..... Of course I fricking want to install it,.....
In business or school environment and even in a home, a computer knowledgeable person should, as administrator, PREVENT any of the ordinary users (secretaries, students, kids) from installing *anything* executeable. The computer OS should be set up such that code not resident in certain safe directories simply cannot be loaded or run. In *NIX type system this can be done readily.
In Windows doing this requires a lot of work and knowhow and in some case is impossible because some programs needed by certain users will simply not run or malfunction in some manner unless the user has administrative rights. On a Mac or other *NIX founded systems, no normally needed computer function needs root or administrative permissions.
If the programs that presently require the user to have admin status will also still need that under the new Vista OS from MS, then there will be no net increase of security and users may as well stick with XP wherein the patches have been patched for a good while already. I hope MS will throw backward compatibility out if that means that the majority of Visa users will still have to run with admin privileges.
Social engineering to get users to do dumb stuff only works if the users CAN do dumb things.
The VW may out-accelerate the Prius, but I suspect that my Honda Accord 6cyl Hybrid will leave the VW looking at the tail lights every time from a standing start. The Prius has only a 1500cc engine whareas the Honda is 3000cc. A turbo at least traditionally has always taken some time to reach decent acceleration. The old Mercedes 300SD turbo I had would be slow to get going, but once running would stampede up the long mountain grades we have here in Southern Oregon, keeping up with or passing all but the biggest muscle cars.
...but you and I will see the end of cheap oil in our life times...
That mantra has been chanted for over 40 years now. Oil can also be made from coal and we have enough coal to last for centuries. Here is an intersting article:
....Antartica to have been tropical because it was in a different place, thousands of miles North of where it is now....
What difference does it make where Antarctica was? The point is that the whole Earth was a lot warmer and life was much more prolific because of that. It is an established fact that life processes operate best between about 90F to 105F. That is a big reason mammals were able to survive when the Earth became cooler over time. Even in historic times there were periods of wamer and colder, although not anywhere near the conditions of the time of the fossil fuel creation. NO fossil fuel is being made today. Today, when living things die, they decay, releasing their stored carbon back into the environment. To make fuel out of organic matter, decay by microorganisms has to be prevented.
(....If "all living things" were given a few million years to adapt....)
It has been observed that living thing can adapt quickly to environmental changes, often in one or two generations. Species that used to live in the wild places have adapted to and even became dependent on human habitation and in the process became major pests.
(....than the crop failures and famine headed our way....)
Many things actually grow better in warm climates. The are many regions on earth were not much edibles can grow because it is too cold. If the vast areas of northern Russia and Canada could get warm enough to grow grains, a lot of people would have food. What would be so terrible if Bananas and Coconuts would grow in Minnesota?
The world's violent weather is caused by temperature DIFFERENCES in the atmosphere and between various regions of the planet. Water including its vapor form in the atmosphere is a great moderator to even out temperature extremes. A uniformly warm Earth would be a boon for all living things. Hurricanes get their ferocity from the energy flow between the warm ocean and the cold upper atmosphere. The warm air can hold and then dump quantities water sometimes measured in feet over vast areas as the air cools over the land. If the air did not cool, that water could not precipitate out.
I have a Prius and get better than 50mpg very consistently. We also have a Honda Accord hybrid which gets 33-35mpg which is not bad for a roomy comfortable car with a 255hp drive system. We had a VW rabbit diesel which made 55mpg when it was new, but compared to the Prius it was a gutless snail that made it unsafe to pass anything on a two lane road. The Honda will really go when tromped, but I seldom do that.
I just got a Toyota Prius hybrid which gets consistently at least 50mpg. For 10K miles and $3 gas that comes to $600. For $4 gas it would be $800 and the nice thing is that it'll go over 500 miles on a full tank. It is a really nice car for general running around in, but I'll still keep our old Ford diesel pickup for hauling things.
.....the means to really cut our dependence on oil.....
Hydrogen is not an energy SOURCE, only an energy carrier. The only practical ways of making hydrogen is to use electricity or extraction from some hydocarbon. The efficiency of doing this conversion must be compared to the effciency of refining and then burning gasoline or diesel in a vehicle. Also, the very expensive new infrastructure needed for handling hydrogen must be amortized by including it in its price. You best bet right now is to buy a hybrid for day to day transportation and use your SUV only when it's heavy duty capability is really needed.
......If we can hold out another 20........we'll have hydrogen fusion reactors which make unlimited, clean, carbon free energy from water. Of course we were told already back in the 1950s that in 20 years we'd have fusion generated power that would be too cheap to meter.
It is more likely that life might be destroyed by a future war started by another madman. There are enough WMDs in various places (except Iraq apparently) that, if used could seriously threaten human survival as a species.
.....And wherever oil is to be found the surface is littered with wells pumping it out as fast as we can......
So then why don't you and everybody that agrees with you sell your car and start walking. Taking a bus is no option since buses also spew CO2. A bicycle should be OK though. You might also stop using paper and live in a cave so not so many trees would get cut, such as for your house. Since you posted this with a computer, presumably you use electricity which was generated by fossil fuel or maybe by one of the dams you decry. What are YOU doing to reduce the suposed global warming?
.....This proves once again feel good regulations aren't based on science.....
Exactly! Where did all the carbon come from that we are now putting into the air by driving Hummers and other fuel hogs? Supposedly, fossils and fossil fuel came from once living plants that flourished on the Earth long ages ago. Where was all that carbon, if not in the atmosphere, to be accessible to those plants? There is plenty of fossil evidence, as well as oil and coal in arctic regions that indicates that it must have been very warm when these fossils were formed. All our cars are really solar powered, by energy plants converted to hydrocarbons ages ago.
The water holding capacity of the air itself rises dramatically with increasing temperature. A warmer atmosphere also allows water vapor to exist much higher up before it gets to the altitude where it is cold enough to precipitate out again. Eventually some of it never precipitates because of the absence of dust particles in the upper atmosphere to facilitate condensation. All of these effects could combine to actually lower the level of the oceans.
The existence of the extension of riverbeds of major rivers across the now submerged portions of the continental shelves is evidence that the water levels were once less than they are today. In the case of the Amazon, the riverbed extends all the way across the continental shelf to where it drops of into the abysmal plain of the South Atlantic. A warmer Earth would likely be quite a nice place for all living things.
It is not just semantics here. It is not only time, but also knowledge, lots of Windows knowledge, way more than the average user has. So hapless, helpless Joe/Jane will have to hire you or someone like you or take some chances. Take a chance is what he/she will most likely do and what most of them have in fact done and still are doing. Therefore, for practical purposes the Mac IS more secure PERIOD. For unprotected, largely computer ignorant Windows users the chance of getting some malware is very high and that has been amply demonstrated for years now.
.....On the other hand, if AV software is deployed and kept updated beforehand.....
Does all AV software not depend on a recognition file for known viruses? If there are no known Mac viruses, how can someone make a recognition file that must periodically updated as new viruses appear? It seems pointless to have AV software if it cannot recognize a virus that has not yet been made.
Apple could make their OS more secure by having TWO or more accounts by default. One would be the administrator and all the others would just be ordinary users with minimum privileges. That way ordinary users (like students in schools and kids in families) could not install crapware unless they knew the admin password.
With current implementations of Windows this setup is difficult if not impossible, because there are numerous programs that will not run at all or incorrectly under a limited user account. Some that will not run out of the box can be tweaked by an administrator, but that is a hassle many admins try to avoid and ordinary users don't know how to do.
....implanted quite deep if you're relying on body temperature.....
The of all the possible body locations possible for such a chip, the ones mentioned in the prohecy, the forehead and the right hand are both quite accessible for scanning, but also usually protected from extreme cold by a hat/parka and gloves. Temperature may not be the only protective mechanism to make chip fraud difficult. We do not yet know the details of what future technology may be employed, but the possibility of this coming true never existed before the coming of the microchip and all the technologies made possible thereby.
.....invite the criminals to chip off my thumb or scoop out my eye at the same time....
That and the added complexity and cost of biometric systems means that these will only be employed in specialized, high security applications. An embedded, temperature sensitve chip is much cheaper, as are the readers and the data bases needed for a system to be used for the masses. If such a chip is removed from the body and therefore cools down, it stops working. Also, if such chip removal is not done skillfully, the chip will likely be damaged and no longer work. It is not neccessary to make a system IMPOSSIBLE to break, but only difficult enough to make it unlikely to be broken. Make the cost and effort high enough to break a system, and the problem disappears for all practical purposes.
Another good reason to have some cash handy is if there is an emergency where the power is off, cash can still get you stuff you need, whereas ATMs are dead. However, cash is not welcome any longer in many transactions.
.......but your bank won't reject a charge just because your debit account has no money in it......
My bank has, and I believe most banks have an overdraft limit, beyond which the WILL reject the debit/check amount. Some banks don't have overdraft protection at all and just reject the debit/check as NSF. Best thing to do is to carefully protect your card, PIN and frequently check your balance online.
.......and they really don't care whether they are alive, dead or even still attached to your body......
Actually, a thermistor, a temperature sensitive resistor about the size of the period at the end of this sentence can send the chip temperature to the reader. No power source is needed in the implant.
..... holding you down, and cutting out your chip to use for their own purposes?......
If they did not kill the person, presumeably the incident would get reported and that chip become invalid and anyone who tried to use it would get the cops on the mucho pronto. If such a chip implant were a universal requirement, they would have to remove or re-program their own chip in order to assume the false identity. I suppose all that would be possible, but it would not be easy and the probability of getting caught would be very high. Such an implant for humans is certainly not acceptable yet today, whether a person is a Christian or not. But then are many things that were unthinkable only a generation ago that are commonplace today. Having to show identity to fly on an airline was once unthinkable. I remember getting on an airline's plane was once easier than it is today to get on a transit bus or train in some places.
.....fraud protection to cover from the time the card goes missing until it's reported lost/stolen.....
The obvious answer is to put the chip into the person, rather than into a card the person carries. That makes it a lot harder, although I suppose not impossible to steal. Implantable chips have been in use for animals for a while already. RFID and other readout methods exist for these chips. In combination with biological data, such a system would considerably harder to circumvent.
This sort of thing was predicted in the Bible almost 2000 years ago that some sort of numeric identifier would be implanted in every person by a coming world government run by a powerful dictator.
Revelation 13:16-17 (And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark IN their right hand, or IN their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name)
For centuries, before computers were even dreamed of, scholars have scratched their heads and tried to figure out how someone could be prevented from buying or selling if they did not have some kind of mark IN their body. It may still be a while before this prophecy comes true, but it certainly doesn't sound as far fetched now as it did before our modern times. Try to rent a car without a credit card. Paying cash for an Airplane ticket to a foreign country may likely attract extra attention of the suspicious security persons. Walking into an automobile dealer and paying for an expensive car in cash with a suitcase full of money will likely get the attention of the authorities to that transaction.
So, in some ways we are already approaching the kind of thing predicted so very long ago. Making completely anonymous, large amount cash transactions is getting to be quite difficult. Someday, you may not be able to buy so much as a stick of chewing gum that is not recorded.
.....standard of proof is balance of probability.....
So what is the probability that in a house full of kids, our own or the neighbors, one of them downloaded and installed some software and clicked the mouse, never so much as even looking at that stupid so called EULA? Those EULA's are just to scare the ignorant and have NO force of law since parties to the, A at the end thereof stands supposedly for, "agreement", are unknown and are minors. What's the probability that the same procedure applies to these new lawyer dreamed up packageing "agreements"? It has been for a very long time and is (still) a matter of law as well as common sense that an "agreement" must identify with a very high probability the parties who supposedly are agreeing to something as well as exactly what is being agreed to. There is just NO way to get around that. That is why, in any kind of legal agreement there must be witness to that agreement. For many such agreements a personal signature is sufficient, but for really important things an official witness such as a notary is required. The ephmeral nature of the bits and bytes in a computer are generally such as to not be able to establish anything beyond a reasonable doubt, because computer data can be falsified easily in such a manner that there is absolutely no one that can determine with certainty what is true and false. Only solid encryption techniques, universally applied, may someday change this.
Photos are not the only color documents we print. For BW stuff my ancient 1989 Apple Laserwriter still works just fine thank you. The cheap Epson C86 prints pretty decent color reports and is not too shabby for snapshots. Justifying a third printer just for snapshots is difficult.
....After all, if I download a (song/movie/game) for my ppersonal use......
Has it not usually been the ones that made copies of copyrighted materials available for others to download that have gotten in trouble with lawsuits rather than the ones that only download that material. How does anyone know what I download unless they have access to the server the material came from or my ISP makes that information available? Even then can it be assumed that if I download something, I still have it rather than having erased it because I did not like it?
.....I get checks all the time saying that if I cash the check, I agree to be automatically signed up for a credit protection program on my credit card, and pay $25 a year.....
There is a big difference here in that you officially SIGNED that check which is sufficient to prove in court that it was YOU that agreed to these terms. This sure identification is NOT the case for a mouse click or a ripped open package. A contract ALWAYS has to identify WHO the parties to it are. You can deny it was you who clicked the mouse and nobody on this earth can prove otherwise unless there is a credible witness identifying you and the fact that you clicked that mosue or ripped the package open. If your kid brother ripped it, then there is also no agreement, since minors cannot enter into a legally enforceable agreement.
....Tell me why the home user should be buying inkjets....
Just after taking a few pictures at home of friends or relatives, it is very nice to be able to give them a picture or two without leaving home to run to Walmart or such. $3+ gas prices is another reason to be able to print pictures or other color documents right at home. Some people may also want to snail mail pictures to older relatives or friends who have never touched a computer and likely never will, such as my mother for example.
.....The type found in an ELUA is what's called a "Contract of Adhesion"......
A mouse click EULA or any other agreement is only enforceable if it can be proved WHO the parties thereto are. Nobody can ever prove in court WHO clicks a mouse or opened a package. Also the person cannot be a minor who is not allowed to enter into any kind of legally binding contract. All those "agreements" are not worth the paper they are printed on when push comes to shove in a court case. Just because a package was opened or a mouse was clicked does NOT establish the identity of BOTH parties. There cannot be an agreement unless it can be proved WHO is agreeing to what and that has to be at least TWO parties. I'd like to see anyone prove the identity of a mouse clicker or package ripper unambiguously. That is why in important agreements we have things notarized or at the very least affirmed with a written signature.
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..... Of course I fricking want to install it,.....
In business or school environment and even in a home, a computer knowledgeable person should, as administrator, PREVENT any of the ordinary users (secretaries, students, kids) from installing *anything* executeable. The computer OS should be set up such that code not resident in certain safe directories simply cannot be loaded or run. In *NIX type system this can be done readily.
In Windows doing this requires a lot of work and knowhow and in some case is impossible because some programs needed by certain users will simply not run or malfunction in some manner unless the user has administrative rights. On a Mac or other *NIX founded systems, no normally needed computer function needs root or administrative permissions.
If the programs that presently require the user to have admin status will also still need that under the new Vista OS from MS, then there will be no net increase of security and users may as well stick with XP wherein the patches have been patched for a good while already. I hope MS will throw backward compatibility out if that means that the majority of Visa users will still have to run with admin privileges.
Social engineering to get users to do dumb stuff only works if the users CAN do dumb things.
.....The VW will MAUL it on acceleration....
The VW may out-accelerate the Prius, but I suspect that my Honda Accord 6cyl Hybrid will leave the VW looking at the tail lights every time from a standing start. The Prius has only a 1500cc engine whareas the Honda is 3000cc. A turbo at least traditionally has always taken some time to reach decent acceleration. The old Mercedes 300SD turbo I had would be slow to get going, but once running would stampede up the long mountain grades we have here in Southern Oregon, keeping up with or passing all but the biggest muscle cars.
...but you and I will see the end of cheap oil in our life times...
1 -1.pdf
That mantra has been chanted for over 40 years now. Oil can also be made from coal and we have enough coal to last for centuries. Here is an intersting article:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv27n1/v27n
Electricity for making hydrogen and running electrics comes mostly from fossil fuel, mostly coal.
....Antartica to have been tropical because it was in a different place, thousands of miles North of where it is now....
What difference does it make where Antarctica was? The point is that the whole Earth was a lot warmer and life was much more prolific because of that. It is an established fact that life processes operate best between about 90F to 105F. That is a big reason mammals were able to survive when the Earth became cooler over time. Even in historic times there were periods of wamer and colder, although not anywhere near the conditions of the time of the fossil fuel creation. NO fossil fuel is being made today. Today, when living things die, they decay, releasing their stored carbon back into the environment. To make fuel out of organic matter, decay by microorganisms has to be prevented.
(....If "all living things" were given a few million years to adapt....)
It has been observed that living thing can adapt quickly to environmental changes, often in one or two generations. Species that used to live in the wild places have adapted to and even became dependent on human habitation and in the process became major pests.
(....than the crop failures and famine headed our way....)
Many things actually grow better in warm climates. The are many regions on earth were not much edibles can grow because it is too cold. If the vast areas of northern Russia and Canada could get warm enough to grow grains, a lot of people would have food. What would be so terrible if Bananas and Coconuts would grow in Minnesota?
The world's violent weather is caused by temperature DIFFERENCES in the atmosphere and between various regions of the planet. Water including its vapor form in the atmosphere is a great moderator to even out temperature extremes. A uniformly warm Earth would be a boon for all living things. Hurricanes get their ferocity from the energy flow between the warm ocean and the cold upper atmosphere. The warm air can hold and then dump quantities water sometimes measured in feet over vast areas as the air cools over the land. If the air did not cool, that water could not precipitate out.
.... the Prius gets about 40-48 MPG....
I have a Prius and get better than 50mpg very consistently. We also have a Honda Accord hybrid which gets 33-35mpg which is not bad for a roomy comfortable car with a 255hp drive system. We had a VW rabbit diesel which made 55mpg when it was new, but compared to the Prius it was a gutless snail that made it unsafe to pass anything on a two lane road. The Honda will really go when tromped, but I seldom do that.
....You're still only looking at $920/year ....
I just got a Toyota Prius hybrid which gets consistently at least 50mpg. For 10K miles and $3 gas that comes to $600. For $4 gas it would be $800 and the nice thing is that it'll go over 500 miles on a full tank. It is a really nice car for general running around in, but I'll still keep our old Ford diesel pickup for hauling things.
.....the means to really cut our dependence on oil.....
Hydrogen is not an energy SOURCE, only an energy carrier. The only practical ways of making hydrogen is to use electricity or extraction from some hydocarbon. The efficiency of doing this conversion must be compared to the effciency of refining and then burning gasoline or diesel in a vehicle. Also, the very expensive new infrastructure needed for handling hydrogen must be amortized by including it in its price. You best bet right now is to buy a hybrid for day to day transportation and use your SUV only when it's heavy duty capability is really needed.
......If we can hold out another 20..... ...we'll have hydrogen fusion reactors which make unlimited, clean, carbon free energy from water. Of course we were told already back in the 1950s that in 20 years we'd have fusion generated power that would be too cheap to meter.
It is more likely that life might be destroyed by a future war started by another madman. There are enough WMDs in various places (except Iraq apparently) that, if used could seriously threaten human survival as a species.
.....And wherever oil is to be found the surface is littered with wells pumping it out as fast as we can......
So then why don't you and everybody that agrees with you sell your car and start walking. Taking a bus is no option since buses also spew CO2. A bicycle should be OK though. You might also stop using paper and live in a cave so not so many trees would get cut, such as for your house. Since you posted this with a computer, presumably you use electricity which was generated by fossil fuel or maybe by one of the dams you decry. What are YOU doing to reduce the suposed global warming?
.....This proves once again feel good regulations aren't based on science.....
Exactly! Where did all the carbon come from that we are now putting into the air by driving Hummers and other fuel hogs? Supposedly, fossils and fossil fuel came from once living plants that flourished on the Earth long ages ago. Where was all that carbon, if not in the atmosphere, to be accessible to those plants? There is plenty of fossil evidence, as well as oil and coal in arctic regions that indicates that it must have been very warm when these fossils were formed. All our cars are really solar powered, by energy plants converted to hydrocarbons ages ago.
The water holding capacity of the air itself rises dramatically with increasing temperature. A warmer atmosphere also allows water vapor to exist much higher up before it gets to the altitude where it is cold enough to precipitate out again. Eventually some of it never precipitates because of the absence of dust particles in the upper atmosphere to facilitate condensation. All of these effects could combine to actually lower the level of the oceans.
The existence of the extension of riverbeds of major rivers across the now submerged portions of the continental shelves is evidence that the water levels were once less than they are today. In the case of the Amazon, the riverbed extends all the way across the continental shelf to where it drops of into the abysmal plain of the South Atlantic. A warmer Earth would likely be quite a nice place for all living things.
....The PC will just take all my time....
It is not just semantics here. It is not only time, but also knowledge, lots of Windows knowledge, way more than the average user has. So hapless, helpless Joe/Jane will have to hire you or someone like you or take some chances. Take a chance is what he/she will most likely do and what most of them have in fact done and still are doing. Therefore, for practical purposes the Mac IS more secure PERIOD. For unprotected, largely computer ignorant Windows users the chance of getting some malware is very high and that has been amply demonstrated for years now.
.....On the other hand, if AV software is deployed and kept updated beforehand.....
Does all AV software not depend on a recognition file for known viruses? If there are no known Mac viruses, how can someone make a recognition file that must periodically updated as new viruses appear? It seems pointless to have AV software if it cannot recognize a virus that has not yet been made.
Apple could make their OS more secure by having TWO or more accounts by default. One would be the administrator and all the others would just be ordinary users with minimum privileges. That way ordinary users (like students in schools and kids in families) could not install crapware unless they knew the admin password.
With current implementations of Windows this setup is difficult if not impossible, because there are numerous programs that will not run at all or incorrectly under a limited user account. Some that will not run out of the box can be tweaked by an administrator, but that is a hassle many admins try to avoid and ordinary users don't know how to do.
....implanted quite deep if you're relying on body temperature.....
The of all the possible body locations possible for such a chip, the ones mentioned in the prohecy, the forehead and the right hand are both quite accessible for scanning, but also usually protected from extreme cold by a hat/parka and gloves. Temperature may not be the only protective mechanism to make chip fraud difficult. We do not yet know the details of what future technology may be employed, but the possibility of this coming true never existed before the coming of the microchip and all the technologies made possible thereby.
.....invite the criminals to chip off my thumb or scoop out my eye at the same time....
That and the added complexity and cost of biometric systems means that these will only be employed in specialized, high security applications. An embedded, temperature sensitve chip is much cheaper, as are the readers and the data bases needed for a system to be used for the masses. If such a chip is removed from the body and therefore cools down, it stops working. Also, if such chip removal is not done skillfully, the chip will likely be damaged and no longer work. It is not neccessary to make a system IMPOSSIBLE to break, but only difficult enough to make it unlikely to be broken. Make the cost and effort high enough to break a system, and the problem disappears for all practical purposes.
.... if I use cash....
Another good reason to have some cash handy is if there is an emergency where the power is off, cash can still get you stuff you need, whereas ATMs are dead. However, cash is not welcome any longer in many transactions.
.......but your bank won't reject a charge just because your debit account has no money in it......
My bank has, and I believe most banks have an overdraft limit, beyond which the WILL reject the debit/check amount. Some banks don't have overdraft protection at all and just reject the debit/check as NSF. Best thing to do is to carefully protect your card, PIN and frequently check your balance online.
.......and they really don't care whether they are alive, dead or even still attached to your body......
Actually, a thermistor, a temperature sensitive resistor about the size of the period at the end of this sentence can send the chip temperature to the reader. No power source is needed in the implant.
..... holding you down, and cutting out your chip to use for their own purposes?......
If they did not kill the person, presumeably the incident would get reported and that chip become invalid and anyone who tried to use it would get the cops on the mucho pronto. If such a chip implant were a universal requirement, they would have to remove or re-program their own chip in order to assume the false identity. I suppose all that would be possible, but it would not be easy and the probability of getting caught would be very high. Such an implant for humans is certainly not acceptable yet today, whether a person is a Christian or not. But then are many things that were unthinkable only a generation ago that are commonplace today. Having to show identity to fly on an airline was once unthinkable. I remember getting on an airline's plane was once easier than it is today to get on a transit bus or train in some places.
.....fraud protection to cover from the time the card goes missing until it's reported lost/stolen.....
The obvious answer is to put the chip into the person, rather than into a card the person carries. That makes it a lot harder, although I suppose not impossible to steal. Implantable chips have been in use for animals for a while already. RFID and other readout methods exist for these chips. In combination with biological data, such a system would considerably harder to circumvent.
This sort of thing was predicted in the Bible almost 2000 years ago that some sort of numeric identifier would be implanted in every person by a coming world government run by a powerful dictator.
Revelation 13:16-17 (And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark IN their right hand, or IN their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name)
For centuries, before computers were even dreamed of, scholars have scratched their heads and tried to figure out how someone could be prevented from buying or selling if they did not have some kind of mark IN their body. It may still be a while before this prophecy comes true, but it certainly doesn't sound as far fetched now as it did before our modern times. Try to rent a car without a credit card. Paying cash for an Airplane ticket to a foreign country may likely attract extra attention of the suspicious security persons. Walking into an automobile dealer and paying for an expensive car in cash with a suitcase full of money will likely get the attention of the authorities to that transaction.
So, in some ways we are already approaching the kind of thing predicted so very long ago. Making completely anonymous, large amount cash transactions is getting to be quite difficult. Someday, you may not be able to buy so much as a stick of chewing gum that is not recorded.
.....standard of proof is balance of probability.....
So what is the probability that in a house full of kids, our own or the neighbors, one of them downloaded and installed some software and clicked the mouse, never so much as even looking at that stupid so called EULA? Those EULA's are just to scare the ignorant and have NO force of law since parties to the, A at the end thereof stands supposedly for, "agreement", are unknown and are minors. What's the probability that the same procedure applies to these new lawyer dreamed up packageing "agreements"? It has been for a very long time and is (still) a matter of law as well as common sense that an "agreement" must identify with a very high probability the parties who supposedly are agreeing to something as well as exactly what is being agreed to. There is just NO way to get around that. That is why, in any kind of legal agreement there must be witness to that agreement. For many such agreements a personal signature is sufficient, but for really important things an official witness such as a notary is required. The ephmeral nature of the bits and bytes in a computer are generally such as to not be able to establish anything beyond a reasonable doubt, because computer data can be falsified easily in such a manner that there is absolutely no one that can determine with certainty what is true and false. Only solid encryption techniques, universally applied, may someday change this.
....get a little dye-sub photo printer....
Photos are not the only color documents we print. For BW stuff my ancient 1989 Apple Laserwriter still works just fine thank you. The cheap Epson C86 prints pretty decent color reports and is not too shabby for snapshots. Justifying a third printer just for snapshots is difficult.
....After all, if I download a (song/movie/game) for my ppersonal use......
Has it not usually been the ones that made copies of copyrighted materials available for others to download that have gotten in trouble with lawsuits rather than the ones that only download that material. How does anyone know what I download unless they have access to the server the material came from or my ISP makes that information available? Even then can it be assumed that if I download something, I still have it rather than having erased it because I did not like it?
.....I get checks all the time saying that if I cash the check, I agree to be automatically signed up for a credit protection program on my credit card, and pay $25 a year.....
There is a big difference here in that you officially SIGNED that check which is sufficient to prove in court that it was YOU that agreed to these terms. This sure identification is NOT the case for a mouse click or a ripped open package. A contract ALWAYS has to identify WHO the parties to it are. You can deny it was you who clicked the mouse and nobody on this earth can prove otherwise unless there is a credible witness identifying you and the fact that you clicked that mosue or ripped the package open. If your kid brother ripped it, then there is also no agreement, since minors cannot enter into a legally enforceable agreement.
....Tell me why the home user should be buying inkjets....
Just after taking a few pictures at home of friends or relatives, it is very nice to be able to give them a picture or two without leaving home to run to Walmart or such. $3+ gas prices is another reason to be able to print pictures or other color documents right at home. Some people may also want to snail mail pictures to older relatives or friends who have never touched a computer and likely never will, such as my mother for example.
.....The type found in an ELUA is what's called a "Contract of Adhesion"......
A mouse click EULA or any other agreement is only enforceable if it can be proved WHO the parties thereto are. Nobody can ever prove in court WHO clicks a mouse or opened a package. Also the person cannot be a minor who is not allowed to enter into any kind of legally binding contract. All those "agreements" are not worth the paper they are printed on when push comes to shove in a court case. Just because a package was opened or a mouse was clicked does NOT establish the identity of BOTH parties. There cannot be an agreement unless it can be proved WHO is agreeing to what and that has to be at least TWO parties. I'd like to see anyone prove the identity of a mouse clicker or package ripper unambiguously. That is why in important agreements we have things notarized or at the very least affirmed with a written signature.