If this argument was about the term "Superman" instead of "Superhero," would it be any less absurd?
That's like asking if suing someone for calling their beverage "Budweiser" be any less absurd that suing someone for calling their product "beer". I think I'd have to answer "yes".
surely we'll all agree that "Superman" is a clearly trademarkable name, and has been capitalized on by its creators for decades.
Surely we will. So what?
But isn't the coined word "Superman" just as generic as the coined word "Superhero?"
Not really, no. For one thing, almost no-one uses the term "superman" as a generic term for cartoon heroes earing their undies over their trousers. For another, there is a very well and strongly defended "Superman" brand.
Aren't they both merely the concatenation of two relatively common words in the English language?
Again, so what? "nubskull" is a concatenation of two relatively common words in the english language. That doesn't constitute any sort of basis for a lawsuit.
Let's just admit...
Let's not be so hasty....
... they've created something new...
... with "new" being a relative term, right? I mean seventy odd years, who's counting? Still, given those caveats...
...and it's not entirely unreasonable...
I think we're getting out side of the comfort zone for "let's just admit" here.
... for them to wish to protect their exclusive use of their creations
Which rather presupposes that that this suit is aimed at protecting their creations; that it is a reasonable and justifiable measure to take in persuit of such protection; and that said creations are in fact threatened by thid party use of the term "super hero".
I mean, suppose I start writing a comic called "Fazookle-Man!" and further suppose that I label this publication a "superhero comic". Will that make Spider Man and the Green Lantern vanish in a puff of logic? I think not.
As far as I can see, this is an unfair attempt at restraint of trade, pure and simple. If there
is a counter case, it is going to need a bit more than a couple of non-sequiteurs and an a chummy attempt
to co-opt the audience
What I reckon is, in some higher space, the DoubleHelix Corporation created this galaxy and did the primary gen-eng work on our ecosystem. All they're doing is trademarking their products.
hmmm... would corporate involvement disqualify this as "intelligent design" I wonder...
How many people here have worked in a nuke plant? How many know the logistics of it?
Let's assume the answer is "zero". What makes your opinion any more credible than that of anyone else?
That sounds horribly personal, and I don't mean it that way. The problem is the amount
of faith based reasoning in this debate. For most commentators the risk
factors associated with nuclear power seem to be a matter of doctrine rather than
evidence. Some do it out of genuine conviction. others because they represent vested
interests. That makes it very to deicide who's opinion to trust.
This wouldn't be so bad if the potential worst case scenario were not quite so extreme. Even if we discount meltdown as a scenario, it's difficult to deny the potential dangers of nuclear power.
So, at the end of the day, and in the absence of reliable information,
many people are going to choose safe-but-well-understood over
potentially-beneficial-but-with-significant-potent ial-risks.
In the absence of good quality infom that sseems only sensible.
So, what should Microsoft do? If someone seems intent on still kicking you once you go down, you have nothing to lose by fighting back, even fighting "dirty".
You reckon? How do you define "seems intent" in that case? I mean Microsoft certainly
aren't "down" here, and all the EU seem to want is for Microsoft to supply the
interface documentation that they already agreed to supply, with a level of detal
deemed sufficient by a body of experts Microsoft helped choose. That doesn't sound much
like an intention to "kick them to death" to me. So I'd guess that if you had a point, it would have to boil down the question of intent.
To be fair, I have to conceed that the folks in Redmond
may have a different picture of what the EU intend. The
trouble there is Microsoft's apparent corporate
paranoia. It doesn't seem to take much to convince them that they are locked
in a titanic life-and-death struggle with a mighty foe and that dirty tricks
are therefore justified. Alas, these titanic adversaries tend to include startups like burst.com and Sendo, and even students like
Mike Rowe
.
A fellow could be forgiven for thinking that "looking at me in a funny way" constitutes "intent to kick to death", at least in Microsoft's book.
Which is, of course, one reason so many people are reluctant
to cut them any slack at times like this.
Oh look, another "leak". If Microsoft issued a press release no one would believe them, even if they said that grass was green. But if they arrange for a "leak" then they could say the sky was fire-engine red with green polka dots and everyone would take it as gospel.
Maybe the old fallacy is in need of modernisation: "They wouldn't leak it if it wasn't true"
You are assuming a dichotomy [wikipedia.org] where none exists. Hardly ever betrayals are so clear-cut.
So they're evil because they're only mostly good? Would that make Microsoft good, given that they've fallen short of Ultimate Evil and Damnation. "Quick! They're starting the long and slippery slope to redemption - give them a nobel peace prize!"
The sad thing is that that makes more sense than most of the anti-Google arguments I've encountered recently.
You are personifying a company - a collective organism who does not think as humans do, and does not behave as humans do.
There is, of course, the question of corporate culture. Microsoft had this "Microsoft software on every computer" vision statement, and look where it led them. Google declared "do no evil" and by and large all their sins have been vapourware.
So, until such time as Google Evil goes beta, I think I'll save my condemnation for
actual documented cases involving events that have already occurred.
You completely missed my point. Next time you write another one of your "let me tell you how it is" retard essays, make sure you know what exactly it is that you're replying to.
Ummm... the notion that Google is so popular that their choosing to delist BMW was tantamound to erasing them from the web? (I mean apart from other search engines. open directory listings, hard links, car fan pages and the odd surfer with enough nouse to type "bmw.de" obviously).
I got the point clearly enough, thank you. I just couldn't decide which side of Hanlon's razor you came down on. I couldn't devide whether to attibute your distortions to malice or to stupidity.
The topic here is a large, pervasive tech organization that may or may not have too much influence.
So why is "pervasive" a bad thing then? I mean apart from "well Microsoft does it". Atoms are pervasive, you know? That doesn't make them evil. In fact so far as I can see, prevasivness carries no moral associations whatsoever
And while we're at it, by what criteria do you evaluate "too much"? Also, too much for what purposes and according to whom?
If being a 'convicted monopolist' is your criteria for having too much influence, was Microsoft just fine in your eyes until the legal decision?
Can't speak for the GP, but "convicted monopolist" is reasonably objective evidence of abuse of
power, which (rather than pervasiveness) is the thing I find objectionable about Microsoft. Further, If we acknowlege the validity of the court's decision then it follows that MS were not "just fine" prior to conviction. Were it otherwise, there'd be nothing to convict them of, would there?
Interesting as that last exercise in epistemology was, did it have any relevance to the matter of Google?
Change the company to Microsoft and pose similar questions. Do they have too much power?
I don't object to Microsoft's having power. I object to their abuse of that power.
I don't see that scale of abuse from Google. I'll grant that their adsense team want a kick up
the arse, but I'm not seeing anything comparable to MS's systematic abuse of their privileged position as Windows developers to drive competitors into bankrupcy, or pressuring OEMs into not bundling any other operating system with new PCs, or sponsoring lowlife scumbags to launch spurious lawsuits targeting open source operating systems, or.... well, you get the idea.
Are they too pervasive?
First explain to me why "pervasive" is a bad thing. Oxygen is prevasive for example.
Again, my objection to Microsoft is not with the wide deployment of their operating system, but with the underhand tactics they use to maintain that pervasiveness.
Of course, strictly speaking, Microsoft are "pervasive" in that they're pre-installed on every x86 OEM machine (at least until OSx86 goes live anyway). Google are pre-installed on... well they ship toolbars with firefox, I suppose. But unless you're a drooling mouth breather, how hard is it to type yahoo.com or search.msn.com? Easier than installing Linux, certainly. We don't have to pay for Google in advance, whether we use it or not, for that matter.
So I really can't see where you're coming from on this one. Unless you mean that people like Google and that people don't like Microsoft. That'd be fair enough, I suppsoe,
but hardly proof of evil.
Anyone else feel Google has way too much power already?
Nope.
I mean, who needs domain names anymore?
People who don't want Google to get too much power. Or Yahoo! Or MSN, or any of the other search engines...
I just type what I'm looking for into Google...
I knew someone once who insisted on travelling everywhere by bus, and always used the same company. He thought the bus company were evil because they didn't fly to Chicago or do
Caribbean cruises. We all thought he was an idiot.
You want to explain to me why your laziness and your inflexibility should be Google's problem?
I think it's just a little evil to essentially make an entire company disappear from teh interwebs
Just typical, I spend my last mod point, and then I find a troll like this.
Please reassure me that you are not really this stupid.
If they weren't so pervasive then this would be a non-issue
It is a non-issue. You can aways choose to use a different search engine.
when I see these stories I get a little worried
Let me guess - Osama bin Laden is standing behind you and he's going to shoot you in the head if you use Yahoo, right? You can aways choose to use a different search engine.
Hopefully they won't expand their definition of "cheating" to include things we might think are OK.
Well, if they do, you can aways choose to use a different search engine. Come on, fire up a couple of those brain cells. This really isn't that difficult.
The games industry charges a lot for what frequently turns out to be very little.
Everything is being hyped as being the ultimate experience,
but very little seems to justify the price tag.
There is still the occasional gem, but no reliable way to tell the gems from the dross. No one wants to slag the games off in a pre-release review in case the company stops giving them demo releases, innovation seems to be extinct,
and the latest painful lesson is that even a sequel to a fondly remembered classic is no guarantee of quality.
In other words, they are charging premium rates for low quality tripe and trying fix it in marketing. And they wonder why people are stopping buying games?
Gosh. I had no idea I was that annoyed about it...
It will stop spam because it will make money for Yahoo and Microsoft. It's called the STFU factor, sometimes referred to as "LA, LA, LA! I'M MAKING MONEY SO I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"
p.s. I can't wait until I start seeing the 'seal alerting recipients they're legitimate.' attached as a gif file to spam in my inbox.
I can't wait for the first poor sod to be joe jobbed under this scheme and get charged for a dozen emails sent to the population of China.
The Corporate Cabal just sits down, refusing to help for two years and ta-da... the patent is annulled, now they will win the big $$$ without rewarding the inventor at all.
Nope, don't think so.
Look, suppose you're a small to medium scale venture capitalist, maybe 10 million to invest in the right project. If someone comes to you with a patent and you say "no thanks I'll wait" you're going to be competing with the multinationals, who will use control of channels and superior marketing budgets to freeze you out.
On the other hand, if you invest, you get 50% of the pie. Assuming you have faith in the product, it's not a difficult decision.
[Greg Benford] suggested seeding the relatively dead waters of the Southwest Pacific with iron ore to encourage an algee bloom, which would then help absorb greenhouse emissions.
Oh by all means, bring them on. I'm not against a technical patch, as long as it's used to buy time while we fix the underlying problem. I'd normally be concerned about the enviromental impact too, but they way things are going, that's looking like not phoning the fire brigade in case the water damages your soft furnishings.
If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.
That's rather cleverly done. Bit of a straw man, though...
environmentalism is remapped christianity because they both have a sort of "eden"
but the environmental eden never existed
that's becase primitive man probably wasn't very nice
and becuase nature isn't all fluffly bunnies either
and since environmentalists are wrong about that...
...it therefore follows that they're wrong about everything else! Huzzah!
A little unfair perhaps, but it captures the tone nicely, I think.
Setting that aside, Crichton's underlying point is that faith based reasoning is distorting all manner of scientific debate. I just he had make the point that the
environmentalists have no monopoly here, and there are "religious"
arguments on both sides of the debate.
But then, I suppose it's harder to map industrial lobbyists onto the framework of an existing religion, so that wouldn't have made for as good a speech.
Instead the NSA has to move the wiretapping from easy (ie, AT&T handing them the keys) to a bit more covert (ie, splicing in somewhere remote) which will cost tons more to the taxpayer than the original plan.
So, logically, if you put a lock on your front door, you're only making life difficult
for the burglars. I mean the professionals will get in whatever you do, so all your lock
does is force them to go out and buy expensive new equipment. Of course, they then have
to pay for that equipment, which they do by burgling more houses, to the detriment of us
all.
Clearly the only patriotic thing to do is to take all your possessions and pile them in
the middle of the street, so as not to overly inconvenience the working criminal.
I know! Why don't you run a pilot scheme? You can report back in a few weeks and
tell us how much crime dropped in your area.
I'll grant that your cynicsm, in the general case at least, is well founded. However I don't think a quick chorus of "three cheers for governor romney" is entirely uncalled for.
We're quick enough to complain when Orrin Hatch proposes a mandatory death penal for whistling the latest Britney Spears, or somesuch abomination. Should we not also
encourage the rare individual who does something right?
You never know, if politicans get to thinking there's votes to be had, it might just catch on...
How are you measuring that ? How are you normalising the figures against
marketshare...
Umm... no. Doc, if I wanted to write an academic treatise, I'd submit
it to one of the journals. That said, if you want to argue the contrary
case, feel free to show me how it should be done.
This is the typical ridiculously over-simplified way of waving off
Windows's higher marketshare as irrelevant, yes.
Actually, that particular claim is usually trotted by the Windows
enthusiasts. You know, "Linux would be just as bad if it had the
same marketshare as Windows".
Computer security today has almost nothing to do with the OS and almost
everything to do with Dancing pigs [wikipedia.org]. Very few - if any -
exploits have anything to do with the technical capabilities of (or lack
thereof) or technical flaws in, an OS.
The wikipaedia article cites Bruce Schneier in "Secrets
and Lies". I don't have my copy to hand, but I very much doubt that he
intended to suggest that social engineering absolved software vendors
of responsibility for system vulnerabilities.
But even if he did, it certainly doesn't follow that few if any exploits
have anything to do with technical flaws in the OS. Exploits have
everything to do with flaws in the OS. That's why they call them "exploits"
- because they exploit flaws in the operating system.
All that aside, my intention wasn't to criticise the
current state of Window's security. If you feel that XP+SP2' is adequate
to your needs, bully for you. Not an especially a widely held viewpoint
perhaps, but certainly Microsoft seem to have started giving security
the attention it deserves.
However you can't tell me that MS don't have a long history of
insecurity. There are a lot of ways to analyse that history,
but (IMHO) much of it boils down to politics at Redmond. For example,
MS didn't allocate the resources needed to network security first because Bill
didn't believe in this Internet thingy, and then because MS wanted an
Internet but on their terms. Similarly, someone seems to have made a
policy decision to assign ease of use a higher priority than security -
witness the fact that the XP firewall was off by default until SP2 -
which has often makes life rather easier than strictly necessary for
the purveyors of those dancing piggies you mentioned earlier.
Following on from that, my point as that in a successful open project
these problems probably wouldn't happen. Generally there's someone out
there who has a bee in their bonnet about security and who will address
such issues. I can't imagine an open project deciding to downplay
security for political reasons, and I can't imagine one getting much of
a userbase if they did.
Really, I don't think any of this is especially controversial.
How are you measuring "more than their fair share" ?
Well, MS have more exploits than anyone. The major defence offered is that as the ost widely deployed platform, MS receives more attention from the hackers and crackers than Linux or BSD.
So let's consider the server market. Linux and BDS have (IIRC) more than twice the deployment of competing Microsoft products. And yet even here, windows would seem insecure in
comparison
with Linux and particularly with OpenBSD.
IE doesn't do so wall against Firefox either, and (as reported on/. recently) Firefox has a 40% share in some countries.
It remains to be seen if the Free OSes would keep their lead for desktop use if they had comparable deployment, but based on areas where we can find something approachng parity, it doesn't seem too far a stretch.
I think it entails clear documentation. The documentation supplied wasn't clear enough, and source code isn't acceptable as a documentation of an API.
I few people seem to be trying to spin this as the EU wanting ever more than MS are willing to offer. I don't think that's really the case here. I think Microsoft are
trying it on offering unsuable substitutes to try and fob off the commission. I also
think that if they acutally provide waht was originally requested - clear usable documentation, then the problem will go away.
Slashdot Mirror
That's like asking if suing someone for calling their beverage "Budweiser" be any less absurd that suing someone for calling their product "beer". I think I'd have to answer "yes".
surely we'll all agree that "Superman" is a clearly trademarkable name, and has been capitalized on by its creators for decades.
Surely we will. So what?
But isn't the coined word "Superman" just as generic as the coined word "Superhero?"
Not really, no. For one thing, almost no-one uses the term "superman" as a generic term for cartoon heroes earing their undies over their trousers. For another, there is a very well and strongly defended "Superman" brand.
Aren't they both merely the concatenation of two relatively common words in the English language?
Again, so what? "nubskull" is a concatenation of two relatively common words in the english language. That doesn't constitute any sort of basis for a lawsuit.
Let's just admit...
Let's not be so hasty....
I think we're getting out side of the comfort zone for "let's just admit" here.
Which rather presupposes that that this suit is aimed at protecting their creations; that it is a reasonable and justifiable measure to take in persuit of such protection; and that said creations are in fact threatened by thid party use of the term "super hero".
I mean, suppose I start writing a comic called "Fazookle-Man!" and further suppose that I label this publication a "superhero comic". Will that make Spider Man and the Green Lantern vanish in a puff of logic? I think not.
As far as I can see, this is an unfair attempt at restraint of trade, pure and simple. If there is a counter case, it is going to need a bit more than a couple of non-sequiteurs and an a chummy attempt to co-opt the audience
hmmm... would corporate involvement disqualify this as "intelligent design" I wonder...
Let's assume the answer is "zero". What makes your opinion any more credible than that of anyone else?
That sounds horribly personal, and I don't mean it that way. The problem is the amount of faith based reasoning in this debate. For most commentators the risk factors associated with nuclear power seem to be a matter of doctrine rather than evidence. Some do it out of genuine conviction. others because they represent vested interests. That makes it very to deicide who's opinion to trust.
This wouldn't be so bad if the potential worst case scenario were not quite so extreme. Even if we discount meltdown as a scenario, it's difficult to deny the potential dangers of nuclear power.
So, at the end of the day, and in the absence of reliable information, many people are going to choose safe-but-well-understood over potentially-beneficial-but-with-significant-potent ial-risks.
In the absence of good quality infom that sseems only sensible.
You reckon? How do you define "seems intent" in that case? I mean Microsoft certainly aren't "down" here, and all the EU seem to want is for Microsoft to supply the interface documentation that they already agreed to supply, with a level of detal deemed sufficient by a body of experts Microsoft helped choose. That doesn't sound much like an intention to "kick them to death" to me. So I'd guess that if you had a point, it would have to boil down the question of intent.
To be fair, I have to conceed that the folks in Redmond may have a different picture of what the EU intend. The trouble there is Microsoft's apparent corporate paranoia. It doesn't seem to take much to convince them that they are locked in a titanic life-and-death struggle with a mighty foe and that dirty tricks are therefore justified. Alas, these titanic adversaries tend to include startups like burst.com and Sendo, and even students like Mike Rowe . A fellow could be forgiven for thinking that "looking at me in a funny way" constitutes "intent to kick to death", at least in Microsoft's book.
Which is, of course, one reason so many people are reluctant to cut them any slack at times like this.
Maybe the old fallacy is in need of modernisation: "They wouldn't leak it if it wasn't true"
At risk of being pedantic, I think you mean "enforce them!"
Other than that, well said!
So they're evil because they're only mostly good? Would that make Microsoft good, given that they've fallen short of Ultimate Evil and Damnation. "Quick! They're starting the long and slippery slope to redemption - give them a nobel peace prize!"
The sad thing is that that makes more sense than most of the anti-Google arguments I've encountered recently.
You are personifying a company - a collective organism who does not think as humans do, and does not behave as humans do.
There is, of course, the question of corporate culture. Microsoft had this "Microsoft software on every computer" vision statement, and look where it led them. Google declared "do no evil" and by and large all their sins have been vapourware.
So, until such time as Google Evil goes beta, I think I'll save my condemnation for actual documented cases involving events that have already occurred.
Actually, I find that oddly appealing. At least there's a bit of creativity as work there.
Ummm... the notion that Google is so popular that their choosing to delist BMW was tantamound to erasing them from the web? (I mean apart from other search engines. open directory listings, hard links, car fan pages and the odd surfer with enough nouse to type "bmw.de" obviously).
I got the point clearly enough, thank you. I just couldn't decide which side of Hanlon's razor you came down on. I couldn't devide whether to attibute your distortions to malice or to stupidity.
Now do me a favor and go fuck yourself
I have to say, I'm tending towards "stupidity".
So... has popularity not always bred popularity?
Or are we to conclude that the radio has always been crap?
I think this theory is missing something, somehow
So why is "pervasive" a bad thing then? I mean apart from "well Microsoft does it". Atoms are pervasive, you know? That doesn't make them evil. In fact so far as I can see, prevasivness carries no moral associations whatsoever
And while we're at it, by what criteria do you evaluate "too much"? Also, too much for what purposes and according to whom?
If being a 'convicted monopolist' is your criteria for having too much influence, was Microsoft just fine in your eyes until the legal decision?
Can't speak for the GP, but "convicted monopolist" is reasonably objective evidence of abuse of power, which (rather than pervasiveness) is the thing I find objectionable about Microsoft. Further, If we acknowlege the validity of the court's decision then it follows that MS were not "just fine" prior to conviction. Were it otherwise, there'd be nothing to convict them of, would there?
Interesting as that last exercise in epistemology was, did it have any relevance to the matter of Google?
I don't object to Microsoft's having power. I object to their abuse of that power. I don't see that scale of abuse from Google. I'll grant that their adsense team want a kick up the arse, but I'm not seeing anything comparable to MS's systematic abuse of their privileged position as Windows developers to drive competitors into bankrupcy, or pressuring OEMs into not bundling any other operating system with new PCs, or sponsoring lowlife scumbags to launch spurious lawsuits targeting open source operating systems, or .... well, you get the idea.
Are they too pervasive?
First explain to me why "pervasive" is a bad thing. Oxygen is prevasive for example. Again, my objection to Microsoft is not with the wide deployment of their operating system, but with the underhand tactics they use to maintain that pervasiveness.
Of course, strictly speaking, Microsoft are "pervasive" in that they're pre-installed on every x86 OEM machine (at least until OSx86 goes live anyway). Google are pre-installed on... well they ship toolbars with firefox, I suppose. But unless you're a drooling mouth breather, how hard is it to type yahoo.com or search.msn.com? Easier than installing Linux, certainly. We don't have to pay for Google in advance, whether we use it or not, for that matter.
So I really can't see where you're coming from on this one. Unless you mean that people like Google and that people don't like Microsoft. That'd be fair enough, I suppsoe, but hardly proof of evil.
There is a certain Burns and Smithers quality about it all, isn't there?
Burns: My name is Mister Snrub and I think we should invest that money back in the nuclear power plant
Smithers: I like the way this Snrub thinks!
Time to form an angry mob, perhaps? It worked in The Simpsons...
Nope.
I mean, who needs domain names anymore?
People who don't want Google to get too much power. Or Yahoo! Or MSN, or any of the other search engines...
I just type what I'm looking for into Google ...
I knew someone once who insisted on travelling everywhere by bus, and always used the same company. He thought the bus company were evil because they didn't fly to Chicago or do Caribbean cruises. We all thought he was an idiot.
You want to explain to me why your laziness and your inflexibility should be Google's problem?
I think it's just a little evil to essentially make an entire company disappear from teh interwebs
Just typical, I spend my last mod point, and then I find a troll like this. Please reassure me that you are not really this stupid.
If they weren't so pervasive then this would be a non-issue
It is a non-issue. You can aways choose to use a different search engine.
when I see these stories I get a little worried
Let me guess - Osama bin Laden is standing behind you and he's going to shoot you in the head if you use Yahoo, right? You can aways choose to use a different search engine.
Hopefully they won't expand their definition of "cheating" to include things we might think are OK.
Well, if they do, you can aways choose to use a different search engine. Come on, fire up a couple of those brain cells. This really isn't that difficult.
There is still the occasional gem, but no reliable way to tell the gems from the dross. No one wants to slag the games off in a pre-release review in case the company stops giving them demo releases, innovation seems to be extinct, and the latest painful lesson is that even a sequel to a fondly remembered classic is no guarantee of quality.
In other words, they are charging premium rates for low quality tripe and trying fix it in marketing. And they wonder why people are stopping buying games?
Gosh. I had no idea I was that annoyed about it...
p.s. I can't wait until I start seeing the 'seal alerting recipients they're legitimate.' attached as a gif file to spam in my inbox.
I can't wait for the first poor sod to be joe jobbed under this scheme and get charged for a dozen emails sent to the population of China.
Nope, don't think so.
Look, suppose you're a small to medium scale venture capitalist, maybe 10 million to invest in the right project. If someone comes to you with a patent and you say "no thanks I'll wait" you're going to be competing with the multinationals, who will use control of channels and superior marketing budgets to freeze you out.
On the other hand, if you invest, you get 50% of the pie. Assuming you have faith in the product, it's not a difficult decision.
Oh by all means, bring them on. I'm not against a technical patch, as long as it's used to buy time while we fix the underlying problem. I'd normally be concerned about the enviromental impact too, but they way things are going, that's looking like not phoning the fire brigade in case the water damages your soft furnishings.
If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.
That's rather cleverly done. Bit of a straw man, though...
A little unfair perhaps, but it captures the tone nicely, I think.
Setting that aside, Crichton's underlying point is that faith based reasoning is distorting all manner of scientific debate. I just he had make the point that the environmentalists have no monopoly here, and there are "religious" arguments on both sides of the debate.
But then, I suppose it's harder to map industrial lobbyists onto the framework of an existing religion, so that wouldn't have made for as good a speech.
So, logically, if you put a lock on your front door, you're only making life difficult for the burglars. I mean the professionals will get in whatever you do, so all your lock does is force them to go out and buy expensive new equipment. Of course, they then have to pay for that equipment, which they do by burgling more houses, to the detriment of us all.
Clearly the only patriotic thing to do is to take all your possessions and pile them in the middle of the street, so as not to overly inconvenience the working criminal.
I know! Why don't you run a pilot scheme? You can report back in a few weeks and tell us how much crime dropped in your area.
Yes, I am.
heheheh - a poor example on my part, perhaps :D
I'll grant that your cynicsm, in the general case at least, is well founded. However I don't think a quick chorus of "three cheers for governor romney" is entirely uncalled for.
We're quick enough to complain when Orrin Hatch proposes a mandatory death penal for whistling the latest Britney Spears, or somesuch abomination. Should we not also encourage the rare individual who does something right?
You never know, if politicans get to thinking there's votes to be had, it might just catch on...
Umm... no. Doc, if I wanted to write an academic treatise, I'd submit it to one of the journals. That said, if you want to argue the contrary case, feel free to show me how it should be done.
This is the typical ridiculously over-simplified way of waving off Windows's higher marketshare as irrelevant, yes.
Actually, that particular claim is usually trotted by the Windows enthusiasts. You know, "Linux would be just as bad if it had the same marketshare as Windows".
Computer security today has almost nothing to do with the OS and almost everything to do with Dancing pigs [wikipedia.org]. Very few - if any - exploits have anything to do with the technical capabilities of (or lack thereof) or technical flaws in, an OS.
The wikipaedia article cites Bruce Schneier in "Secrets and Lies". I don't have my copy to hand, but I very much doubt that he intended to suggest that social engineering absolved software vendors of responsibility for system vulnerabilities.
But even if he did, it certainly doesn't follow that few if any exploits have anything to do with technical flaws in the OS. Exploits have everything to do with flaws in the OS. That's why they call them "exploits" - because they exploit flaws in the operating system.
All that aside, my intention wasn't to criticise the current state of Window's security. If you feel that XP+SP2' is adequate to your needs, bully for you. Not an especially a widely held viewpoint perhaps, but certainly Microsoft seem to have started giving security the attention it deserves.
However you can't tell me that MS don't have a long history of insecurity. There are a lot of ways to analyse that history, but (IMHO) much of it boils down to politics at Redmond. For example, MS didn't allocate the resources needed to network security first because Bill didn't believe in this Internet thingy, and then because MS wanted an Internet but on their terms. Similarly, someone seems to have made a policy decision to assign ease of use a higher priority than security - witness the fact that the XP firewall was off by default until SP2 - which has often makes life rather easier than strictly necessary for the purveyors of those dancing piggies you mentioned earlier.
Following on from that, my point as that in a successful open project these problems probably wouldn't happen. Generally there's someone out there who has a bee in their bonnet about security and who will address such issues. I can't imagine an open project deciding to downplay security for political reasons, and I can't imagine one getting much of a userbase if they did.
Really, I don't think any of this is especially controversial.
Well, MS have more exploits than anyone. The major defence offered is that as the ost widely deployed platform, MS receives more attention from the hackers and crackers than Linux or BSD.
So let's consider the server market. Linux and BDS have (IIRC) more than twice the deployment of competing Microsoft products. And yet even here, windows would seem insecure in comparison with Linux and particularly with OpenBSD.
IE doesn't do so wall against Firefox either, and (as reported on /. recently) Firefox has a 40% share in some countries.
It remains to be seen if the Free OSes would keep their lead for desktop use if they had comparable deployment, but based on areas where we can find something approachng parity, it doesn't seem too far a stretch.
So yes, more than their fair share.
I few people seem to be trying to spin this as the EU wanting ever more than MS are willing to offer. I don't think that's really the case here. I think Microsoft are trying it on offering unsuable substitutes to try and fob off the commission. I also think that if they acutally provide waht was originally requested - clear usable documentation, then the problem will go away.