels.
Millions of legal letters pouring into his mailbox daily, where he has no idea whether or not they are payment checks or his own stupid crap, and let him pay all the cost of disposing it daily, that would be poetic justice.
The only way to stop spam would be to pass a National Do Not Call List, and some tough laws. It wouldn't abridge freedom of speech, since these we have still the right to say what we want, but we never had the right to be heard.
But, it's not in the interest of politicians who get paid by marketing associations, and what not. The best thing to do would be to defraud his customers using it, (IE provide bad credit card numbers, make bad accounts, order stuff under different names with no intention of paying and generally have them eat it, but that "wrong.")
My brother's father-in-law (lets call him Mike) got a telemarketing call from a company that was hawking skylights.
Mike said 'yes' he'd love to have some, where he lived was very dark and dreary and promptly ordered 5 of them on COD.
The address he had them delivered to was a cemetary.
He hasn't complained about telemarketers since.
I must be one of the 1%, at work I had Word but can't afford the $hitload of cash it costs for home. The best I can do is Wordviewer, where I can't even do anything but look at it.
And don't even mention the formatting problems with.doc. OpenOffice was a godsend for me, and if they implement an open standard that can do decent formatting and most users can read, you can bet that I'll switch to it. XML could have other benefits, such tags for putting things in automatically into databases, etc.
I believe, esp. lately, that people will start gravitating toward open standards more and more, just like the most successful graphic file formats are all open, jpg, gif, png, bmp.
I refuse to pay anymore money just so I can read M$ proprietary file formats.
Uh....familiarity breeds fondness. I'm sorry, people use what is available, if linux is available, that *will* be the standard.
Actually, putting Microsoft in the schools is indoctrination, and you know M$ is betting on that, just like they are letting the poorer countries like China have their special deals so in the future they become dependent on the software.
Using applications is not a computer education, and I'm sorry but if you can login into Linux, use konquerer or mozilla, write up a report on Open Office, you will likely have all the skills that someone growing up using M$ software has, if not more. There is just not that much difference these days, pushing buttons and moving mice in the GUI can have only so many variations. The student will have the added benefit of (probably) knowing the command line.
In my view, computers in schools should serve three purposes.
Either a)for information gathering either off the internet or whereever, and for typing up work based on this information. So typing and basic app using skills can be taught at the same time.
Or b) (and this should be optional) actually learning how computers work. From the bottom up, not using apps (since that is relatively simple past getting the OS set up.)
c) They can be used in other classes, art and math comes to mind, but then those aren't really computer classes either.
The argument that Linux doesn't have educational software is laughable because I don't think I've ever seen decent educational software on M$, for any age past 6, and really that is what books are for. What linux does have is a ton of free software that can be used for other subjects, like the default graphing calculator in KDE come to mind.
Any lawyers in the house?
I don't know, how do the courts treat trade secret laws in regards to freedom of press, I thought the guilty party will only be the informant, no one else.
I read this article, http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/02/03/25/ 020325opfoster.xml
And while it clears some things up, I get the impression, the people/press can print what it wants, as long as national security, slander, etc isn't involved. And they usually have to quote the source, then only the informant can have any legal responsibility in these cases.
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I'm not sure how phone companies work, but isn't verizon a monopoly in the area they work? The reason why monopolies are and should be regulated is to protect the consumer, since they have no choice in the matter, and cannot turn to a competitor who would offer them a better deal (one the consumer likes better for whatever reason). Yes, the corporation has rights, but I think the rights of the millions of consumers easily supercede it. Not that it means anything in the US, look at Microsoft, they are an acknowledged monopoly but the penalties against them are so small and nonthreatening that they still use their market share to leverage themselves into other markets, and bully computer manufacturers into using and only using their product. This'll case will be a good sign where the country is heading, I wouldn't be surprised that in fifty years there will be a two tier citizen ship in this country - the 1st class corporations and everyone else.
I believe there is a special level of hell for these people that Dante has failed to mention. But anyway, you know that story about those guys trying to get 1 million aol cd's together to ship back to AOL hq, why not print out all spam mails, write down the reply NO! on it and mail it back to him and show him how it feels. Millions of legal letters pouring into his mailbox daily, where he has no idea whether or not they are payment checks or his own stupid crap, and let him pay all the cost of disposing it daily, that would be poetic justice. The only way to stop spam would be to pass a National Do Not Call List, and some tough laws. It wouldn't abridge freedom of speech, since these we have still the right to say what we want, but we never had the right to be heard. But, it's not in the interest of politicians who get paid by marketing associations, and what not. The best thing to do would be to defraud his customers using it, (IE provide bad credit card numbers, make bad accounts, order stuff under different names with no intention of paying and generally have them eat it, but that "wrong.")
My brother's father-in-law (lets call him Mike) got a telemarketing call from a company that was hawking skylights. Mike said 'yes' he'd love to have some, where he lived was very dark and dreary and promptly ordered 5 of them on COD. The address he had them delivered to was a cemetary. He hasn't complained about telemarketers since.
I must be one of the 1%, at work I had Word but can't afford the $hitload of cash it costs for home. The best I can do is Wordviewer, where I can't even do anything but look at it. And don't even mention the formatting problems with .doc. OpenOffice was a godsend for me, and if they implement an open standard that can do decent formatting and most users can read, you can bet that I'll switch to it. XML could have other benefits, such tags for putting things in automatically into databases, etc.
I believe, esp. lately, that people will start gravitating toward open standards more and more, just like the most successful graphic file formats are all open, jpg, gif, png, bmp.
I refuse to pay anymore money just so I can read M$ proprietary file formats.
Uh....familiarity breeds fondness. I'm sorry, people use what is available, if linux is available, that *will* be the standard. Actually, putting Microsoft in the schools is indoctrination, and you know M$ is betting on that, just like they are letting the poorer countries like China have their special deals so in the future they become dependent on the software. Using applications is not a computer education, and I'm sorry but if you can login into Linux, use konquerer or mozilla, write up a report on Open Office, you will likely have all the skills that someone growing up using M$ software has, if not more. There is just not that much difference these days, pushing buttons and moving mice in the GUI can have only so many variations. The student will have the added benefit of (probably) knowing the command line. In my view, computers in schools should serve three purposes. Either a)for information gathering either off the internet or whereever, and for typing up work based on this information. So typing and basic app using skills can be taught at the same time. Or b) (and this should be optional) actually learning how computers work. From the bottom up, not using apps (since that is relatively simple past getting the OS set up.) c) They can be used in other classes, art and math comes to mind, but then those aren't really computer classes either. The argument that Linux doesn't have educational software is laughable because I don't think I've ever seen decent educational software on M$, for any age past 6, and really that is what books are for. What linux does have is a ton of free software that can be used for other subjects, like the default graphing calculator in KDE come to mind.
Any lawyers in the house? I don't know, how do the courts treat trade secret laws in regards to freedom of press, I thought the guilty party will only be the informant, no one else. I read this article, http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/02/03/25/ 020325opfoster.xml
And while it clears some things up, I get the impression, the people/press can print what it wants, as long as national security, slander, etc isn't involved. And they usually have to quote the source, then only the informant can have any legal responsibility in these cases.