I know, I used to live there. I apologize to you and the rest of my former neighbors, most of whom were genuinely wonderful people. It just gets very frustrating seeing the ugly shadow the Republicans cast across Texas politics. Like watching Mordor spread influence over middle earth.
I still miss Saturday nights at my buddy's house when we'd fire up the bbq, drink beer and watch "wras-lin" on his big TV on the screen porch. We didn't watch TV as much as we talked to the neighbors and people who would stop by. Those were good days.
We dumped all our satellite premium channels in favor of Netflix.
Now instead of watching the same cheap movies over and over we have a great selection that includes foreign films, documentaries, TV (including British TV series), special interest and, somewhat ironically, the series from the recently disposed premium subscription channels.
I couldn't imagine going back to anything as primitive as a video store, especially Blockbuster. *urp*
While we're at it, let them secede and take their former governor http://www.whitehouse.gov/ with them!
Elect pro-business candidates then act all surprised when they create sweethear legislation protecting business interests. Duh.
Too bad we can't get Texas, Alabama and Utah closer together. Then we could let them start their own right wing facist christian paradise here on earth. The religion of big business at a 4th grade reading level.
Finally, we can get p0rn pop ups on shopping carts. Just the distraction I need to take my mind off my fat, smelly, ignorant, sweatsuit wearing, moronic fellow shoppers at Walmart.
That's such a trite, smug, holier-than-thou phrase it's beneath you. Your chances of getting any law changed without having millions to spend are exactly zero.
If taxpayers are supposed to be paying out of state sales taxes the way to collect them is to go after the sellers and get changes in the federal laws, not beat up individual taxpayers.
Some of my online purchases have sales tax added to them, some do not. How is the average Joe Sixpack reasonably expected to keep track of the difference? Where do you send them and in what form? This is the state saying, "Well, we don't have any uniform policy for identifying or collecting these taxes, but we're just going to go beat up on a few hapless people because we need the money."
Your state has a tax form where you estimate your taxes, that's a little different. But our state has no income tax and no state tax forms (except for businesses). We're just supposed to know where to send it? Or run out and have the laws changed? Bullshit. Just because the state can do something doesn't make it right to do it.
The way I see it this is just MSFT's way of encouraging people to discover the functionality and capability of OpenOffice.
The more hoops they put in front of honest users to make them prove a negative, the more likely some of them will wise up and say, "F--- this!"
MSFT is their own worst enemy. I've never seen a big company work so hard at marginalizing their own customers. It sort of reminds me of the music industry, which apparently feels it has a devine right to continue reaping record profits while suing their customers. Forgetting that it's millions of individual CD and ticket buyers who got them to where they are.
To MSFT and the record industry you are nothing more than a revenue stream that needs to be kept in line.
There are ways to spoof GPS receivers into thinking they're in a different location. That would be interesting.
"Now let's see, Mr. Jones, according to your milage report you left the warf area and drove straight across San Francisco Bay."
Let's see them tax me for that. That'll be the next insanely great thing. The box that lets you jam the GPS receiver and feed it fake coordinates. Then we'll have the jam proof GPS receiver, then the jammer for supposedly jam-proof GPS with instructions published on/., then a DMCA case against the person publishing the data, then Congress will pass a law saying it's illegal to possess GPS jammers.
Pretty soon we'll all be running Wild Weasel missions for one another. Cover me, I'm headed downtown!
You and your pathetic band of Eurotrash nations will accept software patents or you will feel the power of our fully operational Deathstar! Powered by XP.
Just as soon as it reboots...any second now...is the Deathstar back up yet? Damned 14 year old hackers!
"Since we are totally ignorant about how to stop people from deep linking to our site, we're simply going to state, very plainly, that it's illegal and you can't do it. You agree to be bound by this legal fabrication because most people don't have a clue we're making this up and it would probably get tossed out of any court in any state outside Utah or Alabama. Therefore this agreement is bound by the laws of Utah and Alabama. But not all of them, only the laws we like."
Let them. Let them snoop every packet that goes across the internet and totally lock down every frame of every movie ever made.
The more drastic the solution the more it encourages customers to turn to more open offerings. That will encourage independent and low-budget filmmakers to release their movies without the draconian tagging in order to get wider distribution.
Unless you really enjoy watching the same unimaginative, forumla-driven dribble acted by the same faces over and over.
For every action like the MPAA wants there's an unforseen reaction. Bean counters keep painting themselves into the same dead end. There must be a class called How To Kill Mature Industries in business schools.
In this case it was the employee stock program and those transactions are reported to the IRS so it's not that suspicious they'd need a SSN for that. But, yeah, I'm with you. If I'm not reporting income from you, you're not getting my SSN. The school, the doctor, anyone else who thinks they need it. It chaps me to no end you have to present an SSN in this state to register to vote. I can't imagine anything easier to hack than state run Windows PC's.
What's the real teeth grinder on this one is that many employees had direct deposit for their stock transactions. They lost bank account numbers, tracking numbers, the whole enchilada.
It does seem remarkable that information of that sensitvity was on Windows and unencrypted. And a company that specializes in building information systems for the government. Astonishing. Doesn't matter how good your password security on Windows. Anyone can crack a Winblows box they have physical control of in five minutes.
Trustworthy computing strikes again. But it's not all MSFT's fault this time.
If it's indoors or under cover I've got no problem with them charging. If it's outside, it's public domain. Period.
And I think that should include corporate logos. People should be able to shoot movies or video outside and if your logo is visible, too f'ing bad. Even if it's McDonalds and the scene is someone on the street puking their guts out.
It would be such a simple rule to adopt. If it's outside and the shot is in context (you're not using trick photography to move a logo from some place it is to some place it's not) then it should be legal. Even if it's indoors, like in a grocery store, then logos of shelf product should be legal. This wouldn't be so complicated if Congress wasn't bending over for ever corporate donor with 100K to give the Chamber of Commerce.
Our government if f'd up beyond reason and this is only one example. But apparently to red state twits this is just how it should be.
Microsoft is making record profits, and you people say it's beginning to "rot?" Wishful thinking, to say to least.
Quite the contrary. A rocket has already run out of fuel well before it reaches maximum altitude. Don't confuse revenue with innovation.
The only means MSFT has to grow revenue is to squeeze more revenue out of you. Every person who jumps ship puts that much more pressure on...you.
MSFT has been run by the bean counters for the last decade. Zero innovation, constant cut backs, shifting production overseas, and ever newer ways to squeeze a few more pennies out of...
...you.
Go visit their offices in Redmond. There's no energy or excitement there, it's a crypt. Dead company walking the green mile!
Funny, people used to justify fighting in Vietnam so we wouldn't have to fight commies in California.
I remember thinking that myself. Funny no one ever stood up and said we screwed up in Viet Nam. Just like no one can just come out and say we screwed up in Iraq. For some reason we have to collectively go on kidding ourselves that there was some grand purpose, some lofty goal. It was a screw up, plain and simple, and everyone knows it except for 52% of the population. You can't ever make progress denying reality (but apparently you can get re-elected). The truth really will set you free but continuing to live a lie costs 4 billion a month.
While this was a "blasting" of SCO, the blasting was done where it should be done: not behind the litigant's back where they couldn't reply.
It's not unusual for judges to drop some fairly broad hints in the course of a trail to one side or the other. But in a world of nuance, subtlety and polite conversation this was a very direct statement.
I'm sure SCO's lawyers didn't walk away with any ambiguity about where things stand. Kimball not only told them their case against IBM was groundless but the way they've handled the entire affair was suspect. That was a pretty big statement.
I assume that using encryption is one of the things that will trigger a packet as suspicious.
In which case the dogs would be barking all the time.
This has gone way beyond anything resembling common sense. Oh, wait, this is Homeland Security we're talking about here. What part does common sense play in that?
MSFT will junk it up with DRM, proprietary media formats and way too many people are dependent on that security horror ActiveX for them to just abandon it. ActiveX is bloatware for your browser.
If this is a browser war, then what we're seeing now is FireFox: Son of Mozilla. The browser that ate New York.
"They're only safe because they're such a small target."
I'd bet money MSFT was behind that little gem of of market droid spin doctoring.
Windows wasn't designed with security in mind because it was never designed to be a networking platform. That functionality was bolted on later for both the server and client pieces. Take an OS that's designed to be easy and compatible, wire up some networking tools and then expect it to be secure? Riiiiight.
People were hacking on Unix years before MSFT ever came along. The *nixes are like the kids who grew up in tough neighborhoods. They've been suspicious of anyone from outside for a long time.
That means there's money in it somewhere for MSFT. The product activation, prove you're not a pirate to download updates, DRM, back-stabbling EULA from hell people want to set interoperability standards. Riiiiiight.
How about I give you the finger...and you don't tell me how to run my operating system?
The idea of buying a Windows box and installing a new OS over the top really bothers me because Redmond is getting a tax on every PC that goes out the door, even Linux boxes. That has to keep monkey boy up nights laughing.
But when I negotiate for big customers they're putting our gold disk image on our machines. We pay for our site licenses through MSFT, not the PC vendor. And we have a disk image for some servers that's not Winblows and we're not paying MSFT for those. We spec the components and configuation. The only company left out of that loop on some of the servers is MSFT. Our unit machine cost doesn't change.
For a real TCO study the author isn't going to be buying machines retail. But he still has a point. Most companies aren't going to be buying enough machines to be able to supply the image like we do. Interesting. I build my own machines at home so I had no idea you couldn't buy a machine without Windows from the big players.
As long as MSFT can keep a grip on that pipeline and make it a huge pain in the ass for someone running Linux to get a rebate for the Windows they don't use, then that sort of anwsers that thread yesterday about why when Windows sucks so bad does it stay so popular. Consumers don't have enough choices.
And as long as they keep taking it MSFT will keep giving it to them. It's hard not to laugh sometimes, you almost feel sorry for them.
There's sort of a fatalistic acceptance I've seen displayed by some Windows users. They just accept that they have to reinstall the OS every so often because it slows down to the point it's barely functional.
Look at it from MSFT's perspective. They can pork users with product activation, back-stabbing EULA's, DRM, forced upgrades, file format lock-in and they just keep taking it. What's the incentive to change their behavior?
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I still miss Saturday nights at my buddy's house when we'd fire up the bbq, drink beer and watch "wras-lin" on his big TV on the screen porch. We didn't watch TV as much as we talked to the neighbors and people who would stop by. Those were good days.
Now instead of watching the same cheap movies over and over we have a great selection that includes foreign films, documentaries, TV (including British TV series), special interest and, somewhat ironically, the series from the recently disposed premium subscription channels.
I couldn't imagine going back to anything as primitive as a video store, especially Blockbuster. *urp*
Elect pro-business candidates then act all surprised when they create sweethear legislation protecting business interests. Duh.
Too bad we can't get Texas, Alabama and Utah closer together. Then we could let them start their own right wing facist christian paradise here on earth. The religion of big business at a 4th grade reading level.
ROFL! Hot government action!
Good one. I'll avoid the totally obvious Deep Throat references.
And the Secret Service giving a press pass to a gay prostitute using an assumed name would be...what?
Finally, we can get p0rn pop ups on shopping carts. Just the distraction I need to take my mind off my fat, smelly, ignorant, sweatsuit wearing, moronic fellow shoppers at Walmart.
That's such a trite, smug, holier-than-thou phrase it's beneath you. Your chances of getting any law changed without having millions to spend are exactly zero.
If taxpayers are supposed to be paying out of state sales taxes the way to collect them is to go after the sellers and get changes in the federal laws, not beat up individual taxpayers.
Some of my online purchases have sales tax added to them, some do not. How is the average Joe Sixpack reasonably expected to keep track of the difference? Where do you send them and in what form? This is the state saying, "Well, we don't have any uniform policy for identifying or collecting these taxes, but we're just going to go beat up on a few hapless people because we need the money."
Your state has a tax form where you estimate your taxes, that's a little different. But our state has no income tax and no state tax forms (except for businesses). We're just supposed to know where to send it? Or run out and have the laws changed? Bullshit. Just because the state can do something doesn't make it right to do it.
The more hoops they put in front of honest users to make them prove a negative, the more likely some of them will wise up and say, "F--- this!"
MSFT is their own worst enemy. I've never seen a big company work so hard at marginalizing their own customers. It sort of reminds me of the music industry, which apparently feels it has a devine right to continue reaping record profits while suing their customers. Forgetting that it's millions of individual CD and ticket buyers who got them to where they are.
To MSFT and the record industry you are nothing more than a revenue stream that needs to be kept in line.
Alabama. And I'd add Utah in there too.
"Now let's see, Mr. Jones, according to your milage report you left the warf area and drove straight across San Francisco Bay."
Let's see them tax me for that. That'll be the next insanely great thing. The box that lets you jam the GPS receiver and feed it fake coordinates. Then we'll have the jam proof GPS receiver, then the jammer for supposedly jam-proof GPS with instructions published on /., then a DMCA case against the person publishing the data, then Congress will pass a law saying it's illegal to possess GPS jammers.
Pretty soon we'll all be running Wild Weasel missions for one another. Cover me, I'm headed downtown!
Just as soon as it reboots...any second now...is the Deathstar back up yet? Damned 14 year old hackers!
"Since we are totally ignorant about how to stop people from deep linking to our site, we're simply going to state, very plainly, that it's illegal and you can't do it. You agree to be bound by this legal fabrication because most people don't have a clue we're making this up and it would probably get tossed out of any court in any state outside Utah or Alabama. Therefore this agreement is bound by the laws of Utah and Alabama. But not all of them, only the laws we like."
The more drastic the solution the more it encourages customers to turn to more open offerings. That will encourage independent and low-budget filmmakers to release their movies without the draconian tagging in order to get wider distribution.
Unless you really enjoy watching the same unimaginative, forumla-driven dribble acted by the same faces over and over.
For every action like the MPAA wants there's an unforseen reaction. Bean counters keep painting themselves into the same dead end. There must be a class called How To Kill Mature Industries in business schools.
The MPAA is becoming the MSFT of entertainment.
What's the real teeth grinder on this one is that many employees had direct deposit for their stock transactions. They lost bank account numbers, tracking numbers, the whole enchilada.
It does seem remarkable that information of that sensitvity was on Windows and unencrypted. And a company that specializes in building information systems for the government. Astonishing. Doesn't matter how good your password security on Windows. Anyone can crack a Winblows box they have physical control of in five minutes.
Trustworthy computing strikes again. But it's not all MSFT's fault this time.
And I think that should include corporate logos. People should be able to shoot movies or video outside and if your logo is visible, too f'ing bad. Even if it's McDonalds and the scene is someone on the street puking their guts out.
It would be such a simple rule to adopt. If it's outside and the shot is in context (you're not using trick photography to move a logo from some place it is to some place it's not) then it should be legal. Even if it's indoors, like in a grocery store, then logos of shelf product should be legal. This wouldn't be so complicated if Congress wasn't bending over for ever corporate donor with 100K to give the Chamber of Commerce.
Our government if f'd up beyond reason and this is only one example. But apparently to red state twits this is just how it should be.
Quite the contrary. A rocket has already run out of fuel well before it reaches maximum altitude. Don't confuse revenue with innovation.
The only means MSFT has to grow revenue is to squeeze more revenue out of you. Every person who jumps ship puts that much more pressure on...you.
MSFT has been run by the bean counters for the last decade. Zero innovation, constant cut backs, shifting production overseas, and ever newer ways to squeeze a few more pennies out of...
...you.
Go visit their offices in Redmond. There's no energy or excitement there, it's a crypt. Dead company walking the green mile!
I remember thinking that myself. Funny no one ever stood up and said we screwed up in Viet Nam. Just like no one can just come out and say we screwed up in Iraq. For some reason we have to collectively go on kidding ourselves that there was some grand purpose, some lofty goal. It was a screw up, plain and simple, and everyone knows it except for 52% of the population. You can't ever make progress denying reality (but apparently you can get re-elected). The truth really will set you free but continuing to live a lie costs 4 billion a month.
It's not unusual for judges to drop some fairly broad hints in the course of a trail to one side or the other. But in a world of nuance, subtlety and polite conversation this was a very direct statement.
I'm sure SCO's lawyers didn't walk away with any ambiguity about where things stand. Kimball not only told them their case against IBM was groundless but the way they've handled the entire affair was suspect. That was a pretty big statement.
In which case the dogs would be barking all the time.
This has gone way beyond anything resembling common sense. Oh, wait, this is Homeland Security we're talking about here. What part does common sense play in that?
No, LT., your men are already dead."
MSFT will junk it up with DRM, proprietary media formats and way too many people are dependent on that security horror ActiveX for them to just abandon it. ActiveX is bloatware for your browser.
If this is a browser war, then what we're seeing now is FireFox: Son of Mozilla. The browser that ate New York.
I'd bet money MSFT was behind that little gem of of market droid spin doctoring.
Windows wasn't designed with security in mind because it was never designed to be a networking platform. That functionality was bolted on later for both the server and client pieces. Take an OS that's designed to be easy and compatible, wire up some networking tools and then expect it to be secure? Riiiiight.
People were hacking on Unix years before MSFT ever came along. The *nixes are like the kids who grew up in tough neighborhoods. They've been suspicious of anyone from outside for a long time.
Bill Gates telling the open source world how to run their business is like Jenna Jameson teaching a class on abstinence.
How about I give you the finger...and you don't tell me how to run my operating system?
But when I negotiate for big customers they're putting our gold disk image on our machines. We pay for our site licenses through MSFT, not the PC vendor. And we have a disk image for some servers that's not Winblows and we're not paying MSFT for those. We spec the components and configuation. The only company left out of that loop on some of the servers is MSFT. Our unit machine cost doesn't change.
For a real TCO study the author isn't going to be buying machines retail. But he still has a point. Most companies aren't going to be buying enough machines to be able to supply the image like we do. Interesting. I build my own machines at home so I had no idea you couldn't buy a machine without Windows from the big players.
As long as MSFT can keep a grip on that pipeline and make it a huge pain in the ass for someone running Linux to get a rebate for the Windows they don't use, then that sort of anwsers that thread yesterday about why when Windows sucks so bad does it stay so popular. Consumers don't have enough choices.
There's sort of a fatalistic acceptance I've seen displayed by some Windows users. They just accept that they have to reinstall the OS every so often because it slows down to the point it's barely functional.
Look at it from MSFT's perspective. They can pork users with product activation, back-stabbing EULA's, DRM, forced upgrades, file format lock-in and they just keep taking it. What's the incentive to change their behavior?