Many cities are putting in a light rail system. The problem is that rail is great for moving large loads, not so much for getting someone to even within a mile or two of their destination. Gotta have something to cover that gap.
I'll take my jacket off while driving. But if I don't do anything other than drive when I'm in a place where things can come from the side of the road without me seeing. But that's not every road. There are lots of high-traffic areas that are simply not accessible at all, or very rarely accessed by pedestrians. If you're eating and putting in eye drops while driving in Manhattan, I'd backhand you. Doing it while driving through the deserts in bumfuck, Utah without another car around for 50 miles? Not so much.
You have to give appropriate attention while driving. Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less. A good driver knows the difference.
Yes. But they sold me an INTERNET account. They then changed the service they were providing with no notice. If they sold me a "web and email access" account, then I'd agree with you. But calling it an internet account is like saying a moped is highway-worthy. Only in the sense that it can go 55 downhill with the wind at it's back is it highway-worthy.
I knew they existed, but as I have never read one through, I had no knowledge of what they contained. I was also not aware that this specific software had an EULA, as it was not indicated to me that I would be subject to further conditions after the sale of the software to me either by notices on the box or through the employees at the store where I bought it.
You asked the kid to install the software. You didn't know anything about the EULA, and he wasn't legally able to agree to it. Yet the software still let you use it. It's not a case of "Here, click this button so I don't actually do it", it's a case of "Here, do this task for me". The task incidentally had the child agree to a contract he wasn't legally able to, it wasn't the only purpose of the task. At least, that's how I'd argue it.
I read through Raymond's blog, and while I get what he's saying, I still thing it's trying to put a shine on a turd. I don't run into any USB functionality problems with ANY devices when running Linux. Why does Microsoft somehow act differently? There's no reason to REQUIRE a serial number unless the device itself somehow needs to be uniquely recognized. 99% of devices don't need that for any reason, and if they do, they should have their own software doing so, not the basic USB drivers. USB should only connect the device to the computer with an accessible interface to programs which is easy to do using bus enumeration. USB is removable... it shouldn't need anything permanent. And if it does, THEN require the serial number. He's arguing about edge cases as if they're the only ones that matter, and it's the general case that's suffering.
Windows is a monopoly. That means they have to play by different rules. If Microsoft didn't dictate things to suppliers, I'd agree with you. The problem is that they make unilateral moves and expect everyone to roll over. A company that was not a monopoly could not do that, they would have to provide a product that their customers wanted, rather than tell the customers what they wanted and say "fuck off" if they don't like it. Microsoft locked people into its proprietary file formats and protocols, and it's now reaping what it sowed with those moves.
And that STILL didn't pull us out of the depression. The only thing that pulled us out was WWII. We aren't learning from history... we're repeating it.
Bullshit. This is just more pork that's avoiding the issue. A "stimulus" would be punishing the people responsible for this mess, setting things up so that it can't happen again, and giving people faith in the system so that they aren't scared to spend their money knowing it will come back to them.
What pisses me off is that Comcast did the same thing a few months back. I can no longer run a mail server on my home machine. It's not an Internet connection... it's a web and email connection now.
Pray tell... what is the case where you would have two of the same device, and need different drivers for them? I mean, their USB address is different, so you can tell which is which very easily during operation. But if you don't need separate drivers, why would the OS ever CARE what the serial number is? It'd be up to applications accessing the device that would care about the serial numbering, and that's it.
If you don't use a damn smartphone, why in the hell are you commenting on a story about it? Are you proud to be a semi-luddite or something? "I use a computer, but I'll be damned if I use a fancy phone!"
Virus authors rarely want to cause damage. And if they do, it's quickly caught. What's more common is trying to run things under the radar so that you can profit from it. And without root privileges you cannot run servers on privileged ports and so on, so it's still much less of a danger. It can still blast out information, but hey, so can any program. The only thing to worry about are "ransom" type programs which encrypt data and force you to pay for the password to decrypt it. And those are very uncommon.
I'm not saying.desktop files should be executable by default. I think there needs to be a mechanism keeping them from doing so, perhaps not allowing them to execute any files that aren't owned by root. That should solve most of the issues.
Ok. So what other phones or devices can use that connector? None, you say? It's not an industry standard?
A standard of some kind is damn useful. It's the only way to break Apple's stranglehold. I don't want to have to pay AT&T and Apple if I want to use my phone as a media device in my vehicle. It's the same as the "Microsoft tax" because Microsoft owns the standards. Do we REALLY want the same thing happening in the mobile phone space, with the even more controlling Apple at the helm?
Windows USB functionality is severely backwards... why is my damn phone a different device when I plug it into a different USB port? Does the port address somehow magically make it behave differently? Can you tell that it's annoying having to plug every new device into every single port on my computer and installing the driver so that I don't have to worry about that when I actually want to use the device?
Glad I only use Windows for gaming and to update my Blackberry's software.
And I can think of many things I think are fun but lots of other people don't. Point is, people are different... I know, it's hard to believe that not everyone likes and dislikes the same things you do. But some people would think that this is a bargain at $130K. Seriously... hovering 45' over the water flying around? That'd be awesome. If I had the money, I'd pay for it.
I don't miss your point. The problem is that an alternator is almost never replaced. Designing the alternator for where it fits in the car is much more important than a standard alternator mounting because you should never really have to touch it. Same with a cell-phone battery. No need for a standard size battery because you never really need to deal with it. The charger is a connection you deal with daily, in multiple different places. It's much more important that the charger be standardized, just like the automobile voltage is standardized.
If we didn't have custom parts for cars (taking it to the logical conclusion), they'd all look like Toyota Corollas. We wouldn't have any sports cars, we wouldn't have any trucks. Or we'd have one almost identical design of each "type". A Ford Mustang wouldn't much different than a Chevy Trans-Am.
Oh, I agree. But I'm posing the hypothetical, the situation lots of people less knowledgeable and less honest than you are will experience. They will choose piracy as soon as they're burned by enough contracts, because the job needs to get done. And sometimes there just aren't open-source equivalents for some software, which forces the choice to be even harder.
Try installing Windows on new hardware, see what happens. Go for it. I'll wait.
Oh, right. That's what happens... EVERY operating system has problems when installing on hardware it wasn't meant for. Try installing Linux on a machine that supports it. Something like a Lenovo T61. Linux installs a lot better than Windows does. You don't have to hunt around for drivers when installing, you don't have to have an updater for each separate application, etc.
Really... do you expect OSX to run on any hardware without some work? Why in the hell would you expect the same from a non-preinstalled Linux? Perhaps it's unreasonable expectations? Or just ignorance? Laziness? Incompetence?
Yeah! And while we're at it, let's let the electric companies provide power at whatever voltage and frequency they want. I mean, it's not like your different alternators all provide 12V current, right? Wait... they do? So all your electrical accessories in your vehicle can expect to get a 12V electrical supply? And you can buy any automotive battery that supplies 12V and it works? Damn.
The reason alternators aren't standardized is because you rarely have to work directly with them. If you had to replace your alternator and battery if you wanted a new radio head unit, you better believe people would be up in arms.
You don't have a free market without complete information. Do you know ahead of time that the phone you're buying is incompatible with all your current accessories? If they don't make that clear to consumers, then it's a FAILURE of the free market. If it happens too often, then regulation is quite reasonable. Or do you not like having the government regulate that power coming to your house be compatible with almost any electric device you can buy, and in side cases (stoves, dryers, etc.) it's clearly marked and understood to be different?
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I think you were actually thinking about Section 230 protections, not common carrier.
Many cities are putting in a light rail system. The problem is that rail is great for moving large loads, not so much for getting someone to even within a mile or two of their destination. Gotta have something to cover that gap.
I'll take my jacket off while driving. But if I don't do anything other than drive when I'm in a place where things can come from the side of the road without me seeing. But that's not every road. There are lots of high-traffic areas that are simply not accessible at all, or very rarely accessed by pedestrians. If you're eating and putting in eye drops while driving in Manhattan, I'd backhand you. Doing it while driving through the deserts in bumfuck, Utah without another car around for 50 miles? Not so much.
You have to give appropriate attention while driving. Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less. A good driver knows the difference.
Yes. But they sold me an INTERNET account. They then changed the service they were providing with no notice. If they sold me a "web and email access" account, then I'd agree with you. But calling it an internet account is like saying a moped is highway-worthy. Only in the sense that it can go 55 downhill with the wind at it's back is it highway-worthy.
I knew they existed, but as I have never read one through, I had no knowledge of what they contained. I was also not aware that this specific software had an EULA, as it was not indicated to me that I would be subject to further conditions after the sale of the software to me either by notices on the box or through the employees at the store where I bought it.
You asked the kid to install the software. You didn't know anything about the EULA, and he wasn't legally able to agree to it. Yet the software still let you use it. It's not a case of "Here, click this button so I don't actually do it", it's a case of "Here, do this task for me". The task incidentally had the child agree to a contract he wasn't legally able to, it wasn't the only purpose of the task. At least, that's how I'd argue it.
I read through Raymond's blog, and while I get what he's saying, I still thing it's trying to put a shine on a turd. I don't run into any USB functionality problems with ANY devices when running Linux. Why does Microsoft somehow act differently? There's no reason to REQUIRE a serial number unless the device itself somehow needs to be uniquely recognized. 99% of devices don't need that for any reason, and if they do, they should have their own software doing so, not the basic USB drivers. USB should only connect the device to the computer with an accessible interface to programs which is easy to do using bus enumeration. USB is removable... it shouldn't need anything permanent. And if it does, THEN require the serial number. He's arguing about edge cases as if they're the only ones that matter, and it's the general case that's suffering.
Windows is a monopoly. That means they have to play by different rules. If Microsoft didn't dictate things to suppliers, I'd agree with you. The problem is that they make unilateral moves and expect everyone to roll over. A company that was not a monopoly could not do that, they would have to provide a product that their customers wanted, rather than tell the customers what they wanted and say "fuck off" if they don't like it. Microsoft locked people into its proprietary file formats and protocols, and it's now reaping what it sowed with those moves.
And that STILL didn't pull us out of the depression. The only thing that pulled us out was WWII. We aren't learning from history... we're repeating it.
Bullshit. This is just more pork that's avoiding the issue. A "stimulus" would be punishing the people responsible for this mess, setting things up so that it can't happen again, and giving people faith in the system so that they aren't scared to spend their money knowing it will come back to them.
Yup. They hit me a few months ago. Fuckers. There's not even a way to opt out of it that I can find.
What pisses me off is that Comcast did the same thing a few months back. I can no longer run a mail server on my home machine. It's not an Internet connection... it's a web and email connection now.
Pray tell... what is the case where you would have two of the same device, and need different drivers for them? I mean, their USB address is different, so you can tell which is which very easily during operation. But if you don't need separate drivers, why would the OS ever CARE what the serial number is? It'd be up to applications accessing the device that would care about the serial numbering, and that's it.
Do you also not own a TV and tell everyone about it?
If you don't use a damn smartphone, why in the hell are you commenting on a story about it? Are you proud to be a semi-luddite or something? "I use a computer, but I'll be damned if I use a fancy phone!"
That's not really saying a lot...
That's where lynch mobs come in as an important component of our justice system.
Virus authors rarely want to cause damage. And if they do, it's quickly caught. What's more common is trying to run things under the radar so that you can profit from it. And without root privileges you cannot run servers on privileged ports and so on, so it's still much less of a danger. It can still blast out information, but hey, so can any program. The only thing to worry about are "ransom" type programs which encrypt data and force you to pay for the password to decrypt it. And those are very uncommon.
.desktop files should be executable by default. I think there needs to be a mechanism keeping them from doing so, perhaps not allowing them to execute any files that aren't owned by root. That should solve most of the issues.
I'm not saying
Ok. So what other phones or devices can use that connector? None, you say? It's not an industry standard?
A standard of some kind is damn useful. It's the only way to break Apple's stranglehold. I don't want to have to pay AT&T and Apple if I want to use my phone as a media device in my vehicle. It's the same as the "Microsoft tax" because Microsoft owns the standards. Do we REALLY want the same thing happening in the mobile phone space, with the even more controlling Apple at the helm?
Windows USB functionality is severely backwards... why is my damn phone a different device when I plug it into a different USB port? Does the port address somehow magically make it behave differently? Can you tell that it's annoying having to plug every new device into every single port on my computer and installing the driver so that I don't have to worry about that when I actually want to use the device?
Glad I only use Windows for gaming and to update my Blackberry's software.
And I can think of many things I think are fun but lots of other people don't. Point is, people are different... I know, it's hard to believe that not everyone likes and dislikes the same things you do. But some people would think that this is a bargain at $130K. Seriously... hovering 45' over the water flying around? That'd be awesome. If I had the money, I'd pay for it.
I don't miss your point. The problem is that an alternator is almost never replaced. Designing the alternator for where it fits in the car is much more important than a standard alternator mounting because you should never really have to touch it. Same with a cell-phone battery. No need for a standard size battery because you never really need to deal with it. The charger is a connection you deal with daily, in multiple different places. It's much more important that the charger be standardized, just like the automobile voltage is standardized.
If we didn't have custom parts for cars (taking it to the logical conclusion), they'd all look like Toyota Corollas. We wouldn't have any sports cars, we wouldn't have any trucks. Or we'd have one almost identical design of each "type". A Ford Mustang wouldn't much different than a Chevy Trans-Am.
Oh, I agree. But I'm posing the hypothetical, the situation lots of people less knowledgeable and less honest than you are will experience. They will choose piracy as soon as they're burned by enough contracts, because the job needs to get done. And sometimes there just aren't open-source equivalents for some software, which forces the choice to be even harder.
Try installing Windows on new hardware, see what happens. Go for it. I'll wait.
Oh, right. That's what happens... EVERY operating system has problems when installing on hardware it wasn't meant for. Try installing Linux on a machine that supports it. Something like a Lenovo T61. Linux installs a lot better than Windows does. You don't have to hunt around for drivers when installing, you don't have to have an updater for each separate application, etc.
Really... do you expect OSX to run on any hardware without some work? Why in the hell would you expect the same from a non-preinstalled Linux? Perhaps it's unreasonable expectations? Or just ignorance? Laziness? Incompetence?
Yeah! And while we're at it, let's let the electric companies provide power at whatever voltage and frequency they want. I mean, it's not like your different alternators all provide 12V current, right? Wait... they do? So all your electrical accessories in your vehicle can expect to get a 12V electrical supply? And you can buy any automotive battery that supplies 12V and it works? Damn.
The reason alternators aren't standardized is because you rarely have to work directly with them. If you had to replace your alternator and battery if you wanted a new radio head unit, you better believe people would be up in arms.
You don't have a free market without complete information. Do you know ahead of time that the phone you're buying is incompatible with all your current accessories? If they don't make that clear to consumers, then it's a FAILURE of the free market. If it happens too often, then regulation is quite reasonable. Or do you not like having the government regulate that power coming to your house be compatible with almost any electric device you can buy, and in side cases (stoves, dryers, etc.) it's clearly marked and understood to be different?