So, I don't get to buy my software where I want to buy it? Ok, I'll just download a cracked version of the valve software I want from somewhere and valve can forget about any of my money heading their way... ever.
While you might get some injury from a seatbelt, it certainly beats getting killed by a frontal crash at 120 KPH (whether you cause it or not). Seat belts were eventually required by law because manufacturers found it too expensive to put them in cars, well, the law fixed that.
This system is something completely different. It is wide open for abuse (where seat belts are not) but its intentions are well meant (a thief is stopped by simply turning off the car)... but people are bound to figure out how this works and stop legitimate flight attempts. And how about abuse of this by law enforcement departments (I understand the US justice system is fairly rotten)?
They integrate everything in the core operating system. This tends to result in more bugs because it's more difficult to keep the code clear and understandable. This translates into longer and more difficult development cycles, unexpected side effects when implementing or fixing something and bloated packages.
The end result is that Microsoft needs more and better coders to understand the pile of spaghetti windows must be by now.
Have you tied any other media players? It might be Microsoft trying to break the competition in the media-player market (like they did with Netscape in the browser market, for example).
The one and only real advantage of Microsoft is games (there aren't as many games for any other OS's as there are for windows). Now they're making the gamer community angry AND they're making the game development community angry. I can't help but wonder what ID software, Valve and Blizzard think of this move. Remember Microsoft, there's a very annoying competitor, called linux, out there.
(in the long run) this will result in civil war. In effect Mr. Bush can send the army to do his bidding... without anyone being able to stop him, this includes imprissoning members of the government itself and election candidates he dislikes, without statement of reason (in other words: terrorism).
The problem is the combination of uncertainty of quality, overpricing (way to expensive) and uncertainty of lastability.
The solution is simply a combination of makeing better games expensive and worse games cheaper, and a money back guarantee for the better games. This produces the pressure to the studios to produce quality and lastability, or simply be cheap.
This solution wouldn't elimenate piracy, but it would reduce it. The cheap games will also get sold - people will be more likely to buy them, simply because they're cheap. And the very good games will get sold (if they're not too expensive, that is), because people know they get a quality game.
Oh, and in this context expensive isn't intended as hurting-your-wallet, because then people will still simply copy the game they want to play.
This effectively makes it illegal to have anything to do with the internet (in its basics it's a P2P network, so it's forbidden to even be an internet provider or have a internet connection).
Congratulations Spain, you have now effectively put your economy back in the stone age. I think you should be happy about it, since you've made media companies happy - not that they'll be selling much in a few years time, since nobody can afford it anymore. But hey, at least they can say that you did something about copyright infringement.
They cannot enforce copyrights anymore in Spain, since you have already paid for them.:)
So, you're able to treat all copyright 'protected' works as if it's free, as long as you copy it on media which caries this tax. Good work spain, you have now nearly completely legalised copyright infringement. Only thing I'm missing is this tax on internet connections (would make uploading and downloading legal).
As soon as a copyright infringement case gets to court, the defendant can easily say: "but I have already paid for the copyrighted works." and that would get the case thrown out of court.
As an added bonus; you can ask the organisation which collects the tax to prove you that you are infringing on their copyrights. They most probably cannot, so you can demand a refund - even in court if it's needed.
In short: consumer organisations should make a lot of noise about this and be prepared to collect refunds for those ppl that do not infringe on copyrights.
The only motive to do this for microsoft is to make its own monopoly position stronger. Mergeing with yahoo would result in a stronger position versus google, makeing the possebility for elimenating google even greater. Remember: microsoft does NOT really need yahoo (it's already got MSN). Microsoft only needs yahoo when it wants to elimenate google.
Why would Microsoft want to elimenate google? Well, for starters: it's a big, high profile, highly visible company... which just happens to support Open Source Software, and that includes... Linux (do you ppl remember Microsoft declaring 'war' on Linux?).
If this merger is allowed to continue, we might not have a big, high profile, highly visible google in a few years... and that would be very convenient to Microsoft.
The point of such games is to have FUN. FUN which comes from the satisfaction that you succeeded again in, sometimes difficult, objectives. Objectives which you may, or may not, have planned yourself. But it's a lot more fun then a fps.
While the student attacked the hospital (and he should be glad he got away with conspiracy and not attempted murder), the hospital is at fault for useing a insecure system where a secure and STABLE system should be in place.
The hospital deserves to get sued.
property keyword:
Used that in object-pascal (the language sucks otherwise). Just define a read and write function, make a property which calls those functions and you can go ahead. Very simple in use (less bug prone), fast to implement and nice on the compiler. While you can achieve the same in c++ it's not as clean and friendly on the compiler.
interface and implementation (both are keywords, comes from pascal) section:
lets get rid of seperate header and code files. The idea is aged, inefficient and doesn't help clarity nor ease of coding.
Bit-arrays:
yesyes, I know. Boost contains a class which does that. But I think it would be so much nicer if the language had that feature.
If they don't and they simply treat this penalty payment as an additional tax, the EU, will start doing more painful things.
Would Microsoft like: 1) Their assets (IP rights, buildings, stock they own, etc.) being put on sale, or (worse) frozen? (you might want to add bank accounts to the list if this happens). 2) Crimminal prossecution for upper management? 3) Trade in Microsoft shares being frozen?
The shareholders won't like any of these.
Trust me, if Microsoft doesn't change its behavior after getting this pennalty payment, they're in for a world of hurt... and the damage from that may very well be irreversible.
In my oppinion, anyone who starts to become aggressive (that includes verbal aggression) has already lost and/or has a serious stress problem. Most of those cases should be put away to recieve psychiatric treatment until the disorder can either be controlled or is healed.
There are ofcourse cases which are simply too dumb and/or refuse to learn. These persons should be kept behind bars and recieve constant treatment for their disorder. They should also be explained thoroughly why they are put behind bars (that should lower the difficulty of handling and lower the escape risk).
If you ever encounter somebody who seems to have a thick skull, but otherwise seems nice (these people really exist) get rid of that person, s/he is quite capable of aggression and will (sooner or later) let you enjoy some of it (be it verbal (shouting, intimidation), physical (beating you up, sexual harassment) or social (isolating you)).
1) Forget windows (too many ppl use it, so everybody who gets access to the system can get in). 2) No networking 3) Log every action. 4) No removeable media other then CD-R/W. 5) When somebody's going to use it, they must beforehand tell what they're going to do, how they're going to do it and how long they're going to be busy. Also they're going to leave/everything/ behind what they don't need, this includes car-keys, wallet, cell-phone, etc. 6) Put it in a safe, this is no joke (make it large enough to work in). 7) Keep it on surveilance 24/7. 8) It's off outside office hours, and won't go on outside office hours. 9) Change passwords with every use. 10) No janitors in there, you do the cleaning yourself. 11) Only the tools needed are available to the users... Tools not needed by those users aren't even on the system. 12) No empty sockets in the system case... No wireless thingies, no empty sockets on the main board. 13) The safe where the thing is located is otherwise empty. 14) Only 2 trustworthy persons have the access method (preferably some wierd keypass in combination with a code). 15) The safe should be filled with some poisonous gas when nobody is supposed to be there (a bit to dangerous perhaps, but surely effective) 16) The safe is controlled by the computer inside it. 17) No printer or scanner attached to it. 18) The computer and safe recieve their power from a UPS, which in turn is charged by the regular power grid. The UPS is on the inside of the safe. 19) The CD-RW which has some data from the computer in question, gets destroyed the moment it isn't needed anymore (destroyed = shredded + melted). 20) The computer in question is bolted in place and welded shut (so nobody can just pick it (or part of it) up and walk away with it). 21) The walls of the safe should absorb EM-radiation. 22) The walls of the safe should absorb sound. 23) Metal detector at the entrance, which is again controlled by the computer on the inside. 24)/You/ thoroughly check the code of all software which gets on that computer. 25) The persons which need to get/near/ the safe need to get clearance for it. 26) The persons working with it should be hardened against social engineering - this includes testing them for vurnability. You should do that when they least expect it. 27) The safe is in a wierd location, and the entrance looks completely innocent.
No, the software companies should have gone after the software pirates a long time ago.
BUT it is important for the software companies to realise that in order to reduce software piracy they've got to lower their prices and increase the quality of their products. Otherwise piracy (a symptom) will just continue to be a big problem to them (instead of a minor annoyance).
The desease being here; too expensive software and an unreliable software quality.
Have they lowered the prices, to make sure ppl buy their products easier? No. Do they make their products better? No.
Result: - Buying a game is a major investment, so ppl are more likely to download a game to check it out first. - Since buying a game is such an investment, ppl are supposed to recieve quality (not only beauty)... guess what, nine out of ten games aren't fun, a lot of games are buggy and most are resource hogs. So ppl are more likely to take a look at the full version first (demos aren't enough, most of the time), before they decide to buy... guess what, bad games don't get bought.
But instead of curing the desease they/try/ to cure the symptoms. I think they are perfectly aware of why this is happening, but refuse to do something about it. This is simply an attempt to achieve control.
I crashed because my windows crashed and now my kloohn is angry at me because I made his windows crash because I had a memory of windows ME... whaaahahahahaha... wheeee...
Or was it my kloohn who had a memory of ME having a memory of my other kloohn crashing my kloohn's windows ME... Now I'm not certain anymore who I am. Am I me or am I somebody else's kloohn, who is a kloohn of the real ME.
I don't understand it anymore. I will crash again now.
These guys still don't understand it. The cd's are waaaaay too expensive to buy casually for ppl, so they download the songs they want instead of buying them.
Slashdot Mirror
...for which he can virtually wait for an eternity...
So, I don't get to buy my software where I want to buy it? Ok, I'll just download a cracked version of the valve software I want from somewhere and valve can forget about any of my money heading their way... ever.
While you might get some injury from a seatbelt, it certainly beats getting killed by a frontal crash at 120 KPH (whether you cause it or not). Seat belts were eventually required by law because manufacturers found it too expensive to put them in cars, well, the law fixed that.
This system is something completely different. It is wide open for abuse (where seat belts are not) but its intentions are well meant (a thief is stopped by simply turning off the car)... but people are bound to figure out how this works and stop legitimate flight attempts. And how about abuse of this by law enforcement departments (I understand the US justice system is fairly rotten)?
They integrate everything in the core operating system. This tends to result in more bugs because it's more difficult to keep the code clear and understandable. This translates into longer and more difficult development cycles, unexpected side effects when implementing or fixing something and bloated packages.
The end result is that Microsoft needs more and better coders to understand the pile of spaghetti windows must be by now.
Have you tied any other media players? It might be Microsoft trying to break the competition in the media-player market (like they did with Netscape in the browser market, for example).
The one and only real advantage of Microsoft is games (there aren't as many games for any other OS's as there are for windows). Now they're making the gamer community angry AND they're making the game development community angry. I can't help but wonder what ID software, Valve and Blizzard think of this move. Remember Microsoft, there's a very annoying competitor, called linux, out there.
(in the long run) this will result in civil war. In effect Mr. Bush can send the army to do his bidding... without anyone being able to stop him, this includes imprissoning members of the government itself and election candidates he dislikes, without statement of reason (in other words: terrorism).
The problem is the combination of uncertainty of quality, overpricing (way to expensive) and uncertainty of lastability.
The solution is simply a combination of makeing better games expensive and worse games cheaper, and a money back guarantee for the better games. This produces the pressure to the studios to produce quality and lastability, or simply be cheap.
This solution wouldn't elimenate piracy, but it would reduce it. The cheap games will also get sold - people will be more likely to buy them, simply because they're cheap. And the very good games will get sold (if they're not too expensive, that is), because people know they get a quality game.
Oh, and in this context expensive isn't intended as hurting-your-wallet, because then people will still simply copy the game they want to play.
Congratulations Spain, you have now effectively put your economy back in the stone age. I think you should be happy about it, since you've made media companies happy - not that they'll be selling much in a few years time, since nobody can afford it anymore. But hey, at least they can say that you did something about copyright infringement.
So, you're able to treat all copyright 'protected' works as if it's free, as long as you copy it on media which caries this tax. Good work spain, you have now nearly completely legalised copyright infringement. Only thing I'm missing is this tax on internet connections (would make uploading and downloading legal).
As soon as a copyright infringement case gets to court, the defendant can easily say: "but I have already paid for the copyrighted works." and that would get the case thrown out of court.
As an added bonus; you can ask the organisation which collects the tax to prove you that you are infringing on their copyrights. They most probably cannot, so you can demand a refund - even in court if it's needed.
In short: consumer organisations should make a lot of noise about this and be prepared to collect refunds for those ppl that do not infringe on copyrights.
The only motive to do this for microsoft is to make its own monopoly position stronger. Mergeing with yahoo would result in a stronger position versus google, makeing the possebility for elimenating google even greater. Remember: microsoft does NOT really need yahoo (it's already got MSN). Microsoft only needs yahoo when it wants to elimenate google.
Why would Microsoft want to elimenate google? Well, for starters: it's a big, high profile, highly visible company... which just happens to support Open Source Software, and that includes... Linux (do you ppl remember Microsoft declaring 'war' on Linux?).
If this merger is allowed to continue, we might not have a big, high profile, highly visible google in a few years... and that would be very convenient to Microsoft.
The point of such games is to have FUN. FUN which comes from the satisfaction that you succeeded again in, sometimes difficult, objectives. Objectives which you may, or may not, have planned yourself. But it's a lot more fun then a fps.
While the student attacked the hospital (and he should be glad he got away with conspiracy and not attempted murder), the hospital is at fault for useing a insecure system where a secure and STABLE system should be in place. The hospital deserves to get sued.
interface and implementation (both are keywords, comes from pascal) section: lets get rid of seperate header and code files. The idea is aged, inefficient and doesn't help clarity nor ease of coding.
Bit-arrays: yesyes, I know. Boost contains a class which does that. But I think it would be so much nicer if the language had that feature.
If they don't and they simply treat this penalty payment as an additional tax, the EU, will start doing more painful things.
Would Microsoft like:
1) Their assets (IP rights, buildings, stock they own, etc.) being put on sale, or (worse) frozen? (you might want to add bank accounts to the list if this happens).
2) Crimminal prossecution for upper management?
3) Trade in Microsoft shares being frozen?
The shareholders won't like any of these.
Trust me, if Microsoft doesn't change its behavior after getting this pennalty payment, they're in for a world of hurt... and the damage from that may very well be irreversible.
In my oppinion, anyone who starts to become aggressive (that includes verbal aggression) has already lost and/or has a serious stress problem. Most of those cases should be put away to recieve psychiatric treatment until the disorder can either be controlled or is healed.
There are ofcourse cases which are simply too dumb and/or refuse to learn. These persons should be kept behind bars and recieve constant treatment for their disorder. They should also be explained thoroughly why they are put behind bars (that should lower the difficulty of handling and lower the escape risk).
If you ever encounter somebody who seems to have a thick skull, but otherwise seems nice (these people really exist) get rid of that person, s/he is quite capable of aggression and will (sooner or later) let you enjoy some of it (be it verbal (shouting, intimidation), physical (beating you up, sexual harassment) or social (isolating you)).
...or stop buying Microsoft products.
A weapon is an item of which it's primary purpose (atm of use) is to cause damage (either physical, mental or emotional).
Using this definition, even a loaf of bread could be used as a weapon - although its damage potential is very low.
Maybe it's time to build a reactor based on this effect?
1) Forget windows (too many ppl use it, so everybody who gets access to the system can get in). /everything/ behind what they don't need, this includes car-keys, wallet, cell-phone, etc. /You/ thoroughly check the code of all software which gets on that computer. /near/ the safe need to get clearance for it.
2) No networking
3) Log every action.
4) No removeable media other then CD-R/W.
5) When somebody's going to use it, they must beforehand tell what they're going to do, how they're going to do it and how long they're going to be busy. Also they're going to leave
6) Put it in a safe, this is no joke (make it large enough to work in).
7) Keep it on surveilance 24/7.
8) It's off outside office hours, and won't go on outside office hours.
9) Change passwords with every use.
10) No janitors in there, you do the cleaning yourself.
11) Only the tools needed are available to the users... Tools not needed by those users aren't even on the system.
12) No empty sockets in the system case... No wireless thingies, no empty sockets on the main board.
13) The safe where the thing is located is otherwise empty.
14) Only 2 trustworthy persons have the access method (preferably some wierd keypass in combination with a code).
15) The safe should be filled with some poisonous gas when nobody is supposed to be there (a bit to dangerous perhaps, but surely effective)
16) The safe is controlled by the computer inside it.
17) No printer or scanner attached to it.
18) The computer and safe recieve their power from a UPS, which in turn is charged by the regular power grid. The UPS is on the inside of the safe.
19) The CD-RW which has some data from the computer in question, gets destroyed the moment it isn't needed anymore (destroyed = shredded + melted).
20) The computer in question is bolted in place and welded shut (so nobody can just pick it (or part of it) up and walk away with it).
21) The walls of the safe should absorb EM-radiation.
22) The walls of the safe should absorb sound.
23) Metal detector at the entrance, which is again controlled by the computer on the inside.
24)
25) The persons which need to get
26) The persons working with it should be hardened against social engineering - this includes testing them for vurnability. You should do that when they least expect it.
27) The safe is in a wierd location, and the entrance looks completely innocent.
No, the software companies should have gone after the software pirates a long time ago.
BUT it is important for the software companies to realise that in order to reduce software piracy they've got to lower their prices and increase the quality of their products. Otherwise piracy (a symptom) will just continue to be a big problem to them (instead of a minor annoyance).
The desease being here; too expensive software and an unreliable software quality.
Have they lowered the prices, to make sure ppl buy their products easier? No.
/try/ to cure the symptoms. I think they are perfectly aware of why this is happening, but refuse to do something about it. This is simply an attempt to achieve control.
Do they make their products better? No.
Result:
- Buying a game is a major investment, so ppl are more likely to download a game to check it out first.
- Since buying a game is such an investment, ppl are supposed to recieve quality (not only beauty)... guess what, nine out of ten games aren't fun, a lot of games are buggy and most are resource hogs. So ppl are more likely to take a look at the full version first (demos aren't enough, most of the time), before they decide to buy... guess what, bad games don't get bought.
But instead of curing the desease they
No... no... NOOOOO!
I crashed because my windows crashed and now my kloohn is angry at me because I made his windows crash because I had a memory of windows ME... whaaahahahahaha... wheeee...
Or was it my kloohn who had a memory of ME having a memory of my other kloohn crashing my kloohn's windows ME... Now I'm not certain anymore who I am. Am I me or am I somebody else's kloohn, who is a kloohn of the real ME.
I don't understand it anymore. I will crash again now.
Apparently you've never been really hurt by somebody, otherwise you would have never said this.
Words don't hurt like stones or sticks... they hurt like bullets and fists.
These guys still don't understand it.
The cd's are waaaaay too expensive to buy casually for ppl, so they download the songs they want instead of buying them.