We can resurrect the idea of extraorbital manned missions at any time...
Respectfully, this is where you are wrong.
The learned skills and experienced personnel will not wait around. If they aren't used, they will be lost and have to be entirely re-learned and replaced again with the attendant costs in wealth, time, and lives. The engineers with the necessary skills and experience will have to find other employment and careers, which they won't simply drop to return whenever it again becomes politically expedient to start up extra-orbital manned spaceflight again.
A manned spaceflight program, and especially an extra-orbital manned spaceflight program, can't simply be put on 'hold' for years and have any hope of retaining viability without almost starting completely over from scratch again. This has already been proven by our inability to build a modernized Saturn V again. Heck, we can't even *find* all the old plans anymore!
Young people choosing education and career paths won't be choosing those that provide the skills necessary if there's not a viable career waiting for them. It will require a whole new generation of people to be educated and then more years to re-gain all the experience and learned skills lost.
We will, out of pure necessity, *have to* eventually have an extra-orbital manned spaceflight program. We can choose to do it now, or we can procrastinate and raise the inevitable eventual costs in lives and treasure, and possibly cost ourselves our species' ultimate survival.
Not trying to be insulting, but don't be penny-wise and pound-foolish. For a tiny fraction of the treasure wasted in the "stimulus" package just passed (and assuming that only a fraction of the total package is "waste"), we could have *both* types of programs fully-funded and running in parallel, each benefiting and complimenting the other. The combined economic, technical, and societal benefits of which I guarantee will dwarf anything this stimulus package could ever hope to do.
It's quite ironic that it looks like the only thing that will save US manned spaceflight & planetary exploration from becoming a sacrificial lamb on the altar of pork & payoffs by short-sighted, corrupt US politicians may well be a re-emerging, hostile, and aggressive Russia.
It looks like it may be more effective for US citizens who are in favor of NOT letting our manned spaceflight capabilities die from neglect to, rather than contributing money to any US politicians or organizations, donate money to the Russian spaceflight program instead.
It seems that US politicians have so abandoned any pretense of doing the will of the people, of upholding & defending the US Constitution, and acting in the countries' best interests, that we may in future find it much more effective to donate money to our various enemies and rivals like Russia, Al Queda, and Ahmadinejad to preserve our freedom and prevent our politicians from doing things like de-funding NASA and the US military to fund their pork-filled, quid-pro-quo/payoff-laden, "bridge to nowhere" projects and social-engineering experiments designed to increase their voter-base.
And you forgot VMS -> NT versions -> XP -> Windows 2003. OK, Microsoft didn't write VMS, but they surely stole wholesale from it for NT when they hired David Cutler, one of its authors.
LOL! Reading aloud breaks encryption? I love life right now.
Wait. It gets better.
Since that means that a person uses their brain to "decrypt" the content, then a human brain could be considered an illegal circumvention device. Would proof of illiteracy be enough to get charges dropped? Will they simply put up prison walls around the entire country?
Oh, wait...they're already doing that. Walls in data and communications. Walls in ideas and music. Walls in personal rights and equal protection under the law. Walls between your right to property you own and governments' right to take it away and give it to someone with more money.
[sarcasm] But, what the hey? As long as there's cable TV who's going to make that much fuss about all that stuff those nerds and geeks go on about. [/sarcasm]
Between the dumbing-down of the population along with the desensitization to political corruption that have both been happening for many decades, I'm afraid the majority of people don't know, don't care, and don't want to know or care.
On top of all that, they're too busy trying to cope and help their families cope with living and paying bills when they have less and less coming in, jobs getting scarce, prices going up, and government taking an ever-larger bite from their wages.
I think it's less trolling, and just a reasonable expectation taking into account past history (from the past 3 weeks) that she will either a) have a Tax issue or b) have lobbying (or lobby-like) ties to the industry she will be regulating. As Cyber-Security Czar is unlikely to regulate an industry, that leaves us with a).
And if Microsoft only charges ~$10 for this edition of Windows 7, it may have a positive net effect for third world countries--although it makes you wonder how long other people will put up with shelling out $100 before finding an alternative.
I went into this topic of Microsofts' "Starter Edition" strategy in the third-world.
"That's because it was never actually intended to reduce piracy or to be actually used in said developing countries. It was simply meant to placate politicians' voter-bases while giving the politicians a convenient reason to put more pressure on poor developing nations to adhere to US and international IP laws and cough up more cash. (Thereby also helping to keep them "poor" and "developing".)
By offering this crippled nearly-useless piece of crap they could then say to the politicians;
"Hey look! See!? We even went to the trouble to create a low-cost OS *just* for them, and they still pirate our "IP"! Sanction 'em and maybe threaten to stop humanitarian food shipments too, as they're clearly lawless IP pirates with no respect for the rule of law because they refuse to stop their "theft" and switch to paying for the privilege of using this crippled, all-but-useless (P)OS! They're practically terrorists!"
So then they can co-opt the might of the US government to help them enforce their marketing strategies and price structures around the world."
That was just my take on it though. It may be one, or may be both of our interpretations. Or neither.
Does Charter offer their customers anyway to check on their bandwidth usage? If not, do they intend to release those tools?
Not that I'm aware of as a customer, and probably not.
Why should they? It would cost them money. It would also emphasize the caps in the publics' perceptions. They'll just slam the poor customer (like me, possibly, if my usage grows...having the bad luck to live where Charter is the local government-mandated monopoly) and/or simply cut them off.
They really don't want customers that actually use the connection anyway. They only want the "surf the web, get email" types. Like with the telcos back in the day, having a government-enforced monopoly means they can simply tell customers, as the famous line by Lily Tomlin in Laugh-Ins' "Telephone Operator Sketches" went; "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the s/Phone Company/ISP.".
Hilariously disgusting. The Sandinistas were democratically elected.
Yes, they were elected. My Nicaraguan friend that lived there at the time remembers it well.
He told me how the Sandinista troops, dressed in the nice new uniforms and carrying the brand-new Soviet-made AK47's that were both fresh off the boat from Cuba came to his village and rounded everyone up and herded them to where they had the ballot boxes set up, and carefully watched as each person put their ballot in the "correct" box. The one they actually took with them instead of the other that they threw in the fire of his neighbors' house. His neighbor that put his ballot in the "not-correct" box. Too bad about the mans' family inside.
The contras are generally acknowledged as "death squads,"...
Well, history is (re)written by the victors, after all.
Furthermore the US has been sentenced to pay $1 billion by the International Court of Justice in restitution, which it refuses to pay.
The same "International Court of Justice" populated by those who view the US & its' allies as an impediment to their own very questionable agendas?
Stick that right wing murderous propaganda up yours
Oooh, I love it when you talk dirty! You sure got a purty mouth!
Yeah right....ok, how many new countries have we annexed in the past couple of decades
Nicaraugua, Panama,
If those have been annexed and are now States, why didn't we see their election results on TV this election? Did they vote for Obama or McCain?
Oh, that's right. They aren't states. We aren't even occupying them. You just have nothing to back up your point, and so spew non sequiturs.
03 the CIA tried to overthrow Chavez.
How many US troops did the CIA invade with? Oh, that's right. None. They simply helped groups more friendly to the US in an effort to influence politics there. Sort of like if China were to give large amounts of money to Democrats to influence US elections and policies. Or if Russia were to knowingly and deliberately supply arms and funding to kill US troops in an active conflict. Not that *that* would ever happen, no sir!
The US has 186 military bases in 150 countries.
Gee, then we're doing well! How many bases do other countries like Russia and China have in other countries around the world? Or is that different? Do you think they don't have more bases and haven't annexed more territory because they wouldn't if they could?
Go watch the documentary "Why we fight" It's a great eye opener on the American military culture. Its on youtube and archive.org.
Oh noes! You mean to tell me when the people of another country are freed from oppression & poverty and enter into open trade with the world, the US gets a piece of the opportunities for trade along with all the other nations that trade in the world markets (and that typically didn't help or actively opposed that very action) after sacrificing US blood and treasure? How horrible! Everyone in the whole world should be equally poor and equally oppressed. It's only fair.
I do agree that the corruption and bilking of taxpayers for payoffs and all the other corruption involved in military contracts of all sorts is criminal. The US isn't perfect and has gotten itself involved in situations where it might have been best to choose another path. Hindsight is 20/20 however.
That being said, I don't feel the US should feel guilty at all for being the most powerful nation on the planet either economically or militarily, although we are in imminent danger of losing that status. Every other nation on the planet is striving for that position and is more than willing to go much, much further than the US is and has in that pursuit.
The world is not a friendly place. Every single nation throughout history that has achieved "most powerful" status has done very bad things, far greater than the US has in its' history. The world *will* be dominated by *someone*. Which nation do you think would be the best to have dominate the world with its' policies and military power? China? Russia? Iran? N. Korea?
I shudder to think of a world dominated by the policies and military might of any of those nations. If you live long enough to see it happen, you'll be praying for a return to the "good old days" of US might. But not too loudly. Otherwise your family may get an unexpected bill for a bullet. Or a few micrograms of polonium.
If there is ever a time when all people of every nation everywhere become saints without greed, ambition, or hunger for power and everyone plays nice, it is so far in the future and require such a dramatic change to the entire species as to be disconnected from reality to treat it as nearly-there, right around the corner...if only the bad old US would lay down it's arms and stop making countries like Iran, China, and Russia mad by refusing to roll over and play dead.
On-topic now:
The news that Iran now has a rocket capable of achieving escape velocity coupled with their ambition to have nuclear capability should worry every thinking person on the planet. Someone in a post above said in effect; "But they don't have the tech to accurately-target a missile to a specific city.". I think they'd be happy with a nuclear bomb exp
It's also friendlier to consumers and more conscious of personal freedoms.
Since when? I hear much talk of this, but I see very little evidence in their actions. I see laws being passed to limit speech, freedoms, and choices by both the major parties. I only see minor differences in what set of interests they're designed to enrich and/or empower depending on which party is currently on top.
We can at least hope to have more of a compromise than the corporate feeding frenzy we've seen over the last few decades.
You can hope all you want but unless there are actual negative repercussions when they pass bad laws and/or sell out in one form or another to special interests at the expense of the people, this will not change. Both parties talk of compromise and bi-partisanship, but when they gain majority power those promises are only given lip-service at best. Witness the recent stimulus bill.
Corruption and greed in corporations has to be enabled and reinforced by equal corruption and greed in government to grow and prosper. With a change in parties, the only change in this area is which sectors get more-favorable treatment. Government has become, for positions of real power, a revolving door between government and large corporations & special interests.
Until the people decide they're tired of the two-party system and become willing to elect candidates from other parties, stop allowing the politicians to use meaningless "wedge issues" like class warfare, race, and abortion to divide them and start genuinely caring and informing themselves on issues, government & special interests can safely ignore "the will of the people" for the most part.
I know it's popular to bash all corporations, businesses, and capitalism in general but like it or not, corporations and businesses are where the jobs and economic growth come from, and with it the standard of living enjoyed by the people. If you make it too hard or expensive to do business here, they'll either go out of business or relocate to a friendlier country. This is already happening. It has been happening for a long time now.
There needs to be regulations with actual teeth, but not so much that it stifles the free market. The same with taxation. Each has to be carefully balanced. Large corporations and the rich will simply take their money & jobs and leave if the country attempts to balance the budget on their backs with class warfare "punish the rich & big corporations" schemes and tactics and/or introduces heavy-handed regulations. Both damage their ability to compete on a global scale.
We've recently had a couple of examples from Obamas' cabinet nominees that even those who are in favor of ever-higher taxes won't themselves pay them unless publicly outed in a way that threatens their continued accumulation of wealth & power. Even then, they are given a pass on penalties, interest, and criminal charges that would surely be dropped like a hammer on the average person. Some are more equal than others, and that doesn't change no matter which of the two parties are in power.
Anyone actually think the government is getting involved to make EULAs fair for consumers?
I mean, think about it. Right now, they're basically fairly unenforceable without the corporation and EULA in question having to go to court and at the minimum get a decision in a particular case and maybe set an individual precedent.
If EULAs basically have no or very little legal weight currently, what's the purpose of the FTC getting involved, unless it's to give them force? Especially now that there's a more media-and-entertainment-industry-friendly government in power now.
Having the FTC get involved means that EULAs will then have a legal framework of government regulations to back them up. It's certain that any such regulations will allow consumers to get bent-over all legal-like, either by what's actually in the regulations, or what they allow by omission and loopholes in the wording.
In looking out for citizens' rights and interests vs corporate interests & profits, I trust the government about as far as I can throw the US Capitol Building.
Am I the only person to find it interesting that in this confrontation, NBC Universal -- a subsidiary of Vivendi/Universal -- is fighting against UMG Recordings -- another subsidiary of Vivendi/Universal?
Apparently Vivendi/Universal didn't do a thorough job of replacing all of NBCs' upper-management with the "Wights" mentioned farther up in the discussion. I'd love to be a fly on the wall at the next meeting between Vivendi/Universal and NBC top management. As they say in movie-promo blurbs; "..and hilarity ensues!".
Why does this seem like a bad remake of the courtroom scene from the Jim Carey movie "Liar, Liar!"?
Especially the part of the scene where, when opposition makes an extremely-damaging motion, Careys' lawyer-character Reeves stands and shouts; "I Object, Your Honor!!" Judge; "..And why is that, Mr. Reeves?" Carey; "Because it's devastating to my case!!!". Judge; "Overruled." Reeves; "Good call!".
Heck, never mind SAMBA and Tridge, how about Microsoft vs Linus Torvalds et al?
After all, the linux kernel now includes drivers to allow it to "access" the NTFS filesystem and the data contained therein, does it not? FreeBSD too, for that matter, would probably be liable under this interpretation by the same logic ("logic" being used loosely here).
This interpretation along with a properly-worded EULA ("properly" for MS' purposes) would pretty-well kill any interoperation they didn't like or want by any software whatsoever, unless I'm missing something (which I may well be).
For that matter, they could sue an end-user and win if they didn't like the fact the user installed a "flying Tux" screensaver. I hope I'm wrong and either I'm interpreting the interpretation wrong, or a higher court throws this decision out.
The problem isn't this particular executive or that individual board member being corrupt. The problem is much, much larger than that. The larger any corporation is, the more wealth it controls, and the more power it has over its customers, the people it employs, and the government it lobbies, the more corruption there will be. Period. It's just human nature.
You can pass all the laws against corruption you like, try to implement all the oversight you possibly could, but as long as the corporation keeps growing in size and scope, controlling ever more areas of people's lives and controlling ever more vast sums of wealth, the problems will persist and get worse.
Every time another corporate venture is started, new department created, new tax shelter set forth, corporate corruption *will* grow along with it. It's as unavoidable as entropy.
Every time the public demands that corporations assume a new responsibility or provide a new product or service it also increases the power and wealth it controls and along with it the opportunities and incentives for corruption. The founders of our country envisioned/intended a small, relatively weak federal government with barely enough revenue & powers to accomplish only the bare necessities of a central government. Unfortunately, this allows supercorporations to run amok.
At this point in our history, corporate America has grown so large and corrupt that I believe that it is in a feedback-loop that will only be halted when the whole country collapses from the weight of the "executive class" and devolves into chaos. It won't be pleasant, likely very, very bloody with staggering numbers of deaths, and makes me glad I'm rather old as I'll hopefully be dead before the collapse happens. Although it may well be closer than I or anyone else suspects.
While I agree that corporate corruption & power is also a huge problem, I believe that it is largely a symptom of a too-large and powerful (therefor corrupt) government. The government has grown so huge that there are simply too many avenues by which unscrupulous players can influence government politicians, policies, and laws to be able to control by oversight.
If the government were not so large and therefor corrupt, the laws already on the books concerning monopoly & anti-trust, financial responsibility and honest accounting, and consumer rights would get enforced rather than given lip-service, and corporations wouldn't be able to exert the level of influence & power over politics and lawmaking that they currently do.
This is exactly what someone would say if he were a disgruntled ex-employee fired for insubordination. This is exactly what someone would say if he were flogging a book. This is exactly what someone would say if he were a partisan hack who did not like the previous administration. and This is exactly what someone would say if it were true and he were loyal to America rather than the party in power at the time.
Either a lot of Bushies need to go to jail, or Tice does.
Not disagreeing with you. However.
The problem isn't this particular politician or that individual bureaucrat being corrupt. The problem is much, much larger than that. The larger any government is, the more wealth it controls, and the more power it has over the people it governs, the more corruption there will be. Period. It's just human nature.
You can pass all the laws against corruption you like, try to implement all the oversight you possibly could, but as long as the government keeps growing in size and scope, controlling ever more areas of its' citizens' lives and controlling ever more vast sums of wealth, the problems will persist and get worse.
Every time another government program is started, new department created, new entitlement set forth, government corruption *will* grow along with it. It's as unavoidable as entropy.
Every time government is asked to assume a new responsibility or provide a new service or entitlement it also increases the power and wealth it controls and along with it the opportunities and incentives for corruption. This is why the founders of our country envisioned/intended a small, relatively weak federal government with barely enough revenue & powers to accomplish only the bare necessities of a central government.
At this point in our history, government has grown so large and corrupt that I believe that it is in a feedback-loop that will only be halted when the whole country collapses from governments' weight and devolves into chaos. It won't be pleasant, likely very, very bloody with staggering numbers of deaths, and makes me glad I'm rather old as I'll hopefully be dead before the collapse happens. Although it may well be closer than I or anyone else suspects.
Also, interrupting the sharing of TV shows could help them to sell more cable TV.
The ISPs already solved that one with "bundling". In the area in which I live, Charter is the ISP/cable-TV monopoly (exclusive service agreement with the township). I don't watch TV. I didn't want cable TV service.
However with the bundles available, if I were to have only internet service, the price is $69/mo for the lowest-tier service. That same service bundled with "digital basic" cable TV service is $39/mo(!).
Here's my theory, and I could be wrong. Maybe someone who has some inside knowledge could correct me here. The "digital-basic" service has a digital STB. These boxes provide information about their customers' viewing habits that they can then sell. Therefor, it's in their interests to try to insure that as many customers as possible have one of these boxes.
As soon as the Charter installation tech left, I disconnected the digital box and put it in the closet. Now, about every other month I get a phone call from a Charter representative inquiring about the fact that they have no connection to my digital cable box. I tell them just what I've stated here.
They've tended to be skeptical however, twice even suggesting that; "You know, it's a crime to sell or give away that box as it remains Charter property and you could be liable for lost/stolen equipment fees & charges or even criminal charges". Of course, I told them the cable box is right here in my closet, would they like me to read them the unit numbers on the back, and I'd love to return it immediately if I could retain the same monthly cost. Naturally, that was a non-starter.
Then they tried to tell me I needed to have the box connected "to assure that your internet service operates at peak speed and reliability". When I asked the rep if that meant that the internet service they offered at nearly twice the monthly rate w/o cable TV service was slower and less reliable, they hedged and dodged, and suddenly thanked me for choosing Charter, wished me a good day, and hung up!
I also download Linux and FreeBSD.iso's by bittorrent, so if this "partnership" with the RIAA and other "big content distributors" comes about, I expect that Charter would probably target me as a "P2P user". That being a convenient excuse to get rid of a "problem" customer, especially as I thwart their ability to collect and sell my viewing-habit information.
> It was limited to 800 x 600 resolution, classic mode only - no theming, only three applications running, and a network restricted to an internet connection, not home networking.
Ouch! Why would anyone bother with it?...You really have to wonder what idiots at Microsoft think this stuff up? Presumably some idiot proposed crippling it to absurdity as "a way to combat piracy" and the co-idiots in the room nodded enthusiastically: "Hey! That'll work."
That's because it was never actually intended to reduce piracy or to be actually used in said developing countries. It was simply meant to placate politicians' voter-bases while giving the politicians a convenient reason to put more pressure on poor developing nations to adhere to US and international IP laws and cough up more cash. (Thereby also helping to keep them "poor" and "developing".)
By offering this crippled nearly-useless piece of crap they could then say to the politicians;
"Hey look! See!? We even went to the trouble to create a low-cost OS *just* for them, and they still pirate our "IP"! Sanction 'em and maybe threaten to stop humanitarian food shipments too, as they're clearly lawless IP pirates with no respect for the rule of law because they refuse to stop their "theft" and switch to paying for the privilege of using this crippled, all-but-useless (P)OS! They're practically terrorists!"
So then they can co-opt the might of the US government to help them enforce their marketing strategies and price structures around the world.
"Starter Edition" just lets you install Windows 7, and when it reboots, it pops up a dialog where you must either shutdown, or type in your credit card information to pay for an upgrade to "Home Basic" edition.
You know, I'd mod you funny... but there's the nagging thought in the back of my mind that you're serious.
I'd be more concerned that the nagging thought of seriousness would be in Microsofts' mind!
Slashdot Mirror
We can resurrect the idea of extraorbital manned missions at any time...
Respectfully, this is where you are wrong.
The learned skills and experienced personnel will not wait around. If they aren't used, they will be lost and have to be entirely re-learned and replaced again with the attendant costs in wealth, time, and lives. The engineers with the necessary skills and experience will have to find other employment and careers, which they won't simply drop to return whenever it again becomes politically expedient to start up extra-orbital manned spaceflight again.
A manned spaceflight program, and especially an extra-orbital manned spaceflight program, can't simply be put on 'hold' for years and have any hope of retaining viability without almost starting completely over from scratch again. This has already been proven by our inability to build a modernized Saturn V again. Heck, we can't even *find* all the old plans anymore!
Young people choosing education and career paths won't be choosing those that provide the skills necessary if there's not a viable career waiting for them. It will require a whole new generation of people to be educated and then more years to re-gain all the experience and learned skills lost.
We will, out of pure necessity, *have to* eventually have an extra-orbital manned spaceflight program. We can choose to do it now, or we can procrastinate and raise the inevitable eventual costs in lives and treasure, and possibly cost ourselves our species' ultimate survival.
Not trying to be insulting, but don't be penny-wise and pound-foolish. For a tiny fraction of the treasure wasted in the "stimulus" package just passed (and assuming that only a fraction of the total package is "waste"), we could have *both* types of programs fully-funded and running in parallel, each benefiting and complimenting the other. The combined economic, technical, and societal benefits of which I guarantee will dwarf anything this stimulus package could ever hope to do.
Cheers!
Strat
It's quite ironic that it looks like the only thing that will save US manned spaceflight & planetary exploration from becoming a sacrificial lamb on the altar of pork & payoffs by short-sighted, corrupt US politicians may well be a re-emerging, hostile, and aggressive Russia.
It looks like it may be more effective for US citizens who are in favor of NOT letting our manned spaceflight capabilities die from neglect to, rather than contributing money to any US politicians or organizations, donate money to the Russian spaceflight program instead.
It seems that US politicians have so abandoned any pretense of doing the will of the people, of upholding & defending the US Constitution, and acting in the countries' best interests, that we may in future find it much more effective to donate money to our various enemies and rivals like Russia, Al Queda, and Ahmadinejad to preserve our freedom and prevent our politicians from doing things like de-funding NASA and the US military to fund their pork-filled, quid-pro-quo/payoff-laden, "bridge to nowhere" projects and social-engineering experiments designed to increase their voter-base.
Cheers!
Strat
And you forgot VMS -> NT versions -> XP -> Windows 2003. OK, Microsoft didn't write VMS, but they surely stole wholesale from it for NT when they hired David Cutler, one of its authors.
But that would be uneth...ummm...nevermind.
LOL! Reading aloud breaks encryption? I love life right now.
Wait. It gets better.
Since that means that a person uses their brain to "decrypt" the content, then a human brain could be considered an illegal circumvention device. Would proof of illiteracy be enough to get charges dropped? Will they simply put up prison walls around the entire country?
Oh, wait...they're already doing that. Walls in data and communications. Walls in ideas and music. Walls in personal rights and equal protection under the law. Walls between your right to property you own and governments' right to take it away and give it to someone with more money.
[sarcasm]
But, what the hey? As long as there's cable TV who's going to make that much fuss about all that stuff those nerds and geeks go on about.
[/sarcasm]
Between the dumbing-down of the population along with the desensitization to political corruption that have both been happening for many decades, I'm afraid the majority of people don't know, don't care, and don't want to know or care.
On top of all that, they're too busy trying to cope and help their families cope with living and paying bills when they have less and less coming in, jobs getting scarce, prices going up, and government taking an ever-larger bite from their wages.
Strat
I think it's less trolling, and just a reasonable expectation taking into account past history (from the past 3 weeks) that she will either a) have a Tax issue or b) have lobbying (or lobby-like) ties to the industry she will be regulating. As Cyber-Security Czar is unlikely to regulate an industry, that leaves us with a).
Or c) runs a botnet.
Just sayin'...
Strat
And if Microsoft only charges ~$10 for this edition of Windows 7, it may have a positive net effect for third world countries--although it makes you wonder how long other people will put up with shelling out $100 before finding an alternative.
I went into this topic of Microsofts' "Starter Edition" strategy in the third-world.
Here; http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1106489&cid=26634729
"That's because it was never actually intended to reduce piracy or to be actually used in said developing countries. It was simply meant to placate politicians' voter-bases while giving the politicians a convenient reason to put more pressure on poor developing nations to adhere to US and international IP laws and cough up more cash. (Thereby also helping to keep them "poor" and "developing".)
By offering this crippled nearly-useless piece of crap they could then say to the politicians;
"Hey look! See!? We even went to the trouble to create a low-cost OS *just* for them, and they still pirate our "IP"! Sanction 'em and maybe threaten to stop humanitarian food shipments too, as they're clearly lawless IP pirates with no respect for the rule of law because they refuse to stop their "theft" and switch to paying for the privilege of using this crippled, all-but-useless (P)OS! They're practically terrorists!"
So then they can co-opt the might of the US government to help them enforce their marketing strategies and price structures around the world."
That was just my take on it though. It may be one, or may be both of our interpretations. Or neither.
Strat
Worse, yours is set to 10, theirs is set to 11. The delay is still 20.
Which is why only highly trained professional musicians should be allowed machines that go as high as 11. :-)
That's one more louder than ten, innit!?!?
[cue dwarves]
But then shouldn't google, yahoo and live search be shut down too, because you can use them to find copyright infringing material?
But those entities have more money & lawyers, so are not low-hanging fruit for lawsuits or criminal charges.
With sufficient money & lawyers you can flout almost any law anywhere, and/or have them written to suit.
With sufficient money, guns, and lawyers you become government.
Cheers!
Strat
Does Charter offer their customers anyway to check on their bandwidth usage? If not, do they intend to release those tools?
Not that I'm aware of as a customer, and probably not.
Why should they? It would cost them money. It would also emphasize the caps in the publics' perceptions. They'll just slam the poor customer (like me, possibly, if my usage grows...having the bad luck to live where Charter is the local government-mandated monopoly) and/or simply cut them off.
They really don't want customers that actually use the connection anyway. They only want the "surf the web, get email" types. Like with the telcos back in the day, having a government-enforced monopoly means they can simply tell customers, as the famous line by Lily Tomlin in Laugh-Ins' "Telephone Operator Sketches" went; "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the s/Phone Company/ISP.".
Off-topic, sort of, but funny and rather prescient for the '60s considering recent privacy concerns re: ISPs/telecoms; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9e3dTOJi0o
Cheers!
Strat
Does your mommy know you're on the internet unsupervised?
I'm not sure what happened to IMAGINATION...
Me either. I can't even conceive of the idea...
Strat
'Tilde'
Console: Godmode
[enter]
'Tilde'
Console: Allweapons
[enter]
Buaahahahaha!
Sorry. Really. It had to be done. :P
Strat
(Yes, I know they aren't really valid commands, but they make the point.)
Hilariously disgusting. The Sandinistas were democratically elected.
Yes, they were elected. My Nicaraguan friend that lived there at the time remembers it well.
He told me how the Sandinista troops, dressed in the nice new uniforms and carrying the brand-new Soviet-made AK47's that were both fresh off the boat from Cuba came to his village and rounded everyone up and herded them to where they had the ballot boxes set up, and carefully watched as each person put their ballot in the "correct" box. The one they actually took with them instead of the other that they threw in the fire of his neighbors' house. His neighbor that put his ballot in the "not-correct" box. Too bad about the mans' family inside.
The contras are generally acknowledged as "death squads,"...
Well, history is (re)written by the victors, after all.
Furthermore the US has been sentenced to pay $1 billion by the International Court of Justice in restitution, which it refuses to pay.
The same "International Court of Justice" populated by those who view the US & its' allies as an impediment to their own very questionable agendas?
Stick that right wing murderous propaganda up yours
Oooh, I love it when you talk dirty! You sure got a purty mouth!
Strat
Yeah right....ok, how many new countries have we annexed in the past couple of decades
Nicaraugua, Panama,
If those have been annexed and are now States, why didn't we see their election results on TV this election? Did they vote for Obama or McCain?
Oh, that's right. They aren't states. We aren't even occupying them. You just have nothing to back up your point, and so spew non sequiturs.
03 the CIA tried to overthrow Chavez.
How many US troops did the CIA invade with? Oh, that's right. None. They simply helped groups more friendly to the US in an effort to influence politics there. Sort of like if China were to give large amounts of money to Democrats to influence US elections and policies. Or if Russia were to knowingly and deliberately supply arms and funding to kill US troops in an active conflict. Not that *that* would ever happen, no sir!
The US has 186 military bases in 150 countries.
Gee, then we're doing well! How many bases do other countries like Russia and China have in other countries around the world? Or is that different? Do you think they don't have more bases and haven't annexed more territory because they wouldn't if they could?
Go watch the documentary "Why we fight" It's a great eye opener on the American military culture. Its on youtube and archive.org.
Oh noes! You mean to tell me when the people of another country are freed from oppression & poverty and enter into open trade with the world, the US gets a piece of the opportunities for trade along with all the other nations that trade in the world markets (and that typically didn't help or actively opposed that very action) after sacrificing US blood and treasure? How horrible! Everyone in the whole world should be equally poor and equally oppressed. It's only fair.
I do agree that the corruption and bilking of taxpayers for payoffs and all the other corruption involved in military contracts of all sorts is criminal. The US isn't perfect and has gotten itself involved in situations where it might have been best to choose another path. Hindsight is 20/20 however.
That being said, I don't feel the US should feel guilty at all for being the most powerful nation on the planet either economically or militarily, although we are in imminent danger of losing that status. Every other nation on the planet is striving for that position and is more than willing to go much, much further than the US is and has in that pursuit.
The world is not a friendly place. Every single nation throughout history that has achieved "most powerful" status has done very bad things, far greater than the US has in its' history. The world *will* be dominated by *someone*. Which nation do you think would be the best to have dominate the world with its' policies and military power? China? Russia? Iran? N. Korea?
I shudder to think of a world dominated by the policies and military might of any of those nations. If you live long enough to see it happen, you'll be praying for a return to the "good old days" of US might. But not too loudly. Otherwise your family may get an unexpected bill for a bullet. Or a few micrograms of polonium.
If there is ever a time when all people of every nation everywhere become saints without greed, ambition, or hunger for power and everyone plays nice, it is so far in the future and require such a dramatic change to the entire species as to be disconnected from reality to treat it as nearly-there, right around the corner...if only the bad old US would lay down it's arms and stop making countries like Iran, China, and Russia mad by refusing to roll over and play dead.
On-topic now:
The news that Iran now has a rocket capable of achieving escape velocity coupled with their ambition to have nuclear capability should worry every thinking person on the planet. Someone in a post above said in effect; "But they don't have the tech to accurately-target a missile to a specific city.". I think they'd be happy with a nuclear bomb exp
It's also friendlier to consumers and more conscious of personal freedoms.
Since when? I hear much talk of this, but I see very little evidence in their actions. I see laws being passed to limit speech, freedoms, and choices by both the major parties. I only see minor differences in what set of interests they're designed to enrich and/or empower depending on which party is currently on top.
We can at least hope to have more of a compromise than the corporate feeding frenzy we've seen over the last few decades.
You can hope all you want but unless there are actual negative repercussions when they pass bad laws and/or sell out in one form or another to special interests at the expense of the people, this will not change. Both parties talk of compromise and bi-partisanship, but when they gain majority power those promises are only given lip-service at best. Witness the recent stimulus bill.
Corruption and greed in corporations has to be enabled and reinforced by equal corruption and greed in government to grow and prosper. With a change in parties, the only change in this area is which sectors get more-favorable treatment. Government has become, for positions of real power, a revolving door between government and large corporations & special interests.
Until the people decide they're tired of the two-party system and become willing to elect candidates from other parties, stop allowing the politicians to use meaningless "wedge issues" like class warfare, race, and abortion to divide them and start genuinely caring and informing themselves on issues, government & special interests can safely ignore "the will of the people" for the most part.
I know it's popular to bash all corporations, businesses, and capitalism in general but like it or not, corporations and businesses are where the jobs and economic growth come from, and with it the standard of living enjoyed by the people. If you make it too hard or expensive to do business here, they'll either go out of business or relocate to a friendlier country. This is already happening. It has been happening for a long time now.
There needs to be regulations with actual teeth, but not so much that it stifles the free market. The same with taxation. Each has to be carefully balanced. Large corporations and the rich will simply take their money & jobs and leave if the country attempts to balance the budget on their backs with class warfare "punish the rich & big corporations" schemes and tactics and/or introduces heavy-handed regulations. Both damage their ability to compete on a global scale.
We've recently had a couple of examples from Obamas' cabinet nominees that even those who are in favor of ever-higher taxes won't themselves pay them unless publicly outed in a way that threatens their continued accumulation of wealth & power. Even then, they are given a pass on penalties, interest, and criminal charges that would surely be dropped like a hammer on the average person. Some are more equal than others, and that doesn't change no matter which of the two parties are in power.
Strat
Anyone actually think the government is getting involved to make EULAs fair for consumers?
I mean, think about it. Right now, they're basically fairly unenforceable without the corporation and EULA in question having to go to court and at the minimum get a decision in a particular case and maybe set an individual precedent.
If EULAs basically have no or very little legal weight currently, what's the purpose of the FTC getting involved, unless it's to give them force? Especially now that there's a more media-and-entertainment-industry-friendly government in power now.
Having the FTC get involved means that EULAs will then have a legal framework of government regulations to back them up. It's certain that any such regulations will allow consumers to get bent-over all legal-like, either by what's actually in the regulations, or what they allow by omission and loopholes in the wording.
In looking out for citizens' rights and interests vs corporate interests & profits, I trust the government about as far as I can throw the US Capitol Building.
Cheers!
Strat
Am I the only person to find it interesting that in this confrontation, NBC Universal -- a subsidiary of Vivendi/Universal -- is fighting against UMG Recordings -- another subsidiary of Vivendi/Universal?
Apparently Vivendi/Universal didn't do a thorough job of replacing all of NBCs' upper-management with the "Wights" mentioned farther up in the discussion. I'd love to be a fly on the wall at the next meeting between Vivendi/Universal and NBC top management. As they say in movie-promo blurbs; "..and hilarity ensues!".
Somebody's gonna lose a bonus!
Strat
Why does this seem like a bad remake of the courtroom scene from the Jim Carey movie "Liar, Liar!"?
Especially the part of the scene where, when opposition makes an extremely-damaging motion, Careys' lawyer-character Reeves stands and shouts; "I Object, Your Honor!!" Judge; "..And why is that, Mr. Reeves?" Carey; "Because it's devastating to my case!!!". Judge; "Overruled." Reeves; "Good call!".
Strat
next case: Microsoft v Andrew Tridgell.
Heck, never mind SAMBA and Tridge, how about Microsoft vs Linus Torvalds et al?
After all, the linux kernel now includes drivers to allow it to "access" the NTFS filesystem and the data contained therein, does it not? FreeBSD too, for that matter, would probably be liable under this interpretation by the same logic ("logic" being used loosely here).
This interpretation along with a properly-worded EULA ("properly" for MS' purposes) would pretty-well kill any interoperation they didn't like or want by any software whatsoever, unless I'm missing something (which I may well be).
For that matter, they could sue an end-user and win if they didn't like the fact the user installed a "flying Tux" screensaver. I hope I'm wrong and either I'm interpreting the interpretation wrong, or a higher court throws this decision out.
Strat
3-15 years in a Thai prison for insulting the Thai royal family?
So, would this be the first time in Slashdot history that posting a goatse link would *not* be modded "Troll" if it was labeled "King Bhumibol"?
Just sayin'...
The problem isn't this particular executive or that individual board member being corrupt. The problem is much, much larger than that. The larger any corporation is, the more wealth it controls, and the more power it has over its customers, the people it employs, and the government it lobbies, the more corruption there will be. Period. It's just human nature.
You can pass all the laws against corruption you like, try to implement all the oversight you possibly could, but as long as the corporation keeps growing in size and scope, controlling ever more areas of people's lives and controlling ever more vast sums of wealth, the problems will persist and get worse.
Every time another corporate venture is started, new department created, new tax shelter set forth, corporate corruption *will* grow along with it. It's as unavoidable as entropy.
Every time the public demands that corporations assume a new responsibility or provide a new product or service it also increases the power and wealth it controls and along with it the opportunities and incentives for corruption. The founders of our country envisioned/intended a small, relatively weak federal government with barely enough revenue & powers to accomplish only the bare necessities of a central government. Unfortunately, this allows supercorporations to run amok.
At this point in our history, corporate America has grown so large and corrupt that I believe that it is in a feedback-loop that will only be halted when the whole country collapses from the weight of the "executive class" and devolves into chaos. It won't be pleasant, likely very, very bloody with staggering numbers of deaths, and makes me glad I'm rather old as I'll hopefully be dead before the collapse happens. Although it may well be closer than I or anyone else suspects.
While I agree that corporate corruption & power is also a huge problem, I believe that it is largely a symptom of a too-large and powerful (therefor corrupt) government. The government has grown so huge that there are simply too many avenues by which unscrupulous players can influence government politicians, policies, and laws to be able to control by oversight.
If the government were not so large and therefor corrupt, the laws already on the books concerning monopoly & anti-trust, financial responsibility and honest accounting, and consumer rights would get enforced rather than given lip-service, and corporations wouldn't be able to exert the level of influence & power over politics and lawmaking that they currently do.
Strat
This is exactly what someone would say if he were a disgruntled ex-employee fired for insubordination.
This is exactly what someone would say if he were flogging a book.
This is exactly what someone would say if he were a partisan hack who did not like the previous administration.
and
This is exactly what someone would say if it were true and he were loyal to America rather than the party in power at the time.
Either a lot of Bushies need to go to jail, or Tice does.
Not disagreeing with you. However.
The problem isn't this particular politician or that individual bureaucrat being corrupt. The problem is much, much larger than that. The larger any government is, the more wealth it controls, and the more power it has over the people it governs, the more corruption there will be. Period. It's just human nature.
You can pass all the laws against corruption you like, try to implement all the oversight you possibly could, but as long as the government keeps growing in size and scope, controlling ever more areas of its' citizens' lives and controlling ever more vast sums of wealth, the problems will persist and get worse.
Every time another government program is started, new department created, new entitlement set forth, government corruption *will* grow along with it. It's as unavoidable as entropy.
Every time government is asked to assume a new responsibility or provide a new service or entitlement it also increases the power and wealth it controls and along with it the opportunities and incentives for corruption. This is why the founders of our country envisioned/intended a small, relatively weak federal government with barely enough revenue & powers to accomplish only the bare necessities of a central government.
At this point in our history, government has grown so large and corrupt that I believe that it is in a feedback-loop that will only be halted when the whole country collapses from governments' weight and devolves into chaos. It won't be pleasant, likely very, very bloody with staggering numbers of deaths, and makes me glad I'm rather old as I'll hopefully be dead before the collapse happens. Although it may well be closer than I or anyone else suspects.
Strat
Also, interrupting the sharing of TV shows could help them to sell more cable TV.
The ISPs already solved that one with "bundling". In the area in which I live, Charter is the ISP/cable-TV monopoly (exclusive service agreement with the township). I don't watch TV. I didn't want cable TV service.
However with the bundles available, if I were to have only internet service, the price is $69/mo for the lowest-tier service. That same service bundled with "digital basic" cable TV service is $39/mo(!).
Here's my theory, and I could be wrong. Maybe someone who has some inside knowledge could correct me here. The "digital-basic" service has a digital STB. These boxes provide information about their customers' viewing habits that they can then sell. Therefor, it's in their interests to try to insure that as many customers as possible have one of these boxes.
As soon as the Charter installation tech left, I disconnected the digital box and put it in the closet. Now, about every other month I get a phone call from a Charter representative inquiring about the fact that they have no connection to my digital cable box. I tell them just what I've stated here.
They've tended to be skeptical however, twice even suggesting that; "You know, it's a crime to sell or give away that box as it remains Charter property and you could be liable for lost/stolen equipment fees & charges or even criminal charges". Of course, I told them the cable box is right here in my closet, would they like me to read them the unit numbers on the back, and I'd love to return it immediately if I could retain the same monthly cost. Naturally, that was a non-starter.
Then they tried to tell me I needed to have the box connected "to assure that your internet service operates at peak speed and reliability". When I asked the rep if that meant that the internet service they offered at nearly twice the monthly rate w/o cable TV service was slower and less reliable, they hedged and dodged, and suddenly thanked me for choosing Charter, wished me a good day, and hung up!
I also download Linux and FreeBSD .iso's by bittorrent, so if this "partnership" with the RIAA and other "big content distributors" comes about, I expect that Charter would probably target me as a "P2P user". That being a convenient excuse to get rid of a "problem" customer, especially as I thwart their ability to collect and sell my viewing-habit information.
Cheers!
Strat
> It was limited to 800 x 600 resolution, classic mode only - no theming, only three applications running, and a network restricted to an internet connection, not home networking.
Ouch! Why would anyone bother with it?...You really have to wonder what idiots at Microsoft think this stuff up? Presumably some idiot proposed crippling it to absurdity as "a way to combat piracy" and the co-idiots in the room nodded enthusiastically: "Hey! That'll work."
That's because it was never actually intended to reduce piracy or to be actually used in said developing countries. It was simply meant to placate politicians' voter-bases while giving the politicians a convenient reason to put more pressure on poor developing nations to adhere to US and international IP laws and cough up more cash. (Thereby also helping to keep them "poor" and "developing".)
By offering this crippled nearly-useless piece of crap they could then say to the politicians;
"Hey look! See!? We even went to the trouble to create a low-cost OS *just* for them, and they still pirate our "IP"! Sanction 'em and maybe threaten to stop humanitarian food shipments too, as they're clearly lawless IP pirates with no respect for the rule of law because they refuse to stop their "theft" and switch to paying for the privilege of using this crippled, all-but-useless (P)OS! They're practically terrorists!"
So then they can co-opt the might of the US government to help them enforce their marketing strategies and price structures around the world.
Cheers!
Strat
"Starter Edition" just lets you install Windows 7, and when it reboots, it pops up a dialog where you must either shutdown, or type in your credit card information to pay for an upgrade to "Home Basic" edition.
You know, I'd mod you funny ... but there's the nagging thought in the back of my mind that you're serious.
I'd be more concerned that the nagging thought of seriousness would be in Microsofts' mind!
Cheers!
Strat