Hmm... Well, I've got a couple of servers running Linux. Suppose I wanted (don't ask me why) to switch to Windows 200x - what are the chances of getting Microsoft to provide Windows for my Sun E450? Not that I really want to switch, of course, but I'm running Linux on it and SCO seem to want me to run Windows instead...
There are regulations that govern how big the sign is, how bright it is, how blinkie it is, and even the words that are written on it are regulated.
Are the locations regulated too? Just recently a billboard has been put up in a place I'd consider dangerous. It's at the side of the road, just where I get on the highway on the way to work - literally level with the end of the ramp. Most of the board is a "Coming Soon!" sign for a hotel or golf course, or something, but down at the bottom, about eye-level when driving, is one of those blinky, scrolling displays.
I go past it at night, and the blinky part is quite bright and rather distracting. First time I saw it I ran off the end of the ramp onto the hard shoulder. Fortunately there wasn't another car in front of me...
Knowing how twisty lawyers can be, this is probably exactly how Microsoft, IBM and others will get around the patent. The Web is very specifically HTTP components. If the patent specified TCP/IP, it would be more difficult to avoid.
All the big players need to do is to provide a download-and-install program that uses their own custom, trade-secret protocol to pull files from their home base.
Many years ago I got a bunch of piezo-electric transducers for around 15 cents each. Just a brass disk with a slice of crystal on one side. The open face of the crystal is silver-plated. You carefully solder a fine wire to the centre of the silver and to the edge of the brass. It functions pretty well as a pickup, and moderately well as a speaker.
To make a speaker out of one (or more), just fix them securely to any flat surface. The bigger and flatter the surface, the better, and better yet would be to have some kind of sounding box behind it.
The pickup function works incredibly well - with one plugged into a normal guitar amp, you can shout at it as loud as you like and it barely registers, but hold it against your throat and speak normally and you get really good quality with absolutely no background noise... Excellent for phones, microphones, etc.
It kinda sounds like "we won't tax electronic commerce" to me.
It may sound like that to you and me, but what really counts is how it sounds to the IRS lawyer who wants to prosecute you for not paying appropriate taxes.
So, do they actually listen to the content, or are they just seeing names that might match their artists and launching a suit?
Suppose I host a site on which I place an MP3 called "Britney's Latest Hit.mp3". Should I expect to get a take-down notice and a lawsuit? Or do you think they'd actually download the MP3 and listen to my 4-year-old daughter Britney banging on 4 saucepans and a plate with a wooden spoon?
Take it a step further - turn yourself in for living next door to Fred-the-hitman. You're obviously "linked" to him by virtue of living in the same building (apartment block) or on the same street (separate houses). If enough people did that, maybe the police/courts would get the message that some level of linking is ridiculous.
Note: You might want to make sure the police/judge have some sense of humour before trying it.
Oh wow, there's a wild idea... And if the box you just took out includes your ignition timing computer, you're completely fucked. Totally smooth, airhead.
If it counts as testifying against yourself, then so would the skidmarks on the ground from braking excessively, or the crumpled metal of the bodywork from the impact. Airbags deployed? Same thing.
In fact, it wouldn't take a terribly clever lawyer to twist your statement into meaning that actual witnesses couldn't testify either. The Event Data Recorder is just another witness, after all.
Because the memory of the black box is limited, it only retains this information for a few seconds. After a collision, the black box contains a record of what was happening in the last seconds before the impact.
So it's a circular buffer. Suppose during a scheduled service the mechanic "upgrades" the black box according to manufacturers spec, not realizing that he's installing extra memory for the circular buffer...
Are you saying that Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly couldn't order Microsoft to cease (or suspend) operations for willfull violation of the judgement?
I'm ignoring for a moment the flurry of appeals and motions-to-dismiss that would follow such an order. I'm interested in finding out if the Judge could actually make such an order. If a judge can't exercise the ultimate sanction and shut them down, why would anyone bother submitting to the courts anyway? If the Judge fines Microsoft, say, $1M-per-day of continued violations, what options does she have if they tell her to cram it up her ass? Could she send in the Marshals (or whomever) to clear the buildings at Redmond and chain the doors shut?
I'm also ignoring for the moment the probable "adjustment" of the global economy if Microsoft were to disappear overnight... Obviously the software wouldn't just stop working, but there'd surely be panic on Wall Street if Microsoft stock was suddenly worthless.
Would you like it if the govt. started dictating terms for Linux and rewriting the GPL? What if the govt. said you can't bundle Mozilla with your distribution?
The difference here is that Linux (any distro) doesn't also make Mozilla. Microsoft is enforcing use of Internet Explorer by, at least in some cases, ignoring the user's choice of a different browser. Their web-page building applications produce code that "works best with IE", thereby making other browsers look like crap, in part by screwing with the standard. Their document formats change with every release, making it necessary for everyone to upgrade Office to maintain interoperability.
Linux, on the other hand, is just the kernel. The distros put together collections of software from hundreds of different sources, most of which have alternatives. Sure, there are clear favourites in the common applications, but you're not forced to use them. Shoot, you even have a choice of distro! RedHat, Suse, Gentoo or about 2 dozen others. You can pick one that fits your usage.
And no, the various different Windows releases don't count as distros. Microsoft is end-of-lifing most of them so that companies that rely on them have to upgrade to the latest version. Which by total coincidence comes with a different licensing deal, forcing the consumer to either lock-in on several years worth of upgrades, or pay a big fat fee next time around, when the document formats have mutated yet again...
1) Suppose a woodworking company bought one of these tools? Would it be OK of any employee of the company to use it? 2) As for "this product may break without warning, and we don't care" - isn't that exactly what most software manufacturers say? That their products are not guaranteed to perform the tasks for which they were purchased?
That article about Disney losing the copyright to Mickey Mouse is very interesting. Unless there are some other cases that alter the law differently, I'd agree with the author - Disney certainly appears to have lost the copyright to Mickey Mouse.
On the other hand, I'd hate to be in court facing Disney's platoon of lawyers in a discussion about infringement...
More to the point, print out the emails and memos and attach them to letters to your Senator and Congressman. Try to make them understand that the next election could be bought by pretty much anybody with enough cash on hand to influence the makers of the machines. Point out that that doesn't just mean Bill Gates or Warren Buffett could buy the next Presidency for their own stooge, it also means that the next President could be picked by Saudi Arabia...
For that matter, the next President could be picked by Osama Bin Laden, because it's not just money that influences people. People have been known to cave in to sufficiently credible threats against their families.
Aren't votes "sold" in the normal course of campaigning? The candidate says, "Vote for me and I'll give you this", where this is whatever flavour-of-the-month will get the most votes. How often are the successful candidates actually held to their election promises? All too often there's some convenient reason for not following through.
How about writing to every candidate in your area and telling him/her that you'll vote for their opponent if voting machines are used that don't include a paper trail that: 1) gives the voter a receipt to validate his choices; and 2) prints/punches a card in case of a recount.
Would that get enough all-party support to alter the machines? I don't know. Could be fun trying though. And don't worry about the inherent dishonesty of saying you'll vote for someone you have no intention of voting for. That's the kind of thing politicians do all the time. After all, one person representing thousands of voters would be extremely lucky if they all wanted the exact same thing.
You want to be a politician, you give up your privacy. You want to be a lobbyist? You give up your privacy. Completely. For as long as you "choose" to serve.
An excellent plan. Unfortunately it's doomed to failure, because the people it would affect are the ones that would have to vote it in.
Think about it. Can you name anyone that ever gave up power voluntarily? That wasn't either voted out of office or resigned after being publically disgraced for abusing their power?
If Mr. CEO of Evil Corp, Inc. were to take a bullet in the head following the latest introduction of an evil bill in the senate by the senator his company bought out, there may be less of that in the future.
The problem with that approach is that Mr Evil CEO's bodyguards are likely to: 1)be ex-military/mercenary; and 2) shoot first. Mr Evil CEO and his associates will win because, typically, they are not bothered by morals or consciences.
On the other hand, if 100,000 citizens were to exercise their right to bear arms and all showed up at their State Capitol to present a petition to the Governor, there's a reasonable chance they'd be taken seriously. Or at least, seriously enough for the Governor to call out the National Guard. What happens after that would depend on the mood of the crowd and on how many of them are Guardsman...
Actually, the Maginot Line wasn't quite the blunder you imply it to be. According to this article, the Line was never taken by force. When France was invaded in WW2, the German forces had to go around the ends of the Line, after which the line surrendered.
What "business" would Google be doing in France? Do they have a French office, or servers in France? If not, France can't touch them. Unlike Yahoo not so long ago - Yahoo actually maintains an office over there, so can be sanctioned against.
Is it that Google takes ads from French companies? Shouldn't take too long for those companies to squeal to their government when Google quits taking their ads...
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Idiots...
I go past it at night, and the blinky part is quite bright and rather distracting. First time I saw it I ran off the end of the ramp onto the hard shoulder. Fortunately there wasn't another car in front of me...
Yeah,that would have been really smart - the Welsh blowing up bits of Scotland...
All the big players need to do is to provide a download-and-install program that uses their own custom, trade-secret protocol to pull files from their home base.
To make a speaker out of one (or more), just fix them securely to any flat surface. The bigger and flatter the surface, the better, and better yet would be to have some kind of sounding box behind it.
The pickup function works incredibly well - with one plugged into a normal guitar amp, you can shout at it as loud as you like and it barely registers, but hold it against your throat and speak normally and you get really good quality with absolutely no background noise... Excellent for phones, microphones, etc.
Suppose I host a site on which I place an MP3 called "Britney's Latest Hit.mp3". Should I expect to get a take-down notice and a lawsuit? Or do you think they'd actually download the MP3 and listen to my 4-year-old daughter Britney banging on 4 saucepans and a plate with a wooden spoon?
Note: You might want to make sure the police/judge have some sense of humour before trying it.
Oh wow, there's a wild idea... And if the box you just took out includes your ignition timing computer, you're completely fucked. Totally smooth, airhead.
In fact, it wouldn't take a terribly clever lawyer to twist your statement into meaning that actual witnesses couldn't testify either. The Event Data Recorder is just another witness, after all.
I'm ignoring for a moment the flurry of appeals and motions-to-dismiss that would follow such an order. I'm interested in finding out if the Judge could actually make such an order. If a judge can't exercise the ultimate sanction and shut them down, why would anyone bother submitting to the courts anyway? If the Judge fines Microsoft, say, $1M-per-day of continued violations, what options does she have if they tell her to cram it up her ass? Could she send in the Marshals (or whomever) to clear the buildings at Redmond and chain the doors shut?
I'm also ignoring for the moment the probable "adjustment" of the global economy if Microsoft were to disappear overnight... Obviously the software wouldn't just stop working, but there'd surely be panic on Wall Street if Microsoft stock was suddenly worthless.
Linux, on the other hand, is just the kernel. The distros put together collections of software from hundreds of different sources, most of which have alternatives. Sure, there are clear favourites in the common applications, but you're not forced to use them. Shoot, you even have a choice of distro! RedHat, Suse, Gentoo or about 2 dozen others. You can pick one that fits your usage.
And no, the various different Windows releases don't count as distros. Microsoft is end-of-lifing most of them so that companies that rely on them have to upgrade to the latest version. Which by total coincidence comes with a different licensing deal, forcing the consumer to either lock-in on several years worth of upgrades, or pay a big fat fee next time around, when the document formats have mutated yet again...
1) Suppose a woodworking company bought one of these tools? Would it be OK of any employee of the company to use it?
2) As for "this product may break without warning, and we don't care" - isn't that exactly what most software manufacturers say? That their products are not guaranteed to perform the tasks for which they were purchased?
On the other hand, I'd hate to be in court facing Disney's platoon of lawyers in a discussion about infringement...
For that matter, the next President could be picked by Osama Bin Laden, because it's not just money that influences people. People have been known to cave in to sufficiently credible threats against their families.
Aren't votes "sold" in the normal course of campaigning? The candidate says, "Vote for me and I'll give you this", where this is whatever flavour-of-the-month will get the most votes. How often are the successful candidates actually held to their election promises? All too often there's some convenient reason for not following through.
Would that get enough all-party support to alter the machines? I don't know. Could be fun trying though. And don't worry about the inherent dishonesty of saying you'll vote for someone you have no intention of voting for. That's the kind of thing politicians do all the time. After all, one person representing thousands of voters would be extremely lucky if they all wanted the exact same thing.
Think about it. Can you name anyone that ever gave up power voluntarily? That wasn't either voted out of office or resigned after being publically disgraced for abusing their power?
On the other hand, if 100,000 citizens were to exercise their right to bear arms and all showed up at their State Capitol to present a petition to the Governor, there's a reasonable chance they'd be taken seriously. Or at least, seriously enough for the Governor to call out the National Guard. What happens after that would depend on the mood of the crowd and on how many of them are Guardsman...
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense - the Japs bomb Pearl Harbour, so the Americans retaliate by invading France...
Actually, the Maginot Line wasn't quite the blunder you imply it to be. According to this article, the Line was never taken by force. When France was invaded in WW2, the German forces had to go around the ends of the Line, after which the line surrendered.
Is it that Google takes ads from French companies? Shouldn't take too long for those companies to squeal to their government when Google quits taking their ads...