Wow, that precedent really doesn't bode well for Linux at this point! I never imagined some irrelevant old has-been company could come from nowhere and cause so much trouble with accusations that - at least so far - are ungrounded.
I think I agree with everything you said. The US really could have responded better to the Communist threat, or at least not done some of the bad things that were done. I don't think what the US did compares in any way to the millions of Soviets who were executed, but that's no excuse.
Also although I said Communism was the biggest threat ever against the US, I have to admit that the Axis of WWII was right up there, and in actuality caused a lot more US deaths. (Though WWII never put us at risk of annihilation at the mere push of a button like the Cold War.)
You're insane to lump communists in with witches. Communism was the biggest threat America ever faced. When an expansionistic empire says "we will bury you" and "your grandchildren will live under Communism," it's serious. (And if you think the US is expansionistic you need to remember who annexed all of Eastern Europe.) When a fraction of the democratic population is swayed to agreeing with them, it's more serious still. Terrorists kill people? They haven't killed 1/1000 of what Stalin accomplished.
You have been brainwashed by Hollywood propaganda from people offending at being labeled Communist even though many of them actually were.
McCarthy saved those Communists with his own overzealous and reprehensible behavior, but the Communist threat was very real, both militarily and politically.
Take the GDP of the United States and figure out how many people would be required to produce that with the technology of just 200 years ago... with plows pushed by mules and messages sent by pony express. I'll wager the required workforce is far more than twice! I'm surprised you mention banks, because they are staffed with a vanishingly small fraction of the workforce that used to be required to handle the same number of transactions... think armies of clerks and tellers writing everything into leger books and verifying them for accuracy and consistency.
I think the irony in your parent is that DRM is nothing but an IP protection scheme! Even if MS isn't litigous, this whole case is about MS' desire to lock people out of their own computers to protect intellectual property.
Yup, I think this is the first time I can think of legal *advantages* to using the most closed closed-source software.
To me it doesn't seem like SCO has much of a case, but SCO suing random linux-using companies would really look bad for linux, whether or not SCO wins.
You could make all the same false arguments about physical pennies, only perhaps moreso because they are made of metal and have to be minted.
The Web really could become a vital new part of the economy if we would simply set up a single system to manage some sort of e-cash suitable for micropayments. The govt. would simply "print" long random numbers each representing a penny, nickel, or dime. Then a centralized system would have to cancel each number when it was spent. The reason it can be done economically is because there is no human labor involved per transaction. A single admin could take care of enough systems to manage billions of transactions per year.
The analogy to establishing a currency isn't completely solid, but still meaningful. It's pointless the wait for competition to establish common means of transacting business, it has already failed to do so because no company can implement a universal system. For this to work it must be efficient, that means not blowing a million dollars hiring whoopie goldberg to advertise it.
Yeah, the thing that the movie companies might not like is a pure digital stream off their precious DVDs, this means that you could concievably rip the film to Divx or similar without there being any Analogue conversion anywhere along the line... pure digital makes for easier compression, cleaner image, better all round for the rippers...
Which for the record you can already do thanks to DeCSS and its kin. For instance mplayer can do it pretty easily, in fact to me the 3 pass encoding with mencoder looks awfully good IMHO.
No, their decline was slow because Word Perfect was the mighty, nearly undisputed leader in their market. The inflection point was truly the transition to the GUI.
There's nothing Word Perfect could have done to remain viable in the long run. For obvious reasons MS had access to the GUI months if not years before its competitors, and a guaranteed income stream (from DOS/Windows) to fund further development of Word.
Well, MS did make some effort to kill Quicken. MS was giving away MS Money *free* for a time. But unlike IE, they didn't pour resources into developing the product, it never overtook the established leader, and after a while they quit dumping it.
Why? I don't really know, but since this is slashdot I'll give it a shot:) For a while MS was angling to integrate itself deeply with US economic infrastructure, and make itself part of every transaction. People were speculating you wouldn't be able to buy or sell anything without an MS Passport. A Quicken-like client would have been the consumer's gateway to all this. My theory is that the financial industry heavies told MS to take a flying leap; that they were well aware how to make the world go round, and would be a bit harder to knock off than, say, Netscape. So killing Quicken was no longer terribly important.
Are we looking at the same webpage? It seems most of the user comments are about the dissapointing lack of integration between the car and the player. I doubt that will come across in the commercials.
As for generic music, well you can load the iPod with whatever you like. Probably you were just alluding to some more abstract objection, but I don't see it. Apple's online music offering (integrated with the iPod) seems more accepted than most to slashdotters. If it were just up to the RIAA I don't think there would be any mp3 players at all.
Re:Really really bad sound quality...
on
Pods Unite
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· Score: 1
Have you heard all the different systems available? It's not "late model" anymore, but my '98 Jetta GLX has a pretty decent factory sound system IMHO.
I dunno. I've used linux for years and never bought a "box of linux." And I'd go so far as to wager that most people have never bought a shrinkwrapped Windows either.
On the downside ClearCase is roughly as difficult to administer as Oracle. It is expensive in terms of dollars, server hardware, and network resources.
...and admins.
Which is not to say you're not adding value to your company. The "best" solution is a dedicated professional for each task. But that is only workable on big projects.
Did it ever occur to you that any tom, dick, or harry could hit you over the head with a baseball bat without warning as you walk down the street? There's nothing to stop it.
The other guy *always* strikes first. Always. I doubt a war was ever started without at least some pretext of self defense.
Iraq? They started it by invading an "ally," (Kuwait). Hostilities would never have resumed had the Iraqis abided by the terms of the 1991 armistice. And in the few years they fired on our planes in the no fly zone.
It's exactly like with squabbling kids - they always point the finger of blame at each other.
Slashdot Mirror
An ATM is a public terminal.
Wow, that precedent really doesn't bode well for Linux at this point! I never imagined some irrelevant old has-been company could come from nowhere and cause so much trouble with accusations that - at least so far - are ungrounded.
Also although I said Communism was the biggest threat ever against the US, I have to admit that the Axis of WWII was right up there, and in actuality caused a lot more US deaths. (Though WWII never put us at risk of annihilation at the mere push of a button like the Cold War.)
You have been brainwashed by Hollywood propaganda from people offending at being labeled Communist even though many of them actually were. McCarthy saved those Communists with his own overzealous and reprehensible behavior, but the Communist threat was very real, both militarily and politically.
Take the GDP of the United States and figure out how many people would be required to produce that with the technology of just 200 years ago... with plows pushed by mules and messages sent by pony express. I'll wager the required workforce is far more than twice! I'm surprised you mention banks, because they are staffed with a vanishingly small fraction of the workforce that used to be required to handle the same number of transactions... think armies of clerks and tellers writing everything into leger books and verifying them for accuracy and consistency.
Also much less deterrence to keep the Air Force from blowing the plane out of the sky.
I think the irony in your parent is that DRM is nothing but an IP protection scheme! Even if MS isn't litigous, this whole case is about MS' desire to lock people out of their own computers to protect intellectual property.
If that's Microsoft's only legal argument this should be over real quick.
No, greed IS the big bad agenda, as always. Don't say it's "just" greed... what more could it be?
To me it doesn't seem like SCO has much of a case, but SCO suing random linux-using companies would really look bad for linux, whether or not SCO wins.
Don't worry, I believe Half Life 2 is still slated for this year!
What if the marathon runner popped a sugar cube every few minutes throughout the race?
The Web really could become a vital new part of the economy if we would simply set up a single system to manage some sort of e-cash suitable for micropayments. The govt. would simply "print" long random numbers each representing a penny, nickel, or dime. Then a centralized system would have to cancel each number when it was spent. The reason it can be done economically is because there is no human labor involved per transaction. A single admin could take care of enough systems to manage billions of transactions per year.
The analogy to establishing a currency isn't completely solid, but still meaningful. It's pointless the wait for competition to establish common means of transacting business, it has already failed to do so because no company can implement a universal system. For this to work it must be efficient, that means not blowing a million dollars hiring whoopie goldberg to advertise it.
There's nothing Word Perfect could have done to remain viable in the long run. For obvious reasons MS had access to the GUI months if not years before its competitors, and a guaranteed income stream (from DOS/Windows) to fund further development of Word.
Why? I don't really know, but since this is slashdot I'll give it a shot :) For a while MS was angling to integrate itself deeply with US economic infrastructure, and make itself part of every transaction. People were speculating you wouldn't be able to buy or sell anything without an MS Passport. A Quicken-like client would have been the consumer's gateway to all this. My theory is that the financial industry heavies told MS to take a flying leap; that they were well aware how to make the world go round, and would be a bit harder to knock off than, say, Netscape. So killing Quicken was no longer terribly important.
I guess the authors have no say? (Who am I kidding)
As for generic music, well you can load the iPod with whatever you like. Probably you were just alluding to some more abstract objection, but I don't see it. Apple's online music offering (integrated with the iPod) seems more accepted than most to slashdotters. If it were just up to the RIAA I don't think there would be any mp3 players at all.
Have you heard all the different systems available? It's not "late model" anymore, but my '98 Jetta GLX has a pretty decent factory sound system IMHO.
I dunno. I've used linux for years and never bought a "box of linux." And I'd go so far as to wager that most people have never bought a shrinkwrapped Windows either.
Which is not to say you're not adding value to your company. The "best" solution is a dedicated professional for each task. But that is only workable on big projects.
Did it ever occur to you that any tom, dick, or harry could hit you over the head with a baseball bat without warning as you walk down the street? There's nothing to stop it.
They're already there, accessible via commodity hardware, with no usage fee. I don't understand your concern.
Iraq? They started it by invading an "ally," (Kuwait). Hostilities would never have resumed had the Iraqis abided by the terms of the 1991 armistice. And in the few years they fired on our planes in the no fly zone.
It's exactly like with squabbling kids - they always point the finger of blame at each other.