"Paying over and over again for the same thing..."
Ummmm... like paying to watch reruns on cable? Paying Blockbuster to rent a movie you already saw in the theater? Renting it yet again?
Paying to go to the gym and run the same track and lift the same weights? Swim the same pool?
Paying to keep the same lights on? House the same temp? Get the same water?
Making the same car and insurance payment each month?
Sorry, but I think even Einstein would agree his quote fails to apply here. People pay again and again for the same things all the time. And if continually updated and upgraded, then it's not the same thing, is it?
What are you talking about? People pay $12.95/mo just to get TV listings from Tivo. If I could pay $12.95/mo, say, for Office/XP, and not have to shell out $500 up front, many might consider it to be a good deal.
"...gives absolutely no incentive for Microsoft to ever improve the products..."
Have to disagree on this one too. People will pay for a subscription as long as they feel they're getting value from it. Let the value begin to disapear, and so will the subscribers. Want to keep your revenue stream? Then you have to keep 'em relatively happy.
I think you also overlook the fact that, should MS NOT update and upgrade their products, and as such piss off their client base, they then leave the door wide open for a competitor to come in and entice 'em away with a BBD.
Well, $120/head might be a little steep, considering the discounts available for bulk/corporate licensing. But then again, if that included all hot fixes, bug fixes, feature additions, and upgrades, and if it meant that I didn't have to make a full boat $500/head outlay for XP and Office up front...
"Your [sic] forgetting that people have already seen this coming..."
Apparently not everyone has seen this coming, or the parent wouldn't be listing the number of people on the planet as a major problem. I simply was pointing out to the contrary that rates have been declining, ironically, every year since "The Population Bomb" was written in 1968.
In fact, according to Ehrlich, the majority of the people on the planet should be dead from overpopulation and starvation by now...
Yes, there are rules, and no, we don't understand all of them yet. But we're trying. ID, however, would have us stop trying, because the answer is that something just snapped it's fingers and hey presto! Let there be light!
Besides, ID doesn't explain anything. If, as posited, there's a designer, then what's he like? And who designed him? And who designed the designer's designer?
See? It's like cotton candy. All air and no substance.
You should pick another boogeyman. Birth rates are declining worldwide. Over a third of all countries now have birth rates below replacement levels. Places like Japan, Italy, Germany, and Spain are expected to have population levels 30% lower than they are now by 2050.
The big factor is cities. Over 50% of the world's population now lives in a city. On a farm, more kids meant more helping hands. In a city those helping hands aren't needed, and in fact pull down prosperity levels. As such, people choose not to have them.
As China and India become more prosperous, they too will join the club.
Sorry, don't see it as any more illegal than a sting operation "faciliates" theft. They didn't infect the machine. They didn't provide it with the lists. They didn't create and send the original spam.
And if they can start taking out the spammers because of it, then I'm all for it.
If nothing else, maybe some people will start thinking twice about hacking machines for profit. Much as you may never know if the torrent you're connecting to isn't logging your actions...
"Yeah, but it would have been much more difficult for these things to have happened if Microsoft defaulted to shipping a locked down, secure operating system distro..."
Nothing like totally missing the point. It's easy to say now that we'd have been much better off with things locked down. However, much like early internet protocols, early versions of Windows and NT were design to facilitate networking and interoperability. We (the public) wanted easy file and printer sharing and email and all those other features.
Back then, not allowing for a stack overflow was merely poor coding style, that might, at worst, cause an occasional bug, and every open port wasn't a potential security hole waiting to be exploited.
The internet changed the rules of the game, and, in many ways, they've been playing catch-up ever since.
Idiots. No, they didn't, as the law isn't written that way. And you'd better hope it's not, otherwise YOU'RE the one getting sued the next time your kid downloads and installs an infected "free" game, and you're the one unknowingly sending 18 million emails.
This is nothing more than a dammed-if-you-do and dammed-if-you-don't hatchet job. They're screwed if they fail to do a complete and time consuming regression test across every version and potential user setup (Isn't that the patch that fails if the user changed the window's folder permissions?)
And on the flip side, they're also vilified if they fail to deliver "fast" and "timely" patches to problems.
And of course, somehow we're supposed to have our cake, and eat it too...
I have to question the validity of those numbers as well. Does that apply to "new" computers? Try buying a Windows box these days that doesn't have Norton or MacAfee pre-installed.
"...but it takes years for Microsoft to realize there was a problem and do something about it."
Or we could, I suppose, get mad at the people who developed SMTP, a system so insecure in and as of itself that anyone can pretend to be anyone else and get away with it.
Of course, that was done in a kinder, gentler time when "spam" was unknown, so I guess they can be forgiven. Then again, much of the Windows code was created long before the terms "DoS" or "buffer overflow attack" came into existence.
Naw. Much easier to hate MS. Somehow, they should have known better...
Yes, but the flip side applies. Did the director choose to remove the "Witch is dead" song in the DVD version of OZ? (I think not, since Victor Fleming died in '49.) As such, who are we to mess with his work?
And where should we stop? Should we reprint and remove or rewrite politically uncorrect sequences and dialog from Anne Frank, Huck Finn, and Uncle Tom's cabin? I think not. Such revisionism hides whatever insights we might gain into the attitudes and social mores and culture of the time.
And in the case of, say, SW (ANH), replacing scenes and effects MAY make the movie look better, but it's not as we remembered it, and we lose all appreciation of the techniques and the cinematic "state of the art" available at the time. I still cringe every time I see the new, improved Death Star "ring" explosion.
"Take antibiotics, for example. They were supposed to be able to cure so many things... but the viruses and bacteria learn to get around them."
I'd perhaps pay more attention to your concerns if you appeared to know more about the subject. An antibiotic is a drug that kills or slows the growth of bacteria. It has no effect on viral agents.
As such, a virus doesn't "learn" to get around them.
And THAT being the case, your comments strike me as little more than the semi-modern version of that hoary cry, "There are things man was never meant to know."
Not to mention opportunity costs inccured while you're dinking around, development costs, and maintenance costs.
While solutions from some of the big boys may seem expensive, it's entirely possible that's because you haven't figured out all of the costs involved in doing it "cheap"...
"Once that's the case, the **AA will be well and totally screwed."
No, the Freenet will be well and totally screwed. Move all piracy activities onto it, and any and all participants will be shut down by law, most likely by simply shutting off ISP access for a period of time.
It's not enough that pirates have forced those of use who don't steal content to contend with DRM. Now you want to screw up yet another good thing?
Oh come on, he has a point. Too many developers, when faced with designing an "easy to use" program, start out by designing big 200x200 pixel kindergarten-style icons and step one, two, three "wizards".
Both may help the first time you do something, and maybe the second, but eventually you get the idea, and just want the stupid interface to get out of the way so you can get the job done.
I'm looking forward to seeing how the contextual toolbars in Office 12 work. Present the options you need for the tool you're using at the time.
You're being very reasonable here, but I think you need to go back to the article as there's a small detail lurking there that you seem to have missed. We're talking about boxes three times the weight (220 pounds) of an equivalent tank of gas. As such, I don't see a gas station attendent or driver casually unloading a standard delivery truck full of "gas".
From TFA, "Refuelling the car based on this technology will also be remarkably simple. The vehicle will contain a mechanism for rolling the metal wire into a coil during the process of fuelling and the spent metal oxide, which was produced in the previous phase, will be collected from the car by vacuum suction."
So, functionally, we need to load a "pump" with several tons of metal wire, and then suck the waste back out again for disposal.
That being the case, I suspect the infrastructure requirements in terms of loading, transportation, unloading, fueling, and recovery might be a bit more involved than you, or the author or the article, make them out to be.
Not to mention that, according to TFA, each "coil" lasts about as long as a normal tank of gas. As such, I still have to build an entire refining, distribution, refueling, and recycling network from scratch. In which case the summary is wrong, "The system solves all of the obstacles associated with the manufacturing, transporting and storing of hydrogen to be used in cars."
Sounds like there's still an obstacle or three in the way...
"What about the people working 2 or 3 jobs just to make ends meet?"
How did they get into that position? What decisions were made? What chances did they have... and not take?
Did they study for a scholarship in school... or cut classes? Did they visit the library in the evenings... or the mall? Hang with their friends or their homework?
Okay, so today they may be stocking at, say, Home Depot. Are they showing up and doing the least they can do because it's a shitty job and they'd rather be anywhere else... or are they doing their best and enrolling in the management program?
Visit a country like Haiti some time. There are some who sit in front of their shacks... and there are others who scramble for any and every opportunity.
Where do bad breaks end... and personal responsibility begin?
"All basically true if the economy weren't growing. Which, you know, it is."
At what rate? And are all are parts of the economy growing at the same rate? What factors may be compensating for or absorbing those increases (gas prices, insurance rates, health care, taxes)? Which sectors are instead not growing, but declining?
And all of which ignores things at the individual level. Just how valuable are you? How unique? How many people could walk in the door today and do your job?
Slashdot Mirror
Ummmm... like paying to watch reruns on cable? Paying Blockbuster to rent a movie you already saw in the theater? Renting it yet again?
Paying to go to the gym and run the same track and lift the same weights? Swim the same pool?
Paying to keep the same lights on? House the same temp? Get the same water?
Making the same car and insurance payment each month?
Sorry, but I think even Einstein would agree his quote fails to apply here. People pay again and again for the same things all the time. And if continually updated and upgraded, then it's not the same thing, is it?
What are you talking about? People pay $12.95/mo just to get TV listings from Tivo. If I could pay $12.95/mo, say, for Office/XP, and not have to shell out $500 up front, many might consider it to be a good deal.
"...gives absolutely no incentive for Microsoft to ever improve the products..."
Have to disagree on this one too. People will pay for a subscription as long as they feel they're getting value from it. Let the value begin to disapear, and so will the subscribers. Want to keep your revenue stream? Then you have to keep 'em relatively happy.
I think you also overlook the fact that, should MS NOT update and upgrade their products, and as such piss off their client base, they then leave the door wide open for a competitor to come in and entice 'em away with a BBD.
Apparently not everyone has seen this coming, or the parent wouldn't be listing the number of people on the planet as a major problem. I simply was pointing out to the contrary that rates have been declining, ironically, every year since "The Population Bomb" was written in 1968.
In fact, according to Ehrlich, the majority of the people on the planet should be dead from overpopulation and starvation by now...
Besides, ID doesn't explain anything. If, as posited, there's a designer, then what's he like? And who designed him? And who designed the designer's designer?
See? It's like cotton candy. All air and no substance.
His name, however, is Zul.
You should pick another boogeyman. Birth rates are declining worldwide. Over a third of all countries now have birth rates below replacement levels. Places like Japan, Italy, Germany, and Spain are expected to have population levels 30% lower than they are now by 2050.
The big factor is cities. Over 50% of the world's population now lives in a city. On a farm, more kids meant more helping hands. In a city those helping hands aren't needed, and in fact pull down prosperity levels. As such, people choose not to have them.
As China and India become more prosperous, they too will join the club.
In short, the "Population Bomb" was a dud.
And if they can start taking out the spammers because of it, then I'm all for it.
If nothing else, maybe some people will start thinking twice about hacking machines for profit. Much as you may never know if the torrent you're connecting to isn't logging your actions...
Nothing like totally missing the point. It's easy to say now that we'd have been much better off with things locked down. However, much like early internet protocols, early versions of Windows and NT were design to facilitate networking and interoperability. We (the public) wanted easy file and printer sharing and email and all those other features.
Back then, not allowing for a stack overflow was merely poor coding style, that might, at worst, cause an occasional bug, and every open port wasn't a potential security hole waiting to be exploited.
The internet changed the rules of the game, and, in many ways, they've been playing catch-up ever since.
Idiots. No, they didn't, as the law isn't written that way. And you'd better hope it's not, otherwise YOU'RE the one getting sued the next time your kid downloads and installs an infected "free" game, and you're the one unknowingly sending 18 million emails.
And on the flip side, they're also vilified if they fail to deliver "fast" and "timely" patches to problems.
And of course, somehow we're supposed to have our cake, and eat it too...
I have to question the validity of those numbers as well. Does that apply to "new" computers? Try buying a Windows box these days that doesn't have Norton or MacAfee pre-installed.
Or we could, I suppose, get mad at the people who developed SMTP, a system so insecure in and as of itself that anyone can pretend to be anyone else and get away with it.
Of course, that was done in a kinder, gentler time when "spam" was unknown, so I guess they can be forgiven. Then again, much of the Windows code was created long before the terms "DoS" or "buffer overflow attack" came into existence.
Naw. Much easier to hate MS. Somehow, they should have known better...
Yes, but the theatrical release WAS available, and the extended version was marketed as such, and not as the original.
And where should we stop? Should we reprint and remove or rewrite politically uncorrect sequences and dialog from Anne Frank, Huck Finn, and Uncle Tom's cabin? I think not. Such revisionism hides whatever insights we might gain into the attitudes and social mores and culture of the time.
And in the case of, say, SW (ANH), replacing scenes and effects MAY make the movie look better, but it's not as we remembered it, and we lose all appreciation of the techniques and the cinematic "state of the art" available at the time. I still cringe every time I see the new, improved Death Star "ring" explosion.
Having been in five different shops that used MFC to create Windows-based applications, I'd have to call that statement BS.
Well I guess it does, now that you've gone and ruined it for everybody...
I'd perhaps pay more attention to your concerns if you appeared to know more about the subject. An antibiotic is a drug that kills or slows the growth of bacteria. It has no effect on viral agents.
As such, a virus doesn't "learn" to get around them.
And THAT being the case, your comments strike me as little more than the semi-modern version of that hoary cry, "There are things man was never meant to know."
While solutions from some of the big boys may seem expensive, it's entirely possible that's because you haven't figured out all of the costs involved in doing it "cheap"...
No, the Freenet will be well and totally screwed. Move all piracy activities onto it, and any and all participants will be shut down by law, most likely by simply shutting off ISP access for a period of time.
It's not enough that pirates have forced those of use who don't steal content to contend with DRM. Now you want to screw up yet another good thing?
Both may help the first time you do something, and maybe the second, but eventually you get the idea, and just want the stupid interface to get out of the way so you can get the job done.
I'm looking forward to seeing how the contextual toolbars in Office 12 work. Present the options you need for the tool you're using at the time.
From TFA, "Refuelling the car based on this technology will also be remarkably simple. The vehicle will contain a mechanism for rolling the metal wire into a coil during the process of fuelling and the spent metal oxide, which was produced in the previous phase, will be collected from the car by vacuum suction."
So, functionally, we need to load a "pump" with several tons of metal wire, and then suck the waste back out again for disposal.
That being the case, I suspect the infrastructure requirements in terms of loading, transportation, unloading, fueling, and recovery might be a bit more involved than you, or the author or the article, make them out to be.
"Remarkably simple," indeed.
Sounds like there's still an obstacle or three in the way...
How did they get into that position? What decisions were made? What chances did they have... and not take?
Did they study for a scholarship in school... or cut classes? Did they visit the library in the evenings... or the mall? Hang with their friends or their homework?
Okay, so today they may be stocking at, say, Home Depot. Are they showing up and doing the least they can do because it's a shitty job and they'd rather be anywhere else... or are they doing their best and enrolling in the management program?
Visit a country like Haiti some time. There are some who sit in front of their shacks... and there are others who scramble for any and every opportunity.
Where do bad breaks end... and personal responsibility begin?
At what rate? And are all are parts of the economy growing at the same rate? What factors may be compensating for or absorbing those increases (gas prices, insurance rates, health care, taxes)? Which sectors are instead not growing, but declining?
And all of which ignores things at the individual level. Just how valuable are you? How unique? How many people could walk in the door today and do your job?