[maxeem_com]

I knew this would happen. Grr. It's basically the Wal-Marting of the computer world. Nothing but stuff that makes money for Microsoft and makes friends with people with money ... not friends with the end user.

More and more, that Vista logo on the Microsoft site seems representative not of the user surveying the power given to the user over his or her documents, but Bill Gates on the balcony of his throne room, reveling in his slow take over. Not to be a gloomy gus.

I was already looking at Ubuntu and studying the gnome stuff to see how hard it would be to cross over my multimedia applications to Linux. so far, Macromedia seems to be the toughest player, refusing to release Linux versions, and now that Adobe owns them, I doubt it will get easier.

Then again, if Microsoft continues to try to compete with their resource hogging "Sparkle" stuff, perhaps Adobe will open up a little ... it's better than the harder to customize Mac stuff, as far as I know.

Sorry. I really don't know. This whole thing has me depressed.

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That is a really good idea computerwiz12890. i am probably going to switch to SuSE 9.3 Professional, or whatever the latest version will be at the time. then i will also get a cheap mac, just for my ipod and some other things. Bill is just greedy, and heartless, computing used to be fun and easy. now i cant even run the gimp anymore?!?! its just pure b.s.

idk if you guys have seen news footage and such of tienenmen square riots in china in the 80s (i think). i think we need a few of those here rioting against TC. whose with me?

-thebinaryman

Edited by Thebinaryman, 22 September 2005 - 09:23 PM.

[Thebinaryman]

That is a really good idea computerwiz12890. i am probably going to switch to SuSE 9.3 Professional, or whatever the latest version will be at the time. then i will also get a cheap mac, just for my ipod and some other things. Bill is just greedy, and heartless, computing used to be fun and easy. now i cant even run the gimp anymore?!?! its just pure b.s.

idk if you guys have seen news footage and such of tienenmen square riots in china in the 80s (i think). i think we need a few of those here rioting against TC. whose with me?

-thebinaryman

Edited by Thebinaryman, 22 September 2005 - 09:23 PM.

[Guse]

Tell you what. You go stand in front of the tank and I'll be rooting from the sidelines.

[maxeem_com]

I don't know. I sure like the plugnplay of microsoft stuff. It's just so frickin' easy. They research so many drivers, get so much crazy independent stuff to work together, and do so for a not unreasonable price. Not that I'm unwilling to be an activist in my shopping habits, but it's not a matter of money, clearly. I mean, open source is open source, but Microsoft does make a good product when they do. I just don't agree with their notions of progress, or the idea of edging out the end user and frankly, not only fighting competition but brutally murdering it in its sleep. Microsoft shows all the qualities of being a leader ... but a bad leader, whose paranoia and marketing 'savvy' leads them to do things like this. I woudn't go so far as binaryman, but I agree with binaryman that it is about politics: something our country is revealing (especially this decade imo) that it's not very good at monitoring.

[Thebinaryman]

well, i was a little exagerating, but the only thing bigger than microsoft, that can stop microsoft is the government, and not just the US, but other countries too.

I hate what TC is gonna do to music, all this encryption and everything, i already hated how napster "sold" you music that you cant even re-encode to other formats, or how itunes music and audiobooks are encrypted as well. the only good way to go about with "legaly buying" music these days is buying the actuall cd, plain uncompressed audio with absolutely no encryption, it can be played on any player, on any os. my advice to anyone with a digital music library would be (i know this is hours of work for some people) burn all your music to standard audio cd format. every single song. that way, when we're all stuck with TC computers, they can be played on there, as well on our "unspoiled" normal computers, that i'm sure all of us are going to hang on to.

if we all do that, and keep our old computers handy, and if there actually will be an option to override TC when were not watching videos or listening to music, then i think we might live through this.

[maxeem_com]

but don't you know binaryman? we must fight the communist menace!!

that includes, but is not limited to:

tape dubbing machines,
VCR recorders,
DVD+ or -R recorders,
CD+ or -R drives,
Tivos,
all Peer to Peer software, including at educational institutions and corporations on vast networks,
Digital Voice Recorders,
the Guttenburg press,
Screenprinting hardware,
Pencils,
Pens,
Paper,
Books

ALL SYMBOLS OF COMMUNICATION ARE PRIVATE PROPERTY AND MAY NOT BE RECORDED, REPLACED, COPIED, MOVED OR TOLD ABOUT WITHOUT EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THE AUTHOR, FROM THE GOVERNMENT AND FROM MICROSOFT, INC.

IF COPIES OF ANY SORT OF COMMUNICATION WHATSOEVER IS DISCOVERED ON ANY OF THESE DEVICES, THEY WILL BE SIEZED AND BURNED BY AGENTS OF THE GOVERNMENT OR YOUR LOCAL MICROSOFT RETAILER. THANK YOU!

[Thebinaryman]

i just got my topic locked on a different forum just for trying to warn the users about tcpa

the only responses were from blockheads who thought narrow mindedly and thought.. "oh, nothing can happen to ME!, everything is goint to be alright, what... microsoft would never do that!!!"

to make a long story short, they think nothing of tcpa and think i was trying to disturb the peace or somthing. so much for freedom of speech. just wait till the programs they love cant be run anymore.

our lives are full of restrictions, and each year the restrictions near double. i swear, one day they will try to make the world a "utopian paradise" or somthing, there will be a huge revolt around the world, 200 years from now half the population will be dead because of that revolt. and then there will be no rules, no goverment, the world will fall apart, and we will all die

all because of bill gates

i'm sorry if i'm making it hard for some people to sleep at night, i cant.

-thebinaryman

[maxeem_com]

my understanding is that two things will prevent this extreme:

1. As it has been for the past century, new capabilities of hardware and software will allow further security restrictions and simultaneously more people wanting to fight that security. Even as our rights are undermined by those of corporations by seemingly paranoid (but actually rather strategic) bills like the Patriot Act, there is and always will be a small resistence: the 'Tivos,' the 'Napsters' and on and on to shake things up. People are simply too willing to take our money for products that we really want to ever go away entirely.

2. The sights that corporations have set for the human race far exceed our capabilities. We are not going to build on the moon. We are not going to be able to afford manned missions to Europa in this economy. The price of energy will become far too expensive to produce some to any of these nifty computer products anyway. We are living in an age of excess, pushed on us by economies that encourage our greed and the gobbling of resources at a rate that exceeds the Earth's ability to produce them. Earth will fight back with extreme temporal shifts, and logic will fight back with extreme economic dumps, and empires spread too thin, such as ours, will fail. China's gonna be big as far as it looks right now.

I mean there is always the off chance that our pressure to adopt alternative energy technologies actually succeeds, but the energy required to shift to these new energies looks pretty grim too, what with the demand for basic necessities (supplied by none other than this very energy we are about to hit a hurdle on) about to shoot through the roof. I don't see a Dark Ages ahead. More like a big flop. Then again, maybe I have been reading too much into the news ... or too little? All this is mere speculation. We'll see what really happens soon when gas hits 5 dollars a gallon in the midwest. Then there are going to be some changes.

Edited by maxeem_com, 28 September 2005 - 07:17 AM.

[computerwiz12890]

Quite right maxeem. There are some hard times ahead of us. I think we'll be much more worried about power shortages rather than the TCPA thing. There was an article written several years ago that said by 2004 we'd start seeing shortages in easily accessable oil. By 2008 we will see major shortages in easily accessable oil. And we'd be completely out of easily accessable oil by 2012. This was written around 2000 and was before the Chinese started switching to automobiles rather than bicycle. So far this article has hit the nail on the head.

Oil is a major source of power. Even if we discover alternate sources of power, think of the chaos that will follow in trying to switch every single car, every single house, every single power plant. There will be chaos, the world-wide economy will most likely collapse for several years, and no one will be worrying about the TCPA thing or Bill Gates.

I think this thread is getting off topic, and I know I've contributed my share just now. Back to the topic, TCPA is just a rumor and for all we know, will never happen. I'd like to be prepared, but there will be far worse than TCPA in the near future. If anyone hears any CONCRETE EVIDENCE that TCPA will occur, please PM me. For now, let's just remain vigilant. If anyone is worried about the future of mankind, you can PM me for that too. And please, let's not speculate too much. Especially let's not talk about rioting! There's enough negative things to worry about already.