I don't consider us to be so much more advanced than the ancient peoples. In fact, I think the Romans were about as advanced as society was about 300 years ago; in some ways, the Romans were more advanced than those who lived 300 years ago. Romans had running water, central heating, and even concrete. Remember, the Romans also invented the republic, making the "pure" Greek (direct democracy) system much more efficient while still running under the will of the people. I honestly believe that had the Germanic tribes (my ancestors) not sacked Rome nor had fundamentalist Christians not hated progress, society today would be much more advanced. Almost all aspects of modern society can be traced back to Rome, including our economics, government, and even society. This is particularly true of the US; the Roman nation was not called "Rome," but rather, "The Senate and the Roman People," much like "The United States of America." Certainly, Romans were much more brutal in their activities, but so were Europeans just 400 years ago. I think we owe a tremendous amount to the toga-wearing peoples.
I lost all faith in (pseudo)-scientific (pseudo)-"studies" and the so-called media that reports them when, a few years ago, some study was published that said pregnant women should not drink water. Riiiight... Just like Sweet-n-Low will give me cancer (if I drink the equivalent of 350 soft drinks a day). These "scientific" conclusions are ridiculous. I might as well come out and say, "water must kill because 100% of all people who drink it, die." Of course, an astute person would recognize the "post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy, but most people buy into this garbage.
My grandmother suffered from hypochondriasis before she died. On one of my last visits with her, she was convinced she had a kidney stone. It turned out she had a urinary tract infection. After the ruckus of taking her to the hospital - she claimed she needed an ambulance - she was treated with antibiotics and told to drink lots of water. Later in the day, back at her house, she was on the phone talking to someone and she said, "if I had a blockage, they would have admitted me; but I didn't, so they sent me home." My mother quietly whispered, "if I had been hit by a bus, I would have been killed; but I wasn't, so I'm still here."
The media and certain "advocacy groups" have an interest in human-caused global warming. In fact, I think I'd trust Geraldo Rivera with information about where and with whom I'm cheating on my wife before trusting the (mis)-information given in these "studies". I might even tell him in a place with lots of sticks and sand and live cameras. Al Gore, the "Inconvenient Truth" man, claims to have "taken the initiative" of "creating the internet" during his Senate service. Did he also take the initiative to ride in those huge black GM SUVs? I'm more pissed about my tax dollars paying for the gas which only goes about 10 MPG than I am about causing "global warming" because I'm wasteful.
Al, look in the mirror man. First, we (humans) aren't causing global warming. Second, if anyone is causing global warming, it's fat-asses who bitch about "lock-boxes" and how awful our world is. I wonder if they're not worse than OJ Simpson. At least OJ says he wrote the book and did the interview for the money.
Ignoring the comment about my weight, I will address the cost of market share. As you, the guru, no doubt know, businesses have explicit and implicit costs. An implicit cost emphasizes the idea of opportunity-cost. Therefore, the cost of ubiquitous market share is an unfocused firm moving omnidirectionally. In short, this massive attempt to hold market share will cost them efficiency. Why else would private equity firms become interested in buying out MS? The only hard pill for PEFs to swallow is MS's $248 billion market cap. Ironically you hit the nail on the head with respect to google. Think about Microsoft's costs in attempting to hold its dominance in Office vis a vis Google. Then think about how much more efficiently they could run by focusing on profitable sectors (i.e. Server 2003, Windows, and Office) while also developing quality products that have the most potential to bring MS profit. That will, consequently, increase their stock price. Now with regard to your repeated insults, this is no longer the election campaign.
Market share can only hurt Microsoft (at this point). The reason? With such huge market share, their costs significantly increase, especially their costs of retaining such market share. That's why you see them branching in 1000 different directions with this Zune nonsense and "Windows Live" and Windows Anti-Virus (isn't Windows the virus?). Another user pointed out that Linux cannot ever truly die, since nothing can conceivably be cheaper to produce. Remember, in a business, market share is not the goal, profit maximization is the goal. Of course, Microsoft seeks exorbitant profits by exerting market share until monopoly, but under normal circumstances, market share is not the ultimate goal for a business. Also keep in mind the key point that Linux deployments have increased over the last year and that they are expected to increase next year. I don't agree that this so-called war is over and I don't truly subscribe to a Windows vs. Linux type of argument. Instead, and what I see happening, both Linux and Windows are learning to coexist with each other. Both MS and the Open Source/Free Software communities must learn to live together. Microsoft can, and does (from time to time), come up with innovative ideas. For example, the "ribbon" idea in Office 2007 is quite innovative. The Linux/OSS/FSF community, however, is great at making efficient and highly-functional alternatives. There aren't too many features in Linux or other OSS/FSF projects that haven't been done in a commercial app before. Firefox is an exception, with its tabbed browsing. In fact, I don't envision either surviving terribly well without the other. Linux has little incentive to innovate because ultimately people want to make lots of money for their ideas. Microsoft has little incentive to have huge workforces and expenses when free, more functional alternatives exist. Hopefully that fat-ass CEO of theirs realizes that and will get himself and his company on the stairmaster. Otherwise he ought to be let go. I'm sure he could find a job in a circus screaming, hopping around like a monkey, and sweating profusely.
Ya know, this is why I hate Microsoft. There they go, using buzzwords like "black box". I guess the old-school word "log" was just too common for them... oh...wait...never mind...
Goodness, Zonk, don't you know anything?! The Vulcans didn't use cloaking devices; the Romulans and Klingons did (as well as some rogue Federation types)! I was about to say "your geek license has been revoked", but decided against it. Thanks for posting the link to this article.
So I can just go sue some homeless beggar on the street for an obscene amount of money because of a pretended offense (i.e. unwanted solicitation)? That works for me!
Well, maybe not; I do have a conscience, after all...
I always liked the/. article invoking "BSA" (referring to the Business Software Alliance). I was perplexed for a few seconds as to why the Boy Scouts of America would be interested in software piracy (as a boy scout, I know that many scouts engage in piracy). Acronyms are just an occupational hazard. My father was in the Air Force for 30 years, and my mother commented once that it took her 10 years to "learn to speak Air Force."
...I wanted to protect my intellectual property by using copy protection for my DVDs? If the Almighty RIAA (hallowed be Thy name) wills it, "Artists' Rights" must be protected! War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.
Nothing against Bill Shatner, but Matt Damon is a much much better actor. After the last ST movie I lost much of my enthusiasm for Star Trek; however, if Damon is really playing Kirk, I'd be first in line to see the next movie. Of course, with Damon we'd miss the more humorous traits of Shatneresque acting. It would be just disturbing to see Damon yelling, "KHAAAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!!"
I'd like to set up something like that, except on the day of "deployment" have a big header reading, "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US". Also, the guy says his name is Mike, not Chris.
Those Congressional hearings are a bit "scary" in themselves, but the most humorous hearings are those with the gurus of the field, i.e. Johns Hopkins and MIT CS professors, testifying before Congress. Frequently in those hearings, Representatives (and more rarely, Senators) will make asses out of themselves with respect to the internet. Sometimes the gurus are visibly irritated at the ignorant questions and will respond to questions with a long "yeeeessss..." In those hearings you can pick out the decent members of Congress versus the village idiots. Something they don't realize is that a scrupulous constituent could (quite easily) search the Congressional record and find out exactly what an idiot his or her Representative/Senator is. I for one would much rather have a Senator or Representative who knows he is uninformed about the subject and is willing to admit it than one who is completely ignorant about the subject. Ignorance is not what you don't know; ignorance is what you know that isn't so.
They are not just trying to scare the general public (there should be something illegal about the way they are doing this), but they are going to ruin individual's names in the process.
There is something illegal about how they're doing this. There is a law commonly called RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) which was set up to bust the mafia. RICO has some distinct advantages, such as allowing for significant civil damages as well as harsh criminal penalties. To prosecute and/or file suit under RICO, there must be a corrupt "enterprise" committing two or more indictable offenses from a laundry list of them. The RIAA and its constituent members have (in my opinion) committed multiple indictable offenses, including bribery, extortion, theft, and fraud. If I had the money, I might consider a direct assault on the RIAA machine and hire a skillful lawyer.
Uh-oh... Alberto Gonzales is not going to be happy with this newly-dubbed "penetration" testing. I can understand why: Dubya will probably sit and giggle in the Oval Office; Cheney will excercise his second-amendment "rights"; Rumsfeld will say, "I don't know where... I don't know when... There will be penetration..."; and Condie Rice will say, "I was the Provost at Stanford University; I will not be disrespected with that lewd and raucus tone!" Ballmer will come out and say, "hey, we're calling them 'pens' for short. It's better than LInux Malicious Penetration testers, or limps, whom we have also hired. explative!" The only thing better would be Sean Connery on Celebrity Jeopardy with the category "The Pen is Mightier".
I agree. I personally love my iPod because it works like I want it to, it plays my music, it is simple, and I think it is possibly one of the best quality MP3 players on the market. I've never had a problem with battery life, performance, or some other "problems" that the loud anti-iPod Bolshevik complain about. I actually now listen to more of the music I like and have a more diverse music collection because of my iPod. There is no doubt that it has expanded my cultural, artistic, and entertainment tastes. My iPod challenged me to consider Mac as a viable operating system (having been for years a Windoze Borg drone) and now I'm working on yours truly (I have Linux and Mac installed). If my iPod broke tomorrow, I'd kindly send a letter to Apple explaining that in the future I might not be so forgiving and vote with my wallet. If they sent me a new iPod and it broke again, I'd buy another mp3 player. If they didn't send me a new iPod, I'd buy another mp3 player. If it worked, I'd keep it. Ideological fights in this vein are ill-conceived because they are entirely hypocritical. What is SanDisk saying, "leave that collective to join our collective!"? If I wanted to be screamed at, I'd watch Dr. Phil. Fortunately, SanDisk apparently demonstrated they don't really want my money (even though an iChimp's buck spends the same as Sans Shoes Hippie Joe's; there just happen to be more, wealthier iChimps than Sans Shoes Hippie Joes).
Now I'm waiting for auto advertisements from cheap Asian car companies calling BMW and Mercedes-Benz drivers krauts or something. Like the Beemers and Benz's, people like the iPod's sexiness. They also like the simplicity and the "joy" of using it. Sure, it costs more, but why do people buy Milan when they could get Ralph Lauren? Apple has developed a good brand and has loyal user base. However, Apple is smart and has realized that the "brand loyalty" trend is dropping. People aren't as loyal as they used to be. return (innovation());
That sounds like an inherent contradiction to me. If vendors are liable for bugs, vendors must have restricted access to source code. Commercial software companies, such as Micro$oft, should be held liable since they rarely let anyone else see their code and they explicitly state in their license that they will take users to court for trying to reverse engineer the code. With open source, everyone can see the code, thus everyone knows or has the potential of knowing what possible vulnerabilities exist within a software program.
Contrary to the other replies, I agree with you completely. One of the most damning arguments against copyright in its present form (i.e. with criminal penalties sanctioned by the government) is that it actually goes against the ideas of free market. I think it is somewhat ironic that Steve Ballmer called Linux and Open Source/Free Software "communist" because in a sense, fair competition is not something that Microsoft, or any profitable business, is immediately after.
What's worse, however, is the artificial price inflation. This is what makes software "piracy" completely nonsensical. In a secondary sector business, say a furniture company, you manufacture x amount of chairs and sell them for a certain amount of money y per chair. Then you compute the total cost p of making the chairs. p is usually a differential equation of cost per chair (this includes hourly labor, operating costs, shipping, VAT, etc.) plus fixed costs (investment in machinery, maintainance, salaried labor, etc.). From these, you come up with net profit r = x y - p(x). Theft and damaged goods contribute to higher costs, and thus harm the business. Whenever they invest the money in production to lose it by theft, destruction, or other factors, this results in a decrease in net profit. When corporate accounting gets more advanced, we find that supply and demand steps in. If a certain product has little or no demand, its price is lowered to prevent a back log. The price of a good is directly related to what the market will bear. Sometimes a product is so abundant that it is no longer economical to produce that product. Such would be the "Beanie Babies" fad from about a decade ago. Such are also certain books, forcing them out of print. Copyrights and patents, however, force up prices by adding royalty costs. In fact, the cost to actually manufacture an album or CD is extremely small. The majority of the costs are "semi-fixed", i.e. they are incurred from the artist's pay, album producers, and studio workers (such as engineers and sound technicians), not to mention the $0.70 on every $1 that go directly to corporate lords. Imagine if any industry without "Intellectual Property" protections tried this. Profits would be huge! But, the prices would not be bearable to the market. Innovation would be stifled. We would begin calling each other "commrade."
The bottom line is that our economy is founded on the market. People will pay what the market will bear. If products are unsold, their prices are lowered or they are taken off of the market. Patents and copyrights just inflate the prices of certain goods and destroy the efficient market. When software is "pirated", the creator doesn't make any money, but he also loses no costs.
Your argument is also correct: studies show a direct correlation between "piracy" and "legitimate" sale. If we were to adopt a sane software and "intellectual property" business model, we would have to provide both for the economic well-being of developers and artists, but also provide for the furtherance of art and science as is provided for in the Constitution. Software patents are not the answer. When licenses and such are not based in full legality, then they should be violated. That is, unless I am severly mistaken, the premise of any "civil disobedience."
Instant Search in every Explorer window. Isn't Spotlight a brilliant feature?
Search Pane lets you organize information by author, date, or type of document. Smart Folders are awesome too.
Windows Sidebar puts frequently used information and tasks right on the desktop. This feature will remind OS X users of that system's Dashboard feature. Even Mr. MSNBC had to comment on that one.
Network Explorer puts all network connections -- like printers, other computers, and devices - into one centralized location. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe OS X just integrates all of those into the file system...
Sync Center helps users manage all their devices from one place. iHeart iSync.
Tablet PC functionality is integrated into most versions of Windows Vista. Most? What does that mean? 4 of 7? (4 of 7 is Bill Gates' Borg name).
Windows Media Center 11, also standard in Vista, includes live and recorded television, music, photos and videos. Assuming this count is in binary, we'd have skipped version 10...
Improved Windows Media Player. M$: "There is no way that Windows Media Player is tied to the operating system..."
New power management features for mobile computers to optimize battery performance. Sounds strangely familiar...::checks OS X menu bar battery indicator::
Windows Defender regularly scans and removes spyware and other unwanted software. Windows Defender? What does that mean? The icon for that should be the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I'd break it the first time using it to remove unwanted software--M$ Windows. Knowing M$, "Windows Defender" will be somewhat like what its name can imply, a lawyer. It will end up charging you some heinously high amount for its service or it will expire.
Classic Windows games, as well as several new ones. Yay! I get my Windows 95 skiing game back. I hope they didn't take out the dog poop or the Abominable Yeti.
We all know the major feature, WinFS, was cut from Vista/Longhorn. A badly-needed process manager is missing. I'll vote with my wallet.
That thought went through my head actually before I wrote that. However, if enough people complained, the FTC would have to take notice. Also, if the FTC did absolutely nothing (which is quite likely), that strengthens any sort of civil action and/or criminal charges against them. Remember, the Federal government is being bought out this time; the state governments are actually standing much more in line with consumers. Just check out New York state's Attorney General, Elliot Spitzer. Thanks for the comments, though.
Seriously, who came up with this idea. This goes to show what a crackpot organization the MPAA is. What for profit company has the cash to train animals to sniff out "pirates"? MPAA does. I can think of one prime example: the De Beers diamond cartel in Africa. Like MPAA, De Beers has also received prejudicial treatment from the current administration. It also holds nearly 80% of the global diamond market, and is the sole reason that diamonds are indeed so valuable. By stockpiling diamonds via its monopoly, De Beers inflates the price while simultaneously using its marketing (A Diamond is Forever) to drive up demand. Feel free to read how wonderful a citizen this company is and has been throughout its history. De Beers would kill and does kill to ensure its diamond monopoly is unhindered. De Beers diamond mines would rival the security at the prison Zacharias Mousaoui was sentenced to last week. To me there seems to be a clear parallel between De Beers and the MPAA (or RIAA). Inflate prices through monopoly, buy off the government, drown any possible competition in paperwork, and prevent legitimate competition from freely working (DRM for indie artists, anyone?). I'll choose to vote with my wallet. Of course, it is also quite easy to complain to the FTC about antitrust violations.
If apple had any balls, they could release OSX for all AMD and Intel PCs and put the big hurt on Windows.
Apple does have "balls". They are making a bold move not releasing their OS to the masses. For all we know, M$ is bluffing. They've done that before (would the real WinFS, please stand up). At least Apple is not named Microsoft.:-D
register a cookie variable that's unique to that browser
Two problems:
Not all users have cookies enabled
There is no such thing as an artificial "random" number generator
Out of those two, the first is the only one of consequence. Assuming all users enabled cookies, tracking would be a matter of date stamping and IP addressing. It would be the form of XXX_XXX_XXX_XXX-time_since_epoc. Having users actually enable cookies is another story... Many people have been tricked into thinking that cookies can begin running your computer when your eyes look away. The real truth is that unless cookies hold sensitive information unencrypted, they pose no real risk. If we really care all that much, why not get server data about the orginating MAC address. I'm sure you can find it. And all MACs are unique.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't consider us to be so much more advanced than the ancient peoples. In fact, I think the Romans were about as advanced as society was about 300 years ago; in some ways, the Romans were more advanced than those who lived 300 years ago. Romans had running water, central heating, and even concrete. Remember, the Romans also invented the republic, making the "pure" Greek (direct democracy) system much more efficient while still running under the will of the people. I honestly believe that had the Germanic tribes (my ancestors) not sacked Rome nor had fundamentalist Christians not hated progress, society today would be much more advanced. Almost all aspects of modern society can be traced back to Rome, including our economics, government, and even society. This is particularly true of the US; the Roman nation was not called "Rome," but rather, "The Senate and the Roman People," much like "The United States of America." Certainly, Romans were much more brutal in their activities, but so were Europeans just 400 years ago. I think we owe a tremendous amount to the toga-wearing peoples.
I lost all faith in (pseudo)-scientific (pseudo)-"studies" and the so-called media that reports them when, a few years ago, some study was published that said pregnant women should not drink water. Riiiight... Just like Sweet-n-Low will give me cancer (if I drink the equivalent of 350 soft drinks a day). These "scientific" conclusions are ridiculous. I might as well come out and say, "water must kill because 100% of all people who drink it, die." Of course, an astute person would recognize the "post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy, but most people buy into this garbage.
My grandmother suffered from hypochondriasis before she died. On one of my last visits with her, she was convinced she had a kidney stone. It turned out she had a urinary tract infection. After the ruckus of taking her to the hospital - she claimed she needed an ambulance - she was treated with antibiotics and told to drink lots of water. Later in the day, back at her house, she was on the phone talking to someone and she said, "if I had a blockage, they would have admitted me; but I didn't, so they sent me home." My mother quietly whispered, "if I had been hit by a bus, I would have been killed; but I wasn't, so I'm still here."
The media and certain "advocacy groups" have an interest in human-caused global warming. In fact, I think I'd trust Geraldo Rivera with information about where and with whom I'm cheating on my wife before trusting the (mis)-information given in these "studies". I might even tell him in a place with lots of sticks and sand and live cameras. Al Gore, the "Inconvenient Truth" man, claims to have "taken the initiative" of "creating the internet" during his Senate service. Did he also take the initiative to ride in those huge black GM SUVs? I'm more pissed about my tax dollars paying for the gas which only goes about 10 MPG than I am about causing "global warming" because I'm wasteful.
Al, look in the mirror man. First, we (humans) aren't causing global warming. Second, if anyone is causing global warming, it's fat-asses who bitch about "lock-boxes" and how awful our world is. I wonder if they're not worse than OJ Simpson. At least OJ says he wrote the book and did the interview for the money.Ignoring the comment about my weight, I will address the cost of market share. As you, the guru, no doubt know, businesses have explicit and implicit costs. An implicit cost emphasizes the idea of opportunity-cost. Therefore, the cost of ubiquitous market share is an unfocused firm moving omnidirectionally. In short, this massive attempt to hold market share will cost them efficiency. Why else would private equity firms become interested in buying out MS? The only hard pill for PEFs to swallow is MS's $248 billion market cap. Ironically you hit the nail on the head with respect to google. Think about Microsoft's costs in attempting to hold its dominance in Office vis a vis Google. Then think about how much more efficiently they could run by focusing on profitable sectors (i.e. Server 2003, Windows, and Office) while also developing quality products that have the most potential to bring MS profit. That will, consequently, increase their stock price. Now with regard to your repeated insults, this is no longer the election campaign.
Market share can only hurt Microsoft (at this point). The reason? With such huge market share, their costs significantly increase, especially their costs of retaining such market share. That's why you see them branching in 1000 different directions with this Zune nonsense and "Windows Live" and Windows Anti-Virus (isn't Windows the virus?). Another user pointed out that Linux cannot ever truly die, since nothing can conceivably be cheaper to produce. Remember, in a business, market share is not the goal, profit maximization is the goal. Of course, Microsoft seeks exorbitant profits by exerting market share until monopoly, but under normal circumstances, market share is not the ultimate goal for a business. Also keep in mind the key point that Linux deployments have increased over the last year and that they are expected to increase next year. I don't agree that this so-called war is over and I don't truly subscribe to a Windows vs. Linux type of argument. Instead, and what I see happening, both Linux and Windows are learning to coexist with each other. Both MS and the Open Source/Free Software communities must learn to live together. Microsoft can, and does (from time to time), come up with innovative ideas. For example, the "ribbon" idea in Office 2007 is quite innovative. The Linux/OSS/FSF community, however, is great at making efficient and highly-functional alternatives. There aren't too many features in Linux or other OSS/FSF projects that haven't been done in a commercial app before. Firefox is an exception, with its tabbed browsing. In fact, I don't envision either surviving terribly well without the other. Linux has little incentive to innovate because ultimately people want to make lots of money for their ideas. Microsoft has little incentive to have huge workforces and expenses when free, more functional alternatives exist. Hopefully that fat-ass CEO of theirs realizes that and will get himself and his company on the stairmaster. Otherwise he ought to be let go. I'm sure he could find a job in a circus screaming, hopping around like a monkey, and sweating profusely.
I'd trust my 7-year-old son to run Windows with no AV if and only if he had the computer abilities of Terri Schiavo.
Ya know, this is why I hate Microsoft. There they go, using buzzwords like "black box". I guess the old-school word "log" was just too common for them... oh...wait...never mind...
"from the on-our-way-to-vulcan-level-tech dept."
Goodness, Zonk, don't you know anything?! The Vulcans didn't use cloaking devices; the Romulans and Klingons did (as well as some rogue Federation types)! I was about to say "your geek license has been revoked", but decided against it. Thanks for posting the link to this article.
So I can just go sue some homeless beggar on the street for an obscene amount of money because of a pretended offense (i.e. unwanted solicitation)? That works for me!
Well, maybe not; I do have a conscience, after all...
The link to the /. article is dead...Use this one. --C
I always liked the /. article invoking "BSA" (referring to the Business Software Alliance). I was perplexed for a few seconds as to why the Boy Scouts of America would be interested in software piracy (as a boy scout, I know that many scouts engage in piracy). Acronyms are just an occupational hazard. My father was in the Air Force for 30 years, and my mother commented once that it took her 10 years to "learn to speak Air Force."
Now we really know why they put in that wire mesh "fire-rated" glass... Maybe that's the origin of the "firewall" as well. ;-)
...I wanted to protect my intellectual property by using copy protection for my DVDs? If the Almighty RIAA (hallowed be Thy name) wills it, "Artists' Rights" must be protected! War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.
Nothing against Bill Shatner, but Matt Damon is a much much better actor. After the last ST movie I lost much of my enthusiasm for Star Trek; however, if Damon is really playing Kirk, I'd be first in line to see the next movie. Of course, with Damon we'd miss the more humorous traits of Shatneresque acting. It would be just disturbing to see Damon yelling, "KHAAAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!!"
I'd like to set up something like that, except on the day of "deployment" have a big header reading, "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US". Also, the guy says his name is Mike, not Chris.
Those Congressional hearings are a bit "scary" in themselves, but the most humorous hearings are those with the gurus of the field, i.e. Johns Hopkins and MIT CS professors, testifying before Congress. Frequently in those hearings, Representatives (and more rarely, Senators) will make asses out of themselves with respect to the internet. Sometimes the gurus are visibly irritated at the ignorant questions and will respond to questions with a long "yeeeessss..." In those hearings you can pick out the decent members of Congress versus the village idiots. Something they don't realize is that a scrupulous constituent could (quite easily) search the Congressional record and find out exactly what an idiot his or her Representative/Senator is. I for one would much rather have a Senator or Representative who knows he is uninformed about the subject and is willing to admit it than one who is completely ignorant about the subject. Ignorance is not what you don't know; ignorance is what you know that isn't so.
They are not just trying to scare the general public (there should be something illegal about the way they are doing this), but they are going to ruin individual's names in the process.
There is something illegal about how they're doing this. There is a law commonly called RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) which was set up to bust the mafia. RICO has some distinct advantages, such as allowing for significant civil damages as well as harsh criminal penalties. To prosecute and/or file suit under RICO, there must be a corrupt "enterprise" committing two or more indictable offenses from a laundry list of them. The RIAA and its constituent members have (in my opinion) committed multiple indictable offenses, including bribery, extortion, theft, and fraud. If I had the money, I might consider a direct assault on the RIAA machine and hire a skillful lawyer.
Uh-oh... Alberto Gonzales is not going to be happy with this newly-dubbed "penetration" testing. I can understand why: Dubya will probably sit and giggle in the Oval Office; Cheney will excercise his second-amendment "rights"; Rumsfeld will say, "I don't know where... I don't know when... There will be penetration..."; and Condie Rice will say, "I was the Provost at Stanford University; I will not be disrespected with that lewd and raucus tone!" Ballmer will come out and say, "hey, we're calling them 'pens' for short. It's better than LInux Malicious Penetration testers, or limps, whom we have also hired. explative!" The only thing better would be Sean Connery on Celebrity Jeopardy with the category "The Pen is Mightier".
I agree. I personally love my iPod because it works like I want it to, it plays my music, it is simple, and I think it is possibly one of the best quality MP3 players on the market. I've never had a problem with battery life, performance, or some other "problems" that the loud anti-iPod Bolshevik complain about. I actually now listen to more of the music I like and have a more diverse music collection because of my iPod. There is no doubt that it has expanded my cultural, artistic, and entertainment tastes. My iPod challenged me to consider Mac as a viable operating system (having been for years a Windoze Borg drone) and now I'm working on yours truly (I have Linux and Mac installed). If my iPod broke tomorrow, I'd kindly send a letter to Apple explaining that in the future I might not be so forgiving and vote with my wallet. If they sent me a new iPod and it broke again, I'd buy another mp3 player. If they didn't send me a new iPod, I'd buy another mp3 player. If it worked, I'd keep it. Ideological fights in this vein are ill-conceived because they are entirely hypocritical. What is SanDisk saying, "leave that collective to join our collective!"? If I wanted to be screamed at, I'd watch Dr. Phil. Fortunately, SanDisk apparently demonstrated they don't really want my money (even though an iChimp's buck spends the same as Sans Shoes Hippie Joe's; there just happen to be more, wealthier iChimps than Sans Shoes Hippie Joes).
Now I'm waiting for auto advertisements from cheap Asian car companies calling BMW and Mercedes-Benz drivers krauts or something. Like the Beemers and Benz's, people like the iPod's sexiness. They also like the simplicity and the "joy" of using it. Sure, it costs more, but why do people buy Milan when they could get Ralph Lauren? Apple has developed a good brand and has loyal user base. However, Apple is smart and has realized that the "brand loyalty" trend is dropping. People aren't as loyal as they used to be. return (innovation());
That sounds like an inherent contradiction to me. If vendors are liable for bugs, vendors must have restricted access to source code. Commercial software companies, such as Micro$oft, should be held liable since they rarely let anyone else see their code and they explicitly state in their license that they will take users to court for trying to reverse engineer the code. With open source, everyone can see the code, thus everyone knows or has the potential of knowing what possible vulnerabilities exist within a software program.
Contrary to the other replies, I agree with you completely. One of the most damning arguments against copyright in its present form (i.e. with criminal penalties sanctioned by the government) is that it actually goes against the ideas of free market. I think it is somewhat ironic that Steve Ballmer called Linux and Open Source/Free Software "communist" because in a sense, fair competition is not something that Microsoft, or any profitable business, is immediately after. What's worse, however, is the artificial price inflation. This is what makes software "piracy" completely nonsensical. In a secondary sector business, say a furniture company, you manufacture x amount of chairs and sell them for a certain amount of money y per chair. Then you compute the total cost p of making the chairs. p is usually a differential equation of cost per chair (this includes hourly labor, operating costs, shipping, VAT, etc.) plus fixed costs (investment in machinery, maintainance, salaried labor, etc.). From these, you come up with net profit r = x y - p(x). Theft and damaged goods contribute to higher costs, and thus harm the business. Whenever they invest the money in production to lose it by theft, destruction, or other factors, this results in a decrease in net profit. When corporate accounting gets more advanced, we find that supply and demand steps in. If a certain product has little or no demand, its price is lowered to prevent a back log. The price of a good is directly related to what the market will bear. Sometimes a product is so abundant that it is no longer economical to produce that product. Such would be the "Beanie Babies" fad from about a decade ago. Such are also certain books, forcing them out of print. Copyrights and patents, however, force up prices by adding royalty costs. In fact, the cost to actually manufacture an album or CD is extremely small. The majority of the costs are "semi-fixed", i.e. they are incurred from the artist's pay, album producers, and studio workers (such as engineers and sound technicians), not to mention the $0.70 on every $1 that go directly to corporate lords. Imagine if any industry without "Intellectual Property" protections tried this. Profits would be huge! But, the prices would not be bearable to the market. Innovation would be stifled. We would begin calling each other "commrade." The bottom line is that our economy is founded on the market. People will pay what the market will bear. If products are unsold, their prices are lowered or they are taken off of the market. Patents and copyrights just inflate the prices of certain goods and destroy the efficient market. When software is "pirated", the creator doesn't make any money, but he also loses no costs. Your argument is also correct: studies show a direct correlation between "piracy" and "legitimate" sale. If we were to adopt a sane software and "intellectual property" business model, we would have to provide both for the economic well-being of developers and artists, but also provide for the furtherance of art and science as is provided for in the Constitution. Software patents are not the answer. When licenses and such are not based in full legality, then they should be violated. That is, unless I am severly mistaken, the premise of any "civil disobedience."
The "new features" are somewhat comical. FTFA:
We all know the major feature, WinFS, was cut from Vista/Longhorn. A badly-needed process manager is missing. I'll vote with my wallet.
That thought went through my head actually before I wrote that. However, if enough people complained, the FTC would have to take notice. Also, if the FTC did absolutely nothing (which is quite likely), that strengthens any sort of civil action and/or criminal charges against them. Remember, the Federal government is being bought out this time; the state governments are actually standing much more in line with consumers. Just check out New York state's Attorney General, Elliot Spitzer. Thanks for the comments, though.
Seriously, who came up with this idea. This goes to show what a crackpot organization the MPAA is. What for profit company has the cash to train animals to sniff out "pirates"? MPAA does. I can think of one prime example: the De Beers diamond cartel in Africa. Like MPAA, De Beers has also received prejudicial treatment from the current administration. It also holds nearly 80% of the global diamond market, and is the sole reason that diamonds are indeed so valuable. By stockpiling diamonds via its monopoly, De Beers inflates the price while simultaneously using its marketing (A Diamond is Forever) to drive up demand. Feel free to read how wonderful a citizen this company is and has been throughout its history. De Beers would kill and does kill to ensure its diamond monopoly is unhindered. De Beers diamond mines would rival the security at the prison Zacharias Mousaoui was sentenced to last week. To me there seems to be a clear parallel between De Beers and the MPAA (or RIAA). Inflate prices through monopoly, buy off the government, drown any possible competition in paperwork, and prevent legitimate competition from freely working (DRM for indie artists, anyone?). I'll choose to vote with my wallet. Of course, it is also quite easy to complain to the FTC about antitrust violations.
If apple had any balls, they could release OSX for all AMD and Intel PCs and put the big hurt on Windows.
Apple does have "balls". They are making a bold move not releasing their OS to the masses. For all we know, M$ is bluffing. They've done that before (would the real WinFS, please stand up). At least Apple is not named Microsoft. :-D
register a cookie variable that's unique to that browser
Two problems:
Out of those two, the first is the only one of consequence. Assuming all users enabled cookies, tracking would be a matter of date stamping and IP addressing. It would be the form of XXX_XXX_XXX_XXX-time_since_epoc. Having users actually enable cookies is another story... Many people have been tricked into thinking that cookies can begin running your computer when your eyes look away. The real truth is that unless cookies hold sensitive information unencrypted, they pose no real risk. If we really care all that much, why not get server data about the orginating MAC address. I'm sure you can find it. And all MACs are unique.