Until consumers effectively rebel against this kind of crap, it ain't going away. And the odds of that are pretty slim. Remember, this is the same population buying "converter boxes" for $40 or more just to continue watching "free tv". Myself, unless the advertisers send me a box for free, I won't be able to view their commercials after February 17th. My, what a loss.
I had fun lately with some telemarketer calling to "update their database" - certainly not to try and SELL us anything. This is the last kind of crap we want.
I asked for her fax number so I could fax her our "Database Inclusion Agreemnet". They'd need to fill it out and return it with either the $2,500 annual license fee to include our copyrighted corporate name in their database or the $25,000 "Lifetime License Agreement". I explained that by including us without such agreement and fee we felt they would be guilty of copyright infringement and be referred to our legal department.
Not surprisingly, I got hung up on. I really need to get to work on that inclusion agreement. And get a legal department.
You could be perfectly correct, but "we haven't discovered it so it doesn't exist" sound like famous last words. Kind of like "640K ought to be enough for everybody".
>I see, so your argument is that if it can't be fixed by the discoverer, > they should keep it obscure.
Yeah, we could have the oft-heard chicken or egg debate. But we both know where it would end up. One side would say "disclose everything right away" and the other side would say "give the vendors a chance to fix it first". See how much time we just saved?
Once Windows programs are written with UAC in mind, UAC won't be such a problem.
In theory UAC was a great idea. It protected people from themselves, but it was too intrusive. An alternate idea is to teach the user the importance of limited accounts and how they prevent the accessibility of nasties such as viruses. UAC should be a single dialogue with 'Continue' and 'Cancel' and an explanation of why the user was interrupted.
The summary is incorrect - Weston was not offered $80 million for the design, NASA simply wanted to use their design for an $80 million dollar mission.
From TFA:
When high-ranking NASA officials saw a flight test, they were impressed enough to include the team in an $80 million dollar mission to the moon.
Which makes far more sense - why would NASA pay money for a design that was developed with its own money?
In government-ese it just makes more sense to pay $80M for something you already bought once for $4M.
a) We short circuited the whitehouse email by using GOP addresses b) There was stuff we didn't want anyone to know in there c) We deleted it all and trashed the server storage just in case
The only hope for taking our country back is to recompile our government from the source code and start again. Have you ever been at a point in a project where you just have to stop and reassess why you're doing things the way you are? Project America needs a serious rethink.
If I had mod points today, you'd be insightful or funny. I'll have to settle for reminding the group of Mr. Data'somment in ST:TNG episode 126 (The Neutral Zone) that television died as an entertainment medium early in the 20th century.
Scifi has a long history of correctly predicting the future.
>"There is a customer segment that really enjoys this always-on, >always up-to-date aspect of the service," Microsoft group product > manager Bryson Gordon said.
Indeed we do. We're called Ubuntu users. The little orange icon lets us know when ANY of our programs have updates available and then DOESN'T pester the crap out of us if we don't install them right away.
Well, I guess I'm obliged to mention Richard Pearse http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/pearse1.html, the famous Kiwi who could have claimed first flight, but didn't. It seems Mr. Pearse managed to land in some shrubbery a couple of times and had other problems. *He* didn't consider his flights successful, but most Kiwis will defend his record to the death.
>The financial crisis that the US is facing is not caused by our war of aggression
Actually, it is - at least in part. A friend of mine recently opined that the current economic crisis is caused by the the rest of the world losing respect and trust in the US. I suspect he may be right.
>But perhaps there should be a time limit on how long the patent holder has to sue,
I'm not an attorney, but I believe the doctrine of Laches might apply. Basically, you can't wait until the damages are massive just for the sake of increasing your claim.
Professor John Frary http://www.fraryforcongress.com/ has thrown his hat into the ring and his dignity to the wind in an effort to unseat long-time democrat Mike Michaud.
Slashdot Mirror
Until consumers effectively rebel against this kind of crap, it ain't going away. And the odds of that are pretty slim. Remember, this is the same population buying "converter boxes" for $40 or more just to continue watching "free tv". Myself, unless the advertisers send me a box for free, I won't be able to view their commercials after February 17th. My, what a loss.
> Occam's Razor says that you're an idiot
Thank you.
> why would you opt to use such "lovely round numbers" as 32 and 14.7, when you can use metric.
> IT'S SUPERIOR, BITCHES!
Well. hey, if you need it simplified so it's understandable to you, go right ahead. Use whatever system you like.
Simpler, however, is not necessarily "superior".
I had fun lately with some telemarketer calling to "update their database" - certainly not to try and SELL us anything. This is the last kind of crap we want.
I asked for her fax number so I could fax her our "Database Inclusion Agreemnet". They'd need to fill it out and return it with either the $2,500 annual license fee to include our copyrighted corporate name in their database or the $25,000 "Lifetime License Agreement". I explained that by including us without such agreement and fee we felt they would be guilty of copyright infringement and be referred to our legal department.
Not surprisingly, I got hung up on. I really need to get to work on that inclusion agreement. And get a legal department.
You could be perfectly correct, but "we haven't discovered it so it doesn't exist" sound like famous last words. Kind of like "640K ought to be enough for everybody".
Five?! Did you forget me?
Al For President!
> Whatever you're smoking, I want some, that is some great stuff.
Really? So when a program is written that doesn't require admin privileges, or needs them much less oftern, it's not going to help?
Silly me.
>I see, so your argument is that if it can't be fixed by the discoverer,
> they should keep it obscure.
Yeah, we could have the oft-heard chicken or egg debate. But we both know where it would end up. One side would say "disclose everything right away" and the other side would say "give the vendors a chance to fix it first". See how much time we just saved?
Indeed. And are you going to make patches publicly available for all the hardware and operating systems in the world, too?
>"Is anyone paying attention in Redmond?"
I certainly hope not.
--
In government-ese it just makes more sense to pay $80M for something you already bought once for $4M.
Any chance you have a site or two handy for reference? I'll help spread the word.
Here it is:
a) We short circuited the whitehouse email by using GOP addresses
b) There was stuff we didn't want anyone to know in there
c) We deleted it all and trashed the server storage just in case
Does that answer your question?
>Particularly the phone calls of our congressmen and presidents to lobbyists and such, top secret or not.
yeah, yeah. They can bite my ass. Stick that up your datapipe and retain it for a while, uncle sam.
The only hope for taking our country back is to recompile our government from the source code and start again. Have you ever been at a point in a project where you just have to stop and reassess why you're doing things the way you are? Project America needs a serious rethink.
Humph ... so much for going to all the trouble of finding the correct episode number only to muff the quote.
If I had mod points today, you'd be insightful or funny. I'll have to settle for reminding the group of Mr. Data'somment in ST:TNG episode 126 (The Neutral Zone) that television died as an entertainment medium early in the 20th century.
Scifi has a long history of correctly predicting the future.
>"There is a customer segment that really enjoys this always-on,
>always up-to-date aspect of the service," Microsoft group product
> manager Bryson Gordon said.
Indeed we do. We're called Ubuntu users. The little orange icon lets us know when ANY of our programs have updates available and then DOESN'T pester the crap out of us if we don't install them right away.
And our subscriptions are always paid up.
Well, I guess I'm obliged to mention Richard Pearse http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/pearse1.html, the famous Kiwi who could have claimed first flight, but didn't. It seems Mr. Pearse managed to land in some shrubbery a couple of times and had other problems. *He* didn't consider his flights successful, but most Kiwis will defend his record to the death.
>And I know for a fact that Google pays more than mere lip service to that motto (not policy).
How do you know?
>The financial crisis that the US is facing is not caused by our war of aggression
Actually, it is - at least in part. A friend of mine recently opined that the current economic crisis is caused by the the rest of the world losing respect and trust in the US. I suspect he may be right.
>But perhaps there should be a time limit on how long the patent holder has to sue,
I'm not an attorney, but I believe the doctrine of Laches might apply. Basically, you can't wait until the damages are massive just for the sake of increasing your claim.
I don't see how their threat matters. Professor Felton, nor any other 3rd party, would be bound by Sequoia's contract with the state of NJ.
Hell, send the machine to me - I'll examine the hell out of it. I'm not bound by sequoia's contracts or agreements.
The house is not without it's own lunatic fringe.
Professor John Frary http://www.fraryforcongress.com/ has thrown his hat into the ring and his dignity to the wind in an effort to unseat long-time democrat Mike Michaud.