Well yeah, they're going to make sure they cover their arses.
I thought this sort of outrage was already covered by the change in TOS brought in by WinXP SP1? (i.e. we will take whatever info we want from your machine, and if we don't like it we'll lock you out.)
>> In the end, if it doesn't work people will shun it
Whilst it is true that if it doesn't work at all then it will be shunned, it is not so true if it doesn't work in the interest of the consumer.
If Microsoft start making 'agreements' with vendors like Dell and HP to sell only (or mainly) Palladium'd boxes then people will buy them. Especially if there's some sort of discount price incentive put in place.
It's a sad fact that we often have to face here, that the average person just wants 'a computer', and they don't care about how it works, who's really in control, and why that might be bad. As long as Mom and dad can do their tax, and the kids can play the latest incarnation of Tomb raider or Quake then all is just dandy.
Once again our fate rests with the teenagers. If they can complain just loudly enough to mom and dad that they heard that computers from.* supplier don't work properly (i.e. allow music/video/whatever to be exchanged freely) then maybe nobody will buy them and disaster could be averted.
Fair enough, my evidence is, as I say, from a friend at a UK firm and his experience of how US military contracts are regarded there. These are perhaps ongoing projects that have already been running for a few years.
Oh I'm well aware that they require top quality documentation, a well audited development process, extreme amounts of thorough testing, etc. etc. And as for Configuration management, it's hard to get my friend to shut up about the matter. They are very careful and they want top quality reliable systems. That's not in dispute. It's the budget and timescales that aren't kept in tight reign as far as I can tell.
there really isn't that much pork left in the military budget.
I'd like to argue with that. Not in terms of cutting military development programs, but in terms of efficiency. A good friend of mine works for a large defense firm (baesystems), and by all reports they LOVE the US military. Why?
It seems that when they score a big contract from most countries, they have set delivery dates and tightly controlled budgets, as one would expect in a contract a modern, state-funded institution. Get value for money for the tax payers and try not to let things run over. It's just common sense. Under this system companies start to lose money if they go over time or over budget.
The U.S. military works differently. Defense firms love contracts from the US military because they just keep on paying and don't seem to care much about deadlines. The reasoning behind this seems to be "We want the best, we don't care if it costs the earth and takes until the end of time", which is all very grand and powerful sounding but ends up wasting money and time, all at the taxpayers expense.
Surely money could be saved by tightening controls on defense contracts and could then be diverted to other ventures such as space?
>>...technological garbage that serves only to
>>drive yet another wedge between them and humanity
I'd be interested to know about this humanity you talk of, care to elucidate?
As far as I was aware, the overriding theme of humanity throughout the development of society has been of increasing and ever more complex technology, which has aided us in our everyday lives, and tended to reduce the amount of labour we have to do to acheive a similar level of fulfillment. Clearly it's debateable quite how fulfilling modern life is, but that's an argument for another time. But It still seems to stand that humanity is almost defined by a technological and communicative drive. 'tis what seperates man from beast etc etc
>> It's not too far fetched to see chip implants
>> and "Neuromancer" type gadgets imbedded within
>>our flesh
Possibly not that far off. There's no need for these to suck our conciousness or individuality away either. The point of the things was an enhanced conciousness so you could do more/access more data. Clearly of course the potential for monitoring technology and other such abuse is enormous (care to have the Total Information Awareness guys data mining america's thought patterns anyone?) but this sort of thing does not have to happen. Just had a bizarre thought....some sort of Seti@home variant that takes up people's spare brain capaccity whilst they sleep:)
>> The chip is coming. Beware the mark.
Always thought that mark was the credit card? Or the.Net passport? or any of a myriad of other things that doomsayers seem to get off on making into "The Mark of The Beast"
Where's all this come from? No-one's talking about taxing pirate movies on the net, it wouldn't work!
Now tax on legitimate movie downloads could happen, despite probably being a bad idea, but I'm sure the quality of legitimate downloads is much better.......
Is the parent poster an employee of the MPAA just using any story they feel like to post pro-hollywood propaganda?
I once watched a pirated copy of a movie. The movie was Star Wars Episode I. I thought it was pretty good quality and never went to watch it on the big screen. That's 'cos the movie sucked though;-)
In europe you'd be told to go home, and possibly be referred to a counsellor if you did that regularly. (in most places)
It seems that european companies are a touch more interested in the welfare of their employees than U.S. companies that seem to try and screw every last bit of life out theirs.......
But isn't there some sort of inherent flaw to this system?
Situation: Too much spam/too many unwanted phone calls
Remedy: 1) Set up a company or companies dealing with tokens. From the article it seems to be assumed that this/these will make money only on a comission or flat fee basis on charges that are collected.
2)Spammers get charged for sending spam, telemarketers get charged for unwanted phonecalls. They are (presumably) forced to find a different business model or go out of business entirely.
Consequences:
1) No Spam (Hurrah!) No Cold Calling (Hurrah again!)
2) All communication is legit. Nobody charges anyone for email/phone calls because there is no spam. The company set up to oversee the system and profit from taking comission from these charges goes under because it has no source of revenue.
3) Spam comes back in a big way because the system has fallen down.......
Slashdot Mirror
Well yeah, they're going to make sure they cover their arses.
I thought this sort of outrage was already covered by the change in TOS brought in by WinXP SP1? (i.e. we will take whatever info we want from your machine, and if we don't like it we'll lock you out.)
Don't be a dumbass.
In an world where there is no meaning or purpose to life (such as ours) life is even more precious, because life is all there is!
Lol, that was about when I last played a PC game for more than a few days at a time....I've been corrupted by the PS2 ;)
Whilst it is true that if it doesn't work at all then it will be shunned, it is not so true if it doesn't work in the interest of the consumer.
If Microsoft start making 'agreements' with vendors like Dell and HP to sell only (or mainly) Palladium'd boxes then people will buy them. Especially if there's some sort of discount price incentive put in place.
It's a sad fact that we often have to face here, that the average person just wants 'a computer', and they don't care about how it works, who's really in control, and why that might be bad. As long as Mom and dad can do their tax, and the kids can play the latest incarnation of Tomb raider or Quake then all is just dandy.
Once again our fate rests with the teenagers. If they can complain just loudly enough to mom and dad that they heard that computers from .* supplier don't work properly (i.e. allow music/video/whatever to be exchanged freely) then maybe nobody will buy them and disaster could be averted.
Sad state of affairs really isn't it?
Fair enough, my evidence is, as I say, from a friend at a UK firm and his experience of how US military contracts are regarded there. These are perhaps ongoing projects that have already been running for a few years.
Oh I'm well aware that they require top quality documentation, a well audited development process, extreme amounts of thorough testing, etc. etc. And as for Configuration management, it's hard to get my friend to shut up about the matter. They are very careful and they want top quality reliable systems. That's not in dispute.
It's the budget and timescales that aren't kept in tight reign as far as I can tell.
there really isn't that much pork left in the military budget.
I'd like to argue with that. Not in terms of cutting military development programs, but in terms of efficiency. A good friend of mine works for a large defense firm (baesystems), and by all reports they LOVE the US military. Why?
It seems that when they score a big contract from most countries, they have set delivery dates and tightly controlled budgets, as one would expect in a contract a modern, state-funded institution. Get value for money for the tax payers and try not to let things run over. It's just common sense. Under this system companies start to lose money if they go over time or over budget.
The U.S. military works differently. Defense firms love contracts from the US military because they just keep on paying and don't seem to care much about deadlines. The reasoning behind this seems to be "We want the best, we don't care if it costs the earth and takes until the end of time", which is all very grand and powerful sounding but ends up wasting money and time, all at the taxpayers expense.
Surely money could be saved by tightening controls on defense contracts and could then be diverted to other ventures such as space?
>>drive yet another wedge between them and humanity
I'd be interested to know about this humanity you talk of, care to elucidate?
As far as I was aware, the overriding theme of humanity throughout the development of society has been of increasing and ever more complex technology, which has aided us in our everyday lives, and tended to reduce the amount of labour we have to do to acheive a similar level of fulfillment. Clearly it's debateable quite how fulfilling modern life is, but that's an argument for another time. But It still seems to stand that humanity is almost defined by a technological and communicative drive. 'tis what seperates man from beast etc etc
>> It's not too far fetched to see chip implants
>> and "Neuromancer" type gadgets imbedded within
>>our flesh
Possibly not that far off. :)
There's no need for these to suck our conciousness or individuality away either. The point of the things was an enhanced conciousness so you could do more/access more data. Clearly of course the potential for monitoring technology and other such abuse is enormous (care to have the Total Information Awareness guys data mining america's thought patterns anyone?) but this sort of thing does not have to happen. Just had a bizarre thought....some sort of Seti@home variant that takes up people's spare brain capaccity whilst they sleep
>> The chip is coming. Beware the mark.
Always thought that mark was the credit card? Or the .Net passport? or any of a myriad of other things that doomsayers seem to get off on making into "The Mark of The Beast"
Where's all this come from?
;-)
No-one's talking about taxing pirate movies on the net, it wouldn't work!
Now tax on legitimate movie downloads could happen, despite probably being a bad idea, but I'm sure the quality of legitimate downloads is much better.......
Is the parent poster an employee of the MPAA just using any story they feel like to post pro-hollywood propaganda?
I once watched a pirated copy of a movie. The movie was Star Wars Episode I. I thought it was pretty good quality and never went to watch it on the big screen. That's 'cos the movie sucked though
Why are 15-18 hour days considered a good thing?
In europe you'd be told to go home, and possibly be referred to a counsellor if you did that regularly. (in most places)
It seems that european companies are a touch more interested in the welfare of their employees than U.S. companies that seem to try and screw every last bit of life out theirs.......
But isn't there some sort of inherent flaw to this system?
Situation:
Too much spam/too many unwanted phone calls
Remedy:
1) Set up a company or companies dealing with tokens. From the article it seems to be assumed that this/these will make money only on a comission or flat fee basis on charges that are collected.
2)Spammers get charged for sending spam, telemarketers get charged for unwanted phonecalls. They are (presumably) forced to find a different business model or go out of business entirely.
Consequences:
1) No Spam (Hurrah!) No Cold Calling (Hurrah again!)
2) All communication is legit. Nobody charges anyone for email/phone calls because there is no spam. The company set up to oversee the system and profit from taking comission from these charges goes under because it has no source of revenue.
3) Spam comes back in a big way because the system has fallen down.......