Yes, but my point really was that users were expecting that email was a perfectly legitimate delivery system for anything and everything; and also that access to aforementioned multimedia and binaries should be completely uninhibited. Email applications, and especially Outlook, is really a poor vehicle for distributing games and applets. Anybody can send you anything unsolicited and unsuspecting users often don't realize just how malicious some people can be.
Ah, a subject close to my heart. Yes, the Mac OS X way of doing things is pretty good. However, since I am a raving zealot <grin>, I must point out that this was the default behavior with OS X's predecessor NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP. So this very enlightened way of doing things has been around for many many years.
You know I can't let you Mac people get away with thinking OS X is really an Apple product.:-)
Yes, I was generalizing a bit and there are a great many users who are just trying to get their jobs done and are being reasonable. But with pervasive networking and featureful applications, it doesn't even take a majority of complete idiots to screw things up badly. It only takes a moderate number of moderately informed people with a few bad habits. And I really don't see how we can completely fix it.
Your analysis is pretty much correct. I should note here that, although my little 'rant' may have come out a bit harsh, I'm not really blaming users per se. There's plenty of blame to go around and, really, I'm not sure it's fair to use the word blame. I doubt anybody at Microsoft sits around thinking about how they can create insecure software that will bring the world to its knees. And users are just doing what they've become accustomed to.
Yes, that's true too and is part of the 'cycle of violence', to borrow a phrase. I'm not a violent MS hater. In fact, I believe most of this came about rather by accident than by plan. But it's gotten to the point now where Microsoft has great difficulty getting itself out of jams because of the large burdens of backward compatibility and already-present end user expectations. I'm not sure there's a whole lot they can do without losing customers.
I'm not being condescending here. I never said 'Windows user = stupid, Linux user = smrt'. When I first got my hands on a UNIX box, I ran as root 24/7. I then learned my lesson when I promptly trashed/lib.:-) We were all newbies once. If Linux ever succeeds on the desktop, it's going to face the exact same issues (with a more reasonable architecture, to be sure).
My statement was rather an observation about the way a lot of people using computers behave and that their miseducation is part of the reason we have such trouble with worms. People have come to expect that using a computer involves a certain level of effort and people by nature don't like to put in more effort than necessary to acomplish a reasonable result. It's human nature and I make no apology for it. But I can certainly see and analyze its effect.
I think it's a little more than just being savvy. One problem is that an awful lot of Windows users have very screwed up ideas of how their computers are supposed to function.
For instance, they don't think having to type in a password to run Setup.exe is even remotely reasonable. Their view of the computer is: "if I want to do something with my machine, I should be able to just do it. Don't put anything in my way." And if they were forced to take precautions, their password would end up being something like 'a'. And a regular schedule of changing passwords? Forget it.
Another example, a little more relevant to this case: people want their email for sending dirty pictures, HTML joke pages, funny Flash or Shockwave animations, Active X games, etc. They'd be bored to tears if they had secure email. And they'd be pissed off at anybody who was responsible for it. Have any of you guys ever taken heat for banning popular but incredibly insecure software at your site? Or spyware.
And it's astounding how many supposedly intelligent people (programmers) who have you in their address books end up sending you virii because they were stupid enough to continue clicking on emails about 'Hot pics' or those 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves' emails. Sheesh.
All this is not to say that Microsoft doesn't have some basic architectural issues--they do. But the unreasonable demands and silly behavior of many users more or less prevents them from changing any of it. And when they do change it, people ignore it for the sake of convenience. It's been possible to run as an unpriveliged user for a long time with Windows. And it's not difficult to do. But guess how many people actually do that.
Actually, I did copy+paste. I corrected his typo on purpose because I didn't want to distract the fine readers from my own brilliant humorous commentary. But you're right--there are plenty of possiblities here. It's just one of those value judgements you have to make sometimes.
Well, we don't have to guess about such things because they have been extensively studied:
Allow me to summarize: we've come up with a list of statistics that show that the US sucks because it's not a glorious Marxist paradise (that cannot exist anyway, but most leave that part out). Poor quality universal health care provided by the government at extreme expense to taxpayers is not 'social progress'.
And if the US is equivalent to Poland and Slovenia, why is there so much more opportunity here? Quite frankly, there's a lot more opportunity for personal growth and advancement here than there is in any of the top 10 nations listed in the Estes article. Where are all the success stories of immigrants to Poland and Slovenia (or Sweden or the Netherlands, for that matter) building successful lives for themselves, while lifting up the rest of society at the same time? Those stories don't exist. But there are a lot of them here in this country.
And then there's this: "These roadblocks to progress," he said, " are contributing to global social unrest, including religious fundamentalism and terrorism. Rich countries ignore the desperate plight of the world's poorest nations at our own risk."
Absolute moral decay is the root cause of the trouble in those places. But to bring this back on topic, let's apply that to the black community in this country. What you ascribe to racism, I ascribe to the collective effect of drugs, 'Free Sex', the welfare state, and growing Islam in the black community. If statistics as well as personal experience show that prejudice and discrimination are still rampant in many parts of the country and many populations, why does everyone walk on eggshells, doing anything and everything to show that they aren't racists? Why, out of a nation of 280 million, are there only a handful of people wearing sheets? And why does everyone else laugh at them and shake their heads in disbelief? It must be that they're hiding their racism awfully well. Why does a cop, who throws a thug down on the hood of a car after the hoodlum grabbed his testicles and squeezed as hard as he could get accused of racism because the criminal he was trying to arrest was black?
If anything, there is racism against whites in this country. And any time some black man screws his own life up with drugs, gang warfare, and immorality, white men are accused of causing his decline? Even if they try to help, they're simply accused of trying to 'shove their white morality down the throat of the black man.' Well I'm sorry, there are consequences to actions. If you do the things many black people have started doing in this country (the black community wasn't like this 50 years ago), things *will* go downhill fast.
And how can you hire a drug-addicted gang banger? No, it can't be that this man is worthless as an employee, it must be racism on behalf of the employer.
Among developed nations, the US is pretty mediocre on most quality of life indicators.
Where's the mass exodus to Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Iceland, Italy or Belgium? I don't see one. I do see a lot of people coming here, however. But of course, this must be caused by a bunch of backwards-thinking ingoramuses who refuse to realize how much better it is everywhere else.
And this notion of "good" and "evil" nations is quite interesting anyway. Let's see: is it the people of a nation that are evil, or just its government?
In this case, I'm talking about the government, specifically in reference to oppression. In most places, anti-war protesters would have their skulls bashed in. It didn't happen here. Someone can go overseas, get up on a stage, and say how ashamed they are of the American President, and the President doesn't even mention it. But there are plenty of nations in this world where merely being killed for such an action would be considered a mercy.
And when did the US stop being evil and become a good nation?
When did we start being evil and stop being good? What you're really saying is, 'when did we stop being imperfect and start being perfect?' No arrogance is implied in my statement.
If you want to continue this, I suggest you use my email address: jhclouse (at) charter (dot) net.
I finally found out a couple of years ago that the one soldier was shouting "Spion!" instead of "Freon!". It kind of ruined the whole mystique of the thing I've had for years now.
Of course, "Freon" doesn't make a whole lot of sense; but my friends and I all had a good time trying to figure out why he was saying it. Good times.
And don't even get me started on Commander Keen or the original Duke Nukem (it wasn't in 3D, for all you young kids out there).
I do have to say, however, that RtCW multiplayer was pretty addictive. Just in a completely different way than Wolf3D. Too bad the community kind of imploded.
US citizens are responsible for what happens in the US, not what happens in third world nations.
Yep. And there is *nothing* going on here that needs to be dealt with. Meanwhile, there is a lot of stuff that needs to be fixed elsewhere. Not that you give a damn. You just want to spew a load of bullshit and then get defensive when somebody calls you on it. Hypocrite.
And, in any case, what kind of argumentation is that supposed to be anyway? You seem to be saying that US can be racist
Nope, we're not racist.
and destroy its environment
No, we're not doing that either. But feel free to live in your fantasy world.
because North Korea is even worse
North Korea is a lot worse. As are most of the rest of the world. Again, not that you care.
If you want to engage in international comparisons at all
I do. Most everywhere on earth is engaged in rampant human rights abuses and life is disgusting. It isn't in the U.S. There's nothing more to say.
then the US should compare itself to the best nations in these areas, not to the worst, and in all the areas you mention, the US is in pretty bad shape in international comparisons.
Well, that's a crock too. But that's irrelevant. There's a line between good and evil. We're on one side of it. Nations like North Korea and Iran are on the other side of it. You hate to hear it but it's true. Sorry about that.
You may now return to your self-imposed deception. Have fun.
Many of us know that the primary service provided by big labels is promotion of new music through radio. What are some ways musicians can get their music promoted on a level playing field without selling their rights to big record labels? It seems that it's either sign away all your rights or forget being promoted.
So, you much rather prefer turning the US into a fascist state, military dictatorship, or making it so poor that nobody can protest?
Gee, I don't recall him saying that. You're putting words in his mouth.
I am grateful that I live in a country in which college kids and environmentalists both have the freedom and sufficient economic resources to worry about ecology, racism, sexism, and peace.
So am I. Now I only wish they would turn their minds on and realize that most of the world's ecological abuse goes on in third-world nations, as does most of the world's racism, sexism, and war. Maybe if they went to North Korea and protested Kim Jong Il's religious oppression and torture, I'd give them some respect.
Of course, anger over North Korean Communists ramming spades up women's vaginas is nowhere near as appealing as being indignant over Americans exercising their first amendment rights to disagree with A.N.S.W.E.R. It just doesn't give the young activists that same self-righteous high that they love so much.
First post, Natalie Portman, and grits have pretty much disappeared into -1 land. So take heart: there are probably only a couple more years left for Soviet Russia, alien overlords, ???Profit, and All Your Base.
But it looks like The Chewbacca Defense is starting to take hold...
Not only that, but why would you want to run Solaris on x86 in the first place? Solaris is meant for all that extremely redundant, hot-swappable CPU and mainboard, high-availability, can't-go-down-for-even-a-second, Sun-will-be-there-in-under-an-hour-with-new-parts hardware that almost nobody actually needs. Solaris is scalable enough and reliable enough that cheap Intel architecture is only going to dilute its effectiveness.
I also left out the part where Columbia may well be fronting the money, but consider it a loan to be payed back out of royalties.
That bit alone should disqualify it as a work for hire. If you wish it to be a work for hire, pay them for it.
Absolutely. It's amazing--They're taking a huge chunk of the profits (not that they're not entitled to some, but come on!) and then still making you pay them back. Although, I do think that in some cases all the free drugs, booze, and hookers could be considered considered payment. Some of the big-time rockers bring it on themselves.
I, and 99% of the rest of the populace, go to movies to be entertained, not to judge olympic-style the technical quality of the acting. If you have high standards, great, but don't look snobbishly down your nose at the rest of us. We're having a fine old time, thankyouverymuch.
1) it's not a game where people get their jollies out of "judging olympic-style". Some are just disgusted by crap. It's not necessarily elitism. 2) the (unverified, but that doesn't matter here) fact that 99% enjoy crap does damage in that the demand greatly reduces the supply of good stuff.
but if you want Columbia to front you a quarter million to do it I don't think it's entirely out of line for them to demand ownership of the result.
Just a nit pick, but they don't own the result, they "hold the copyright". There's a difference in that ownership isn't time-limited. Although the neverending copyright extensions have practically turned it into traditional property.
The reason it didn't work, and the ads were eventually pulled, is everyone knew it was a crock (much of the marijuana supply is grown domestically, and the imported stuff tends to come from Canada and Mexico - not exactly countries known for their support of terrorism).
I know you probably don't know this, but there are other drugs besides Marijuana. One drug in particular, Heroin, is a large source of funding for terrorism: read it and weep.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but my point really was that users were expecting that email was a perfectly legitimate delivery system for anything and everything; and also that access to aforementioned multimedia and binaries should be completely uninhibited. Email applications, and especially Outlook, is really a poor vehicle for distributing games and applets. Anybody can send you anything unsolicited and unsuspecting users often don't realize just how malicious some people can be.
You know I can't let you Mac people get away with thinking OS X is really an Apple product. :-)
Yes, I was generalizing a bit and there are a great many users who are just trying to get their jobs done and are being reasonable. But with pervasive networking and featureful applications, it doesn't even take a majority of complete idiots to screw things up badly. It only takes a moderate number of moderately informed people with a few bad habits. And I really don't see how we can completely fix it.
Your analysis is pretty much correct. I should note here that, although my little 'rant' may have come out a bit harsh, I'm not really blaming users per se. There's plenty of blame to go around and, really, I'm not sure it's fair to use the word blame. I doubt anybody at Microsoft sits around thinking about how they can create insecure software that will bring the world to its knees. And users are just doing what they've become accustomed to.
Yes, that's true too and is part of the 'cycle of violence', to borrow a phrase. I'm not a violent MS hater. In fact, I believe most of this came about rather by accident than by plan. But it's gotten to the point now where Microsoft has great difficulty getting itself out of jams because of the large burdens of backward compatibility and already-present end user expectations. I'm not sure there's a whole lot they can do without losing customers.
My statement was rather an observation about the way a lot of people using computers behave and that their miseducation is part of the reason we have such trouble with worms. People have come to expect that using a computer involves a certain level of effort and people by nature don't like to put in more effort than necessary to acomplish a reasonable result. It's human nature and I make no apology for it. But I can certainly see and analyze its effect.
For instance, they don't think having to type in a password to run Setup.exe is even remotely reasonable. Their view of the computer is: "if I want to do something with my machine, I should be able to just do it. Don't put anything in my way." And if they were forced to take precautions, their password would end up being something like 'a'. And a regular schedule of changing passwords? Forget it.
Another example, a little more relevant to this case: people want their email for sending dirty pictures, HTML joke pages, funny Flash or Shockwave animations, Active X games, etc. They'd be bored to tears if they had secure email. And they'd be pissed off at anybody who was responsible for it. Have any of you guys ever taken heat for banning popular but incredibly insecure software at your site? Or spyware.
And it's astounding how many supposedly intelligent people (programmers) who have you in their address books end up sending you virii because they were stupid enough to continue clicking on emails about 'Hot pics' or those 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves' emails. Sheesh.
All this is not to say that Microsoft doesn't have some basic architectural issues--they do. But the unreasonable demands and silly behavior of many users more or less prevents them from changing any of it. And when they do change it, people ignore it for the sake of convenience. It's been possible to run as an unpriveliged user for a long time with Windows. And it's not difficult to do. But guess how many people actually do that.
Actually, I did copy+paste. I corrected his typo on purpose because I didn't want to distract the fine readers from my own brilliant humorous commentary. But you're right--there are plenty of possiblities here. It's just one of those value judgements you have to make sometimes.
Allow me to summarize: we've come up with a list of statistics that show that the US sucks because it's not a glorious Marxist paradise (that cannot exist anyway, but most leave that part out). Poor quality universal health care provided by the government at extreme expense to taxpayers is not 'social progress'.
And if the US is equivalent to Poland and Slovenia, why is there so much more opportunity here? Quite frankly, there's a lot more opportunity for personal growth and advancement here than there is in any of the top 10 nations listed in the Estes article. Where are all the success stories of immigrants to Poland and Slovenia (or Sweden or the Netherlands, for that matter) building successful lives for themselves, while lifting up the rest of society at the same time? Those stories don't exist. But there are a lot of them here in this country.
And then there's this: "These roadblocks to progress," he said, " are contributing to global social unrest, including religious fundamentalism and terrorism. Rich countries ignore the desperate plight of the world's poorest nations at our own risk."
Absolute moral decay is the root cause of the trouble in those places. But to bring this back on topic, let's apply that to the black community in this country. What you ascribe to racism, I ascribe to the collective effect of drugs, 'Free Sex', the welfare state, and growing Islam in the black community. If statistics as well as personal experience show that prejudice and discrimination are still rampant in many parts of the country and many populations, why does everyone walk on eggshells, doing anything and everything to show that they aren't racists? Why, out of a nation of 280 million, are there only a handful of people wearing sheets? And why does everyone else laugh at them and shake their heads in disbelief? It must be that they're hiding their racism awfully well. Why does a cop, who throws a thug down on the hood of a car after the hoodlum grabbed his testicles and squeezed as hard as he could get accused of racism because the criminal he was trying to arrest was black?
If anything, there is racism against whites in this country. And any time some black man screws his own life up with drugs, gang warfare, and immorality, white men are accused of causing his decline? Even if they try to help, they're simply accused of trying to 'shove their white morality down the throat of the black man.' Well I'm sorry, there are consequences to actions. If you do the things many black people have started doing in this country (the black community wasn't like this 50 years ago), things *will* go downhill fast.
And how can you hire a drug-addicted gang banger? No, it can't be that this man is worthless as an employee, it must be racism on behalf of the employer.
Among developed nations, the US is pretty mediocre on most quality of life indicators.
Where's the mass exodus to Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Iceland, Italy or Belgium? I don't see one. I do see a lot of people coming here, however. But of course, this must be caused by a bunch of backwards-thinking ingoramuses who refuse to realize how much better it is everywhere else.
And this notion of "good" and "evil" nations is quite interesting anyway. Let's see: is it the people of a nation that are evil, or just its government?
In this case, I'm talking about the government, specifically in reference to oppression. In most places, anti-war protesters would have their skulls bashed in. It didn't happen here. Someone can go overseas, get up on a stage, and say how ashamed they are of the American President, and the President doesn't even mention it. But there are plenty of nations in this world where merely being killed for such an action would be considered a mercy.
And when did the US stop being evil and become a good nation?
When did we start being evil and stop being good? What you're really saying is, 'when did we stop being imperfect and start being perfect?' No arrogance is implied in my statement.
If you want to continue this, I suggest you use my email address: jhclouse (at) charter (dot) net.
I'm not so sure about that. I mean, how much quality have *you* seen roaming around here unfettered?
Of course, "Freon" doesn't make a whole lot of sense; but my friends and I all had a good time trying to figure out why he was saying it. Good times.
And don't even get me started on Commander Keen or the original Duke Nukem (it wasn't in 3D, for all you young kids out there).
I do have to say, however, that RtCW multiplayer was pretty addictive. Just in a completely different way than Wolf3D. Too bad the community kind of imploded.
Nope, it's just the truth.
Dude, I just can't get that picture out of my head, make it stop.
I apologize if I've caused you any discomfort. Just forget that this stuff is going on over there and go do something else.
Yep. And there is *nothing* going on here that needs to be dealt with. Meanwhile, there is a lot of stuff that needs to be fixed elsewhere. Not that you give a damn. You just want to spew a load of bullshit and then get defensive when somebody calls you on it. Hypocrite.
And, in any case, what kind of argumentation is that supposed to be anyway? You seem to be saying that US can be racist
Nope, we're not racist.
and destroy its environment
No, we're not doing that either. But feel free to live in your fantasy world.
because North Korea is even worse
North Korea is a lot worse. As are most of the rest of the world. Again, not that you care.
If you want to engage in international comparisons at all
I do. Most everywhere on earth is engaged in rampant human rights abuses and life is disgusting. It isn't in the U.S. There's nothing more to say.
then the US should compare itself to the best nations in these areas, not to the worst, and in all the areas you mention, the US is in pretty bad shape in international comparisons.
Well, that's a crock too. But that's irrelevant. There's a line between good and evil. We're on one side of it. Nations like North Korea and Iran are on the other side of it. You hate to hear it but it's true. Sorry about that.
You may now return to your self-imposed deception. Have fun.
Many of us know that the primary service provided by big labels is promotion of new music through radio. What are some ways musicians can get their music promoted on a level playing field without selling their rights to big record labels? It seems that it's either sign away all your rights or forget being promoted.
Gee, I don't recall him saying that. You're putting words in his mouth.
I am grateful that I live in a country in which college kids and environmentalists both have the freedom and sufficient economic resources to worry about ecology, racism, sexism, and peace.
So am I. Now I only wish they would turn their minds on and realize that most of the world's ecological abuse goes on in third-world nations, as does most of the world's racism, sexism, and war. Maybe if they went to North Korea and protested Kim Jong Il's religious oppression and torture, I'd give them some respect.
Of course, anger over North Korean Communists ramming spades up women's vaginas is nowhere near as appealing as being indignant over Americans exercising their first amendment rights to disagree with A.N.S.W.E.R. It just doesn't give the young activists that same self-righteous high that they love so much.
But it looks like The Chewbacca Defense is starting to take hold...
Not only that, but why would you want to run Solaris on x86 in the first place? Solaris is meant for all that extremely redundant, hot-swappable CPU and mainboard, high-availability, can't-go-down-for-even-a-second, Sun-will-be-there-in-under-an-hour-with-new-parts hardware that almost nobody actually needs. Solaris is scalable enough and reliable enough that cheap Intel architecture is only going to dilute its effectiveness.
If they weren't busy drooling on themselves, maybe.
C'mon, they can't even play their parts half the time. And you're expecting them to do light office-work too?
That bit alone should disqualify it as a work for hire. If you wish it to be a work for hire, pay them for it.
Absolutely. It's amazing--They're taking a huge chunk of the profits (not that they're not entitled to some, but come on!) and then still making you pay them back. Although, I do think that in some cases all the free drugs, booze, and hookers could be considered considered payment. Some of the big-time rockers bring it on themselves.
1) it's not a game where people get their jollies out of "judging olympic-style". Some are just disgusted by crap. It's not necessarily elitism. 2) the (unverified, but that doesn't matter here) fact that 99% enjoy crap does damage in that the demand greatly reduces the supply of good stuff.
I was floored by the first review. David Hasselhof is DEAD? When the hell did that happen?
Just a nit pick, but they don't own the result, they "hold the copyright". There's a difference in that ownership isn't time-limited. Although the neverending copyright extensions have practically turned it into traditional property.
I know you probably don't know this, but there are other drugs besides Marijuana. One drug in particular, Heroin, is a large source of funding for terrorism: read it and weep.
The thing that concerns me the most is the stranglehold the RIAA has on promotion (especially radio). THAT is their real product.