Chrome OS Designed To Start Microsoft Death Spiral
Hopefully that's not their primary goal. Remember, if your primary goal isn't to do something positive for the customer then it ain't gonna work.
Um..so you believe that Windows dominance derives from the primary goal of "[doing] something positive for the customer"? Perhaps in a convoluted sense that's the case, but the primary goal of Windows 1.x was to prevent the Macintosh from luring away customers (and it wasn't under Windows 2.x until the promised "overlapping windows" was available), Windows 3.x was to prevent IBM OS/2 from surplanting MS-DOS, Windows 9x was to migrate the existing MS-DOS lock-in on the PC to a much more complex windowing system lock-in which companies like Digital Research couldn't readily copy, and Windows XP was chosen as the consumer line to cut down on handling duplicate code in two Windows code bases.
I'm certain that there were various people who worked on Windows who cared about the consumer, but along the way the driving force behind Windows has almost entire been about maintaining or growing a consistent revenue stream. Not pissing off the customers too much has been second place, at best.
Having said that, I don't think it's at all a good thing if Chrome OS was being created to destroy Microsoft. But, I think it's a fantasy to believe that people with an agenda can't succeed in their agenda even if it seems to violate a supposed core tenent of the free market. Perhaps if there were an infinite number of OS companies and they could create software that's 100% compatable with each other it'd hold, but Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux are in many ways their own market precisely because of incompatability; to that end, the many distros of Linux are probably the closest thing to the "infinite number of OS companies" with the *BSDs/Unixes being the next closest.
Actually, you can deduct all of those things if they are part of your income generation and not incidental private expenses.
"Incidental" private expenses? Last I checked, people worked precisely to enjoy "incidental" private expenses, which rather makes all expenses non-incidental.
I don't think you realize that a corporation is nothing more then an income generator. You can write the same shit off without a corporation being present as long as it follows the same guidelines of income creation.
That's just the thing. If corporations are, by definition, nothing more than income generators, then there exists no "incidental" expenses. Meanwhile, individuals have to audit their own spending to seperate the "incidental" from the "necessary" and be under risk of auditing and fining by a government that might very well disagree with their assessment. Clearly, corporations have an advantage.
Regardless, banks could not function if everyone routinely over-drafted their accounts. So, they need a way to disincentivize that behavior; they charge a fee.
Beyond the grand "everyone" overgeneralization--since any type of overdraft fee, even a very small one, would invariably cause many not to overdraft--, you've just described exactly how banks function, to pool the resources of many and allow an "overdraft" (ie, loan) for several members. It's illogical to outright disincentivize the very business one is in.
I imagine they calculate that fee so that it maximizes the company's profitability as a whole, not simply to maximize the amount of fees collected.
And because most banks are propped up by the government (they can take out great, low-interest loans), those fees tend towards monopolist or oligarchical pricing for a lot of people. Even without governmental help, banks generally have enough capital that new players have a rather larger burden to compete, even if they plan to undercut oligarchical pricing. Even more generally, there's a finite amount of players reasonably possible in an area which you are likely to have readily access to; thankfully for most people, it's just a matter of switching banks/credit unions to one without outrageous fees. But, once you have a remotely bad loan, not a great credit history (since you simply never took out many loans), or simply aren't very profitable, the mostly saturated "good" banks will likely just let their competitor profit since they've already absorbed most of the best customers.
Imagine, for a moment, that a bank charged $1,000 per over-draft. If the bank truly had "no reason not to", would they make more money under this fee schedule, or less?
And if you charged 100% or more interest a day on any other type of loan, most people would consider that loan sharking, regardless of how much it might actually maximize profit for said loan shark. At some point, loan sharking was made illegal because it was recognized that the behavior was so horrible, it was not reasonably fair to allow the behavior to continue even if some people were desperate enough to take advantage of such loans. Having said that, I'n not exactly arguing that overdrafting fits into the same area--I don't know enough about the norms, etc or their long-term consequences--but I would generally state that loan sharking is evil and should be illegal; so it really does come down to whether overdrafting is like loan sharking enough for the discussion to be a governmental issue or whether the free market is the better tool.
Thinking about it a lot more, I was wrong. Fuel efficiency is a red herring.
At first, Honda and Toyota ate a sigificant percentage of GM's low-end market. GM responded by subsidizing* its low-end cars, but not at a rate to hold Honda and Toyota out of the US market. Later, Honda and Toyota ate a siginficaint percentage of GM's mid-range market. GM responded by subsidizing* its mid-range cars, but not at a rate to hold Honda and Toyota out of the US market. Now, Honda and Toyota are selling eco-luxury vehicles in the more of hybrids. That just hurt GM's cash reserves. The recession was merely the nail in the coffin to a reliance on strong SUV sales to subsidize their whole sales market.
GM needs to either get out of the low-end and mid-range markets and become a much smaller company or to become profitable again in the low-end and mid-range markets. This will translate into more efficient low-end cars as cost constraints will force them to make lighter cars. But, that's just an inherently side-effect of things.
*That's the nice word. The more accurate words are being anti-competitive. Unfortunately for GM, they didn't have the cash reserves or the stable monopoly for that to work indefinitely. But, they put a good show of it lasting for decades against the "Japanese invasion".
Short term planning was not the problem. GM did look long. GM was the only company to make a pure electric vehicle. The only reason they did this was to fulfill the timeline that was a pipe-dream of some California lawmakers. The hit they took on that car was not insignificant. They saw the writing on the wall and went headlong into a technology that was not ready.
"Chrysler, Ford, GM, Honda, Nissan and Toyota also produced limited numbers of EVs for California drivers." -- Wikipedia, Electric vehicle GM leased (but would not sell) on the order of a thousand or so electric vehicles; that's not exactly "headlong into a technology". Oh, and to be fair, Honda, Toyota, etc leased-only as well; although, Toyota did end up selling some of vehiciles after the leases were up.
Toyota on the other hand took a very, very conservative approach to the problem. GM believed that technology would catch up, Toyota didn't. It is kinda funny that Toyota is the one being praised when they weren't the ones to take the big risk.
Toyota *mass-produced* hybrid vehicles. GM (along with Toyota, Honda, etc) used their EV as a test to see how viable mass-production was. As pointed out, battery technology didn't catch up in time for the EV to become mainstream. Even now, battery technology (and the issue of charging stations) is insufficient. Now, even with that being the case, the GM Volt seemed like an interesting idea, but it sucked in so many ways (too expensive, buggy enough that it couldn't even be adequately driven when it was being demoed, and little evidence that GM was actually serious about long-term support of EV technology).
GM should have been allowed to go through normal bankruptcy so that both the dead-weight that you point out *and* the UAW would have had more equal treatment. The union should not get away without blame.
Imagine you work for a car manufacturer. The car manufacturer has decided to shift its focus on luxury vehicles. This translates into higher margins per vehicle, higher salaries for management, and a labor force demanding higher wages/benefits accordingly. However, this focus on luxury vehicles is unsubstainable, and the obligations to the many workers ends up outstripping your ability to pay when the sale of luxury vehicles tanks.
Now, are the workers to blame for demanding a "fair share" of this unsubstainable model? I'd say maybe*. But, they should lose a lot of those benefits. I don't think a "normal" bankruptcy would likely well sort out the issue properly, as the workers would have every legal right to their debt, being of equal standing to any other creditor. Stepping beyond the hypothetical, that doesn't mean I think the current GM bankruptcy is actually motivated in assesing what debt should really be recognized and to what degree; but, the real world situation is rife with long-term incompetence.
*This is a rather paradoxical problem. On the one hand, individual workers aren't to blame. On the other, larger organizations (GM with the SUV market, the UAW with GM's SUV balloon, banks with commodotized mortgages) are blameable for failing to do adequate diligence to inform others of the impending problems, activiely contributing to the known problem, and not wisely hedging/insuring for when the problem is realized. Ie, there's a lot of blame to go around to basically everyone involved because they chose to continue an unhealthy relationship they should have known was unhealthy. Yet, in the end, the movement of masses of people many times strongly coerce the individual to do questionable things (moving in the same direction as a mob even if their movement will likely damage property, travelling at the same speed as other cars in traffic even when those cars are speeding, or investing in a car because there is an expectation that one can travel 60 miles/day (30 miles there and back) for any job opportunity even though that borders towards the impossibility of group transit and the furthering of the idea that a car isn't a luxury and driving is a right).
Incorrect. GM *lost* money on many of it cars. I recall the number being around $1,000-$1,500 a vehicle. The SUV's were the only line where they actually made money per car.
And that's the primary problem. If SUVs are "luxury"* vehicles, then it'd make the most sense to push very hard to cut the costs of making the cheaper vehicles to minimize the loses per unit so that only a few luxury goods sold would be sufficient to cover losses; otherwise, even a small dip in SUV sales would be debilitating.
Personally, I think GM should have just let the autoworkers pull a world-wide strike years ago. In the long run they would have been ahead even though the short term costs would have been very painful.
Agree, although I'd take it a step further. GM has built up a huge network of suppliers, dealers, etc over the decades. Almost certainly, a large percentage (say, 10-20%) of that network is vestigial. Meanwhile, Toyota's operations are certainly much leaner precisely because they have such a new network. Mantaining that network, in the form of hirer prices for low-level business to many suppliers, dealers, etc is a rather large drain (probably more than the $1,500/vehicle. It's one reason why dealership closings are very much a positive thing to come out of GM's bankruptcy.
There is no conspiracy other than the will to survive. You can see why a company losing money on each car would *have* to fight against further regulation.
And that's just horse manure. As you yourself noted, a willingness to take a short-term loss to battle the unions for long-term gain wasn't pursued. Similarly, the myopic view that SUV sales could hold up the business was too focused on the short-term prosperity of strong SUV sales. Fighting regulation is the same, as fighting against bills is generally a short-term prospect (although, admittedly, the product of very long-term building of networking and lobbying over the decades). GM is just another example of a company with too much short-term focus against the obvious (long-term oil prices climbing and a desire for more efficient cars). The main difference, of course, is that GM's CEO didn't try to simply jack up the GM stock price and leave the company. So, in a perverse way, it shows that GM's CEO was, if anything, stupider than the average greedy CEO weasil, but at least he had integrity.
*Really, all cars are luxury vehicles. America has been pretty successfully brainwashed into thinking a house, a car, (and a picket fence) are expected and acheivable for everyone. On the bright side, this has resulted in cars becoming cheaper and they being more available to many people. On the down side, American car companies have become deluded into believing they can loss lead on some vehicles and make up for it with "luxury" cars, and that's clearly unmaintainable during deep or long recessions, rapid changes in fashion, etc.
Look, there's a lot of technology that could be used to kill a lot of people if the wrong hands get access to it. The American taxpayer paid for that R&D, and it should be used in our interests, not to aid an inimical foreign power like China (no, they're not our friends, and probably never will be.)
Just a minor correction: Look, there's a lot of technology that could be used to kill a lot of people. The American taxpayer paid for that R&D, and it should be used in our interests.
That much better sums up your real sentiment, I think. We spent billions of dollars to have an edge at killing people, and you and others don't want China to get that same edge for free. Of course, no matter how good the schematics, it's not absolutely free of R&D, not to mention the actual cost of creation. Given how much the US outspends the whole world in military spending, it's really a moot point anyways.
Me? I wish instead of focusing so much on what "the wrong hands" of other countries might do, we'd focus more on what "the right hands" of our own country are doing. Ie, I wish we'd stop killing innocent people.
you don't believe that the situation can be improved
I believe the situation can be improved. I don't believe the situation can be fundamentally improved to remove all abuse in all circumstances.
police abuse can be improved, and has improved historically. compare the bullshit cops in the 1800s got away with and what they get away with today. not that something like the abner louima case isn't modern and horrifying, but there aren't abner louimas happening every week
No doubt.
you have a nihilistic empty view of humanity. improvement is historically real. we have a long way to go, and its difficult, but that doesn't mean it isn't happening. admit to that simple truth, or follow your mindless pointlessness and hopelessness to its inevitable conclusion and go swallow a shotgun
I'd say you have a nihilistic empty view of humanity, actually. You fail to recognize that humanity is a something that exists outside the realm of being infinitely molded*. As such, there will continue to exist human nature, a tolerance for abuse (even if it's as simple as intentionally operating suboptimally), and a continued struggle to maintain all that has been worked for.
i object to and categorically reject your attitude. its hysterical teenage bullshit. grow the fuck up, please
Thanks for your opinion.
PS - You missed the second point. Not everyone is on a crusade to improve reality. It is unreasonable to expect or demand everyone to work to improve reality.
*For humanity to be infinitely molded, it would have to be either (a) infinitely big or (b) zero in size. Humanity isn't infinitely big.
Police are workers. Workers do as little work as they can with as little risk to themself as they can. I don't trust a worker to perform a cavity search on me because I know I've not done anything wrong.
Regardless of whether you believe the above to be true or not, what is being described is a by-product of the human condition; ie, it's not something that can be fundamentally cleaned up but only railed against from time to time upon the eventual abuses. The author, also, clearly was arguing from his own experience and what he believes he would do in a certain circumstance; ie, he was not trying to argue about the problems and possible solutions of the situation as much as he was trying to educate about reality. So, I don't see why you're arguing he should state things in the context of problem and solution, except that you perhaps have a strong desire to frame things in that fashion. It seems rather unreasonable to make that demand of him, though.
GNU and GCC are just as much open source implementations of proprietary technology from convicted monopolists as Mono is.
Yes, but at the time GNU and GCC were created, neither work being cloned were under any considerable control of said monopolist. Further, AT&T didn't seem patently aware of what a goldmine Unix could be (almost probably because of their focus on Multics), so that even when there final was a lawsuit brought upon anyone (BSD), sufficient modifications had been made and reintegrated into the main branch that AT&T couldn't subsume ownership/control over the whole work. Now, perhaps the same circumstance will happen with Microsoft and Mono. And perhaps Mono itself is sufficient to override nearly any legal claim by Microsoft to patents, trade secrets, etc, but people are reasonably uneasy about circumstances as they exist today.
This, btw, was true with BSD as well, which is one main reason GNU/GCC were created and prospered as well as they did since every degree of seperation, either in time or implementation, tends to offer further protection against lawsuits. So, a significant fork of Mono or a reimplementation of Mono would likely be sufficient to cement Mono as a safe platform--not that Mono isn't necessarily safe anyways.
So, let's see. Because males might have sex when they're 15+ and they're too stupid to use a condom, let's decrease their risk of *some* STDs by 50% for them. Meanwhile, reducing the risk of cervical cancer for girls/women with an HPV vaccine is bad because it promotes risky sexual behavior.
PS - Yea, you're just pointing out that circumcision does infact reduce the risk of getting some STDs, not promoting the idea that circumcision is good. But, really, whether or not it reduces the risk is a non-issue given that if a male teen/adult is having sex, they sure as hell should be capable of choosing whether to have a circumcision at that time; and they could very well just use a condom which is more effective anyways.
How about a compromise? ObsessiveMathsFreak can stop calling Microsoft liars on their "Get the Facts" campaign and we can all assume all of Microsoft's facts aren't facts until such time that they offer evidence to support their supposed facts. Until then, we can all complain about how Microsoft is wasting everyone's time.
Too bad we don't know how to imitate free market's ability to optimally allocate resources in rigid government setups...
The free market is something like an optimizing compiler. Even if a perfect optimal compiler existed, applying it to bubble sort in most cases is inferior to a non-optimized quick sort. In the end, an optimizing compiler can only be as smart as doing well what you tell it to do within the constrains of how you define what you want done. This is, btw, the primary reason things like government interference can be a good thing for society even if it's suboptimal in the context of the free market. "Deep background investigations" aren't likely one of those things, and calls to make it more optimal seem silly.
Isn't homebrew code speak for pirates these days? I think the idea of homebrew is great, but it seems like it's the pirates that use that as the skirt to hide their true meaning much more often than actual homebrew use.
The only thing I can say to that is, of course. The same problem exists when it comes to PCs and Windows. The amount of people who are technological inclinated enough to figure out how to pirate, run homebrew, or program homebrew is realtively small, even on a relatively open platform like PCs. For consoles, the problem is even more skewed since 99% of software ends up being on proprietary cartridges made by commercial vendors. New consoles are coming out quite frequently, and homebrewers, having their own taste, tend to gravity to new ones over time, often being on the cutting edge. For legitimate homebrewers, this translates into trying to make a console more open and the ratio of commercial to homebrew more even, so their work has more legitimacy (and more outward support from other developers).
Work to make console-like platforms from scratch tend to fail, though, as economy of scale makes such platforms more expensive and most people don't tend to buy into a platform unless it already has an existing large library of software or they believe there is an organization backing the production of new software for several years. This is one reason Linux-based subnotebooks have caught on, but even then it's unclear if people are willing to buy into non-x86 platforms or if the brief, yet relatively small, such can support more long-term success to create a long-term, legitimately-recognized community for that platform. After all, Linux being portable on many devices sounds great at first, but if each platform has a different CPU, different sound and graphics capabilities, and other very different presumptions, then each Linux installation may very quickly turn into a platform only as big as the current model line.
So, given the massive hurdles involved, it's little wonder that those people so technically inclined tend towards gaming the existing system to their benefit (piracy or whatever) than working towards legitimacy recognition. And without legitimacy, most organizations and people will be unwilling to associate themselves with even the legitimate homebrewers. Why bother with research on who is legitimate and who isn't when you can just paint a broad brush that "DS flashcart users are pirates"? I guess it must hold, then, that those who work against paying Microsoft for Windows must be all pirates. I'm very certain there are more users of a pirated copy of Windows than Linux PC users.
The problem with your reasoning is that when a free-market entity produces an inferior product, service, or solution, it will eventually fail.
People, good or bad, eventually die. Companies, good or bad, eventually bankrupt. Governments, good or bad, eventually collapse. In the mean time, murderers run free, inferior (potentially lethal) products reign, and corrupt governments loot the pulic. It is idealistic to believe that free markets are some magically solution to the ills of any field. People are not always rational, they lack perfect information, and even rationality (as part of game theory) isn't reasonable, at times, to one's own self-interest. Simply put, free markets can't exist with humans, and they don't really want them; they want a magical panacea that fulfills various contradictions. Such a thing obviously can't exist. But, mixed markets do at least approach the ideals of the vast majority of people. Not everyone truly understands the free market concept well enough to know that, though.
If it's only searching through their personal belongings, how is this different than having the police tail the person their entire life to track all things ever purchased, received, transported (x-rays), or exchanged in public view? This seems like a lower-cost mechanism for doing the same thing. Is there more to it than that?
PS - Yes, this wouldn't keep track of 100% of what a purchase owns, in part due to lead boxes and the risk of radiation poisoning. But, then a GPS device would allow a person's car to be tracked on private property and it is possible (if difficult) to give police "the slip" in much the same fashion that would lead the same argument for the inspection of personal belongings at whim. Besides, the wording makes clear that one should be "secure in their personal effects", and modifying one's effects seems rather clearly within that scope since one cannot be secure if one's effects can be modified by the police at random.
Under U.S. Law, there are Limited and Full Warranties.
"(6) The term "written warranty" means --
(A) any written affirmation of fact or written promise made in connection with the sale of a consumer product by a supplier to a buyer which relates to the nature of the material or workmanship and affirms or promises that such material or workmanship is defect free or will meet a specified level of performance over a specified period of time, or
(B) any undertaking in writing in connection with the sale by a supplier of a consumer product to refund, repair, replace, or take other remedial action with respect to such product in the event that such product fails to meet the specifications set forth in the undertaking,
which written affirmation, promise, or undertaking becomes part of the basis of the bargain between a supplier and a buyer for purposes other than resale of such product.
(7) The term "implied warranty" means an implied warranty arising under State law (as modified by sections 2308 and 2304 (a) of this title) in connection with the sale by a supplier of a consumer product.
" -- US Code Title 15, 2301
In short, the discussion is not about warranties because warranties are about implied or written promises to the functionality of a good, not its identity. The discussion is about direct misrepresentaiton of the facts.
The word "Guarantee" is legally meaningless. Caveat emptor.
The word "Bunny" is probably legally meaningless, in the sense that no legal code likely defines "Bunny". That doesn't mean it's actually legally meaningless. It *does* mean that a jury or judge, given the facts as presented will have to decide what "Bunny" means for the extent of a case presented before the court. As for "Caveat emptor".
"CAVEAT EMPTOR. Let the purchaser take heed; that is, let him see to it, that
the title he is buying is good. This is a rule of the common law, applicable
to the sale and purchase of lands and other real estate. If the purchaser
pay the consideration money, he cannot, as a general rule, recover it back
after the deed has been executed; except in cases of fraud, or by force of
some covenant in the deed which has been broken. The purchaser,if he fears a
defect of title, has it in his power to protect himself by proper covenants,
and if he fails to do so, the law provides for him no remedy. Cro. Jac. 197;
1 Salk. 211 Doug. 630, 654; 1 Serg. & R. 52, 53, 445. This rule is
discussed with ability in Rawle on Covenants for Title, p. 458, et seq. c.
13, and the leading authorities collected. See also 2 Kent, Com. Lect. 39,
p. 478; 2 Bl. Com. 451; 1 Stor, Eq. Sec. 212 6 Ves. 678; 10 Ves. 505; 3
Cranch, 270; 2 Day, R. 128; Sugd. Vend. 221 1 Bouv. Inst. n. 954-5.
2. This rule has been severely assailed, as being the instrument of
falsehood and fraud; but it is too well established to be disregarded.
Coop., Just. 611, n. See 8 Watts, 308, 309."
In short, Caveat emptor does not protect a person from fraud. More specifically, caveat emptor is what tells you to closely examine a product, to ask questions about it, and to think carefully about whether one has a want or need for said product. If the seller lies to you, caveat emptor doesn't apply (presume, of course, that you do not believe the seller is a liar). If you do not adequately examine a good, fail to ask adequate questions, and/or accept ambiguous or lacking answers, caveat emptor does apply. A warranty might apply if there's sufficient lacking of implied or declared functionaity of a product, but to get to that point requires some level of information exchange to the actual object in the first place. That is, if someone sells you a rotten core apple, it's an issue of implied warranty. If somoene sells you a wax apple that smells and feels like an apple and is sold as an apple, then it's an issue of fraud. And if you get an apple that you're told has been sitting out in the open sun for a week, it's an issue of caveat emptor.
"100% Authentic" is a classic example of a common advertising dodge. It's not a sentence, it's a meaningless fragment without an object, subject, or a verb. The implication is that you're saying that the object right there on the same page is 100% authentic, but they're not responsible for your misunderstanding.
"Fraud - (Law) An intentional perversion of truth for the purpose of obtaining some valuable thing or promise from another"
To argue that it's a meaningless fragment somehow abdicates the seller from responsibility is absurd. English is a context-sensitive language. Read the description again:
BIG MOCHE GOLD MASK WITH PECTORAL COPPER & GOLD 24K!!!!
(15 % OF PURE GOLD)
100% Guaranteed Authentic
Pre-columbian is a time period. Authentic, in this context, means minimally that the object was constructed as described at or before that time period. If the seller had said, "0% Guaranteed", then perhaps there'd be some leeway to the point that the seller is unsure of what he's selling. So, it if turns out that said mask isn't really pre-columbian, it's very clear that a perversion of the truth is occured, that the seller was entirely irresponsible to call it 100% guaranteed authentic, that such actions indicate an intention to defraud, and they should prosecuted for fraud*. And if it is pre-columbina, nothing should happen.
Your argument seems about as aburd as the idea that adding random periods in your sentences in contracts would magically abdicate both parties from responsibility within that contract. It is the "meeting of the minds" in contract and in contract-like situation (ie, interactions where there are socially-constructed and lawfully enforced transactions) that determines what, if any, remedy is available to parties for any failures to comply with the intention of the "contract". The only thing sellers of fake artifacts have going for them is, because their "meeting of the minds" is partially implicit, they have more leeway to argue that their intentions were honest.
Language like "100% guaranteed" is clearly to designed as a means of conveying that a seller is forgoing various defenses should a complaint arise as they themselves have taken on the responsibility of claiming to actually know the truth and to be held accountable for that truth. If such language is infact meaningless, then the use of such language is clearly designed to try to fool people to trust and buy products they wouldn't otherwise by envoking the previous sentence's implications. It is little different than using a trademark one does not have a right/privilege to. All are attempts to manipulate money out of people without exchanging with them something of value.
*Just because a person should be prosecuted for fraud doesn't mean they likely will. This would appear to be especially true over the internet, but I believe the truth is more that people in general have such low standards of expectations regardless of what is clearly promised that they don't pursue legal action against those that defraud them. Not wanting to be "overly litigious", a desire to not appear foolish for having believed another person's promises, courts generally already being rather busy, "Caveat Emptor", and the possibility of not being able to recoup one's losses anyways for "failing to follow common sense" all are barriers to remeding fraud.
The problem is, residential phone networks were never designed to handle the uses many people make of them nowadays (particularly due to unlimited long-distance plans) - there are some heavy users who make hundreds of (sometimes of dubious legality) calls every month.. it is unreasonable for these people to pay the same price as someone who just pays their bills by phones and calls their grandchildren.
...or, we could recognize that (a) telecommunication companies were paid assloads of taxpayer money to develop a standard of internet broadband access and they should be bound to it, no matter how cost ineffective it seems in some areas and (b) the internet is becoming a utility where the should be a reasonable expectation of relatively-equal priced access to all, mostly regardless of usage, because people as a whole benefit from the consequence of so many people having access to those utilities.
The beneficial externalities of internet access are not easy to quantify, especially when many people seem to be using large quantities of it for illict ends. But, in the long term, the Googles of the world can't sustain the high infrastructure costs of the internet. Every person should be capable of starting a server without fear of being shut down for "excessive" uploads. That's the very foundation of lowering the barriers of entry to internet-based entrepreneurship. To that end, Time Warner's move to tiered pricing may be on the right track. But, its current cap on tiers are insanely too low. The first remedy to that would be in forcing Time Warner and others to actually offer what was already promised concerning basic broadband access. It is only after that point where tiered pricing should kick in.
PS - I say this all because the 40GB cap amounts to a 128Kbps substained rate over a month. The promised broadband was original 45000Kbps, but was later scaled back to 1600Kbps. Both are substantially more than 128Kbps. And before you think that the 1600Kbps was merely meant to be a peak, consider that the plan entailed streaming TV, and such obviously requires substantial substained data rates, even with today's much improved video compression.
If it really bothers you, shop elsewhere. I certainly do, those fucking vultures won't ever get my money again.
That's great advice and all, but it doesn't really address the issue. The fundamental problem is that fraud is taking place. Your advice really amounts to ostracism. Ostracism doesn't work very well basically ever. That's the reason why modern society doesn't merely ostracize murderers, rapists, etc. Monetary ostracism might be a good first step. But, it should be the prelude to criminal charges.
If you do decide to shop there, use some common sense and check your disks for scratches before you leave the store. It's not that hard.
I'd add, demand a discount and a guarantee of store return for cash for any defect detected. It's questionable if the original manufacturer will replace a used game, no matter how much the store promises that it's like new. And no or a fraudulent shrink wrap basically removes any possible collectibility value. There's also the point that having to check the disc and the risk of having to deal with the store again is a cost.
But seriously, quit the whining about the "used sold as new" crap. The checkout policy is the price you pay for having specialty knowledge behind the register at minimum wage prices.
Yep, where else do you have employees who have unpaid overtime (required to play hours of games on their time) and who are perfectly willing to commit fraud (shrink wrapping games like new so they can charge new prices). Regardless of if there is anything to whine about, the environment does sound like a haven for lawsuits and criminal charges. The only thing that distrubes me is that more people haven't served jail time.
Congress has a history of passing unconstitutional laws, be they violations of free speech to bills of attainder. I think it works both ways, though. If it's unconstitutional to take away AIG bonuses, it's just as unconstitutional to give AIG money. But, then, it's unconstitutional to give any group money, be it children for education, parents for welfare, or the elderly for medical care or retirement. Or, perhaps, it's as simple as that giving money to AIG was to promote (or, really, hope to maintain) the general welfare. And once you're on the hook with government money, all sorts of things start to apply (government funded insitutitions can't legally suppress speech, are often regulated on what bonuses can be given, and renegotiations can void previously written contracts).
Having said that, I agree that taxing AIG is the wrong answer. The government should simply give AIG $1 under law on condition of voiding contracts for bonuses; then as majority holder, the government can accept that $1 into AIG's books. If that brings fear upon businesses that have been bought out by the government, then they're idiots to not realize that they have bought themselves from government more than just the business of stability but also the power of government to reshape the company to its whim. Companies can be bought out against their will (and for which, there has never been any real legal recourse), but certainly AIG agreed to their circumstance, so it would be irrational to argue that one can simply extrapolate AIG into some scaremongering that the government has made contracts inherently unreliable, and that would seem to be the fundamental fear and outrage.
What bothers me is nobody seems to answer the question: "What *should* they be doing?" in a reasonable manner.
If you ask that on Slashdot, you get either "switch to Linux hur hur" or "they should write a new OS from scratch and run NT in a VM." Neither of those is a realistic option. The second is (slightly) more realistic, but it would be a decade of work even assuming MS started this minute.
Neither is the right answer, but the second is closer to the mark. The problem, though, is your question. If one acknowledges that Windows has significant problems and to fix those problems would take an "unreasonable" (ie, greater than 5 years) amount of time, then there simply is nothing that can be done right now. To ask Slashdot for some magical solution is simply silly. The only options for most people, then, are to try to mitigate the risk by running a new OS (Linux) and run NT in a VM.
Of course, since Linux suffers from the same fundamental flaws as Windows (over-privilege of users, over-privilege of programs, irreversible actions, a lack of transparency to facilitate control, and an education system (tutorials or seminars, perhaps) for people to know enough to adequately control their system), such is really only a stop-gap to mitigate the risk of the homogenous danger of Windows-only machines. The long-term answer requires writing an OS from scratch and, more importantly, educating users with the tools they need to adequately control their own system. Even if the latter point doesn't directly resolve problems, there'd at least be a more firm basis for legal and social action against those who are knowingly negligent instead of misguided and uneducated.
Utter confusion is the first thing. Few average users are going to be able to handle the idea that there is any point to multiple browsers on one computer. Either one works and the other one does not, or there is no point. If one is broken, then it shouldn't be there.
I know exactly what you mean. It's like how, when I got a computer back in 1999, it included notepad, wordpad, ms works, and ms word. And since only one of those worked, I removed the rest. I mean, computers are nothing like the real world. There is no room for "choice" or "varying pros and cons". There's one perfect tool for the job, at all times. Best of all, MS is in the best position to judge which is the perfect tool and to block OEMs from installing the rest.
Re:looks like it still loses history
on
BASH 4.0 Released
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· Score: 1
One issue is that sessions that don't terminate cleanly (ssh loss, system reboot, etc.) leave a bunch of dirty history files that would need to reaped at the next start up of a bash.
Open a temporary history file to obtain a file descriptor
Delete the temporary history file
Use the existing file descriptor to read/write to the "deleted" file
If the session terminates uncleanly, the OS, fsck, or journal playback will clear the file
On clean session termination, read the "deleted" file and dump it to the history, closing the file descriptor and actually deleting the file
AFAIK, this will even work in Windows 2000/XP/Vista, although you'll have to use some special flags to obtain the effect.
Slashdot Mirror
Um..so you believe that Windows dominance derives from the primary goal of "[doing] something positive for the customer"? Perhaps in a convoluted sense that's the case, but the primary goal of Windows 1.x was to prevent the Macintosh from luring away customers (and it wasn't under Windows 2.x until the promised "overlapping windows" was available), Windows 3.x was to prevent IBM OS/2 from surplanting MS-DOS, Windows 9x was to migrate the existing MS-DOS lock-in on the PC to a much more complex windowing system lock-in which companies like Digital Research couldn't readily copy, and Windows XP was chosen as the consumer line to cut down on handling duplicate code in two Windows code bases.
I'm certain that there were various people who worked on Windows who cared about the consumer, but along the way the driving force behind Windows has almost entire been about maintaining or growing a consistent revenue stream. Not pissing off the customers too much has been second place, at best.
Having said that, I don't think it's at all a good thing if Chrome OS was being created to destroy Microsoft. But, I think it's a fantasy to believe that people with an agenda can't succeed in their agenda even if it seems to violate a supposed core tenent of the free market. Perhaps if there were an infinite number of OS companies and they could create software that's 100% compatable with each other it'd hold, but Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux are in many ways their own market precisely because of incompatability; to that end, the many distros of Linux are probably the closest thing to the "infinite number of OS companies" with the *BSDs/Unixes being the next closest.
"Incidental" private expenses? Last I checked, people worked precisely to enjoy "incidental" private expenses, which rather makes all expenses non-incidental.
That's just the thing. If corporations are, by definition, nothing more than income generators, then there exists no "incidental" expenses. Meanwhile, individuals have to audit their own spending to seperate the "incidental" from the "necessary" and be under risk of auditing and fining by a government that might very well disagree with their assessment. Clearly, corporations have an advantage.
Beyond the grand "everyone" overgeneralization--since any type of overdraft fee, even a very small one, would invariably cause many not to overdraft--, you've just described exactly how banks function, to pool the resources of many and allow an "overdraft" (ie, loan) for several members. It's illogical to outright disincentivize the very business one is in.
And because most banks are propped up by the government (they can take out great, low-interest loans), those fees tend towards monopolist or oligarchical pricing for a lot of people. Even without governmental help, banks generally have enough capital that new players have a rather larger burden to compete, even if they plan to undercut oligarchical pricing. Even more generally, there's a finite amount of players reasonably possible in an area which you are likely to have readily access to; thankfully for most people, it's just a matter of switching banks/credit unions to one without outrageous fees. But, once you have a remotely bad loan, not a great credit history (since you simply never took out many loans), or simply aren't very profitable, the mostly saturated "good" banks will likely just let their competitor profit since they've already absorbed most of the best customers.
And if you charged 100% or more interest a day on any other type of loan, most people would consider that loan sharking, regardless of how much it might actually maximize profit for said loan shark. At some point, loan sharking was made illegal because it was recognized that the behavior was so horrible, it was not reasonably fair to allow the behavior to continue even if some people were desperate enough to take advantage of such loans. Having said that, I'n not exactly arguing that overdrafting fits into the same area--I don't know enough about the norms, etc or their long-term consequences--but I would generally state that loan sharking is evil and should be illegal; so it really does come down to whether overdrafting is like loan sharking enough for the discussion to be a governmental issue or whether the free market is the better tool.
Thinking about it a lot more, I was wrong. Fuel efficiency is a red herring.
At first, Honda and Toyota ate a sigificant percentage of GM's low-end market. GM responded by subsidizing* its low-end cars, but not at a rate to hold Honda and Toyota out of the US market. Later, Honda and Toyota ate a siginficaint percentage of GM's mid-range market. GM responded by subsidizing* its mid-range cars, but not at a rate to hold Honda and Toyota out of the US market. Now, Honda and Toyota are selling eco-luxury vehicles in the more of hybrids. That just hurt GM's cash reserves. The recession was merely the nail in the coffin to a reliance on strong SUV sales to subsidize their whole sales market.
GM needs to either get out of the low-end and mid-range markets and become a much smaller company or to become profitable again in the low-end and mid-range markets. This will translate into more efficient low-end cars as cost constraints will force them to make lighter cars. But, that's just an inherently side-effect of things.
*That's the nice word. The more accurate words are being anti-competitive. Unfortunately for GM, they didn't have the cash reserves or the stable monopoly for that to work indefinitely. But, they put a good show of it lasting for decades against the "Japanese invasion".
"Chrysler, Ford, GM, Honda, Nissan and Toyota also produced limited numbers of EVs for California drivers." -- Wikipedia, Electric vehicle GM leased (but would not sell) on the order of a thousand or so electric vehicles; that's not exactly "headlong into a technology". Oh, and to be fair, Honda, Toyota, etc leased-only as well; although, Toyota did end up selling some of vehiciles after the leases were up.
Toyota *mass-produced* hybrid vehicles. GM (along with Toyota, Honda, etc) used their EV as a test to see how viable mass-production was. As pointed out, battery technology didn't catch up in time for the EV to become mainstream. Even now, battery technology (and the issue of charging stations) is insufficient. Now, even with that being the case, the GM Volt seemed like an interesting idea, but it sucked in so many ways (too expensive, buggy enough that it couldn't even be adequately driven when it was being demoed, and little evidence that GM was actually serious about long-term support of EV technology).
Imagine you work for a car manufacturer. The car manufacturer has decided to shift its focus on luxury vehicles. This translates into higher margins per vehicle, higher salaries for management, and a labor force demanding higher wages/benefits accordingly. However, this focus on luxury vehicles is unsubstainable, and the obligations to the many workers ends up outstripping your ability to pay when the sale of luxury vehicles tanks.
Now, are the workers to blame for demanding a "fair share" of this unsubstainable model? I'd say maybe*. But, they should lose a lot of those benefits. I don't think a "normal" bankruptcy would likely well sort out the issue properly, as the workers would have every legal right to their debt, being of equal standing to any other creditor. Stepping beyond the hypothetical, that doesn't mean I think the current GM bankruptcy is actually motivated in assesing what debt should really be recognized and to what degree; but, the real world situation is rife with long-term incompetence.
*This is a rather paradoxical problem. On the one hand, individual workers aren't to blame. On the other, larger organizations (GM with the SUV market, the UAW with GM's SUV balloon, banks with commodotized mortgages) are blameable for failing to do adequate diligence to inform others of the impending problems, activiely contributing to the known problem, and not wisely hedging/insuring for when the problem is realized. Ie, there's a lot of blame to go around to basically everyone involved because they chose to continue an unhealthy relationship they should have known was unhealthy. Yet, in the end, the movement of masses of people many times strongly coerce the individual to do questionable things (moving in the same direction as a mob even if their movement will likely damage property, travelling at the same speed as other cars in traffic even when those cars are speeding, or investing in a car because there is an expectation that one can travel 60 miles/day (30 miles there and back) for any job opportunity even though that borders towards the impossibility of group transit and the furthering of the idea that a car isn't a luxury and driving is a right).
And that's the primary problem. If SUVs are "luxury"* vehicles, then it'd make the most sense to push very hard to cut the costs of making the cheaper vehicles to minimize the loses per unit so that only a few luxury goods sold would be sufficient to cover losses; otherwise, even a small dip in SUV sales would be debilitating.
Agree, although I'd take it a step further. GM has built up a huge network of suppliers, dealers, etc over the decades. Almost certainly, a large percentage (say, 10-20%) of that network is vestigial. Meanwhile, Toyota's operations are certainly much leaner precisely because they have such a new network. Mantaining that network, in the form of hirer prices for low-level business to many suppliers, dealers, etc is a rather large drain (probably more than the $1,500/vehicle. It's one reason why dealership closings are very much a positive thing to come out of GM's bankruptcy.
And that's just horse manure. As you yourself noted, a willingness to take a short-term loss to battle the unions for long-term gain wasn't pursued. Similarly, the myopic view that SUV sales could hold up the business was too focused on the short-term prosperity of strong SUV sales. Fighting regulation is the same, as fighting against bills is generally a short-term prospect (although, admittedly, the product of very long-term building of networking and lobbying over the decades). GM is just another example of a company with too much short-term focus against the obvious (long-term oil prices climbing and a desire for more efficient cars). The main difference, of course, is that GM's CEO didn't try to simply jack up the GM stock price and leave the company. So, in a perverse way, it shows that GM's CEO was, if anything, stupider than the average greedy CEO weasil, but at least he had integrity.
*Really, all cars are luxury vehicles. America has been pretty successfully brainwashed into thinking a house, a car, (and a picket fence) are expected and acheivable for everyone. On the bright side, this has resulted in cars becoming cheaper and they being more available to many people. On the down side, American car companies have become deluded into believing they can loss lead on some vehicles and make up for it with "luxury" cars, and that's clearly unmaintainable during deep or long recessions, rapid changes in fashion, etc.
Just a minor correction: Look, there's a lot of technology that could be used to kill a lot of people. The American taxpayer paid for that R&D, and it should be used in our interests.
That much better sums up your real sentiment, I think. We spent billions of dollars to have an edge at killing people, and you and others don't want China to get that same edge for free. Of course, no matter how good the schematics, it's not absolutely free of R&D, not to mention the actual cost of creation. Given how much the US outspends the whole world in military spending, it's really a moot point anyways.
Me? I wish instead of focusing so much on what "the wrong hands" of other countries might do, we'd focus more on what "the right hands" of our own country are doing. Ie, I wish we'd stop killing innocent people.
I believe the situation can be improved. I don't believe the situation can be fundamentally improved to remove all abuse in all circumstances.
No doubt.
I'd say you have a nihilistic empty view of humanity, actually. You fail to recognize that humanity is a something that exists outside the realm of being infinitely molded*. As such, there will continue to exist human nature, a tolerance for abuse (even if it's as simple as intentionally operating suboptimally), and a continued struggle to maintain all that has been worked for.
Thanks for your opinion.
PS - You missed the second point. Not everyone is on a crusade to improve reality. It is unreasonable to expect or demand everyone to work to improve reality.
*For humanity to be infinitely molded, it would have to be either (a) infinitely big or (b) zero in size. Humanity isn't infinitely big.
To paraphrase:
Police are workers. Workers do as little work as they can with as little risk to themself as they can. I don't trust a worker to perform a cavity search on me because I know I've not done anything wrong.
Regardless of whether you believe the above to be true or not, what is being described is a by-product of the human condition; ie, it's not something that can be fundamentally cleaned up but only railed against from time to time upon the eventual abuses. The author, also, clearly was arguing from his own experience and what he believes he would do in a certain circumstance; ie, he was not trying to argue about the problems and possible solutions of the situation as much as he was trying to educate about reality. So, I don't see why you're arguing he should state things in the context of problem and solution, except that you perhaps have a strong desire to frame things in that fashion. It seems rather unreasonable to make that demand of him, though.
Yes, but at the time GNU and GCC were created, neither work being cloned were under any considerable control of said monopolist. Further, AT&T didn't seem patently aware of what a goldmine Unix could be (almost probably because of their focus on Multics), so that even when there final was a lawsuit brought upon anyone (BSD), sufficient modifications had been made and reintegrated into the main branch that AT&T couldn't subsume ownership/control over the whole work. Now, perhaps the same circumstance will happen with Microsoft and Mono. And perhaps Mono itself is sufficient to override nearly any legal claim by Microsoft to patents, trade secrets, etc, but people are reasonably uneasy about circumstances as they exist today.
This, btw, was true with BSD as well, which is one main reason GNU/GCC were created and prospered as well as they did since every degree of seperation, either in time or implementation, tends to offer further protection against lawsuits. So, a significant fork of Mono or a reimplementation of Mono would likely be sufficient to cement Mono as a safe platform--not that Mono isn't necessarily safe anyways.
In related news, Sony has announced that it will be installing new firmware locking-out Sony batteries in their laptops, citing safety concerns.
So, let's see. Because males might have sex when they're 15+ and they're too stupid to use a condom, let's decrease their risk of *some* STDs by 50% for them. Meanwhile, reducing the risk of cervical cancer for girls/women with an HPV vaccine is bad because it promotes risky sexual behavior.
PS - Yea, you're just pointing out that circumcision does infact reduce the risk of getting some STDs, not promoting the idea that circumcision is good. But, really, whether or not it reduces the risk is a non-issue given that if a male teen/adult is having sex, they sure as hell should be capable of choosing whether to have a circumcision at that time; and they could very well just use a condom which is more effective anyways.
How about a compromise? ObsessiveMathsFreak can stop calling Microsoft liars on their "Get the Facts" campaign and we can all assume all of Microsoft's facts aren't facts until such time that they offer evidence to support their supposed facts. Until then, we can all complain about how Microsoft is wasting everyone's time.
The free market is something like an optimizing compiler. Even if a perfect optimal compiler existed, applying it to bubble sort in most cases is inferior to a non-optimized quick sort. In the end, an optimizing compiler can only be as smart as doing well what you tell it to do within the constrains of how you define what you want done. This is, btw, the primary reason things like government interference can be a good thing for society even if it's suboptimal in the context of the free market. "Deep background investigations" aren't likely one of those things, and calls to make it more optimal seem silly.
The only thing I can say to that is, of course. The same problem exists when it comes to PCs and Windows. The amount of people who are technological inclinated enough to figure out how to pirate, run homebrew, or program homebrew is realtively small, even on a relatively open platform like PCs. For consoles, the problem is even more skewed since 99% of software ends up being on proprietary cartridges made by commercial vendors. New consoles are coming out quite frequently, and homebrewers, having their own taste, tend to gravity to new ones over time, often being on the cutting edge. For legitimate homebrewers, this translates into trying to make a console more open and the ratio of commercial to homebrew more even, so their work has more legitimacy (and more outward support from other developers).
Work to make console-like platforms from scratch tend to fail, though, as economy of scale makes such platforms more expensive and most people don't tend to buy into a platform unless it already has an existing large library of software or they believe there is an organization backing the production of new software for several years. This is one reason Linux-based subnotebooks have caught on, but even then it's unclear if people are willing to buy into non-x86 platforms or if the brief, yet relatively small, such can support more long-term success to create a long-term, legitimately-recognized community for that platform. After all, Linux being portable on many devices sounds great at first, but if each platform has a different CPU, different sound and graphics capabilities, and other very different presumptions, then each Linux installation may very quickly turn into a platform only as big as the current model line.
So, given the massive hurdles involved, it's little wonder that those people so technically inclined tend towards gaming the existing system to their benefit (piracy or whatever) than working towards legitimacy recognition. And without legitimacy, most organizations and people will be unwilling to associate themselves with even the legitimate homebrewers. Why bother with research on who is legitimate and who isn't when you can just paint a broad brush that "DS flashcart users are pirates"? I guess it must hold, then, that those who work against paying Microsoft for Windows must be all pirates. I'm very certain there are more users of a pirated copy of Windows than Linux PC users.
People, good or bad, eventually die. Companies, good or bad, eventually bankrupt. Governments, good or bad, eventually collapse. In the mean time, murderers run free, inferior (potentially lethal) products reign, and corrupt governments loot the pulic. It is idealistic to believe that free markets are some magically solution to the ills of any field. People are not always rational, they lack perfect information, and even rationality (as part of game theory) isn't reasonable, at times, to one's own self-interest. Simply put, free markets can't exist with humans, and they don't really want them; they want a magical panacea that fulfills various contradictions. Such a thing obviously can't exist. But, mixed markets do at least approach the ideals of the vast majority of people. Not everyone truly understands the free market concept well enough to know that, though.
If it's only searching through their personal belongings, how is this different than having the police tail the person their entire life to track all things ever purchased, received, transported (x-rays), or exchanged in public view? This seems like a lower-cost mechanism for doing the same thing. Is there more to it than that?
PS - Yes, this wouldn't keep track of 100% of what a purchase owns, in part due to lead boxes and the risk of radiation poisoning. But, then a GPS device would allow a person's car to be tracked on private property and it is possible (if difficult) to give police "the slip" in much the same fashion that would lead the same argument for the inspection of personal belongings at whim. Besides, the wording makes clear that one should be "secure in their personal effects", and modifying one's effects seems rather clearly within that scope since one cannot be secure if one's effects can be modified by the police at random.
"(6) The term "written warranty" means --
(A) any written affirmation of fact or written promise made in connection with the sale of a consumer product by a supplier to a buyer which relates to the nature of the material or workmanship and affirms or promises that such material or workmanship is defect free or will meet a specified level of performance over a specified period of time, or
(B) any undertaking in writing in connection with the sale by a supplier of a consumer product to refund, repair, replace, or take other remedial action with respect to such product in the event that such product fails to meet the specifications set forth in the undertaking,
which written affirmation, promise, or undertaking becomes part of the basis of the bargain between a supplier and a buyer for purposes other than resale of such product.
(7) The term "implied warranty" means an implied warranty arising under State law (as modified by sections 2308 and 2304 (a) of this title) in connection with the sale by a supplier of a consumer product. " -- US Code Title 15, 2301
In short, the discussion is not about warranties because warranties are about implied or written promises to the functionality of a good, not its identity. The discussion is about direct misrepresentaiton of the facts.
The word "Bunny" is probably legally meaningless, in the sense that no legal code likely defines "Bunny". That doesn't mean it's actually legally meaningless. It *does* mean that a jury or judge, given the facts as presented will have to decide what "Bunny" means for the extent of a case presented before the court. As for "Caveat emptor".
"CAVEAT EMPTOR. Let the purchaser take heed; that is, let him see to it, that the title he is buying is good. This is a rule of the common law, applicable to the sale and purchase of lands and other real estate. If the purchaser pay the consideration money, he cannot, as a general rule, recover it back after the deed has been executed; except in cases of fraud, or by force of some covenant in the deed which has been broken. The purchaser,if he fears a defect of title, has it in his power to protect himself by proper covenants, and if he fails to do so, the law provides for him no remedy. Cro. Jac. 197; 1 Salk. 211 Doug. 630, 654; 1 Serg. & R. 52, 53, 445. This rule is discussed with ability in Rawle on Covenants for Title, p. 458, et seq. c. 13, and the leading authorities collected. See also 2 Kent, Com. Lect. 39, p. 478; 2 Bl. Com. 451; 1 Stor, Eq. Sec. 212 6 Ves. 678; 10 Ves. 505; 3 Cranch, 270; 2 Day, R. 128; Sugd. Vend. 221 1 Bouv. Inst. n. 954-5.
2. This rule has been severely assailed, as being the instrument of falsehood and fraud; but it is too well established to be disregarded. Coop., Just. 611, n. See 8 Watts, 308, 309."
In short, Caveat emptor does not protect a person from fraud. More specifically, caveat emptor is what tells you to closely examine a product, to ask questions about it, and to think carefully about whether one has a want or need for said product. If the seller lies to you, caveat emptor doesn't apply (presume, of course, that you do not believe the seller is a liar). If you do not adequately examine a good, fail to ask adequate questions, and/or accept ambiguous or lacking answers, caveat emptor does apply. A warranty might apply if there's sufficient lacking of implied or declared functionaity of a product, but to get to that point requires some level of information exchange to the actual object in the first place. That is, if someone sells you a rotten core apple, it's an issue of implied warranty. If somoene sells you a wax apple that smells and feels like an apple and is sold as an apple, then it's an issue of fraud. And if you get an apple that you're told has been sitting out in the open sun for a week, it's an issue of caveat emptor.
"Fraud - (Law) An intentional perversion of truth for the purpose of obtaining some valuable thing or promise from another"
To argue that it's a meaningless fragment somehow abdicates the seller from responsibility is absurd. English is a context-sensitive language. Read the description again:
Pre-columbian is a time period. Authentic, in this context, means minimally that the object was constructed as described at or before that time period. If the seller had said, "0% Guaranteed", then perhaps there'd be some leeway to the point that the seller is unsure of what he's selling. So, it if turns out that said mask isn't really pre-columbian, it's very clear that a perversion of the truth is occured, that the seller was entirely irresponsible to call it 100% guaranteed authentic, that such actions indicate an intention to defraud, and they should prosecuted for fraud*. And if it is pre-columbina, nothing should happen.
Your argument seems about as aburd as the idea that adding random periods in your sentences in contracts would magically abdicate both parties from responsibility within that contract. It is the "meeting of the minds" in contract and in contract-like situation (ie, interactions where there are socially-constructed and lawfully enforced transactions) that determines what, if any, remedy is available to parties for any failures to comply with the intention of the "contract". The only thing sellers of fake artifacts have going for them is, because their "meeting of the minds" is partially implicit, they have more leeway to argue that their intentions were honest.
Language like "100% guaranteed" is clearly to designed as a means of conveying that a seller is forgoing various defenses should a complaint arise as they themselves have taken on the responsibility of claiming to actually know the truth and to be held accountable for that truth. If such language is infact meaningless, then the use of such language is clearly designed to try to fool people to trust and buy products they wouldn't otherwise by envoking the previous sentence's implications. It is little different than using a trademark one does not have a right/privilege to. All are attempts to manipulate money out of people without exchanging with them something of value.
*Just because a person should be prosecuted for fraud doesn't mean they likely will. This would appear to be especially true over the internet, but I believe the truth is more that people in general have such low standards of expectations regardless of what is clearly promised that they don't pursue legal action against those that defraud them. Not wanting to be "overly litigious", a desire to not appear foolish for having believed another person's promises, courts generally already being rather busy, "Caveat Emptor", and the possibility of not being able to recoup one's losses anyways for "failing to follow common sense" all are barriers to remeding fraud.
The problem is, residential phone networks were never designed to handle the uses many people make of them nowadays (particularly due to unlimited long-distance plans) - there are some heavy users who make hundreds of (sometimes of dubious legality) calls every month.. it is unreasonable for these people to pay the same price as someone who just pays their bills by phones and calls their grandchildren.
...or, we could recognize that (a) telecommunication companies were paid assloads of taxpayer money to develop a standard of internet broadband access and they should be bound to it, no matter how cost ineffective it seems in some areas and (b) the internet is becoming a utility where the should be a reasonable expectation of relatively-equal priced access to all, mostly regardless of usage, because people as a whole benefit from the consequence of so many people having access to those utilities.
The beneficial externalities of internet access are not easy to quantify, especially when many people seem to be using large quantities of it for illict ends. But, in the long term, the Googles of the world can't sustain the high infrastructure costs of the internet. Every person should be capable of starting a server without fear of being shut down for "excessive" uploads. That's the very foundation of lowering the barriers of entry to internet-based entrepreneurship. To that end, Time Warner's move to tiered pricing may be on the right track. But, its current cap on tiers are insanely too low. The first remedy to that would be in forcing Time Warner and others to actually offer what was already promised concerning basic broadband access. It is only after that point where tiered pricing should kick in.
PS - I say this all because the 40GB cap amounts to a 128Kbps substained rate over a month. The promised broadband was original 45000Kbps, but was later scaled back to 1600Kbps. Both are substantially more than 128Kbps. And before you think that the 1600Kbps was merely meant to be a peak, consider that the plan entailed streaming TV, and such obviously requires substantial substained data rates, even with today's much improved video compression.
That's great advice and all, but it doesn't really address the issue. The fundamental problem is that fraud is taking place. Your advice really amounts to ostracism. Ostracism doesn't work very well basically ever. That's the reason why modern society doesn't merely ostracize murderers, rapists, etc. Monetary ostracism might be a good first step. But, it should be the prelude to criminal charges.
I'd add, demand a discount and a guarantee of store return for cash for any defect detected. It's questionable if the original manufacturer will replace a used game, no matter how much the store promises that it's like new. And no or a fraudulent shrink wrap basically removes any possible collectibility value. There's also the point that having to check the disc and the risk of having to deal with the store again is a cost.
Yep, where else do you have employees who have unpaid overtime (required to play hours of games on their time) and who are perfectly willing to commit fraud (shrink wrapping games like new so they can charge new prices). Regardless of if there is anything to whine about, the environment does sound like a haven for lawsuits and criminal charges. The only thing that distrubes me is that more people haven't served jail time.
Palm Sunday Compromise
Congress has a history of passing unconstitutional laws, be they violations of free speech to bills of attainder. I think it works both ways, though. If it's unconstitutional to take away AIG bonuses, it's just as unconstitutional to give AIG money. But, then, it's unconstitutional to give any group money, be it children for education, parents for welfare, or the elderly for medical care or retirement. Or, perhaps, it's as simple as that giving money to AIG was to promote (or, really, hope to maintain) the general welfare. And once you're on the hook with government money, all sorts of things start to apply (government funded insitutitions can't legally suppress speech, are often regulated on what bonuses can be given, and renegotiations can void previously written contracts).
Having said that, I agree that taxing AIG is the wrong answer. The government should simply give AIG $1 under law on condition of voiding contracts for bonuses; then as majority holder, the government can accept that $1 into AIG's books. If that brings fear upon businesses that have been bought out by the government, then they're idiots to not realize that they have bought themselves from government more than just the business of stability but also the power of government to reshape the company to its whim. Companies can be bought out against their will (and for which, there has never been any real legal recourse), but certainly AIG agreed to their circumstance, so it would be irrational to argue that one can simply extrapolate AIG into some scaremongering that the government has made contracts inherently unreliable, and that would seem to be the fundamental fear and outrage.
Neither is the right answer, but the second is closer to the mark. The problem, though, is your question. If one acknowledges that Windows has significant problems and to fix those problems would take an "unreasonable" (ie, greater than 5 years) amount of time, then there simply is nothing that can be done right now. To ask Slashdot for some magical solution is simply silly. The only options for most people, then, are to try to mitigate the risk by running a new OS (Linux) and run NT in a VM.
Of course, since Linux suffers from the same fundamental flaws as Windows (over-privilege of users, over-privilege of programs, irreversible actions, a lack of transparency to facilitate control, and an education system (tutorials or seminars, perhaps) for people to know enough to adequately control their system), such is really only a stop-gap to mitigate the risk of the homogenous danger of Windows-only machines. The long-term answer requires writing an OS from scratch and, more importantly, educating users with the tools they need to adequately control their own system. Even if the latter point doesn't directly resolve problems, there'd at least be a more firm basis for legal and social action against those who are knowingly negligent instead of misguided and uneducated.
I know exactly what you mean. It's like how, when I got a computer back in 1999, it included notepad, wordpad, ms works, and ms word. And since only one of those worked, I removed the rest. I mean, computers are nothing like the real world. There is no room for "choice" or "varying pros and cons". There's one perfect tool for the job, at all times. Best of all, MS is in the best position to judge which is the perfect tool and to block OEMs from installing the rest.
AFAIK, this will even work in Windows 2000/XP/Vista, although you'll have to use some special flags to obtain the effect.