They should be ashamed to have shipped a bug like that.
Explanation as to what this is about
on
100 Years of Macintosh
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
The Macintosh traditionally measured time for most purposes in seconds since Midnight, January 1st, 1904. The call to get this value is GetDateTime() which takes a pointer to a unsigned long and returns the number of seconds by assigning the value to the argument.
Unlike what the article says, GetDateTime() is still available under the Carbon framework in MacOS X. However, there are now other ways of dealing with date/time in the MacOS. Ironically the preferred method, CFDate is also available under MacOS 9. So, I don't really get the point of the write up saying that this works only in MacOS 9.
Frankly this is of little interest to anyone who is not a Macintosh programmer - and only mild interest to those of us who are Macintosh programmers.
It is interesting to note that the Apple Newton also measures time from this reference point. However, it measures minutes since 1904 instead of seconds in dealing with its default date handling routines. On the Newton they had no real reason for picking that reference date other than that the Mac already used it.
On the original Mac, they did have a good reason for picking it. Apparently 1904 is the first leap year in the 20th century and it simplified the algorithm for factoring in leap years by starting at that point. Since they were trying shoe horn a graphical OS onto a 128Kb machine with no HD (but they did have some ROMs), you can't really fault them for taking a few shortcuts.
The system does not allow a blast of spam to be sent even one time. I completely chucked compatibility with current email systems in order to achieve that goal (and some other related goals).
I still allow you to send email to someone for whom you only know their address and have no pre-existing relationship. Other beneficial aspects of email as it sits today are retained. I've added additional benefits and removed harmful side effects. Spam is one of the current harmful side effects of email - the worst one from a practical perspective, but not the only one.
I used TRIZ design techniques (such as S Field Analysis, Technical Contradiction Analysis, etc.) to put this system together. Some of these techniques had to be adapted to software. I am not the first person to attempt such adaptation and I did find that my results in doing so are consistant with papers published by TRIZ scholars. Google on TRIZ if you don't know what I'm babbling about.
In order to go into more detail, I'd have to get into details that I don't want to discuss on a public forum. You can email me if you want. My address is brant at mac.com (replace the at with the @ symbol).
Happy New Year to you as well!
I'm seriously thinking about looking at some of the existing anti-spam initiatives going on via Source Forge and trying to help with those by donating some of my ideas. I'll just need to make sure that I pull out of this business deal in a manner that isn't going to get me sued.
You forgot the fall after the first powerbook. The first one was incredibly heavy and considered only for users who had to have a Mac machine with a portable screen.
It wasn't a PowerBook. It was called the Mac Portable, there were two version of it and it pre-dated the PowerBook line.
Yeah, the Mac Portable sucked, and it certainly wasn't a high point for Apple, but I consider it to be more like the MacTV - an experimental model that didn't pan out and should have been killed before reaching customers.
Also there was the flaming Apple laptop, when they used the new batteries which tended to catch fire. It nearly killed the powerbook line.
Again, the problems with the batteries on the 5300 series were certainly bad for Apple, but no one I know who serious watches Apple ever thought it would mean that they would stop making PowerBooks.
Finally I just remembered the hardware licensing wars. This was when Power Computing and such started to produce Macintosh Hardware under license from Apple. Apple eventually pulled it back but the stranded purchasers of those machines and the companies left in the lurch were not happy.
I had a PowerComputing machine. It was great. I fail to see, though, how customers (like myself) were "left in the lurch". Apple purchased PowerComputing and supported the machines. If I still had the machine today (it was owned by my employer), it would be out of warranty, but I could still take it to an Apple Authorized Service Center have it repaired so long as I would pay the bill. I was perfectly happy with the Power Computing machine. I was also perfectly happy with the rev B. iMac I bought shortly after Power Computing was purchased by Apple.
Communism maintains that one can only own what one can "directly use" for their state-assigned job. It's different from saying you can own no property, but it's the same as saying you can't own (non-state-approved) property.
In the US you cannot own any property unless the government approves of you owning it either. For example, you cannot own prescription drugs without a prescription. You cannot own marijuana. You cannot own land unless you pay taxes on it and it can get taken away from you for lots of reasons beyond not paying taxes (for example, immenent domain). There are many kinds of electronic devices you cannot own.
If you are talking about ordinary items, even in Soviet Russia people could own household items.
We see a race to the bottom only when there is a surplus of labor or a dearth of demand for it. Under other conditions, we see a race to the top.
Absolutely. I completely agree. I would even go so far as to say that during bad economic times, it is possible for an individual to do extraordinary things that can help themselves. On the other hand, I've been around when companies lay off massive numbers of workers - people who had worked hard and invested a lot of time in the company's success. These people lost jobs through no fault of their own. The incompetent executives who ran the company into the ground were not held accountable for it - they kept their jobs. No one said life had to be fair, but on the other hand, no one said that we can't have things like unemployment insurance and other parts of a social safety net to make sure that good, hard working people aren't totally hosed in every downturn.
Instead, what I see is that the US is gradually being remade on the new chinese model and I find it disturbing.
I see the remake of the USA as closer to the Nazi model
Then, I think we see things in a really similar way.
This is an interesting issue, and I don't know how I feel about it. The freedom part of me wants to let anyone do whatever they want, provided that they do not deny anyone else's right to life, liberty, or property. The American side of me wants to see America succeed and doesn't want foreign powers taking our jobs. I'm ambivalent.
I agree with you. Let me ask a hypothetical question, though. What if a major corporation was contracting with US prisons to get 80% of their labor. What if that same company were lobbying congress to for more "get tough on crime" laws that extended sentences, built new prisons, and created new felony crimes (maybe by making misdomeaners into felonies). Would that disturb you? I don't think moving jobs to China or Viet Nam is all that different.
So to bring this back on topic, let's talk about Mr. Alan Ralsky. He wants to spam people to advertise things for various customers. One could argue that he should not be free to do this because it deprives the general public of their freedom to use email as it was intended (i.e. without the nusance of spam).
Mr. Ralsky might argue that by outlawing spam, you are depriving him his right to use his computer (his property) in the manner in which he sees fit. Plus, you are destroying his right to earn a living and the right of people out there to hear about his wonderful (sic) products and purchase them.
I think this parallels the FCC regulation case that I cited above very closely. In both cases you have person A who wants to sell and person B who wants to buy and other parties (who you seem to be claiming are disinterested) not wanting the transaction to take place because the transaction occurs over a publicly owned medium (i.e. the internet or the public airwaves).
So, how do you feel about Ralsky? To be logically consistant with arguments you have previously made, you must be for spammers.
I'm not anti-capitalism or anti-freedom, but I can see how being pro-freedom could be used to argue both sides of an issue.
As an example, let's talk about media consolidation. Recently the FCC lifted some regulations on how many TV and Radio stations that a single entity (like a corporation or a person) can own.
Some people would argue that having those regulations in place infringes on the freedom of a person to buy all the TV stations they want.
Others argue that allowing all of the media outlets to fall into the hands of a very small group infringes on the freedom of the the majority of people to have the public airways used to broadcast a wide variety of perspectives.
If you really think about it, the first argument (the pro-capitalist argument) is kind of like saying that the bill of rights infringes on the freedom of the King of England to have his every whim obeyed. In other words, it just proves you can twist things around and have some really fucked up perspectives on things.
Where do the tenets of communism state that the actions carried out by the brutal dictatorships were unjustified? How do the tenets of communism prevent a brutal dictatorship from arising?
I fail to see how an economic theory should prevent (or cause) a dictatorship. That's the job of laws and democratic institutions, which themselves are not incompatible with communist economics.
In America I don't see the poor amassing to hold worship ceremonies for the priveledged wealthy. In fact, I see the opposite.
I guess you don't read popular magazines like People, Fortune, Forbes, etc. I guess you don't watch TV either like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, A&E Biography, or pretty much any other show or TV commercial.
You know as well as I that individual property rights are abolished under communism.
Obviously you are ignorant. The only property rights that are restricted under communism are the rights to own the means of production. That's different than saying you can't own property. In fact, it is not all that different than the law we used to have that put restrictions on media ownership (consolidation.) Remember, I'm not talking about some regieme, I'm talking about actual communist theory (which I do not subscribe to.)
That reminds me: how do you feel about China moving to enshrine individual property rights in their constitution?
I think the Chinese Communist government is absolutely terrible. I think that the US should never have recogized that regieme and that we should stick up better for the Taiwanese. I think that one of the most fearful things on earth is the harnessing of the power of the market to a brutal dictatorship like in China. When you do that, you have a regieme as dangerous as the Nazis. I think it is foolish to believe that free trade with China will result in political freedom there. The workers there are slaves, nothing more, and now they can be exploited for profit. The benefit to the US is marginal. We can buy cheap chinese goods at Wal Mart - and maybe that benefits Wal Mart. Also, I think we were pretty much bound to loose manufacturing jobs anyway.
My opinion is that we should not be trading with any countries where the workers do not have the right to form unions. Also, the right to form a union means nothing without basic political freedom. Not that they have to *have* unions, but simply the right to form them. I had a professor in Organizational Psychology who once said that if you look at any org that has a union, and then look back in the history of the org, you will pretty much find out that they treated their workers badly enough to deserve the union (at that time.)
Unions are *not* a great thing for organizations and are not really that great of a thing for workers. However, organizations have a lot of power over workers and if the conditions are right for abuse, uions are really the only proven remedy.
For the record, I believe in free market capitalism tempered by democratic regulation. It is a proven fact that capitalism is a powerful engine. However, it is also a fact that capitalism itself is amoral and can be quite cruel. Wages seek their own level and that's why we see a race to the bottom for which country can have the lowest wages, worst working conditions, and least regulation. The last thing we need is to compete for our jobs against slaves with guns to their backs. Instead, we have a moral obligation, as a free people to help bring an end to such regiemes - or at least not support them. Instead, what I see is that the US is gradually being remade on the new chinese model and I find it disturbing.
Despite their origins, they are both labels for economic ideologies. I *often* hear people citing "that's the way capitalism is supposed to work" to justify.
If capitalism is simply a label applied after the fact, then how can it be used to justify government policy?
Since you made a personal attack on me, I'll make one on you. It's interesting to me that so called "conservatives" such as yourself rarely can argue logically. Instead, you try to change the subject around when you get in a corner.
Also, you cannot spell and are clearly in need of more formal education.
Conservative economics: Run up the deficit and put the economy in the ditch.
Conservative Civil Rights: Laws that protect cops who murder and rape the innocent, whiling lining their own pockets with money from drug sales out of the evidence locker.
Conservative Foreign Policy: Ship all our jobs overseas, bomb a whole bunch of random countries, and say "bring 'em on" over and over.
You are correct. No local (and a national law is in this case, just local) can really stop Spam. If he sends the spam through foreign countries where it is legal, he has no troubles with this law.
It is possible to create a technical solution for Spam. However, it would involve re-creating email from the ground up with spam in mind, with security in mind, with authentication in mind. The trade off is that the system doesn't interoperate with current email*.
I designed such a system. Unfortunately, I decided that instead of taking it Open Source, I signed the patent over to a company and I have some business partners who are looking for investors. The project plan called for 8 people - 4 devs and 4 QA + me and about a year to create the basic system. Unfortunately, no one really wants to invest in it, and my partners aren't really doing anything to raise money.
The people we have talked to about investing typically fall into one of two camps. Either they are scared off by Microsoft's recent anti-spam initiative (which will come to nothing, I am familiar with how they are doing their system), or they are only interested if they can somehow get a fee for every message sent, which is not a model that I would want to enable even if I could. (IMHO a per-message fee would prevent universal adoption.)
*Later, I came up with kind of a kludge to get it to interoperate with current email systems, but that was really basedon pressure from my business partners and I'd prefer not to have it.
But I still like this idea. It would help eliminate companies where the business model is based on screwing their customers, or companies that are clearly non legitimate like SCO. It would encourage companies to treat their customers decently.
Capitalism is about exchanging value for value freely, not about taking others' property or using lies to make money.
It's really unfortunately that neither Capitalism nor Communism have ever been tried.
I mean that literally. Communism isn't about dictatorship, torturing and executing one's political enemies. In supposedly Communist countries, Communism was just a name put on a brutal dictatorship.
In America, Capitalism is just a name placed on the worship and priveledge placed on weathy people - no matter how they got that way. Every large fortunte comes as a result of a crime, or someone found a way to game the system - like this Alan Ralsky.
Once you have money, it is easy to maintain wealth because of the "heads I win, tails you loose" laws put in place to protect large fortunes.
I have a PowerMac G4 Cube on my desk right now that is very easy to open. Jobs opened it himself when it was introduced. I also have a 15" TiBook on my desk. It is also very easy to open (lift the keyboard) to upgrade the memory or add an Airport card.
I used to have a PM G4. It had a big fucking door that you could open and add new hard drives very easily. I could do the same thing on both the PowerMac 8500 and PowerMac 9600 I had when I was a dev at Microsoft.
Explanation: Kid asks for iPod for Christmas. Parent buys cheapest possible "iPod". End of story. Since parent is not buying it for self, they don't care about details other than price.
Interesting sidebar, when I bought my iPod, I was planning to buy the cheapest one - a 5GB model. I ended up buying the 20GB model which was the largest size at the time (and also was the only one with a solid state wheel at the time) because the store was out of 5GB models and had a 20GB model for $50 off that someone had returned. I could have bought the size down for $20 less, but I figured I could use the space. I was a bit worried there would be something wrong with the unit, but I've had it almost a year and it works fine.
I speculate the person brought it back because they wanted a Windows iPod and maybe bought a Mac iPod by mistake or they thought they could reformat it (you can) and didn't know how. I'm a real die hard Mac user, but I didn't buy an iPod in the first round because I figured I could just listen to iTunes on my PowerBook just as easily. The iPod is definately a good deal. I used to bring my PowerBook to work every day just to listen to music and using it in the car was a real pain compared to the iPod.
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They should be ashamed to have shipped a bug like that.
The Macintosh traditionally measured time for most purposes in seconds since Midnight, January 1st, 1904. The call to get this value is GetDateTime() which takes a pointer to a unsigned long and returns the number of seconds by assigning the value to the argument.
Unlike what the article says, GetDateTime() is still available under the Carbon framework in MacOS X. However, there are now other ways of dealing with date/time in the MacOS. Ironically the preferred method, CFDate is also available under MacOS 9. So, I don't really get the point of the write up saying that this works only in MacOS 9.
Frankly this is of little interest to anyone who is not a Macintosh programmer - and only mild interest to those of us who are Macintosh programmers.
It is interesting to note that the Apple Newton also measures time from this reference point. However, it measures minutes since 1904 instead of seconds in dealing with its default date handling routines. On the Newton they had no real reason for picking that reference date other than that the Mac already used it.
On the original Mac, they did have a good reason for picking it. Apparently 1904 is the first leap year in the 20th century and it simplified the algorithm for factoring in leap years by starting at that point. Since they were trying shoe horn a graphical OS onto a 128Kb machine with no HD (but they did have some ROMs), you can't really fault them for taking a few shortcuts.
The system does not allow a blast of spam to be sent even one time. I completely chucked compatibility with current email systems in order to achieve that goal (and some other related goals).
I still allow you to send email to someone for whom you only know their address and have no pre-existing relationship. Other beneficial aspects of email as it sits today are retained. I've added additional benefits and removed harmful side effects. Spam is one of the current harmful side effects of email - the worst one from a practical perspective, but not the only one.
I used TRIZ design techniques (such as S Field Analysis, Technical Contradiction Analysis, etc.) to put this system together. Some of these techniques had to be adapted to software. I am not the first person to attempt such adaptation and I did find that my results in doing so are consistant with papers published by TRIZ scholars. Google on TRIZ if you don't know what I'm babbling about.
In order to go into more detail, I'd have to get into details that I don't want to discuss on a public forum. You can email me if you want. My address is brant at mac.com (replace the at with the @ symbol).
Happy New Year to you as well!
I'm seriously thinking about looking at some of the existing anti-spam initiatives going on via Source Forge and trying to help with those by donating some of my ideas. I'll just need to make sure that I pull out of this business deal in a manner that isn't going to get me sued.
No, my scheme doesn't require that.
Money? What money? I have stock in a company that isn't doing anything.
You forgot the fall after the first powerbook. The first one was incredibly heavy and considered only for users who had to have a Mac machine with a portable screen.
It wasn't a PowerBook. It was called the Mac Portable, there were two version of it and it pre-dated the PowerBook line.
Yeah, the Mac Portable sucked, and it certainly wasn't a high point for Apple, but I consider it to be more like the MacTV - an experimental model that didn't pan out and should have been killed before reaching customers.
Also there was the flaming Apple laptop, when they used the new batteries which tended to catch fire. It nearly killed the powerbook line.
Again, the problems with the batteries on the 5300 series were certainly bad for Apple, but no one I know who serious watches Apple ever thought it would mean that they would stop making PowerBooks.
Finally I just remembered the hardware licensing wars. This was when Power Computing and such started to produce Macintosh Hardware under license from Apple. Apple eventually pulled it back but the stranded purchasers of those machines and the companies left in the lurch were not happy.
I had a PowerComputing machine. It was great. I fail to see, though, how customers (like myself) were "left in the lurch". Apple purchased PowerComputing and supported the machines. If I still had the machine today (it was owned by my employer), it would be out of warranty, but I could still take it to an Apple Authorized Service Center have it repaired so long as I would pay the bill. I was perfectly happy with the Power Computing machine. I was also perfectly happy with the rev B. iMac I bought shortly after Power Computing was purchased by Apple.
Communism maintains that one can only own what one can "directly use" for their state-assigned job. It's different from saying you can own no property, but it's the same as saying you can't own (non-state-approved) property.
In the US you cannot own any property unless the government approves of you owning it either. For example, you cannot own prescription drugs without a prescription. You cannot own marijuana. You cannot own land unless you pay taxes on it and it can get taken away from you for lots of reasons beyond not paying taxes (for example, immenent domain). There are many kinds of electronic devices you cannot own.
If you are talking about ordinary items, even in Soviet Russia people could own household items.
We see a race to the bottom only when there is a surplus of labor or a dearth of demand for it. Under other conditions, we see a race to the top.
Absolutely. I completely agree. I would even go so far as to say that during bad economic times, it is possible for an individual to do extraordinary things that can help themselves. On the other hand, I've been around when companies lay off massive numbers of workers - people who had worked hard and invested a lot of time in the company's success. These people lost jobs through no fault of their own. The incompetent executives who ran the company into the ground were not held accountable for it - they kept their jobs. No one said life had to be fair, but on the other hand, no one said that we can't have things like unemployment insurance and other parts of a social safety net to make sure that good, hard working people aren't totally hosed in every downturn.
Instead, what I see is that the US is gradually being remade on the new chinese model and I find it disturbing.
I see the remake of the USA as closer to the Nazi model
Then, I think we see things in a really similar way.
This is an interesting issue, and I don't know how I feel about it. The freedom part of me wants to let anyone do whatever they want, provided that they do not deny anyone else's right to life, liberty, or property. The American side of me wants to see America succeed and doesn't want foreign powers taking our jobs. I'm ambivalent.
I agree with you. Let me ask a hypothetical question, though. What if a major corporation was contracting with US prisons to get 80% of their labor. What if that same company were lobbying congress to for more "get tough on crime" laws that extended sentences, built new prisons, and created new felony crimes (maybe by making misdomeaners into felonies). Would that disturb you? I don't think moving jobs to China or Viet Nam is all that different.
So to bring this back on topic, let's talk about Mr. Alan Ralsky. He wants to spam people to advertise things for various customers. One could argue that he should not be free to do this because it deprives the general public of their freedom to use email as it was intended (i.e. without the nusance of spam).
Mr. Ralsky might argue that by outlawing spam, you are depriving him his right to use his computer (his property) in the manner in which he sees fit. Plus, you are destroying his right to earn a living and the right of people out there to hear about his wonderful (sic) products and purchase them.
I think this parallels the FCC regulation case that I cited above very closely. In both cases you have person A who wants to sell and person B who wants to buy and other parties (who you seem to be claiming are disinterested) not wanting the transaction to take place because the transaction occurs over a publicly owned medium (i.e. the internet or the public airwaves).
So, how do you feel about Ralsky? To be logically consistant with arguments you have previously made, you must be for spammers.
I'm not anti-capitalism or anti-freedom, but I can see how being pro-freedom could be used to argue both sides of an issue.
As an example, let's talk about media consolidation. Recently the FCC lifted some regulations on how many TV and Radio stations that a single entity (like a corporation or a person) can own.
Some people would argue that having those regulations in place infringes on the freedom of a person to buy all the TV stations they want.
Others argue that allowing all of the media outlets to fall into the hands of a very small group infringes on the freedom of the the majority of people to have the public airways used to broadcast a wide variety of perspectives.
If you really think about it, the first argument (the pro-capitalist argument) is kind of like saying that the bill of rights infringes on the freedom of the King of England to have his every whim obeyed. In other words, it just proves you can twist things around and have some really fucked up perspectives on things.
Where do the tenets of communism state that the actions carried out by the brutal dictatorships were unjustified? How do the tenets of communism prevent a brutal dictatorship from arising?
I fail to see how an economic theory should prevent (or cause) a dictatorship. That's the job of laws and democratic institutions, which themselves are not incompatible with communist economics.
In America I don't see the poor amassing to hold worship ceremonies for the priveledged wealthy. In fact, I see the opposite.
I guess you don't read popular magazines like People, Fortune, Forbes, etc. I guess you don't watch TV either like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, A&E Biography, or pretty much any other show or TV commercial.
You know as well as I that individual property rights are abolished under communism.
Obviously you are ignorant. The only property rights that are restricted under communism are the rights to own the means of production. That's different than saying you can't own property. In fact, it is not all that different than the law we used to have that put restrictions on media ownership (consolidation.) Remember, I'm not talking about some regieme, I'm talking about actual communist theory (which I do not subscribe to.)
That reminds me: how do you feel about China moving to enshrine individual property rights in their constitution?
I think the Chinese Communist government is absolutely terrible. I think that the US should never have recogized that regieme and that we should stick up better for the Taiwanese. I think that one of the most fearful things on earth is the harnessing of the power of the market to a brutal dictatorship like in China. When you do that, you have a regieme as dangerous as the Nazis. I think it is foolish to believe that free trade with China will result in political freedom there. The workers there are slaves, nothing more, and now they can be exploited for profit. The benefit to the US is marginal. We can buy cheap chinese goods at Wal Mart - and maybe that benefits Wal Mart. Also, I think we were pretty much bound to loose manufacturing jobs anyway.
My opinion is that we should not be trading with any countries where the workers do not have the right to form unions. Also, the right to form a union means nothing without basic political freedom. Not that they have to *have* unions, but simply the right to form them. I had a professor in Organizational Psychology who once said that if you look at any org that has a union, and then look back in the history of the org, you will pretty much find out that they treated their workers badly enough to deserve the union (at that time.)
Unions are *not* a great thing for organizations and are not really that great of a thing for workers. However, organizations have a lot of power over workers and if the conditions are right for abuse, uions are really the only proven remedy.
For the record, I believe in free market capitalism tempered by democratic regulation. It is a proven fact that capitalism is a powerful engine. However, it is also a fact that capitalism itself is amoral and can be quite cruel. Wages seek their own level and that's why we see a race to the bottom for which country can have the lowest wages, worst working conditions, and least regulation. The last thing we need is to compete for our jobs against slaves with guns to their backs. Instead, we have a moral obligation, as a free people to help bring an end to such regiemes - or at least not support them. Instead, what I see is that the US is gradually being remade on the new chinese model and I find it disturbing.
That should say "to justify whatever". I had some puctuation to emphasize the word. That's what I get for not using the preview feature.
Who said I was "equating" the two?
.
Despite their origins, they are both labels for economic ideologies. I *often* hear people citing "that's the way capitalism is supposed to work" to justify
If capitalism is simply a label applied after the fact, then how can it be used to justify government policy?
I think it woulod have taken off regardless with or without Netscape (i.e. someone else would have done it).
On the other hand, iwthout TBL, the web would not have happened.
Or, to paraphrase what you said:
1. I read it in some old book made up by a con man.
2. I'm stupid.
3. Leave me alone.
I think the French and Russians had the right idea about what to do with Monarchs.
Mosaic was not a bad browser at the time. I used to use it before Netscape hit 1.0 because it was more stable.
Since you made a personal attack on me, I'll make one on you. It's interesting to me that so called "conservatives" such as yourself rarely can argue logically. Instead, you try to change the subject around when you get in a corner. Also, you cannot spell and are clearly in need of more formal education. Conservative economics: Run up the deficit and put the economy in the ditch. Conservative Civil Rights: Laws that protect cops who murder and rape the innocent, whiling lining their own pockets with money from drug sales out of the evidence locker. Conservative Foreign Policy: Ship all our jobs overseas, bomb a whole bunch of random countries, and say "bring 'em on" over and over.
Does it need to be safer? I don't think so. Death by terrorism is so rare that you'd save more people by giving away flu shots for free.
I will not give up privacy for "safety".
Wrong. I do own a company, but I don't fuck people around.
You are correct. No local (and a national law is in this case, just local) can really stop Spam. If he sends the spam through foreign countries where it is legal, he has no troubles with this law.
It is possible to create a technical solution for Spam. However, it would involve re-creating email from the ground up with spam in mind, with security in mind, with authentication in mind. The trade off is that the system doesn't interoperate with current email*.
I designed such a system. Unfortunately, I decided that instead of taking it Open Source, I signed the patent over to a company and I have some business partners who are looking for investors. The project plan called for 8 people - 4 devs and 4 QA + me and about a year to create the basic system. Unfortunately, no one really wants to invest in it, and my partners aren't really doing anything to raise money.
The people we have talked to about investing typically fall into one of two camps. Either they are scared off by Microsoft's recent anti-spam initiative (which will come to nothing, I am familiar with how they are doing their system), or they are only interested if they can somehow get a fee for every message sent, which is not a model that I would want to enable even if I could. (IMHO a per-message fee would prevent universal adoption.)
*Later, I came up with kind of a kludge to get it to interoperate with current email systems, but that was really basedon pressure from my business partners and I'd prefer not to have it.
I really should have gone Open Source with it.
But I still like this idea. It would help eliminate companies where the business model is based on screwing their customers, or companies that are clearly non legitimate like SCO. It would encourage companies to treat their customers decently.
Capitalism is about exchanging value for value freely, not about taking others' property or using lies to make money.
It's really unfortunately that neither Capitalism nor Communism have ever been tried.
I mean that literally. Communism isn't about dictatorship, torturing and executing one's political enemies. In supposedly Communist countries, Communism was just a name put on a brutal dictatorship.
In America, Capitalism is just a name placed on the worship and priveledge placed on weathy people - no matter how they got that way. Every large fortunte comes as a result of a crime, or someone found a way to game the system - like this Alan Ralsky.
Once you have money, it is easy to maintain wealth because of the "heads I win, tails you loose" laws put in place to protect large fortunes.
I have a PowerMac G4 Cube on my desk right now that is very easy to open. Jobs opened it himself when it was introduced. I also have a 15" TiBook on my desk. It is also very easy to open (lift the keyboard) to upgrade the memory or add an Airport card.
I used to have a PM G4. It had a big fucking door that you could open and add new hard drives very easily. I could do the same thing on both the PowerMac 8500 and PowerMac 9600 I had when I was a dev at Microsoft.
Explanation: Kid asks for iPod for Christmas. Parent buys cheapest possible "iPod". End of story. Since parent is not buying it for self, they don't care about details other than price.
Interesting sidebar, when I bought my iPod, I was planning to buy the cheapest one - a 5GB model. I ended up buying the 20GB model which was the largest size at the time (and also was the only one with a solid state wheel at the time) because the store was out of 5GB models and had a 20GB model for $50 off that someone had returned. I could have bought the size down for $20 less, but I figured I could use the space. I was a bit worried there would be something wrong with the unit, but I've had it almost a year and it works fine.
I speculate the person brought it back because they wanted a Windows iPod and maybe bought a Mac iPod by mistake or they thought they could reformat it (you can) and didn't know how. I'm a real die hard Mac user, but I didn't buy an iPod in the first round because I figured I could just listen to iTunes on my PowerBook just as easily. The iPod is definately a good deal. I used to bring my PowerBook to work every day just to listen to music and using it in the car was a real pain compared to the iPod.
Microsoft can't (and doesn't)(and doesn't have a clue on how to) make a top selling router.