Slashdot Mirror

There is a CNNfn just waiting to be slashdotted.

Also, is it just me, or are the ones defending Microsoft all Anonymous Cowards?

It's interesting how various tiny nations have tried to cash in on the net.

Like Nauru, tuvalu is a tiny pacific island, the world's 4th smallest nation. Population : 10,000. When the internet boom began, tuvalu stood to make a fortune on the domain name trade - it's .TV country code was a potential goldmine (www.fox.tv ?)

What happened next was a sad tale of how a pacific nation, remote and unaware of the existence of the internet, was swindled by domain name sharks.

First, webTV grabbed admin. control of the .tv domain from ICANN without informing Tuvalu - further proof that webTV is evil incarnate. Tuvalu's prime minister came to know that something called the "Internet" existed after visiting Australia, and managed to get ICANN to hand them control.

Good wired story here.

Next, VCs and domain name companies descended on the remote island, courting the confused govt. Ultimately, Tuvalu signed a deal with a Canadian company, which failed to deliver the $50 million it had promised in a year (that's 10 times the country's entire GDP). Sad story.

Now Tuvalu, wiser and bitter, is still looking for a company to administer .TV and raise the nation's fortunes. Being honest religious folks, they don't want to do pr0n, shady financial deals, or anything unethical.

If only they could be like Nauru, with its offshore banking, or Niue, which hosts tons of porn on the .nu (naked in French) domain, or like Tonga, which sells $100 .to domains, no questions asked; they could improve their per capita income 10 times, but instead, they are fumbling in confusion.

I felt particularly sorry for them because they are so naive and quaint. It's a custom on the island to apologize if you walk past someone sitting, since the level of your head is higher than theirs. And hey, you can climb on top of the local church if you ask permission from the pastor. They're so naive their web site is a Yahoo Club.

Poor Tuvalu. Maybe the linux community can help them out by hosting their domain thingie and transforming their island. :)

w/m.

You mean, like a certain, well-known company in Mordor, sorry, Redmond that is producing the X-Box games console?

Gee willakers! How come every site that gets a /. link goes the way of windows2000.com? i understand about segfault a few days ago, but the army and now the washingtonpost have gotten it. seems like these sites should be prepared for some high-volume traffic...

plus, are we /.ers really lemming enough to all follow the same link? It's an AP story; there's a copy at CNNfn and a copy at abcnews, too...

Although I usually don't reply to ACs, this link gives part of the story:

Here. Essentially, Wired kept trying, and nobody would buy. Failure.

There is a new article at CNN regarding investing in IPOs and mentions the fact that individual investors do not usually have the opportunity to invest until several days after the IPO when the stock is usually over valued.

Check out the article at:
http://cnnfn.com/1999/07/13/investing /q_ipos/


~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"

--

• Burlington Coat Factory was caught by an undercover investigation that shocked the United States.
• CNNfn: Burlington recalls coats

Here is a link to a CNNfn article that is a little better informed. It even has some comments from Sun.

You're right about SAP being big-big-big, but that doesn't mean that SAP is doing as well as you'd think. Take a look at their stock prices over the last 52 weeks. It's fallen by more than half over that period. (As of today, 3/30/1998, anyway.)

Its also on CNN, but there isn't much detail: http://cnnfn.com/digitaljam/9903/02/sun/

1) Can I inquire how pointing out that the statement "Attorney Boies then produced evidence from BeOS substantiating his announcement" is factually false, is somehow putting a 'pro-MS spin' on things.

Well, I don't know if he produced the proof in court or not, but Be's CEO has said that he was contacted by Compaq back in November and was told that Compaq had divulged information to Microsoft that was under NDA. Here's the link:

http://cnnfn.com/digitaljam/9902/19/ microsoft/

1. rigging a survey,
2. faking video evidence in court,
3. using cash reserves to affect profits, then firing the internal auditor that questioned it,
4. mounting a bogus grassroots PR marketing campaign

   The actions of a desperate company? An overly arrogant company?

   Or both?

Check out the quote from cnn.com:

A Microsoft spokesman said ... the company is checking to see whether there was a "minor editing problem" with the video.

Ummm.... "minor editing problem"???

YOU SHOWED THE WRONG BLEEPING SCREEN!!!

Hoo-boy... This is big, very very big. Lawyers get disbarred for pulling stunts like that.

I wonder if the new "designed-for-Internet" Pentium III will be y2k compliant?