The voting process may not be rigged, but voting machines can be: back in December I was in conversation with someone from Germany's Chaos Computer Club who told me that they've been able to hack and tamper with every single voting machine/computer that has been put in their path.
The Associated Press article yet again misquotes the MS standard as "Open Office XML".
Worse than that: the author (Toby Sterling) who wrote the original piece states: "Microsoft has raced to achieve "open source" certification....but has so far failed to receive endorsement from the International Standards Organization".
Methinks Mr Sterling was clearly out of his depth in this report: perhaps he should stick to writing about flower shows in future; they must have loads of those in the Netherlands.
There are a couple of reasons why not, as follows:.
Firstly, there are a lot of people who do IT support who'd be out of work if they had something as reliable as a Linux system, which needs very little looking after in comparison to Windows, which seems to break every 5 minutes;
Secondly, there are the teaching staff: they sometimes have even less IT expertise than the kids they are supposed to be teaching. They have a tendency to feel very uncomfortable with anything unfamiliar.
Finally, those in charge of educational policy have determined that IT lessons schools should turn out a generation of MS mouse monkeys, not students who are IT literate: the rot starts long before the classroom.
In his 1946 essay, Politics and the English Language, the English author George Orwell wrote: "Political language - and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists - is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind".
I find it rather strange that Ballmer makes his demands for Linux users to pay Microsoft for patent infringements in my country, the United Kingdom, that does not (and hopefully will never) recognise software patents.
...but the jails are all overcrowded, so there just isn't space...
Never mind about the lack of space in Her Majesty's Prisons: the powers that be are busy turning the whole bloody United Kingdom into Europe's largest open prison. Don't forget it is already home to the majority of the world's CCTV cameras; civil liberties have been eroded in pursuit of the "War on Terror", further monitoring measures are planned with ID cards and biometric passports. Moreover, British children are being taught to regard their biometric data as unimportant, with the introduction of fingerprinting in schools for trivial transactions such as obtaining a school lunch or borrowing a library book.
Who needs prisons when the majority of the population passively accepts such intrusion into daily life?
I couldn't agree more with all your sentiments. Just looking at the "War on Terror" angle, both the US and UK have expended lots of energy attacking the liberties of their citizens and introducing draconian legislation for very little return - a couple of dozen people banged up in prison in the case of the UK (most of whom could have been dealt with by existing legislation anyway.
Technology cannot replace common-sense. However, the authorities no longer have any common-sense to see the limits of technology. Another poster quoting from TFA pointed out that the DHs' new kit can read fingerprints at 5 metres. When their toys can read my thoughts, then I might start to worry.
It looks like the same track is being followed as in the United Kingdom, where we host the world's largest collection of CCTV cameras, not to mention cameras to catch speeding motorists, read registration plates, etc. Whilst it may give a nice warm glow of reassurance to those who believe the propaganda, does all this gadgetry do anything to reduce the amount of crime as opposed to the fear thereof? Not really: CCTV cameras, for example, have blind spots in their coverage. Technology is being used as a fig-leaf to cover the fact that the powers that be cannot or will not use the presence of humans patrolling in uniforms as a means of catching or deterring ne'er do wells. Technological fixes seem to be preferred too since they do not require wages, meal breaks, holidays or other such luxuries which drain the public purse.
"Soon we will see computing interoperability and software development flourish and we will look back upon the MS dominant time where they were holding free software innovation and interoperability back as an annoying historic paranthesis."
There might also be a large gap in the historical record due to the myopic reliance on proprietary file formats for record-keeping by public authorities all round the world and the subsequent inability of future generations to read them.
"it is disgusting that it came out with: "With eight votes in favor". i think these 8 members of the board need re-evaluated. This is a sad reflection on how big business can mess-up wonderful things made by society."
It's hardly surprising when one remembers the old adage that a committee is a beast with several heads but no brains.
Why should I have any respect for an organisation that's been convicted of anti-competitive practices on 2 continents? Microsoft is a bunch of crooks selling a third-rate products. Respect has to earned, not expected.
I'm sure it's been discussed, but I think the risk of losing home users is the real impetus behind Microsoft basically giving away software to schools, and offering STEEP discounts to governments.
You made a good point there. Here in the UK even the schools have to have a certain number of copies of Office. Moreover, Microsoft are now giving their software away FREE - apart from a small administration charge equivalent to no more than US $20 - to charitable organisations, presumably in the hope that workers in those organisations will be so blinkered they won't look anywhere else for software for their home machines.
If Universal knew about it beforehand and profitted, it can be considered a quasi-contract (quantum meruit, I believe is the latin term).
You are correct in your belief: quantum meruit is a Latin phrase meaning "as much as he has deserved". In the context of contract law, it means something along the lines of "reasonable value of services". Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_meruit
"So were are the Linux and OSX Honeypot PC's?"
I'm afraid you'll have to wait a while for those. Auntie BBC has just about heard of Macs, but Linux is definitely not on her radar.
Slashdot Mirror
The voting process may not be rigged, but voting machines can be: back in December I was in conversation with someone from Germany's Chaos Computer Club who told me that they've been able to hack and tamper with every single voting machine/computer that has been put in their path.
My advice: stick to pen and paper.
... was also the last honest man to enter Parliament.
The Associated Press article yet again misquotes the MS standard as "Open Office XML".
Worse than that: the author (Toby Sterling) who wrote the original piece states: "Microsoft has raced to achieve "open source" certification....but has so far failed to receive endorsement from the International Standards Organization".
Methinks Mr Sterling was clearly out of his depth in this report: perhaps he should stick to writing about flower shows in future; they must have loads of those in the Netherlands.
There are a couple of reasons why not, as follows:.
In his 1946 essay, Politics and the English Language, the English author George Orwell wrote: "Political language - and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists - is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind".
I find it rather strange that Ballmer makes his demands for Linux users to pay Microsoft for patent infringements in my country, the United Kingdom, that does not (and hopefully will never) recognise software patents.
"...but you could try reading the article."
I did try, but gave up because it was so rambling and inconsistent I lost the will to live.
"He plants seeds of doubt in the minds of people who probably have their emails printed out for them..."
and have to read them slowly aloud one word at a time, pointing to each word so they don't lose their place, or get someone else to do it for them.
Well, that's my experience of senior management types!
...but the jails are all overcrowded, so there just isn't space...
Never mind about the lack of space in Her Majesty's Prisons: the powers that be are busy turning the whole bloody United Kingdom into Europe's largest open prison. Don't forget it is already home to the majority of the world's CCTV cameras; civil liberties have been eroded in pursuit of the "War on Terror", further monitoring measures are planned with ID cards and biometric passports. Moreover, British children are being taught to regard their biometric data as unimportant, with the introduction of fingerprinting in schools for trivial transactions such as obtaining a school lunch or borrowing a library book.
Who needs prisons when the majority of the population passively accepts such intrusion into daily life?
"BUT our priorities are really f**ked up!"
I couldn't agree more with all your sentiments. Just looking at the "War on Terror" angle, both the US and UK have expended lots of energy attacking the liberties of their citizens and introducing draconian legislation for very little return - a couple of dozen people banged up in prison in the case of the UK (most of whom could have been dealt with by existing legislation anyway.
Technology cannot replace common-sense. However, the authorities no longer have any common-sense to see the limits of technology. Another poster quoting from TFA pointed out that the DHs' new kit can read fingerprints at 5 metres. When their toys can read my thoughts, then I might start to worry.
It looks like the same track is being followed as in the United Kingdom, where we host the world's largest collection of CCTV cameras, not to mention cameras to catch speeding motorists, read registration plates, etc. Whilst it may give a nice warm glow of reassurance to those who believe the propaganda, does all this gadgetry do anything to reduce the amount of crime as opposed to the fear thereof? Not really: CCTV cameras, for example, have blind spots in their coverage. Technology is being used as a fig-leaf to cover the fact that the powers that be cannot or will not use the presence of humans patrolling in uniforms as a means of catching or deterring ne'er do wells. Technological fixes seem to be preferred too since they do not require wages, meal breaks, holidays or other such luxuries which drain the public purse.
"Soon we will see computing interoperability and software development flourish and we will look back upon the MS dominant time where they were holding free software innovation and interoperability back as an annoying historic paranthesis."
There might also be a large gap in the historical record due to the myopic reliance on proprietary file formats for record-keeping by public authorities all round the world and the subsequent inability of future generations to read them.
"it is disgusting that it came out with: "With eight votes in favor". i think these 8 members of the board need re-evaluated. This is a sad reflection on how big business can mess-up wonderful things made by society."
It's hardly surprising when one remembers the old adage that a committee is a beast with several heads but no brains.
Why should I have any respect for an organisation that's been convicted of anti-competitive practices on 2 continents? Microsoft is a bunch of crooks selling a third-rate products. Respect has to earned, not expected.
I'm just wondering what will happen if they register all that lot with the Linux Counter...
If my local council in the UK moved this quickly I would think it was acting with undue haste or had suffered an outbreak of competence.
You made a good point there. Here in the UK even the schools have to have a certain number of copies of Office. Moreover, Microsoft are now giving their software away FREE - apart from a small administration charge equivalent to no more than US $20 - to charitable organisations, presumably in the hope that workers in those organisations will be so blinkered they won't look anywhere else for software for their home machines.
If Universal knew about it beforehand and profitted, it can be considered a quasi-contract (quantum meruit, I believe is the latin term).
You are correct in your belief: quantum meruit is a Latin phrase meaning "as much as he has deserved". In the context of contract law, it means something along the lines of "reasonable value of services". Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_meruit
"So were are the Linux and OSX Honeypot PC's?" I'm afraid you'll have to wait a while for those. Auntie BBC has just about heard of Macs, but Linux is definitely not on her radar.