You own XP, but part of buying it requires you to only install it on one computer, for instance. Activation is the same thing.
No, it's not the same thing! The requirement to respect Microsoft's copyright is imposed by the law, not Microsoft. The requirement for Activation is imposed by Microsoft, not the law. It is reasonable for the law to impose such a condition, but not for Microsoft to do so!
I think the reason you find this irksome is because while most companies couldn't get away with being that annoying, MS can because they have a near-monopoly.
I disagree. I think that people wouldn't tolerate, for example, Ford trying to pull such a stunt because they have an intuitive idea of what property rights for tangible objects are supposed to be. I think Microsoft gets away with it not because it's a monopoly, but because otherwise on-the-ball people mysteriously turn into blithering idiots when computers are concerned. (If you've ever tried to teach an old person to use the computer, you may know what I mean.)
Is there enough restaurant vegetable oil to run all of America's cars? No. Is there enough to run a decent size percentage of America's cars? No. So this is not a viable option.
Your conclusion does not follow. If you still think that, then you completely missed my point (which was that if we combine renewables, they become viable). Sure, waste veggie oil can't power the entire American vehicle fleet, but that doesn't make it non-viable. You combine it with ethanol and higher efficiency in general (i.e. smaller, lighter cars) and then it can.
If we were to turn all of the US into sugar cane fields, would it be enough ethanol to power America's cars? Unfortunately, NO.
First of all, trying to literally grow sugar cane would be stupid; your statement is only correct in the sense that the yields would suck because we don't have the right climate for it. Second, if you're speaking in the larger sense of growing any crop for ethanol, then I don't believe you. The yield from sane crop (like switchgrass) could be enough to power all of America's cars (especially when combined with the aforementioned biodiesel).
Electricity will not be a viable option for powering our cars until the technology and infrastructure allows for vehicles to be completely charged in less than 5 minutes. Again, decades away.
What we really need is a technology for synthesizing hydrocarbons like gasoline from CO2 + H20 + electricity. Then we could use the existing (except for the particular thing I'm talking about, of course) technology and infrastructure just fine.
This is why I own 3 copies of XP: Laptop, Main Desktop, Secondary Desktop
I will NOT run Vista - ever!
What makes you think Microsoft will continue to allow you to run XP indefinitely? Personally, I expect them to turn off the activation servers (removing your ability to reinstall or upgrade your hardware) once support ends (which, admittedly, won't be until sometime in 201X).
The open source Windows OS project someone pointed out a few months back was the only sign of a real, working alternative I've ever seen.
I hate to break it to you, but ReactOS (presumably the "open source Windows" you referred to) and WINE (which you apparently are disregarding) share the same code. If ReactOS works, WINE would too (and vice-versa).
I mean, seriously, that's a stupid argument to make. It's just like those people who argue against biofuels because they assume the harvesting equipment will run on dino-diesel: no, stupid, if the farm is making biofuels, it's going to run the equipment off exactly the same damn biofuels! Really, it's a fucking no-brainer!
Unfortunately, renewables won't be viable for another 20 years at best
That's BS. My girlfriend's diesel VW runs on renewable biodiesel (from used restaurant grease) right now, and it's a ten-year-old car! Half of Brazil's cars run on renewable ethanol from sugar cane. Renewable hydro, nuclear, solar, wind, tidal, and geothermal are all viable today, when used appropriately (e.g. see Iceland for geothermal). Sure, neither wind nor solar is reliable enough to replace base load by itself, but if you use them together, in a distributed fashion, then they can even each other out and work just fine.
Nah, it's not like that because you are not required to perpetually activate Windows. In both cases it's a one time thing.
The Hell you aren't! You have to reactivate every time you reinstall, and you have to reactivate every time you change your hardware "enough." To continue the valid analogy, it's equivalent to having re-activate with Ford every time you have the car serviced. Replace the brakes? Reactivate! New tires? Reactivate! Happen to change the oil and put on new wiper blades at the same time (i.e., multiple minor changes that alone wouldn't trigger it but together do)? Oops, reactivate! Lord help you if you blow an engine!
Don't you see how unreasonable this is?!
Most software you pay for requires you to enter a CD key to use it. Is that illegal? Is there a significant difference between entering a CD key and contacting MS, other than degree of effort required?
Depends: is the CD key used to authenticate with a remote server that is capable of revoking access? If so, then yes, it damn well should be illegal, too!
And even if it just gets checked by the local program, without the possibility of being locked out as long as the key was valid to begin with, then it's still at least stupid and annoying (but falls short of deserving to be illegal).
You didn't choose to show how this is illegal...
The Hell I didn't! What part of "since it is really my property, then I shouldn't have to beg someone else's permission to use [it]" did you not understand?! After I buy a copy of Windows, I own it. Yet with Activation, Microsoft has the ability to essentially destroy my property (by disallowing me from using it) after the fact, for any arbitrary and capricious reason it might desire. Maybe their database is wrong, and they think it's not a legal copy even though it is. Or maybe they've decided to shut down the Activation servers (perhaps at the XP EOL date). Or maybe they decide they don't like my hardware configuration anymore because it doesn't have a TPM chip in it. Who knows?
The point is, even through no fault of my own, Microsoft has given itself the ability to destroy my property at almost any time, for any reason. If it were anything other than software, nobody would tolerate it! Would you tolerate it if Ford came and towed your car because they didn't like the brand of replacement brake pad you picked? Should your TV manufacturer be allowed to send a goon to smash your set if you use it to watch porn? Is it reasonable for Hanes to steal your T-shirt because you wrote a political slogan on it, and the Hanes management belongs to the other party? No? Then why the fuck should Microsoft be allowed to do essentially the same damn thing?!
WTF? The HL-2070N that I said I had (but which you apparently failed to read) is not an inkjet! It's possible for there to be a laser printer that doesn't support Postscript*, you know.
Actually, you do typically buy the gas from Ford; have you ever bought a car that was empty? Maybe if you asked, Ford would empty the gas tank for you and deduct the cost, but if they want to sell the gas too, they can do that. Do you think it is illegal for Ford to not have an option where you can empty the gas tank? Also, it's not like activation costs money.
WTF? That's the worst analogy I've ever heard. Here's a better one: activation is like Ford requiring you to continue to use only Ford-brand gas in perpetuity, and taking the vehicle away (without a refund) if you don't.
It's the most frustrating thing by far about being an engineer.
No, it's the most frustrating thing about being a programmer. If you were an engineer, you would have been given the resources to build the thing correctly, because you're legally liable for it.
Ah, so TIFF is really general. In that case, saying you're storing something "in TIFF" doesn't really say much, does it? It's kind of like saying you're storing it "in XML" -- what does that mean, if you don't specify a schema too?
The distinction between a "image" and a "document" is a hazy one at times, and I don't think we have a good enough description of the problem space the parent is working in to make the kind of judgment you're arguing for. Certainly, whether something is composed of more than one page is not the place to draw the line.
But if something's more than one page, then it must be more than one image too. So really, you're talking about a sequence or collection of images. These, I agree, can come in several categories: is it a sequence of nearly identical images? Then it's a movie, and it ought to be stored in some movie format. Is it a sequence of related but not nearly identical images? Then it's probably a slide show, which is a kind of document, and ought to be stored in a document format like PDF or.odp (OpenDocument Presentation). Is it a collection of images (in which order is not particularly important)? Then it ought to be stored in a folder of individual image files. And so on.
Yes, it makes sense for them to be multi-page. TIFF is a multi-page format...
Having the format support a thing, and having that thing make sense are two different things. For example, Excel supports being used as a database... but does it make sense?
My point: use image formats for images, and document formats for documents. If the things you're trying to store are images, don't put them in a document format, and if they're documents, then don't put them in an image format.
Also, if TIFF is designed to store both images and documents, then I question whether it is too general to do either of them well. And your mention of "subformats" makes me think my concern is well-founded!
A better method is to just use more moderation in what you eat. Personally, I have found it hard to finish my meals at restaurants as of late - I just don't eat that much, and it would be unhealthy to try to.
The problem with that is that people have been raised not to -- or can't afford to -- waste food. Often it's hard to find food that's either available in small enough portions, or palatable enough when eaten as leftovers. And the fact that it's so much of a better value to buy in bulk (even at restaurants -- see "extra value meals") only exacerbates the problem.
Can you really blame people -- especially poor people -- when all their experience tells them to avoid wasting food/money?
Here in the States, you can easily get frozen dinners for $2-3. That's about the same price you pay for a single tomato sometimes! By the time you've bought enough different things to make a decent salad, you've not only spent at least $10 or so, but you're also obligated to eat salads frequently for the next few days so that you get your money's worth before everything rots. For low-income people, and especially low-income people without large families (such as college students), it can be impractical to try to eat non-processed food.
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No, it's not the same thing! The requirement to respect Microsoft's copyright is imposed by the law, not Microsoft. The requirement for Activation is imposed by Microsoft, not the law. It is reasonable for the law to impose such a condition, but not for Microsoft to do so!
I disagree. I think that people wouldn't tolerate, for example, Ford trying to pull such a stunt because they have an intuitive idea of what property rights for tangible objects are supposed to be. I think Microsoft gets away with it not because it's a monopoly, but because otherwise on-the-ball people mysteriously turn into blithering idiots when computers are concerned. (If you've ever tried to teach an old person to use the computer, you may know what I mean.)
And I hadn't seen adjective verbed!
We have that; it's called "nuclear fission."
If the electricity is cheap enough, it doesn't have to be particularly efficient.
Your conclusion does not follow. If you still think that, then you completely missed my point (which was that if we combine renewables, they become viable). Sure, waste veggie oil can't power the entire American vehicle fleet, but that doesn't make it non-viable. You combine it with ethanol and higher efficiency in general (i.e. smaller, lighter cars) and then it can.
First of all, trying to literally grow sugar cane would be stupid; your statement is only correct in the sense that the yields would suck because we don't have the right climate for it. Second, if you're speaking in the larger sense of growing any crop for ethanol, then I don't believe you. The yield from sane crop (like switchgrass) could be enough to power all of America's cars (especially when combined with the aforementioned biodiesel).
What we really need is a technology for synthesizing hydrocarbons like gasoline from CO2 + H20 + electricity. Then we could use the existing (except for the particular thing I'm talking about, of course) technology and infrastructure just fine.
So, what, they're expected to maintain those servers in perpetuity? In 2183, I'll be able to connect up and reactivate Windows XP? Yeah, right.
What makes you think Microsoft will continue to allow you to run XP indefinitely? Personally, I expect them to turn off the activation servers (removing your ability to reinstall or upgrade your hardware) once support ends (which, admittedly, won't be until sometime in 201X).
After June 30, OEMs have to pay retail (or at least a heck of a lot more than they're paying now).
I hate to break it to you, but ReactOS (presumably the "open source Windows" you referred to) and WINE (which you apparently are disregarding) share the same code. If ReactOS works, WINE would too (and vice-versa).
Duh, more nuclear!
I mean, seriously, that's a stupid argument to make. It's just like those people who argue against biofuels because they assume the harvesting equipment will run on dino-diesel: no, stupid, if the farm is making biofuels, it's going to run the equipment off exactly the same damn biofuels! Really, it's a fucking no-brainer!
That's BS. My girlfriend's diesel VW runs on renewable biodiesel (from used restaurant grease) right now, and it's a ten-year-old car! Half of Brazil's cars run on renewable ethanol from sugar cane. Renewable hydro, nuclear, solar, wind, tidal, and geothermal are all viable today, when used appropriately (e.g. see Iceland for geothermal). Sure, neither wind nor solar is reliable enough to replace base load by itself, but if you use them together, in a distributed fashion, then they can even each other out and work just fine.
It's really not that hard.
Ooooh, pretty!
Never mind, I thought you were talking about the amateur radio operators, rather than the BPL operators.
Why should they have to?
Damn it, it's Marbury, not "Marburg!" Maaar-buur-yeee! You've fucked it up in two different posts already, and it's pissing me off, so quit it!
And every Supreme Court decision perverting the Interstate Commerce Clause was wrong, anyway, judicial review or not!
So? That's exactly what Amendments are for!
The Hell you aren't! You have to reactivate every time you reinstall, and you have to reactivate every time you change your hardware "enough." To continue the valid analogy, it's equivalent to having re-activate with Ford every time you have the car serviced. Replace the brakes? Reactivate! New tires? Reactivate! Happen to change the oil and put on new wiper blades at the same time (i.e., multiple minor changes that alone wouldn't trigger it but together do)? Oops, reactivate! Lord help you if you blow an engine!
Don't you see how unreasonable this is?!
Depends: is the CD key used to authenticate with a remote server that is capable of revoking access? If so, then yes, it damn well should be illegal, too!And even if it just gets checked by the local program, without the possibility of being locked out as long as the key was valid to begin with, then it's still at least stupid and annoying (but falls short of deserving to be illegal).
The Hell I didn't! What part of "since it is really my property, then I shouldn't have to beg someone else's permission to use [it]" did you not understand?! After I buy a copy of Windows, I own it. Yet with Activation, Microsoft has the ability to essentially destroy my property (by disallowing me from using it) after the fact, for any arbitrary and capricious reason it might desire. Maybe their database is wrong, and they think it's not a legal copy even though it is. Or maybe they've decided to shut down the Activation servers (perhaps at the XP EOL date). Or maybe they decide they don't like my hardware configuration anymore because it doesn't have a TPM chip in it. Who knows?
The point is, even through no fault of my own, Microsoft has given itself the ability to destroy my property at almost any time, for any reason. If it were anything other than software, nobody would tolerate it! Would you tolerate it if Ford came and towed your car because they didn't like the brand of replacement brake pad you picked? Should your TV manufacturer be allowed to send a goon to smash your set if you use it to watch porn? Is it reasonable for Hanes to steal your T-shirt because you wrote a political slogan on it, and the Hanes management belongs to the other party? No? Then why the fuck should Microsoft be allowed to do essentially the same damn thing?!
WTF? The HL-2070N that I said I had (but which you apparently failed to read) is not an inkjet! It's possible for there to be a laser printer that doesn't support Postscript*, you know.
(*but see other reply about BR Script)
WTF? That's the worst analogy I've ever heard. Here's a better one: activation is like Ford requiring you to continue to use only Ford-brand gas in perpetuity, and taking the vehicle away (without a refund) if you don't.
No, it's the most frustrating thing about being a programmer. If you were an engineer, you would have been given the resources to build the thing correctly, because you're legally liable for it.
Ah, so TIFF is really general. In that case, saying you're storing something "in TIFF" doesn't really say much, does it? It's kind of like saying you're storing it "in XML" -- what does that mean, if you don't specify a schema too?
But if something's more than one page, then it must be more than one image too. So really, you're talking about a sequence or collection of images. These, I agree, can come in several categories: is it a sequence of nearly identical images? Then it's a movie, and it ought to be stored in some movie format. Is it a sequence of related but not nearly identical images? Then it's probably a slide show, which is a kind of document, and ought to be stored in a document format like PDF or .odp (OpenDocument Presentation). Is it a collection of images (in which order is not particularly important)? Then it ought to be stored in a folder of individual image files. And so on.
Having the format support a thing, and having that thing make sense are two different things. For example, Excel supports being used as a database... but does it make sense?
My point: use image formats for images, and document formats for documents. If the things you're trying to store are images, don't put them in a document format, and if they're documents, then don't put them in an image format.
Also, if TIFF is designed to store both images and documents, then I question whether it is too general to do either of them well. And your mention of "subformats" makes me think my concern is well-founded!
And why are the formatting of blockquotes and spacing between paragraphs screwed up?
How about the state simply stop subsidizing high-fructose corn syrup first?
The problem with that is that people have been raised not to -- or can't afford to -- waste food. Often it's hard to find food that's either available in small enough portions, or palatable enough when eaten as leftovers. And the fact that it's so much of a better value to buy in bulk (even at restaurants -- see "extra value meals") only exacerbates the problem.
Can you really blame people -- especially poor people -- when all their experience tells them to avoid wasting food/money?
Here in the States, you can easily get frozen dinners for $2-3. That's about the same price you pay for a single tomato sometimes! By the time you've bought enough different things to make a decent salad, you've not only spent at least $10 or so, but you're also obligated to eat salads frequently for the next few days so that you get your money's worth before everything rots. For low-income people, and especially low-income people without large families (such as college students), it can be impractical to try to eat non-processed food.