Our Information Technology department, upon receiving this letter, contacted your office twice by phone (leaving messages for Jonathon Whitehead) and three times by e-mail in an effort to update our reference materials and procedures with you.
Your organization responded to none of these messages.
That's because everyone in the RIAA was too busy either pushing lawsuits or restoring backup copies of their webpage.
On the plus side, maybe for once LucasArts will actually be allowed to use voices/sound clips from the movies rather than the half-ass sound effects they have now.
Clerk: Sir, how would you like to pay for this?
Customer: Here, use my StorCard.
Clerk: Ok, let me just pop it into the reader here....
Clerk: Um, Sir, this card just contains porn.
Customer: Uh, uh, how did that get on there!?
Although the desktop version of Longhorn is still expected within this time frame, a server version is not expected until 2005 or 2006, the company said.
But the spokesperson then added, "However, beta copies will be available for download by 2003 through our usual leaks."
I remember we ordered quite a large batch of 3 platter western digital drives and around 75% of them were bad. The majority of them had an incredible amount of bad sectors. And the ones that worked at first, died soon after. But I believe Western Digital knew of the problem and corrected it quickly and replaced all of our defective drives.
Let's be honest, no matter how hard you try, you will never adhere to all the software licenses in a windows environment. The larger the network, the harder it becomes. In every company I have worked for, it was always one of those ongoing problems...we need to be legal with our licenses. However every time a user needed a piece of software it was just installed and then hopefully ordered later.
Some companies have decent systems in place so that you can purchase the liceses and install from a intranet server, but you still have to worry about all the software the users bring in to install on their systems. So it just never ends.
Everyone knows this, so does Microsoft. Hell, even M$ has PCs in their company will illegal software on it. But every now and then they have to flex their muscles to show the power and control they have over their users. So they go after high profile cases and hope that this serves as a warning and reminder to others.
"You are paying them for the hours spent getting good at their craft so that they can make music you enjoy. And you are paying them for the hours spent recording the song in a fashion that is accessible to you."
How is this any different than a programmer? They work hard to produce software, they don't just make one version, but usually many versions and fix bugs to provide a better program.
"However, what if there is a reason you can't perform, say a broken leg? Now you've got no income (since recording isn't a valid source) and you can't play live 'cause you have to heal your body. Is that just too bad for the artist?"
Last I checked, there were no guarantees in life. If they are worried about broke legs, buy health insurance.
"Tape off the radio all you want, it's still not the same as "trading" full, near CD-quality songs over P2P and you know it."
This is still illegal. And it doesn't matter how crappy the recording is, it is still considered illegal.
Actually, I have heard this too. It's the cheap-man's patent. IANAL, and I certainly don't know if this would even hold water, but here is the idea. You put all patent documents, letters, and diagrams, etc into an envelope. Then mail it to yourself certified with the USPS (make sure it is certified mail). Then don't open it. This will not patent the idea for you, but apparently it will hold the idea for you and prevent someone else from stealing it until you are able to get the money together to patent it yourself. If someone does come up with the idea and tries to patent the idea, you just take them court with the sealed and dated documents (by the US government of course) saying that this idea was already yours. I've never tried it or even seen anyone do this, but I would be interested in knowing if it actually works.
However from a business point of view, it's not effective to keep patching very old code for something that is fixed (or will be) in a newer version of code. Also, they want to give users a reason to get off their old software and have them pay more money to upgrade.
Professional graphic artists would buy it. Most of their work is done in very high dpi (600+) since you want it to scale and look nice when sending to the printer. Not to mention it would be nice to get a higher resolution rather than having to only see part of the image on your screen. It's definitely not designed for gaming in mind, however I'm sure there are a few people with money to burn and nothing else to do than try to run their games in 3840x2400.
I have a hard enough time keeping the information on my webpage up to date, let alone keeping the code up to specs.
But seriously, to the average user, does it really matter? Most users don't know how the source code was generated or how it was written as long as the pretty little pictures display on their screen in a timely manner. If it gets you the desired results, people ignore the fact that it is less efficient than other means. If it weren't for half-ass workmanship and duct tape, many things wouldn't get done.
"It's impossible to solve the problem completely," Valentine said. "As we solve these problems there are hackers who are going to come up with new ones. There's no end to this."
I thought it was Microsoft's policy to keep their mouth shut when it comes to lack of security in their OS. It just seems that after spending all sorts of money into advertising and marketing Win2k/XP as very secure platforms, M$ would rather not have a SVP in development blow it all away. I wonder how long he will last talking openly about these problems.
"Aw, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. Forty percent of all people know that." -Homer
Still I believe those numbers are a little higher than that. Maybe not for full production use, but everywhere I look I see a lot of people switching over to linux to provide a low cost alternative to M$.
I don't think I would have one as a server. Someone could walk off with it very easily.
Have you seen the server? I know it was just sitting here on my desk a minute ago. You know, it's 1/4 the size of a shoebox and it contains all our confidential company data...
..if the RIAA's ISP blocked these attacks on their side from ever leaving their network. I'm sure they have their own abuse policy. Now that would be hilarious.
Many complaints criticized the agency for providing the fruits of research to everyone, not just U.S. companies, and thus hurting American business.
Translation...Complaints from Microsoft criticized the agency for providing the fruits of research to everyone, not just Microsoft, and thus hurting Microsoft's control over the world.
Thus...Bill slaps the NSA and says "Don't do that!", and the government quickly complies.
Slashdot Mirror
Your organization responded to none of these messages.
That's because everyone in the RIAA was too busy either pushing lawsuits or restoring backup copies of their webpage.
Customer: Here, use my StorCard.
Clerk: Ok, let me just pop it into the reader here....
Clerk: Um, Sir, this card just contains porn.
Customer: Uh, uh, how did that get on there!?
But the spokesperson then added, "However, beta copies will be available for download by 2003 through our usual leaks."
Some companies have decent systems in place so that you can purchase the liceses and install from a intranet server, but you still have to worry about all the software the users bring in to install on their systems. So it just never ends.
Everyone knows this, so does Microsoft. Hell, even M$ has PCs in their company will illegal software on it. But every now and then they have to flex their muscles to show the power and control they have over their users. So they go after high profile cases and hope that this serves as a warning and reminder to others.
How is this any different than a programmer? They work hard to produce software, they don't just make one version, but usually many versions and fix bugs to provide a better program.
"However, what if there is a reason you can't perform, say a broken leg? Now you've got no income (since recording isn't a valid source) and you can't play live 'cause you have to heal your body. Is that just too bad for the artist?"
Last I checked, there were no guarantees in life. If they are worried about broke legs, buy health insurance.
"Tape off the radio all you want, it's still not the same as "trading" full, near CD-quality songs over P2P and you know it."
This is still illegal. And it doesn't matter how crappy the recording is, it is still considered illegal.
Cup holders? I should be so lucky. I'm still trying to prevent some of my users from using them as foot rests.
But seriously, to the average user, does it really matter? Most users don't know how the source code was generated or how it was written as long as the pretty little pictures display on their screen in a timely manner. If it gets you the desired results, people ignore the fact that it is less efficient than other means. If it weren't for half-ass workmanship and duct tape, many things wouldn't get done.
I thought it was Microsoft's policy to keep their mouth shut when it comes to lack of security in their OS. It just seems that after spending all sorts of money into advertising and marketing Win2k/XP as very secure platforms, M$ would rather not have a SVP in development blow it all away. I wonder how long he will last talking openly about these problems.
Still I believe those numbers are a little higher than that. Maybe not for full production use, but everywhere I look I see a lot of people switching over to linux to provide a low cost alternative to M$.
Have you seen the server? I know it was just sitting here on my desk a minute ago. You know, it's 1/4 the size of a shoebox and it contains all our confidential company data...
I'm getting sick of all these "free to use" technologies changing their mind after it has been widely accepted as a standard. gif...jpeg....mp3...
Translation...Complaints from Microsoft criticized the agency for providing the fruits of research to everyone, not just Microsoft, and thus hurting Microsoft's control over the world.
Thus...Bill slaps the NSA and says "Don't do that!", and the government quickly complies.