I cannot understand that otherwise so smart/.ers cannot distinguish between physical things, such as cars and boxes and information things such as AP use or copyright infringement. When you use an access point the owner thereof still has access. Most of them would not even be aware of your presence. If I copy a CD, the owner thereof can still enjoy it, but I have infringed on a arbitrary rule made by society that gives the originator of the CD the exclusive right to distribute it.
.....Why the hell would you leave your network open if you didn't want someone to bumble in....
What if I want to be generous and WANT to share my connection? There are many like that. We get visitors with laptops all the time at out house. Do I have give them a hassle and provide them with a password? What if I want to let people "bumble" in? Does the law now prohibit generosity and sharing?
.......anyone should be able to hop in and drive away.......
All these dumb car analogies. When someone drives your car away, you no longer have access to your car. When someone connects to your network, you still can access it also. You most likely wouldn't even know about it. Equating non-material information to physical things is not logical. The two are completely independent. If you download a picture from the CNN web server or whatever, the picture is still there for others to download. This is not the case if you eat someone's food from the break room refrigerator. They can no longer eat it after you have. That's why downloading a song from P2P is not theft, but simply copyright infringement. Copyright is an artificial legal construct.
.....Whatever, I have a high end stereo and a high end record player and my emaculate records sound 10x better than my emaculate CDs.....
It is really amazing the truly golden ears you and others here on/. seem to have. If a proper AB blind test were done, very few if any human could tell the difference between a high quality digital or analog recording. Most digital recordings are done at WAY too high a level and the odd harmonic clipping that results is VERY grating on the human hearing devices. Vinyl/tube equipment clipping results in even harmonic distortion. Our ear/brain system is much more forgiving of that. If the digital recording averages 30-40db below clipping, it will be very clean, but also seem very soft in comparison to most commercial CD disks. If you are recording live sound on a digital recording system (computer?) keep the level low. If the level indicator EVER goes into the clipping zone, you have generated a very harsh sounding digital recording at that moment. Even after normalizing the peaks to 0db, the sound of a well made digital recording will still be noticeable softer than normal commercial CDs. If you crank up the volume control for normal playback, the noise is still less than analog. However, if you then put on a normal commercial CD, you'll get blasted out of the house and have to frantically turn down the volume. Since CDs are made for the masses they are made to have a certain "punch" that at first sounds good, but get tiring after a while.
.....The only way to preserve this tape over the long-haul.......
Unless you do a direct to disk recording. I have a few of these in my extensive LP collection in storage. The signal was transferred directly to the cutting lathe which cut the master. Since only a limited number of pressings can be made, these disks cost about twice as much or more than normal LP which were mastered on tape. If a good record was cut from the master tape, that record will not deteriorate in normal storage conditions even if the original tape does.
....However, it just seems they happen more often in the States more than anywhere else........
Except in Iraq. A car bomb a few days ago wiped out about twice as many people. Here it happens occasionally, there almost every day. We are already used to reports like this from there, but as still a bit shocked when something like that happens closer to home.
.....If you pay the RIAA, we will treat you like criminals.......
How about students or anybody saying to the University or the ISPs: "If you give my name to the **IAA or anybody else, I'll sue you for breach of privacy. Please erase any personal use info from your system." What do Universities, which are really an ISP and other ISPs have to gain by keeping logs of who uses what internet address when? In for pay ISPs, they might identifiable user data it for a month or two and then they should erase all such information. Then when these greedy lawyers come with their silly letter, they can safely and truly tell them: "We don't have the information you seek. Go jump in the lake." Pretty soon the "get revenue by litigation" procedures will come to a screeching halt.
Copyright law gives holders the right to control copying and distribution. However through DRM they are also illegally trying to control use. If people would respect copyright, then all lawyers who now make their living this way would have to find other work.
....I've got a 23+ year old genuine Apple RF modulator.....
One Upmanship! I'v got a 28 year old DEC LSI 11/23 computer and a VT100 terminal. When put into storage about 17 years ago it was still working with RT-11. The old DEC OS manuals are still with it also. Maybe I'll dig it out and see if it will still run off same of those old 8" floppies that are with it. It even has a 20Mb (fancy that!) HD in a separate big heavy box.
....If I write software or music I own it not you......
No you DON'T own it. It's called CopyRIGHT. That give you certain rights to exclusively COPY or DISTRIBUTE your creation. It does NOT give you any rights as to how the buyer makes USE of it. If I want to listen to your song while sitting on the toilet, there is no way you can prevent that. This license BS only applies to copying and distributing. You may, as copyright HOLDER (not owner) grant your rights to others as you wish. If you read copyright laws carefully, you'd notice that the word owner is not there at all. You don't own your IP either. All that society has done is given you the exclusive right to copy and distribute for a certain amount of time. However even the distribution right you have is limited. If I buy say 10000 copies from you or a legal re-seller, I can distribute these any way I want, subject to a written sales agreement (license) between us. If there is no agreement other than a mere sale, I can do whatever I want with those copies I bought from you.
....When you buy a copy of Windows, the store is offering you a product...
Indeed true. Even IF there were a contract when you buy something (there is not) then it would be between the buyer and the seller; usually a store. The manufacturer doesn't enter into it at all other than normal warranty stuff. Since you bought Windows from the store, not Microsoft, their EULA is not binding since the transaction was not between the buyer and Microsoft.
An important element in any real contract is whether the parties thereto are legally entitled to enter into a binding, court enforceable contract. In most places, anyone under 18 is excluded. In some places there are also mental competency requirements. So then how can it be proved that whoever ripped open the box and/or clicked the mouse was qualified to enter a legal agreement? I can get a six year old to click or rip. There is no law that says a kid may not install software. All IP laws deal with DISTRIBUTION, not the use thereof. If I buy a DVD I can legally play it on anything i wish. It may not technically do so (Linux?) but as long as I don't COPY the disk or otherwise distribute it, I can throw it into the stove or do anything else I want with it. The same principles apply to software. The court cases cited all had to do with distribution. Breaking DCSS has to do with DMCA and also involves breaking copyright LAW, not some dumb agreement, which means nothing. All agreements have to be KNOWINGLY entered into by competent persons. That NEVER happens when some kid just rips open their software game or even Windows and then clicks a mouse. All EULA's are basically lawyer FUD and all of them know it or at least should.
........After all, we would not want someone breaking the law by accidently running the wrong version of MS Windows?......
Anyone who buys a legal copy of any software program, including Windows is ONLY bound by law, not any crap printed on the box or showing up on the screen. Anyone who says otherwise is just plain wrong. Copyright law deals with DISTRIBUTION rights, not use of a legal copy for the purpose for which it is sold. Software is intended to run on a computer. Therefore a legal copy is allowed to run on *any* computer that can technically run it. If you can buy a legal copy of OSX, you are perfectly legal to run it on your Dell if you can hack either the Dell or the software to actually do it. Apple cannot legally forbid this. They may incorporate technical measure to make it impossible, or at least difficult, but they cannot legally forbid you. Neither can MS legally forbid you from running their VISTA on anything that will run it. Laws proscribe the DISTRIBUTION of hacks and hacking tools, but not your installing legally purchased software anywhere.
.....If you don't agree to the EULA, then don't use Windows......
When I buy a product in a store, I OWN that product. I don't have to agree to *anything* as to how I use it. There is NO other product, other than software that pretends to make me agree as to how I use it. Is software somehow special in that I am not allowed to flush it down the toilet, keep it in my refrigerator or run it on any computer I own? Where do the makers of software get the legal authority to make 'agree' to some longwinded legal crap before I can use their product as I, (not they) see fit? It's like Ford making me agree never to drive the car I bought from them in certain cities. Arguing about a license rather than ownership is pure BS that has no legal standing. When I buy a box with software in it I OWN that copy in the same way as when I buy a CD or DVD. I don't obtain a "license" to watch a movie or listen to a recording. There are certain restrictions in copyright LAW, but I don't have to 'agree' to any particular player or place where I may listen.
......when using Bootcamp you can legally use any version.......
Is this only a EULA prohibition from MS or do they actually check whether their vaunted software is running under parallels or bootcamp and then not work correctly in the former? If it is only the EULA it can be and will be safely ignored by 99.99% of all users anyway so what's the big deal? After all WHO reads those things? MS and the other software makers will have people believe their EULA have the force of law. As long as I don't violate copyright law, there isn't too much all 100 million of MS's lawyers can do about it.
..... you're under the same requirement by the EULA.......
Does anybody actually pay attention to these stupid EULAs? After all, they are neither LAW nor an Agreement. Do I REALLY enter into any kind of agreement when I click a mouse? I made an agreement lately and it required several signatures and a notary where I had to show ID and sign her book. Now THAT'S an agreement that will likely be upheld in a court of law.
If I buy VISTA for my new Mac (right now doubtful) I certainly wouldn't pay attention to drivel like that. I just click the mouse. I don't think I have EVER read the garbage that shows up on these install screens. I wonder if I am in the majority of people in this? I don't understand WHY these software companies even bother with all this leagalese mumbo jumbo which is completely ignored by 99.99% of people who install these programs. Whatever the real legal status of these so called agreements might be, doesn't really matter since most people ignore this crap anyway.
....You are ignoring all the evidence FOR an old earth,......
Please then give me two evidences for the idea that the earth or universe itself is really whatever many billions of years old. I am talking about measured evidence that doesn't rely on underlying assumptions and interpretations that cannot be proven.
I gave you the existence of comets. I'll give you another thing to think about. Fossils. They are a cornerstone of evolutionary theory. Yet nobody has ever made a fossil nor observed one formed; at least not by any long term evolutionary process. Today, when a living organism dies, it decomposes and NEVER makes a fossil. To make a fossil, the living thing must die, all microorganisms that might cause decay IMMEDIATELY be either killed or somehow be prevented from attacking the dead body. Oxygen must be excluded also. Please explain your theory how fossils, which are found almost everywhere on this planet came to be.
(...Every creature on the earth descended from a common ancestor.....)
That is just one way of interpreting the same evidence. Every automobile on earth has a common ancestor -- the horse drawn wagon. Both after all have wheels and axles. We still measure the engines in cars in "horse power" Could one not also say that the designers of cars built on the proven concept of wheels and used that in their design? Could the evidence in nature not also be interpreted this way? The designer of wings knows about the laws aerodynamics and designed flying creatures to utilize them. We humans eventually learned the laws of flight and also used wings on aircraft. Does that mean airplanes descended form birds or that human designers used the laws of aerodynamics to design airplanes? The same evidence, just a different interpretation. For almost every basic evolutionary explanation of an actual observed or experimental fact, I could come with a design interpretation. Evolution is one attempt at making sense of the observations, but intelligent design is another. Both of these ultimately come down to belief. Those who choose to exclude God HAVE to then choose evolution. Those who choose to include and acknowledge God as part of their world view have to choose intelligent design by their creator.
.....That is just a stream of gobbledegook. Do you even know what you are talking about? Where did you get this junk from?.......
I certainly do know what I am talking about. If you or anyone else can show me how information, such as DNA code, a computer program, a set of blueprints for a building, machine or bridge, a poem or novel can come into being, WITHOUT and NOT by the activity of a mind, I'd believe you. You cannot address the contents of a novel or even a phone book by referring to the chemistry of paper and the interaction of the ink with it. Neither does it work to try to relate the chemistry and structure of DNA to the information stored. It is the information that determines the characteristics of the organism. The laws of physics, are pure information which determine the behavior of galaxies and atoms. Galaxies and atoms do not generate the laws of physics any more than ink and paper produce the works of Shakespeare, Beethoven or the Beatles.
Information, codes, language, software, thought, knowledge, rules, laws, data, call it various names, determines how physical things operate, not the other way round. In legal terms it is what is called Intellectual Property. It is real just as much as time-space and matter energy, but has properties of its own. It cannot be ignored and must be treated separately from the physical realm. Information is always ultimately processed and understood in someone's mind. It is the immaterial software which determines the actions of and usefulness of any computer. The same software can run on completely different types of hardware and in millions of copies. By executing the proper thought software in your brain you can realize that information is a distinct entity, separate, yet interacting with space-time-matter energy. Evolutionary theory doesn't even begin to deal with it.
I have never denied evolution, but merely stated that it is incomplete and certain aspects of it are based on assumptions which are unprovable. Read my post again, more carefully. We observe many things which Darwinian evolution can adequately account for, but there are also others which contradict it at worst or at best have it severely lacking. First of all, Darwin's version of evolution was confined to the development of life once it exists, not how it came to be in the first place. His idea of survival of the fittest is certainly a driving force and an observable facet of his original theory. Darwin's mechanism can only operate, if there is a working function to select for and if that function confers a genuine advantage to the organism which selects an improved version of that already existing function.
If a longer, bushier tail gives a squirrel a survival advantage, then squirrels with bushier tails will predominate in only a few generations. It doesn't have to take millions of years. However, if there is no tail at all and the tailless creature has been surviving just fine without one, there is no advantage to grow one for no reason whatsoever. Adding lots of time will not alter this Darwinian principle. Ants and other insects for example, are essentially unchanged since the first ants.
Every human activity has certain underlying, often undefined or poorly defined assumptions. Some of these, such as Darwin's natural selection can be demonstrated, but others go against actual scientific knowledge based on observation and experiment. The extension of Darwin's ideas to the creation of life from non-life is one area of fanciful assumptions (beliefs) which have no basis in scientific facts.
If you ever have some spare time, read up on the Golden Plover. How does this little bird find its way across about 6000 miles of trackless ocean from Alaska to Hawaii? How does evolution explain the precise navigation system and programming to find that tiny spot in the vast Pacific? We either can say God programmed it or we just don't know. Evolution theory is definitely NOT able to give us an answer to this because it is incomplete.
......the scientific determination of the age of the earth does not hinge solely on radiometric dating........
Another evidence for a much younger universe, not involving radioactivity, is the fact that there are still comets, especially the tenuous gas variety. The maximum estimated life of these is only about 15000 or so years, not millions or billions. All of these should have evaporated into space by now. To get around this a never found birthplace of comets, something called the Oort Cloud has been theorized. The motion of the Galaxies requires never found dark energy and matter in order to fit the current ancient ages required by evolutionary thinking. If the age is much less, as the often ridiculed creationist believe, then these never found constructs are unnecessary. Evolution of course does have certain evidences, but by itself doesn't explain many facts of science.
Besides time-space and matter-energy, the universe, especially living things, contain vast amounts of information. Information has never been demonstrated to arise from any combination of the above. Information is non-physical and distinct from the physical universe. There is NO other known source of information besides a mind or intelligence. Information interacts with the physical, in order to control physical entities, but is itself not subject to the constraints of physical quantities. Evolution falsely asserts that matter and energy give rise to information. This has never been demonstrated. The laws of physics are information and had to exist before time-space matter-energy did. These laws then act upon the physical quantities. Evolution is a reasonable way of interpreting many of these interactions. It is however insufficient by itself to account for all of the observations we make about the physical universe.
....when you deny the validity of the theory of evolution.....
Questioning the validity of a long and dearly held theory is often how REAL scientific progress is made. Evolutionists hold onto their faith just as tenaciously as the church did hang onto their now proven false notion about the motion of the Earth and the planets in the days of Kepler and Copernicus and others. It is unthinkable that perhaps, just maybe, the reason the soft tissues were preserved is simply that they are not as old as everybody says they are. No convoluted explanations about how such relatively fragile substances could possibly have survived for 68 million or more years are needed if the ages and ages theory is false after all. Since the dogma MUST be correct, any evidence, such as this, contrary to the accepted theory CANNOT be even considered for a nanosecond, but is ruled out a priori. How many scientific notions of the past, the 'accepted view' by the vast majority, have been overturned by new evidence?
Scientists are supposed to look at the evidence and then consider ALL avenues, even the unthinkable ones. It took 50 years after Roemer first MEASURED the speed of light, that the "reputable" (the vast majority)scientists accepted that light had a finite, rather than an infinite speed. There is mounting evidence that some of the "constants" upon which radiometric dating and stellar nuclear processes are based have been anything but constant. These things are assumed (believed) to be constant, but if they are not, then all the age dating based on the belief that these constants have never changed is called into question. Assuming that things have always been they way we observe them to be today is faith, but not science. There is really no way of KNOWING if these uniformitarian assumptions about the distant past are valid. All we can say is that IF certain assumptions (beliefs) are true, then the great ages of time care probably correct.
......i'm afraid that scientists have lost the valuable trait of skepticism when it comes to this kind of thing........
The whole idea of theorizing that similarity in structure implies descent or ancestry sounds fishy. We don't do such things for human made things or devices. Horse drawn carriages and modern automobiles have wheels and axles. Does that mean that the latter descended from the former or that similar designs and structures work for similar functions and were implemented by the builders?
(......who has the integrity to question what everyone so dearly wants to be true..........)
One of the things evolutionists want VERY dearly to be true us the great age of millions or years ago when dinosaurs supposedly lived and went extinct. Without the millions or billions of time, evolution is dead and all evolutionists know that. The same article was also here:
In that article there is this:
"When Schweitzer demineralized the T. rex bone, she was surprised to find such a matrix, because current theories of fossilization held that no original organic material could survive that long."
The thought of course that the original material isn't all that old goes against the "old age" dogma of evolutionists and isn't even brought up as a possibility. If the creationists are right, who assert that the long ages of millions of years in reality are only thousands, then Dr. Mary Schweitzer would not need be surprised. It is well established that living matter can be preserved for thousands of years, but not millions. A "mainstream" scientist is allowed to be skeptical about all sorts of things, except fundamental tenets of the evolutionist religion. Anyone who expresses such doubts is immediately branded some sort of Christian right wing nut.
Re:The value of good user interface design...
on
100 Million iPods
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· Score: 1
....had to leave the platform so that they could work at home.......
That used to be true before Intel Macs. Now Parallels or Bootcamp solve that problem. Use the Mac for everything EXCEPT that one or may two programs that the boss says you need to run. Often even those have Mac equivalents.
.......there is a chance they can make more money by crippling the system.......
The solution of course is for EVERYBODY to use encryption all the time for everything. Not only would that make ISPs unable to selectively enforce arbitrary levels of service, but it would also make the whole Internet more resistant to malware and spying by governments and corporations. I wonder whether this idea would work technologically? Governments most likely would make it illegal however.
Shannon only treats information at a statistical level. Information always and ONLY arises in a mind. Information is not a physical quantity and is not constrained by certain laws of physics. It is carried by physical matter or energy, but in and of itself is neither. Norbert Wiener, the originator of the term "cybernetics" said: "Information is information, neither matter nor energy. Any materialism which ignores this will not survive one day."
To reduce entropy, in the sense of creating order, two things are needed. 1) energy and 2) information. Energy alone is never enough.
(....and the fact that some of them could promote their duplication....)
Duplicating RNA also duplicates the information it carries. This says nothing however where the information of the original came from. Making a million or more copies of a disk or book doesn't increase the amount of information at all. The software designer or author created the program or book in their mind. Explaining the process of book printing or disk copying has nothing to do with their information content. Entropy can cause the loss of information (missing pages or damaged disk surfaces) but will never add new information. Natural mutations ALWAYS result in reduced, usually corrupted genetic data.
Nobody can point to a source of information today, other than a mind driven by a will. All human activity and technology first form in some mind. It may be unpalatable to many that there should be a mind wherein the immense amount of information inherent in living systems originated, but this is certainly in keeping of what we know about information processing and engineering.
Most portable audio player are iPods and they CAN play these AAC files as well as mp3. Most people don't even know or care which format their music is in. They just want to listen and enjoy their music with ease and quality that's sufficient for portable listening.
Slashdot Mirror
......How is this situation different?.........
/.ers cannot distinguish between physical things, such as cars and boxes and information things such as AP use or copyright infringement. When you use an access point the owner thereof still has access. Most of them would not even be aware of your presence. If I copy a CD, the owner thereof can still enjoy it, but I have infringed on a arbitrary rule made by society that gives the originator of the CD the exclusive right to distribute it.
I cannot understand that otherwise so smart
.....Why the hell would you leave your network open if you didn't want someone to bumble in....
What if I want to be generous and WANT to share my connection? There are many like that. We get visitors with laptops all the time at out house. Do I have give them a hassle and provide them with a password? What if I want to let people "bumble" in? Does the law now prohibit generosity and sharing?
.......anyone should be able to hop in and drive away.......
All these dumb car analogies. When someone drives your car away, you no longer have access to your car. When someone connects to your network, you still can access it also. You most likely wouldn't even know about it. Equating non-material information to physical things is not logical. The two are completely independent. If you download a picture from the CNN web server or whatever, the picture is still there for others to download. This is not the case if you eat someone's food from the break room refrigerator. They can no longer eat it after you have. That's why downloading a song from P2P is not theft, but simply copyright infringement. Copyright is an artificial legal construct.
.....Whatever, I have a high end stereo and a high end record player and my emaculate records sound 10x better than my emaculate CDs.....
/. seem to have. If a proper AB blind test were done, very few if any human could tell the difference between a high quality digital or analog recording. Most digital recordings are done at WAY too high a level and the odd harmonic clipping that results is VERY grating on the human hearing devices. Vinyl/tube equipment clipping results in even harmonic distortion. Our ear/brain system is much more forgiving of that. If the digital recording averages 30-40db below clipping, it will be very clean, but also seem very soft in comparison to most commercial CD disks. If you are recording live sound on a digital recording system (computer?) keep the level low. If the level indicator EVER goes into the clipping zone, you have generated a very harsh sounding digital recording at that moment. Even after normalizing the peaks to 0db, the sound of a well made digital recording will still be noticeable softer than normal commercial CDs. If you crank up the volume control for normal playback, the noise is still less than analog. However, if you then put on a normal commercial CD, you'll get blasted out of the house and have to frantically turn down the volume. Since CDs are made for the masses they are made to have a certain "punch" that at first sounds good, but get tiring after a while.
It is really amazing the truly golden ears you and others here on
.....The only way to preserve this tape over the long-haul .......
Unless you do a direct to disk recording. I have a few of these in my extensive LP collection in storage. The signal was transferred directly to the cutting lathe which cut the master. Since only a limited number of pressings can be made, these disks cost about twice as much or more than normal LP which were mastered on tape. If a good record was cut from the master tape, that record will not deteriorate in normal storage conditions even if the original tape does.
....However, it just seems they happen more often in the States more than anywhere else........
Except in Iraq. A car bomb a few days ago wiped out about twice as many people. Here it happens occasionally, there almost every day. We are already used to reports like this from there, but as still a bit shocked when something like that happens closer to home.
.....If you pay the RIAA, we will treat you like criminals.......
How about students or anybody saying to the University or the ISPs: "If you give my name to the **IAA or anybody else, I'll sue you for breach of privacy. Please erase any personal use info from your system." What do Universities, which are really an ISP and other ISPs have to gain by keeping logs of who uses what internet address when? In for pay ISPs, they might identifiable user data it for a month or two and then they should erase all such information. Then when these greedy lawyers come with their silly letter, they can safely and truly tell them: "We don't have the information you seek. Go jump in the lake." Pretty soon the "get revenue by litigation" procedures will come to a screeching halt.
Copyright law gives holders the right to control copying and distribution. However through DRM they are also illegally trying to control use. If people would respect copyright, then all lawyers who now make their living this way would have to find other work.
....I've got a 23+ year old genuine Apple RF modulator.....
One Upmanship! I'v got a 28 year old DEC LSI 11/23 computer and a VT100 terminal. When put into storage about 17 years ago it was still working with RT-11. The old DEC OS manuals are still with it also. Maybe I'll dig it out and see if it will still run off same of those old 8" floppies that are with it. It even has a 20Mb (fancy that!) HD in a separate big heavy box.
....If I write software or music I own it not you......
No you DON'T own it. It's called CopyRIGHT. That give you certain rights to exclusively COPY or DISTRIBUTE your creation. It does NOT give you any rights as to how the buyer makes USE of it. If I want to listen to your song while sitting on the toilet, there is no way you can prevent that. This license BS only applies to copying and distributing. You may, as copyright HOLDER (not owner) grant your rights to others as you wish. If you read copyright laws carefully, you'd notice that the word owner is not there at all. You don't own your IP either. All that society has done is given you the exclusive right to copy and distribute for a certain amount of time. However even the distribution right you have is limited. If I buy say 10000 copies from you or a legal re-seller, I can distribute these any way I want, subject to a written sales agreement (license) between us. If there is no agreement other than a mere sale, I can do whatever I want with those copies I bought from you.
.....Except sue you anyway, and keep the case going long enough.......
Except that some hungry lawyer and I would love to get a little chunk of Bill's money. Some of the existing SLAPP laws slow this down a lot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLAPP
Since some of these laws have been on the books, such lawsuits can dangerously backfire on those who try them.
....When you buy a copy of Windows, the store is offering you a product...
Indeed true. Even IF there were a contract when you buy something (there is not) then it would be between the buyer and the seller; usually a store. The manufacturer doesn't enter into it at all other than normal warranty stuff. Since you bought Windows from the store, not Microsoft, their EULA is not binding since the transaction was not between the buyer and Microsoft.
An important element in any real contract is whether the parties thereto are legally entitled to enter into a binding, court enforceable contract. In most places, anyone under 18 is excluded. In some places there are also mental competency requirements. So then how can it be proved that whoever ripped open the box and/or clicked the mouse was qualified to enter a legal agreement? I can get a six year old to click or rip. There is no law that says a kid may not install software. All IP laws deal with DISTRIBUTION, not the use thereof. If I buy a DVD I can legally play it on anything i wish. It may not technically do so (Linux?) but as long as I don't COPY the disk or otherwise distribute it, I can throw it into the stove or do anything else I want with it. The same principles apply to software. The court cases cited all had to do with distribution. Breaking DCSS has to do with DMCA and also involves breaking copyright LAW, not some dumb agreement, which means nothing. All agreements have to be KNOWINGLY entered into by competent persons. That NEVER happens when some kid just rips open their software game or even Windows and then clicks a mouse. All EULA's are basically lawyer FUD and all of them know it or at least should.
........After all, we would not want someone breaking the law by accidently running the wrong version of MS Windows?......
Anyone who buys a legal copy of any software program, including Windows is ONLY bound by law, not any crap printed on the box or showing up on the screen. Anyone who says otherwise is just plain wrong. Copyright law deals with DISTRIBUTION rights, not use of a legal copy for the purpose for which it is sold. Software is intended to run on a computer. Therefore a legal copy is allowed to run on *any* computer that can technically run it. If you can buy a legal copy of OSX, you are perfectly legal to run it on your Dell if you can hack either the Dell or the software to actually do it. Apple cannot legally forbid this. They may incorporate technical measure to make it impossible, or at least difficult, but they cannot legally forbid you. Neither can MS legally forbid you from running their VISTA on anything that will run it. Laws proscribe the DISTRIBUTION of hacks and hacking tools, but not your installing legally purchased software anywhere.
.....If you don't agree to the EULA, then don't use Windows......
When I buy a product in a store, I OWN that product. I don't have to agree to *anything* as to how I use it. There is NO other product, other than software that pretends to make me agree as to how I use it. Is software somehow special in that I am not allowed to flush it down the toilet, keep it in my refrigerator or run it on any computer I own? Where do the makers of software get the legal authority to make 'agree' to some longwinded legal crap before I can use their product as I, (not they) see fit? It's like Ford making me agree never to drive the car I bought from them in certain cities. Arguing about a license rather than ownership is pure BS that has no legal standing. When I buy a box with software in it I OWN that copy in the same way as when I buy a CD or DVD. I don't obtain a "license" to watch a movie or listen to a recording. There are certain restrictions in copyright LAW, but I don't have to 'agree' to any particular player or place where I may listen.
......when using Bootcamp you can legally use any version.......
Is this only a EULA prohibition from MS or do they actually check whether their vaunted software is running under parallels or bootcamp and then not work correctly in the former? If it is only the EULA it can be and will be safely ignored by 99.99% of all users anyway so what's the big deal? After all WHO reads those things? MS and the other software makers will have people believe their EULA have the force of law. As long as I don't violate copyright law, there isn't too much all 100 million of MS's lawyers can do about it.
..... you're under the same requirement by the EULA.......
Does anybody actually pay attention to these stupid EULAs? After all, they are neither LAW nor an Agreement. Do I REALLY enter into any kind of agreement when I click a mouse? I made an agreement lately and it required several signatures and a notary where I had to show ID and sign her book. Now THAT'S an agreement that will likely be upheld in a court of law.
If I buy VISTA for my new Mac (right now doubtful) I certainly wouldn't pay attention to drivel like that. I just click the mouse. I don't think I have EVER read the garbage that shows up on these install screens. I wonder if I am in the majority of people in this? I don't understand WHY these software companies even bother with all this leagalese mumbo jumbo which is completely ignored by 99.99% of people who install these programs. Whatever the real legal status of these so called agreements might be, doesn't really matter since most people ignore this crap anyway.
....You are ignoring all the evidence FOR an old earth,......
Please then give me two evidences for the idea that the earth or universe itself is really whatever many billions of years old. I am talking about measured evidence that doesn't rely on underlying assumptions and interpretations that cannot be proven.
I gave you the existence of comets. I'll give you another thing to think about. Fossils. They are a cornerstone of evolutionary theory. Yet nobody has ever made a fossil nor observed one formed; at least not by any long term evolutionary process. Today, when a living organism dies, it decomposes and NEVER makes a fossil. To make a fossil, the living thing must die, all microorganisms that might cause decay IMMEDIATELY be either killed or somehow be prevented from attacking the dead body. Oxygen must be excluded also. Please explain your theory how fossils, which are found almost everywhere on this planet came to be.
(...Every creature on the earth descended from a common ancestor.....)
That is just one way of interpreting the same evidence. Every automobile on earth has a common ancestor -- the horse drawn wagon. Both after all have wheels and axles. We still measure the engines in cars in "horse power" Could one not also say that the designers of cars built on the proven concept of wheels and used that in their design? Could the evidence in nature not also be interpreted this way? The designer of wings knows about the laws aerodynamics and designed flying creatures to utilize them. We humans eventually learned the laws of flight and also used wings on aircraft. Does that mean airplanes descended form birds or that human designers used the laws of aerodynamics to design airplanes? The same evidence, just a different interpretation. For almost every basic evolutionary explanation of an actual observed or experimental fact, I could come with a design interpretation. Evolution is one attempt at making sense of the observations, but intelligent design is another. Both of these ultimately come down to belief. Those who choose to exclude God HAVE to then choose evolution. Those who choose to include and acknowledge God as part of their world view have to choose intelligent design by their creator.
.....That is just a stream of gobbledegook. Do you even know what you are talking about? Where did you get this junk from?.......
I certainly do know what I am talking about. If you or anyone else can show me how information, such as DNA code, a computer program, a set of blueprints for a building, machine or bridge, a poem or novel can come into being, WITHOUT and NOT by the activity of a mind, I'd believe you. You cannot address the contents of a novel or even a phone book by referring to the chemistry of paper and the interaction of the ink with it. Neither does it work to try to relate the chemistry and structure of DNA to the information stored. It is the information that determines the characteristics of the organism. The laws of physics, are pure information which determine the behavior of galaxies and atoms. Galaxies and atoms do not generate the laws of physics any more than ink and paper produce the works of Shakespeare, Beethoven or the Beatles.
Information, codes, language, software, thought, knowledge, rules, laws, data, call it various names, determines how physical things operate, not the other way round. In legal terms it is what is called Intellectual Property. It is real just as much as time-space and matter energy, but has properties of its own. It cannot be ignored and must be treated separately from the physical realm. Information is always ultimately processed and understood in someone's mind. It is the immaterial software which determines the actions of and usefulness of any computer. The same software can run on completely different types of hardware and in millions of copies. By executing the proper thought software in your brain you can realize that information is a distinct entity, separate, yet interacting with space-time-matter energy. Evolutionary theory doesn't even begin to deal with it.
.....to deny evolution......
I have never denied evolution, but merely stated that it is incomplete and certain aspects of it are based on assumptions which are unprovable. Read my post again, more carefully. We observe many things which Darwinian evolution can adequately account for, but there are also others which contradict it at worst or at best have it severely lacking. First of all, Darwin's version of evolution was confined to the development of life once it exists, not how it came to be in the first place. His idea of survival of the fittest is certainly a driving force and an observable facet of his original theory. Darwin's mechanism can only operate, if there is a working function to select for and if that function confers a genuine advantage to the organism which selects an improved version of that already existing function.
If a longer, bushier tail gives a squirrel a survival advantage, then squirrels with bushier tails will predominate in only a few generations. It doesn't have to take millions of years. However, if there is no tail at all and the tailless creature has been surviving just fine without one, there is no advantage to grow one for no reason whatsoever. Adding lots of time will not alter this Darwinian principle. Ants and other insects for example, are essentially unchanged since the first ants.
Every human activity has certain underlying, often undefined or poorly defined assumptions. Some of these, such as Darwin's natural selection can be demonstrated, but others go against actual scientific knowledge based on observation and experiment. The extension of Darwin's ideas to the creation of life from non-life is one area of fanciful assumptions (beliefs) which have no basis in scientific facts.
If you ever have some spare time, read up on the Golden Plover. How does this little bird find its way across about 6000 miles of trackless ocean from Alaska to Hawaii? How does evolution explain the precise navigation system and programming to find that tiny spot in the vast Pacific? We either can say God programmed it or we just don't know. Evolution theory is definitely NOT able to give us an answer to this because it is incomplete.
......the scientific determination of the age of the earth does not hinge solely on radiometric dating........
Another evidence for a much younger universe, not involving radioactivity, is the fact that there are still comets, especially the tenuous gas variety. The maximum estimated life of these is only about 15000 or so years, not millions or billions. All of these should have evaporated into space by now. To get around this a never found birthplace of comets, something called the Oort Cloud has been theorized. The motion of the Galaxies requires never found dark energy and matter in order to fit the current ancient ages required by evolutionary thinking. If the age is much less, as the often ridiculed creationist believe, then these never found constructs are unnecessary. Evolution of course does have certain evidences, but by itself doesn't explain many facts of science.
Besides time-space and matter-energy, the universe, especially living things, contain vast amounts of information.
Information has never been demonstrated to arise from any combination of the above. Information is non-physical and distinct from the physical universe. There is NO other known source of information besides a mind or intelligence. Information interacts with the physical, in order to control physical entities, but is itself not subject to the constraints of physical quantities. Evolution falsely asserts that matter and energy give rise to information. This has never been demonstrated. The laws of physics are information and had to exist before time-space matter-energy did. These laws then act upon the physical quantities. Evolution is a reasonable way of interpreting many of these interactions. It is however insufficient by itself to account for all of the observations we make about the physical universe.
....when you deny the validity of the theory of evolution.....
Questioning the validity of a long and dearly held theory is often how REAL scientific progress is made. Evolutionists hold onto their faith just as tenaciously as the church did hang onto their now proven false notion about the motion of the Earth and the planets in the days of Kepler and Copernicus and others. It is unthinkable that perhaps, just maybe, the reason the soft tissues were preserved is simply that they are not as old as everybody says they are. No convoluted explanations about how such relatively fragile substances could possibly have survived for 68 million or more years are needed if the ages and ages theory is false after all. Since the dogma MUST be correct, any evidence, such as this, contrary to the accepted theory CANNOT be even considered for a nanosecond, but is ruled out a priori. How many scientific notions of the past, the 'accepted view' by the vast majority, have been overturned by new evidence?
Scientists are supposed to look at the evidence and then consider ALL avenues, even the unthinkable ones. It took 50 years after Roemer first MEASURED the speed of light, that the "reputable" (the vast majority)scientists accepted that light had a finite, rather than an infinite speed. There is mounting evidence that some of the "constants" upon which radiometric dating and stellar nuclear processes are based have been anything but constant. These things are assumed (believed) to be constant, but if they are not, then all the age dating based on the belief that these constants have never changed is called into question. Assuming that things have always been they way we observe them to be today is faith, but not science. There is really no way of KNOWING if these uniformitarian assumptions about the distant past are valid. All we can say is that IF certain assumptions (beliefs) are true, then the great ages of time care probably correct.
......i'm afraid that scientists have lost the valuable trait of skepticism when it comes to this kind of thing........
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The whole idea of theorizing that similarity in structure implies descent or ancestry sounds fishy. We don't do such things for human made things or devices. Horse drawn carriages and modern automobiles have wheels and axles. Does that mean that the latter descended from the former or that similar designs and structures work for similar functions and were implemented by the builders?
(......who has the integrity to question what everyone so dearly wants to be true..........)
One of the things evolutionists want VERY dearly to be true us the great age of millions or years ago when dinosaurs supposedly lived and went extinct. Without the millions or billions of time, evolution is dead and all evolutionists know that. The same article was also here:
http://www.playfuls.com/news_006520_Original_Prot
In that article there is this:
"When Schweitzer demineralized the T. rex bone, she was surprised to find such a matrix, because current theories of fossilization held that no original organic material could survive that long."
The thought of course that the original material isn't all that old goes against the "old age" dogma of evolutionists and isn't even brought up as a possibility. If the creationists are right, who assert that the long ages of millions of years in reality are only thousands, then Dr. Mary Schweitzer would not need be surprised. It is well established that living matter can be preserved for thousands of years, but not millions. A "mainstream" scientist is allowed to be skeptical about all sorts of things, except fundamental tenets of the evolutionist religion. Anyone who expresses such doubts is immediately branded some sort of Christian right wing nut.
....had to leave the platform so that they could work at home.......
That used to be true before Intel Macs. Now Parallels or Bootcamp solve that problem. Use the Mac for everything EXCEPT that one or may two programs that the boss says you need to run. Often even those have Mac equivalents.
.......there is a chance they can make more money by crippling the system.......
The solution of course is for EVERYBODY to use encryption all the time for everything. Not only would that make ISPs unable to selectively enforce arbitrary levels of service, but it would also make the whole Internet more resistant to malware and spying by governments and corporations. I wonder whether this idea would work technologically? Governments most likely would make it illegal however.
.....What is information?......
Shannon only treats information at a statistical level. Information always and ONLY arises in a mind. Information is not a physical quantity and is not constrained by certain laws of physics. It is carried by physical matter or energy, but in and of itself is neither. Norbert Wiener, the originator of the term "cybernetics" said: "Information is information, neither matter nor energy. Any materialism which ignores this will not survive one day."
To reduce entropy, in the sense of creating order, two things are needed. 1) energy and 2) information. Energy alone is never enough.
(....and the fact that some of them could promote their duplication....)
Duplicating RNA also duplicates the information it carries. This says nothing however where the information of the original came from. Making a million or more copies of a disk or book doesn't increase the amount of information at all. The software designer or author created the program or book in their mind. Explaining the process of book printing or disk copying has nothing to do with their information content. Entropy can cause the loss of information (missing pages or damaged disk surfaces) but will never add new information. Natural mutations ALWAYS result in reduced, usually corrupted genetic data.
Nobody can point to a source of information today, other than a mind driven by a will. All human activity and technology first form in some mind. It may be unpalatable to many that there should be a mind wherein the immense amount of information inherent in living systems originated, but this is certainly in keeping of what we know about information processing and engineering.
....with a format most people can't play.......
Most portable audio player are iPods and they CAN play these AAC files as well as mp3. Most people don't even know or care which format their music is in. They just want to listen and enjoy their music with ease and quality that's sufficient for portable listening.