Sure, and food should be free, housing should be free, transportation should be free - can't live without those things. Maybe we should just live in a Star Trek world you freakin' Commie.
Actually, those things should be free. Doesn't mean they are going to be anytime soon.
But to say that every human on the planet does not deserve food, shelter, water, and basic means....well... is very misanthropic.
If we find ourself with the means of infinite energy, infinite free machine labor, and infinite resources then we should really take care of these needs.
A world where money is worthless and the only thing that limits us is our ideas.
However, I am realistic to say this wouldn't happen without a technological singularity and we might not see such a thing for about 500-1,000 years.
We as a human race really need to get over this limited supply and demand issues... And this should happen someday. Star Trek had that right.
In a properly working market, the price is the determined by the costs of the sellers, not the desires of the buyers.
In a real market, the price is determined by the costs of the seller and what the competition is willing to price at.
If gas station sold gas at $1.00 while everyone else was $2.00 and they could do this for at a profit and do it without people having to wait in line for a really long time, then those who refused to lower their prices would go out of business. And it doesn't matter if they simply were greedy and wanted the high profit or just couldn't afford to buy gas cheap enough to lower their prices... They will still go out of business.
So if there is some type of competition, prices will be lowered or otherwise it will be set by whatever the single provider thinks they can sell for at the highest profit margin.
Even then... They must keep their at something they will expect someone would buy even if there is not other provider to compete with.
I mean, 100mpbs fiber would be nice... But I'm not willing to spend $500 a month to get it.
I guess I just don't understand it. I don't get why people would want to do that. Spend all that time in game learning skills and earning money, only to never engage in anything challenging. Only to cause problems for people whom you really have nothing against. It just doesn't make sense, and I can't see how it's fun.
Hrm... Maybe it is something called human nature... *flash back* Lets ask people throughout time why the pick on the little guys.
So guys... Tell us the truth on why you go around killing helpless people?
Roman Soldier: Well... It releaves stress and I dunno... Its kind of makes me feel like a man when I whip the slaves a bit.
Viking Warrior: Oh... I do it for the screaming women. You know... The lamenting. Then I get to kick the village ideo arround a bit.
Christian Crusader: I dunno... We get bored sitting here in the desert. So toss a heathen child or two off the wall. Teaches em good it does! Also we take bets on long the brat takes to hit the ground.
German Panzer Commander: If I had to fight zez people that fought back it wouldn't bee fun! Das would be no good if they started shooting back! Do you know how much one of deez pzners cost? It would take months of mein salary! I think it will be the safest route to just kill those who don't fight back! Those french batards just surrender anyways so we the suprize on zee french tanker faces are so funny when we shoot them anyways even with the white flags going up!
Honestly though, I don't have a problem with either of the first two parts. Selling games to minors that don't fit into the ESRB ages should be a crime. But the fine should be enough and might be a little high on the top. And/or a year in prison is silly even with the fact it could also include hard labor.
My concern is really more on the lines of... Is this really a problem?
First, do violent video games really cause harm? Secondly, how are the kids buying $50 without income? Do kids buy that many video games?
Lastly, it is a pointless law... Most people I knew growing up could get beer and cigarettes from older kids regardless of the law. The main reason I didn't smoke and drink in high school because I choose not to because I was serious about school. If I wanted to... I could have gotten it (heck I could stole alochol from my parents stash), but because I was brought up in way that I understood the consequences and personal responsibility by my parents, I avoided such habbits until college (*coughs*)
Same with video games. If the kids want this so badly they will find it. Chances are they are more likley to pirate or steal it.
This I suppose just makes it so the government and the community groups can wash their hands of a non-problem.
There are more serious issues that they should be dealing with like teenage violence, bullying, pregnancy, STDs, and hard drug use... Things that can actually harm a kid.
If violent video games made people into violent killers we would all be dead now.
Sending people to jail over this is really a crime in itself.
Seriously, leave the police alone; those sting operations are doing one job: clearing the dangerous scumbags off the Web and street.
Are you so sure? Police have been known to abuse their power from time to time and take down innocent people.
Not that all police are bad (I've known quite a few good cops in my time... well to be fair i've known a few good ol' boy cops... and i've known one bad cop), but something tells me we'd be better off solving murders and violent crimes rather than setting up people with theoretical crimes.
Most of these people have not actually committed a crime that has hurt anyone but only have shown that they are willing to do so. Perhaps the person is goaded into these actions by the stingers and that what irks me...
Of course then again... Plenty of teens egg others on... But that is other people's problem. I'm more concerned about not living in a state where police make people into criminals rather than go after the ones that are murdering and stealing.
Or when home PC's went from Win95/98/ME to XP? Remember all the hype and hysteria about the requirements back then?
Um.... I went from Windows 98 to Win2000. Stability of NT with Game compatibility of win98. (Just without all the bluescreens)
Everyone who knew anything about computers should have known to put Windows 2000 pro on their computer when it came out and not WinME or Win98.
WinXP got domniance because it was just put on new computers that came out and you couldn't get Win2000 anymore.
However XP had some major glaring flaws (mydoom anyone?) and Win2000 worked just fine for anything I needed included games. Of course these days I use XP because it came with the system and there wasn't any point downgrading because since it was from a vendor all the drivers came with the box and were Winxp certified. (some of the newer hardware gives me grief in finding drivers for my old boxes)
So... I might get vista some day if it comes with a computer, but I seriously doubt it will be any better than Winxp or 2k as far as mind blowing features. It will of course get eventually better because MS will drop support for 2k and XP, but I don't see any rush to upgrade until SP1 or 2.
If and when some old dude hits on you, arrange a sting operation with local law enforcement.
I've always wanted to troll those myspace sting operations with sometype of guerilla indie film project. We would find a questionable underage teen. Use our underage troller (a kid under 18... to even make it more funny may even make it a girl too).
Then the troll kid will pretend to be a 24 year old guy and then hit on the girl and then rush in and then we'd rush in with our camera crew and film the shock on the MSNBC guy and law enforement crew on how they were duped.
Right. The staggering number of sexual crimes against women and girls are because the victim is "stupid about sex" This MUST be why 1 in 5 female undergrads are sexually assulted sometime during their 4(+) years at university......by someone they know and met through offline means.
This stuff isn't new. People are creeps, but they don't need myspace to be so.
Secondly, these are often people they thought they could trust or even people they are dating.
How are hackers injecting this code into a legitimate paypal website?? Don't you have to modify the source code on the paypal servers themselves?
Well to be fair... Pay Pal does hand out dev kits for pay pal ecommerce customers. As in... You get an upgraded account to interface your eStore into your pay pal account to directly accept credit cards.
Affordable as much as a cheap car... Before 1995, you were looking at least $2,000-$3,000 for a decent computer (I still can't believe we paid $3,000 for my ps1 486sx with 4mb back in 91-92), but after that things started scaling down in price and up in performance. That is a price that Joe Sixpack wouldn't jump off his couch to run out to Circuit City to buy one just for the heck of it. Only people that really had to have computers (or really wanted one) were going to plop down the money to get one. These days you can get a decent machine (non-gaming) for $400.
I recently became interested in it after discovering projects that could enable SNES emulation of my old games on the DS.
Of course this may or may not require jumping through a few hoops since you have to use the GBA slot, but some of the fellows have done a few interesting project (besides emulation) such as web browsers, PC game ports such as (Hexen), and VOiP.
I wouldn't say that. He more or less make computers standard or in a sense... Got everything to run on the same operating system.
If you want to talk about making computers affordable... Then you'll have to give the credit to the Intel, AMD, and Cyrix price wars of 1995-2000.
(Although if you think about the saying "What intel giveth, microsoft taketh away." then maybe they caused a bit of motivation in that price and speed war)
Or as the saying goes... "When all you've got is a banhammer, all problems look like gold farming!"
The truth of the matter is gold farming is going to continue (just like the drug trade and spam) until some fundemental problems with the core system is resolved.
When money is involved, people will go out of their way to get that money regardless of the law and the rules of the land. No matter how many farmers you ban, IPs you block, or drug dealers you throw into jail, people are going to be doing this.
So how are we going to resolve these problems? I haven't the slightest ideas on drug trafficking and spam, but gold farming can be resolved if you put more real life economics into play.
Make a real system of gold aquistion in the game and make gold a hard currency that isn't printed by simply killing things. Gold has to be a limited and set state in order for gold inflation to not happen. When you keep dumping all that gold into the market simply by killing things you end up with the European gold inflation in the 1550's after the Spanish looted the Aztecs.
There has to be limited supply and people will be upset that at any given time there can only be 1,000,000 gold peices on a server. Vendors will have to not let gold disapear into a black hole so when they buy things or sell things that gold remains with the world at all time.
I know it seems silly these days, but farm subsidizing farms is really about maintaining American farms in case if there were say... World War III or a blockade with the Soviets over running all our 3rd world food producers we'd still have the infrastructure to feed ourselves (nevermind the nuclear fallout)
But I suppose it also is a political move to prevent other nations from getting a must have commodity (you know food) from being controlled by other nations in which we would have to go about invading them to provide more of this item. You know... Kind of like oil.
I am familiar with a business that gets all its IT services through a one-man contracting operation. It's in the contract that this guy will provide them with all their hardware, at a 5% markup over his cost. So instead of just telling them what to buy and letting them call up Insight or whomever, he buys it for them, tacks on 5%, and gives them the bill.
If someone said in a project I was to buy them hardware, I'd charge a fee too. Otherwise, they can go spend their own time buying the hardware.
Or if I called Tiger direct and asked them to buy hard ware from AMD and then got all mad when they raised the price they paid AMD, wouldn't you think that would be silly?
CEO: "Judge, these men beat me severely with IBM model M keyboards!" Judge: "What possessed you to to this?" Laid off workers: "Sir, he defrauded our company of 3 million dollars." Judge: "Oh, in that case... The workers loose their life savings to compensate the victim! And to victim... How does 5 years in Club Fed sound with only 6 months served? Oh and the wife says hey... See at golf next Sunday!"
To me it seems more likely that humans would be hurt by global cooling than global warming.
Well... Ice ages suck, but we aren't going to get absolute zero because we are close enough to the sun... However...
Global warming would suck if we ended up with an atmosphere like venus or none at all like Mars.
We can move around the surface during an ice age, but if its 300 degrees out or if the air has evaporated into space then we aren't looking for much to survive in the outdoors other than backteria and evolved cockroaches.
Although, both of those are an extreme case and the atmosphere burning off would more likley result from a loss of our magnetic field around the earth and there isn't much we can do about that.
It's not like the concept of take over and control is limited to software. This is fundamental human behavior. Anyone ever hear of the Roman Empire?...If it's really that bad. If it is that bad, you should go make your own OS/mega-corporation that will be better than the one you are bitching about.
Rome circa 100AD
Roman Slave: This sucks Roman Centurian: *whips slave* Quit your bitchin! If it is that bad, why don't you go start your own empire. Roman Centurian: Ow! Well... I would but you see... You've got this thing called a Roman Legion and I've got these chains on me... Oh and I did revolt you'd kill my family and then crucify me and feed me to the lions. Roman Centurian: Good point! Get back to work anyways! *whips slave again* Roman Slave: Ow!
Corporate Environment 2006AD
Cubicle slave: This sucks! Supervisor: *delegates another deadline* Quit your bitching! If it is that bad, why don't you go start your own company. Cubicle slave: Well... I would but you see... You've got this thing called millions of dollars of investment into entry barriers of the market and I've got this NDA and contract that owns all my ideas... Oh and I did revolt you'd sue family and then crucify my VC capital and then feed me to the Patent Lawyers. Supervisor: Good point! Get back to work! *assigns another deadline*
When asked by Apple, according to his own account, Tom Yager could provide no examples of people who had written to him to complain about this issue.
Umm....
FTFA
The meeting started sliding downhill when Apple asked, "Has anybody ever written to you about this? How many people actually recompile their OS X kernels?" I do, for one. I rattled off some of those groups that value open source in its fullest sense. I included academia, high-performance and high-throughput computing experts, and shops that want to roll in system-level enhancements before Apple gets around to packaging them.
Did you need specific examples? I suppose you could ask him what he rattled off but it is very clear that he did give apple names of people that had contacted him.
Tom Yager goes on to accuse Apple of suggesting people who recompile kernels are an "underclass". Way to create a straw man, Tom Yager. How easy it is to knock that down.
He didn't say that. He was talking about his readers who may or may not recompile kernels.
FTFA
Apple pushed back, saying that as eclectic as my readership is, the subset I described is only a "fraction of a fraction" of the geeks (Apple's word) who are my regular readers...I go on the defensive whenever a vendor suggests that any portion of my readership is an underclass because of its numbers. It is our fraction of a fraction that is the bellwether for the next leading edge.
He is preaching to the choir, but sensationalism it is not.
He actually has a desire to recompile the kernel and not get ad hits as far as this article appears.
What if one day those laws were ignored because it would benefit either law enforcement or government because of corporation intereference?
I know my examples are extreme, but they are about when you have no alternatives. I'm not talking about being kicked out of Best Buy because you are a thief, but rather what if you were barred from all grocery stores because you said something against a particular corporation.
Human rights are not something only for governments. I keep telling people that... You have to sit back and say "private organizations, given enough power, must uphold these ideals or otherwise we might as well not have a government".
So, basically the telcos sold something they really couldn't provide, and that's the justfication for locking you into a contract?
Pretty much yes... It was an unproven service for some (especially Bellsouth... SBC roll outs weren't as bit of a problem) and the ISP ended up paying the telcos too much Central Office fees for the initial installation that there had to be some sort of threat to keep the customer from cancelling and go through the troubleshooting process to make sure DSL could be installed. Doesn't mean you couldn't get out of it. If Bellsouth technician at the CO/NID declares that DSL installation was impossible because they couldn't get signal to the NID and our ISP would get a refund and the customer was let go (or sent back to dial up or cable).
You don't think cable companies need to do line tests and what not? We had them come out once because our internet stated going flaky after they line to the cable modem was hooked up to an amplifier (which they later discovered filtered out 'noise' which was actually signal). It took them quite a few tests before they figured out what was going on.
Of course not. I've had my personal connection die on occasion with Comcast, but speaking on someone who had to deal with these problems with a daily basis, the average cable installation costs nothing but to send a guy out whole may have to pull a line from a pole or the local hub box and drill a hole in your wall and put it in your living room and setup your box and computer and your good to go.
With DSL, you have to have a telco guy at the CO (the central office which could be up to 7 miles away) find an open rack space on the DSLAM, find your pair (that part is a bitch if they don't have it labeled correctly) and then tie them into the DSL (which ties into the ATM) and then goes to your house and checks the NID.
Of course often times to save time and money they'd assume they got it right and let the customer test the NID on their own. Now if something goes wrong... That is when it gets tricky... DSL was basically built over something that never had broad band in mind.
While Cable on the other hand has its whole system built around video. If a line goes down in cable the whole area is out and people don't get TV either... They've had these systems for years and often times once they get it up and running its not that hard to maintain.
At least as not as much as it goes with DSL.
I don't mean to be down on DSL and it works good most of the time, but having to support it as a technician while working with cable calls at the same time, there are more things that can go wrong with the initial installation with DSL than Cable. So cable is exponentially cheaper to maintain than DSL (at least now)
However, if DSL gets a better infrastructure and more customers it will of course be cheaper in the long run.
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Sure, and food should be free, housing should be free, transportation should be free - can't live without those things. Maybe we should just live in a Star Trek world you freakin' Commie.
.well... is very misanthropic.
Actually, those things should be free. Doesn't mean they are going to be anytime soon.
But to say that every human on the planet does not deserve food, shelter, water, and basic means...
If we find ourself with the means of infinite energy, infinite free machine labor, and infinite resources then we should really take care of these needs.
A world where money is worthless and the only thing that limits us is our ideas.
However, I am realistic to say this wouldn't happen without a technological singularity and we might not see such a thing for about 500-1,000 years.
We as a human race really need to get over this limited supply and demand issues... And this should happen someday. Star Trek had that right.
In a properly working market, the price is the determined by the costs of the sellers, not the desires of the buyers.
In a real market, the price is determined by the costs of the seller and what the competition is willing to price at.
If gas station sold gas at $1.00 while everyone else was $2.00 and they could do this for at a profit and do it without people having to wait in line for a really long time, then those who refused to lower their prices would go out of business. And it doesn't matter if they simply were greedy and wanted the high profit or just couldn't afford to buy gas cheap enough to lower their prices... They will still go out of business.
So if there is some type of competition, prices will be lowered or otherwise it will be set by whatever the single provider thinks they can sell for at the highest profit margin.
Even then... They must keep their at something they will expect someone would buy even if there is not other provider to compete with.
I mean, 100mpbs fiber would be nice... But I'm not willing to spend $500 a month to get it.
Is it possible that people are taking these games a little too seriously?
Coudsong anyone?
I guess I just don't understand it. I don't get why people would want to do that. Spend all that time in game learning skills and earning money, only to never engage in anything challenging. Only to cause problems for people whom you really have nothing against. It just doesn't make sense, and I can't see how it's fun.
Hrm... Maybe it is something called human nature... *flash back* Lets ask people throughout time why the pick on the little guys.
So guys... Tell us the truth on why you go around killing helpless people?
Roman Soldier: Well... It releaves stress and I dunno... Its kind of makes me feel like a man when I whip the slaves a bit.
Viking Warrior: Oh... I do it for the screaming women. You know... The lamenting. Then I get to kick the village ideo arround a bit.
Christian Crusader: I dunno... We get bored sitting here in the desert. So toss a heathen child or two off the wall. Teaches em good it does! Also we take bets on long the brat takes to hit the ground.
German Panzer Commander: If I had to fight zez people that fought back it wouldn't bee fun! Das would be no good if they started shooting back! Do you know how much one of deez pzners cost? It would take months of mein salary! I think it will be the safest route to just kill those who don't fight back! Those french batards just surrender anyways so we the suprize on zee french tanker faces are so funny when we shoot them anyways even with the white flags going up!
Honestly though, I don't have a problem with either of the first two parts. Selling games to minors that don't fit into the ESRB ages should be a crime. But the fine should be enough and might be a little high on the top. And/or a year in prison is silly even with the fact it could also include hard labor.
My concern is really more on the lines of... Is this really a problem?
First, do violent video games really cause harm?
Secondly, how are the kids buying $50 without income?
Do kids buy that many video games?
Lastly, it is a pointless law... Most people I knew growing up could get beer and cigarettes from older kids regardless of the law. The main reason I didn't smoke and drink in high school because I choose not to because I was serious about school. If I wanted to... I could have gotten it (heck I could stole alochol from my parents stash), but because I was brought up in way that I understood the consequences and personal responsibility by my parents, I avoided such habbits until college (*coughs*)
Same with video games. If the kids want this so badly they will find it. Chances are they are more likley to pirate or steal it.
This I suppose just makes it so the government and the community groups can wash their hands of a non-problem.
There are more serious issues that they should be dealing with like teenage violence, bullying, pregnancy, STDs, and hard drug use... Things that can actually harm a kid.
If violent video games made people into violent killers we would all be dead now.
Sending people to jail over this is really a crime in itself.
At what department stores do you shop?
I dunno, but any place that I can buy beer, guns, and power saws all in one place is cool with me.
Seriously, leave the police alone; those sting operations are doing one job: clearing the dangerous scumbags off the Web and street.
Are you so sure? Police have been known to abuse their power from time to time and take down innocent people.
Not that all police are bad (I've known quite a few good cops in my time... well to be fair i've known a few good ol' boy cops... and i've known one bad cop), but something tells me we'd be better off solving murders and violent crimes rather than setting up people with theoretical crimes.
Most of these people have not actually committed a crime that has hurt anyone but only have shown that they are willing to do so. Perhaps the person is goaded into these actions by the stingers and that what irks me...
Of course then again... Plenty of teens egg others on... But that is other people's problem. I'm more concerned about not living in a state where police make people into criminals rather than go after the ones that are murdering and stealing.
Or when home PC's went from Win95/98/ME to XP? Remember all the hype and hysteria about the requirements back then?
Um.... I went from Windows 98 to Win2000. Stability of NT with Game compatibility of win98. (Just without all the bluescreens)
Everyone who knew anything about computers should have known to put Windows 2000 pro on their computer when it came out and not WinME or Win98.
WinXP got domniance because it was just put on new computers that came out and you couldn't get Win2000 anymore.
However XP had some major glaring flaws (mydoom anyone?) and Win2000 worked just fine for anything I needed included games. Of course these days I use XP because it came with the system and there wasn't any point downgrading because since it was from a vendor all the drivers came with the box and were Winxp certified. (some of the newer hardware gives me grief in finding drivers for my old boxes)
So... I might get vista some day if it comes with a computer, but I seriously doubt it will be any better than Winxp or 2k as far as mind blowing features. It will of course get eventually better because MS will drop support for 2k and XP, but I don't see any rush to upgrade until SP1 or 2.
If and when some old dude hits on you, arrange a sting operation with local law enforcement.
I've always wanted to troll those myspace sting operations with sometype of guerilla indie film project. We would find a questionable underage teen. Use our underage troller (a kid under 18... to even make it more funny may even make it a girl too).
Then the troll kid will pretend to be a 24 year old guy and then hit on the girl and then rush in and then we'd rush in with our camera crew and film the shock on the MSNBC guy and law enforement crew on how they were duped.
Right. The staggering number of sexual crimes against women and girls are because the victim is "stupid about sex" This MUST be why 1 in 5 female undergrads are sexually assulted sometime during their 4(+) years at university... ...by someone they know and met through offline means.
This stuff isn't new. People are creeps, but they don't need myspace to be so.
Secondly, these are often people they thought they could trust or even people they are dating.
How are hackers injecting this code into a legitimate paypal website?? Don't you have to modify the source code on the paypal servers themselves?
Well to be fair... Pay Pal does hand out dev kits for pay pal ecommerce customers. As in... You get an upgraded account to interface your eStore into your pay pal account to directly accept credit cards.
Can they do nothing more than crack the latest version of VirtuaGirl?
link plz!
Computers were affordable well before 1995.
Affordable as much as a cheap car... Before 1995, you were looking at least $2,000-$3,000 for a decent computer (I still can't believe we paid $3,000 for my ps1 486sx with 4mb back in 91-92), but after that things started scaling down in price and up in performance. That is a price that Joe Sixpack wouldn't jump off his couch to run out to Circuit City to buy one just for the heck of it. Only people that really had to have computers (or really wanted one) were going to plop down the money to get one. These days you can get a decent machine (non-gaming) for $400.
The PSP's big deal is homebrew, which the DS is lacking.
Thats not entirely true. Check out DS Homebrew project wiki
I recently became interested in it after discovering projects that could enable SNES emulation of my old games on the DS.
Of course this may or may not require jumping through a few hoops since you have to use the GBA slot, but some of the fellows have done a few interesting project (besides emulation) such as web browsers, PC game ports such as (Hexen), and VOiP.
Gates DID make computers affordable.
I wouldn't say that. He more or less make computers standard or in a sense... Got everything to run on the same operating system.
If you want to talk about making computers affordable... Then you'll have to give the credit to the Intel, AMD, and Cyrix price wars of 1995-2000.
(Although if you think about the saying "What intel giveth, microsoft taketh away." then maybe they caused a bit of motivation in that price and speed war)
Or as the saying goes... "When all you've got is a banhammer, all problems look like gold farming!"
The truth of the matter is gold farming is going to continue (just like the drug trade and spam) until some fundemental problems with the core system is resolved.
When money is involved, people will go out of their way to get that money regardless of the law and the rules of the land. No matter how many farmers you ban, IPs you block, or drug dealers you throw into jail, people are going to be doing this.
So how are we going to resolve these problems? I haven't the slightest ideas on drug trafficking and spam, but gold farming can be resolved if you put more real life economics into play.
Make a real system of gold aquistion in the game and make gold a hard currency that isn't printed by simply killing things. Gold has to be a limited and set state in order for gold inflation to not happen. When you keep dumping all that gold into the market simply by killing things you end up with the European gold inflation in the 1550's after the Spanish looted the Aztecs.
There has to be limited supply and people will be upset that at any given time there can only be 1,000,000 gold peices on a server. Vendors will have to not let gold disapear into a black hole so when they buy things or sell things that gold remains with the world at all time.
I know it seems silly these days, but farm subsidizing farms is really about maintaining American farms in case if there were say... World War III or a blockade with the Soviets over running all our 3rd world food producers we'd still have the infrastructure to feed ourselves (nevermind the nuclear fallout)
But I suppose it also is a political move to prevent other nations from getting a must have commodity (you know food) from being controlled by other nations in which we would have to go about invading them to provide more of this item. You know... Kind of like oil.
I am familiar with a business that gets all its IT services through a one-man contracting operation. It's in the contract that this guy will provide them with all their hardware, at a 5% markup over his cost. So instead of just telling them what to buy and letting them call up Insight or whomever, he buys it for them, tacks on 5%, and gives them the bill.
If someone said in a project I was to buy them hardware, I'd charge a fee too. Otherwise, they can go spend their own time buying the hardware.
Or if I called Tiger direct and asked them to buy hard ware from AMD and then got all mad when they raised the price they paid AMD, wouldn't you think that would be silly?
CEO: "Judge, these men beat me severely with IBM model M keyboards!"
Judge: "What possessed you to to this?"
Laid off workers: "Sir, he defrauded our company of 3 million dollars."
Judge: "Oh, in that case... The workers loose their life savings to compensate the victim! And to victim... How does 5 years in Club Fed sound with only 6 months served? Oh and the wife says hey... See at golf next Sunday!"
Actually he did not assert that global warming will end mankind. He only stated that the debate will end when humanity will go extinct.
That could be anything from sentient robots to a gamma ray burst.
In either case I'm sure it will be because a computer or god couldn't stand to listen to humans bickering anymore about global warming.
To me it seems more likely that humans would be hurt by global cooling than global warming.
Well... Ice ages suck, but we aren't going to get absolute zero because we are close enough to the sun... However...
Global warming would suck if we ended up with an atmosphere like venus or none at all like Mars.
We can move around the surface during an ice age, but if its 300 degrees out or if the air has evaporated into space then we aren't looking for much to survive in the outdoors other than backteria and evolved cockroaches.
Although, both of those are an extreme case and the atmosphere burning off would more likley result from a loss of our magnetic field around the earth and there isn't much we can do about that.
It's not like the concept of take over and control is limited to software. This is fundamental human behavior. Anyone ever hear of the Roman Empire?...If it's really that bad. If it is that bad, you should go make your own OS/mega-corporation that will be better than the one you are bitching about.
Rome circa 100AD
Roman Slave: This sucks
Roman Centurian: *whips slave* Quit your bitchin! If it is that bad, why don't you go start your own empire.
Roman Centurian: Ow! Well... I would but you see... You've got this thing called a Roman Legion and I've got these chains on me... Oh and I did revolt you'd kill my family and then crucify me and feed me to the lions.
Roman Centurian: Good point! Get back to work anyways! *whips slave again*
Roman Slave: Ow!
Corporate Environment 2006AD
Cubicle slave: This sucks!
Supervisor: *delegates another deadline* Quit your bitching! If it is that bad, why don't you go start your own company.
Cubicle slave: Well... I would but you see... You've got this thing called millions of dollars of investment into entry barriers of the market and I've got this NDA and contract that owns all my ideas... Oh and I did revolt you'd sue family and then crucify my VC capital and then feed me to the Patent Lawyers.
Supervisor: Good point! Get back to work! *assigns another deadline*
Umm....
FTFA
Did you need specific examples? I suppose you could ask him what he rattled off but it is very clear that he did give apple names of people that had contacted him.
Tom Yager goes on to accuse Apple of suggesting people who recompile kernels are an "underclass". Way to create a straw man, Tom Yager. How easy it is to knock that down.
He didn't say that. He was talking about his readers who may or may not recompile kernels.
FTFA
He is preaching to the choir, but sensationalism it is not.
He actually has a desire to recompile the kernel and not get ad hits as far as this article appears.
There are laws about that sort of thing.
What if one day those laws were ignored because it would benefit either law enforcement or government because of corporation intereference?
I know my examples are extreme, but they are about when you have no alternatives. I'm not talking about being kicked out of Best Buy because you are a thief, but rather what if you were barred from all grocery stores because you said something against a particular corporation.
Human rights are not something only for governments. I keep telling people that... You have to sit back and say "private organizations, given enough power, must uphold these ideals or otherwise we might as well not have a government".
So, basically the telcos sold something they really couldn't provide, and that's the justfication for locking you into a contract?
Pretty much yes... It was an unproven service for some (especially Bellsouth... SBC roll outs weren't as bit of a problem) and the ISP ended up paying the telcos too much Central Office fees for the initial installation that there had to be some sort of threat to keep the customer from cancelling and go through the troubleshooting process to make sure DSL could be installed. Doesn't mean you couldn't get out of it. If Bellsouth technician at the CO/NID declares that DSL installation was impossible because they couldn't get signal to the NID and our ISP would get a refund and the customer was let go (or sent back to dial up or cable).
You don't think cable companies need to do line tests and what not? We had them come out once because our internet stated going flaky after they line to the cable modem was hooked up to an amplifier (which they later discovered filtered out 'noise' which was actually signal). It took them quite a few tests before they figured out what was going on.
Of course not. I've had my personal connection die on occasion with Comcast, but speaking on someone who had to deal with these problems with a daily basis, the average cable installation costs nothing but to send a guy out whole may have to pull a line from a pole or the local hub box and drill a hole in your wall and put it in your living room and setup your box and computer and your good to go.
With DSL, you have to have a telco guy at the CO (the central office which could be up to 7 miles away) find an open rack space on the DSLAM, find your pair (that part is a bitch if they don't have it labeled correctly) and then tie them into the DSL (which ties into the ATM) and then goes to your house and checks the NID.
Of course often times to save time and money they'd assume they got it right and let the customer test the NID on their own. Now if something goes wrong... That is when it gets tricky... DSL was basically built over something that never had broad band in mind.
While Cable on the other hand has its whole system built around video. If a line goes down in cable the whole area is out and people don't get TV either... They've had these systems for years and often times once they get it up and running its not that hard to maintain.
At least as not as much as it goes with DSL.
I don't mean to be down on DSL and it works good most of the time, but having to support it as a technician while working with cable calls at the same time, there are more things that can go wrong with the initial installation with DSL than Cable. So cable is exponentially cheaper to maintain than DSL (at least now)
However, if DSL gets a better infrastructure and more customers it will of course be cheaper in the long run.