Seriously, why can't the US government learn to keep their noses out of every aspect in our lives?!
Sure, I love trashing on the U.S. federal government as much as the next guy. This administration in particular. And I agree that the U.S. tries to bully Canada on a number of issues like beef markets, lumber markets, and drug policy. I don't, however, see where in either of TFAs where the U.S. introduced this legislation into Canada's parliment. I don't recall any news from any article claiming that the U.S. administration was making any statement or taking any position on said legislation.
Perhaps you're getting confused between the U.S. government and large, wealthy corporations based in the U.S. (God knows it's easy to do). It's your various ??AA organizations drafting this legislation for lawmakers, not foriegn governments.
I'm mean really, with such important business as the micro-management of pro baseball and getting involved in some family dispute in Florida, our lawmakers are much too busy to take on legislating Canada right now.
There are already plenty of households where the parents have purchased an inanimate Microsoft product to mind the kids for them. It's a little-known MS project called the X-Box.
I think there may be a couple of other companies in the same market.
If I want to download something in order to try it out before I drop . ..I reserve the right to do so.
That's not your right to reserve. It's the developers' / publishers' privilege to extend. That's the idea behind game demos, sample tracks and movie trailers.
If I like it, I'll buy it. If I don't, I saved myself being ripped off.
How about this: Buy it. If you like it, keep it. If not, return it to the store for a refund. If that store has a return policy that doesn't work for you (investigate before you purchase), buy elsewhere. Furthermore, even if *you* purchase at retail everything you download and keep, I'm guessing most don't.
It is theft for a record company to put 1 or 2 decent songs on a CD (which, incidentally, holds about 80 minutes worth of music, as we all well know, and sometimes -contains- less than 50...).
No, it's not theft. Just like it's not theft when a restaurant leaves several cubic inches of plate uncovered by food. That's just making a crappy CD. So buy the individual tracks off of iTunes or any other online music service.
It is theft when I move and my DVD collection which I perfectly legally purchased becomes worthless.
I agree that region encoding is overkill. However, you can use DVD Shrink to backup your DVD collection with region encoding removed and *I think* that's legal under copywrite law (as well as DMCA for U.S.).
Granted, I have no right to make copies and exploit them commercially, but to say that I cannot give one to a friend?
Asking that you not distribute copies to friends is NOT "locking up" your media. You can buy a CD, burn a copy for your car, rip MP3s for your player, and listen to all of them even in the company of friends. You bought the media and the rights to listen to it however you wish. To give away copies, however, is not consuming the media, it's distributing it. That's the difference and that's what your not supposed to do.
The distinction here is personal vs. commercial exploitation
I'd say the distinction is "Using what you've purchased" vs. "Using what you haven't purchased" vs. "Distributing what you have or haven't purchased". The first one is the only legitimate place to be, and we should be granted great freedoms in how we can go about it. The second two options are dishonest and no amount a rationalization will change that.
Something that I would love to buy for my kids (but can't find) is about 100 feet of that orange track for Hot Wheels model cars that I had back in the day. I don't want the $25 1'x1.5' Shark-Rocket-Blast-em' kit or whatever. Just track we can run off the couch, down the stairs, and off a pile-of-books ramp.
"Why in the world do we spend tax dollars to let native Americans surf porn and do email?" For the same damn reason we use tax dollors to let every Tom, Dick and Harry surf porn and do email from almost every public library in the U.S.. Fedral grants are handed out $millions at a time to put desktops in public schools or fund a new program at univeristies. Why does a tech grant to a tribe raise your ire any more than them?
Furthermore, how much do you know about tribes' "per-capita" payments, or scholorship programs? They're not simply tax money diverted from your pocket to their account. Many are the result of interest from trust-fund-like accounts, large lawsuit settlements against the gov't and income from tribe run organizations. And before anyone complains about a tribe's right to have those types of funds, realize that they are from treaties that the government signed, or lawsuits where the U.S. justice system found the government in fault.
I respectfully disagree, on the Dell front at least. Microsoft and the XBox should prove what a LOT of money and commited management can accomplish. MS went from zero to major player in one generation of console because they invested money and were completely serious about success. Dell can do the same thing, and it's less of an effort because they're already making and selling PCs. As for the "locked FSB" comment, I assume your talking about an inability to tweak or overclock a Dell gaming rig. That may be so, but Dell may not be targeting the overclocker demographic, which is just a subset of the gamer market.
HP, on the otherhand, I wouldn't even think about. $diety bless them for continuing with the Compaq Proliant server line, and they make a good printer, but I have never been impressed with an HP desktop machine (or Compaq for that matter). In my mind they can't be viable choice for a super-high performance rig if they can't get a corporate-email-word-processing workstation right.
Re:Sounds good on first read...
on
WiFi Phone Announced
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Adding this phone in your house wouldn't add a fifth, distinct 2.4GHz competetor to your air-space. This phone would ride over your existing 802.11b (or g) network, working with it, not competing with it. Additionally, it could replace your cordless phone, reducing the cross-talk. Next, do some channel management between your AP's and the X10 to keep them away from each other, and now all you have to worry about it the microwave.
Of course putting this in at home would require you to somehow put a VoIP interface on your land-line. I'm sure that someone here on/. knows of something pratical for home use. The VoIP to land-line set up may be a hassle, but don't let 2.4Ghz congestion be your reason for not doing this, as this could actually relieve it.
Am I the only one who saw a matrix trailer during a Final Four (U.S. college basketball) game on saturday? All I remember is one of the "twins" characters dissolving into a kind of green mist in front of a speeding car and then the mist solidifying in the passenger seat as the car continued forward.
I've been looking online for it since. Unsuccessfully. I did have a few to drink by the time I saw it, but I don't think I imagined it.
Scenario one:
"Here's 2.4 million, just don't ever buy Microsoft products."
Scenario two:
"Here's 2.4 million, just make sure you buy only Microsoft products."
In the imaginary university I run in my mind, both offers are equally worthy of being declined. If the offer were ammended to say "Don't buy any MS products with my money", I'd be more than happy to agree. But I'd be loath to let a 2.4mil donation dictate the blanket implementation or removal anything.
You clearly don't know the difference between what you talking to a lawyer costs, and what talking to the slashdot-crowd costs:)
Here's my estimate:
Talk to a laywer. Price: Several thousand dollars to hammer out a good contract.
Ask Slashdot. Price: Every damn red penny you make from the software when this company either sells your code out from under you or have their lawyers establish that they own your work and will receive all proceeds.
Your answer is: Whatever conditions you want to make sure are met, put them into a contract. Get a lawyer to make sure that the contract says everything you want it to.
If your environment is anything like mine, your hands are tied on the desktop. Your specialized apps probably perform some kind of industry specific function, not easily duplicated with out-of-the-box spreadsheet or db software. As such, there are probably only six to twelve companies that make that kind of software, and half of them suck. I would bet that NONE of them write thier desktop app for anything but MS Windows. Your users probably need these little specialty apps to do their jobs, so you're stuck with Windows on their desktops.
That said, here's what I'd do:
1. Insure that you have real, live, hardcopy licenses to cover Win 2000 on ALL your desktops. Continue to use Win 2000, for years, until you can replace those specialized apps with a multi-platform application AND linux on the desktop is intuitive and comfortable to your users (through training &/or linux desktop environment changes). Hang on to those licenses and you shouldn't have to worry about an MS / BSA audit.
2. Migrate to Star Office or similar open source office suit. Some training involved, but really, most users will just type, spell check and print. For your power-spreadsheet-financial types, keep them on Office 97 or 2000 if needed.
3. Move every possible behind-the-scenes server task to Linux / BSD / whatever. File and print sharing: samba. Webserver : Apache. Email: sendmail, maybe even with phpgroupware. There are a TON of free / shareware mail clients out there. I like Eudora.
Lastly, good luck. Do as much as you can without your users having to know. You'll be hero-for-a-day with your accountants for saving $$$ and the rest of the company will be as happy and productive as ever.
Slashdot Mirror
Cry me a river.
It's called lightning.
Sure, I love trashing on the U.S. federal government as much as the next guy. This administration in particular. And I agree that the U.S. tries to bully Canada on a number of issues like beef markets, lumber markets, and drug policy. I don't, however, see where in either of TFAs where the U.S. introduced this legislation into Canada's parliment. I don't recall any news from any article claiming that the U.S. administration was making any statement or taking any position on said legislation.
Perhaps you're getting confused between the U.S. government and large, wealthy corporations based in the U.S. (God knows it's easy to do). It's your various ??AA organizations drafting this legislation for lawmakers, not foriegn governments.
I'm mean really, with such important business as the micro-management of pro baseball and getting involved in some family dispute in Florida, our lawmakers are much too busy to take on legislating Canada right now.
Native to the application, simple, and intuitive. That's what happens when users and geeks design the application instead of the marketing wonks.
I'm confused. I'm only half-way into "The Wrong Trousers" and I thought the criminal was a chicken. How about a spoiler warning next time!
(I cannot believe no one said that yet)
I think there may be a couple of other companies in the same market.
Even though such a weblication could be stuponfucious, we really should think of the children.
Don't be ridiculous. At 75 hours of lab work per week there's only time for 5-10 hours of homework.
In unrelated news, EA just announced that its game development and release cycle just shortened considerably.
Go with Firefox.
That's not your right to reserve. It's the developers' / publishers' privilege to extend. That's the idea behind game demos, sample tracks and movie trailers.
If I like it, I'll buy it. If I don't, I saved myself being ripped off.
How about this: Buy it. If you like it, keep it. If not, return it to the store for a refund. If that store has a return policy that doesn't work for you (investigate before you purchase), buy elsewhere. Furthermore, even if *you* purchase at retail everything you download and keep, I'm guessing most don't.
It is theft for a record company to put 1 or 2 decent songs on a CD (which, incidentally, holds about 80 minutes worth of music, as we all well know, and sometimes -contains- less than 50...).
No, it's not theft. Just like it's not theft when a restaurant leaves several cubic inches of plate uncovered by food. That's just making a crappy CD. So buy the individual tracks off of iTunes or any other online music service.
It is theft when I move and my DVD collection which I perfectly legally purchased becomes worthless.
I agree that region encoding is overkill. However, you can use DVD Shrink to backup your DVD collection with region encoding removed and *I think* that's legal under copywrite law (as well as DMCA for U.S.).
Granted, I have no right to make copies and exploit them commercially, but to say that I cannot give one to a friend?
Asking that you not distribute copies to friends is NOT "locking up" your media. You can buy a CD, burn a copy for your car, rip MP3s for your player, and listen to all of them even in the company of friends. You bought the media and the rights to listen to it however you wish. To give away copies, however, is not consuming the media, it's distributing it. That's the difference and that's what your not supposed to do.
The distinction here is personal vs. commercial exploitation
I'd say the distinction is "Using what you've purchased" vs. "Using what you haven't purchased" vs. "Distributing what you have or haven't purchased". The first one is the only legitimate place to be, and we should be granted great freedoms in how we can go about it. The second two options are dishonest and no amount a rationalization will change that.
Mattel, why hast thou forsaken me?
For the same damn reason we use tax dollors to let every Tom, Dick and Harry surf porn and do email from almost every public library in the U.S.. Fedral grants are handed out $millions at a time to put desktops in public schools or fund a new program at univeristies. Why does a tech grant to a tribe raise your ire any more than them?
Furthermore, how much do you know about tribes' "per-capita" payments, or scholorship programs? They're not simply tax money diverted from your pocket to their account. Many are the result of interest from trust-fund-like accounts, large lawsuit settlements against the gov't and income from tribe run organizations. And before anyone complains about a tribe's right to have those types of funds, realize that they are from treaties that the government signed, or lawsuits where the U.S. justice system found the government in fault.
Anonymous coward, indeed.
HP, on the otherhand, I wouldn't even think about. $diety bless them for continuing with the Compaq Proliant server line, and they make a good printer, but I have never been impressed with an HP desktop machine (or Compaq for that matter). In my mind they can't be viable choice for a super-high performance rig if they can't get a corporate-email-word-processing workstation right.
You results may vary.
Which hacked system are you referring to: Diebold or the electoral college?
Of course putting this in at home would require you to somehow put a VoIP interface on your land-line. I'm sure that someone here on /. knows of something pratical for home use. The VoIP to land-line set up may be a hassle, but don't let 2.4Ghz congestion be your reason for not doing this, as this could actually relieve it.
I cannot WAIT to not buy this!
I've been looking online for it since. Unsuccessfully. I did have a few to drink by the time I saw it, but I don't think I imagined it.
"Here's 2.4 million, just don't ever buy Microsoft products."
Scenario two:
"Here's 2.4 million, just make sure you buy only Microsoft products."
In the imaginary university I run in my mind, both offers are equally worthy of being declined. If the offer were ammended to say "Don't buy any MS products with my money", I'd be more than happy to agree. But I'd be loath to let a 2.4mil donation dictate the blanket implementation or removal anything.
Here's my estimate:
Talk to a laywer. Price: Several thousand dollars to hammer out a good contract.
Ask Slashdot. Price: Every damn red penny you make from the software when this company either sells your code out from under you or have their lawyers establish that they own your work and will receive all proceeds.
Your answer is: Whatever conditions you want to make sure are met, put them into a contract. Get a lawyer to make sure that the contract says everything you want it to.
That said, here's what I'd do:
1. Insure that you have real, live, hardcopy licenses to cover Win 2000 on ALL your desktops. Continue to use Win 2000, for years, until you can replace those specialized apps with a multi-platform application AND linux on the desktop is intuitive and comfortable to your users (through training &/or linux desktop environment changes). Hang on to those licenses and you shouldn't have to worry about an MS / BSA audit.
2. Migrate to Star Office or similar open source office suit. Some training involved, but really, most users will just type, spell check and print. For your power-spreadsheet-financial types, keep them on Office 97 or 2000 if needed.
3. Move every possible behind-the-scenes server task to Linux / BSD / whatever. File and print sharing: samba. Webserver : Apache. Email: sendmail, maybe even with phpgroupware. There are a TON of free / shareware mail clients out there. I like Eudora.
Lastly, good luck. Do as much as you can without your users having to know. You'll be hero-for-a-day with your accountants for saving $$$ and the rest of the company will be as happy and productive as ever.