It's something that is legitimately and legally for sale, which you acquired without paying for. You have stolen.
By the way, I have an old computer in my house. I'm not using it anymore, and if you want you can drop by and pick it up FOR FREE.
Note: Dell is still selling this model, so you might be charged with the crime of... Uhh... "Acquisition Without Payment of Something that is Legitimately and Legally For Sale". I'm not sure what the sentence for that is, but you will be depriving Dell of their potential income, and going by RIAA standards that is probably worth 20-to-life.
Why most people don't care to distinguish between the different kinds of economic gain you can have at someone else's expense.
That is because most people are fundamentally nice. We don't mind other peoples' economic gains, as long as it does not come at the price of our economic gain. I'm happy to give a copied CD to a friend, because there is no loss to me and it makes her happy as well and I like to see my friends happy.
My enjoyment of the music does not go down through knowing that I've paid for it and that she did not; on the contrary, it increases because now I can talk to her about it and discuss what we like or dislike about the music. And in due time she might very well reciprocate and give me a copy of one of her CD's, thus turning this into a mutual win.
The only thing weighing against that is the bonus of some unknown, faceless corporate overlord. That person lives far away in a huge mansion, owns three ferrari's and a private jet, and has a bad reputation for being a money-grabbing bastard who has pretty much destroyed all creativity in music and treats his people like slaves. I don't *want* to make him any richer so making the copy makes me feel good, rather than bad.
Here is my take: those numbers are completely fictitious.
If the jobs are located in those states:
* Are there even 2.4 million people without jobs in those states? * In fact, are there even 2.4 million people in those states to begin with?
If the jobs are located outside those states:
* Can the people in those states support the salaries of 2.4 million people? * Would they care about creating 2.4 million jobs for Indian and Chinese residents?
We get reports like that here in Holland as well: "another 15000 jobs will be created if software piracy goes down 10%". Gee, that's nice - in what country, though? If it is on another continent it won't help us much, now will it?
Even if something is possible according to a protocol description, that still doesn't make it legal.
A copyrighted work remains a copyrighted work, even if it is technically possible to violate that copyright (same as how a torrent of a new movie is not actually legal just because it is technically possible and in compliance with its own specification). Thus, an ISP still has no right to mangle those works for their own profit.
Of course the answer is easy: use encrypted protocols, and nothing but encrypted protocols. It is utterly unclear to me why anyway would even need unencrypted protocols for *anything* you do online.
...what will be calculating my 3D images, if the GPU is already working on the physics? It is not like there is so much spare capacity left over in modern games anyway...
A "real" email requires a printer, a wooden table and some photography, as regular readers of http://www.thedailywtf.com/ are well aware. A "virtual" email is simply an electronic copy of one of those photo's, preferably in.doc or.ppt format.
Hey man, your lack of understanding / rethoric (whichever applies) really isn't my problem. Just keep savaging that straw man. I'm sure you will manage to kill it one day.
Take up geocaching. It is just like questing, with the added bonuses of real sunlight, possible interaction with other people, and even genuine threats to your life;-)
Man, you have a bit of an ego problem don't you? I got rated +5 because I provided an argument that is considered correct by many.
I'll try to explain once more, but I don't have much hope that you will understand this time. Still: you seem to be laboring under the impression that a slippery slope is a logical construct, but it is not. A slippery slope does not imply anything, it doesn't logically lead to conclusions, and no one (except for maybe a handful of stupid or gullible people) will take it as such. It just a sad comment on the state of mankind, a lack of trust in our fellow men. It is a suspicion that if something happens now, the only (or primary) goal is to do something else at a later date, thus creating a sequence of steps that leads slowly to an ever less appealing situation.
When we talk about a "slippery slope" we imply a lack of trust in those in power. By denying the situation by stating that there is no slippery slope, as you do, you manage to come across as an agent of those in power: "there is nothing to see here! There is no hidden agenda! There is no slippery slope, because *it doesn't exist*!" And that is bullshit: it does exist, as this very article proves, and fearing further steps is a normal and prudent thing to do.
Your argument that a slippery slope is by itself an argument, rather than a description of a suspicion, sounds very much like a straw man. Whether that is because you are manipulative or naive, I cannot tell.
The slippery slope is not at all a logical fallacy. There is no implication that step (1) will necessarily lead to step (2), just the observation that step (1) will make it easier to sell step (2) at a later date because the perceived cost of either steps (1) or (2) is below the protest threshold, while presumably the total cost of steps (1) and (2) together is considered too large to stomach by many.
To place this in context, once there is a national ID card it will be easier to add more and more functions over time. However, would you accept it if you were told that you will need to show this card to conduct any financial transactions, own a gun, travel beyond 30km from your house, or exercise your right to free speech? to name just some possibilities...
The slippery slope is not that these things are somehow implied to the introduction of national ID, but they are clearly made easier by it, and some people may already be planning the introduction of further measures along the lines I have suggested.
I would propose that Microsoft stops updating IE at all. Revert from IE7 to IE6, even. By leaving the browser market alone, it is guaranteed that:
- IE6-sites continue to work in IE6 for those that need that. - Standard-compliant browsers will slowly take over, in a gradual process of elimination. Websites can be converted as and when people feel like it, and organizations can use IE6 and a standards-compliant browser side by side as long as needed.
But you do understand what's the point here, don't you? By requiring standards-compliant pages to include a non-standard tag for correct rendering, they make them effectively non-standard. Microsoft is just trying to throw a little spanner into the standards... Again.
In case you hadn't noticed, we don't do threads anymore: slashdot now shuffles all messages into utter randomness. So your post was the top post for me, and without any quotation or other meaningful context it is just another piece of spiteful Microsoft propaganda. The kind that makes me sick, because it just sounds so incredibly righteous, and yet we all know it is so incredibly fake. So maybe you made a fantastic joke (although I doubt it) but you still come across as a Microsoft shill.
And I stand by my criticism that your "joke" is typically american: righteous, fake, and not at all funny. Go ahead, mod me down some more - I've scheduled some time in my agenda somewhere in 2073 to care...
What is it with americans (sorry, I don't see anyone else doing it) that you always feel the need to point out that [some unrelated entity] has done the same in the past, or might do the same in the future if it had the chance? Especially considering that it is invariably a wildly inappropriate comparison?
Don't you find it incredibly tiring to hear this tireless propaganda? Does anyone honestly believe that Apple back then can be compared to Microsoft now? Or that the lies perpetrated by Bush, that led to the invasion of two countries and hundreds of thousands killed, are comparable to those of Clinton about getting a blowjob? Does anyone think it is smart or witty to make such comparisons?
Same as physics is about theoretical universes and chemistry is about theoretical molecules, you mean? I think you are confusing a helpful theoretical *model* (such as a turing machine) with the overal purpose of the study. The theoretical model is helpful in teaching and understanding algorithms and datastructures, but it is not the final goal of the study. Making that final link to reality, where integers have a finite size, floating point numbers are inaccurate, and speed and memory are limited, is not dirty or unworthy of academic attention. Indeed, I have trouble thinking of another study that eschews reality quite as badly as computer science.
Ask yourself this question: What am I studying? If the answer is, "a theoretical model of computation that cannot exist in our physical universe", fine, go right ahead and study it, but don't be offended if the rest of the world is simply not interested in funding your distractions - or in offering you employment.
The mistake, I believe is in thinking of computer science as a branch of mathematics. It isn't, except in the extremely narrow view of that same theoretical model.
Oh, and for the record, I'm a computer scientist myself, with academic credentials and everything. But after learning about turing machines and more math than I'd care to remember at this point, I went on to learn C, and a few other practical bits. I don't think being tainted by the real world in that manner has hurt me in any way.
Given how there was no funding to begin with, it is hard to see how it can be cut back. However, the resulting confusion is indeed highly likely to get rid of both missions at the same time.
Well, I can think of a few possibilities. First, this might be an attempt to shore up the OOXML specification, one criticism of which is that it refers to these old formats. Second, a criticism of Office 2007 is that it cannot open old formats. By opening the specifications, they might hope that Office 2007 becomes more desirable (or at least, less problematic).
Or maybe a chair bounced off the wall and hit Ballmer in the head. Who knows?
I still develop in Visual Studio 6. Yes, the language support is somewhat lacking (scope rules for 'for' get me regularly), but to me it just feels so much nicer to work in than the later versions of VS. As if this was the last version that was still for C++ developers: I neither want nor need to develop web pages, C# applications,.NET stuff, or whatever crap they added later, and I sure don't want it to be the focus of the package I'm working in, with C++ thrown in as an afterthought.
Have they brought back the keyboard macro's? They were there in VS6 but I could never find them in later versions.
...and not with refactoring. Whenever I come across java code it always seems needlessly complex, with endless layers upon layers, unneeded abstractions, and patterns applied far beyond what would make for useful architecture.
Before you start flaming, I'd like to state that this is probably more a problem with java *programmers* than with the language itself, although its design has certainly caused too many people to follow down that path. So the language is probably ok, but the surrounding libraries and the attitude and inexperience of many of its users are the real problem.
Slashdot Mirror
Note: Dell is still selling this model, so you might be charged with the crime of... Uhh... "Acquisition Without Payment of Something that is Legitimately and Legally For Sale". I'm not sure what the sentence for that is, but you will be depriving Dell of their potential income, and going by RIAA standards that is probably worth 20-to-life.
My enjoyment of the music does not go down through knowing that I've paid for it and that she did not; on the contrary, it increases because now I can talk to her about it and discuss what we like or dislike about the music. And in due time she might very well reciprocate and give me a copy of one of her CD's, thus turning this into a mutual win.
The only thing weighing against that is the bonus of some unknown, faceless corporate overlord. That person lives far away in a huge mansion, owns three ferrari's and a private jet, and has a bad reputation for being a money-grabbing bastard who has pretty much destroyed all creativity in music and treats his people like slaves. I don't *want* to make him any richer so making the copy makes me feel good, rather than bad.
Here is my take: those numbers are completely fictitious.
If the jobs are located in those states:
* Are there even 2.4 million people without jobs in those states?
* In fact, are there even 2.4 million people in those states to begin with?
If the jobs are located outside those states:
* Can the people in those states support the salaries of 2.4 million people?
* Would they care about creating 2.4 million jobs for Indian and Chinese residents?
We get reports like that here in Holland as well: "another 15000 jobs will be created if software piracy goes down 10%". Gee, that's nice - in what country, though? If it is on another continent it won't help us much, now will it?
Even if something is possible according to a protocol description, that still doesn't make it legal.
A copyrighted work remains a copyrighted work, even if it is technically possible to violate that copyright (same as how a torrent of a new movie is not actually legal just because it is technically possible and in compliance with its own specification). Thus, an ISP still has no right to mangle those works for their own profit.
Of course the answer is easy: use encrypted protocols, and nothing but encrypted protocols. It is utterly unclear to me why anyway would even need unencrypted protocols for *anything* you do online.
...what will be calculating my 3D images, if the GPU is already working on the physics? It is not like there is so much spare capacity left over in modern games anyway...
Whooooosh! (sound of joke flying high overhead)
A "real" email requires a printer, a wooden table and some photography, as regular readers of http://www.thedailywtf.com/ are well aware. A "virtual" email is simply an electronic copy of one of those photo's, preferably in .doc or .ppt format.
Hey man, your lack of understanding / rethoric (whichever applies) really isn't my problem. Just keep savaging that straw man. I'm sure you will manage to kill it one day.
Best of luck with your efforts!
Take up geocaching. It is just like questing, with the added bonuses of real sunlight, possible interaction with other people, and even genuine threats to your life ;-)
Man, you have a bit of an ego problem don't you? I got rated +5 because I provided an argument that is considered correct by many.
I'll try to explain once more, but I don't have much hope that you will understand this time. Still: you seem to be laboring under the impression that a slippery slope is a logical construct, but it is not. A slippery slope does not imply anything, it doesn't logically lead to conclusions, and no one (except for maybe a handful of stupid or gullible people) will take it as such. It just a sad comment on the state of mankind, a lack of trust in our fellow men. It is a suspicion that if something happens now, the only (or primary) goal is to do something else at a later date, thus creating a sequence of steps that leads slowly to an ever less appealing situation.
When we talk about a "slippery slope" we imply a lack of trust in those in power. By denying the situation by stating that there is no slippery slope, as you do, you manage to come across as an agent of those in power: "there is nothing to see here! There is no hidden agenda! There is no slippery slope, because *it doesn't exist*!" And that is bullshit: it does exist, as this very article proves, and fearing further steps is a normal and prudent thing to do.
Your argument that a slippery slope is by itself an argument, rather than a description of a suspicion, sounds very much like a straw man. Whether that is because you are manipulative or naive, I cannot tell.
The slippery slope is not at all a logical fallacy. There is no implication that step (1) will necessarily lead to step (2), just the observation that step (1) will make it easier to sell step (2) at a later date because the perceived cost of either steps (1) or (2) is below the protest threshold, while presumably the total cost of steps (1) and (2) together is considered too large to stomach by many.
To place this in context, once there is a national ID card it will be easier to add more and more functions over time. However, would you accept it if you were told that you will need to show this card to conduct any financial transactions, own a gun, travel beyond 30km from your house, or exercise your right to free speech? to name just some possibilities...
The slippery slope is not that these things are somehow implied to the introduction of national ID, but they are clearly made easier by it, and some people may already be planning the introduction of further measures along the lines I have suggested.
Question four: how do they pay for those million (or 64 million) domain names?
Question five: can they still do so now that 'tasting' is no more?
Simple: they count the number of licenses sold by SCO. Otherwise it wouldn't be legal...
It doesn't matter, the EU has it surrounded anyway...
I would propose that Microsoft stops updating IE at all. Revert from IE7 to IE6, even. By leaving the browser market alone, it is guaranteed that:
- IE6-sites continue to work in IE6 for those that need that.
- Standard-compliant browsers will slowly take over, in a gradual process of elimination. Websites can be converted as and when people feel like it, and organizations can use IE6 and a standards-compliant browser side by side as long as needed.
But you do understand what's the point here, don't you? By requiring standards-compliant pages to include a non-standard tag for correct rendering, they make them effectively non-standard. Microsoft is just trying to throw a little spanner into the standards... Again.
In case you hadn't noticed, we don't do threads anymore: slashdot now shuffles all messages into utter randomness. So your post was the top post for me, and without any quotation or other meaningful context it is just another piece of spiteful Microsoft propaganda. The kind that makes me sick, because it just sounds so incredibly righteous, and yet we all know it is so incredibly fake. So maybe you made a fantastic joke (although I doubt it) but you still come across as a Microsoft shill.
And I stand by my criticism that your "joke" is typically american: righteous, fake, and not at all funny. Go ahead, mod me down some more - I've scheduled some time in my agenda somewhere in 2073 to care...
What is it with americans (sorry, I don't see anyone else doing it) that you always feel the need to point out that [some unrelated entity] has done the same in the past, or might do the same in the future if it had the chance? Especially considering that it is invariably a wildly inappropriate comparison?
Don't you find it incredibly tiring to hear this tireless propaganda? Does anyone honestly believe that Apple back then can be compared to Microsoft now? Or that the lies perpetrated by Bush, that led to the invasion of two countries and hundreds of thousands killed, are comparable to those of Clinton about getting a blowjob? Does anyone think it is smart or witty to make such comparisons?
The mind boggles...
Same as physics is about theoretical universes and chemistry is about theoretical molecules, you mean? I think you are confusing a helpful theoretical *model* (such as a turing machine) with the overal purpose of the study. The theoretical model is helpful in teaching and understanding algorithms and datastructures, but it is not the final goal of the study. Making that final link to reality, where integers have a finite size, floating point numbers are inaccurate, and speed and memory are limited, is not dirty or unworthy of academic attention. Indeed, I have trouble thinking of another study that eschews reality quite as badly as computer science.
Ask yourself this question: What am I studying? If the answer is, "a theoretical model of computation that cannot exist in our physical universe", fine, go right ahead and study it, but don't be offended if the rest of the world is simply not interested in funding your distractions - or in offering you employment.
The mistake, I believe is in thinking of computer science as a branch of mathematics. It isn't, except in the extremely narrow view of that same theoretical model.
Oh, and for the record, I'm a computer scientist myself, with academic credentials and everything. But after learning about turing machines and more math than I'd care to remember at this point, I went on to learn C, and a few other practical bits. I don't think being tainted by the real world in that manner has hurt me in any way.
Given how there was no funding to begin with, it is hard to see how it can be cut back. However, the resulting confusion is indeed highly likely to get rid of both missions at the same time.
Well, I can think of a few possibilities. First, this might be an attempt to shore up the OOXML specification, one criticism of which is that it refers to these old formats. Second, a criticism of Office 2007 is that it cannot open old formats. By opening the specifications, they might hope that Office 2007 becomes more desirable (or at least, less problematic).
Or maybe a chair bounced off the wall and hit Ballmer in the head. Who knows?
I still develop in Visual Studio 6. Yes, the language support is somewhat lacking (scope rules for 'for' get me regularly), but to me it just feels so much nicer to work in than the later versions of VS. As if this was the last version that was still for C++ developers: I neither want nor need to develop web pages, C# applications, .NET stuff, or whatever crap they added later, and I sure don't want it to be the focus of the package I'm working in, with C++ thrown in as an afterthought.
Have they brought back the keyboard macro's? They were there in VS6 but I could never find them in later versions.
...and not with refactoring. Whenever I come across java code it always seems needlessly complex, with endless layers upon layers, unneeded abstractions, and patterns applied far beyond what would make for useful architecture.
Before you start flaming, I'd like to state that this is probably more a problem with java *programmers* than with the language itself, although its design has certainly caused too many people to follow down that path. So the language is probably ok, but the surrounding libraries and the attitude and inexperience of many of its users are the real problem.
Donning asbestos underwear... Now!
Come on guys, we are only up to http://www.uselessdomain00008.com/ so far. What will it take to bring it up to 5x9? That's right, I'm talking http://www.uselessdomain99999.com/!