There's a difference between what you can do legally and what you have a right to do. For example, if I allow people to walk through my front-yard to pick apples, that's something they can do. However, it does not mean that they have a right to do it. I can still deny any individual I choose to or at any time close access.
How this applies to CDs is open to debate and will ultimately be decided in court I guess. So far, we have been ABLE TO listen to CDs on our computers, etc. Whether this is a RIGHT that we obtain from purchasing a CD is an entirely different issue. I'd guess yes but I wouldn't be surprised if I was wrong.
The thing that pisses me off most about the case is that there is no warning or indication on the case that you can't do this. If it is understood that you can use a product one way, if you change that you should advertise the fact or be sued for false advertising.
In all fairness, I must point out that the article said HomeStation was the internal code name for the product. Just like Whistler was the codename for Windows XP. The finished product might very well have an XBOX brand name.
However on all the other counts, I have to agree that the article sounds like a complete hoax.
My mother is hugely addicted to tea. Growing up, I remember how she had to have her morning cup and a cup of tea just to wake up from a nap. I decided then that I would never let myself get dependent on the stuff.
I do drink coffee or have a coke sometimes when I'm in "crunch mode". This could be a big exam when I was in college, a major deadline at work or some serious night-time driving. One thing that not consuming any caffeine has done to me is made my hypersensitive to the stuff. So if I have a single coke any time after noon, I can't sleep well at night - regardless of how tired I am.
I had a point when I began this post but missed it somewhere.
A photocopier can be used for several legitimate purposes that are not illegal. Ditto with a gun or hammer.
(I might be wrong here - and correct me if I am - because I haven't really bothered reading much about the case)
He sold a program to specifically break the copy-protection mechanism on ebooks. The fact that he wrote the program in another country is not relevant because he (or his company) sold the program in the US.
The DOJ case and monopoly arguments are completely independent of why these governments are pursuing free software.
They are pursuing free software solely because of the costs (in terms of $, not speech) associated with the other kind.
Don't automatically assume that just because the word Microsoft is mentioned it has something to do with the DOJ case. Try reading the articles sometimes.
The fact that you got the name wrong was just a very minor part of my post. The major point was that your comments were about a product that was several months from being done.
The Windows XP that got finished today and is expected to release in October is the consumer edition. It is NOT the server edition. The server edition won't come out until sometime next year and it is not called XP, it's called the Windows.NET Server - there is no XP Server. Any comments you're making are about a product that is several months from being done.
Lunatic because you fail to realize that corporations are not an alien race but that they just represent the people who control them - i.e. a set of people with money.
Feel free to argue against contributions to politicians or mechanisms that allow certain people to contribute more than the others (i.e. soft money - where they disguise their contribution under organizations). However, the fact remains that corporations are not in themselves evil and in fact serve a great purpose to the economy by allowing the shielding of personal financial liability. Blame the stupid laws that allow corporations to make political contributions that an individual cannot - don't blame the corporations for exploiting the law. The bottom line, of course, is that if citizens didn't vote for politicians who supported these laws, then we wouldn't have the problem in the same place.
Blaming "corporations" rather than the individuals that control them is dissimulation at its best.
Re:Informative - More like criminal action actuall
on
Hotmail Hacked
·
· Score: 1, Flamebait
YES I AM A LAWYER
Any smart lawyer would know a lot better than to provide unsolicited opinions on legal matters in a public forum. (Yes, it is possible to trace Anonymous Cowards through their IPs, etc). Now go back to your cave, troll.
Judging from the description, you can watch the movie as many times as you want for 24 hours after you first started it. So in that sense, it's similar to a 1-day rental.
Also, once you download the movie, you can keep it for up to 30 days before actually beginning to watch it. So if you have a really busy week, you don't have to watch it until next week - of course you're not able to watch a bit today and finish it off next week and that sucks.
Most video stores I know will charge for an entire rental again if you're late by even a couple of hours. So you can pretty much do the same here. Just download it again and pay for it again.
Because they are entirely different things, stupid. AT&T had a monopoly on all the local phone systems. The Baby Bells had control of their individual territories and therefore the ability to make money without killing each other.
Two companies with the same intellectual property with no recurring cost would not be able to survive. There is no market differentiation as there was in the case of the Baby Bells. Instead, each company is trying to sell the same product to the same consumer. And now that all the code has already been written, what do you think the marginal cost of printing the CDs would be? In fact, if the price of Windows in such a situation did NOT come down to about $5, you would have a very strong case of oligopolistic collusion between the companies to unfairly raise prices.
No, you *thought* you bought it. And that's only because you are stupid. If you read what was being sold, you'd realize that you *didn't* buy it. It wasn't on sale in the first place - only the license to view it in a restricted way was on sale.
Firstly, "Hollywood", or rather the movie copyright holders are not against allowing users to watch DVDs on Linux. They are against the DVD protection being cracked. They are also against free players where they don't make any money out of the deal. They have created the format and expect to make money off any players. There are mainstream efforts to create Linux DVD players by companies who have licensed the format.
Secondly, the people who hold the copyrights to those movies are NOT the same people that create the special effects. People get hired to do the special effects for films, which they do either for a flat fee or a cut of the profits or some combination thereof. They don't make any decisions about distributing the movie and leave that up to the distributors.
Of course you could have learned all this if you had simply taking Thinking 101.
The concept of zero was invented in India. As was the decimal system (Arabic numerals) and the concept of negative numbers. The Arabs traded between India and Europe and were responsible for learning the concepts from the Indians and transfering them to the West.
So the Islamic world didn't invent the zero any more than Columbus discovered America. Both get credit only for bringing this knowledge to Europe.
But most people don't need or care about having multiple users use a single machine simultaneously. Terminal Services allows me to access MY desktop wherever I am. That's what it's intended for, that's what it does and that's what I want and need it to do.
The goal is very simple. It's about enabling me to do what I want to with my computer. I don't share a desktop machine with anyone else and don't need to. I doubt too many other people do either.
And no, there was no tweaking involved at all. These things work right out of the box. And anytime I am in a coworkers office and want to check on my mail status, etc, I can simply term serve into my desktop and check it. No special configuration etc. required. All you need is for Terminal Services Client to be installed - which is installed by default in XP. And all you need on the desktop you're connecting to is Terminal Services Server. Installed by default on Win2K Server, Whistler Server and XP Professional. (Not enabled by default on XP Professional but that's just one option to check.)
So I don't care whether it satisfies some exotic scenarios that no one uses. It does satisfy what _I_ want to do and what almost every one of my coworkers seem to want.
The idea that you could see "your" desktop from another workstation is just a dream in the Windows world.
Ummm.. no. Have you ever used Terminal Services? I carry my laptop to meetings with me and term serve into my desktop (running windows XP). I have the choice to login in a new session or (the one I choose) to login as console. I am then connected to my desktop as I left it on the machine - with all the windows, etc. open just as I left them. I see "my" desktop from any machine on a network.
Maybe at some point it will occur to corporations and VCs to ask themselves before committing millions, "Would I pay for this?"
But isn't that true of all industry - all the dot bombs out there? The ideal world would be where you have a very accurate assessment of the market and know exactly how much you'll be able to sell of a particular product. The truth, however, is that such an assessment is impossible. There are many great ideas that started because one person was convinced that it would work inspite of all the market researchers telling him he was wrong. At the same time there are lots of bomb ideas which market research was convinced would be super-successes.
Who is right in this case? Maybe time alone will tell.
people read books for enjoyment and to get AWAY from tech not deeper into it.
Maybe you only say that because you're an old fogey? I'll concede that the technology has a long way to go. I've read som e-books on my IPaq and the small screen size, the strain of reading from a backlit display (although TrueType fonts are nice!) and worrying about running out of juice are a bother. I see no reason why this won't improve in the near future, though.
Remember everyone hated trains when they first came out and people said they'd rather travel by horse-driven cart than a train. But then a new generation grew up who didn't see it as a problem and actually appreciated the fact that it could get them where they wanted to a lot faster and a lot more comfortably.
Technology is a tool. It's one thing to work with technology to develop it and it's a whole other thing to use it to your advantage. There are times when I want to get away from the work part of technology but I still like it being used to my advantage. Don't forget that the car you drive and the dishwasher you use are all also the fruits of technology.
Re:Apply the same arguments to other areas of safe
on
PDF Virus Spotted
·
· Score: 2
Have you even begun to understand the difference between a human life and data? They are entirely different things - even if a geek who has never stepped out of mommy's basement can't tell the difference.
The federal government should regulate areas where there is a potential for irrecoverable loss i.e. life or limb. Market forces don't play well there because nothing can compensate for those losses. Computer virii are a whole different beast. The most a computer virus can do is cause loss of data or money. Something market forces are perfectly capable of dealing with and something which government should stay far away from.
And just because market forces don't seem to work in the direction YOU like it, doesn't mean they don't work at all.
The argument about the loss of fissionable nuclear material is a strawman. Every piece of software has bugs in it and depending on the purpose you use it for, those bugs can have harmful consequences.
Win9x --> Windows XP
Win2KPro --> Windows XP Professional
Win2KServer --> Windows.NET Server (Whistler Server)
Whistler Server is nowhere near ready for release or comparison right now. I believe they plan to release it sometime in 2002.
Windows XP is a HUGE improvement compared to Win9x. The UI is a lot better - and no, I don't mean in terms of looking cool - I mean it in terms of being usable - the way things are organized, etc. And there is a lot more functionality and reliability in XP. I hope Gateway would update their damn drivers so I could install XP on my girlfriends computer - it would make my life so much simpler if I could remote assist her, etc.
I'm using XP Professional on all my Win2K boxes right now and the major things I notice are reliability, not having to reboot every time I install anything and ease of use. I don't notice my apps running any slower - in fact I notice some apps that run lightning fast by comparison to Win2K - especially a certain *cough* MUD client.
The thing I notice most on my laptop is how fast the damn thing boots or resumes from standby. It makes it a whole heck of a deal more convenient to take my laptop to meetings, etc. The other big difference between Win2K Pro and WinXP Pro is remote access. It's awfully convenient for me to work on my desktop at work from home.
That Bill Gates as borg icon you see on top signifies the topic "Microsoft".
While I agree that the whole article should probably be labeled "Flamebait" designed to increase hits, you can always block articles about MS out by going to your user info and clicking "Customize Homepage". Check on "Microsoft" and you won't see any articles about the company again.
The problem, of course, is that you will also miss out on the important stuff like the final resolution of the DOJ case and also that Slashdot editors frequently post thinly veiled flamebait about Microsoft under other topics.
mean, what's a Windows Me license running these days? $100? On a sub-$1000 system, that's a *big* chunk of your total system price.
No, they get huge OEM discounts for pre-installed licenses. I don't have any figures but I wouldn't be surprised if it were in the order of $20-$30. That also explains why it's a limited license you get instead of a general-purpose WinME license.
Slashdot Mirror
There's a difference between what you can do legally and what you have a right to do. For example, if I allow people to walk through my front-yard to pick apples, that's something they can do. However, it does not mean that they have a right to do it. I can still deny any individual I choose to or at any time close access.
How this applies to CDs is open to debate and will ultimately be decided in court I guess. So far, we have been ABLE TO listen to CDs on our computers, etc. Whether this is a RIGHT that we obtain from purchasing a CD is an entirely different issue. I'd guess yes but I wouldn't be surprised if I was wrong.
The thing that pisses me off most about the case is that there is no warning or indication on the case that you can't do this. If it is understood that you can use a product one way, if you change that you should advertise the fact or be sued for false advertising.
In all fairness, I must point out that the article said HomeStation was the internal code name for the product. Just like Whistler was the codename for Windows XP. The finished product might very well have an XBOX brand name.
However on all the other counts, I have to agree that the article sounds like a complete hoax.
My mother is hugely addicted to tea. Growing up, I remember how she had to have her morning cup and a cup of tea just to wake up from a nap. I decided then that I would never let myself get dependent on the stuff.
I do drink coffee or have a coke sometimes when I'm in "crunch mode". This could be a big exam when I was in college, a major deadline at work or some serious night-time driving. One thing that not consuming any caffeine has done to me is made my hypersensitive to the stuff. So if I have a single coke any time after noon, I can't sleep well at night - regardless of how tired I am.
I had a point when I began this post but missed it somewhere.
A photocopier can be used for several legitimate purposes that are not illegal. Ditto with a gun or hammer.
(I might be wrong here - and correct me if I am - because I haven't really bothered reading much about the case)
He sold a program to specifically break the copy-protection mechanism on ebooks. The fact that he wrote the program in another country is not relevant because he (or his company) sold the program in the US.
The DOJ case and monopoly arguments are completely independent of why these governments are pursuing free software.
They are pursuing free software solely because of the costs (in terms of $, not speech) associated with the other kind.
Don't automatically assume that just because the word Microsoft is mentioned it has something to do with the DOJ case. Try reading the articles sometimes.
The fact that you got the name wrong was just a very minor part of my post. The major point was that your comments were about a product that was several months from being done.
The Windows XP that got finished today and is expected to release in October is the consumer edition. It is NOT the server edition. The server edition won't come out until sometime next year and it is not called XP, it's called the Windows .NET Server - there is no XP Server. Any comments you're making are about a product that is several months from being done.
Please gather your facts together before posting.
Lunatic because you fail to realize that corporations are not an alien race but that they just represent the people who control them - i.e. a set of people with money.
Feel free to argue against contributions to politicians or mechanisms that allow certain people to contribute more than the others (i.e. soft money - where they disguise their contribution under organizations). However, the fact remains that corporations are not in themselves evil and in fact serve a great purpose to the economy by allowing the shielding of personal financial liability. Blame the stupid laws that allow corporations to make political contributions that an individual cannot - don't blame the corporations for exploiting the law. The bottom line, of course, is that if citizens didn't vote for politicians who supported these laws, then we wouldn't have the problem in the same place.
Blaming "corporations" rather than the individuals that control them is dissimulation at its best.
YES I AM A LAWYER
Any smart lawyer would know a lot better than to provide unsolicited opinions on legal matters in a public forum. (Yes, it is possible to trace Anonymous Cowards through their IPs, etc). Now go back to your cave, troll.
Advocat --> AdvocatE
cnn.co --> cnn.coM
Thank you.
Judging from the description, you can watch the movie as many times as you want for 24 hours after you first started it. So in that sense, it's similar to a 1-day rental.
Also, once you download the movie, you can keep it for up to 30 days before actually beginning to watch it. So if you have a really busy week, you don't have to watch it until next week - of course you're not able to watch a bit today and finish it off next week and that sucks.
Most video stores I know will charge for an entire rental again if you're late by even a couple of hours. So you can pretty much do the same here. Just download it again and pay for it again.
Because they are entirely different things, stupid. AT&T had a monopoly on all the local phone systems. The Baby Bells had control of their individual territories and therefore the ability to make money without killing each other.
Two companies with the same intellectual property with no recurring cost would not be able to survive. There is no market differentiation as there was in the case of the Baby Bells. Instead, each company is trying to sell the same product to the same consumer. And now that all the code has already been written, what do you think the marginal cost of printing the CDs would be? In fact, if the price of Windows in such a situation did NOT come down to about $5, you would have a very strong case of oligopolistic collusion between the companies to unfairly raise prices.
Because I *bought it*.
No, you *thought* you bought it. And that's only because you are stupid. If you read what was being sold, you'd realize that you *didn't* buy it. It wasn't on sale in the first place - only the license to view it in a restricted way was on sale.
Firstly, "Hollywood", or rather the movie copyright holders are not against allowing users to watch DVDs on Linux. They are against the DVD protection being cracked. They are also against free players where they don't make any money out of the deal. They have created the format and expect to make money off any players. There are mainstream efforts to create Linux DVD players by companies who have licensed the format. Secondly, the people who hold the copyrights to those movies are NOT the same people that create the special effects. People get hired to do the special effects for films, which they do either for a flat fee or a cut of the profits or some combination thereof. They don't make any decisions about distributing the movie and leave that up to the distributors. Of course you could have learned all this if you had simply taking Thinking 101.
The concept of zero was invented in India. As was the decimal system (Arabic numerals) and the concept of negative numbers. The Arabs traded between India and Europe and were responsible for learning the concepts from the Indians and transfering them to the West. So the Islamic world didn't invent the zero any more than Columbus discovered America. Both get credit only for bringing this knowledge to Europe.
But most people don't need or care about having multiple users use a single machine simultaneously. Terminal Services allows me to access MY desktop wherever I am. That's what it's intended for, that's what it does and that's what I want and need it to do.
The goal is very simple. It's about enabling me to do what I want to with my computer. I don't share a desktop machine with anyone else and don't need to. I doubt too many other people do either.
And no, there was no tweaking involved at all. These things work right out of the box. And anytime I am in a coworkers office and want to check on my mail status, etc, I can simply term serve into my desktop and check it. No special configuration etc. required. All you need is for Terminal Services Client to be installed - which is installed by default in XP. And all you need on the desktop you're connecting to is Terminal Services Server. Installed by default on Win2K Server, Whistler Server and XP Professional. (Not enabled by default on XP Professional but that's just one option to check.)
So I don't care whether it satisfies some exotic scenarios that no one uses. It does satisfy what _I_ want to do and what almost every one of my coworkers seem to want.
The idea that you could see "your" desktop from another workstation is just a dream in the Windows world.
Ummm.. no. Have you ever used Terminal Services? I carry my laptop to meetings with me and term serve into my desktop (running windows XP). I have the choice to login in a new session or (the one I choose) to login as console. I am then connected to my desktop as I left it on the machine - with all the windows, etc. open just as I left them. I see "my" desktop from any machine on a network.
Maybe at some point it will occur to corporations and VCs to ask themselves before committing millions, "Would I pay for this?"
But isn't that true of all industry - all the dot bombs out there? The ideal world would be where you have a very accurate assessment of the market and know exactly how much you'll be able to sell of a particular product. The truth, however, is that such an assessment is impossible. There are many great ideas that started because one person was convinced that it would work inspite of all the market researchers telling him he was wrong. At the same time there are lots of bomb ideas which market research was convinced would be super-successes.
Who is right in this case? Maybe time alone will tell.
and subsequent dunking in salt water, can be folded in half or rolled into a tube .... I just don't see that paper has any competition.
That must be some gooood material you use to make your books there.
people read books for enjoyment and to get AWAY from tech not deeper into it.
Maybe you only say that because you're an old fogey? I'll concede that the technology has a long way to go. I've read som e-books on my IPaq and the small screen size, the strain of reading from a backlit display (although TrueType fonts are nice!) and worrying about running out of juice are a bother. I see no reason why this won't improve in the near future, though.
Remember everyone hated trains when they first came out and people said they'd rather travel by horse-driven cart than a train. But then a new generation grew up who didn't see it as a problem and actually appreciated the fact that it could get them where they wanted to a lot faster and a lot more comfortably.
Technology is a tool. It's one thing to work with technology to develop it and it's a whole other thing to use it to your advantage. There are times when I want to get away from the work part of technology but I still like it being used to my advantage. Don't forget that the car you drive and the dishwasher you use are all also the fruits of technology.
Have you even begun to understand the difference between a human life and data? They are entirely different things - even if a geek who has never stepped out of mommy's basement can't tell the difference.
The federal government should regulate areas where there is a potential for irrecoverable loss i.e. life or limb. Market forces don't play well there because nothing can compensate for those losses. Computer virii are a whole different beast. The most a computer virus can do is cause loss of data or money. Something market forces are perfectly capable of dealing with and something which government should stay far away from.
And just because market forces don't seem to work in the direction YOU like it, doesn't mean they don't work at all.
The argument about the loss of fissionable nuclear material is a strawman. Every piece of software has bugs in it and depending on the purpose you use it for, those bugs can have harmful consequences.
Win9x --> Windows XP .NET Server (Whistler Server)
Win2KPro --> Windows XP Professional
Win2KServer --> Windows
Whistler Server is nowhere near ready for release or comparison right now. I believe they plan to release it sometime in 2002.
Windows XP is a HUGE improvement compared to Win9x. The UI is a lot better - and no, I don't mean in terms of looking cool - I mean it in terms of being usable - the way things are organized, etc. And there is a lot more functionality and reliability in XP. I hope Gateway would update their damn drivers so I could install XP on my girlfriends computer - it would make my life so much simpler if I could remote assist her, etc.
I'm using XP Professional on all my Win2K boxes right now and the major things I notice are reliability, not having to reboot every time I install anything and ease of use. I don't notice my apps running any slower - in fact I notice some apps that run lightning fast by comparison to Win2K - especially a certain *cough* MUD client.
The thing I notice most on my laptop is how fast the damn thing boots or resumes from standby. It makes it a whole heck of a deal more convenient to take my laptop to meetings, etc. The other big difference between Win2K Pro and WinXP Pro is remote access. It's awfully convenient for me to work on my desktop at work from home.
That Bill Gates as borg icon you see on top signifies the topic "Microsoft".
While I agree that the whole article should probably be labeled "Flamebait" designed to increase hits, you can always block articles about MS out by going to your user info and clicking "Customize Homepage". Check on "Microsoft" and you won't see any articles about the company again.
The problem, of course, is that you will also miss out on the important stuff like the final resolution of the DOJ case and also that Slashdot editors frequently post thinly veiled flamebait about Microsoft under other topics.
mean, what's a Windows Me license running these days? $100? On a sub-$1000 system, that's a *big* chunk of your total system price.
No, they get huge OEM discounts for pre-installed licenses. I don't have any figures but I wouldn't be surprised if it were in the order of $20-$30. That also explains why it's a limited license you get instead of a general-purpose WinME license.