Feinstein is one of the worst enemies of freedom in the Senate. Her track record is horrible. It is pretty much obvious she's also on the payroll of the entertainment industry here in California.
Theory: Microsoft wants to kill consoles.
on
XBox Delayed
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· Score: 1
I don't know if this is true or not, but the way things are going make me suspect that Microsoft's real goal with the X-Box is to kill off console gaming. I'll probably get flamed to hell for this one, but I'll post it anyway.
The facts are pretty simple. Microsoft is LOSING money on the X-Box console. The X-Box console is also closer to a PC than a Console in traditional sense. While MS will make up some of the money from lisencing fees, they probably still make tons more off of every new copy of Windows they sell for PC markets.
If Microsoft is successful with X-Box, and take Sony and Nintendo out of the picture, then they can stop supporting the X-Box. No more consoles, and all gamers will now be consolidated onto the PC. Microsoft can then make the newer versions of DirectX only work with their most recent operating system.
Then they can make a new Windows every year, at $200 a pop. Gamers who want to play newer games have to upgrade to the newest version of Windows all the time. Microsoft stands to make more money off of this than any game console.
The federal government has been operating in an illegal manner for quite some time. Congress has a host of unconstitutional powers that would sicken those who wrote the Consitution.
It saddens me that when people asked me who I was voting for last year, they responded with "Who's Harry Browne!!!?" and "The WHAT Party!!?" The media whores have done a really good job in lying to the American public that only a Republican or a Democrat have a chance for the White House (or any other elected office).
Most of Congress is bought and paid for. No secret there.
I bet that when this bill is voted on it will also be mentioned that it could also be a great tool against terrorists.
When will they pass the bill that says, "You are guilty of a fedaral crime, punishable by a $2,000,000 fine and 25 years in prison, if the RIAA/MPAA or other contributors to Congressional funds do not make at least $5,000 from you per year." I can imagine Dianne
Feinstein (D-CA^H^HMPAA) saying, "Obviouisly, anyone who isn't willing to fork over cash to the entertainment industry is a communist or a terrorist sympathiser," in her press releases.
I think that both parties have FAR overstayed their welcome here in the United States. It is quite clear that members of both parties are for sale to the highest bidding corporations!
Naturally, voting your congressman out will probably hard... but ideally, that is the only way these things are going to go away... by getting rid of all the corrupt politicians in the government and replacing them with members of THIRD PARTIES that actually still have their ideals.
... Maybe Europe isn't such a bad place to move to, after all.
One that teaches: To stay in business, your company needs to make more than you spend. And also: It is nearly impossible to grow a large, successful company without years of effort.
Some of these companies had some good ideas (though most of them didn't), but managed their money so poorly that it shocked me. Everyone was in too much of a rush to get filthy rich that they didn't take it slowly and make sacrifices.
I think the next time around, people should become wise to the following:
-$700 is $700... you don't need that Aeron anyway.
-If you want your company to grow, you're going to have to make some initial sacrifices. That means CEOs of.coms don't need to hog all the payroll.
-If you need to "bend over" for the VCs... you've already lost.
A browser is NOT an integral tool in the OS's tool kit. You can do QUITE A BIT with a computer without the ability to browse the web. Infact, in many office settings, computers would probably be more productive overall WITH OUT browsers installed on them so that people would DO WORK instead of BROWSE THE WEB.
All the other operating systems DO ship with a browser, but not all of them are integral parts of the operating system, and all of them should be removeable. If I install Linux, I do not have to install the browser. If I install Windows, I should not be forced to install Internet Explorer.
I would consider GCC a very important tool to have on a Linux machine, much more important than a browser is in any operating system, and I'm sure a lot of other people would agree.... However I CAN install Linux without GCC installed and still use it.
What Microsoft should have done differently is treated IE like a separate piece of software... like they do Word. It isn't that hard.
I think we all know from the beginning that MS would probably escape this with nothing more than a meaningless slap on the wrist, and grow ten times more monopolistic and evil as before. And we all knew it didn't matter if it were under Dubya's administration or Algore's. Dubya's administration just works faster to deliver injustice, and probably gives MS a little more moving room to continue and expand their monopoly crimes.
Too many decision makers in the government are easily swayed by the corporate dollar and charisma in both parties anyway. Very few politicians in DC aren't for sale nowadays, and the same goes for federal judges, I'm sure.
I'm working on a piece of software now that uses the time string quite a bit. When I was first designing it, I first was going to make the software expect a nine digit string, because as long as I remember it has been that. But then I noticed how the time strings were getting pretty close to ten digits. If I would have been careless, I'd be dealing with broken software this weekend.
Of course, since there are lots of more competant programming geeks than me, I'm sure that most of the good software out there will be okay. (Or at least I hope so)
Yeah, it could work well with those safeguards...
I don't trust such a thing being enacted though.
I fear that corporations will thorw cash at congress to allow them to place their "ads" on the system. Maybe I'm just too mistrusting nowadays of either.
One time I called tech support to tell them my service had been out for over a day. They responded by saying that there was a problem on their end that was causing some people to lose service. Fair enough, it happens. However, they the tech had to take 10 minutes to get that information. You would think that something big like an outage would be readily available to all techs.
I asked for the estimated time when my service would resume, and they had to transfer me to a level 2 tech support desk for me to get that information.
Of course none of this tops what the installation guy tried to pull on me (this was before self install options). I had just bought a new windows box, and we were getting @Home service. When the guy came to hook up the cable modem, he disabled the network card (dunno if it was an accident or on purpose). Needless to say, the service wasn't working when he tried it out. He said there was a problem with my network card and that I would have to buy one from them for $80. I told him to look in the hardware profiles, and he did. Sure enough, the network card was disabled in the hardware profiles. I told him to re-enable the network card, but he refused and told me my card was simply not working with their service, and I'd have to buy one of theirs. I was pretty annoyed, but he kept trying to push me buying a network card from them. To get rid of him, I told him I'd call the manufacturer and then call him back. He agreed and left. I then re-enabled the card, and naturally everything worked fine.
To this day I don't know if the guy was just an idiot, or if he did it in purpose. Either way, it doesn't speak very well for @Home. Unfortunately, they were the only broadband provider in the area at the time, so I was stuck with them... or 56K.
It really isn't a dirty trick, as many have said.
They should just come up with some better model naming conventions so that the model number isn't mistaken for the clock speed, or keep the speed on the box somewhere (on the back, or whatever).
It is a bit misleading to call a chip the Athlon 1600, but have it clock at 1.4 GHz. I bet people will complain when they get a 1.4 GHz processor when they were expecting 1.6 Ghz.
Dmitry was creating software that is legal in his country, and it happens to be illegal here. Perhaps his employer was doing something illegal here, and even then, I believe that the feds could have simply shut down the sale of the software in the US. I believe they purposefully sat on it without doing a thing for the chance to convict should an employee ever step foot on US soil.
I don't believe Dmitry should be personally responsible for it, and he should also not be responsible for knowing the ins and outs of OUR laws.
BTW, the FBI IS part of the Executive Branch, and they were the ones who enacted this whole mess.
Unfortunately for Dmitry, he is a perfect target to be criminally prosecuted under the DMCA. I'm sure that the feds had many potential cases against domestic violators, but I think they chose Dmitry for a few reasons.
First off, he isn't a US citizen. He is a visitor from a foreign country. This leaves him with fewer resources, fewer rights, and little understanding of the rights he does have.
IANAL, and I don't know exactly what rights an accused foreigner has in the USA, but I'm sure that the feds are less inclined to play by the rules they have to when dealing with a citizen.
Secondly, he isn't just any foreigner, he's Russian. If the general public is going to take notice of the DMCA, the feds want a good impression. Lots of people (sadly and surprisingly) still view the Russians as "the enemy" and will view Dmitry as an "evil communist." Thus they might see the DMCA as something that fights the evil commies.
This also might strike fear into citizens of other nations, and convey the message that no country is as powerful as the US, which will FIND a way to subject everyone world wide to its laws.
As a Citizen of the US, I am very angry about this. Dmitry should be freed and sent home immediately, and then the White House should send an apology to the Russians for this behavior.
I know that they'd demand the same for one of our citizens cought up in a BS situation like this in another country.
I wonder: If there was a really big battle in the courts between religion (any of the major ones in the US) and corporate greed, who would come out victorious? Both of these things are supposedly represented by the right wingers in Washington, right?
Basically, for a large chunk of the republican party, their whole "morality" play is just a ploy to dupe the churchgoing population into voting for them. There are still LOTS of people who attend church (esp. in rural areas) and would like to see our government represent good morals. However, sooner or later, I believe that we'll see congress siding up with the businesses they are truly loyal to as opposed to the faithful.
Might be something hard to percieve, but it isn't impossible. For instance, maybe a church group decides to protest outside of many movie theaters or the movie studio that they disagree with the content of a movie. The studio feels that the protesting is hurting their movie at the box office, and sues them, or lobbies congress for new laws to shut up "moral" protesters.
Or perhaps a poor country church is accused by the RIAA of having a "public performance" of one of the songs "owned" by them without proper lisencing.
These things have probably happened quietly in the past. But maybe the media corporations will try to squash out the religious types after they are done dealing with the "evil hacker" types. I'm sure parents who are trying to raise their kids to follow their faith rather than becoming zombie consumers are pretty annoying to media corps.
BTW, Corporations want to convey the idea that file and intellectual property sharing == theft.
Hmn, an interesting quote here....
And all that believed were together, and had all things common
And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.
Acts 2:44-45 (KJV)
Of course, this verse was written almost 2000 years ago, but it does pertain to the sharing of goods and possessions with other people in your church. During the days of the early Christians, there really was no such thing as Intellectual Property as far as it exists today. I guess if you were to read this one loosely then you could justify sharing of things such as software between church members if there was a need for it. Just a thought anyway.
It is scary, however, how much we've let our rights get trampled over.
We've pretty much already given up on the right to bear arms in this country. Now we've got all of these gun control laws in place that were put there comfort all of those who are foolish enough to trade freedom for a false sense of security.
Let us not give up the rights guaranteed in the 1st. Ammendment just so we can stop the "evil hackers" out there from "stealing" from corporate fat cats. Congress is so sold out... if we sit here and let them, they WILL take away our other rights gradually if it benefits the corporations who bought them.
And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
-Revelation 13:16-17 (KJV)
Not that many Slashdotters are the Bible reading type, but passages like these become scarier and scarier to me whenever I hear about these types of laws that put more control on the marketplaces being proposed world-wide. Seems like DMCA and similar laws being thrown about there could just be the beginning of total control over the consumers. Could we one day see laws that not only say HOW we can use our purchased goods, but also say WHO can purchase in the first place?
The idea is scary, even if one doesn't believe in such scriptures.
This is one that shouldn't be ignored at all. It is rather uneasy that someone who responsibly found a security hole and reported it is being treated like some sort of dangerous terrorist.
This is this sort of thing that makes me SCARED to even mention to people vulnerabilities on their systems. It looks to me that the government is so bent on making people into "examples" as far as these so-called "computer crimes" go that they are
eager to arrest anyone on anything computer related. Next thing you know they'll throw people into jail for logging into FTP servers anonymously, or writing "helloworld.c" without proper government authorization signed by Dubya himself.
If the feds have their way, this guy will probably do more time than the average convicted rapist.
Then they can go about saying how there are so many more "evil hackers" around that they need more enforcement laws than they already have.
Re:Morality of Counter Measures?
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Code Red III
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· Score: 1
Actually, you're right.
I couldn't find a command that would shut down NT totally. So the next best thing is shutting down IIS, I assume.
Morality of Counter Measures?
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Code Red III
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· Score: 2
I have a bunch of IPs from my apache logs of attempted attacks on my box. Since I'm running a Linux box, I'm not getting infected, but I was thinking about putting a script on my error page that would SHUT DOWN (not reformat the HD) a compromised box (since the command line is fully available on a compromised machine). I know that this has been suggested...
My only question is if such a counter measure is moral / legal. Unlike the proposed counter measure worm, this wouldn't propogate. It'd only affect boxes infected with Code Red II. I'm not sure that messing around with the machine of another user, despite my intentions or the infected state of a box, is legal.
Having California laws being valid in every other state isn't enough. Afterall, they need to punish the evil haxors in other countries.
Afterall, even huge industries with billions of dollars that can afford to pay crappy actors millions to appear in movies can't afford even ONE evil teenager possibly circumventing region coding so they can watch a DVD they bought here in their own country, where said DVD isn't commercially available.
To think that these villains would even get the idea that they could do whatever they wanted with something they paid money to buy is absurd. How dare they believe that they have any rights whatsover?
It doesn't matter if these programs do not work properly with Windows XP. This feature is dangerous, and gives Microsoft yet another unfair advantage over competing products.
Sure, it might block programs to cause Windows to crash, but it could also be used to block software MS just doesn't want you to run. They've done things like this before. Because MS feels safer with Dubya's administration, I won't be surprised if they do even nastier things to competition than they did in the past. I expect them to try to kill off all non-MS operating systems by replacing TCP/IP with their own.
When I buy a PC, I should be able to install whatever software I want, period. If I'm dumb enough to install software that is known to make my OS crash repeatedly, so be it. It is MY box.
I'm responsible for what happens to it. If we give away that responsibility to MS, then we're also giving them the ability to further steal away our freedom of choice.
/. has had lots of recent articles about business wanting to kill off the internet and replace it with a new one where users are at their whim.
I think Windows XP is going to be Microsoft's stepping stone to creating that new internet.
Companies will pay MS to give their packets priority. All service providers will have to pay MS royalties to use their protocols. All users will have to upgrade Windows every year to stay connected. MS will control it all, and their software won't even allow you to TRY to install another network protocol.
And it won't be any more secure than what we have in place. If anything, stupid email viruses and exploits will be even more damaging than before, because now EVERYONE will have the exact same system setups. And each time one of these attacks takes place, Microsoft can charge everyone for the update.
Oh, and let's call this new Internet/Software Control system "RapeNet," since that is what it is going to do to each and every computer user.
Well, AO is being hyped up right now. I've been playing the beta in between study sessions for the past few days, and it is OK. I think it is slightly more enjoyable than Everquest.
I played Everquest for a couple months, and quit just because I found it boring, what with the camping and everything, and I couldn't tolerate all of the servers crowded with lame users.
While I like fantasy settings better, I think that AO has some good things going. Of course, I find that a lot of the problems that are in Everquest are in this game too. Sitting around to regenerate health for one, and the fact that it seems my character has little plot-based motivation, etc. Still, these things aren't any worse, and in most cases not as bad, as they seem to be in EQ.
Mind you that right now the game has some issues associated with the beta. It is playable, though. So long as the major bugs are fixed, AO will probably attract a lot of the EQ crowd.
What I like right now about AO is that there don't seem to be the deluge of lame players there are in EQ. This will probably change after the release. Suffice to say, I don't think I'll be sticking around. Maybe if all the lamers forsake EQ and flock to Neverwinter, it'll be my chance to get back into EQ, and maybe it will be more fun... but maybe not.
I think I'll just wait for Neverwinter Nights. ^_^
Slashdot Mirror
The first Windows XP Blue Screen of Death!
No kidding.
Feinstein is one of the worst enemies of freedom in the Senate. Her track record is horrible. It is pretty much obvious she's also on the payroll of the entertainment industry here in California.
The facts are pretty simple. Microsoft is LOSING money on the X-Box console. The X-Box console is also closer to a PC than a Console in traditional sense. While MS will make up some of the money from lisencing fees, they probably still make tons more off of every new copy of Windows they sell for PC markets.
If Microsoft is successful with X-Box, and take Sony and Nintendo out of the picture, then they can stop supporting the X-Box. No more consoles, and all gamers will now be consolidated onto the PC. Microsoft can then make the newer versions of DirectX only work with their most recent operating system.
Then they can make a new Windows every year, at $200 a pop. Gamers who want to play newer games have to upgrade to the newest version of Windows all the time. Microsoft stands to make more money off of this than any game console.
Of course, maybe I'm wrong.
It saddens me that when people asked me who I was voting for last year, they responded with "Who's Harry Browne!!!?" and "The WHAT Party!!?" The media whores have done a really good job in lying to the American public that only a Republican or a Democrat have a chance for the White House (or any other elected office).
I bet that when this bill is voted on it will also be mentioned that it could also be a great tool against terrorists.
When will they pass the bill that says, "You are guilty of a fedaral crime, punishable by a $2,000,000 fine and 25 years in prison, if the RIAA/MPAA or other contributors to Congressional funds do not make at least $5,000 from you per year." I can imagine Dianne
Feinstein (D-CA^H^HMPAA) saying, "Obviouisly, anyone who isn't willing to fork over cash to the entertainment industry is a communist or a terrorist sympathiser," in her press releases.
Naturally, voting your congressman out will probably hard... but ideally, that is the only way these things are going to go away... by getting rid of all the corrupt politicians in the government and replacing them with members of THIRD PARTIES that actually still have their ideals.
... Maybe Europe isn't such a bad place to move to, after all.
Some of these companies had some good ideas (though most of them didn't), but managed their money so poorly that it shocked me. Everyone was in too much of a rush to get filthy rich that they didn't take it slowly and make sacrifices.
I think the next time around, people should become wise to the following:
-$700 is $700... you don't need that Aeron anyway.
-If you want your company to grow, you're going to have to make some initial sacrifices. That means CEOs of
-If you need to "bend over" for the VCs... you've already lost.
All the other operating systems DO ship with a browser, but not all of them are integral parts of the operating system, and all of them should be removeable. If I install Linux, I do not have to install the browser. If I install Windows, I should not be forced to install Internet Explorer.
I would consider GCC a very important tool to have on a Linux machine, much more important than a browser is in any operating system, and I'm sure a lot of other people would agree.... However I CAN install Linux without GCC installed and still use it.
What Microsoft should have done differently is treated IE like a separate piece of software
Too many decision makers in the government are easily swayed by the corporate dollar and charisma in both parties anyway. Very few politicians in DC aren't for sale nowadays, and the same goes for federal judges, I'm sure.
Of course, since there are lots of more competant programming geeks than me, I'm sure that most of the good software out there will be okay. (Or at least I hope so)
Yeah, it could work well with those safeguards...
I don't trust such a thing being enacted though.
I fear that corporations will thorw cash at congress to allow them to place their "ads" on the system. Maybe I'm just too mistrusting nowadays of either.
Oh great, now it will be even easier for spammers to make sure their junk reaches everyone.
I asked for the estimated time when my service would resume, and they had to transfer me to a level 2 tech support desk for me to get that information.
Of course none of this tops what the installation guy tried to pull on me (this was before self install options). I had just bought a new windows box, and we were getting @Home service. When the guy came to hook up the cable modem, he disabled the network card (dunno if it was an accident or on purpose). Needless to say, the service wasn't working when he tried it out. He said there was a problem with my network card and that I would have to buy one from them for $80. I told him to look in the hardware profiles, and he did. Sure enough, the network card was disabled in the hardware profiles. I told him to re-enable the network card, but he refused and told me my card was simply not working with their service, and I'd have to buy one of theirs. I was pretty annoyed, but he kept trying to push me buying a network card from them. To get rid of him, I told him I'd call the manufacturer and then call him back. He agreed and left. I then re-enabled the card, and naturally everything worked fine.
To this day I don't know if the guy was just an idiot, or if he did it in purpose. Either way, it doesn't speak very well for @Home. Unfortunately, they were the only broadband provider in the area at the time, so I was stuck with them... or 56K.
They should just come up with some better model naming conventions so that the model number isn't mistaken for the clock speed, or keep the speed on the box somewhere (on the back, or whatever).
It is a bit misleading to call a chip the Athlon 1600, but have it clock at 1.4 GHz. I bet people will complain when they get a 1.4 GHz processor when they were expecting 1.6 Ghz.
Dmitry was creating software that is legal in his country, and it happens to be illegal here. Perhaps his employer was doing something illegal here, and even then, I believe that the feds could have simply shut down the sale of the software in the US. I believe they purposefully sat on it without doing a thing for the chance to convict should an employee ever step foot on US soil.
I don't believe Dmitry should be personally responsible for it, and he should also not be responsible for knowing the ins and outs of OUR laws.
BTW, the FBI IS part of the Executive Branch, and they were the ones who enacted this whole mess.
First off, he isn't a US citizen. He is a visitor from a foreign country. This leaves him with fewer resources, fewer rights, and little understanding of the rights he does have.
IANAL, and I don't know exactly what rights an accused foreigner has in the USA, but I'm sure that the feds are less inclined to play by the rules they have to when dealing with a citizen.
Secondly, he isn't just any foreigner, he's Russian. If the general public is going to take notice of the DMCA, the feds want a good impression. Lots of people (sadly and surprisingly) still view the Russians as "the enemy" and will view Dmitry as an "evil communist." Thus they might see the DMCA as something that fights the evil commies.
This also might strike fear into citizens of other nations, and convey the message that no country is as powerful as the US, which will FIND a way to subject everyone world wide to its laws.
As a Citizen of the US, I am very angry about this. Dmitry should be freed and sent home immediately, and then the White House should send an apology to the Russians for this behavior.
I know that they'd demand the same for one of our citizens cought up in a BS situation like this in another country.
Basically, for a large chunk of the republican party, their whole "morality" play is just a ploy to dupe the churchgoing population into voting for them. There are still LOTS of people who attend church (esp. in rural areas) and would like to see our government represent good morals. However, sooner or later, I believe that we'll see congress siding up with the businesses they are truly loyal to as opposed to the faithful.
Might be something hard to percieve, but it isn't impossible. For instance, maybe a church group decides to protest outside of many movie theaters or the movie studio that they disagree with the content of a movie. The studio feels that the protesting is hurting their movie at the box office, and sues them, or lobbies congress for new laws to shut up "moral" protesters.
Or perhaps a poor country church is accused by the RIAA of having a "public performance" of one of the songs "owned" by them without proper lisencing.
These things have probably happened quietly in the past. But maybe the media corporations will try to squash out the religious types after they are done dealing with the "evil hacker" types. I'm sure parents who are trying to raise their kids to follow their faith rather than becoming zombie consumers are pretty annoying to media corps.
BTW, Corporations want to convey the idea that file and intellectual property sharing == theft.
Hmn, an interesting quote here....
And all that believed were together, and had all things common
And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.
Acts 2:44-45 (KJV)
Of course, this verse was written almost 2000 years ago, but it does pertain to the sharing of goods and possessions with other people in your church. During the days of the early Christians, there really was no such thing as Intellectual Property as far as it exists today. I guess if you were to read this one loosely then you could justify sharing of things such as software between church members if there was a need for it. Just a thought anyway.
It is scary, however, how much we've let our rights get trampled over.
We've pretty much already given up on the right to bear arms in this country. Now we've got all of these gun control laws in place that were put there comfort all of those who are foolish enough to trade freedom for a false sense of security.
Let us not give up the rights guaranteed in the 1st. Ammendment just so we can stop the "evil hackers" out there from "stealing" from corporate fat cats. Congress is so sold out... if we sit here and let them, they WILL take away our other rights gradually if it benefits the corporations who bought them.
And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
-Revelation 13:16-17 (KJV)
Not that many Slashdotters are the Bible reading type, but passages like these become scarier and scarier to me whenever I hear about these types of laws that put more control on the marketplaces being proposed world-wide. Seems like DMCA and similar laws being thrown about there could just be the beginning of total control over the consumers. Could we one day see laws that not only say HOW we can use our purchased goods, but also say WHO can purchase in the first place?
The idea is scary, even if one doesn't believe in such scriptures.
Seems that "entrapment" can pass for "due process" nowadays. Our rights were fun while they lasted.
This is this sort of thing that makes me SCARED to even mention to people vulnerabilities on their systems. It looks to me that the government is so bent on making people into "examples" as far as these so-called "computer crimes" go that they are
eager to arrest anyone on anything computer related. Next thing you know they'll throw people into jail for logging into FTP servers anonymously, or writing "helloworld.c" without proper government authorization signed by Dubya himself.
If the feds have their way, this guy will probably do more time than the average convicted rapist.
Then they can go about saying how there are so many more "evil hackers" around that they need more enforcement laws than they already have.
I couldn't find a command that would shut down NT totally. So the next best thing is shutting down IIS, I assume.
My only question is if such a counter measure is moral / legal. Unlike the proposed counter measure worm, this wouldn't propogate. It'd only affect boxes infected with Code Red II. I'm not sure that messing around with the machine of another user, despite my intentions or the infected state of a box, is legal.
Having California laws being valid in every other state isn't enough. Afterall, they need to punish the evil haxors in other countries.
Afterall, even huge industries with billions of dollars that can afford to pay crappy actors millions to appear in movies can't afford even ONE evil teenager possibly circumventing region coding so they can watch a DVD they bought here in their own country, where said DVD isn't commercially available.
To think that these villains would even get the idea that they could do whatever they wanted with something they paid money to buy is absurd. How dare they believe that they have any rights whatsover?
Sure, it might block programs to cause Windows to crash, but it could also be used to block software MS just doesn't want you to run. They've done things like this before. Because MS feels safer with Dubya's administration, I won't be surprised if they do even nastier things to competition than they did in the past. I expect them to try to kill off all non-MS operating systems by replacing TCP/IP with their own.
When I buy a PC, I should be able to install whatever software I want, period. If I'm dumb enough to install software that is known to make my OS crash repeatedly, so be it. It is MY box. I'm responsible for what happens to it. If we give away that responsibility to MS, then we're also giving them the ability to further steal away our freedom of choice.
And it won't be any more secure than what we have in place. If anything, stupid email viruses and exploits will be even more damaging than before, because now EVERYONE will have the exact same system setups. And each time one of these attacks takes place, Microsoft can charge everyone for the update.
Oh, and let's call this new Internet/Software Control system "RapeNet," since that is what it is going to do to each and every computer user.
I played Everquest for a couple months, and quit just because I found it boring, what with the camping and everything, and I couldn't tolerate all of the servers crowded with lame users.
While I like fantasy settings better, I think that AO has some good things going. Of course, I find that a lot of the problems that are in Everquest are in this game too. Sitting around to regenerate health for one, and the fact that it seems my character has little plot-based motivation, etc. Still, these things aren't any worse, and in most cases not as bad, as they seem to be in EQ.
Mind you that right now the game has some issues associated with the beta. It is playable, though. So long as the major bugs are fixed, AO will probably attract a lot of the EQ crowd.
What I like right now about AO is that there don't seem to be the deluge of lame players there are in EQ. This will probably change after the release. Suffice to say, I don't think I'll be sticking around. Maybe if all the lamers forsake EQ and flock to Neverwinter, it'll be my chance to get back into EQ, and maybe it will be more fun... but maybe not.
I think I'll just wait for Neverwinter Nights. ^_^