In a lot of people's experience (including mine), it's reality. Linux does have it's professional uses, but using it as a workstation is not viable for most people. Most people who pass on the opportunity to use Microsoft's software usually have an irrational hate for Microsoft itself and put that above what would be the best tool for the job.
Maybe Microsoft does use stooges to spread their marketing online, but I doubt they'd bother to do it on Slashdot (it's a lost cause), and even if they did, so what? You have no evidence, so stop throwing around accusations because someone has a difference of opinion.
Mircosoft does a lot of bad things, but giving away software is not one of them.
Oh, so you think that all software that Microsoft is not charging you for is free?, it is not! Every customer that buys Windows is paying for all applications that follow with. By locking their customers in with their built-in software which is mostly in the way they are missuisng their monopoly.
It may be true that an accountant at Microsoft insisted Windows should cost x more than it would ordinarily only to subsidise the development of y. However, one purchases a copy of Windows for a certain price and has no right to expect y or even z to be given away free of charge at a later stage. Do you argue that the free mints at a restaurant are in fact included in the price of a meal?
You seem to be missing the fact that the patent owner (who this is designed to protect) is a completely separate entity from the manufacturer. The manufacturer is nothing more than a subcontractor. The manufacturer obviously requires the blueprints to produce the chip. It is the manufacturer who is selling the patent owner's chips on the black market. Nothing is being "leaked". You can bet your life that the "signed agreements" you mention are without exception already in place. They're just being flouted.
Others who responded to my post have argued that you therefore shouldn't hire Chinese or other cheap chip production plants, because they are well known for failing to respect intellectual property and you have no possible recourse against them.
The thing is, businesses are always going to opt for the cheapest option. If this technological measure is cheaper than opting for a more expensive, "trustworthy" producer, then I don't think you have a case against it. This doesn't harm consumers in any way shape or form, simply because it doesn't involve them. The restrictions will have already been removed long before it reaches their hands.
Human error? I don't see it. Chips need to be manufactured elsewhere and you therefore have to trust the manufacturer with your blueprints. They'll either steal from you or they won't. How can that be the fault of the patent owner?
Did he say that? Or did say the complete opposite? I think anyone that kicks down a door and waves a pistol about with the intention of robbing someone is in the "dangerous" group he implied should be put in prison. Having $5-8 dollars taken from you through unfair call charges might spoil your day. What you describe might affect the victim for their whole life. I'm not defending this guy, but to group him with armed robbers is a bit of a stretch.
How exactly would they notice that when Firefox has built-in spell checking too? I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with your main point, but I think it would be erroneous to assume the type of computer users he's talking about will ever want to learn about how computers work.
That's not necessarily true. If a sufficiently high volume of people complained, it would certainly start to eat into their customer service budget. I don't know how much it costs to run upwards of a dozen dedicated customer call centres, but I would assume it isn't pittance. If their call volume were to treble for longer than a week or two, improvements would be forthcoming. Alas, large consumer groups that are able to organise this level of pressure don't (as far as I'm aware) exist.
Are you sure EA's games are like that because of their developer's ineptness? EA designs games that they think will appeal to the highest possible number of people. I think games getting easier (too easy for "hardcore" gamers) is unfortunately part of achieving that goal.
I'm guessing it's mostly performed by spammers wanting to harvest email addresses displayed as images. In fact, there were a few Slashdot articles about Robert Scoble who screen scraped Facebook in order to gather personal data and was (temporarily) banned for it.
I agree with your main point, but blaming authors of screen scrapers is ridiculous. Screen scraping is reading the final output of program (or in this case web page) in image format and converting that into usable data with methods such as OCR (optical character recognition).
The summary strongly implies and the article states that this unwanted traffic is coming from software that parses markup. Placing the DTD into a web page or other medium where markup is used is the intended and desirable usage.
I don't claim to know why you have a problem with webmasters (I am not one), but if you're a programmer and perceive them to have less technical ability than yourself, well.. your ilk seem to be the "clowns" this time.
I assume we agree that the Touch ships with a hard drive. You are saying that in normal conditions (i.e. an unmodified Touch) that hard drive is not behaving "like a hard drive".
If an object is an object, that object can only behave like said object.
At the moment, the iPod touch does not function as a hard drive, unlike the other iPods. There is a workaround, you can hack it or use some third party programs to write to the media folder. Informative? *sigh*
A hard drive is a piece of hardware. You cannot use software alone to manufacture hardware. Of course you knew that, but a hard drive is a box with magnets and platters that stores data. If the iPod Touch doesn't use its hard drive to store data, those that bought one are staying quiet about it.
You seem to be confusing "hard drive" with "general purpose file storage".
It really doesn't matter how many parties are involved in a country's government. The majority party gets to write the rules (laws) and more importantly...interpret them. The Swedish government is no different than any other country. Damn you sound awfully ignorant today - you are so wrong it hurts. In Sweden no party has majority. It's almost as if he didn't state that himself. Oh, wait..
The supposed wrongdoing occurred when Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer with Windows. That is, they relied on their existing dominance while entering a new market. Beyond brand association, I don't think the fact that Microsoft is the biggest supplier of consumer operating systems is relevant when it comes to deciding which advertising platform to buy.
You state that anti-monopoly laws are not a hard concept, but saying that a corporation can be barred from legally entering a new market is patently ridiculous. When will you learn?
I don't follow XKDC, but it didn't take me long to find out this has happened before.
This comic spawned a whole different type of [art|softcore pornography]. If you accept the warning and scroll to the bottom you'll see proof of how wrong you are. If you're thinking that these events aren't the same because WetRiffs and XKCD are apparently operated by the same person, you should see that thousands did mention WetRiffs on their web log.
Holding up the UK as an icon for healthy drinking would contradict the news we hear on a weekly basis about "binge drinking". As I understand it, France is leagues ahead in that respect.
Slashdot Mirror
In a lot of people's experience (including mine), it's reality. Linux does have it's professional uses, but using it as a workstation is not viable for most people. Most people who pass on the opportunity to use Microsoft's software usually have an irrational hate for Microsoft itself and put that above what would be the best tool for the job.
Maybe Microsoft does use stooges to spread their marketing online, but I doubt they'd bother to do it on Slashdot (it's a lost cause), and even if they did, so what? You have no evidence, so stop throwing around accusations because someone has a difference of opinion.
Oh, so you think that all software that Microsoft is not charging you for is free?, it is not! Every customer that buys Windows is paying for all applications that follow with. By locking their customers in with their built-in software which is mostly in the way they are missuisng their monopoly.
It may be true that an accountant at Microsoft insisted Windows should cost x more than it would ordinarily only to subsidise the development of y. However, one purchases a copy of Windows for a certain price and has no right to expect y or even z to be given away free of charge at a later stage. Do you argue that the free mints at a restaurant are in fact included in the price of a meal?
You seem to be missing the fact that the patent owner (who this is designed to protect) is a completely separate entity from the manufacturer. The manufacturer is nothing more than a subcontractor. The manufacturer obviously requires the blueprints to produce the chip. It is the manufacturer who is selling the patent owner's chips on the black market. Nothing is being "leaked". You can bet your life that the "signed agreements" you mention are without exception already in place. They're just being flouted.
Others who responded to my post have argued that you therefore shouldn't hire Chinese or other cheap chip production plants, because they are well known for failing to respect intellectual property and you have no possible recourse against them.
The thing is, businesses are always going to opt for the cheapest option. If this technological measure is cheaper than opting for a more expensive, "trustworthy" producer, then I don't think you have a case against it. This doesn't harm consumers in any way shape or form, simply because it doesn't involve them. The restrictions will have already been removed long before it reaches their hands.
Human error? I don't see it. Chips need to be manufactured elsewhere and you therefore have to trust the manufacturer with your blueprints. They'll either steal from you or they won't. How can that be the fault of the patent owner?
Did he say that? Or did say the complete opposite? I think anyone that kicks down a door and waves a pistol about with the intention of robbing someone is in the "dangerous" group he implied should be put in prison. Having $5-8 dollars taken from you through unfair call charges might spoil your day. What you describe might affect the victim for their whole life. I'm not defending this guy, but to group him with armed robbers is a bit of a stretch.
http://browsers.about.com/od/fire3/ss/firefoxdictmac.htm
How exactly would they notice that when Firefox has built-in spell checking too? I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with your main point, but I think it would be erroneous to assume the type of computer users he's talking about will ever want to learn about how computers work.
That's not necessarily true. If a sufficiently high volume of people complained, it would certainly start to eat into their customer service budget. I don't know how much it costs to run upwards of a dozen dedicated customer call centres, but I would assume it isn't pittance. If their call volume were to treble for longer than a week or two, improvements would be forthcoming. Alas, large consumer groups that are able to organise this level of pressure don't (as far as I'm aware) exist.
Are you sure EA's games are like that because of their developer's ineptness? EA designs games that they think will appeal to the highest possible number of people. I think games getting easier (too easy for "hardcore" gamers) is unfortunately part of achieving that goal.
[redundant]
I'm guessing it's mostly performed by spammers wanting to harvest email addresses displayed as images. In fact, there were a few Slashdot articles about Robert Scoble who screen scraped Facebook in order to gather personal data and was (temporarily) banned for it.
Speaking of moderator abuse, it might be healthy for you to realise that people with a difference of opinion aren't trolls.
I agree with your main point, but blaming authors of screen scrapers is ridiculous. Screen scraping is reading the final output of program (or in this case web page) in image format and converting that into usable data with methods such as OCR (optical character recognition).
The summary strongly implies and the article states that this unwanted traffic is coming from software that parses markup. Placing the DTD into a web page or other medium where markup is used is the intended and desirable usage.
I don't claim to know why you have a problem with webmasters (I am not one), but if you're a programmer and perceive them to have less technical ability than yourself, well.. your ilk seem to be the "clowns" this time.
You clearly missed the point.
I assume we agree that the Touch ships with a hard drive. You are saying that in normal conditions (i.e. an unmodified Touch) that hard drive is not behaving "like a hard drive".
If an object is an object, that object can only behave like said object.
I'm stumped.
A hard drive is a piece of hardware. You cannot use software alone to manufacture hardware. Of course you knew that, but a hard drive is a box with magnets and platters that stores data. If the iPod Touch doesn't use its hard drive to store data, those that bought one are staying quiet about it.
You seem to be confusing "hard drive" with "general purpose file storage".
Say what?
The supposed wrongdoing occurred when Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer with Windows. That is, they relied on their existing dominance while entering a new market. Beyond brand association, I don't think the fact that Microsoft is the biggest supplier of consumer operating systems is relevant when it comes to deciding which advertising platform to buy.
You state that anti-monopoly laws are not a hard concept, but saying that a corporation can be barred from legally entering a new market is patently ridiculous. When will you learn?
Are you asking questions to which you already know the answer?
I don't follow XKDC, but it didn't take me long to find out this has happened before.
This comic spawned a whole different type of [art|softcore pornography]. If you accept the warning and scroll to the bottom you'll see proof of how wrong you are. If you're thinking that these events aren't the same because WetRiffs and XKCD are apparently operated by the same person, you should see that thousands did mention WetRiffs on their web log.
By the way, 33% of your post was misspelt.
The hard drive survived.
So.. we have people like you to blame for the piracy pandemic?
Do you really think that their test would be so widely used if it didn't use such a novel method to display the results?
That's not necessarily true. A cynic would cite the adage "they have to be seen to be doing something" to counter your reasoning.
Holding up the UK as an icon for healthy drinking would contradict the news we hear on a weekly basis about "binge drinking". As I understand it, France is leagues ahead in that respect.