I can clearly see that the doctrine of first-come-first-served (FCFS) was well weakened by this event.
Under the assumption that FCFS is more of a joke now, no one has pointed out that Molson's 'right' to the name canadian.biz is just as valid as any other company's right to the name if they have any product called 'Canadian' anything. ("Frank's Canadian Moose Jam", yum yumm!) If Molson is truly granted the name, then another challenge can come... probably when Molson has developed the site and thus has much more to lose to what will essentially be blackmail. All this is not a solution.
I say deny the name to either party and instead reserve the name for the Canadian government or well-established Canadian business association. Note that this may mean the name isn't used at all, there being no right fit for it.
Molson at any rate should reg MolsonCanadian.biz and work with that.
(I think that now I will go and reg products.biz and then sue everyone for their *.biz sites' infringing upon my IP.)
1. Credit costs more, in general. Avoiding cash will cost you in the long run.
2. "If you have liberty, use it." I don't know who it was that I've paraphrased here, but it's apt. There's no legal and -- notably -- immoral problem with paying cash.
If the gov wants to covertly declare War on Cash, then make them run the distance. You'll find that not only don't they have the moral authority to stop cash transactions, they simply don't have the wherewithal to do it, and that will eventually lead to a lack of will. It's not sustainable.
This places Open Source on their equipment and that just looks bad for Microsoft. I say "looks bad" in the MSian view of closed technology and monopolistic control of same; kind of an ego thing. Paranoia strikes me, but in such cases of legal precision, IANAL who specializes in corporate software defense.
Is there some way MS can paint the event as an illegality of some sort, just to get some court action? After all, they have the rafts of lawyers, and the geeksters don't, so once again the rare and elusive justice can be mis-served by bankrupting the opponent. How about: placing another OS on the XBox constitutes "intent to violate copyright" since obviously you will be after all those game DVDs. The DMCA allegedly forbids circumventing copy protection, so perhaps all MS has to do is get a judge or jury to believe that these 1337 h4xx0r5 were aiming in that direction.
Just curious. I never ask myself if I'm being paranoid -- instead, I ask if I'm being paranoid enough.
Yeah, what you said. The CIS is planning a manned mission to Mars? -- are they crazy, or what? If there's anyplace that has more serious, deep-running cultural or socioeconomic problems than the USA, it's the old Russia. They need to spend their US$-billions equivalent wealth on repairing their 1st-world infrastructure, not on space jaunts. Once they have a prosperous culture, then they can strike outbound. Put necessities before luxuries (despite modern American thinking).
(The only thing sillier than CIS-to-Mars is probably wiring up more of Africa to the Internet, when Africans could really use... oh, gee, I dunno, clean water, sewers, paved roads, safe streets and -- almost forgot -- fscking electric power for the computers and network equipment in the first place (and lights and air conditioning...)!)
Even if the CIS invests 1/3 of the alleged US$20B, that wealth could build and repair some good rail lines across the vast expanse of the country. Passengers and cargo going from place to place -- hey, that's almost like an economy. Scary.
P.S. If you think some manned Mars trip will cost only US$20B, you're just in denial. NASA has given every indication that they've been using Microsoft {R} Visual Budget {tm} software, resulting in obscene financial bloat when you churn out (or "compile") next year's numbers. I heard they got it from a contractor working on the Superexpensive Superconducting Supercolliding Superfiasco (SSSS); the first copy was free, but the next copies... well, you get the picture. NASA may get relatively small agency funding in the FedGov budget, but when a space project is announced all the PhD-toting losers jump on board to try to justify their jobs, and drive the end cost high enough to reach... Mars! NASA's budgeting behavior alone is a heavy launch system.
Now, look. Your premise seems true, in that interest sparks funding. But that is a "fad investment" paradigm and it can and will be pulled back with the same irrational set of desires that pushed it. It will be pulled back when the going gets rough... and space is rough -- there will be deaths, accidents and cost overruns.
After that big space fad in the US and USSR in the 1960s, Humanity ended up with tons in orbit that slowly rained back down, occasionally lighting up the sky to illuminate rusting gantries. Of greatest note are Skylab and Mir... they are now mostly part of our atmosphere, and the damned things cost about US$10K per pound to put them up.
It is very foolish to send a mission to Mars without sufficient infrastructure around the Earth-Moon system to push it. The mission will be terribly expensive and all things involved in it will be viewed as temporary and will eventually crumble back to the Earth in one form or another.
People need to live and work in space permanently before we can say there is actual infrastructure. That is why we absolutely need a base or two on Luna, with monthly ferries making the Earth-Moon trip. It may not be sexy and interesting, but mining the regolith for material to build system missions is essential for sensible space investment -- it takes 22 times less energy to get material from Luna to LEO, than from Earth to LEO.
Please, please, please don't encourage people to repeat the Apollo Project boondoggle. Apollo left no Moonbase behind it; Mission Mars will also leave no Marsbase behind it; and $60 billion will vanish once again into the military-industrial complex. Then we'll have to go through at least 2 more generations of putzes again trying to make a buck over trying to honestly improve the Human condition.
You have made the unwarranted assumption that due to NASA's need or involvement, the item (fuel cell, velcro) is developed, and could only have been developed in that way. Fuel cells and velcro have many civilian and non-aerospace uses, and there are many pushes and pulls in those arenas to develop products.
If we happen to chance upon some good technologies when investing in space technology, then fine. But don't lead me to believe that we need to fund NASA just for that purpose.
It's always hazardous to change a well-established standard that is attached lamprey-like to everyone in the culture.
I recall a guy who proposed changing all postal codes to a latitude-longitude-altitude system. It would work anywhere, produce unique addresses, and allow distance calculations... but everyone would have to change, addresses would be a generic series of numbers, typos would be easy to make, and local routing problems would remain the same.
Remember the Dvorak keyboard? Enough said on that issue.
I recall an article in Scientific American or Discover long ago, that proposed changing the English alphabet to a 40-character version to allow a much more phonetic language. It is a great idea, except for the utterly impossible job of changing the mother-tounge of 326 million people. And what about all that legacy information in the old alphabet? People would have to be bilingual in their own language for hundreds of years. It can't work.
We use our current time system for some sound reasons. The hour was a sensible division of the day; the minute (minn-it) was a minute (my-noot) form of the hour, and the second was the "second minute" or second smaller form of the hour. It's mostly cultural, but there's probably something genetic in there somewhere... the second, minute, and hour being good time intervals for various Human functions.
I think these proposals are symptoms of a certain, greater disease that I don't have a name for. There is a diseased desire to optimize for calculations while letting other factors (arguably Humanistic) be downplayed. Is there any particular advantage to using 100-minute hours and 10-hour days over what we have now? I mean, it's not as if we use e, pi and radical-2 for measuring time. The closeness of the Human to the time he is immersed in seems to make the particular choice of numbers irrelevant (as far as the large integers go). We might just as easily use 18 hours in a day, 48 minutes to an hour, and 52 seconds in each minute. If anything, using 24 and 60 (Babylonian, Sumerian or Mesopotamian legacies?) gives us a good selection of -- er, I forget the exact term... subfactors?: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, etc.
(But I sure do wish we'd change that damned Julian calendar. Is the current month 30 or 31 days long? -- I can never remember, no matter how many days hath November, or whatever the mnemonic phrase is. I note that 13 months of 28 days apiece means 364 days, which means every year will be off by about 1.24 days -- we can adjust for that somewhere, since the leap years compensate now for the.24 or so. Changing the calendar radically seems easier than changing the alphabet radically, and the calendar has been changed before.)
I conclude this posting with a GREAT book recommendation: "The Science of Measurement: A Historical Survey" by Herbert Klein. It goes into heavy detail about where all those damned units came from.
I wondered about the article -- being so scanty on info needed to evaluate Kauffman's claim -- and then sent searching online for the patent application. The cos site was a pay site, offering searches for US$250/yr for individuals. Screw that. I went to uspto.gov and then here within it. I did an "advanced" query for Kauffman's name on published patent applications; the query string was "in/Kauffman or in/Jason", the years were "2001-2002". I got 411 results -- too many. Dunno why I used "or" -- so I reduced the query to just "in/Kauffman", which got me 15 results. I went through any that even remotely could have to do with numerical processes, but none were from Jason Kauffman.
I'm a firm believer in Legos * and am thoroughly convinced that they helped strongly in developing my inquisitive intellect. I still have my Legos from when I was 10.
Look at 'em: they teach you to design, build, modify, and to have the patience for all of that. Legos are the best thing for the price that I can think of that can spur a young intellect. (Erector Sets were great for that too.) And if you get older and still play with them... well, here's hoping that the world's first Lego Julia or Mandelbrot set will be made within our lifetimes. Lipson's surface models are just beautiful, so just imagine the beauty of a more sophisticated set.
BTW, I am down on all this Lego model crap I see in the stores. Give kids a bucket of basic blocks and let them create... that's the strength and appeal of Legos. However, I admit that the addition of gears makes the entire matter more challenging, perhaps for the 14+ age group.
* Legos {tm} is the registered trademark of some silly corporation or something like that.
I stopped being all that concerned with spelling issues some while ago when I took a good look at my spelling talent.
I am a very good speller and it happens all on its own, like balance while walking. When I am typing along and misspell a word, my mind immediately latches onto the event. When I see a misspelled word written out, it jumps out of the page at me, clamoring for my attention with StarTrek{tm}-like klaxons. The same whoop whoop happens when some word is mis-used in a sentence that I am reading. It's a talent.
I read a good deal, and have always done so since an early age, so perhaps that itself lends to the talent. I type a good deal, writing adventure scripts and online discussions. I am also a detail person.
But as a talent, I judged that I can't expect everyone else to be that good with spelling. If my reading/writing experience is the source of the talent, then I can't expect eveyone else to have had that experience. You can live a pretty nice life without all the reading I do; even people that I call "not readers" are still functional people all around.
With the advent of spell-checkers, spelling issues may have been alleviated somewhat. It's the auto-correctors that I am worried about... they may train your fingers that "teh" is the correct way to type "the". Long ago I turned off auto-correction in my word processors; since, I would misspell something, but in an instant the AC fixed it, leaving me to stare bewilderingly at the correct words on the screen. A bell went off, but there was no fire, causing me to doubt my alarm mechanism.
There is probably a bit of the ol' laziness in some fraction of the misspelling that occurs; and laziness is laudably opposed. But perhaps we should better concentrate on the fact that if the message got across, then the purpose of all that typing was served. If you can communicate effectively, then all the details of the communication aren't as important.
P.S. This is a hastily composed note, which increases the chances of a misspelling. I therefore invoke the Haste Disclaimer, although I can't for long (if at all) escape Murphy's terrible laws.
Wow! 1 billion computers sold so far, probably representing 20 years of sales. And 1 billion more in just 6 years! Wowie! Just think how many companies are going to go bankrupt, having jumped on that gravy train and found themselves with many, many competitors who also thought the same thing!
all Enron employees: $6K, each
17000 WorldCom employees: bootprint on the ass, each
1 billion more computers by 2008: $500, each
hundreds of bankrupt computer companies by 2010: priceless
Please, somebody take over, that wasn't that clever.
The issue of window seating is a good one, and I can't help but be reminded of the passenger spacecraft in the movie "Fifth Element" (passengers were tucked into Japanese-style hotel coffins). I think of buses, cars, trains, and planes, and there's nothing like that in our transportation system -- there's always a window. Cruise liners are probably different, with some cabins being inside, but I don't know for sure.
In fact, except for the scale width of a cruise liner, all other forms of transport are slim, forcing passengers against the skin of the vehicle... so, might as well put in a window.
Changing an airframe is a risky game, not just technologically but politically as well. Go get a copy of "American Heritage of Invention & Technology", Spring 2002 issue (ISSN 8756-7296) and read up on the development of the Pregnant Guppy and Super Guppy airplanes. The 'Guppies were built to transport the Saturn rocket stages, and they have a remarkably bulging upper airframe that the experts were vociferous about not being workable. It's good to see that Boeing (other than the labor-fscking outfit that it has become) is willing to build another kind of commerical airframe.
Why not have another kind of airframe? We have small prop and jet planes for specialized demand, and some large props, but primarily passenger demand is met by the standard commerical jet airframe. Doesn't the Concorde have a market? Sure it does. Why not then spice up the market with a small fleet of high-capacity BWB carriers, offering lower fares under its umbrella of efficiency?
Or just wait for high-speed rail to cross Amer -- ha, haa! I couldn't keep a straight face when I said that!
Read my posting again and notice the "WRY" markings around my Nader comment.
It was made in some jest therefore.
However, since you are so inviting -- you luscious, sexy thing you -- I will expand upon the seriousness in my wry comment.
I mentioned Nader since one of the bases of his political philosophy is that corporations are in control of the two-party system; it's not really much about citizens.
Corporate supremacy over citizenry is kind of what this is all about -- my statements, WorldCom's frauds, Enron's frauds, and so on (in a list that is getting far too long).
Perhaps Nader's election would have resulted in some fix actions against corporate supremacy.
Perhaps not.
I didn't know, but was more than willing to find out, long before walking into that voting booth.
I had the ideas well worked out and it seemed that Nader and the Green Party were the person and political organization that could address my concerns.
You state that the market is doing very well.
This is the usual misconception of the monied middle-class (chances are you are of that class).
The innocuous-sounding "shaking out of losers" is resulting in rather steep layoffs, steeper losses of investments, and ultra-mega-steep frauds.
I don't call fraud a shakeout -- I call it fraud and as such it should be prosecuted.
I told my rep and 2 senators as much in one of my mailings to them.
The shakeout was unecessary from the standpoint that:
we had regulatory and reporting apparati (sp?) in place, so what the fsck happened?
Concurrently, and entirely compatibly, I do agree with you that one takes chances in investing, often great chances.
I have tried and tried to get people to understand that, even with hours of research in a company, you are still gambling by buying its classes of stocks.
But the belief of the infallability of the researched investment market is so strong that I just can't make any headway.
Today's stock-soaking losers are tomorrow's lead-foot investors... it's enough to make a grown man gnash his teeth, tear at his clothes, and lament.
It is a bit funny to see you speaking of civics.
A "wasted vote" can only be the vote not cast.
The two-party system does not own our votes, regardless of designer intent.
We are free to start up more parties (and we do) and to divide up elections into more than 2 factions (noting well in that good ol' wry fashion that in many districts there is only ONE faction: the prevailing Dem or Rep party machine that has been in place for generations), thus our system is not actually a 2-party one.
(This is kind of along the lines of "if you have liberty, then act free and exercise your liberties".)
But 3rd+ parties are weak regardless of their messages and that's just a shame.
We have definitive, diverse viewpoints, and modern America has a great many important social and economic questions that deserve some answers.
If only we had more willpower to support our own Q&A.
Nader accomplished much in the last election, if you'd care to address things that you'd perhaps prefer not to think about.
Like any 3rd+ party, the Greens brought issues through loudspeakers and screens.
He showed the appalling abuse of authority by the debates commission.
He showed the difficulties of getting on every State's ballot.
He showed the rather silly mindset that affects most voters (that is, the 40% who bother to show up at all).
And incidentally, his involvement might have made it quite clear the voting systems that have run for generations in districts are broken, broken, broken!
Because votes are rarely close (remember my statement about 1 faction in most districts?), the mechanisms of affirmation and contention are very flawed.
For many years, votes would go by the wayside since people did the math and determined that the outcome wouldn't change anyway.
Who cared about the propriety of, say, this pile of 1600 votes from district 4 when the winner already had a margin of 30000?
But that's not the point of counting votes; all votes should be addressed, so the system can be exercised to expose errors, and if the vote is close there will be no question as to who the victor is.
Votes are precious and as close to sacred cows as my secular humanism allows in the pasture.
By the way, in case my statements above are misconstrued as repeating the rather silly "not every vote was counted in Florida" opinion:
I believe in handling votes as the "Nuge" (Ted Nugent) has stated:
I want my votes counted by machines, not partisans.
Brazil should have sent officials to supervise Florida's vote handling; it was the most outrageous case of vote fraud that I have ever seen.
Both sets of Rep and Dem partisans were involved in chicanery with vote handling, from hanging chads to improperly-labeled proxy votes.
(Rant, rant, rant!
Wheeew, I'm okay now.)
Yahoo's headline says "Worldcom Finds $3.8 Bln Error" for this story. Balderdash. It's like saying you misplaced thousands of dollars from your bank account... you know damn well where such an amount of money is.
But this is just more propaganda to support the behind-the-scenes running of the American Corporate Hegemony. Fraud? Nonsense... in practical terms "fraud" is "business plan". The CEO, CFO and others all have the same job: lie, cheat and steal in order to support the stock price. The is the Unspoken Rule and I have just broken it by speaking it. I mean, according to Yahoo, WorldCom kept right on trucking with fraud, even after the dot-com bust in 2000/1 (with all that pro-forma nonsense) and Andersen's exposure in 2001: "accounting irregularities [...] included transfers between internal accounts of $3.06 billion in 2001 and $797 million in the first quarter of 2002". They'd still be doing it now if they weren't in the papers about it all.
Do you think Enron/Andersen are bad boys, or just poster children designed to distract you? Did you know that as we speak and read here, the SEC has been quietly gathering updated data on financial statements from many companies, in some sort of "tell us the real numbers and we'll update our records" exchange of confession for forgiveness? While Enron and Andersen are in the spotlight -- as history as shown us many times -- all the other criminal enterprises are busily being whitewashed by your government enforcement agencies.
I hope that increased Enron settlement (announced Tuesday on NPR) is a good one, since it is essentially all the justice that Americans will see from their criminal corporations. [WRY]Maybe next time you'll vote for Nader?[/WRY]
... but radio won't play "Kant is Dead" 'cuz it's not on the play list. Ah, radio. Anecdotes flood in when I think of radio.
I get into my truck and on occasion stare at some blocky instrument with all sorts of cool-looking dials and indicators. "What's that?" I wonder. I hit the left dial and suddenly I'm under a malodorous sonic assault. "Aha!" I exclaim, remembering... yes, I've once again activated my ASW-1000 mk. IV (Automotive Sonic Weapon). With it, I can submit myself to the alleged songs of P.Diddy, J.Lo, or some duo of P.Diddy and J.Lo (nothing else seems to issue from the device) until I soon start to bleed from the eyes, ears and nose. Then I turn it off, unable to withstand further punishment, but having already proven manfully that I can put up with a lot.
I remember commuting to work in Massachusetts in the 90s. Specifically, I recall once driving for a period of some months in 1994, and had the car radio on to alleviate the boredom. After some years of job-hopping, I found myself on another long commute in 1996, and once again turned to my trusty friend the radio. What did I hear, but a wasteland of Ric Astley, Fabulous Thunderbirds and Alanis Morrisette... and I drove with a sense of deja vu every day, since they were playing essentially the same songs as in 1994.
The primary and traditional rock station here in town thinks that about 40 to 60 of rock songs from the 70s constitutes the entirety of the rock history of that era. From them I've learned that the band Rush only made 2 songs... after all, those are the only Rush songs they play. Every year, more rock-n-roll in the same venue is created, and still they play a core of 40 to 60 of the same songs. Over(over(over(...))).
Anecdotes aside, I can clearly see that after the fine (though Punk-tinged) diversity of the 80s which itself followed the expansion of 70s rock-n-roll and even disco, the 90s became a scientifically-analyzed and -designed marketing era filled with Grunge rock and what I call "Demographic Music". After the 90s, we were essentially just listening to the "psst!" and "fssh!" sounds of gases issuing from radio's rotting corpse. I know they were gases, since radio just stunk. Due to so-called economics (which is really just corporate policies gone out of control) the play lists of virtually any station became very small. You can call in and request whatever you want, but those requests are only honored when they have enough matches on the play lists (as I have been told by folks who work in radio stations). The radio public are just an audience that corporate radio really doesn't think much about after having run demographic analyses. The "audience" is just a pipeline that enables the flow of ad money.
Radio is dead, nothing to see here, just move along. Radio is just as dead as a family Saturday outing to the (now extremely overpriced) ballpark. No wonder Napster became so massive.
For laughs, I'd suggest legislation that would take back some "we the people" control of the airwaves by mandating 1hr of local-indie talent, plus another 1hr of nationwide-indie talent. But what's the point in that? Clear Channel et al would never allow that. "Clear Channel" is a correct name -- it's certainly a channel clear of any real music.
'Civil rights are granted by government'? What in Hades' name are you talking about? Assuming you speak from a USA perspective... the US Constitution is based upon the philosophy that Mankind (all Humans) have basic rights obtained through a Creator, not government. It then goes on to limit intrusions on those rights for the purposes of defining Human government. The 6th Amendment then clearly states that all other rights not mentioned here are the province of the States or the People. (Remember, the Constitution was built in an atmosphere of the States federalizing into a union, thus States were capital-S states. In my opinion, they still are.)
The 6th Amendment also removes the merit from your right-to-privacy-isn't-mentioned argument. Since privacy isn't mentioned, the Right to Privacy belongs to the States or the People. Clearly, the Federal Government doesn't have the right to invade your privacy.
There are some good books floating around about the US Constitution. I can only recommend that you read them... after reading the US Const itself, of course. It reads like a business plan, but you'll get through it.
I was aghast at the article and I shouldn't've been. It's on MSNBC and is intrinsically unable to cast Microsoft into anything but godlike form.
Obviously, MS is trying to link concepts of "your security and privacy" with "intellectual property rights" in the consumer's mind, and there's simply no functional reason to do so other than bowing to the big IP producers in Hollywood. (The article says "[Microsoft researchers] quickly understood that the problems of intellectual property were linked to problems of security and privacy"; I'm sure that the consumer's security and privacy were obstacles to controlling the IP that flowed through their computer.) I don't know if this bowing thing is due to fear of litigation ("our clients allege that Microsoft willfully constructed and distributed an operating system that allowed easy violations of copyrights") or simply from being paid off in some manner like partnerships; perhaps both.
But, statements like "cries for a safeguard" and "easier to vandalize a Web site than to program a remote control" places the article firmly in the ranks of propaganda.
"[T]he system is designed to dramatically improve our ability to control and protect personal and corporate information"? Who's "our"? I'm sure the system will make give you incredible control over that movie, song or book you made... oh, wait, the common man is not a production house. Suddenly that "our" becomes "their".
The IP industrials have their own controls, and when they've implemented them (various forms of copy protection) the consumer mass has either raised an uproar or produced a crack. That alone shows the lifecycle of control (plan, implement, ruckus/crack, retreat/pointlessness) and thus that controls are a pointless exercise. The point is further made even if an end-run is made around the consumer by embedding controls into the OS. Despite MS's near monopoly position, MacOS and Linux are viable alternatives to MS Windows, and I've seen people make the switch when sufficiently motivated. Does MS expect the people on college campuses (who are doing a large fraction of the file sharing) -- with all their computer-saavy and access to IT skills -- to just sit in their dorm rooms and offices and let some ACCESS DENIED message blink in front of their faces when they try to fetch or open the latest sn0g, pr0n, m0vie or w4r3z?
The privacy solutions raised in the article aren't anything that can't be made with software right now. We could encrypt all our outgoing packets right now; every email could be encrypted, and every file put up on FTP and Web sites. Why isn't that kind of security pervasive? I think that answer is more along the lines of "we [the people] don't want it" rather than "encryption software isn't pervasive". I am reminded of the Clipper chip... the fiasco that occurred such that we don't have encrypted phones everywhere today. The gov wanted free, backdoor access and the industry (and consumers) knew that it would be selling unsecure products therefore. The consumers didn't want pervasive phone encryption that wasn't secure from the gov; and the consumers simply don't want pervasive Internet security that doesn't allow Libertine file sharing.
There's more outrageous propaganda: the system "[c]ans spam". Oh, puh-leeez. The age-old problem of mailbox access will still be there; we can stop spam now with restricted mailbox access, but we just don't do that since a restricted mailbox is a big problem against receiving mail in general. So perhaps this Palladium plan will address outgoing verification, so... what, is AOL, Hotmail and other such services going to deny members outgoing mailing privileges? Obviously not.
This further piece is even funnier: the system "[s]afeguards privacy", so "it's possible not only to seal data on your own computer, but also to send it out to "agents" who can distribute just the discreet pieces you want released to the proper people." Ah, built-in file sharing, and until somebody logs on, downloads and then blabs, Hollywood isn't going to know.
Finally, the last laugh: "[c]ontrols your information after you send it". This must mean the end of cut-n-paste from a window; either that, or you will need Microsoft Visual Implants {tm} so that encrypted data will be emitted from a screen pattern and then safely reconstructed into an image upon your retina.
Sorry to degrade into sarcasm, but the article -- and the Palladium system -- really deserves my scorn. You can keep reading past the article's last laugh but it is just more smoke and mirrors.
Either you are a troll, or a Midwestern US Republican. Ever hear of the Secret Service and Steve Jackson games? Ever pay attention to any news service other than the three major networks over dinner? You have "never seen" only because you just aren't looking, and if you are over 17 or so, not paying such attention to your society in such a way constitutes willful neglect of your citizen responsibilities.
Agents, police and assorted administrative folk are constantly abusing their access to "private" data in order to (1) enrich themselves and friends or (2) get revenge on somebody. They have more than enough powers now to enforce the blizzard of restrictions that we face as citizens; so why give them more power to abuse?
Your "WTC Survivor" nomenclature will get you some Humanist pity from me for surviving a disaster, but you will never get me to go along with your tyrannical schemes of over-reaction. If you are shot with a gun, you can hardly tell me that that makes gun ownership irresponsible and thus should be illegal. Moreover, however glad you are to give up your liberties, you should not automatically assume that mine should follow in a similar surrender.
As far as the modern form of Western Civilization goes, this sounds about right: take a slimy thing and acculturate it. Drowsy acceptance will be widespread; the spy mechanism will continue to develop no matter how nasty its results. Look at episodes of all those "reality" shows about cops... we have been desensitized to their treatment of the population and their authority-abuses just continue. (Is it possible to become intoxicated with your own culture? With TV, that might be true.)
Note that one of the most basic civil rights is the Right to Be Left Alone {tm}. A pervasive Echelon-like monitoring of citizen activities will utterly destroy that right. At times like this, I get the distinct urge to write a cheque to Phil Zimmerman, since public cryptography is one line of defense; but it must be as pervasive as the spyware is.
Mayhap I'm off my nut, but the philosophy behind the US Const is that its identifications of rights apply to Humans ("men" created by a deity), not just US citizens. Hence, I would say that even in INS hands in some dingy cell on the border of US and Canada, you have freedom of speech, rights to a speedy and represented trial, etc.
Well, you should have those rights, but border agents are among the worst possible representatives of "government goon" and are very likely to just consider you an animal they can beat if they want to.
So, Mr. Canuck, despite your disregard for the US Const -- don't worry, most Americans seem to have similar mis-understanding of it -- I would indeed fight for your Human rights as enunciated so well in that revered document. If only we could get people to revere the document's meaning rather than the paper and the historical icon.
From my experience testing at PictureTel and DEC in Mass., I found out that the usually-understaffed test team runs into the Laws of Software Testing:
Law #1: Most of the time, you are not testing. You are obtaining (beg, plead, cajole) equipment and software, and you are configuring and fixing software, just so that the environment is ready for the software testing to occur.
Law #2: When testing, most of the time you are not testing anything that matters. Sure, scripts are great, but they are very narrow, and bugs are sneaky. Running a limited variety of scripts across some clients and servers only gives the impression of coverage... kind of like the concept of "busy work".
Law #3: When you find a bug, most of the time it can't cross the political barrier. After all, bugs are rated and prioritized, and that is the domain of management, who is overwhelmingly concerned about release dates.
Law #4: The bugs you don't find will reach the customer and will return as the highest-priority bugs that will usurp other bugs in the ongoing process. Fixing customer problems is of course a priority, but it landslides into the current product's production.
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Ah, this whole thing is simply more heat than light. Very inefficient.
I can clearly see that the doctrine of first-come-first-served (FCFS) was well weakened by this event.
... probably when Molson has developed the site and thus has much more to lose to what will essentially be blackmail. All this is not a solution.
Under the assumption that FCFS is more of a joke now, no one has pointed out that Molson's 'right' to the name canadian.biz is just as valid as any other company's right to the name if they have any product called 'Canadian' anything. ("Frank's Canadian Moose Jam", yum yumm!) If Molson is truly granted the name, then another challenge can come
I say deny the name to either party and instead reserve the name for the Canadian government or well-established Canadian business association. Note that this may mean the name isn't used at all, there being no right fit for it.
Molson at any rate should reg MolsonCanadian.biz and work with that.
(I think that now I will go and reg products.biz and then sue everyone for their *.biz sites' infringing upon my IP.)
Balderdash.
1. Credit costs more, in general. Avoiding cash will cost you in the long run.
2. "If you have liberty, use it." I don't know who it was that I've paraphrased here, but it's apt. There's no legal and -- notably -- immoral problem with paying cash.
If the gov wants to covertly declare War on Cash, then make them run the distance. You'll find that not only don't they have the moral authority to stop cash transactions, they simply don't have the wherewithal to do it, and that will eventually lead to a lack of will. It's not sustainable.
This places Open Source on their equipment and that just looks bad for Microsoft. I say "looks bad" in the MSian view of closed technology and monopolistic control of same; kind of an ego thing. Paranoia strikes me, but in such cases of legal precision, IANAL who specializes in corporate software defense.
Is there some way MS can paint the event as an illegality of some sort, just to get some court action? After all, they have the rafts of lawyers, and the geeksters don't, so once again the rare and elusive justice can be mis-served by bankrupting the opponent. How about: placing another OS on the XBox constitutes "intent to violate copyright" since obviously you will be after all those game DVDs. The DMCA allegedly forbids circumventing copy protection, so perhaps all MS has to do is get a judge or jury to believe that these 1337 h4xx0r5 were aiming in that direction.
Just curious. I never ask myself if I'm being paranoid -- instead, I ask if I'm being paranoid enough.
Yeah, what you said. The CIS is planning a manned mission to Mars? -- are they crazy, or what? If there's anyplace that has more serious, deep-running cultural or socioeconomic problems than the USA, it's the old Russia. They need to spend their US$-billions equivalent wealth on repairing their 1st-world infrastructure, not on space jaunts. Once they have a prosperous culture, then they can strike outbound. Put necessities before luxuries (despite modern American thinking).
(The only thing sillier than CIS-to-Mars is probably wiring up more of Africa to the Internet, when Africans could really use... oh, gee, I dunno, clean water, sewers, paved roads, safe streets and -- almost forgot -- fscking electric power for the computers and network equipment in the first place (and lights and air conditioning...)!)
Even if the CIS invests 1/3 of the alleged US$20B, that wealth could build and repair some good rail lines across the vast expanse of the country. Passengers and cargo going from place to place -- hey, that's almost like an economy. Scary.
P.S. If you think some manned Mars trip will cost only US$20B, you're just in denial. NASA has given every indication that they've been using Microsoft {R} Visual Budget {tm} software, resulting in obscene financial bloat when you churn out (or "compile") next year's numbers. I heard they got it from a contractor working on the Superexpensive Superconducting Supercolliding Superfiasco (SSSS); the first copy was free, but the next copies... well, you get the picture. NASA may get relatively small agency funding in the FedGov budget, but when a space project is announced all the PhD-toting losers jump on board to try to justify their jobs, and drive the end cost high enough to reach... Mars! NASA's budgeting behavior alone is a heavy launch system.
Now, look. Your premise seems true, in that interest sparks funding. But that is a "fad investment" paradigm and it can and will be pulled back with the same irrational set of desires that pushed it. It will be pulled back when the going gets rough ... and space is rough -- there will be deaths, accidents and cost overruns.
... they are now mostly part of our atmosphere, and the damned things cost about US$10K per pound to put them up.
After that big space fad in the US and USSR in the 1960s, Humanity ended up with tons in orbit that slowly rained back down, occasionally lighting up the sky to illuminate rusting gantries. Of greatest note are Skylab and Mir
It is very foolish to send a mission to Mars without sufficient infrastructure around the Earth-Moon system to push it. The mission will be terribly expensive and all things involved in it will be viewed as temporary and will eventually crumble back to the Earth in one form or another.
People need to live and work in space permanently before we can say there is actual infrastructure. That is why we absolutely need a base or two on Luna, with monthly ferries making the Earth-Moon trip. It may not be sexy and interesting, but mining the regolith for material to build system missions is essential for sensible space investment -- it takes 22 times less energy to get material from Luna to LEO, than from Earth to LEO.
Please, please, please don't encourage people to repeat the Apollo Project boondoggle. Apollo left no Moonbase behind it; Mission Mars will also leave no Marsbase behind it; and $60 billion will vanish once again into the military-industrial complex. Then we'll have to go through at least 2 more generations of putzes again trying to make a buck over trying to honestly improve the Human condition.
You have made the unwarranted assumption that due to NASA's need or involvement, the item (fuel cell, velcro) is developed, and could only have been developed in that way. Fuel cells and velcro have many civilian and non-aerospace uses, and there are many pushes and pulls in those arenas to develop products.
If we happen to chance upon some good technologies when investing in space technology, then fine. But don't lead me to believe that we need to fund NASA just for that purpose.
It's always hazardous to change a well-established standard that is attached lamprey-like to everyone in the culture.
... but everyone would have to change, addresses would be a generic series of numbers, typos would be easy to make, and local routing problems would remain the same.
... the second, minute, and hour being good time intervals for various Human functions.
... subfactors?: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, etc.
.24 or so. Changing the calendar radically seems easier than changing the alphabet radically, and the calendar has been changed before.)
I recall a guy who proposed changing all postal codes to a latitude-longitude-altitude system. It would work anywhere, produce unique addresses, and allow distance calculations
Remember the Dvorak keyboard? Enough said on that issue.
I recall an article in Scientific American or Discover long ago, that proposed changing the English alphabet to a 40-character version to allow a much more phonetic language. It is a great idea, except for the utterly impossible job of changing the mother-tounge of 326 million people. And what about all that legacy information in the old alphabet? People would have to be bilingual in their own language for hundreds of years. It can't work.
We use our current time system for some sound reasons. The hour was a sensible division of the day; the minute (minn-it) was a minute (my-noot) form of the hour, and the second was the "second minute" or second smaller form of the hour. It's mostly cultural, but there's probably something genetic in there somewhere
I think these proposals are symptoms of a certain, greater disease that I don't have a name for. There is a diseased desire to optimize for calculations while letting other factors (arguably Humanistic) be downplayed. Is there any particular advantage to using 100-minute hours and 10-hour days over what we have now? I mean, it's not as if we use e, pi and radical-2 for measuring time. The closeness of the Human to the time he is immersed in seems to make the particular choice of numbers irrelevant (as far as the large integers go). We might just as easily use 18 hours in a day, 48 minutes to an hour, and 52 seconds in each minute. If anything, using 24 and 60 (Babylonian, Sumerian or Mesopotamian legacies?) gives us a good selection of -- er, I forget the exact term
(But I sure do wish we'd change that damned Julian calendar. Is the current month 30 or 31 days long? -- I can never remember, no matter how many days hath November, or whatever the mnemonic phrase is. I note that 13 months of 28 days apiece means 364 days, which means every year will be off by about 1.24 days -- we can adjust for that somewhere, since the leap years compensate now for the
I conclude this posting with a GREAT book recommendation: "The Science of Measurement: A Historical Survey" by Herbert Klein. It goes into heavy detail about where all those damned units came from.
I wondered about the article -- being so scanty on info needed to evaluate Kauffman's claim -- and then sent searching online for the patent application. The cos site was a pay site, offering searches for US$250/yr for individuals. Screw that. I went to uspto.gov and then here within it. I did an "advanced" query for Kauffman's name on published patent applications; the query string was "in/Kauffman or in/Jason", the years were "2001-2002". I got 411 results -- too many. Dunno why I used "or" -- so I reduced the query to just "in/Kauffman", which got me 15 results. I went through any that even remotely could have to do with numerical processes, but none were from Jason Kauffman.
Hmm.
I'm a firm believer in Legos * and am thoroughly convinced that they helped strongly in developing my inquisitive intellect. I still have my Legos from when I was 10.
... well, here's hoping that the world's first Lego Julia or Mandelbrot set will be made within our lifetimes. Lipson's surface models are just beautiful, so just imagine the beauty of a more sophisticated set.
... that's the strength and appeal of Legos. However, I admit that the addition of gears makes the entire matter more challenging, perhaps for the 14+ age group.
Look at 'em: they teach you to design, build, modify, and to have the patience for all of that. Legos are the best thing for the price that I can think of that can spur a young intellect. (Erector Sets were great for that too.) And if you get older and still play with them
BTW, I am down on all this Lego model crap I see in the stores. Give kids a bucket of basic blocks and let them create
* Legos {tm} is the registered trademark of some silly corporation or something like that.
I stopped being all that concerned with spelling issues some while ago when I took a good look at my spelling talent.
... they may train your fingers that "teh" is the correct way to type "the". Long ago I turned off auto-correction in my word processors; since, I would misspell something, but in an instant the AC fixed it, leaving me to stare bewilderingly at the correct words on the screen. A bell went off, but there was no fire, causing me to doubt my alarm mechanism.
I am a very good speller and it happens all on its own, like balance while walking. When I am typing along and misspell a word, my mind immediately latches onto the event. When I see a misspelled word written out, it jumps out of the page at me, clamoring for my attention with StarTrek{tm}-like klaxons. The same whoop whoop happens when some word is mis-used in a sentence that I am reading. It's a talent.
I read a good deal, and have always done so since an early age, so perhaps that itself lends to the talent. I type a good deal, writing adventure scripts and online discussions. I am also a detail person.
But as a talent, I judged that I can't expect everyone else to be that good with spelling. If my reading/writing experience is the source of the talent, then I can't expect eveyone else to have had that experience. You can live a pretty nice life without all the reading I do; even people that I call "not readers" are still functional people all around.
With the advent of spell-checkers, spelling issues may have been alleviated somewhat. It's the auto-correctors that I am worried about
There is probably a bit of the ol' laziness in some fraction of the misspelling that occurs; and laziness is laudably opposed. But perhaps we should better concentrate on the fact that if the message got across, then the purpose of all that typing was served. If you can communicate effectively, then all the details of the communication aren't as important.
P.S. This is a hastily composed note, which increases the chances of a misspelling. I therefore invoke the Haste Disclaimer, although I can't for long (if at all) escape Murphy's terrible laws.
Wow! 1 billion computers sold so far, probably representing 20 years of sales. And 1 billion more in just 6 years! Wowie! Just think how many companies are going to go bankrupt, having jumped on that gravy train and found themselves with many, many competitors who also thought the same thing!
all Enron employees: $6K, each
17000 WorldCom employees: bootprint on the ass, each
1 billion more computers by 2008: $500, each
hundreds of bankrupt computer companies by 2010: priceless
Please, somebody take over, that wasn't that clever.
The issue of window seating is a good one, and I can't help but be reminded of the passenger spacecraft in the movie "Fifth Element" (passengers were tucked into Japanese-style hotel coffins). I think of buses, cars, trains, and planes, and there's nothing like that in our transportation system -- there's always a window. Cruise liners are probably different, with some cabins being inside, but I don't know for sure.
... so, might as well put in a window.
In fact, except for the scale width of a cruise liner, all other forms of transport are slim, forcing passengers against the skin of the vehicle
Changing an airframe is a risky game, not just technologically but politically as well. Go get a copy of "American Heritage of Invention & Technology", Spring 2002 issue (ISSN 8756-7296) and read up on the development of the Pregnant Guppy and Super Guppy airplanes. The 'Guppies were built to transport the Saturn rocket stages, and they have a remarkably bulging upper airframe that the experts were vociferous about not being workable. It's good to see that Boeing (other than the labor-fscking outfit that it has become) is willing to build another kind of commerical airframe.
Why not have another kind of airframe? We have small prop and jet planes for specialized demand, and some large props, but primarily passenger demand is met by the standard commerical jet airframe. Doesn't the Concorde have a market? Sure it does. Why not then spice up the market with a small fleet of high-capacity BWB carriers, offering lower fares under its umbrella of efficiency?
Or just wait for high-speed rail to cross Amer -- ha, haa! I couldn't keep a straight face when I said that!
Read my posting again and notice the "WRY" markings around my Nader comment. It was made in some jest therefore. However, since you are so inviting -- you luscious, sexy thing you -- I will expand upon the seriousness in my wry comment.
... it's enough to make a grown man gnash his teeth, tear at his clothes, and lament.
I mentioned Nader since one of the bases of his political philosophy is that corporations are in control of the two-party system; it's not really much about citizens. Corporate supremacy over citizenry is kind of what this is all about -- my statements, WorldCom's frauds, Enron's frauds, and so on (in a list that is getting far too long).
Perhaps Nader's election would have resulted in some fix actions against corporate supremacy. Perhaps not. I didn't know, but was more than willing to find out, long before walking into that voting booth. I had the ideas well worked out and it seemed that Nader and the Green Party were the person and political organization that could address my concerns.
You state that the market is doing very well. This is the usual misconception of the monied middle-class (chances are you are of that class). The innocuous-sounding "shaking out of losers" is resulting in rather steep layoffs, steeper losses of investments, and ultra-mega-steep frauds. I don't call fraud a shakeout -- I call it fraud and as such it should be prosecuted. I told my rep and 2 senators as much in one of my mailings to them. The shakeout was unecessary from the standpoint that: we had regulatory and reporting apparati (sp?) in place, so what the fsck happened?
Concurrently, and entirely compatibly, I do agree with you that one takes chances in investing, often great chances. I have tried and tried to get people to understand that, even with hours of research in a company, you are still gambling by buying its classes of stocks. But the belief of the infallability of the researched investment market is so strong that I just can't make any headway. Today's stock-soaking losers are tomorrow's lead-foot investors
It is a bit funny to see you speaking of civics. A "wasted vote" can only be the vote not cast. The two-party system does not own our votes, regardless of designer intent. We are free to start up more parties (and we do) and to divide up elections into more than 2 factions (noting well in that good ol' wry fashion that in many districts there is only ONE faction: the prevailing Dem or Rep party machine that has been in place for generations), thus our system is not actually a 2-party one. (This is kind of along the lines of "if you have liberty, then act free and exercise your liberties".) But 3rd+ parties are weak regardless of their messages and that's just a shame. We have definitive, diverse viewpoints, and modern America has a great many important social and economic questions that deserve some answers. If only we had more willpower to support our own Q&A.
Nader accomplished much in the last election, if you'd care to address things that you'd perhaps prefer not to think about. Like any 3rd+ party, the Greens brought issues through loudspeakers and screens. He showed the appalling abuse of authority by the debates commission. He showed the difficulties of getting on every State's ballot. He showed the rather silly mindset that affects most voters (that is, the 40% who bother to show up at all).
And incidentally, his involvement might have made it quite clear the voting systems that have run for generations in districts are broken, broken, broken! Because votes are rarely close (remember my statement about 1 faction in most districts?), the mechanisms of affirmation and contention are very flawed. For many years, votes would go by the wayside since people did the math and determined that the outcome wouldn't change anyway. Who cared about the propriety of, say, this pile of 1600 votes from district 4 when the winner already had a margin of 30000? But that's not the point of counting votes; all votes should be addressed, so the system can be exercised to expose errors, and if the vote is close there will be no question as to who the victor is. Votes are precious and as close to sacred cows as my secular humanism allows in the pasture.
By the way, in case my statements above are misconstrued as repeating the rather silly "not every vote was counted in Florida" opinion: I believe in handling votes as the "Nuge" (Ted Nugent) has stated: I want my votes counted by machines, not partisans. Brazil should have sent officials to supervise Florida's vote handling; it was the most outrageous case of vote fraud that I have ever seen. Both sets of Rep and Dem partisans were involved in chicanery with vote handling, from hanging chads to improperly-labeled proxy votes. (Rant, rant, rant! Wheeew, I'm okay now.)
Yahoo's headline says "Worldcom Finds $3.8 Bln Error" for this story. Balderdash. It's like saying you misplaced thousands of dollars from your bank account ... you know damn well where such an amount of money is.
... in practical terms "fraud" is "business plan". The CEO, CFO and others all have the same job: lie, cheat and steal in order to support the stock price. The is the Unspoken Rule and I have just broken it by speaking it. I mean, according to Yahoo, WorldCom kept right on trucking with fraud, even after the dot-com bust in 2000/1 (with all that pro-forma nonsense) and Andersen's exposure in 2001: "accounting irregularities [...] included transfers between internal accounts of $3.06 billion in 2001 and $797 million in the first quarter of 2002". They'd still be doing it now if they weren't in the papers about it all.
But this is just more propaganda to support the behind-the-scenes running of the American Corporate Hegemony. Fraud? Nonsense
Do you think Enron/Andersen are bad boys, or just poster children designed to distract you? Did you know that as we speak and read here, the SEC has been quietly gathering updated data on financial statements from many companies, in some sort of "tell us the real numbers and we'll update our records" exchange of confession for forgiveness? While Enron and Andersen are in the spotlight -- as history as shown us many times -- all the other criminal enterprises are busily being whitewashed by your government enforcement agencies.
I hope that increased Enron settlement (announced Tuesday on NPR) is a good one, since it is essentially all the justice that Americans will see from their criminal corporations. [WRY]Maybe next time you'll vote for Nader?[/WRY]
... but radio won't play "Kant is Dead" 'cuz it's not on the play list. Ah, radio. Anecdotes flood in when I think of radio.
... yes, I've once again activated my ASW-1000 mk. IV (Automotive Sonic Weapon). With it, I can submit myself to the alleged songs of P.Diddy, J.Lo, or some duo of P.Diddy and J.Lo (nothing else seems to issue from the device) until I soon start to bleed from the eyes, ears and nose. Then I turn it off, unable to withstand further punishment, but having already proven manfully that I can put up with a lot.
... and I drove with a sense of deja vu every day, since they were playing essentially the same songs as in 1994.
... after all, those are the only Rush songs they play. Every year, more rock-n-roll in the same venue is created, and still they play a core of 40 to 60 of the same songs. Over(over(over(...))).
I get into my truck and on occasion stare at some blocky instrument with all sorts of cool-looking dials and indicators. "What's that?" I wonder. I hit the left dial and suddenly I'm under a malodorous sonic assault. "Aha!" I exclaim, remembering
I remember commuting to work in Massachusetts in the 90s. Specifically, I recall once driving for a period of some months in 1994, and had the car radio on to alleviate the boredom. After some years of job-hopping, I found myself on another long commute in 1996, and once again turned to my trusty friend the radio. What did I hear, but a wasteland of Ric Astley, Fabulous Thunderbirds and Alanis Morrisette
The primary and traditional rock station here in town thinks that about 40 to 60 of rock songs from the 70s constitutes the entirety of the rock history of that era. From them I've learned that the band Rush only made 2 songs
Anecdotes aside, I can clearly see that after the fine (though Punk-tinged) diversity of the 80s which itself followed the expansion of 70s rock-n-roll and even disco, the 90s became a scientifically-analyzed and -designed marketing era filled with Grunge rock and what I call "Demographic Music". After the 90s, we were essentially just listening to the "psst!" and "fssh!" sounds of gases issuing from radio's rotting corpse. I know they were gases, since radio just stunk. Due to so-called economics (which is really just corporate policies gone out of control) the play lists of virtually any station became very small. You can call in and request whatever you want, but those requests are only honored when they have enough matches on the play lists (as I have been told by folks who work in radio stations). The radio public are just an audience that corporate radio really doesn't think much about after having run demographic analyses. The "audience" is just a pipeline that enables the flow of ad money.
Radio is dead, nothing to see here, just move along. Radio is just as dead as a family Saturday outing to the (now extremely overpriced) ballpark. No wonder Napster became so massive.
For laughs, I'd suggest legislation that would take back some "we the people" control of the airwaves by mandating 1hr of local-indie talent, plus another 1hr of nationwide-indie talent. But what's the point in that? Clear Channel et al would never allow that. "Clear Channel" is a correct name -- it's certainly a channel clear of any real music.
'Civil rights are granted by government'? What in Hades' name are you talking about? Assuming you speak from a USA perspective ... the US Constitution is based upon the philosophy that Mankind (all Humans) have basic rights obtained through a Creator, not government. It then goes on to limit intrusions on those rights for the purposes of defining Human government. The 6th Amendment then clearly states that all other rights not mentioned here are the province of the States or the People. (Remember, the Constitution was built in an atmosphere of the States federalizing into a union, thus States were capital-S states. In my opinion, they still are.)
... after reading the US Const itself, of course. It reads like a business plan, but you'll get through it.
The 6th Amendment also removes the merit from your right-to-privacy-isn't-mentioned argument. Since privacy isn't mentioned, the Right to Privacy belongs to the States or the People. Clearly, the Federal Government doesn't have the right to invade your privacy.
There are some good books floating around about the US Constitution. I can only recommend that you read them
I was aghast at the article and I shouldn't've been. It's on MSNBC and is intrinsically unable to cast Microsoft into anything but godlike form.
... oh, wait, the common man is not a production house. Suddenly that "our" becomes "their".
... the fiasco that occurred such that we don't have encrypted phones everywhere today. The gov wanted free, backdoor access and the industry (and consumers) knew that it would be selling unsecure products therefore. The consumers didn't want pervasive phone encryption that wasn't secure from the gov; and the consumers simply don't want pervasive Internet security that doesn't allow Libertine file sharing.
... what, is AOL, Hotmail and other such services going to deny members outgoing mailing privileges? Obviously not.
Obviously, MS is trying to link concepts of "your security and privacy" with "intellectual property rights" in the consumer's mind, and there's simply no functional reason to do so other than bowing to the big IP producers in Hollywood. (The article says "[Microsoft researchers] quickly understood that the problems of intellectual property were linked to problems of security and privacy"; I'm sure that the consumer's security and privacy were obstacles to controlling the IP that flowed through their computer.) I don't know if this bowing thing is due to fear of litigation ("our clients allege that Microsoft willfully constructed and distributed an operating system that allowed easy violations of copyrights") or simply from being paid off in some manner like partnerships; perhaps both.
But, statements like "cries for a safeguard" and "easier to vandalize a Web site than to program a remote control" places the article firmly in the ranks of propaganda.
"[T]he system is designed to dramatically improve our ability to control and protect personal and corporate information"? Who's "our"? I'm sure the system will make give you incredible control over that movie, song or book you made
The IP industrials have their own controls, and when they've implemented them (various forms of copy protection) the consumer mass has either raised an uproar or produced a crack. That alone shows the lifecycle of control (plan, implement, ruckus/crack, retreat/pointlessness) and thus that controls are a pointless exercise. The point is further made even if an end-run is made around the consumer by embedding controls into the OS. Despite MS's near monopoly position, MacOS and Linux are viable alternatives to MS Windows, and I've seen people make the switch when sufficiently motivated. Does MS expect the people on college campuses (who are doing a large fraction of the file sharing) -- with all their computer-saavy and access to IT skills -- to just sit in their dorm rooms and offices and let some ACCESS DENIED message blink in front of their faces when they try to fetch or open the latest sn0g, pr0n, m0vie or w4r3z?
The privacy solutions raised in the article aren't anything that can't be made with software right now. We could encrypt all our outgoing packets right now; every email could be encrypted, and every file put up on FTP and Web sites. Why isn't that kind of security pervasive? I think that answer is more along the lines of "we [the people] don't want it" rather than "encryption software isn't pervasive". I am reminded of the Clipper chip
There's more outrageous propaganda: the system "[c]ans spam". Oh, puh-leeez. The age-old problem of mailbox access will still be there; we can stop spam now with restricted mailbox access, but we just don't do that since a restricted mailbox is a big problem against receiving mail in general. So perhaps this Palladium plan will address outgoing verification, so
This further piece is even funnier: the system "[s]afeguards privacy", so "it's possible not only to seal data on your own computer, but also to send it out to "agents" who can distribute just the discreet pieces you want released to the proper people." Ah, built-in file sharing, and until somebody logs on, downloads and then blabs, Hollywood isn't going to know.
Finally, the last laugh: "[c]ontrols your information after you send it". This must mean the end of cut-n-paste from a window; either that, or you will need Microsoft Visual Implants {tm} so that encrypted data will be emitted from a screen pattern and then safely reconstructed into an image upon your retina.
Sorry to degrade into sarcasm, but the article -- and the Palladium system -- really deserves my scorn. You can keep reading past the article's last laugh but it is just more smoke and mirrors.
Either you are a troll, or a Midwestern US Republican. Ever hear of the Secret Service and Steve Jackson games? Ever pay attention to any news service other than the three major networks over dinner? You have "never seen" only because you just aren't looking, and if you are over 17 or so, not paying such attention to your society in such a way constitutes willful neglect of your citizen responsibilities.
Agents, police and assorted administrative folk are constantly abusing their access to "private" data in order to (1) enrich themselves and friends or (2) get revenge on somebody. They have more than enough powers now to enforce the blizzard of restrictions that we face as citizens; so why give them more power to abuse?
Your "WTC Survivor" nomenclature will get you some Humanist pity from me for surviving a disaster, but you will never get me to go along with your tyrannical schemes of over-reaction. If you are shot with a gun, you can hardly tell me that that makes gun ownership irresponsible and thus should be illegal. Moreover, however glad you are to give up your liberties, you should not automatically assume that mine should follow in a similar surrender.
As far as the modern form of Western Civilization goes, this sounds about right: take a slimy thing and acculturate it. Drowsy acceptance will be widespread; the spy mechanism will continue to develop no matter how nasty its results. Look at episodes of all those "reality" shows about cops ... we have been desensitized to their treatment of the population and their authority-abuses just continue. (Is it possible to become intoxicated with your own culture? With TV, that might be true.)
Note that one of the most basic civil rights is the Right to Be Left Alone {tm}. A pervasive Echelon-like monitoring of citizen activities will utterly destroy that right. At times like this, I get the distinct urge to write a cheque to Phil Zimmerman, since public cryptography is one line of defense; but it must be as pervasive as the spyware is.
Mayhap I'm off my nut, but the philosophy behind the US Const is that its identifications of rights apply to Humans ("men" created by a deity), not just US citizens. Hence, I would say that even in INS hands in some dingy cell on the border of US and Canada, you have freedom of speech, rights to a speedy and represented trial, etc.
Well, you should have those rights, but border agents are among the worst possible representatives of "government goon" and are very likely to just consider you an animal they can beat if they want to.
So, Mr. Canuck, despite your disregard for the US Const -- don't worry, most Americans seem to have similar mis-understanding of it -- I would indeed fight for your Human rights as enunciated so well in that revered document. If only we could get people to revere the document's meaning rather than the paper and the historical icon.
From my experience testing at PictureTel and DEC in Mass., I found out that the usually-understaffed test team runs into the Laws of Software Testing: Law #1: Most of the time, you are not testing. You are obtaining (beg, plead, cajole) equipment and software, and you are configuring and fixing software, just so that the environment is ready for the software testing to occur. Law #2: When testing, most of the time you are not testing anything that matters. Sure, scripts are great, but they are very narrow, and bugs are sneaky. Running a limited variety of scripts across some clients and servers only gives the impression of coverage ... kind of like the concept of "busy work".
Law #3: When you find a bug, most of the time it can't cross the political barrier. After all, bugs are rated and prioritized, and that is the domain of management, who is overwhelmingly concerned about release dates.
Law #4: The bugs you don't find will reach the customer and will return as the highest-priority bugs that will usurp other bugs in the ongoing process. Fixing customer problems is of course a priority, but it landslides into the current product's production.