It's a bit hard to explain all this stuff in few words. I could refer you to about half a dozen Wikipedia and Wolfram articles on the subjects and you'd still be in the dark. Instead I'll suggest you read GÃdel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter, who tackles many of those subjects in an amusing and educational way.
And yet, AV vendors still can't deliver preventive systems that actually work, and still sell you what is essentially snake oil.
AV products to go on with the thread's analogy is like tying your car down with a bungee rope. You'll probably find the car after the tornado is past, but it will probably be already blown to bits anyway.
Initially, the "Vista Capable" logo meant that you'd be ready to use Aero, and able to run Home Premium or better using all its features. Then, due to pressures from OEMs and Intel among others, the requirements for "Vista Capable" changed to "can have some version of Vista installed", which pretty much meant that many of those machines can barely have Vista Home Basic installed, let alone give you a usable system, and they certainly cannot use Aero.
The gist of the argument is that Microsoft changed the requirements and definition of what "Vista Capable" meant along the way, misleading customers about what it really meant.
For Microsoft, from my point of view (I've followed the computing industry for 25 years or so now), it's business as usual and nothing that surprises me. I'm used to taking any recommendations they make and double it, and used to seeing them lie, cheat, deceive, coerce, defraud and generally do anything they can get away with in order to increase their profits and enhance their control of the computing industry.
Caveat emptor I say, but a lot of people aren't interested in doing research and make informed decisions, they'd rather believe the companies selling them this stuff, or the sales drones at the local big surface shop.
Except that DMCA takedown notices apply to hosting/service providers. The RIAA doesn't send DMCA notices to individuals they want to accuse of file sharing, they send you nice letters from their lawyers to extort money from you.
Wrong. To protect the recording industry's right, as a business, to attempt whatever business model they wish without people interfering in it (i.e.: taking their stuff for free).
Where's that right in the US constitution? What kind of ethical system are you basing such an affirmation on?
According to your point, if an industry wanted to recycle old people and make them into food, there should be laws to protect their rights to do so without people trying to escape from their recycling facilities?
I do agree with the rights of copyright owners to control commercial exploitation of their works. I oppose the criminalization of activities that are becoming a part of our culture and the technologies we are developing to enable that culture.
The question you have to ask is WHY is file sharing illegal. To protect the recording industry's outdated business model.
The enxt question is WHY is the population (because it is them through their taxes) asked to PAY for enforcing a law that makes them and their children criminals in order to line the pockets of music executives?
Why is an university forced to limit the freedom (academic or otherwise) because the music industry decided it should?
This is hilarious on SOOO many levels. I don't even know who to root for in this story! Help me Slashdot, should I go for Hallburton, the Patent Office, the trolls?
What's wrong with that? Thinking TV news are made-up stories by third-hand witnesses carefully selected by old men for maximum effect upon the unknowing populace seems like the right thing to me...
Even in their own countries people opposed those dictators. Some didn't even know (their own fault in part I admit) the extent of the evil those men did. Most people were bystanders, who might have done something, but choose to stand aside because they didn't want to have their families hurt.
And seriously, how is four men, from four countries, "most of the world"? A large part of the rest of the world fought against them you know?
Not to count how the heck you can justify such a statement and how it relates to modern European and worldwide sensibilities, when most European countries are social-democrats, when those countries that lived under such monsters are now stable democracies (Russia excluded). Maybe you should pay more attention to what goes on in the world now, instead of wearing your post-WW2 rose-tinted Made in USA glasses (hint: they're Made in China now).
Myth is extremely important to understand of history, society and human nature. Myths allow us to say certain things in ways almost no other method can. Modern myths is explored through modern media: movies, music, literature. The myths of the past were mostly of a religious nature, but as long as you understand them as MYTHS and not fact, you can learn from them because of what their telling says about human nature.
The Bible has been a great source for the literature of the past thousand years. It's not (in my opinion) the best source for morality, and is certainly not a good source of solid information about reality, but it's been a basic piece of western literature for so long, many great works of literature cannot be understood without their references to the Bible.
We should certainly study religions and their associated myths and literature, as long as they are clearly noted as being mythological, and not factual.
That the financial system is not any more secure than this. I always thought there were some serious security measures taken by banks before transferring funds, like doing small payments whose value has to be confirmed, and stuff like this.
Just like any security issue, though, it appears convenience wins over security for now. It would probably be too detrimental to the big banks and financiers of the world to have to authenticate transfers properly. They're already reduced to quasi-poverty (WHAT? I ONLY GET 100MILLIONS TO SPEND THIS MONTH?).
Not "people who aren't breaking the law", but people "who aren't doing what we don't want them to do". Not the same thing at all.
Most DRM schemes are trying to put themselves above law and morality then imply that they are simply enforcing that. But law and morality are more complex than any computer is currently able to understand and enforce.
The free market fairy story is that consumers are well-informed and act rationally in their own best interest. In such an ideal situation, free market economic theory might actually translate to real-world applicability.
There are various issues with this theory:
1- People are stupid. They will believe something because they want it to be true, or because they're afraid it might be. Examples are: people who call psychic hotlines, believe in ghosts or any supernatural entities (most of the US population I'll remind you), people who forward chain letters, etc
2- People are misinformed or mis-educated. The education system doesn't really try to foster scepticism, rational thought, and methods of enquiry.
3- It is NOT in the best interest of most organizations, corporations, or most agents of the free market to deal with well-informed, rational consumers. For a lot of players in a market, knowledge is power, and what they know but the person in front of them doesn't know is an advantage that results in more power and wealth for them. It is therefore not in THEIR best interest to work toward giving information or fostering a desire for knowledge in their customers.
In theory, a Free Market can be the best possible solution if the components of that market are well well-informed and rational. But as is easy to see, it is to the advantage of those in power in such a market to disinform, lie, and ensure the consumers don't ask too many questions, which then tilts the balance and makes it a not-so-free market anymore. Add baseline human stupidity, and you get the current situation.
Heretic! The accepted and hallowed truth is that Free Markets are perfect, self-correcting mechanisms, and that informed customers always do what's best for the economy.
Burn him! Burn the communist!
In other news, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down again. It has nothing to do with deregulation, greed, and exploitation of naive investors. Nothing at all.
As someone else pointed out, cyanobacteria released the Nitrogen they'd absorbed from compounds found in the ground (nitrites & nitrates). They clearly didn't get it from the CO2. What they DID get from the CO2 is carbon and Oxygen, some of which was released into the atmosphere.
Not counting the fact that conditions on Earth have changed tremendously since the apparition of life on the planet. Oxygen-rich you say? The planet's atmosphere was originally mostly carbon dioxide, then the appearance of life (cyanobacteria) started consuming this, and releasing Nitrogen. Plants appeared contributing to this effort and eventually filled the atmosphere with oxygen, allowing new, more efficient oxygen-consuming lifeforms to appear.
If someone were looking for oxygen as a sign of the possibility of intelligent life on a planet, he would have been sorely disappointed by earth a few billion years ago. Oxygen needs to be present, but early (or later!) in the planet's cycle it would be trapped in the rocks and water. And we don't know what further cycles life might follow on Earth itself, or for humans elsewhere eventually.
NT 3.51 and earlier had graphics driver in user-mode space. I remember there was quite an uproar about stability when NT4 came out with kernel-mode graphics drivers.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a bit hard to explain all this stuff in few words. I could refer you to about half a dozen Wikipedia and Wolfram articles on the subjects and you'd still be in the dark. Instead I'll suggest you read GÃdel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter, who tackles many of those subjects in an amusing and educational way.
And yet, AV vendors still can't deliver preventive systems that actually work, and still sell you what is essentially snake oil.
AV products to go on with the thread's analogy is like tying your car down with a bungee rope. You'll probably find the car after the tornado is past, but it will probably be already blown to bits anyway.
Correct. They've always had a similar article, listing antivirus solutions. This is just an updated version with current products.
I just had the image of Ballmer being brought in the courtroom in full Hannibal Lecter setup :-)
Initially, the "Vista Capable" logo meant that you'd be ready to use Aero, and able to run Home Premium or better using all its features. Then, due to pressures from OEMs and Intel among others, the requirements for "Vista Capable" changed to "can have some version of Vista installed", which pretty much meant that many of those machines can barely have Vista Home Basic installed, let alone give you a usable system, and they certainly cannot use Aero.
The gist of the argument is that Microsoft changed the requirements and definition of what "Vista Capable" meant along the way, misleading customers about what it really meant.
For Microsoft, from my point of view (I've followed the computing industry for 25 years or so now), it's business as usual and nothing that surprises me. I'm used to taking any recommendations they make and double it, and used to seeing them lie, cheat, deceive, coerce, defraud and generally do anything they can get away with in order to increase their profits and enhance their control of the computing industry.
Caveat emptor I say, but a lot of people aren't interested in doing research and make informed decisions, they'd rather believe the companies selling them this stuff, or the sales drones at the local big surface shop.
Except that DMCA takedown notices apply to hosting/service providers. The RIAA doesn't send DMCA notices to individuals they want to accuse of file sharing, they send you nice letters from their lawyers to extort money from you.
Wrong. To protect the recording industry's right, as a business, to attempt whatever business model they wish without people interfering in it (i.e.: taking their stuff for free).
Where's that right in the US constitution? What kind of ethical system are you basing such an affirmation on?
According to your point, if an industry wanted to recycle old people and make them into food, there should be laws to protect their rights to do so without people trying to escape from their recycling facilities?
I do agree with the rights of copyright owners to control commercial exploitation of their works. I oppose the criminalization of activities that are becoming a part of our culture and the technologies we are developing to enable that culture.
You people keep asking the wrong questions.
Why is it a law?
I was thinking the same thing, what does the DMCA have to do with file-sharing?
Strawman!
The question you have to ask is WHY is file sharing illegal. To protect the recording industry's outdated business model.
The enxt question is WHY is the population (because it is them through their taxes) asked to PAY for enforcing a law that makes them and their children criminals in order to line the pockets of music executives?
Why is an university forced to limit the freedom (academic or otherwise) because the music industry decided it should?
As long as it's not me you're suing!
This is hilarious on SOOO many levels. I don't even know who to root for in this story! Help me Slashdot, should I go for Hallburton, the Patent Office, the trolls?
What's wrong with that? Thinking TV news are made-up stories by third-hand witnesses carefully selected by old men for maximum effect upon the unknowing populace seems like the right thing to me...
Oh wait that's just an expression, silly me!
Except they didn't...
Even in their own countries people opposed those dictators. Some didn't even know (their own fault in part I admit) the extent of the evil those men did. Most people were bystanders, who might have done something, but choose to stand aside because they didn't want to have their families hurt.
And seriously, how is four men, from four countries, "most of the world"? A large part of the rest of the world fought against them you know?
Not to count how the heck you can justify such a statement and how it relates to modern European and worldwide sensibilities, when most European countries are social-democrats, when those countries that lived under such monsters are now stable democracies (Russia excluded). Maybe you should pay more attention to what goes on in the world now, instead of wearing your post-WW2 rose-tinted Made in USA glasses (hint: they're Made in China now).
Myth is extremely important to understand of history, society and human nature. Myths allow us to say certain things in ways almost no other method can. Modern myths is explored through modern media: movies, music, literature. The myths of the past were mostly of a religious nature, but as long as you understand them as MYTHS and not fact, you can learn from them because of what their telling says about human nature.
The Bible has been a great source for the literature of the past thousand years. It's not (in my opinion) the best source for morality, and is certainly not a good source of solid information about reality, but it's been a basic piece of western literature for so long, many great works of literature cannot be understood without their references to the Bible.
We should certainly study religions and their associated myths and literature, as long as they are clearly noted as being mythological, and not factual.
That the financial system is not any more secure than this. I always thought there were some serious security measures taken by banks before transferring funds, like doing small payments whose value has to be confirmed, and stuff like this.
Just like any security issue, though, it appears convenience wins over security for now. It would probably be too detrimental to the big banks and financiers of the world to have to authenticate transfers properly. They're already reduced to quasi-poverty (WHAT? I ONLY GET 100MILLIONS TO SPEND THIS MONTH?).
Not "people who aren't breaking the law", but people "who aren't doing what we don't want them to do". Not the same thing at all.
Most DRM schemes are trying to put themselves above law and morality then imply that they are simply enforcing that. But law and morality are more complex than any computer is currently able to understand and enforce.
The free market fairy story is that consumers are well-informed and act rationally in their own best interest. In such an ideal situation, free market economic theory might actually translate to real-world applicability.
There are various issues with this theory:
1- People are stupid. They will believe something because they want it to be true, or because they're afraid it might be. Examples are: people who call psychic hotlines, believe in ghosts or any supernatural entities (most of the US population I'll remind you), people who forward chain letters, etc
2- People are misinformed or mis-educated. The education system doesn't really try to foster scepticism, rational thought, and methods of enquiry.
3- It is NOT in the best interest of most organizations, corporations, or most agents of the free market to deal with well-informed, rational consumers. For a lot of players in a market, knowledge is power, and what they know but the person in front of them doesn't know is an advantage that results in more power and wealth for them. It is therefore not in THEIR best interest to work toward giving information or fostering a desire for knowledge in their customers.
In theory, a Free Market can be the best possible solution if the components of that market are well well-informed and rational. But as is easy to see, it is to the advantage of those in power in such a market to disinform, lie, and ensure the consumers don't ask too many questions, which then tilts the balance and makes it a not-so-free market anymore. Add baseline human stupidity, and you get the current situation.
Heretic! The accepted and hallowed truth is that Free Markets are perfect, self-correcting mechanisms, and that informed customers always do what's best for the economy.
Burn him! Burn the communist!
In other news, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down again. It has nothing to do with deregulation, greed, and exploitation of naive investors. Nothing at all.
As someone else pointed out, cyanobacteria released the Nitrogen they'd absorbed from compounds found in the ground (nitrites & nitrates). They clearly didn't get it from the CO2. What they DID get from the CO2 is carbon and Oxygen, some of which was released into the atmosphere.
Not counting the fact that conditions on Earth have changed tremendously since the apparition of life on the planet. Oxygen-rich you say? The planet's atmosphere was originally mostly carbon dioxide, then the appearance of life (cyanobacteria) started consuming this, and releasing Nitrogen. Plants appeared contributing to this effort and eventually filled the atmosphere with oxygen, allowing new, more efficient oxygen-consuming lifeforms to appear.
If someone were looking for oxygen as a sign of the possibility of intelligent life on a planet, he would have been sorely disappointed by earth a few billion years ago. Oxygen needs to be present, but early (or later!) in the planet's cycle it would be trapped in the rocks and water. And we don't know what further cycles life might follow on Earth itself, or for humans elsewhere eventually.
Anyone really thinks any of those organizations should be trusted with this? How about some UN organization instead?
Don't forget Casaubon's Law:
"Any conspiracy theory must include the Knights Templar"
And the process would never end, according to Godel's Incompleteness theorem...
NT 3.51 and earlier had graphics driver in user-mode space. I remember there was quite an uproar about stability when NT4 came out with kernel-mode graphics drivers.