Be glad you didn't buy Vista on day 1. The first six months sucked royally I've read and it's only recently become better. For myself, I bought Vista the day that Service Pack 1 was announced so I missed most of the... joy... I got on ship when it was reasonably nice. And about 3 weeks ago ZDNet was kind enough to publish MD5's of the final release MS sent them to evangalize about so I was able to acquire a copy, the MD5's matched so the worst it could be was a key collision and the installer wasn't corrupted so it was legit. It even shows the correct build number in System Information. Now since I didn't jump on ship until after they bailed some of the water out its been a fairly smooth ride for me. And since I installed SP1 I guess it's better - some things like alt-tabbing out of games don't wonk (thats a technical term) the system anymore so all in all its an incremental improvement. And it's definitely a lot less of a shock transitioning from XP to Vista than it was from 98 to XP headache wise.
I'd comply immediately once they provide me with working code that has no false positives and pay for it to be implemented too! Not all P2P is copywronged and not all HTTP is legitimate - telling the difference to a high degree of accuracy requires artificial intelligence we have not developed yet. So if it is impossible to implement then while they're at it they may as well ask for a Pony and a Ferrari too.
What the hell is going on these last few years?! Ever since some wackos killed less people than die from AIDS in a day the US, UK, and AU seem hell bent racing each other to see who can become China first! It's time to face the fact: the terrorists have won. Not flamebait, just a sober realization.
So can I be exposed to these three molecules in such a way that my immune system makes antibodies for them? Would be nice to be immunized against death.
But then again, if we build opinions off of what they have to report and then those refined opinions return to them for further elaboration - who's to say whether there is or is not blunting of interpretation of the subject at hand?
Because it was based on the summary alone I wish my response was better. As to Freedom of Thought, original thinking is the exception not the rule when it comes to interacting with complex situations. We let others preprocess the minutae into various interpretations and then like chinese food we choose a little from column A and a bit from column B. So by limiting the opinions someone is exposed to then you are also limiting the opinions they can build off of the exposure or in effect censuring how their thought process' could have developed.
It's ironic that in the "Land of the Free" by joining the organization tasked with defending it you lose your Freedom to virtually congregate and by extension freedom of thought among peers.
With the ever-predicted bandwidth crunch always just around the corner, can existing cables be reused just by replacing the signaling equipment at substations with this? If we don't have to lay all new cables - just upgrade the nodes - then upgrading to these bandwidth capacities on our current networks would be a cinch.
The problem isn't with the spying - like you say there are many cases where it is needed. The problem is that the checks and balances from the oversight aspects are being compromised. The Federal Government can spy on anyone they like and even get a FISA warrent for it after the fact in cases of emergencies. The problem is that the Administration branch of the government thinks that even that is too much and want to remove that check and balance (or continue to ignore it). Spy away, but damn well be accountable *when* it is abused.
Hellgate London is an example that is free to play but you get extra content if you subscribe. You do initially have to buy the box however. It is the *very first* MMORPG I've ever played and the fact that there were no subscription fees is actually what tipped the balance for me and I bought it and its great. It's nice to know that I don't have to run out and buy a time-card or charge-it to play again in a few months - so for infrequent players the free to play model is better than WoW's. Tabula Rasa is an example of the opposite: while reading it's box it said that a credit-card was required so I put it back on the shelf.
At least the resources to stand against them exist. Unless IBM alone does a complete about face then the legal issues will eventually be settled for good or ill. I believe that if IBM pursues and rightly win's this confrontation then in a way its a good thing because it means that on the condition of win that Open Source will have a firm base on which to develop for the forseeable future. FUD will be dead. If they lose, then we'll just have to cooperatively organized our legal defense funds I guess because attacks will just not stop.
At least Nixon had the decency to deny he was a crook, these guys just grant themselves immunity. Of course, Bush has already redefined (CNN footage) the War Crimes act so he can't face a possible death penalty for the use of torture in the "war" (regret calling it that yet?) on terror.
One thing is certain: the choice to have many editions of Vista differentiated sometimes by key features is causing Microsoft quite a bit of trouble. Had Microsoft enabled or disabled features like Aero Glass based on a machine's capabilities rather than the version of the OS in use, this suit would have likely been avoided.
So basically if they had based a machines capabilities at run-time based on it's hardware they wouldn't have been culpable but because it was done through marketing they may have mislead consumers.
My install of Vista works perfectly - it even runs Alpha Centauri a Win 98 application and every single one of all my 50+ games. Granted most of those games target the XP architecture so the chances of them working are good to start off with. I've never had a problem with WGA either on XP (when I used it) or now Vista. But I guess when you actually pay for your key instead of generating it and actually have modern hardware then things Just Work®. If productivity was my thing I'd be using Linux right now but entertainment wise its a Windows world.
Thermodynamics just says you can't win when you're talking about the whole Universe. Once you start to get into smaller sections of it you can increase organization locally but it is always at the expense of more global energies. Life here on Earth is an example of this - we're more organized but the Sun pumps out a lot of wasted energy to feed that organization. It's entirely possible that some kind of machine could be built to extract energy locally which ultimately has a global source but that does not mean its perpetual, the Universe will still wind down total energy wise in the global space.
AOL to Time-Warner: "It must have been something you assimilated..."
Really with AOL's dial-up business quite rightly going down the tubes (heheh) it does make perfect business sense to at least spin it off to die on it's own or as a bonus have some sucker buy it.
I don't care what happens as long as I can get a plug in my head an IV in my arm and never come back to a reality where I can't fly at will. Oh yeah, and Unicorns.
Bit's should be free in a perfect world but in the real world it takes effort to organize those bits and economics is a way to spread the effort around fairly. So, it's just a fact that when any torrent/warez site says they don't host the files they only link to them or metadata about them (torrents) that they are only obeying the letter of the law. The spirit of the law is that despite the occasional legal use for these sites the vast majority is based around infringement. As I see it, the distribution aspects of media are completely solved: bittorrent is king. What is underdeveloped is a compensation system and it is that way because it requires the cooperation of the industry and banks. If Limewire had a little button next to an mp3 that I could click on and have 30 cents securely debited out of my account magically reaching the artist then I think the outcry would be lessened. The current payment systems for the 'net like credit-cards or money-orders are just too unwieldy and are not suitable for small and frequent transactions. Solve that bit and I know at least in my case I would pay. So, we have a universal distribution system we just need a universal compensation system.
You're right, downloading the software and using the online documentation is the best way because, yes they are free, and they are the most recent versions. My original point however revolves around transitioning from Windows to Linux and the main point that applications is what is holding back the logical migration to Openness. As soon as people move to Linux in enough numbers and are broken of the mind-set that they must pay for software then the same feedback loop that is keeping Windows dominant right now would suddenly apply to Linux too but with an added Free quality thrown in. Linux is better that's a fact it just needs a push to create the feedback, critical-mass, tipping-point, whatever we name the quality that makes it mainstream.
Where the argument that software should be free becomes a whole lot more muddled is in the realm of entertainment but that's a whole other thread;).
Software can and in a lot of cases should be free, I've drank RMS' kool-aid enough to see that. But how about a nice printed manual and install media for people who either don't have or only have dial-up connections? Then there's also the point that Mom and Pop aren't the most technically savvy people out there and would sometimes just like to browse the back of the boxes on the shelf - if only for the first time to educate themselves of the existence of the project. For me personally, a really nice printed and bound manual would be the biggest reason I would buy free* software.
* Intangible things like bits are free but physical items like the manual are the way to make money providing a (in this example, printing) service.
I'm addressing all the posts that go along the lines of "Windows Suxxors" here. Linux can be technically superior to Windows in every way and that is still not enough. It's a Windows world and it's going to stay that way for the forseeable future. The reason for this - and pointing out that comparing Windows to Linux alone is myopic - is that people don't really buy Windows, they buy compatibility with software. Or what Ballmer refers to as the "ecosystem". Linux is great but I can't walk into a BestBuy and buy anything software wise for it. How to go about getting around this feedback loop? Well, virtualization at the application level is the single approach that can actually break the loop. Things like Thinstall which was just purchased by VMWare or the ubiquitous Wine project. Weaning people off of the Windows dependence does not begin with Windows, it begins with it's applications.
I'm going to quote myself from the comment I made there yesterday (comment 54): The only reason copyright law was enacted in the first place was to "promote the useful arts". So tell me, how does locking up and extracting maximum profit from a work for up to 150 years "promote the useful arts"? Currently I can't build on by remixing or being too closely inspired by current works until long after I'm dead? Disney would never have had their Snow White if the Grimm Brothers had been able to exercise this level of control. It's an ironic situation.
Now with that said, if copyright was actually set to a sane level I'd have a lot more respect for it. Like 14 years - that's more than enough time to make a reasonable profit off of your work. And none of this eternity DRM. If your restrictions scheme doesn't have an expiry mechanism it should be outright illegal.
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Be glad you didn't buy Vista on day 1. The first six months sucked royally I've read and it's only recently become better. For myself, I bought Vista the day that Service Pack 1 was announced so I missed most of the ... joy ... I got on ship when it was reasonably nice. And about 3 weeks ago ZDNet was kind enough to publish MD5's of the final release MS sent them to evangalize about so I was able to acquire a copy, the MD5's matched so the worst it could be was a key collision and the installer wasn't corrupted so it was legit. It even shows the correct build number in System Information. Now since I didn't jump on ship until after they bailed some of the water out its been a fairly smooth ride for me. And since I installed SP1 I guess it's better - some things like alt-tabbing out of games don't wonk (thats a technical term) the system anymore so all in all its an incremental improvement. And it's definitely a lot less of a shock transitioning from XP to Vista than it was from 98 to XP headache wise.
I'd comply immediately once they provide me with working code that has no false positives and pay for it to be implemented too! Not all P2P is copywronged and not all HTTP is legitimate - telling the difference to a high degree of accuracy requires artificial intelligence we have not developed yet. So if it is impossible to implement then while they're at it they may as well ask for a Pony and a Ferrari too.
What the hell is going on these last few years?! Ever since some wackos killed less people than die from AIDS in a day the US, UK, and AU seem hell bent racing each other to see who can become China first! It's time to face the fact: the terrorists have won. Not flamebait, just a sober realization.
So can I be exposed to these three molecules in such a way that my immune system makes antibodies for them? Would be nice to be immunized against death.
But then again, if we build opinions off of what they have to report and then those refined opinions return to them for further elaboration - who's to say whether there is or is not blunting of interpretation of the subject at hand?
You need to pay attention to my username ;) I do go off on tangents.
Because it was based on the summary alone I wish my response was better. As to Freedom of Thought, original thinking is the exception not the rule when it comes to interacting with complex situations. We let others preprocess the minutae into various interpretations and then like chinese food we choose a little from column A and a bit from column B. So by limiting the opinions someone is exposed to then you are also limiting the opinions they can build off of the exposure or in effect censuring how their thought process' could have developed.
It's ironic that in the "Land of the Free" by joining the organization tasked with defending it you lose your Freedom to virtually congregate and by extension freedom of thought among peers.
Score 0: Disagree with our religion.
With the ever-predicted bandwidth crunch always just around the corner, can existing cables be reused just by replacing the signaling equipment at substations with this? If we don't have to lay all new cables - just upgrade the nodes - then upgrading to these bandwidth capacities on our current networks would be a cinch.
The problem isn't with the spying - like you say there are many cases where it is needed. The problem is that the checks and balances from the oversight aspects are being compromised. The Federal Government can spy on anyone they like and even get a FISA warrent for it after the fact in cases of emergencies. The problem is that the Administration branch of the government thinks that even that is too much and want to remove that check and balance (or continue to ignore it). Spy away, but damn well be accountable *when* it is abused.
Hellgate London is an example that is free to play but you get extra content if you subscribe. You do initially have to buy the box however. It is the *very first* MMORPG I've ever played and the fact that there were no subscription fees is actually what tipped the balance for me and I bought it and its great. It's nice to know that I don't have to run out and buy a time-card or charge-it to play again in a few months - so for infrequent players the free to play model is better than WoW's. Tabula Rasa is an example of the opposite: while reading it's box it said that a credit-card was required so I put it back on the shelf.
At least the resources to stand against them exist. Unless IBM alone does a complete about face then the legal issues will eventually be settled for good or ill. I believe that if IBM pursues and rightly win's this confrontation then in a way its a good thing because it means that on the condition of win that Open Source will have a firm base on which to develop for the forseeable future. FUD will be dead. If they lose, then we'll just have to cooperatively organized our legal defense funds I guess because attacks will just not stop.
At least Nixon had the decency to deny he was a crook, these guys just grant themselves immunity. Of course, Bush has already redefined (CNN footage) the War Crimes act so he can't face a possible death penalty for the use of torture in the "war" (regret calling it that yet?) on terror.
Dammit I hate it when I google something I read over the last few days from memory and then see the link in the summary.
Heres and interesting quote over at Ars Technica:
One thing is certain: the choice to have many editions of Vista differentiated sometimes by key features is causing Microsoft quite a bit of trouble. Had Microsoft enabled or disabled features like Aero Glass based on a machine's capabilities rather than the version of the OS in use, this suit would have likely been avoided.
So basically if they had based a machines capabilities at run-time based on it's hardware they wouldn't have been culpable but because it was done through marketing they may have mislead consumers.
My install of Vista works perfectly - it even runs Alpha Centauri a Win 98 application and every single one of all my 50+ games. Granted most of those games target the XP architecture so the chances of them working are good to start off with. I've never had a problem with WGA either on XP (when I used it) or now Vista. But I guess when you actually pay for your key instead of generating it and actually have modern hardware then things Just Work®. If productivity was my thing I'd be using Linux right now but entertainment wise its a Windows world.
Thermodynamics just says you can't win when you're talking about the whole Universe. Once you start to get into smaller sections of it you can increase organization locally but it is always at the expense of more global energies. Life here on Earth is an example of this - we're more organized but the Sun pumps out a lot of wasted energy to feed that organization. It's entirely possible that some kind of machine could be built to extract energy locally which ultimately has a global source but that does not mean its perpetual, the Universe will still wind down total energy wise in the global space.
AOL to Time-Warner: "It must have been something you assimilated..."
Really with AOL's dial-up business quite rightly going down the tubes (heheh) it does make perfect business sense to at least spin it off to die on it's own or as a bonus have some sucker buy it.
I don't care what happens as long as I can get a plug in my head an IV in my arm and never come back to a reality where I can't fly at will. Oh yeah, and Unicorns.
Bit's should be free in a perfect world but in the real world it takes effort to organize those bits and economics is a way to spread the effort around fairly. So, it's just a fact that when any torrent/warez site says they don't host the files they only link to them or metadata about them (torrents) that they are only obeying the letter of the law. The spirit of the law is that despite the occasional legal use for these sites the vast majority is based around infringement. As I see it, the distribution aspects of media are completely solved: bittorrent is king. What is underdeveloped is a compensation system and it is that way because it requires the cooperation of the industry and banks. If Limewire had a little button next to an mp3 that I could click on and have 30 cents securely debited out of my account magically reaching the artist then I think the outcry would be lessened. The current payment systems for the 'net like credit-cards or money-orders are just too unwieldy and are not suitable for small and frequent transactions. Solve that bit and I know at least in my case I would pay. So, we have a universal distribution system we just need a universal compensation system.
You're right, downloading the software and using the online documentation is the best way because, yes they are free, and they are the most recent versions. My original point however revolves around transitioning from Windows to Linux and the main point that applications is what is holding back the logical migration to Openness. As soon as people move to Linux in enough numbers and are broken of the mind-set that they must pay for software then the same feedback loop that is keeping Windows dominant right now would suddenly apply to Linux too but with an added Free quality thrown in. Linux is better that's a fact it just needs a push to create the feedback, critical-mass, tipping-point, whatever we name the quality that makes it mainstream.
;).
Where the argument that software should be free becomes a whole lot more muddled is in the realm of entertainment but that's a whole other thread
Software can and in a lot of cases should be free, I've drank RMS' kool-aid enough to see that. But how about a nice printed manual and install media for people who either don't have or only have dial-up connections? Then there's also the point that Mom and Pop aren't the most technically savvy people out there and would sometimes just like to browse the back of the boxes on the shelf - if only for the first time to educate themselves of the existence of the project. For me personally, a really nice printed and bound manual would be the biggest reason I would buy free* software.
* Intangible things like bits are free but physical items like the manual are the way to make money providing a (in this example, printing) service.
I'm addressing all the posts that go along the lines of "Windows Suxxors" here. Linux can be technically superior to Windows in every way and that is still not enough. It's a Windows world and it's going to stay that way for the forseeable future. The reason for this - and pointing out that comparing Windows to Linux alone is myopic - is that people don't really buy Windows, they buy compatibility with software. Or what Ballmer refers to as the "ecosystem". Linux is great but I can't walk into a BestBuy and buy anything software wise for it. How to go about getting around this feedback loop? Well, virtualization at the application level is the single approach that can actually break the loop. Things like Thinstall which was just purchased by VMWare or the ubiquitous Wine project. Weaning people off of the Windows dependence does not begin with Windows, it begins with it's applications.
I'm going to quote myself from the comment I made there yesterday (comment 54):
The only reason copyright law was enacted in the first place was to "promote the useful arts". So tell me, how does locking up and extracting maximum profit from a work for up to 150 years "promote the useful arts"? Currently I can't build on by remixing or being too closely inspired by current works until long after I'm dead? Disney would never have had their Snow White if the Grimm Brothers had been able to exercise this level of control. It's an ironic situation.
Now with that said, if copyright was actually set to a sane level I'd have a lot more respect for it. Like 14 years - that's more than enough time to make a reasonable profit off of your work. And none of this eternity DRM. If your restrictions scheme doesn't have an expiry mechanism it should be outright illegal.