
gettin stupid
Patient laws are getting stupid. They need to be changed.
221 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Jan 2010
Modern day Sparta (the United States) seems to be looking for any excuse to start a war with any nation over any reason. The Military Industrial complex must be fed. Even though the US Military budget is greater than the sum of the next 10 highest spending nations (not including our never ending war against Afghanistan) and the US debt is going through the roof; the US must find new meat to destroy
In today's "Windows" mentality, people can control a technology that they don't understand. With a click of a mouse, they can start a process in which they can see a result, but have no idea how that result was obtained. That is very dangerous for our society today. Almost daily, I read in the Register about people who have had their checking/saving accounts compromised, viruses, Trojans, phishing scams, cars being hacked via the internet, and the such. Perhaps, the emphasis should be on requiring schools to teach more about computer technology. A high school graduation requirement would be that a student must learn, minimally, one programming language, how a computer works, and how the internet and networking work. That would help people understand a little about the technology that they have. Open Source would get the programming support that it deserves, and society would be made generally better.
I agree with you 100 percent. I am running Ubuntu 10.10 on my main computer (home brew). My Ubuntu computer also serves as a file server for 9 computers on my lan. I have found Ubuntu to be far simpler and more stable than any Windows product. The computers/devices on my lan use a variety of operating systems. Everything runs perfectly. I have an Iphone, Ipod touch, several computers with various Windows and Linux products. To me,Ubuntu is the best thing invented since sex.
When the top security firms cannot stop hacking/virus attempts, how can the little guy stop this kind of activity from happening? Likewise, with future Iphone being cloud based and HP going to a cloud based operating system, do you really thing that organizations going toward a cloud based computing system can assure security? Even on my personal pc, I have at least 3 antivirus/anti-adware packages and I don't feel safe.
I am wondering about a few thing. First I read that Apple is thinking about putting the next generation of iphone on a cloud. I am curious, if I have one of these cloud based I phones, will Apple turn my Iphone into a brick because they stop supporting my Iphone? So will my phone be cut off of cloud support two years after I buy it? Just thinking.
Using a cloud based environment for the new apple Iwhatever is a software company's and the entertainment industry's dream come true. No more pirated movies or songs as they will totally control what you have on your machine. Also, jailbreaking will be a thing of the past. Apple will control everything that you can do with your produce (for a fee of course). When Apple decides that your model is obsolete, you will be cut off and all that you will have is a brick. Microsoft has proposed this idea for years to stop illegal copies of Windows and shut down obsolete computers and Windows products (for the user's protection). Welcome to the world where two companies will totally control the computer industry
These crimes we designed to prosecute people who gave intelligence information to an enemy of the US that would allow them to obtain a strategic advantage in a war against the US. Most of the info in the Wikileaks documents the enemy already knows about. They know about the school children and innocent civilians that were innocently butchered. The government wants to keep what is really happening in Afghanistan and what happened in Iraq a secret from the US population! IF they win this one, you can bet that the US will be in Afghanistan for a long long time showing them our version of democracy.
In reality, cloud based architectures are not really a solution. The problem with viruses is the Internet. I have a neighbor who has a 15 year old computer and does not use the net and does not put many new products on his machine. He does not get viruses. With Active x, Java, security will be almost impossible. Only a totally black holed machine will be secure. With people who do not educate themselves, a virus prone Windows product, browsers that have almost every attachment that allows defective Active x controls, viruses will remain. With hackers, criminals, and governments producing viruses for various reasons, the problem will only get worse. I am writing this text from my server. I use virtual machines and have antivirus products. I have my own DNS server and an Fence for the net. I try to keep up to date on everything I can. And guess what, I still don't feel secure against viruses. Several people on my lan have gotten viruses by stupid web use over the years.
It is sad that people are trying to predict who might commit an offense against children. I can imagine a future that all parents must be licensed to have children. Perhaps being interested in soap operas would disqualify you as a parent. With all this over protection of children, world wide child abuse grows at an alarming rate in spite of this over zealous approach to prevention. I just got through watching a downloaded wiki-leak about some soldiers "lighting up" a child in Iraq. If you really want to stop child abuse, stop all the senseless wars that are going on. Then you can go one step further by sending aid to countries where children are starving to death. That would do a lot to prevent child abuse
The sad thing is that Intellectual Ventures probably hasn't invented anything. The company is probably top heavy with lawyers. The patent laws need to be changed so that someone has to
have a working model of what they are trying to patent before a patent can be granted. The law should be changed so that a group of people who sit down and patent everything they can think of cannot get patents.
Reading about all the nice people who are having a great experience with Windows 7. I wonder if it is a chicken or the egg argument. I see people who buy computers with Window 7 and the computers have a large increase in processor power over their old computers. For most users, the people with Win 7 run the same programs as they did with Windows 98. So is it that Windows 7 is a step up for the user or another step in the Wintel cycle? Is the eventual goal of this never ending cycle of software-hardware upgrades every 2 to 4 years going to give people more things that they can do with their computer,,,,,, or will we have computers with the power of the computer on the Star Ship Enterprise running Windows 666 taking over a minute to bring up a Word document? Only the future knows for sure.
I have over 15 year experience as a computer specialist (programming, systems design, electrical engineering applications, and as a manager). Back in the early days of computer, software could not be copyright protected because a computer program (like C o Cobol) was view as nothing but instructions to a compiler (or assembler). Many corporations freely distributed the software that they developed. Now we have come full circle to where the owner of the software(in my book, the purchaser) has no rights and the software writer has dictatorial rights
In the US, child pornography laws were expanded to include sexually provocative shots (no sex acts involved). The people pushing for this law change reassured parents that they would not be prosecuted for having bath tub shots and the like. The interpretation of this laws now includes all frontal nudity. In the US people have been sent to prison and classified as sex offenders for having bath tub shots of themselves! Children are being classified as sex offenders for sending nude or semi-nude pictures of themselves to each other. In this case the victim is being punished. Laws are needed to protect children from predators, but somehow things have gone too far the other way in some cases.
My beef against Microsoft has a total monopoly on computer operating systems. Monopolies promote inefficiency (Vista) and waste (corporations and individuals having to completely upgrade their systems evertry 2 to 4 years). People are forced to upgrade their computers at a cost of 400 to 600 dollars every 2 to 4 years. I live in a town that has a high poverty rate. I often buy p4's at e-cycling centers and fix them and put Ubuntu on them for people who can't afford computers for their children. The only fault with these p4 (and p3) computers is that they have been artificially made technologically obsolete by Microsoft. IF there were competing computer os's and office software, Microsoft would be hesitant to pull support for the older machines because Microsoft's loss would be someone else's gain.
To see the truth, imagine a monopoly like MS+Intel running the HDTV industry. You would have to replace your HDTV every 2 to 4 years because the digital standard would change forcing you to get a new tv! Or having a automobile that has to be replaced because parts would be unavailable after 2 to 4 years. This mentality is ok for those with money, but it is the shaft for the rest of us
You are never going to eliminate piracy until the motion picture industry compromises too. The Sonny Bono copyright extension act extends the copyright of movies to 120 years. That allows the motion picture industry to have almost infinite copyright protection. That is not right folks. If this were applies to the entire patent industry, generic drugs would be eliminated instantly! The copyright laws were passed to protect works of art. But with the infinite copyright laws as they stand, most less than popular movies will be buried forever as the motion picture industry views them as not worth the effort to re-release.
As far as software is concerned, copyrights have been only recently created. When I started as a computer programmer/ analyst in the 60's, code was thought to be un-copyrightable. Through efforts by monopoly software development firms, that was changed. Indeed, you, in theory, don't even own the copy of Windows that you are using, but you only have a license..
The real problem is that MS has the only commercially available operating system in the world, they hold a total monopoly. OPen source is their only competition. With no other software companies commercially producing operating systems, there is little incentive for MS to produce a quality produce.
What is going to make the Apple products (indeed all smart phones and ipad lookalikes) is that these products have a tiny weeny screen and cheap transistor radio speakers. Sure you can dock them, but the real future is having a 50 inch plasma screen tv, a good sound system with the pc as the center of the home entertainment system (like I have). I have over a terabyte of storage, internet access, and my content is not controlled by Apple.I know people with Iphones who are using them less and less because it is not much fun watching a movie on a tiny screen. Smart phones are here to stay, but so is the pc.