Not to try and take anything away from Brian's acheivement, but without funding by American Paul Allen (who got rich via the American company Microsoft) and without a design from an American company headed by an American (Portland, Oregon, to be exact) aerospace genius like Burt Rutan, Brian wouldn't have had anything to fly.
Re:Injecting a little perspective here.
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No, that is totally false. You DO NOT pay royalties to the Benjamin Franklin's descendants every time you use electricity.
The only reason you don't pay royalties for the situation you describe is because either (a) the "invention" was not patentable, (b) the patent holder did not require royalties, or (c) the patent has expired. Patents are property and can be transferred, so legally there's no reason why you couldn't end up paying royalties to someone's descendants so long as the expiration period had not passed. There is precedent for this in the existing system, and it makes perfect sense. You're acting like patents never expire.
Re:Injecting a little perspective here.
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The manufacturer/distributors compete with each other but since they don't pay for R&D the prices are much lower...
I see your point but disagree with your conclusion. Again, why would these companies choose to cooperate in such research? Out of altruism? Some feeling for the good of humanity? You are being romantic if you think that motivation is going to overcome things like the wishes of stockholders in these companies. Companies have had countless opportunities to do such cooperation in the past and it's never happened. Perhaps you should consider why.
There is nothing to suggest that a human society must have ideas controlled by a few, regardless if those few feel that the idea was theirs because they expressed it first or they bought it from someone else.
Must you paint everything with the class warfare brush? Your commentary reads like something out of Marx or even Mein Kampf, wailing on and on about how things would be so much nicer if "those in power" were just taken out and everything distributed to the masses equally. History, however, is not on your side, and ample experiments have been carried out over the centuries. Capitalism has won out, much to the dismay of the "down with the rich and powerful" crowd. The natural order of these things is for the exceptional, the intelligent, and the persistent to rise to the top -- just as natural selection in nature. This, I think, is why capitalism has succeeded so well where all the others have either failed or paled in comparison: because capitalism is just an economic and social clone of nature. You can try and impose a different order on things, but it's destined to fail.
Re:Injecting a little perspective here.
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Is IP Property?
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You make the msot common mistake that most people that support current IP laws make: you assume that they way things get produced in society will remain the same if IP laws are changed.
Pray tell just exactly how might they change? Mind you, the current system works the way it does because it is based on human nature: people want things and are willing to trade things of worth (money, time, etc.) to get them. I cannot conceive of any possible incentive anyone would have to engage in any large, expensive project when the returns on said project are predestined to be had by someone copying my hard work. Altruism will not be sufficient here. It may work fine for people who write FOSS, but those people (by and large) have other jobs that pay them money so they can have a place to live, food to eat, and clothes on their backs. Unless you're going to advocate the abolition of money, I don't think there is a viable alternative. I'd love to hear your ideas, though.
It likely won't be done by one company if other companies can also benefit immediately. However, (just like developing standards in technology) consortiums of companies that all stand to gain from a cancer cure would undertake the research cooperatively. Improving IP laws encourages cooperation.
I disagree, and for a very simple reason: unless this "consortium" consists of every possible company in the field, it won't work. Anyone outside the group would simply copy the group's work and market it at a vastly reduced price. And even if the group did consist of every possible global member (a ridiculous possiblity), what's to stop Joe Schmoe from starting his own company and copying the group's work after the fact? Nothing at all, that's what. I'm sorry, but your idea, while noble and altruistic, will not work because it flouts human nature. People cooperate because there's a profit motive to cooperating (profit not being restricted to mere money, of course). Unless you protect that (with IP laws), there is no longer a motive, thus no cooperation, no innovation, and all sorts of other nasty things. Like Communism, it looks good on paper but is utterly unworkable in real life -- all due to the fact that human nature largely prevents us from cooperating unless there is a personal "profit" involved.
Things have changed. Production and distribution costs were much higher (especially compared to digital information goods). Using a 1791 example to prove that it won't work now is dubious at best.
The times have change, but the concepts and human nature have not. This planet is not populated by worker bees, each eagerly occupying his or her slot in a human superorganism, all working for the betterment of the human race. People are inherently selfish and independent, and you cannot expect large numbers of them to cast down their personal desires and motivations "for the greater good" on a regular basis. Marxism says you could force that on people and look how well that idea worked out. Furthermore, people have different ideas on how given problems should be worked out, and many times these ideas are irreconcilable or even confrontational. No matter how big any group, consortium, or committee might be, it won't embrace everyone -- and if it tried, it would find factions within working at cross-purposes due to differing agendas. You brush all this aside with your argument, and I think that's where it falls down. You can change the laws but you cannot change the people. And we, as a race, are not that much different than we were in 1791. We've got nicer clothes and gadgets, but things like Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden regularly remind us that each of us is far closer to being a brutal animal that we'd like to admit. If you want a fine example of man's respect for fellow man, just visit a riot in a European soccer game where people are maimed and murdered over games! Still think we've changed all that much?
More importantly I would ass
Re:Injecting a little perspective here.
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But where do we draw the line? If we swing to the other extreme, and every invention is patented and every piece of media is copyrighted, then no one could ever actually afford to buy anything.
Look at the opposite end of your argument for a second. If no one can afford to buy anything, it follows that no one can sell anything either! If you can't sell it, it is essentially worthless. Just as there is no incentive to invent without a profit motive (profit not being restricted to mere money, obviously), there is no incentive to invent something no one can buy. To put it more simply, I can build a solid-gold, gem-encrusted, Rolls Royce automobile that cost $500 million, but I would not be idiotic enough to assume anyone would buy it. Well, perhaps some rap singer would, but I think it's safe to assume most people would not. Price is determined by what the object costs you to produce, but worth is determined by what people are willing to pay for it. If the two are not in sync, there will be no sale. Therefore, I, as a producer, have a heavy incentive not only to produce produce a product but to also price it (a) high enough that I make a profit but (b) low enough that people will actually buy it.
If you look at your argument now, you see that it doesn't quite work how you thought.
What if, when you went out to buy a computer, it cost $500,000 because the guy who built it had to pay royalties to...
Actually, it does work that way right now, but you didn't seem to know that. Any part of a computer that wasn't developed as a free, open standard requires a royalty (unless it is not required by the copyright holder -- which is rare). You do pay that royalty indirectly when you purchase a PC, because the manufacturer paid that royalty and passes the cost along to you in the price tag of the PC. There are exceptions to this for expired patents or things not patentable, but you get the idea.
Injecting a little perspective here.
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Although I know/. is almost violently anti-capitalist and anti-corporate to a fault, it needs to be said: IP laws have their place and can be beneficial to society so long as they are not abused. I will illustrate this point with a bit of example and a dash of history, and unless you're a frothing zealot, it would behoove you to read on before knee-jerking that "mod down" option.
IP laws exist so that researchers and developers of new things can do their researching and developing with a reasonable expectation of being reimbursed for their time and efforts. Sure, the system gets abused, but that's more due to the overly-legalistic culture of the U.S. and the woefully-outdated patent system in this country, not because IP laws are a faulty concept.
Let us assume I am a multinational drug company researching a cure for cancer. I employ hundreds of researchers and doctors along with their thousands of assistants, accountants, network administrators, and janitors needed to support them. This headcount is not free; these people expect to be paid, and pay them I must if I want them to work on the cancer cure.
Now let us assume I (being the head of the company) spent $20 billion over five years researching this cancer cure and finally succeeded. I'm now $20 billion in the hole and have to find a way to recoup my costs. Society now has two options:
1. I can use IP law to protect my research and my creation, selling the cure and recouping my investment with the profits. Or...
2. With no IP laws, a competing firm can immediately copy my cure and, having not spent a dime on R&D, can vastly undercut my price and prevent me from ever making back my $20 billion investment.
In scenario 1, the world gets a cancer cure, I make back my investment and modest profict, and my company goes on to develop the Next Big Thing.
In scenario 2, the world would never get a cancer cure. Why? Because no company is going to spend $20 billion developing anything if it can't be assured of making that money back!. Any research project or invention requiring any significant amount of investment in order to bring to fruition simply won't be done. Why should it? After all, you do all the hard work, someone else makes all the money, you get nothing. I'm sure the socialists, communists, and anarchist who make up a significant fraction of/. would like it that way, but reality has a tendency to intrude on such Utopian Worker's Paradises.
Now, I'll be the first one to admit that IP laws have been taken to unhealthy extremes. Instead of being used to protect companies that take risks on long-term research projects, it's being used to lock-up potential avenues of research and squelch competition. What's needed here is tort reform, not a dissolution of IP laws.
A few centuries ago, around 1791 to be exact, France tried a little plan of abolishing patent laws. All the "people" thought it was such a great idea. After all, all these nasty, evil, wicked companies were just making beaucoup bucks off the backs of the noble, kind, honorable, downtrodden working classes. "Why work to feed a bunch of fatcats?" they thought. So, out went the laws, and in came Utopia.
Only it didn't work. Companies ceased to innovate in France. Instead, they left France and went elsewhere. Unemployment skyrocketed, invention stagnated. The poor got poorer than ever. The middle class evaporated. The upper class pulled up stakes and went elsewhere. After a bit of this, the laws were changed back to something more intelligent, and things recovered, but for a while the "workers" got a real taste of what they'd wrought, and it wasn't pretty.
The moral of the story here is IP laws are necessary, and anyone claiming otherwise is living in a fool's fantasy. You can despise the company you work for, you can despise other companies because of their patents and ridiculously-complex and overreaching copyright statues, but
Let's look at this for what it really is -- government subsidized Internet access. You think these access points and T1 trunks are free? No, they are not. They cost money to own and run, and that money is going to be taken from the taxpayers of Philadelphia in order to put this service up.
I'm damned glad I don't live there. Although I love the idea of citywide wireless access, but if I live and work in the suburbs, I would strongly object to my tax dollars being spent to construct and maintain a system I will never use.
But, hey! I shouldn't be complaining. I'm sure those people in the city need "free" wireless access a lot more than I need money in my pocket, right? After all, it's government's job to make sure everyone has everything they ever want for free, even if it means robbing the not-so-rich to pay the not-so-poor. Ya gotta love income redistribution, vote buying, and all the other wonderful things going on in City Hall.
I'm on my team, looking out for my interests. My interests are not served when Linux users seek to make Microsoft the ogre while ignoring similar faults in our own ranks. If Microsoft does something good, it should be lauded just as much as if it had come from Linus Torvalds. If Microsoft does something bad, it should receive no more and no less criticism than if it were found in Linux. If we stoop to the level of Microsoft and produce only FUD, we're no better than Microsoft.
He doesn't say he doesn't use IE because it is insecure. What he said is he recently had to a patch a Firefox installation because it (also) suffered from an exploit.
Somebody didn't read the article...
No, somebody did read the article, but filtered out anything remotely resembing (a) a slight against OSS and (b) any vindication, however slight, of Microsoft and their products. Typical Slashdot behavior. Everything bad about Microsoft must be emphasized, and anything good must be squelched. At the same time, anything good about FOSS must be emphasized, and anything bad must be buried with Jimmy Hoffa.
Where's the "-1 Michael-Moore-style selective editing" mod point when you need one, eh? That's what I love about Slashdot, the fair and balanced perspective everyone has here. Makes me so proud to be a Linux user. Not.
To put it more boldly, given the problem "I have not succeeded at research often enough", how would one apply step 2 without overflowing the stack?
I fail to understand how anyone with the vast resources of the WWW can "fail" at research. The knowledge of the world is at your fingertips. You can find the answer to just about any question from atomic physics to zebra mating habits using Google.com. If you aren't adept at using a search engine, you can pose your specific questions in any appropriate newsgroup, of which there are thousands.
On the Internet, you can find all the data you need. You can educate yourself to the point where you could pass a test on just about any subject you'd care to learn about -- usually for free. I had a physics question I wanted answered once, and lo and behold I managed to get an email to Kip Thorne, one of the pre-eminent physicists of the 20th century, and he replied with the answer. You just have to try. Infinite recursion is not the result of trying to hard, it is the result of not trying hard enough.
Have you no imagination? You've certainly been imaginative in your ability to find reasons why you can't do something. You should instead be focusing that effort on finding ways you can do that something. Try the following:
1. Define the problem (i.e. How can I provide low-latency, high-speed Internet service to my area and turn a profit?)
2. Research what needs to be done in order to solve the problem (i.e. find out what equipment you need, what training you might need, and whether or not your target market will want to purchase your product or service).
3. If/when you encounter obstacles, just define this as a new sub-problem to solve and go back to step one. Once the obstacle is overcome, continue on with solving the main problem.
4. Continue until all problems are solved. In the end, you'll either have a working solution or you'll have discovered your original goal was unworkable, unacheiveable, or unmarketable...at which point you learn from your experience and try something else.
5. Above all, do not sit back and whine about how everyone is keeping you from being successful. You are the only person that can keep you from being successful. Some of the richest, most successful people in history have risen from poverty, succeeded with no education, and overcome physical and mental disabilities. The succeeded because they refused to say "I can't." It sounds trite, but that's all there is to it. If you try hard enough and long enough, you are almost guaranteed to succeed in something. What that something is is up to you.
Look, I'm getting tired of expending my effort to solve your problems. I've made my point and disputed yours. Spend your effort solving your problems on your own instead of coming up with ever more excuses to throw this way. You make mountains out of molehills in an excuse to keep yourself from having to exert effort, and then you complain about how you're oppressed by everyone else. It's pathetic.
How would somebody surmount these government-enforced entry barriers?
There is no "government enforced" barrier to entry for any of the above things you mentioned. There is no law preventing you from generating your own electricity and selling it to your neighbor. If you produce more power than your home consumes and you run your power meter backwards, the local utility is required by law to pay you for it at the same rate they'd charge you for power. So, to completely undermine your argument, you actually have the advantage here as the government is forcing the utility to do business with you.
Next item to knock down: there is nothing preventing you from providing local low-latency, high-speed residential Internet service, either. Five years ago I put together a wireless ISP for my entire subdivision, run out of my own home, and it's still in use today with hundreds of customers. Five years ago there was no DSL or cable modem service here, so I cornered the broadband market. Today, even though DSL and cable modems are available, my customers stuck with my service because I'm cheaper, faster, and offer better customer service than the local mega-ISP's. And I make a good profit doing it, too.
Feeling beaten? Don't run away, I'm not done with you yet. You ask "who is the competitive provider of novels used in twentieth century literature classes in universities?" There is no law preventing you or anyone else from authoring any number of texts on any number of subjects you like. Similarly, there's no law preventing you from selling such books/novels to whoever you like, including universities. If you can outdo your competition, you can succeed.
Now, what have we learned from this? We've learned that your "government-enforced entry barriers" are figments of your imagination. We've learned that you'd rather spend twice as much effort whining about how you can't do something rather than actually doing that something. In short, you're likely a failure, and you're a failure because you don't try. Further, you're jealous of those around you who have succeeded, and you try to diminish their success by calling them "privileged" or "lucky", thus excusing your own apathy, failure, and laziness.
If you'd have spent half the effort you spent making all the above excuses actually looking for ways to solve a problem rather than looking for more excuses, you'd have less to complain about. But complaining is easy and work is hard. That's why you're likely to continue to fail in your life, and people like me will continue to succeed, and you'll be jealous and hateful of people like me and I'll feel nothing but contempt for people like you.
and then constructs proofs that enough such solutions are infeasible to implement
This is another form of a weak excuse, saying "I have to do it this way because that's all that's available to me." This is America, where opportunities abound. Don't like what current businesses are offering you? Get off your duff and make your own. If there's a market for what you're offering, you'll prosper. If there isn't a market for it, it's likely you're just blowing this whole thing out of proportion as an excuse for complaining. Or perhaps you'd get into business and [gasp] suddenly realize that the contracts you abhor are actually necessary to carry on business.
such as in the case with a monopoly provider?
See the above suggestion. The solution to a monopoly is competition. If you have a marketable product that does the job better, faster, cheaper, or some combination thereof, you will prosper. The only thing stopping you is (a) you and (b) your ability to come up with a more workable solution than what exists. I doubt you've expended much, if any, effort to address either of these prerequisites.
My brain is not perfect. What is a solution to the difficult problem of getting a sufficiently large other party to agree to amend a standard boilerplate contract rather than just "all changes by You to this contract are null and void, as We are expressly not willing to agree to any changes"?
You defeat yourself too easily. The way you get a company to change its procedures, contracts, or products is the same here as with any other behavior you want to change: don't buy their products, don't use their services, don't engage them. Use alternate providers of these things. If there aren't any alternates, that sounds like a market ripe for opening competition -- assuming you have a better idea. However, if you engaged in such an exercise, I think it's highly likely you'll find out that you don't have a better way of doing it, you just don't like how it's being done now. Well, to that I say "tough." Life is not fair, nor should it be. Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it isn't the best solution available.
Interresting quote... Especially since the most priviledged rarely have to fight for those privileges while the underpriviledged are the first to be sent to die. I'm quite happy with capitalism as long as I'm high enough in the social ladder...
Since my parents were most certainly working class, and since I've worked my way up from nothing into something, your claim of the privileged class (note spelling here, genius) not having to do the fighting is somewhat circumspect. I have actually done fighting for my country, USMC, Gulf War I. I put myself though college, no loans, no trust funds, I worked my ass off. And I'm glad I did it that way because I can sit here and enjoy the fruits of my labors and watch you whine and complain about how [drum roll please]UNFAIR THIS WORLD IS! WAAAH!! I NEED MY DAIPERS CHANGED!
Oops, sorry, I think I broke your argument. Hope you kept the receipt. But I digress.
Perhaps you might have a better chance of being one of these nebulous "priviledged" classes if you had better spelling, but in all honesty I think it's more likely your failings to date are due to your lack of cognitive thinking skills. Cheer up, though. One day you just might grow up and realize how wrong you are. I hope you do, but I'm not betting on it.
Then answer this: how can somebody without $10K in the bank enforce a contract?
[sigh] The answers here are numerous, but it seems you'd rather complain than think. I'll list a few options for you:
1. You can elect to not engage the contract in the first place if it's not to your liking.
2. You can get a contract clause stating arbitration shall be used in the event of a dispute. Arbitration forgoes the legal process and is usually much cheaper.
3. You can get a lawyer who works on contigency, such that he/she only gets paid if you win. If you lose, you pay nothing to the lawyer (although you may be liable for whatever penalties apply in the contract, if any).
There's more, but I think I've made my point here. If you have a brain, use it to think with instead of using it make excuses with. Any idiot can stand around and complain. An intelligent person comes up with solutions to difficult problems. Which are you?
Where, in any of those contracts, is there an indication for the responsibilities of the other party? Where are the terms by which they could break the contract and YOU could possess total control of the contract? Where are the terms by which the bank would forfeit your house or car to you through their wrongdoing? Where are the terms by which your employer is required to buy out your salary for a number of years due to their negligence? There are never any such terms.
Where is the loaded gun pressed against your temple forcing you to engage in the contract, you fool? You have free will to not engage contracts not to your liking. Don't like the EULA for a piece of software? Don't use the software. Don't like the contract for the loan on your car? Pay cash. Don't like the contract between you and the carmaker? Find a different brand. Can't find a different brand? There's public transportation.
In short, your argument is stupid because it assumes you are forced into accepting a contract you do not agree with. What's really going on is you're choosing to accept the contract of your own free will. You can blame the "big boys" all you want, but there's nobody forcing you to do anything here. What you're really doing is whining an awful lot about how you want everything for nothing handed to you on a silver platter. Sorry, the world doesn't work that way, and if you were mature enough to understand that concept you wouldn't be using such a childish argument.
I would just like to point out that, at the end of the day, a contract is an artificial club to be wielded by the wealthy.
And that, your honor, is where my opponent lost all credibility. Sorry, peddle your class warfare rhetoric on someone else, I'm not buying it. Please, go find your socialist worker's paradise elsewhere, I'm quite happy with capitalism.
I understand that you're being idealistic about the way things should be but I don't think you've thought your argument through enough to see the way things ARE.
Given that you're the one advocating class warfare and a system closely resembling socialism, all while ignoring the fact that such systems have always failed in the past and capitalism has generated the wealthiest, most powerful nation this planet has ever seen, I think it is you who is seeing things the way you want them to be as opposed to how they are. Cheer up, you may eventually grow up, become successful, and realize the error of your ways. On the other had, you might also remain intellectually as immature as you are now, which almost certainly guarantees your failure -- which you will inevitably blame on "the wealthy" despite the root cause being your own flawed view of reality.
Seince when did the MPAA have the right to go telling companies what they can sell.
Decoding your clever spelling and punctuation, it seems like you're asking about the MPAA's rights in this situation. Perhaps you've heard of the concept of a "contract"? In it, one party agrees to abide some terms and another party agrees to abide by some other terms. If either party doesn't live up to their side of the agreement, the remaining party can sue them for breach of contract. This elementary concept seems to have escaped you.
The MPAA contracted with SigmaTel and the rest to sell CSS decryption chips only to authorized buyers, the understanding being that the MPAA decides who is or isn't an "authorized" buyer. The CSS chip makers sold chips to companies not on the approved list. The MPAA owns the rights to CSS and has every right to determine who can or can't make CSS decryption chips. If Sigmatel can't live up to the terms it agreed to when it signed the contract, the MPAA has every right to sue them.
Let's put this in its simplest possible terms: very likely you are employed by someone. There is an employment contract between you and your employer. You agree to provide services, your employer agrees to pay you, and there's a "penalty" section in the contract if either of you fails to meet your obligations. If you fail to show up for work, you can be fired. If you work but your employer fails to pay you, you can sue for those wages.
What you're currently arguing is that you shouldn't be allowed to sue your employer for those wages, but I don't think you've thought your argument through enough to realize that simple fact.
Look, I think the MPAA is a bunch of worthless bastards earning tons of money off the backs of content producers, but arguments like yours are just plain stupid. Try thinking a bit harder next time before your knee-jerk reaction reaches your typing fingers.
11MB/sec to 110MB/sec...that's quite a range there. Where in that range will the drive spend the vast majority of it's time? Most likely somewhere near the bottom. Flash has never been known for blazing fast speed. Sure, random access times will be fantastic but sustained throughput will very likely be inferior to existing high-end drives.
Another issue I don't see being addressed: flash cells wear out with repeated read/write cycles. After a while, your nifty, expensive flash drive will just start failing all over the place. Yes, mechanical drives wear out, but last time I checked flash drive cells wore out with several thousand (or hundred thousand?) read/write cycles. If things haven't improved since then, I see flash drives wearing out much faster than their mechanical counterparts with today's frenetic storage access patterns.
Many others, 30% of those responding, said they had minor problems such as clashes with non-Microsoft browsers or applications.
You're spinning that into some kind of conspiracy that Microsoft is out to break third-party browsers. The category of "non-Microsoft browsers or applications" is extremely broad and includes every piece of software not made by Microsoft. You're artificially constraining that to "Now, with SP2 interfering with non-MS browsers, it looks like they're doing it again" just to make a point. Ah, the sweet smell of a flaw in your argument...
Again, I'm going to posit that any apps broken by SP2 were broken to begin with, but you seem incapable of grasping this fact. Microsoft closed a lot of holes in their OS in an attempt to make it more secure, but some organizations (including Microsoft) were playing fast and loose with these holes either because (a) it gave them a competitive advantage or (b) they were sloppy. I find it extremely interesting that you seem to think Microsoft is using this patch to further its plans for world domination, yet the very article you quote shows it breaks some of Microsoft's own software. The CRM market is where Microsoft is making a big push...please explain to me how breaking that app furthers Microsoft's ability to compete against the competition? Oops, sorry, I think I broke your argument there, Doc. Hope you kept the receipt.
Instead of reading that, you ignored it in favor of spewing venom without basis.
Coming from someone who started their reply charges of "claptrap" and "rabid belligerence," I'd like to introduce you to your good pal Kettle. He knows you by your nickname "Pot." You two seem to know each other well.
You're very proud of setting yourself as my "freak"
No, I'm not proud. You've earned it, so you should take all the credit.
do better to choose your enemies more wisely
You mean I should choose enemies that can actually think and develop non-conflicting, internally-consistent arguments? But that would exclude you, and it's such a joy to consider someone of your caliber a Foe.
based on their actual threat to your actual interests.
You are a threat to my interests, because of your inability to view Microsoft in an objective light. No matter what they do, you consider it bad, even when the outcome is of a benefit to Windows users. You view it this way because of your baseless, irrational hatred of the company, the platform, the owner, or some combination of all three. Since you are unable to separate your emotions from your decision-making capabilities, your judgement cannot be trusted. To you, the software isn't just some tool, it's an ideology, a sort of religion for you. Don't deny it, your reputation precedes you, which is how you earned a spot on my Foe list to begin with.
Where we differ is in the fact that I don't have a preference for Windows, Linux, or any other OS. I use and recommend whatever's best for our own internal use and for the clients we serve. If the client is best served with Linux desktops and servers running Samba, that's what we recommend. If they're best served with Windows desktops, Microsoft Office, and Windows Server, that's what we recommend. If the client prefers Mac's, we're likely to suggest a Mac solution to any new expansion. You, on the other hand, would rule out Windows to begin with simply because of your emotional bias. In doing this, you become a disgrace to the technological community, as you have denied your clients or your users a potentially superior solution simply because you have a bone to pick with the manufacturer -- a personal bone, not a business-case bone. If you can't separate your personal feelings from your technological decisions, I certainly hope you're in a job position that vests you with as little responsibility and decision-making opportunity as possible.
Awww...I see you haven't responded. I can only assume you've realized the futility of your argument and are quitting while you're behind. Prudent move on your part. Perhaps when we next meet you'll be better prepared and better informed. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and gloat over my next victim.
Until something changes at Microsoft, nothing will be different.
So, the fact that for the first time in history, Microsoft is pushing a service pack that emphasized security over functionality means nothing to you, I guess. Yep, nothing ever changes at Microsoft, does it? I swear, if Bill Gates himself came out tomorrow and said Linux was the best thing since sliced bread, you'd still find a reason to hate him and his company. The change is right in front of you, you just don't want to see it.
Their anticompetitive crusades lead me to expect that they will use Service Packs to compete with other vendors.
Oh, so it makes you upset that Microsoft is actually improving its products and making them more competitive against your sacred cow? My heart bleeds for you. Microsoft needed Linux to get it busy improving its product again, just like Linux needs Microsoft as a competitor. You love it when Linux makes forward strides, but hate it when Microsoft does the same thing. Back home we call that a hypocrite.
You might consider that Microsoft has no reason not to use this opportunity to make changes during the long SP2 gestation, notify only MS divisions that would be adversely affected, let them issue patches, and leave their app competition twisting in the wind when they release the SP.
The days when Microsoft can blithely get away with SP's that break things like Lotus Notes are long gone, you just don't want to see it. Whether you're willing to admit it or not, Microsoft is afraid of the DOJ right now and has dampened much of their former bullying mentality. Microsoft hasn't released a service pack that breaks a major competitor's application since NT4. Get with the program, Doc. You're still living in 1996.
I expected a competitive remedy to split Microsoft into separate OS, app, development and media companies, which would have to compete with each other, and partner with previous competitors, just like everyone else.
I don't suppose the fact that this issue was examined and found wanting by the DOJ matters in the slightest to you, does it? I'm not naive enough to ignore the political dimension here, but you must admit Microsoft is far more timid these days than they were a decade ago. They may have received a "slap on the wrist" legally speaking, but the implicit message was "we're letting you off, but you'd better behave from this point forward."
News that other browsers suffer under SP2 merely confirms that prophecy.
How odd you say that, because I've heard nothing of the sort. Both Firefox and Mozilla work fine under SP2. But please, by all means, make stuff up to support your case. It's not true, but it does make this whole argument more entertaining.
When *you* ignore these crimes, at your expense, it is *your* mind that is demonstrably narrow.
When *you* ignore the good in your opponent simply because he is your opponent, it is *your* mind that is demonstrably narrow. Even Hitler painted roses. Microsoft is not an evil tribe of baby killers, it is a capitalistic company functioning in a capitalistic society. It is by definition ruthless and aggressive, and our economic system encourages such behavior. You are too quick to demonize their actions simply because you disagree with them. To qoute the Godfather, "It's not personal, it's just business." Would it kill you to admit that, by issuing SP2, Microsoft is making long-overdue strides towards actually producing a secure OS? Or must everything be a conspiracy?
And who's fault is that? Oh, I forget, if a Windows user is stupid, it's Microsoft's fault. If a Linux user is stupid, it's the user's fault. I'm so glad we got that cleared up.
Slashdot Mirror
Not to try and take anything away from Brian's acheivement, but without funding by American Paul Allen (who got rich via the American company Microsoft) and without a design from an American company headed by an American (Portland, Oregon, to be exact) aerospace genius like Burt Rutan, Brian wouldn't have had anything to fly.
No, that is totally false. You DO NOT pay royalties to the Benjamin Franklin's descendants every time you use electricity.
The only reason you don't pay royalties for the situation you describe is because either (a) the "invention" was not patentable, (b) the patent holder did not require royalties, or (c) the patent has expired. Patents are property and can be transferred, so legally there's no reason why you couldn't end up paying royalties to someone's descendants so long as the expiration period had not passed. There is precedent for this in the existing system, and it makes perfect sense. You're acting like patents never expire.
The manufacturer/distributors compete with each other but since they don't pay for R&D the prices are much lower...
I see your point but disagree with your conclusion. Again, why would these companies choose to cooperate in such research? Out of altruism? Some feeling for the good of humanity? You are being romantic if you think that motivation is going to overcome things like the wishes of stockholders in these companies. Companies have had countless opportunities to do such cooperation in the past and it's never happened. Perhaps you should consider why.
There is nothing to suggest that a human society must have ideas controlled by a few, regardless if those few feel that the idea was theirs because they expressed it first or they bought it from someone else.
Must you paint everything with the class warfare brush? Your commentary reads like something out of Marx or even Mein Kampf, wailing on and on about how things would be so much nicer if "those in power" were just taken out and everything distributed to the masses equally. History, however, is not on your side, and ample experiments have been carried out over the centuries. Capitalism has won out, much to the dismay of the "down with the rich and powerful" crowd. The natural order of these things is for the exceptional, the intelligent, and the persistent to rise to the top -- just as natural selection in nature. This, I think, is why capitalism has succeeded so well where all the others have either failed or paled in comparison: because capitalism is just an economic and social clone of nature. You can try and impose a different order on things, but it's destined to fail.
You make the msot common mistake that most people that support current IP laws make: you assume that they way things get produced in society will remain the same if IP laws are changed.
Pray tell just exactly how might they change? Mind you, the current system works the way it does because it is based on human nature: people want things and are willing to trade things of worth (money, time, etc.) to get them. I cannot conceive of any possible incentive anyone would have to engage in any large, expensive project when the returns on said project are predestined to be had by someone copying my hard work. Altruism will not be sufficient here. It may work fine for people who write FOSS, but those people (by and large) have other jobs that pay them money so they can have a place to live, food to eat, and clothes on their backs. Unless you're going to advocate the abolition of money, I don't think there is a viable alternative. I'd love to hear your ideas, though.
It likely won't be done by one company if other companies can also benefit immediately. However, (just like developing standards in technology) consortiums of companies that all stand to gain from a cancer cure would undertake the research cooperatively. Improving IP laws encourages cooperation.
I disagree, and for a very simple reason: unless this "consortium" consists of every possible company in the field, it won't work. Anyone outside the group would simply copy the group's work and market it at a vastly reduced price. And even if the group did consist of every possible global member (a ridiculous possiblity), what's to stop Joe Schmoe from starting his own company and copying the group's work after the fact? Nothing at all, that's what. I'm sorry, but your idea, while noble and altruistic, will not work because it flouts human nature. People cooperate because there's a profit motive to cooperating (profit not being restricted to mere money, of course). Unless you protect that (with IP laws), there is no longer a motive, thus no cooperation, no innovation, and all sorts of other nasty things. Like Communism, it looks good on paper but is utterly unworkable in real life -- all due to the fact that human nature largely prevents us from cooperating unless there is a personal "profit" involved.
Things have changed. Production and distribution costs were much higher (especially compared to digital information goods). Using a 1791 example to prove that it won't work now is dubious at best.
The times have change, but the concepts and human nature have not. This planet is not populated by worker bees, each eagerly occupying his or her slot in a human superorganism, all working for the betterment of the human race. People are inherently selfish and independent, and you cannot expect large numbers of them to cast down their personal desires and motivations "for the greater good" on a regular basis. Marxism says you could force that on people and look how well that idea worked out. Furthermore, people have different ideas on how given problems should be worked out, and many times these ideas are irreconcilable or even confrontational. No matter how big any group, consortium, or committee might be, it won't embrace everyone -- and if it tried, it would find factions within working at cross-purposes due to differing agendas. You brush all this aside with your argument, and I think that's where it falls down. You can change the laws but you cannot change the people. And we, as a race, are not that much different than we were in 1791. We've got nicer clothes and gadgets, but things like Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden regularly remind us that each of us is far closer to being a brutal animal that we'd like to admit. If you want a fine example of man's respect for fellow man, just visit a riot in a European soccer game where people are maimed and murdered over games! Still think we've changed all that much?
More importantly I would ass
But where do we draw the line? If we swing to the other extreme, and every invention is patented and every piece of media is copyrighted, then no one could ever actually afford to buy anything.
Look at the opposite end of your argument for a second. If no one can afford to buy anything, it follows that no one can sell anything either! If you can't sell it, it is essentially worthless. Just as there is no incentive to invent without a profit motive (profit not being restricted to mere money, obviously), there is no incentive to invent something no one can buy. To put it more simply, I can build a solid-gold, gem-encrusted, Rolls Royce automobile that cost $500 million, but I would not be idiotic enough to assume anyone would buy it. Well, perhaps some rap singer would, but I think it's safe to assume most people would not. Price is determined by what the object costs you to produce, but worth is determined by what people are willing to pay for it. If the two are not in sync, there will be no sale. Therefore, I, as a producer, have a heavy incentive not only to produce produce a product but to also price it (a) high enough that I make a profit but (b) low enough that people will actually buy it.
If you look at your argument now, you see that it doesn't quite work how you thought.
What if, when you went out to buy a computer, it cost $500,000 because the guy who built it had to pay royalties to...
Actually, it does work that way right now, but you didn't seem to know that. Any part of a computer that wasn't developed as a free, open standard requires a royalty (unless it is not required by the copyright holder -- which is rare). You do pay that royalty indirectly when you purchase a PC, because the manufacturer paid that royalty and passes the cost along to you in the price tag of the PC. There are exceptions to this for expired patents or things not patentable, but you get the idea.
Although I know /. is almost violently anti-capitalist and anti-corporate to a fault, it needs to be said: IP laws have their place and can be beneficial to society so long as they are not abused. I will illustrate this point with a bit of example and a dash of history, and unless you're a frothing zealot, it would behoove you to read on before knee-jerking that "mod down" option.
/. would like it that way, but reality has a tendency to intrude on such Utopian Worker's Paradises.
IP laws exist so that researchers and developers of new things can do their researching and developing with a reasonable expectation of being reimbursed for their time and efforts. Sure, the system gets abused, but that's more due to the overly-legalistic culture of the U.S. and the woefully-outdated patent system in this country, not because IP laws are a faulty concept.
Let us assume I am a multinational drug company researching a cure for cancer. I employ hundreds of researchers and doctors along with their thousands of assistants, accountants, network administrators, and janitors needed to support them. This headcount is not free; these people expect to be paid, and pay them I must if I want them to work on the cancer cure.
Now let us assume I (being the head of the company) spent $20 billion over five years researching this cancer cure and finally succeeded. I'm now $20 billion in the hole and have to find a way to recoup my costs. Society now has two options:
1. I can use IP law to protect my research and my creation, selling the cure and recouping my investment with the profits. Or...
2. With no IP laws, a competing firm can immediately copy my cure and, having not spent a dime on R&D, can vastly undercut my price and prevent me from ever making back my $20 billion investment.
In scenario 1, the world gets a cancer cure, I make back my investment and modest profict, and my company goes on to develop the Next Big Thing.
In scenario 2, the world would never get a cancer cure. Why? Because no company is going to spend $20 billion developing anything if it can't be assured of making that money back!. Any research project or invention requiring any significant amount of investment in order to bring to fruition simply won't be done. Why should it? After all, you do all the hard work, someone else makes all the money, you get nothing. I'm sure the socialists, communists, and anarchist who make up a significant fraction of
Now, I'll be the first one to admit that IP laws have been taken to unhealthy extremes. Instead of being used to protect companies that take risks on long-term research projects, it's being used to lock-up potential avenues of research and squelch competition. What's needed here is tort reform, not a dissolution of IP laws.
A few centuries ago, around 1791 to be exact, France tried a little plan of abolishing patent laws. All the "people" thought it was such a great idea. After all, all these nasty, evil, wicked companies were just making beaucoup bucks off the backs of the noble, kind, honorable, downtrodden working classes. "Why work to feed a bunch of fatcats?" they thought. So, out went the laws, and in came Utopia.
Only it didn't work. Companies ceased to innovate in France. Instead, they left France and went elsewhere. Unemployment skyrocketed, invention stagnated. The poor got poorer than ever. The middle class evaporated. The upper class pulled up stakes and went elsewhere. After a bit of this, the laws were changed back to something more intelligent, and things recovered, but for a while the "workers" got a real taste of what they'd wrought, and it wasn't pretty.
The moral of the story here is IP laws are necessary, and anyone claiming otherwise is living in a fool's fantasy. You can despise the company you work for, you can despise other companies because of their patents and ridiculously-complex and overreaching copyright statues, but
Let's look at this for what it really is -- government subsidized Internet access. You think these access points and T1 trunks are free? No, they are not. They cost money to own and run, and that money is going to be taken from the taxpayers of Philadelphia in order to put this service up.
I'm damned glad I don't live there. Although I love the idea of citywide wireless access, but if I live and work in the suburbs, I would strongly object to my tax dollars being spent to construct and maintain a system I will never use.
But, hey! I shouldn't be complaining. I'm sure those people in the city need "free" wireless access a lot more than I need money in my pocket, right? After all, it's government's job to make sure everyone has everything they ever want for free, even if it means robbing the not-so-rich to pay the not-so-poor. Ya gotta love income redistribution, vote buying, and all the other wonderful things going on in City Hall.
I'm on my team, looking out for my interests. My interests are not served when Linux users seek to make Microsoft the ogre while ignoring similar faults in our own ranks. If Microsoft does something good, it should be lauded just as much as if it had come from Linus Torvalds. If Microsoft does something bad, it should receive no more and no less criticism than if it were found in Linux. If we stoop to the level of Microsoft and produce only FUD, we're no better than Microsoft.
He doesn't say he doesn't use IE because it is insecure. What he said is he recently had to a patch a Firefox installation because it (also) suffered from an exploit.
Somebody didn't read the article...
No, somebody did read the article, but filtered out anything remotely resembing (a) a slight against OSS and (b) any vindication, however slight, of Microsoft and their products. Typical Slashdot behavior. Everything bad about Microsoft must be emphasized, and anything good must be squelched. At the same time, anything good about FOSS must be emphasized, and anything bad must be buried with Jimmy Hoffa.
Where's the "-1 Michael-Moore-style selective editing" mod point when you need one, eh? That's what I love about Slashdot, the fair and balanced perspective everyone has here. Makes me so proud to be a Linux user. Not.
To put it more boldly, given the problem "I have not succeeded at research often enough", how would one apply step 2 without overflowing the stack?
I fail to understand how anyone with the vast resources of the WWW can "fail" at research. The knowledge of the world is at your fingertips. You can find the answer to just about any question from atomic physics to zebra mating habits using Google.com. If you aren't adept at using a search engine, you can pose your specific questions in any appropriate newsgroup, of which there are thousands.
On the Internet, you can find all the data you need. You can educate yourself to the point where you could pass a test on just about any subject you'd care to learn about -- usually for free. I had a physics question I wanted answered once, and lo and behold I managed to get an email to Kip Thorne, one of the pre-eminent physicists of the 20th century, and he replied with the answer. You just have to try. Infinite recursion is not the result of trying to hard, it is the result of not trying hard enough.
Have you no imagination? You've certainly been imaginative in your ability to find reasons why you can't do something. You should instead be focusing that effort on finding ways you can do that something. Try the following:
1. Define the problem (i.e. How can I provide low-latency, high-speed Internet service to my area and turn a profit?)
2. Research what needs to be done in order to solve the problem (i.e. find out what equipment you need, what training you might need, and whether or not your target market will want to purchase your product or service).
3. If/when you encounter obstacles, just define this as a new sub-problem to solve and go back to step one. Once the obstacle is overcome, continue on with solving the main problem.
4. Continue until all problems are solved. In the end, you'll either have a working solution or you'll have discovered your original goal was unworkable, unacheiveable, or unmarketable...at which point you learn from your experience and try something else.
5. Above all, do not sit back and whine about how everyone is keeping you from being successful. You are the only person that can keep you from being successful. Some of the richest, most successful people in history have risen from poverty, succeeded with no education, and overcome physical and mental disabilities. The succeeded because they refused to say "I can't." It sounds trite, but that's all there is to it. If you try hard enough and long enough, you are almost guaranteed to succeed in something. What that something is is up to you.
Look, I'm getting tired of expending my effort to solve your problems. I've made my point and disputed yours. Spend your effort solving your problems on your own instead of coming up with ever more excuses to throw this way. You make mountains out of molehills in an excuse to keep yourself from having to exert effort, and then you complain about how you're oppressed by everyone else. It's pathetic.
How would somebody surmount these government-enforced entry barriers?
There is no "government enforced" barrier to entry for any of the above things you mentioned. There is no law preventing you from generating your own electricity and selling it to your neighbor. If you produce more power than your home consumes and you run your power meter backwards, the local utility is required by law to pay you for it at the same rate they'd charge you for power. So, to completely undermine your argument, you actually have the advantage here as the government is forcing the utility to do business with you.
Next item to knock down: there is nothing preventing you from providing local low-latency, high-speed residential Internet service, either. Five years ago I put together a wireless ISP for my entire subdivision, run out of my own home, and it's still in use today with hundreds of customers. Five years ago there was no DSL or cable modem service here, so I cornered the broadband market. Today, even though DSL and cable modems are available, my customers stuck with my service because I'm cheaper, faster, and offer better customer service than the local mega-ISP's. And I make a good profit doing it, too.
Feeling beaten? Don't run away, I'm not done with you yet. You ask "who is the competitive provider of novels used in twentieth century literature classes in universities?" There is no law preventing you or anyone else from authoring any number of texts on any number of subjects you like. Similarly, there's no law preventing you from selling such books/novels to whoever you like, including universities. If you can outdo your competition, you can succeed.
Now, what have we learned from this? We've learned that your "government-enforced entry barriers" are figments of your imagination. We've learned that you'd rather spend twice as much effort whining about how you can't do something rather than actually doing that something. In short, you're likely a failure, and you're a failure because you don't try. Further, you're jealous of those around you who have succeeded, and you try to diminish their success by calling them "privileged" or "lucky", thus excusing your own apathy, failure, and laziness.
If you'd have spent half the effort you spent making all the above excuses actually looking for ways to solve a problem rather than looking for more excuses, you'd have less to complain about. But complaining is easy and work is hard. That's why you're likely to continue to fail in your life, and people like me will continue to succeed, and you'll be jealous and hateful of people like me and I'll feel nothing but contempt for people like you.
and then constructs proofs that enough such solutions are infeasible to implement
This is another form of a weak excuse, saying "I have to do it this way because that's all that's available to me." This is America, where opportunities abound. Don't like what current businesses are offering you? Get off your duff and make your own. If there's a market for what you're offering, you'll prosper. If there isn't a market for it, it's likely you're just blowing this whole thing out of proportion as an excuse for complaining. Or perhaps you'd get into business and [gasp] suddenly realize that the contracts you abhor are actually necessary to carry on business.
such as in the case with a monopoly provider?
See the above suggestion. The solution to a monopoly is competition. If you have a marketable product that does the job better, faster, cheaper, or some combination thereof, you will prosper. The only thing stopping you is (a) you and (b) your ability to come up with a more workable solution than what exists. I doubt you've expended much, if any, effort to address either of these prerequisites.
My brain is not perfect. What is a solution to the difficult problem of getting a sufficiently large other party to agree to amend a standard boilerplate contract rather than just "all changes by You to this contract are null and void, as We are expressly not willing to agree to any changes"?
You defeat yourself too easily. The way you get a company to change its procedures, contracts, or products is the same here as with any other behavior you want to change: don't buy their products, don't use their services, don't engage them. Use alternate providers of these things. If there aren't any alternates, that sounds like a market ripe for opening competition -- assuming you have a better idea. However, if you engaged in such an exercise, I think it's highly likely you'll find out that you don't have a better way of doing it, you just don't like how it's being done now. Well, to that I say "tough." Life is not fair, nor should it be. Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it isn't the best solution available.
Interresting quote... Especially since the most priviledged rarely have to fight for those privileges while the underpriviledged are the first to be sent to die. I'm quite happy with capitalism as long as I'm high enough in the social ladder...
Since my parents were most certainly working class, and since I've worked my way up from nothing into something, your claim of the privileged class (note spelling here, genius) not having to do the fighting is somewhat circumspect. I have actually done fighting for my country, USMC, Gulf War I. I put myself though college, no loans, no trust funds, I worked my ass off. And I'm glad I did it that way because I can sit here and enjoy the fruits of my labors and watch you whine and complain about how [drum roll please]UNFAIR THIS WORLD IS! WAAAH!! I NEED MY DAIPERS CHANGED!
Oops, sorry, I think I broke your argument. Hope you kept the receipt. But I digress.
Perhaps you might have a better chance of being one of these nebulous "priviledged" classes if you had better spelling, but in all honesty I think it's more likely your failings to date are due to your lack of cognitive thinking skills. Cheer up, though. One day you just might grow up and realize how wrong you are. I hope you do, but I'm not betting on it.
Then answer this: how can somebody without $10K in the bank enforce a contract?
[sigh] The answers here are numerous, but it seems you'd rather complain than think. I'll list a few options for you:
1. You can elect to not engage the contract in the first place if it's not to your liking.
2. You can get a contract clause stating arbitration shall be used in the event of a dispute. Arbitration forgoes the legal process and is usually much cheaper.
3. You can get a lawyer who works on contigency, such that he/she only gets paid if you win. If you lose, you pay nothing to the lawyer (although you may be liable for whatever penalties apply in the contract, if any).
There's more, but I think I've made my point here. If you have a brain, use it to think with instead of using it make excuses with. Any idiot can stand around and complain. An intelligent person comes up with solutions to difficult problems. Which are you?
Where, in any of those contracts, is there an indication for the responsibilities of the other party? Where are the terms by which they could break the contract and YOU could possess total control of the contract? Where are the terms by which the bank would forfeit your house or car to you through their wrongdoing? Where are the terms by which your employer is required to buy out your salary for a number of years due to their negligence? There are never any such terms.
Where is the loaded gun pressed against your temple forcing you to engage in the contract, you fool? You have free will to not engage contracts not to your liking. Don't like the EULA for a piece of software? Don't use the software. Don't like the contract for the loan on your car? Pay cash. Don't like the contract between you and the carmaker? Find a different brand. Can't find a different brand? There's public transportation.
In short, your argument is stupid because it assumes you are forced into accepting a contract you do not agree with. What's really going on is you're choosing to accept the contract of your own free will. You can blame the "big boys" all you want, but there's nobody forcing you to do anything here. What you're really doing is whining an awful lot about how you want everything for nothing handed to you on a silver platter. Sorry, the world doesn't work that way, and if you were mature enough to understand that concept you wouldn't be using such a childish argument.
I would just like to point out that, at the end of the day, a contract is an artificial club to be wielded by the wealthy.
And that, your honor, is where my opponent lost all credibility. Sorry, peddle your class warfare rhetoric on someone else, I'm not buying it. Please, go find your socialist worker's paradise elsewhere, I'm quite happy with capitalism.
I understand that you're being idealistic about the way things should be but I don't think you've thought your argument through enough to see the way things ARE.
Given that you're the one advocating class warfare and a system closely resembling socialism, all while ignoring the fact that such systems have always failed in the past and capitalism has generated the wealthiest, most powerful nation this planet has ever seen, I think it is you who is seeing things the way you want them to be as opposed to how they are. Cheer up, you may eventually grow up, become successful, and realize the error of your ways. On the other had, you might also remain intellectually as immature as you are now, which almost certainly guarantees your failure -- which you will inevitably blame on "the wealthy" despite the root cause being your own flawed view of reality.
Seince when did the MPAA have the right to go telling companies what they can sell.
Decoding your clever spelling and punctuation, it seems like you're asking about the MPAA's rights in this situation. Perhaps you've heard of the concept of a "contract"? In it, one party agrees to abide some terms and another party agrees to abide by some other terms. If either party doesn't live up to their side of the agreement, the remaining party can sue them for breach of contract. This elementary concept seems to have escaped you.
The MPAA contracted with SigmaTel and the rest to sell CSS decryption chips only to authorized buyers, the understanding being that the MPAA decides who is or isn't an "authorized" buyer. The CSS chip makers sold chips to companies not on the approved list. The MPAA owns the rights to CSS and has every right to determine who can or can't make CSS decryption chips. If Sigmatel can't live up to the terms it agreed to when it signed the contract, the MPAA has every right to sue them.
Let's put this in its simplest possible terms: very likely you are employed by someone. There is an employment contract between you and your employer. You agree to provide services, your employer agrees to pay you, and there's a "penalty" section in the contract if either of you fails to meet your obligations. If you fail to show up for work, you can be fired. If you work but your employer fails to pay you, you can sue for those wages.
What you're currently arguing is that you shouldn't be allowed to sue your employer for those wages, but I don't think you've thought your argument through enough to realize that simple fact.
Look, I think the MPAA is a bunch of worthless bastards earning tons of money off the backs of content producers, but arguments like yours are just plain stupid. Try thinking a bit harder next time before your knee-jerk reaction reaches your typing fingers.
Where's my "OMFG I just shit myself +5 Funny" mod point when I need it?
11MB/sec to 110MB/sec...that's quite a range there. Where in that range will the drive spend the vast majority of it's time? Most likely somewhere near the bottom. Flash has never been known for blazing fast speed. Sure, random access times will be fantastic but sustained throughput will very likely be inferior to existing high-end drives.
Another issue I don't see being addressed: flash cells wear out with repeated read/write cycles. After a while, your nifty, expensive flash drive will just start failing all over the place. Yes, mechanical drives wear out, but last time I checked flash drive cells wore out with several thousand (or hundred thousand?) read/write cycles. If things haven't improved since then, I see flash drives wearing out much faster than their mechanical counterparts with today's frenetic storage access patterns.
You're spinning that into some kind of conspiracy that Microsoft is out to break third-party browsers. The category of "non-Microsoft browsers or applications" is extremely broad and includes every piece of software not made by Microsoft. You're artificially constraining that to "Now, with SP2 interfering with non-MS browsers, it looks like they're doing it again" just to make a point. Ah, the sweet smell of a flaw in your argument...
Again, I'm going to posit that any apps broken by SP2 were broken to begin with, but you seem incapable of grasping this fact. Microsoft closed a lot of holes in their OS in an attempt to make it more secure, but some organizations (including Microsoft) were playing fast and loose with these holes either because (a) it gave them a competitive advantage or (b) they were sloppy. I find it extremely interesting that you seem to think Microsoft is using this patch to further its plans for world domination, yet the very article you quote shows it breaks some of Microsoft's own software. The CRM market is where Microsoft is making a big push...please explain to me how breaking that app furthers Microsoft's ability to compete against the competition? Oops, sorry, I think I broke your argument there, Doc. Hope you kept the receipt.
Instead of reading that, you ignored it in favor of spewing venom without basis.
Coming from someone who started their reply charges of "claptrap" and "rabid belligerence," I'd like to introduce you to your good pal Kettle. He knows you by your nickname "Pot." You two seem to know each other well.
You're very proud of setting yourself as my "freak"
No, I'm not proud. You've earned it, so you should take all the credit.
do better to choose your enemies more wisely
You mean I should choose enemies that can actually think and develop non-conflicting, internally-consistent arguments? But that would exclude you, and it's such a joy to consider someone of your caliber a Foe.
based on their actual threat to your actual interests.
You are a threat to my interests, because of your inability to view Microsoft in an objective light. No matter what they do, you consider it bad, even when the outcome is of a benefit to Windows users. You view it this way because of your baseless, irrational hatred of the company, the platform, the owner, or some combination of all three. Since you are unable to separate your emotions from your decision-making capabilities, your judgement cannot be trusted. To you, the software isn't just some tool, it's an ideology, a sort of religion for you. Don't deny it, your reputation precedes you, which is how you earned a spot on my Foe list to begin with.
Where we differ is in the fact that I don't have a preference for Windows, Linux, or any other OS. I use and recommend whatever's best for our own internal use and for the clients we serve. If the client is best served with Linux desktops and servers running Samba, that's what we recommend. If they're best served with Windows desktops, Microsoft Office, and Windows Server, that's what we recommend. If the client prefers Mac's, we're likely to suggest a Mac solution to any new expansion. You, on the other hand, would rule out Windows to begin with simply because of your emotional bias. In doing this, you become a disgrace to the technological community, as you have denied your clients or your users a potentially superior solution simply because you have a bone to pick with the manufacturer -- a personal bone, not a business-case bone. If you can't separate your personal feelings from your technological decisions, I certainly hope you're in a job position that vests you with as little responsibility and decision-making opportunity as possible.
Awww...I see you haven't responded. I can only assume you've realized the futility of your argument and are quitting while you're behind. Prudent move on your part. Perhaps when we next meet you'll be better prepared and better informed. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and gloat over my next victim.
Until something changes at Microsoft, nothing will be different.
So, the fact that for the first time in history, Microsoft is pushing a service pack that emphasized security over functionality means nothing to you, I guess. Yep, nothing ever changes at Microsoft, does it? I swear, if Bill Gates himself came out tomorrow and said Linux was the best thing since sliced bread, you'd still find a reason to hate him and his company. The change is right in front of you, you just don't want to see it.
Their anticompetitive crusades lead me to expect that they will use Service Packs to compete with other vendors.
Oh, so it makes you upset that Microsoft is actually improving its products and making them more competitive against your sacred cow? My heart bleeds for you. Microsoft needed Linux to get it busy improving its product again, just like Linux needs Microsoft as a competitor. You love it when Linux makes forward strides, but hate it when Microsoft does the same thing. Back home we call that a hypocrite.
You might consider that Microsoft has no reason not to use this opportunity to make changes during the long SP2 gestation, notify only MS divisions that would be adversely affected, let them issue patches, and leave their app competition twisting in the wind when they release the SP.
The days when Microsoft can blithely get away with SP's that break things like Lotus Notes are long gone, you just don't want to see it. Whether you're willing to admit it or not, Microsoft is afraid of the DOJ right now and has dampened much of their former bullying mentality. Microsoft hasn't released a service pack that breaks a major competitor's application since NT4. Get with the program, Doc. You're still living in 1996.
I expected a competitive remedy to split Microsoft into separate OS, app, development and media companies, which would have to compete with each other, and partner with previous competitors, just like everyone else.
I don't suppose the fact that this issue was examined and found wanting by the DOJ matters in the slightest to you, does it? I'm not naive enough to ignore the political dimension here, but you must admit Microsoft is far more timid these days than they were a decade ago. They may have received a "slap on the wrist" legally speaking, but the implicit message was "we're letting you off, but you'd better behave from this point forward."
News that other browsers suffer under SP2 merely confirms that prophecy.
How odd you say that, because I've heard nothing of the sort. Both Firefox and Mozilla work fine under SP2. But please, by all means, make stuff up to support your case. It's not true, but it does make this whole argument more entertaining.
When *you* ignore these crimes, at your expense, it is *your* mind that is demonstrably narrow.
When *you* ignore the good in your opponent simply because he is your opponent, it is *your* mind that is demonstrably narrow. Even Hitler painted roses. Microsoft is not an evil tribe of baby killers, it is a capitalistic company functioning in a capitalistic society. It is by definition ruthless and aggressive, and our economic system encourages such behavior. You are too quick to demonize their actions simply because you disagree with them. To qoute the Godfather, "It's not personal, it's just business." Would it kill you to admit that, by issuing SP2, Microsoft is making long-overdue strides towards actually producing a secure OS? Or must everything be a conspiracy?
And who's fault is that? Oh, I forget, if a Windows user is stupid, it's Microsoft's fault. If a Linux user is stupid, it's the user's fault. I'm so glad we got that cleared up.