...I imagine a lot of the patents would be the absurd type...
I will reply to myself just to add that none of what I said should be considered to be in defense of patents. The absurd patents to which I referred are the trivial user interface ideas; the kind of idea that you decide upon with the toss of a coin. "Should we make that colour red or blue? Let's make it blue and patent it".
Microsoft have disclosed some of their Android patents in the past as being of this type when they sued Barnes & Nobel. (Yes, it was after trying to negotiate a deal, so my original point still stands). The worst of the patents was "Permit users to easily select text in a document and adjust that selection"! I haven't read the patent, but I really hope that it has some novel user interface idea, because the title of the patent makes it look like the most extremely absurd patent.
The problem is that it is very difficult to write the rules to quantify just what should or should not be considered reasonable to be patented. The easy solution is to make it law that every time a patent is rejected in court, the individual authors listed on the patent get punched in the face. Admit it, you know you want that.
The only good news to come from all of this, says blogger Brian Proffitt, is that we may be headed for a courtroom showdown over just what patents Microsoft believes are in violation, which really is what should have happened to begin with.
I completely disagree with the idea that the first thing you should do in a patent dispute is to take someone to court. Look at the difference between Apple and Microsoft as far as Samsung is concerned. In the case of Apple, Samsung has been taken to court in various districts around the world and has been prevented from selling some of their products at all in certain countries. Suit has met with counter-suit, and lots of lawyers have got just a bit fatter. This will either end with Samsung having to scrap their product line, or settle this all out of court with some deal. Either way it will cost them a bundle.
On the other hand, Microsoft negotiated a deal, during which time Samsung was not prevented from selling their products anywhere. The end result is still a deal with another company, but without the cost and PR problems that lawsuits generate.
Why should the former be the preferred option? Yes, more details on the patents would be appreciated but the companies involved with these deals must be given more information, otherwise they would not make the deals. I imagine a lot of the patents would be the absurd type, just like Apple's patents in the Dutch case. But I am sure that some of their patents (VFAT, ActiveSync) would stand up in court though.
Ah, Microsoft apologists. As hilarious as they are delusional...
Wow, you are really not aiming for an insightful mod there! You can't actually come up with any valid discussion points, so you just go for insults. You might think that you are being anti-Microsoft, but in fact you are being anti-IT professional.
Do you seriously suggest that a system that is carefully put together with security in mind by a trained professional will be equally secure as one run by a person with no training and no interest doing anything but the bare minimum default installation? If so, then we might as well sack all the IT staff and let the clueless managers run the computers!
If your entire thought process in regards to computer security is just to avoid Microsoft and you will be fine, then you are doing your users a major disservice. Non-Microsoft systems do get hacked - even the original poster agrees with that. A lot of the time that you hear about those hacks, it turns out it is due to some entirely silly and preventable reason like using a default password for something (or none at all). Who is more likely to make that sort of mistake: someone who is a dedicated system administrator who has a security plan, or someone who just wants to quickly get their OS installation out of the way so they can start downloading porn?
If you can explain why, for example, the servers that hold data on 10,000+ clients get subjected to successful attacks in almost exactly the same proportions as home machines, heavily 'favoring' Microsoft, yet the various UNIX related operating systems are much, much more common there, then you can claim popularity makes all, or even much of, the difference.
What is the difference between a large server and a home user? It is the person sitting behind the keyboard. On one hand you have a highly qualified person who knows that they have a valuable system and who spends a lot if time locking down and testing the system.
On the other hand you have an average Joe who thinks their system would never be targeted by hackers, and who downloads and runs any random screensaver or funny program that gets sent to them without a second thought.
The biggest obstacle to security is not the operating system, but the people who don't care about it; the people who run as an administrator account (which they haven't needed to do for a decade), with security turned off (like UAC) because they do not want to be inconvenienced, and with lots of programs installed instead of the bare minimum needed to get the job done.
All of this also explains why routers are not as compromised as desktop systems. Once again they are setup by professionals with an eye to security. They also have a limited number of apps on them. Finally they do not have the market share of Windows. You cannot compare their marketshare vs their competition because that is meaningless.
Why, knowing Apples get a lot of use in Hollywood for film editing and art, don't the people who bootleg video workprints and such target Apples more there - a place where they are quite popular?
Because they are not connected to the Internet. Because getting the timing right to luck onto the tiny window of opportunity to find a finished copy on one of these machines (and not just the unedited footage) would be impossible. Because the file size of the movies made for cinema release would be unfeasible to transfer over the Internet without being noticed. Because it is easier to get it other ways, like the discs distributed around the company or to awards judges. There is no point wasting time trying to hack those systems when there are too many variables, too many other easier options and too much chance that any security hole would be found and patched before you managed to transfer a single movie.
As for all you rubbish about Microsoft's APIs, can you name a product that received the official "Windows Compatable" logo whilst using non-standard APIs that caused a security hole. How many people here think that Microsoft should have had veto control over all the third party apps made for Windows? Imagine the outcry if Mcrosoft had refused to allow a competitor's software to be run on their OS. There are still enough people citing the time that a beta version of Windows would not run on DR-DOS!
I've been told (I don't remember where) that FAT32 is also patented, whether or not long filenames are involved.
I think the patents just cover long filenames, but I could be wrong. However, the Windows driver to the read/write ext2 filesystem fits on a single floppy disk so it does not require FAT32. It could also fit on a CD-ROM, which also does not require any Microsoft patented technology.
There were a lot of similarities in the way that you accessed files between DOS and CP/M (drive letters, 8.3 filenames), but the actual FAT file system was not the same as CP/M's.
In fact, that was one of the advantages of MS-DOS over CP/M - the standardized disk format. The old CP/M systems made by the different vendors could not read each other's disks because they had their own customization of the file system. Disk interoperability was one of the reasons that DOS won in the end.
It's extortion because Microsoft has failed to state what IP Android is infringing.
Do you seriously think that Samsung was not informed what patents has that this agreement would cover? The agreement may be open ended and include some patents that have not been fully specified, but Microsoft do have enough examples (that have specific licensing programs) that they can show Samsung.
I do believe the level of discussion between the legal departments of the two companies would have been a bit more specific than the simplistic and vague statements that get posted around here.
What's suppose to happen is Microsoft would sue Google stating what specific patent Android is infringing. Once the proper evidence has been presented and deemed proper, the court would rule in Microsoft's favor. The court would order Google to remove the offending code and pay Microsoft a fine.
The code may not be part of Google's code. Some things like VFAT and ActiveSync could be add-ons by the vendors that use Android. And why would Microsoft want Google to remove the code anyway? This is exactly why they have licensing programs for their IP.
And there appears to be a chicken-and-egg problem: how does one load such driver onto an Internet-disconnected PC without first inserting a memory card formatted in FAT or NTFS?
FAT is fine. Just keep to 8.3 length filenames and you do not infringe on any patents.
'... as a way of showing how Mojang has copied Bethesda because both Skyrim and Scrolls contain mountains.'
I think I might have a case against... just about every shooter out there!
The whole summary is a complete troll. Firstly, this is not about copyright but trademark infringement (as has been stated here already). Why do people get these concepts so confused. I am sure that some idiot here will mention patents too. (Oh look, it was me!)
And who was it that made this claim that it was about copying mountains? Why the business developer of the company who want to belittle the entire lawsuit! The quip about settling this with a Quake 3 game is another attempt to trivialise the dispute.
The thing is, this is a textbook trademark dispute. It doesn't matter that one side is a big company and the other a smaller one. If It had been Bethesda who made Elder Scrolls VI: Minecraft then everyone would be cheering Mojang when they defended their trademarks against the big bully company.
I'd assume someone as security conscious as you would have already opted in to the html5 trial on youtube.
Actually, I consider HTML5 video to be an immature and untrusted entity. The authors of browser plug-ins could not write secure code, so there is no reason that browser writers should not give us exploitable bugs too. Just because the video is part of the HTML language does not instantly make it safe.
It may prove to be fine eventually, but it is still something that would not instantly trust to every single website I happen to come across. Besides, I prefer my webpages to stay still.
You don't need java to view the youtube video, it uses javascript.
It actually required Adobe Flash in my browser. All I got was a black square because I locked down my security settings to only allow Flash on whitelisted sites.
I was not suggesting that YouTube uses Java, but that his comment was an indication that we should eliminate use of software with known security problems and that expecting his audience to run plug-ins on his site went against his advice. I should have been more clear about that point.
All he needed to do was include a link to the YouTube page along with the embedded video so that people who care about security could see the video without having to view the source to grab the address.
All this coming from someone wasting their life posting messages in a forum about creating simulated monkeys to test a popular theorem. If this is too trivial for you, why are you here on idle.slashdot.org and not out creating a better world for mankind?
A while back, I decided I don't need java, adobe acrobat or flash on my work machines (too much attack surface).
My philosophy is that you disable/uninstall everything and the switch it back on when you need it. Sometimes it is a pain, but it is better than browsing the net with a big "kick me" sign on your virtual back.
I found it strange that the Krebs on Security site linked in the summary would state that we should avoid using Java for security reasons, but then assume that we would be able to view an embedded youtube video on his page. Surely anyone interested in security would just link to the youtube page rather than hope we all allow flash to run on unknown websites.
If I hacked a website, and knew that it would eventually be exposed, I would announce the infection myself with a helpful flash video that was also a virus exploit. You could double the infection rate with such a scam.
This experiment, while fun, isn't exactly the infinite monkey experiment.
Of course it is not. It is impossible to simulate an infinite amount of monkeys working for an infinite amount of time. Some concession has to be made to the fact that we have a finite amount of computing power.
What a depressingly dull world you live in. By that thinking, all human endeavor is a waste of time because it is a forgone conclusion that we all die in the end.
Sometimes it is the journey that is more important than the final destination. This was not about making another copy of a work of literature, but the creation of a simulation of virtual monkeys.
DR-DOS, Wordperfect, Ami pro count as direct sabotage in modifying their code to break competitors products.
What a load of rubbish! A single beta version of Windows didn't work under DR-DOS. To that sounds like they are just eliminating bugs in the was DR-DOS runs Windows from distracting the developers who are trying to find bugs in their own code. Any version of Windows (pre-Win95) that could be purchased would run under DR-DOS.
WordPerfect killed themselves by resisting the move to WYSIWYG and a Windows version. When they finally did it, it was incredibly buggy. How is Microsoft responsible for that?
As for Ami Pro... I give up. What code did microsoft change to break Ami Pro? They did have a shared use of a filename extension, but that sort of thing happened all the time back then. Just because a program competes with a Microsoft product and then fails does not mean that it was due to Microsoft being evil.
If it really WAS infringing, the lawsuits should have been flying left and right a decade or more ago.
They seem to turn a blind eye to desktop use of Linux and go after commercial implementations embedded in devices. They also do not have a policy of using the courts first, but rather they attempt to negotiate deals like this Casio one.
My guess is that Casio wants to use long file names using FAT32.
Windows 8 is being released because Microsoft wants and needs a response to the iPad. That is all.
No, Windows 8 is being released because it is the scheduled time to release a new version of Windows. Microsoft's tablet computing dates back to 1991, but the current push started in with a special version of XP which was later incorporated into the main version of Vista.
This work with Metro is just an evolution of their Tablet PC idea rather than a recent knee jerk reaction to iOS. Some of the user interface ideas hark back to Windows Media Center. The idea of using HTML for metro apps was done with Active Desktop and Windows Sidebar. The walled garden approach is the same as what they do for the Xbox Live (and probably would have already had if the original Windows Marketplace had been a success).
Sure, Microsoft will be keeping an eye on what the competition is doing, but Windows 8 is merely another step in the direction that the OS has been heading for quite some time.
Having to install third party software just to use a webcam floored me.
So you are happy to install third party software to play games, but not to access a webcam? And let me guess, this experience was on a ten year old version of Windows? My Windows 7 gaming system doesn't have any drivers installed on it other than what gets automatically installed from Microsoft. All hardware just works out of the box. I don't have a webcam, but I imagine that this would be just as successful.
Thanks for replying. I agree that there is a lot of wishy-washy thinking out there, but I am still unsure from the topics that you raised what the actual argument is that the left is using that would actually apply to themselves?
The "reversible argument" argument fits an observation I have frequently made during the past few years. There is what seems to be a growing category of people that frequently accuse their opposition of doing exactly what they are doing.
I absolutely agree. You see this sort of thing time and time again in arguments about climate change and evolution. The mainstream science will be described as a religion by uneducated people who display a lack of understanding of the science and who just "believe" that climate change or evolution is wrong.
Or you have the claims that climate scientists are just toeing the line because they are just in it to get funding. These claims originate from think tanks that are funded (at least in part) by the established energy companies who stand to lose from the move to renewable energy sources.
Unlike my sibling posters, I can't think of any examples from the left wing political spectrum. I really did want to include an example here from the more extreme environmentalist argument to avoid making this seem like a partisan argument, but I just don't see this sort of argument happening. It is not like environmentalists are claiming that the people responsible for deforestation care too much for the environment!
how does a law like this get through... don't people want any privacy?
It is simple. Just tell the public that only terrorists, criminals and paedophiles want anonymity on the Internet. If people will put with being groped at airports, then it isn't so unthinkable that they would be too bothered by something that seems as trivial as requiring real names on the net.
In fact, I don't think they have sued anyone over software patents yet.
They sued Samsung over the slide to unlock patent. How trivial is that? Mind you, suing someone over rounded corners shows that they will stoop to the same level on the hardware side of things too.
Slashdot Mirror
...I imagine a lot of the patents would be the absurd type...
I will reply to myself just to add that none of what I said should be considered to be in defense of patents. The absurd patents to which I referred are the trivial user interface ideas; the kind of idea that you decide upon with the toss of a coin. "Should we make that colour red or blue? Let's make it blue and patent it".
Microsoft have disclosed some of their Android patents in the past as being of this type when they sued Barnes & Nobel. (Yes, it was after trying to negotiate a deal, so my original point still stands). The worst of the patents was "Permit users to easily select text in a document and adjust that selection"! I haven't read the patent, but I really hope that it has some novel user interface idea, because the title of the patent makes it look like the most extremely absurd patent.
The problem is that it is very difficult to write the rules to quantify just what should or should not be considered reasonable to be patented. The easy solution is to make it law that every time a patent is rejected in court, the individual authors listed on the patent get punched in the face. Admit it, you know you want that.
From TFS:
The only good news to come from all of this, says blogger Brian Proffitt, is that we may be headed for a courtroom showdown over just what patents Microsoft believes are in violation, which really is what should have happened to begin with.
I completely disagree with the idea that the first thing you should do in a patent dispute is to take someone to court. Look at the difference between Apple and Microsoft as far as Samsung is concerned. In the case of Apple, Samsung has been taken to court in various districts around the world and has been prevented from selling some of their products at all in certain countries. Suit has met with counter-suit, and lots of lawyers have got just a bit fatter. This will either end with Samsung having to scrap their product line, or settle this all out of court with some deal. Either way it will cost them a bundle.
On the other hand, Microsoft negotiated a deal, during which time Samsung was not prevented from selling their products anywhere. The end result is still a deal with another company, but without the cost and PR problems that lawsuits generate.
Why should the former be the preferred option? Yes, more details on the patents would be appreciated but the companies involved with these deals must be given more information, otherwise they would not make the deals. I imagine a lot of the patents would be the absurd type, just like Apple's patents in the Dutch case. But I am sure that some of their patents (VFAT, ActiveSync) would stand up in court though.
Ah, Microsoft apologists. As hilarious as they are delusional...
Wow, you are really not aiming for an insightful mod there! You can't actually come up with any valid discussion points, so you just go for insults. You might think that you are being anti-Microsoft, but in fact you are being anti-IT professional.
Do you seriously suggest that a system that is carefully put together with security in mind by a trained professional will be equally secure as one run by a person with no training and no interest doing anything but the bare minimum default installation? If so, then we might as well sack all the IT staff and let the clueless managers run the computers!
If your entire thought process in regards to computer security is just to avoid Microsoft and you will be fine, then you are doing your users a major disservice. Non-Microsoft systems do get hacked - even the original poster agrees with that. A lot of the time that you hear about those hacks, it turns out it is due to some entirely silly and preventable reason like using a default password for something (or none at all). Who is more likely to make that sort of mistake: someone who is a dedicated system administrator who has a security plan, or someone who just wants to quickly get their OS installation out of the way so they can start downloading porn?
If you can explain why, for example, the servers that hold data on 10,000+ clients get subjected to successful attacks in almost exactly the same proportions as home machines, heavily 'favoring' Microsoft, yet the various UNIX related operating systems are much, much more common there, then you can claim popularity makes all, or even much of, the difference.
What is the difference between a large server and a home user? It is the person sitting behind the keyboard. On one hand you have a highly qualified person who knows that they have a valuable system and who spends a lot if time locking down and testing the system.
On the other hand you have an average Joe who thinks their system would never be targeted by hackers, and who downloads and runs any random screensaver or funny program that gets sent to them without a second thought.
The biggest obstacle to security is not the operating system, but the people who don't care about it; the people who run as an administrator account (which they haven't needed to do for a decade), with security turned off (like UAC) because they do not want to be inconvenienced, and with lots of programs installed instead of the bare minimum needed to get the job done.
All of this also explains why routers are not as compromised as desktop systems. Once again they are setup by professionals with an eye to security. They also have a limited number of apps on them. Finally they do not have the market share of Windows. You cannot compare their marketshare vs their competition because that is meaningless.
Why, knowing Apples get a lot of use in Hollywood for film editing and art, don't the people who bootleg video workprints and such target Apples more there - a place where they are quite popular?
Because they are not connected to the Internet. Because getting the timing right to luck onto the tiny window of opportunity to find a finished copy on one of these machines (and not just the unedited footage) would be impossible. Because the file size of the movies made for cinema release would be unfeasible to transfer over the Internet without being noticed. Because it is easier to get it other ways, like the discs distributed around the company or to awards judges. There is no point wasting time trying to hack those systems when there are too many variables, too many other easier options and too much chance that any security hole would be found and patched before you managed to transfer a single movie.
As for all you rubbish about Microsoft's APIs, can you name a product that received the official "Windows Compatable" logo whilst using non-standard APIs that caused a security hole. How many people here think that Microsoft should have had veto control over all the third party apps made for Windows? Imagine the outcry if Mcrosoft had refused to allow a competitor's software to be run on their OS. There are still enough people citing the time that a beta version of Windows would not run on DR-DOS!
I've been told (I don't remember where) that FAT32 is also patented, whether or not long filenames are involved.
I think the patents just cover long filenames, but I could be wrong. However, the Windows driver to the read/write ext2 filesystem fits on a single floppy disk so it does not require FAT32. It could also fit on a CD-ROM, which also does not require any Microsoft patented technology.
Invented? You mean copied from CP/M.
There were a lot of similarities in the way that you accessed files between DOS and CP/M (drive letters, 8.3 filenames), but the actual FAT file system was not the same as CP/M's.
In fact, that was one of the advantages of MS-DOS over CP/M - the standardized disk format. The old CP/M systems made by the different vendors could not read each other's disks because they had their own customization of the file system. Disk interoperability was one of the reasons that DOS won in the end.
It's extortion because Microsoft has failed to state what IP Android is infringing.
Do you seriously think that Samsung was not informed what patents has that this agreement would cover? The agreement may be open ended and include some patents that have not been fully specified, but Microsoft do have enough examples (that have specific licensing programs) that they can show Samsung.
I do believe the level of discussion between the legal departments of the two companies would have been a bit more specific than the simplistic and vague statements that get posted around here.
What's suppose to happen is Microsoft would sue Google stating what specific patent Android is infringing. Once the proper evidence has been presented and deemed proper, the court would rule in Microsoft's favor. The court would order Google to remove the offending code and pay Microsoft a fine.
The code may not be part of Google's code. Some things like VFAT and ActiveSync could be add-ons by the vendors that use Android. And why would Microsoft want Google to remove the code anyway? This is exactly why they have licensing programs for their IP.
And there appears to be a chicken-and-egg problem: how does one load such driver onto an Internet-disconnected PC without first inserting a memory card formatted in FAT or NTFS?
FAT is fine. Just keep to 8.3 length filenames and you do not infringe on any patents.
'... as a way of showing how Mojang has copied Bethesda because both Skyrim and Scrolls contain mountains.'
I think I might have a case against... just about every shooter out there!
The whole summary is a complete troll. Firstly, this is not about copyright but trademark infringement (as has been stated here already). Why do people get these concepts so confused. I am sure that some idiot here will mention patents too. (Oh look, it was me!)
And who was it that made this claim that it was about copying mountains? Why the business developer of the company who want to belittle the entire lawsuit! The quip about settling this with a Quake 3 game is another attempt to trivialise the dispute.
The thing is, this is a textbook trademark dispute. It doesn't matter that one side is a big company and the other a smaller one. If It had been Bethesda who made Elder Scrolls VI: Minecraft then everyone would be cheering Mojang when they defended their trademarks against the big bully company.
I'd assume someone as security conscious as you would have already opted in to the html5 trial on youtube.
Actually, I consider HTML5 video to be an immature and untrusted entity. The authors of browser plug-ins could not write secure code, so there is no reason that browser writers should not give us exploitable bugs too. Just because the video is part of the HTML language does not instantly make it safe.
It may prove to be fine eventually, but it is still something that would not instantly trust to every single website I happen to come across. Besides, I prefer my webpages to stay still.
You don't need java to view the youtube video, it uses javascript.
It actually required Adobe Flash in my browser. All I got was a black square because I locked down my security settings to only allow Flash on whitelisted sites.
I was not suggesting that YouTube uses Java, but that his comment was an indication that we should eliminate use of software with known security problems and that expecting his audience to run plug-ins on his site went against his advice. I should have been more clear about that point.
All he needed to do was include a link to the YouTube page along with the embedded video so that people who care about security could see the video without having to view the source to grab the address.
All this coming from someone wasting their life posting messages in a forum about creating simulated monkeys to test a popular theorem. If this is too trivial for you, why are you here on idle.slashdot.org and not out creating a better world for mankind?
A while back, I decided I don't need java, adobe acrobat or flash on my work machines (too much attack surface).
My philosophy is that you disable/uninstall everything and the switch it back on when you need it. Sometimes it is a pain, but it is better than browsing the net with a big "kick me" sign on your virtual back.
I found it strange that the Krebs on Security site linked in the summary would state that we should avoid using Java for security reasons, but then assume that we would be able to view an embedded youtube video on his page. Surely anyone interested in security would just link to the youtube page rather than hope we all allow flash to run on unknown websites.
If I hacked a website, and knew that it would eventually be exposed, I would announce the infection myself with a helpful flash video that was also a virus exploit. You could double the infection rate with such a scam.
This experiment, while fun, isn't exactly the infinite monkey experiment.
Of course it is not. It is impossible to simulate an infinite amount of monkeys working for an infinite amount of time. Some concession has to be made to the fact that we have a finite amount of computing power.
What a depressingly dull world you live in. By that thinking, all human endeavor is a waste of time because it is a forgone conclusion that we all die in the end.
Sometimes it is the journey that is more important than the final destination. This was not about making another copy of a work of literature, but the creation of a simulation of virtual monkeys.
DR-DOS, Wordperfect, Ami pro count as direct sabotage in modifying their code to break competitors products.
What a load of rubbish! A single beta version of Windows didn't work under DR-DOS. To that sounds like they are just eliminating bugs in the was DR-DOS runs Windows from distracting the developers who are trying to find bugs in their own code. Any version of Windows (pre-Win95) that could be purchased would run under DR-DOS.
WordPerfect killed themselves by resisting the move to WYSIWYG and a Windows version. When they finally did it, it was incredibly buggy. How is Microsoft responsible for that?
As for Ami Pro... I give up. What code did microsoft change to break Ami Pro? They did have a shared use of a filename extension, but that sort of thing happened all the time back then. Just because a program competes with a Microsoft product and then fails does not mean that it was due to Microsoft being evil.
If it really WAS infringing, the lawsuits should have been flying left and right a decade or more ago.
They seem to turn a blind eye to desktop use of Linux and go after commercial implementations embedded in devices. They also do not have a policy of using the courts first, but rather they attempt to negotiate deals like this Casio one.
My guess is that Casio wants to use long file names using FAT32.
Windows 8 is being released because Microsoft wants and needs a response to the iPad. That is all.
No, Windows 8 is being released because it is the scheduled time to release a new version of Windows. Microsoft's tablet computing dates back to 1991, but the current push started in with a special version of XP which was later incorporated into the main version of Vista.
This work with Metro is just an evolution of their Tablet PC idea rather than a recent knee jerk reaction to iOS. Some of the user interface ideas hark back to Windows Media Center. The idea of using HTML for metro apps was done with Active Desktop and Windows Sidebar. The walled garden approach is the same as what they do for the Xbox Live (and probably would have already had if the original Windows Marketplace had been a success).
Sure, Microsoft will be keeping an eye on what the competition is doing, but Windows 8 is merely another step in the direction that the OS has been heading for quite some time.
Having to install third party software just to use a webcam floored me.
So you are happy to install third party software to play games, but not to access a webcam? And let me guess, this experience was on a ten year old version of Windows? My Windows 7 gaming system doesn't have any drivers installed on it other than what gets automatically installed from Microsoft. All hardware just works out of the box. I don't have a webcam, but I imagine that this would be just as successful.
Thanks for replying. I agree that there is a lot of wishy-washy thinking out there, but I am still unsure from the topics that you raised what the actual argument is that the left is using that would actually apply to themselves?
The "reversible argument" argument fits an observation I have frequently made during the past few years. There is what seems to be a growing category of people that frequently accuse their opposition of doing exactly what they are doing.
I absolutely agree. You see this sort of thing time and time again in arguments about climate change and evolution. The mainstream science will be described as a religion by uneducated people who display a lack of understanding of the science and who just "believe" that climate change or evolution is wrong.
Or you have the claims that climate scientists are just toeing the line because they are just in it to get funding. These claims originate from think tanks that are funded (at least in part) by the established energy companies who stand to lose from the move to renewable energy sources.
Unlike my sibling posters, I can't think of any examples from the left wing political spectrum. I really did want to include an example here from the more extreme environmentalist argument to avoid making this seem like a partisan argument, but I just don't see this sort of argument happening. It is not like environmentalists are claiming that the people responsible for deforestation care too much for the environment!
Absolutely. This is not a reboot, it is just game that uses the same name as an old classic from a different genre.
What is next? A flight simulator named Tetris?
how does a law like this get through... don't people want any privacy?
It is simple. Just tell the public that only terrorists, criminals and paedophiles want anonymity on the Internet. If people will put with being groped at airports, then it isn't so unthinkable that they would be too bothered by something that seems as trivial as requiring real names on the net.
Isn't there _something_ that can shift the pitch of a certain frequency into another frequency so I can hear it without amplification?
Carry around a balloon full of sulfur hexafluoride.
In fact, I don't think they have sued anyone over software patents yet.
They sued Samsung over the slide to unlock patent. How trivial is that? Mind you, suing someone over rounded corners shows that they will stoop to the same level on the hardware side of things too.