Essentially, a slimmed down PDF-like format, but designed exclusively for digital representation of print media (so no embedded forms, audio, video, etc). It also uses a zipped XML format, and can be digitally signed. I believe the idea is this will be a native printer language like Postscript (not entirely sure why it's better - maybe just more descriptive?), and MS is incorporating this standard throughout the Windows printing pipeline, which is supposed to make WSIWYG printing easier / more reliable for Windows programmers. Apparently, printer manufacturers are signing on, so it may gain enough traction to stick around for a while.
I happened to learn about this format because I needed to create a utility to export scripts (as in, the kind actors read) from our text database for voice-recording studios, which has standardized and very specific formatting requirements. Because we use.NET and WPF for our tools, it was fairly simple to output to.XPS format. RTF didn't have quite enough formatting support, and.doc files - pfft, yeah, right.
So far, so good. The California studios seem to be able to open and print them, which is all I needed.
Oh okay. Well maybe I misunderstood then. I though the "protected media pipelines" were put in Vista for the purpose of blocking unauthorized copies of music from playing through the OS. Assuming I'm wrong, why did Microsoft put them there?
No, this would be a total disaster if they actually tried this. They'd have to block ALL APIs that allow unencrypted audio from unsigned applications, and that would break nearly every existing application that currently plays any sort of audio, not just DVD and CD playback. There are too many legacy audio pipelines they'd have to cut off (DirectSound, MCI, WaveOut), and even the native Vista audio API WASAPI allows unencrypted digital output. They'd even have to detect and block third-party audio pipeline implementations, such as Creative Labs OpenAL drivers, or professional-type ASIO drivers. In short, it's absolutely impossible to do that while still allowing any existing application to continue playing digital audio.
As you surmised, the reason the protected paths are there is because of requirements for HD video playback. This is what would potentially be affected if you don't have end-to-end hardware that does the proper digital handshaking (since HD video utilizes this dedicated path), not any existing video or audio playback subsystems.
I mean, it would be funny if they tried... Say hello to 2010: Year of the Linux Desktop! As well as the biggest class-action lawsuit in history.
That's because Vista's DRM isn't turned on yet. Microsoft says they'll turn it on starting year 2010 (via an update of course), and then good luck trying to play all your burned CDs and DVDs that lack DRM.
Anyone can write an application that pumps a raw digital audio stream through the Vista audio subsystem. There are no requirements at the primary (WASAPI) or legacy APIs (MCI, DirectSound, WaveOut, etc) for digital encryption of the audio stream or even an application signature. This sort of DRM update you speak of, in addition to being completely technically infeasible, would utterly break every single audio-enabled application on the Windows platform today, such as browser plugins, professional audio development tools, educational programs, games, and music players alike.
Whatever you think of Microsoft, they're not bat-shit insane.
It's always about the gold. Give the player a chance to make a decision. One being "moral" one, with little reward, while the other one being "immoral" with greater reward and watch how people decide. Most, if not all, will go for the latter choice. That doesn't make them immoral people. It's a game. Nobody gets hurt and if they have to eat babies to make progress, people will suck their little brains out. People are usually aware that they're playing a game, that it's a bunch of pixles they "abuse" and they wouldn't do the same in reality.
You think so? In the KOTOR games, I always ended up feeling sorry for those I abuse when trying to play an evil character. So, no, I'll almost always choose a heroic persona in nearly any game, because those are the types of characters I enjoy playing. Yes, I'm well aware that they're just pixels and AI routines (I'm a game developer, after all), but if I view them that way, then I'm probably not immersed enough in the game, and therefore probably aren't enjoying it anyhow. There are also some people who will choose armor for the look rather than picking a less-attractive set of slightly more powerful stats. Or choose a more perilous path in order to properly stay in character.
Sometimes I feel a little bad for obsessive min/maxers. It seems more like they're playing an interactive spreadsheet instead of having fun and losing themselves in a game. But hey, if that's how they want to play, that's up to them. I know that there are plenty of players like that out there. But don't assume everyone thinks the same way.
I don't get that: you have this teraflop machines sitting there (a f*cking CELL in the PS3 or a triplecore 3.2GHz PowerPC in the 360,/plenty/ of horsepower both of them) and still you need to stream stuff to it. Wouldn't it be much more economic to just install an application of whatever on that machine (integrated in the firmware or whatever) and have that do all the work? Streaming media to a PS3 or 360 makes them just a very expensive and overpowered video-out. I'd say: put all those flops to work!
As far as I know, these ARE local apps that are managing the downloading and decoding/playback process. Streaming data from the internet and playing back video won't tax these consoles, but what else is more CPU horsepower going to give you here?
In short, this article sounds like some guy bleating on and trying to get attention that frankly, neither he nor is line of work deserves.
You're correct in that the number of people "unjustly jailed or persecuted" would be a more meaningful number to most people, and perhaps would be somewhat fairer. My guess is that the relative percentages would remain approximately the same.
But the reason journalism - or even blogging, if you don't consider them equivalent - is important to protect is because it's inextricably linked to the concept of free speech, which most people acknowledge as a prerequisite for a free and just society. Few other professions - or jobs, if you prefer - have that significance.
I don't think you necessarily have to put journalists (I liked them better when they called themselves reporters) on a pedestal in order to acknowledge the importance of the concept their job represents.
I dunno. You might not be so civilized in the presence of someone who was in the process of trying to kill you. I wouldn't kill someone that was on the ground and under control but I can't say as I would be trying to keep them alive if they were in the process of trying to kill me. I'd be looking to remove them as a threat in the quickest manner possible.
I'm not claiming they weren't trying to preserve their lives by whatever means they could. But I'd be willing to bet that if those folks on flight 93 did manage to subdue the terrorists, they wouldn't have slit their throats while their hands and feet were bound.
Case study - recall the attempted shoe-bombing of a trans-Atlantic flight. The passengers subdued him (it looks like they roughed him up pretty good), but they certainly didn't kill him.
There's passive racism. It's just as evil, but not as out in the open. It's the asshole in a suit and tie who prefers to hire certain kinds of people for certain kinds of jobs.
Seriously? After Obama is just elected President of the US, you're still going to try to tell me that there's some deep, malignant racism here? How many times has Michael Jordan been on the cover of Sports Illustrated? How about Denzel Washington being voted sexiest man alive? Ever play Guild Wars: Nightfall (African themed Guild Wars campaign)?
You really need to look more closely if you think there are only Caucasian characters in games.
Let's point out racism where it well and truly exists. There are always going to be stupid and evil people. But crying wolf has never helped a cause.
Not bloody likely. My parents have a 50" LCD that does 1080p with FiOS and all the networks in regular and HD. They often watch the standard def versions. They couldn't really tell the difference between DVD and VHS, either. They're in their 50's, decent eyesight. It just doesn't make a difference to them.
Go figure. They're probably paying attention to the content, not the presentation.
The only variable here is the change in parenting style, which encourages her to be codependent and reliant on others to make every decision about her life...
You're forgetting a big variable: she's a different person than you and everyone else in your family. My brother and I were raised quite similarly (we're only a few years apart), and we're such polar opposites in so many ways, it's hard to believe we're brothers sometimes.
She's still twelve... that's pretty young. She still has a lot of time to grow up. Probably the best you can do for her is just to be a positive role model.
Ah... I see the penalty for a failed Star Wars reference is -1 Offtopic. I humbly accept my punishment, and vow to perform a Wikipedia check in the future to ensure correct spelling of invented languages.
I wonder what the penalty would have been if I had made a quip about the Clingon language? Surely nothing worse tha
i see your point. i guess i just feel that we live in a society where corporate industries have much more political power than normal individuals, and yet there seems to be much less accountability in the corporate world than the world of ordinary individuals who, meanwhile, are being subjected to increasingly draconian laws. so if the NSA can spy on private citizens using wiretaps without obtaining warrants, then i feel no sympathy for corporations having to archive their e-mails.
Well, I think we'd agree that's a separate battle we have to fight - that is, ensuring personal liberty.
as long as the regulatory requirements are reasonable, it should be alright no matter what size a company is. as long as companies aren't being asked to keep e-mails indefinitely or record and transcribe every single phone call, it should not present too big a problem. also, the amount of regulation a corporation is subjected to should be directly proportional to their size and power. so by limiting the power of corporations through unobtrusive regulations there'd be less of a need for this sorta thing.
for example, things like telecommunications, internet access, water, electricity, etc. are vital public utilities. such utilities are natural monopolies where they either, must be operated as a monopoly or operate most efficiently as one. additionally, being vital components of public infrastructure like roads and the sewage system, these utilities also exhibit inelastic demand. these two things combine to give telecoms, ISPs, and other utility companies a lot of power, which also create tremendous potential for abuse. so either these industries have to be nationalized, or they have to be tightly regulated.
This seems reasonable. My only fear is that government oversight and regulation can corrupt just as easily as a private corporate. Take a look at the current banking mess. It seems to be a combination of bad judgment in public sector combined with outright fraud in the private sector. For the government's part, they're the ones actually pushing banks to make those sub-prime loans in the first place - banks who didn't participate in these programs were restricted in many ways (from acquiring other banks, for instance). Banking is one of the most heavily-regulated industries in the US, from what I understand. And that still didn't prevent the current financial meltdown. I'm still not quite sure why no one is facing criminal prosecution for cooking the books all these years at Fannie Mae.
In these situations, I guess that the first amendment - specifically, freedom of speech / a free press is our last line of defense. Even if all other safeguards fail, at least the public can be made aware of it, and ultimately force some sort of accountability.
so if people are subjected to all of these encroachments of privacy and civil liberties, then why shouldn't corporations be forced to keep records that can assist legal investigations? if anything people should have more of a right to privacy than a corporation, since a corporation is just a commercial entity, not a human-being with natural rights.
I'm not arguing against it on the basis of civil liberties. I'm arguing on the basis that its counter-productive and unnecessary. If someone is doing something illicit, don't you think they'll be just as likely to try to cover their tracks? That leaves the burden of compliance on those companies that *are* doing the right thing.
Keep in mind that not all "corporations" are giant conglomerates. Many smallish businesses are also "corporations", just not publicly traded. What do you feel would be the size cut-off limit for a company in order to comply with these sorts of regulations? Would a small corporation with 30 employees be required to purchase an expensive system that archives all their e-mail, as well as pay someone to maintain it? Even if you say, restrict it to publicly-traded companies, who's to say this won't trickle down to smaller businesses?
Adding more regulations and overhead to businesses is a sure-fire way to put even more people out of work in already shaky economic times. I'm not saying there should be no regulation or oversight, but at some point, you need to say, enough is enough.
Bah, don't worry about the executives. They already have a entire language of obfusciation and everybody else just posts the dirt to their MySpace blog.
It's not that I'm worried about executives. It just feels both pointless and overly intrusive to me, which is a bad sign for any government policy. From there, it seems a small step to require Internet providers or search engines to start logging the same sort of data. It doesn't really seem all that far-fetched.
The fear of fines and other legal sanctions has resulted in many companies instituting strict "e-discovery" retention policies, and has helped give rise to a new class of enterprise-class storage and indexing tools.
I think "iDiscovery" is a much catchier name...
Joking aside, I kind of wonder about the practicality of requiring companies to retain their own documents in case of possible litigation against them. Won't this simply encourage people to use alternate means for any sort of confidential communications? Also, what proof is there of a lack of tampering? I'm not saying Apple is guilty of this, but it does cross my mind in a general sense. It seems only natural that executives will be more cautious of saying anything even remotely incriminating via e-mail. More face-to-face meetings in the future, I guess.
I bought a laptop that came bundled with Vista and it crashed on me numerous times before I got fed up with all the Vista crap and "upgraded" to XP (and later upgraded to Ubuntu). Just because it's never crashed on you doesn't make other people liars. I think you need to get a clue.
Actually, thinking back, I had a somewhat similar experience, but it was XP, not Vista. I got a brand new Dell notebook a few years ago, and it was horribly unstable with all the crap that came pre-installed on it. I had to wipe the drive and re-install XP and the minimal set of drivers. I'm not sure exactly what was making it unstable, but it was rock solid after that. I wonder if you had a similar experience? Pre-installed crapware is a fairly significant problem with Windows-based machines from big-name manufacturers.
You're absolutely right though, that some people have undoubtedly had poor experiences with Vista, so I really shouldn't accuse people of speaking untruths. Still, I've both used and developed on nearly every version of Windows OS, so I can extrapolate general trends by viewing the overall stability of both my machines as well as my co-workers. Generally speaking, I'd guess 95% of the time, any few instabilities I've tracked down has been the fault of buggy 3rd-party drivers, and at this point, Vista is pretty well protected against even those now.
So, I'll revise my assertion. *I* haven't seen any evidence of Windows instability since my switch to NT-based operating systems. Your mileage may vary.
Are you saying you wanted a Bill Gates-looking punching bag with your Windows Vista Ultimate Edition for when your computer crashes?
I've been developing on Vista for about a year and a half. In all that time, on either my laptop or desktop machine, Vista has never crashed on me. Nowadays, jokes about Microsoft OS instability simply paints you as a) an anti-Microsoft zealot, and/or b) someone who hasn't used Windows in recent years.
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to criticize Microsoft and its products. But there are also things that Microsoft is really good at. Why make stuff up?
How do you determine what is a bonus feature and what was removed? Just shift names around and stuff and you can have exactly the same thing with the same effect.
There's really no problem with doing this.
I'd differentiate it by asking: Is the core product in the "light" version of the software intentionally crippled? Or, perhaps one could look at it a different way. Is the "standard" product the less expensive or more expensive one (i.e. the one that gets promoted)?
Using my example of the game industry (normal games vs "collector edition" games), you can clearly see that the standard package is the less expensive SKU. However, the game itself in both packages are identical. The "collector edition" boxes contain bonus material that is extraneous to the core product.
In the case of Vista Home, Microsoft decided to strip out features from their "standard" operating system. Why do I consider the Aero glass interface "standard" and not an extra? Microsoft advertised it heavily as a cool, new feature of Vista. And, the fact that its in four of the five versions of Vista would lend credence to this viewpoint.
Naturally, you're correct that it's a matter of perception. But when selling products to consumers, perception matters, right?
Your obvious bias aside, this is a court case that is trying to prove that Microsoft has misled customers to their detriment. They haven't yet tried to prove there is any detriment to the consumer, and are struggling to prove that they were being deliberately misleading.
I'm usually not one to jump on the Anti-Microsoft hype machine (I don't think Vista is nearly as bad as people say it is - I use Vista 64-bit at work and it's great). But it *does* require a machine with a bit of horsepower to run it well. It's pretty obvious that Microsoft was willing to sacrifice a few customers to stay in good graces with Intel. Are you going to tell me that a consumer who purchased a machine with a "Vista-ready" sticker would seriously have expected or understood that it could only run the most basic version of Vista?
As shallow as it may seem to some, interface is big part of the computing experience. A consumer is going to be reminded of the fact that they have a "sub-standard" version of the OS every time they look at their screen. I know it would bother me, especially if it was sold under false pretenses.
...of selectively disabling features in a software product and selling a product at a lower price. It's a bit different for things in the real world, where there's a real physical cost involved with adding extra do-dads and features to products. But in software, it's just flipping a few bits to remove features you've already developed. The crazy thing is, it actually costs *more* to do this, as the company now has multiple versions of the product to package, distribute, and support.
I'd much prefer the game industry's model of "premium versions" of a game containing extra bonuses. The core product is the same, but if you want to pay for it, you can get a few extras, maybe a "making of" DVD, or a CD containing the soundtrack, books and figurines, stuff like that.
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Well, on my Vista PC at work, it took like 30 seconds to open a basic one page one... that's on a Core2. I'd say XPS already sucks compared to PDF.
I'm curious... are you using the Internet Explorer integration or the stand-alone viewer (it's a separate download, I believe)?
eXpensive Piece of Shit?
Heh, not quite. Xml Paper Standard.
Essentially, a slimmed down PDF-like format, but designed exclusively for digital representation of print media (so no embedded forms, audio, video, etc). It also uses a zipped XML format, and can be digitally signed. I believe the idea is this will be a native printer language like Postscript (not entirely sure why it's better - maybe just more descriptive?), and MS is incorporating this standard throughout the Windows printing pipeline, which is supposed to make WSIWYG printing easier / more reliable for Windows programmers. Apparently, printer manufacturers are signing on, so it may gain enough traction to stick around for a while.
I happened to learn about this format because I needed to create a utility to export scripts (as in, the kind actors read) from our text database for voice-recording studios, which has standardized and very specific formatting requirements. Because we use .NET and WPF for our tools, it was fairly simple to output to .XPS format. RTF didn't have quite enough formatting support, and .doc files - pfft, yeah, right.
So far, so good. The California studios seem to be able to open and print them, which is all I needed.
Oh okay. Well maybe I misunderstood then. I though the "protected media pipelines" were put in Vista for the purpose of blocking unauthorized copies of music from playing through the OS. Assuming I'm wrong, why did Microsoft put them there?
No, this would be a total disaster if they actually tried this. They'd have to block ALL APIs that allow unencrypted audio from unsigned applications, and that would break nearly every existing application that currently plays any sort of audio, not just DVD and CD playback. There are too many legacy audio pipelines they'd have to cut off (DirectSound, MCI, WaveOut), and even the native Vista audio API WASAPI allows unencrypted digital output. They'd even have to detect and block third-party audio pipeline implementations, such as Creative Labs OpenAL drivers, or professional-type ASIO drivers. In short, it's absolutely impossible to do that while still allowing any existing application to continue playing digital audio.
As you surmised, the reason the protected paths are there is because of requirements for HD video playback. This is what would potentially be affected if you don't have end-to-end hardware that does the proper digital handshaking (since HD video utilizes this dedicated path), not any existing video or audio playback subsystems.
I mean, it would be funny if they tried... Say hello to 2010: Year of the Linux Desktop! As well as the biggest class-action lawsuit in history.
That's because Vista's DRM isn't turned on yet. Microsoft says they'll turn it on starting year 2010 (via an update of course), and then good luck trying to play all your burned CDs and DVDs that lack DRM.
Anyone can write an application that pumps a raw digital audio stream through the Vista audio subsystem. There are no requirements at the primary (WASAPI) or legacy APIs (MCI, DirectSound, WaveOut, etc) for digital encryption of the audio stream or even an application signature. This sort of DRM update you speak of, in addition to being completely technically infeasible, would utterly break every single audio-enabled application on the Windows platform today, such as browser plugins, professional audio development tools, educational programs, games, and music players alike.
Whatever you think of Microsoft, they're not bat-shit insane.
It's always about the gold. Give the player a chance to make a decision. One being "moral" one, with little reward, while the other one being "immoral" with greater reward and watch how people decide. Most, if not all, will go for the latter choice. That doesn't make them immoral people. It's a game. Nobody gets hurt and if they have to eat babies to make progress, people will suck their little brains out. People are usually aware that they're playing a game, that it's a bunch of pixles they "abuse" and they wouldn't do the same in reality.
You think so? In the KOTOR games, I always ended up feeling sorry for those I abuse when trying to play an evil character. So, no, I'll almost always choose a heroic persona in nearly any game, because those are the types of characters I enjoy playing. Yes, I'm well aware that they're just pixels and AI routines (I'm a game developer, after all), but if I view them that way, then I'm probably not immersed enough in the game, and therefore probably aren't enjoying it anyhow. There are also some people who will choose armor for the look rather than picking a less-attractive set of slightly more powerful stats. Or choose a more perilous path in order to properly stay in character.
Sometimes I feel a little bad for obsessive min/maxers. It seems more like they're playing an interactive spreadsheet instead of having fun and losing themselves in a game. But hey, if that's how they want to play, that's up to them. I know that there are plenty of players like that out there. But don't assume everyone thinks the same way.
I don't get that: you have this teraflop machines sitting there (a f*cking CELL in the PS3 or a triplecore 3.2GHz PowerPC in the 360, /plenty/ of horsepower both of them) and still you need to stream stuff to it. Wouldn't it be much more economic to just install an application of whatever on that machine (integrated in the firmware or whatever) and have that do all the work? Streaming media to a PS3 or 360 makes them just a very expensive and overpowered video-out. I'd say: put all those flops to work!
As far as I know, these ARE local apps that are managing the downloading and decoding/playback process. Streaming data from the internet and playing back video won't tax these consoles, but what else is more CPU horsepower going to give you here?
In short, this article sounds like some guy bleating on and trying to get attention that frankly, neither he nor is line of work deserves.
You're correct in that the number of people "unjustly jailed or persecuted" would be a more meaningful number to most people, and perhaps would be somewhat fairer. My guess is that the relative percentages would remain approximately the same.
But the reason journalism - or even blogging, if you don't consider them equivalent - is important to protect is because it's inextricably linked to the concept of free speech, which most people acknowledge as a prerequisite for a free and just society. Few other professions - or jobs, if you prefer - have that significance.
I don't think you necessarily have to put journalists (I liked them better when they called themselves reporters) on a pedestal in order to acknowledge the importance of the concept their job represents.
I dunno. You might not be so civilized in the presence of someone who was in the process of trying to kill you. I wouldn't kill someone that was on the ground and under control but I can't say as I would be trying to keep them alive if they were in the process of trying to kill me. I'd be looking to remove them as a threat in the quickest manner possible.
I'm not claiming they weren't trying to preserve their lives by whatever means they could. But I'd be willing to bet that if those folks on flight 93 did manage to subdue the terrorists, they wouldn't have slit their throats while their hands and feet were bound.
Case study - recall the attempted shoe-bombing of a trans-Atlantic flight. The passengers subdued him (it looks like they roughed him up pretty good), but they certainly didn't kill him.
There's passive racism. It's just as evil, but not as out in the open. It's the asshole in a suit and tie who prefers to hire certain kinds of people for certain kinds of jobs.
Seriously? After Obama is just elected President of the US, you're still going to try to tell me that there's some deep, malignant racism here? How many times has Michael Jordan been on the cover of Sports Illustrated? How about Denzel Washington being voted sexiest man alive? Ever play Guild Wars: Nightfall (African themed Guild Wars campaign)?
You really need to look more closely if you think there are only Caucasian characters in games.
Let's point out racism where it well and truly exists. There are always going to be stupid and evil people. But crying wolf has never helped a cause.
Why stop at beating them into submission?
Because some people are a bit more civilized than the those who would attempt kill random strangers?
Not bloody likely. My parents have a 50" LCD that does 1080p with FiOS and all the networks in regular and HD. They often watch the standard def versions. They couldn't really tell the difference between DVD and VHS, either. They're in their 50's, decent eyesight. It just doesn't make a difference to them.
Go figure. They're probably paying attention to the content, not the presentation.
The only variable here is the change in parenting style, which encourages her to be codependent and reliant on others to make every decision about her life...
You're forgetting a big variable: she's a different person than you and everyone else in your family. My brother and I were raised quite similarly (we're only a few years apart), and we're such polar opposites in so many ways, it's hard to believe we're brothers sometimes.
She's still twelve... that's pretty young. She still has a lot of time to grow up. Probably the best you can do for her is just to be a positive role model.
What in the world would make you say that? All they're doing is passing our literature to children attending the Nutcracker with their parents.
Ah... I see the penalty for a failed Star Wars reference is -1 Offtopic. I humbly accept my punishment, and vow to perform a Wikipedia check in the future to ensure correct spelling of invented languages.
I wonder what the penalty would have been if I had made a quip about the Clingon language? Surely nothing worse tha
[NO CARRIER]
i see your point. i guess i just feel that we live in a society where corporate industries have much more political power than normal individuals, and yet there seems to be much less accountability in the corporate world than the world of ordinary individuals who, meanwhile, are being subjected to increasingly draconian laws. so if the NSA can spy on private citizens using wiretaps without obtaining warrants, then i feel no sympathy for corporations having to archive their e-mails.
Well, I think we'd agree that's a separate battle we have to fight - that is, ensuring personal liberty.
as long as the regulatory requirements are reasonable, it should be alright no matter what size a company is. as long as companies aren't being asked to keep e-mails indefinitely or record and transcribe every single phone call, it should not present too big a problem. also, the amount of regulation a corporation is subjected to should be directly proportional to their size and power. so by limiting the power of corporations through unobtrusive regulations there'd be less of a need for this sorta thing.
for example, things like telecommunications, internet access, water, electricity, etc. are vital public utilities. such utilities are natural monopolies where they either, must be operated as a monopoly or operate most efficiently as one. additionally, being vital components of public infrastructure like roads and the sewage system, these utilities also exhibit inelastic demand. these two things combine to give telecoms, ISPs, and other utility companies a lot of power, which also create tremendous potential for abuse. so either these industries have to be nationalized, or they have to be tightly regulated.
This seems reasonable. My only fear is that government oversight and regulation can corrupt just as easily as a private corporate. Take a look at the current banking mess. It seems to be a combination of bad judgment in public sector combined with outright fraud in the private sector. For the government's part, they're the ones actually pushing banks to make those sub-prime loans in the first place - banks who didn't participate in these programs were restricted in many ways (from acquiring other banks, for instance). Banking is one of the most heavily-regulated industries in the US, from what I understand. And that still didn't prevent the current financial meltdown. I'm still not quite sure why no one is facing criminal prosecution for cooking the books all these years at Fannie Mae.
In these situations, I guess that the first amendment - specifically, freedom of speech / a free press is our last line of defense. Even if all other safeguards fail, at least the public can be made aware of it, and ultimately force some sort of accountability.
so if people are subjected to all of these encroachments of privacy and civil liberties, then why shouldn't corporations be forced to keep records that can assist legal investigations? if anything people should have more of a right to privacy than a corporation, since a corporation is just a commercial entity, not a human-being with natural rights.
I'm not arguing against it on the basis of civil liberties. I'm arguing on the basis that its counter-productive and unnecessary. If someone is doing something illicit, don't you think they'll be just as likely to try to cover their tracks? That leaves the burden of compliance on those companies that *are* doing the right thing.
Keep in mind that not all "corporations" are giant conglomerates. Many smallish businesses are also "corporations", just not publicly traded. What do you feel would be the size cut-off limit for a company in order to comply with these sorts of regulations? Would a small corporation with 30 employees be required to purchase an expensive system that archives all their e-mail, as well as pay someone to maintain it? Even if you say, restrict it to publicly-traded companies, who's to say this won't trickle down to smaller businesses?
Adding more regulations and overhead to businesses is a sure-fire way to put even more people out of work in already shaky economic times. I'm not saying there should be no regulation or oversight, but at some point, you need to say, enough is enough.
Bah, don't worry about the executives. They already have a entire language of obfusciation and everybody else just posts the dirt to their MySpace blog.
It's not that I'm worried about executives. It just feels both pointless and overly intrusive to me, which is a bad sign for any government policy. From there, it seems a small step to require Internet providers or search engines to start logging the same sort of data. It doesn't really seem all that far-fetched.
The fear of fines and other legal sanctions has resulted in many companies instituting strict "e-discovery" retention policies, and has helped give rise to a new class of enterprise-class storage and indexing tools.
I think "iDiscovery" is a much catchier name...
Joking aside, I kind of wonder about the practicality of requiring companies to retain their own documents in case of possible litigation against them. Won't this simply encourage people to use alternate means for any sort of confidential communications? Also, what proof is there of a lack of tampering? I'm not saying Apple is guilty of this, but it does cross my mind in a general sense. It seems only natural that executives will be more cautious of saying anything even remotely incriminating via e-mail. More face-to-face meetings in the future, I guess.
getting your water through the air, or wireless (sic) if you will
How about "tubeless"?
Also, be sure it speaks Bacchi...
I bought a laptop that came bundled with Vista and it crashed on me numerous times before I got fed up with all the Vista crap and "upgraded" to XP (and later upgraded to Ubuntu). Just because it's never crashed on you doesn't make other people liars. I think you need to get a clue.
Actually, thinking back, I had a somewhat similar experience, but it was XP, not Vista. I got a brand new Dell notebook a few years ago, and it was horribly unstable with all the crap that came pre-installed on it. I had to wipe the drive and re-install XP and the minimal set of drivers. I'm not sure exactly what was making it unstable, but it was rock solid after that. I wonder if you had a similar experience? Pre-installed crapware is a fairly significant problem with Windows-based machines from big-name manufacturers.
You're absolutely right though, that some people have undoubtedly had poor experiences with Vista, so I really shouldn't accuse people of speaking untruths. Still, I've both used and developed on nearly every version of Windows OS, so I can extrapolate general trends by viewing the overall stability of both my machines as well as my co-workers. Generally speaking, I'd guess 95% of the time, any few instabilities I've tracked down has been the fault of buggy 3rd-party drivers, and at this point, Vista is pretty well protected against even those now.
So, I'll revise my assertion. *I* haven't seen any evidence of Windows instability since my switch to NT-based operating systems. Your mileage may vary.
Are you saying you wanted a Bill Gates-looking punching bag with your Windows Vista Ultimate Edition for when your computer crashes?
I've been developing on Vista for about a year and a half. In all that time, on either my laptop or desktop machine, Vista has never crashed on me. Nowadays, jokes about Microsoft OS instability simply paints you as a) an anti-Microsoft zealot, and/or b) someone who hasn't used Windows in recent years.
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to criticize Microsoft and its products. But there are also things that Microsoft is really good at. Why make stuff up?
How do you determine what is a bonus feature and what was removed? Just shift names around and stuff and you can have exactly the same thing with the same effect.
There's really no problem with doing this.
I'd differentiate it by asking: Is the core product in the "light" version of the software intentionally crippled? Or, perhaps one could look at it a different way. Is the "standard" product the less expensive or more expensive one (i.e. the one that gets promoted)?
Using my example of the game industry (normal games vs "collector edition" games), you can clearly see that the standard package is the less expensive SKU. However, the game itself in both packages are identical. The "collector edition" boxes contain bonus material that is extraneous to the core product.
In the case of Vista Home, Microsoft decided to strip out features from their "standard" operating system. Why do I consider the Aero glass interface "standard" and not an extra? Microsoft advertised it heavily as a cool, new feature of Vista. And, the fact that its in four of the five versions of Vista would lend credence to this viewpoint.
Naturally, you're correct that it's a matter of perception. But when selling products to consumers, perception matters, right?
Your obvious bias aside, this is a court case that is trying to prove that Microsoft has misled customers to their detriment. They haven't yet tried to prove there is any detriment to the consumer, and are struggling to prove that they were being deliberately misleading.
I'm usually not one to jump on the Anti-Microsoft hype machine (I don't think Vista is nearly as bad as people say it is - I use Vista 64-bit at work and it's great). But it *does* require a machine with a bit of horsepower to run it well. It's pretty obvious that Microsoft was willing to sacrifice a few customers to stay in good graces with Intel. Are you going to tell me that a consumer who purchased a machine with a "Vista-ready" sticker would seriously have expected or understood that it could only run the most basic version of Vista?
As shallow as it may seem to some, interface is big part of the computing experience. A consumer is going to be reminded of the fact that they have a "sub-standard" version of the OS every time they look at their screen. I know it would bother me, especially if it was sold under false pretenses.
...of selectively disabling features in a software product and selling a product at a lower price. It's a bit different for things in the real world, where there's a real physical cost involved with adding extra do-dads and features to products. But in software, it's just flipping a few bits to remove features you've already developed. The crazy thing is, it actually costs *more* to do this, as the company now has multiple versions of the product to package, distribute, and support.
I'd much prefer the game industry's model of "premium versions" of a game containing extra bonuses. The core product is the same, but if you want to pay for it, you can get a few extras, maybe a "making of" DVD, or a CD containing the soundtrack, books and figurines, stuff like that.