"DRM has absolutely nothing to do with protecting content, it is about protecting the wallets of major corporations. The funny thing is they aren't protecting it from you, they are protecting it from each other. ...
You have enough walled gardens to last a lifetime, and each one is filled with greedy execs trying to wrap their mind around how much money this will bring them. The stakes are high, they each want it all, and want all the others to go away, there is no middle ground.
"
" 'This demonstrates our customers' ( = U.S. taxpayers) willingness to pay a premium ( = U.S. taxpayers were never consulted on the matter) for our technological expertise that results in accelerated production rates', Dave Lesar, Halliburton's CEO, said in a statement."
"The brothers can arguably be said to have invented the modern fast-food restaurant ....
In 1954 a milkshake machine salesman, Ray Kroc, became inspired by the evident financial success of the brothers' concept, immediately grasping the restaurant's enormous potential. He partnered with the brothers, and within a few years turned their small restaurant into a huge franchise that would later become the McDonald's Corporation. ...
Kroc became frustrated with the brothers' willingness to accept their chain having a handful of restaurants; fearing that the restaurant had to expand massively to fill demand, before a competitor did. In 1961 he purchased the company from the brothers. ...
He also opened a new McDonald's restaurant near the original one (now renamed "The Big M" ... ) to force it out of business."
"The good people of Oklahoma asked Microsoft to help the State write a new law banning spyware, and the results are amazing.
Apparently the state was so impressed with Vole’s
(aka Microsoft Corporation)
work on the law it plans to bring it before its government for debate under the fairly harmless title "Computer Spyware Protection Act House" Bill 2083.
The law is amazing, not only because it is probably the first written overtly by a major company without bothering with the tedious problem of lobbying, but because… well it is written by Microsoft, what do you think could go wrong?
... if you install Vista, Microsoft can come in, snoop around your computer see if you are doing anything illegal and delete it.
The watchers
"Get ready for Microsoft, cable and phone companies, and quite a few other people to know a lot more about what you do on your computer, thanks to House Bill 2083."
by Ben Fenwick
05 APR 2006
"If you click that “accept” button on the routine user’s agreement, the proposed law would allow any company from whom you bought upgradable software the freedom to come onto your computer for 'detection or prevention of the unauthorized use of or fraudulent or other illegal activities in connection with a network, service, or computer software, including scanning for and removing computer software prescribed under this act.'
That means that Microsoft (or another company with such software) can erase spyware or viruses. But if you have, say, a pirated copy of Excel — Microsoft (or companies with similar software) can erase it, or anything else they want to erase, and not be held liable for it. Additionally, that phrase “fraudulent or other illegal activities” means they can:
—Let the local district attorney know that you wrote a hot check last month.
—Let the attorney general know that you play online poker.
—Let the tax commission know you bought cartons of cigarettes and didn’t pay the state tax on them.
—Read anything on your hard drive, such as your name, home address, personal identification code, passwords, Social Security number … etc., etc., etc."
"Do you buy your electronic games at Wal-Mart? Never mind, doesn't matter. The retail games you buy at GameStop or Best Buy or online are the games Wal-Mart has decided you can buy.
Publisher sales reps inform Wal-Mart buyers of games in development; the games' subjects, titles, artwork and packaging are vetted and sometimes vetoed by Wal-Mart. If Wal-Mart tells a top-end publisher it won't carry a certain game, the publisher kills that game. In short, every triple-A game sold at retail in North America is managed start to finish, top to bottom, with the publisher's gaze fixed squarely on Wal-Mart, and no other."
" 'Gov. Joe Manchin said Thursday that the Bush administration should require full-time, professional rescue teams to respond to fires and explosions in the nation’s coal mines.'
(Quoted in the Charleston Gazettehere
) ...
You know what would be even more effective? Preventing the accidents from happening in the first place. I guess that would take something crazy like enforcing the workplace safety laws already on the books."
