ft.com · Domains · Slashdot Mirror

Re:Excellent by nwetters · 2002-09-06 04:32 · Score: 3, Informative · on Larry Wall On Perl, Religion, and...

...

Bill Joy

...

Interviewed today by the Financial Times. His solution for building elegant software seems a bit extreme ;)

Software written before Java emerged on the scene - software pre-1995 - was all pretty much a hack. Much of the software that is still being written is a hack. People change slowly. Programmers have to die, almost, for this to change. - Bill Joy

the joys of global law. by benson+hedges · 2002-08-05 21:06 · Score: 2, Interesting · on American Movie Execs Could Face Aussie Jails For Hacking

those are the problems that can, and will arise more and more, the more we communicate and exchange globally. remember the Yahoo! lawsuit where a french court ordered them to block french people from access to neonazi sites? Same problem. In the us, there is no law that would block you from viewing nazi stuff (I'm not from the us, but I think that's covered by the 2nd amandment to the constitution), but in france, it's illegal. Or, the story about the italian police shutting down an us-based website because of blasphemous content. It's the same in realworld-land. say, you go to holland, smoke a joint in a coffeeshop, and then go to a land where the consumation of marijuana is illegal. eventhough you smoked it in holland, where you are allowed to, you can still get fined for drug abuse elsewhere. we live in a global word (sorry for that buzzing), with laws that apply to local groups. this will be a problem for quite some time. just think, there are probably lands where child porn is legal, or where critical writing about politicans is illegal.. all sorts of problems. the only solutions I can think of would be "one global law" (which is pretty much impossible before there is one global land), specific "net laws" that state that "analog laws" do not apply to the internet anymore, or anarchy. don't ask me what would be best, I'm a geek, not a philosopher. :)

( .hj by Anonymous Coward · 2002-07-31 18:56 · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Matchbox -- a Small Footprint Window Manager

.ad afgjk uba dooba doo DRUDGE REPORT 2002Support The DrudgeReport; Visit Our Advertisers WASH POST: Bush Admin Split over Iraq... IRAQ 'CLOSE TO NUCLEAR BOMB GOAL' Passive smoking can kill your cat... TIMEWARNER to charge flood victims for cable boxes... Archerd: Democrats seeking Hollywood money... Republicans will tie ANWR to Iraq; Say threat in Baghdad necessitates oil drilling in Alaska... Ventura Goofs On God... AP WORLD AP NATIONAL AP WASHINGTON AP BUSINESS AP ENTERTAINMENT AP ON THE HOUR AP HEADLINES AP BREAKING SEARCH Headline: Date Range: Within 14 Days Within 13 Days Within 12 Days Within 11 Days Within 10 Days Within 9 Days Within 8 Days Within 7 Days Within 6 Days Within 5 Days Within 4 Days Within 3 Days Within 2 Days Within 1 Day Any word(s) in article: ANANOVA DOW JONES BLOOMBERG PAKISTAN WIRE PAKISTAN BROADCASTING ISLAMIC REPUBLIC WIRE ITAR-TASS KYODO WIRE PR NEWSWIRE [SHOWBIZ] PR WIRE SCRIPPS HOWARD US INFO WIRE U.S. NEWSWIRE WORLDWIRES XINHUA ABC NEWS AD AGE DEADLINE BBC BBC AUDIO BILLBOARD BOSTON GLOBE BROADCASTING & CABLE CBS NEWS C-SPAN SCHEDULE CHICAGO TRIB CHICAGO SUN-TIMES CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CNN CNN TRANSCRIPTS DAILY VARIETY D.C. DAYBOOK E! ELECTRONIC MEDIA EMERGENCY NET ENT WEEKLY FINANCIAL TIMES FORBES MAG FOX NEWS INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIB HILL H'WOOD REPORTER HUMAN EVENTS INSIGHT MAG INVEST BUS DAILY JERUSALEM POST JEWISH WORLD REVIEW LA DAILY NEWS LA TIMES LUCIANNE.COM MEDIA CHECK MEDIA LIFE MSNBC MUCHMUSIC NATION NATIONAL ENQUIRER NATIONAL REVIEW NEW REPUBLIC NY DAILY NEWS NY OBSERVER NY POST NY TIMES NEW YORKER NEWSBYTES NEWSWEEK N. KOREAN NEWS PEOPLE MAG R & R REASON MAG ROLL CALL SKY NEWS SLATE: PAPERS STAR TIME MAG TV SHOPTALK [U.K.] DAILY MIRROR DAILY RECORD [U.K.] EVENING STANDARD [U.K.] EXPRESS [U.K.] GUARDIAN [U.K.] INDEPENDENT [U.K.] NEWS OF THE WORLD [U.K.] PEOPLENEWS [U.K.] STAR [U.K.] SUN U.K. TABLOIDS [U.K.] TELEGRAPH [U.K.] TIMES US NEWS USA TODAY VILLAGE VOICE WASH POST WASH TIMES WEEKLY STANDARD WORLDNETDAILY UPDATE: Mob Kills 2 in Ill. After Van Crash... US Senate Fails to Pass Medicare Drug Plan... Agents leaving Border Patrol in droves, union says... French spa to host next G8 summit... GLASSMAN/HASSETT: Dow 36000 Revisited... MATT DRUDGE 3 AM GIRLS CINDY ADAMS ARMY ARCHERD DAVE BARRY MICHAEL BARONE PETER BART BOB BARTLEY STEPHEN BATTAGLIO MARILYN BECK/SMITH BLANKLEY GLORIA BORGER L. BRENT BOZELL BRESLIN DAVID BRODER PAT BUCHANAN BILL BUCKLEY MONA CHAREN ELEANOR CLIFT RICHARD COHEN PAUL COLFORD JOE CONASON ANN COULTER STANLEY CROUCH MICHAEL DALY LOU DOBBS MAUREEN DOWD STEVE DUNLEAVY ROGER EBERT JOSEPH FARAH SUZANNE FIELDS ARI FLEISCHER MICHAEL FLEMING ROGER FRIEDMAN JOHN FUND LEAH GARCHIK BILL GERTZ GEORGIE GEYER JONAH GOLDBERG ELLEN GOODMAN MARTIN GROVE LLOYD GROVE PETE HAMILL CARL HIAASEN NAT HENTOFF CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS H'WOOD REPORTER E-MAIL ARIANNA HUFFINGTON INSIDE BELTWAY INSIDE POLITICS INSIDE THE RING MOLLY IVINS AL KAMEN MICKEY KAUS KEITH J. KELLY MICHAEL KELLY MICHAEL KINSLEY HARRY KNOWLES MORT KONDRACKE KRAUTHAMMER LARRY KUDLOW HOWIE KURTZ JOHN LEO DAVID LIMBAUGH RUSH LIMBAUGH HAL LINDSEY RICH LOWRY MICHELLE MALKIN CHRIS MATTHEWS MARY MCGRORY MICHAEL MEDVED DICK MORRIS PEGGY NOONAN BOB NOVAK OFF THE RECORD KATE O'BEIRNE MARVIN OLASKY BILL O'REILLY PAGE SIX ANDREA PEYSER JIM PINKERTON JOHN PODHORETZ TV PROGRAMMING INSIDER WES PRUDEN ANNA QUINDLEN WILLIAM RASPBERRY REX REED RICHARD REEVES J. MAX ROBINS RICHARD ROEPER RUSH/MOLLOY BILL SAFIRE SCHLAFLY TOM SHALES GAIL SHISTER LIZ SMITH MICHAEL SNEED JOE SOBRAN THOMAS SOWELL ANDREW SULLIVAN HELEN THOMAS CAL THOMAS HUNTER S. THOMPSON NEAL TRAVIS TV COLUMN DEB WEISS JEFFREY WELLS GEORGE WILL WALTER WILLIAMS WASHINGTON WHISPERS BILL ZWECKER GERTH ZEROS IN ON CHENEY... AIRLINES TO TRIM FLIGHTS ON SEPT 11... Accounting controls on EU budget 'unreliable'... Man Accused of Raping Nine Women He Met Through Internet... Pentagon: Hamas experimenting with chemical weapons... AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE AFP INTERNATIONAL AFP NEWS WRAP AFX UPI WIRE UPI NATIONAL UPI WORLD AP/REUTERS PHOTO WIRE REUTERS ROUNDUP REUTERS SPOTLIGHT REUTERS WORLD REUTERS POLITICS REUTERS ODD SEARCH *FINDS ANY STORY LINKED ON DRUDGE WEATHER ACTION QUAKE SHEET x x x x x VISITS TO DRUDGE 07/31/02 004,776,309 IN PAST 24 HOURS 107,519,403 IN PAST 31 DAYS 895,224,122 IN PAST YEAR DRUDGE ARCHIVES DRUDGE REFERENCE DESK EMAIL: DRUDGE@DRUDGEREPORT.COM SUPER-POWERED BY ALLEGIANCE TELECOM... DRUDGE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB SPEECH TRANSCRIPT

( .hj by Anonymous Coward · 2002-07-31 18:56 · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Matchbox -- a Small Footprint Window Manager

.ad afgjk uba dooba doo DRUDGE REPORT 2002Support The DrudgeReport; Visit Our Advertisers WASH POST: Bush Admin Split over Iraq... IRAQ 'CLOSE TO NUCLEAR BOMB GOAL' Passive smoking can kill your cat... TIMEWARNER to charge flood victims for cable boxes... Archerd: Democrats seeking Hollywood money... Republicans will tie ANWR to Iraq; Say threat in Baghdad necessitates oil drilling in Alaska... Ventura Goofs On God... AP WORLD AP NATIONAL AP WASHINGTON AP BUSINESS AP ENTERTAINMENT AP ON THE HOUR AP HEADLINES AP BREAKING SEARCH Headline: Date Range: Within 14 Days Within 13 Days Within 12 Days Within 11 Days Within 10 Days Within 9 Days Within 8 Days Within 7 Days Within 6 Days Within 5 Days Within 4 Days Within 3 Days Within 2 Days Within 1 Day Any word(s) in article: ANANOVA DOW JONES BLOOMBERG PAKISTAN WIRE PAKISTAN BROADCASTING ISLAMIC REPUBLIC WIRE ITAR-TASS KYODO WIRE PR NEWSWIRE [SHOWBIZ] PR WIRE SCRIPPS HOWARD US INFO WIRE U.S. NEWSWIRE WORLDWIRES XINHUA ABC NEWS AD AGE DEADLINE BBC BBC AUDIO BILLBOARD BOSTON GLOBE BROADCASTING & CABLE CBS NEWS C-SPAN SCHEDULE CHICAGO TRIB CHICAGO SUN-TIMES CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CNN CNN TRANSCRIPTS DAILY VARIETY D.C. DAYBOOK E! ELECTRONIC MEDIA EMERGENCY NET ENT WEEKLY FINANCIAL TIMES FORBES MAG FOX NEWS INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIB HILL H'WOOD REPORTER HUMAN EVENTS INSIGHT MAG INVEST BUS DAILY JERUSALEM POST JEWISH WORLD REVIEW LA DAILY NEWS LA TIMES LUCIANNE.COM MEDIA CHECK MEDIA LIFE MSNBC MUCHMUSIC NATION NATIONAL ENQUIRER NATIONAL REVIEW NEW REPUBLIC NY DAILY NEWS NY OBSERVER NY POST NY TIMES NEW YORKER NEWSBYTES NEWSWEEK N. KOREAN NEWS PEOPLE MAG R & R REASON MAG ROLL CALL SKY NEWS SLATE: PAPERS STAR TIME MAG TV SHOPTALK [U.K.] DAILY MIRROR DAILY RECORD [U.K.] EVENING STANDARD [U.K.] EXPRESS [U.K.] GUARDIAN [U.K.] INDEPENDENT [U.K.] NEWS OF THE WORLD [U.K.] PEOPLENEWS [U.K.] STAR [U.K.] SUN U.K. TABLOIDS [U.K.] TELEGRAPH [U.K.] TIMES US NEWS USA TODAY VILLAGE VOICE WASH POST WASH TIMES WEEKLY STANDARD WORLDNETDAILY UPDATE: Mob Kills 2 in Ill. After Van Crash... US Senate Fails to Pass Medicare Drug Plan... Agents leaving Border Patrol in droves, union says... French spa to host next G8 summit... GLASSMAN/HASSETT: Dow 36000 Revisited... MATT DRUDGE 3 AM GIRLS CINDY ADAMS ARMY ARCHERD DAVE BARRY MICHAEL BARONE PETER BART BOB BARTLEY STEPHEN BATTAGLIO MARILYN BECK/SMITH BLANKLEY GLORIA BORGER L. BRENT BOZELL BRESLIN DAVID BRODER PAT BUCHANAN BILL BUCKLEY MONA CHAREN ELEANOR CLIFT RICHARD COHEN PAUL COLFORD JOE CONASON ANN COULTER STANLEY CROUCH MICHAEL DALY LOU DOBBS MAUREEN DOWD STEVE DUNLEAVY ROGER EBERT JOSEPH FARAH SUZANNE FIELDS ARI FLEISCHER MICHAEL FLEMING ROGER FRIEDMAN JOHN FUND LEAH GARCHIK BILL GERTZ GEORGIE GEYER JONAH GOLDBERG ELLEN GOODMAN MARTIN GROVE LLOYD GROVE PETE HAMILL CARL HIAASEN NAT HENTOFF CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS H'WOOD REPORTER E-MAIL ARIANNA HUFFINGTON INSIDE BELTWAY INSIDE POLITICS INSIDE THE RING MOLLY IVINS AL KAMEN MICKEY KAUS KEITH J. KELLY MICHAEL KELLY MICHAEL KINSLEY HARRY KNOWLES MORT KONDRACKE KRAUTHAMMER LARRY KUDLOW HOWIE KURTZ JOHN LEO DAVID LIMBAUGH RUSH LIMBAUGH HAL LINDSEY RICH LOWRY MICHELLE MALKIN CHRIS MATTHEWS MARY MCGRORY MICHAEL MEDVED DICK MORRIS PEGGY NOONAN BOB NOVAK OFF THE RECORD KATE O'BEIRNE MARVIN OLASKY BILL O'REILLY PAGE SIX ANDREA PEYSER JIM PINKERTON JOHN PODHORETZ TV PROGRAMMING INSIDER WES PRUDEN ANNA QUINDLEN WILLIAM RASPBERRY REX REED RICHARD REEVES J. MAX ROBINS RICHARD ROEPER RUSH/MOLLOY BILL SAFIRE SCHLAFLY TOM SHALES GAIL SHISTER LIZ SMITH MICHAEL SNEED JOE SOBRAN THOMAS SOWELL ANDREW SULLIVAN HELEN THOMAS CAL THOMAS HUNTER S. THOMPSON NEAL TRAVIS TV COLUMN DEB WEISS JEFFREY WELLS GEORGE WILL WALTER WILLIAMS WASHINGTON WHISPERS BILL ZWECKER GERTH ZEROS IN ON CHENEY... AIRLINES TO TRIM FLIGHTS ON SEPT 11... Accounting controls on EU budget 'unreliable'... Man Accused of Raping Nine Women He Met Through Internet... Pentagon: Hamas experimenting with chemical weapons... AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE AFP INTERNATIONAL AFP NEWS WRAP AFX UPI WIRE UPI NATIONAL UPI WORLD AP/REUTERS PHOTO WIRE REUTERS ROUNDUP REUTERS SPOTLIGHT REUTERS WORLD REUTERS POLITICS REUTERS ODD SEARCH *FINDS ANY STORY LINKED ON DRUDGE WEATHER ACTION QUAKE SHEET x x x x x VISITS TO DRUDGE 07/31/02 004,776,309 IN PAST 24 HOURS 107,519,403 IN PAST 31 DAYS 895,224,122 IN PAST YEAR DRUDGE ARCHIVES DRUDGE REFERENCE DESK EMAIL: DRUDGE@DRUDGEREPORT.COM SUPER-POWERED BY ALLEGIANCE TELECOM... DRUDGE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB SPEECH TRANSCRIPT

Downgrading the stock by hysterion · 2002-07-21 15:40 · Score: 2 · on WorldCom to File for Chapter 11 Protection

The whole Marconi fiasco once elicited a Financial Times reader's comment
which (I feel) summed those kind of things up rather well:

reading between lines
by tom Guest
I remember during the lunacy in 1999 coming across a random US discussion board mentioning Fore Systems, one of the companies that Marconi bought to accelerate themselves into the Cisco etc. space.
It was from a former employee and shareholder who said, essentially, that underneath the hype the company was basically pretty average and had management quality that was dubious at best, and that he was very glad to cash in his shares at the daft price Marconi paid - 10 times sales or thereabouts!
At the time Marconi's share price was heading through the stratosphere but I made a mental note to avoid this one like the plague, despite the herd.
However as someone has already said, the analysts in the City (who are supposed to do things like actually find out what the heck companies actually DO) were applauding the strategic move into telecoms, and these are the same idiots that are now criticing the company's management. I see they all slashed their forecasts and downgraded the stock from their usual absurd 'outperform' etc. ratings.
Well they are shutting the stable door after the horse has not just bolted, but in fact galloped off into the next county.
One of the few good things about the whole sorry boom and bust episode is that the mask of Wall St and the City has slipped and analysts are revealed as the clueless, overpaid snake oil merchants who contribute absolutely nothing to society whatsoever.
At at a time when London can't get enough teachers, doctors, policemen (you know - real jobs) because city people have priced them out of the housing market, this has come at a good time, and may even provoke a wider and much-needed debate of the absurdities and iniquities of modern capitalism.

(my emphasis)

Downgrading the stock by hysterion · 2002-07-21 15:40 · Score: 2 · on WorldCom to File for Chapter 11 Protection

The whole Marconi fiasco once elicited a Financial Times reader's comment
which (I feel) summed those kind of things up rather well:

reading between lines
by tom Guest
I remember during the lunacy in 1999 coming across a random US discussion board mentioning Fore Systems, one of the companies that Marconi bought to accelerate themselves into the Cisco etc. space.
It was from a former employee and shareholder who said, essentially, that underneath the hype the company was basically pretty average and had management quality that was dubious at best, and that he was very glad to cash in his shares at the daft price Marconi paid - 10 times sales or thereabouts!
At the time Marconi's share price was heading through the stratosphere but I made a mental note to avoid this one like the plague, despite the herd.
However as someone has already said, the analysts in the City (who are supposed to do things like actually find out what the heck companies actually DO) were applauding the strategic move into telecoms, and these are the same idiots that are now criticing the company's management. I see they all slashed their forecasts and downgraded the stock from their usual absurd 'outperform' etc. ratings.
Well they are shutting the stable door after the horse has not just bolted, but in fact galloped off into the next county.
One of the few good things about the whole sorry boom and bust episode is that the mask of Wall St and the City has slipped and analysts are revealed as the clueless, overpaid snake oil merchants who contribute absolutely nothing to society whatsoever.
At at a time when London can't get enough teachers, doctors, policemen (you know - real jobs) because city people have priced them out of the housing market, this has come at a good time, and may even provoke a wider and much-needed debate of the absurdities and iniquities of modern capitalism.

(my emphasis)

Re:NY times by guttentag · 2002-06-29 20:40 · Score: 4, Interesting · on News Sites Getting to Know You

Let's look at newspaper front pages from a recent big news day (Thursday):

I would post examples from The NYTimes, but they don't let you see previous issues of the paper online for free. However, as I recall their picks closely mirrored The Washington Post's:

The Washington Post
Top Story: Cyber-Attacks by Al Qaeda Feared
No. 2 Story: SEC Charges WorldCom With Fraud
No. 3 Story: U.S. Court Votes to Bar Pledge of Allegiance

The Los angeles Times
Top Story: 'Tweens: From Dolls to Thongs
One of the store mannequins wears a fringed denim skirt riding low on the hips and a top pushed high on the midriff. Another has shorts that roll down on the tummy and a one-shoulder top.
No. 2 Story: Pledge of Allegiance Violates Constitution, Court Declares
No. 3 Story: WorldCom Hit With Federal Fraud Lawsuit

The Los Angeles Times shows a consistent bias toward "Reader's Digest" type stories that are entertaining and give you something to gossip about but don't really tell you anything of value. I also get the sense that many LA Times reporters are really failed screenplay writers who can't let go of the need to create drama. However, they do occasionally print something worth reading.

The LA Times is owned by The Chicago Tribune , which puts even less original content on its Web site and is more "in-your-face" about pressuring you to subscribe.

I suspect Slashdot would link to The Wall Street Journal more often if the paper made more than 1% of its content available to non-paying subscribers. (I had a paid subscription to wsj.com for about a year, but I no longer do because it's just not worth that much to me.)

I'd like to read Le Monde , but the French refuse to publish an English version. Go figure.

All of Knight-Ridder's newspapers (The San Jose Mercury News , Miami Herald , Philadelphia Inquirer , et al) have been crippled by the "RealCities Network" which forces all of its sites to use the same content-poor, ad-rich design. The saddest story of the group is the SJMercury though, which has just fallen apart since the parent company began slashing costs and forcing the RealCities conformity on its once industry-leading site. The Miami Herald is an unofficial training school for future Washington Post reporters, but that doesn't matter if you can't find their content on the Web.

Slashdot doesn't link to the Financial Times often (ever?), though it's a great paper. It just doesn't turn out a lot of unique content that's of interest to most Slashdot readers.

Newspapers aside, Slashdot has linked to CNN and the BBC in the past, though not the CBC . ABC, CBS and NBC generally provide watered down news for people who don't like to read newspapers -- not Slashdot readers.

Slashdot often links to MSNBC , but I expect that will begin to decline -- MSNBC.com's founding editor (Merrill Brown, a former Washington Post reporter) recently announced that he's resigning after 6 years to pursue other, undisclosed "opportunities." The New York Times noted on June 12 (you'll have to pay for the archived version of the story) that he offhandedly mentioned that MSNBC.com is about to be swallowed by MSN for economic reasons. (In other words, Microsoft put its foot down and said financial concerns outweigh editorial concerns.)

The International Herald-Tribune writes some of its own content, but a lot of the paper is an amalgamation of New York Times and Washington Post stories.

I haven't read the Seattle Post-Intelligencer or the Seattle Times in a while, but you may find some good technology stories there.

Bottom Line: Slashdot links to a disproportionate number of New York Times and Washington Post stories because both papers' sites post a lot of content and that content is top notch. It also helps that they're among the most recognizable names in journalism, but the Slashdot system is set up to allow editors to pick from the best stories that are submitted, regardless of the content provider's brand recognition. If you read a good story somewhere, submit it -- the quality of the story is more important than the misguided registration policies of the content provider. And if I've missed a good site people should be reading, reply to this message and let people know.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't... by Mulletproof · 2002-05-15 03:43 · Score: 1 · on Napster Execs Resign, Company Appears to Teeter

Of course, when your company is facing lawsuits from every angle as stated here in the Financial Times, you might have a bit more incentive to simply bow out. Especially if the only deal that could save Napster would turn it to crap in the process. I gotta respect anybody who turns down a $20 million dollars on the grounds of principle. Yeah, it hurts, but it sounds like Napster was going to be turned into another proprietary piece of shit service anyway. At least they didn't sell out.

I do like a few quotes from this artical... "The failure of Napster would represent the triumph of Hollywood over Silicon Valley..." Heh... While they're waving their victory flags, the world has gone and passed them by. Also note the quotes by Terry Semel (CEO of Yahoo) and Andy Grove (Chairman of Intel), in the last two paragraph.

Re:More info... by Noobie · 2002-05-15 00:43 · Score: 1 · on Napster Execs Resign, Company Appears to Teeter

And yet another site reporting this. So we might say this thing was well covered in the media.. ?

LONG LIVE PIM FORTUYN by Anonymous Coward · 2002-05-07 06:07 · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Teach An Old Aibo New Tricks

This report from the Financial Times makes note of one way reading "conservative" in Pim Fortuyn's case is not a one-to-one match with how the term is used in US politics:

Not only was he openly homosexual, but he made clear his sexual orientation informed his politics. He wanted to halt the arrival of immigrants from Muslim countries because he feared they were eroding the country's tolerance of diversity.

Pim, you will be remembered.

LONG LIVE PIM by Anonymous Coward · 2002-05-07 05:56 · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Teach An Old Aibo New Tricks

This report from the Financial Times makes note of one way reading "conservative" in Fortuyn's case is not a one-to-one match with how the term is used in US politics:

Not only was he openly homosexual, but he made clear his sexual orientation informed his politics. He wanted to halt the arrival of immigrants from Muslim countries because he feared they were eroding the country's tolerance of diversity.

Re:AOL-Time Warner by new500 · 2002-05-03 05:25 · Score: 3, Funny · on HP, Compaq Deal Approved

. . .

Nice link, that Time.com article. Especially the bit about AOL-TW stock effectively valuing the AOL compnent at ZERO :) Just repeating some thoughts below, which seem on topic here and worth reposting :

To me it was always a story of AOL cashing out its funny money stock at the height of the internet boom. Many manias have come and passed, leaving a scorched trail of people who bought in too close to the last hurrah. My guess (since largely vindicated) was that Time - Warner was one such sucker.

Nevertheless, TW was desperately seeking growth, as a mature massive media business. It's much harder to grow incrementally the larger you get and still hit that year on year percentage target for your shareholders. TW's growth prospects were heavily tied to, e.g., newsprint subscriptions, and the internet boom looked then to be able to run and run.

As many corporations who have been out of fashion have found (think banks during the '70s, when all the "smart" money was in the conglomerate boom) out of fashion can quickly mean out of access to capital too, and print and press is desperately cyclical, and very capital intensive - worse even, tied to the sharp acceleration and decelleration of advertising which behaves exaggeratedly in synch with that most nebulous of economic indicators - sentiment.

Things change, and may get better for AOL - TW, but boy does it look tough for them for the forseeable.

Here's some selected quotes from recent Financial Times articles :

But broadband is different. Anyone buying a high-speed internet access over a cable system, for instance, will already be paying for the cable company's own ISP. Why pay for AOL as well

The logic of the synergies, and the merger itself, have failed. . . . shareholders consistently fail to restrain management from empire-building. . . a fine example of hope triumphing over reason . . .AOL used its overvalued paper to buy some real assets . . .Those loyal to Time Warner shares have underperformed the media sector by more than 60 per cent.

It's a sad indictment of much of mainstream press that which was - to me at least (and allowing I spend a good deal of my time studying speculative bubbles) - plain dang obvious, is only talked about now - after we've all been hit by the train. But then it's easy to go with the flow, ain't it?

P.S. Maybe someone still holding the stock should buy Gerald Levin (CEO at time of merger) a t-shirt with a slogan such as "I bought into the biggest merger ever, and all I got was this lousy CD-ROM". Okay, that's enough lame jokes from me . . .

Re:AOL-Time Warner by new500 · 2002-05-03 05:25 · Score: 3, Funny · on HP, Compaq Deal Approved

. . .

Nice link, that Time.com article. Especially the bit about AOL-TW stock effectively valuing the AOL compnent at ZERO :) Just repeating some thoughts below, which seem on topic here and worth reposting :

To me it was always a story of AOL cashing out its funny money stock at the height of the internet boom. Many manias have come and passed, leaving a scorched trail of people who bought in too close to the last hurrah. My guess (since largely vindicated) was that Time - Warner was one such sucker.

Nevertheless, TW was desperately seeking growth, as a mature massive media business. It's much harder to grow incrementally the larger you get and still hit that year on year percentage target for your shareholders. TW's growth prospects were heavily tied to, e.g., newsprint subscriptions, and the internet boom looked then to be able to run and run.

As many corporations who have been out of fashion have found (think banks during the '70s, when all the "smart" money was in the conglomerate boom) out of fashion can quickly mean out of access to capital too, and print and press is desperately cyclical, and very capital intensive - worse even, tied to the sharp acceleration and decelleration of advertising which behaves exaggeratedly in synch with that most nebulous of economic indicators - sentiment.

Things change, and may get better for AOL - TW, but boy does it look tough for them for the forseeable.

Here's some selected quotes from recent Financial Times articles :

But broadband is different. Anyone buying a high-speed internet access over a cable system, for instance, will already be paying for the cable company's own ISP. Why pay for AOL as well

The logic of the synergies, and the merger itself, have failed. . . . shareholders consistently fail to restrain management from empire-building. . . a fine example of hope triumphing over reason . . .AOL used its overvalued paper to buy some real assets . . .Those loyal to Time Warner shares have underperformed the media sector by more than 60 per cent.

It's a sad indictment of much of mainstream press that which was - to me at least (and allowing I spend a good deal of my time studying speculative bubbles) - plain dang obvious, is only talked about now - after we've all been hit by the train. But then it's easy to go with the flow, ain't it?

P.S. Maybe someone still holding the stock should buy Gerald Levin (CEO at time of merger) a t-shirt with a slogan such as "I bought into the biggest merger ever, and all I got was this lousy CD-ROM". Okay, that's enough lame jokes from me . . .

Re:MS withdrawing witnesses by dipfan · 2002-05-02 03:34 · Score: 3, Informative · on Microsoft Expert Witness Stumbles

There's a very good reason why Microsoft has withdrawn its witnesses: the states aren't allowed to introduce "new" evidence, and so were hoping to raise some 14 rather embarassing documents from Microsoft with MS employees. So MS withdrew the witnesses, and now the states can't raise the documents (it seems). Great tactic, it has made the states' lawyers look foolish.

There has been a couple of news items about this, there's one from the FT here - it says:

Lawyers for the nine litigating US states in the Microsoft antitrust remedy hearings yesterday appeared to have been comprehensively out-manoeuvered by their counterparts defending the software giant, after the Microsoft legal team decided to halve the number of defence witnesses it would call.

In particular, Microsoft's decision not to call Richard Fade, its executive in charge of relations with computer manufacturers, means the states' lawyers will probably not be able to enter critical evidence before the court.

This is the latest blow to the states' case. Earlier in the hearings, their lawyers misunderstood rules about how new witnesses should be called, leaving them without key testimony.

Great news, huh?

Tulips for houses by new500 · 2002-04-29 11:01 · Score: 2 · on AOL-Time Warner's Money Pit

. . .

To me it was always a story of AOL cashing out its funny money stock at the height of the internet boom. Many manias have come and passed, leaving a scorched trail of people who bought in too close to the last hurrah. My guess (since largely vindicated) was that Time - Warner was one such sucker.

Nevertheless, TW was desperately seeking growth, as a mature massive media business. It's much harder to grow incrementally the larger you get and still hit that year on year percentage target for your shareholders. TW's growth prospects were heavily tied to, e.g., newsprint subscriptions, and the internet boom looked then to be able to run and run.

As many corporations who have been out of fashion have found (think banks during the '70s, when all the "smart" money was in the conglomerate boom) out of fashion can quickly mean out of access to capital too, and print and press is desperately cyclical, and very capital intensive - worse even, tied to the sharp acceleration and decelleration of advertising which behaves exaggeratedly in synch with that most nebulous of economic indicators - sentiment.

Things change, and may get better for AOL - TW, but boy does it look tough for them for the forseeable.

Here's some selected quotes from recent Financial Times articles :

But broadband is different. Anyone buying a high-speed internet access over a cable system, for instance, will already be paying for the cable company's own ISP. Why pay for AOL as well

The logic of the synergies, and the merger itself, have failed. . . . shareholders consistently fail to restrain management from empire-building. . . a fine example of hope triumphing over reason . . .AOL used its overvalued paper to buy some real assets . . .Those loyal to Time Warner shares have underperformed the media sector by more than 60 per cent.

It's a sad indictment of much of mainstream press that which was - to me at least (and allowing I spend a good deal of my time studying speculative bubbles) - plain dang obvious, is only talked about now - after we've all been hit by the train. But then it's easy to go with the flow, ain't it?

Tulips for houses by new500 · 2002-04-29 11:01 · Score: 2 · on AOL-Time Warner's Money Pit

. . .

To me it was always a story of AOL cashing out its funny money stock at the height of the internet boom. Many manias have come and passed, leaving a scorched trail of people who bought in too close to the last hurrah. My guess (since largely vindicated) was that Time - Warner was one such sucker.

Nevertheless, TW was desperately seeking growth, as a mature massive media business. It's much harder to grow incrementally the larger you get and still hit that year on year percentage target for your shareholders. TW's growth prospects were heavily tied to, e.g., newsprint subscriptions, and the internet boom looked then to be able to run and run.

As many corporations who have been out of fashion have found (think banks during the '70s, when all the "smart" money was in the conglomerate boom) out of fashion can quickly mean out of access to capital too, and print and press is desperately cyclical, and very capital intensive - worse even, tied to the sharp acceleration and decelleration of advertising which behaves exaggeratedly in synch with that most nebulous of economic indicators - sentiment.

Things change, and may get better for AOL - TW, but boy does it look tough for them for the forseeable.

Here's some selected quotes from recent Financial Times articles :

But broadband is different. Anyone buying a high-speed internet access over a cable system, for instance, will already be paying for the cable company's own ISP. Why pay for AOL as well

The logic of the synergies, and the merger itself, have failed. . . . shareholders consistently fail to restrain management from empire-building. . . a fine example of hope triumphing over reason . . .AOL used its overvalued paper to buy some real assets . . .Those loyal to Time Warner shares have underperformed the media sector by more than 60 per cent.

It's a sad indictment of much of mainstream press that which was - to me at least (and allowing I spend a good deal of my time studying speculative bubbles) - plain dang obvious, is only talked about now - after we've all been hit by the train. But then it's easy to go with the flow, ain't it?

XBox hurting Microsoft's profits, cuts sales by dipfan · 2002-04-18 20:23 · Score: 1 · on Xbox Price Drops For Australia And Europe

It's significant that the XBox price cuts were announced just before Microsoft's first quarter sales figures yesterday, which were worse than expected, thanks to the XBox. Quote from the Financial Times: Microsoft missed earnings forecasts for the quarter to March 31 and issued lower than expected revenue and earnings predictions ... The world's largest software company blamed the warning on modest prospects for information technology spending by business and disappointing sales of the Xbox console. The price were partly to keep Wall Street happy and the stock price up as much as boosting sales.

The article says MS has cuts its sales forecast for the XBox to 3.5-4 million by the end of June 30, instead of 4.5-6 million. And it might have given up on cracking the Japanese market: The company said Japan had been challenging for the Xbox. "We have not had much traction and sales have not been as large as we had hoped." The full article is here

The same article links a very interesting FT article on where exactly Microsoft makes its money, and - surprise, surprise - despite all its efforts to find profits outside the PC software market, it's still Windows and Office that produce almost all of MS's money.

XBox hurting Microsoft's profits, cuts sales by dipfan · 2002-04-18 20:23 · Score: 1 · on Xbox Price Drops For Australia And Europe

It's significant that the XBox price cuts were announced just before Microsoft's first quarter sales figures yesterday, which were worse than expected, thanks to the XBox. Quote from the Financial Times: Microsoft missed earnings forecasts for the quarter to March 31 and issued lower than expected revenue and earnings predictions ... The world's largest software company blamed the warning on modest prospects for information technology spending by business and disappointing sales of the Xbox console. The price were partly to keep Wall Street happy and the stock price up as much as boosting sales.

The article says MS has cuts its sales forecast for the XBox to 3.5-4 million by the end of June 30, instead of 4.5-6 million. And it might have given up on cracking the Japanese market: The company said Japan had been challenging for the Xbox. "We have not had much traction and sales have not been as large as we had hoped." The full article is here

The same article links a very interesting FT article on where exactly Microsoft makes its money, and - surprise, surprise - despite all its efforts to find profits outside the PC software market, it's still Windows and Office that produce almost all of MS's money.

Re:Duh! by zevans · 2002-04-14 10:00 · Score: 1 · on British Broadband (Finally) Jumps

IIRC, Verwaayen said just that in his first week, and hence the sudden broadband feeding frenzy.

Has anyone else read the Mobility Strategy Statement which came out on Wednesday?

BT to create UK's first Public Access Wireless LAN network, it says here. Apparently they are expecting the UK Radio Agency to allow reselling of 802.11b Real Soon Now, and are going to build something with Cisco and Motorola.

Zack

Disny is *always* evil. by autopr0n · 2002-03-31 06:47 · Score: 2 · on Square and Disney Team Up for Kingdom Hearts

Aside from the monney grubbing whore that is it's current CEO, Disney has always been just a bit evil. I mean I know that's what corporations do, they co-opt, they commercialize. but there's something a bit more then subtly wrong with the commercialization of children's imagination.

Re:Full text of open letter: by phong3d · 2002-03-28 17:05 · Score: 1 · on CBDTPA Finds A Champion In the House

Actually, it wasn't Schiff who originally brought out Honest Abe, it was Eisner, in a rather nauseating article here:

Financial Times Op-Ed Piece

A refuting quote from Lincoln is in order (egregiously cribbed from Metafilter):

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."

-- U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864 (letter to Col. William F. Elkins)

FT had the scoop in yesturday's IT edition by forged · 2002-03-14 03:26 · Score: 1 · on Using Tables as Speakers

I read it yesturday in an article from IT edition of the Financial Times.

FT had the scoop in yesturday's IT edition by forged · 2002-03-14 03:26 · Score: 1 · on Using Tables as Speakers

I read it yesturday in an article from IT edition of the Financial Times.

Re:Anti-anti-anti-cd-copying legislation by FransUNC · 2002-03-07 04:44 · Score: 1 · on Anti-anti-cd-copying Legislation?

The treaties outlaw attempts to circumvent encryption and other techniques designed to prevent unauthorised copying and ensure royalties are paid. - FTC site: yesterday's story on the treaty

It's scary how this could be interpreted.

De Beers a classic example by tapiwa · 2002-03-05 01:28 · Score: 4, Informative · on ElcomSoft Lawyer Says Internet Outside U.S. Law

The US cannot continue to try and impose its laws on the rest of the world. The De Beers example is a case in point.

For years the directors of DeBeers have been unable to travel to the US due to outstanding anti-trust caes's against them.

Still they continue to trade, and travel the rest of the world. This article tells how previous cases against the company have failed. Now, having realised how futile their attempts are, they are trying to play nice with the company.

The US can declare jurisdiction over the entire internet, but unless they do a Noriega, and go in and kidnap a few people, the laws will not mean much unless people visit the US.

Respected global players are getting into spam by Mr_Silver · 2002-02-26 22:00 · Score: 4, Interesting · on Protect Your Cell Phone From Spam

Mobile spam is going to take off in a massive way because its more direct than email since the majority of people carry their phone everywhere and respond as soon as it bleeps.

In fact its such a big thing that even respected global players such as Logica (their software runs over 50% of the SMS gateways in the world) are getting involved according to this article in the Financial Times.

In short getting people responding to SMS spam is unreliable because due to difficiencies in the GSM protocol you can only catch about one SMS reply to an advert every 5 seconds.

Because of this, take up of bulk SMS advertisements (where people respond) is slow. But thanks to the boffins at Logica, they now have software which can harvest 1,000 replies a second.

Which suddenly makes pumping out SMS spam look a lot more worthwhile.

Coming soon to a phone near you ...?

coincidence? by night_flyer · 2002-02-12 15:08 · Score: 2 · on Concerning The Cancellation of Futurama

Fox TV and weak ad market weigh on News Corp

Re:It's all about the Benjamins $$$ by limber · 2002-01-03 11:18 · Score: 1 · on Monsanto and PCBs

Complaining about evil corporate behavior accomplishes nothing. You need to take the capitalist approach, in a capitalist environment:

The free market works a lot like democracy. Except you get to buy the votes. They're called 'shares'. It's the inverted Victor Kiam model: "I hated the product so much I bought the company".

Shareholder activism isn't just for gadflies with time on their hands. Moral suasion, when applied with enough hard assets, can be extremely influential in deciding what happens to a company, even if management is headed in another direction. For example, look at the havoc Walter Hewitt has wreaked on Carly Fiorina's attempt to merge HP and Compaq.

I will concede that sometimes the opposite approach is taken: shareholders vocally sell their shares to express their indignation with a company's actions. For example CalPERS (the $170bn-asset pension fund for California public employees) and TIAA-CREF (a monster teachers pension fund) getting out of Talisman Energy in response to its contributions to the dictatorship in Sudan and the usual human rights atrocities being committed there...

But the point derived is still the same: as an owner, and not some whinger on the sideline, you get the right to express yourself on the subject. Instead of just complaining about it on a bulleting board.

The other time-honored approach is to boycott the purchase of products from that company. Though it doesn't seem to work that well sometimes (witness the slashdot refrain: "I'd never use MS", and then look at MS's ever burgeoning billions of dollars revenues.)...

Two years in UK. by Martin+S. · 2001-12-27 23:54 · Score: 2 · on Video On Demand Almost Here For San Franciscans

This service (I'm the Software Architect), have launched the worlds largest Video on Demand over IP.

We have been doing this for two year now, I keep submitted links, each time we have a development, but slashdot have never seen fit to publish.

Some links:

"Kingston Interactive TV

Financial Times

Kingston Communications

Video Server Case Study

BBC joing broadband television platform

This case study reveals more details about the platform.

Re:A Satisfied Non-Fantasy Fan by Xoro · 2001-12-24 09:29 · Score: 1 · on LotR Takes Top Spot on IMDB

I was a bit surprised to see that reaction in a lot of reviews. One said you'd love the movie "even if you thought Frodo was the weak link in the Corleone family."

A more involved anti-fantasy-but-loved-it review was in the Financial Times. Here's a snippet:

At university I fought with the strength of 10 men. Every day dozens of friends - so called - attempted to scale my battlements and conquer my integrity as a literature student. "You must read Tolkien," they cried as I beat them away. "Be a friend to Frodo!" they shouted as I poured boiling oil over them. "Do not disregard the wisdom of Gandalf," exclaimed others, whom I pushed away with a stick.

I was never vanquished. I refused to read all those tomes about elves, hobbits and creatures that whinged from dawn to dusk saying, "Oh dear, I've lost my ring." We get enough of that from Wagner, whom Tolkien evidently raided shamelessly. Finally though - price of my profession - I must go along to the movie: three hours of elves, hobbits and Sir Ian McKellen saying "Oh dear, we've lost the ring."

After five minutes, however, I was worried that I was enjoying it. After 10, I was worried that I was enjoying it more. After 20 minutes I realised that Peter Jackson's film of the unfilmable is as close to great filmmaking as an epic-sized pop-mythological kiddyflick can get.

Very surprising and very pleasing that the film is bringing this great story to at least some of the hard cord resisters.

Launch success vs. system lifespan success by zsazsa · 2001-11-29 15:47 · Score: 5, Insightful · on Nintendo Declares GCN Most Popular Console Ever

Remember when a certain console that cost $199 at launch sold 410,000 units in the first week?

Look where it is now.

Not to knock it -- I love my Dreamcast, and especially now it is an incredible value.

Ian

Re:Agreed^2 [ot] by jacoplane · 2001-11-28 23:07 · Score: 1 · on DOJ Already Monitoring Cable Internet Traffic

We all know that where ever the US goes, Europe is sure to follow!

That's for sure

Interesting Financial Times article on the Subject by coldwd · 2001-11-13 06:14 · Score: 1 · on Defining Globalism

Great article on the topic of Globalization and the effects it has on fundamentalist societies which reject the movement was just written today by the CEO of Wall Street Investment Bank, Goldman Sachs. Take a look at it here:

http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/article. html?id=011113001449&query=paulson

Re:PLEASE: Cut & Paste articles under this thr by Anonymous Coward · 2001-11-12 05:05 · Score: 0 · on Another Plane Down in New York

The financial times is coping well and has good coverage.

The BBC is coping well too now that they have switched to light mode

Advocate of the devil? by Drashcan · 2001-08-23 10:49 · Score: 1 · on Brazil Breaks Patent to Make AIDS Drug

Two things come to mind:

To those hinting at the high costs of pharma research: recently an article in The Economist or was it in the Financial Times, none of which are particularly anti-corporate, stated that a substantial slice of pharma research, especially the most risky research in terms of return on investment (like the research into anti-AIDS medicine), is government funded.
To those thinking free/cheap provision of AIDS drugs is effective:
1. there is still no cure for AIDS. The drugs discussed just postpone for the sero-positive the outbreak of AIDS. But it disease and subsequent death remains unavoidable.
2. subsequently, and especially if you consider the bad financial situation of many a developing country in which AIDS is sweeping entire generations (Brazil is still well of in this aspect; take a look at [South-]Africa!), SPENDING MONEY ON TEACHING SEXUALLY SAFE BEHAVIOUS AS WELL AS PROGRAMS OF FREE NEEDLE EXCHANGE FOR DRUG ADDICTS ARE THE ONLY FINANCIALLY AS WELL AS PRACTICALLY EFFECTIVE CURES!

Drashcan

More Coverage ... by wiZd0m · 2001-08-07 00:44 · Score: 4, Informative · on Brain vs. Computer: Place Your Bets

English links

Other languages

Netzeitung report (German)
Yahoo.de (German)
ORF Futurezone (German)
Financial Times (German)
Chesslines survey (French)
CNN en Español (Spanish)
CNN Italia (Italian)
BBC Brasil (Portugese)
Express (Swedish)
El Comercio Peru (Spanish

Ironic by Blue+Aardvark+House · 2001-08-06 01:19 · Score: 5, Insightful · on Antitrust Investigation Into Music Companies' Online Efforts

From the article:

One record company executive fumed, "For the past five years, this industry has been endlessly investigated by the government. They find nothing. And it costs us a fortune." The executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, added, "It's a handy whipping boy."

Now they know how Napster felt, being under investigation, and a convenient scapegoat. They also have evidence, including a past lost price fixing case.

Also, the European Union is investingating the Big 5 labels for acting as a cartel. More details here.

Xbox Competition? How? by ravenmystic · 2001-05-14 06:06 · Score: 2 · on Nokia's Linux Based Xbox Competitor

I'm reading through a couple of articles that talk about this "MediaTerminal", and I fail to see how FT.com got the impression that it was a competitor vs. the Xbox.

According to Nokia's MediaTerminal website, it's basically a PVR with Internet Access. There is a link to the Game Development section, and the FAQ states that it will play "a wide variety of games". But, looking at the tech specs, this piece of machinery doesn't stand a chance against the Xbox. Celeron 366? 4MB Video RAM? Seems a little too underpowered to me.

Good for them by Sarcasmooo! · 2001-05-07 12:49 · Score: 1 · on EU Data Protection Could Clamp Data Flows

The EU is setting an example that the US should've been setting long ago. Personally I think the whole issue is only being demonized by a media and a government that both have a vested interest in the globalization of businesses that routinely ignore privacy guidelines, and profit from it.

Re:Not in England by Aztech · 2001-04-18 08:49 · Score: 1 · on Is the Payphone Dead?

Cellnet was once an independent company I believe, but BT took them over years ago, so it's actually a whole owned subsidiary of BT.

BT would have loved to rollout ADSL four years ago but their leased line dept was too worried about being shafted.

BT is a company full of contradictions with fingers in every pie, and they have never been able to shake off their mentality and inefficiencies of the state dinosaur days. They also had a number of failed deals, one with MCI then AT&T for example. That's why there's so many conflicts and why the managements in such a mess... and consequently why they're £30 billion in debt, their market cap is only £28b, so they owe more than they're worth!

Personally, after being shafted by them for a number of years, I have little sympathy for them, when they called last week begging me to have ADSL installed, I took great delight in telling to fsck off because I have a cable modem and they're 5 years to late.

They were planning to float or merge Cellnet to relieve debt.

As for the payphones, they cannot abandon them, they have a universal provision agreement that legally requires them to install payphones and lines in rural areas. So they're being forced to adapt, an alien concept to BT, their new 'web phones' are actually quite good, there's quite a few in the tube stations that provide access for free to promote interest.

Using the payphones as mini mobile base stations is a good idea too, especially in the city where signals can be weak due to the multipath problems big buildings present. Having a base station at ground level would alleviate those problems.

Of course, there's always the irony of BT leasing the base stations to rival phone providers that are competing with BT|Cellnet and the pay phone itself. Love it.

Re:So what? by mr · 2001-03-29 21:12 · Score: 2 · on EvansData can't tell BSD from Linux

BSD is already in deep trouble.

Really? Based on this sample of 300 people, the only one not in trouble is RedHat.

Debian/Slackware/Turbo/Corel linux all did worse than FreeBSD. And Debian and the rest are more dead than FreeBSD. Yet, FreeBSD was within 2% of SuSE/Mandrake/Caldera.

If FreeBSD is "in trouble" so is SuSe/Mandrake/Caldera. Oh, wait SuSe can't afford US Staffers

From an investor's perspective, it's fair to say that BSD is dead.

Acually, BSDi is in the BEST position.
The 180+ linux distros PROVE selling Linux is a commodity market. In a commodity market, you want market differentiation. According to a poll where you are to pick a LINUX version, FreeBSD is as acceptable or more so than any other Linux version (other than RedHat) And what a market differentiation FreeBSD has. A different development model, more open license, runs Linux binaries faster than linux...all these improvements and yet seen as good/better than anything else but RedHat.

BSDi would have to be a publicly traded company for it to matter to any investor. Oh, wait, they are a private company. $14 mil last year from yahoo!/Japanese ISP/Japanese VC....and Japan's economy has sucked far worse far longer than the US dot com market has. a nikkei snapshot

But lets say you are correct. Then BSDi will be bought up by someone else. Odds are some Japanese company. Could even be Sony....Why buy Apple when you can buy the core to Apple's new OS?

f course that can be said .... BSD is hurting more than most, however.

And you keep pushing this anti-BSD adjenda. Give it up.

Here's Some Better Articles by vergil · 2001-02-14 06:27 · Score: 4 · on European Record Industry Goes After Personal Computers

I've been trolling around the web, looking for some substantive articles about the new European Copyright Directive. Here are some of the more informative ones:

"European Parliament Approves Rules Granting Greater Copyright Protection." (from Quicken.com)

"EU Parliament approves draft copyright law to fight high-tech piracy" (Silicon Valley News)

Also, y'all might want to check out Prof. James Boyle's editorial ("Whigs and hackers in cyberspace") in London's Financial Times the other day dealing with the foolishness of re-creating a European version of the American DMCA.

Also, I went to the European Parliament's web site and poked around for some primary documents. Here's a fairly thorough summary of what transpired inside the hallowed halls of the EU Parliament. However, I noticed that the embedded link (supposed to wisk one away to the actual text of the report) seemed to re-direct me to an unrelated discussion about energy in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Has anyone actually found the text the the EU Parliament's Copyright decision?

Sincerely,
Vergil
Vergil Bushnell

The New Science of Character Assassination by phee · 2000-10-17 22:25 · Score: 4 · on Politicians, Napster, And The Invention Of The Net

The New Science of Character Assassination
Phil Agre
15 October 2000

You are welcome to forward this article electronically to anyone for any noncommercial purpose.

The past ten days will go down as a turning point in American history. This is what it's like when the far right is taking over your country: the people support Al Gore's policies, but the polls are shifting toward George W. Bush because the media is filled with false attacks on Al Gore's character. A story in today's (10/15/00) New York Times states openly what has been clear all along, that this campaign of character assassination has been planned and executed over a long period by the Republicans.
--Story Link--

Character assassination is, of course, nothing new for Republicans, who mastered the art in the days of Richard Nixon. What's new is that the press constantly repeats the lies. Not just once or twice, not just the occasional slip, but over and over and over.

Let us consider the New York Times story in detail. Written by Alison Mitchell, it describes Al Gore's abject apology for two trivial and much-exaggerated errors in the first debate as "the culmination of a skillful and sustained 18-month campaign by Republicans to portray the vice president as flawed and untrustworthy".

The New York Times discerns four landmarks in this campaign, and they are as follows:

Landmark number one:
... in December 1997 ... the [Republican National] committee announced it had started a contest to come up with a slogan for Mr. Gore after he told reporters that the hero and heroine in the novel "Love Story" were modeled after him and his wife, Tipper. (Erich Segal, the author, soon said that his protagonist, Oliver Barrett IV, was only partly based on Mr. Gore, while Jenny Cavilleri had nothing to do with Tipper Gore.)

In this case, the RNC's claim was false. Gore had not told anyone that Love Story was based on him and his wife. Rather, he had mentioned a newspaper article that had inaccurately said that, and was carefully to say that he only had the article's word to go on. Observe that Mitchell repeats the RNC's false account, and then (following the longstanding convention) makes it sound as though Segal was contradicting Gore, when in fact he was defending him. The false "Love Story" store continues to be repeated to the present day.
--Story Link--
Landmark number two:
So when Mr. Gore said in an interview with CNN in March 1999 that "during my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet", Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, the majority leader, issued this mocking statement: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the paper clip".

The problem, of course, was that Gore's claim was correct. As the Internet's scientific leaders attest, often heatedly, Gore recognized the significance of the Internet very early, and took the initiative in doing the political work and articulating the public vision that made the Internet possible. His sentence, which is often not quoted in its entirety, makes perfectly clear that he was talking about the work he did in the context of his Congressional service, and that he is not claiming, ridiculously, to have done the technical work as well. Mitchell shades the story by omitting the Republicans' (and media's) most common distortion of the matter, that Gore claimed to have invented the Internet. This falsehood has been repeated on literally hundreds of occasions, and George W. Bush routinely uses it in his speeches.
--Story Link--
--Story Link--
--Story Link--
Landmark number three:
On the day Mr. Gore announced his candidacy in Carthage, Tenn., his family's hometown, Jim Nicholson, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, had a more elaborate stunt. He rode in a wagon pulled by mules to the hotel on Embassy Row in Washington where Mr. Gore lived for much of his youth.

"He has tried to pass himself off as this hardscrabble, homespun central Tennessee farm boy and that is not what he is", said Mr. Nicholson, playing off the fact that Mr. Gore had told The Des Moines Register that he had learned to slop hogs and clear land on the family farm. Friends later told reporters that Mr. Gore's father had kept him on a backbreaking work schedule during summers on the family farm.

The problem, again, is that Gore's claim was true. He did work on his family farm as a child. This time, Mitchell admits that the Republicans were making it up. But she still shades the story by making it sound as though the truth hadn't come out until later, and as though the contrary view rests solely on the word of Gore's friends. In fact the childhood farm chores had been extensively reported for a decade. The false claim that Gore had lied about the chores was repeated on many occasions in the press.
--Story Link--
--Story Link--
Landmark number four:
The Republicans got help as well from an unexpected source. When the Democratic primary fight became bitter, former Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey insisted that Mr. Gore had deliberately distorted his policy positions in what he called a "pattern of misrepresentation". At one point, Mr. Bradley spat out, "Why should we believe that you will tell the truth as president if you don't tell the truth as a candidate?"

The problem is that Bradley is endlessly quoted to this effect without any attempt to determine whether he is right. In fact Bradley often wrongly accused Gore of distorting his positions.

And that's it. That, according to the New York Times, is the story of the Republicans' campaign to paint Al Gore as an embellisher. The New York Times cites four accusations, all of them false, and in every case the New York Times either repeats the false accusations as truth or else provides misleading accounts of them.

The New York Times' article is not an aberration. The list of false attacks on Al Gore's character that have been circulated in the media for the last two years is extraordinary. In some cases, as in the ones (mis)cited by the New York Times, Gore is accused of lying when he was actually telling the truth:

Several publications have called Gore a liar in very harsh terms because he claimed that his father was a pioneer in the civil rights movement. It is true that his father lost his nerve on the Civil Rights Act, but that does not change the overwhelming and (until recently) universally accepted evidence of his leadership on civil rights. Gore's assertion is perfectly accurate.
--Story Link--
In probably the single most vicious attack of the entire campaign, several publications have suggested that Gore lied when claiming to have been present at his sister's death. The only evidence they offer is that he also made a political speech the same day, and Gore's driver has explained his schedule for that day in detail.
--Story Link--

In other cases, Gore's words are twisted, misquoted, or simply made up to make him sound as though he were making a claim that he was not making. For example, some publications have even claimed, falsely, that Gore literally uttered the words "inventing the Internet".
--Story Link--

There are many others:

In the closing moments of Gore's second debate with George W. Bush, Jim Lehrer falsely accused Gore of having called Bush a "bumbler" in one of his campaign commercials.
--Story Link--
Was this simply a mistake on Lehrer's part? Okay, but Lehrer made his "mistake" in the context of rebuking Gore for his own miniscule mistakes in the first debate.
Gore told a a union audience that his mother had sung the "union label" song to him as a child. Gore's comment was obviously a joke and the audience took it as a joke. Yet, incredibly, numerous supposed journalists have asserted that he meant it seriously, or else tried (on no evidence) to cast doubt on Gore's obviously-true claim that it was a joke.
--Story Link--
When Gore spoke of his proposal to put Social Security and Medicare in a "lockbox", some "journalists" accused him of dissembling on the astonishing grounds that he was not actually proposing to put the money into a physical box.
--Story Link--
When the Washington Post finally gave up on the "Love Story" story, pretending that it had only recently been disproven, they moved to another falsehood. Gore had claimed that his sister was the first volunteer for the Peace Corps. This claim was accurate, inasmuch as his sister had in fact worked for the Corps without pay from its earliest days, only later joining its paid staff. But the Post called Gore's claim a "lie", on the grounds that she had not worked as a volunteer *overseas*, which Gore had never claimed; they did not mention that she worked without pay.
--Story Link--
Gore told some students in New Hampshire the story of a Tennessee community activist who brought his attention to a toxic dump, whereupon he looked for other examples, found Love Canal, and held the first hearings on the issue. "Journalists" first misquoted him as having claimed to to have started the issue, when in fact he was giving credit to the activists. Even when the misquotation was grudgingly corrected, they continued to distort his words, as if he were claiming to have discovered the toxic pollution at Love Canal.

In yet other cases, Gore made a trivial error that has been exaggerated by his critics, and the exaggeration has been falsely attributed to him. Such is the case with the school in Florida that Gore cited in the first of his debates with George W. Bush.
--Story Link--

These are just a few examples among many. People make mistakes all the time. Al Gore is one of them, and it's surprising that an army of opposition researchers hasn't come up with more substantive errors after fact-checking a whole life of public statements. So is George W. Bush, whose errors during the two debates so far have been dramatically worse than those of Gore. To start with, Bush falsely implied that the Europeans have no troops in Kosovo, when in fact they have tens of thousands, and that the United States has significant numbers of troops in Haiti, when it does not. And he made numerous false statements:

that Gore was outspending him, when the opposite was true;
that the rate of uninsured people was falling in Texas and rising nationally, when the opposite was true;
that the men who killed James Byrd would be put to death, when only two had been sentenced to death and their appeals had not been exhausted;
that middle-income seniors would get drug coverage immediately under his Medicare plan;
that Gore had lied about this;
that the new spending in his budget plan is equal to the tax cuts;
that "most of the tax reductions [in his plan] go to the people at the bottom end of the economic ladder";
that the president is unable to influence the actions of the Food and Drug Administration;
that Hillary Clinton's 1993 national health insurance initiative would have entailed nationalizing health care; and
that Gore had claimed to be the author of the Earned Income Tax Credit law.

That is just a partial list of Bush's "mistakes" in two ninety-minute debates, and it doesn't include the dubious numbers he quoted from Republicans in the Senate or the mess he made of education, taxes, Social Security, and the Middle East. Nor does it include the "mistakes" that littered his acceptance speech at the Republican convention, or the especially egregious "mistakes" of his brutal campaign against John McCain in South Carolina, and so on.
--Story Link--

With only a few exceptions (like the one just cited), the press has gone to great lengths to cover up or minimize Bush's false statements. Press coverage of the first debate focused overwhelmingly on Gore's two comparatively trivial errors and on endless suggestions that Gore was rude for having sighed several times.
--Story Link--

Of course, the sighs were often exaggerated by turning the volume up. (Falsely calling someone a liar, as Bush did several times, is not rude?) Pundits bizarrely praised Bush for his command of the issues after the first debate despite his lengthy catalog of errors:
--Catalog Link--

And the 10/5/00 Washington Post buried the Democrats' list of Bush errors at the end of a long story about Bush's accusations against Gore.

The problem is systemic. A reporter for a British newspaper, the Observer, was struck at the completely different approaches of the reporters covering Gore and Bush, and reported a disturbing incident in which a Washington Post reporter well-known for her open hostility to Gore held a toy gun to his head.
--Story Link--

Indeed, press coverage of Gore has been spun in a strongly negative fashion for a long time.
--Story Link--
--Story Link--
--Story Link--

The press, following the lead of Republican "investigators", has repeatedly falsified and spun the famous Buddhist temple event, among others.
--Story Link--

They have also falsified and exaggerated Gore's performance in earlier debates, thereby creating a caricuture of him as a vicious attacker.
--Story Link--

Yes, the press has suggested that Bush is not mentally competent to run the country. But it has not fabricated huge amounts of evidence to support this charge, and it has not routinely used vocabulary that is remotely as harsh as that used against Gore. You have rarely seen the media call Bush a "moron" or "idiot", but Gore has routinely been called much worse. Here is a very partial list:

(I am citing the Daily Howler for most of these examples so that you can read some analysis of them. But the Howler provides precise citations for the originals, which should be easy to look up.)

Indeed, Bush's alleged mental incompetence is often tacitly used to excuse his falsehoods -- he doesn't know what he's talking about, so he can't be lying. Or Gore is accused of a "pattern" of false and exaggerated statements, but then Bush escapes the same accusation for the simple reason that nobody bothers to gather Bush's false and exaggerated statements in one place.

This is just the press. We're not even talking about the conservatives on the Internet that have been circulating long lists of Gore's supposed lies and exaggerations -- most of which are, of course, themselves lies or exaggerations, including garbled and embellished versions of the already false versions in the press. Some of these lists are credited to the RNC, but of course it is hard to know for sure.

The new science of character assassination, then, has several components:

It starts with a strategy: a conscious choice by a political party that it is going to position its opponent in a certain way. The 10/15/00 Washington Post quotes a Republican consultant as saying that "PR 101 is define your opponent before he tries to define himself", and the whole campaign is clearly organized by the principles of PR.
It requires a clearinghouse to distribute "facts" that fit the strategy. In this case the burden has been carried by the Republican National Committee and by the office of House majority leader Dick Armey, which got its start by circulating the original fraudulent charges from Wired News about Gore's Internet statement.
It requires rank-and-file supporters who are willing to pass along any junk that fits the party line.
But above all, it requires a press corps that has decided to go along with it. Part of the problem is that the press operates in packs -- an echo chamber of lazy pundits in which every "fact" that fits a prevailing stereotype gets endlessly repeated.

But it's not just that. It is not surprising that Rupert Murdoch's media properties, such as Fox and the New York Post, publish smears against people who disagree with Murdoch's far-right views. But it can hardly be an accident that the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Associated Press have all assigned reporters to the Gore campaign who write, day in and day out, the same sorts of exaggerated smears. To be sure, the press is not unanimous in spreading Republican lies as truth; the contrast between the NYT/Post/AP axis and the calm reporting of the Los Angeles Times could hardly be greater. But the Post, Times, and AP, all well-connected and widely syndicated, set the tone for the press as a whole. The fix is clearly in, and these establishment media operations are clearly down with it. They see which way the wind is blowing, and they don't want to get left behind.

A kind of coup is in effect, continuing the pattern of the Whitewater hoax and impeachment. If the far right succeeds in its campaign, then the incoming government will be staffed by people who are trained in the new science of character assassination. It's all they know. And having destroyed Al Gore, they will come after the rest of us.

"The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness."

This is an international issue by yelvington · 2000-08-23 18:45 · Score: 1 · on More On Kaplan's Ruling Making Links Illegal

From the Financial Times: Dutch papers fail in internet copyright case : Leading Dutch newspapers yesterday failed to prevent an online news service from providing direct links to articles on newspaper websites, in a legal ruling that helps define the limits of internet copyright.

Better ways to use hyperlinks in HTML by dmccarty · 2000-06-08 04:28 · Score: 2 · on Microsoft Quickies

Wow, is this a contest to see how many "here" links can you put in a single paragraph? Consider the following example, which IMO is a lot better than a here link:

ZDNet has a big thing on it, as well as new words from Judge Jackson. The Financial Times site, FT.com, has news and a Ballmer interview. And here's something from the Washington Post, talking about the possibility of an out-of-court settlement. Enjoy.

And while I'm in Slashdot-critique mode, is it really necessary to provide a link to a common company name? For example:

Rob Roy, CEO of Adobe, wrote an article about the Internet.

C'mon, like none of us know how to point to adobe.com.

--

Re:They never had a chance. by dingbat_hp · 2000-05-22 21:47 · Score: 1 · on The Downward Spiral Of Linuxcare?

I'm saying that LinuxCare was a stupid idea, by a bad company, poorly executed.

I know nothing beyond the article, and I'm no Linux geek. Would it be fair to say that it was a bad company and poorly executed, but not a bad idea ?

Does the collapse of boo.com mean that clothes retailing is a bad idea (even though it seems so contagious that the stock markets have caught a cold over it) ? We all knew there were some bad implementations and flakey companies out there, but it doesn't mean that the concepts are inherently broken. The dot.com bubble is much more like the American 1929 bubble over radio stocks, than the South Sea or Tulipomania, simply because there is a basic product under all that hype, and it's a product worth having. Radio recovered in the '30s, tulips didn't.

Who uses these stupid "knowledge bases", anyways?

I would.

I know the Win32 / Web platforms, but I don't know Linux. Right now I have a bucket o'cash to spend on someone who will tell me how to do (secret server-based web-thing) over *nix, and it's better than M$oft's product. I don't want to spend my time on this, I just want to spend my commercial budget on keeping my commercial timescale on track. Answering my need here is a good and reasonably long-term business to be in.

As I said, I know nothing of Linuxcare, but it sounds an awful lot like major pointy hair and yet another dot.com cash bonfire. Nothing new there....

Things to come by sstrick · 2000-05-17 19:52 · Score: 4 · on Boo No More

The reason this has such lasting ramifications is because very few of these sites make a profit. As a result they rely on venture capital to keep going. A major player such as boo (their brand recognition in Europe was excellent) collasping is bound to scare of investors.

This could hurt alot of startups. Somehow boo went through $135m in one year. For more details check out ft.com they have a very good article on it.

- according to the Financial Times - by fantomas · 2000-03-25 02:36 · Score: 2 · on Daikatana - Delayed Again?

The Financial Times (UK Financial Paper ) ran this today also, (page 14 , 25 March), also go to http://www.ft.com and do a search for Eidos for the whole story and a newer one on the same theme.

Won't bore you with the whole article but the drop in Eidos share prices appears to have been a result of Eidos themselves warning that games players were holding back on purchases in order to await the launch of the new generation of games consules.

Nitty gritty details "..Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, the broker, cut this year's pre-tax profit forecast of 23.6 million (pounds sterling) to losses of 17.3 million (pounds sterling). But Eidos will remain in the black following n 84 million (pounds sterling) gain from the sale of a 77 per cent stake in Opticom, a Norwegian technology company...."

Phew! all you market trading sharedealing big players are safe then :-)

Me, I *live* right next to the City (financial heart of London) but our little (web and information) company gets around on bicycles and the nearest I get to market trading is buying my veggies from the same fruit and veg market as the high flying city dealers down the road ;-)

not just in US [slightly off-topic] by Kvasio · 2000-03-23 08:57 · Score: 1 · on The IT Labor Shortage

Germany is also experiencing such shortage. That's why their prime minister and economy minister came up with work visa programme for non-EU telecommunications and computer experts.

This concerns 30,000 posts for people from Eastern Europe and Far East.

Stock Squeeze (why wont my links post correctly?) by new500 · 2000-02-26 02:09 · Score: 1 · on Caldera Prices Its IPO

Slashdot Mirror

Domain: ft.com

Comments · 760