I mean, where is the difference? The click-thrugh and shrinkwrap-licenses are totaly onesided, and normally contain some clause stating that you already agreed by opening whatever package to be able to read them. Wy not send letters around with a wording like "By opening this letter you agreed to..." whatever. Also note, that there is already a contract. you entered it when paying for the product. Usually content, software and the like are automatically protected by copyrights, and that is sufficient. How can that funny clickaway agreement do away with an existing contract anyway, and why should anyone agree to give away his rights to enter into such an unfavorable and onesided agreement?
Even funnier is the idea to make that agreement subject to changes at the whim of the vendor (by refering to some website in the agreement). What is a privacy-policy worth that can be changed any day by one party?
Ther invention of railroads changed the world dramatically. suddenly it was possible to travel fast and far without paying unreasonable amounts to get a passage via horsecart and risk being robbed on the way. The owner of horsecarts weren't too happy about that, but noone would've thought of demanding that trains travel no faster than a horse. The same goes for telegraphs obsoleting messengers, phones obsoleting telegraphs, automobiles making railroads second choice, TVs taking a bite out of the revenuestream of cinemas (noone demaded a TV-fee for not going to the cinema), fridges putting the iceman out of business,...
So what is fundamentally different here? Computers and the internet change our world, but so did other things before. Looking back we can see now how futile it would have been to stand in the way of those past developments, and how anyone who did stand in the way didn't win anything by that. You can't put the genie back in the bottle, and even the RIAA and the MPAA know that. If they want to survive they will have to adapt, and all the bickering about pirating serves just to buy them time. Why didn't they offer music over the net under acceptable conditions? And sorry, paying as much as for a CD for worse quality, major usage restriction and an expiration date on the content doesn't sound like a good deal.
In most states here employees don't work under a contract.
So that means, anyone who gets a better offer by a competitor can leave any day he wants, probably in the middle of a project, leaving a complete mess behind (undocumented halfdone work, customers not knowing who to address, vacant key positions, whatever)?
As for the private machines i wonder, why the owner of those shouldn't have a say in this. I know very well, that i wouldn't admit them to my computer on that net, and i would step up the stakes quickly (knowing that i don't have anything remotely illegal on that box, being able to pay a lawyer, and that i would carry the story to the press to cause maximum damage in negative PR). Also i doubt that their auditing tool runs under Linux.
The longterm solution of course is: avoid software licenses, that allow the BSA into your house. If a softwaremaker doesn't give out other licenses don't use that software and tell your students that they have to use alternatives (there are alternatives out there) since you don't want to risk having your university turned upside down again. Also make everyone on the net sign statements that they wont install any software without consulting your IT-Department, and that they'll have to pay up for any costs resulting from breaking that rule.
I can't understand how any organisation can give that kind of power over them (namely to shut them down with a barricade of audits and legal bullying) to the BSA.
Hillary is spreading disinformation by confusing the subjects. Apparently he considers it all the same: private copies someone makes of his own CDs, people giving private copies away to friends, filesharing over the internet, and large pirate-outfits which press commercial grade CDs by the millions and sell those large scale to consumers who can't tell them from the original.
In this way he tries to make criminals of all those people who (often well within their rights) burn their own music on their own CDs, and puts them in the same league as professional criminals. I really have no sentiments for an Industry which thinks that lowly of their own customers, and i think many people who see the RIAAs raging against their own customers, while at the same time exploiting the artists, feel the same.
I mean, presenting 20-40 lengthy paragraphs in tiny little windows, writing half of it in all-caps which is well known to be harder to read. That's not really an effort to inform the prospective user. Touchy stuff is buried deep in that texts, like with the recent spyware that disables adaware. It's in there to cover their asses, but obviously it is expected that these click-through-agreements are ignored. It would be interesting to see some of these "agreements" tested in court.
And my answer to Hillary would of cours have been: "No, it doesn't bother me one bit, i know what i've learned compiling that paper, but i would be bothered if someone took it away from me and sold it all over the campus, making a lot of money off my work and giving me only a ridiculous percentage of that.". Maybe it's so hard coming up with valid examples and analogies for the music industry, because they've never really honoured the artists themselves.
Meanwhile the music-industry is killing the one application where someone tried to make a legitimate business out of distributing music over the internet: web-radio. They simply want to keep all kontrol to themselves, they don't want artists becoming known via new media and realizing that maybe they don't need the feisty record-labels, or that they at least have some power to negotiate, because there are alternatives. So it's all about control, only those law students (and others) wanted some little control of their own over what they can do the music they bought.
Why, Hollings is perfect i think. The reasoning here is that you make that politician a target. You run well formulated ad campaigns against him and reduce all the advantage he got from Disneys campaign money to nil, or, if possible, negative. The aim here is, to get it known, that politicians will have a hard time opposing GeekPAC/EFF/whatever, and for that one should aim as high as possible i.e. at the highest politican for that cause you have some reasonable chance to get at. Identify Hollings with the Disney-marionette pushing controlled media down consumers throats for pocketchange from the media industry, and get that point through to the people. Make him a media target when news is going slow, and especially before he wants to push one of his ridiculous bills through.
The aim is not to demolish a politican for all times, people will have forgotten about it all in a few months anyway. The aim is to make a politician a figurehead for a (bad) cause and give him hard times about it, and that works best, the better you can identify a politician with something. If that works once, the next time he or someone else is tempted to do the industries dirty work they will think twice if it's worth all the trouble. Also by choosing when and where to pick the fight (before elections, before the bill is considered, when news is slow) it should be possible to get maximum effect for the money.
I have a computer with a pre-installed version of Windows. It's a package deal. This Is Significant And Important (TM). I donate the PC to a school. The Windows license must accompany it.
I don't know if that is so under US-Law, but in germany software can (still) be "debundled" from a PC, so you can sell your OEM-Windows independent of the computer. All the EULA-stuff simply doesn't apply, since the customer makes his contract when he buys the software, and not when he opens some shrinkwrapped package. Thus the software is covered by basic copyrights (which does well enough IMHO) but no more. AFAIR there was even a court ruling for this, basically saying, that Microsoft has no say in how a software is sold on, once it's sold. There was even a case of an assembler buying used licenses.
Note that the case isn't so easy if you have to fiddle with copyright-protections (like those BIOS-locked HD-recovery w/o proper windowsmedia), but if you have a full windows install disk it shouldn't be a (legal) problem. Another thing is, that Microsoft doesn't really "license" their software here, since then they'd have to guarantee that it works properly (and Microsoft wouldn't want that). I don't know if similar law applies in the US, but then they could always lock the software to the PC and make it a DMCA-case...
On the C64 (which had only 2 "joystick ports") aditional players can use the keyboard: in M.U.L.E. you only need a joystick when outfitting your plots, which is done one player at a time, so he can grab the joystick when it is his turn. The rest of the game is auctions and a kind of "firebutton" action (grabbing new plots being the most important). For those actions 2 buttons are sufficient, so it's no problem to have two players share the keyboard (three is a little awkward), if the keys are choosen with a little care (so their status can be determined independent of other players keys).
I don't see, why multiplayer couldn't be handled in the same manner on a PC, if you have less joysticks than players. Since i played some gltron sessions in 4-player mode i expect it to work rather well even...
One thing that was putting me off from playing M.U.L.E on a PC (via emulation) was the lack of proper joysticks. I don't think the (analog) PC-joysticks are up to the job (they are unwieldy and don't have clearly defined directions), ideal would be an atari type joystick (i prefered the competition pro with microswitches for directions and metal contacts for the buttons), a game-pad would be the closest equivalent, but i find them too fiddly. There are some adapters out there to connect atari-type joysticks to a pc, and also some do-it-yourself-pages, but then i could just dig out my old C64 and see if it still works...
Then it'd be nice to see how WindowsXP reacts to an "updated" privacy policy (new document date/id, slightly different document) on that server.
Start thinking
on
XP, Phone Home
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Hey, it only downloads a file, so let's stop thinking now. There are some things bothering me here though, but maybe you can help me with it, so i can soon embrace blissfull ignorance again:
Do the other downloaded files alter the system behaviour in any way? They're providing information connecting file-extensions to file-types at least, and that might have some impact on a windows system. And if they don't do anything at all, why download them? Maybe i'm using a special app with uncommon file-extensions and took some pains upon me to make the system recognize them. Will that work be undone with every search query?
Then "downloading" is not a onesided action. To download a file i have to establish an internet connection, and in that process all kind of information is transmitted, not just the ip. I don't think someone concerned with network security of some larger corporation would be too happy about all their desktop machines sending out packets announcing their ip, the number of hops to them and the type of their operating system beyond the firewall to a specific location without need. Also why should anyone trust Microsoft not to collect all that ip-addresses to compile a nice list of windows-XP installations, maybe to set up a BSA-raid?
And finally: Why do such a "stupid thing" as downloading a privacy statement for an action that can be performed locally? Just to get some load on Microsofts server? Microsoft is paying for that bandwith, so why put extra load on it? Well, maybe someday in the future Microsoft will quietly decide to change their privacy policy and start collecting information about your local/intranet searches. But there's no need for you to know that. Only your Operating System needs to know.
So what? How is meeting on IRC different from (physically) meeting in public places? (all kinds of) Hackers always had their virtual hangouts all over the net, and if one (kind) is shut down they'll find other places. The same places are used by other folks too, and while it may be interesting to observe that hackers dislike proprietary services like AOL (for reasons not only applying to hackers) that just means, that different places attract a different audience. Compare the demographics of a McDonalds with that of a tea-house for reference.
Now if the apparent fact, that some illegal activity is conducted via IRC should imply something about IRC (that it should be banned/forbidden, identify it's users, copy each message to the CIA) then the same is true for any public place, so let's start bugging pubs and demand a personal ID from everyone who goes there.
That way i'd have to configure each piece of software, or make it all depend on a special configure file. Anyway i don't find it appropriate to patch each app in such a way. It'd be much easier to regularly run an 'expire' job that simply updates a list of expired software (from the net) and compares it against the versions in the rpm-database.
Then the user/admin can decide what expire should do: maintain a list of expired software (maybe with different warning levels, from "obsoleted by a new version" to "security hole, patch now"), mail him, shutdown the service, update automatically (shiver), whatever. The admin can also decide how often 'expire' should run, or, in case of a static ip, maybe even allow the 'expire-server' to contact his machine.
The method of comparing against a list on the net (or maybe on some update media) is better than expiring after a preset time. And selferasing software is simply nonsense. imagine software development is discontinued, or you just can't reach the net, and thus not update anyway, or an admin is on holidays. He'd probably prefer the firewall up and running, even if outdated, than having no firewall at all.
Also maybe other projects depend on a certain piece of software. Forcing to switch versions at some preset date isn't helpfull at all in that case. There are so many possible reasons why someone might want to hold onto an old app a little longer, maybe even for 20-30 years. This "force to upgrade" practice could come right out of microsofts book of marketing, but it doesn't make sense for open source software.
Maybe he should've written that piece 2 days ago...
Re:Good to see misinformation is alive and well.
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Globalism Post 9/11
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· Score: 1
Your "Islamics are anti-Semitic" coment (it reduces to only one, namely that the "Islamic nations" are only interested in the "complete irradication of the jews", and you're right that it's only a comment, based on your personal opinion, because you don't even bother to support that one with anything. Also, again, you base your opinion of the whole islam on the deeds of a few fanatics. But that is not the point, so i won't discuss it (wohoo, i've ignored it again).
The point isn't if the Palestinians will or will not tolerate the jews in their neighbourhood, neither is it, if there is any justification for the USA to interfere in the region. The point is, that souvereign nations don't like to be pushed around like children by the USA and that this provokes some "reactions", ranging from mild criticizing to terrorism. And it's still not about annyone envying the americans because of their wealth (hell, look at the social problems in your own country, some people working three jobs and still not able to support a family, thats worse than slavery).
So there are actually people in the world that don't embrace the "american way", especially after the US of A aparently put corporate interests above everything else and try to forcefeed that philosophy to everyone. Only the USA don't give a fuck about anyone else ("if you're not with us uou're against us", G,W. Bush) so they could find out that they're the only ones interested in "infinite justice", because even their allies don't want to participate in a campaign they have no say in ("Only the US can lead this war against terrorism" (Rumsfeld or so)).
If you deal with someone you should at least try to see their point of view and give them a minimum of respect (at least your allies). That applies to people as well as nations, and anyone who considers themselves above that rule shouldn't wonder when he isn't met with unilateral love.
(And no, it still isn't about your HDTV-screens.)
Re:Good to see misinformation is alive and well.
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Globalism Post 9/11
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· Score: 2
Respect your elders.
So you need to use the "age" card, are your arguments that weak? Let's see.
What he basically said was, that Americans are not hated because others envy them for all their nice things but for their meddling in the affairs of other countries.
Your first "argument" is, that the 9/11 events where caused by a bunch of psychos. But how does this have anything to do with neemas posting? Are you implying that the 9/11 terrorists where just greedy for american wealth and that drove them mad? They had better robbed a bank then. The USA was intervening heavily in Afghanistan politics, because they want to build an oilpipeline through the place real bad. 9/11 was a reaction to this. It is really funny how noone in USA is asking why 9/11 happened. Don't get me wrong, i'm not considering the terrorism in any way justified, and surely not defending the taliban in any way. I'm just pointing out that it happened in reaction to the US interfering with their politics, not because "America is running from them".
Next you are concerned with who fights better, Israel vs. Palestina, USA vs. Japan, and hooray, Israel "kicks Arab butts" and the USA nuked two Japan cities (after the war was already over). Again, no "runnig away" involved, and neither Palestinian suiciders nor Japanese Kamikaze did it because they envy the americans for their wealth. Finally you "justify" US intervention in Islamic countries by comparing whole nations to Hitler. I won't discuss that here. The simple thing is, that it's still the american intervention in foreign affairs, justified or not, and not "America running away" that provokes reactions.
Your arguments simply don't apply, unless you consider your age a valid argument. In that case Bush should hasten to get some advice from the pope.
The interesting point the article raised was, if and to what extent multiplayer games are addictive. Apparently that guy spent nearly all his time and money to the game, even although it caused him seizures. This seems to indicate that he really was addicted to the game, and that in itself is also a problem that could affect many people, when those games become more popular and more realistic (so it will be even easier to immerse oneself in it and forget the real world). So i think it's important to examine, how addictive games like EverQuest are (if so), what that addiction can do to affected persons, how it can be diagnosed, if it's necessary to do something about it, and if so, how.
Who gives a shit what webserver propaganda is run on?
Maybe that PHB will, when he tries to use all the nice "arguments" he found on that site only to be stopped dead in his tracks by a comment such as "Oh, you mean that site hosted on a UNIX server?", or just someone making a joke about Microsoft not using their own products but telling others to do so. And i will sure have some fun spreading the story. Also it's simple enough that even nontechies will understand it: "Microsoft was using a UNIX server for a PR campaign against UNIX, only when that made the news they switched to their own crap".
Yeah, but you wouldn't want to put it in the line of fire, would you? This MS-owned high-profile PR site is such a nice target, i'm sure some script-kiddies will probe for holes soon. So it better had a good sysadmin.
What's the point of an April Fools joke if it can't be confused with a "real" story? Maybe there should be a special topic for AFs... to make them totally pointless.
... then i might find it funny. I think the good April Fools jokes are those that one believes in at first, and then only catches when paying attention to the details. All i've seen today are so outrageous that even someone who isn't aware what day it is remembers after glancing at the headline. The thing about April Fools jokes is: they don't work if they're announced as such.
The newssites are swamped with bogus information, and everyone knows they are (and because most of it is so obvious most people are immediately suspicious anyway, so it's even harder to catch them unawares). As you say, a side effect of this is, that it makes no sense to post real news today, since everyone doubts the integrity of the information. If a newssite made only one joke, and made it hard to find (by making the joke sound half reasonable and doing a lot of "hard to believe" articles (the last casemod article comes to mind) at the same time, then that might be fun.
Maybe we read about the better April Fools jokes (the ones that took some time to figure out) tomorrow.
Why can't they be sued for the damages and any costs of lawyers/lawsuits themselves? If that would be possible, and if it could be stuck to some persons (and not some business that isn't anymore anyway) then people would think twice before risking their own ruin with those patent scams. Also their own lawyers should be the last in the line to collect any outstanding payments, that way they could only hire lawyers who believed that the patent was at least half valid.
Second, even though you're paying for their content, they are restricting how you can use it/burn it, and it won't play on an MP3 player. The point of digital media is convenience, and MP3s that you can only play on your computer just aren't convenient.
And that is basically the point. In essence they demand a huge fee, while providing only very limited use. If they don't alter their business model it's doomed (and will only serve them to blame that on "pirates" again).
For me one quality of good music is, that i want to hear it again. These services (especially realone) introduce pay-per-listen schemes that may be real cheap for crap music you can't even stand 30 seconds of, but for something really good you'd like to hear often it's expensive, and after all the paying you own exactly nothing (in the case of realone).
When i buy music i want to own it. i want to hear it whereever and whenever i like to from a device of my choice, and i don't want to be concerned about a meter running out my bankaccount.
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I mean, where is the difference? The click-thrugh and shrinkwrap-licenses are totaly onesided, and normally contain some clause stating that you already agreed by opening whatever package to be able to read them. Wy not send letters around with a wording like "By opening this letter you agreed to ..." whatever. Also note, that there is already a contract. you entered it when paying for the product. Usually content, software and the like are automatically protected by copyrights, and that is sufficient. How can that funny clickaway agreement do away with an existing contract anyway, and why should anyone agree to give away his rights to enter into such an unfavorable and onesided agreement?
Even funnier is the idea to make that agreement subject to changes at the whim of the vendor (by refering to some website in the agreement). What is a privacy-policy worth that can be changed any day by one party?
Ther invention of railroads changed the world dramatically. suddenly it was possible to travel fast and far without paying unreasonable amounts to get a passage via horsecart and risk being robbed on the way. The owner of horsecarts weren't too happy about that, but noone would've thought of demanding that trains travel no faster than a horse. The same goes for telegraphs obsoleting messengers, phones obsoleting telegraphs, automobiles making railroads second choice, TVs taking a bite out of the revenuestream of cinemas (noone demaded a TV-fee for not going to the cinema), fridges putting the iceman out of business, ...
So what is fundamentally different here? Computers and the internet change our world, but so did other things before. Looking back we can see now how futile it would have been to stand in the way of those past developments, and how anyone who did stand in the way didn't win anything by that. You can't put the genie back in the bottle, and even the RIAA and the MPAA know that. If they want to survive they will have to adapt, and all the bickering about pirating serves just to buy them time. Why didn't they offer music over the net under acceptable conditions? And sorry, paying as much as for a CD for worse quality, major usage restriction and an expiration date on the content doesn't sound like a good deal.
In most states here employees don't work under a contract.
So that means, anyone who gets a better offer by a competitor can leave any day he wants, probably in the middle of a project, leaving a complete mess behind (undocumented halfdone work, customers not knowing who to address, vacant key positions, whatever)?
Can we agree on 'it'?
As a shortterm solution: bring in the lawyers.
As for the private machines i wonder, why the owner of those shouldn't have a say in this. I know very well, that i wouldn't admit them to my computer on that net, and i would step up the stakes quickly (knowing that i don't have anything remotely illegal on that box, being able to pay a lawyer, and that i would carry the story to the press to cause maximum damage in negative PR). Also i doubt that their auditing tool runs under Linux.
The longterm solution of course is: avoid software licenses, that allow the BSA into your house. If a softwaremaker doesn't give out other licenses don't use that software and tell your students that they have to use alternatives (there are alternatives out there) since you don't want to risk having your university turned upside down again. Also make everyone on the net sign statements that they wont install any software without consulting your IT-Department, and that they'll have to pay up for any costs resulting from breaking that rule.
I can't understand how any organisation can give that kind of power over them (namely to shut them down with a barricade of audits and legal bullying) to the BSA.
Hillary is spreading disinformation by confusing the subjects. Apparently he considers it all the same: private copies someone makes of his own CDs, people giving private copies away to friends, filesharing over the internet, and large pirate-outfits which press commercial grade CDs by the millions and sell those large scale to consumers who can't tell them from the original.
In this way he tries to make criminals of all those people who (often well within their rights) burn their own music on their own CDs, and puts them in the same league as professional criminals. I really have no sentiments for an Industry which thinks that lowly of their own customers, and i think many people who see the RIAAs raging against their own customers, while at the same time exploiting the artists, feel the same.
I mean, presenting 20-40 lengthy paragraphs in tiny little windows, writing half of it in all-caps which is well known to be harder to read. That's not really an effort to inform the prospective user. Touchy stuff is buried deep in that texts, like with the recent spyware that disables adaware. It's in there to cover their asses, but obviously it is expected that these click-through-agreements are ignored. It would be interesting to see some of these "agreements" tested in court.
And my answer to Hillary would of cours have been: "No, it doesn't bother me one bit, i know what i've learned compiling that paper, but i would be bothered if someone took it away from me and sold it all over the campus, making a lot of money off my work and giving me only a ridiculous percentage of that.". Maybe it's so hard coming up with valid examples and analogies for the music industry, because they've never really honoured the artists themselves.
Meanwhile the music-industry is killing the one application where someone tried to make a legitimate business out of distributing music over the internet: web-radio. They simply want to keep all kontrol to themselves, they don't want artists becoming known via new media and realizing that maybe they don't need the feisty record-labels, or that they at least have some power to negotiate, because there are alternatives. So it's all about control, only those law students (and others) wanted some little control of their own over what they can do the music they bought.
Why, Hollings is perfect i think. The reasoning here is that you make that politician a target. You run well formulated ad campaigns against him and reduce all the advantage he got from Disneys campaign money to nil, or, if possible, negative. The aim here is, to get it known, that politicians will have a hard time opposing GeekPAC/EFF/whatever, and for that one should aim as high as possible i.e. at the highest politican for that cause you have some reasonable chance to get at. Identify Hollings with the Disney-marionette pushing controlled media down consumers throats for pocketchange from the media industry, and get that point through to the people. Make him a media target when news is going slow, and especially before he wants to push one of his ridiculous bills through.
The aim is not to demolish a politican for all times, people will have forgotten about it all in a few months anyway. The aim is to make a politician a figurehead for a (bad) cause and give him hard times about it, and that works best, the better you can identify a politician with something. If that works once, the next time he or someone else is tempted to do the industries dirty work they will think twice if it's worth all the trouble. Also by choosing when and where to pick the fight (before elections, before the bill is considered, when news is slow) it should be possible to get maximum effect for the money.
I have a computer with a pre-installed version of Windows. It's a package deal. This Is Significant And Important (TM). I donate the PC to a school. The Windows license must accompany it.
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I don't know if that is so under US-Law, but in germany software can (still) be "debundled" from a PC, so you can sell your OEM-Windows independent of the computer. All the EULA-stuff simply doesn't apply, since the customer makes his contract when he buys the software, and not when he opens some shrinkwrapped package. Thus the software is covered by basic copyrights (which does well enough IMHO) but no more. AFAIR there was even a court ruling for this, basically saying, that Microsoft has no say in how a software is sold on, once it's sold. There was even a case of an assembler buying used licenses.
Note that the case isn't so easy if you have to fiddle with copyright-protections (like those BIOS-locked HD-recovery w/o proper windowsmedia), but if you have a full windows install disk it shouldn't be a (legal) problem. Another thing is, that Microsoft doesn't really "license" their software here, since then they'd have to guarantee that it works properly (and Microsoft wouldn't want that). I don't know if similar law applies in the US, but then they could always lock the software to the PC and make it a DMCA-case
On the C64 (which had only 2 "joystick ports") aditional players can use the keyboard: in M.U.L.E. you only need a joystick when outfitting your plots, which is done one player at a time, so he can grab the joystick when it is his turn. The rest of the game is auctions and a kind of "firebutton" action (grabbing new plots being the most important). For those actions 2 buttons are sufficient, so it's no problem to have two players share the keyboard (three is a little awkward), if the keys are choosen with a little care (so their status can be determined independent of other players keys).
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I don't see, why multiplayer couldn't be handled in the same manner on a PC, if you have less joysticks than players. Since i played some gltron sessions in 4-player mode i expect it to work rather well even
One thing that was putting me off from playing M.U.L.E on a PC (via emulation) was the lack of proper joysticks. I don't think the (analog) PC-joysticks are up to the job (they are unwieldy and don't have clearly defined directions), ideal would be an atari type joystick (i prefered the competition pro with microswitches for directions and metal contacts for the buttons), a game-pad would be the closest equivalent, but i find them too fiddly. There are some adapters out there to connect atari-type joysticks to a pc, and also some do-it-yourself-pages, but then i could just dig out my old C64 and see if it still works ...
Then it'd be nice to see how WindowsXP reacts to an "updated" privacy policy (new document date/id, slightly different document) on that server.
Hey, it only downloads a file, so let's stop thinking now. There are some things bothering me here though, but maybe you can help me with it, so i can soon embrace blissfull ignorance again:
Do the other downloaded files alter the system behaviour in any way? They're providing information connecting file-extensions to file-types at least, and that might have some impact on a windows system. And if they don't do anything at all, why download them? Maybe i'm using a special app with uncommon file-extensions and took some pains upon me to make the system recognize them. Will that work be undone with every search query?
Then "downloading" is not a onesided action. To download a file i have to establish an internet connection, and in that process all kind of information is transmitted, not just the ip. I don't think someone concerned with network security of some larger corporation would be too happy about all their desktop machines sending out packets announcing their ip, the number of hops to them and the type of their operating system beyond the firewall to a specific location without need. Also why should anyone trust Microsoft not to collect all that ip-addresses to compile a nice list of windows-XP installations, maybe to set up a BSA-raid?
And finally: Why do such a "stupid thing" as downloading a privacy statement for an action that can be performed locally? Just to get some load on Microsofts server? Microsoft is paying for that bandwith, so why put extra load on it? Well, maybe someday in the future Microsoft will quietly decide to change their privacy policy and start collecting information about your local/intranet searches. But there's no need for you to know that. Only your Operating System needs to know.
So what? How is meeting on IRC different from (physically) meeting in public places? (all kinds of) Hackers always had their virtual hangouts all over the net, and if one (kind) is shut down they'll find other places. The same places are used by other folks too, and while it may be interesting to observe that hackers dislike proprietary services like AOL (for reasons not only applying to hackers) that just means, that different places attract a different audience. Compare the demographics of a McDonalds with that of a tea-house for reference.
Now if the apparent fact, that some illegal activity is conducted via IRC should imply something about IRC (that it should be banned/forbidden, identify it's users, copy each message to the CIA) then the same is true for any public place, so let's start bugging pubs and demand a personal ID from everyone who goes there.
That way i'd have to configure each piece of software, or make it all depend on a special configure file. Anyway i don't find it appropriate to patch each app in such a way. It'd be much easier to regularly run an 'expire' job that simply updates a list of expired software (from the net) and compares it against the versions in the rpm-database.
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Then the user/admin can decide what expire should do: maintain a list of expired software (maybe with different warning levels, from "obsoleted by a new version" to "security hole, patch now"), mail him, shutdown the service, update automatically (shiver), whatever. The admin can also decide how often 'expire' should run, or, in case of a static ip, maybe even allow the 'expire-server' to contact his machine.
The method of comparing against a list on the net (or maybe on some update media) is better than expiring after a preset time. And selferasing software is simply nonsense. imagine software development is discontinued, or you just can't reach the net, and thus not update anyway, or an admin is on holidays. He'd probably prefer the firewall up and running, even if outdated, than having no firewall at all.
Also maybe other projects depend on a certain piece of software. Forcing to switch versions at some preset date isn't helpfull at all in that case. There are so many possible reasons why someone might want to hold onto an old app a little longer, maybe even for 20-30 years. This "force to upgrade" practice could come right out of microsofts book of marketing, but it doesn't make sense for open source software.
Maybe he should've written that piece 2 days ago
Your "Islamics are anti-Semitic" coment (it reduces to only one, namely that the "Islamic nations" are only interested in the "complete irradication of the jews", and you're right that it's only a comment, based on your personal opinion, because you don't even bother to support that one with anything. Also, again, you base your opinion of the whole islam on the deeds of a few fanatics. But that is not the point, so i won't discuss it (wohoo, i've ignored it again).
The point isn't if the Palestinians will or will not tolerate the jews in their neighbourhood, neither is it, if there is any justification for the USA to interfere in the region. The point is, that souvereign nations don't like to be pushed around like children by the USA and that this provokes some "reactions", ranging from mild criticizing to terrorism. And it's still not about annyone envying the americans because of their wealth (hell, look at the social problems in your own country, some people working three jobs and still not able to support a family, thats worse than slavery).
So there are actually people in the world that don't embrace the "american way", especially after the US of A aparently put corporate interests above everything else and try to forcefeed that philosophy to everyone. Only the USA don't give a fuck about anyone else ("if you're not with us uou're against us", G,W. Bush) so they could find out that they're the only ones interested in "infinite justice", because even their allies don't want to participate in a campaign they have no say in ("Only the US can lead this war against terrorism" (Rumsfeld or so)).
If you deal with someone you should at least try to see their point of view and give them a minimum of respect (at least your allies). That applies to people as well as nations, and anyone who considers themselves above that rule shouldn't wonder when he isn't met with unilateral love.
(And no, it still isn't about your HDTV-screens.)
Respect your elders.
So you need to use the "age" card, are your arguments that weak? Let's see.
What he basically said was, that Americans are not hated because others envy them for all their nice things but for their meddling in the affairs of other countries.
Your first "argument" is, that the 9/11 events where caused by a bunch of psychos. But how does this have anything to do with neemas posting? Are you implying that the 9/11 terrorists where just greedy for american wealth and that drove them mad? They had better robbed a bank then. The USA was intervening heavily in Afghanistan politics, because they want to build an oilpipeline through the place real bad. 9/11 was a reaction to this. It is really funny how noone in USA is asking why 9/11 happened. Don't get me wrong, i'm not considering the terrorism in any way justified, and surely not defending the taliban in any way. I'm just pointing out that it happened in reaction to the US interfering with their politics, not because "America is running from them".
Next you are concerned with who fights better, Israel vs. Palestina, USA vs. Japan, and hooray, Israel "kicks Arab butts" and the USA nuked two Japan cities (after the war was already over). Again, no "runnig away" involved, and neither Palestinian suiciders nor Japanese Kamikaze did it because they envy the americans for their wealth. Finally you "justify" US intervention in Islamic countries by comparing whole nations to Hitler. I won't discuss that here. The simple thing is, that it's still the american intervention in foreign affairs, justified or not, and not "America running away" that provokes reactions.
Your arguments simply don't apply, unless you consider your age a valid argument. In that case Bush should hasten to get some advice from the pope.
The interesting point the article raised was, if and to what extent multiplayer games are addictive. Apparently that guy spent nearly all his time and money to the game, even although it caused him seizures. This seems to indicate that he really was addicted to the game, and that in itself is also a problem that could affect many people, when those games become more popular and more realistic (so it will be even easier to immerse oneself in it and forget the real world). So i think it's important to examine, how addictive games like EverQuest are (if so), what that addiction can do to affected persons, how it can be diagnosed, if it's necessary to do something about it, and if so, how.
Who gives a shit what webserver propaganda is run on?
Maybe that PHB will, when he tries to use all the nice "arguments" he found on that site only to be stopped dead in his tracks by a comment such as "Oh, you mean that site hosted on a UNIX server?", or just someone making a joke about Microsoft not using their own products but telling others to do so. And i will sure have some fun spreading the story. Also it's simple enough that even nontechies will understand it: "Microsoft was using a UNIX server for a PR campaign against UNIX, only when that made the news they switched to their own crap".
Yeah, but you wouldn't want to put it in the line of fire, would you? This MS-owned high-profile PR site is such a nice target, i'm sure some script-kiddies will probe for holes soon. So it better had a good sysadmin.
What's the point of an April Fools joke if it can't be confused with a "real" story? Maybe there should be a special topic for AFs ... to make them totally pointless.
... then i might find it funny. I think the good April Fools jokes are those that one believes in at first, and then only catches when paying attention to the details. All i've seen today are so outrageous that even someone who isn't aware what day it is remembers after glancing at the headline. The thing about April Fools jokes is: they don't work if they're announced as such.
The newssites are swamped with bogus information, and everyone knows they are (and because most of it is so obvious most people are immediately suspicious anyway, so it's even harder to catch them unawares). As you say, a side effect of this is, that it makes no sense to post real news today, since everyone doubts the integrity of the information. If a newssite made only one joke, and made it hard to find (by making the joke sound half reasonable and doing a lot of "hard to believe" articles (the last casemod article comes to mind) at the same time, then that might be fun.
Maybe we read about the better April Fools jokes (the ones that took some time to figure out) tomorrow.
Why can't they be sued for the damages and any costs of lawyers/lawsuits themselves? If that would be possible, and if it could be stuck to some persons (and not some business that isn't anymore anyway) then people would think twice before risking their own ruin with those patent scams. Also their own lawyers should be the last in the line to collect any outstanding payments, that way they could only hire lawyers who believed that the patent was at least half valid.
Second, even though you're paying for their content, they are restricting how you can use it/burn it, and it won't play on an MP3 player. The point of digital media is convenience, and MP3s that you can only play on your computer just aren't convenient.
And that is basically the point. In essence they demand a huge fee, while providing only very limited use. If they don't alter their business model it's doomed (and will only serve them to blame that on "pirates" again).
For me one quality of good music is, that i want to hear it again. These services (especially realone) introduce pay-per-listen schemes that may be real cheap for crap music you can't even stand 30 seconds of, but for something really good you'd like to hear often it's expensive, and after all the paying you own exactly nothing (in the case of realone).
When i buy music i want to own it. i want to hear it whereever and whenever i like to from a device of my choice, and i don't want to be concerned about a meter running out my bankaccount.