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Of course. When you have more money than anyone else in the world, and you're in trouble with Uncle Sam, you can just buy BOTH major party candidates. You wait for the election, and then, voila... you own a president!

In 2000, I suspected Bill probably had deals with both Al and George. In August 2001, that suspicion was reinforced by this Seattle Times article. Also see: http://www.aaxnet.com/news/M010823.html.

GP: An exploding subway is annoying and scary, but it's not a serious threat to our way of life.
You: And neither is a collapsing skyscraper?

No.

A collapsing skyscraper does not fundamentally change our lives. Our reactions after the fact changes our lives. The current administration have done everything in their power to convert America from a free democracy to a police state. Just this morning, I read that Bush has been given the right to arrest a US citizen and hold them indefinitely without actually charging them with a crime . My god, that does more damage to 100% of our democracy than the downing of one building and the deaths of 0.001% of our population.

I propose that cannibal child molestors not be arrested nor prosecuted. After all, children die all the time. And canibals only eat a few every year. What the hell? It's not a serious threat to our way of life.

The problem with that statement is that you assume the grandparent post is saying that we shouldn't go after terrorists. That's not what I read at all. What I read is that we shouldn't be going around, removing freedoms from average citizens, and completely restructuring society for the worse over such a small threat.

To use your example above, it'd be like addressing cannibal child molestation by saying that only robots can take care of children because robots can't molest them or eat them. Screw all the normal people who want access to their children. They could be cannibal child molesters. Better to be safe than sorry!

If you don't think that radical islamic fundamentalists will take away your precious freedoms, then you're sorely ignorant of modern and recent history.

So far, no radical islamic fundamentalists have taken away any of our freedoms. The people that have been taking away our freedoms are American citizens that we've elected to high offices in the Presidency and Congress.

One needs look back no further than Afghanistan circa 5 years ago to find evidence of the hideous brutality of the terrorists' intent.

And now we are replacing our democracy with a police state. The Republican's view of America's future doesn't look that different from the terrorist's view.

The sore of islamic ignorance has been allowed to fester for forty years, unchecked and fueled by proceeds from drug trade and oil sale. Now, they've brought the fight to the Western World and we can either respond with fight or surrender. Radical islam is a threat to our way of life, even if cowards and fools such as you choose ignorance over courage.

The sore of republican ignorance has been allowed to fester for thirty-five years, unchecked and fueled by proceeds from drug trade and oil sale. Now, they've brought the fight to the middle east and we can either respond with fight or retreat. Radical christianity is a threat to our way of life, even if cowards and fools such as you choose ignorance over courage.

As I recall, it was posted on Slashdot some time ago, before the Slate sell-off, that Microsoft ditched its investments in MSNBC. There's an older article here that mentions it. I believe the sell-off has already occurred, or at least is underway.

MS has been trying to build bridges to China for more than seven years: first in founding Microsoft Research China (now MSR Asia), a pure research facility that eventually became an R&D wing. Kai-Fu Lee, the former exec being sued for going to Google, founded MSR China in 1998 and came back to Redmond in 2000.

Several years back Ballmer shook hands on a $100M outsourcing plsu $20M investment deal that senior management found it hard to live up to, and so they amended it to $55M in jobs and $60M in investments in Chinese IT.

If you look at the Seattle Times article, there are links to the court filings, including KFL's deposition, where he indicates that a major part of his work on MS's international business since coming back to the states, has been keeping MS from making blunders. These include making ill-advised promises that it hasn't been able to live up to, and (if it had) would have meant outsourcing at a rate that would strip American jobs, despite its assurances.

Mirosoft's China strategy is starting to fall apart as its hiring has slowed stateside and it becomes evident that it's trying to have its cake and eat it too.

This sound like a unpleasant invasion of privacy.
According to http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstech nology/2002210022_microsoftads17.html/news article from the Seattle Times,
"AdCenter uses information from customers who registered for services such as Hotmail or who tailored the MSN home page to their interests. It supplements that with data purchased from the Experian credit bureau."

Text of complaint: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/business/lin ks/ms_complaint.pdf

They are asking the court to uphold the employement agreement.

The "IP" that comes into play is a direct result of Lee accepting the EXACT SAME JOB at Google that he performed at Microsoft. His job requires strategic planning against competitors in his field. The arguement of inevitable disclosure comes into play because there isn't any way to determine if Lee's decisions that "beat" Microsoft were based on his 1st hand knowledge of Microsoft's plans, or his inate skill/cunning. In other words, he's tainted -- he already knows what Microsoft plans to do -- think of it as the executive equivelent of clean room reverse engineering.

Inevitable disclosure is very difficult to prove, and you generally have to prove that disclosure must happen as part of performing job.
I could have knowledge of some special algorithm and do my job correctly without infringing on or disclosing that information. Lee can't.

In this case, I think it seems very easy to argue inevitable disclosure -- which I don't think is a good sign for Google.

Obvious answer: He wasn't an American.

"The infected man was born outside the United States and had not been vaccinated, according to health officials." from
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/238160_measles web26.html

You have employees bring back the measles by hiring foreigners from countries that do not vaccinate all of their population.

"The infected man was born outside the United States and had not been vaccinated, according to health officials." from
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/238160_measles web26.html

A man returning from a trip to France earlier this month may have spread measles at four Redmond locations, including two on the Microsoft campus, health officials said yesterday.

The man, in his 40s, returned to the Seattle area Aug. 8, but he was only contagious and exposed to the public for a few days, said Dr. Jeff Duchin, head of communicable diseases for Public Health -- Seattle & King County. The man is recovering and is no longer contagious, Duchin said.

Measles is a potentially fatal disease that can cause pneumonia and brain swelling in some cases. Most people are not at risk of contracting the disease because they either were vaccinated or developed immunity after having measles as a child, officials said.

Anyone who has not been vaccinated or developed immunity, and was at the following locations during these times, should call their doctor, Duchin said.

• Building 40 on the Microsoft campus, One Microsoft Way in Redmond, all day Aug. 16-19.
• The cafeteria between buildings 40 and 41 on the Microsoft campus in Redmond, from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Aug. 17-19.
• Malay Satay Hut, 15230 N.E. 24th St., Redmond, from noon to 3 p.m. Aug. 16.
• Thai Ginger at Redmond Town Center, 16480 N.E. 74th St., from 8-11 p.m. Aug. 20.

Ha, ha, ha. But seriously, whatever he was at the MS campus for 4 days, and ate at the cafeteria, so it does seem likely he was employed there. However, the "outsourcing" hook that made up half the submission really is flamebait, he was in France. What does MS outsource to France?

The person travelled to France.
Check here.

The person travelled to France
Check here . I don't know how or why off-shoring comes into the picture? What does Microsoft offshore to France?
Freedom Fries?

This is one of the shortest articles in /. history and no one seems to be able to read it. You are right that the article is important, but what you've posted has nothing to do with the article. The article is important because it lets people - who may or may not be immunized - know that they may have been exposed to the virus. That's it.

An outbreak of measles is incredibly rare in the "west". Can someone please explain to me how one of the U.S.A.s most important companies just suffered an outbreak?

What "outbreak"? According to the article, there is one confirmed case of measles in "an adult", who may or may not work for the company.

Do you Americans not immunise your children?

Even if 100% of American children are immunized, not all Americans are born and grow up in America, and not everyone in America is an American.

Besides, the vaccine is not 100% effective.

According to the Seattle Times, the adult picked up the measles in France, another western country.

Perhaps the employee traveled to Indonesia.

He might have travelled to Indonesia, but he was in France when he contracted measles.

I don't think that Microsoft off-shores many jobs to France.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/20024 51977_webmeasles25.html

and more broadly

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=measles &btnG=Search+News

IANAEOMMCACALC (I am not an expert on mass media coerscions and conspiracies against large corporations), but it seems there may be some truth to this. Anybody?

> "If Pacman had affected us as kids we'd be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music."

It's a good thing that didn't happen.

> "If Pacman had affected us as kids we'd be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music."

It's a good thing that didn't happen.

We at least know you won't be able to play any XBox 1 games on the $300 version. XBox backward compatibility requires the hard drive.

I think not.

• Jobs
• Liberty (Big Brother discovers GPS)
• Punishing the appropriate people. (Another take. Oh, maybe we can find a home for people with allergies who illegally obtain Sudafed)

• Jobs
• Liberty (Big Brother discovers GPS)
• Punishing the appropriate people. (Another take. Oh, maybe we can find a home for people with allergies who illegally obtain Sudafed)

"If MS win the patent appeal, they're going to want royalties from Apple. They'll get a lump sum, and a slice of all future sales."

Apparently not.

An excerpt from the Seattle Post Intelligencer:

Regardless of the outcome, Microsoft doesn't intend to try to block Apple from the market, said David Kaefer, business development director for Microsoft's intellectual property and licensing group.

"We have a long-standing practice of licensing things to Apple and licensing Apple's patents to use in our products," Kaefer said. "Our approach is to recognize that, frankly, we're both mutually dependent on the good ideas of one another."

Full article:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/236360_appl epatent12.html

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/236360_appl epatent12.html

it was filed *after* the relevant technology was released by someone else...

First off, yes, there were denials of warming by some neocons. At least until now:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8917093/

Then there's the argument that, oh, the environment will just adjust and absorb the carbon. Nope:

http://www.sundayherald.com/51146
http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/umw elt_naturschutz/bericht-47597.html

Oh, and why worry, it's just heat, right?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/20 02377292_ocean13m.html
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L29498448 .htm
http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2005/08/05/ne ws/community/friloc07.txt
http://www.bgsu.edu/offices/pr/news/2005/news8474. html

Is reflected in today's cartoon by David Horsey in the Seattle-PI.

We need to come up with something more agressive and effective. I for one am a fan of the much discussed idea DOS attacks against the spammers websites, despite the moral and ethical issues people have raised. A nice side effect is that it will somewhat discourage ISPs from hosting them also.

Funny, I read the actual article and I don't feel like I'm going to lose my job because of the way my nucleotides are paired up.

The debate might as well be over whether or not my employer is obligated to protect me from a job that, due to my genes, will hurt me.

If I own a peanut butter factory, shouldn't I be concerned about hiring people who are allergic to peanuts? Can I be sued if I hire someone who could die if they are exposed to the excess amounts of peanut protein floating in the air?

This 2002 article in the Duke Law & Technology Review by Samantha French sheds more light more light on the topic. (First hit when you Google "Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway genetic testing")

NO! That is a recipe for continuation of the status quo. They BOTH need to feel the heat NOW. Otherwise the Dems will take over and think their social agenda of increasing the loss of our freedoms for different reasons was the cause of their "success" at the polls. You wind up in a perpetual seesaw resulting in the steady elimination of all rights equally between the two. You repeatedly trade bully one for bully two, then reverse and repeat.

There is nothing you or I can do to stop the pendulum of the bi-polar polity, other than convince enough people who will vote to actually change it. There was a chance at a third party with clout, but Buchanan, the Republican loyalist to the end, took the FEC money and trashed them in 2000. Demcorats still blame Nader, the fools, they should be blaming Buchanan, Perot and Ventura.

In the current circumstances, the best that can be achieved is an evenness of parties, and the abrasion that comes with it. I think that a large part of the economic boom in the 90's was due to the great friction between the parties. Neither side had enough power to suck their vigorish off of the top, and the free market that could, did. The equities traders screwed it up, but equity traders should be dealt with. If they didn't venture for capitalisation of the business, they are leeches, sucking from the valuation of the compensation provided to the producers of the product.

An Abridged Listing Why I Beat Upon Republicans Presently

The republicans have gained the upper hand in large part by betraying both their core ideology and the Dreamtime America. NeoConservatism's maturation can be traced from marxism to trotskyite CIA stooges to Scoop Jackson DemoHawks to Reagan to the Son of Bush. They have never given up the marxist trait of spewing rhetoric, the truth notwithstanding. The self-confessed American traitor, David Horrowitz calls Kerry and Fonda traitors, and is given stature within the Right. The putrescence of moral relevancy oozing from the partisan defense of a president who fixed the intelligence and the facts around his policy of familial vengence, and took America into an unrighteous conflict without contemplating the aftermath. a president who sings sweet songs of liberty and democracy, yet gives aid to dictatorial destroyers of democracy, has liasons with leaders loathsome of liberty, and goes out on ManDates with Saudi Princes who come to the USA laden with extra baggage.

When did conservatives begin to support due process of law applied inequally to humans? That is a high crime against America, yet they still repeatedly remind us that a stained blue dress is impeachable? Why not decry Blood-Stained Iraq Sands?

Bush's SCOTUS nomimee Roberts is a dangerous and activist judge who DOES NOT adjudicate using original intent, and all the country can think about is which way he'll decide on abortion cases. His assent in the Hamdi v Rumsfeld appeal is frightful. It posits that a president is above the very law that legitimises his power, stating this is a function of war power, in a war upon unstated enemies, of an indeterminate duration. Why hasn't anyone asked Roberts just what the hell he was doing during that ongoing criminal enterprise: The Reagan Administration? This is ano

They go do something like this.
Microsoft hires Wal-Mart exec

You're in Washington state? 1% of gross revenue goes to subsidize somehow, doctors who "care for the poor".

...this has nothing to do with an executive. This has to do with the greatest challenge...

Well I never made any particular claims to sanity, as it turns out, but at least I'm not an utter fool, know what I mean?

I mean seriously, you're so wrong:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/aptv_story.asp?ca tegory=1401&slug=Nielsens%20List

Among tech/geek crowds, MAYBE that's true, but you should probably find some data to back up your statement -- don't pass off opinion as fact.

I am a gamer, and will vote with my wallet, no way in hell will I pay for a game to be spammed with RL ads; fake ads where it fits, fine, but that's all.

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/233811_cost co25.html

Costco's CEO charts his own course with high wages and low prices

Bid to gain worker and customer loyalty is paying off

Monday, July 25, 2005

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
THE NEW YORK TIMES

Jim Sinegal, the chief executive of Costco Wholesale, the nation's fifth-largest retailer, had all the enthusiasm of an 8-year- old in a candy store as he tore open the container of one of his favorite new products: granola snack mix. "You got to try this; it's delicious," he said. "And just $9.99 for 38 ounces."

About 60 feet away, inside Costco's cavernous warehouse store here in the company's hometown store in Issaquah, Sinegal became positively exuberant about the 87-inch-long Natuzzi brown leather sofas. "This is just $799.99," he said. "It's terrific quality. Most other places you'd have to pay $1,500, even $2,000."

But the piece de resistance, the item he most wanted to crow about, was Costco's private-label pinpoint cotton dress shirts. "Look, these are just $12.99," he said, while lifting a crisp blue button-down. "At Nordstrom or Macy's, this is a $45, $50 shirt."

Combining high quality with stunningly low prices, the shirts appeal to upscale customers -- and epitomize why some retail analysts say Sinegal just might be the United States' shrewdest merchant since Sam Walton.

But not everyone is happy with Costco's business strategy. Some Wall Street analysts assert that Sinegal is overly generous not only to Costco's customers, but also to its workers.

Costco's average pay, for example, is $17 an hour, 42 percent higher than its fiercest rival, Sam's Club. And Costco's health plan makes those at many other retailers look Scroogish. One analyst, Bill Dreher of Deutsche Bank, complained last year that at Costco, "it's better to be an employee or a customer than a shareholder."

Sinegal begs to differ. He rejects Wall Street's assumption that to succeed in discount retailing, companies must pay poorly and skimp on benefits, or must ratchet up prices to meet Wall Street's profit demands.

Good wages and benefits are why Costco has extremely low rates of turnover and theft by employees, he said. And Costco's customers, who are more affluent than other warehouse store shoppers, stay loyal because they like the fact that low prices do not come at the workers' expense. "This is not altruistic," he said. "This is good business."

He also dismisses calls to increase Costco's product markups. Sinegal, who has been in the retailing business for more than a half-century, said heeding Wall Street's advice to raise some prices would bring Costco's downfall.

"When I started, Sears, Roebuck was the Costco of the country, but they allowed someone else to come in under them," he said. "We don't want to be one of the casualties. We don't want to turn around and say, 'We got so fancy we've raised our prices,' and all of a sudden a new competitor comes in and beats our prices."

At Costco, one of Sinegal's cardinal rules is that no branded item can be marked up by more than 14 percent, and no private-label item by more than 15 percent. In contrast, supermarkets generally mark up merchandise by 25 percent, and department stores by 50 percent or more.

"They could probably get more money for a lot of items they sell," said Ed Weller, a retailing analyst at ThinkEquity.

But Sinegal warned that if Costco increased markups to 16 percent or 18 percent, the company might slip down a dangerous slope and lose discipline in minimizing costs and prices.

Sinegal, whose father was a coal miner and steelworker, gave a simple explanation. "On Wall Street, they're in the business of making money between now and next Thursday," he said. "I don't say that with any bitterness, but we can't take that view. We want to build

Here is a better article on the news: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/aptech_stor y.asp?category=1700&slug=Yahoo%20Konfabulator

It says Konfabulator has only three employees!!! Now we know which three households have champagnes popping tonight.

A video of the launch showed the Vista brand name alongside the slogan "Clear, Confident, Connected; Bringing clarity to your world".

From Seattle Times article:

Microsoft may have stepped on the toes of another software company just down the road in Redmond.

Oh Microsoft.... Unfortunately, MS is left to differentiating its products names by letters and numbers, rather than words. Redhat has the wardrobe section of the dictionary, Gentoo the Penguin section, and Apple has the Feline section. All others are currently filled with other companies, and the Dictionary Motel's light is flashing "No Vacancy"

This is actually not true. What is needed is a two-pronged approach: putting the corporation back to its original form, as a social charter to allow a number of small businesses to pool their resources and reduce a risk of a large project and at the same time, massive increase in progressive business taxation on businesses in order to massively reduce their maximum profitable size and to increase the number of such businesses.

This achieves two things: increases competition since there are now hordes of small businesses competing over the same thing but at the same time allows for large coopearative projects. By reducing business size you reduce social risks of individual business failures and you reduce power of individual businesses to lobby governments. By not allowing corporate protection for basic business, you also ensure personal responsibility at this level. Add to this a massive, progressive inheretance tax to kill multi-generational accumulation of wealth and power and you are statring to approach the capitalism as it was meant to be: working for the society, not the other way around.

This still allows personal greed and wealth accumulation to function but on a much reduced scale. People will still be motivated to work harder just that the maximum reward ceiling would be significantly lowered, which is a good thing unless you believe that a CEO salary being 500+ times (and growing yearly) that of an average employee in the same company, as we have it now, is healthy. Unless you believe that all the outsorcing maddness is healthy. Unless you believe that corporations having wealth and power exceeding that of small countries is healthy.

Corporations can be useful but they are instruments of extrarodinary power which should be reserved for extraordinary projects and also be object of extraordinary scrutiny.

Oh, yeah, I'm sure your right. I mean, $50 million in lost revenue is always great for the bottom line.

I work at Microsoft as an intern ... If my product were about to ship, I'd work longer hours for a few weeks, but that's not the case.

If it's Longhorn, you won't have to worry about it shipping for quite a while.

I also haven't heard of them firing people... well, for just about anything

Such as blogging?

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/146115_blog ger30.html

I'd love to have an external LCD display showing the time, even when the machine's not on. hell, that'd even be useful on a desktop machine

It's coming

Or google for "Microsoft auxilliary display"

Brazil went whole-hog promoting ethonal and finds the latest oil price shock not impacting its economy that much. 25% mixture is regulated, though its about 40% in practice. Brazil has huge agricultural resources suitable for producing large amounts of ethonal. So even if its takes a fair amount of energy overhead to produce ethonal, they are doing it with aboundant, cheap ethonal energy.

My first thought was that this seems like a classic case of defensive patent action, and is fair game in my book. Cendant was the company that fired first when they hauled Amazon into court, so it's only fair that Amazon return the favor.

However, it appears that Cendent withdrew its lawsuit in February, so I'm not sure what to make of it. I suppose that if someone draws a gun on you, and then says, "heh heh...just kidding", you wouldn't necessarily be inclined to stop reaching for your own gun. So I can't say that I can muster a lot of pity for Cendant.

Cendant essentially forced Amazon to look in their patent portfolio to find what they could nail Cendant to the wall with. After having done all of the expensive homework, it seems that Amazon needed to at least recoup those costs.

Rob

Mr Hands has died today and all you can talk about is DRM? Get some priorities, people!

She passes a microsoft exam grown adults have failed and she manages to kiss up to a billionaire at age 9.

Heres a photo of her.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/photos/photo.asp?Pho toID=69691

and heres an article

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/232514_msft arfa14.html

Before you call her a kissass realize she actually
asked intelligent questions such as why there werent more women at microsoft(before the snarky comments remember she is a 9 year old girl speaking up for equality in a nation like Pakistan) and told a Microsoft VP her vision for self-navigating car.

You have to realize for a little geek girl in a country like Pakistan going to Microsoft is like
going to a paradise where everything works and people are smart just like her.

If you check out her photo, in another 10-15
years she is going to be a major geek hottie...
so be nice and not be pricks!

This is just a reminder to all us geeks who love to bash people from that part of the world...

Pakistan and india are the only two countries that I know of where many of the geeks are women who are good looking and its considered a good thing to be living with your parents as an adult until you are married...think about it!

She passes a microsoft exam grown adults have failed and she manages to kiss up to a billionaire at age 9.

Heres a photo of her.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/photos/photo.asp?Pho toID=69691

and heres an article

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/232514_msft arfa14.html

Before you call her a kissass realize she actually
asked intelligent questions such as why there werent more women at microsoft(before the snarky comments remember she is a 9 year old girl speaking up for equality in a nation like Pakistan) and told a Microsoft VP her vision for self-navigating car.

You have to realize for a little geek girl in a country like Pakistan going to Microsoft is like
going to a paradise where everything works and people are smart just like her.

If you check out her photo, in another 10-15
years she is going to be a major geek hottie...
so be nice and not be pricks!

This is just a reminder to all us geeks who love to bash people from that part of the world...

Pakistan and india are the only two countries that I know of where many of the geeks are women who are good looking and its considered a good thing to be living with your parents as an adult until you are married...think about it!

From http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/aptech_stor y.asp?category=1700&slug=Japan%20Double%20Display: "The 'two-way viewing-angle LCD,' announced by the Japanese consumer electronics maker Thursday, will go into mass production this month and will cost roughly twice as much as a standard display."

Why not just buy two seperate displays? That way, if two people wanted to do different things, they could just put the displays in two different places...

Not that I don't think the technology is really cool.

The reuters article seems to be more about patents than anything.

As for the sound question, thats one of the catches mentioned in the following:

Here is a better article.

• Gasoline
• Ethanol (a.k.a. Alcohol)
• A combiation of Gasoline and Ethanol, at any ratio
• Natural Gas

• MSNBC
• The Seattle Times

A picture is worth a 1000 words

...and a few chuckles

Laugh all you want, but textbook profiteering is a serious problem (sample article). But alas, even academics have offered little help in the area -- cf. this turkey blaming the resale of textbooks (perfectly legal under the right of first sale) for their high cost, a la Garth Brooks railing used CDs.

It's like the scene in The Freshman, where professor so-and-so says, "you simply must have the textbook 'Professor so-and-sos Film Studies' for this class!"

1) This thing costs over $1000

2) EV-DO cellular internet service for the internet connection is $80/mo

Maybe it would be better just to deal with being away from the internet when you're camping...

For those interested, here is another article just popped up in the Seattle Times on the very same thing. I think the claims on "reaction" to spyware are a little more gentle (e.g., being more vigilant... what the heck is that?, and what added benefit does it really bring?). Regardless, enjoy... it's a good enough read to take a look.