Well, with the tiny difference that the Segway was the product of a single motivated inventor trying to produce something interesting, whereas the Phantom is the product of a scam artist.
The Segway also has the slight advantage of physically existing, where the Phantom, which they didn't even bother to fake a boot-up with, probably doesn't. I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see this guy run off with the pre-order money, if there is any.
"Killed" tickets aren't "killed", they're only -marked- killed. Ie- no way to delete tickets. No magic button for the admins to click to delete 'killed' tickets- you've got to delete them by hand in SQL, something management is uneasy about doing on a production system.
This sounds easy to add, or even write as a standalone cleanup script. Agreed, it should be in there (from the sound of it), but it sounds easy to fix.
No way for anonymous users to check on the status of their ticket- you've got to grant them rights, or give guest rights to -everyone- to see -everyone's- tickets(and that leads to why-is-my-request/why-is-their-request crap)
Again, this sounds like something fixable -- writing a simple access script (which, properly written, solves part of the second-to-last problem too because it could include caching).
Horrible support- on several occasions I've asked in-depth questions and not recieved so much as a peep from anyone; sometimes I've posted 2-3x. The authors are clearly busy consulting- not supporting.
Users can bring down the entire system to a halt if you're using MySQL, the default/best supported DB. Because tickets never get removed, and the default search parameters are -all- tickets and -all- queues, a single search can take MINUTES to complete on a SMALL db(20-30,000 tickets).
The cleanup script, combined with the caching access script, would probably solve most of this.
Clunky/confusing interface. Things that should require one click require several. Functions have non-intuitive names. Etc.
Anyone who has used it in the last three weeks knows that claim to be false. More likely, ICANN caved under the pressure from some in the Internet community for whom this is a technology-religion issue about whether the Internet should be used for these purposes.
Wrong. Plenty of the programmers who've used it over the past three weeks said it was broke. I trust them completely on this, because they're smarter than me. I'd be willing to bet money that they're smarter than you, and I don't think there's a doubt in anybody's head that they've got more integrity concerning this. The simple reality is that ICANN listened to them and decided to smack you down. You deserved it. End of story.
There's nothing broken in that business model, unfortunately.
The funny part is that it's smart people stealing money from stupid thugs who stole money from smart people in the first place. I say we champion their efforts. They're going to get rich, and they clearly deserve it more than the RIAA.
Hell, everybody except lawyers and politicians deserves it more than the RIAA.
Those are the people who made the choice to submit. For every 9, or 99, or 999, there is still one that refused and either found some way around it or flat out fought and was either beaten or shot.
Please attempt to understand this. You can present people with plenty of unpleasant choices, but the emphasis there is choice.
There has never been a government that was not at the mercy of its people for butter, milk, and bread, because governments cannot produce these things. Governments produce armies and cops.
Why should we waste money keeping these people in prison when they're not a physical threat to anybody, and when we can force them to become productive members of society?
You cannot force people to become productive members of society. There is a reason for this, and part of it is that your concept of productive may be in diametric opposition to someone else's concept of productive. The other part is that people have the physical right to refuse to do whatever it is you require of them, and you can't really do much except threaten to kill them.
Which is pretty much what a government does.
What I'm saying here is that you might be able to "force" some spammers to do "good" things, but there will also be a percentage of them being payed to do something "good" and actually engaging in criminal activity. Let's not pay for that, huh?
I'm curious -- what did you see? The case? Did they open it?
I mean, did you just look at a TV showing a WinXP boot screen, or what? And how on earth did they show you the workings of this -- you actually got to see the servers they're going to be tossing these games out with? Packet activity?
I suspect highly that you saw the shell, and maybe there was even a computer in it, but that's all. This is entirely a possible thing, but the guy running this show is not a dedicated family man and casual games enthusiast. The guy running this show is the king of con artists, and it's always easier to con money than to earn it. Maybe this is the one time he's decided to actually put together a working business model. I think it's unlikely, though...
The principle I operate under in hypothetical conversations is always Based upon everything that currently exists, what if this? and it's served me well.
I bring it up because the non-exclusive copyrights thing is, when weighed against the considerable political clout of just about every single major corporation in the United States, just not possible. All of industry would need to crumble first, or undergo some sort of miraculous rebirth.
Look at it in physics -- this kind of thing is used for one-off questions. "Assuming no friction existed..." "Ignoring the effect of entropy..." Nobody seriously conjectures about the possibilities of lava lamps built if entropy didn't exist, because it does. I am desperate to come up with ideas and conjectures that have practical, realistic, understandable applications.
And I'm certainly not saying that if something doesn't work with a certain business model, it's bad. I'm saying that the businesses that operate under that model own the U.S. government, the whole damn thing. Lock, stock, and barrel. You have to imagine the people this would directly affect negatively wanting to do it to themselves, and it just won't happen. Reality principle.
In short: I find a law that prevents copyright transfer after creation more likely than a law that prevents work-for-hire, or a law that removes exclusivity.
Well, hey, while we've suddenly got control of the entire U.S. political machine, let's get rid of some other laws, too.
What I'm saying is that, were something placed into effect now that indicated they were no longer transferable, it wouldn't solve the problem. Hell, if we can pass a law saying that the corporation can't pre-own anything you do for them, the whole argument will dry up, because that's essentially the primary source of income for large corporations -- taking an innovation and automating/mass-producing it.
This is the reason that software as an industry threatens large corporations. The only thing large corporations have going for them in many cases is their distribution network and their ability to mass-produce. If I create some character, I have to contract (Tyco|Mattel) to make the dolls; if I want a game about that character, I can make it myself and distribute it freely. No longer am I hitched to some middleman jackass who can't rub two sticks together to make fire.
The primary source of income at one point in this modern society was being able to pump something out quickly. It won't be any more, and eventually people who make money will actually have to think of new clever things, instead of just producing a few billion copies of someone else's clever idea.
Please locate a clue. If you have serious difficulty with this, consider turning the lights on, or perhaps getting some glasses. Also, having your foot stuck in your mouth probably won't help either.
If Linux becomes something you can be prosecuted for using in the terms indicated on all of the Linux software licenses, then the community of users is at risk of prosecution. By SCO. That's what we like to call a threat in English. Perhaps you've never learned a language, and some sort of hovel is your home, and this post magically appeared on Slashdot due to some sort of ritual your primitive people perform?
I mean, is there some part of this you don't understand, or do you actually work for SCO?
Doesn't work. Existing copyright law indicates that "intellectual property" can be signed away before it's even created.
Read the stuff you sign for the next job you work at. Look around hard enough and you'll find an intellectual property clause, which indicates that if you work on anything that the company feels is within the scope of their products/efforts/etc., even creative works, then the company owns it.
Translation: Writing a book at home? If the company decides they want it, it's theirs. Building an invention in your basement? If the company decides they want it, it's theirs. In theory, they could take ownership of your grocery list.
Sure, it won't happen. The question is -- do you think you can ever produce something that you will want to keep, and the company might want? Guaranteed they've got more lawyers than you do, so you're not going to win in court.
You have no choices if you've signed one of these things, you just don't have any intellectual property. Non-transferable just means that the company steals it and then it dies with them.
More importantly, I have the ability, and have had the ability to have music I didn't pay for since radio became a big deal. So has everyone else. What you're missing here is that this was inevitable, just as the RIAA and MPAA are inevitably doomed.
What I don't understand is what people like you want. Do you want the RIAA and MPAA to continue to occupy a wasteful, unnecessary capacity -- that of the distributor, which is no longer necessary and very quickly becoming unprofitable -- even though it's screwing you, and me, and everybody else?
The RIAA didn't make music. The MPAA didn't create film. They own one thing, and one thing only -- rights they never should have had in the first place. This filesharing situation is reality beating the crap out of them for being such colossal crooks in the first place.
There's nothing that can be changed legally that will save either whiny body. The crumbling institutions will continue to crumble. The stupid fascistic attempt to prevent people from doing something that they've been able to do for years, just not as quickly, will continue.
The question is whether you want the government backing these goons, whether you want Senate approval for these social whores who serve no useful purpose.
Yeah, but the kind of people who would actually vote for her aren't bullshit sponges, I think. They'd actually research such things and think about it.
I can't imagine why people feel so threatened by gay marriage.
Well, there are people who feel that it's a violation of a law based on a religious contract.
There are also those who feel that "marriage" describes only the union between two people of opposite gender, one male and one female, and that the definition should not be expanded because it's unnecessary.
Personally, I think these positions are bullshit (as far as Biblical fun goes, plenty of things in the Bible are no longer followed because modern society believes them unpalatable or unfashionable, etc., and as far as the definition goes, their religion doesn't have to sanction shit, just the laws, which are supposed to be tolerant of alternative interpretations of religious issues.) I think most married people who are homophobic at some level feel icky thinking about two men/women standing at an altar, making a "mockery" of their "sacred union". It's schoolyardish. "You two can't do (X)! You have cooties! We did (X), and you're cootie-people, so you can't! Nyah!"
Same for adopting children, same for all sorts of wonderful things...it all comes down the the Ick Factor. If only people would shut the hell up about things they find "icky" and do something productive about what they do not find icky, these fucking problems would go away, and I could watch more Family Guy.
How would she handle MADD (Mothers Aginst Drunk Drivers) crying in front of a dozen TV cameras?
Honestly. She would handle it honestly, which is a lot less than you can say about, well, take your pick. Virtually anybody in office.
It's a sad damn thing that everybody, everybody, everybody in political office must be a social whore and an accomplished liar, but it's also true, true, true. I'd be very surprised if modern voters picked Georgy, but pleasantly so.
I hope, for her sake, that the job does not turn her into one of these wretched f**ks that currently run the show.
Another desktop will be created to fill this gap that approximates the Windows desktop as closely as possible. It will have some happy name like Porthole or Glass or something, but by all its developers and anyone in the know, it will be called Orifice.
I've never heard of you before today. Why have I paid your salary, along with so many other Americans? What service do you provide, and if that service is better done by a computer for free (i.e. distribution by P2P and advertising through word of mouth) then why should I continue to pay you?
Love: Priceless
Your Freedom: Priceless
The Lousy Dowry You Got Which Doesn't Even Manage To Cover The Cost Of Raising Your Three Kids: $50,000
Clearly, there are HUGE benefits to marriage.
Even better -- I explained all this to my gf, and asked her if she'd want a diamond after the market fell through, when they were affordable. She said, "No, then it'll be pointless."
As if the fact that it breaks you financially makes it more valuable, somehow.
Admin: "Wow, that really sucked."
Employee: "Yeah."
Admin: "Wish we had something that could have prevented that."
Employee: "Linux systems weren't affected by it."
Admin: *pause* "Hey, how much does this Linux stuff cost?"
The rest of this conversation is left to the imagination of the reader.
Seriously, Trillian demonstrates some really poor coding quality.
Whereas all the Microsoft code you've ever used is of such high caliber, right?
Most code sucks. It's unfortunate, but that's the reality. If I have to pick between running 2-5 clients of bad code and 1 of bad code, the choice is simple.
Then it follows logically that cameras should be installed everywhere in public.
Cameras will do anything BUT interfere with living. There are two possible scenarios: a) citizens begin to ignore the cameras and carry on as always or hopefully b) they will realize that the cameras are 100% coverage of their daily living and can be used for/against them in almost any situation. They would hopefully improve their public and criminal behavior. This could only lead to a better living experience IMHO.
I refer you now to a slippery slope.
As for businesses becoming complacent, it happens. Worse is when they become fascists. (Gee, complacent or fascist, when the alternative is trust. What a choice.)
Slashdot Mirror
Gator's not spyware, it's lieware. As in the people who make it lie and say it's not spyware. :)
The Segway also has the slight advantage of physically existing, where the Phantom, which they didn't even bother to fake a boot-up with, probably doesn't. I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see this guy run off with the pre-order money, if there is any.
Wrong. Plenty of the programmers who've used it over the past three weeks said it was broke. I trust them completely on this, because they're smarter than me. I'd be willing to bet money that they're smarter than you, and I don't think there's a doubt in anybody's head that they've got more integrity concerning this. The simple reality is that ICANN listened to them and decided to smack you down. You deserved it. End of story.
Slime around somewhere else...
The funny part is that it's smart people stealing money from stupid thugs who stole money from smart people in the first place. I say we champion their efforts. They're going to get rich, and they clearly deserve it more than the RIAA.
Hell, everybody except lawyers and politicians deserves it more than the RIAA.
Please attempt to understand this. You can present people with plenty of unpleasant choices, but the emphasis there is choice.
There has never been a government that was not at the mercy of its people for butter, milk, and bread, because governments cannot produce these things. Governments produce armies and cops.
Which is pretty much what a government does.
What I'm saying here is that you might be able to "force" some spammers to do "good" things, but there will also be a percentage of them being payed to do something "good" and actually engaging in criminal activity. Let's not pay for that, huh?
I mean, did you just look at a TV showing a WinXP boot screen, or what? And how on earth did they show you the workings of this -- you actually got to see the servers they're going to be tossing these games out with? Packet activity?
I suspect highly that you saw the shell, and maybe there was even a computer in it, but that's all. This is entirely a possible thing, but the guy running this show is not a dedicated family man and casual games enthusiast. The guy running this show is the king of con artists, and it's always easier to con money than to earn it. Maybe this is the one time he's decided to actually put together a working business model. I think it's unlikely, though...
I bring it up because the non-exclusive copyrights thing is, when weighed against the considerable political clout of just about every single major corporation in the United States, just not possible. All of industry would need to crumble first, or undergo some sort of miraculous rebirth.
Look at it in physics -- this kind of thing is used for one-off questions. "Assuming no friction existed..." "Ignoring the effect of entropy..." Nobody seriously conjectures about the possibilities of lava lamps built if entropy didn't exist, because it does. I am desperate to come up with ideas and conjectures that have practical, realistic, understandable applications.
And I'm certainly not saying that if something doesn't work with a certain business model, it's bad. I'm saying that the businesses that operate under that model own the U.S. government, the whole damn thing. Lock, stock, and barrel. You have to imagine the people this would directly affect negatively wanting to do it to themselves, and it just won't happen. Reality principle.
In short: I find a law that prevents copyright transfer after creation more likely than a law that prevents work-for-hire, or a law that removes exclusivity.
That's all.
Actually, there's already bacteria-unfriendly plastic in existence. All you'd really need is a faceplate/shell made of that stuff.
Although I bet the first guy to make one of those will make a small fortune selling them in all-white in medical mail-order catalogs...
What I'm saying is that, were something placed into effect now that indicated they were no longer transferable, it wouldn't solve the problem. Hell, if we can pass a law saying that the corporation can't pre-own anything you do for them, the whole argument will dry up, because that's essentially the primary source of income for large corporations -- taking an innovation and automating/mass-producing it.
This is the reason that software as an industry threatens large corporations. The only thing large corporations have going for them in many cases is their distribution network and their ability to mass-produce. If I create some character, I have to contract (Tyco|Mattel) to make the dolls; if I want a game about that character, I can make it myself and distribute it freely. No longer am I hitched to some middleman jackass who can't rub two sticks together to make fire.
The primary source of income at one point in this modern society was being able to pump something out quickly. It won't be any more, and eventually people who make money will actually have to think of new clever things, instead of just producing a few billion copies of someone else's clever idea.
And at that point, they deserve it.
If Linux becomes something you can be prosecuted for using in the terms indicated on all of the Linux software licenses, then the community of users is at risk of prosecution. By SCO. That's what we like to call a threat in English. Perhaps you've never learned a language, and some sort of hovel is your home, and this post magically appeared on Slashdot due to some sort of ritual your primitive people perform?
I mean, is there some part of this you don't understand, or do you actually work for SCO?
Read the stuff you sign for the next job you work at. Look around hard enough and you'll find an intellectual property clause, which indicates that if you work on anything that the company feels is within the scope of their products/efforts/etc., even creative works, then the company owns it.
Translation: Writing a book at home? If the company decides they want it, it's theirs. Building an invention in your basement? If the company decides they want it, it's theirs. In theory, they could take ownership of your grocery list.
Sure, it won't happen. The question is -- do you think you can ever produce something that you will want to keep, and the company might want? Guaranteed they've got more lawyers than you do, so you're not going to win in court.
You have no choices if you've signed one of these things, you just don't have any intellectual property. Non-transferable just means that the company steals it and then it dies with them.
Like I said -- not a solution.
Why, yes, I do.
More importantly, I have the ability, and have had the ability to have music I didn't pay for since radio became a big deal. So has everyone else. What you're missing here is that this was inevitable, just as the RIAA and MPAA are inevitably doomed.
What I don't understand is what people like you want. Do you want the RIAA and MPAA to continue to occupy a wasteful, unnecessary capacity -- that of the distributor, which is no longer necessary and very quickly becoming unprofitable -- even though it's screwing you, and me, and everybody else?
The RIAA didn't make music. The MPAA didn't create film. They own one thing, and one thing only -- rights they never should have had in the first place. This filesharing situation is reality beating the crap out of them for being such colossal crooks in the first place.
There's nothing that can be changed legally that will save either whiny body. The crumbling institutions will continue to crumble. The stupid fascistic attempt to prevent people from doing something that they've been able to do for years, just not as quickly, will continue.
The question is whether you want the government backing these goons, whether you want Senate approval for these social whores who serve no useful purpose.
I hope, anyway.
There are also those who feel that "marriage" describes only the union between two people of opposite gender, one male and one female, and that the definition should not be expanded because it's unnecessary.
Personally, I think these positions are bullshit (as far as Biblical fun goes, plenty of things in the Bible are no longer followed because modern society believes them unpalatable or unfashionable, etc., and as far as the definition goes, their religion doesn't have to sanction shit, just the laws, which are supposed to be tolerant of alternative interpretations of religious issues.) I think most married people who are homophobic at some level feel icky thinking about two men/women standing at an altar, making a "mockery" of their "sacred union". It's schoolyardish. "You two can't do (X)! You have cooties! We did (X), and you're cootie-people, so you can't! Nyah!"
Same for adopting children, same for all sorts of wonderful things...it all comes down the the Ick Factor. If only people would shut the hell up about things they find "icky" and do something productive about what they do not find icky, these fucking problems would go away, and I could watch more Family Guy.
It's a sad damn thing that everybody, everybody, everybody in political office must be a social whore and an accomplished liar, but it's also true, true, true. I'd be very surprised if modern voters picked Georgy, but pleasantly so.
I hope, for her sake, that the job does not turn her into one of these wretched f**ks that currently run the show.
Another desktop will be created to fill this gap that approximates the Windows desktop as closely as possible. It will have some happy name like Porthole or Glass or something, but by all its developers and anyone in the know, it will be called Orifice.
I've never heard of you before today. Why have I paid your salary, along with so many other Americans? What service do you provide, and if that service is better done by a computer for free (i.e. distribution by P2P and advertising through word of mouth) then why should I continue to pay you?
Love: Priceless Your Freedom: Priceless The Lousy Dowry You Got Which Doesn't Even Manage To Cover The Cost Of Raising Your Three Kids: $50,000 Clearly, there are HUGE benefits to marriage.
Even better -- I explained all this to my gf, and asked her if she'd want a diamond after the market fell through, when they were affordable. She said, "No, then it'll be pointless."
As if the fact that it breaks you financially makes it more valuable, somehow.
Admin: "Wow, that really sucked."
Employee: "Yeah."
Admin: "Wish we had something that could have prevented that."
Employee: "Linux systems weren't affected by it."
Admin: *pause* "Hey, how much does this Linux stuff cost?"
The rest of this conversation is left to the imagination of the reader.
Seriously, Trillian demonstrates some really poor coding quality.
Whereas all the Microsoft code you've ever used is of such high caliber, right?
Most code sucks. It's unfortunate, but that's the reality. If I have to pick between running 2-5 clients of bad code and 1 of bad code, the choice is simple.
No problem, just get yourself a Japanese person.
I refer you now to a slippery slope.
As for businesses becoming complacent, it happens. Worse is when they become fascists. (Gee, complacent or fascist, when the alternative is trust. What a choice.)