I think you are missing the poster's point, regarding what a war is about. Specifically:
1. Should we accept a mandatory draft? 2. Rationing? 3. Round up japanese-americans and put in camps? 4. Arrest and hold anyone without lawyers/charges?
These were common during WW2, because it was a WAR. However, a "war" on terror, by it's very nature, cannot end. Are you saying that until we catch every terrorist, EVER, that the government should have war powers?
No one is saying that we shouldn't be tough on terror, but that is an entirely different thing to saying that we are at war. That is why there has to be a declaration of war from congress. The Constitution even mentions additional things the government can only do "in time of war" - the Third ammendment springs to mind.
I find it particularly ironic that you used it in this thread, where the question is whether you or the government own your body. This is especially apt with regards to emigrating to another country.
Nominally, there are no laws preventing you from going to another country. IN THIS COUNTRY. But every other possible country you could enter has laws regarding you becoming a permanent resident. So you would have to come back, whether you like it or not.
So to "remove" yourself, you would have to kill yourself - is it your body to kill? Isn't (bizarely and ridiculously) attempted suicide a crime too (don't fail)?
I love the way "give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses" has become "if you don't like it, F$%% off!".
This seems to be wherever the business you are dealing with actively employs an empowered salesperson. I've never found airline/broker/industrial sales that would offer me money off, unless a competitor was cheaper, or I was buying in bulk (the good customer discount) - in short, not really haggling, but price matching (not quite the same).
It comes down to whether the seller can afford to change prices on the fly - usually it requires high ticket items to justify the cost of a salesperson. Any small value object is going to be fixed cost - imagine a supermarket where everyone haggled over the price of every object. Lines at the counter would be unending.
Who profits more:
Neither the cabinet shop or the hobbyist gets more from the jig (they both have a jig, for the same amount of time). Rather the cabinet shop makes more advantage of the product they bought. If I buy a car, but I'm not going to drive it that often, should I pay less for the car than someone who will drive more miles?
As I said, if the hobbyist only uses the product infrequently, a rental model would be better. But artificially limiting the use of something, that you are in possession of at all times has never been a winner in the consumer sweepstakes (look at divx (not the format, the product)).
cost-of-production vs. value of usage:
Again, this is a buyer versus seller issue. The country was sold on capitalism - "let the market decide", and force the sellers to compete in their offerings - thus, the price is based on how cheaply the good can be offered, and not how much can be extracted from the buyer. Only through collusion (monopoly, cartel) and price fixing (dumping, regulatory) is this strategy sidestepped (Oil a good example).
Where an informed customer *can* be charged more than other customers based solely on their individual circumstances (other than location, and required quantity) implies that the sellers are conspiring to increase the price for that customer, since another seller should in theory compete for the business at a lower price. Note that this does assume that the customer makes an effort to find the best price.
It's still the same product. You are telling them how they can use the *one* product they *bought* from you. Note that this isn't the same as a software company telling you how *many* instances of the piece of software you can use.
What you are advocating is either:
a) some customers subsidising other customers, or b) being able to make more money off a specific customer group.
Neither is generally appreciated by the buyer who pays more (but liked by the customer who got the discount). Both are appreciated by the seller. This is generally why most products are sold fixed price, and why the only accepted discount is if you are buying in bulk - no one group of customers percieves that they are being ripped off.
It's interesting that the people who advocate being able to charge customers based on what they think the customer is willing/able to pay, are generally the ones who are against scalpers (who basically do exactly this), as the scalpers cut into *their* profit. This is despite the fact that the scalpers are generally loathed by the customers who find the prices outrageous (but have no other option of acquiring the product).
If you want to make your product available to the hobbyist who doesn't use it often, provide a rental option!
Think of it another way. We effectively subsidize a TV company to produce a minimum acceptable standard. It forces the commercial broadcasters to compete, and provide programs with a minimal advertising presence, rather than the American model where you are lucky if you get programs in between the advertising they show.
I'm impressed that someone from a nation that thinks its acceptable to have advertising break directly before and after the credits of a program feels comfortable criticizing the method another country uses to avoid being in that sorry state. I'm also amused that you feel that ensuring that only people who benefit from a service actually pay for it is somewhat less preferable than saddling everyone with the bill (surely this is more of a nanny state - save you having to fill out the form, poor diddums).
And by knowing how much money was collected every year in license fees, it keeps the government honest - otherwise, they could cut the funding at will, and we'd be seeing the American model of consumer eyeball ownership faster than you could say PBS.
Finally, just think. Without the TV license, we wouldn't have had the Monty Python "Fish License Sketch". I've never seen so many bleedin' aerials!
Here's a suggestion. If you want to license a product, rather than sell it, why not do that, and ask the customer to sign the license up front?
And in many cases, the EULA is not an agreement with the company you bought the product for (reseller). These EULAs are so much bullcrap, that they have a sketchy history in law (some judges have let them hold, others have overturned them).
No hypocrisy involved. If you have the monopoly on something, either you behave, or people start looking to invoke the Sherman act. Guess what? Microsoft played hard and fast, whilst controlling what constituted a monopolistic hold on the market. They were brought to court by the government, and found guilty.
Little or none of what Microsoft did would be considered illegal (sharp practice, or nasty maybe) if it wasn't for the complete dominance of their market share. Because they were effectively a monopoly, they were thus held to a higher standard. I'm sorry if you feel that this is unfair on Microsoft, and I'm sure that you feel it's just sour grapes on the part of those companies who were driven out of business. The fact of the matter is though that there are specific laws passed to deal with companies that behave in a monopolistic manner.
Naturally, this view is "anti" Microsoft, in the same way that arresting lawbreakers is "anti" criminal. That this view is hypocritical however is wrong. And as for questioning my testicular fortitude, well, I hope this posting satifies your curiosity.
You weren't planning on working with one of these hackers again were you - as he'll hate you for not choosing his "brilliant" code over the other hackers. Why do I get the feeling that I will get two programs, neither readable by my other programmers, uncommented or documented (I had to get it done quicker than the other guy), and the bugs will be nasty and obscure.
I used "hacker" in my post to mean someone who churns out code, without worrying about the niceties of software engineering. Someone who is likely to think that having uncommented and undocumented code is a good thing, as it keeps him hired. For every dedicated "coding standard" programmer, you'll find a legion of these "hackers" who feel that their code is self commenting, self documenting, and its obvious what it does. They don't need to follow the company standard for indenting or variable/method naming because they use their own "better" method. But their code is just a full of bugs as everyone else's, and more difficult to maintain.
Pair them up. Let their egos shame each other into writing one "decent" piece of code, rather than two hacked pieces of indicipherable cack. The software industry is a team game these days. Programers need to learn to work together - both in the way they interact with others, and how they write code.
And hey, most heavy metal bands are very diciplined in their performance - and they match their performance to that of the other players in the band, working together to perform a single piece of music.
This is why. If there was competition, then the market is assumed do the work of weeding out the non-compliant products. But without competition - in a monopoly situation, there is no competition to force the incumbent to do anything, so they are held to a higher standard.
> Microsoft dissolves development teams once a development project is over...
We're talking about IE here - which MicroSoft claim is an integral part of their OS product. Are you seriously suggesting that they desolved the IE team? That's it's no longer supported by them? If that is true, then it's time to re-evaluate the anti-trust evidence, and put those lying MS-execs in jail.
So when was that released. This Patent was filed 10 months ago. December 2002. This isn't a we filed 5 years ago and just got the patent, but a patent filed less than a year ago.
This is a "would be obvious to an expert in the field" feature, so it's a BS patent. Pure and simple.
Nope, pair programming takes two hackers and attempts to turn them into one disciplined programmer.
Perhaps this way, the code will be commented, have tidy layout, and be readable. Meaningful (to more than one person) variable names might be used. Boundary checking done. Good test cases written, and used. Other programmers may be able to work on this code at a latter date. The code may do what was specified (for this particular task) as the one programmer keeps the other one focussed on the job in hand.
If the developer is *that* senior, he should be capable of explaining what he is doing to the lesser minds in the company. Treat it as a mentor slot. And of course, that's only for 50% - the other half of the time is watching the other guy, advising, perhaps teaching, and guiding.
The question the developer should ask himself, "Is he really a malodorous jerk, or am I so socially inept that I am unable to work with people who may not be as skilled as I am?".
In fact, left handed knibs pretty much force you to. Stick to a straight knib, and hold with knib in front of hand - write the line above, same as a right hander.
I was taught italic at school, and as a concequence my cursive is rubbish - I stick with block caps, or slow down to print lowercase.
I like the parker vector fountain pens, but find that the plastic bodies give way after six months. It took me ages to find one of the metal bodied versions. The benefit - I can always replace knib and innards. And they have anh adapter, so you can get rid of cartridges.
You are so right. But it's not just their right to "speech". This is about their "right" to speak explicitly *at* me, against my wishes, using equipment that I have paid for, invading the privacy of my home while they do it.
Except of course, they would have then argued the other way - that the telemarketing firms are comercial entities advertising products for sale, and so are governed by the FTC.
The exemption will always be there - the FTC considered it, and dropped it due to supreme court precident. The recent court ruling seems to show no understanding of the comercial vs non-comercial speach debate.
They don't need to think like me, they just need to...
*sigh*
Shall I shout it out for you. The 90% of people either don't understand, or can't be bothered. Suggesting that "all they have to do is..." is meaningless, because they WON'T DO ANYTHING. They won't patch their machines. They won't run a firewall. They won't take personal responsibility.
So, by default you are advocating do nothing, as that's what the average user will do. Either the ISPs step up and do something, or you can bet your ass that the government will eventually regulate.
You are not understanding the genius that is Reagan budgetary strategy. A massive tax cut, and put us in a deficit hole. Clinton spent his entire presidency trying to make inroads in the deficit. Of course, that meant there wasn't any money for social programs.
This is the GOP scam. Put the country into massive debt, (by cutting taxes buying votes) and when the dems get in all they can do is raise taxes and pay off the debt. This makes them unpopular, so they get voted out, and the repub are back in, spend to look good, and put us back in the hole financially again. Naturally they are against all the left wing social programs, so they make it impossible to provide them before the dems can even get in.
Of course, if they rigged it so they only sent you the channels you pay for, they wouldn't care what set-top box you used. Then you could have an open-source solution - a box from the store, your PC running an app, whatever.
How difficult is this for the cable companies - obviously the sat company can't do it, but since the cable co knows who's paid for what, and has control of the cable running all the way to their door, then controlling what gets sent shouldn't be too difficult. Or am I being a touch naive?
Obviously its a case of no bad intent, but went about it the wrong way. Obviously, if he'd formed a company, hired a few salesmen, and went about contacting large companies as a security specialist, then no one would bat an eye.
The real question is, if he did this, and then hacked people as market research to determine who the salesmen should contact...
"You should tighten your security"... "No, we'll just sue anyone who gets in". Good security policy!
That's all very well, but then again that's what we did to start with. And they didn't take responsibility. What do we do now?
You can't expect joe six-pack to sort this out - the response will be either "I don't understand", or "I can't be bothered". You have to either force compliance through draconian ISP measures, or through bribing/convincing that a fix is in the users own interest (assuming they can be bothered to listen).
You are making the classic geek mistake of assuming that everyone thinks the way you do. Except of course that you've probably got a science/engineering degree (or the smarts to get one), which puts you in the top 10% of the nation intellectually. The other 90% of the nation doesn't think like you. They don't understand what a firewall or a port is, or how TCP/IP works, and for their everyday lives, they generally don't need to. Most have just about managed to accept responsibility for doing what they are told at work, and paying the monthly bills.
When people don't take responsibility for their actions, and these actions adversly affect others, you can either deal with it informally, or you can get the law involved. Given the "expertise" currently setting laws, its no wonder that the internet community is trying the informal solution first. Your view - "it's their fault, make them fix it" while nominally just, is unfortunately the equivalent of "congress, please pass some half assed internet regulation".
I see where you are coming from, and from "our" perspective you are exactly right. The trouble is, what do we do about the legion of newbies who buy a machine and have no idea how to secure it. Look at the news today - 71 year old guy sued by RIAA - his grandkids were file sharing on his machine when they visited him. These people have no idea about the responsibilities of connecting to a shared network. They don't equate a PC with the complexity of a car, they equate it with a toaster or a VCR. The idea that it can affect someone else in another building or country does not occur to them.
Somene mentioned that the ISPs should install a firewall for each customer if one isn't available, and that seemed like another way of sorting the problem - except that the ISPs won't due to clueless users raising call after call because they don't know how/what the firewall is/works.
The fact of the matter is that the majority of people don't use these ports, and don't need them to be open. Their box should have come with all ports disabled, and a built in firewall, but it doesn't. What do we do about the unwashed masses who just don't understand this, and will never understand this?
Slashdot Mirror
If the judge dismisses with prejudice, then IBM can go after fees - that will be a smack down ...
I think you are missing the poster's point, regarding what a war is about. Specifically:
1. Should we accept a mandatory draft?
2. Rationing?
3. Round up japanese-americans and put in camps?
4. Arrest and hold anyone without lawyers/charges?
These were common during WW2, because it was a WAR. However, a "war" on terror, by it's very nature, cannot end. Are you saying that until we catch every terrorist, EVER, that the government should have war powers?
No one is saying that we shouldn't be tough on terror, but that is an entirely different thing to saying that we are at war. That is why there has to be a declaration of war from congress. The Constitution even mentions additional things the government can only do "in time of war" - the Third ammendment springs to mind.
There's a project being evaluated to put a high speed train in on the west coast.
No need. They'll buy a small record label, and claim the exemption.
Ah, the "If you don't like it, leave." argument.
I find it particularly ironic that you used it in this thread, where the question is whether you or the government own your body. This is especially apt with regards to emigrating to another country.
Nominally, there are no laws preventing you from going to another country. IN THIS COUNTRY. But every other possible country you could enter has laws regarding you becoming a permanent resident. So you would have to come back, whether you like it or not.
So to "remove" yourself, you would have to kill yourself - is it your body to kill? Isn't (bizarely and ridiculously) attempted suicide a crime too (don't fail)?
I love the way "give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses" has become "if you don't like it, F$%% off!".
Haggling:
This seems to be wherever the business you are dealing with actively employs an empowered salesperson. I've never found airline/broker/industrial sales that would offer me money off, unless a competitor was cheaper, or I was buying in bulk (the good customer discount) - in short, not really haggling, but price matching (not quite the same).
It comes down to whether the seller can afford to change prices on the fly - usually it requires high ticket items to justify the cost of a salesperson. Any small value object is going to be fixed cost - imagine a supermarket where everyone haggled over the price of every object. Lines at the counter would be unending.
Who profits more:
Neither the cabinet shop or the hobbyist gets more from the jig (they both have a jig, for the same amount of time). Rather the cabinet shop makes more advantage of the product they bought. If I buy a car, but I'm not going to drive it that often, should I pay less for the car than someone who will drive more miles?
As I said, if the hobbyist only uses the product infrequently, a rental model would be better. But artificially limiting the use of something, that you are in possession of at all times has never been a winner in the consumer sweepstakes (look at divx (not the format, the product)).
cost-of-production vs. value of usage:
Again, this is a buyer versus seller issue. The country was sold on capitalism - "let the market decide", and force the sellers to compete in their offerings - thus, the price is based on how cheaply the good can be offered, and not how much can be extracted from the buyer. Only through collusion (monopoly, cartel) and price fixing (dumping, regulatory) is this strategy sidestepped (Oil a good example).
Where an informed customer *can* be charged more than other customers based solely on their individual circumstances (other than location, and required quantity) implies that the sellers are conspiring to increase the price for that customer, since another seller should in theory compete for the business at a lower price. Note that this does assume that the customer makes an effort to find the best price.
It's still the same product. You are telling them how they can use the *one* product they *bought* from you. Note that this isn't the same as a software company telling you how *many* instances of the piece of software you can use.
What you are advocating is either:
a) some customers subsidising other customers, or
b) being able to make more money off a specific customer group.
Neither is generally appreciated by the buyer who pays more (but liked by the customer who got the discount). Both are appreciated by the seller. This is generally why most products are sold fixed price, and why the only accepted discount is if you are buying in bulk - no one group of customers percieves that they are being ripped off.
It's interesting that the people who advocate being able to charge customers based on what they think the customer is willing/able to pay, are generally the ones who are against scalpers (who basically do exactly this), as the scalpers cut into *their* profit. This is despite the fact that the scalpers are generally loathed by the customers who find the prices outrageous (but have no other option of acquiring the product).
If you want to make your product available to the hobbyist who doesn't use it often, provide a rental option!
Think of it another way. We effectively subsidize a TV company to produce a minimum acceptable standard. It forces the commercial broadcasters to compete, and provide programs with a minimal advertising presence, rather than the American model where you are lucky if you get programs in between the advertising they show.
I'm impressed that someone from a nation that thinks its acceptable to have advertising break directly before and after the credits of a program feels comfortable criticizing the method another country uses to avoid being in that sorry state. I'm also amused that you feel that ensuring that only people who benefit from a service actually pay for it is somewhat less preferable than saddling everyone with the bill (surely this is more of a nanny state - save you having to fill out the form, poor diddums).
And by knowing how much money was collected every year in license fees, it keeps the government honest - otherwise, they could cut the funding at will, and we'd be seeing the American model of consumer eyeball ownership faster than you could say PBS.
Finally, just think. Without the TV license, we wouldn't have had the Monty Python "Fish License Sketch". I've never seen so many bleedin' aerials!
Here's a suggestion. If you want to license a product, rather than sell it, why not do that, and ask the customer to sign the license up front?
And in many cases, the EULA is not an agreement with the company you bought the product for (reseller). These EULAs are so much bullcrap, that they have a sketchy history in law (some judges have let them hold, others have overturned them).
> aka anti-Microsoft hyprocricy? (sic)
No hypocrisy involved. If you have the monopoly on something, either you behave, or people start looking to invoke the Sherman act. Guess what? Microsoft played hard and fast, whilst controlling what constituted a monopolistic hold on the market. They were brought to court by the government, and found guilty.
Little or none of what Microsoft did would be considered illegal (sharp practice, or nasty maybe) if it wasn't for the complete dominance of their market share. Because they were effectively a monopoly, they were thus held to a higher standard. I'm sorry if you feel that this is unfair on Microsoft, and I'm sure that you feel it's just sour grapes on the part of those companies who were driven out of business. The fact of the matter is though that there are specific laws passed to deal with companies that behave in a monopolistic manner.
Naturally, this view is "anti" Microsoft, in the same way that arresting lawbreakers is "anti" criminal. That this view is hypocritical however is wrong. And as for questioning my testicular fortitude, well, I hope this posting satifies your curiosity.
You weren't planning on working with one of these hackers again were you - as he'll hate you for not choosing his "brilliant" code over the other hackers. Why do I get the feeling that I will get two programs, neither readable by my other programmers, uncommented or documented (I had to get it done quicker than the other guy), and the bugs will be nasty and obscure.
I used "hacker" in my post to mean someone who churns out code, without worrying about the niceties of software engineering. Someone who is likely to think that having uncommented and undocumented code is a good thing, as it keeps him hired. For every dedicated "coding standard" programmer, you'll find a legion of these "hackers" who feel that their code is self commenting, self documenting, and its obvious what it does. They don't need to follow the company standard for indenting or variable/method naming because they use their own "better" method. But their code is just a full of bugs as everyone else's, and more difficult to maintain.
Pair them up. Let their egos shame each other into writing one "decent" piece of code, rather than two hacked pieces of indicipherable cack. The software industry is a team game these days. Programers need to learn to work together - both in the way they interact with others, and how they write code.
And hey, most heavy metal bands are very diciplined in their performance - and they match their performance to that of the other players in the band, working together to perform a single piece of music.
> because they're a monpolist (sic)
...
This is why. If there was competition, then the market is assumed do the work of weeding out the non-compliant products. But without competition - in a monopoly situation, there is no competition to force the incumbent to do anything, so they are held to a higher standard.
> Microsoft dissolves development teams once a development project is over
We're talking about IE here - which MicroSoft claim is an integral part of their OS product. Are you seriously suggesting that they desolved the IE team? That's it's no longer supported by them? If that is true, then it's time to re-evaluate the anti-trust evidence, and put those lying MS-execs in jail.
So when was that released. This Patent was filed 10 months ago. December 2002. This isn't a we filed 5 years ago and just got the patent, but a patent filed less than a year ago.
This is a "would be obvious to an expert in the field" feature, so it's a BS patent. Pure and simple.
Nope, pair programming takes two hackers and attempts to turn them into one disciplined programmer.
Perhaps this way, the code will be commented, have tidy layout, and be readable. Meaningful (to more than one person) variable names might be used. Boundary checking done. Good test cases written, and used. Other programmers may be able to work on this code at a latter date. The code may do what was specified (for this particular task) as the one programmer keeps the other one focussed on the job in hand.
If the developer is *that* senior, he should be capable of explaining what he is doing to the lesser minds in the company. Treat it as a mentor slot. And of course, that's only for 50% - the other half of the time is watching the other guy, advising, perhaps teaching, and guiding.
The question the developer should ask himself, "Is he really a malodorous jerk, or am I so socially inept that I am unable to work with people who may not be as skilled as I am?".
Which shows just how stupid gambling is, as there are people willing to do a mindless task (hours of slots) for $2 an hour - less than minimum wage.
In fact, left handed knibs pretty much force you to. Stick to a straight knib, and hold with knib in front of hand - write the line above, same as a right hander.
I was taught italic at school, and as a concequence my cursive is rubbish - I stick with block caps, or slow down to print lowercase.
I like the parker vector fountain pens, but find that the plastic bodies give way after six months. It took me ages to find one of the metal bodied versions. The benefit - I can always replace knib and innards. And they have anh adapter, so you can get rid of cartridges.
You are so right. But it's not just their right to "speech". This is about their "right" to speak explicitly *at* me, against my wishes, using equipment that I have paid for, invading the privacy of my home while they do it.
Bastards.
Except of course, they would have then argued the other way - that the telemarketing firms are comercial entities advertising products for sale, and so are governed by the FTC.
The exemption will always be there - the FTC considered it, and dropped it due to supreme court precident. The recent court ruling seems to show no understanding of the comercial vs non-comercial speach debate.
*sigh*
Shall I shout it out for you. The 90% of people either don't understand, or can't be bothered. Suggesting that "all they have to do is ..." is meaningless, because they WON'T DO ANYTHING. They won't patch their machines. They won't run a firewall. They won't take personal responsibility.
So, by default you are advocating do nothing, as that's what the average user will do. Either the ISPs step up and do something, or you can bet your ass that the government will eventually regulate.
You are not understanding the genius that is Reagan budgetary strategy. A massive tax cut, and put us in a deficit hole. Clinton spent his entire presidency trying to make inroads in the deficit. Of course, that meant there wasn't any money for social programs.
This is the GOP scam. Put the country into massive debt, (by cutting taxes buying votes) and when the dems get in all they can do is raise taxes and pay off the debt. This makes them unpopular, so they get voted out, and the repub are back in, spend to look good, and put us back in the hole financially again. Naturally they are against all the left wing social programs, so they make it impossible to provide them before the dems can even get in.
Of course, if they rigged it so they only sent you the channels you pay for, they wouldn't care what set-top box you used. Then you could have an open-source solution - a box from the store, your PC running an app, whatever.
How difficult is this for the cable companies - obviously the sat company can't do it, but since the cable co knows who's paid for what, and has control of the cable running all the way to their door, then controlling what gets sent shouldn't be too difficult. Or am I being a touch naive?
Obviously its a case of no bad intent, but went about it the wrong way. Obviously, if he'd formed a company, hired a few salesmen, and went about contacting large companies as a security specialist, then no one would bat an eye.
...
... "No, we'll just sue anyone who gets in". Good security policy!
The real question is, if he did this, and then hacked people as market research to determine who the salesmen should contact
"You should tighten your security"
What I don't get is which planet the judge lives on. I hope he'll provide Adrian a reference.
Get a job - "I'm very interested in joining your company, as long as my court case goes well" - don't call us.
Go to college - parents house is up as bail, and I doubt he'll get state/federal assistance while the court case is pending.
That's all very well, but then again that's what we did to start with. And they didn't take responsibility. What do we do now?
You can't expect joe six-pack to sort this out - the response will be either "I don't understand", or "I can't be bothered". You have to either force compliance through draconian ISP measures, or through bribing/convincing that a fix is in the users own interest (assuming they can be bothered to listen).
You are making the classic geek mistake of assuming that everyone thinks the way you do. Except of course that you've probably got a science/engineering degree (or the smarts to get one), which puts you in the top 10% of the nation intellectually. The other 90% of the nation doesn't think like you. They don't understand what a firewall or a port is, or how TCP/IP works, and for their everyday lives, they generally don't need to. Most have just about managed to accept responsibility for doing what they are told at work, and paying the monthly bills.
When people don't take responsibility for their actions, and these actions adversly affect others, you can either deal with it informally, or you can get the law involved. Given the "expertise" currently setting laws, its no wonder that the internet community is trying the informal solution first. Your view - "it's their fault, make them fix it" while nominally just, is unfortunately the equivalent of "congress, please pass some half assed internet regulation".
I see where you are coming from, and from "our" perspective you are exactly right. The trouble is, what do we do about the legion of newbies who buy a machine and have no idea how to secure it. Look at the news today - 71 year old guy sued by RIAA - his grandkids were file sharing on his machine when they visited him. These people have no idea about the responsibilities of connecting to a shared network. They don't equate a PC with the complexity of a car, they equate it with a toaster or a VCR. The idea that it can affect someone else in another building or country does not occur to them.
Somene mentioned that the ISPs should install a firewall for each customer if one isn't available, and that seemed like another way of sorting the problem - except that the ISPs won't due to clueless users raising call after call because they don't know how/what the firewall is/works.
The fact of the matter is that the majority of people don't use these ports, and don't need them to be open. Their box should have come with all ports disabled, and a built in firewall, but it doesn't. What do we do about the unwashed masses who just don't understand this, and will never understand this?