I also see a trend that people look for correlations, find correlations and then draw some conclusion without any proof of causation. To me it strikes me most for economics. Public policy is set based on those correlations.
It is very counterintuÃtive but correlation research means nothing, especially in economics. Correlation research would be an amusing way to spend your time and get to know some variables, but correlation research is being used to inflence people. Repeat after me: correlation means nothing. If you find a correlation luck has hit you. Or luck has been manipulated to serve some point. Correlation means nothing whatsoever. Articles describing correlation are a waist of your time. You should not act based on correlation research.
Now if you take big datasets with lots of variables and you test correlations between those variables, you will find strong correlations. Correlation here, correlation there, correlation everywhere. If you do millions of tests en tweak your parameters, correlation is all yours.
But luckily now you know: correlation has no pratical use in your live.
Data mining is indeed a very mediocre scientific activity. Correlation on itself means nothing at all. If you want to proof something the correlation should be 100% and you should be able to explain why the correlation exists and replicate it in controlled experiments. The problem is that those slam dunk scientific discoveries are all or mostly allready found. And nowadays the poor scientists need to find something to bolster their path to glory.
Good science could be: find a correlation an proof the causality. But a lot of studies stop at the correlation. That's what fills newspapers nowadays. 'You get fat from diet coke since most people that drink diet coke are fat'.
Some scientist try to eliminate all other reasons and then decide that their causality is the only one that explains the correlation. But in effect they say: those things correlate and I 'the superintelligent scientist with multiple PhD's' cannot find another explanation and that is why my explanation must be true.
For background you should listen regularly to 'more or less: behind the stats' http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qshd You can listen to podcasts that are interesting and fun to listen to. And some of the older ones are absolutely great. They gave me great insight in the workings of media (and science).
The only downside is that if your girlfriend tells you something she heard on the radio and you answer her: correlation is not causality, she gets upset.
I (have to) use Outlook 2010 and this version of Outlook finally has a decent search function. Almost as good as the Lookout plugin I used to use in Outlook 2003.
I used to work for an ISP's customer service and the response I gave to silly demands from foreign entities was similar to this response.
If you want us to take action, please provide us with a legal title that is valid in our country or cooperate with local law enforcement. Otherwise we will not respond to claims.
I guess the claiming companies cooperated with local law enforcement:-)
If they want to use Microsoft Windows, they should buy a license. If they are to poor to buy a license, they should be happy with what they get for free.
If they really want to use the computer, they will manage and get used to whatever is on the computer.
As a monopolist, Microsoft has to follow different rules. It has to refrain from using it's monopoly powers to enter different markets. As soon as google becomes a monopoly in an area, it has to refrain from using that power for anticompetive purposes.
If you are any good, you will pursue the law to the full extent of it's possibilities to win cases (or make money) for your clients. If you do this for the right clients you will be driving a new porsche every 5 years (and a big house,...).
If you let your sense of justice (or lack of knowledge of the law) get in the way, you will earn a decent living, but nothing more. Overall you may feel better about yourself doing decent things.
But there will allways be lawyers who want to make big money and don't let their conscience get in the way. Lawyers will profit of these laws, that's for sure. That's why they are pushing for these laws.
A better comparison is: What if someone build a car with some "cool" features. For example, the wobbly wheels function. But some nerd found out that if you take a remote control and zap to channel 36, the weels rotate from vertical to horizontal. This problem is known and a fix (put chewing gum on de receiver) is distributed.
Who is to blame here? The car maker for poor design and implementation? He put in a cool function, but left all kinds of security problems unsolved and didn't warn users about possible problems. Or is the user to blame? He didn't know about this function and he has no access to chewing gum because of company policies?
Now all those people that forgot to put chewing gum on their receiver are driving around and the nerds have a hell of a time activating the wobbly wheels.
If people want to complain, let them. They probably like to complain (some people do enjoy to complain). Don't frustrate yourself helping people who don't want help. You might endanger their well being.
Why do you think this one was written by the OSS or Linux community?
There's no evidence whatsoever for this claim.
Virus writers allways try to attack high profile targets in the real world or in geekspace: we have seen www.whitehouse.gov, windowsupdate.microsoft.com, www.sco.com and countless others.
I see no evidence that this one is written bij the OSS or Linux community.
Why do you think this one was written by the OSS or Linux community?
There's no evidence whatsoever for this claim.
Virus writers allways try to attack high profile targets in the real world or in geekspace: we have seen www.whitehouse.gov, windowsupdate.microsoft.com, www.sco.com and countless others.
I see no evidence that this one is written bij the OSS or Linux community.
Yes, SCO is running around and yelling: the product you sell is illegal. You may not use it without a license.
The claim gets picked up by the media and there are some business consequences.
What would happen if the product would be autocad (or java, or...)? Would they just wait and lose market share or would they stop SCO making unsubstantiated claims (and try to get damages repaid)?
Most people I know distrust their computer. It is something they have to use. They don't know how to use their OS. They don't know how to use any office suit decently.
They just (try) learn how to use the office suit that is on their computer works. And it happens to be Microsoft Office.
And, as a fallback plan, they make products people want.
They make products people buy. I don't know anyone that wants Microsoft products. I know people that want a big house, a BMW,...
The people I know don't care for what's on their computer. It just happens to be Microsoft. That's why Bill Gates is rich. He makes a product that few people really want, but everybody buys.
Every producer of every product on Earth has some kind of liability. That's not different when producing software. Even if the EULA or the GPL claim otherwise. This problem gets worse with a software that is created by a team of volunteers in 10 countries around the world. Who is liable? Under which laws of which country? Have you been suing Microsoft lately for lost time/lost data/lost...?
I can safely say that (in Belgium) the EULA will stand when it is being agreed between businesses, even if you don't need to click through it (you can enter into an agreement by behaving as if you had entered the agreement). Judges assume that companies know what they do when they enter an agreement (contract), even an implied one. That contract then gets the same authority a a common law (unless it violates a law).
The only way a company can convince a judge to scrap provisions of the contract is to prove that the provisions are completely one sided AND that you had to enter the agreement to keep your company from disintegrating (you are forced). Another ground for stopping the contract or scrapping some provisions are bad faith or gross negligence from the supplier. Both of them are very hard to prove. That's why no comany will be sueing Microsoft (or people protected by the GPL) and getting some money. As a company, the EULA is your law.
The consumer (in Belgium) of course should not care about any stupid provisions in an EULA. Any judge will scrap them. But there aren't that many consumers that will sue, prove their damages and still make a profit.
If you give a lawyer (or a professor) the task to examine a contract and make a list of all possible weak spots in the contract, he (or she) will do so. Of course this lawyer might find very strong elements, but he (or she) is not being paid to list them;)
So here you got a list with all things that might go wrong with the GPL in Germany. The same thing could be done with any contract (most contracts are dubious and open for interpretation).
You should thank the opposition (VSI) for giving their money to investigate your contract. Read it wisely and improve where necessary.
So, even though I was relatively careful, I was still able to get infected. Primarily because:
a) The "From" address was an expected source. This means nothing. Trainers still give the advise: don't open attachments from people you don't know. This should be don't open attachments unless....
b) I do occasionally get legitimate e-mails that are only an attachment with no text. But then you probably know what name and file type to expect. The best solution is to convince everyone that they should mention the attachment in the mail and explain why you need to open it.
c) This particular virus was so new that my virus scanner was not sufficiently up to date. Virus scanners only help when the virus is at least one or a couple of days old.
In this situation only the one fixing their licencing "problem" is happy. I guess he gets paid.
The software companies are not happy: they don't get any money and still have to pay the BSA.
The company under threat is not happy (nobody likes being threatened). And more importantly, the company is reminded of the fact that licenses are something that they have to consider while doing business. This will be taken into account when considering upgrading or buying new software.
If you got copyrighted material (something you wrote, created,...), then you can choose who can use your material and how. You may insert a copyright notice forbidding the RIAA to view your material or pay a fee of 1$/Kb. You might even ask for 10$/Kb. Just make sure they have to agree to the agreement before seeing your material.
Copyright laws are there to defend people who create copyrighted material.
Slashdot Mirror
I also see a trend that people look for correlations, find correlations and then draw some conclusion without any proof of causation. To me it strikes me most for economics. Public policy is set based on those correlations.
It is very counterintuÃtive but correlation research means nothing, especially in economics. Correlation research would be an amusing way to spend your time and get to know some variables, but correlation research is being used to inflence people. Repeat after me: correlation means nothing. If you find a correlation luck has hit you. Or luck has been manipulated to serve some point. Correlation means nothing whatsoever. Articles describing correlation are a waist of your time. You should not act based on correlation research.
Now if you take big datasets with lots of variables and you test correlations between those variables, you will find strong correlations. Correlation here, correlation there, correlation everywhere. If you do millions of tests en tweak your parameters, correlation is all yours.
But luckily now you know: correlation has no pratical use in your live.
Data mining is indeed a very mediocre scientific activity. Correlation on itself means nothing at all. If you want to proof something the correlation should be 100% and you should be able to explain why the correlation exists and replicate it in controlled experiments. The problem is that those slam dunk scientific discoveries are all or mostly allready found. And nowadays the poor scientists need to find something to bolster their path to glory.
Good science could be: find a correlation an proof the causality. But a lot of studies stop at the correlation. That's what fills newspapers nowadays. 'You get fat from diet coke since most people that drink diet coke are fat'.
Some scientist try to eliminate all other reasons and then decide that their causality is the only one that explains the correlation. But in effect they say: those things correlate and I 'the superintelligent scientist with multiple PhD's' cannot find another explanation and that is why my explanation must be true.
For background you should listen regularly to 'more or less: behind the stats' http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qshd
You can listen to podcasts that are interesting and fun to listen to. And some of the older ones are absolutely great. They gave me great insight in the workings of media (and science).
The only downside is that if your girlfriend tells you something she heard on the radio and you answer her: correlation is not causality, she gets upset.
I (have to) use Outlook 2010 and this version of Outlook finally has a decent search function. Almost as good as the Lookout plugin I used to use in Outlook 2003.
I used to work for an ISP's customer service and the response I gave to silly demands from foreign entities was similar to this response.
:-)
If you want us to take action, please provide us with a legal title that is valid in our country or cooperate with local law enforcement. Otherwise we will not respond to claims.
I guess the claiming companies cooperated with local law enforcement
If they want to use Microsoft Windows, they should buy a license. If they are to poor to buy a license, they should be happy with what they get for free.
If they really want to use the computer, they will manage and get used to whatever is on the computer.
As a monopolist, Microsoft has to follow different rules. It has to refrain from using it's monopoly powers to enter different markets. As soon as google becomes a monopoly in an area, it has to refrain from using that power for anticompetive purposes.
Man you're so 60's.
In the new century companies lie (or misrepresent the thruth) as much as they can get away with.
My motto these days is: If a company tells me something, it's a lie untill proven differently.
Ah the naive lawyer.
...).
If you are any good, you will pursue the law to the full extent of it's possibilities to win cases (or make money) for your clients. If you do this for the right clients you will be driving a new porsche every 5 years (and a big house,
If you let your sense of justice (or lack of knowledge of the law) get in the way, you will earn a decent living, but nothing more. Overall you may feel better about yourself doing decent things.
But there will allways be lawyers who want to make big money and don't let their conscience get in the way. Lawyers will profit of these laws, that's for sure. That's why they are pushing for these laws.
I work for a ISP and our mailservers do get blacklisted by AOL sometimes. Some of our customers complained and that is how we found out.
The ISP I work for mandates the use of their mailserver for outgoing e-mails and limits the number of mails that can be sent in a certain timeframe.
I think your analogy is somewhat flawed.
A better comparison is: What if someone build a car with some "cool" features. For example, the wobbly wheels function. But some nerd found out that if you take a remote control and zap to channel 36, the weels rotate from vertical to horizontal. This problem is known and a fix (put chewing gum on de receiver) is distributed.
Who is to blame here? The car maker for poor design and implementation? He put in a cool function, but left all kinds of security problems unsolved and didn't warn users about possible problems. Or is the user to blame? He didn't know about this function and he has no access to chewing gum because of company policies?
Now all those people that forgot to put chewing gum on their receiver are driving around and the nerds have a hell of a time activating the wobbly wheels.
I do my online banking with the biggest bank in Belgium (Fortis) and it works just fine using Mozilla running on knoppix.
Why do you want people to switch.
If people want to complain, let them. They probably like to complain (some people do enjoy to complain). Don't frustrate yourself helping people who don't want help. You might endanger their well being.
Someone should patent something politicians use and the sue. Then things will change.
Some internet fundraising method? Patent it and sue whoever uses your patented idea. That's what patents are all about.
Why do you think this one was written by the OSS or Linux community?
There's no evidence whatsoever for this claim.
Virus writers allways try to attack high profile targets in the real world or in geekspace: we have seen www.whitehouse.gov, windowsupdate.microsoft.com, www.sco.com and countless others.
I see no evidence that this one is written bij the OSS or Linux community.
Why do you think this one was written by the OSS or Linux community?
There's no evidence whatsoever for this claim.
Virus writers allways try to attack high profile targets in the real world or in geekspace: we have seen www.whitehouse.gov, windowsupdate.microsoft.com, www.sco.com and countless others.
I see no evidence that this one is written bij the OSS or Linux community.
Yes, SCO is running around and yelling: the product you sell is illegal. You may not use it without a license.
...)? Would they just wait and lose market share or would they stop SCO making unsubstantiated claims (and try to get damages repaid)?
The claim gets picked up by the media and there are some business consequences.
What would happen if the product would be autocad (or java, or
Most people I know distrust their computer. It is something they have to use. They don't know how to use their OS. They don't know how to use any office suit decently.
They just (try) learn how to use the office suit that is on their computer works. And it happens to be Microsoft Office.
And, as a fallback plan, they make products people want.
...
They make products people buy. I don't know anyone that wants Microsoft products. I know people that want a big house, a BMW,
The people I know don't care for what's on their computer. It just happens to be Microsoft. That's why Bill Gates is rich. He makes a product that few people really want, but everybody buys.
Every producer of every product on Earth has some kind of liability. That's not different when producing software. Even if the EULA or the GPL claim otherwise. This problem gets worse with a software that is created by a team of volunteers in 10 countries around the world. Who is liable? Under which laws of which country? ...?
Have you been suing Microsoft lately for lost time/lost data/lost
I can safely say that (in Belgium) the EULA will stand when it is being agreed between businesses, even if you don't need to click through it (you can enter into an agreement by behaving as if you had entered the agreement). Judges assume that companies know what they do when they enter an agreement (contract), even an implied one. That contract then gets the same authority a a common law (unless it violates a law).
The only way a company can convince a judge to scrap provisions of the contract is to prove that the provisions are completely one sided AND that you had to enter the agreement to keep your company from disintegrating (you are forced). Another ground for stopping the contract or scrapping some provisions are bad faith or gross negligence from the supplier. Both of them are very hard to prove. That's why no comany will be sueing Microsoft (or people protected by the GPL) and getting some money. As a company, the EULA is your law.
The consumer (in Belgium) of course should not care about any stupid provisions in an EULA. Any judge will scrap them. But there aren't that many consumers that will sue, prove their damages and still make a profit.
If you give a lawyer (or a professor) the task to examine a contract and make a list of all possible weak spots in the contract, he (or she) will do so. Of course this lawyer might find very strong elements, but he (or she) is not being paid to list them ;)
So here you got a list with all things that might go wrong with the GPL in Germany. The same thing could be done with any contract (most contracts are dubious and open for interpretation).
You should thank the opposition (VSI) for giving their money to investigate your contract. Read it wisely and improve where necessary.
So, even though I was relatively careful, I was still able to get infected. Primarily because:
....
a) The "From" address was an expected source.
This means nothing. Trainers still give the advise: don't open attachments from people you don't know. This should be don't open attachments unless
b) I do occasionally get legitimate e-mails that are only an attachment with no text.
But then you probably know what name and file type to expect.
The best solution is to convince everyone that they should mention the attachment in the mail and explain why you need to open it.
c) This particular virus was so new that my virus scanner was not sufficiently up to date.
Virus scanners only help when the virus is at least one or a couple of days old.
FYI, I guess...
You're wrong. The U.S. government did win. They just failed to collect their prize.
did MS engage in illegal anti-competitive practices which are bad for the consumer and bad for the market." I don't see you answering that question.
They have been convicted of doing just that. Everybody knows that.
In this situation only the one fixing their licencing "problem" is happy. I guess he gets paid.
The software companies are not happy: they don't get any money and still have to pay the BSA.
The company under threat is not happy (nobody likes being threatened). And more importantly, the company is reminded of the fact that licenses are something that they have to consider while doing business. This will be taken into account when considering upgrading or buying new software.
If you got copyrighted material (something you wrote, created, ...), then you can choose who can use your material and how. You may insert a copyright notice forbidding the RIAA to view your material or pay a fee of 1$/Kb. You might even ask for 10$/Kb. Just make sure they have to agree to the agreement before seeing your material.
Copyright laws are there to defend people who create copyrighted material.