Sorry, I don't see how the SEC is anymore Constitutional than allowing the DOJ to require ISPs to keep logs. In fact, I don't remember reading about the SEC in the Consitituion. Perhaps you can point it out for me?
It's similarly an abuse of power, but in this case, the DOJ wants the require that ISP's retain all their records, not just that they turn them over (if they exist).
I'm afraid that almost every law the feds push is a violation of the Constitution:
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
I agree 100% with this point. But prosecuting victimless crimes is the US Govt's favorite hobby and has been since the turn of last century. The only way to reverse this sad orwellian trend is to vote for libertarians and dramatically reduce the size and power of government back to its constitutional limits.
Granted MMO networks need to be much larger and persistent, though why can't they take the BitTorrent approach. Rather than have one central bank of many powerful servers, all computers running the game could connect together to form an adhoc grid with just as much computing power if not more. This would negate the huge maintenance costs required and hence the need for monthly fees. Which is where I see the sinister part, it's like saying rather than lets look for a better solution, lets look for the most expensive solution.
If you have the code to implement a massive distributed computer network for hosting a persistant mmo enviornment, hell, I'll invest!
Doh, I just wrote pretty much the same thing in another post. Good points. I agree 100%.
I'm tired of people saying that PHP isn't good for large projects. PHP is sometimes BETTER for large projects so long as you design your core carefully and have an excellent structure in place.
I think that because php is so popular (and supported on every shared hosting server), there are alot of lazy/inexperienced coders out there that give it a bad rap.
But every other language is no different. Bad code is bad code.
I don't agree that PHP can't be used for "massive' applications. If you can write a good small application using php, you can write a good massive application with the same tool.
I'm getting tired of hearing people arbitrarily say that php (and mysql) are not effective tools for massive tools or audiences.
Languages and server technologies have very little to do with an application's speed, security, or feature-sets. Ninety-nine percent of an application's success is how well it is written and organized. Previous posters have chimed in on this point. Bad code is bad code written in any language. Excellent organized, abstracted, and well documented code can be infinitely scaleable and easy to use.
PHP is not the problem, it's the php community. One of the negative effects of having a language become so popular and widely supported (like php) is that everyone and their brother starts coding simple php apps (that grow into jungles of tangled doom). I recently download a dating software suite written in php, and I couldn't believe how aweful it was. It was about 3 times more complicated and obsfucated than it needed to be. Why? Well, I got the impression that the coders were learning how to develop the application as they went along. There was no underlining design structure...just a bunch of addons and overall BS that quickly inspired me to hit the delete button.
Hardly any "php developers" that I know have actually read a book (on or offline) that discusses intelligent application and db design. Most people learn how to use basic functions and jump right in. This is great in that php allows you to easily jump in, but it is awful at the same time, because these messy amature coders decrease the percieved value of this potentially excellent tool-set.
Most ASP.NET and Java programmers that I know are *REAL* programmers that actually spent time studying *proper* application design and abstraction methods. PHP, because of it's easy accessibility (and web-based audience) attracts more lazy/inexperienced designers (imho).
In short, PHP is a great and powerful language popularized by not-so great budding web-programmers. As more *professionals* give the language the credit and chance it deserves, I think we'll see more powerful and scaleable applications emerge that will discredit claims that php is only good for smaller projects.
Yeah, like all the thousands of government subsidized programs that cost our country hundreds of billions of dollars every year that shower the "whole" country with boundless rewards for "practically nothing."
You want something done, you get government out of it completely, you don't ask for more government!
Agreed. I'm amazed at how many technlogy users (who know the power and scope of invasive technology) seeminly WANT a big brother type paradigm to win. I don't think people realize that their nonchalance is even more damaging than those few brave enough and smart enough to cry foul. Nonchalance in numbers is EXACTLY what big governments want in order to achieve their goal of total control. Do I sound paranoid? I am. I'm truly scared that every day that passes is a day closer to Orwell's fears becoming a reality. In fact, if you took 1984 line by line, I think you'd find that we are already 90% there.
But that's the same argument big government always uses..."If you're not doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?" For starters, it's none of their business. Maybe you've heard of the
Constitution? It explicity states that the government has no right to infringe our privacy no matter what it THINKS we're doing with it. And believe me, alot of us just plain want privacy. If someone doesn't want anyone to know what they're downloading, then that is their right (so long as the technology can provide this). I could make a long list of materials that would want to be shared privately (that aren't copyright infringements), but I shouldn't have to justify the right to privacy. You cannot assume guilt simply because someone doesn't want you to know what they are up to. In fact, the Constitution specifically protects against those assumptions (or is supposed to).
Your arguement basically makes any private activity a crime. Building a wall or fence around a house must would amount to trying to hide illegal activity. "My neighbor put a fence around his house so I can't peer in...he MUST be doing something evil in there."
Nope, sorry buddy. Some of us just want privacy. Yes, some seeking privacy will be doing so to evade legal consequences of their activities, but don't group us privacy lovers in with them, and PLEASE don't use their activities to dismantle our Constitutional rights.
I think you're forgetting something extremely important: If you give the government an inch, they will eventually take a marathon.
In this case, sure the law may pass and they will have access to ISP records...but once they realize that the law in ineffective in and of itself because ISP's records aren't being kept long enough...they will pass another law requiring ISP's to keep detailed records for extensive periods of time! And they will easily be able to pass this second new law because they will simply state they it's necessary in order to enforce the first law! The SEC has a law that requires companies to keep at least 6 months of email records...I'm sure they can easily write a similar one for ISP's.
Everyone always forgets that the small power that you give the government today will eventually become a huge invasive power that you hate in the future. You may like the politicians that institute a new law to protect your safety...but future politcians that had nothing to do with that "benign" law will have access to the same power, and may manipulate what was once a "benign" law into one that specifically dismantles your freedom even further by building onto it.
Income taxes were created in the early 20th century to pay for WW1...and guess what, they never stopped taxing after the war ended...in fact, rather than debating the existence of taxes, today we now debate how much we should be taxed, and in how many different ways (the answer of course, is more).
If you allow the government to look at your ISP records today because it's no big deal, sometime in the future they will be looking at alot more (and trust me, you will think it's a big deal then). But by that time, it'll be too late...you won't have any more power to get rid of the increasingly invasive laws tomorrow than you have the power to get rid of income taxes today.
They made the OS require all these applications as dependencies, they're more than able to re-work the sytem to accommodate competitors and make it much easier for them to settle in.
Excuse me, maybe I'm missing something here, but why the hell is it Microsoft's duty to help the competition? Isn't the point of the free-market to compete, not hold hands?
Man, I read more and more communist BS on/. everyday. When are you people going to learn that freedom is at stake when you start telling other people or companies how to run their businesses. It's a two way street. At this rate, we might as well give half our incomes to the government so they have enough money and power to run our lives for us. Wait a minute...
"A goverment that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away." - Barry Goldwater
I don't understand why you can't just NOT use IE. If you don't like the whole package (Windows), then buy another operating system that is more modular. Just because you don't like how a company packages their products, doesn't mean the company should bow to your packaging schemes. And it certainly doesn't mean that it should get sued by money hungry governments. Don't like windows media player? Don't use it. Hate windows media player so much that you can't handle it being in your OS? Buy another OS!
Freedom is the issue here. Companies should have the freedom to package their products however they like. You have the freedom to buy or reject those products. Anything else is an attack on freedom.
I agree 100%. I'm not a fan of any company. If i don't like a product a company produces for whatever reason, I don't buy it. It's totally absurd that we are suing companies because they are better competitors (and calling their marketing strategies "unfair practices"). I'm a customer...i don't feel cheated! If I want linux, I'll download it. If I want mac, I'll buy it. But I don't...I think Microsoft makes a decent enough operating system that pretty much supports all the software I want...so I buy Microsoft. You can call their popularity a "monopoly" but it's not. Anyone is free to buy or use any other OS out there...and all the major OS's support all the fundamental OS functions. Every OS can play media, browse the web, and operate office software.
I find it unbelievable that a company gets punished for loading up their software with extra features like a media player. Have we forgotten that because of microsoft, internet browsers are FREE instead of $50 like Netscape's was? Fuck all the developers that winge that they can't compete against sucha big "monopolists". What about Adobe/Macromedia? Microsoft can't wrestle a single customer from the profesional digital content creation market because their products don't measure up. What about Google? Despite spending nearly $1 billion on reasearch and develpment on the new msn search engine alone...they've barely got more than 11% of the search market. And just because MS has a huge majority in the OS market, doesn't mean that it will always be that way. Linux gets better and easier to use and more supported every year. Macs are already awesome machines (if only they could support more games)...
The bottom line is that it's all about the customers...and we like free, compatible, and popular. That said, I use firefox because it's free AND better (at the moment). But if IE7 is better than firefox, I'll be switching. As a customer, I'm after the best product for the best price. Competing companies would do well to remember that. Stop suing better companies, and start becoming better yourself. Better products always win in the end. Behemouth governments and crap companies that spend their time suing superior companies instead of creating newer better products are only prolonging their inevitable doom.
Which government do you mean by the government. It can't be the US government. The government has no constitional authority to have any role whatsoever in education, the environment, or television. All you're saying is that you don't like the government's blatantly unconstitional and illegal interference in television standards, but you'd like the government to engage in blatantly unconstitional and illegal power grabs for your pet issues education and "the environment." You have no more legitimacy or authority than the very people you're railing against!
Nice Point. I agree 100%. It amazes me that people can get riled up about how the govt. interferes with television broadcasting, while everyday it interferes with people's lives in much more harrowing and resounding ways. While the US government kills tens of thousands of Iraqis, and thousands of American soldiers, we bitch about our tv rights. While the government rips away privacy rights and tramples right past the constitutional framework, we complain about digital vs analogue. Talk about opiate of the masses...it's the ability of the government to make you care about the small things while it plunders your fundamental rights in the background!
As a resident of the Caribbean, I know you're software would do even better if you added Caribbean cities/islands. Almost everyone that lives here is glued to the computer during the hurricane season (June-November). A consolidated tool like this one would be a nice alternative to checking several different websites every time we want an update.
"The bill's supporters in Congress won passage of the prison terms by gluing them to an unrelated proposal to legalize technologies that delete offensive content from a film."
Someone should pass a bill that makes this sort of act illegal. That Simpsons episode where they go to Washington comes to mind. Behold the paper clip!
In fact, there is a Libertarian group trying to eliminate this shady practice and also force politicians to actually READ the laws they pass. Check it out here: Downsize DC
Trees can be replanted. Trees are a sustainable resource, unlike oil. I'll never understand the myth of "saving trees." Foresting companies or forest land owners with any sense REPLANT their land with trees so that they can continue to make money and provide raw timber to the wood and paper industries. Yes, some owners and governments in some 3rd world countries in the past failed to think about the future and built on top of their forest lands, but that does not mean that all foresting companies practice this short-sighted behavior. In fact, most don't. My dad imports over 50 containers of timber from Guyana every year into the Caribbean. The Guyanese timber company he buys from replants every tree they cut down. In fact, they plant even more trees than the land naturally produced prior to owning it so they can increase future production. Have you noticed that you don't hear much anymore about "saving the forests"? That's because tree levels are INCREASING!
There is nothing wrong with chopping down trees! Get over it.
I think small towns and municpalities which divert revenue from newspapers which serve the public good into wireless and internet access makes sense. They are more environmentally friendly and provide a type of infrastructure that encourages business to locate there.
I think the money should be diverted back to MY bank account, so I can choose how to spend it...not you.
Not everyone uses/wants the internet. Indeed, not everyone reads/wants the newspaper. NO money whatesoever should be collected by private citizens to help subsidize private business operations. Everyone here gets pissed off by big businesses...well, why aren't you getting pissed off at the over-reaching politicians that take YOUR money and give it to these big businesses? It's not businesses that are the problem, it's an unconstitutional government.
Sweeping limitations on free speech masquerade as "Campaign Finance Laws," and it is sad and disheartening that people don't realize this. Politicians in power created campaign finance laws to limit SMALL, minority parties from raising serious capital from their relatively small populations. These laws do not effect the big parties (Dems & Republicans) because of the sheer volume of their numbers. When are we going to realize that giving government more power by allowing them to erode the supremacy of the bill of rights is only going to hurt us, not help us!
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
I can't reiterate this enough...there are no exceptions in this ammendment! It does not say "Congress shall make NO law (except when it concerns politics)" In fact, it is explicit in the ammendment that political speech in particular is protected! How the hell did the political bastards get away with completely ignoring the constitution when they created their "campaign finance laws"? Man I hate people.
This is not about free speech, free speech is letting me say what I think w/o going to jail. This is about the net as a political medium.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
Uh, maybe it's just me, but when it says congress shall make NO law, I didn't see any asteriks, footnotes, or parentheticals describing exceptions. In fact, it is explicitly stated in the first ammendment that speech about government is protected! Congress shall make NO law, means NO law!
How hard is this for you understand?
Publishing will always cost money, therefore speech costs money. It costs money to print paper, and it costs money to generate electricity to run computer screens that allow you to read blogs. Raising money to propogate and perpetuate free speech is a means to an end which is PROTECTED by the first ammendment! At least it's supposed to be.
You can't tell us that YOUR idea of free speech is ok, while political speech by monied organizations is not ok. The whole reason for the instiution of the first ammendment was to protect everyone from idiotic thinking like yours.
We obviously don't want to detract from our stances for whatever reason, so I'm not going to get into a free market vs interventionism arguement with you any further. I just want you to think of this:
Ever since the US government mandated public education (k-12), test scores have dropped while the education expenses grew. As the government intervened with its rules, regulations, policies, beauracracies, and politics...the original intention of making education better, completey failed. There are many reasons for this, but one of them is that politicians know lots about raising money, and very little about educating children! We allow politicians to decide what is taught, how it is taught, and how much all this teaching will cost taxpayers. We don't allow the free market to decide. NO ONE IS ACCOUNTABLE. If the government fails, no one gets fired...they just ask for more money! Under this present paradigmn, the government requires more money every year to perform WORSE every year!
In contrast, the tech industry, which has been relatively unregulated by the government for the last few decades, has done the exact opposite. Almost every year, the technology doubles in performance, while costs (and prices) are cut in half! This has been the case, because the technology industry has generally been left alone to the free market, where their is FEIRCE competition to improve products and decrease prices...or die. The consumer (you and I) win. It is not my business to care whether lesser companies fail, it is my business to care whether I get the products I want at prices I can afford.
As soon as you allow the government to come in and regulate a business or industry, you slow down the innovation process, you decrease the incentives to improve, and you generally throw a wrench into the gears of progress. Today the EU says that Microsoft must release a product without a feature...but we agree that the EU should have such powers, I can assure you their reach will not stop there. Someday, not too far in the future, they'll pass a law mandating that all software be approved by some government official before it is released to the public. It sounds absurd, but strangly, it is exactly what the EU has said to Microsoft TODAY!
I'm not saying that the world is perfect, or that Microsoft is an angel. What I am saying is that it doesn't matter because the real monopolist is governments. It's sad to me that most people can't see that. Despite your convictions, I can (and have) gone into a store and bought non-Microsoft OS's. I think OSX is perfectly capable of performing tasks required by 98% of the population. Linux distros are pefectly capable of checking email, browsing the web, and composing word documents (this is like 75% of what users need). People don't buy Microsoft because they're forced to...they buy it because they have CHOSEN to.
If Microsoft uses it's popularity to increase it's marketshare in other markets, I don't care. Because ultimately, I still have the choice to not buy or use their software. I can (and do use) Macs (Final Cut Pro) and Linux/Apache (for my webservers). I also use windows, and I like windows. Everything works, and I like that. I LIKE the fact that everything I need works on one machine without any problems. You refer to this feature as if its bad! People want compatibility! Businesses would prefer to develop for one platform (and do). I, and about 85% of the world, like the homogenous nature of the windows landscape! I know I can ALWAYS get a WinXP driver, and that almost every program I want will be available in windows (excpet final cut pro). I like that! There's nothing wrong with that. Microsoft won the home and office OS market. Big deal. All it takes is something truly amazing and revolutionary to happen, and the tables could turn. For instance, Microsoft could start charging too much money for their OS...they could begin a subscription paradigmn that everyone hates...or another OS could really blow Microsoft away (don't count
Competition is when there is NO barrier to using products of equal quality. Bundling introduces such a barrier, especially on a system used by almost everyone such as Windows.
How did you come up with this definition of competition? Maybe that's your definition, but it certainly has no basis in reality. There is always going to be a "barrier" or an advantage when two things compete. Illustration: Better marketing & bigger marketing. Should we ban all advertising since some companies don't have huge advertising budgets to advertise equally with big comapanies?
No. Because that would be absurd.
1. Whether a customer realizes there is an alternative or not is NOT any company's or any government's responsibility. That's like saying that before you buy a Lexus, you must know all about Acuras and Infiniti's!
2. "Enough" problems is a bad example (maybe my fault). Sometimes it has nothing to do with problems, but maybe an interface preference, or some other non "problem" issue. The real point is that people can keep WMP if they are happy with it, or they can switch to another player. They have a choice!
So what if microsoft bundles free software with their operating system! If you don't like the software, don't use it. If you don't like these bundling tactics, don't buy their operating system. Period! Why is it that the government has to regulate what we can regulate ourselves?
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Sorry, I don't see how the SEC is anymore Constitutional than allowing the DOJ to require ISPs to keep logs. In fact, I don't remember reading about the SEC in the Consitituion. Perhaps you can point it out for me?
It's similarly an abuse of power, but in this case, the DOJ wants the require that ISP's retain all their records, not just that they turn them over (if they exist).
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
I agree 100% with this point. But prosecuting victimless crimes is the US Govt's favorite hobby and has been since the turn of last century. The only way to reverse this sad orwellian trend is to vote for libertarians and dramatically reduce the size and power of government back to its constitutional limits.
If you have the code to implement a massive distributed computer network for hosting a persistant mmo enviornment, hell, I'll invest!
Henceforth, you shall me known as the Motivation Nazi.
If the Constitution was designed to be a living, evolving document, any evolutions should further limit the governmen't power, not increase them.
Shameless Political Party Plug: If you want REAL freedom, vote for a Libertarian
I'm tired of people saying that PHP isn't good for large projects. PHP is sometimes BETTER for large projects so long as you design your core carefully and have an excellent structure in place.
I think that because php is so popular (and supported on every shared hosting server), there are alot of lazy/inexperienced coders out there that give it a bad rap.
But every other language is no different. Bad code is bad code.
I'm getting tired of hearing people arbitrarily say that php (and mysql) are not effective tools for massive tools or audiences.
Languages and server technologies have very little to do with an application's speed, security, or feature-sets. Ninety-nine percent of an application's success is how well it is written and organized. Previous posters have chimed in on this point. Bad code is bad code written in any language. Excellent organized, abstracted, and well documented code can be infinitely scaleable and easy to use.
PHP is not the problem, it's the php community. One of the negative effects of having a language become so popular and widely supported (like php) is that everyone and their brother starts coding simple php apps (that grow into jungles of tangled doom). I recently download a dating software suite written in php, and I couldn't believe how aweful it was. It was about 3 times more complicated and obsfucated than it needed to be. Why? Well, I got the impression that the coders were learning how to develop the application as they went along. There was no underlining design structure...just a bunch of addons and overall BS that quickly inspired me to hit the delete button.
Hardly any "php developers" that I know have actually read a book (on or offline) that discusses intelligent application and db design. Most people learn how to use basic functions and jump right in. This is great in that php allows you to easily jump in, but it is awful at the same time, because these messy amature coders decrease the percieved value of this potentially excellent tool-set.
Most ASP.NET and Java programmers that I know are *REAL* programmers that actually spent time studying *proper* application design and abstraction methods. PHP, because of it's easy accessibility (and web-based audience) attracts more lazy/inexperienced designers (imho).
In short, PHP is a great and powerful language popularized by not-so great budding web-programmers. As more *professionals* give the language the credit and chance it deserves, I think we'll see more powerful and scaleable applications emerge that will discredit claims that php is only good for smaller projects.
Ok, I'm done.
You want something done, you get government out of it completely, you don't ask for more government!
Agreed. I'm amazed at how many technlogy users (who know the power and scope of invasive technology) seeminly WANT a big brother type paradigm to win. I don't think people realize that their nonchalance is even more damaging than those few brave enough and smart enough to cry foul. Nonchalance in numbers is EXACTLY what big governments want in order to achieve their goal of total control. Do I sound paranoid? I am. I'm truly scared that every day that passes is a day closer to Orwell's fears becoming a reality. In fact, if you took 1984 line by line, I think you'd find that we are already 90% there.
But that's the same argument big government always uses..."If you're not doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?" For starters, it's none of their business. Maybe you've heard of the Constitution? It explicity states that the government has no right to infringe our privacy no matter what it THINKS we're doing with it. And believe me, alot of us just plain want privacy. If someone doesn't want anyone to know what they're downloading, then that is their right (so long as the technology can provide this). I could make a long list of materials that would want to be shared privately (that aren't copyright infringements), but I shouldn't have to justify the right to privacy. You cannot assume guilt simply because someone doesn't want you to know what they are up to. In fact, the Constitution specifically protects against those assumptions (or is supposed to).
Your arguement basically makes any private activity a crime. Building a wall or fence around a house must would amount to trying to hide illegal activity. "My neighbor put a fence around his house so I can't peer in...he MUST be doing something evil in there."
Nope, sorry buddy. Some of us just want privacy. Yes, some seeking privacy will be doing so to evade legal consequences of their activities, but don't group us privacy lovers in with them, and PLEASE don't use their activities to dismantle our Constitutional rights.
In this case, sure the law may pass and they will have access to ISP records...but once they realize that the law in ineffective in and of itself because ISP's records aren't being kept long enough...they will pass another law requiring ISP's to keep detailed records for extensive periods of time! And they will easily be able to pass this second new law because they will simply state they it's necessary in order to enforce the first law! The SEC has a law that requires companies to keep at least 6 months of email records...I'm sure they can easily write a similar one for ISP's.
Everyone always forgets that the small power that you give the government today will eventually become a huge invasive power that you hate in the future. You may like the politicians that institute a new law to protect your safety...but future politcians that had nothing to do with that "benign" law will have access to the same power, and may manipulate what was once a "benign" law into one that specifically dismantles your freedom even further by building onto it.
Income taxes were created in the early 20th century to pay for WW1...and guess what, they never stopped taxing after the war ended...in fact, rather than debating the existence of taxes, today we now debate how much we should be taxed, and in how many different ways (the answer of course, is more).
If you allow the government to look at your ISP records today because it's no big deal, sometime in the future they will be looking at alot more (and trust me, you will think it's a big deal then). But by that time, it'll be too late...you won't have any more power to get rid of the increasingly invasive laws tomorrow than you have the power to get rid of income taxes today.
Excuse me, maybe I'm missing something here, but why the hell is it Microsoft's duty to help the competition? Isn't the point of the free-market to compete, not hold hands?
Man, I read more and more communist BS on /. everyday. When are you people going to learn that freedom is at stake when you start telling other people or companies how to run their businesses. It's a two way street. At this rate, we might as well give half our incomes to the government so they have enough money and power to run our lives for us. Wait a minute...
"A goverment that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away." - Barry Goldwater
Freedom is the issue here. Companies should have the freedom to package their products however they like. You have the freedom to buy or reject those products. Anything else is an attack on freedom.
I find it unbelievable that a company gets punished for loading up their software with extra features like a media player. Have we forgotten that because of microsoft, internet browsers are FREE instead of $50 like Netscape's was? Fuck all the developers that winge that they can't compete against sucha big "monopolists". What about Adobe/Macromedia? Microsoft can't wrestle a single customer from the profesional digital content creation market because their products don't measure up. What about Google? Despite spending nearly $1 billion on reasearch and develpment on the new msn search engine alone...they've barely got more than 11% of the search market. And just because MS has a huge majority in the OS market, doesn't mean that it will always be that way. Linux gets better and easier to use and more supported every year. Macs are already awesome machines (if only they could support more games)...
The bottom line is that it's all about the customers...and we like free, compatible, and popular. That said, I use firefox because it's free AND better (at the moment). But if IE7 is better than firefox, I'll be switching. As a customer, I'm after the best product for the best price. Competing companies would do well to remember that. Stop suing better companies, and start becoming better yourself. Better products always win in the end. Behemouth governments and crap companies that spend their time suing superior companies instead of creating newer better products are only prolonging their inevitable doom.
Nice Point. I agree 100%. It amazes me that people can get riled up about how the govt. interferes with television broadcasting, while everyday it interferes with people's lives in much more harrowing and resounding ways. While the US government kills tens of thousands of Iraqis, and thousands of American soldiers, we bitch about our tv rights. While the government rips away privacy rights and tramples right past the constitutional framework, we complain about digital vs analogue. Talk about opiate of the masses...it's the ability of the government to make you care about the small things while it plunders your fundamental rights in the background!
Man, I hate people.
As a resident of the Caribbean, I know you're software would do even better if you added Caribbean cities/islands. Almost everyone that lives here is glued to the computer during the hurricane season (June-November). A consolidated tool like this one would be a nice alternative to checking several different websites every time we want an update.
Someone should pass a bill that makes this sort of act illegal. That Simpsons episode where they go to Washington comes to mind. Behold the paper clip!
In fact, there is a Libertarian group trying to eliminate this shady practice and also force politicians to actually READ the laws they pass. Check it out here: Downsize DC
There is nothing wrong with chopping down trees! Get over it.
I think the money should be diverted back to MY bank account, so I can choose how to spend it...not you.
Not everyone uses/wants the internet. Indeed, not everyone reads/wants the newspaper. NO money whatesoever should be collected by private citizens to help subsidize private business operations. Everyone here gets pissed off by big businesses...well, why aren't you getting pissed off at the over-reaching politicians that take YOUR money and give it to these big businesses? It's not businesses that are the problem, it's an unconstitutional government.
Sweeping limitations on free speech masquerade as "Campaign Finance Laws," and it is sad and disheartening that people don't realize this. Politicians in power created campaign finance laws to limit SMALL, minority parties from raising serious capital from their relatively small populations. These laws do not effect the big parties (Dems & Republicans) because of the sheer volume of their numbers. When are we going to realize that giving government more power by allowing them to erode the supremacy of the bill of rights is only going to hurt us, not help us!
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
I can't reiterate this enough...there are no exceptions in this ammendment! It does not say "Congress shall make NO law (except when it concerns politics)" In fact, it is explicit in the ammendment that political speech in particular is protected! How the hell did the political bastards get away with completely ignoring the constitution when they created their "campaign finance laws"? Man I hate people.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
Uh, maybe it's just me, but when it says congress shall make NO law, I didn't see any asteriks, footnotes, or parentheticals describing exceptions. In fact, it is explicitly stated in the first ammendment that speech about government is protected! Congress shall make NO law, means NO law!
How hard is this for you understand?
Publishing will always cost money, therefore speech costs money. It costs money to print paper, and it costs money to generate electricity to run computer screens that allow you to read blogs. Raising money to propogate and perpetuate free speech is a means to an end which is PROTECTED by the first ammendment! At least it's supposed to be.
You can't tell us that YOUR idea of free speech is ok, while political speech by monied organizations is not ok. The whole reason for the instiution of the first ammendment was to protect everyone from idiotic thinking like yours.
We obviously don't want to detract from our stances for whatever reason, so I'm not going to get into a free market vs interventionism arguement with you any further. I just want you to think of this:
Ever since the US government mandated public education (k-12), test scores have dropped while the education expenses grew. As the government intervened with its rules, regulations, policies, beauracracies, and politics...the original intention of making education better, completey failed. There are many reasons for this, but one of them is that politicians know lots about raising money, and very little about educating children! We allow politicians to decide what is taught, how it is taught, and how much all this teaching will cost taxpayers. We don't allow the free market to decide. NO ONE IS ACCOUNTABLE. If the government fails, no one gets fired...they just ask for more money! Under this present paradigmn, the government requires more money every year to perform WORSE every year!
In contrast, the tech industry, which has been relatively unregulated by the government for the last few decades, has done the exact opposite. Almost every year, the technology doubles in performance, while costs (and prices) are cut in half! This has been the case, because the technology industry has generally been left alone to the free market, where their is FEIRCE competition to improve products and decrease prices...or die. The consumer (you and I) win. It is not my business to care whether lesser companies fail, it is my business to care whether I get the products I want at prices I can afford.
As soon as you allow the government to come in and regulate a business or industry, you slow down the innovation process, you decrease the incentives to improve, and you generally throw a wrench into the gears of progress. Today the EU says that Microsoft must release a product without a feature...but we agree that the EU should have such powers, I can assure you their reach will not stop there. Someday, not too far in the future, they'll pass a law mandating that all software be approved by some government official before it is released to the public. It sounds absurd, but strangly, it is exactly what the EU has said to Microsoft TODAY!
I'm not saying that the world is perfect, or that Microsoft is an angel. What I am saying is that it doesn't matter because the real monopolist is governments. It's sad to me that most people can't see that. Despite your convictions, I can (and have) gone into a store and bought non-Microsoft OS's. I think OSX is perfectly capable of performing tasks required by 98% of the population. Linux distros are pefectly capable of checking email, browsing the web, and composing word documents (this is like 75% of what users need). People don't buy Microsoft because they're forced to...they buy it because they have CHOSEN to.
If Microsoft uses it's popularity to increase it's marketshare in other markets, I don't care. Because ultimately, I still have the choice to not buy or use their software. I can (and do use) Macs (Final Cut Pro) and Linux/Apache (for my webservers). I also use windows, and I like windows. Everything works, and I like that. I LIKE the fact that everything I need works on one machine without any problems. You refer to this feature as if its bad! People want compatibility! Businesses would prefer to develop for one platform (and do). I, and about 85% of the world, like the homogenous nature of the windows landscape! I know I can ALWAYS get a WinXP driver, and that almost every program I want will be available in windows (excpet final cut pro). I like that! There's nothing wrong with that. Microsoft won the home and office OS market. Big deal. All it takes is something truly amazing and revolutionary to happen, and the tables could turn. For instance, Microsoft could start charging too much money for their OS...they could begin a subscription paradigmn that everyone hates...or another OS could really blow Microsoft away (don't count
How did you come up with this definition of competition? Maybe that's your definition, but it certainly has no basis in reality. There is always going to be a "barrier" or an advantage when two things compete. Illustration: Better marketing & bigger marketing. Should we ban all advertising since some companies don't have huge advertising budgets to advertise equally with big comapanies?
No. Because that would be absurd.
1. Whether a customer realizes there is an alternative or not is NOT any company's or any government's responsibility. That's like saying that before you buy a Lexus, you must know all about Acuras and Infiniti's! 2. "Enough" problems is a bad example (maybe my fault). Sometimes it has nothing to do with problems, but maybe an interface preference, or some other non "problem" issue. The real point is that people can keep WMP if they are happy with it, or they can switch to another player. They have a choice!
So what if microsoft bundles free software with their operating system! If you don't like the software, don't use it. If you don't like these bundling tactics, don't buy their operating system. Period! Why is it that the government has to regulate what we can regulate ourselves?