What I never understood is the whole browser wars thing, how does MS make money off IE? It's free to download.
IE sells windows licenses. No, really--stop laughing, it's true.
For every IE only corporate application out there, there's infrastructure that HAS to run Windows. Your application servers need to be windows based. Your fat clients need to be windows based. Even in a thin client environment, your terminal server HAS to be windows based.
The news story, although bizarely linked to Aljazeera (!), is attributed to Reuters down the bottom. So it's not quite as "pure crap" as you might think
Yes, because it's not like Reuters has had issues with credibility in the recent past, or anything.
I don't know about the GP, but it's no mystery why Republicans disagree with me: the party is dominated by people who are incompetent, power hungry, and, at times, simply corrupt.
This is true--however, the label "incompetent, power hungry, and at times, simply corrupt" applies to the Democrat leadership, too!
Only IE was singled out (of course), but there are not many browsers that pass ACID2...
Come on, he was responding to the question "If you could make Microsoft do something to IE, what would it be?" That hardly seems an appropriate place to mention other browsers, don't you think?
woah..! that's some chuck norris level self defence:)
Nah, Chuck Norris doesn't need anything other than a roundhouse kick.
i dont live in america so i dont know what commonly goes on, but do many people defend themselves with hulking great machine guns?
Not really. While one can possess a machine gun (you have to pay a $200 tax and undergo a background check) it is not lawful to possess one manufactured after 1986 unless you are a dealer or law enforcement. This limits the pool of legally available weapons, causing the prices to be out of this world (example: a 20+ year old M-16 runs between $10-15,000, while a brand new one, assuming you could legally purchase it, would go for 1/10th that at most) and restricts ownership to those with lots of spare cash. Some states also ban possession entirely.
are the police ok with people unleashing a barrage of hot lead from an m-16 if someone breaks into their house?
I would imagine that depends on circumstances. The police will probably frown on someone firing a machinegun inside an apartment building with 200 neighbors in close proximity, because a 12 year old kid was trying to steal their VCR.
can you carry a machine gun around in a public place as long as it's hidden under your jacket and you have a license? or is it just pistols?
I personally don't know of any states that allow one to carry a machine gun as a defensive weapon. However, some do allow long arms (i.e. rifles and shotguns) in addition to pistols. Most states have some permitting process, and the majority require a permit to be issued unless good cause can be shown as to why you shouldn't have one. Half a dozen don't allow the carrying of firearms except by law enforcement. Two states (Alaska and Vermont) allow anyone to, no permit required. Some states require a permit to carry concealed, while allowing open carry without one, while other states require a permit for both. Yet other states do not allow open carry at all.
Does anyone ever argue in congress about the need to allow free ownership of assault weapons to enable more effective coups? Becuase that's basically the (legal) point of having one.
I don't think any American politician has made a comment along those lines since the late 1950s or so, though it wouldn't surprise me if Rep. Ron Paul of Texas had said something along those lines in the last decade or two.
I don't think I'd say it was the "legal" point, by the way, but rather the constitutional point. Also, tyranny from within isn't the only target of the second amendment--resisting invasions would be another one.
Or alternatively to have fun blasting targets and animals with big guns. Have i missed any other legimate reasons?
surely if the second amendement is supposed to leave the populace with the means to overthrow their government, isnt it a bit innefective unless you get the right to keep and bear a massive standing army, including helicopter gunships, nuclear missles and aircraft carriers?
In regard to your overall point, have you been paying any attention to what is going on in Iraq? I daresay that is proof that a lightly armed irregular force can fight an effective war against a modern army.
As for the second amendment in general, your choice of the words "standing army" is pretty interesting. Most of our founding fathers were dead set against such a thing, which is one of the main reasons we have the right to keep and bear arms. Helicopters and aircraft carriers? Given that large amounts of artillery and naval vessels were privately owned during the Revolution (and, at least in the south, during the civil war) I can't help but conclude that, constitutionally speaking, those would pass muster.
Nukes? Even I'm not that absolute when it comes to the second amendment.
Part of Bush's victory was "won" by smearing and misrepesenting the other candidate. The Democratic challenger's failure may have been that he spent too much time courting
Given that the original poster was specifically talking about "pro-life, pro-second amendment voters" I've gotta say: Kerry did an excellent job of smearing himself. Despite the lip service he paid to gun rights ("look at me! I'm duck hunting!") his actions made his true position quite clear--even though he didn't show his face in the senate for more or less an entire year John Kerry finally rushed back to DC to cast a vote on... a renewed assault weapons ban.
Perhaps it's different in the US, but in Canada, you should never be in a "head-on" collision situation while VFR (or IFR, for that matter). In Canada, VFR aircraft on eastbound headings (0 - 179 degrees magnetic) must fly at odd-thousands plus 500 feet altitudes. Aircraft flying westbound (180 - 359 degrees magnetic) fly at even-thousands plus 500. This assures a 1000 foot vertical separation between opposite-facing traffic. IFR traffic flies at even and odd thousands (without the "plus 500").
Is that not how it works in the US, too?
Yes, this is how it works in the US, with one exception: it only applies if you are more than 3000 ft AGL.
Actually, they are. They are specifically cited as a special protected group in the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Congress is specifically prevented from making any law abridging the freedom of the press.
You missed his point entirely. No one is arguing that congress is prohibited from making laws abridging the freedom of the press, but rather that "the press" is not defined as "people who graduated from the Columbia school of Journalism." A blog is protected the same way the New York Times is.
This "above the law" feeling is exactly why we have the ideal instilled into the Constitution that there should be a free press.
It's also why we have a right to bear arms. Personally, I would rather see things fixed with words instead of bullets, but when the first amendment stops working, the second is waiting in the wings.
In a modern war, the first thing a country under attack should do is jam every radio frequency there is. Make all communication, range finding, navigation and surveillance via radio impossible. You'd cripple the US army's ability to fight for one.
Jamming cuts both ways--you would significantly reduce your own ability to coordinate a defense. There's also the fact that you can't exactly hide the sources of your jamming. The Wild Weasels would shortly come calling with their anti-radiation weapons and put your jamming operation out of business.
Then there's cost--sure, this might work pretty well (in the short term) in the event that Uncle Sugar comes calling, but there aren't many other armies out there that would be particularly hampered by a lack of UAVs. To counter those guys (and there are a HECK of alot more of them) you'd be better off building more tanks, or whatever.
My greatest fear regarding American elections is that Diebold machines will be used for a national vote to repeal the 22nd amendment
Your fear is unfounded, as the US does not use referendum to change its constitution. Our process actually makes it fairly difficult to do so: both houses of congress have to approve the proposed amendment with a 2/3rds majority, then 3/4ths of the states must ratify it. Alternatively, 2/3rdsof the states can vote to hold a constitutional convention and propose amendments, which then also must be ratified by 3/4ths of the states.
In regards to the rest of your post, I agree with your closing statement (dump both political parties) but I actually support electronic voting--just not in its current brain dead form. What's needed is as follows: real paper ballots printed by the machine to serve as both a check for the voter and an audit trail; open source code so everyone can audit it; commodity hardware so a machine can be built by an interested third party, and tested against what is in the precincts; severe prison terms for tampering with the software or the equipment.
In the end we're talking about a system that doesn't have to do anything other than "i = i + 1" and produce a tamper resistant audit trail.
I can't count the number of times I've had to have people do weird shit like boot a LiveCD just to run lspci, because Windows doesn't support any of their hardware, and can't even retrieve the vendor information hardcoded into it so as they can find their own drivers.
lspci is an awesome tool, I agree, and I've written more than my fair share of scripts that make use of it. However, Windows does indeed have something similar. In the registy editor, browse to HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Enum\PCI. All the information that lspci gives you is contained in there, and it's even fairly well organized.
It's been awhile, but IIRC it's even worse than you describe. Say, for example, that in exchange for mowing my lawn, I agree to do your taxes. According to the IRS, both of us are on the hook here for the full value of the services, instead of the one who comes out ahead being liable for the difference.
Oddly enough, you picked one of the few things in that movie that was more or less accurate. The Cookie Monster "virus" (not really a virus in the modern sense of the word, just an annoying piece of code) was around in the 1970s, and would randomly pop up "Cookie! Gimme cookie!" on ttys. Typing "cookie" would make the prompt go away. Typing "chocolate chip" would remove the virus.
Real world analogy failure: Objects you keep in a safety deposit box are physical. Data you keep on a server provided by someone else is virtual, and trivially backed up to a safe location beforehand. Failure to exercise due diligence is user stupidity, not provider malice.
Agreed that the knowledgeable and prudent user will be making regular backups, which (especially given the volume of data on the average blog) are trivially accomplished. I disagree with your second point, that such an instance would be user stupidity, and not provider malice... these are not mutually exclusive ideas, and in this case it would in fact be both.
I'm also a bit hesitant to let it go at "there's a difference between physical goods and data." Unless your agreement with the provider stipulates that they own your data (and some agreements do indeed say this) it's still your property. I daresay the provider wouldn't simply shrug and say "it's only data" if I were appropriating theirs.
And let's be realistic here - we're talking about bad poetry, descriptions of what 13 year olds had for breakfast, and half-baked anti-Bush screeds. Not exactly precious stuff here.
While you (and, frankly, I--I'm not impressed by anything on LJ, not even the stuff in my own) see it as worthless, the authors probably don't. To put it another way, one man's trash is another man's treasure.
In any case, I don't think the objective value of the data should be the determining factor about whether or not you're being extorted. "Give me your lunch money or I'll throw your text book in the sewer" is the moral equivalent of "Nice store you got here... be a shame if something happened to it."
However, unless they'd made an explicit commitment to allow you access to get your files off their servers, I don't see any reason why they couldn't just cut off your access entirely until you agree to pay for the service. Unless you're paying for the service already, it's unlikely they have any contractual obligations toward you.
Sure, I agree it's fair to say they don't have any contractual obligations. But at what point does this become extortion? "Start paying us for our previously free service, or you'll never see your data again" seems to fit the bill in this regard, I think.
Real world analogy: First National Bank of FOO offers me a free safe deposit box to store my stuff. Four years into our relationship, they decide I need to start paying for their service... and tell me that I have to pay their fee even if I only want to remove my items so I can take my business elsewhere.
Not that I think LJ would do this, mind you, I'm just addressing the point that was raised.
I think your calculations are off by an order of magnitude.
The penalty and interest mechanism at the IRS is stacked in favor of the IRS and set up to severely intimidate people to pay their taxes in full and on time
I'm not disputing that part--merely your suggesation that 0.5% of $900M is $45M. Your calculations were literally off by an order of magnitude.
Is Microsoft going to recognise this contraption as a single, or multi-liscense-able processor, and will AMD only hide the fact there's multi-cores from Operating systems other than Microsoft ?
You're barking up the wrong tree here. MS has already addressed this in favor of their customers, and licenses on a per-socket rather than a per-core basis. One core, two cores, four cores, doesn't matter--one processor.
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What I never understood is the whole browser wars thing, how does MS make money off IE? It's free to download.
IE sells windows licenses. No, really--stop laughing, it's true.
For every IE only corporate application out there, there's infrastructure that HAS to run Windows. Your application servers need to be windows based. Your fat clients need to be windows based. Even in a thin client environment, your terminal server HAS to be windows based.
All that means revenue for MS.
The news story, although bizarely linked to Aljazeera (!), is attributed to Reuters down the bottom. So it's not quite as "pure crap" as you might think
Yes, because it's not like Reuters has had issues with credibility in the recent past, or anything.
I don't know about the GP, but it's no mystery why Republicans disagree with me: the party is dominated by people who are incompetent, power hungry, and, at times, simply corrupt.
This is true--however, the label "incompetent, power hungry, and at times, simply corrupt" applies to the Democrat leadership, too!
Only IE was singled out (of course), but there are not many browsers that pass ACID2...
Come on, he was responding to the question "If you could make Microsoft do something to IE, what would it be?" That hardly seems an appropriate place to mention other browsers, don't you think?
I wouldn't trust any computer directly on the wire without a router. I don't care what OS it's running.
Hmm. So much for linux based routers then, huh?
woah..! that's some chuck norris level self defence :)
Nah, Chuck Norris doesn't need anything other than a roundhouse kick.
i dont live in america so i dont know what commonly goes on, but do many people defend themselves with hulking great machine guns?
Not really. While one can possess a machine gun (you have to pay a $200 tax and undergo a background check) it is not lawful to possess one manufactured after 1986 unless you are a dealer or law enforcement. This limits the pool of legally available weapons, causing the prices to be out of this world (example: a 20+ year old M-16 runs between $10-15,000, while a brand new one, assuming you could legally purchase it, would go for 1/10th that at most) and restricts ownership to those with lots of spare cash. Some states also ban possession entirely.
are the police ok with people unleashing a barrage of hot lead from an m-16 if someone breaks into their house?
I would imagine that depends on circumstances. The police will probably frown on someone firing a machinegun inside an apartment building with 200 neighbors in close proximity, because a 12 year old kid was trying to steal their VCR.
can you carry a machine gun around in a public place as long as it's hidden under your jacket and you have a license? or is it just pistols?
I personally don't know of any states that allow one to carry a machine gun as a defensive weapon. However, some do allow long arms (i.e. rifles and shotguns) in addition to pistols. Most states have some permitting process, and the majority require a permit to be issued unless good cause can be shown as to why you shouldn't have one. Half a dozen don't allow the carrying of firearms except by law enforcement. Two states (Alaska and Vermont) allow anyone to, no permit required. Some states require a permit to carry concealed, while allowing open carry without one, while other states require a permit for both. Yet other states do not allow open carry at all.
Basically, it all depends on your location.
Does anyone ever argue in congress about the need to allow free ownership of assault weapons to enable more effective coups? Becuase that's basically the (legal) point of having one.
I don't think any American politician has made a comment along those lines since the late 1950s or so, though it wouldn't surprise me if Rep. Ron Paul of Texas had said something along those lines in the last decade or two.
I don't think I'd say it was the "legal" point, by the way, but rather the constitutional point. Also, tyranny from within isn't the only target of the second amendment--resisting invasions would be another one.
Or alternatively to have fun blasting targets and animals with big guns.
Have i missed any other legimate reasons?
Self-defense springs to mind.
surely if the second amendement is supposed to leave the populace with the means to overthrow their government, isnt it a bit innefective unless you get the right to keep and bear a massive standing army, including helicopter gunships, nuclear missles and aircraft carriers?
In regard to your overall point, have you been paying any attention to what is going on in Iraq? I daresay that is proof that a lightly armed irregular force can fight an effective war against a modern army.
As for the second amendment in general, your choice of the words "standing army" is pretty interesting. Most of our founding fathers were dead set against such a thing, which is one of the main reasons we have the right to keep and bear arms. Helicopters and aircraft carriers? Given that large amounts of artillery and naval vessels were privately owned during the Revolution (and, at least in the south, during the civil war) I can't help but conclude that, constitutionally speaking, those would pass muster.
Nukes? Even I'm not that absolute when it comes to the second amendment.
Because the other constitutional rights are not under constant assault.
You're kidding, right?
Part of Bush's victory was "won" by smearing and misrepesenting the other candidate. The Democratic challenger's failure may have been that he spent too much time courting
Given that the original poster was specifically talking about "pro-life, pro-second amendment voters" I've gotta say: Kerry did an excellent job of smearing himself. Despite the lip service he paid to gun rights ("look at me! I'm duck hunting!") his actions made his true position quite clear--even though he didn't show his face in the senate for more or less an entire year John Kerry finally rushed back to DC to cast a vote on... a renewed assault weapons ban.
Perhaps it's different in the US, but in Canada, you should never be in a "head-on" collision situation while VFR (or IFR, for that matter). In Canada, VFR aircraft on eastbound headings (0 - 179 degrees magnetic) must fly at odd-thousands plus 500 feet altitudes. Aircraft flying westbound (180 - 359 degrees magnetic) fly at even-thousands plus 500. This assures a 1000 foot vertical separation between opposite-facing traffic. IFR traffic flies at even and odd thousands (without the "plus 500").
Is that not how it works in the US, too?
Yes, this is how it works in the US, with one exception: it only applies if you are more than 3000 ft AGL.
Actually, they are. They are specifically cited as a special protected group in the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Congress is specifically prevented from making any law abridging the freedom of the press.
You missed his point entirely. No one is arguing that congress is prohibited from making laws abridging the freedom of the press, but rather that "the press" is not defined as "people who graduated from the Columbia school of Journalism." A blog is protected the same way the New York Times is.
This "above the law" feeling is exactly why we have the ideal instilled into the Constitution that there should be a free press.
It's also why we have a right to bear arms. Personally, I would rather see things fixed with words instead of bullets, but when the first amendment stops working, the second is waiting in the wings.
In a modern war, the first thing a country under attack should do is jam every radio frequency there is. Make all communication, range finding, navigation and surveillance via radio impossible. You'd cripple the US army's ability to fight for one.
Jamming cuts both ways--you would significantly reduce your own ability to coordinate a defense. There's also the fact that you can't exactly hide the sources of your jamming. The Wild Weasels would shortly come calling with their anti-radiation weapons and put your jamming operation out of business.
Then there's cost--sure, this might work pretty well (in the short term) in the event that Uncle Sugar comes calling, but there aren't many other armies out there that would be particularly hampered by a lack of UAVs. To counter those guys (and there are a HECK of alot more of them) you'd be better off building more tanks, or whatever.
It's nice to see that some people still understand this. Welcome to my friends list.
My greatest fear regarding American elections is that Diebold machines will be used for a national vote to repeal the 22nd amendment
Your fear is unfounded, as the US does not use referendum to change its constitution. Our process actually makes it fairly difficult to do so: both houses of congress have to approve the proposed amendment with a 2/3rds majority, then 3/4ths of the states must ratify it. Alternatively, 2/3rdsof the states can vote to hold a constitutional convention and propose amendments, which then also must be ratified by 3/4ths of the states.
In regards to the rest of your post, I agree with your closing statement (dump both political parties) but I actually support electronic voting--just not in its current brain dead form. What's needed is as follows: real paper ballots printed by the machine to serve as both a check for the voter and an audit trail; open source code so everyone can audit it; commodity hardware so a machine can be built by an interested third party, and tested against what is in the precincts; severe prison terms for tampering with the software or the equipment.
In the end we're talking about a system that doesn't have to do anything other than "i = i + 1" and produce a tamper resistant audit trail.
Comparing the PRC to a Nazi concentration camp?
You're right, it's not an accurate comparison at all--the Chinese communist party has killed far more people than the Nazis ever did.
I can't count the number of times I've had to have people do weird shit like boot a LiveCD just to run lspci, because Windows doesn't support any of their hardware, and can't even retrieve the vendor information hardcoded into it so as they can find their own drivers.
lspci is an awesome tool, I agree, and I've written more than my fair share of scripts that make use of it. However, Windows does indeed have something similar. In the registy editor, browse to HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Enum\PCI. All the information that lspci gives you is contained in there, and it's even fairly well organized.
It's been awhile, but IIRC it's even worse than you describe. Say, for example, that in exchange for mowing my lawn, I agree to do your taxes. According to the IRS, both of us are on the hook here for the full value of the services, instead of the one who comes out ahead being liable for the difference.
Clearly you haven't seen Hackers. TYPE COOKIE!!
Oddly enough, you picked one of the few things in that movie that was more or less accurate. The Cookie Monster "virus" (not really a virus in the modern sense of the word, just an annoying piece of code) was around in the 1970s, and would randomly pop up "Cookie! Gimme cookie!" on ttys. Typing "cookie" would make the prompt go away. Typing "chocolate chip" would remove the virus.
Real world analogy failure: Objects you keep in a safety deposit box are physical. Data you keep on a server provided by someone else is virtual, and trivially backed up to a safe location beforehand. Failure to exercise due diligence is user stupidity, not provider malice.
Agreed that the knowledgeable and prudent user will be making regular backups, which (especially given the volume of data on the average blog) are trivially accomplished. I disagree with your second point, that such an instance would be user stupidity, and not provider malice... these are not mutually exclusive ideas, and in this case it would in fact be both.
I'm also a bit hesitant to let it go at "there's a difference between physical goods and data." Unless your agreement with the provider stipulates that they own your data (and some agreements do indeed say this) it's still your property. I daresay the provider wouldn't simply shrug and say "it's only data" if I were appropriating theirs.
And let's be realistic here - we're talking about bad poetry, descriptions of what 13 year olds had for breakfast, and half-baked anti-Bush screeds. Not exactly precious stuff here.
While you (and, frankly, I--I'm not impressed by anything on LJ, not even the stuff in my own) see it as worthless, the authors probably don't. To put it another way, one man's trash is another man's treasure.
In any case, I don't think the objective value of the data should be the determining factor about whether or not you're being extorted. "Give me your lunch money or I'll throw your text book in the sewer" is the moral equivalent of "Nice store you got here... be a shame if something happened to it."
However, unless they'd made an explicit commitment to allow you access to get your files off their servers, I don't see any reason why they couldn't just cut off your access entirely until you agree to pay for the service. Unless you're paying for the service already, it's unlikely they have any contractual obligations toward you.
Sure, I agree it's fair to say they don't have any contractual obligations. But at what point does this become extortion? "Start paying us for our previously free service, or you'll never see your data again" seems to fit the bill in this regard, I think.
Real world analogy: First National Bank of FOO offers me a free safe deposit box to store my stuff. Four years into our relationship, they decide I need to start paying for their service... and tell me that I have to pay their fee even if I only want to remove my items so I can take my business elsewhere.
Not that I think LJ would do this, mind you, I'm just addressing the point that was raised.
The penalty and interest mechanism at the IRS is stacked in favor of the IRS and set up to severely intimidate people to pay their taxes in full and on time
I'm not disputing that part--merely your suggesation that 0.5% of $900M is $45M. Your calculations were literally off by an order of magnitude.
I think your calculations are off by an order of magnitude.
Is Microsoft going to recognise this contraption as a single, or multi-liscense-able processor, and will AMD only hide the fact there's multi-cores from Operating systems other than Microsoft ?
You're barking up the wrong tree here. MS has already addressed this in favor of their customers, and licenses on a per-socket rather than a per-core basis. One core, two cores, four cores, doesn't matter--one processor.