Being able to depend upon a reliable amount of bandwidth is definitely a part of reliability.
That depends on how you define "reliable." When you talk about a "reliable old car" you're not saying "I can go 60mph in this thing any time I want." When you talk about a "reliable old computer" you probably aren't referring to speed. When you talk about hardwired phone lines being "reliable" you aren't talking about voice quality, you're talking about it always being available even during power outages. When you talk about a "reliable" network... speed isn't necessarily the issue. Whether or not it is usable is the issue... obviously, 0kb/s isn't very usable, either, but 5kb/s is. Maybe not to watch movies, I suppose.
Check again. According to wikipedia and other sources as well, "America" can be used to refer to the continent or the US of A. Whether or not it "should" is no as relevant as whether or not it does, in this case...
This does not, of course, excuse the reckless driving of the "angered" guy trying to get around the slowpoke.
(but you're right, driving in the "slow lane" when "going slow[ly]" makes sense and helps mitigate people getting angry...)
On the other hand, what about the annoying guys that just whizz past you in the lane you're trying to get over into while you are trying to get OUT of the fast lane? And they sometimes get really upset, because you just moved into HIS LANE and he had to use his brakes. Ugh! Awful brakes.
Seriously. If people just... lightened up and were in slightly less of a hurry and did not think that the road, highway, lane, etc., belonged to them... and at the same time realized that the hulk of plastic they are sitting in really doesn't protect them a whole lot in the grand scheme of things...
Out of curiosity, how do non-profits fit into that? e.g., if a church hires a dude and the dude later "recants" so to speak, can the church "fire" him on religious grounds?
I know this is offtopic, but I find it rather comical (in an annoying sort of way) that insulting Bush gets you an Insightful mod, while insulting Obama gets a Flamebait mod. Heh.:)
Harm isn't enough to make it illegal? That's weird... why should beating someone up with a baseball bat be illegal then? It's just physical harm?
And you can certainly do so without using government force to shut people up.
How? Buying protection? Hiring someone to bully them with aforementioned bat? We're trying to avoid such tactics by using lawsuits, I think.:)
I am fairly certain, in addition, that by suing, I'm not actually having the government shut them up. I'm accusing someone of libel/slander. But if you don't have a problem with libel/slander and people/corps shouldn't get in trouble for such things, I guess Microsoft can say whatever they like about GPL, Linux, Firefox, and IE and you don't care? Or should they get in trouble for stating "facts" that are untrue, whether about their products or someone else's products?
I know, it's bad to bring MS into this discussion... but it seems we tend to not be fair to people or corporations that we dislike. Unless, of course, we want to have different laws for what corps can say and what people can say... which is ok, but then we need to start figuring out what happens when Steve Ballmer uses his fortune gained from MS to personally (not corporately) attack Linux. Nobody would like that, even though it's not a corporation... "but it is, that's where he got the money" - that doesn't mean every Starbucks worker represents Starbucks when he spends money that Starbucks paid him... etc.
How is this "thought crime?" "Thought" implies "non published thought." If I WRITE DOWN my thoughts and someone sues me for libel, that isn't thought crime. Both of these people were perfectly free to think their opinions all they wanted. They got in trouble when they wrote them down for a significant amount of other people to see.
That's how it usually goes. The landowner isn't suing because the person thought something was moldy. Her thinking it was moldy didn't lose him, in his view, $50k. Her telling other people is what he was concerned about. If it's true, then I don't see a problem with her telling other people. If it isn't... well, that's why he's suing...
Point was not that it necessarily had anything to do with Obama. Point was that when hired by certain entities (individuals or companies), there are almost always things you simply are not allowed to speak of publically. When you're a PR person for a political figure, you should probably avoid making public political statements if you want to keep your job. Facebook (and, for that matter, Twitter, blogs, etc) are basically public.
Why shouldn't it? I don't feel that I should be allowed to let you say whatever you want about me... let's say I run a small business that is completely built on trust and honesty. Why should you be allowed to publish slander and libel all you want, under the guise of the first amendment? It hurts my reputation, it hurts my ability to do business, etc. In fact, if you were to NOT allow me to sue you for libel/slander, all you'd be doing is protecting the ability of the rich (read: ability to publish widely due to wealth) to completely put me out of business with utter lies and nonsense. I think I should be allowed to protect myself.
I see no issue with this at all... in neither case.
1. The tweet is a publically "published" media outlet, so to speak. It should be treated as such. Just because you didn't print it in a newspaper doesn't mean you are immune from libel charges. IS it libel? That is what the lawsuit is for and the courts should decide. IMO, it's not libel, but I don't know if her apartment was actually moldy or not.
2. The political FB post should be valid grounds for firing, too. If I gave out company "secrets" or confidential material on FB, I'd get fired. Duh. If I am working in a political office and make a political comment in a public media outlet, I should be held accountable for what I said. If that means my boss wants me to resign because of the comment, then I don't see how FB is the culprit. If anything, it's the comment that should be argued about, not the particular outlet chosen (public bulletin board, flyer at library, Facebook post, tweet, etc). Facebook and Twitter are not private and secure messaging systems.
I appreciate your point, but would like to clarify something - it's not just "stupid children" and "stupid parents" that get into accidents because of distracting new toys. I'm fairly certain that "very smart" people also get distracted.
Unless you simply want to say that everyone that allows themselves to be distracted by "new toys" while driving is stupid. I could go along with that. It's more of a conscious decision sort of stupidity than a ignorance or intellectual issue. Very, very smart and intellectual people can be extremely stupid.
Hmmm. No, requiring someone else to be allowed to copy it would be "no copyright protection." (or "no copyright." If I have no legal ability to prosecute someone that's copying my works (and presuming I don't own any guns), I have on way of stopping someone... therefore, I am being more or less "required" to let that happen. You're right, people copy anything they please. Is someone being required to copy it? No. But by NOT protecting my "art," and presuming I can't personally protect it, you're requiring me to let it be copied.
Confused about rights-to-physical-property bit. Are you saying that is the current state of affairs? If so, I don't think that is the case. If I write a piece of music and "copyright" it, whether formally or informally, as far as I know, no one can copy that music, put their name on it, and sell it as if they wrote it. Well, yes they can, but I could sue them - and if I were able to prove that I have a copy that predates theirs and has MY name on it, it more or less "proves" - in terms of courts - that I was the one that had it first, thus my name should be on it. As far as copying-for-redistribution goes, I don't know. It kinda depends on if we're talking about right-ot-distribute or right-to-claim-that-I-originated-this-art.
As for selling w/o copyright law, yes, I could. Who would buy it, I have on idea. I probably wouldn't. And someone else could sell it for cheaper, I'm sure. And without copyright laws, I presume someone could just tack their name on it and sell it as theirs. In that case, I not only have rights over distribution (or at least selling-for-profit), but I now can't even - to the common person - easily explain that I wrote it. Especially if the other person has enough money to pump it through a lot of presses and proliferate "their" version.
Unfortunately, the recording industry (and publishing industry) largely benefits, it seems, the publishers and a few publishees (hehe). But the solution to not rewarding publishers so much while still rewarding artists is *not* to abolish copyrights altogether (which I think is your point).
Live shows may work for some, but not all. I, as a composer, cannot make money by selling live showings of my sheet music. And if anyone can copy my music and sell it for their own profit as much as they want, I'm not going to be making much money by selling my sheet music, either.
As it stands, I don't care either way, since I mostly just give it away. But the option is there, and it's a nice option.
Let's put it in Slashdot Geek terms. Not doing open-source coding. If you write some software and don't want it open source, for whatever reason, and want to actually SELL it as your own... well, I would think you'd like to have that ability and not be required to let anyone copy your work and profit from it, undersell you, or what have you.
Of course if you really were unable to find the prior art and did the required level of due diligence
Since you are clearly not good at looking yourself.
Yeah... that's not a subjective ruling. "Gentlemen of the jury: it is clearly very easy to find this prior art. He just used the wrong search engine and didn't bother to try all 25!" Hmm.
How are they being strongarmed? Dell offers Linux laptops and desktops nowadays, and I'm not interested enough to research the exact terms of their OEM licensing license (hehe) from Microsoft.
I have never purchased a Windows license. I don't use it at home, and I don't forsee a day when I will.
Cool. You and the other 5%:) I have no problem whatsoever with it. I personally have used DOS, Windows, and Linux as primary OS's, and currently use Win 7 RC/Ubuntu 9.04 at home for normal activities.
Yelling at Amazon... or Amazon associates or whatever they are called... seems like the way to go. And supporting other OEMs that will build or build-to-order and put whatever OS on that you want is another option - one I considered, actually.
IMO, the consumer base that primarily looks for pre-installed pre-everything are not going to be the ones actively looking for Linux.. and if presented with a list of ~50 distros to install (or whatever, I've seen some pretty big lists, especially when they allow different versions of different distros, etc), they're going to be pretty confused....
So until the consumer base that wants Linux rises, the supply is only going to meet the demand... not change the demand all that much...
OEMs won't upset 95% of their business to appease the other 5%, and most of the people who want Windows want it preinstalled, so the OEM needs the license to do so. OEMs who offer non-Windows installs are much the minority right now, but at least it's a foot in the door.
Precisely, it's the 95% that OEM's are concerned about. Which makes perfect business sense to me.
Yes, non-Windows setups are getting more popular, slowly (not counting Apple, which IMO is just as bad... well, IMO is worse). And that's totally fine. If it starts getting more profitable for an OEM to offer non-Windows setups, that's great.
But I have no expectation that an OEM will go out of its way to provide 5% (I think that's sorta on the generous side) of its consumers with more options while confusing at least part of it's 95% consumer base. That is, until Linux becomes actually consumer-friendly enough. Which it's starting to, and I think the rise in preassembled non-Windows setups is more correlated to Linux becoming more mature, not Windows dying.
And if Windows 7 actually is as good as the hype (again, IMO, it looks pretty good to me.. using RC), Linux devs have their work cut out for them to make it consumer friendly enough that people WANT to use it. "It's $40 cheaper" isn't enough of a pull for most people to switch, I don't think... considering the fact that more are willing to pay much more to use OSX when they get fed up enough with Windows.
You *can* build a laptop. There are "barebone" laptop kits. They're ugly. hehe.
You're right, you don't have a whole lot of choice. But hey, try building exact-spec-Apple-laptop and not be forced to buy Mac OS with it. And if you want to run Windows on it, you have to buy Windows separately (I suppose) too!
Is it really that much different? Computer... builders can do whatever they want with what OS they install on the hardware they assemble. You're right, we the consumer may not have a choice. But that is still, IMO, the computer assembler's problem, not the OS company's problem. Except in the case of Apple, heh.
I am forced to buy with it a license for Windows xp. If you know how to buy this particular model new with Linux or no OS preloaded, please do post back with directions.
Maybe because the 1% that would buy it with Linux isn't a big enough minority for Dell to care about? I'd yell at Dell, not Microsoft.
It's a metaphor for a non-optional fee that gives me nothing of value in return
Then that tax is put on by Dell, not Microsoft.
I just don't get it. If you are dead set on certain hardware provided by Dell, why is it Microsoft's fault for them not providing it with Linux pre-installed (or nothing pre-installed)? It's Dell's fault. Unless Microsoft is forcing them to only use Windows.
Interestingly, Windows on netbooks is increasing, not decreasing, Which seems to support Dell's decision that offering both configurations (I have no clue how much overhead that entails) may not be profitable enough... or may result in an increase of customer issues who see the cheaper option and get, having no clue with Linux is or something like that.
Don't get me wrong. If I bought a netbook it'd have Linux on it. I couldn't find the MSI Wind linux editions either, which was frustrating. But that's MSI's fault, not MS.
Slashdot Mirror
Being able to depend upon a reliable amount of bandwidth is definitely a part of reliability.
That depends on how you define "reliable." When you talk about a "reliable old car" you're not saying "I can go 60mph in this thing any time I want." When you talk about a "reliable old computer" you probably aren't referring to speed. When you talk about hardwired phone lines being "reliable" you aren't talking about voice quality, you're talking about it always being available even during power outages. When you talk about a "reliable" network... speed isn't necessarily the issue. Whether or not it is usable is the issue... obviously, 0kb/s isn't very usable, either, but 5kb/s is. Maybe not to watch movies, I suppose.
Check again. According to wikipedia and other sources as well, "America" can be used to refer to the continent or the US of A. Whether or not it "should" is no as relevant as whether or not it does, in this case...
This does not, of course, excuse the reckless driving of the "angered" guy trying to get around the slowpoke.
(but you're right, driving in the "slow lane" when "going slow[ly]" makes sense and helps mitigate people getting angry...)
On the other hand, what about the annoying guys that just whizz past you in the lane you're trying to get over into while you are trying to get OUT of the fast lane? And they sometimes get really upset, because you just moved into HIS LANE and he had to use his brakes. Ugh! Awful brakes.
Seriously. If people just ... lightened up and were in slightly less of a hurry and did not think that the road, highway, lane, etc., belonged to them... and at the same time realized that the hulk of plastic they are sitting in really doesn't protect them a whole lot in the grand scheme of things...
the Internet is free. the hardware used to connect to it is not.
Apple has Good PR. They are a "Good" Company in that respect?
Even from an evolutionary perspective, yes. Aren't rats kind pretty low on the totem pole?
Open a coffee shop? :)
Out of curiosity, how do non-profits fit into that? e.g., if a church hires a dude and the dude later "recants" so to speak, can the church "fire" him on religious grounds?
(genuinely asking as I'm ignorant..)
I know this is offtopic, but I find it rather comical (in an annoying sort of way) that insulting Bush gets you an Insightful mod, while insulting Obama gets a Flamebait mod. Heh. :)
Harm isn't enough to make it illegal? That's weird... why should beating someone up with a baseball bat be illegal then? It's just physical harm?
And you can certainly do so without using government force to shut people up.
How? Buying protection? Hiring someone to bully them with aforementioned bat? We're trying to avoid such tactics by using lawsuits, I think. :)
I am fairly certain, in addition, that by suing, I'm not actually having the government shut them up. I'm accusing someone of libel/slander. But if you don't have a problem with libel/slander and people/corps shouldn't get in trouble for such things, I guess Microsoft can say whatever they like about GPL, Linux, Firefox, and IE and you don't care? Or should they get in trouble for stating "facts" that are untrue, whether about their products or someone else's products?
I know, it's bad to bring MS into this discussion... but it seems we tend to not be fair to people or corporations that we dislike. Unless, of course, we want to have different laws for what corps can say and what people can say... which is ok, but then we need to start figuring out what happens when Steve Ballmer uses his fortune gained from MS to personally (not corporately) attack Linux. Nobody would like that, even though it's not a corporation... "but it is, that's where he got the money" - that doesn't mean every Starbucks worker represents Starbucks when he spends money that Starbucks paid him... etc.
How is this "thought crime?" "Thought" implies "non published thought." If I WRITE DOWN my thoughts and someone sues me for libel, that isn't thought crime. Both of these people were perfectly free to think their opinions all they wanted. They got in trouble when they wrote them down for a significant amount of other people to see.
That's how it usually goes. The landowner isn't suing because the person thought something was moldy. Her thinking it was moldy didn't lose him, in his view, $50k. Her telling other people is what he was concerned about. If it's true, then I don't see a problem with her telling other people. If it isn't... well, that's why he's suing...
Point was not that it necessarily had anything to do with Obama. Point was that when hired by certain entities (individuals or companies), there are almost always things you simply are not allowed to speak of publically. When you're a PR person for a political figure, you should probably avoid making public political statements if you want to keep your job. Facebook (and, for that matter, Twitter, blogs, etc) are basically public.
Why shouldn't it? I don't feel that I should be allowed to let you say whatever you want about me... let's say I run a small business that is completely built on trust and honesty. Why should you be allowed to publish slander and libel all you want, under the guise of the first amendment? It hurts my reputation, it hurts my ability to do business, etc. In fact, if you were to NOT allow me to sue you for libel/slander, all you'd be doing is protecting the ability of the rich (read: ability to publish widely due to wealth) to completely put me out of business with utter lies and nonsense. I think I should be allowed to protect myself.
I see no issue with this at all... in neither case.
1. The tweet is a publically "published" media outlet, so to speak. It should be treated as such. Just because you didn't print it in a newspaper doesn't mean you are immune from libel charges. IS it libel? That is what the lawsuit is for and the courts should decide. IMO, it's not libel, but I don't know if her apartment was actually moldy or not.
2. The political FB post should be valid grounds for firing, too. If I gave out company "secrets" or confidential material on FB, I'd get fired. Duh. If I am working in a political office and make a political comment in a public media outlet, I should be held accountable for what I said. If that means my boss wants me to resign because of the comment, then I don't see how FB is the culprit. If anything, it's the comment that should be argued about, not the particular outlet chosen (public bulletin board, flyer at library, Facebook post, tweet, etc). Facebook and Twitter are not private and secure messaging systems.
I don't think they are "getting" old. I think they "are" old. :)
I appreciate your point, but would like to clarify something - it's not just "stupid children" and "stupid parents" that get into accidents because of distracting new toys. I'm fairly certain that "very smart" people also get distracted.
Unless you simply want to say that everyone that allows themselves to be distracted by "new toys" while driving is stupid. I could go along with that. It's more of a conscious decision sort of stupidity than a ignorance or intellectual issue. Very, very smart and intellectual people can be extremely stupid.
Hmmm. No, requiring someone else to be allowed to copy it would be "no copyright protection." (or "no copyright." If I have no legal ability to prosecute someone that's copying my works (and presuming I don't own any guns), I have on way of stopping someone... therefore, I am being more or less "required" to let that happen. You're right, people copy anything they please. Is someone being required to copy it? No. But by NOT protecting my "art," and presuming I can't personally protect it, you're requiring me to let it be copied.
Confused about rights-to-physical-property bit. Are you saying that is the current state of affairs? If so, I don't think that is the case. If I write a piece of music and "copyright" it, whether formally or informally, as far as I know, no one can copy that music, put their name on it, and sell it as if they wrote it. Well, yes they can, but I could sue them - and if I were able to prove that I have a copy that predates theirs and has MY name on it, it more or less "proves" - in terms of courts - that I was the one that had it first, thus my name should be on it. As far as copying-for-redistribution goes, I don't know. It kinda depends on if we're talking about right-ot-distribute or right-to-claim-that-I-originated-this-art.
As for selling w/o copyright law, yes, I could. Who would buy it, I have on idea. I probably wouldn't. And someone else could sell it for cheaper, I'm sure. And without copyright laws, I presume someone could just tack their name on it and sell it as theirs. In that case, I not only have rights over distribution (or at least selling-for-profit), but I now can't even - to the common person - easily explain that I wrote it. Especially if the other person has enough money to pump it through a lot of presses and proliferate "their" version.
Unfortunately, the recording industry (and publishing industry) largely benefits, it seems, the publishers and a few publishees (hehe). But the solution to not rewarding publishers so much while still rewarding artists is *not* to abolish copyrights altogether (which I think is your point).
Live shows may work for some, but not all. I, as a composer, cannot make money by selling live showings of my sheet music. And if anyone can copy my music and sell it for their own profit as much as they want, I'm not going to be making much money by selling my sheet music, either.
As it stands, I don't care either way, since I mostly just give it away. But the option is there, and it's a nice option.
Let's put it in Slashdot Geek terms. Not doing open-source coding. If you write some software and don't want it open source, for whatever reason, and want to actually SELL it as your own... well, I would think you'd like to have that ability and not be required to let anyone copy your work and profit from it, undersell you, or what have you.
Of course if you really were unable to find the prior art and did the required level of due diligence
Since you are clearly not good at looking yourself.
Yeah... that's not a subjective ruling. "Gentlemen of the jury: it is clearly very easy to find this prior art. He just used the wrong search engine and didn't bother to try all 25!" Hmm.
How are they being strongarmed? Dell offers Linux laptops and desktops nowadays, and I'm not interested enough to research the exact terms of their OEM licensing license (hehe) from Microsoft.
True. I should rephrase... "not going to be the ones actively looking for assembled hardware to self-install the OS on." :)
I have never purchased a Windows license. I don't use it at home, and I don't forsee a day when I will.
Cool. You and the other 5% :) I have no problem whatsoever with it. I personally have used DOS, Windows, and Linux as primary OS's, and currently use Win 7 RC/Ubuntu 9.04 at home for normal activities.
Yelling at Amazon ... or Amazon associates or whatever they are called... seems like the way to go. And supporting other OEMs that will build or build-to-order and put whatever OS on that you want is another option - one I considered, actually.
IMO, the consumer base that primarily looks for pre-installed pre-everything are not going to be the ones actively looking for Linux.. and if presented with a list of ~50 distros to install (or whatever, I've seen some pretty big lists, especially when they allow different versions of different distros, etc), they're going to be pretty confused....
So until the consumer base that wants Linux rises, the supply is only going to meet the demand... not change the demand all that much...
OEMs won't upset 95% of their business to appease the other 5%, and most of the people who want Windows want it preinstalled, so the OEM needs the license to do so. OEMs who offer non-Windows installs are much the minority right now, but at least it's a foot in the door.
Precisely, it's the 95% that OEM's are concerned about. Which makes perfect business sense to me.
Yes, non-Windows setups are getting more popular, slowly (not counting Apple, which IMO is just as bad... well, IMO is worse). And that's totally fine. If it starts getting more profitable for an OEM to offer non-Windows setups, that's great.
But I have no expectation that an OEM will go out of its way to provide 5% (I think that's sorta on the generous side) of its consumers with more options while confusing at least part of it's 95% consumer base. That is, until Linux becomes actually consumer-friendly enough. Which it's starting to, and I think the rise in preassembled non-Windows setups is more correlated to Linux becoming more mature, not Windows dying.
And if Windows 7 actually is as good as the hype (again, IMO, it looks pretty good to me.. using RC), Linux devs have their work cut out for them to make it consumer friendly enough that people WANT to use it. "It's $40 cheaper" isn't enough of a pull for most people to switch, I don't think... considering the fact that more are willing to pay much more to use OSX when they get fed up enough with Windows.
Appreciate the sig... :)
You *can* build a laptop. There are "barebone" laptop kits. They're ugly. hehe.
You're right, you don't have a whole lot of choice. But hey, try building exact-spec-Apple-laptop and not be forced to buy Mac OS with it. And if you want to run Windows on it, you have to buy Windows separately (I suppose) too!
Is it really that much different? Computer ... builders can do whatever they want with what OS they install on the hardware they assemble. You're right, we the consumer may not have a choice. But that is still, IMO, the computer assembler's problem, not the OS company's problem. Except in the case of Apple, heh.
I am forced to buy with it a license for Windows xp. If you know how to buy this particular model new with Linux or no OS preloaded, please do post back with directions.
Maybe because the 1% that would buy it with Linux isn't a big enough minority for Dell to care about? I'd yell at Dell, not Microsoft.
It's a metaphor for a non-optional fee that gives me nothing of value in return
Then that tax is put on by Dell, not Microsoft.
I just don't get it. If you are dead set on certain hardware provided by Dell, why is it Microsoft's fault for them not providing it with Linux pre-installed (or nothing pre-installed)? It's Dell's fault. Unless Microsoft is forcing them to only use Windows.
Interestingly, Windows on netbooks is increasing, not decreasing, Which seems to support Dell's decision that offering both configurations (I have no clue how much overhead that entails) may not be profitable enough... or may result in an increase of customer issues who see the cheaper option and get, having no clue with Linux is or something like that.
Don't get me wrong. If I bought a netbook it'd have Linux on it. I couldn't find the MSI Wind linux editions either, which was frustrating. But that's MSI's fault, not MS.