Uh, nope!
"It is rumored that prior to Microsoft, Clippy was used by generations of academics to organize the pages of the flesh-bound fiendish Necronomicon manuscript."
Not even the feared and dreaded Necronomicon is evil enough to deserve this!
3821 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2007
Offering a sane and reasonable price? What kind of shennagins is this?
Obviously, offering a vastly inflated price leveraged with the company's own assets is the best way to do it, since this'll inflate the share's price just long enough to dump it on the poor suckers that'll be holding the bag when it all crashes down.
Doesn't he understand *anything* about how Wall Street works?
" Yes but the other bastards also want to bring it in, you know to stop terrorists and kiddy porn... "
Then vote them out next election, show there's no career in office if they try to push for it.
This is the hard part of democracy most people: "Eternal vigilance." Keep your eye on the bastards and chuck'em out if they misbehave!
And for the American readers: That means quit letting the Reps and Dems take alternate turns screwing over the public. They've been tag teaming the Americans for years, and things only get worse.
Vote *Anyone else*, even if they don't get elected, enough voters turning away from the status quo will drive home the point that "Enough is fucking ENOUGH!"
" The government doesn't have any Lizard-men, do they? "
If you mean reptile-like aliens from outer space, or the bowels of the Earth, or an alternate dimension, or where ever the loonies claim they're from this week, then no.
If you mean psychopaths with the empathy and feelings of a cold blooded lizard, Bad news; All the governments and most coporations are full of'em!
" It was likely a facepalm moment - when while researching patent trolling, they realized they could get in on the action themselves. "
Of course, what with the funding cuts to education and research to help finance the War on Terra... I mean Terror, Universities have got to make up the shortfall somehow.
" True, and I imagine they'll be eyeing up Death Row in certain parts of the world as a ready source of donors. Yuck. "
Don't need'em, just clone a headless version of yourself, and good to go! Of course, it'll be an adult head on an infant body, but you'll grow up, again.
Headless clones:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,138483,00.html
The only two scenarios here that seem likely are:
A. Someone has their eye on a hostile takeover of Yahoo!, and Yahoo!'s accumulating debt to make themselves a less attractive target.
B. Yahoo! is in full panic mode and aquiring anything and everthing to see what sticks, like a drowning victim flailing around and grabbing at straws.
I really hope it's the former.
So Win 8 beats Vista now. Any word on how many of those sales are actually Win 7 machines with shiny Win 8 discs included in the box?
Of course, it still looks rosey for MS. Forcing the box shifters to pay for both OSs to sell a machine just means that MS gets two checks per machine, way to double-dip, guys!
"Microsoft are wankers who have been stealing and extorting money for the last 18 years or so - steal the software from them. They deserve it."
>BZZT< Wrong answer!
Why? Because piracy has always been MSs backup plan. From their point of view, if you're not paying for it, you're at least still using it and locked in.
Their worst case scenario? People looking for answers outside of MS, and realising that MS isn't really needed,.
"Maybe if enough people speak up they'll change this terrible decision"
MS doesn't hear people. it hears cash. They only backed down (slightly) on Win 8 after months of poor sales, and "flipped the switch" (which they claimed didn't exist) on Xbox one's DRM scheme when the cancellations swamped them and PS4's orders sky rocketed.
I'd guess that in 4 months to a year (depending on how stubborn they are this time) that they'll back off of this when it actually starts chewing into the bottom line.
" No, they will give customers richer customer profiles, greater activation of social and mobile data, better definition of highly valuable customer segments, and more sophisticated automation and execution platforms... wait, what did I just say? "
You said, "Marketeers will be even more invasive into internet users privacy, for theirs and our mutual profit. - Adobe"
" It hits the wall, Truman Show style... "
Might that not be the problem? It's like a fly trying to go through a window pane:
"It's about to leave the solar system." <bump>
"No, now it's about to leave the solar system." <bump>
"Ok, this is definitely it." <bump>
"Finally closing in on breaching the heliosphere." <bump>
"This time, For Sure!" <bump>
"Auggh! We'll keep looking and tell you when." <bump> <bump> <bump>
"Is he a) mad, b) a liar or c) misinformed?"
Yes. He is mad to lie like that, and misinformed if he thinks it'll do more than push potential customers away.
"Or does he consider any software which is free or which is not developed/sold by his members "pirated"?
Yes he does. Any money that exists and that they aren't getting is obviously 'stolen' from them.
The NSA has much, much bigger problems than Snowden, and that's why they want him so badly.
All those files that he's leaking just didn't fall into his lap, They've even admitted that he didn't have the authority/clearance to access them.
So, IMO, somebody higher up has misgivings about the types of things the NSA has been up to, but is working to take down the NSA from the inside, rather than fight it from the outside.
Whether it's one well placed individual, or a cadre of like minded employees fudging a clearance here, covering a leak there, so that someone like Snowden could pull the coupe he did, who knows? And the NSA is dying to find out.
That's why they're so keen on getting him. Names, leads, anything he knows that could expose the source.
Whether they get Snowden or not, there's a good chance the events, or even suspicions of events is going to cause the NSA to implode, and the big guys at the top need something, anything to cover their asses when it does. and right now Snowden is their best key.
The biggest problem is the great lie of "Wasting your vote", ie; if you don't vote for one or the other, your vote is wasted.
Actually, the reverse is true. If you only vote along the lines they've dictated, your vote is a complete waste, since the two major parties only real concern is remaining in power with the fewest concessions to the populace possible.
If Americans want their votes heard, they have to vote for *any* third option available, to drive home the point that "business as usual" is no longer tolerable!
"We can only intercept (data) calls where they are talking to someone abroad"
Interestingly, The NSA and GCHQ share data that they gather, and the US and UK are 'abroad' from each other.
So... Don't actually spy on your own, just let your buddy do it and pass along the data, right?