The agreement DOES endemnify anyone that Novell distributes to, but it will not endemnify anyone else. Novell is trying to claim that the people they distribute to get the protection so the GPL is followed to the letter. The people that recieved it can not comply with the GPL by providing endemnification and therefore cannot redistribute it. Thus defeating the entire purpose of the GPL.
Next time you purchase a vehicle, ask them if they can wipe the bios on the onboard computer. They just throw that code in for free don't they.
The drivers that nvidia provides are part of the product. These customers bought a box full of parts some of them are on an electronic board, some of them are in a cd case, some of them are bound in a little book labeled instructions. The company claimed that the product worked with vista, the box claims that vista drivers are included. Why are these drivers not part of the sale? Why should people not sue for purchasing a box of listed parts, if the parts don't work as avertised? Just because they offer the drivers free of charge on the website does not mean they are free, read the EULA agreement. Those drivers are intended to be used with nvidia products. Just because they are offering an extended service by including updated drivers when they are released, does not exclude the drivers from being a part of the original sale. If a restraunt gives you a free meal once, does that mean that you are not allowed to sue when they give you food poisoning a year later? Please clarify what makes these drivers a non-essential part of the sale of the video card.
"you stand to lose nothing from turning in notice"
This only holds true if you don't live paycheck to paycheck. I have a lot of friends that are forced to work near minimum wage jobs for one reason or another. A lot of them are under the false belief that they are required by law to give two weeks notice. They have all seen someone at work give notice and be escorted out the door. They then had no paycheck for two weeks while they were waiting for the next job to start. If they have a set training date or are waiting for the results of a drug test, then asking to go to work two weeks early is not an option. I have seen it take people years to recover from this if they live in this pay scale. Once they have the bonced check fees and other late fees, they can never catch up. Corporate America's way of saying Thank You! for giving them time to hire and train a replacement. Ask just about anyone that works for a grocery store, low end departments store, or fast food. Unless you work in a professional field. You take all your vacation, wait until you are in a position that you don't need the money from the rest of the day on, then give notice. If you want to be nice, do it right before your scheduled day off. They can and will replace you in 24 hours. If you feel that you owe your company more, then you need to consider why you are leaving.
On 90% of the jobs I have left, I did give two weeks notice, but I was prepared to sit at home for two weeks. Over half of those I was excorted out the minute I gave notice. Number of times that I have been given more that 5 min notice - 0%, and I was never left alone for those 5 min. Someone was always there to watch me gather my tools. I even went and explained to a boss once that my car was having problems, and that I was considering putting a down payment on a new one, is there even a chance of a layoff. He told me not to worry about it, that they had enough work for months. I was handed a pink slip at quitting time the next day. Got to drive my new car back to the lot and negotiate how much money it would cost for them to take it back. Money I could have lived on while looking for another job. It had been prepared and signed by that boss the week before. It is different a little better now that I am skilled labor instead of manual labor, but I have only seen the very top managers get any notice.
You can sue anyone for anything, so the question is not "can they sue", but "can they win?" In a lot of states, your employment is considered a contract that neither you or your employer can break for no reason. Even in most of those states, giving two weeks notice is adequate to disolve the contract. Texas, however, is a right to work state. You are not required to give notice or a reason for quitting. The downside is that your employer can fire you for any reason that is not covered under some kind of discrimination or harrasment law. As long as there was not a seperate contract setup stipulating when you could quit, they will lose. They are just using the legal system as a legal form of harasment and retaliation, which it seems well suited for.
Spam is by definition unsolicited commericial email. I don't care if you are deceptive or not, Did I ask for information about your product? If I did not request information from you (i.e. unsolicited), and you are avertising something that will make you a profit (commericial), then it is spam, and you should be hung with a noose. You are stealing my bandwith regaurdless of wether the email was deceptive or what you consider "legitimate". I pay for my bandwith not you. Why should you have the right to use something that I paid for to avertise to me in the hopes of making you money. You steal my horse so that I can't ride into town, you get hung. You clog my bandwith so that I cannot comminicate with the people that I have chosed to do business with, the same penelty should apply. I don't care if you leave me a note about who stole my horse, and were honest enough to leave a real name, and explain why you stole it, you still stole the horse.
I was trying to install mulinux on an old 486sx laptop that was thrown out. I tried to super format about 10 old floppies I had lying around to use as install disk. Two or three had bad sectors, so I decided to buy a new pack knowing they were at least 10 years old. I got one out of a pack of 25 that didn't have bad sectors. Figured it was just an off brand, so bought a name brand pack of 10. Same thing. Though maybe it was just because I was trying to super format them (format for 1.7M) Tried to format them for dos 6.22 on three seperate drives in three different machines, only got 1 to work.
The floppies are already dead. I was ready to kill the three that lived.
The phrase is not used in the context of a passer-by. Every example I have ever seen of this phrase, including the one of the parent post, has been used in the context of retaliation. While retaliation itself could be right or wrong depending on the context and society it is used in, there are a lot of situations where it is considered right, therefore rendering the quote as ambiguitous and therefore incorrect as a general statement.
The first two statements of your post are exactly what I am trying to say. Using that quote automatically assumes NOT considering the context of the action, but only that you did something wrong, and the fact that something wrong was done to you (i.e. the context of the situation) is irrelevant.
Lets pick a random smuck off the street and send him to prison. That would be wrong. But we can send the people to prison, because they did something wrong, right. All forms of punishment are considered wrong to do to someone that did not do something wrong. I use to hear this phrase all the time from school officials for defending myself from a bully. Then they wanted to bust me with a board for restraining them, no hitting, kicking, or biting, just pinning them down so they could not do me any more physical harm until someone with authority arrived. Then this person in authority would want to do things to me that would be considered wrong by anyones definition to do to someone that was not "fighting". If you are in a war, are you supose to send the guy pointing a gun at your head a bouqet of flowers, and hope he is a bad shot. No, you kill him because he has done something "wrong", unless of course you don't think that killing another person is wrong. If two wrongs don't make a right, then you forfiet your right to punish criminals, ground your kids for misbehaving, or defend yourself. Doing something "wrong" outside of the limits set by the society you live in to retaliate for someone elses wrongdoing is not acceptable, however anything action that is considered an acceptable reaction to someone elses wrongdoing in only right becaue there was a second wrong commited.
/flame off Who needs logic when you can use quotes and common saying.
Microsoft should figure this into their total cost of ownership.
Re:Scope of Civil Court questions
on
XM+MP3 Going to Trial
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Only if they sue for anything over $20.
Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
And the guy doing the tally puts a big mark next to your name because you didn't vote for the person that your boss "requested" you vote for. You didn't need that cost of living wage anyway, because that is part of the trickle down theory your canidate would vote against. There is a reason that votes are to remain secret.
I was not trying to put the emphasize on "She was stupid for doing this", I was listing examples of things she was killed by to emphasize that she was "killed" by something, because to be killed requires an object or action that did the killing. I think that stupid was the first thing that popped into my head because even before I found out about water poisoning a few years back, I was able to figure out that drinking lots of liquid and trying to hold it was something that my body did not like, and there was probably a good medical reason for this inherent biological fact, and I don't need a doctor to tell me not to do it. I will definately concede that I was not looking for the perfect word to describe the exact nature of why she died and was well rewarded for my lack of effort. Ignorace would have been a much better choice of words. This was meant to be a reply to the parent post, not a new topic, but I guess that is what slashdot is about, every idea brings the next one.
I think it was a very tragic event that had contributing factors in our whole mass marketing culture. The marketing that made the video game so neccessary for her kids. The radio station that was trying to intentionally make people suffer, just so they could get some ratings. That does not change the fact the article was correct in saying she was "killed."
And for that reason, they should go after the people selling & manufacturing items that illegally use their trademark. However, when they go after people talking about their trademark, even in a context they don't like, they have crossed the line. There is a reason that freedom of the press is in the constitution. Some people want to argue semantics about the press, but people reporting other people doing something wrong is what it is about. Most of those blogs, probably helped Apple find the exact source of the infringing products. Even if the people were for the products, it did not render the truth in what they told unusefull.
The abc story talked about that. The people that actual have that kind of restricted material hack into several computers and use them as a network drive to store the images so that there is no incriminating information on their own computers. I am thinking that with this setup, if they want to share the images with a like minded friend, they just have to give them the IP, password, and which trojan is on the machine. Instant P2P without the electron trail.
I suggest you look up the word killed. It is not a synonym for murder. She was killed. When you commit sucide you "kill yourself" not "die yourself." She was killed by her own stupidity, water posioning, participating in a stunt. If she had been killed by another person, ie if the people hosting the show would not let her go to the bathroom, then it would have been murder.
And then they can sue microsoft to make microsoft DRM work on the Zune. Google "Plays for sure" & zune! This DRM crap is so far out of hand that companies can't play their own material. How's that for fair use.
Would you have a pet unicorn if you could have one. Look at all those idiots that want an imaginary animal. This is a question phrased to come back later and say look at all the people that agree to DRM, even on slashdot. The only way that you could allow all legal uses of DRM protected material would involve tracking every person, every use, every location, time and date of that use, the current holder of the copyright, any lawsuits that have been settled about a particular song.
If a song writer gets sued over a song he released in the public domain, there would have to be a way to restrict the song retroactively. If a song writer gets sued and the song is declared public domain, then all copies need to be unlocked upon release of the judgment. When copyrights expire, the DRM needs to take this in account. When Disney increases the duration of copyright for 10 generations instead of 5, the experation date of all DRM files would need to change. If I fly to a country that has different copyright laws, the restricitions would need to change as soon as I cross the border. How will the cd player know that I just got a letter in the mail from a garage ban saying that I could copy that CD they cut as a demo before they broke up. You have some kind of DRM monitoring device that can tell if I want to make a satire of a copyrighted work? If you do have a magical software package that can determine all these things, how do you keep people from lying to it. If you trust the people not to lie to obtain a free copy, why do you need DRM?
I am against fair DRM on the same grounds that I am against perpetual motion machines.
You don't have to have the gear located inside your country. You find a friendly third world country (ie they will accept you bribe) to set up an embasy. The embasy is now considered your soil under your laws. I don't think there is anything in international law that says you can't have an embasy that is larger than your native country. Now you can just make a deal to tie into the main fiber for the country your embasy resides in. Tell them you need a direct connections for reasons of national security.
Think of the extended benifits. Under the guideline set by the US, no one should have problems with you kidnapping the head of the RIAA and using waterboarding techniques to extract information about how they are planning to shutdown your network, thus causing the complete economic colapse of your country as well as threatening (ie terrorizing) all your honorary citizens.
I will admit that I know several people that used the later part of thier life to educate themselves in new technology. Most of the geeks started out young when they had the time to take things apart, figure out how they worked, and put them back together in a way not intended by the designer. It is hard to beat the learning curve for computer and electronics and work a full time job. Most of those young kids now have full time jobs, and a lot of people that had full time jobs find themselves with a lot for free time. Some of those people want to learn about computers, but a lot more just want to be able to use them as a tool to do the things with their time that they consider more interesting. I know a lot more people that want to use a computer to stay in touch with their grandkids, look at the photo of the family that thier children just sent them, and look up what the side effects of not taking this or that medication, than want to know the difference in specs between USB, Firewire, and WiFi. It doesn't mean they can't, most of those people could learn if they invested the time, but it is literally not worth the time to them. Most of these people rely on their children to keep these tools up and running. A simple machine that is hard to break involves less time to upkeep. If that retired person is now wanting to know how a computer looks on the inside, this is a cheap computer to experiment with. Either way it makes a perfect gift for that retired person in your life. If that retired person fits inbetween, they probably already have a computer that they are happy with. Anytime someone makes the statement "the perfect gift", it is implied that they don't already own one.
Anytime someone classifies a large group of people with a generality, there are going to be exceptions. That doesn't mean they are singling you out as not being able to comprehend. The fact that you have a slashdot account implies that you like computers, most people learn about the things they like. Being on slashdot alone implies that you are an exception to many of the generalities that the rest of the human race could be classified under.
The only one I would disagree with is 3. Installing Gentoo did help me learn a lot about how linux works, mainly how it boots. That is only a fraction of learning linux, but it was very educational.
On that note, having my friend install Gentoo for me would have been as educational as having my friend take a test for me, and tell me what grade "I" got, and don't bother me with all the confusing stuff like what the answers were, yet alone the questions.
It is my understanding that by the time the computer assembly process is started the drives do have the OS installed. They do it in bulk, and have the drives waiting. Then they just have to put whatever size drive in for that machine, and it is ready to go. Each drive has a unique part number according to what physical drive it is and what is mirrored onto it. Different series of computers may have the same drive, but different software and drivers even for all the computers with XP only. You just need a new part number for drives that are blank, and the distribution system is alread set up.
I agree that the current system needs a complete overhaul, but there is a very good mechanism in the current system for eliminating the need of defensive patents. You don't have to patent before they do, you don't have to abolish patents, you just have to publish the idea. If you make a discovery that you are not going enforce patents on, but want to protect yourself from someone else patening it, you just have to publish it, and it can't be patented. Defensive patents only work against other large companies that actually produce a product. If they threaten your product with a patent violation, you threaten thier's. With a patent troll that doesn't make anything, you don't have the leverage. Publishing puts the idea in the public domain, is much cheaper, and is much easier to defend in court. You aren't comparing the specific details of your patent with the details of thiers, you are comparing the specifics of their patent with the general idea that you published.
That would be true with any other computer supplier, but not Dell. Dell success is due to a business model of stocking parts instead of stocking computers. You order a computer and they either pull the 80 Gig hard drive from Bin A, the 120 Gig hard drive from Bin B, or the 160 Gig harddrive from bin C. The only cost would be having to have the extra bins for one hard drive w/ windows and one hard drive without for each harddrive option. The drives that do not have windows installed would not need to be connected and mirrored saving a step. If the non mirrored drives don't sell, you put them in the que to get burned, nothing lost.
Most other computer makers would have to stock the computer with and without. If they guessed wrong on the quanities they would have the extra cost of adding a different drive to make whichever setup they had a shortage of.
I agree that everyone is trying to find the particular pattern in the data they want to see so they can push their personal agenda. The difference is that I don't have 16 million extra dollars to do it with. I am pretty sure that I could convice a lot of people to see my point of view with that kind of money.
Slashdot Mirror
And then the word games come in.
The agreement DOES endemnify anyone that Novell distributes to, but it will not endemnify anyone else. Novell is trying to claim that the people they distribute to get the protection so the GPL is followed to the letter. The people that recieved it can not comply with the GPL by providing endemnification and therefore cannot redistribute it. Thus defeating the entire purpose of the GPL.
Next time you purchase a vehicle, ask them if they can wipe the bios on the onboard computer. They just throw that code in for free don't they.
The drivers that nvidia provides are part of the product. These customers bought a box full of parts some of them are on an electronic board, some of them are in a cd case, some of them are bound in a little book labeled instructions. The company claimed that the product worked with vista, the box claims that vista drivers are included. Why are these drivers not part of the sale? Why should people not sue for purchasing a box of listed parts, if the parts don't work as avertised? Just because they offer the drivers free of charge on the website does not mean they are free, read the EULA agreement. Those drivers are intended to be used with nvidia products. Just because they are offering an extended service by including updated drivers when they are released, does not exclude the drivers from being a part of the original sale. If a restraunt gives you a free meal once, does that mean that you are not allowed to sue when they give you food poisoning a year later? Please clarify what makes these drivers a non-essential part of the sale of the video card.
"you stand to lose nothing from turning in notice"
This only holds true if you don't live paycheck to paycheck. I have a lot of friends that are forced to work near minimum wage jobs for one reason or another. A lot of them are under the false belief that they are required by law to give two weeks notice. They have all seen someone at work give notice and be escorted out the door. They then had no paycheck for two weeks while they were waiting for the next job to start. If they have a set training date or are waiting for the results of a drug test, then asking to go to work two weeks early is not an option. I have seen it take people years to recover from this if they live in this pay scale. Once they have the bonced check fees and other late fees, they can never catch up. Corporate America's way of saying Thank You! for giving them time to hire and train a replacement. Ask just about anyone that works for a grocery store, low end departments store, or fast food. Unless you work in a professional field. You take all your vacation, wait until you are in a position that you don't need the money from the rest of the day on, then give notice. If you want to be nice, do it right before your scheduled day off. They can and will replace you in 24 hours. If you feel that you owe your company more, then you need to consider why you are leaving.
On 90% of the jobs I have left, I did give two weeks notice, but I was prepared to sit at home for two weeks. Over half of those I was excorted out the minute I gave notice. Number of times that I have been given more that 5 min notice - 0%, and I was never left alone for those 5 min. Someone was always there to watch me gather my tools. I even went and explained to a boss once that my car was having problems, and that I was considering putting a down payment on a new one, is there even a chance of a layoff. He told me not to worry about it, that they had enough work for months. I was handed a pink slip at quitting time the next day. Got to drive my new car back to the lot and negotiate how much money it would cost for them to take it back. Money I could have lived on while looking for another job. It had been prepared and signed by that boss the week before. It is different a little better now that I am skilled labor instead of manual labor, but I have only seen the very top managers get any notice.
You can sue anyone for anything, so the question is not "can they sue", but "can they win?" In a lot of states, your employment is considered a contract that neither you or your employer can break for no reason. Even in most of those states, giving two weeks notice is adequate to disolve the contract. Texas, however, is a right to work state. You are not required to give notice or a reason for quitting. The downside is that your employer can fire you for any reason that is not covered under some kind of discrimination or harrasment law. As long as there was not a seperate contract setup stipulating when you could quit, they will lose. They are just using the legal system as a legal form of harasment and retaliation, which it seems well suited for.
Spam is by definition unsolicited commericial email. I don't care if you are deceptive or not, Did I ask for information about your product? If I did not request information from you (i.e. unsolicited), and you are avertising something that will make you a profit (commericial), then it is spam, and you should be hung with a noose. You are stealing my bandwith regaurdless of wether the email was deceptive or what you consider "legitimate". I pay for my bandwith not you. Why should you have the right to use something that I paid for to avertise to me in the hopes of making you money. You steal my horse so that I can't ride into town, you get hung. You clog my bandwith so that I cannot comminicate with the people that I have chosed to do business with, the same penelty should apply. I don't care if you leave me a note about who stole my horse, and were honest enough to leave a real name, and explain why you stole it, you still stole the horse.
I was trying to install mulinux on an old 486sx laptop that was thrown out. I tried to super format about 10 old floppies I had lying around to use as install disk. Two or three had bad sectors, so I decided to buy a new pack knowing they were at least 10 years old. I got one out of a pack of 25 that didn't have bad sectors. Figured it was just an off brand, so bought a name brand pack of 10. Same thing. Though maybe it was just because I was trying to super format them (format for 1.7M) Tried to format them for dos 6.22 on three seperate drives in three different machines, only got 1 to work.
The floppies are already dead. I was ready to kill the three that lived.
The phrase is not used in the context of a passer-by. Every example I have ever seen of this phrase, including the one of the parent post, has been used in the context of retaliation. While retaliation itself could be right or wrong depending on the context and society it is used in, there are a lot of situations where it is considered right, therefore rendering the quote as ambiguitous and therefore incorrect as a general statement.
The first two statements of your post are exactly what I am trying to say. Using that quote automatically assumes NOT considering the context of the action, but only that you did something wrong, and the fact that something wrong was done to you (i.e. the context of the situation) is irrelevant.
"Two wrongs don't make a right"
/flame off
I love that phrase!
flame on
Lets pick a random smuck off the street and send him to prison. That would be wrong. But we can send the people to prison, because they did something wrong, right. All forms of punishment are considered wrong to do to someone that did not do something wrong. I use to hear this phrase all the time from school officials for defending myself from a bully. Then they wanted to bust me with a board for restraining them, no hitting, kicking, or biting, just pinning them down so they could not do me any more physical harm until someone with authority arrived. Then this person in authority would want to do things to me that would be considered wrong by anyones definition to do to someone that was not "fighting". If you are in a war, are you supose to send the guy pointing a gun at your head a bouqet of flowers, and hope he is a bad shot. No, you kill him because he has done something "wrong", unless of course you don't think that killing another person is wrong. If two wrongs don't make a right, then you forfiet your right to punish criminals, ground your kids for misbehaving, or defend yourself. Doing something "wrong" outside of the limits set by the society you live in to retaliate for someone elses wrongdoing is not acceptable, however anything action that is considered an acceptable reaction to someone elses wrongdoing in only right becaue there was a second wrong commited.
Who needs logic when you can use quotes and common saying.
Microsoft should figure this into their total cost of ownership.
Only if they sue for anything over $20.
Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
And the guy doing the tally puts a big mark next to your name because you didn't vote for the person that your boss "requested" you vote for. You didn't need that cost of living wage anyway, because that is part of the trickle down theory your canidate would vote against. There is a reason that votes are to remain secret.
I was not trying to put the emphasize on "She was stupid for doing this", I was listing examples of things she was killed by to emphasize that she was "killed" by something, because to be killed requires an object or action that did the killing. I think that stupid was the first thing that popped into my head because even before I found out about water poisoning a few years back, I was able to figure out that drinking lots of liquid and trying to hold it was something that my body did not like, and there was probably a good medical reason for this inherent biological fact, and I don't need a doctor to tell me not to do it. I will definately concede that I was not looking for the perfect word to describe the exact nature of why she died and was well rewarded for my lack of effort. Ignorace would have been a much better choice of words. This was meant to be a reply to the parent post, not a new topic, but I guess that is what slashdot is about, every idea brings the next one.
I think it was a very tragic event that had contributing factors in our whole mass marketing culture. The marketing that made the video game so neccessary for her kids. The radio station that was trying to intentionally make people suffer, just so they could get some ratings. That does not change the fact the article was correct in saying she was "killed."
And for that reason, they should go after the people selling & manufacturing items that illegally use their trademark. However, when they go after people talking about their trademark, even in a context they don't like, they have crossed the line. There is a reason that freedom of the press is in the constitution. Some people want to argue semantics about the press, but people reporting other people doing something wrong is what it is about. Most of those blogs, probably helped Apple find the exact source of the infringing products. Even if the people were for the products, it did not render the truth in what they told unusefull.
The abc story talked about that. The people that actual have that kind of restricted material hack into several computers and use them as a network drive to store the images so that there is no incriminating information on their own computers. I am thinking that with this setup, if they want to share the images with a like minded friend, they just have to give them the IP, password, and which trojan is on the machine. Instant P2P without the electron trail.
I suggest you look up the word killed. It is not a synonym for murder. She was killed. When you commit sucide you "kill yourself" not "die yourself." She was killed by her own stupidity, water posioning, participating in a stunt. If she had been killed by another person, ie if the people hosting the show would not let her go to the bathroom, then it would have been murder.
And then they can sue microsoft to make microsoft DRM work on the Zune. Google "Plays for sure" & zune! This DRM crap is so far out of hand that companies can't play their own material. How's that for fair use.
Would you have a pet unicorn if you could have one. Look at all those idiots that want an imaginary animal. This is a question phrased to come back later and say look at all the people that agree to DRM, even on slashdot. The only way that you could allow all legal uses of DRM protected material would involve tracking every person, every use, every location, time and date of that use, the current holder of the copyright, any lawsuits that have been settled about a particular song.
If a song writer gets sued over a song he released in the public domain, there would have to be a way to restrict the song retroactively. If a song writer gets sued and the song is declared public domain, then all copies need to be unlocked upon release of the judgment. When copyrights expire, the DRM needs to take this in account. When Disney increases the duration of copyright for 10 generations instead of 5, the experation date of all DRM files would need to change. If I fly to a country that has different copyright laws, the restricitions would need to change as soon as I cross the border. How will the cd player know that I just got a letter in the mail from a garage ban saying that I could copy that CD they cut as a demo before they broke up. You have some kind of DRM monitoring device that can tell if I want to make a satire of a copyrighted work? If you do have a magical software package that can determine all these things, how do you keep people from lying to it. If you trust the people not to lie to obtain a free copy, why do you need DRM?
I am against fair DRM on the same grounds that I am against perpetual motion machines.
You don't have to have the gear located inside your country. You find a friendly third world country (ie they will accept you bribe) to set up an embasy. The embasy is now considered your soil under your laws. I don't think there is anything in international law that says you can't have an embasy that is larger than your native country. Now you can just make a deal to tie into the main fiber for the country your embasy resides in. Tell them you need a direct connections for reasons of national security.
Think of the extended benifits. Under the guideline set by the US, no one should have problems with you kidnapping the head of the RIAA and using waterboarding techniques to extract information about how they are planning to shutdown your network, thus causing the complete economic colapse of your country as well as threatening (ie terrorizing) all your honorary citizens.
I will admit that I know several people that used the later part of thier life to educate themselves in new technology. Most of the geeks started out young when they had the time to take things apart, figure out how they worked, and put them back together in a way not intended by the designer. It is hard to beat the learning curve for computer and electronics and work a full time job. Most of those young kids now have full time jobs, and a lot of people that had full time jobs find themselves with a lot for free time. Some of those people want to learn about computers, but a lot more just want to be able to use them as a tool to do the things with their time that they consider more interesting. I know a lot more people that want to use a computer to stay in touch with their grandkids, look at the photo of the family that thier children just sent them, and look up what the side effects of not taking this or that medication, than want to know the difference in specs between USB, Firewire, and WiFi. It doesn't mean they can't, most of those people could learn if they invested the time, but it is literally not worth the time to them. Most of these people rely on their children to keep these tools up and running. A simple machine that is hard to break involves less time to upkeep. If that retired person is now wanting to know how a computer looks on the inside, this is a cheap computer to experiment with. Either way it makes a perfect gift for that retired person in your life. If that retired person fits inbetween, they probably already have a computer that they are happy with. Anytime someone makes the statement "the perfect gift", it is implied that they don't already own one.
Anytime someone classifies a large group of people with a generality, there are going to be exceptions. That doesn't mean they are singling you out as not being able to comprehend. The fact that you have a slashdot account implies that you like computers, most people learn about the things they like. Being on slashdot alone implies that you are an exception to many of the generalities that the rest of the human race could be classified under.
Did you mean "All money from contractors returning into the country will be confiscated in the name of fighting terroism" ?
The only one I would disagree with is 3. Installing Gentoo did help me learn a lot about how linux works, mainly how it boots. That is only a fraction of learning linux, but it was very educational.
On that note, having my friend install Gentoo for me would have been as educational as having my friend take a test for me, and tell me what grade "I" got, and don't bother me with all the confusing stuff like what the answers were, yet alone the questions.
It is my understanding that by the time the computer assembly process is started the drives do have the OS installed. They do it in bulk, and have the drives waiting. Then they just have to put whatever size drive in for that machine, and it is ready to go. Each drive has a unique part number according to what physical drive it is and what is mirrored onto it. Different series of computers may have the same drive, but different software and drivers even for all the computers with XP only. You just need a new part number for drives that are blank, and the distribution system is alread set up.
I agree that the current system needs a complete overhaul, but there is a very good mechanism in the current system for eliminating the need of defensive patents. You don't have to patent before they do, you don't have to abolish patents, you just have to publish the idea. If you make a discovery that you are not going enforce patents on, but want to protect yourself from someone else patening it, you just have to publish it, and it can't be patented. Defensive patents only work against other large companies that actually produce a product. If they threaten your product with a patent violation, you threaten thier's. With a patent troll that doesn't make anything, you don't have the leverage. Publishing puts the idea in the public domain, is much cheaper, and is much easier to defend in court. You aren't comparing the specific details of your patent with the details of thiers, you are comparing the specifics of their patent with the general idea that you published.
That would be true with any other computer supplier, but not Dell. Dell success is due to a business model of stocking parts instead of stocking computers. You order a computer and they either pull the 80 Gig hard drive from Bin A, the 120 Gig hard drive from Bin B, or the 160 Gig harddrive from bin C. The only cost would be having to have the extra bins for one hard drive w/ windows and one hard drive without for each harddrive option. The drives that do not have windows installed would not need to be connected and mirrored saving a step. If the non mirrored drives don't sell, you put them in the que to get burned, nothing lost.
Most other computer makers would have to stock the computer with and without. If they guessed wrong on the quanities they would have the extra cost of adding a different drive to make whichever setup they had a shortage of.
I agree that everyone is trying to find the particular pattern in the data they want to see so they can push their personal agenda. The difference is that I don't have 16 million extra dollars to do it with. I am pretty sure that I could convice a lot of people to see my point of view with that kind of money.