Like many people here, I am a libertarian thus I definitely am opposed to ALL tariffs, both American and foreign, because I believe in complete free trade, not state imposed regulations.
Regarding drug costs in the 3rd world, you think the US legislates that? Those are corporations who are making those choices. I personally support India, which does not honor patents on medicine. I believe medical patents are murder, so I think we agree there as well
You wrote...any truly fair system will therefore be skewed...
We fundamentally disagree here. For me any fair system will NOT be skewed. That is really my definition of fair -- the field is level for everyone, rich and poor, strong and weak. Do the strong win more often than the weak? Yes, if they lost more, they would be the weak.
It would be like invading Iraq. The US would do what it thought was right, regardless of the rest of the world. There would be "consequences" or "pressure" brought to bear, other than to say "we think this is right."
The US objection to the treaty is not that there are restrictions, but that the restrictions are applied unevenly. According to what the Bush administration has said, if China and India et al were held to the SAME standard as the US, France, Germany etc, then the US would have ratified the treaty.
That's my definition of just -- everyone is treated equally
Part of what is supposed to make Kyoto work is that there will be a big market and alot of money to be made in the buying/trading/selling of carbon emissions. Morning Edition had a great story on the economic backbone of Kyoto but it won't be online till after 10:00am EST. If such a market develops and there are fortunes to be made, you can be sure the Americans will come. If it turns out to be an economic disaster, they won't.
The basic American claim that the treaty is unjust towards wealthier nations, while benefits countries like China and India, is true. There can be no argument that the US would be restricted much more than the #2 consumer of petroleum, China, under Kyoto. The question is, can the will of the world force the US into a position that it views as unjust towards itself? It's a thorny one, but recent history suggest that the United States will not be swayed by foreign legislation. Thus the financial incentive is the best hope of Kyoto ever being ratified by the US.
If Europe wants the US to ratify Kyoto, all they have to do is make the dollars and common sense will follow. One side is right here, and one side isn't. If Europe is right, and this does create a financial windfall, the US will follow. If the US is right, and Europe's economy suffers greatly, they will withdraw from Kyoto.
I work at a university and Exchange had crapped all over everyone AGAIN. In our emergency meeting to stop this from happening a 4th time, I suggested that perhaps we get rid of Exchange, and replace it with Sendmail or Qmail or James. With a straight face the CIO told me (and I am the software architect) "That's absurd -- there are no major universities that don't use Exchange." The mindless zealotry was astonishing -- and even more so because that is of course completely untrue -- universities were using sendmail long before there was an Exchange.
And of course, he's my boss -- so there's not much I can do to change his mind!
Except of course, keep mail bombing the Exchange Server.
"While I regret the board and I have differences about how to execute HP's strategy, I respect their decision," Fiorina said a statement. "HP is a great company, and I wish all the people of HP much success in the future."
One random guy claiming his character is worth $100 is just one fool. Hundreds of people trading them on Ebay and bidding on them is a clear demostation of value.
That's an interesting take -- and if that's what blizzard thinks then they should voice those opinions, but I don't think someone who buys a used car feels like they have a recourse with Ford if the car is not under warranty. Why would someone who buys something on ebay think that Blizzard is involved in anyway with the transaction?
Mind you, I'm sure people still complain to Blizzard about that, but that will happen even without this EULA.
Now, if the point of the EULA is that they can say "We don't support stuff that you buy somewhere else" does putting that in the EULA really make it any more so? Or does it weaken the idea of a real end users license agreement because now we are putting frivolous stuff in the EULA.
Companies that use EULAs must make sure they are "reasonable."....if you call a lawyer right now and say, are EULAs enforceable, he will likely get into the above and his final answer would be "it depends, but in some cases the only way to tell is to go to court."
And the fact is, most players will not want to go to court, and so once again fair use is in a precarious position.
What I can't understand from this is WHY Blizzard would be opposed to this? If a mini-economy were to open up around your game, isn't that a good thing? They could get into the act themselves -- selling magic items and high level characters to the highest bidder?
Hasn't anyone learned ANYTHING from the file swapping issues, Hacked satellite boxes or even drug interdiction? You can't stop people from doing what they want, and by picking battles of silly stuff like this weakens the arguments in legitimate cases where people actually are injured.
If there is a market for WoW stuff, then people will buy and sell it.
p>Alot of times you'll here the legal phrase "Qui Bono" which literally means "Who benefits." It's used in the context of trying to establish who really ganis from certain actions. In litigation like this, I think the question that needs to be asked is "Qui Incolmunis" -- or, who is injured. In this case, where (as far as I can tell) no one is injured, there should be no litigation.
I have read the playerscomplaining about the constant "buy now" things they see online. I don't think that legislation is the right way to solve a social problem. Why not make all artifacts have a permanent lifespan with the character who first posesses them, and only 24 hours after that? You could make items/characters untradable, but people don't want that. They just want them to be not tradable for money. Unfortunately, the way the world is, money is a universally accepted currency that can be used to acquire things of value. Driving the market underground is exactly the same as an ostrich sticking it's head undergound -- you can't see the problem anymore, but it will still be there.
MSFT knew who to strike a deal with first. Even the most liberal person living in MA will admit that there is an incredible amount of graft going on in state government. There are many people in MA who look at the state goverment coffers as a personal tough to feed from. From the Big Dig to the DNC to the Mass Pike, Massachusetts is a commonwealth (not actually a state) predicated on BIG government. Really Big.
If the state was able to eliminate spending completely on software, the state IT department's budget would be considerably lessened. In a bureaucracy like the Mass State government, the larger your budget, the more power you have. So when faced with the option of suddenly cutting their budget requirements by a large amount, of course the suits jumped at an offer that allowed them to maintain the prestige of spending massive amounts.
The really interesting thing about this development is that in order to be the BEST, MSFT will be relying on the community for reports of spyware. Although I certainly agree that they created this industry for themselves, I am glad that they are owning up to solving the symptoms, though imho there is still a problem when your browser is linked inherently into your OS.
So admins, whitehats and FOSS people everywhere will be helping MSFT by reporting spyware/supporting MSFT anti-spyware stuff, and MSFT will be benefiting from this sense of community, from a community that they are actually opposed to. It's either funny or sad, I'm not sure which. Hopefully both sides might learn a thing or two
I must agree -- I have a computer in my work room where I do alot of carpentry -- plenty of sawdust. Aside from putting a fine mesh screen cage around the back, I've done nothing else. 2 years of homerepair, a set of stairs, some hardwood floors and a cat gym later, still runs like a champ, but I really should upgrade from RedHat 7.3 It's an old HP Kayak, all SCSI, PII450, 256m ram. Surfs great.
As discussed elsewhere EA sports has an exclusive deal with the NFL and the NFLPA. I expect them to allow more reasonable hours for their developers, because they will be able to turn out an inferior product without competition. Gamewatch, when it comes to pass, is a charming idea, but unions are coming to the IT field. Regretably mean unscrupulous businessmen are taking advantage of nice developers with scruples. And most developers have listened to RMS at some point in time and have some of that altruism in them. Which means they need an organization to defend them. Union is the right thing to do. Can you imagine an organized strike of IT workers?
Microsoft does more contract programming than you'd think, but I'm not saying they're the only game in town. I'm just saying that Bill Gates impact on the world of software (even if we only consider shrink wrapped) is profound. According to RMS in Revolution OS everyone freely shared software all the time prior to the model that Bill et. al. introduced. So before Bill, Open Source was the norm. It's a sad that they were so successful imho, but it's a major change, and should be acknowledged. If nothing else, it taught us that the developent community was no longer made up of (just) altruistic "nice" people any more.
Well, you can't compare Bill to Linus or Klaus, because Bill didn't write Windows. but I do agree he should be on the list
Like him or not, Bill Gates was the guy who really made it so developers could get paid. In his famous open letter to hobbyists Bill outlined the modern software industry, which he and a few others subsequently created. I'm as open source as everyone else on this board (except for those people Microsoft pays to post here) but I recognize the fact that Bill and Microsoft changed computing. And alot of it was through software. Denying windows popularity is pointless. Insert resistance is futile joke here
O'Dowd says his company has achieved a kind of Linux application binary compatibility through technology that enables Linux applications to run under Linux
When I read things like that, then I understand why I'm only an engineer and not a CEO, because I would NEVER think of using that phrase to try to get my point across.
Bug Me Not should have stopped all this complaining about the NYT and other registrations. The firefox 1.0 plugin is exceptional. You Right click on the user/password field, chose "bug me not" and you are logged in.
People who don't like having to register should REALLY like this, because it makes it less meaningful for sites to have these stupid registrations. So don't bitch -- use Bug Me Not and fight the system.
You can work 80 hours in a week, but I agree that you would find that 80 hours of work done in one week will be much less effective than 80 hours of week done in 2 weeks. There are diminishing returns on labor as time increases. But the point is that there ARE indeed returns, even at hour 80. If I work 80 hours in a week, and only get say 60 hours of good work done, that still puts me 20 hours ahead on Monday if I was working 40 hours a week.
Even if you were to assume that my productivity were to go down 10% for every hour over 50 I worked, I'd still be *somewhat* productive at hour 80. Of course it's not linear like that, but if something's *got* to get done, then it's got to get done, whether I'm tired or not.
And I find that I do have hours of clarity even at the end of a long period of work. So If I get that good hour or 2 at 70 hours, I would have missed it if I'd gone home/to sleep at 60 hours.
I don't think anyone can work 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. You need some time to refresh,recycle,renew. What's a reasonable amount of time to recuperate? I think one day always seems to do it for me. I've never had to pull crazy hours like that more than a few weeks in a row, and we always found a way to take off 24 consecutive hours each week. That was what made it work.
It also helps TREMENDOUSLY to work in a cool place with cool people. If you respect everyone around, and they're all busting ass, you'll find it's EASY to do the same, and hard to let anyone else down. I knew guys who would feel guilty about going home to see their kids when crunch was on.
Is that a healthy culture? Probably not. But we did get plenty of work done, and that's I think what you were asking.
At our crazy workplace, with around 60k networks PCs, It takes about 20 seconds to get infected with a virgin install. As a result, all the installers now carry flash drives with zonealarm, adaware, and our anti-virus flavor of the month. We install ALL that before connecting to the network.
It bothers me that some people still install windows while connected to the internet.
Slashdot Mirror
Regarding drug costs in the 3rd world, you think the US legislates that? Those are corporations who are making those choices. I personally support India, which does not honor patents on medicine. I believe medical patents are murder, so I think we agree there as well
You wrote...any truly fair system will therefore be skewed ...
We fundamentally disagree here. For me any fair system will NOT be skewed. That is really my definition of fair -- the field is level for everyone, rich and poor, strong and weak. Do the strong win more often than the weak? Yes, if they lost more, they would be the weak.
It would be like invading Iraq. The US would do what it thought was right, regardless of the rest of the world. There would be "consequences" or "pressure" brought to bear, other than to say "we think this is right."
The US objection to the treaty is not that there are restrictions, but that the restrictions are applied unevenly. According to what the Bush administration has said, if China and India et al were held to the SAME standard as the US, France, Germany etc, then the US would have ratified the treaty.
That's my definition of just -- everyone is treated equally
The basic American claim that the treaty is unjust towards wealthier nations, while benefits countries like China and India, is true. There can be no argument that the US would be restricted much more than the #2 consumer of petroleum, China, under Kyoto. The question is, can the will of the world force the US into a position that it views as unjust towards itself? It's a thorny one, but recent history suggest that the United States will not be swayed by foreign legislation. Thus the financial incentive is the best hope of Kyoto ever being ratified by the US.
If Europe wants the US to ratify Kyoto, all they have to do is make the dollars and common sense will follow. One side is right here, and one side isn't. If Europe is right, and this does create a financial windfall, the US will follow. If the US is right, and Europe's economy suffers greatly, they will withdraw from Kyoto.
And of course, he's my boss -- so there's not much I can do to change his mind!
Except of course, keep mail bombing the Exchange Server.
There have been other shakeups in personel at HP leading to speculation that there is something wrong. You have to wonder if all the animosity she accrued while making the HP/Compaq merger happen has finally been returned.
If that is true, then what is Krafts obligation if the cheese in the sandwich does not actually heal anyone?
Mind you, I'm sure people still complain to Blizzard about that, but that will happen even without this EULA.
Now, if the point of the EULA is that they can say "We don't support stuff that you buy somewhere else" does putting that in the EULA really make it any more so? Or does it weaken the idea of a real end users license agreement because now we are putting frivolous stuff in the EULA.
What I can't understand from this is WHY Blizzard would be opposed to this? If a mini-economy were to open up around your game, isn't that a good thing? They could get into the act themselves -- selling magic items and high level characters to the highest bidder? Hasn't anyone learned ANYTHING from the file swapping issues, Hacked satellite boxes or even drug interdiction? You can't stop people from doing what they want, and by picking battles of silly stuff like this weakens the arguments in legitimate cases where people actually are injured.
If there is a market for WoW stuff, then people will buy and sell it. p>Alot of times you'll here the legal phrase "Qui Bono" which literally means "Who benefits." It's used in the context of trying to establish who really ganis from certain actions. In litigation like this, I think the question that needs to be asked is "Qui Incolmunis" -- or, who is injured. In this case, where (as far as I can tell) no one is injured, there should be no litigation.
I have read the players complaining about the constant "buy now" things they see online. I don't think that legislation is the right way to solve a social problem. Why not make all artifacts have a permanent lifespan with the character who first posesses them, and only 24 hours after that? You could make items/characters untradable, but people don't want that. They just want them to be not tradable for money. Unfortunately, the way the world is, money is a universally accepted currency that can be used to acquire things of value. Driving the market underground is exactly the same as an ostrich sticking it's head undergound -- you can't see the problem anymore, but it will still be there.
Hilarious! Can't argue with logic like that
If the state was able to eliminate spending completely on software, the state IT department's budget would be considerably lessened. In a bureaucracy like the Mass State government, the larger your budget, the more power you have. So when faced with the option of suddenly cutting their budget requirements by a large amount, of course the suits jumped at an offer that allowed them to maintain the prestige of spending massive amounts.
So admins, whitehats and FOSS people everywhere will be helping MSFT by reporting spyware/supporting MSFT anti-spyware stuff, and MSFT will be benefiting from this sense of community, from a community that they are actually opposed to. It's either funny or sad, I'm not sure which. Hopefully both sides might learn a thing or two
Wow, how did that get modded Troll?
I must agree -- I have a computer in my work room where I do alot of carpentry -- plenty of sawdust. Aside from putting a fine mesh screen cage around the back, I've done nothing else. 2 years of homerepair, a set of stairs, some hardwood floors and a cat gym later, still runs like a champ, but I really should upgrade from RedHat 7.3 It's an old HP Kayak, all SCSI, PII450, 256m ram. Surfs great.
With the demise of Suprnova, I think we're all losers.
sdren era syug uoy
As discussed elsewhere EA sports has an exclusive deal with the NFL and the NFLPA. I expect them to allow more reasonable hours for their developers, because they will be able to turn out an inferior product without competition. Gamewatch, when it comes to pass, is a charming idea, but unions are coming to the IT field. Regretably mean unscrupulous businessmen are taking advantage of nice developers with scruples. And most developers have listened to RMS at some point in time and have some of that altruism in them. Which means they need an organization to defend them. Union is the right thing to do. Can you imagine an organized strike of IT workers?
Microsoft does more contract programming than you'd think, but I'm not saying they're the only game in town. I'm just saying that Bill Gates impact on the world of software (even if we only consider shrink wrapped) is profound. According to RMS in Revolution OS everyone freely shared software all the time prior to the model that Bill et. al. introduced. So before Bill, Open Source was the norm. It's a sad that they were so successful imho, but it's a major change, and should be acknowledged. If nothing else, it taught us that the developent community was no longer made up of (just) altruistic "nice" people any more.
Like him or not, Bill Gates was the guy who really made it so developers could get paid. In his famous open letter to hobbyists Bill outlined the modern software industry, which he and a few others subsequently created. I'm as open source as everyone else on this board (except for those people Microsoft pays to post here) but I recognize the fact that Bill and Microsoft changed computing. And alot of it was through software. Denying windows popularity is pointless. Insert resistance is futile joke here
When I read things like that, then I understand why I'm only an engineer and not a CEO, because I would NEVER think of using that phrase to try to get my point across.
People who don't like having to register should REALLY like this, because it makes it less meaningful for sites to have these stupid registrations. So don't bitch -- use Bug Me Not and fight the system.
Even if you were to assume that my productivity were to go down 10% for every hour over 50 I worked, I'd still be *somewhat* productive at hour 80. Of course it's not linear like that, but if something's *got* to get done, then it's got to get done, whether I'm tired or not.
And I find that I do have hours of clarity even at the end of a long period of work. So If I get that good hour or 2 at 70 hours, I would have missed it if I'd gone home/to sleep at 60 hours.
I don't think anyone can work 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. You need some time to refresh,recycle,renew. What's a reasonable amount of time to recuperate? I think one day always seems to do it for me. I've never had to pull crazy hours like that more than a few weeks in a row, and we always found a way to take off 24 consecutive hours each week. That was what made it work.
It also helps TREMENDOUSLY to work in a cool place with cool people. If you respect everyone around, and they're all busting ass, you'll find it's EASY to do the same, and hard to let anyone else down. I knew guys who would feel guilty about going home to see their kids when crunch was on.
Is that a healthy culture? Probably not. But we did get plenty of work done, and that's I think what you were asking.
It bothers me that some people still install windows while connected to the internet.
Some places are cheaper still