>The rest of us know that a well-educated Windows user...
Isn't that an oxy-moron?
I'm sorry, Mr. Troll, I think you have me confused with a billy goat.
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We can talk specs all you want, but most multimedia pros who are running OsX or Windows have invested more in software than hardware. And that's where all the talk of speed breaks down.
If I go from Mac to Intel, or vice versa, and I'm not the type to pirate everything from friends, warez sources, or p2p, then I have to buy (prices from Amazon.com, rounded to nearest dollar)...
Ms Office Standard (Win: 347 / Mac: 357)
Photoshop (Win: 580 / Mac: 590)
Illustrator (Win: 390 / Mac: 403)
Premiere 6.5 (Win: 540 / Mac: 533)
So the cost to switch is:
To Mac from Win: hardware + 1883 software To Win from Mac: hardware + 1857 software
And that's just the basics for a good multimedia development set-up. If you code, create Flash/Shockwave, etc., then you can add on another $500-1000 for other tools... or more.
Bundles and other incentives can bring it down, but this is not an inconsequential cost. Even if you could get a 10% faster PC for the same price as a Mac, or a 10% faster Mac for the same price as a PC, you have to ask yourself how much that 10% is really worth to you.
How often will you utilize all the capabilities of the machine and stretch the system past the capabilities of the alternative? How many hours of labor will the system save you over time?
And when all is said and done, you can scream over benchmarks and which is the better OS all you like. But they're totally meaningless.
(Mac fans can claim Windows has an inherently higher TCO, but let's face it, that's if the user is someone who thinks GNU is a Milton Bradley game that succeeded Gnip-Gnop. The rest of us know that a well-educated Windows user can avoid many of its pitfalls.)
Each time I've upgraded my hardware, there's one question I ask when I consider whether to switch platforms... What's the bottom line? How much more would this cost or save?
When I worked it out in 1993, a 486 DX2/50 by mail-order beat an education priced Quadra 40 from the university. Since then, I've invested much more in software that I had as a student... Even though the hardware costs are becoming less of a factor, the software costs have become more of a factor to compensate.
If I won the lottery, I'd buy a Mac and all the cool software I wanted. But barring that, I'll be looking carefully at Prescott versus Athlon 64 in the coming months, and making my choice in the Wintel world because that's where my software is.
So, though this compiler news is cool if you're a Mac User, because it makes your platform better *for you*, the arguments about whether Mac beats WinTel are a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
And this is why I suggested he consult a lawyer.
My mention of my "credentials" (so to speak) was just a way of pointing out that I'm forming my opinion from an interest in the law (as opposed to watching "Judging Amy" religiously).
It doesn't make it a "legal opinion", but it may be a bit more educated than some others.
As for him letting it go (respond that it's not Pac Man and then otherwise ignore it). That is the easiest way to deal with this occurrence. The easiest way to deal with spam used to be to delete it.
Do you see the flow of spam decreasing?
So long as everyone lets these lawyers play it fast and loose, without fear of consequences, why should they ever exert the effort to ensure their claims have even a semblance of merit? They can just scattershot the net, being right 1 in 50 times, because just like spam, the expense of dealing with their 49 false claims falls upon the recipients.
These kinds of DMCA letters are getting more frequent, rather than less. So are the subpoenas. If you want to gradually get more and more of these, based on flimsier and flimsier evidence, go ahead and take the path of least resistance.
Otherwise, I believe that every time they're wrong, and they've brought their accusations to a third party (i.e. your ISP), they should be sued for defamation and any other charge you can throw in.
The best way to combat spam is to make it expensive for the spammers to send it.
IANAL (although I did score 163 on the LSAT's and turned down a partial scholarship to law school), but this appears to me to be a case of Defamation, Tortious Interference, and Abuse of Process.
Note they claim a good faith belief. Based on what? It's based on insufficient investigation to found a "good faith belief", and is therefore negligent. Their reckless act has caused you, among other ills: personal distress, time lost in correcting the matter, and harm to your reputation.
You should definitely consult a lawyer about your rights to sue this law firm for their reckless and defamatory acts against you!
A number of years ago, back when Sanford Wallace was still the self-proclaimed spam king, I did a little detective work... locating his mother's phone number.
I'd started building an anti-spam site (I was going to call it "Spamintology") and I was planning to launch it with the number up front, suggesting that people call her to tell her what a bad boy her son was.
But I didn't. Because after the visions of glory, I had visions of my own mother's phone ringing off the hook as spammers called her to complain about me. And that's when I cancelled my plans for the site.
These spammers are often criminals, and always scumbags. If you really start to hurt them, hit them where they live, you risk them trying to hurt you back. That's why I decided to abandon my crusade, because I wasn't so altruistic as to put myself and my family in the line of virtual fire for the sake of zinging Spamford.
Some spam will be stopped by current anti-spam laws under proposal, but the only way to truly stop spam is going to be to take it out of the hands of the FTC and put it into the hands of the FBI. Spam will slow when we see spammers on the evening news, walking into federal courthouses to defend themselves against RICO charges like John Gotti.
If we put together an FBI Anti-Spam unit on par with the FBI's Organized Crime unit at its height, we'd see spam decrease and the nightly news would be entertaining again... for a while.
Some here have brought up the freedom of speech issue in defense of spam.
Freedom of speech is not absolute, and the "yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater" example is only one of the most simplistic restrictions.
Let's take a quick look at prohibitions of Freedom of Speech that have been upheld by the courts.
Noise Ordinances: Yes, the Nazis must be allowed to march through Skokie, but not down a residential street at 2 a.m. on a school night. Courts have consistently upheld that protected speech can be limited to specific places at specific times so as not to constitute an undue burden of noise or disruption on the public.
Property Rights: Your right to be heard does not include a right to come on my property, against my wishes, to speak to me. A good example is when ACT UP! invaded a church during services and started shouting "you're killing us" as part of a protest against the Catholic Church's policies. Had they kept it on the sidewalk in front of the church, it would have remained a legal, protected protest. When they entered the church, they became criminals and were arrested for trespass.
Unsolicited Advertising: Opt-out is very supported by the courts. After one telephone call or junk postal mail, if I provide you with proper notification, you may not make another unsolicited call or send me another unsolicited advertisement by post. If you do, I may sue you. The law gets even more restrictive regarding unsolicited advertising by fax, requiring opt-in.
Violence: Incitement to riot is not protected. Advocating the violent overthrow of the government is not protected. Using speech intended to goad someone into a physical altercation is not protected. To take the shouting "fire" in a movie theater example a step further... shouting "what are ya, some kinda faggot" in a crowded redneck bar is not protected speech.
Fraud: Speech intended to defraud me out of services, property, or money is not protected.
Slander & Libel: Slanderous or libelous speech is not protected.
Protection of Children: It is illegal to sell pornography to children. Though it is protected speech, its distribution can be restricted to a certain age group.
Commercial Speech: You can be forced to warn people your product is dangerous, tell people how much fat or sodium it contains, etc. Commercial speech is MUCH more restricted and burdened with rules and regulations than political, religious, or artistic speech.
Broadcast Censorship: Ever seen hardcore porn during prime time on the networks? Of course not. The Supreme Court ruled that since radio/television waves enter your home unbidden, they can be regulated much more restrictively than print media.
CONCLUSION
This isn't a comprehensive list of the legal restrictions on free speech. It's just some of the major ones. There are little ones (remember that DeCSS was found not to be protected speech), and even coersions (*legally* withholding funds or licenses from groups that exercise their first amendment rights in a manner the government does not like).
So don't argue that spam is an exercise of free speech. Spam is commercial, it violates the property rights of its recipients, and is subject at bare minimum to the same restrictions set on phone and postal solicitations.
Of course my favorite quote on free speech is from Hubert Humphrey: "The right to be heard does not include the right to be taken seriously."
- Greg
How about this? Anyone who is truly wetting their pants over this should buy a license, but should put the $699 in an interest bearing escrow account with payment being conditional on SCO winning their cases on all counts and proving unequivocably that they own all the necessary rights to make the demands they've made.
It's actually a fairly well-used method of payment in cases of dispute.
If I live in California and dispute my phone bill, I can put the full payment on deposit with the Public Utilities Commission pending resolution of the dispute. This way my local telephone service provider can't file a negative credit report on me for not paying my bill, but they don't get any of my money until the dispute is resolved. Once it's resolved, the PUC gives the phone company the amount to which they're entitled, and if I've successfully argued my case, I get the disputed portion back.
If SCO is so sure of their claims, they should have no problem with this solution. Your only loss is getting passbook-style interest on the money rather than the interest you could get from more aggressive investments.
The one thing I haven't seen is people discussing the power of lobbyists to curb the rise of robots. There will be huge battles between unions and business as robots become able to replace humans, and the battles will take place on the political playing field.
Remember the huge dockworkers strike on the West Coast recently? Much of that was over the replacing of old-tech workers with new-tech workers controlling the ever-advancing machines on the docks. The union didn't so much try to stem the tide of technology, but make sure that the new higher-tech jobs would still be under the union's umbrella.
The unions will be joined by neo-luddites who fear distopian prophecies to lobby Washington to legislate limitations on intelligent robots... what jobs they can legally do, requirements for minimum levels of human supervision. There won't be an entirely-robot staffed McDonalds, because there will have to be at least three human supervisors watching the kitchen, dining area, and janitorial areas to ensure that the robots are doing their job without error, ready to hit a panic button that sets off a failsafe power-down in all the robots at the first sign of danger to people or property.
Will it really require three people to oversee the robots in one McDonalds on a realistic need-based analysis? That won't matter, because the "need" will be established by congressional committee or state labor boards. Those standard-setting organizations will be lobbied heavily by the labor unions trying to preserve jobs and by wealthy corporations, trying to increase profits.
Despite that, no technological innovation has had the widespread ability to replace such a wide variety and large amount of human laborers as the robot, and it is quite possible some of the author's predictions could come to pass.
So what do we do with the displaced workers? The author's vision of 25-50% of the population living in welfare dormitories is ill-informed. When the mass becomes that large, welfare riots will happen. Cities will burn. The rich will be dragged from their homes... not necessarily en masse, but at least where the rebels can break through. And you just won't be able to employ a police force large enough to pacify that huge a number of unhappy people.
So we look toward other concepts...
Distopian: Sterilization incentives for the poor to decrease population, "Soylent Green", powerful placating drugs (i.e. Huxley's Soma), Logan's Run style "mandatory retirement"...
Utopian: Shifting population off onto new planets where manual labor will be more valuable during colonization phases, the "information economy" evolves into the "intellect economy" and the value of labor becomes replaced by the value of thought...
Will robots effect radical changes in how our society is constructed? Sure. But our society has been undergoing radical changes for hundreds of years as political, technological, and dogmatic upheavals have changed the ways that we think, organize and make money. There are always difficult periods of adjustment at flashpoints, but we get through them and come out a better society for them.
Forgetting all the claims of extortion and other bad behavior toward Linux users, the claim of stock price manipulation is very worthwhile.
Let us not forget that they are currently prosecuting Martha Stewart for stock price manipulation on the basis that she publicly proclaimed she was not guilty of insider trading and the stock price of Martha Stewart Living / Omnimedia jumped afterward. Without proving her guilty of insider trading or proving she knowingly made a false statement, they intend to prosecute her for stock price manipulation.
Now if they're willing to make that HUGE a leap/stretch, they are morally and ethically obligated to prosecute Darl and Co. for stock price manipulation. If they don't, Martha's lawyers use it to prove bias. Then, since the government never lets itself be embarrassed into dropping a case, they'll go after SCO just to prove that they're being evenhanded in going after Martha.
They don't have to track down the hundreds. They also have IP addresses and ISP identifications for all the users, according to the article. So though the Kazaa ID is generic, they have (or claim to have) specific information to identify the person using that generic ID.
The Comodore 128 was not only legacy compatible with all the C-64 software, letting you run BASIC at the command line, but it also had a CPM (I know there's supposed to be a slash in there, but forget where) mode.
Lord, I remember doing my AP Comp Sci homework on a C-64 with Pascal in 1984. Upgraded to a C-128 in 1985.
Nowadays I'm lucky if I can write a regexp that works as intended on the first try.
Nostalgia...
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't that an oxy-moron?
I'm sorry, Mr. Troll, I think you have me confused with a billy goat.
New .sig:
=====
Try all of Soylent's delicious flavors: Soylent red, Soylent yellow, and new, delicious, Soylent green. Made from the finest undersea growth.
=====
If I go from Mac to Intel, or vice versa, and I'm not the type to pirate everything from friends, warez sources, or p2p, then I have to buy (prices from Amazon.com, rounded to nearest dollar)...
So the cost to switch is:
To Mac from Win: hardware + 1883 software
To Win from Mac: hardware + 1857 software
And that's just the basics for a good multimedia development set-up. If you code, create Flash/Shockwave, etc., then you can add on another $500-1000 for other tools... or more.
Bundles and other incentives can bring it down, but this is not an inconsequential cost. Even if you could get a 10% faster PC for the same price as a Mac, or a 10% faster Mac for the same price as a PC, you have to ask yourself how much that 10% is really worth to you.
How often will you utilize all the capabilities of the machine and stretch the system past the capabilities of the alternative? How many hours of labor will the system save you over time?
And when all is said and done, you can scream over benchmarks and which is the better OS all you like. But they're totally meaningless.
(Mac fans can claim Windows has an inherently higher TCO, but let's face it, that's if the user is someone who thinks GNU is a Milton Bradley game that succeeded Gnip-Gnop. The rest of us know that a well-educated Windows user can avoid many of its pitfalls.)
Each time I've upgraded my hardware, there's one question I ask when I consider whether to switch platforms... What's the bottom line? How much more would this cost or save?
When I worked it out in 1993, a 486 DX2/50 by mail-order beat an education priced Quadra 40 from the university. Since then, I've invested much more in software that I had as a student... Even though the hardware costs are becoming less of a factor, the software costs have become more of a factor to compensate.
If I won the lottery, I'd buy a Mac and all the cool software I wanted. But barring that, I'll be looking carefully at Prescott versus Athlon 64 in the coming months, and making my choice in the Wintel world because that's where my software is.
So, though this compiler news is cool if you're a Mac User, because it makes your platform better *for you*, the arguments about whether Mac beats WinTel are a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
And this is why I suggested he consult a lawyer. My mention of my "credentials" (so to speak) was just a way of pointing out that I'm forming my opinion from an interest in the law (as opposed to watching "Judging Amy" religiously).
It doesn't make it a "legal opinion", but it may be a bit more educated than some others.
As for him letting it go (respond that it's not Pac Man and then otherwise ignore it). That is the easiest way to deal with this occurrence. The easiest way to deal with spam used to be to delete it.
Do you see the flow of spam decreasing?
So long as everyone lets these lawyers play it fast and loose, without fear of consequences, why should they ever exert the effort to ensure their claims have even a semblance of merit? They can just scattershot the net, being right 1 in 50 times, because just like spam, the expense of dealing with their 49 false claims falls upon the recipients.
These kinds of DMCA letters are getting more frequent, rather than less. So are the subpoenas. If you want to gradually get more and more of these, based on flimsier and flimsier evidence, go ahead and take the path of least resistance.
Otherwise, I believe that every time they're wrong, and they've brought their accusations to a third party (i.e. your ISP), they should be sued for defamation and any other charge you can throw in.
The best way to combat spam is to make it expensive for the spammers to send it.
- Greg
IANAL (although I did score 163 on the LSAT's and turned down a partial scholarship to law school), but this appears to me to be a case of Defamation, Tortious Interference, and Abuse of Process.
Note they claim a good faith belief. Based on what? It's based on insufficient investigation to found a "good faith belief", and is therefore negligent. Their reckless act has caused you, among other ills: personal distress, time lost in correcting the matter, and harm to your reputation.
You should definitely consult a lawyer about your rights to sue this law firm for their reckless and defamatory acts against you!
- Greg
I'd started building an anti-spam site (I was going to call it "Spamintology") and I was planning to launch it with the number up front, suggesting that people call her to tell her what a bad boy her son was.
But I didn't. Because after the visions of glory, I had visions of my own mother's phone ringing off the hook as spammers called her to complain about me. And that's when I cancelled my plans for the site.
These spammers are often criminals, and always scumbags. If you really start to hurt them, hit them where they live, you risk them trying to hurt you back. That's why I decided to abandon my crusade, because I wasn't so altruistic as to put myself and my family in the line of virtual fire for the sake of zinging Spamford.
Some spam will be stopped by current anti-spam laws under proposal, but the only way to truly stop spam is going to be to take it out of the hands of the FTC and put it into the hands of the FBI. Spam will slow when we see spammers on the evening news, walking into federal courthouses to defend themselves against RICO charges like John Gotti.
If we put together an FBI Anti-Spam unit on par with the FBI's Organized Crime unit at its height, we'd see spam decrease and the nightly news would be entertaining again... for a while.
- Greg
Freedom of speech is not absolute, and the "yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater" example is only one of the most simplistic restrictions.
Let's take a quick look at prohibitions of Freedom of Speech that have been upheld by the courts.
Noise Ordinances: Yes, the Nazis must be allowed to march through Skokie, but not down a residential street at 2 a.m. on a school night. Courts have consistently upheld that protected speech can be limited to specific places at specific times so as not to constitute an undue burden of noise or disruption on the public.
Property Rights: Your right to be heard does not include a right to come on my property, against my wishes, to speak to me. A good example is when ACT UP! invaded a church during services and started shouting "you're killing us" as part of a protest against the Catholic Church's policies. Had they kept it on the sidewalk in front of the church, it would have remained a legal, protected protest. When they entered the church, they became criminals and were arrested for trespass.
Unsolicited Advertising: Opt-out is very supported by the courts. After one telephone call or junk postal mail, if I provide you with proper notification, you may not make another unsolicited call or send me another unsolicited advertisement by post. If you do, I may sue you. The law gets even more restrictive regarding unsolicited advertising by fax, requiring opt-in.
Violence: Incitement to riot is not protected. Advocating the violent overthrow of the government is not protected. Using speech intended to goad someone into a physical altercation is not protected. To take the shouting "fire" in a movie theater example a step further... shouting "what are ya, some kinda faggot" in a crowded redneck bar is not protected speech.
Fraud: Speech intended to defraud me out of services, property, or money is not protected.
Slander & Libel: Slanderous or libelous speech is not protected.
Protection of Children: It is illegal to sell pornography to children. Though it is protected speech, its distribution can be restricted to a certain age group.
Commercial Speech: You can be forced to warn people your product is dangerous, tell people how much fat or sodium it contains, etc. Commercial speech is MUCH more restricted and burdened with rules and regulations than political, religious, or artistic speech.
Broadcast Censorship: Ever seen hardcore porn during prime time on the networks? Of course not. The Supreme Court ruled that since radio/television waves enter your home unbidden, they can be regulated much more restrictively than print media.
CONCLUSION
This isn't a comprehensive list of the legal restrictions on free speech. It's just some of the major ones. There are little ones (remember that DeCSS was found not to be protected speech), and even coersions (*legally* withholding funds or licenses from groups that exercise their first amendment rights in a manner the government does not like).
So don't argue that spam is an exercise of free speech. Spam is commercial, it violates the property rights of its recipients, and is subject at bare minimum to the same restrictions set on phone and postal solicitations.
Of course my favorite quote on free speech is from Hubert Humphrey: "The right to be heard does not include the right to be taken seriously." - Greg
It's actually a fairly well-used method of payment in cases of dispute.
If I live in California and dispute my phone bill, I can put the full payment on deposit with the Public Utilities Commission pending resolution of the dispute. This way my local telephone service provider can't file a negative credit report on me for not paying my bill, but they don't get any of my money until the dispute is resolved. Once it's resolved, the PUC gives the phone company the amount to which they're entitled, and if I've successfully argued my case, I get the disputed portion back.
If SCO is so sure of their claims, they should have no problem with this solution. Your only loss is getting passbook-style interest on the money rather than the interest you could get from more aggressive investments.
- Greg
Remember the huge dockworkers strike on the West Coast recently? Much of that was over the replacing of old-tech workers with new-tech workers controlling the ever-advancing machines on the docks. The union didn't so much try to stem the tide of technology, but make sure that the new higher-tech jobs would still be under the union's umbrella.
The unions will be joined by neo-luddites who fear distopian prophecies to lobby Washington to legislate limitations on intelligent robots... what jobs they can legally do, requirements for minimum levels of human supervision. There won't be an entirely-robot staffed McDonalds, because there will have to be at least three human supervisors watching the kitchen, dining area, and janitorial areas to ensure that the robots are doing their job without error, ready to hit a panic button that sets off a failsafe power-down in all the robots at the first sign of danger to people or property.
Will it really require three people to oversee the robots in one McDonalds on a realistic need-based analysis? That won't matter, because the "need" will be established by congressional committee or state labor boards. Those standard-setting organizations will be lobbied heavily by the labor unions trying to preserve jobs and by wealthy corporations, trying to increase profits.
Despite that, no technological innovation has had the widespread ability to replace such a wide variety and large amount of human laborers as the robot, and it is quite possible some of the author's predictions could come to pass.
So what do we do with the displaced workers? The author's vision of 25-50% of the population living in welfare dormitories is ill-informed. When the mass becomes that large, welfare riots will happen. Cities will burn. The rich will be dragged from their homes... not necessarily en masse, but at least where the rebels can break through. And you just won't be able to employ a police force large enough to pacify that huge a number of unhappy people.
So we look toward other concepts...
Distopian: Sterilization incentives for the poor to decrease population, "Soylent Green", powerful placating drugs (i.e. Huxley's Soma), Logan's Run style "mandatory retirement"...
Utopian: Shifting population off onto new planets where manual labor will be more valuable during colonization phases, the "information economy" evolves into the "intellect economy" and the value of labor becomes replaced by the value of thought...
Will robots effect radical changes in how our society is constructed? Sure. But our society has been undergoing radical changes for hundreds of years as political, technological, and dogmatic upheavals have changed the ways that we think, organize and make money. There are always difficult periods of adjustment at flashpoints, but we get through them and come out a better society for them.
Let us not forget that they are currently prosecuting Martha Stewart for stock price manipulation on the basis that she publicly proclaimed she was not guilty of insider trading and the stock price of Martha Stewart Living / Omnimedia jumped afterward. Without proving her guilty of insider trading or proving she knowingly made a false statement, they intend to prosecute her for stock price manipulation.
Now if they're willing to make that HUGE a leap/stretch, they are morally and ethically obligated to prosecute Darl and Co. for stock price manipulation. If they don't, Martha's lawyers use it to prove bias. Then, since the government never lets itself be embarrassed into dropping a case, they'll go after SCO just to prove that they're being evenhanded in going after Martha.
It's win-win.
They don't have to track down the hundreds. They also have IP addresses and ISP identifications for all the users, according to the article. So though the Kazaa ID is generic, they have (or claim to have) specific information to identify the person using that generic ID.
The Comodore 128 was not only legacy compatible with all the C-64 software, letting you run BASIC at the command line, but it also had a CPM (I know there's supposed to be a slash in there, but forget where) mode. Lord, I remember doing my AP Comp Sci homework on a C-64 with Pascal in 1984. Upgraded to a C-128 in 1985. Nowadays I'm lucky if I can write a regexp that works as intended on the first try. Nostalgia...