Time zones are indeed ridiculous, but they will always exist because there is zero chance that the world would roll over and accept any one time zone as the "Earth timezone"--the politics would eat that idea alive, even if the others came to pass.
Don't be ridiculous. Legal fees have nothing to do with the amount in settlement awarded for damages. They make money because that's their billing rate plus actual expenses--that's what legal fees ARE. So when the award is legal fees plus damages, you're not sharing money from the same pool.
The fact that you wind up with little in the end is because the court decides that, say, $90 million in damages is enough--but when you've got 30 million affected consumers, that's only $3 each. The award is a basic remedy. The consumer didn't put any work into being a member of the class, didn't contribute even so much as a letter of support to the lawyers, but sat around with their hand held out AFTER having agreed to overpay in the first place.
It's not just the lawyers that make out big in these settlements--it's the first guy or two who approached the lawyers to sue on their behalf. They often end up with thousands of dollars from a $100 wrong. If there's a lesson to be learned here, it's that you should start the class actions if you want a bigger cut. Why should the lawyers charge Microsoft less than they charge other clients, just because each individual customer only gets a few bucks? They shouldn't.
What might be nice would be if they insisted on bigger damages. But companies always try to settle that amount for as low as possible, because it makes good business sense. Lawyers don't care how big the settlement is because the public doesn't, either. It's free money. You didn't work for it, so get over it.
The "pausing to think" issue affects typing speed equally, so it's a non-issue in comparing methods of communication. Or do you contend that all typed communication is boring, vapid, and content-free?
Either you talk too slow or you've broken some land-speed records for typing on handheld devices. Typical English conversation is roughly 200 words per minute. Most of the population can't type faster than about 60 words per minute on a standard keyboard, let alone a cell phone-sized thumbpad.
Even if you type at double that (120wpm), you're still typing slower than you speak. As for the input device, how would you go about making a pocket-sized keyboard as efficient as a desktop version (which you can put down and use all fingers to type--no such possibility with a cell phone)? Having to have the physical input device AT ALL *is* the problem to be fixed here.
The thing about trust is that you have to start from a perceived neutral position. Anyone reading the comments on blogs or Slashdot will automatically not trust consumers. They willfully and guiltlessly violate the law and claim it doesn't apply to them--but it's not their fault, the record companies lost their sense of decency first!
That is, of course, not true. Record companies never had a sense of decency. But if your customers are willing to disregard the law when it doesn't suit them, what motivation do you have as a business to "trust" them? The prototypical Slashdot response is the biggest argument in favor of DRM. These people can't be bothered to learn the law, can't be bothered to change the law (or even to lobby for change instead of just whining), can't be bothered to understand that all rectangles are not squares, and can't be bothered to admit that artists and owners have rights at all.
The thing about trust is that you have to start from a perceived neutral position. Anyone reading the comments on blogs or Slashdot will automatically not trust consumers. They willfully and guiltlessly violate the law and claim it doesn't apply to them--but it's not their fault, the record companies lost their sense of decency first!
in favor of DRM. These people can't be bothered to learn the law, can't be bothered to change the law (or even to lobby for change instead of just whining), can't be bothered to understand that all rectangles are not squares, and can't be bothered to admit that artists and owners have rights at all.
No it's not. You've got your analogy backwards. McDonald's serves multiple groups of people and you've singled out a subset, whereas the situation at hand serves only a subset.
This situation is exactly like going to Wendy's and collecting 50c from each purchase, but letting McDonald's, Burger King, and Carl's Jr. sit it out.
Isn't that like expecting that a public airstrip claiming "unrestricted access" be accessible to submarines, too?
Practical limitations may apply without something violating a notion of "unrestricted." Sort of like how unrestricted Internet access in your home still requires you to have a computer or other suitable device; you can't just plug the Internet into your arm.
It's called business sense. Will they get more abused in the media for censoring or for allowing? In this case, in the current climate, allowing the spread of offensive material about Islam might be a bigger negative. It's all about mitigating impacts.
You can't run a corporation in our society with a halo on your head. "Do no evil" has to be moderated by "sink or swim." You can hold back the tide as much as you can bear, but if you overreach and are torn apart, then the wave comes crashing in. There are almost no absolutes in the world because almost nothing is a single variable equation. Absolutism doesn't work. You have to stay in the game to make a difference.
Remember too, there used to be a time when everybody relied on public transport to move them around -- nobody seriously believed that people would ever own their own cars on such a scale.
Well, other than the fact that it was mass transit and not so much public transit, that's essentially correct. But having your own car is a far cry from being your own programmer or milkman. It's a largely American phenomenon to be obsessed with car ownership, as well. There are some things people like to do themselves, like driving on their own schedule to their decided destination (the weakness of using a system). On the other hand, milking cows and programming software are things that the general public would prefer to leave to specialists.
Actually, no, it isn't. That's like saying "It's my knife and I can stab whoever I like with it". Your right not to get stabbed trumps my right to stick my knife where I like, just like my right to know what the software I am running on my computer is really doing trumps anyone's right to keep that secret from me.
That's just silly. If they're offering to stab you and you don't want to get stabbed, don't sign on the dotted line. If they're selling a product you don't want (because it's closed source), don't buy it. But I don't think that they should be prevented from selling it if people will buy it. Let the customer decide. I absolutely do not care that OS X is partly closed source. I don't care that Windows is closed source. I'm not a technophobe and I'm not anti-FOSS; it's just largely irrelevant to me personally. I use open source software wherever it's feasible and superior to other offerings. But sometimes I like closed source software better--not because it's closed source, but because it's better for what I want it to do.
How do I know he's not calling premium-rate pr0n chat lines on the kitchen extension, helping himself to my cooking sherry or making rude gestures to my neighbours through the window?
Because you can monitor all those activities yourself externally. You can monitor what software takes in and puts out, too. What your analogy is asking to do is permission to see inside his head to see what he's thinking and how he thinks it. If he wants to share that with you, great, but if he doesn't, I'm willing to accept that if he's Bobby Flay and not Johnny the burger boy.
Depends to what level you mean. If an amplifier blows its output transistors, I can replace them with identical parts; the originals might have been made by Mullard, but if SGS-Thomson supply ones with the same part number, they will do fine. At a coarser granularity, whatever TV set I buy, I know that it will have the same 3-pin plug on the power lead that will fit any socket on my ring main, and the same 21-pin socket on the back that will connect to any VCR, DVD player, satellite decoder, games console or any future device to be invented that plugs into a TV set. I'd call that pretty well standardised.
All of that is true of the computer industry today. I don't see hardware as growing any more standardized than it already is. What I do see is a changing software market that tends toward consolidation. Operating systems are becoming more end-to-end complete. Right now with a Mac, I can do just about everything a typical PC user would want to do. With a properly-built MythTV box, I can do anything I can imagine with TV (sadly no Linux iTunes to seal the deal). I don't need a Microsoft spreadsheet or an Adobe PDF maker or a Lotus email client or a Mozilla Firefox. All I should need is a computer that does it all properly. Apple will have its style and will do well. HP will have whatever it is that makes people buy HPs. Dell will have its cheap price. I can buy all sorts of microwaves; they're all essentially the same but there are still dozens of manufacturers and minor variations. Computers should be more of the same, with a thriving niche for those of us who want more control an
You make some good points, but I think you're missing the biggest factor that will prevent the realization of your theory of the future: interest.
Most people don't own their own cow and make their own dairy products because they *can't*, but rather because they don't care and would prefer to spend their time doing other things. I don't want to be responsible for taking care of another life (providing ample pasture and quality food and veterinary care and making sure it is comfortable in the winter/summer) and I don't want to culture my milk for cheese or stir constantly. I would prefer to go to the store and just buy it. I don't care if I could do it myself for 30 cents cheaper, or even for $1 cheaper.
I could easily sit down and dedicate my time to learning low-level programming and make some huge contributions to the software community, but I don't want to. I don't have interest in that. I appreciate the idea of open source and the reasons why some people don't like closed source, but I don't care. If Microsoft or Sun wants to hire people and make their own software and not give anyone the source, that's their right. That's what so hilarious about the "libertarians" on Slashdot. They want government to pack up and go home, but they want someone to do away with DRM and closed source--communized software. Do they honestly believe that companies wouldn't be WORSE without regulation? The RIAA doesn't need the government; a libertarian government would simply allow privatization of the justice system and the RIAA wouldn't need due process to punish people. Who do you go to when you've been robbed of your house by the RIAA if you're governed by libertarians? Without taxes, there's no authority. Without legislation, there's no protection.
Back to the point, though, hardware is becoming commoditized. This involves standardization in some areas in terms of components and the like, but more importantly, it involves specialization and striation at the consumer end. Only hobbyists and professionals care about standardized hardware and the "nuts and bolts" (so true that it birthed that very expression). Everyone else just wants a bench or a bookshelf or an appliance. "Rolling your own" will still be important to many, and that's great. But the public at large just wants a complete product that works. A computer should be an appliance, and it shouldn't matter what goes on beneath the surface. You don't care about the operating system used by your microwave--it does what it's meant to do.
You can even see this progression as the days of the personal computer have unfolded: early on, you couldn't have a computer without learning a programming language and learning the intimacies of its design. Later on, all of that was handled by OSes. You just needed to learn how to interact and how to use the software you added, and how to modify system files and jumpers for new peripherals. Today, people don't even need to know anything to install new hardware. Mainstream computer places barely carry internal components at all (aside from RAM and hard drives). The next layer to drop out of relevance is the operating system, and I think that's the shred of truth to the article's premise.
In the relatively near future, people will be able to pick up a computer like they pick out a new refrigerator or a TV. There will still be distinguishing features and varying specifications, but they won't get in your way much if you don't care. Apple's got this basically down. You turn on the machine, and it works. Standardization doesn't imply universality. Replacement parts and accessories are still tied to the original product (for appliances, basic electronics, and all sorts of mundane things). While the parts used to build them are standardized, the finished goods aren't, and likely never will be. Software tools will likely wind up standardized for developers, but I think the ultimately result will be self-contained products rather than strictly interoperable ones.
Of course, that in turn makes an argument that the 'meaning' of life is whatever the beholder makes of it.
If you don't accept something as true, then it's not true. If you refuse to believe Jack, who tells you that an elephant is a big grey thing with a trunk, and ask him for proof, you'd get none. The best Jack could do would be to demonstrate the consensus that everyone CALLS that thing an elephant. That doesn't make him an elephant. If you could ask the elephant what he was, you'd likely not get "elephant" in the response. We might translate it as such, but all translation is simply the act of processing an experience or concept into our own brains. I can point to something and call it "apple" and you can point to it and call it "manzana" and if I assume that you're indicating the same thing, I'll decide that "manzana" 'means' "apple." But we can never Know if that's True (in the capital-letter senses of the words). It's just absolutely consistent with our understanding of the universe.
So ultimately, anything in the universe can only be a product of belief. All humans are inherently faith-based. Some believe that only the individual exists, some believe that we're all here but only the sum of our experiences (so it's irrelevant whether other people are really there or just figments of the imagination), and some believe in a guy 'out there' somewhere creating everything for a reason, and some believe that there is an objective world regardless of anyone living--there's a tree in the woods, and it's making noise as it falls. The funny part is every one of those theories is true.
Sorry, my computer signed me out somewhere between starting the comment and submitting it. Also, In re-reading, 'Henkel' should be "Henckels"--how embarrassing. At any rate, if you reply, please reply to this so I get emailed.
Do you (and the four people who modded you up) not understand what the Microsoft tax is? It's when you buy a Dell or an HP, you're giving money to Microsoft even though you don't want to and weren't asked to. When you give money to Apple, you're not handing over extra money for some Party C's ransom demands. You don't get to choose which of Apple departments you fund with your purchase.
When you buy an Apple, you're giving your money to...Apple. There's no "tax" being added to the price of the computer that goes to funding a transfer of money from the manufacturer to another company for software you don't want.
There's no HP tax when your HP computer comes with an HP printshop/photo application. If you want to look at it financially, there's no revenue transfer--the price of OS X is $0. Its R&D and support costs are taken out of Apple's healthy margins. If you you think they should shave down that margin, well then I hope you choose which restaurants you eat at based on their gross margins, too, otherwise you're being pretty arbitrary.
Abso-freaking-lutely correct. Hell, I'm still locked in to 45's! And all the turntables under $200 are utter crap, but no one can blame Apple or Microsoft for it, so no one on Slashdot gives a shit.
First he has to make sure it's okay with the Big Four that some iTunes sales are DRM-free. If the mainstream labels take their ball and go home, iTunes collapses. It can't even break even on indie labels.
If by 'screwed up' you mean 'fluid and dynamic,' then yeah, I guess it is.
Look at it this way: would the Republicans ever punish big business for being inept?
Of course the Democrats would be the ones to put this bill on the table; they're not communists. Hell, most of them aren't even liberals, but they have no problem sticking it to corporate America when it suits them.
The same protections exist in the United States. No jurisdiction in the Western world has categorically ruled contracts of adhesion illegal, so it's not entirely clear what the purpose of your reply is.
Some EULAs have been overturned in the United States (and in the UK, Canada, Germany, and everywhere else)--EULAs have never been categorically dismissed.
Perhaps by the time you graduate, you'll have realized that it's not so simple, and you can't convince a judge of your name in 30 seconds, let alone a whole case. You might also come to learn that contracts of adhesion aren't categorically illegal.
That depends on the definition of "emulated" you use. If somewhere toward the beginning, it talks about the use of a virtual machine or some other kind of software emulation, you'd have to test their definition.
If the architecture is emulated in hardware, you'd be off the hook. There are protections against "unreasonable and unintended consequences" in contract language, and this would be one of them--but more importantly, you'd never need them because Microsoft would never construe microcode emulation to be in violation of their license.
I suspect you were modded up simply because of your shrink wrap jab. Back in the real world, though, your concern has nothing to do with EULAs but rather contract language in general (that is, ALL contracts would be affected by this pedantry), especially those with more dire consequences (corporate licensing and binding stipulation).
It's a simple concession to prevent casual sharing of user IDs across a large number of systems. If you have extenuating circumstances requiring you to use the service more than once per year, you can communicate that to Apple, and they will reset your account for you. I have, in fact, used the "deauthorize all" feature THREE times in one year, because one of my Windows machines kept eating iTunes authorizations, because it kept forgetting all the system drivers and starting from scratch at each boot, making it appear to be a new computer.
Slashdot Mirror
Tell that to the people who made "Final Destination 2" (and 3).
Time zones are indeed ridiculous, but they will always exist because there is zero chance that the world would roll over and accept any one time zone as the "Earth timezone"--the politics would eat that idea alive, even if the others came to pass.
Don't be ridiculous. Legal fees have nothing to do with the amount in settlement awarded for damages. They make money because that's their billing rate plus actual expenses--that's what legal fees ARE. So when the award is legal fees plus damages, you're not sharing money from the same pool. The fact that you wind up with little in the end is because the court decides that, say, $90 million in damages is enough--but when you've got 30 million affected consumers, that's only $3 each. The award is a basic remedy. The consumer didn't put any work into being a member of the class, didn't contribute even so much as a letter of support to the lawyers, but sat around with their hand held out AFTER having agreed to overpay in the first place. It's not just the lawyers that make out big in these settlements--it's the first guy or two who approached the lawyers to sue on their behalf. They often end up with thousands of dollars from a $100 wrong. If there's a lesson to be learned here, it's that you should start the class actions if you want a bigger cut. Why should the lawyers charge Microsoft less than they charge other clients, just because each individual customer only gets a few bucks? They shouldn't. What might be nice would be if they insisted on bigger damages. But companies always try to settle that amount for as low as possible, because it makes good business sense. Lawyers don't care how big the settlement is because the public doesn't, either. It's free money. You didn't work for it, so get over it.
Faith doesn't imply "unquestioned adoption"--that is the recent innovation, not the other way around.
The "pausing to think" issue affects typing speed equally, so it's a non-issue in comparing methods of communication. Or do you contend that all typed communication is boring, vapid, and content-free?
Either you talk too slow or you've broken some land-speed records for typing on handheld devices. Typical English conversation is roughly 200 words per minute. Most of the population can't type faster than about 60 words per minute on a standard keyboard, let alone a cell phone-sized thumbpad.
Even if you type at double that (120wpm), you're still typing slower than you speak. As for the input device, how would you go about making a pocket-sized keyboard as efficient as a desktop version (which you can put down and use all fingers to type--no such possibility with a cell phone)? Having to have the physical input device AT ALL *is* the problem to be fixed here.
The thing about trust is that you have to start from a perceived neutral position. Anyone reading the comments on blogs or Slashdot will automatically not trust consumers. They willfully and guiltlessly violate the law and claim it doesn't apply to them--but it's not their fault, the record companies lost their sense of decency first!
That is, of course, not true. Record companies never had a sense of decency. But if your customers are willing to disregard the law when it doesn't suit them, what motivation do you have as a business to "trust" them? The prototypical Slashdot response is the biggest argument in favor of DRM. These people can't be bothered to learn the law, can't be bothered to change the law (or even to lobby for change instead of just whining), can't be bothered to understand that all rectangles are not squares, and can't be bothered to admit that artists and owners have rights at all.
The thing about trust is that you have to start from a perceived neutral position. Anyone reading the comments on blogs or Slashdot will automatically not trust consumers. They willfully and guiltlessly violate the law and claim it doesn't apply to them--but it's not their fault, the record companies lost their sense of decency first!
in favor of DRM. These people can't be bothered to learn the law, can't be bothered to change the law (or even to lobby for change instead of just whining), can't be bothered to understand that all rectangles are not squares, and can't be bothered to admit that artists and owners have rights at all.
No it's not. You've got your analogy backwards. McDonald's serves multiple groups of people and you've singled out a subset, whereas the situation at hand serves only a subset.
This situation is exactly like going to Wendy's and collecting 50c from each purchase, but letting McDonald's, Burger King, and Carl's Jr. sit it out.
Isn't that like expecting that a public airstrip claiming "unrestricted access" be accessible to submarines, too?
Practical limitations may apply without something violating a notion of "unrestricted." Sort of like how unrestricted Internet access in your home still requires you to have a computer or other suitable device; you can't just plug the Internet into your arm.
It's called business sense. Will they get more abused in the media for censoring or for allowing? In this case, in the current climate, allowing the spread of offensive material about Islam might be a bigger negative. It's all about mitigating impacts.
You can't run a corporation in our society with a halo on your head. "Do no evil" has to be moderated by "sink or swim." You can hold back the tide as much as you can bear, but if you overreach and are torn apart, then the wave comes crashing in. There are almost no absolutes in the world because almost nothing is a single variable equation. Absolutism doesn't work. You have to stay in the game to make a difference.
Remember too, there used to be a time when everybody relied on public transport to move them around -- nobody seriously believed that people would ever own their own cars on such a scale.
Well, other than the fact that it was mass transit and not so much public transit, that's essentially correct. But having your own car is a far cry from being your own programmer or milkman. It's a largely American phenomenon to be obsessed with car ownership, as well. There are some things people like to do themselves, like driving on their own schedule to their decided destination (the weakness of using a system). On the other hand, milking cows and programming software are things that the general public would prefer to leave to specialists.
Actually, no, it isn't. That's like saying "It's my knife and I can stab whoever I like with it". Your right not to get stabbed trumps my right to stick my knife where I like, just like my right to know what the software I am running on my computer is really doing trumps anyone's right to keep that secret from me.
That's just silly. If they're offering to stab you and you don't want to get stabbed, don't sign on the dotted line. If they're selling a product you don't want (because it's closed source), don't buy it. But I don't think that they should be prevented from selling it if people will buy it. Let the customer decide. I absolutely do not care that OS X is partly closed source. I don't care that Windows is closed source. I'm not a technophobe and I'm not anti-FOSS; it's just largely irrelevant to me personally. I use open source software wherever it's feasible and superior to other offerings. But sometimes I like closed source software better--not because it's closed source, but because it's better for what I want it to do.
How do I know he's not calling premium-rate pr0n chat lines on the kitchen extension, helping himself to my cooking sherry or making rude gestures to my neighbours through the window?
Because you can monitor all those activities yourself externally. You can monitor what software takes in and puts out, too. What your analogy is asking to do is permission to see inside his head to see what he's thinking and how he thinks it. If he wants to share that with you, great, but if he doesn't, I'm willing to accept that if he's Bobby Flay and not Johnny the burger boy.
Depends to what level you mean. If an amplifier blows its output transistors, I can replace them with identical parts; the originals might have been made by Mullard, but if SGS-Thomson supply ones with the same part number, they will do fine. At a coarser granularity, whatever TV set I buy, I know that it will have the same 3-pin plug on the power lead that will fit any socket on my ring main, and the same 21-pin socket on the back that will connect to any VCR, DVD player, satellite decoder, games console or any future device to be invented that plugs into a TV set. I'd call that pretty well standardised.
All of that is true of the computer industry today. I don't see hardware as growing any more standardized than it already is. What I do see is a changing software market that tends toward consolidation. Operating systems are becoming more end-to-end complete. Right now with a Mac, I can do just about everything a typical PC user would want to do. With a properly-built MythTV box, I can do anything I can imagine with TV (sadly no Linux iTunes to seal the deal). I don't need a Microsoft spreadsheet or an Adobe PDF maker or a Lotus email client or a Mozilla Firefox. All I should need is a computer that does it all properly. Apple will have its style and will do well. HP will have whatever it is that makes people buy HPs. Dell will have its cheap price. I can buy all sorts of microwaves; they're all essentially the same but there are still dozens of manufacturers and minor variations. Computers should be more of the same, with a thriving niche for those of us who want more control an
You make some good points, but I think you're missing the biggest factor that will prevent the realization of your theory of the future: interest.
Most people don't own their own cow and make their own dairy products because they *can't*, but rather because they don't care and would prefer to spend their time doing other things. I don't want to be responsible for taking care of another life (providing ample pasture and quality food and veterinary care and making sure it is comfortable in the winter/summer) and I don't want to culture my milk for cheese or stir constantly. I would prefer to go to the store and just buy it. I don't care if I could do it myself for 30 cents cheaper, or even for $1 cheaper.
I could easily sit down and dedicate my time to learning low-level programming and make some huge contributions to the software community, but I don't want to. I don't have interest in that. I appreciate the idea of open source and the reasons why some people don't like closed source, but I don't care. If Microsoft or Sun wants to hire people and make their own software and not give anyone the source, that's their right. That's what so hilarious about the "libertarians" on Slashdot. They want government to pack up and go home, but they want someone to do away with DRM and closed source--communized software. Do they honestly believe that companies wouldn't be WORSE without regulation? The RIAA doesn't need the government; a libertarian government would simply allow privatization of the justice system and the RIAA wouldn't need due process to punish people. Who do you go to when you've been robbed of your house by the RIAA if you're governed by libertarians? Without taxes, there's no authority. Without legislation, there's no protection.
Back to the point, though, hardware is becoming commoditized. This involves standardization in some areas in terms of components and the like, but more importantly, it involves specialization and striation at the consumer end. Only hobbyists and professionals care about standardized hardware and the "nuts and bolts" (so true that it birthed that very expression). Everyone else just wants a bench or a bookshelf or an appliance. "Rolling your own" will still be important to many, and that's great. But the public at large just wants a complete product that works. A computer should be an appliance, and it shouldn't matter what goes on beneath the surface. You don't care about the operating system used by your microwave--it does what it's meant to do.
You can even see this progression as the days of the personal computer have unfolded: early on, you couldn't have a computer without learning a programming language and learning the intimacies of its design. Later on, all of that was handled by OSes. You just needed to learn how to interact and how to use the software you added, and how to modify system files and jumpers for new peripherals. Today, people don't even need to know anything to install new hardware. Mainstream computer places barely carry internal components at all (aside from RAM and hard drives). The next layer to drop out of relevance is the operating system, and I think that's the shred of truth to the article's premise.
In the relatively near future, people will be able to pick up a computer like they pick out a new refrigerator or a TV. There will still be distinguishing features and varying specifications, but they won't get in your way much if you don't care. Apple's got this basically down. You turn on the machine, and it works. Standardization doesn't imply universality. Replacement parts and accessories are still tied to the original product (for appliances, basic electronics, and all sorts of mundane things). While the parts used to build them are standardized, the finished goods aren't, and likely never will be. Software tools will likely wind up standardized for developers, but I think the ultimately result will be self-contained products rather than strictly interoperable ones.
Of course, that in turn makes an argument that the 'meaning' of life is whatever the beholder makes of it.
If you don't accept something as true, then it's not true. If you refuse to believe Jack, who tells you that an elephant is a big grey thing with a trunk, and ask him for proof, you'd get none. The best Jack could do would be to demonstrate the consensus that everyone CALLS that thing an elephant. That doesn't make him an elephant. If you could ask the elephant what he was, you'd likely not get "elephant" in the response. We might translate it as such, but all translation is simply the act of processing an experience or concept into our own brains. I can point to something and call it "apple" and you can point to it and call it "manzana" and if I assume that you're indicating the same thing, I'll decide that "manzana" 'means' "apple." But we can never Know if that's True (in the capital-letter senses of the words). It's just absolutely consistent with our understanding of the universe.
So ultimately, anything in the universe can only be a product of belief. All humans are inherently faith-based. Some believe that only the individual exists, some believe that we're all here but only the sum of our experiences (so it's irrelevant whether other people are really there or just figments of the imagination), and some believe in a guy 'out there' somewhere creating everything for a reason, and some believe that there is an objective world regardless of anyone living--there's a tree in the woods, and it's making noise as it falls. The funny part is every one of those theories is true.
Sorry, my computer signed me out somewhere between starting the comment and submitting it. Also, In re-reading, 'Henkel' should be "Henckels"--how embarrassing. At any rate, if you reply, please reply to this so I get emailed.
Do you (and the four people who modded you up) not understand what the Microsoft tax is? It's when you buy a Dell or an HP, you're giving money to Microsoft even though you don't want to and weren't asked to. When you give money to Apple, you're not handing over extra money for some Party C's ransom demands. You don't get to choose which of Apple departments you fund with your purchase.
When you buy an Apple, you're giving your money to...Apple. There's no "tax" being added to the price of the computer that goes to funding a transfer of money from the manufacturer to another company for software you don't want.
There's no HP tax when your HP computer comes with an HP printshop/photo application. If you want to look at it financially, there's no revenue transfer--the price of OS X is $0. Its R&D and support costs are taken out of Apple's healthy margins. If you you think they should shave down that margin, well then I hope you choose which restaurants you eat at based on their gross margins, too, otherwise you're being pretty arbitrary.
Abso-freaking-lutely correct. Hell, I'm still locked in to 45's! And all the turntables under $200 are utter crap, but no one can blame Apple or Microsoft for it, so no one on Slashdot gives a shit.
First he has to make sure it's okay with the Big Four that some iTunes sales are DRM-free. If the mainstream labels take their ball and go home, iTunes collapses. It can't even break even on indie labels.
Are you saying that the US government has jumped the shark?
If by 'screwed up' you mean 'fluid and dynamic,' then yeah, I guess it is.
Look at it this way: would the Republicans ever punish big business for being inept?
Of course the Democrats would be the ones to put this bill on the table; they're not communists. Hell, most of them aren't even liberals, but they have no problem sticking it to corporate America when it suits them.
A few horses are out of the barn, but that doesn't mean someone shouldn't close the gate to keep the rest in.
The same protections exist in the United States. No jurisdiction in the Western world has categorically ruled contracts of adhesion illegal, so it's not entirely clear what the purpose of your reply is.
Some EULAs have been overturned in the United States (and in the UK, Canada, Germany, and everywhere else)--EULAs have never been categorically dismissed.
Perhaps by the time you graduate, you'll have realized that it's not so simple, and you can't convince a judge of your name in 30 seconds, let alone a whole case. You might also come to learn that contracts of adhesion aren't categorically illegal.
That depends on the definition of "emulated" you use. If somewhere toward the beginning, it talks about the use of a virtual machine or some other kind of software emulation, you'd have to test their definition. If the architecture is emulated in hardware, you'd be off the hook. There are protections against "unreasonable and unintended consequences" in contract language, and this would be one of them--but more importantly, you'd never need them because Microsoft would never construe microcode emulation to be in violation of their license. I suspect you were modded up simply because of your shrink wrap jab. Back in the real world, though, your concern has nothing to do with EULAs but rather contract language in general (that is, ALL contracts would be affected by this pedantry), especially those with more dire consequences (corporate licensing and binding stipulation).
It's a simple concession to prevent casual sharing of user IDs across a large number of systems. If you have extenuating circumstances requiring you to use the service more than once per year, you can communicate that to Apple, and they will reset your account for you. I have, in fact, used the "deauthorize all" feature THREE times in one year, because one of my Windows machines kept eating iTunes authorizations, because it kept forgetting all the system drivers and starting from scratch at each boot, making it appear to be a new computer.