Well, cheesus - look at how many MEXICAN restaurans are 'occupying' the US? Not to mention Chinese - heck, I get sweet&sour chicken at least once a week (w/ fried rice and one egg roll, to go) and you don't see ME crying about the Chinese cultural 'occupation' of the US, do you???? If Ray Croc wants to build a burger joint in Mongolia and their govt allows it, what's the big deal? Nobody is holding a gun to the Mongolians heads and forcing them to buy BigMacs? They walk thru the door on their own volution. The worst thing is the older folks might not like their spawn being 'westernized' buy having a burger joing to hang out at instead of eating traditional local foods at grandpa's hut.
If you're searching for the most cost-effective form of promotion you can find... Your Search Is Over - you've FOUND it - Investment is MINIMAL and Potential return is INCREDIBLE! Blast your ad to over 500 Million pre-opted-in indivdually targeted Internet users who are JUST WAITING to hear about YOUR product or service!
Since its discovery around Valentine's Day, Yaha, also known as "Valscr," has wormed its way past Nimda, Hybris and Funlove to the number eight position on the current list of virus threats tracked by managed e-mail provider MessageLabs.
This almost sounds like a Casey Kasem American top 40 show... Wow great, now virus writers have a feedback mechanism to rate their performance and a target to shoot for: NUMBER 1 on the list.
CK: Now, here's VdUB with his latest hit, 'Don't open this fking Email!!!'. Tell us, VdUB, to what do you attribut your recent success as #1 email virus writer for 3 weeks in a row?
V: Well, I, uh, wud like to thank most of all, the Microsoft Outlook development team for making this all possible, special greetz to 4TerTz, and all the gang at the 7oyz2bad gang for the stealthSMTP script and killer relays...
Not suprising, with genetic drift and mutations life is constantly changing and adapting to a constantly changing environment. What makes a unique 'unit' of species? Usually some arbitrary human definition -" Distinguishing those that have feathers, and bite, And those that have whiskers, and scratch. " I can just imagine the typical enviromentalist 20 millions years ago at a table selling pasteries to raise funds to "Save the Dinosaurs!".
I'm having the great fantasy - Pearly and the Emballmer hold a national press conferance and announce that they're withdrawing all Msft product licenses and quitting, firing all employees and liquidating assets, yet reatining all rights to all code. "I've had it!", said a visibly distraught Gates. "I work and slave for 25 years to bring you the best damn software the personal computer has ever seen, do everything I can to ensure that you use it, and what do I get? Besides the 50 Billion? 27% piracy rate, nobody reads the license agreement we put so much effort into crafting, ceaseless criticism over every little vulnerability, and now an endless legal quadmire, that's what! So we're outta here. From now on, all Microsoft product licenses are revoked, you must destroy all software and cease using it immediately. Sorry no refunds, as stated in the agreement you didn't read. You'll just have to find something else to run. Install that Penquin stuff, whatever, or buy a Mac. Then when you can't access your data, don't come crying to me!!"
Msft gets off scott free, able to leverage one monopoly into as many as they can grow tentacles (buy one, you have to buy them all! No "mix and match" no mo...) but hardware companies like WesternDigital, Maxtor, IBM etc. are required by law to put secret undocumented protection features in their products to give Msft unlimited control over distribution, installation and use ("Please enter your 24 digit auth code to begin performance of this content, or contact your vendor for assistence in obtainly a copy authorization code.").
What's he griping about? Nobody is against commercial software - Msft can try to sell all the licenses for mysterious code they want - if people want to GPL their work and let others extend it and it happens to encroach on Msft profits, so be it. Let the market decide Mundie, damn it. It's not like your competitors are slaves forced to work against their will or anything. Or is it that time in the business cycle for all the Ayn Rand club to go whining to their big daddy warbucks Govt for relief from all the widdle lilliputians??
Yep, that's why I'm building up a little collection of the old ones - some from the early 50's (one has an article by Einstein) and a bunch of late 50's; a few from the 60's and just about all from 1970 thru 1998 picked up from a ebay moving sale real cheap local pickup (whohoo!). It's an interesting half century time machine - one does see a slow change from rather rigorous science research to... today.
" Microsoft described those complaints as "a great deal of misunderstanding and wild charges that Microsoft would use the right to misappropriate the intellectual property of others." "
Cheesus, if Msft couldn't misappropriate the ideas of others all "innovation" in the personal computer field would halt (windowing systems, desktop publishing, Client/Server networking, Internetworking, Web Browsing, etc etc etc were all invented elsewhere, just reappropriated by a company that got their undocumented master boot record on the original IBM pc and has never let go).
I will flame Msft, and Real, Netscape and AOL too if they use the same tactics. Just becase other people are committing crimes doesn't make it legal. The problem is that Msft has been allowed to get away with murder, so naturally other compaines say, well, we have to do it too in order to succeed. Msft is a bad example, and letting them get off scott free with their schenanigans is utilmately bad for everyone. You can see a lot of companies trying to emulate the Msft business model, just like many did before the the IBM business model. All I need point out is what Ken Lay of Enron said, "We're the Microsoft of the energy sector". All we can hope for now is that people wise up and Microsoft becomes the Enron of the software sector.
"The average consumer thinks Windows is "included" with their PC purchase. "
Yep, Msft as the 'default' system shipped with each PC is the vigorish & tax on PC's that made them billions and billions. I've been bashing my boss for years that "The hardware's cheap, it's the software that kill's you" and he STILL, this very morning, asks for "Could you setup Joe in shipping with a computer? Doesn't have to be anything fast, just an old pc with access to the database". So I wrote back, "Once again, the hardware's cheap, the software's expensive: it's going to cost about $500 for the software", to get a full Windows ME and Access 2000, to legally install the Win98 and Access 97 that we use on workstations, paying for features that we don't want or use anyway, because we don't really have any consumer 'choice', altho Msft apologist claim that 'consumer choice' is what made Msft the giant it is today. And have you seen what Monopoly price gouging prices individual Office components are?? $300 each!!!
That is interesting - I wonder if Msft is pestering WalMart for the customer list?? Because we just KNOW those are used with pirated OS's because EVERYONE uses Windows. There was an article once about that, but I think it was Msft license shops getting strongarmed to snitch on what companies are making large purchases of "PC's Without Windows".
Natural evolution (random genetic drift/mutation generation of species and natural selection for survival) works but only up to the point of reproduction - the bad things that happen (like old timers disease) AFTER reproduction don't get weeded out but are passed down from generation to generation of sufferers. Things like this would be helpful to improving the quality of life AFTER childbearing, which is becoming the biggest part of life, in the developed world anyway.
Of course, anytime humanity plays God, there room for abuse and evil (breeding sex slaves, mercerary warriors, etc).
that, at least in the U.S., absolutely NOTHING i$ going to happen untill $omebody make$ a buck doing it.
Just noticed that Earthlink, out one side of their mouth, has "spaminator" prevention tools, then out of the other side, a "mass email marketing tool" you can purchase. Cheez. They probably make $$$ sending spam, then turn around and make $$$ blocking it, just like the phone companies charging a fee for caller-id, then charging a fee for caller-id-blocking.
Gee, the scientific priesthood had declared that the weather gods are angry and want some sacrifices made to atone for the sins of humanity and set things right again. You can be sure the anti-business enviro's are going to claim the benefit of every doubt. We've already been thru the Freon/Ozone hole thing, which is mainly a 'screw the US' ploy while Mexico and other 3rd world dumps still pump out tons of the stuff. But, whoever they choose to sacrifice, someone's going to make bundles off it, they always do.
"Consumer Protection" got written out long before the DMCA, seeing as software is a 'service' and not a 'product'. The DMCA is just admitting that no protection scheme will be strong enough on it's own merits (DeCSS being a prime example), so we'll make circumventing it a crime. Just like if I buy a lock for my house, a talented lockpick can probably always open it, but then s/he's faced with the fact that it's a crime to break in anyway. The prob with DCMA is it takes away the consumers 'fair use' of materials (being able to make backup copies and, um, sharing with friends), but to the producers, it's better than "well, I guess you picked the defective lock fair & square, so take whatever you want!"
Remember, software remains the property of the folks who wrote it - so maybe you DON'T have the right to know of any defects. The consumers legal rights when it comes to IP royally sucks, just don't expect Thomas Edison's pal Strom Thurmond & Company to come to the rescue for a loooooong time.
what else is Mr & Mrs home users new 2.4Ghz, 510Mb, 120Gb system running XP just purchased to send an AOLgram to missy at college once every weekend, good for?
You know, I was thinking about the gyro-stabilizer system when it occured to me, instead of a two wheel, forward-backward oriented system with differential wheel speeds for steering, how about just a SINGLE BALL?? The segway could be built upon a single, large tire-rubber ball, with an enclosure around the top 75% with rollers to keep the ball in place, and driven in TWO axis at once, sort of like an upside-down, motorized track ball? That way, instead of leaning fwd or bkwrds, you could lean in any direction you want to go toward that direction. Ok, you'd need a rotor to be able to POINT the driver platform in any of 360 degrees, but something like that should be the next evolution in these things.
Troll?? Yes, only to the squeemish thumb sucking weenies. You forget the "bad guys" (your use of quotes) commited the crime of over 4000 innocent civilians - these people don't fight by any international conventions, not even Islamic law. I say bring on the advanced weaponry; anything to get the message across: fsck with the U.S. and you're going to get fscked right back. Any collateral damage, send OBL the bill for it. Or does it have to be YOUR family that gets its guts splattered over the street before you realize we're dealing with irrational suicide fanatics here?
we still have the problem of corporations eager to figure out what breakfast cereals we prefer.
Well, what's wrong with that? Don't you want to buy cereal that you prefer to eat? If they don't know, you won't be able to buy it! What you're probably objecting to is their methodology, so everybody fill out the damn survey and send it in, ask your grocer to stock what you want, otherwise corporations will/have/ to resort to ethically questionable survailence to get that data.
Slashdot Mirror
Be sure to check out my page linking the chief SW architect at Msft with the mascot of MAD Magazine.
Well, cheesus - look at how many MEXICAN restaurans are 'occupying' the US? Not to mention Chinese - heck, I get sweet&sour chicken at least once a week (w/ fried rice and one egg roll, to go) and you don't see ME crying about the Chinese cultural 'occupation' of the US, do you???? If Ray Croc wants to build a burger joint in Mongolia and their govt allows it, what's the big deal? Nobody is holding a gun to the Mongolians heads and forcing them to buy BigMacs? They walk thru the door on their own volution. The worst thing is the older folks might not like their spawn being 'westernized' buy having a burger joing to hang out at instead of eating traditional local foods at grandpa's hut.
that the DOJ has gotten 'orders' from higher-ups in the executive branch to "Let Msft Be free to Innovate" and get govt off the backs of big business.
If you're searching for the most cost-effective form of promotion you can find... Your Search Is Over - you've FOUND it - Investment is MINIMAL and Potential return is INCREDIBLE! Blast your ad to over 500 Million pre-opted-in indivdually targeted Internet users who are JUST WAITING to hear about YOUR product or service!
Since its discovery around Valentine's Day, Yaha, also known as "Valscr," has wormed its way past Nimda, Hybris and Funlove to the number eight position on the current list of virus threats tracked by managed e-mail provider MessageLabs.
This almost sounds like a Casey Kasem American top 40 show... Wow great, now virus writers have a feedback mechanism to rate their performance and a target to shoot for: NUMBER 1 on the list.
CK: Now, here's VdUB with his latest hit, 'Don't open this fking Email!!!'. Tell us, VdUB, to what do you attribut your recent success as #1 email virus writer for 3 weeks in a row?
V: Well, I, uh, wud like to thank most of all, the Microsoft Outlook development team for making this all possible, special greetz to 4TerTz, and all the gang at the 7oyz2bad gang for the stealthSMTP script and killer relays...
Not suprising, with genetic drift and mutations life is constantly changing and adapting to a constantly changing environment. What makes a unique 'unit' of species? Usually some arbitrary human definition -" Distinguishing those that have feathers, and bite, And those that have whiskers, and scratch. " I can just imagine the typical enviromentalist 20 millions years ago at a table selling pasteries to raise funds to "Save the Dinosaurs!".
I'm having the great fantasy - Pearly and the Emballmer hold a national press conferance and announce that they're withdrawing all Msft product licenses and quitting, firing all employees and liquidating assets, yet reatining all rights to all code. "I've had it!", said a visibly distraught Gates. "I work and slave for 25 years to bring you the best damn software the personal computer has ever seen, do everything I can to ensure that you use it, and what do I get? Besides the 50 Billion? 27% piracy rate, nobody reads the license agreement we put so much effort into crafting, ceaseless criticism over every little vulnerability, and now an endless legal quadmire, that's what! So we're outta here. From now on, all Microsoft product licenses are revoked, you must destroy all software and cease using it immediately. Sorry no refunds, as stated in the agreement you didn't read. You'll just have to find something else to run. Install that Penquin stuff, whatever, or buy a Mac. Then when you can't access your data, don't come crying to me!!"
Msft gets off scott free, able to leverage one monopoly into as many as they can grow tentacles (buy one, you have to buy them all! No "mix and match" no mo...) but hardware companies like WesternDigital, Maxtor, IBM etc. are required by law to put secret undocumented protection features in their products to give Msft unlimited control over distribution, installation and use ("Please enter your 24 digit auth code to begin performance of this content, or contact your vendor for assistence in obtainly a copy authorization code.").
What's he griping about? Nobody is against commercial software - Msft can try to sell all the licenses for mysterious code they want - if people want to GPL their work and let others extend it and it happens to encroach on Msft profits, so be it. Let the market decide Mundie, damn it. It's not like your competitors are slaves forced to work against their will or anything. Or is it that time in the business cycle for all the Ayn Rand club to go whining to their big daddy warbucks Govt for relief from all the widdle lilliputians??
Yep, that's why I'm building up a little collection of the old ones - some from the early 50's (one has an article by Einstein) and a bunch of late 50's; a few from the 60's and just about all from 1970 thru 1998 picked up from a ebay moving sale real cheap local pickup (whohoo!). It's an interesting half century time machine - one does see a slow change from rather rigorous science research to ... today.
they're fighting this tooth and nail:
" Microsoft described those complaints as "a great deal of misunderstanding and wild charges that Microsoft would use the right to misappropriate the intellectual property of others." "
Cheesus, if Msft couldn't misappropriate the ideas of others all "innovation" in the personal computer field would halt (windowing systems, desktop publishing, Client/Server networking, Internetworking, Web Browsing, etc etc etc were all invented elsewhere, just reappropriated by a company that got their undocumented master boot record on the original IBM pc and has never let go).
I will flame Msft, and Real, Netscape and AOL too if they use the same tactics. Just becase other people are committing crimes doesn't make it legal. The problem is that Msft has been allowed to get away with murder, so naturally other compaines say, well, we have to do it too in order to succeed. Msft is a bad example, and letting them get off scott free with their schenanigans is utilmately bad for everyone. You can see a lot of companies trying to emulate the Msft business model, just like many did before the the IBM business model. All I need point out is what Ken Lay of Enron said, "We're the Microsoft of the energy sector". All we can hope for now is that people wise up and Microsoft becomes the Enron of the software sector.
"The average consumer thinks Windows is "included" with their PC purchase. "
Yep, Msft as the 'default' system shipped with each PC is the vigorish & tax on PC's that made them billions and billions. I've been bashing my boss for years that "The hardware's cheap, it's the software that kill's you" and he STILL, this very morning, asks for "Could you setup Joe in shipping with a computer? Doesn't have to be anything fast, just an old pc with access to the database". So I wrote back, "Once again, the hardware's cheap, the software's expensive: it's going to cost about $500 for the software", to get a full Windows ME and Access 2000, to legally install the Win98 and Access 97 that we use on workstations, paying for features that we don't want or use anyway, because we don't really have any consumer 'choice', altho Msft apologist claim that 'consumer choice' is what made Msft the giant it is today. And have you seen what Monopoly price gouging prices individual Office components are?? $300 each!!!
That is interesting - I wonder if Msft is pestering WalMart for the customer list?? Because we just KNOW those are used with pirated OS's because EVERYONE uses Windows. There was an article once about that, but I think it was Msft license shops getting strongarmed to snitch on what companies are making large purchases of "PC's Without Windows".
Well, in Jan 1983 Time Magazine did name the "Personal Computer" as the "Man of the Year" for 1982.
Natural evolution (random genetic drift/mutation generation of species and natural selection for survival) works but only up to the point of reproduction - the bad things that happen (like old timers disease) AFTER reproduction don't get weeded out but are passed down from generation to generation of sufferers. Things like this would be helpful to improving the quality of life AFTER childbearing, which is becoming the biggest part of life, in the developed world anyway.
Of course, anytime humanity plays God, there room for abuse and evil (breeding sex slaves, mercerary warriors, etc).
that, at least in the U.S., absolutely NOTHING i$ going to happen untill $omebody make$ a buck doing it.
Just noticed that Earthlink, out one side of their mouth, has "spaminator" prevention tools, then out of the other side, a "mass email marketing tool" you can purchase. Cheez. They probably make $$$ sending spam, then turn around and make $$$ blocking it, just like the phone companies charging a fee for caller-id, then charging a fee for caller-id-blocking.
Gee, the scientific priesthood had declared that the weather gods are angry and want some sacrifices made to atone for the sins of humanity and set things right again. You can be sure the anti-business enviro's are going to claim the benefit of every doubt. We've already been thru the Freon/Ozone hole thing, which is mainly a 'screw the US' ploy while Mexico and other 3rd world dumps still pump out tons of the stuff. But, whoever they choose to sacrifice, someone's going to make bundles off it, they always do.
"Consumer Protection" got written out long before the DMCA, seeing as software is a 'service' and not a 'product'. The DMCA is just admitting that no protection scheme will be strong enough on it's own merits (DeCSS being a prime example), so we'll make circumventing it a crime. Just like if I buy a lock for my house, a talented lockpick can probably always open it, but then s/he's faced with the fact that it's a crime to break in anyway. The prob with DCMA is it takes away the consumers 'fair use' of materials (being able to make backup copies and, um, sharing with friends), but to the producers, it's better than "well, I guess you picked the defective lock fair & square, so take whatever you want!"
Remember, software remains the property of the folks who wrote it - so maybe you DON'T have the right to know of any defects. The consumers legal rights when it comes to IP royally sucks, just don't expect Thomas Edison's pal Strom Thurmond & Company to come to the rescue for a loooooong time.
what else is Mr & Mrs home users new 2.4Ghz, 510Mb, 120Gb system running XP just purchased to send an AOLgram to missy at college once every weekend, good for?
You know, I was thinking about the gyro-stabilizer system when it occured to me, instead of a two wheel, forward-backward oriented system with differential wheel speeds for steering, how about just a SINGLE BALL?? The segway could be built upon a single, large tire-rubber ball, with an enclosure around the top 75% with rollers to keep the ball in place, and driven in TWO axis at once, sort of like an upside-down, motorized track ball? That way, instead of leaning fwd or bkwrds, you could lean in any direction you want to go toward that direction. Ok, you'd need a rotor to be able to POINT the driver platform in any of 360 degrees, but something like that should be the next evolution in these things.
Troll?? Yes, only to the squeemish thumb sucking weenies. You forget the "bad guys" (your use of quotes) commited the crime of over 4000 innocent civilians - these people don't fight by any international conventions, not even Islamic law. I say bring on the advanced weaponry; anything to get the message across: fsck with the U.S. and you're going to get fscked right back. Any collateral damage, send OBL the bill for it. Or does it have to be YOUR family that gets its guts splattered over the street before you realize we're dealing with irrational suicide fanatics here?
Gee, all this $$$ for lawyers goes on forever while they decide whether to slap them or the wrist with a wet noodle or sentence them 20 hail mary's.
we still have the problem of corporations eager to figure out what breakfast cereals we prefer.
/have/ to resort to ethically questionable survailence to get that data.
Well, what's wrong with that? Don't you want to buy cereal that you prefer to eat? If they don't know, you won't be able to buy it! What you're probably objecting to is their methodology, so everybody fill out the damn survey and send it in, ask your grocer to stock what you want, otherwise corporations will
Interesting story about the inventor of the Slinky, his instant success, his wealth, his joining a religious cult...