I don't know who modded you Insightful, but whoever did was an ignoramus. Inventing something and developing it to the point where you can profit from it costs money. Often it costs lots and lots of money. It can take years of sales to break even, let alone profit. If anybody can come out with a duplicate of what you've poured your savings into as soon as it comes out, they'll profit because they don't have developement costs to recover and you'll go broke. The result is that few things get invented. Patents are intended to give you a limited monopoly on your creation, to allow you to recoup your investment and make a profit. Eventually, the patent expires and everybody else can profit from your idea as well. The result of a healthy patent system is large numbers of inventions and rapid progress. Without patents and the possibility of profit, there would have been no Industrial Revolution. Before you suggest again that we do away with patents, I'd suggest you study basic economics and learn something about what you're talking about.
I didn't even have to check for an update. I have mine check for updates automatically. When the new build was available, Firefox let me know so I could download and install it right then.
You can trust Bill Gates to work only in his own interest. Just because he's rich doesn't make him more honest, or wise.
In general, I agree with you. In this case, I can't see where he'd benefit by lying. No matter what happens to Microsoft, he'll always have more money than he could possibly spend, earning interest faster than he can spend it. Why is it that you think he's lying?
So if he ever says anything disparaging against Microsoft he'll LOSE a truckload of money if the share price goes down.
But he'll still be rich. No matter what happens to Microsoft, he'll be rich. He doesn't have to boost his company to protect his investment anymore. I think that, in this at least, we can trust him to be saying what he really believes is true. Business doesn't stay profitable when it turns its back on technology it's already adopted, and that's what they'd have to do to get rid of their desktop computers. It just isn't going to happen.
What's wrong with "Looks like your name violates our trademark, but we'll give you special permission to use it this time"?
It doesn't work that way. Once they've sent out publicity with somebody else's trademark on it, giving them permission to continue dilutes your protection. If they had done a search and asked before, it could have been done.
There are two problems with what you wrote. First, by the time the WorldCon committee found out about the accidental violation it was too late to work out a deal, they had to go the "cease and desist" route. Second, they didn't close down the conference, they just made the organizers change the name.
You *have* to take action to enforce trademarks, or lose them. The "Scrabble" name is worth something to Hasbro. The game could have been nothing like real Scrabble, and they'd still probably have to send out a notice, just in case.
There's nothing "probably" about it. If you let anybody use your trademark without permission you can, and eventually will lose it. Years ago, a group of dentists wanted to hold a world-wide conference of dentists, and call it "Worldcon." The trademark owners for the World Science Fiction Convention had to tell them they couldn't use it, even though there was no real conflict.
I remember getting my shots in boot camp that way. I had no trouble with it, but a few of the guys started bleeding. Nothing serious, but it was coming out of the whole circle the airgun hit instead of one small puncture. Looked a lot worse than it was.
I suspect you just don't know what you are talking about.
In NT 4, all device drivers are placed in rng 0, because it's slightly faster. Because of this, any crash in a driver crashes the computer completely. If they'd put them in rng 1, they'd have lost a few percent of the speed, and gained considerable stability. That they didn't was a deliberate design decision made when NT 4 was in developement.
Linux was designed to make crashes like that as unlikely as possible. The NT idea of putting all device drivers in rng 0 made them almost unavoidable. That's what my main objection to NT is: unstable by design.
I had a supervisor for a while who claimed his NT box is completely stable. However, he reapplied the service pack once a month or it started crashing. How anybody could call that stable, or trust an OS that requires you to make the same patches to the binaries monthly is beyond me.
I didn't pick the drivers, the card, the Mobo or the OS. It was what I was given at work. Those who used their systems in a minamal way had no problems. Those of us that expected full funtionality from NT got the shaft. Complaining did no good because they weren't about to admit they'd picked crap hardware and the wrong OS. Please note that the same glitch would have been almost acceptable in 98, because it wouldn't halt the system. I think that's my biggest gripe about NT: any minor glitch and the system's likely to halt, losing everything. Real good design for an OS offered for servers, isn't it?
f Got it, uncertified 3rd party low-level drivers caused NT to crash, so the OS is at fault.
No, the drivers were on a well-known card, but I don't remember which. The problem is that by design, all drivers run in rng 0, for higher speed. This means that if one of them crashes, so does everything else. If they hadn't made that stupid decision, it wouldn't matter how bad the drivers were. If they crashed, Windows would be able to recover, as it is, they crash and the system halts.
I used NT 4.0 forever because it just had such a workmanlike user interface.
Not true. I'm running Win98SE because it does what I need the way I want it to and doesn't get in my way. I've used NT4 and 2k at work and supported both Me and XP and I won't use any of them. I don't like the way they work, I neither need nor want their bells and whistles and I'm not going to use them at home.
I used NT 4.0 forever because it just had such a workmanlike user interface.
It may have had a workmanlike user interface, but it was horribly unstable. I had to work on an NT box for a while at work, and it blue screened an average of six times a day because of a glitch in the video drivers. The drivers were able to bring my box to its knees at any moment because of a stupid design decision at MicroSith who's consequences should have been obvious to a first-year CS student.
One of my supervisors told me that he ran NT at home and it was absolutely stable. Of course, he added, he kept the latest service pack on the desktop and reapplied it once a month or it started crashing. This is a definition of "stable" I've never run across before and don't want to understand. I can only guess he'd never used a system that really was stable. NT4 was an abomination and should have been outlawed years ago.
I've always felt that Win98 is what 95 would have been if NanoLimp had known in 95 what they learned later. Windows Me (not, you'll note, ME) is nothing more than dumbing down 98 and making it look new by making "changes" that don't make a difference. As an example, "Find Files and Folders" became "Search for Files and Folders." Not only that, they took out several good tools they'd put into 98 and made it less maintainable. When I did tech support, I hated working with it because it's such a piece of crap, and so many of the lusers with it thought they were so "with it" because their computers were running it.
One of the less obvious advantages of not using either Win2k or XP is that many of the more recent worms are designed specifically with them in mind. Even if one enters your system, it probably can't run, and the vulnerabilities it's looking for aren't there. Win98 is more mature than either, and has less openings remaining to exploit.
Today's Hollywood Liberal Studio Execs are much more concerned with being PC than with being accurate, and care more about what looks good on camera than they do about how things are supposed to look. Expect her to be wearing salmon, taupe and azure.
That was Linda Carter, and she was such a sweet little goody-two-shoes I'm still amazed she didn't end up with diabetes. (Not her fault, but the scripts and direction. The only thing about her that wasn't wasted in the role was her good looks.)
So long a Apple isn't endangering anybodies' lives or committing any criminal acts, they have a right to keep their internal operations secret until such time as they see fit to reveal them...
No question there. I'm just objecting to the way that corporate secrets are being treated as more valuable than national security. I agree that the Pentagon Papers should not have been classified, but the fact remains that they were.
What you seem to be confused about is that companies, like people have rights which have to be considered.
You make a good point, but miss mine. Apple had every right to protect its trade secrets. I see nothing wrong with what they did, and if insiders violated NDAs, they deserve what they get.
Granted, the Pentagon Papers shouldn't have been classified Top Secret, because they didn't qualify, but that's what they were. Whoever leaked them broke the law in doing so, and the newspaper had no right to posess or read them. By not turning them over to the apropriate authorities, they broke the law, and by publishing them, they broke it again. Instead of being punished, they were commended. My feeling is that they should have been convicted, given the maximum sentance and an instant, complete pardon because it was in the national interest to reveal the abuses involved. The conviction and sentance would act as a reminder to anybody wanting to follow their footsteps that they do so at their own risk.
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I don't know who modded you Insightful, but whoever did was an ignoramus. Inventing something and developing it to the point where you can profit from it costs money. Often it costs lots and lots of money. It can take years of sales to break even, let alone profit. If anybody can come out with a duplicate of what you've poured your savings into as soon as it comes out, they'll profit because they don't have developement costs to recover and you'll go broke. The result is that few things get invented. Patents are intended to give you a limited monopoly on your creation, to allow you to recoup your investment and make a profit. Eventually, the patent expires and everybody else can profit from your idea as well. The result of a healthy patent system is large numbers of inventions and rapid progress. Without patents and the possibility of profit, there would have been no Industrial Revolution. Before you suggest again that we do away with patents, I'd suggest you study basic economics and learn something about what you're talking about.
I think The Brain said it best: "Yes, Pinky, but who would want to?"
I didn't even have to check for an update. I have mine check for updates automatically. When the new build was available, Firefox let me know so I could download and install it right then.
In general, I agree with you. In this case, I can't see where he'd benefit by lying. No matter what happens to Microsoft, he'll always have more money than he could possibly spend, earning interest faster than he can spend it. Why is it that you think he's lying?
But he'll still be rich. No matter what happens to Microsoft, he'll be rich. He doesn't have to boost his company to protect his investment anymore. I think that, in this at least, we can trust him to be saying what he really believes is true. Business doesn't stay profitable when it turns its back on technology it's already adopted, and that's what they'd have to do to get rid of their desktop computers. It just isn't going to happen.
It doesn't work that way. Once they've sent out publicity with somebody else's trademark on it, giving them permission to continue dilutes your protection. If they had done a search and asked before, it could have been done.
There are two problems with what you wrote. First, by the time the WorldCon committee found out about the accidental violation it was too late to work out a deal, they had to go the "cease and desist" route. Second, they didn't close down the conference, they just made the organizers change the name.
There's nothing "probably" about it. If you let anybody use your trademark without permission you can, and eventually will lose it. Years ago, a group of dentists wanted to hold a world-wide conference of dentists, and call it "Worldcon." The trademark owners for the World Science Fiction Convention had to tell them they couldn't use it, even though there was no real conflict.
I remember getting my shots in boot camp that way. I had no trouble with it, but a few of the guys started bleeding. Nothing serious, but it was coming out of the whole circle the airgun hit instead of one small puncture. Looked a lot worse than it was.
In NT 4, all device drivers are placed in rng 0, because it's slightly faster. Because of this, any crash in a driver crashes the computer completely. If they'd put them in rng 1, they'd have lost a few percent of the speed, and gained considerable stability. That they didn't was a deliberate design decision made when NT 4 was in developement.
It is when a bad design decision in the OS means that when the driver goofs the system halts.
I had a supervisor for a while who claimed his NT box is completely stable. However, he reapplied the service pack once a month or it started crashing. How anybody could call that stable, or trust an OS that requires you to make the same patches to the binaries monthly is beyond me.
I didn't pick the drivers, the card, the Mobo or the OS. It was what I was given at work. Those who used their systems in a minamal way had no problems. Those of us that expected full funtionality from NT got the shaft. Complaining did no good because they weren't about to admit they'd picked crap hardware and the wrong OS. Please note that the same glitch would have been almost acceptable in 98, because it wouldn't halt the system. I think that's my biggest gripe about NT: any minor glitch and the system's likely to halt, losing everything. Real good design for an OS offered for servers, isn't it?
No, the drivers were on a well-known card, but I don't remember which. The problem is that by design, all drivers run in rng 0, for higher speed. This means that if one of them crashes, so does everything else. If they hadn't made that stupid decision, it wouldn't matter how bad the drivers were. If they crashed, Windows would be able to recover, as it is, they crash and the system halts.
No, at 6:30 Pacific. You must live on the East Coast.
Not true. I'm running Win98SE because it does what I need the way I want it to and doesn't get in my way. I've used NT4 and 2k at work and supported both Me and XP and I won't use any of them. I don't like the way they work, I neither need nor want their bells and whistles and I'm not going to use them at home.
It may have had a workmanlike user interface, but it was horribly unstable. I had to work on an NT box for a while at work, and it blue screened an average of six times a day because of a glitch in the video drivers. The drivers were able to bring my box to its knees at any moment because of a stupid design decision at MicroSith who's consequences should have been obvious to a first-year CS student.
One of my supervisors told me that he ran NT at home and it was absolutely stable. Of course, he added, he kept the latest service pack on the desktop and reapplied it once a month or it started crashing. This is a definition of "stable" I've never run across before and don't want to understand. I can only guess he'd never used a system that really was stable. NT4 was an abomination and should have been outlawed years ago.
I've always felt that Win98 is what 95 would have been if NanoLimp had known in 95 what they learned later. Windows Me (not, you'll note, ME) is nothing more than dumbing down 98 and making it look new by making "changes" that don't make a difference. As an example, "Find Files and Folders" became "Search for Files and Folders." Not only that, they took out several good tools they'd put into 98 and made it less maintainable. When I did tech support, I hated working with it because it's such a piece of crap, and so many of the lusers with it thought they were so "with it" because their computers were running it.
One of the less obvious advantages of not using either Win2k or XP is that many of the more recent worms are designed specifically with them in mind. Even if one enters your system, it probably can't run, and the vulnerabilities it's looking for aren't there. Win98 is more mature than either, and has less openings remaining to exploit.
Today's Hollywood Liberal Studio Execs are much more concerned with being PC than with being accurate, and care more about what looks good on camera than they do about how things are supposed to look. Expect her to be wearing salmon, taupe and azure.
That was Linda Carter, and she was such a sweet little goody-two-shoes I'm still amazed she didn't end up with diabetes. (Not her fault, but the scripts and direction. The only thing about her that wasn't wasted in the role was her good looks.)
Is that like in the old story, The Debil and Daniel Wevster?
Where did they get clean Windows boxes? Fresh installs, of course.
No question there. I'm just objecting to the way that corporate secrets are being treated as more valuable than national security. I agree that the Pentagon Papers should not have been classified, but the fact remains that they were.
You make a good point, but miss mine. Apple had every right to protect its trade secrets. I see nothing wrong with what they did, and if insiders violated NDAs, they deserve what they get.
Granted, the Pentagon Papers shouldn't have been classified Top Secret, because they didn't qualify, but that's what they were. Whoever leaked them broke the law in doing so, and the newspaper had no right to posess or read them. By not turning them over to the apropriate authorities, they broke the law, and by publishing them, they broke it again. Instead of being punished, they were commended. My feeling is that they should have been convicted, given the maximum sentance and an instant, complete pardon because it was in the national interest to reveal the abuses involved. The conviction and sentance would act as a reminder to anybody wanting to follow their footsteps that they do so at their own risk.