Office puts things to shame? How so? You'd think two programs that are designed to do the same thing would, you know, do about exactly the same? Or are you saying you can't adjust to that open office has its menu buttons in different places/has a few different features, or that the default font is different?
Once again, I know where you're going I think, and agree with it, but I don't know if I'd agree that the method you suggest would be the solution.
Things should have been built out with the money already provided. Even if they do so now (or had done so prior with the money that was given), we would still have ended up at the current situation regardless. The reason is that motive here was not screwing over customers, it was profit. The more bandwith you have leftover the better you can falsely advertise, built up infrastructure or not.
So you have an OC24 and build it to an OC96. Whats to stop you from doing the same false advertising as before, just with "higher speeds?" what would ensure that you don't, even?
Also how would infrastructure be answerable to the public? I'm curious what ideas you have in mind, when I read that phrase I don't suspect that I am thinking what you think it means, which would be my misunderstanding. I'm all for a very easy solution: all data services become -> common carrier. We'd be done with 90% of the issue other than the money paid to build out from that alone.
I don't mean this as an attack on you, but I respectfully disagree. The internet is not capable of being regulated, and that is a fact that is scary to people. You cannot stop a global entity anymore than you can find a person within a corporate entity liable for anything. Intangible things are not capable of physical control aspects, from a basic sense. You could see the internet more easily thought of as an "idea". You can't "stop" an idea. Even try, and there are other ways to equivalently provide the same.
People may not like that viruses are out there, that child molesters are out there, that malicious websites, scams, everything. Danger! (sarcasm) Many of these are over-hyped and overexaggerated to fit same politicians agenda. Has that ever stopped the news, the media, the public at large from anything whatsoever? Last I checked, not since civilization existed. You can kill someone but that won't take back or take away or control the things that person has already said. Trying to control the internet is like trying to on a wholely theoretical level go back in time, you can't (at least until someone comes up with a way for time travel). No matter what you do, you can never control someone's free will, even with physical imprisonment. Maybe I could set up my own ethernet hub, maybe include some wireless, some wired, a mesh of its own, that only the people of my choosing can connect to? I believe people call them darknets, but what it could really end up being with a large enough community, is just its own internet (aka form another internet). There are ways to use other DNS providers, pipeines, etc, that go beyond any level of control or regulation.
Rant off. Problem is, comcast is acting within the law. There is a deeper issue here than what is legal, or regulated. Dancing around the law is a big issue right now in every country. What would really set off an enormous fiasco is if a law was passed that was basically "you must follow the intent of the law, not just the letter", but I think no country is ready for such a debate (plus it'd be immeasurably hard to balance). Were that to happen, I think that would be a solution (plus it would provide a forum for debate/invalidating of laws that have those two ideals too far from eachother).
Essentially, we have far more things to fix that are more core to this issue than to try to head towards finding a goal involving censorship or filtering. External problem, meet internal/structural/underlying problem.
Umm, when have you ever heard of the government being held appropriately accountable for anything? I can certainly name people like Karl Rove, Bush, Microsoft, Taliban, Musharraf, things like "Terrorism"...I'm sure they are well held accountable, right? People can't even figure out the right responsible people let alone get the proper ones blamed let alone get them held accountable. Have you ever heard of holding a president accountable in the history of presidents? Nope. Impeach and step down, sure. But who was ever truly held accountable?
Nobody should be overseeing censorship, there will be a bias no matter who does it. There is no such thing as "impartial censorship". Either you have freedom of speech or you don't. Attempting a middle ground for safety, protection, or thinking that it would work or any other means is a completely false delusion. People not wanting the filter and then having it forced on them as an opt-out is a very simple example of error.
The answer is there should not be the censorship, that is half the problem.
I understood where you are going in the first place, but why an ad hominem complaint here (it sure seemed that way from the original reply, you know.) What do you see as the big difference between this being influential and something that will serve as the basis of law? I'm not saying the world follows the US, again, but why would you assume this would not have a worldwide impact on the scenario as there are RIAA style companies (IFPI and others) that derive what they do off the successes in other countries (and try to find applicable laws in whatever country they are suing).
We are not the consideration for a decision but we do influence it, whether thats for or against stuff like this is not invisible to the rest of the world you know.
I'm not saying people say "lets follow the US", but you think they don't take it into consideration much as we would take a EU decision into consideration, I'd think otherwise. The US is no more or less centric of the world than any other country. However, don't think this ruling won't be cited in other places as convenient especially outside of the US, because you're completely deluded if you think it won't.
This is a pretty big deal. A lot of countries fall back on the US in order to use as a basis for their law (australia) and some use it as an example of what not to do in most instances (EU). So definitely a total gain on a worldwide level if precedents are set.
Even beyond that this is Microsoft, I think there's a simpler answer here too. Is not the only person who made the sale the one who clicked the final link to purchase? I would say so. No matter how much advertising went into before that and how well it can be tracked it is still only deserving to the owner of the sale.
19K is a paltry sum for a year + worth of case. Had he said the right things and/or had the lawyer the case would have potentially been wrapped up a lot sooner too.
IANAL, but I thought the exact same thing. It's pretty easy especially when its legit, that they can prove that this is a sound business decision. Hell I know how easy it is for illegit business decisions to call it a sound business decision. I don't know if this would solidify the board of directors further (from being kicked out at the end of the year) but I would not doubt that if all things are traced, that MS is behind this. Remember, they own shares, they could have incited this themselves. Meanwhile, I doubt that the amount of shares adds up to the shareholders, and if the board of directors leave with a significant amount of pension in the form of stock then they won't even be giving up any influence upon leaving.
Now presenting, Optimus 2: Now with improved power-steering!
Price: $3500. Please be sure to leave the Optimus in park when not in normal operation. In cases with steep inclines be sure to use your e-brake!
With all that said, hard keyboards soften eventually. I'd rather start hard and last longer than start soft and turn to unusable. Bigger reality here is to each their own. There isn't a specific keyboard hardness or softness that fits everybody.
I get where you're going, and I appreciate the logical debate. Perhaps I should try to explain better, can't say I'm exactly #1 at clarity among other things.
Its tough to say what is appropriate from one kid to the next, I agree. But trying to minimize control should always be there when it can be. You are right in that people can't just give up all control, but there are a lot of parents out there who cannot give up any control, for that matter. I think this would be on the "substantially more likely than not" part of the spectrum as opposed to a balance of some are overprotective and some are under. This doesn't designate a bad parent necessarily but it is an extremely common shared principle between many parents. Of course each parent has to come up with their own decisions, but if the parenting method is wrongly learned from their parents then why not change it for the previously mentioned parent's kids?
I agree with you that people have a bias towards situations, but many parents are afraid to let kids even get into situations. As I'm sure you know being a parent (or know anyway, regardless), kids do need to fall on their faces sometimes to learn to get up. I also have nothing wrong with being careful. But on the same note if parents are rushing to a kid's aid too soon we all know how that turns out. The parents get conditioned by the kid to help them out, and the kid never develops any initiative.
Now about the kid, there's a bunch of factors in place. I would be more obliged of the kid in that if he has a reason to hide the password I would suspect it more legitimately logical than necessarily deviant or tactical. I can think of a number of reasons for both arguments of bad and good intentions but the suspicion is that the brother being a part of the family is in a knowledgeable enough situation having grown up with the sister to make an appropriate decision in regard to said sibling's situation.
Had I been responsible for her or not I'd have wanted more details. Don't toss the baby out with the bathwater with blanket expressions like this. This is like a "if you support gun control you're a republican". Not everything is so black and white.
I had interaction for as short a time as possible, and left it all up to the kid. Nobody continued to monitor her or worry of keeping her safe. If you have a kid raised with actual common sense you typically don't have to worry about the rest. I agree each case is different, but the level of control should always be minimized, not simply deemed "acceptable".
In effect, I was not lucky. There happen to be a few recently convicted child molesters in her area that were convicted for doing things around her area during the age when she would have been vulnerable. I'm not breaking a sweat, because she developed her own judgement. I made a decision based on my information, and I went with it. Going on the internet is by no means whatsoever a necessarily dangerous endeavor by any means. Predators are not in abundance, you know. Statistics of stuff like that are totally bogus.
I wouldn't overthink the situation with the kid for the basis of this article. Simply put, kids aren't great with passwords, no less than adults are. I think that was the basic summary of the situation was "how to deal with that" not "the internet is dangerousssss".
I do understand what you're saying here. I can agree with that completely. I don't think your analogy is remotely on though, I don't agree that that internet access is comparable to driving heavy plant machinery from any perspective.
Ethernet is a technology that is owned by a single company that developed the technology. They license it to the manufacturers to produce. The monopoly is higher up. The cause was that the other technologies (token/etc) were dropped or failed. What other alternatives are there for a physical interface for net access (whether internal or external) other than ethernet? I don't hear anyone complaining. Also note: ethernet is licensed in an open fashion, people can do whatever they want with it. Have you ever heard of such with windows?
To explain, you broke your childs trust the minute you decided they can't be trusted with their own decisions. Instead of helping when needed, you became "big brother" style. The truth is the kid doesn't need to lock you out because you won't even be able to catch everything that is going on. They may as well lock you out so you can accept that you will never have complete control over your child. This for controlling parents, is the antithesis of parenting. You'll accept it one day. People don't live in sandboxes forever.
Perhaps the sensible goal is to accept that like all sorts of 1950's/older era ideas, you can't lock people out from information. They can get it in many forms. Or do you expect to be able to control all of your child's access while they're at school and stuff too?
Sheesh, fearmongering at its finest lately around slashdot in this article.
There should be trust, and there will not be openness without it. Read sentence one for why neither is leading to the other, and why kids don't talk to parents in many instances.
The smarter a kid gets, the more privacy they want. Any parent that doesn't respect that will have to spend more and more time figuring out why their kids distance themselves more and more. I know by the time I was 7 I hated if my parents got involved, and how nosy they were. Trust me, by the time I was 12 I would have moved out if I had the money. I had already done the financial research and the absence of privacy was far more than sufficient to motivate me to want to leave.
When will you people let your kid have a damn shred of individuality and intuition to figure things out? This is why people fail as parents and don't see it till the kids get older. "protect the children" my ass. Also, using the excuse that you pay for everything doesn't mean you deserve unconditional gratitude. That comes when people hit 18+. If you expect that from 5+, you're in for a bumpy ride raising your kid. Enjoy the fights! I assure you that the scars you inflict on the kid mentally as a child will not go away when they get older.
I got my niece into IRC harry potter chatrooms (which we all know are supposedly predator-laden) by the time she was 8ish. We watched and helped her figure out the goods, the bads, the dangers for maybe 2 days to a week, tops. After that it was free reign and "be careful", but not monitoring. It's not like people didn't want to talk to her. She not only turned out well from a computer perspective but turned out to be a computer genius.
I know people want to help their kid every step of the way but it doesn't hurt to let them kinda be their own person, since thats how they'll end up anyway.
The problem is when companies do things like this for the bottom line and don't push their savings onto the customer. Absence of business sense. Any smart business knows pushing savings onto the customer (and profits) returns more business and makes a business better across all levels.
Now if they actually had realistic amounts of bandwidth purchased and sold to customers, this would never been an issue. It would be business as usual, let alone a way for them to increase their business by proving "hey, we can give our customers what they want". Instead it's "hey, we can't even give our customers what we want, let alone what they want".
I mean seriously. Anyone on an 8GB a month plan is just out of their mind. 5 or 10 years ago maybe it was remotely viable in a household, but not today for sure.
Sadly, I bet these guys are going to traffic shape their customers into the ground.
Well, for the individuals who think Microsoft has changed, I present to you This Article. (Tiny'd-> http://tinyurl.com/32zpet ). Note from the article : "That said, Microsoft may continue to play verbal hardball with commercial open source competitors that don't license the company's intellectual property. It's not like Microsoft is suddenly going to espouse the virtues of completely free software. "This is in no way removing the issue of patents in the context of infringement," Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft VP of intellectual property and licensing, said in an interview. Though a changing technology world is important, part of the new landscape has also been shaped by court systems in the United States and Europe. The European Union has recently stepped up and opened new anti-trust investigations into Microsoft's business practices, while a recent decision in the long-running U.S. anti-trust case found that Microsoft still wasn't being open enough with its communications protocols.
Much of the discussion during Microsoft's press conference announcing the new strategy focused on the company's legal requirements in relation to anti-trust scrutiny. "The interoperability principles and actions announced today reflect a changed legal landscape for Microsoft and the information technology industry," Brad Smith, Microsoft's top attorney, said on the call. For its part, the European Union took a skeptical eye to Microsoft's announcements."
So yeah, what was that about my possibly being wrong about them meeting the "minimum standards" again? Seems like as I suspected, the minimum to stay legal in the face of abusing the law. What was that about "cheap companies" and "barely meeting standards", again?
Just an FYI, not all monopolies are bad. Period. The US has a history of monopolies that abuse it and there have been wide implications. I'm not saying all monopolies are good, usually when one comes around is a pretty good indication of something going way wrong in economics at any level. However, natural monopolies can be unavoidable at times.
In an optimal situation, what can you do if you and your only competitor's difference between products is that they use lower quality alternatives in china for xyz product and your own are hand-made and of a discernably higher quality? If they only buy yours, is that your fault?
I don't really get where you're going with the comment. I would say break up any and all monopolies and/or hardcore regulate them. However, don't be disillusioned that just because someone controls the market it implies the abuse. I would watch with a magnifying glass so to speak, though.
Hmm, where to start. How about UL, or the company that holds the monopoly on Ethernet? There were other products before it's day. I can name those two off the top of my head.
There are plenty in businesses that are not mainstream that still hold to said principles. If I recall a lot of product manufacturers hold monopolies on parts and continually improve them and not use it as fee extraction.
Standards committee: I'm actually applying to join like 4 relevant to my job. I really look forward to it both in terms of increasing my knowledge and getting some real world insight. However, no two standards committees are alike. I don't think I'd be able to relate the ones I want to join (not computer related) versus computer related and/or technical.
I do understand the cost saving aspects, but if the bar is so low for compliance you raise it. Of course the vendors groan at that too. I agree usually the large companies see the light and do well better than compliance, but this is Microsoft. You have to fundamentally change your business view in such a situation. They have essentially defined their own business model and quality is not a part of their equation.
Have you worked on a standards committee? I don't mean that as an insult, but please clarify so that I can understand better what I am missing either partially or completely.
About your motherboard, I am moderately sympathetic I suppose, but what is stopping you from switching motherboards? It's not like they're the most expensive part of a PC system, even for a quality mobo. I believe it's called "influencing with your dollar", aka taking your business away from the non-compliant company and giving it to the compliant one...of course being a consumer in and of itself sucks all the same
Slashdot Mirror
Office puts things to shame? How so? You'd think two programs that are designed to do the same thing would, you know, do about exactly the same? Or are you saying you can't adjust to that open office has its menu buttons in different places/has a few different features, or that the default font is different?
Ohhhh, tough one there.
Once again, I know where you're going I think, and agree with it, but I don't know if I'd agree that the method you suggest would be the solution.
Things should have been built out with the money already provided. Even if they do so now (or had done so prior with the money that was given), we would still have ended up at the current situation regardless. The reason is that motive here was not screwing over customers, it was profit. The more bandwith you have leftover the better you can falsely advertise, built up infrastructure or not.
So you have an OC24 and build it to an OC96. Whats to stop you from doing the same false advertising as before, just with "higher speeds?" what would ensure that you don't, even?
Also how would infrastructure be answerable to the public? I'm curious what ideas you have in mind, when I read that phrase I don't suspect that I am thinking what you think it means, which would be my misunderstanding. I'm all for a very easy solution: all data services become -> common carrier. We'd be done with 90% of the issue other than the money paid to build out from that alone.
I wonder if this can be fought as unconstitutional as well? Just throwing that out, I don't know if its possible or not.
I don't mean this as an attack on you, but I respectfully disagree. The internet is not capable of being regulated, and that is a fact that is scary to people. You cannot stop a global entity anymore than you can find a person within a corporate entity liable for anything. Intangible things are not capable of physical control aspects, from a basic sense. You could see the internet more easily thought of as an "idea". You can't "stop" an idea. Even try, and there are other ways to equivalently provide the same.
People may not like that viruses are out there, that child molesters are out there, that malicious websites, scams, everything. Danger! (sarcasm) Many of these are over-hyped and overexaggerated to fit same politicians agenda. Has that ever stopped the news, the media, the public at large from anything whatsoever? Last I checked, not since civilization existed. You can kill someone but that won't take back or take away or control the things that person has already said. Trying to control the internet is like trying to on a wholely theoretical level go back in time, you can't (at least until someone comes up with a way for time travel). No matter what you do, you can never control someone's free will, even with physical imprisonment. Maybe I could set up my own ethernet hub, maybe include some wireless, some wired, a mesh of its own, that only the people of my choosing can connect to? I believe people call them darknets, but what it could really end up being with a large enough community, is just its own internet (aka form another internet). There are ways to use other DNS providers, pipeines, etc, that go beyond any level of control or regulation.
Rant off. Problem is, comcast is acting within the law. There is a deeper issue here than what is legal, or regulated. Dancing around the law is a big issue right now in every country. What would really set off an enormous fiasco is if a law was passed that was basically "you must follow the intent of the law, not just the letter", but I think no country is ready for such a debate (plus it'd be immeasurably hard to balance). Were that to happen, I think that would be a solution (plus it would provide a forum for debate/invalidating of laws that have those two ideals too far from eachother).
Essentially, we have far more things to fix that are more core to this issue than to try to head towards finding a goal involving censorship or filtering. External problem, meet internal/structural/underlying problem.
Umm, when have you ever heard of the government being held appropriately accountable for anything? I can certainly name people like Karl Rove, Bush, Microsoft, Taliban, Musharraf, things like "Terrorism"...I'm sure they are well held accountable, right? People can't even figure out the right responsible people let alone get the proper ones blamed let alone get them held accountable. Have you ever heard of holding a president accountable in the history of presidents? Nope. Impeach and step down, sure. But who was ever truly held accountable?
Nobody should be overseeing censorship, there will be a bias no matter who does it. There is no such thing as "impartial censorship". Either you have freedom of speech or you don't. Attempting a middle ground for safety, protection, or thinking that it would work or any other means is a completely false delusion. People not wanting the filter and then having it forced on them as an opt-out is a very simple example of error.
The answer is there should not be the censorship, that is half the problem.
I understood where you are going in the first place, but why an ad hominem complaint here (it sure seemed that way from the original reply, you know.) What do you see as the big difference between this being influential and something that will serve as the basis of law? I'm not saying the world follows the US, again, but why would you assume this would not have a worldwide impact on the scenario as there are RIAA style companies (IFPI and others) that derive what they do off the successes in other countries (and try to find applicable laws in whatever country they are suing).
IANAL but you know what I mean.
I said basis, not driving force.
Instead of being the first to make the decision they can now make a more educated decision as a result.
Nobody said we are the reason they make laws, or that people can't make laws without us.
We are not the consideration for a decision but we do influence it, whether thats for or against stuff like this is not invisible to the rest of the world you know.
I'm not saying people say "lets follow the US", but you think they don't take it into consideration much as we would take a EU decision into consideration, I'd think otherwise. The US is no more or less centric of the world than any other country. However, don't think this ruling won't be cited in other places as convenient especially outside of the US, because you're completely deluded if you think it won't.
This is a pretty big deal. A lot of countries fall back on the US in order to use as a basis for their law (australia) and some use it as an example of what not to do in most instances (EU). So definitely a total gain on a worldwide level if precedents are set.
I would guess the ones that teabag the corpse wouldn't leave him, yes.
Even beyond that this is Microsoft, I think there's a simpler answer here too. Is not the only person who made the sale the one who clicked the final link to purchase? I would say so. No matter how much advertising went into before that and how well it can be tracked it is still only deserving to the owner of the sale.
Yep, exactly as I thought.
19K is a paltry sum for a year + worth of case. Had he said the right things and/or had the lawyer the case would have potentially been wrapped up a lot sooner too.
IANAL, but I thought the exact same thing. It's pretty easy especially when its legit, that they can prove that this is a sound business decision. Hell I know how easy it is for illegit business decisions to call it a sound business decision. I don't know if this would solidify the board of directors further (from being kicked out at the end of the year) but I would not doubt that if all things are traced, that MS is behind this. Remember, they own shares, they could have incited this themselves. Meanwhile, I doubt that the amount of shares adds up to the shareholders, and if the board of directors leave with a significant amount of pension in the form of stock then they won't even be giving up any influence upon leaving.
Congrats short term investors, foot vs gun.
Now presenting, Optimus 2: Now with improved power-steering!
Price: $3500. Please be sure to leave the Optimus in park when not in normal operation. In cases with steep inclines be sure to use your e-brake!
With all that said, hard keyboards soften eventually. I'd rather start hard and last longer than start soft and turn to unusable. Bigger reality here is to each their own. There isn't a specific keyboard hardness or softness that fits everybody.
I get where you're going, and I appreciate the logical debate. Perhaps I should try to explain better, can't say I'm exactly #1 at clarity among other things.
Its tough to say what is appropriate from one kid to the next, I agree. But trying to minimize control should always be there when it can be. You are right in that people can't just give up all control, but there are a lot of parents out there who cannot give up any control, for that matter. I think this would be on the "substantially more likely than not" part of the spectrum as opposed to a balance of some are overprotective and some are under. This doesn't designate a bad parent necessarily but it is an extremely common shared principle between many parents. Of course each parent has to come up with their own decisions, but if the parenting method is wrongly learned from their parents then why not change it for the previously mentioned parent's kids?
I agree with you that people have a bias towards situations, but many parents are afraid to let kids even get into situations. As I'm sure you know being a parent (or know anyway, regardless), kids do need to fall on their faces sometimes to learn to get up. I also have nothing wrong with being careful. But on the same note if parents are rushing to a kid's aid too soon we all know how that turns out. The parents get conditioned by the kid to help them out, and the kid never develops any initiative.
Now about the kid, there's a bunch of factors in place. I would be more obliged of the kid in that if he has a reason to hide the password I would suspect it more legitimately logical than necessarily deviant or tactical. I can think of a number of reasons for both arguments of bad and good intentions but the suspicion is that the brother being a part of the family is in a knowledgeable enough situation having grown up with the sister to make an appropriate decision in regard to said sibling's situation.
Had I been responsible for her or not I'd have wanted more details. Don't toss the baby out with the bathwater with blanket expressions like this. This is like a "if you support gun control you're a republican". Not everything is so black and white.
I had interaction for as short a time as possible, and left it all up to the kid. Nobody continued to monitor her or worry of keeping her safe. If you have a kid raised with actual common sense you typically don't have to worry about the rest. I agree each case is different, but the level of control should always be minimized, not simply deemed "acceptable".
In effect, I was not lucky. There happen to be a few recently convicted child molesters in her area that were convicted for doing things around her area during the age when she would have been vulnerable. I'm not breaking a sweat, because she developed her own judgement. I made a decision based on my information, and I went with it. Going on the internet is by no means whatsoever a necessarily dangerous endeavor by any means. Predators are not in abundance, you know. Statistics of stuff like that are totally bogus.
I wouldn't overthink the situation with the kid for the basis of this article. Simply put, kids aren't great with passwords, no less than adults are. I think that was the basic summary of the situation was "how to deal with that" not "the internet is dangerousssss".
I do understand what you're saying here. I can agree with that completely. I don't think your analogy is remotely on though, I don't agree that that internet access is comparable to driving heavy plant machinery from any perspective.
Ethernet is a technology that is owned by a single company that developed the technology. They license it to the manufacturers to produce. The monopoly is higher up. The cause was that the other technologies (token/etc) were dropped or failed. What other alternatives are there for a physical interface for net access (whether internal or external) other than ethernet? I don't hear anyone complaining.
Also note: ethernet is licensed in an open fashion, people can do whatever they want with it. Have you ever heard of such with windows?
To explain, you broke your childs trust the minute you decided they can't be trusted with their own decisions. Instead of helping when needed, you became "big brother" style. The truth is the kid doesn't need to lock you out because you won't even be able to catch everything that is going on. They may as well lock you out so you can accept that you will never have complete control over your child. This for controlling parents, is the antithesis of parenting. You'll accept it one day. People don't live in sandboxes forever.
Perhaps the sensible goal is to accept that like all sorts of 1950's/older era ideas, you can't lock people out from information. They can get it in many forms. Or do you expect to be able to control all of your child's access while they're at school and stuff too?
Sheesh, fearmongering at its finest lately around slashdot in this article.
There should be trust, and there will not be openness without it. Read sentence one for why neither is leading to the other, and why kids don't talk to parents in many instances.
The smarter a kid gets, the more privacy they want. Any parent that doesn't respect that will have to spend more and more time figuring out why their kids distance themselves more and more. I know by the time I was 7 I hated if my parents got involved, and how nosy they were. Trust me, by the time I was 12 I would have moved out if I had the money. I had already done the financial research and the absence of privacy was far more than sufficient to motivate me to want to leave.
When will you people let your kid have a damn shred of individuality and intuition to figure things out? This is why people fail as parents and don't see it till the kids get older. "protect the children" my ass. Also, using the excuse that you pay for everything doesn't mean you deserve unconditional gratitude. That comes when people hit 18+. If you expect that from 5+, you're in for a bumpy ride raising your kid. Enjoy the fights! I assure you that the scars you inflict on the kid mentally as a child will not go away when they get older.
I got my niece into IRC harry potter chatrooms (which we all know are supposedly predator-laden) by the time she was 8ish. We watched and helped her figure out the goods, the bads, the dangers for maybe 2 days to a week, tops. After that it was free reign and "be careful", but not monitoring. It's not like people didn't want to talk to her. She not only turned out well from a computer perspective but turned out to be a computer genius.
I know people want to help their kid every step of the way but it doesn't hurt to let them kinda be their own person, since thats how they'll end up anyway.
The problem is when companies do things like this for the bottom line and don't push their savings onto the customer. Absence of business sense. Any smart business knows pushing savings onto the customer (and profits) returns more business and makes a business better across all levels.
Now if they actually had realistic amounts of bandwidth purchased and sold to customers, this would never been an issue. It would be business as usual, let alone a way for them to increase their business by proving "hey, we can give our customers what they want". Instead it's "hey, we can't even give our customers what we want, let alone what they want".
I mean seriously. Anyone on an 8GB a month plan is just out of their mind. 5 or 10 years ago maybe it was remotely viable in a household, but not today for sure.
Sadly, I bet these guys are going to traffic shape their customers into the ground.
Well, for the individuals who think Microsoft has changed, I present to you This Article. (Tiny'd-> http://tinyurl.com/32zpet ). Note from the article : "That said, Microsoft may continue to play verbal hardball with commercial open source competitors that don't license the company's intellectual property. It's not like Microsoft is suddenly going to espouse the virtues of completely free software. "This is in no way removing the issue of patents in the context of infringement," Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft VP of intellectual property and licensing, said in an interview. Though a changing technology world is important, part of the new landscape has also been shaped by court systems in the United States and Europe. The European Union has recently stepped up and opened new anti-trust investigations into Microsoft's business practices, while a recent decision in the long-running U.S. anti-trust case found that Microsoft still wasn't being open enough with its communications protocols.
Much of the discussion during Microsoft's press conference announcing the new strategy focused on the company's legal requirements in relation to anti-trust scrutiny. "The interoperability principles and actions announced today reflect a changed legal landscape for Microsoft and the information technology industry," Brad Smith, Microsoft's top attorney, said on the call. For its part, the European Union took a skeptical eye to Microsoft's announcements."
So yeah, what was that about my possibly being wrong about them meeting the "minimum standards" again? Seems like as I suspected, the minimum to stay legal in the face of abusing the law. What was that about "cheap companies" and "barely meeting standards", again?
Just an FYI, not all monopolies are bad. Period. The US has a history of monopolies that abuse it and there have been wide implications. I'm not saying all monopolies are good, usually when one comes around is a pretty good indication of something going way wrong in economics at any level. However, natural monopolies can be unavoidable at times.
In an optimal situation, what can you do if you and your only competitor's difference between products is that they use lower quality alternatives in china for xyz product and your own are hand-made and of a discernably higher quality? If they only buy yours, is that your fault?
I don't really get where you're going with the comment. I would say break up any and all monopolies and/or hardcore regulate them. However, don't be disillusioned that just because someone controls the market it implies the abuse. I would watch with a magnifying glass so to speak, though.
Hmm, where to start. How about UL, or the company that holds the monopoly on Ethernet? There were other products before it's day. I can name those two off the top of my head.
There are plenty in businesses that are not mainstream that still hold to said principles. If I recall a lot of product manufacturers hold monopolies on parts and continually improve them and not use it as fee extraction.
Standards committee: I'm actually applying to join like 4 relevant to my job. I really look forward to it both in terms of increasing my knowledge and getting some real world insight. However, no two standards committees are alike. I don't think I'd be able to relate the ones I want to join (not computer related) versus computer related and/or technical.
I do understand the cost saving aspects, but if the bar is so low for compliance you raise it. Of course the vendors groan at that too. I agree usually the large companies see the light and do well better than compliance, but this is Microsoft. You have to fundamentally change your business view in such a situation. They have essentially defined their own business model and quality is not a part of their equation.
Have you worked on a standards committee? I don't mean that as an insult, but please clarify so that I can understand better what I am missing either partially or completely.
About your motherboard, I am moderately sympathetic I suppose, but what is stopping you from switching motherboards? It's not like they're the most expensive part of a PC system, even for a quality mobo. I believe it's called "influencing with your dollar", aka taking your business away from the non-compliant company and giving it to the compliant one...of course being a consumer in and of itself sucks all the same