If you get free internet from a neighbor, it is you moral duty to share the cost with the neighbor.
Not for me, I actually like and trust my neighbors. As long as they don't do p2p and keep the load light, I'm fine with sharing my connection, it's a fixed cost for me anyway. Sometimes, when I need my full bandwidth, I close it down completely as a precautionary measure, but most of the time I keep my connection open and unencrypted.
Of course, none of these pirates ever ask permission since they know the answer will be "no" most of the time.
There is a cost to ask someone's permission every time. I keep my front garden open also. From the way my garden is configured, it's obvious people are welcome. I don't expect people to ask my permission every time. If I had a problem with it, I would up a sign, or a fence, or something...
The thing is. At the consumer-level, this is a relatively new technology. Most people do not know how to use it very well, and it's not idiot-proof yet, but it will get there eventually. We shouldn't be making laws as a substitute for these things.
If there are other Casinos around, nobody will want to play at your "Milton Friedman approved" Casino.
May be that's the point, no one should be investing in large companies they literally nothing about. Invest in your local barber shop, invest in your community business, invest in a business you can audit the books of, demand that those types of businesses be included in your 401k plan, scream if your employer/government doesn't want to hear you, and do not give away your shareholder's proxy vote to your employer -- keep it to yourself and exercise your choice as a shareholder.
Corruption can not be gotten rid top-down, it must be gotten to from the bottom-up. We must rebuild our institutional infrastructure from scratch.
I have a strong conviction that looking at the world in as similar a way as possible brings the ever-elusive goal of perfect harmony a good deal closer. That, and a healthy mutual dose of lust.:)
Personally, I believe that "perfect harmony" is the product of biology, *not* similarities. The often cited cliche of "opposites attract" is accurate in my opinion. Sexual tension is often derived from real conflict between the sexes. Think back to your childhood and think of it like a game in the playground with a girl you used to like. Tension in a game is often the result of conflict and competition between two players. *Sexual* tension itself is often the result of conflict and competition between two sexes. Sexual tension becomes this virtual tug-of-war between boy and girl (even in homosexual relationships, one still plays the boy and one still plays the girl).
In a way since I'm juxtaposing "perfect harmony" within the context of conflict, so I'm not even sure "perfect harmony" even exists, or if it does exist -- I would argue that it only comes close to it in relationships that are *non-sexual*. For instance, in a relationship where the girl loves her boyfriend "like a brother" and the boyfriend loves his girlfriend "like a sister", I would say that such a relationship would be the closest to "perfect harmony" as it could ever get itself to be.
Also in your current relationship, I would argue that there is still some sex (may be not much) precisely because there is still some conflict/some differences left between the two of you.;)
Great New Yorker article on FBI Profilers.
Here is an equally harsh critique of the the polygraph test. It's not directly relevant to the topic we're discussing, but yet it's so informative and the practice of the polygraph test is so utterly stupid, I just felt it needed to be included under your post.
The dirty little secret behind the polygraph is that the "test" depends on trickery, not science. The person being "tested" is not supposed to know that while the polygraph operator declares that all questions must be answered truthfully, warning that the slightest hint of deception will be detected, he secretly assumes that denials in response to certain questions -- called "control" questions -- will be less than truthful. An example of a commonly used control question is, "Did you ever lie to get out of trouble?" The polygrapher steers the examinee into a denial by warning, for example, that anyone who would do so is the same kind of person who would commit the kind of behavior that is under investigation and then lie about it. But secretly, it is assumed that everyone has lied to get out of trouble.
The polygraph pens don't do a special dance when a person lies. The polygrapher scores the test by comparing physiological responses (breathing, blood pressure, heart, and perspiration rates) to these probable-lie control questions with reactions to relevant questions such as, "Did you ever commit an act of espionage against the United States?" (commonly asked in security screening). If the former reactions are greater, the examinee passes; if the latter are greater, he fails. If responses to both "control" and relevant questions are about the same, the result is deemed inconclusive.
The test also includes irrelevant questions such as, "Are the lights on in this room?" The polygrapher falsely explains that such questions provide a "baseline for truth," because the true answer is obvious. But in reality, they are not scored at all! They merely serve as buffers between pairs of relevant and "control" questions.
The simplistic methodology used in polygraph testing has no grounding in the scientific method: it is no more scientific than astrology or tarot cards. Government agencies value it because people who don't realize it's a fraud sometimes make damaging admissions. But as a result of reliance on this voodoo science, the truthful are often falsely branded as liars while the deceptive pass through.
Perversely, the "test" is inherently biased against the truthful, because the more honestly one answers the "control" questions, and as a consequence feels less stress when answering them, the more likely one is to fail. Conversely, liars can beat the test by covertly augmenting their physiological reactions to the "control" questions. This can be done, for example, by doing mental arithmetic, thinking exciting thoughts, altering one's breathing pattern, or simply biting the side of the tongue. Truthful persons can also use these techniques to protect themselves against the risk of a false positive outcome. Although polygraphers frequently claim they can detect such countermeasures, no polygrapher has ever demonstrated any ability to do so, and peer-reviewed research suggests that they can't.
The proposition "3.14 is equal to Pi" is wrong.
The proposition "3.14 is an approximation within two decimal points of Pi" is right.
And yes, "Einsteins model is MORE accurate", that's why we say it subsumes the Newton model -- not contradict it.
"That could lead, they argue, to the unmasking of otherwise undetected suspects."
Notice how the language is so convoluted.
They could have said "the unmasking of otherwise undetected [criminals]" or "the unmasking of otherwise undetected [crimes]". But no, instead they chose to use the more confusing language "the unmasking of otherwise undetected suspects".
Who are those "suspects"? By definition, a "suspect" is someone the authorities do not trust. A crime doesn't even need to be committed in order for the authorities to label someone a "suspect". And here, it's pretty clear the authorities consider *everyone* within their population to be a suspect of some otherwise unknown/undetected crime.
And that word "unmasking". That's also the wrong word. It implies that the crime(s) is/are already visible. And that only the identity of the person needs to be "unmasked". And yet, there is already a mechanism for doing that, if a crime is committed -- the authorities already have full access to the relevant records. Clearly in this case, they're not trying to unmask someone, they're going for the *discovery* of normal people who's crimes are normally unknown/undetected and that normally do not raise any red flags.
Well if the US experience with "flag burning" is any indication. Expect the number of Mohamed-like cartoons about Christianity and the number of Christian tasteless jokes to explode to the stratosphere. That's what happened with the American Flag in the US, once idiots like Pat Buchanan wanted to ban "flag burning", everybody who disagreed with him burned, peed on, and shit on -- theirs. And then, when they ran out of American flags to burn, they started making little mock-up copies of the Constitution so they could do the same to it (which ironically, also seemed to upset the Pat Buchanan idiots -- even more).
Newton's model IS wrong just like "3.14" is wrong as the value of pi. It might be a good approximation, but it's by no means correct.
Your metaphor doesn't work here.
In Science, you either have to express your ideas in absolute terms, or express them with some form of uncertainty factor. If you fail to do this, you're not doing Science. This is not just a matter of notation, this is a crucial concept central to Science. Science without certitude, or without uncertainty formally stated, is not Science -- it's just talk.
Also, I'm willing to concede that Newton's model might be wrong, and is probably wrong, but thus far it hasn't been shown to be wrong. So your assumption that it is wrong could very well be correct, but thus far that hasn't been shown to be the case. Also, I'm willing to concede that Newton's model is the exception, rather than the rule. Many Scientific theories of his time have been proven wrong, it's just that Newton's model hasn't yet. Newton's model is just incomplete, just like every model ever made. A model, by definition, is supposed to be an incomplete simplification.
Seriously, every time I've flown with my family my 8 year old brother gets selected for the "secondary" inspection. It's pretty funny, last time he didn't even try to walk through, walked straight to the yellow feet... and they actually had him selected, they asked "how did you know?" He said 'you always pick me, I must look like a terrorist I guess..."
I hope your little brother didn't get selected after he went through a sniffing device, these devices look all cool and stuff, but they can't distinguish between fertilizers, explosives, or kid poo, and most now run on silent alarms to avoid the potential embarrassment of what a false positive could mean.
"Just go get the cheapest Windows PC you can find (they have a sticker that says "Vista Capable" or "Vista Ready") and install Linux."
One should never buy the cheapest PC one can find without doing some research first. Period.
For instance, if you're a PC owner who purchased an emachine from Best Buy, it won't matter if you're a Linux user or a Windows user, your power supply will stop working causing you lots of crashes, you'll be given the run around by both the store and the manufacturer, and you'll come to find that the emachine company purposefully used a non-standard power supply so it could sell you a replacement part for a ridiculous price.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying to never buy the cheapest PC you can find. I am only saying that you should do some research first, to see if the deal is really as good as it looks, and to see if you can live without the parts that are pre-designed to fail on you early on.
Why not just send one officer in to kindly inquire? This may sound sick, but it would better if 1 cop perished on an actual call than a whole terrorized family from a SWAT team.
This approach would be impractical. From a retention and recruitment perspective, it would be difficult to retain and recruit SWAT team members if you sacrificed their lives too easily. Thought, I guess you could do like in Iraq, disregard the SWAT team members contracts, pull back SWAT team members who already retired several years ago, and just prevent SWAT team members from resigning, complaining publicly, and/or getting other jobs.
After all, indenture and slavery is such a convenient tool in time of crisis for retaining soldiers, it should serve us equally well for crime and SWAT team members.
Speaking as someone who's been called "the Britney Spears of Programmers" many a times, and not for my good looks, I feel particularly qualified to answer this question.
As a programming superstar, I only work for super-companies. A super-company is by definition a company with a greek god name, a forward-thinking name, and/or a cool sounding 2.0+ name. Its web site must be pretty, its text boxes must have rounded corners, and it must scream to me "We're the number one company in our industry!", "Work from Home!!", and "We only hire the top 1% of programmers! You're so lucky!!".
If you didn't have those exact keywords on your web site, do not despair, you're probably still in the running -- I also accept the keyword "superstar". If you have the word "superstar" in your ad or anywhere in your company web site, you can rest assured that my use of boolean searches will give it the proper attention it deserves.
Haha, probably for the better:-) There is not really much in my post that can really be replied to. Anyway, I have the upper hand here since I knew all your views pretty well to begin with.
Yeah, a link to goatse.cx would probably have been more informative.
You post such a link. You propagate such vitriolic shit. Certainly don't expect a detailed response.
And that's coming from someone who mostly agrees with you about Eric Raymond's beliefs, so if you've lost people like me -- someone who thinks a lot like you -- just think of the guys that don't share your opinion to begin with.
It didn't matter how many video geeks knew and understood that Beta was better than VHS, did it?
Beta wasn't 'better' than VHS. Beta didn't play porn. VHS did. That's why Sony's Betamax format lost. Sony offered a superior technical solution, yes, but in the end it wanted to control what got played in the privacy of your own home. That's why it lost.
And the same thing is replaying itself with Blu-Ray. Since Sony is currently trying to prevent adult products from moving onto Blu-ray, it's unwittingly pushing those videos onto HD-DVD -- and therefore shooting itself in the foot once again.
In any case, even if you don't believe me in this one instance -- this is not the only example there is. At one point, the copyright industry was trying to outlaw mp3 players. In the end, the mp3 format won over *precisely* because it was what kids were using. And it's not that those kids really understood the technical distinctions between music encodings, it's just that most of those kids were goal-driven -- and they simply adopted whatever format they found their chosen music in.
Please repeat after me, Accenture (which used to be Andersen Consulting) is not Arthur Andersen. Once again, Andersen Consulting is not Arthur Andersen. They used to be part of the same company something like twenty years ago, yes, but Andersen Consulting was spun out and shortly after it was spun out -- it sued Arthur Andersen -- and those two companies became enemies ever since.
In 2000, as part of the ongoing litigation between Arthur Andersen and Andersen Consulting, an arbitrator ordered Andersen Consulting to change its name to something else.
At the very least, the Vista computer should be an emachine, or have AOL preloaded on it. A computer designed to meet the adware needs of its corporate-manufacturers over the needs of its owner should give us a much more realistic exercise. After all, what are botnets made up of? Cheap preloaded computers purchased at Best Buy/Walmart? Or computers assembled from scratch / or purchased through one's IT department through Dell ?
but if I were running a major law firm that regularly handled confidential matters for multi-billion dollar clients... I'd certainly encrypt the Hell out of every communication that left my offices. I mean, all they had to do was install some free (free!) encryption software like PGP, and there'd have been no problem.
Huh. I'll bet they will now.
Encryption wouldn't have prevented this. The journalist email address was already in the employee's address book. Most people who use encryption let their email clients do their encryption transparently anyway, and the encryption key used is chosen based on the email address of the recipient selected.
This was a human error, or at least a usability/training error.
I've been hoping for some insightful comments, not being a Linux geek. Can anyone say anything about the wider implications. I'm not US competent. I guess the US Military is essentially a model of a well run business. If you're looking for wider implications that you may already have missed, look up the term "second sourcing" -- an invention of the US Department of Defense. The US Department of Defense has had an history of requiring its suppliers to have a "second source" of critical parts should one supplier/manufacturer fail to deliver for some reason. For instance, AMD wouldn't be where it is today if Intel, its competitor and arch enemy, wouldn't have shared so much information and even crucial training to make sure AMD could keep up as its official "second source" on their Defense Contracts.
I don't know if the wording is intentional or not, but it seems "open sourcing" is a logical progression on the original concept of "second sourcing", and intentional or not, it should benefit both the US military and the American people as much as that that first concept did benefit the US military and the American people in the past.
As for viruses for linux and osx, there are some out there. However, the reason they aren't as widespread as windows viruses is widely known...
Making your statement sound more patronizing doesn't mean that more of us will accept it.
What you're articulating is the official stance taken by Microsoft, yes. Does this mean it's a fact? That remains to be seen.
...the amount of linux and osx machines on the network isn't dense enough. You can't spread a virus effectively if the affected species is really small and spread out. If you email 100 people at random with an email with a linux virus attached, it may not be received by a single linux user, thus that propagation mechanism just doesn't work. This is impossible with a windows virus.
An alternate theory that's also very "widely known" is that Microsoft may be more insecure because it tries to be more remote-control-ware. The theory goes that if a company over-rides the control that a person has over his/her machine, even if it's for good reasons like protecting content through DRM or selling more products by serving ActiveX ads through your email, that this company is inherently designing a more insecure system for its users.
After all, this isn't as far fetched as it sounds. The construction of a backdoor for very good reasons is an alluring proposition for any organization, but this approach has drawbacks. The clipper chip, for instance, was designed by the US government to make us all safer, when in fact it would only have made us less safe -- because it meant that once broken -- any bad guy could have used that backdoor (and we can all thank our lucky stars that this supposedly unbreakable system was broken long before it went into mass production).
Free Software Foundation is a charity. I don't think a 501(c)(3) organization can be the target of a typical hostile takeover, unlike a publicly traded corporation. What kind of co-opting do you envision?
It's called stacking the deck. If you can control the composition of its board of directors and/or the composition of its active voting members, you can takeover a non-profit organization.
This happens more often than you think. Take a look at the right-wing anti-immigrant bloggers that tried to takeover greenpeace. Take a look at the redistricting that happened in Texas. Take a look at what happened to KPFA and its parent foundation (its original membership got it back, but after a costly legal battle). And take a look at the technical committees for open standards that have been taken over by both Microsoft and anti-Microsoft zealouts.
If your requirements for active membership is so low, that almost anyone can join and vote -- it makes stacking the deck with your friends that much easier. Also if all the voting power is concentrated near the top of an organization, and if no one knows what's going on except for a few key board of directors -- that's also a risk.
But what I really wish google would fucking drop from their index is experts-exchange and tech-republic.
The last damn thing I want any of my search results to return is "Hey--here's the answer you're looking for. The solution is to...[PAY US FOR A FUCKING SUBSCRIPTION PLEASE]"
I completely agree. Google has become lazy, or just too arrogant (just like Altavista had when Google started offering better results than it did). Try this CustomizeGoogle firefox extension. This little extension has saved me hours of frustration. And to the other posters, yes I realize the answer can often be found all the way at the bottom, but the answer is not always there and even if it was, it interrupts my flow of scanning multiple results at the same time when I scroll through my opened tabs.
If it wasn't for the CustomizeGoogle extension, I would have switched search engines long ago.
Slashdot Mirror
There is a cost to ask someone's permission every time. I keep my front garden open also. From the way my garden is configured, it's obvious people are welcome. I don't expect people to ask my permission every time. If I had a problem with it, I would up a sign, or a fence, or something...
The thing is. At the consumer-level, this is a relatively new technology. Most people do not know how to use it very well, and it's not idiot-proof yet, but it will get there eventually. We shouldn't be making laws as a substitute for these things.
Personally, I believe that "perfect harmony" is the product of biology, *not* similarities. The often cited cliche of "opposites attract" is accurate in my opinion. Sexual tension is often derived from real conflict between the sexes. Think back to your childhood and think of it like a game in the playground with a girl you used to like. Tension in a game is often the result of conflict and competition between two players. *Sexual* tension itself is often the result of conflict and competition between two sexes. Sexual tension becomes this virtual tug-of-war between boy and girl (even in homosexual relationships, one still plays the boy and one still plays the girl).
In a way since I'm juxtaposing "perfect harmony" within the context of conflict, so I'm not even sure "perfect harmony" even exists, or if it does exist -- I would argue that it only comes close to it in relationships that are *non-sexual*. For instance, in a relationship where the girl loves her boyfriend "like a brother" and the boyfriend loves his girlfriend "like a sister", I would say that such a relationship would be the closest to "perfect harmony" as it could ever get itself to be.
Also in your current relationship, I would argue that there is still some sex (may be not much) precisely because there is still some conflict/some differences left between the two of you. ;)
The dirty little secret behind the polygraph is that the "test" depends on trickery, not science. The person being "tested" is not supposed to know that while the polygraph operator declares that all questions must be answered truthfully, warning that the slightest hint of deception will be detected, he secretly assumes that denials in response to certain questions -- called "control" questions -- will be less than truthful. An example of a commonly used control question is, "Did you ever lie to get out of trouble?" The polygrapher steers the examinee into a denial by warning, for example, that anyone who would do so is the same kind of person who would commit the kind of behavior that is under investigation and then lie about it. But secretly, it is assumed that everyone has lied to get out of trouble.
The polygraph pens don't do a special dance when a person lies. The polygrapher scores the test by comparing physiological responses (breathing, blood pressure, heart, and perspiration rates) to these probable-lie control questions with reactions to relevant questions such as, "Did you ever commit an act of espionage against the United States?" (commonly asked in security screening). If the former reactions are greater, the examinee passes; if the latter are greater, he fails. If responses to both "control" and relevant questions are about the same, the result is deemed inconclusive.
The test also includes irrelevant questions such as, "Are the lights on in this room?" The polygrapher falsely explains that such questions provide a "baseline for truth," because the true answer is obvious. But in reality, they are not scored at all! They merely serve as buffers between pairs of relevant and "control" questions.
The simplistic methodology used in polygraph testing has no grounding in the scientific method: it is no more scientific than astrology or tarot cards. Government agencies value it because people who don't realize it's a fraud sometimes make damaging admissions. But as a result of reliance on this voodoo science, the truthful are often falsely branded as liars while the deceptive pass through.
Perversely, the "test" is inherently biased against the truthful, because the more honestly one answers the "control" questions, and as a consequence feels less stress when answering them, the more likely one is to fail. Conversely, liars can beat the test by covertly augmenting their physiological reactions to the "control" questions. This can be done, for example, by doing mental arithmetic, thinking exciting thoughts, altering one's breathing pattern, or simply biting the side of the tongue. Truthful persons can also use these techniques to protect themselves against the risk of a false positive outcome. Although polygraphers frequently claim they can detect such countermeasures, no polygrapher has ever demonstrated any ability to do so, and peer-reviewed research suggests that they can't.
[source]The proposition "3.14 is equal to Pi" is wrong.
The proposition "3.14 is an approximation within two decimal points of Pi" is right.
And yes, "Einsteins model is MORE accurate", that's why we say it subsumes the Newton model -- not contradict it.
They could have said "the unmasking of otherwise undetected [criminals]" or "the unmasking of otherwise undetected [crimes]". But no, instead they chose to use the more confusing language "the unmasking of otherwise undetected suspects".
Who are those "suspects"? By definition, a "suspect" is someone the authorities do not trust. A crime doesn't even need to be committed in order for the authorities to label someone a "suspect". And here, it's pretty clear the authorities consider *everyone* within their population to be a suspect of some otherwise unknown/undetected crime.
And that word "unmasking". That's also the wrong word. It implies that the crime(s) is/are already visible. And that only the identity of the person needs to be "unmasked". And yet, there is already a mechanism for doing that, if a crime is committed -- the authorities already have full access to the relevant records. Clearly in this case, they're not trying to unmask someone, they're going for the *discovery* of normal people who's crimes are normally unknown/undetected and that normally do not raise any red flags.
Well if the US experience with "flag burning" is any indication. Expect the number of Mohamed-like cartoons about Christianity and the number of Christian tasteless jokes to explode to the stratosphere. That's what happened with the American Flag in the US, once idiots like Pat Buchanan wanted to ban "flag burning", everybody who disagreed with him burned, peed on, and shit on -- theirs. And then, when they ran out of American flags to burn, they started making little mock-up copies of the Constitution so they could do the same to it (which ironically, also seemed to upset the Pat Buchanan idiots -- even more).
Another hypothesis could be that heart disease is linked to allergies.
In Science, you either have to express your ideas in absolute terms, or express them with some form of uncertainty factor. If you fail to do this, you're not doing Science. This is not just a matter of notation, this is a crucial concept central to Science. Science without certitude, or without uncertainty formally stated, is not Science -- it's just talk.
Also, I'm willing to concede that Newton's model might be wrong, and is probably wrong, but thus far it hasn't been shown to be wrong. So your assumption that it is wrong could very well be correct, but thus far that hasn't been shown to be the case. Also, I'm willing to concede that Newton's model is the exception, rather than the rule. Many Scientific theories of his time have been proven wrong, it's just that Newton's model hasn't yet. Newton's model is just incomplete, just like every model ever made. A model, by definition, is supposed to be an incomplete simplification.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying to never buy the cheapest PC you can find. I am only saying that you should do some research first, to see if the deal is really as good as it looks, and to see if you can live without the parts that are pre-designed to fail on you early on.
After all, indenture and slavery is such a convenient tool in time of crisis for retaining soldiers, it should serve us equally well for crime and SWAT team members.
http://www.techshop.ws/
Speaking as someone who's been called "the Britney Spears of Programmers" many a times, and not for my good looks, I feel particularly qualified to answer this question. As a programming superstar, I only work for super-companies. A super-company is by definition a company with a greek god name, a forward-thinking name, and/or a cool sounding 2.0+ name. Its web site must be pretty, its text boxes must have rounded corners, and it must scream to me "We're the number one company in our industry!", "Work from Home!!", and "We only hire the top 1% of programmers! You're so lucky!!".
If you didn't have those exact keywords on your web site, do not despair, you're probably still in the running -- I also accept the keyword "superstar". If you have the word "superstar" in your ad or anywhere in your company web site, you can rest assured that my use of boolean searches will give it the proper attention it deserves.
And the same thing is replaying itself with Blu-Ray. Since Sony is currently trying to prevent adult products from moving onto Blu-ray, it's unwittingly pushing those videos onto HD-DVD -- and therefore shooting itself in the foot once again.
In any case, even if you don't believe me in this one instance -- this is not the only example there is. At one point, the copyright industry was trying to outlaw mp3 players. In the end, the mp3 format won over *precisely* because it was what kids were using. And it's not that those kids really understood the technical distinctions between music encodings, it's just that most of those kids were goal-driven -- and they simply adopted whatever format they found their chosen music in.
Please repeat after me, Accenture (which used to be Andersen Consulting) is not Arthur Andersen. Once again, Andersen Consulting is not Arthur Andersen. They used to be part of the same company something like twenty years ago, yes, but Andersen Consulting was spun out and shortly after it was spun out -- it sued Arthur Andersen -- and those two companies became enemies ever since.
In 2000, as part of the ongoing litigation between Arthur Andersen and Andersen Consulting, an arbitrator ordered Andersen Consulting to change its name to something else.
At the very least, the Vista computer should be an emachine, or have AOL preloaded on it. A computer designed to meet the adware needs of its corporate-manufacturers over the needs of its owner should give us a much more realistic exercise. After all, what are botnets made up of? Cheap preloaded computers purchased at Best Buy/Walmart? Or computers assembled from scratch / or purchased through one's IT department through Dell ?
I don't know if the wording is intentional or not, but it seems "open sourcing" is a logical progression on the original concept of "second sourcing", and intentional or not, it should benefit both the US military and the American people as much as that that first concept did benefit the US military and the American people in the past.
Making your statement sound more patronizing doesn't mean that more of us will accept it. What you're articulating is the official stance taken by Microsoft, yes. Does this mean it's a fact? That remains to be seen.
An alternate theory that's also very "widely known" is that Microsoft may be more insecure because it tries to be more remote-control-ware. The theory goes that if a company over-rides the control that a person has over his/her machine, even if it's for good reasons like protecting content through DRM or selling more products by serving ActiveX ads through your email, that this company is inherently designing a more insecure system for its users.
After all, this isn't as far fetched as it sounds. The construction of a backdoor for very good reasons is an alluring proposition for any organization, but this approach has drawbacks. The clipper chip, for instance, was designed by the US government to make us all safer, when in fact it would only have made us less safe -- because it meant that once broken -- any bad guy could have used that backdoor (and we can all thank our lucky stars that this supposedly unbreakable system was broken long before it went into mass production).
This study confirms my experience. Time slows down for me, but not for most of you. This so similar to the movie, it's freaking me out.
Correction: Take a look at the right-wing anti-immigrant bloggers that tried to takeover the Sierra Club (not Greenpeace).
It's called stacking the deck. If you can control the composition of its board of directors and/or the composition of its active voting members, you can takeover a non-profit organization.
This happens more often than you think. Take a look at the right-wing anti-immigrant bloggers that tried to takeover greenpeace. Take a look at the redistricting that happened in Texas. Take a look at what happened to KPFA and its parent foundation (its original membership got it back, but after a costly legal battle). And take a look at the technical committees for open standards that have been taken over by both Microsoft and anti-Microsoft zealouts.
If your requirements for active membership is so low, that almost anyone can join and vote -- it makes stacking the deck with your friends that much easier. Also if all the voting power is concentrated near the top of an organization, and if no one knows what's going on except for a few key board of directors -- that's also a risk.
If it wasn't for the CustomizeGoogle extension, I would have switched search engines long ago.