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This is a decision based upon consumer experiences, child protection and our strategic investment to build up MSN Messenger.[my emphasis]

This would be a good opportunity to turn people on to cross-platform IM clients like GAIM. I doubt anyone in the tech communities is naive enough to take the children argument as more than a red herring to keep IM from joinging the OS/Broswer/Mediaformat/Office format anti-trust action. It does, however, provide a very good cover for pushing people into MS-Passport, despite its reputation, and for locking out non-Microsoft IM clients.

Alternately, this can be seen as just another product or service being dropped or postponed as the company sheds weight to try to stay afloat.

Lastly, regarding the link. This is being covered by everyone and his dog, even Reuters, so no need to plug poor sources..

I didn't mention the NW passage, you mentioned the entire polar ice cap melting would have no effect on sea-level, this is a common, and unfortunate, misconception/over simplification.

From here:
If Greenland's ice sheet melts, the world's sea level will rise six metres, enough to put many Nunavut communities under water.

That was my point. You were wrong.

From here "out of my ass" "If nothing is done to stabilize our climate and sea levels rise as much as 6 meters (20 feet), you'll flood the southern half of Florida, the southern half of Louisiana.

I picked USA Today for your benefit. I could quote you a thousand more articles from more reputable sources if you like.
The point is this: Greenland is an Island covered with glacial ice, as is Baffin Island, Ellesmere Island and others in the artic. If the Polar cap melts (which by itself would indeed not affect sea levels) then the ice on these islands would of course melt also. Which WOULD lead to sea level rise. So, if as you suggested, all the ice in the artic melted, then the sea level would rise.

End of story.

From here: The [Northwest] Passage itself runs through the Arctic Islands of Canada some 500 miles north of the Arctic Circle, only 1,200 miles from the North Pole. The 900-mile east-west water route runs from Baffin Island to the Beaufort Sea through a field of thousands of icebergs, and thence into the Pacific through the Bering Strait, which separates Siberia from Alaska.

So, your point, numb nuts?

Oh, and from USA Today: the Arctic's ice is floating in the ocean. If it melted, it wouldn't raise sea level although it would have other effects on the world's climate.

So, if you're going to attack other people for not checking their facts, you should at least cite a couple of references rather than pulling BS out of your ass.

-T

Yes you are right
I am sure the world has been on the 5 day working week well before we got here.

Or maybe these trends are a fluke?

>Basically you want the entire Beatles back catalog, no no, all music ever recorded, in 96kHz 24-bit uncompressed 6-channel PCM for $1.

I suggested nothing of the sort.

I want the same level of quality currently available from P2P networks. That's usually a 128 kbit 2 channel MP3. I stated I would take this with full art for $6.99. I would take it without art for $5. I would take it DRM encumbered for $2.50.

Is that so difficult to understand?

>Heavy piracy is an indication of NOTHING except the convenience of and lack of consequences for getting something that costs money without paying for it.

Incorrect. The consequences of piracy are being shown to the world, possible jail sentences for 12 year olds and elderly people who may be left destitute. As a computer store owner I am reminded of these by common people who bring their worries to me. None of them intend to quit pirating, though.

>If an album at the iTunes Music Store cost $5, you'd be bitching about how it didn't cost $4, and if it cost $4, you'd complain that it didn't cost $2.50.

A specious argument. I have an account with eMusic right now, as they offer the music I want, and at a price and format that make sense. I only need to download 3 albums a month (far less than I do) to satisfy my requirements at their current prices. Interestingly enough, that is what their download manager limits you to per session.

>Guess what? What I think a Ferrari F355 should cost doesn't mean a god damn motherfucking thing.

I assume that a surprisingly low dollar figure was eaten by slashdot between cost and doesn't.

I don't think a Ferrari F355 should cost any less than it does. It's current cost is what keeps it an elite status symbol. If it were to cost less, it not only wouldn't be manufactured to its amazing standards, but, more importantly, would become a common vehicle, and no longer an oddity to be in wonder at. That would be quite depressing.

>I have no idea how your voodoo math with regards to CD and digital music prices is supposed to work

Did I not make it clear? I am sorry. Allow me to further eludicate my position.

As you can see, this article states a popular CD costed about $17.99. It appears one company now sells them at $12.98. Also, a popular cassette now costs $8.98. The article does not make clear what the price of a cassette was. From my personal experience, it was $9.99. You may disagree.

Since both items contain the same music, one must assume the licensing of these items is below the cost of the cassette ($8.98). The wholesale margin is $3.89. Assuming the profit is intended to be in the cost of licensing, and not the cost of the media (the RIAA have gone to great lengths to convince us of this), the cost of licensing the music wholesale, including everything such as advertising, etc. is below $5.09. Let's call it $5 even.

So, we now know that the cost of licensing is below $5. It isn't unusual for advertising to be more than half the cost of a product when the product is solely dependent on advertising as a means for sales, so we'll slash the wholesale price to $2.50 in licensing fees.

So, we are left to consider, how much does it cost to run a webserver? How much is a 100 MB download?

The downloading, I can answer easily. I presently pay $0.70 per GB. I can only hope that the music industry would enjoy a bulk deal on internet service. So, the transfer of the music would cost $0.07.

Considering such an operation would require no more than 2 persons to operate (one to design the website, the other to deal with encoding/support) and 1 contract personnel to deal with finances, they will need to pay about $100,000 in wages. Another $199 a month is required to finance the rackmount server.

The total fixed cost therefore becomes $102,388 per year. We'll tack on another $100,000 to

microsoft is "the biggest supplier to the Air Force" -- draw your own conclusions. also the f-22 has been plagued by uptime problems for a while now, delaying deployment to probably 2005.

CNN's top war correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, says that the press muzzled itself during the Iraq war. And, she says CNN "was intimidated" by the Bush administration and Fox News, which "put a climate of fear and self-censorship."

As criticism of the war and its aftermath intensifies, Amanpour joins a chorus of journalists and pundits who charge that the media largely toed the Bush administrationline in covering the war and, by doing so, failed to aggressively question the motives behind the invasion.

On last week's Topic A With Tina Brown on CNBC, Brown, the former Talk magazine editor, asked comedian Al Franken, former Pentagon spokeswoman Torie Clarke and Amanpour if "we in the media, as much as in the administration, drank the Kool-Aid when it came to the war."

Said Amanpour: "I think the press was muzzled, and I think the press self-muzzled. I'm sorry to say, but certainly television and, perhaps, to a certain extent, my station was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News. And it did, in fact, put a climate of fear and self-censorship, in my view, in terms of the kind of broadcast work we did."

Brown then asked Amanpour if there was any story during the war that she couldn't report.

"It's not a question of couldn't do it, it's a question of tone," Amanpour said. "It's a question of being rigorous. It's really a question of really asking the questions. All of the entire body politic in my view, whether it's the administration, the intelligence, the journalists, whoever, did not ask enough questions, for instance, about weapons of mass destruction. I mean, it looks like this was disinformation at the highest levels."

Clarke called the disinformation charge "categorically untrue" and added, "In my experience, a little over two years at the Pentagon, I never saw them (the media) holding back. I saw them reporting the good, the bad and the in between."

Fox News spokeswoman Irena Briganti said of Amanpour's comments: "Given the choice, it's better to be viewed as a foot soldier for Bush than a spokeswoman for al-Qaeda."

CNN had no comment.

The tax part of that argument isn't entirely accurate. A lot of people actually buy SUVs due to the tax breaks that are afforded them when used for business.

That may be true, but driving the Lupo 3L in "Eco" mode is a bit like slow torture. Yes, a hybrid Lupo could probably get 130 mpg without breaking a sweat, but it's not a "solution" that appeals to a lot of people. I'd settle for a larger model 100 mpg with AC, CVT transmission, some good pickup, and seats that don't warp your spine. The Mercedes Smart Roadster would be a good place to start...

The Beatles don't control Apple Records anymore .

Hmm I wonder if they ever did.

Have a look at these to know what I mean...
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2002-09-15 -artists-rights_x.htm
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacle.h tml


In short: in corporate america the artists *PAY* the company for their work!

From the article:
AT&T plans to retire 270 legacy systems across the world by the end of 2005. Approximately 130 legacy systems were retired over the past 18 months, with another 140 systems slated for phase out over the next two years.

The article didn't define exactly what "legacy systems" were (switches? entire local networks?), but that sure sounds like a lot of high technology that's heading for the dustbin. We're talking technology that's currently in use creating a mobile communications system that would have been unimaginable just 15 years ago.

Will it all be scrapped out? Will barges full of misc parts be shipped to third-world scavenging companies to recover the precious metals? Or is there some way to move the equipment to areas that need it -- Afghanistan and Iraq come to mind right away, but I'd think that under-served (and under-reported) countries like Somalia and the rest of Africa could make use of this supposedly outdated hardware.

Of course, we're back to the same old question -- when it costs more to recycle than to dump, how do you justify doing the Right Thing to shareholders whose only interest is in doing the Profitable Thing?

It's not just childish. It's possibly illegal (depending on the size of the organization). It took me a few minutes to find this article, as I couldn't remember the source, but it contains the thrust of my argument. In summary, organizations over a certain size in the US must keep resumes on file for a certain period.

It's possible the regulations have changes since that article was written (November 5th, last year), so that electronic submissions aren't considered applications anymore-- I couldn't find any follow-up articles to refute it.

Don't think for one second the ass monkeys at SCO wouldn't claim something similar against "the next big thing". What's needed here is a crushing defeat of SCO (I mean losing in court, fines, delisting, bankruptcy, and SEC criminal charges) to discourage any copy-cat claims in the future.

The problem is that the court system is notoriously slow and SCO is milking that lag to the best of it's ability. SCO's day in court will come in April 2005 and they're going to get slaughtered but until then the best we can do is to keep refuting any evidence they leak or make public and keep our cool. There's an old saying that "it's the quiet ones you have to watch out for" and I fully expect IBM to prove that true in 2005.

Your grain of salt for the article:
Fox is one of the four motion picture studios in the MPAA that do not share revenue with a major U.S. record label.

Also beware of the New York Daily News which does not share revenue with a major U.S. record label.

Beware of NY Newsday which does not share revenue with a major U.S. record label.

Beware the New York Post which does not share revenue with a major U.S. record label.

Beware of USA Today which does not share revenue with a major U.S. record label.

Beware of WNBC TV News 4 which does not share revenue with a major U.S. record label.

Beware the Jewish World Review which does not share revenue with a major U.S. record label.

Beware of the California Sacramento Bee which does not share revenue with a major U.S. record label.

According to Gogle News this story is only 12 hours old, expect the list to expand. It is absolutely SHOCKING how many news sorces do not share revenue with a major U.S. record label. SHOCKING I say! This media bias cannot be permitted to continue!

-

Please tell me you pulled that number out of your arse.

Nope, not out of their... out of thin air.

MSNBC

StarTribune

USAToday

Note that they all seem to reference the same poll by the Washington Post...

If you didn't, I think American commonsense has surrendered.

Look at the current administration, the current economic situation, the current legal atmosphere, and if you DIDN'T think American commonsense was seriously deficient, you would either be on drugs like SCO (ObReference) or you just woke from your twenty year nap...

It's not a straw-man position. We kill people all the time because it's easy to do. Do you think that George Bush Jr. would have invaded Iraq if there was going to be a 1:1 casualty rate, or even a 1:5 or 1:10? Of course not -- the whole point of the Iraq war was to distract the nation from the fact that we've lost more jobs than under any President since Hoover and, at the same time, make it seem like we were out getting the people responsible for bringing down the WTC, part of the Pentagon and crashing four passenger planes.

The only time peace occurs is when overwhelming force exists on one side (the benevolent side).

You're on crack. Long-term peace never occurs when one group is overwhelmingly stronger than another; you either get horrible oppression, drawn-out guerilla wars or genocides (or, sometimes, all three). History provides literally hundreds of examples of this; I don't see how you can seriously question it.

How does political trolling like this get modded up to +5?

What was the trolling you were referring to? The part about 70% of Americans beliving that Iraq was directly involved with 9-11 or the part about the Iraq war being a wag-the-dog move? Do you really think you can win that arguement in a forum where people are willing to think past flag-waving and chanting "support our troops" (it always strikes me as odd that saying we shouldn't send the troops to get shot at without good reason, or at least thinking it out carefully first, doesn't count as "support")?

"Most geeks" is a spurious term. If you think they are all left-leaning pinkos, you`re wrong. If you think they`re Edvard Teller madmen, you`re wrong. Geeks are all over the spectrum.

There are undoubtibly right-wing war mongering geeks, thus my use of the word "most". It's not hard to see that most geeks, at least those represented here on /., are considerably left of "center".

Further, I'd be willing to bet that if you could go back and poll the inventors of each advance in human history, asking if they'd have liked the fruit of their efforts to be used to inflict suffering on other people or not, you'd come up with a pretty overwhelming "no".

I would imagine there are some geeks who lost their brothers/fathers/sisters/mothers in 9-11, and would have no qualms in putting the hurt on some goat-farking terrorist camp via remote control.

I would imagine that there are some geeks who lost loved ones in 9-11 who would, similar to my original point, prefer that it was harder to kill people so that you'd only do it when you really had to.

Almost everything is for sale on the Internet -- even the Social Security numbers of top government officials like CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft, consumer advocates warned Wednesday. The California-based Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights said for $26 each it was able to purchase the Social Security numbers and home addresses for Tenet, Ashcroft and other top Bush administration officials, including Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser. [ original story]

When Border Patrol agents came across the corpses of 14 Mexican immigrants who died trying to cross the searing Arizona desert in 2001, a brand new tool helped U.S. authorities identify the bodies and, eventually, the smugglers who abandoned them.

The tool was a database containing the personal information of 65 million voting-age Mexican citizens. The U.S. government bought access to it for $1 million a year from a giant data vendor called ChoicePoint.

U.S. drug and immigration investigators prized the data, accorting to the Department of Homeland Security and other law enforcement sources, because it gave them latitude to track suspects inside Mexico without alerting local authorities. original article)

...is that despite an ongoing war on terrorism (which has yet to capture the prime suspect for 9/11/01, and a bad guy that was on a list of bad guys we had not bombed yet, so we did since we couldn't find the first guy), a dismal economy, the deficit, and various other major problems around the country, Congress feels that they deserve a raise for a 5th consecutive year.

This will end up costing the school system more money in the long run. To make this a real offer of generosity, Microsoft must give this school system a non-expiring license for their software.

So that's why Gore beat Bush in California. Those damn Democrats tried to steal the election there too!

That is the day that the RIAA will be sueing some of the people they subpoena'd. According to this article.

I can't *wait* to see what happens. Of course, this is only because I'm not on the list.

Bush fails the Segway test

Inspired piece from usatoday columnist

I'm sorry, but I call BS.

Yeah, right - not like they would be taken to court for price fixing and settle for $65 million or violate anti-trust laws by price fixing, would they?

RIAA members control CD prices illegally and have been caught with their hand in the cookie jar several times. What you pay retail for a CD today as compared to 10 years ago is meaningless.

See this News Article for information about NASA's Space Launch Initiative program.

"The reusable space plane, equipped with crew escape and automatic landing systems, would be far safer than the shuttle, officials said Tuesday in unveiling 15 design concepts. It also would be much cheaper to operate, they promised."

Most people also realise that space is not a 100% vacuum.

Besides, there are so very few known "truths" when it comes to science anyhow. Many are trying to prove conclusively that the speed of light in a vacuum (c) is not actually a constant. If that is proven accurate, how many theories would be rendered useless?

Not for Dubya: Check this picture out for proof that Dubya can do the impossible.

here is another free chapter.

"Deep Blue was not dismantled"

Then why does everyone seem to think that it is?

Wired: Deep Blue has since been dismantled

ChessCenter: Deep Blue was dismantled after beating Garry Kasparov in 1997

Nature: Blue was dismantled after the '97 contest

Kasparov: it was quickly dismantled after the event.

What is the current status of this machine and its software?

You should tell that to Louisiana spammer Ronnie Scelson, he seems to think that it's okay. But then he also thinks spamming is okay, and that Scooby-Doo is very deep.

There are at least a couple big name spammers based in Louisiana: Ronnie Scelson and Bubba Catts. Shutting them down would be a good start.

"ILOVEYOU" virus 2.6 - 15.0 Billion

BBC California-based IT consultancy Computer Economics estimated worldwide damage to be $2.6bn by the end of Thursday. It said that figure could soar to $10bn by next week.

USAToday

Lloyds of London put the estimate for Love Bug at $15 billion.

Melissa 1 Billion

USAToday

the economic damage from the Melissa virus in 1999 to be about $1 billion.

CodeRed 2.6 Billion

BizJournals.com

"Code Red, which started in mid-July, so far has cost the U.S. economy $2.6 billion."

Klez 9 Billion

The Register

"The Klez virus last year cost businesses $9 billion worldwide in lost productivity,"

SirCAM 1 Billion

BSTPierre.org

"SirCam", which also propagates through email, cost $1 billion.

TOTAL for these alone: at least 16.2 - 28.6 billion

"ILOVEYOU" virus 2.6 - 15.0 Billion

BBC California-based IT consultancy Computer Economics estimated worldwide damage to be $2.6bn by the end of Thursday. It said that figure could soar to $10bn by next week.

USAToday

Lloyds of London put the estimate for Love Bug at $15 billion.

Melissa 1 Billion

USAToday

the economic damage from the Melissa virus in 1999 to be about $1 billion.

CodeRed 2.6 Billion

BizJournals.com

"Code Red, which started in mid-July, so far has cost the U.S. economy $2.6 billion."

Klez 9 Billion

The Register

"The Klez virus last year cost businesses $9 billion worldwide in lost productivity,"

SirCAM 1 Billion

BSTPierre.org

"SirCam", which also propagates through email, cost $1 billion.

TOTAL for these alone: at least 16.2 - 28.6 billion

http://techdirt.com/articles/20030812/2144240.shtm l

Accused File Trader Suing RIAA - Claims Sharing Not Distribution

Contributed by Mike on Tuesday, August 12th, 2003 @ 09:46PM

In all the legal accusations flying back and forth over the RIAA's plans to sue everyone they possibly can, none of the individuals who have been subpoenaed have filed counter lawsuits against the RIAA. That's about to change. A lawyer in California is getting ready to file a lawsuit on behalf of one such user with a slightly different argument that has been seen before. He says that just because a user has a particular file available for sharing, that doesn't mean the file was actually shared. In other words, since the RIAA doesn't have actual proof that the individual distributed the file, then they have no case. It's a fine line - and I doubt a judge will see it that way. The RIAA will (I'm sure) respond that just making the file available is the equivalent of distribution, by itself.

Enron trader pleads guilty to rig california energy prices

Another trader pleads guilty.

Fastow indicted in defrauding California PERS

The Texas PUC recommends that Enron pay $7 million for manipulating power prices in Texas
Texas has an obscene overcapacity of power, and obscenely low prices.

As I said, there is truth in that California does not have enough capacity, but that does not mean they were not hoodwinked. I think it is kind of like ordering a penis pump that never is received. The mark is just too embarrassed to admit the crime took place

They need EPA's superfund to clean up after their toxic waste.

They need huge government subsidies to keep their huge hog farms running.

The government pays unemployment benefits to jobs lost from gross corporate mismanagement

The government pays dearly when defrauded out of billions of dollars.

In fact, it sounds like the worst thing our economy has suffered through is the rich.

Easy Peasy Japanesey.

US Today says a Lockheed janitor was denied a security clearance to clean a sensitive factory area, solely because of a bad credit history. He didnt pay all of his medical bills.

here

Yeah, I suppose they've only produced half of the 4 games to attain perfect scores from Famitsu. Shame on them, they should be doing much better </sarcasm>

Nintendo is doing alright. They're making plenty of cash, and considering the whole Sony group only made $9 million last quater, they shouldn't really be that displeased. Market share only goes so far, at the end of the day, despite what idiot share holders may think, profit is king.

the left-wingers want to make government even bigger than what these Republicans want.

That would be true, except for the fact that it is false:

USA Today: "GOP outspends Democrats in states Both far outpace rate of inflation"

Republicans, who pride themselves on being frugal with taxpayers' money, were bigger spenders than Democrats in state legislatures over the past five years, a USA TODAY analysis shows. State legislatures controlled by Republicans increased spending an average of 6.54% per year from 1997 to 2002, compared with 6.17% for legislatures run by Democrats. State spending rose slowest -- 6% annually -- when legislatures were split, and each party controlled one chamber. Inflation averaged 2.55% annually 1997-2002.

From USAToday:

EFF urges RIAA to change legal tune
By Jefferson Graham USA TODAY
The Recording Industry Association of America just hired a new CEO, at a salary of $1 million a year.
Meanwhile, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, its legal nemesis, exists on a total annual budget of $2 million, doled out in small checks to fight government and industry opponents in battles over online song swapping, privacy, computer hacking and other Internet related issues.

"We are defending the constitution," says John Perry Barlow, 55, a former Grateful Dead lyricist, cattle rancher and writer, who co-founded the EFF in 1990. "The desire to share information is second only to sex and basic survival in terms of human motivation. The record labels and movie studios are convinced they have the means to control this, and we can't allow that to happen."

EFF, located on a rundown street in San Francisco's Mission district, is the leading advocate for consumer rights in the RIAA's plans to sue hundreds of song swappers. The non-profit EFF, which has 23 staffers, recently put up a database on its eff.org Web site to let worried users of pirate file-sharing services check to see if their screen names are listed on the over 1,000 subpoenas that have been filed by the RIAA for possible lawsuits. EFF has also launched a "Let the Music Play" ad campaign promoting alternatives to litigation.

Even while sounding the alarm, executive director Shari Steele admits the RIAA's stance towards music fans is the best thing that ever happened to the EFF.

"In the past, we were getting five to 10 new members per day," she says. "Now we're up to 60 to 70. Our site almost went down the other day due to its popularity. This is the busiest we've ever been, by far."

Sarah Deutsch, associate general counsel for Internet provider Verizon, assumed at first that the EFF was some scrappy, "radical," San Francisco fringe group. But as she got to know them, she saw that "they know the law inside and out. They make very compelling arguments."

EFF filed a brief in support of Verizon in its battle with the RIAA over the Internet provider's refusal to reveal names of subscribers accused of swapping music, a case Verizon lost but is appealing.

Unlike Verizon, which makes its money from subscriber fees, or the RIAA, whose dues are paid by the five major record labels, EFF's annual budget comes mostly from computer users, in membership fees averaging $65. Corporate money is rare. None of EFF's well-financed neighbors -- Apple, Intel, Palm, Google, Hewlett-Packard -- has pitched in a cent. Neither have friends such as Verizon.

"Corporations don't like us, because we can't guarantee that we'll be on their side," says Steele. "We take positions early, and that makes people uncomfortable."

The "Let the Music Play" ad campaign, kicked off this month in Rolling Stone, "was a huge gamble," says legal director Cindy Cohn. "For the money we spent in Rolling Stone alone, that was the yearly salary of two employees." Ads also are planned in Spin and other music magazines.

EFF chose to do it because "we can either save this thing or it will drown," says Cohn. "Congress needs to hear from the people, not the corporations and their big campaign contributions. Look at what happened with the FCC," she says. New regulations easing radio and TV station ownership touched off a public backlash so intense the House voted 400 to 21 to overturn the rules, despite the threat of a presidential veto.

"It proved that when people make their voice heard, lawmakers listen," Cohn says.

The RIAA declined comment for this story, but James DeLong, a senior fellow with D.C. advocacy group the Freedom and Progress Foundation, says, "The EFF's basic stance on most issues is plain wrong."

Unlike the EFF, the FPF, which supports the RIAA and the new FCC rules, lists corporate sponsors such as Microsoft, AOL Time Warner

It's not _disposable_ it's _reusable_. The camera is returned to a
Ritz Camera store where the pictures inside are downloaded to a CD
or printed. The camera itself is kept by Ritz and recycled to another
customer. In other words your $10.99 is a _rental_ of the camera
with processing of the pictures included in the rental price.

There's a picture of one of these cameras here.

The USA Today article has some more details
on the camera and its use including the fact that it is likely to be sold at Walgreens
and Walt Disney theme parks (seems like a good idea to me).

The camera has a 2-megapixel sensor.

John.

Some people apparently do. (See image caption.)

Surely they would never do a thing like that!

Take SUVs out of music videos and television shows.

Why not? The kings of bling would still have their Italian gear, Ferraris, Bentleys, and a plethora of ways to illustrate the bigness of their lives. What I'd hope is that by removing them from depictions of cool, teenagers and lesser-minded adults would be less inclined to dream of rolling down the street in a Cadillac Escalade with twenty-four inch chromed rims. We're sheep. We want them because we want to image-engineer ourselves to include that essence of power, excess, and blatant disregard for practical concerns.

Oh, and as for that other demographic comprised of those who regularly go through their video archives of "Dawson's Creek" and "The Gilmore Girls", sorry. You'll have to lose your SUVs too.

After looking at the article and TDRL's website, the more interesting side of the story seems to come from the USA Today article, specifically IBM's new goal to make computing power a utility such that on demand computing can be purchased just like the power/water/gas utilities of today. The animation stills from TDRL are ok, but nothing spectacular. I've seen more realistic stills come out of a skilled single artist with Maya (see here). The incredible results that Pixar has been able to achieve through their research into rendering technology (ie. RenderMan) combined with artistic prowess have brought them success, and I fail to see how the Terminator 2 producer merely acquiring processor power brings TDRL into a position to challenge the best in the field.

Oh, India. Very nice country, nice people, nice girls , comparatevily starving and they're also
pirating drugs developed by rich western countries to cure their HIV patients at sustainable prices. Nice idea , nice purporse.

Interesting fact: some company may choose or have already choosen to outsource their intellectual property developement to india. To a country of pirates ??! (pirates according to many pharmaceutical companies for sure). Bad idea in my book.

Oh, but indians accept to be paid a couple dimes...

Yes, it's only because of money. And it sucks.
And it's incredibly stupid.

So, let me see if I've got this right. You have an indeterminant amount of time to spend in the US. You can go anywhere you want to go and do anything you want to do. And you want to spend it in computer museums, big bookstores, and the Smithsonian? Granted, these are all neat places to visit, but why do you want to geek up a perfectly good vacation?

My advice? Ditch the nerd stuff and do something outside.

Learn to kayak in Colorado.
Hike in one of the last beautiful places on Earth.
Play in the water at a beautiful beach in Florida.
Or go to one of the best beaches in Mexico.
Slide around on snow on purpose.
Go to one of the last truly wild places.

There is so much to see in North America. Please don't spend your whole trip at Frys.

Let's do some very approximate math on iTunes Music Store...

To date, 6.5 million songs sold so far (from parent post; I've heard 5 million as of WWDC NY). Although I think their estimate is high, according to some observers Apple gets USD$0.35 per song sold. This is undoubtely less per album sold (according to Apple, this is near 50% of songs) but to be generous let's count all songs downloaded as single-song purchases. This means Apple has taken in (6.5M x $0.35) = USD$2.275M so far on iTunes Music Store. This is not much despite the fact that Apple probably has close to 100% of the paid music download market for the Mac. Considering that this is approximately 5% of the US market, we can extrapolate that, even should Apple dominate (near 100%) the entire US paid music download market when it releases iTMS for Windows, this will still only be [(100/5) x $2.275M] = USD$45.5M. While this will increase if Apple releases iTunesMS for other countries, a number this high is still highly unlikely since Apple will face very stiff competition by the time they release iTMS for Windows.

Now let's put it in perspective. $45.5M wouldn't be bad for 3 months (this is as long as iTMS has been out so far and what the 6.5M download figure is ostensibly based on), it would actually be $182M annually on all platforms if Apple retained close to 100% of the market for an entire year. However, the company had total net sales last year of $5.47 billion - even dominating close to 100% of the present theoretical paid music download market would account for only another 3.3% revenue for the company!

...this is why iTunes is not, and probably never will be, financially very significant to Apple Computer. While Apple hopefully is recouping the money they invested in making iTMS and will turn a small profit eventually, the Music Store is used to generate 'buzz' rather than profit, and it is quite effective. However, looking at the numbers (even if the paid download market grows substantially) makes you wonder what BuyMusic.com's founder Scott Blum is doing blowing over $40 Million in advertising on a venture that's locked into technologies he does not control (Win/IE/Win Media Player), features unpopular licensing, and realistically will not even return $40M back to the company in the first year. Seemingly the only thing he got right was that they're basically copying the iTunes Music Store outright when they made BuyMusic.com

> ... the average taxpayer knows little or nothing about OSS, but will rapidly form and express vocal opinions about the government wasting money.

This may not be true for all government purchases but if you remember:
Microsoft subsequently lowered its pricing to $31.9 million and then to $23.7 million -- an overall 35% price cut. The discounts were for naught.

On May 28, the city council approved a more expensive proposal -- $35.7 million -- from German Linux distributor SuSE and IBM, a big Linux backer.

From here and here.

The original prices were Linux $39.5M and MS $36.6M. Of course MS shaved some services and products to lower their price so much, but the point is -- in this scenario, at least -- the price differences between OSS and MS were negligible. This is just one recent example, but I wouldn't be surprised if the same were true for other government purchases; I think it is more symbolic if they switch to OSS, but saying buying MS is 'wasting money' may be a bit pretentious. You still get your tax refund, right?

As most readers on /. know:
"Microsoft subsequently lowered its pricing ... to $23.7 million... The discounts were for naught.
On May 28, the [Munich, Germany] city council approved a more expensive proposal -- $35.7 million -- from German Linux distributor SuSE and IBM."
(USA Today)

In a case like this, the same people who just made the point about Microsoft being so costly to the taxpayer would have to explain why they support the more costly bid.
OSS lobbyinst should focus on technological benefits and lifetime cost, not on "how much do we pay MS?".

Just my 0.02

Alex