... across from the old sears store which is now city hall east,there used to be (might still exist, I don't know) a store called "S & M Clutch and Brake", which is doubly hilarious if you know the nature of midtown.....
The first ten are guarantees to "the People", added after the fact of the ratification, so that the Federalists would not take liberties with the wording and vastly increase the power of the federal government beyond their initial first strict rights/duties/powers.. These are areas in which the federal government can never intrude,because they are solely reserved for the People or the States, and as such, they can't be amended,because an amendment process is by default a federal action in it's aggregation in conjunction with the states, so they never have been, although in real life and in practical terms they have been slap broken illegally any number of times by a variety of governmental laws, decrees, edicts, directives and orders.
Any of the others can be amended, and new ones may be entered. There is also ongoing controversy and intrigue surrounding the as of yet unratified titles of nobility amendment(gee, wonder what happened to that one?), and the 16th amendment has a serious chance (I think it's true) of never been legally ratified by the correct number of states, but the feds ignore that little detail. I forget the numbers off hand, but I think they fell two short and used some hanky panky to insist on saying it was passed. They still use it though, so the point is moot.
As to treaties, I agree, there's some slippery slope there. I think they dropped the ball there somewhat. They certainly appear to be a trump card in *some* instances. I am in particular concerned with any treaty with the UN (or other coalitions like NATO, etc)-which is not a treaty with an extraterritorial soverign independent state. I think, and this is my opinion, that any treaties with the UN are quite illegal.
I just coincidently wrote this for inclusion on another forum, it fits in with your observations of win some and lose some looking back in time, which I agree with.
"I remember seeing an "impeach earl warren" billboard. I asked my folks about it and they said some kooks put those up. Took me years to really find out what that was all about. And I don't think it was because my folks were bad people, just totally propogandized into it. They eventually got hip too, I know they haven't voted dem or repub for several election cycles now, although I think any of the other choices wehave been presented with over the past few decades aren't that swift either.
Things weren't always all that great though, I distinctly remember when I first learned to read, the city we lived in still had a sign at the main drag entrance that said "no 'N-word's allowed" along with the moose and elks and kiwanis signs.
The US has always had a somewhat decent *theory* of government, but I don't think we ever really had it in practice as designed,never, no matter how far you go back and look. Jefferson wanted to especially address slavery, and got out voted on it for example, completely destroying the concept of individual soverignty and establishing an official governmental and societal precedence for ignoring the words as they were intended in english. It took more than a century to establish women as human beings with any rights. The patenting and copyrighting aspects to our laws were in no manner shape or form supposed to be the abomination we have now. We were never supposed to have corporations running the government or acting outside the US publics interest, yet they have so since day 1. We weren't supposed to have an all powerful executive branch just spewing edicts, yet almost all of them did so,because power easily taken usually is. We have consistently broken our word with treaties. We have consistently interferred in other soverign nations for connected elite business/corporate interests, including about every foreign war we have ever been in, I honestly can't think of an example were we didn't, except for the second war with the british.. We have consistently persecuted religious and racial minorities, all the way to genocidal actions. We have consistently passed new laws every year, without removing any older ones, establishing the principle that government is an open ended growth industry and it is near illegal to make it smaller. We have consistently allowed manipulations of the money supply to skew with normal market functions, usually to the producers detriment and the middlemen & skimmers benefit. We have consistently not provided equal protection under the law between any two states in matters relating to federal law and guaranteed individual born with rights, they let the states slide on that one big time, but then overstepped their bounds on many other issues. We have almost consistently since the civil war tolerated a standing army, and made it patriotic to adhere to that, when it was originally set up that a standing army was abhorrent and would lead to abuse. We established a precedent for the standing army to not only be construed as a supre patriotic subset of the population, but to glorifying following illegal orders from a commander in chief, just because he said so, and monies were taken from the people with an non-excise illegal tax to fund those efforts.
and yada yada yada.
I think we have a collective consciousness of remembering what was good, and glossing over what was bad.
Most humans/nations/tribes/governments/religions you name it, any particular grouping, etc do that, so I think it's safe to say it's just normal human nature and doesn't make us any worse than other peoples-but it doesn't make us much if any better, either. It's a near draw as close as I can call it.
I also don't think it's even possible to have freedom without strife. I don't think it's possible to have an honest government, because you must give away-grant- power to do so, and it will be
We already have a lot of younger people who (from what I have read anyway) can't read an analog clock or write cursive easily. Digital clocks and representations are the norm, along with only reading text and typing more than writing. I also think-can't prove it but think-that calculators are making the ability to do simple math with pencil and paper a lost art as well in the general population.
I can remember when the teachers made us turn in our slide rules before tests.
Man, I wish I still had mine, along with the leather holster. It was sort of the geek badge around school, even moreso than a pocket protector (had one of those, too). You had to have a mechanical pencil for drafting, a black warrior #2 for math and taking notes, and a black ink pen for taking tests (so you couldn't change your answer). You could use blue for taking notes if you wanted to. Written papers had to be either legible cursive, or typed, double spaced, with correct punctuation and paragraphing. Form/appearance and content were equally graded, because it was explained this was important later on in the academic and business world.
Good and bad. I wonder what bits of technology I would give up to have a simpler and politer society. Back then we didn't have school massacres, the kids weren't forced drugged (or voluntarily drugged), we didn't have JBT "officers" roaming the halls, no one cared if you carried a gun to school and put it in your locker for target practice or hunting after school, and you just didn't see teachers scared like they apparently are now. Any "acting up" in class got swift retribution, it didn't de-evolve into focus group studies and child protective services seizing the kids or any of that nonsense, and the parents went along with it, granting parental like priveleges to the teachers as a default while the kids were in school. You acted decent and within some normal bounds of politness and respect, or ya got it, usually a sneaker wrapped with tape or a paddle. I think I got it three times total my entire grade school career, near as I can recall, most likely deserved I might add.
Nowadays the kid acting up would be drugged with some sort of speed and downers mixed most likely,because he obviously must be suffering from a plethora of long named psychological "conditions", then have a life-long record, the teacher would get suspended and incarcerated as a terrorist, and the kid might be taken from his parents and put in some pervo scam foster care money mill.
Times change.
What would I swap??--hmm, big screen sensurround plasma TVs for a start, to get that innocence back.
I don't know what I was doing wrong, but the other night I was trying to get my girlfriend a yahoo account so she could email her dad, who now has an email. I thought yahoo would be nice so she could have her own webpage as well where she could put family pictures and crapola like that. Man, I ate cookies,like half a dozen of them, allowed scripts, took all images, all that happened is I got trapped in a loop that kept taking me back to a login screen. I even changed the password again, thinking I made a mistake, nope, still wouldn't work. She, not needing tons of features or space, I then went over to netscape and got one there, no problems. Has there been a problem with yahoo lately anyone know, or was there an ID 10 T error between the keyboard and monitor?
No way did I want a hotmail account, just don't like them no more...
ya, I know, really set myself up on that one....;)
stats aren't as meaningful unless you look at all of them. for instance, if you are trying to see which area is "more valuable", there's no way in heck you could compare canada with california, canada trounces them in many other ways, despite having a lower GDP/GSP. You also need to look at Cost of Living, I would imagine it's higher in california, therefore diluting the importance of an inflationary and artificially increased money supply. In fact, I would maintain that having it this way tends to seriously undermine wealth in other areas when there is such a discrepency, as it would help put into place an artifically higher price for a variety of goods and services across the board, as people would get an illusion that those numbers can and should be transferrred else where. This is why when we have our laws and opricing structures dictated by three primarily expensive places in the US, which are washington DC, NYC and LA, because that's where most of the cultural input that is "official" comes from,right into laws and the media brainwashing-err I mean "news"- they gradually lose touch with the rest of the nation, and it gets worse the longer it continues. If it costs you more to get the same thing-the higher cost of living area is actually worse off, because they have an inflated money supply. They have to struggle to maintain a median living arrangement with totally skewed costs. Whenh it can't be sustained, you will get events such as rapid outsourcing out of the area, further putting a strain on the remainder of the citizens/businesses to maintain the PREVIOUS higher levels of pay so that inflated costs may be maintained, and it can't be done forever. It will lead to unnatrual boom and bust cycles, rasther than a steady and sane growth based on over-all productivity. For instance, I have seen homes in california the last time I visited that were-geez, hard to tell-selling for around 5 times higher than an identical home here in georgia at the time. It's not because the materials were that much higher, just that the wages and costs were expanded to way past any other sort of normality anyplace else, and it's unsustainable in the long run. That's one of the reasons you are seeing california in serious money troubles now. They have an artifically higher cost of living compared to most other areas of the nation, and I would imagine it's in a similar situation compared with canada in general.
What that will have to do with ciscos market I think will be more a function of how well their products do every place else. If the lower COL areas are able to keep buying them regardeless, then not much. If the tip over point into "too expensive" is reached, then cisco will be forced to make all it's money only in the most extremely inflated and expensive markets, which isn't a good move in the long run unless all you want to be is an extreme niche player. Some companies can do this, other's can't. Given that routers are needed almost everyplace, it would seem to be prudent for cisco to stay reasonable in pricing so they can sell all over. If routers were only needed in california alone, then they could jack it up and ignore the rest of the world. and once it gets into international patent squabbles, I give up, it's so nuts I won't pretend to understand it other than "it's a broken system".
And just a side note before anyone says that this is how markets work, I'll say, not exactly. Actual true honest markets would not be using a money/trading supply scheme like we have now that artifically props up favorite pet industries and companies of the central bankers and their drinking and golf buddies. Our M3 supply is highly artificial, it is not in any way based on verifiable produced wealth by people actually working and producing goods, ie, creating wealth, it is poof created out of thin air and consistently goes to support those favorite pet companies of the elite connected ones in areas like LA, DC, and NYC if you follow it around enough, so you get a COL schism that leads to unreasonable expectations and a series
it's a fascinating subject to be sure. I wish kids were taught it better. I wish adults took it seriously. I wish government employees would stop following illegal orders. I mean, you can go right down and the list and see where it has been ignored.
Of course, I wish ice cream was magically free and delivered to anyone who wants it, too...not many wars fought over ice cream. super poor to mega rich, they all like ice cream. Hard to be angry while eating ice cream. Dogs like ice cream. I bet aliens like ice cream.......
ice cream diplomacy!
err, back to reality...
Best you can do right now is live your life as an honest and free man, and spread the word that that is a worthy goal. And spend some time finding out about government malfeasance and turning your neighbor on to the data, help spread the word. We'll never take back honest and constitutional government from these various and overlapping little coup mongers we have been inflicted and infested with until we have a critical mass of aware people willing to do just a scosh more than think about it.
Might not ever happen, but to my mind it's better to try then to not try.
... no reason to change, unless they suffer chronic security or useability issues that they could reasonably extrapolate to being severe into the future. Just run the odds with past performance is all you can do then.. If it's working "good enough" for them, and they can handle any downtime or borken-ness that isn't excessive, and they are happy enough with it, sure, a couple bucks a seat you can't beat with two sticks, it's a deal. I think that's an *incredible* price based on what I have read though. They ought to see if they can get it carved in stone for like 10 years, with an escape clause in it, no harm nor foul if they choose different down the pike.
Now ME, and not being a CEO of bigco,but if I was, I wouldn't care, I would get on the intercom and tell the CTO/CIO to go get with the CFO and for them to go get something else, just "because" I wouldn't do business with them. I'm just cranky that way. I quit one job once when I got into medium management when I found out it was medium corrupt, took a pretty snazzy payloss, too....
Probably the main reason I am not CEO of some bigco.....
They make these gizmos to keep your dog inside the yard, called the invisible fence. You bury this wire in the ground, the dog wears a wired up collar, he gets close to the buried wire and gets a zap, turns away. That's the theory. I don't think it works all that well with dogs, but for another electrical thing it probably would.
So, you start with one of them. That will keep your mower inside the designated area wherever you bury the wire. The mower part is an electric self propelled mower, They make them, you buy one of them. You'll have to make all 4 wheels drive so they can be individually activated for steering. Take the steel blade off, replace it with a string trimmer head, they are lighter, work about as good, and safer somewhat, and give you longer range on a battery charge. Now how to make it bounce off the obstacles and go in another random direction you got me, but I've seen several different cheap toys do it, so that tech has to be out there as well. You would have to add that into in the signal from the invisible fence to activate the turning mechanism, so you would get both kinds of turning, planned turning at the fence line, and random off of odd obstacles, like you sitting in your chair with a brewski or whatnot.. You turn the thing on, aim it out to the yard, let er go, it will randomly go around and trim, and being all electric, won't be all that loud, so you can run it a lot. If it consistently misses an area or two, just hand cut that part. Seems like the cheapest easiest way to go, but I am talking out my nether regions as well, might be a bear to make, no idea. I mow all day long mostly, or trim, or cut, or some other various chew up the jungle action, so I have thought of this many times, and can't think of anything heavy duty enough to do it on a big scale that wouldn't be dangerous as all get out for my purposes (one of the mowers I use will cut to almost 20 feet high and has about an 8 foot blade, so no way that could be a autonomous robot), so I've never tried to build one. But man, when it's 90+ F and near-equal humidity like it's been recently, I SURE HAVE thought about it...
Now a big female amazon warrior robot that you could task to drive the mower-among other things-now you're talking! And flyin cars!
The first ten delineated are inalienable rights. They can't be amended. They are at a different standard from the rest of them.
We disagree on that, but on this statement "The clauses "provide for the common defense" and "promote the general welfare" have turned out to be the most abused in the Constitution." MAN do I agree with you on that. You NAILED it,right in the top boneheaded mistakes in the constitution. The other big one to my way of thinking was not addressing bondage and slavery in more detail and enforcing it right off the bat. Jefferson wanted to but he got out juiced or something by the fatcats who profited from not observing humansd are human. It was an apparent dichotomy, but they let it slide on by, leading to a lot of grief later on.
... to the soverign individual. None, zero, it's not in there. You are automagically BORN with them, all of them. They are not government granted. they are not constitutionaly granted. The constitution merely delineates SOME of your rights, not all of them, just a few they thought particularly important..
It is primarily concerned with delineating how far government can go, and that's about it. All other "rights" not especially granted to government, by actual statement in english words, by default, go to the states and the individual. ALL RIGHTS start with the soverign and free individual. The states have theoretically more granted rights than the feds. The feds in theory have didly squat very few "rights" and only a strictly limited jurisdiction as well, and only for a few specific things. That's how it is supposed to be, but their default now is they have all the rights,100%, and you get permission from them to do something, if they feel like it and only then, and they can change that on a whim to whatever they feel like. It's bass ackwards in the extreme, and it's criminal and I'll use the t word-treasonus..
But they got the order followers with the guns, so this is so now. And you dassn't sass back to massah, ya'hear boy?
So now, with the mini history lesson over, show me where the constitution grants government the right to dork with my privacy. It doesn't unless a grand jury indicts me and I get arrested, or something like that. Lets see where government can suborn a private corporation to dork with my privacy. it doesn't but they do it anyway. Show me where it says government itself can be anything but transparent, ie, no secrets. it doesn't but they do it anyway. Show me where government can just seize my property for any reason they want to, and call it some rule, like an EPA reg or endangered species or whatever. It doesn't but they do it anyway. Show me where in the constitution I am not allowed to own property-ANY property. It doesn't, but they declare all sorts of property to be illegal, or charge YOU a fee or make you get a permission-permit for owning your own property.
What you WILL find is illegal executive orders being used as "laws", and they build on each other. You will find un elected bureaucrats spewing forth edicts that are enforced as laws by one or another of their 40 police forces. You will also find the legislative branch giving away their powers-which they aren't supposed to do or even be able to do. You will find a supreme court that redifines words to suit the latest political scamfoolery. You will find soverign states giving in to bribery and blackmail by the feds.
What you WON'T find is anything that is actually Constitutional law, and because 99% of the people out there don't care,and have no idea how it was originally setup and run, and no desire to find out. So we get what we get and it won't ever get any better, just worse, with things like in this article happening DAILY now..
They strong armed box vendors, and released apps that on purpose broke other peoples apps. This is true, correct? Part of a pattern of generic skunky behavior leading to establishment of a monopoly they couldn't have completely gotten based on actual true productivity and pricing and being ethical. I mean they did get convicted of a few things, and there's some good evidence of other unethical behavior as well.
I also think they probably used a lot of under the table cash in the right hands, but I can't prove it, I'm just guessing, but I'll keep repeating it anyway, because I think I'm right..and I think there's people out there who know that too, buit don't want to get caught up in any federal lawsuits over it, but eventually they'll get busted just like enron or worldcom. I bet it happens, someone is gonna spill the beans one day, and a lot of folks who know about it probably got the records squirreled away in case they have to use them for plea bargaining. Insurance.
Just a guess though, but I hope they are getting nervous about it, especially ole bill hisself.
I know not everyone at any corporation, including microsoft, is evil or a criminal, and I know they have some talented people who've worked hard over the years. I am also of the opinion that at upper management level they are predators and skunks, and sought to maximise profits rather than spend the money on making more stable and more secure products. I think they maximised profits to the detriment of their own workers and employees, let alone other people affected by the use and "trying to use" their stuff.
Plus they been milking that no warranty deal for a long time. Let's see em compete if they have to offer a normal suitability for purpose warranty, same as any other product has to have. Software in general been getting a skate on that juicy plum for a long time now, either it's a brand new industry that needs cuddling and handholding and their teddy bears when there's loud noises outside,and they admit they are incompetent to offer a warranty on their products they have made hundreds of billions on, or they can step up to the plate like any other company/industry,and accept adult responsibility for their work. I think it's way past time to require warranties for professional for-profit software. If you take money for it, I think you should have to back it up with a warranty of some kind.
As to courting developers-ehh, people will go work where they get the best experience and get to do the job they want to do. Part of that is money, but money isn't everything.
And for people who think it is, I feel sorry for them.
They got that way because they established a monopoly, not necessarily that they were the best at anything. You got to have an OS before you have an app, business or otherwise.
My point was, I think in large terms that monopoly got established through illegal actions, such as large scale kickbacks, which I can't prove but will allege. Once they had a monopoly (conversational purposes monopoly I mean, huge significant market share) of significant size, of course more apps were written for their platform. Now, when they see that monopoly be threatened, they are apparently resorting to these "independent consumer groups" for lobbying purposes, to get their dominance legislated into perpetual existence. I think that is pretty skunky behavior myself.
And WHY other billion dollar businesses ACCEPT spending millions for a product that has no warranty is unfathomable. they wouldn't do that with anything else they spend millions on, that's why i think there musta been some serious kickbacks ongoing. It's an opinion, but it is one of only a few rational reasons that are readily apparent, but I haven't seen it addressed much.
I know why too, once you start talking about millions going to pay off people, they certainly don't brag about it in public. Stuff happens in the real world with that kinda money involved-sometimes some pretty bad stuff.
I think you are correct, and there will be legislation to that effect attempted. I give it a 50/50 of getting passed. Depends on how much more "terrorism" they can keep pushing and connecting it to the internet. I have yet to see lately ANY privacy or pro freedom actions triumph over anti freedom and anti privacy legislation. The US people will keep sucking it up and putting up with it as long as they stay scared and buffaloed over -pick a subject.
well, I certainly appreciate your points. Not sure on production business apps because I most likely don't use them, not being a business or working in an office, but I will take your observations on them being true.
I feel though, that one of my major points-kickbacks, along with other unethical behavior, was how this whole empire came about. I can not prove it, so I will say I am just guessing. I dare anyone to dispute that cash "consultation fees" are not a major part of most large international business now, no matter the product. It HAS been proven they did other medium despicable things to get and stay inside computers all over, most notably vendor lock in, IMO. I'll grant they produced products, some decent, some mediocre, some pretty dismal. The differences between small medium and large shops are somewhat becoming moot with automated tools that are available now. Scaling is a reality, although yes, there is always a series of customised whatevers that require hands on, no matter the scale. I have to dork with a single box all the time, so I appreciate how hard it must be to keep *many* of them going. I was more speaking of the medium and long term, short term-the next few years-I expect them to continue with their dominance (inside the US, outside, no I think they'll lose steam faster), and to especially push legislative actions as much as software, which is the major topic of the thread, semi phony "citizen action groups". That's an opening of panic desperation move, clear as day. Whether or not they are entirely successful I don't know, but they have billions of dollars and thousands of people to throw at it, if they choose to. I am cynical to the max about it. I can't see them just giving up, or allowing their carved in stone pay us forever and a day business model to go away, because they simply cannot conceive of any other model to work for them, it's outside the huge money all the time reality they have gotten used to now. I see them as almost identical to the movie and music industries in this aspect. An established monopoly is hard to give up, so anything goes on keeping it-anything. No rules. And at their size, very few laws except laws in their favor apply to them. On paper they do, in the real world, they don't.
Whether linux or mac or bsd or whatever "takes over" I think is moot, what is more important is whether or not our society will be best served by one company doing it all. I think not. Computers are tools to do the real stuff, not the real stuff all by themselves, although WITHIN the industry that is the real stuff, OUTSIDE the industry they are just tools. and that "outside" part is way bigger than the inside part, taking planetary scale of hukan endeavor into consideration. Microsoft seems to want every company,government or person to be working for them, instead of the other way around. it's weird but that's what it looks like to me. like your regular job is just there for microsoft, you must keep paying them tribute or something to keep in business. WHY people got sucked into that mindset is beyond me.
I also think that the folks actually doing the real work with computers will gradually, gradually, gradually wear down the marketing guys and PHBs on this subject, choosing function over form whenever they can get their way on it, and that the mass users segment of the market will just use whatever happens to be on their desks or on sale at the computer store, same as they do now.
And yes, I will agree somewhat with the assessment that in specific "linux" needs to have a lot more consistency to be used past a few percent niche. HOW to do that, no idea. Unified packaging might be a good start. HOW to do that, no idea. Not my gig really. Less skins, more function wouldn't hurt either.
... how about MULTIKERNEL? Thas raht, a kernel for every app! No more struggling with dependency heckfire, no SUH, you get your application with it's own complete OS wrapped in, through and around it, runs on everything from a new peeceee to my uncles de soto.
What? Don't like the multi, micro or macro, howcome then no one makes a MEDIUM SIZED kernel, eh? eh? eh? Your porridge is too hot to eat, too cold to eat? Then go to JUS-S-S-T RIGHT, *in the middle*.
I'd guess there's been some serious cash kickbacks over the years to some big companies (individuals in companies) to get them to stick with microsoft. I can't think of another reason why they would keep using their stuff. I've read all the legit reasons,OK, I can see a few of them, but I bet the REAL main reason is from massive and ongoing kickbacks, and because it's so profitable for *some* people to have very well paying "busy work" fix it daily and forever jobs.
Anyway, it will change. I know it will. Bound to happen. Several years ago now I noticed the young geeks all using linux. Not someone's nephew who can play video games so he's the family computer "specialist", nope, I mean the geeks. The young people in any industry determine the trends of the industry, sooner or later, because thats where the innovation comes from, and also that's where the next generation of decision making bosses comes from.
Microsoft is hosed now, ain't nuthin they can do other than try and get legislation passed to save them. I'm serious on that. they are right at the exact point they need protection, even though they are still raking in billions, it's coming, they know it, that's why you are seeing this sort of stuff. Part of that is to have "concerned consumers" lobby for them. What a crock. IF they do that they will struggle along making billions for a lot more years, but if they *fail to get legislation passed that protects them and their business model of no warranty and mediocre product but maximum profits*, they are hosed. It might take some time, but they will crash and burn right along the opposite side of the curve of their rise to success. That is my prediction.
I was a mac classic guy for years and years from that reason exactly. I bought a machine, it all worked, it was easy to use, never got hosed or owned or anything. If I got a peripheral, I plugged it in and it worked.
I remember sitting around with my roomate back in the day trying to upgrade his modem on a 486 running 3.11. Nightmare, something as simple as that. You would think unscrewing one card and screwing in another and applying the driver from a disk would "just work". Nope. Both of us struggled for days on it off and on, we took it to the local neighborhood ubergeek, HE couldn't do it. A normal big bucks for the time off the shelf at the computar store card modem. Around the same time I got a new one for my mac, plugged it in, selected it from the list of modems, it worked.
Anyway, I switched from macs when apple stopped development on classic and went to a unixy thing that wouldn't run on my hardware, and the combination of the two just got even more expensive, I got priced right out of macs. I had JUST bought a semi new PB1400 and OSX wouldn't run on it, couldn't upgrade past 64 megs RAM and the dang thing USED was expensive. Nuts. I'm screwed then. I'm looking around, had heard of "linux". So I just got some old pc junkers, fixed them up, then got linux discs. It wasn't that hard, I got it up and running and on the intarweb. Seems to work OK, albeit not even close to as easy as classic always was to my way of thinking. It's still not, but "easy enough" now for most normal things I use a computer for. AFTER that initial foray into linux I understood the whole FOSS idea, which I now agree with and support. Windows has never held any sort of fascination for me, I went way too long with no virus du juor or having to set IRQs or needing a firewall or sacraficing chickens or anything to be content with putting up with that kludgy and insecure mess I saw all my friends always struggling with. Irony was they would call my mac a "toy" because it just sat there and worked, as they always were trying to barely keep their machines on the net or keep them from crashing. I thought it was hilarious, but hey, people root for their home team even if they haven't made it to the finals in 50 years or something,mmust be human nature. I think a lot of the "sticking with windows" that has occurred in our society is that humans won't admit they made a mistake when it comes to buying something, especially when the product they buy has no warranty or recall provisions to it. They got stuck with a lemon, and rather than admitting it was a lemon, and entirre lemon fixit it industry grew up around the concept of lemon="good". And this REALLY applies to giant businesses where some powerful VP in charge of buying the expensive stuff gets hosed with 10,000 lemons. he gets to skate on that decision because his buds at the country club, the other VPs, bought the same lemons, so a long time ago they decided to ignore the fact they bought lemons so all of them wouldn't get fired. Well, that and I can't prove it but I bet there's been billions of dollars in kickbacks over the years too that went to the VPs in charge of buying stuff. It exists in every other business, so I doubt it doesn't exist in the expensive paid for software industry.
the biggest problem is the EULA
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Linux for Non-Geeks
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· Score: 2, Interesting
EULAs are the debble. Here you got fabulously successful companies who by common sense observation SELL software but in legalese they uh loan it to you or something in exchange for you paying for the box it comes in or something. It's nuts. They insist on every possible legal protection and every possible penny in profit, yet NO LAWS apply to the actual product. No warranty, no recourse, no nuthin. It's nuts. I still fail to see why there hasdn't been a massive joe user backlash with a BIG class action suit. forget bundling and browser inclusions and all that jazz, a class action suit over useability for purpose, a warranty. If someone sells a product call it selling, this "license to use but not own" stuff is the ripoff scam going on.
with free software, I got no beefs, I know up front what the cost is-free-and that I might need to tweak, or get hosed with some aspect of it. I don't expect a warranty of any kind, and am pleasantly surprised that the developers keep working and fixing it. To me it's "so what" on any warranty with free software so I don't mind a EULA there. It's worth "free" to me or minimal cost on a data transfer medium. But to charge what entities like MS charge, SERIOUS folding money, get entire companies sucked in, millions of home users, then they have no warranty at all? Nuts. Software been around decades now, time to take the training wheels off and have our legal systen and society treat it like any other product if they insist on treating it like a product when it comes to money.
.. then the vendor should do it as a courtesy before it leaves the store. In fact, they should be updating those machines as they sit around waiting to be sold.
Patches should be treated like a "recall", in fact, IMO, people would take them more seriously if they WERE recalls. People understand a "recall".
Of course, ignore all that, most people won't do quat until after it's hosed... what was I thinking...
just coincidently, and I haven't seen it yet, but that's one of the aspects to moores new film I was just reading about. Like how much "free will" is really involved? He is showing (using his hometown of flint michigan as an example) how the recruiters specifically go into economically devasted areas and recruit there, knowing the kids don't have as much local opportunity for any sort of work that might actually pay anything or provide "benefits", etc. FWIW. I've heard it from a ton of young guys I have known who have gone in, "it's a job" "I'll get college out of it" and etc, going way back to before nam. Well, to be fair about it, back then it was more prudent(in some ways) to volunteer than get drafted, then you at least got the temporary illusion you might actually get to do something you might be interested in. I would say there's something to it, as witness the focus of their TV advertising that you see for "joining up".
You may have taken biology...
on
Open Source Life?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
.. but you apparently failed to take "common sense". I suggest you visit some areas of the US south, were kudzu is literally burying things, despite enough spraying and mechanical removal leading to soil exposure and erosion to completely contaminate underground aquifers. You can NOT get rid of it unless you resort to truly garganutan efforts, literally declare chemical warfare on your area. Or go look at some lakes that have been decimated by carp, hardly a species left in them of the fishes that isn't carp. Now add in human intervention to make certain genes even MORE dominant than even nature and natural selection provides. Now add in their ability to go cross species, GM tech, and their complete willingness to do so, and their mindset of "to hell with the consequences as long as we might make some short term profit in it or get a research grant so we don't need to get a another job..". None of these people truly know the long term consequences, yet they release these products, and they WILL spread.
It's ignorant and uneducated smugness like yours in the scientific and corporate world that is GOING TO CAUSE some pretty bad effects in a few years time. I hope you remember your post when that happens. If you are aware of biology, have you heard of starlink corn yet? If you can't see the irony in reading his personal account, and others, about how canola that has been GM modified is now classed as a "superweed" and IS taking over all over the north, and exactly how it is affecting people and the economy, then you need to turn your degree back in. There is no excuse for this level of ignorance in a college graduate.
And it's not "just a threat" if it COMES TRUE. He got screed, shafted, cost him thousands, destroyed 50 years work. What do you mean "they can't do that" they JUST DID DO THAT. And they suceeded in scaring any number of other people off just with the threat of litigation. I call that legal extortion. Extortion = a threat to make you do something you wouldn't normally do because the other guy has something on you. In this case, it's the paid off corrupt system that has "something on" the farmers-either go along and be monsantos patsy and whore, and shutup about it, OR ELSE. That's extortion, no other word for it.
It seems to me that if someone has a chronically broken box spewing spam and trojans and whatnot constantly, that they are exactly the types of customers the ISP's lose money on. It shouldn't bother them at all to drop a customer and save on bandwith and headaches and admin costs. Just taking in more gross revenue doesn't necessarily always mean you make a net profit on it.
Say you run a bar, and have a really obnoxious drunk, insulting people, vomiting on the floor, etc, just a PITA. He's spending money though, you are taking in more gross revenue from his business, but would you be better off kicking him out and just concentrating on the patrons who could hold their liquor? In the long run, people, the customers you really want to be regulars, will come back to the bar that keeps itself within some bounds. That's why I think blocking whole subnets is acceptable as well, there are just some places that need to be cutoff completely with interacting with the rest of the internet until they clean up their act.
... to determine if a CPU has been overclocked? I mean for warranty purposes. I would imagine that they have gotten burned before from bogus claims perhaps, so possibly this mechanism might be used to determine if overclocking has occurred.
I don't know, just asking the modders what they know about it.
I don't overclock, I just use 4D CPU "time shifting". I let the rich guys and international corporations buy the brand new stuff, then stay on the raw dripping bleeding edge of like 6-7 year old technology. And whenever I get something "new" using those advanced techniques of RAMMP (random asset and money management preservation), it IS "newer and faster and shiny" to me.
Slashdot Mirror
... across from the old sears store which is now city hall east,there used to be (might still exist, I don't know) a store called "S & M Clutch and Brake", which is doubly hilarious if you know the nature of midtown.....
Any of the others can be amended, and new ones may be entered. There is also ongoing controversy and intrigue surrounding the as of yet unratified titles of nobility amendment(gee, wonder what happened to that one?), and the 16th amendment has a serious chance (I think it's true) of never been legally ratified by the correct number of states, but the feds ignore that little detail. I forget the numbers off hand, but I think they fell two short and used some hanky panky to insist on saying it was passed. They still use it though, so the point is moot.
As to treaties, I agree, there's some slippery slope there. I think they dropped the ball there somewhat. They certainly appear to be a trump card in *some* instances. I am in particular concerned with any treaty with the UN (or other coalitions like NATO, etc)-which is not a treaty with an extraterritorial soverign independent state. I think, and this is my opinion, that any treaties with the UN are quite illegal.
I just coincidently wrote this for inclusion on another forum, it fits in with your observations of win some and lose some looking back in time, which I agree with.
"I remember seeing an "impeach earl warren" billboard. I asked my folks about it and they said some kooks put those up. Took me years to really find out what that was all about. And I don't think it was because my folks were bad people, just totally propogandized into it. They eventually got hip too, I know they haven't voted dem or repub for several election cycles now, although I think any of the other choices wehave been presented with over the past few decades aren't that swift either.
Things weren't always all that great though, I distinctly remember when I first learned to read, the city we lived in still had a sign at the main drag entrance that said "no 'N-word's allowed" along with the moose and elks and kiwanis signs.
The US has always had a somewhat decent *theory* of government, but I don't think we ever really had it in practice as designed,never, no matter how far you go back and look. Jefferson wanted to especially address slavery, and got out voted on it for example, completely destroying the concept of individual soverignty and establishing an official governmental and societal precedence for ignoring the words as they were intended in english. It took more than a century to establish women as human beings with any rights. The patenting and copyrighting aspects to our laws were in no manner shape or form supposed to be the abomination we have now. We were never supposed to have corporations running the government or acting outside the US publics interest, yet they have so since day 1. We weren't supposed to have an all powerful executive branch just spewing edicts, yet almost all of them did so,because power easily taken usually is. We have consistently broken our word with treaties. We have consistently interferred in other soverign nations for connected elite business/corporate interests, including about every foreign war we have ever been in, I honestly can't think of an example were we didn't, except for the second war with the british.. We have consistently persecuted religious and racial minorities, all the way to genocidal actions. We have consistently passed new laws every year, without removing any older ones, establishing the principle that government is an open ended growth industry and it is near illegal to make it smaller. We have consistently allowed manipulations of the money supply to skew with normal market functions, usually to the producers detriment and the middlemen & skimmers benefit. We have consistently not provided equal protection under the law between any two states in matters relating to federal law and guaranteed individual born with rights, they let the states slide on that one big time, but then overstepped their bounds on many other issues. We have almost consistently since the civil war tolerated a standing army, and made it patriotic to adhere to that, when it was originally set up that a standing army was abhorrent and would lead to abuse. We established a precedent for the standing army to not only be construed as a supre patriotic subset of the population, but to glorifying following illegal orders from a commander in chief, just because he said so, and monies were taken from the people with an non-excise illegal tax to fund those efforts.
and yada yada yada.
I think we have a collective consciousness of remembering what was good, and glossing over what was bad.
Most humans/nations/tribes/governments/religions you name it, any particular grouping, etc do that, so I think it's safe to say it's just normal human nature and doesn't make us any worse than other peoples-but it doesn't make us much if any better, either. It's a near draw as close as I can call it.
I also don't think it's even possible to have freedom without strife. I don't think it's possible to have an honest government, because you must give away-grant- power to do so, and it will be
We already have a lot of younger people who (from what I have read anyway) can't read an analog clock or write cursive easily. Digital clocks and representations are the norm, along with only reading text and typing more than writing. I also think-can't prove it but think-that calculators are making the ability to do simple math with pencil and paper a lost art as well in the general population.
I can remember when the teachers made us turn in our slide rules before tests.
Man, I wish I still had mine, along with the leather holster. It was sort of the geek badge around school, even moreso than a pocket protector (had one of those, too). You had to have a mechanical pencil for drafting, a black warrior #2 for math and taking notes, and a black ink pen for taking tests (so you couldn't change your answer). You could use blue for taking notes if you wanted to. Written papers had to be either legible cursive, or typed, double spaced, with correct punctuation and paragraphing. Form/appearance and content were equally graded, because it was explained this was important later on in the academic and business world.
Good and bad. I wonder what bits of technology I would give up to have a simpler and politer society. Back then we didn't have school massacres, the kids weren't forced drugged (or voluntarily drugged), we didn't have JBT "officers" roaming the halls, no one cared if you carried a gun to school and put it in your locker for target practice or hunting after school, and you just didn't see teachers scared like they apparently are now. Any "acting up" in class got swift retribution, it didn't de-evolve into focus group studies and child protective services seizing the kids or any of that nonsense, and the parents went along with it, granting parental like priveleges to the teachers as a default while the kids were in school. You acted decent and within some normal bounds of politness and respect, or ya got it, usually a sneaker wrapped with tape or a paddle. I think I got it three times total my entire grade school career, near as I can recall, most likely deserved I might add.
Nowadays the kid acting up would be drugged with some sort of speed and downers mixed most likely,because he obviously must be suffering from a plethora of long named psychological "conditions", then have a life-long record, the teacher would get suspended and incarcerated as a terrorist, and the kid might be taken from his parents and put in some pervo scam foster care money mill.
Times change.
What would I swap??--hmm, big screen sensurround plasma TVs for a start, to get that innocence back.
I don't know what I was doing wrong, but the other night I was trying to get my girlfriend a yahoo account so she could email her dad, who now has an email. I thought yahoo would be nice so she could have her own webpage as well where she could put family pictures and crapola like that. Man, I ate cookies,like half a dozen of them, allowed scripts, took all images, all that happened is I got trapped in a loop that kept taking me back to a login screen. I even changed the password again, thinking I made a mistake, nope, still wouldn't work. She, not needing tons of features or space, I then went over to netscape and got one there, no problems. Has there been a problem with yahoo lately anyone know, or was there an ID 10 T error between the keyboard and monitor?
;)
No way did I want a hotmail account, just don't like them no more...
ya, I know, really set myself up on that one....
stats aren't as meaningful unless you look at all of them. for instance, if you are trying to see which area is "more valuable", there's no way in heck you could compare canada with california, canada trounces them in many other ways, despite having a lower GDP/GSP. You also need to look at Cost of Living, I would imagine it's higher in california, therefore diluting the importance of an inflationary and artificially increased money supply. In fact, I would maintain that having it this way tends to seriously undermine wealth in other areas when there is such a discrepency, as it would help put into place an artifically higher price for a variety of goods and services across the board, as people would get an illusion that those numbers can and should be transferrred else where. This is why when we have our laws and opricing structures dictated by three primarily expensive places in the US, which are washington DC, NYC and LA, because that's where most of the cultural input that is "official" comes from,right into laws and the media brainwashing-err I mean "news"- they gradually lose touch with the rest of the nation, and it gets worse the longer it continues. If it costs you more to get the same thing-the higher cost of living area is actually worse off, because they have an inflated money supply. They have to struggle to maintain a median living arrangement with totally skewed costs. Whenh it can't be sustained, you will get events such as rapid outsourcing out of the area, further putting a strain on the remainder of the citizens/businesses to maintain the PREVIOUS higher levels of pay so that inflated costs may be maintained, and it can't be done forever. It will lead to unnatrual boom and bust cycles, rasther than a steady and sane growth based on over-all productivity. For instance, I have seen homes in california the last time I visited that were-geez, hard to tell-selling for around 5 times higher than an identical home here in georgia at the time. It's not because the materials were that much higher, just that the wages and costs were expanded to way past any other sort of normality anyplace else, and it's unsustainable in the long run. That's one of the reasons you are seeing california in serious money troubles now. They have an artifically higher cost of living compared to most other areas of the nation, and I would imagine it's in a similar situation compared with canada in general.
What that will have to do with ciscos market I think will be more a function of how well their products do every place else. If the lower COL areas are able to keep buying them regardeless, then not much. If the tip over point into "too expensive" is reached, then cisco will be forced to make all it's money only in the most extremely inflated and expensive markets, which isn't a good move in the long run unless all you want to be is an extreme niche player. Some companies can do this, other's can't. Given that routers are needed almost everyplace, it would seem to be prudent for cisco to stay reasonable in pricing so they can sell all over. If routers were only needed in california alone, then they could jack it up and ignore the rest of the world. and once it gets into international patent squabbles, I give up, it's so nuts I won't pretend to understand it other than "it's a broken system".
And just a side note before anyone says that this is how markets work, I'll say, not exactly. Actual true honest markets would not be using a money/trading supply scheme like we have now that artifically props up favorite pet industries and companies of the central bankers and their drinking and golf buddies. Our M3 supply is highly artificial, it is not in any way based on verifiable produced wealth by people actually working and producing goods, ie, creating wealth, it is poof created out of thin air and consistently goes to support those favorite pet companies of the elite connected ones in areas like LA, DC, and NYC if you follow it around enough, so you get a COL schism that leads to unreasonable expectations and a series
it's a fascinating subject to be sure. I wish kids were taught it better. I wish adults took it seriously. I wish government employees would stop following illegal orders. I mean, you can go right down and the list and see where it has been ignored.
Of course, I wish ice cream was magically free and delivered to anyone who wants it, too...not many wars fought over ice cream. super poor to mega rich, they all like ice cream. Hard to be angry while eating ice cream. Dogs like ice cream. I bet aliens like ice cream.......
ice cream diplomacy!
err, back to reality...
Best you can do right now is live your life as an honest and free man, and spread the word that that is a worthy goal. And spend some time finding out about government malfeasance and turning your neighbor on to the data, help spread the word. We'll never take back honest and constitutional government from these various and overlapping little coup mongers we have been inflicted and infested with until we have a critical mass of aware people willing to do just a scosh more than think about it.
Might not ever happen, but to my mind it's better to try then to not try.
... no reason to change, unless they suffer chronic security or useability issues that they could reasonably extrapolate to being severe into the future. Just run the odds with past performance is all you can do then.. If it's working "good enough" for them, and they can handle any downtime or borken-ness that isn't excessive, and they are happy enough with it, sure, a couple bucks a seat you can't beat with two sticks, it's a deal. I think that's an *incredible* price based on what I have read though. They ought to see if they can get it carved in stone for like 10 years, with an escape clause in it, no harm nor foul if they choose different down the pike.
Now ME, and not being a CEO of bigco,but if I was, I wouldn't care, I would get on the intercom and tell the CTO/CIO to go get with the CFO and for them to go get something else, just "because" I wouldn't do business with them. I'm just cranky that way. I quit one job once when I got into medium management when I found out it was medium corrupt, took a pretty snazzy payloss, too....
Probably the main reason I am not CEO of some bigco.....
They make these gizmos to keep your dog inside the yard, called the invisible fence. You bury this wire in the ground, the dog wears a wired up collar, he gets close to the buried wire and gets a zap, turns away. That's the theory. I don't think it works all that well with dogs, but for another electrical thing it probably would.
So, you start with one of them. That will keep your mower inside the designated area wherever you bury the wire. The mower part is an electric self propelled mower, They make them, you buy one of them. You'll have to make all 4 wheels drive so they can be individually activated for steering. Take the steel blade off, replace it with a string trimmer head, they are lighter, work about as good, and safer somewhat, and give you longer range on a battery charge. Now how to make it bounce off the obstacles and go in another random direction you got me, but I've seen several different cheap toys do it, so that tech has to be out there as well. You would have to add that into in the signal from the invisible fence to activate the turning mechanism, so you would get both kinds of turning, planned turning at the fence line, and random off of odd obstacles, like you sitting in your chair with a brewski or whatnot.. You turn the thing on, aim it out to the yard, let er go, it will randomly go around and trim, and being all electric, won't be all that loud, so you can run it a lot. If it consistently misses an area or two, just hand cut that part. Seems like the cheapest easiest way to go, but I am talking out my nether regions as well, might be a bear to make, no idea. I mow all day long mostly, or trim, or cut, or some other various chew up the jungle action, so I have thought of this many times, and can't think of anything heavy duty enough to do it on a big scale that wouldn't be dangerous as all get out for my purposes (one of the mowers I use will cut to almost 20 feet high and has about an 8 foot blade, so no way that could be a autonomous robot), so I've never tried to build one. But man, when it's 90+ F and near-equal humidity like it's been recently, I SURE HAVE thought about it...
Now a big female amazon warrior robot that you could task to drive the mower-among other things-now you're talking! And flyin cars!
%^)
The first ten delineated are inalienable rights. They can't be amended. They are at a different standard from the rest of them.
We disagree on that, but on this statement "The clauses "provide for the common defense" and "promote the general welfare" have turned out to be the most abused in the Constitution." MAN do I agree with you on that. You NAILED it,right in the top boneheaded mistakes in the constitution. The other big one to my way of thinking was not addressing bondage and slavery in more detail and enforcing it right off the bat. Jefferson wanted to but he got out juiced or something by the fatcats who profited from not observing humansd are human. It was an apparent dichotomy, but they let it slide on by, leading to a lot of grief later on.
... to the soverign individual. None, zero, it's not in there. You are automagically BORN with them, all of them. They are not government granted. they are not constitutionaly granted. The constitution merely delineates SOME of your rights, not all of them, just a few they thought particularly important..
It is primarily concerned with delineating how far government can go, and that's about it. All other "rights" not especially granted to government, by actual statement in english words, by default, go to the states and the individual. ALL RIGHTS start with the soverign and free individual. The states have theoretically more granted rights than the feds. The feds in theory have didly squat very few "rights" and only a strictly limited jurisdiction as well, and only for a few specific things. That's how it is supposed to be, but their default now is they have all the rights,100%, and you get permission from them to do something, if they feel like it and only then, and they can change that on a whim to whatever they feel like. It's bass ackwards in the extreme, and it's criminal and I'll use the t word-treasonus..
But they got the order followers with the guns, so this is so now. And you dassn't sass back to massah, ya'hear boy?
So now, with the mini history lesson over, show me where the constitution grants government the right to dork with my privacy. It doesn't unless a grand jury indicts me and I get arrested, or something like that. Lets see where government can suborn a private corporation to dork with my privacy. it doesn't but they do it anyway. Show me where it says government itself can be anything but transparent, ie, no secrets. it doesn't but they do it anyway. Show me where government can just seize my property for any reason they want to, and call it some rule, like an EPA reg or endangered species or whatever. It doesn't but they do it anyway. Show me where in the constitution I am not allowed to own property-ANY property. It doesn't, but they declare all sorts of property to be illegal, or charge YOU a fee or make you get a permission-permit for owning your own property.
What you WILL find is illegal executive orders being used as "laws", and they build on each other. You will find un elected bureaucrats spewing forth edicts that are enforced as laws by one or another of their 40 police forces. You will also find the legislative branch giving away their powers-which they aren't supposed to do or even be able to do. You will find a supreme court that redifines words to suit the latest political scamfoolery. You will find soverign states giving in to bribery and blackmail by the feds.
What you WON'T find is anything that is actually Constitutional law, and because 99% of the people out there don't care,and have no idea how it was originally setup and run, and no desire to find out. So we get what we get and it won't ever get any better, just worse, with things like in this article happening DAILY now..
They strong armed box vendors, and released apps that on purpose broke other peoples apps. This is true, correct? Part of a pattern of generic skunky behavior leading to establishment of a monopoly they couldn't have completely gotten based on actual true productivity and pricing and being ethical. I mean they did get convicted of a few things, and there's some good evidence of other unethical behavior as well.
I also think they probably used a lot of under the table cash in the right hands, but I can't prove it, I'm just guessing, but I'll keep repeating it anyway, because I think I'm right..and I think there's people out there who know that too, buit don't want to get caught up in any federal lawsuits over it, but eventually they'll get busted just like enron or worldcom. I bet it happens, someone is gonna spill the beans one day, and a lot of folks who know about it probably got the records squirreled away in case they have to use them for plea bargaining. Insurance.
Just a guess though, but I hope they are getting nervous about it, especially ole bill hisself.
I know not everyone at any corporation, including microsoft, is evil or a criminal, and I know they have some talented people who've worked hard over the years. I am also of the opinion that at upper management level they are predators and skunks, and sought to maximise profits rather than spend the money on making more stable and more secure products. I think they maximised profits to the detriment of their own workers and employees, let alone other people affected by the use and "trying to use" their stuff.
Plus they been milking that no warranty deal for a long time. Let's see em compete if they have to offer a normal suitability for purpose warranty, same as any other product has to have. Software in general been getting a skate on that juicy plum for a long time now, either it's a brand new industry that needs cuddling and handholding and their teddy bears when there's loud noises outside,and they admit they are incompetent to offer a warranty on their products they have made hundreds of billions on, or they can step up to the plate like any other company/industry,and accept adult responsibility for their work. I think it's way past time to require warranties for professional for-profit software. If you take money for it, I think you should have to back it up with a warranty of some kind.
As to courting developers-ehh, people will go work where they get the best experience and get to do the job they want to do. Part of that is money, but money isn't everything.
And for people who think it is, I feel sorry for them.
They got that way because they established a monopoly, not necessarily that they were the best at anything. You got to have an OS before you have an app, business or otherwise.
My point was, I think in large terms that monopoly got established through illegal actions, such as large scale kickbacks, which I can't prove but will allege. Once they had a monopoly (conversational purposes monopoly I mean, huge significant market share) of significant size, of course more apps were written for their platform. Now, when they see that monopoly be threatened, they are apparently resorting to these "independent consumer groups" for lobbying purposes, to get their dominance legislated into perpetual existence. I think that is pretty skunky behavior myself.
And WHY other billion dollar businesses ACCEPT spending millions for a product that has no warranty is unfathomable. they wouldn't do that with anything else they spend millions on, that's why i think there musta been some serious kickbacks ongoing. It's an opinion, but it is one of only a few rational reasons that are readily apparent, but I haven't seen it addressed much.
I know why too, once you start talking about millions going to pay off people, they certainly don't brag about it in public. Stuff happens in the real world with that kinda money involved-sometimes some pretty bad stuff.
I think you are correct, and there will be legislation to that effect attempted. I give it a 50/50 of getting passed. Depends on how much more "terrorism" they can keep pushing and connecting it to the internet. I have yet to see lately ANY privacy or pro freedom actions triumph over anti freedom and anti privacy legislation. The US people will keep sucking it up and putting up with it as long as they stay scared and buffaloed over -pick a subject.
well, I certainly appreciate your points. Not sure on production business apps because I most likely don't use them, not being a business or working in an office, but I will take your observations on them being true.
I feel though, that one of my major points-kickbacks, along with other unethical behavior, was how this whole empire came about. I can not prove it, so I will say I am just guessing. I dare anyone to dispute that cash "consultation fees" are not a major part of most large international business now, no matter the product. It HAS been proven they did other medium despicable things to get and stay inside computers all over, most notably vendor lock in, IMO. I'll grant they produced products, some decent, some mediocre, some pretty dismal. The differences between small medium and large shops are somewhat becoming moot with automated tools that are available now. Scaling is a reality, although yes, there is always a series of customised whatevers that require hands on, no matter the scale. I have to dork with a single box all the time, so I appreciate how hard it must be to keep *many* of them going. I was more speaking of the medium and long term, short term-the next few years-I expect them to continue with their dominance (inside the US, outside, no I think they'll lose steam faster), and to especially push legislative actions as much as software, which is the major topic of the thread, semi phony "citizen action groups". That's an opening of panic desperation move, clear as day. Whether or not they are entirely successful I don't know, but they have billions of dollars and thousands of people to throw at it, if they choose to. I am cynical to the max about it. I can't see them just giving up, or allowing their carved in stone pay us forever and a day business model to go away, because they simply cannot conceive of any other model to work for them, it's outside the huge money all the time reality they have gotten used to now. I see them as almost identical to the movie and music industries in this aspect. An established monopoly is hard to give up, so anything goes on keeping it-anything. No rules. And at their size, very few laws except laws in their favor apply to them. On paper they do, in the real world, they don't.
Whether linux or mac or bsd or whatever "takes over" I think is moot, what is more important is whether or not our society will be best served by one company doing it all. I think not. Computers are tools to do the real stuff, not the real stuff all by themselves, although WITHIN the industry that is the real stuff, OUTSIDE the industry they are just tools. and that "outside" part is way bigger than the inside part, taking planetary scale of hukan endeavor into consideration. Microsoft seems to want every company,government or person to be working for them, instead of the other way around. it's weird but that's what it looks like to me. like your regular job is just there for microsoft, you must keep paying them tribute or something to keep in business. WHY people got sucked into that mindset is beyond me.
I also think that the folks actually doing the real work with computers will gradually, gradually, gradually wear down the marketing guys and PHBs on this subject, choosing function over form whenever they can get their way on it, and that the mass users segment of the market will just use whatever happens to be on their desks or on sale at the computer store, same as they do now.
And yes, I will agree somewhat with the assessment that in specific "linux" needs to have a lot more consistency to be used past a few percent niche. HOW to do that, no idea. Unified packaging might be a good start. HOW to do that, no idea. Not my gig really. Less skins, more function wouldn't hurt either.
... how about MULTIKERNEL? Thas raht, a kernel for every app! No more struggling with dependency heckfire, no SUH, you get your application with it's own complete OS wrapped in, through and around it, runs on everything from a new peeceee to my uncles de soto.
What? Don't like the multi, micro or macro, howcome then no one makes a MEDIUM SIZED kernel, eh? eh? eh? Your porridge is too hot to eat, too cold to eat? Then go to JUS-S-S-T RIGHT, *in the middle*.
I'd guess there's been some serious cash kickbacks over the years to some big companies (individuals in companies) to get them to stick with microsoft. I can't think of another reason why they would keep using their stuff. I've read all the legit reasons,OK, I can see a few of them, but I bet the REAL main reason is from massive and ongoing kickbacks, and because it's so profitable for *some* people to have very well paying "busy work" fix it daily and forever jobs.
Anyway, it will change. I know it will. Bound to happen. Several years ago now I noticed the young geeks all using linux. Not someone's nephew who can play video games so he's the family computer "specialist", nope, I mean the geeks. The young people in any industry determine the trends of the industry, sooner or later, because thats where the innovation comes from, and also that's where the next generation of decision making bosses comes from.
Microsoft is hosed now, ain't nuthin they can do other than try and get legislation passed to save them. I'm serious on that. they are right at the exact point they need protection, even though they are still raking in billions, it's coming, they know it, that's why you are seeing this sort of stuff. Part of that is to have "concerned consumers" lobby for them. What a crock. IF they do that they will struggle along making billions for a lot more years, but if they *fail to get legislation passed that protects them and their business model of no warranty and mediocre product but maximum profits*, they are hosed. It might take some time, but they will crash and burn right along the opposite side of the curve of their rise to success. That is my prediction.
I was a mac classic guy for years and years from that reason exactly. I bought a machine, it all worked, it was easy to use, never got hosed or owned or anything. If I got a peripheral, I plugged it in and it worked.
I remember sitting around with my roomate back in the day trying to upgrade his modem on a 486 running 3.11. Nightmare, something as simple as that. You would think unscrewing one card and screwing in another and applying the driver from a disk would "just work". Nope. Both of us struggled for days on it off and on, we took it to the local neighborhood ubergeek, HE couldn't do it. A normal big bucks for the time off the shelf at the computar store card modem. Around the same time I got a new one for my mac, plugged it in, selected it from the list of modems, it worked.
Anyway, I switched from macs when apple stopped development on classic and went to a unixy thing that wouldn't run on my hardware, and the combination of the two just got even more expensive, I got priced right out of macs. I had JUST bought a semi new PB1400 and OSX wouldn't run on it, couldn't upgrade past 64 megs RAM and the dang thing USED was expensive. Nuts. I'm screwed then. I'm looking around, had heard of "linux". So I just got some old pc junkers, fixed them up, then got linux discs. It wasn't that hard, I got it up and running and on the intarweb. Seems to work OK, albeit not even close to as easy as classic always was to my way of thinking. It's still not, but "easy enough" now for most normal things I use a computer for. AFTER that initial foray into linux I understood the whole FOSS idea, which I now agree with and support. Windows has never held any sort of fascination for me, I went way too long with no virus du juor or having to set IRQs or needing a firewall or sacraficing chickens or anything to be content with putting up with that kludgy and insecure mess I saw all my friends always struggling with. Irony was they would call my mac a "toy" because it just sat there and worked, as they always were trying to barely keep their machines on the net or keep them from crashing. I thought it was hilarious, but hey, people root for their home team even if they haven't made it to the finals in 50 years or something,mmust be human nature. I think a lot of the "sticking with windows" that has occurred in our society is that humans won't admit they made a mistake when it comes to buying something, especially when the product they buy has no warranty or recall provisions to it. They got stuck with a lemon, and rather than admitting it was a lemon, and entirre lemon fixit it industry grew up around the concept of lemon="good". And this REALLY applies to giant businesses where some powerful VP in charge of buying the expensive stuff gets hosed with 10,000 lemons. he gets to skate on that decision because his buds at the country club, the other VPs, bought the same lemons, so a long time ago they decided to ignore the fact they bought lemons so all of them wouldn't get fired. Well, that and I can't prove it but I bet there's been billions of dollars in kickbacks over the years too that went to the VPs in charge of buying stuff. It exists in every other business, so I doubt it doesn't exist in the expensive paid for software industry.
EULAs are the debble. Here you got fabulously successful companies who by common sense observation SELL software but in legalese they uh loan it to you or something in exchange for you paying for the box it comes in or something. It's nuts. They insist on every possible legal protection and every possible penny in profit, yet NO LAWS apply to the actual product. No warranty, no recourse, no nuthin. It's nuts. I still fail to see why there hasdn't been a massive joe user backlash with a BIG class action suit. forget bundling and browser inclusions and all that jazz, a class action suit over useability for purpose, a warranty. If someone sells a product call it selling, this "license to use but not own" stuff is the ripoff scam going on.
with free software, I got no beefs, I know up front what the cost is-free-and that I might need to tweak, or get hosed with some aspect of it. I don't expect a warranty of any kind, and am pleasantly surprised that the developers keep working and fixing it. To me it's "so what" on any warranty with free software so I don't mind a EULA there. It's worth "free" to me or minimal cost on a data transfer medium. But to charge what entities like MS charge, SERIOUS folding money, get entire companies sucked in, millions of home users, then they have no warranty at all? Nuts. Software been around decades now, time to take the training wheels off and have our legal systen and society treat it like any other product if they insist on treating it like a product when it comes to money.
.. then the vendor should do it as a courtesy before it leaves the store. In fact, they should be updating those machines as they sit around waiting to be sold.
Patches should be treated like a "recall", in fact, IMO, people would take them more seriously if they WERE recalls. People understand a "recall".
Of course, ignore all that, most people won't do quat until after it's hosed... what was I thinking...
just coincidently, and I haven't seen it yet, but that's one of the aspects to moores new film I was just reading about. Like how much "free will" is really involved? He is showing (using his hometown of flint michigan as an example) how the recruiters specifically go into economically devasted areas and recruit there, knowing the kids don't have as much local opportunity for any sort of work that might actually pay anything or provide "benefits", etc. FWIW. I've heard it from a ton of young guys I have known who have gone in, "it's a job" "I'll get college out of it" and etc, going way back to before nam. Well, to be fair about it, back then it was more prudent(in some ways) to volunteer than get drafted, then you at least got the temporary illusion you might actually get to do something you might be interested in. I would say there's something to it, as witness the focus of their TV advertising that you see for "joining up".
.. but you apparently failed to take "common sense". I suggest you visit some areas of the US south, were kudzu is literally burying things, despite enough spraying and mechanical removal leading to soil exposure and erosion to completely contaminate underground aquifers. You can NOT get rid of it unless you resort to truly garganutan efforts, literally declare chemical warfare on your area. Or go look at some lakes that have been decimated by carp, hardly a species left in them of the fishes that isn't carp. Now add in human intervention to make certain genes even MORE dominant than even nature and natural selection provides. Now add in their ability to go cross species, GM tech, and their complete willingness to do so, and their mindset of "to hell with the consequences as long as we might make some short term profit in it or get a research grant so we don't need to get a another job..". None of these people truly know the long term consequences, yet they release these products, and they WILL spread.
It's ignorant and uneducated smugness like yours in the scientific and corporate world that is GOING TO CAUSE some pretty bad effects in a few years time. I hope you remember your post when that happens. If you are aware of biology, have you heard of starlink corn yet? If you can't see the irony in reading his personal account, and others, about how canola that has been GM modified is now classed as a "superweed" and IS taking over all over the north, and exactly how it is affecting people and the economy, then you need to turn your degree back in. There is no excuse for this level of ignorance in a college graduate.
And it's not "just a threat" if it COMES TRUE. He got screed, shafted, cost him thousands, destroyed 50 years work. What do you mean "they can't do that" they JUST DID DO THAT. And they suceeded in scaring any number of other people off just with the threat of litigation. I call that legal extortion. Extortion = a threat to make you do something you wouldn't normally do because the other guy has something on you. In this case, it's the paid off corrupt system that has "something on" the farmers-either go along and be monsantos patsy and whore, and shutup about it, OR ELSE. That's extortion, no other word for it.
It seems to me that if someone has a chronically broken box spewing spam and trojans and whatnot constantly, that they are exactly the types of customers the ISP's lose money on. It shouldn't bother them at all to drop a customer and save on bandwith and headaches and admin costs. Just taking in more gross revenue doesn't necessarily always mean you make a net profit on it.
Say you run a bar, and have a really obnoxious drunk, insulting people, vomiting on the floor, etc, just a PITA. He's spending money though, you are taking in more gross revenue from his business, but would you be better off kicking him out and just concentrating on the patrons who could hold their liquor? In the long run, people, the customers you really want to be regulars, will come back to the bar that keeps itself within some bounds. That's why I think blocking whole subnets is acceptable as well, there are just some places that need to be cutoff completely with interacting with the rest of the internet until they clean up their act.
... to determine if a CPU has been overclocked? I mean for warranty purposes. I would imagine that they have gotten burned before from bogus claims perhaps, so possibly this mechanism might be used to determine if overclocking has occurred.
I don't know, just asking the modders what they know about it.
I don't overclock, I just use 4D CPU "time shifting". I let the rich guys and international corporations buy the brand new stuff, then stay on the raw dripping bleeding edge of like 6-7 year old technology. And whenever I get something "new" using those advanced techniques of RAMMP (random asset and money management preservation), it IS "newer and faster and shiny" to me.
Please? The issue can't be addressed until people can see the malware attempts.