Corporations are not people, and as such they have no inherent moral compass. Add to that the fact that the larger an organization gets, the less any individual employee's morality effects it, and you have the simple fact that profitability is the only sure way to affect their behavior.
The point isn't that corporations are "evil". It's that the only way to hold them accountable is to hurt their core mission: earn money for their shareholders.
Corporations are not people; they do not care about you, nor should you truly care about them.
The only thing corporations are concerned about are their bottom line; if doing something helps them profit, they'll do it. If doing something HURTS their bottom line (such as, oh, I don't know, paying taxes), they'll avoid doing it as best as they can.
Any example you might provide to prove otherwise is only an example of image control, a calculated effort to improve their standing in the eyes of their consumers.
Bottom line: report what corporations do. If it's bad, it'll help your fellow consumers avoid being screwed over. If it's good, it'll steer them towards companies that care enough about their image to not be total dickbags.
Actually, he didn't seem to get into trouble until he ran a vulnerability scan on the site, to "ensure that the issues he and Mija had identified had been corrected"; Skytech saw the scan happening, called him up, and told him what he was doing constituted a "cyber-attack", and THAT'S when the metaphorical shit hit the metaphorical fan.
Dungeons & Dragons Online has a similar "True Reincarnation" system.
Once your character reaches level 20, you can acquire a "True Druidic Heart of Wood", which you then use to "reincarnate" as a fresh level 1 character, changing anything you want except name and gender; certain permanent things like tomes carry over, although they may kick in gradually.
The first two times you do this, you get more points with which to buy your starting stats, and the XP you need to level up increases. EVERY time you TR, you gain a bonus "Past Life" feat for the class you had the most levels in, each of which gives you a minor bonus (fighter, for example, will give you +1 to attack rolls) that will stack with themselves up to 3 times each (ie, reincarnate from a fighter three times and you'll get a total of +3 to attack rolls). Having the "free" Past Life feat for a class also allowed you to take another feat "active" Past Life feat associated with your class.
Yeah, and it sucks to be them; their cable operator is screwing them over. But the point was that CableCARD CAN and IS a useful feature, without it being "illegal" or a "contract violation".
My provider switched over to all digital at the same time the OTA switch-over happened.
Of course, it used to be that I could get the entire extended basic lineup through ClearQAM (used a WinTV HVR2250), but about eight months after that, they started encrypting everything but the local channels (and Discovery, which is right in the middle of the locals, here).
Yes, the tuner itself will obey the CCI flag; it HAS to, in order to be certified. But so long as the content is marked Copy Freely, the recording itself has no DRM; in fact, SageDCT won't be able to record it unless it is.
So my options may be limited, but the content I get has no DRM, period.
Cablecard is irrelevant, because no half-decent DVR will ever have the capacity to work with Cablecard. It's illegal and a contract violation to work with Cablecard while not sucking. Ergo, it's a negative bullet point on a DVR feature list, which tells everyone the DVR is crippled. Why would anyone say their product sucks?
Illegal? No. Contract violation? No.
I use a Ceton InfiniTV 4 CableCARD tuner and SageTV (using SageDCT to control the tuner), and am able to record any program that's flagged Copy Freely, which in my area is all of the Extended Basic channels (which is all I want, anyways).
What I found interesting was that the article mentions that they noticed no difference on the Start screen at different DPI settings. I've been spending a lot of time of time in Visual Studio's Simulator lately, and it definitely displays a 10.1" 1920x1080 simulated screen differently than a 23" 1920x1080 screen. Meanwhile, 10.1" 1366x768 screen looks very similar to that 10.1" 1920x1080 screen.
If it worked before, and the only thing that changed was software, then it can fixed in software. It IS Sony's fault they didn't perform a proper QA job, and didn't fix the problem in the software before releasing the update.
If they were aware of the issue, and really DID feel pressured to release the update, they could have just come clean on why the update was being held up, and release the update as an unsupported beta version for power users to try out. It shows the community that they really ARE working on it, and confirms that there IS a problem that's holding it up.
No, but it's a decent indicator that the fault doesn't lie in the OS's network stack (and thus not Google's doing), but rather in the specific hardware (including drivers).
That being said, Google isn't the ones who've pushed out a defective OS image to devices in the field. As far as Xperia phones go, this is ENTIRELY Sony's fault for skipping on proper QA. Proper testing would've discovered this problem before it hit end users, ESPECIALLY if they are smart enough to look at known issues for OTHER ICS devices as part of their QA process.
For the two people who haven't figured it out, MAC address spoofing is trivial, and finding a valid MAC address is as easy as listening in on ONE packet from a connected device.
It may keep the average user out, but it'll barely slow down even the lamest of script kiddies.
Perhaps you should read a bit more of the discussion; in this case the term "Liberals" refers to the Australian political party bearing that name, which holds beliefs consistent with what Americans would term "conservatives".
Steam actually seems to be pretty good about freeing up resources; after I read your post, I took a look, and Steam was sitting at about 130MB. Once I closed the open windows (Store, Friends list, and a chat window), it dropped to about 14MB.
So yeah, Steam seems to take up a fairly small amount of RAM when running in the background.
Deactivating somebodies service to prevent a phone from making calls is NOT "the same level of inconvenience" as bricking somebodies phone to prevent it from ever being used on any network ever again.
Actually, in the example that you quoted from, it kind of is. First, you have to realize that what we're talking about doesn't "brick" the phone; it actually doesn't do ANYTHING to the phone itself, it just makes it so that the carrier's systems won't allow them to reactivate a phone marked on their end as stolen.
Second, the discussion here was about the inconvenience the user goes through when someone else falsely reports the user's phone stolen. In this case, the user already has to call AT&T and convince them that someone else made a false report; in the version where they don't let you reactivate a stolen phone, it adds a single step (remove that phone from the "stolen" database) to the carrier's job, but the user goes through the exact same process: call AT&T and convince them that someone lied to them.
Imagine in a world where:
Except in all of those cases, those companies would have to develop some new technology to track and disable all of those items.
Cell phones already identify themselves to the network with a unique ID called an IMEI. When you deactivate a cell phone, for any reason, the carrier removes the authorization for that IMEI to use their network. All AT&T and other carriers have to do is add this to a "do not activate" database when users report them stolen.
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I never called them "evil", because they're not.
But they're not "good", either.
Corporations are not people, and as such they have no inherent moral compass. Add to that the fact that the larger an organization gets, the less any individual employee's morality effects it, and you have the simple fact that profitability is the only sure way to affect their behavior.
The point isn't that corporations are "evil". It's that the only way to hold them accountable is to hurt their core mission: earn money for their shareholders.
Corporations are not people; they do not care about you, nor should you truly care about them.
The only thing corporations are concerned about are their bottom line; if doing something helps them profit, they'll do it. If doing something HURTS their bottom line (such as, oh, I don't know, paying taxes), they'll avoid doing it as best as they can.
Any example you might provide to prove otherwise is only an example of image control, a calculated effort to improve their standing in the eyes of their consumers.
Bottom line: report what corporations do. If it's bad, it'll help your fellow consumers avoid being screwed over. If it's good, it'll steer them towards companies that care enough about their image to not be total dickbags.
Actually, he didn't seem to get into trouble until he ran a vulnerability scan on the site, to "ensure that the issues he and Mija had identified had been corrected"; Skytech saw the scan happening, called him up, and told him what he was doing constituted a "cyber-attack", and THAT'S when the metaphorical shit hit the metaphorical fan.
Metaphorically speaking.
Actually, that wasn't Waldo; the man has a metric fuckton of body doubles that look nearly identical to confuse you.
The real Waldo is still out there, plotting his revenge against all the people who cut him off on the road on the way to work each morning.
I don't think I've ever heard of someone enjoying beating themselves with a 12oz can of Pepsi before...
Which is beyond lame, because Wii emulators (such as Dolphin) can render Wii games at 1080p with no issues.
Dungeons & Dragons Online has a similar "True Reincarnation" system.
Once your character reaches level 20, you can acquire a "True Druidic Heart of Wood", which you then use to "reincarnate" as a fresh level 1 character, changing anything you want except name and gender; certain permanent things like tomes carry over, although they may kick in gradually.
The first two times you do this, you get more points with which to buy your starting stats, and the XP you need to level up increases. EVERY time you TR, you gain a bonus "Past Life" feat for the class you had the most levels in, each of which gives you a minor bonus (fighter, for example, will give you +1 to attack rolls) that will stack with themselves up to 3 times each (ie, reincarnate from a fighter three times and you'll get a total of +3 to attack rolls). Having the "free" Past Life feat for a class also allowed you to take another feat "active" Past Life feat associated with your class.
Methinks Windows Phone 7 has been around for a while, now...
Yeah, and it sucks to be them; their cable operator is screwing them over. But the point was that CableCARD CAN and IS a useful feature, without it being "illegal" or a "contract violation".
My provider switched over to all digital at the same time the OTA switch-over happened.
Of course, it used to be that I could get the entire extended basic lineup through ClearQAM (used a WinTV HVR2250), but about eight months after that, they started encrypting everything but the local channels (and Discovery, which is right in the middle of the locals, here).
Yes, the tuner itself will obey the CCI flag; it HAS to, in order to be certified. But so long as the content is marked Copy Freely, the recording itself has no DRM; in fact, SageDCT won't be able to record it unless it is.
So my options may be limited, but the content I get has no DRM, period.
Cablecard is irrelevant, because no half-decent DVR will ever have the capacity to work with Cablecard. It's illegal and a contract violation to work with Cablecard while not sucking. Ergo, it's a negative bullet point on a DVR feature list, which tells everyone the DVR is crippled. Why would anyone say their product sucks?
Illegal? No. Contract violation? No.
I use a Ceton InfiniTV 4 CableCARD tuner and SageTV (using SageDCT to control the tuner), and am able to record any program that's flagged Copy Freely, which in my area is all of the Extended Basic channels (which is all I want, anyways).
All legal, no contract violations, no DRM.
What I found interesting was that the article mentions that they noticed no difference on the Start screen at different DPI settings. I've been spending a lot of time of time in Visual Studio's Simulator lately, and it definitely displays a 10.1" 1920x1080 simulated screen differently than a 23" 1920x1080 screen. Meanwhile, 10.1" 1366x768 screen looks very similar to that 10.1" 1920x1080 screen.
Probably because they didn't want to break a greater number of certs.
If it worked before, and the only thing that changed was software, then it can fixed in software. It IS Sony's fault they didn't perform a proper QA job, and didn't fix the problem in the software before releasing the update.
If they were aware of the issue, and really DID feel pressured to release the update, they could have just come clean on why the update was being held up, and release the update as an unsupported beta version for power users to try out. It shows the community that they really ARE working on it, and confirms that there IS a problem that's holding it up.
No, but it's a decent indicator that the fault doesn't lie in the OS's network stack (and thus not Google's doing), but rather in the specific hardware (including drivers).
That being said, Google isn't the ones who've pushed out a defective OS image to devices in the field. As far as Xperia phones go, this is ENTIRELY Sony's fault for skipping on proper QA. Proper testing would've discovered this problem before it hit end users, ESPECIALLY if they are smart enough to look at known issues for OTHER ICS devices as part of their QA process.
Really? And you have reading comprehension issues. I said faux-open ->project model<-
FTFY. Might want to proofread before you start bitching about literacy problems, next time.
For the two people who haven't figured it out, MAC address spoofing is trivial, and finding a valid MAC address is as easy as listening in on ONE packet from a connected device.
It may keep the average user out, but it'll barely slow down even the lamest of script kiddies.
Metro: good idea for touch-oriented systems, such as tablets and phones.
Having Metro available on desktop systems: Good idea.
Metro as default UI on desktops: Good idea for newbies, so they have a recognizable interface across multiple form factors.
FORCING Metro on people who don't want it: WHAT THE FLYING HELL WERE YOU THINKING?
I'd get right on that, but I'm too busy with this Gibson that needs hacking...
It's almost as if he could see the article before it was actually posted...
But to do that he'd have to be... a SUBSCRIBER!
If I had been drinking something when I had read that line, I'm betting a spit-take would have been the inevitable result.
Perhaps you should read a bit more of the discussion; in this case the term "Liberals" refers to the Australian political party bearing that name, which holds beliefs consistent with what Americans would term "conservatives".
Steam actually seems to be pretty good about freeing up resources; after I read your post, I took a look, and Steam was sitting at about 130MB. Once I closed the open windows (Store, Friends list, and a chat window), it dropped to about 14MB.
So yeah, Steam seems to take up a fairly small amount of RAM when running in the background.
Deactivating somebodies service to prevent a phone from making calls is NOT "the same level of inconvenience" as bricking somebodies phone to prevent it from ever being used on any network ever again.
Actually, in the example that you quoted from, it kind of is. First, you have to realize that what we're talking about doesn't "brick" the phone; it actually doesn't do ANYTHING to the phone itself, it just makes it so that the carrier's systems won't allow them to reactivate a phone marked on their end as stolen.
Second, the discussion here was about the inconvenience the user goes through when someone else falsely reports the user's phone stolen. In this case, the user already has to call AT&T and convince them that someone else made a false report; in the version where they don't let you reactivate a stolen phone, it adds a single step (remove that phone from the "stolen" database) to the carrier's job, but the user goes through the exact same process: call AT&T and convince them that someone lied to them.
Imagine in a world where:
Except in all of those cases, those companies would have to develop some new technology to track and disable all of those items.
Cell phones already identify themselves to the network with a unique ID called an IMEI. When you deactivate a cell phone, for any reason, the carrier removes the authorization for that IMEI to use their network. All AT&T and other carriers have to do is add this to a "do not activate" database when users report them stolen.