I'll admit, "a lot" is a relative term, and I don't mean to imply that Linux or Mozilla are about to overtake Windows and IE anytime soon. But alternatives to MS products are growing in popularity. According to these statistics, last July Mozilla accounted for 5.7% of browser use. That number has doubled in the last 11 months. Opera has gone up too. Also in the past year Linux has gone up by.6 % while Mac has gone up by.7%. Maybe those are not huge numbers, but they do account for a lot of people. And each switch weakens MS's monopoly. How long will it be until Mozilla becomes popular enough such that IE is no longer the standard web browser? If it continues growing at this rate, what will the precentages read when MS finally comes out with Longhorn?
Point being: just because you were confused does not mean anything about the origional post was "boneheaded".
I think most poeple on this site are intelligent enough to get it. There is no need to dumb down every post.
Besides, the origional phrase in the summary that you must have been nitpicking was "...when Viacom/MTV Networks came calling...", even if you didn't recognize the difference between MTV Networks and MTV the channel, surely including Viacom in the phrase should raise some eyebrows.
Viacom is a media conglomerate that owns several divisions including MTV Networks which operates (amoung other stations) Comedy Central. No the show is not on the channel MTV. It is on the MTV network.
Actually it is a show on MTV. MTV/Viacom owns Comedy Central, which you would have known had you read more than just the summary yourself.
And it is nothing like the Daily Show, which (while I have not seen it in a while so my observations are based on past experiences) once in a while tries to do a serious discussion and at least treats their guests with some respect, something I'm not sure I can say about this show.
Yes, it is good they are apparently making sure their product works this time before they release them. I for one don't have any problems with that.
However, XP came out in 2001, as did MSIE 6.0. I believe the current timetable is for Longhorn to come out in 2006. 5 years between releases is a long time in with regard to software. One of the richest software companies in the world should have no problem in putting out new releases earlier than that. What the hell were they doing during those five years? I'm not saying MS should sacrifice quality to get their products out faster, I'm just saying they should get their products out faster. As a consequence of their laziness, they have lost a lot of Windows users to Mac and Linux and a lot of IE users to Mozilla/Firefox and Opera.
Maybe if Longhorn is void of any problems at all it will be worth the wait. But I wouldn't count on it.
By your logic I could ask the local music store for a refund on the DVD that I bought the other day because it won't play in my CD player. After all, it is sold next to the CDs and nowhere (at least not in readable print) is it stated it can't be played in a CD player.
"No, my rights were not what we were talking about at all. "
Origional statement made by you, virg_mattes:
"The simple problem he has, and which I share, is that the right to privacy is divisible into the right to privacy from observation, and the right to privacy against tracking. You seem to think that he wants the first, when what he seeks is the second. Casual observation does not carry the same considerations as tracking. You can look at someone on the street all you like, but when you begin singling them out and watching them, you begin to move toward invasion."
Yes sir, we were talking about rights. In fact the name of this thread before you changed was "Right to Privacy". Stop claiming you were talking about something else and admit you were wrong.
If you will admit that your origional statement was wrong and these cameras do not necessarily invade one's so called right to privacy (in a public place), you just want Internal affairs to be tougher against cops who slack off while on the job I'll let you go. But not until then.
"Small claims courts do not set legal precedent."
Especially when the retail store settles out of court, which was the scenario being discussed. Thats why I didn't say legal precedent. But it still sets a precedent. If Joe gets his money back from threatening to sue, that would encourage Fred to threaten a lawsuit, which would encourage Mike to threaten a lawsuit, which would encourage... well you get the idea.
Except they are not sold to work in any device. They are sold as copy protected CDs which do not work in certain devices. In fact they are required to state that.
Again, many stores may still offer refunds, but they are not required to.
No, because such a claim will be laughed out by the judge before it even gets to court.
Even if it wasn't, when they factor in that one lawyer is less expensive than the hundreds of returns that people could demand refunds for should they set this precedent, they would easily favor showing up.
Of course there is a legal basis for them refusing refunds. What moron mod gave this +1 informatitive. No retail store is ever under a legal obligation to have such a refund policy. Where the f*ck did you get your law degree?
Now it may still be in their best interest to refund CDs to keep customers, but they are free to refuse refunds if that is their choice.
Only thing worse than moron posters is moron mods.
"I don't recall mentioning the idea of legality here."
Fine. Intent itself does not violate your rights (what we were talking about). You do not have a right to not have others people intend to do things which otherwise would be fine.
"Your article was dated three weeks ago, so it's not really fair to accuse me of being grossly out of date. "
You've got to be kidding me. Your article was 9 months old. Since then a lot had changed in the situation. My article was less than one month old. As far as I can tell nothing has changed since then (and I did a search for any other news stories on the subject, so it is unlikely that anything has changed). And you think my article is just as outdated as yours?
Just do your homework next time and don't post articles which do more to prove my point than yours.
"First, what discipline was meted out? "
For staring at a girl's butt? Probably something like sensitivity training.
"Why did it take months to release the name of the offender?"
Let me get this straight. You are a privacy advocate and you are complaining that an employer was hesitant to release an employee's name?
"Why is he still working the job after proving he's not responsible? "
So you are advocating firing everyone who stares at a pretty girl's butt? So what, no guy over the age of 12 is allowed to hold a job?
"The Alabama case simply points up my point, in that when signals from these cameras, while they were being misused, were sent to cable TV channels, it still took months and a public outcry to find out the basics such as who the offender was."
If the trooper had been watching girls out of his car they would have never found out.
"Considering that you thought my argument was for removing the systems, not for better oversight, your analysis of my consistency and logic must be revisited."
Fine. You want to regulate it out of existence. Still inconsistent and illogical.
What is the worst possible thing that could happen if I reinstall the old unupdated flashblock extension?
Are the developers ever planning to release a version that is backwards compatible with the old extensions? Because it really is a pain to have to reinstall everything.
"The division lies with intent. "
Intent itself is not illegal. With all the "1984" references I've heard, did you skip the part about the "thought police"?
"but you're closer to legitimacy to demand that I don't actively follow you around observing you."
Only if I can show that you represent a threat to me or in some other way harrassing me.
"This system makes it much easier to do more than observing, and it makes the "follow this person around until he does something we can prosecute for" much easier, and much less provable."
Again, no it doesn't. There will be records of who accessed which tape when. There are often no records of where you drove last night.
"Following someone for miles on the road, waiting until they make a mistake so you can pull them over, is illegal in most states on the basis of tracking being illegal for non-offenders."
Sure, because you are singling out people who have not broken the law. Not the case with cameras that cover public areas.
"And how do you go about proving that's what happened when the police give you your tenth ticket for "crossing the median line" because you happened to spill your beer on a cop at a nearby bar?"
Thats why we have these things called judges. A cop writing you a ticket does not automatically mean you are guilty in our system.
Anyways, how are you going to prove it in the traditional system?
"In the case where an operator used the cameras in an Alabama town to zoom in on coeds' breasts and buttocks, and in which the camera feeds were running on a local cable channel so lots of folks saw it, the PD didn't even release the name of the offending officer."
Do you always try to prove your points by posting grossly outdated articles? Trooper Jonathan Minor was disciplined by Internal Affairs some time ago.
Anyways, as I said before (and you ignored) thats an abuse of observation, not tracking. In order to stop people from staring at girl's butts, you will have to do a lot more than remove security cameras. You will have to require everyone wear blindfolds whenever in public. Had trooper Minor been an officer on the street he still would have spent his time staring at girls and would never have gotten caught.
What is your point anyways? That cameras in public places should be abolished because some people could abuse them in ways similar to abuses done without cameras? Fine then, put cameras in the viewing room. Are you suggesting we also remove cameras from banks, police stations, government buildings, etc. because some could abuse them as well?
Your entire reasoning is inconsistent and illogical.
AOL cannot charge for AIM. The strength of AIM is its inclusive nature. I can talk to most of my friends by using it. In fact, that is the only reason I use it. If all my friends moved to Yahoo! or MSN, I would have no problem moving myself (I wouldn't even have to change clients, I'm using gaim). AOL had to offer their service for free as if AOL users could only talk to other AOL users, people would cease to be AOL users.
This is a good move for AOL. Offering premium business services with their messanger may well be a good way to make money off their near monopoly over instant messanging. Though I'm not sure if AIM is secure enough today for legitimate business use.
No, I'm arguing for as many safeguards we can get with something as dangerous as a nuclear plant, one of which is to keep potential terrorists from knowing any potential soft spots in security. This isn't an instant messaging client we are talking about here. One guy finds and exploits a vulnerability, thousands of people could die.
I know half of the slashdot community has already posted bad mouthing this guy, but I couldn't resist doing the same.
Sometimes they even abuse the physical metaphor of tabbed browsing by opening multiple pages - not subpages of the same web site! - in multiple tabs of a browser window. I even know few people who never open more than one browser window, viewing all pages in tabs; I hope they do not try to glue a daily set of newspapers together before reading them...
Hey, jackass, you use your browser your way, I'll use mine my way.
I enjoy having many pages open in tabs. This is because I often view many sites at once (well, not literally at once, but I'll be doing something with one and then quickly move on to another), and it is a pain in the ass to have a half dozen windows open at once. I almost never have to view two pages at the same time, thus there is no disadvantage to using tabs instead of opening new windows. I couldn't give a fuck about whether or not it conforms to a "real life metaphor" even if I wanted to. Computer programs are not physical objects, and that is an advantage in many cases. Gluing together multiple newspapers would be difficult and time consuming, so I am forced to read them the old fashioned way. Not the case with web browsers.
In my opinion, it is just bad file organisation coupled with a bunch of old bad habits. It's really hard to use a spatial file browser if someone keeps his or her files in a ten-folder-deep structure.
"Bad organisation"? Nested folders aide in organization, not detract from it. Look, I have a lot of files. Say I want to find a paper I wrote for my CS 3604 class. Using your way of storing all documents in one folder I would be forced to look through hundreds of documents including philosophy essays, letters, biology papers, etc. Thats especially hard if I can't remember exactly what I named it. And if I'm using ls on the command line (my favorite way to browse directories), its virtually impossible to if I have more than a dozen or so files in there. Using my tree based way I just have to go to my classes folder, then to my CS folder, then to my 3604 folder, and bingo. There it is, along with a half dozen other folders for that particular class that I can easily distinguish between. No wondering if that hw3.sxw was my 3604 homework or my math homework from number theory.
No, it doesn't correspond to how I use desk drawers (with the possible exception of my filing cabinet), but I can find my computer files in a fraction of the time it takes me to find anything in there. Thus you and your organization standard police can kiss my ass.
Give us choices on how to organize our stuff, not orders.
What is so special about DNA that makes us so squeamish about storing it for identification purposes?
Note that DNA information stored for identification purposes would not necessarily have to give cops the ability to check if you have some genetic disease or other trait.
I would go a step further and keep DNA of everyone in the US, arrested or not. It would take time to compile, so I'm not saying we should have this database by this time next week, but it could be developed over time.
Well I'm currently watching "Meltdown" on FX, so the first thing to come to mind is nuclear power plant plans. Not exactly something you want every terrorist in the world to have access to.
"Anyone can use GPL software, but not everyone may be able to profit from it. "
You are oversimplifying the license a bit. You actually can sell GPL software, just as long as you make the source publicly available (which makes it difficult to sell in the traditional fashion). Though some try and are moderately successful.
What you cannot do is distribute a modified version without releasing the modified source code or distribute a program that incorporates the GPL code without releasing its source.
With your toll road analogy, the reason you cannot charge a toll on a public road is because you cannot deny another person access to the road. You also cannot deny someone access to code that is freely in the public domain. But you can use the road in a commercial system. Another poster mentioned truckers, that is a good analogy. You cannot do that with GPL software.
As for why the corporations should have a right to use the government funded software in their projects, well they paid for it in their tax dollars. Why shouldn't they?
Thats like saying if a baseball player were convicted of using a controlled substance, that would set a legal precedent against baseball players.
In reality, the legal standing of baseball players would not change at all. Their image may be changed, and there would be the increased threat of more convictions, but legally nothing would change.
"So, if I cannot show such a a law already created, then it will never happen, eh?"
So if you cannot show such a law has already been created, it must be a significant threat that it will be in the future?
"If that were the case, then it would now be illegal to use OSS."
Then why is IBM pushing Linux as hard as they are?
"But what happens is that --over time-- the powerful entities in any "free market" use their power to consolidate their gains and protect themselves from competition."
Until another big company like IBM promotes another product (like Linux) and MS loses power. The market isn't as simple as you seem to think it is.
"It only exists if we want it to. We OWN this country."
No we don't. That is the primary difference between a nation like the U.S. and a nation like North Korea or Cuba. No one person or one group owns the country. We each just own our own little parts of it. Within those parts we thus have certain rights which are non-existent in other places.
"And it had better do so when our general welfare requires that it do so (cf. "The American Constitution")."
Please show (again with a specific example) where the Constitution requires that the government work to destroy Bill Gates and MS?
I'm not saying it wouldn't be of any use to them, but it still would still unfairly restrict what they could do.
Say the government built a highway and said "Owners of red cars can only drive on this highway between the hours of 6pm to 8pm". Sure, red car owners can still use the highway and profit from it, but they are unfairly restricted in ways that owners of blue cars are not.
But there is no new precedent with this case. Copyright law has existed on the books for years, and this case will do nothing to change it. The allegations are that IBM used copyrighted Unix code in Linux, which would be illegal if SCO can establish it. In fact, it would be illegal under the same law that protects OSS code.
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I'll admit, "a lot" is a relative term, and I don't mean to imply that Linux or Mozilla are about to overtake Windows and IE anytime soon. But alternatives to MS products are growing in popularity. According to these statistics, last July Mozilla accounted for 5.7% of browser use. That number has doubled in the last 11 months. Opera has gone up too. Also in the past year Linux has gone up by .6 % while Mac has gone up by .7%. Maybe those are not huge numbers, but they do account for a lot of people. And each switch weakens MS's monopoly. How long will it be until Mozilla becomes popular enough such that IE is no longer the standard web browser? If it continues growing at this rate, what will the precentages read when MS finally comes out with Longhorn?
I think most poeple on this site are intelligent enough to get it. There is no need to dumb down every post.
Besides, the origional phrase in the summary that you must have been nitpicking was "...when Viacom/MTV Networks came calling...", even if you didn't recognize the difference between MTV Networks and MTV the channel, surely including Viacom in the phrase should raise some eyebrows.
Viacom is a media conglomerate that owns several divisions including MTV Networks which operates (amoung other stations) Comedy Central. No the show is not on the channel MTV. It is on the MTV network.
And it is nothing like the Daily Show, which (while I have not seen it in a while so my observations are based on past experiences) once in a while tries to do a serious discussion and at least treats their guests with some respect, something I'm not sure I can say about this show.
However, XP came out in 2001, as did MSIE 6.0. I believe the current timetable is for Longhorn to come out in 2006. 5 years between releases is a long time in with regard to software. One of the richest software companies in the world should have no problem in putting out new releases earlier than that. What the hell were they doing during those five years? I'm not saying MS should sacrifice quality to get their products out faster, I'm just saying they should get their products out faster. As a consequence of their laziness, they have lost a lot of Windows users to Mac and Linux and a lot of IE users to Mozilla/Firefox and Opera.
Maybe if Longhorn is void of any problems at all it will be worth the wait. But I wouldn't count on it.
By your logic I could ask the local music store for a refund on the DVD that I bought the other day because it won't play in my CD player. After all, it is sold next to the CDs and nowhere (at least not in readable print) is it stated it can't be played in a CD player.
Doubtful. The minute MS tries to enforce their patent it goes to court where the judge would likely throw it out.
Origional statement made by you, virg_mattes: Yes sir, we were talking about rights. In fact the name of this thread before you changed was "Right to Privacy". Stop claiming you were talking about something else and admit you were wrong.
If you will admit that your origional statement was wrong and these cameras do not necessarily invade one's so called right to privacy (in a public place), you just want Internal affairs to be tougher against cops who slack off while on the job I'll let you go. But not until then.
"Small claims courts do not set legal precedent."
Especially when the retail store settles out of court, which was the scenario being discussed. Thats why I didn't say legal precedent. But it still sets a precedent. If Joe gets his money back from threatening to sue, that would encourage Fred to threaten a lawsuit, which would encourage Mike to threaten a lawsuit, which would encourage... well you get the idea.
Again, many stores may still offer refunds, but they are not required to.
Even if it wasn't, when they factor in that one lawyer is less expensive than the hundreds of returns that people could demand refunds for should they set this precedent, they would easily favor showing up.
Now it may still be in their best interest to refund CDs to keep customers, but they are free to refuse refunds if that is their choice.
Only thing worse than moron posters is moron mods.
Fine. Intent itself does not violate your rights (what we were talking about). You do not have a right to not have others people intend to do things which otherwise would be fine.
"Your article was dated three weeks ago, so it's not really fair to accuse me of being grossly out of date. "
You've got to be kidding me. Your article was 9 months old. Since then a lot had changed in the situation. My article was less than one month old. As far as I can tell nothing has changed since then (and I did a search for any other news stories on the subject, so it is unlikely that anything has changed). And you think my article is just as outdated as yours?
Just do your homework next time and don't post articles which do more to prove my point than yours.
"First, what discipline was meted out? "
For staring at a girl's butt? Probably something like sensitivity training.
"Why did it take months to release the name of the offender?"
Let me get this straight. You are a privacy advocate and you are complaining that an employer was hesitant to release an employee's name?
"Why is he still working the job after proving he's not responsible? "
So you are advocating firing everyone who stares at a pretty girl's butt? So what, no guy over the age of 12 is allowed to hold a job?
"The Alabama case simply points up my point, in that when signals from these cameras, while they were being misused, were sent to cable TV channels, it still took months and a public outcry to find out the basics such as who the offender was."
If the trooper had been watching girls out of his car they would have never found out.
"Considering that you thought my argument was for removing the systems, not for better oversight, your analysis of my consistency and logic must be revisited."
Fine. You want to regulate it out of existence. Still inconsistent and illogical.
Are the developers ever planning to release a version that is backwards compatible with the old extensions? Because it really is a pain to have to reinstall everything.
Intent itself is not illegal. With all the "1984" references I've heard, did you skip the part about the "thought police"?
"but you're closer to legitimacy to demand that I don't actively follow you around observing you."
Only if I can show that you represent a threat to me or in some other way harrassing me.
"This system makes it much easier to do more than observing, and it makes the "follow this person around until he does something we can prosecute for" much easier, and much less provable."
Again, no it doesn't. There will be records of who accessed which tape when. There are often no records of where you drove last night.
"Following someone for miles on the road, waiting until they make a mistake so you can pull them over, is illegal in most states on the basis of tracking being illegal for non-offenders."
Sure, because you are singling out people who have not broken the law. Not the case with cameras that cover public areas.
"And how do you go about proving that's what happened when the police give you your tenth ticket for "crossing the median line" because you happened to spill your beer on a cop at a nearby bar?"
Thats why we have these things called judges. A cop writing you a ticket does not automatically mean you are guilty in our system.
Anyways, how are you going to prove it in the traditional system?
"In the case where an operator used the cameras in an Alabama town to zoom in on coeds' breasts and buttocks, and in which the camera feeds were running on a local cable channel so lots of folks saw it, the PD didn't even release the name of the offending officer."
Do you always try to prove your points by posting grossly outdated articles? Trooper Jonathan Minor was disciplined by Internal Affairs some time ago.
Anyways, as I said before (and you ignored) thats an abuse of observation, not tracking. In order to stop people from staring at girl's butts, you will have to do a lot more than remove security cameras. You will have to require everyone wear blindfolds whenever in public. Had trooper Minor been an officer on the street he still would have spent his time staring at girls and would never have gotten caught.
What is your point anyways? That cameras in public places should be abolished because some people could abuse them in ways similar to abuses done without cameras? Fine then, put cameras in the viewing room. Are you suggesting we also remove cameras from banks, police stations, government buildings, etc. because some could abuse them as well?
Your entire reasoning is inconsistent and illogical.
This is a good move for AOL. Offering premium business services with their messanger may well be a good way to make money off their near monopoly over instant messanging. Though I'm not sure if AIM is secure enough today for legitimate business use.
No, I'm arguing for as many safeguards we can get with something as dangerous as a nuclear plant, one of which is to keep potential terrorists from knowing any potential soft spots in security. This isn't an instant messaging client we are talking about here. One guy finds and exploits a vulnerability, thousands of people could die.
I enjoy having many pages open in tabs. This is because I often view many sites at once (well, not literally at once, but I'll be doing something with one and then quickly move on to another), and it is a pain in the ass to have a half dozen windows open at once. I almost never have to view two pages at the same time, thus there is no disadvantage to using tabs instead of opening new windows. I couldn't give a fuck about whether or not it conforms to a "real life metaphor" even if I wanted to. Computer programs are not physical objects, and that is an advantage in many cases. Gluing together multiple newspapers would be difficult and time consuming, so I am forced to read them the old fashioned way. Not the case with web browsers.
"Bad organisation"? Nested folders aide in organization, not detract from it. Look, I have a lot of files. Say I want to find a paper I wrote for my CS 3604 class. Using your way of storing all documents in one folder I would be forced to look through hundreds of documents including philosophy essays, letters, biology papers, etc. Thats especially hard if I can't remember exactly what I named it. And if I'm using ls on the command line (my favorite way to browse directories), its virtually impossible to if I have more than a dozen or so files in there. Using my tree based way I just have to go to my classes folder, then to my CS folder, then to my 3604 folder, and bingo. There it is, along with a half dozen other folders for that particular class that I can easily distinguish between. No wondering if that hw3.sxw was my 3604 homework or my math homework from number theory.No, it doesn't correspond to how I use desk drawers (with the possible exception of my filing cabinet), but I can find my computer files in a fraction of the time it takes me to find anything in there. Thus you and your organization standard police can kiss my ass.
Give us choices on how to organize our stuff, not orders.
Note that DNA information stored for identification purposes would not necessarily have to give cops the ability to check if you have some genetic disease or other trait.
I would go a step further and keep DNA of everyone in the US, arrested or not. It would take time to compile, so I'm not saying we should have this database by this time next week, but it could be developed over time.
I'm sure there are plenty of other things.
You are oversimplifying the license a bit. You actually can sell GPL software, just as long as you make the source publicly available (which makes it difficult to sell in the traditional fashion). Though some try and are moderately successful.
What you cannot do is distribute a modified version without releasing the modified source code or distribute a program that incorporates the GPL code without releasing its source.
With your toll road analogy, the reason you cannot charge a toll on a public road is because you cannot deny another person access to the road. You also cannot deny someone access to code that is freely in the public domain. But you can use the road in a commercial system. Another poster mentioned truckers, that is a good analogy. You cannot do that with GPL software.
As for why the corporations should have a right to use the government funded software in their projects, well they paid for it in their tax dollars. Why shouldn't they?
In reality, the legal standing of baseball players would not change at all. Their image may be changed, and there would be the increased threat of more convictions, but legally nothing would change.
So if you cannot show such a law has already been created, it must be a significant threat that it will be in the future?
"If that were the case, then it would now be illegal to use OSS."
Then why is IBM pushing Linux as hard as they are?
"But what happens is that --over time-- the powerful entities in any "free market" use their power to consolidate their gains and protect themselves from competition."
Until another big company like IBM promotes another product (like Linux) and MS loses power. The market isn't as simple as you seem to think it is.
"It only exists if we want it to. We OWN this country."
No we don't. That is the primary difference between a nation like the U.S. and a nation like North Korea or Cuba. No one person or one group owns the country. We each just own our own little parts of it. Within those parts we thus have certain rights which are non-existent in other places.
"And it had better do so when our general welfare requires that it do so (cf. "The American Constitution")."
Please show (again with a specific example) where the Constitution requires that the government work to destroy Bill Gates and MS?
Say the government built a highway and said "Owners of red cars can only drive on this highway between the hours of 6pm to 8pm". Sure, red car owners can still use the highway and profit from it, but they are unfairly restricted in ways that owners of blue cars are not.
But there is no new precedent with this case. Copyright law has existed on the books for years, and this case will do nothing to change it. The allegations are that IBM used copyrighted Unix code in Linux, which would be illegal if SCO can establish it. In fact, it would be illegal under the same law that protects OSS code.