When ever I run it the cat comes running. Sometimes I just look around and whistle like nothing is happening and the cat gets confused and stalks away.
It's one of the few times I can feel that my kind is superior to Fluffy's.
An endorsement from someone that depends on a system's stability and durability for his life is impressive.
Even if this Lieutenant Colonel won't get involved in the shooting personally, the chance of having to deal with some very angry, very well armed soldiers fresh from losing a buddy has to be a heck of a motivator to get it right.
This can only be a good thing for Linux and for desk bound Cheetos munching Linux newbies like me. We might get more lethal soldiers and a better OS. I like it.
If I remember correctly the emergency drivers receive exactly zero protection from personal liability, even if it isn't really their fault. And, if I remember correctly, they are not indemnified by anyone.
That's reason enough for the guy driving the fire truck to not speed at all for any reason.
BTW, It's been awhile since I took the class, so take this info with a grain of salt.
I would dearly love to have an eyeball that would do that, and there isn't really see any reason why we couldn't build an eyeball shaped device that would do that. That would be so much fun, but I think that that would have even greater social problems.
Now I'm mostly guessing here, but I think that such a thing would have to be implanted very early, perhaps even before birth, in order to really make it work. The brain would have to rewire itself to handle the input from the device, I think.
If so, we will be cutting open uteruses to alter nature on a pretty basic level. I don't have a problem with that, but many reasonable people might.
In my particular sub-culture jewelry is frowned on. It still shocks me a little when I see these tiny little babies with pierced ears, wearing studs. Taking out a perfectly good eyeball is just a little bit more shocking than a little needle stick and some crying to make them look cute.
I think the replacement eyeball like devices may become common, but it won't happen before society thinks that it is damn near abusive not to make the replacement.
There are still a few that resist common vaccinations, and it is pretty clear that they are a good idea. I can respect those that take such a stand on purely religious grounds, but most of the people that do so are ignorant luddites and I do not respect them at all. Just a prejudice on my part, maybe.
It just goes to show that it may not be as simple as looking at the cost and benefits of borgification.
BTW, there are a couple of brothers doing some interesting work with a crude retina replacement for blind people. The latest model has a 8x8 grid of sensors that detect light and dark. It is barely good enough for edge detection and orientation. Sorry, I really don't remember when or where this is happening.
The article mentioned that double leg amputees may be very well suited to long term work in space because it reduces the work load on the heart.
There maybe other advantages as well. Less mass for the heart to supply implies less mass to feed and keep hydrated, thus trips to orbit would be easier.
Internal spaces could be designed differently if you didn't have to account for legs.
Space suits could be smaller and cheaper, or even completely different. I imagine zipping around space stations in a little inflatable Tie fighter with arms to do work.
None of this will matter much until a signifigant amount of the human population does at least some of their work in orbit, or orbit becomes irrelevant.If that happens we will have to start modifying ourselves to be more efficient.
Let's take a leap and say that having no legs, or only stubbs,is demonstrably better for a long term space worker. Will people get them chopped off?
I don't think they will. The reasons might be more social than technical.
Even if large numbers of people eventually start doing this, there will necessarily be a time when the amputees-by-choice will be unusual. This will not be to their advantage in social interaction with people that don't work in orbit, or that work in full gravity space stations.
I'll admit that this may not be reasonable, but I think that amputees are not as good for the ordinary work-a-day world as other people. They are at a disadvantage when competing for jobs, money, women or men, fun and safety, all of which may be mostly the same thing.
Since humans are, by nature, driven by habit and prejudice, people will assume that the voluntary amputee space worker types are at a disadvantage and won't give them the same play as others.
Now, since me or my descendants will be working on the bridge of the ship and 7 of 9, some of us don't have to worry. But what of the average person? Would an average space-joe sign up for this? I really doubt it.
Let's say that we get past this non-sense and amputation is the norm, will it stay the norm or will it ever become acceptable for the upper class, whatever that becomes? Again, I doubt it.
If being an amputee is seen as an efficient work move, then those people that are not force to will not get their legs chopped off. Legs will be seen as a vanity item.
Think of it this way, do people select their transportation option for utility or prestige? What do you think you can tell about people from looking at their car? Why do I think life would be a LOT more fun if I owned a BMW Z3? The inflatable Tie figher could get a space worker from point A to point B just as well as shuffling around on a deck in a space suit. People won't see it that way though.
Serious body modification for utility rather than looks has serious social and technical problems associated with it. In the last millenium human technology has taken huge leaps on every front, but we are still ignorant, savage beasts.
I say that the trend will continue. Practicality will not interfere.
I'm just an underqualified media weenie, so I can't say exactly what should be done about this.
But I really hope those that are in positions of power and knowledge get it right this time. Sixty days notice seems like more than enough time to write a patch that is rock solid.
UV Radiation is proven harmful, and sulight has buckets of it. we know plain old glass lets in plenty of this harmless radiation. So, in a pedestrian, idiot world, it could win. Welcome to the United States of America.
The few Alabama hicks I know have already figured this out, they just don't care. They are too busy having fun, and working to pay of their Fish & Game citations.
By the way, wasn't the guy that first popularized the power lines cause cancer thing found to be making up data out of thin air?
I am proud to be a USAian, but this kind of thing has me freaked out.
If an object is vibrating randomly in your field, it will eventually be in the place you want it to be, right?
The problem is scanning at a high enough resolution so you know when that happens.
The problem is the combination of macro scale movement such as table movement, heart beats, intestinal rumbles, and the Really Really Small (TM) Brownian type movements. We are talking about some serious chaos here.
I have no idea how to actually do this.
Wasn't there an article here on Slashdot about positioning atoms and such using electron microscopes that used such a technique?
The Question: Can those managers be charged with manslaughter now?
Says Bladernr:
"Probably not. If you could prove their behavoir was malicious, instead of merely stupid or calous, then maybe. People performing in their legal line of work are generally protected"
I'm not to sure about that. I know it doesn't apply, but the law in Oregon is:
163.145 Criminally negligent homicide. (1) A person commits the crime of criminally negligent homicide when, with criminal negligence, the person causes the death of another person.
(2) Criminally negligent homicide is a Class C felony. [1971 c.743 91]
To me, if it is as simple as the managers telling the engineers who should know to go away, then it is criminal negligence. The guy I called at the county law library said that, in court, "criminal negligence" doesn't necessarily mean the same thing as it does on the street.
Futher, (10) "Criminal negligence" or "criminally negligent," when used with respect to a result or to a circumstance described by a statute defining an offense, means that a person fails to be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the result will occur or that the circumstance exists. The risk must be of such nature and degree that the failure to be aware of it constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the situation. [1971 c.743 7; 1973 c.139.] This foaming mass comes from Chapter 161 of the ORS, so I don't know if it applies to the laws in Chapter 163, the chapter that defines criminally negligent homicide.
According to Lawinfo, "Negligence is always assessed having regards to the circumstances and to the standard of care which would reasonably be expected of a person in similar circumstances. "
Futher from Lawinfo, "Gross negligence is 'Any action or an omission in reckless disregard of the consequences to the safety or property of another.
In view of this, I'd say that being a calous moron could get you in trouble.
Making something perfectly safe or as safe as it can be made is not always sensible. People take unnecessary risks all the time for money and thrills, including astronauts. Insisting on perfect safety would be insanely expensive and boring.
But, speaking personally, If someone didn't do something that they could have, just to save a tiny fraction of the total project cost or to save face, I would want heads to roll. I mean that literally.
Blaming a "broken safety culture" for this is a cheap, shitty excuse. Yes, there is corporate responsibility, but there is a personal responsibility problem too. The power to say yes or no is not something to be taken lightly. Don't professional engineers have to take personal responsibility for their work?
Whatever else happens, we must be careful not to make managing inherantly risky endeavors like space travel so risky that good people will back off. I really don't know where that line should be drawn.
I'm guessing that these turkeys won't be charged with anything. Even if they do get fired they will probably be able to get another management job.
I do know one thing for sure. If I don't get on with my day I will miss the laundry-mat and then I'll be charged with criminally negligent stinkiness for sure. Besides, all this law stuff making my head hurt.
Jared Diamond makes some interesting points about the sophistication of hunter-gatherers and what it takes to surive in their world vs. ours.
I think his point was that there are so many things that can kill you that all the dumb ones get taken out of the gene pool faster than the same kind of person in a modern society.
I think the idea that our world is more sophisticated is sheer conceit. It's changing and maybe that has the lizard parts of our brains freaked out.
It's slightly off topic, I know, but what mighty egos we all have!
It is axiomatic that; money talks; people suck; follow the money; money talks, something walks...
May I suggest that truly altruistic behavior is rare, and darn near non existent when serious piles of gold are involved? Why pretend that anything else is likely to happen and come up with a way to use their standard human greed to make our lives better?
Says gears5665, "human body is roughly 98F. They'd die."
Well now, that's what externally mounted gonads are for, to keep the valuables at a viable temperature. I'm not sure I want to surf/. bad enough to get any extra hardware down there, but the problem is solvable.
From what I've seen, the computer company really doesn't care.
I worked tech support for e-machines for awhile, and was halfway good at it. Right now you are saying to yourself, "That explains a lot." And you'd be right. But my check came from the support company's bank, not the customer's. That means that it is my job to do what the company tells me to do.
In this case, the company explicitly said that we weren't to bother with Linux, or anything but the standard configuration of the machine. They put some rather tight time limits on us. Nowhere, and at no time, did they tell us to do right by the customer and to think logically or to tell the truth.
The only thing that mattered was beating the metrics. That is only tangentially related to helping the customer.
The idea that the logical and reasonable is the tech flunkie's job is a pipe dream. Especially when the work for e-machines (email em if you know what I'm talking about.)
Regardless, even with the support of the ignorant, you're going to be way ahead following directions patiently, making a list of the things you've already done, and actually making sure you're in front of the machine with a telephone and sufficient light to see. Seriously.
The big challenge for both parties is realizing when the other is out of their depth. I loved it when the customer realized I was lost and politely demanded a supervisor. It got them out of my hair helped my metrics.
A pedantic, step by step approach to problem solving often is the most efficient. The tech may be counting on throwing away a little time on every call, just to avoid missing a jump that could cost hours. Occasionally there may be fault in your computer model, or some other part of the system, that doesn't seem logical. The tech only be picking up on it because the person next to them has seen it five times that week and discussed it during lunch.
Again, when you're dealing with two-week-wonders supporting customers on cheap entry level machines, deciding who's the idiot isn't always easy.
Yelling doesn't help. I remember getting great joy out of charging a guy for the call because he was a little over an hour out of the free tech support period (20 days, I think.) If he wouldn't have made a stink, I wouldn't have checked the time stamp that closely.
I'm glad that job is over. Now I'm going to back up my imporant files because this machine is an e-tower 500ix2. You never know.
I don't know about cell phones, but some early digital television transmitters were found to interfere with some cardiac monitors. I hope someone gets a smart idea pronto because set of devices is easily discarded.
I think that rich societies, the U.S. in particular, squawk a lot about how horrible it is to have a lying, cheating, or boozing president. I also think that they will only whine until it starts hitting the cash supply.
Even if the TCO of the Microsoft solution is somewhat better than the open source alternative, it may not be better macro-economically. If you are going to spend serious money, you might as well spend it at home.
If the above guesses are true, and unless our Australian friends enjoy making us Northwest U.S. people rich, then yes, it is possible to embarrass them into using a particular OS.
This is assumes a rational legislature and discounts the recreational value of having Balmer fly down just to kiss your ass every three years.
Said SystematicPsycho, "Is there an 80's home entertainment rebirth going on? First it was the atari 2600, now the commodore 64."
Yes, I think there is a rebirth going in progress because the people that remember are to the point of having more disposable income than sense. Technology that makes it relatively easy to do helps too.
Who else played Jumpman till their thumbs were red & swollen? Anybody else think they were so cool for finding and changing the strings in Oregon Trail to start out with $100,000?
Fun stuff...
All right folks, I admit that I used to pirate music on a regular basis, but my computer is an eMachine, so come and get it, ORRIN.
I can't escape to conclusion that some sort of limited IP rights are a good thing, and that they should be protected. But is this really how we want to solve our problems?
To be fair, the law would have to allow someone to pillage the record company's machines if a mistake is made. This would promptly degenerate into a high tech-high dollar pissing contest. Nothing more.
I really do think this would be amusing as hell, but again, is this how we want to solve our problems? Can anybody here think of other situations where the original fault was forgotten and the reprisals got out of control?
Please don't think that any sane person would equate one race group hacking up another with machettes for God knows what reason with a few million smoked computers, but wouldn't the psychology be pretty much the same after awhile?
Maybe this would be easy fun, after all, whose computers are worth more? A creative professional's or some freak that has time to drill this far down in a/. thread?
Cheers
coyote-san wrote:
Under the model Uniform Commercial Code a signature is ANY mark indicating assent. It can be your legal name in cursive. It can be your nickname in block letters.
If I remember correctly, the important thing when agreeing to a contract is the "affirmative act." Signatures are just the natural result of a small class of affirmative acts.
I half remember reading about some medieval land transactions where the documentation had twigs or pieces of sod sewed to the bottom of the vellum. The important thing was the exchange of the stick, symbolizing the exchange of the land, NOT the text of the contract or the signatures. The stick was the signature.
But IANAL, medieval or otherwise.
Slashdot Mirror
is the electric can opener.
When ever I run it the cat comes running. Sometimes I just look around and whistle like nothing is happening and the cat gets confused and stalks away.
It's one of the few times I can feel that my kind is superior to Fluffy's.
An endorsement from someone that depends on a system's stability and durability for his life is impressive.
Even if this Lieutenant Colonel won't get involved in the shooting personally, the chance of having to deal with some very angry, very well armed soldiers fresh from losing a buddy has to be a heck of a motivator to get it right.
This can only be a good thing for Linux and for desk bound Cheetos munching Linux newbies like me. We might get more lethal soldiers and a better OS. I like it.
If I remember correctly the emergency drivers receive exactly zero protection from personal liability, even if it isn't really their fault. And, if I remember correctly, they are not indemnified by anyone. That's reason enough for the guy driving the fire truck to not speed at all for any reason. BTW, It's been awhile since I took the class, so take this info with a grain of salt.
the normal rules don't apply, right?
I would dearly love to have an eyeball that would do that, and there isn't really see any reason why we couldn't build an eyeball shaped device that would do that. That would be so much fun, but I think that that would have even greater social problems.
Now I'm mostly guessing here, but I think that such a thing would have to be implanted very early, perhaps even before birth, in order to really make it work. The brain would have to rewire itself to handle the input from the device, I think.
If so, we will be cutting open uteruses to alter nature on a pretty basic level. I don't have a problem with that, but many reasonable people might.
In my particular sub-culture jewelry is frowned on. It still shocks me a little when I see these tiny little babies with pierced ears, wearing studs. Taking out a perfectly good eyeball is just a little bit more shocking than a little needle stick and some crying to make them look cute.
I think the replacement eyeball like devices may become common, but it won't happen before society thinks that it is damn near abusive not to make the replacement.
There are still a few that resist common vaccinations, and it is pretty clear that they are a good idea. I can respect those that take such a stand on purely religious grounds, but most of the people that do so are ignorant luddites and I do not respect them at all. Just a prejudice on my part, maybe.
It just goes to show that it may not be as simple as looking at the cost and benefits of borgification.
BTW, there are a couple of brothers doing some interesting work with a crude retina replacement for blind people. The latest model has a 8x8 grid of sensors that detect light and dark. It is barely good enough for edge detection and orientation. Sorry, I really don't remember when or where this is happening.
As long as I get to bunk with 7 of 9 that is...
The article mentioned that double leg amputees may be very well suited to long term work in space because it reduces the work load on the heart.
There maybe other advantages as well. Less mass for the heart to supply implies less mass to feed and keep hydrated, thus trips to orbit would be easier.
Internal spaces could be designed differently if you didn't have to account for legs.
Space suits could be smaller and cheaper, or even completely different. I imagine zipping around space stations in a little inflatable Tie fighter with arms to do work.
None of this will matter much until a signifigant amount of the human population does at least some of their work in orbit, or orbit becomes irrelevant.If that happens we will have to start modifying ourselves to be more efficient.
Let's take a leap and say that having no legs, or only stubbs,is demonstrably better for a long term space worker. Will people get them chopped off?
I don't think they will. The reasons might be more social than technical.
Even if large numbers of people eventually start doing this, there will necessarily be a time when the amputees-by-choice will be unusual. This will not be to their advantage in social interaction with people that don't work in orbit, or that work in full gravity space stations.
I'll admit that this may not be reasonable, but I think that amputees are not as good for the ordinary work-a-day world as other people. They are at a disadvantage when competing for jobs, money, women or men, fun and safety, all of which may be mostly the same thing.
Since humans are, by nature, driven by habit and prejudice, people will assume that the voluntary amputee space worker types are at a disadvantage and won't give them the same play as others.
Now, since me or my descendants will be working on the bridge of the ship and 7 of 9, some of us don't have to worry. But what of the average person? Would an average space-joe sign up for this? I really doubt it.
Let's say that we get past this non-sense and amputation is the norm, will it stay the norm or will it ever become acceptable for the upper class, whatever that becomes? Again, I doubt it.
If being an amputee is seen as an efficient work move, then those people that are not force to will not get their legs chopped off. Legs will be seen as a vanity item.
Think of it this way, do people select their transportation option for utility or prestige? What do you think you can tell about people from looking at their car? Why do I think life would be a LOT more fun if I owned a BMW Z3? The inflatable Tie figher could get a space worker from point A to point B just as well as shuffling around on a deck in a space suit. People won't see it that way though.
Serious body modification for utility rather than looks has serious social and technical problems associated with it. In the last millenium human technology has taken huge leaps on every front, but we are still ignorant, savage beasts.
I say that the trend will continue. Practicality will not interfere.
After all, he did this to get cover when she questions the purchase, right?
I'm just an underqualified media weenie, so I can't say exactly what should be done about this.
But I really hope those that are in positions of power and knowledge get it right this time. Sixty days notice seems like more than enough time to write a patch that is rock solid.
Is this a reasonable assumption?
UV Radiation is proven harmful, and sulight has buckets of it. we know plain old glass lets in plenty of this harmless radiation. So, in a pedestrian, idiot world, it could win. Welcome to the United States of America. The few Alabama hicks I know have already figured this out, they just don't care. They are too busy having fun, and working to pay of their Fish & Game citations. By the way, wasn't the guy that first popularized the power lines cause cancer thing found to be making up data out of thin air? I am proud to be a USAian, but this kind of thing has me freaked out.
If an object is vibrating randomly in your field, it will eventually be in the place you want it to be, right? The problem is scanning at a high enough resolution so you know when that happens. The problem is the combination of macro scale movement such as table movement, heart beats, intestinal rumbles, and the Really Really Small (TM) Brownian type movements. We are talking about some serious chaos here. I have no idea how to actually do this. Wasn't there an article here on Slashdot about positioning atoms and such using electron microscopes that used such a technique?
Having an electric eel in your pocket isn't likely to lead to macho anything, especially not happiness!
Just when I thought I had heard them all, dangit!
The Question: Can those managers be charged with manslaughter now?
Says Bladernr:
I'm not to sure about that. I know it doesn't apply, but the law in Oregon is:
This is part of the Oregon Revised StatutesTo me, if it is as simple as the managers telling the engineers who should know to go away, then it is criminal negligence. The guy I called at the county law library said that, in court, "criminal negligence" doesn't necessarily mean the same thing as it does on the street.
Futher, (10) "Criminal negligence" or "criminally negligent," when used with respect to a result or to a circumstance described by a statute defining an offense, means that a person fails to be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the result will occur or that the circumstance exists. The risk must be of such nature and degree that the failure to be aware of it constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the situation. [1971 c.743 7; 1973 c.139 .] This foaming mass comes from Chapter 161 of the ORS, so I don't know if it applies to the laws in Chapter 163, the chapter that defines criminally negligent homicide.
According to Lawinfo, "Negligence is always assessed having regards to the circumstances and to the standard of care which would reasonably be expected of a person in similar circumstances. " Futher from Lawinfo, "Gross negligence is 'Any action or an omission in reckless disregard of the consequences to the safety or property of another.
In view of this, I'd say that being a calous moron could get you in trouble.
Making something perfectly safe or as safe as it can be made is not always sensible. People take unnecessary risks all the time for money and thrills, including astronauts. Insisting on perfect safety would be insanely expensive and boring.
But, speaking personally, If someone didn't do something that they could have, just to save a tiny fraction of the total project cost or to save face, I would want heads to roll. I mean that literally.
Blaming a "broken safety culture" for this is a cheap, shitty excuse. Yes, there is corporate responsibility, but there is a personal responsibility problem too. The power to say yes or no is not something to be taken lightly. Don't professional engineers have to take personal responsibility for their work?Whatever else happens, we must be careful not to make managing inherantly risky endeavors like space travel so risky that good people will back off. I really don't know where that line should be drawn.
I'm guessing that these turkeys won't be charged with anything. Even if they do get fired they will probably be able to get another management job.
I do know one thing for sure. If I don't get on with my day I will miss the laundry-mat and then I'll be charged with criminally negligent stinkiness for sure. Besides, all this law stuff making my head hurt.
He said, "Eating beans is a crime equal to eating the heads of one's parents."
Who knew the old codger had global warming figured out back then!
Jared Diamond makes some interesting points about the sophistication of hunter-gatherers and what it takes to surive in their world vs. ours. I think his point was that there are so many things that can kill you that all the dumb ones get taken out of the gene pool faster than the same kind of person in a modern society. I think the idea that our world is more sophisticated is sheer conceit. It's changing and maybe that has the lizard parts of our brains freaked out. It's slightly off topic, I know, but what mighty egos we all have!
I think that Kazaa will lose. But could this be a rare win-win situation for most people?
If Kazaa wins, the RIAA gets screwed. If Kazaa loses, it harms ridiculous "click here to agree" buttons and it hurts the DMCA?
This is a good thing, but Kazaa people might not see it that way.
I, for one, welcome our new rodent overlords, and would like to remind them that as a ....
It is axiomatic that; money talks; people suck; follow the money; money talks, something walks...
May I suggest that truly altruistic behavior is rare, and darn near non existent when serious piles of gold are involved? Why pretend that anything else is likely to happen and come up with a way to use their standard human greed to make our lives better?
Soon, please.
Says gears5665, "human body is roughly 98F. They'd die."
/. bad enough to get any extra hardware down there, but the problem is solvable.
Well now, that's what externally mounted gonads are for, to keep the valuables at a viable temperature. I'm not sure I want to surf
From what I've seen, the computer company really doesn't care.
I worked tech support for e-machines for awhile, and was halfway good at it. Right now you are saying to yourself, "That explains a lot." And you'd be right. But my check came from the support company's bank, not the customer's. That means that it is my job to do what the company tells me to do.
In this case, the company explicitly said that we weren't to bother with Linux, or anything but the standard configuration of the machine. They put some rather tight time limits on us. Nowhere, and at no time, did they tell us to do right by the customer and to think logically or to tell the truth.
The only thing that mattered was beating the metrics. That is only tangentially related to helping the customer.
The idea that the logical and reasonable is the tech flunkie's job is a pipe dream. Especially when the work for e-machines (email em if you know what I'm talking about.)
Regardless, even with the support of the ignorant, you're going to be way ahead following directions patiently, making a list of the things you've already done, and actually making sure you're in front of the machine with a telephone and sufficient light to see. Seriously.
The big challenge for both parties is realizing when the other is out of their depth. I loved it when the customer realized I was lost and politely demanded a supervisor. It got them out of my hair helped my metrics.
A pedantic, step by step approach to problem solving often is the most efficient. The tech may be counting on throwing away a little time on every call, just to avoid missing a jump that could cost hours. Occasionally there may be fault in your computer model, or some other part of the system, that doesn't seem logical. The tech only be picking up on it because the person next to them has seen it five times that week and discussed it during lunch.
Again, when you're dealing with two-week-wonders supporting customers on cheap entry level machines, deciding who's the idiot isn't always easy.
Yelling doesn't help. I remember getting great joy out of charging a guy for the call because he was a little over an hour out of the free tech support period (20 days, I think.) If he wouldn't have made a stink, I wouldn't have checked the time stamp that closely.
I'm glad that job is over. Now I'm going to back up my imporant files because this machine is an e-tower 500ix2. You never know.
I don't know about cell phones, but some early digital television transmitters were found to interfere with some cardiac monitors. I hope someone gets a smart idea pronto because set of devices is easily discarded.
I think that rich societies, the U.S. in particular, squawk a lot about how horrible it is to have a lying, cheating, or boozing president. I also think that they will only whine until it starts hitting the cash supply. Even if the TCO of the Microsoft solution is somewhat better than the open source alternative, it may not be better macro-economically. If you are going to spend serious money, you might as well spend it at home. If the above guesses are true, and unless our Australian friends enjoy making us Northwest U.S. people rich, then yes, it is possible to embarrass them into using a particular OS. This is assumes a rational legislature and discounts the recreational value of having Balmer fly down just to kiss your ass every three years.
Said SystematicPsycho, "Is there an 80's home entertainment rebirth going on? First it was the atari 2600, now the commodore 64." Yes, I think there is a rebirth going in progress because the people that remember are to the point of having more disposable income than sense. Technology that makes it relatively easy to do helps too. Who else played Jumpman till their thumbs were red & swollen? Anybody else think they were so cool for finding and changing the strings in Oregon Trail to start out with $100,000? Fun stuff...
This link, from the FAS & Arvin S. Quist, might be useful background. I'm still plowing thru it.
l
http://www.fas.org/sgp/library/quist2/index.htm
All right folks, I admit that I used to pirate music on a regular basis, but my computer is an eMachine, so come and get it, ORRIN. I can't escape to conclusion that some sort of limited IP rights are a good thing, and that they should be protected. But is this really how we want to solve our problems? To be fair, the law would have to allow someone to pillage the record company's machines if a mistake is made. This would promptly degenerate into a high tech-high dollar pissing contest. Nothing more. I really do think this would be amusing as hell, but again, is this how we want to solve our problems? Can anybody here think of other situations where the original fault was forgotten and the reprisals got out of control? Please don't think that any sane person would equate one race group hacking up another with machettes for God knows what reason with a few million smoked computers, but wouldn't the psychology be pretty much the same after awhile? Maybe this would be easy fun, after all, whose computers are worth more? A creative professional's or some freak that has time to drill this far down in a /. thread?
Cheers
coyote-san wrote: Under the model Uniform Commercial Code a signature is ANY mark indicating assent. It can be your legal name in cursive. It can be your nickname in block letters. If I remember correctly, the important thing when agreeing to a contract is the "affirmative act." Signatures are just the natural result of a small class of affirmative acts. I half remember reading about some medieval land transactions where the documentation had twigs or pieces of sod sewed to the bottom of the vellum. The important thing was the exchange of the stick, symbolizing the exchange of the land, NOT the text of the contract or the signatures. The stick was the signature. But IANAL, medieval or otherwise.