"The United States Postal Service (although it isn't completely run by the government, it is largely funded by the government and thus, in my opinion, under government control)"
Sort of. USPS receives an annual budget of $0 from the government. According to the union's president last year, USPS is almost entirely funded through the sale of stamps (express and priority mail make up the rest, along with parcel post).
On the other hand, congress still sets rules and regulations that USPS has to follow, so even though your details are wrong, your point is correct.
Seeing as how "fine print" has been a tool of corporations for at least a few decades now, I think it is entirely unreasonable to expect them to be completely open and unambiguous. It's reasonable to HOPE they will be, but after all this time, I wouldn't expect them to be.
Ambiguity aside, people need to read the fine print. You have no one but yourself to blame if you didn't.
"If 19-year-old Russians, the usual suspects, can do so much damage, imagine what people who will not hesitate at suicide can do"
Yeah, they might try to discredit MS and drive people toward open source software. Oh no!
I somehow think terrorists have priorities other than writing computer viruses, spreading AIDS, selling pot to kids, backing gay marriage, and whatever other idiotic nonsense people try to credit them with. Flying planes into buildings and making fertilizer car bombs are not exactly cutting-edge attacks. The claim that these same people are going to start writing viruses is just ludicrous. Yahoo's website being down for a week isn't going to make people have the same reaction that a subway bomb will.
"try asking to speak to 'someone higher up'... although, you'll probably get a decline"
These days, many CSRs are instructed by management to only allow someone to speak to a supervisor after three requests, apparently on the theory that this is good customer service. So if you do ask for a supervisor or manager on duty, be prepared to justify yourself several times before the CSR tries to piss you off by saying, "OK, but they're going to tell you the same thing I did."
Remember not to yell at the CSRs--they have no choice. Yell at the supervisors instead, who make the big bucks--typically a whole 2-3 dollars more than the CSRs!--to deal with angry customers.
"The ONLY way you're going to get any satisfaction out of this is to either, contact the original owner and get his login and password. Then change it and the billing information. OR Buy a new copy."
Nevermind reading the article, did you even read the writeup? Having the account name and password is no help. See above for the clearly outlined reason.
"Accounts have always been, and will always be keyed to one user account. once a CD key is used, that's it, that key is locked the that account."
I guess in the 60s you would have been saying "negroes have always, and will always, ride in the back of the bus." Not that I want to compare a shitty MMORPG to the civil rights movement, but that's the first analogy that popped into my head. Just because that's how it is now, that doesn't mean Blizzard can't change this. They're shooting themselves in the feet.
Also, as others have pointed out, that's NOT how it's always been, even with Blizzard.
The article doesn't say a damn thing about DRM, either. I think you're confused. Are you reading the same article I am? It's linked at the top of this page.
Either that, or you didn't bother reading the fucking article, which has nothing to do with piracy and doesn't even come close to bringing up the topic in the first place.
I should have been more specific. According to the poor English in the article:
"Could the concentrated emotional outpouring of millions of people be able to influence the output of his REGs."
I would expect the emotional outpouring of nations who see terrorism and natural disasters a lot more than we do to be much higher, yet there is no mention of this in the article.
"It's really sad how people can ignore the roots of science."
Let's examine your gravity analogy for a second. Kepler formulated some orbital laws based on what he observed and theorized about gravity. He certainly didn't say, "I bet if we all concentrate hard enough, we can change those orbits."
It's really sad how people can ignore the roots of pseudoscience and buy into this garbage.
"Still is only taking into account the chance of those numbers being drawn, not compounding it with the number of drawings and it happening on that day."
"compounding it with the number of drawings"? Huh? The odds of those numbers coming up were about 1/1000. At two drawings a day, that means the odds are about 1/500 that "911" will be drawn on any day. ANY day, regardless of the date, which makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.
There is no grand conspiracy here. Please learn basic statistics. It's exactly coincidences such as this that make people take this "predictive random number generator" crap seriously.
These people are indeed crackpots. Allegedly the random graph on this device spiked 4 hours before the WTC towers were attacked, "proving" that it must have predicted it. Yet if you take the claim of global consciousness at face value, you'll see this is a load of shit. Many more people died around the world of other causes on the same day. Perhaps the machine was responding to that.
The problem is, you can't accept it at face value. It's ridiculous.
As for Jahn's work, yes, he has a mountain of data dating from 1979. Unreplicated. Even when he tried to replicate some of the results himself, he failed. That's slightly less than convincing evidence to me, sorry.
Slashdot Mirror
But deuterium goes twice as far! *rimshot*
I would be interested in their product if they weren't such spamming fuckheads. Is there anything comparable from a company that doesn't suck?
Sorry, "Fuck shit fuck cock asswipe" doesn't make a language. Where's the grammar?
"The United States Postal Service (although it isn't completely run by the government, it is largely funded by the government and thus, in my opinion, under government control)"
Sort of. USPS receives an annual budget of $0 from the government. According to the union's president last year, USPS is almost entirely funded through the sale of stamps (express and priority mail make up the rest, along with parcel post).
On the other hand, congress still sets rules and regulations that USPS has to follow, so even though your details are wrong, your point is correct.
Even more embarassed than you were when you initially rented it?
Seeing as how "fine print" has been a tool of corporations for at least a few decades now, I think it is entirely unreasonable to expect them to be completely open and unambiguous. It's reasonable to HOPE they will be, but after all this time, I wouldn't expect them to be.
Ambiguity aside, people need to read the fine print. You have no one but yourself to blame if you didn't.
"If 19-year-old Russians, the usual suspects, can do so much damage, imagine what people who will not hesitate at suicide can do"
Yeah, they might try to discredit MS and drive people toward open source software. Oh no!
I somehow think terrorists have priorities other than writing computer viruses, spreading AIDS, selling pot to kids, backing gay marriage, and whatever other idiotic nonsense people try to credit them with. Flying planes into buildings and making fertilizer car bombs are not exactly cutting-edge attacks. The claim that these same people are going to start writing viruses is just ludicrous. Yahoo's website being down for a week isn't going to make people have the same reaction that a subway bomb will.
Halliburton misplaces Americium in Massachusetts, fails to notify Nuclear Regulatory Commission within federally-mandated deadline.
Your fallacy is the assumption that the same people are posting both sides. Do you have specific examples or were you just bitching?
"try asking to speak to 'someone higher up'... although, you'll probably get a decline"
These days, many CSRs are instructed by management to only allow someone to speak to a supervisor after three requests, apparently on the theory that this is good customer service. So if you do ask for a supervisor or manager on duty, be prepared to justify yourself several times before the CSR tries to piss you off by saying, "OK, but they're going to tell you the same thing I did."
Remember not to yell at the CSRs--they have no choice. Yell at the supervisors instead, who make the big bucks--typically a whole 2-3 dollars more than the CSRs!--to deal with angry customers.
"The ONLY way you're going to get any satisfaction out of this is to either, contact the original owner and get his login and password. Then change it and the billing information. OR Buy a new copy."
Nevermind reading the article, did you even read the writeup? Having the account name and password is no help. See above for the clearly outlined reason.
"Accounts have always been, and will always be keyed to one user account. once a CD key is used, that's it, that key is locked the that account."
I guess in the 60s you would have been saying "negroes have always, and will always, ride in the back of the bus." Not that I want to compare a shitty MMORPG to the civil rights movement, but that's the first analogy that popped into my head. Just because that's how it is now, that doesn't mean Blizzard can't change this. They're shooting themselves in the feet.
Also, as others have pointed out, that's NOT how it's always been, even with Blizzard.
Which DVD copying software falls under the 3% not affected by your protection? Thanks in advance.
"So tweak the stack so the app does the acks and then the app can send udp like packets"
:)
You're channeling Dr. Seuss, aren't you?
The article doesn't say a damn thing about DRM, either. I think you're confused. Are you reading the same article I am? It's linked at the top of this page.
I bet people go to more trouble finding her songs than she went to making them.
You're a bot, aren't you?
Either that, or you didn't bother reading the fucking article, which has nothing to do with piracy and doesn't even come close to bringing up the topic in the first place.
"The pestilence of file "sharing" (aka THEFT)"
You mean "copyright infringement." You can believe in the media conglomerates' hype all you like, but the law says otherwise.
"Isn't this refered to as entrapment?"
No.
If Oprah claimed it, IE would start losing the browser wars within a day.
I should have been more specific. According to the poor English in the article:
"Could the concentrated emotional outpouring of millions of people be able to influence the output of his REGs."
I would expect the emotional outpouring of nations who see terrorism and natural disasters a lot more than we do to be much higher, yet there is no mention of this in the article.
"It's really sad how people can ignore the roots of science."
Let's examine your gravity analogy for a second. Kepler formulated some orbital laws based on what he observed and theorized about gravity. He certainly didn't say, "I bet if we all concentrate hard enough, we can change those orbits."
It's really sad how people can ignore the roots of pseudoscience and buy into this garbage.
"Still is only taking into account the chance of those numbers being drawn, not compounding it with the number of drawings and it happening on that day."
"compounding it with the number of drawings"? Huh? The odds of those numbers coming up were about 1/1000. At two drawings a day, that means the odds are about 1/500 that "911" will be drawn on any day. ANY day, regardless of the date, which makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.
There is no grand conspiracy here. Please learn basic statistics. It's exactly coincidences such as this that make people take this "predictive random number generator" crap seriously.
"I thought it was bullshit until I saw Princeton."
Your first hunch was right: http://skepdic.com/pear.html
"Please point out where the researches say that."
My post consisted of three paragraphs. Please enlighten me as to which one you're referring to.
These people are indeed crackpots. Allegedly the random graph on this device spiked 4 hours before the WTC towers were attacked, "proving" that it must have predicted it. Yet if you take the claim of global consciousness at face value, you'll see this is a load of shit. Many more people died around the world of other causes on the same day. Perhaps the machine was responding to that.
The problem is, you can't accept it at face value. It's ridiculous.
As for Jahn's work, yes, he has a mountain of data dating from 1979. Unreplicated. Even when he tried to replicate some of the results himself, he failed. That's slightly less than convincing evidence to me, sorry.