No one said it is happening to everyone. That misses the point entirely. Illegally searching even a small percentage of people is unnacceptable. Especially since people affected by this have almost no redress and the DHS doesn't even accurately report when they do this.
Speaking of missing the point entirely...
1) It's not Homeland Security doing the searching, it's Customs 2) It's not illegal
My 80gb Zune (Microsoft's iPod competitor) doesn't have a removable battery. If it is removable, damned if I know how to get the thing open and get at it. Other than that, I can't think of anything.
But you're right, the reason the article mentions iPhones by name is because iPhone = news. I'm sure this legislation affects thousands of different devices that just don't happen to be as well-known.
The EU forced Microsoft to create a version of XP that literally nobody wanted. They didn't sell a single box of "XP minus Media Center," it was all just a huge waste of their time and money.
I have no idea what the EU has against Microsoft. If they were really concerned with the monopoly angle, they'd do what they did when the US had a monopoly on airliners: create a new company to compete on equal footing. It almost makes you think it's just some guy's personal crusade, using the EU to accomplish it or something, I dunno.
well where should i start off with this one. in a textual comment posted on a message board, it is difficult to prove that i really am thinking, and am not a bot highly skilled at crafting humans legible sentences.
If you're a bot, you're not one "highly skilled at crafting legible sentences." Same applies if you're a human though, so it's a wash.
Protip: people skilled at crafting sentences usually make use of this invention called "the shift key."
I don't own a television because I don't find it entertaining, and I don't want to pay a monthly cable bill. It's not some "refusal" thing, it's not some political point, and I'm not an annoying asshole about it when talking to other people and one of them casually mentions some funny commercial. (I just say I haven't seen it yet.) It is possible to not own a TV and not be making any kind of "statement" to the world at large; the annoying people we're talking about are the people who constantly mention they don't own a TV because it makes them feel better than everybody else.
If I want passive entertainment, Blockbuster.com has more movies than I could watch in a lifetime and they'll happily mail them to me for a small monthly payment.
(That's not entirely true, I do actually own a TV but it's only used as an Xbox 360/DVD monitor. There's no antenna, cable, or satellite going into it.)
This guy doesn't want privacy, he wants to feel better than everybody else.
I agree with you. And this is coming from a person who actually doesn't watch TV (of course, I also don't act like a jackass about it when other people mention TV shows or commercials.)
Anyway, he should try switching to Apple products, then he could get that sense of smug provided by Jobs and Co. and, as an added bonus, he could be more in-touch with Facebook/MySpace/Twitter/Web 2.0-type apps than ever using his new iPhone!
(Yes, yes, I know, "it's possible to make a native and fast GUI in Java! It's easy to do! Trivial!" And yet, no Java program I've ever used has actually *had* one.)
The nice thing about the electoral system is that the states get to decide how to divvy-up their votes. Removing the electoral system altogether removes that right from the state, and at the same time greatly expands the role and power of the federal government, something I simply can't get behind.
Actually, a lot of people not aware of concept of negotiation. I do not know about US schools but I have an information, that in Soviet Russia there were absolutely no lessons on contracts and how to negotiate. If such person (and there are a lot of immigrants from the former Soviet block) come into the described situation, he'll have some troubles.
Nobody learns it in classrooms. You learn it in the lunchroom, while trading items from your lunch bag.
That said, I doubt there's any normally-functioning adult unaware of the concept. How else would they buy real estate? Cars? Or even go to a garage sale? If someone actually bought a house without negotiating it, they might as well change their name to Sucker McShit-For-Brains right now.
Negotiate with the company until the terms are to your liking, or until it's clear they're not willing to give you what you want. Start with insisting they get rid of the non-compete clause. If they keep coming back with more money, you just need to decide whether the amount of money they're offering is worth it.
It sounds like you're asking, "I got an offer from a company, and I'm not aware of the concept of 'negotiation'."
I just hate FUD, regardless of who's spreading it. I've yet to see any actual evidence that Microsoft pays people to post anything on Slashdot. Until I do, I'm filing claims like yours into the bullshit bucket, and I hope everybody else reading this board does too.
If Vista is a "near disaster" then I guess a losing a box of paperclips would be a full-on disaster. The hyperbole is way out-of-whack with the product at this point, let's tone it down a little bit.
An actual "near disaster" would put Microsoft into "near bankruptcy." Ford's Edsel was a "near disaster," Vista isn't anywhere even remotely close.
If you want backup, use Mozy.com. It's already been around and perfected for many years, it integrates into "Shadow Copy" on Windows and "Time Machine" on OS X, it's cheap and effective. My media PC is backed-up to Mozy, over 250 GB with no problems.
I think this is a decent question. You'll note that other OS's actually DO evolve at a decent rate (Linux OSX, etc). So why does Windows such a dog?
Supposedly they do, but why isn't OS X and Linux substantially better than Windows if that is the case? I mean, OS X hasn't even begun implementing Windows' enterprise features and game features, nor has Apple shown any inclination towards either.
It's all the OTHER pieces of software that simply HAVE to work on windows for them to continue to exist. Microsoft has resisted pruning much out since the Win32 architecture first came out, for fear of losing market share to the competition. This has been a mistake, and is costing them now.
Is it?
If Microsoft does make changes that broke older software packages (they made a few in Vista, at least the 64-bit version), why do you assume those packages would be re-built as Linux, or OS X, or Java apps instead of simply re-built as Windows apps?
After all, the developers who wrote it originally know Windows best, their customers already all use Windows, and a new Windows version would be able to use more of the old code than any Linux or OS X port would. And from the business angle, what has changed in the marketplace to make Windows-compatibility less important to their existence? Nothing.
I've worked on XP machines that were skinned to look like Vista machines, and it is very hard to tell the difference.
Do any of those skinning packages do real compositing of windows, or do they just fake it with clever bitmap-moving? Have a link?
Look at KDE, Gnome, or the Linux kernel over the last 8 years... Amazing changes, all sorts of added functionality.
Yeah, but 8 years ago they hardly did shit. It's not so much "added functionality" as "catching up to Windows and Mac OS."
To go back to my compositing example, sure there's now compositing in Ubuntu-- they started working on it when OS X announced it would have the feature, and they finished it up shortly after Windows Vista actually shipped with the feature. That's not "added functionality," that's "catch up."
Take a look at the MacOS over the last 8 years - again, huge changes. Not just from a UI standpoint but real changes in how the OS operates.
Yeah, but not all the changes have been positive. There are still Mac OS 9 features that haven't been implemented in OS X. OS X's Finder is still vastly inferior to the OS 9 version. OS X's task switcher might be better than the OS 9 version, but it's vastly inferior to the Windows taskbar. Software compatibility in Mac-land is a joke; it's already impossible to run a OS 9 program at all, and soon it'll be impossible to run *any* PPC program on OS X.
These are all reasons I no longer buy Apple computers, and instead I've switched to Windows. That's not to say that Windows is a better product, but at least with Windows I know features I love won't be "disappeared" during the night, and I won't be paying through the nose to upgrade perfectly good software packages that the OS vendor decided to break for no good reason.
Vista is a little bit more secure... A little bit less stable... And a lot more shiny... But that's about it.
In what way is Vista "less stable" than XP?
I kind of disagree with your premise though. The reason Windows doesn't evolve is because it can't evolve; Windows' biggest selling-point is that it's compatible with millions of old software. The fact that Vista has made as many changes as it has in the light of maintaining that compatibility is impressive to me.
You also have to remember that Microsoft took the most popular office software on Earth and completely and utterly rebuilt its GUI, basically from the ground up. When compatibility isn't as much an issue, they've shown that they're completely willing to make drastic changes to improve a product.
Just because Joe Six Pack doesn't know a damned thing about open source doesn't mean it doesn't matter to them. Just look at the untold millions that Microsoft has expended attempting to destroy it.
Are these two sentences supposed to relate to each other in some way? I mean, why does "Microsoft spending money fighting X" interest Joe Six Pack in any way, shape, or form? I'm not following the logic here.
WTHolyF did you do to that poor Xbox 360? Or are you running a hacked one with some weird custom software on it? Or maybe you have the crappiest game on earth in the drive, and that's the delay? Or are you using "Resume" on your MacBook instead of actually rebooting it?
I can guarantee that that is not at all typical. The Xbox 360 should be well into the game's splash before 5 seconds are up. No way in hell any release of OS X on any hardware boots that fast.
Environmentalists never care about where Coal, Gas or Oil waste goes. Here's a hint: we don't know. There's no storage facility for it, it just goes literally wherever the wind blows it.
We do know that burning of coal releases nuclear materials, more per-watt than a nuclear power plant. How come coal plants are immune to the kind of requirements you're setting for nuclear plants? Because the pollution is more spread-out it's suddenly less harmful?
I see it as hypocritical to set up requirements for nuclear plants that aren't currently in-place for Coal, Gas or Oil plants.
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No one said it is happening to everyone. That misses the point entirely. Illegally searching even a small percentage of people is unnacceptable. Especially since people affected by this have almost no redress and the DHS doesn't even accurately report when they do this.
Speaking of missing the point entirely...
1) It's not Homeland Security doing the searching, it's Customs
2) It's not illegal
My 80gb Zune (Microsoft's iPod competitor) doesn't have a removable battery. If it is removable, damned if I know how to get the thing open and get at it. Other than that, I can't think of anything.
But you're right, the reason the article mentions iPhones by name is because iPhone = news. I'm sure this legislation affects thousands of different devices that just don't happen to be as well-known.
The EU forced Microsoft to create a version of XP that literally nobody wanted. They didn't sell a single box of "XP minus Media Center," it was all just a huge waste of their time and money.
I have no idea what the EU has against Microsoft. If they were really concerned with the monopoly angle, they'd do what they did when the US had a monopoly on airliners: create a new company to compete on equal footing. It almost makes you think it's just some guy's personal crusade, using the EU to accomplish it or something, I dunno.
well where should i start off with this one. in a textual comment posted on a message board, it is difficult to prove that i really am thinking, and am not a bot highly skilled at crafting humans legible sentences.
If you're a bot, you're not one "highly skilled at crafting legible sentences." Same applies if you're a human though, so it's a wash.
Protip: people skilled at crafting sentences usually make use of this invention called "the shift key."
I don't own a television because I don't find it entertaining, and I don't want to pay a monthly cable bill. It's not some "refusal" thing, it's not some political point, and I'm not an annoying asshole about it when talking to other people and one of them casually mentions some funny commercial. (I just say I haven't seen it yet.) It is possible to not own a TV and not be making any kind of "statement" to the world at large; the annoying people we're talking about are the people who constantly mention they don't own a TV because it makes them feel better than everybody else.
If I want passive entertainment, Blockbuster.com has more movies than I could watch in a lifetime and they'll happily mail them to me for a small monthly payment.
(That's not entirely true, I do actually own a TV but it's only used as an Xbox 360/DVD monitor. There's no antenna, cable, or satellite going into it.)
This guy doesn't want privacy, he wants to feel better than everybody else.
I agree with you. And this is coming from a person who actually doesn't watch TV (of course, I also don't act like a jackass about it when other people mention TV shows or commercials.)
Anyway, he should try switching to Apple products, then he could get that sense of smug provided by Jobs and Co. and, as an added bonus, he could be more in-touch with Facebook/MySpace/Twitter/Web 2.0-type apps than ever using his new iPhone!
If you need a GUI, use .net. Java GUIs suck.
(Yes, yes, I know, "it's possible to make a native and fast GUI in Java! It's easy to do! Trivial!" And yet, no Java program I've ever used has actually *had* one.)
Nothing's stopping states from doing that now.
The nice thing about the electoral system is that the states get to decide how to divvy-up their votes. Removing the electoral system altogether removes that right from the state, and at the same time greatly expands the role and power of the federal government, something I simply can't get behind.
At the risk of asking a dumb question...
What are you using DVD Decrypter and DVD2One for if you still have to dig through your pile of disks to find the one you want to watch?
Whatever happened to Captain Placeholder? I loved that guy!
Does Phantom Menace even have a flying submarine? It has a regular submarine...
But anyway, obviously the correct reference is to the submersible squadron from Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Der. Plus: Angelina Jolie!
The summary forgot to mention the requirement that the vehicle must also have a screen door.
If you know enough to know that you need help, you're not the person I'm talking about.
Actually, a lot of people not aware of concept of negotiation. I do not know about US schools but I have an information, that in Soviet Russia there were absolutely no lessons on contracts and how to negotiate. If such person (and there are a lot of immigrants from the former Soviet block) come into the described situation, he'll have some troubles.
Nobody learns it in classrooms. You learn it in the lunchroom, while trading items from your lunch bag.
That said, I doubt there's any normally-functioning adult unaware of the concept. How else would they buy real estate? Cars? Or even go to a garage sale? If someone actually bought a house without negotiating it, they might as well change their name to Sucker McShit-For-Brains right now.
I don't even understand.
Negotiate with the company until the terms are to your liking, or until it's clear they're not willing to give you what you want. Start with insisting they get rid of the non-compete clause. If they keep coming back with more money, you just need to decide whether the amount of money they're offering is worth it.
It sounds like you're asking, "I got an offer from a company, and I'm not aware of the concept of 'negotiation'."
I just hate FUD, regardless of who's spreading it. I've yet to see any actual evidence that Microsoft pays people to post anything on Slashdot. Until I do, I'm filing claims like yours into the bullshit bucket, and I hope everybody else reading this board does too.
Oh, please.
If Vista is a "near disaster" then I guess a losing a box of paperclips would be a full-on disaster. The hyperbole is way out-of-whack with the product at this point, let's tone it down a little bit.
An actual "near disaster" would put Microsoft into "near bankruptcy." Ford's Edsel was a "near disaster," Vista isn't anywhere even remotely close.
If you want backup, use Mozy.com. It's already been around and perfected for many years, it integrates into "Shadow Copy" on Windows and "Time Machine" on OS X, it's cheap and effective. My media PC is backed-up to Mozy, over 250 GB with no problems.
Their publicity agencies are here on Slashdot pumping that angle every day.
Proof? Citation Needed?
Me being sick of people spreading utter bullshit like this and assuming everybody reading Slashdot is so stupid that they'll bend over and take it?
I think this is a decent question. You'll note that other OS's actually DO evolve at a decent rate (Linux OSX, etc). So why does Windows such a dog?
Supposedly they do, but why isn't OS X and Linux substantially better than Windows if that is the case? I mean, OS X hasn't even begun implementing Windows' enterprise features and game features, nor has Apple shown any inclination towards either.
It's all the OTHER pieces of software that simply HAVE to work on windows for them to continue to exist. Microsoft has resisted pruning much out since the Win32 architecture first came out, for fear of losing market share to the competition. This has been a mistake, and is costing them now.
Is it?
If Microsoft does make changes that broke older software packages (they made a few in Vista, at least the 64-bit version), why do you assume those packages would be re-built as Linux, or OS X, or Java apps instead of simply re-built as Windows apps?
After all, the developers who wrote it originally know Windows best, their customers already all use Windows, and a new Windows version would be able to use more of the old code than any Linux or OS X port would. And from the business angle, what has changed in the marketplace to make Windows-compatibility less important to their existence? Nothing.
I've worked on XP machines that were skinned to look like Vista machines, and it is very hard to tell the difference.
Do any of those skinning packages do real compositing of windows, or do they just fake it with clever bitmap-moving? Have a link?
Look at KDE, Gnome, or the Linux kernel over the last 8 years... Amazing changes, all sorts of added functionality.
Yeah, but 8 years ago they hardly did shit. It's not so much "added functionality" as "catching up to Windows and Mac OS."
To go back to my compositing example, sure there's now compositing in Ubuntu-- they started working on it when OS X announced it would have the feature, and they finished it up shortly after Windows Vista actually shipped with the feature. That's not "added functionality," that's "catch up."
Take a look at the MacOS over the last 8 years - again, huge changes. Not just from a UI standpoint but real changes in how the OS operates.
Yeah, but not all the changes have been positive. There are still Mac OS 9 features that haven't been implemented in OS X. OS X's Finder is still vastly inferior to the OS 9 version. OS X's task switcher might be better than the OS 9 version, but it's vastly inferior to the Windows taskbar. Software compatibility in Mac-land is a joke; it's already impossible to run a OS 9 program at all, and soon it'll be impossible to run *any* PPC program on OS X.
These are all reasons I no longer buy Apple computers, and instead I've switched to Windows. That's not to say that Windows is a better product, but at least with Windows I know features I love won't be "disappeared" during the night, and I won't be paying through the nose to upgrade perfectly good software packages that the OS vendor decided to break for no good reason.
Vista is a little bit more secure... A little bit less stable... And a lot more shiny... But that's about it.
In what way is Vista "less stable" than XP?
I kind of disagree with your premise though. The reason Windows doesn't evolve is because it can't evolve; Windows' biggest selling-point is that it's compatible with millions of old software. The fact that Vista has made as many changes as it has in the light of maintaining that compatibility is impressive to me.
You also have to remember that Microsoft took the most popular office software on Earth and completely and utterly rebuilt its GUI, basically from the ground up. When compatibility isn't as much an issue, they've shown that they're completely willing to make drastic changes to improve a product.
Ok, I think this is now the 6th or 7th "series of tubes" joke posted on this topic. It wasn't funny the first time! Please, just stop.
Just because Joe Six Pack doesn't know a damned thing about open source doesn't mean it doesn't matter to them. Just look at the untold millions that Microsoft has expended attempting to destroy it.
Are these two sentences supposed to relate to each other in some way? I mean, why does "Microsoft spending money fighting X" interest Joe Six Pack in any way, shape, or form? I'm not following the logic here.
Seriously?
WTHolyF did you do to that poor Xbox 360? Or are you running a hacked one with some weird custom software on it? Or maybe you have the crappiest game on earth in the drive, and that's the delay? Or are you using "Resume" on your MacBook instead of actually rebooting it?
I can guarantee that that is not at all typical. The Xbox 360 should be well into the game's splash before 5 seconds are up. No way in hell any release of OS X on any hardware boots that fast.
Environmentalists never care about where Coal, Gas or Oil waste goes. Here's a hint: we don't know. There's no storage facility for it, it just goes literally wherever the wind blows it.
We do know that burning of coal releases nuclear materials, more per-watt than a nuclear power plant. How come coal plants are immune to the kind of requirements you're setting for nuclear plants? Because the pollution is more spread-out it's suddenly less harmful?
I see it as hypocritical to set up requirements for nuclear plants that aren't currently in-place for Coal, Gas or Oil plants.