You mean of the ebook (text) itself, or the physical ebook reader? Either way, I don't see how that makes anything illegal.
You don't agree to a contract before buying these things; contracts are a civil not criminal issue; and I don't see how that should prevent someone producing a screen reader, even if someone else had "agreed" to not use one on "their" device.
Sorry, you're confusing Microsoft, with PCs. Yes, one advantage PCs had over other platforms was that they could be made by anyone, and worked to a common standard.
But that would still be true, with or without Microsoft, and whether we had a monopoly OS company or not. There were other OSs you could run on any PC.
And, for that matter, would any other company be better than MS? Apple is all about lock-in.
Well, I agree that Apple are far worse in this respect (look at the IPRODUCTS), but equally, it's wrong to claim that Microsoft are responsible for creating interoperability. They've done plenty to resist open standards regarding their operating system and file formats, too (e.g., restricting use of NTFS).
Heaven forbid...
Well, PCs had already achieved dominance in business in the 80s, and there were other operating systems for PCs. Some of them were dire, but then so was DOS, and there were better alternatives to DOS (e.g., OS/2 - yes we laugh now, and I laughed at the time when I compared it to AmigaOS, and saw how they were bragging about 32-bit and multitasking in 1994, but they were still ahead of Microsoft, who did the same thing in 1995).
So most likely we'd still be using PCs, running some other operating system.
And even though other platforms may have benefitted from a lack of Microsoft, there was far more than Apple - e.g., the Amiga, BeOS, Linux - who also would have benefitted.
I agree - it's unclear to me what the "fault" of the developer is here, and which applications are at fault. I thought that loading a DLL by name without a specific path was standard practice? And how does it work with linking - in my experience, all applications I've written and used can either use a DLL in the standard path, or be overridden by a local DLL, so surely that's standard practice too? And wouldn't this affect almost every Windows program that uses DLL?
But then, I'm not sure that this is a bad system anyway. Well, if it's possible to include a DLL loaded off a web page as being the standard path, that seems a gaping hole. However, if this flaw requires an attacker to already install a dodgy DLL in the user's path on their system, surely that would already be the security flaw? I mean, it's a bit like saying "It's a flaw that people can run exes by double clicking, there could be malicious code" - the flaw isn't in running exes, the flaw is how they got there in the first place.
What is the proposed fix for applications that link to DLLs? And how do other operating systems work - again, I thought that having a path system allowing multiple possible locations for shared libraries wasn't uncommon?
Yet you're happy to sign up for a Slashdot account, using a 3rd party server. Are you seriously saying that that's just as weird as if "North Korea" had an account to post on here?
The point is, if he did want that, there are many phones to consider besides the Iphone. Even sticking with Nokia, they have the number one smartphone platform, Symbian.
Stop trying to treat your phone like a desktop
If you just want a phone, get a locked down feature phone that does Internet access and apps, and is way cheaper than Apple's. But the point of a smartphone is, or was before Apple redefined the term, to provide something more like a mobile handheld computer.
If you had 15 mod points all in one go, I presume you must have multiple sockpuppet accounts, which you're using to mod down people for liking the N900, and then you come and violate the spirit of the rules by posting in the same thread.
And you accuse them of being fanatical?
(And yes, it is a once in a blue moon thread about Nokia, the number one phone company. If you don't like people praising devices and being unable to cope with any criticism, why not have a go on the many Iphone stories?)
That would be like me saying I can't put a GPS on my car to keep tabs on where it goes when my son drives it.
What if you were running a hire car business, and kept a big database on every customer and where they drove to in the cars you hired out?
I mean, there's an uproar on places like here about the possibility of Google doing similar things with search queries - I don't hear the "But it's their server" argument then. And rightly so - the issue of privacy rights is separate to who owns what.
And an employee should have every right to monitor everything about the company, after all, they're giving up their time to work for that company? I don't think that logic follows.
Should a company put cameras in in toilet cubicles and changing rooms because they own the premises? Sometimes the issue of privacy still exists (as Germany has decided), even if someone owns the equipment. Yes, an employee is choosing to work there and use said equipment, but equally, the employer chooses to hire people, and let them use that equipment.
The problem is that erecting a big fence (or forest, as you suggest) on your own land to hide it would likely breach regulations such as planning permission (which probably wouldn't be allowed, for something that significantly changes how it looks).
So I think there should be some balance here. If we're saying it's fair game to publish anything you can from a public street, in any way, we should also allow people to take whatever steps they like on their own private land.
But if society is saying that people should be limited in what they can do, even on their private land, because it affects how it looks when viewed from other people's land, then it's also a fair balance to say that you don't necessarily have blanket rights to do absolutely whatever you like with data that's taken of private land.
(With windows, we can close the curtains. If there was a law saying you couldn't close the curtains without permission, I'd also expect laws controlling stalkers who might point a camera through the window all day long.)
FWIW, I think that Google have the right balance (not just legally, but also ethically - Don't Be Evil, remember?), in that they put the images up, but remove them if people object. This photographer may have a legal right to take photos, but others also have a legal right to criticise him for doing so.
Well, once you have taken the photograph, you then own the copyright on it. This entitles you to do pretty much whatever you like with it.
No - copyright means you can stop others from copying it. It's a necessity for being able to publish, but not a sufficiency. If there's another reason why you can't publish it (which could be anything from model rights as we're discussing here, or other things like defamation, or indeed, if the photograph is itself of a copyrighted work of someone else's), then owning the copyright isn't always sufficient for you to publish.
No one cares.
Evidently this photographer cares.
(Anyhow, you're missing the point. The problem isn't that lots of random people will be flocking to view your photo. But that people such as employers, potential employers, family, can easily see it, without you even knowing - and with easy search faciltiies, i.e., the fact that this is being linked to Google Maps rather than simply being put on a random web page, it's not simply lost in the noise. The claim isn't that everyone is watching you, the problem is that at least some people may do so.)
In the UK when anyone questioned immigration policy they were publically branded "racist" by the Labour party and prevented it from being debated. It was a legitimate concern
Citation?
Actually I'd say that immigration is itself another example of what you list - something that the Government scaremongers about, in order to pass new laws, including the Labour Government: e.g., proposing the national biometric ID cards and database "because otherwise immigrants might get in!"
And there are also the tightened restrictions on employment checking (passport scanning, the UK Border Agency), because oh noes, someone might "steal" a "British" job.
As for political correctness, this is often a tool used by those supporting these things - e.g., people saying "I think we should take freedoms away from people who look different to me, because they might be terrorists - but I can't say that, because it's not politically correct!"
It's an interesting point - in the UK, laws against possession of adult (not child) material have been used against pirates ( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/16/extreme_pr0n_convictions/ ). But wait a moment, if it's true that piracy harms the producer, and production of said material is bad, surely it's doing good to pirate it...
Quite - this story makes about as much sense as saying "Court OKs Covert RTX PANASONIC KX-TG2511ET Digital Cordless Phone Audio Recording" - does the brand or kind of device really make a difference?
"Protozoa are small, and bacteria are small, but viruses are smaller than the both put together."
