The follow is the snipper which the OP mentioned to see how they come up with these ridiciolous ammounts. Its with regards to a stolen document from one of the Telco's, which was later found to be available from any local library.
-------------
The E911 Document was also proving a weak reed. It had originally
been valued at $79,449. Unlike Shadowhawk's arcane Artificial
Intelligence booty, the E911 Document was not software -- it was written
in English. Computer-knowledgeable people found this value -- for a
twelve-page bureaucratic document -- frankly incredible. In his
"Crime and Puzzlement" manifesto for EFF, Barlow commented: "We
will probably never know how this figure was reached or by whom,
though I like to imagine an appraisal team consisting of Franz Kafka,
Joseph Heller, and Thomas Pynchon."
As it happened, Barlow was unduly pessimistic. The EFF did, in fact,
eventually discover exactly how this figure was reached, and by whom
-- but only in 1991, long after the Neidorf trial was over.
Kim Megahee, a Southern Bell security manager, had arrived at the document's
value by simply adding up the "costs associated with the production"
of the E911 Document. Those "costs" were as follows:
1. A technical writer had been hired to research and write the E911
Document. 200 hours of work, at $35 an hour, cost : $7,000. A
Project Manager had overseen the technical writer. 200 hours, at $31
an hour, made: $6,200.
2. A week of typing had cost $721 dollars. A week of formatting had
cost $721. A week of graphics formatting had cost $742.
3. Two days of editing cost $367.
4. A box of order labels cost five dollars.
5. Preparing a purchase order for the Document, including typing and
the obtaining of an authorizing signature from within the BellSouth
bureaucracy, cost $129.
6. Printing cost $313. Mailing the Document to fifty people took fifty
hours by a clerk, and cost $858.
7. Placing the Document in an index took two clerks an hour each,
totalling $43.
Bureaucratic overhead alone, therefore, was alleged to have cost a
whopping $17,099. According to Mr. Megahee, the typing of a twelvepage
document had taken a full week. Writing it had taken five weeks,
including an overseer who apparently did nothing else but watch the
author for five weeks. Editing twelve pages had taken two days.
Printing and mailing an electronic document (which was already available
on the Southern Bell Data Network to any telco employee who needed
it), had cost over a thousand dollars.
But this was just the beginning. There were also the *hardware
expenses.* Eight hundred fifty dollars for a VT220 computer monitor.
*Thirty-one thousand dollars* for a sophisticated VAXstation II computer.
Six thousand dollars for a computer printer. *Twenty-two
thousand dollars* for a copy of "Interleaf" software. Two thousand five
hundred dollars for VMS software. All this to create the twelve-page
Document.
Plus ten percent of the cost of the software and the hardware, for maintenance.
(Actually, the ten percent maintenance costs, though mentioned,
had been left off the final $79,449 total, apparently through a
merciful oversight).
I am a little un-informed on this issue so please forgive anything that may sound ignorant but.. who exactly is this suppose to benefit? Are they saying Microsoft's new format will now be readable by Linux users in Openoffice and vice-versa?
Maybe it's just me but I fail to see how this would be anything more than some icing on the cake to try and make this deal look good after it has received such negative response from the entire community.
Has this ever been a problem before for people using Linux (or Windows)? Has anybody complained that they cannot share documents and productivity is being lost because of this?
I think they will need to come up with something A LOT better to impress those in the know-how, since this is certainly not aimed at your average Joe in the office. And I don't think a lack of this "feature" would have irritated a Linux user before, and certainly not now.
Why is everyone still picking on this guy? I don't know who he worked for but.. if it was his father's home-office or the ONLY office in which the computer contained ALL client files, information, suppliers, and on-going contracts, that backup may have been worth thousands to them.
Also, why does everyone assume that this guy has thousands of dollars to build his/their own off-site backup solution? What if the person running this office was your father, and you were his "IT guy". The backup may have been in the next room over just for mirroring purposes and they would have never predicted a fire or other natural disasters, I would probably do the same thing, run in and save whatever you can.
Also, by "fire" they might mean the drapes caught on fire, or maybe the coffee machine, it doesn't mean the entire building was falling apart and the roof started to cave in.
The fact that they are using a cellphone case as a carrier for the secondary microphone or that they somehow got a hold of the Mafia's cellphone without them knowing?!
And an open-source cellphone will do you no good when the seperate mic runs straight off the battery inside the phone regardless if your phone is on or not. This is not much different then having the FBI tap your watch, cd-rom drive, or shaver... but I guess that would be pointless since you don't talk to any of those about your secrets right?...do you?
The real puzzle here is how they managed to swap the real phone with the one that was wired by the FBI, there must have been a mole. And since they got a court order to "monitor" the suspects, is it really that *alarming* that it worked even when the phone was off? Are there limitations as to when you can and cannot monitor dangerous suspects? For example when they sleep, or go to the bathroom, or between the hours of 9-5? Anybody know?
My mom doesn't know that Windows isn't built into the hardware of her computer. She doesn't know Windows isn't a processor type. When she buys "a computer" all she knows is she can get a Mac or a PC. The separation of OS from hardware is, to non-geeks, a totally new idea. They have a machine and it gives them pretty pictures. That's a computer.
Hmmm, well I must say I will agree with you on the general understanding of what a computer is from the average Joe, or your average family member. But if what you say is true, then I think some bussinesses are simply taking a free ride on this, hoping for some pay out at the end of the line.
From the article:
... The Iowa case is a complicated class-action lawsuit that was filed in 2000. Included in the class as plaintiffs are all Iowans - individuals, businesses or organizations - who have purchased Microsoft products since 1994....
In this case, I think the bussinesses and organizations should not be allowed to have any of this money since they usually have their own IT support personell and have some sort of a plan on how to run, manage, and fix their computer problems. Any of these bussinesses who have a competant IT department and simply say "Ooops, we didn't know Windows is gonna suck" are obviously being ignorant.
Although small bussinesses who are being run by some parents from their home, running a web server off their own machine, and suddenly someone sends a trojan and wipes their drive, they could use the help of the courts.
So I will agree with you on most of what you said.. althought regardless of who you're voting for, I think it's a tough case and hopefully the decision that comes out of this, does not affect or spawn other law-suits such as these against other smaller software developers.
Some Judges are obviously not know-it-alls when it comes to who dominates a certain computer market. For example, would Apache classify as a monopoly in the server market? I`m somewhat ignorant in the details on this, but could something similiar happen to Apache if their software suddenly caused half the internet to go kaboom because someone found an exploit in their software, does it open them up to being sued because they run most of the web servers?
Is it the browser they're going after? Or is it the OS itself? Either of which would make no sense since that would basically make every software company liable for any exploits or holes uncovered in their software that would allow people or viruses to sneak through your computer.
If they are suing because of the "bundling" problem, then isn't/hasn't this been already done (or still ongoing)?
I would say that all these people "chose" to use Windows of their own free will, and I know someone in/. will come and tell how their monopoly basically "forces" people to use their products, but in the end - the choice is up to the end-user.
As much as I don't like some of Microsoft's bussiness practices, I hope this case ammounts to nothing in the end, because it could prove to be costly to everyone, not just MS.
The other issue I see is that an ISP can block whatever they want. It is their choice as business. If the customer is not happy with their policies or practices then they can choose not to be a customer any longer.This would be true if only ONE of our Canadian ISP's was doing this. I think the issue that most are having with this, is the fact that this new "agreement" encompasses ALL ISP's who will block the same content from some questionable blacklist, leaving us with very little other choices in providers.
I think we can all agree here that the parents are at least partially at fault. I remember being younger growing up in Europe, playing army games all the time. Running around with wooden sticks pretending they're machine guns and gunning each other down, with guns, grenades (fake ones) you name it..
I would personally have a hard time killing a fly, so I really don't see how this whole "video games are bad" can be applied to the general population, there MUST be another variable at play here.
Throughout my years of video games, I have had next to zero supervision from my parents since they did not know what these computers are or how to work them, but I didn't need any, because I know what is a video game and what is not. To this day I cannot see anything in a video game that has affected my judgement in real life when it comes to life or death decisions.
Sometimes I try very hard to think and come up with an idea of what the real cause and nature of these school shootings are but I`m at a loss. The only thing that comes close to mind is how the kids these days grow up a lot quicker. I think it comes with all the sex and violance on TV, in magazines, and on the Internet, but most importantly the "freedom" that people have today to express all these forms of "art" that were not available to them in the past 100 years must play a role in it, I`m sure of that.
So while video games may be a contributing factor, I think they are only a small potion of the problem. I think instead of banning the "problem" we should take a look at ourselves as a society and look for problems in ourselves, rather than those who create the games.
More education at home and a warm family will always prevail over violent video games and "hooligan" friends that your son is hanging out with, I know it has worked for me, and I`m sure it will work for 90% of the population...if we let ourselves try.
You sir... are absolutely correct. I came to Canada from Poland when I was at the age of 10. At that time in Poland we would be doing mathematical equations using powers (x^2) and other more "advanced" formulas while here I was sat at a desk and told to do table addition and subtraction.
It seemed a bit of a shock to me, since this was this rich and successfull "America" everyone told me about, yet how could this be possible if people at the age of 10-11 are only learning how to add and subtract? Later on as I moved onto highschool I noticed the problem with kids is the ammount of "freedom" they have in schools. I watched in disbelief as people brought in walkmans into class with them, talked back to teachers, or put their feet up on a desk ALL WHILE THE CLASS IS GOING ON. This was something completely new to me and I didn't know why these children were allowed these things by their teachers.
As I grew older I realized it was because of this whole "free country" thing, where the teacher cannot do anything to you, and if they try - they will be charged by the student's parents.. this made no sense to me. Would the parent not want their children dissaplened? Or taught what is proper and not proper to do and say at school?
This whole "freedom" to do as you wish eventually transforms into more and more freedom, wanting to skip class (because you can, no blacklash from anybody). And eventually you decide you know whats best for you at the age of 16 and decide to drop out. I think the government and the paren'ts are who is most responsible for this drop out rate, because I have seen it first hand.
I have *never* purchased a pre-built PC and most likely never will. There is absolutely NOTHING that Dell or anybody else can give me that will be better than having the freedom to pick and choose your own parts.
As for warranty, I have yet to come across a PC component that would make me ship it back or return it because of any faults, so as long as you purchase high-quality ($$) and known big-brand products. The only time I had to return a part was a motherboard, which was already open-box when I bought it so god knows what the previous owner did with it.
Also, buuilding your own computer guarentees you're not stuck with old hardware a year from now, like intergrated graphics or sound, some of them CAN be swapped with newer parts, but alot of OEM machines cannot.
Slashdot Mirror
Won't someone PLEASE think of the children? Ohhh, looks like Microsoft is.
The follow is the snipper which the OP mentioned to see how they come up with these ridiciolous ammounts. Its with regards to a stolen document from one of the Telco's, which was later found to be available from any local library.
-------------
The E911 Document was also proving a weak reed. It had originally been valued at $79,449. Unlike Shadowhawk's arcane Artificial Intelligence booty, the E911 Document was not software -- it was written in English. Computer-knowledgeable people found this value -- for a twelve-page bureaucratic document -- frankly incredible. In his "Crime and Puzzlement" manifesto for EFF, Barlow commented: "We will probably never know how this figure was reached or by whom, though I like to imagine an appraisal team consisting of Franz Kafka, Joseph Heller, and Thomas Pynchon."
As it happened, Barlow was unduly pessimistic. The EFF did, in fact, eventually discover exactly how this figure was reached, and by whom -- but only in 1991, long after the Neidorf trial was over.
Kim Megahee, a Southern Bell security manager, had arrived at the document's value by simply adding up the "costs associated with the production" of the E911 Document. Those "costs" were as follows:
1. A technical writer had been hired to research and write the E911 Document. 200 hours of work, at $35 an hour, cost : $7,000. A Project Manager had overseen the technical writer. 200 hours, at $31 an hour, made: $6,200.
2. A week of typing had cost $721 dollars. A week of formatting had cost $721. A week of graphics formatting had cost $742.
3. Two days of editing cost $367.
4. A box of order labels cost five dollars.
5. Preparing a purchase order for the Document, including typing and the obtaining of an authorizing signature from within the BellSouth bureaucracy, cost $129.
6. Printing cost $313. Mailing the Document to fifty people took fifty hours by a clerk, and cost $858.
7. Placing the Document in an index took two clerks an hour each, totalling $43.
Bureaucratic overhead alone, therefore, was alleged to have cost a whopping $17,099. According to Mr. Megahee, the typing of a twelvepage document had taken a full week. Writing it had taken five weeks, including an overseer who apparently did nothing else but watch the author for five weeks. Editing twelve pages had taken two days. Printing and mailing an electronic document (which was already available on the Southern Bell Data Network to any telco employee who needed it), had cost over a thousand dollars.
But this was just the beginning. There were also the *hardware expenses.* Eight hundred fifty dollars for a VT220 computer monitor. *Thirty-one thousand dollars* for a sophisticated VAXstation II computer. Six thousand dollars for a computer printer. *Twenty-two thousand dollars* for a copy of "Interleaf" software. Two thousand five hundred dollars for VMS software. All this to create the twelve-page Document.
Plus ten percent of the cost of the software and the hardware, for maintenance. (Actually, the ten percent maintenance costs, though mentioned, had been left off the final $79,449 total, apparently through a merciful oversight).
Warning, assholes in mirror are closer than they appear.
I am a little un-informed on this issue so please forgive anything that may sound ignorant but.. who exactly is this suppose to benefit? Are they saying Microsoft's new format will now be readable by Linux users in Openoffice and vice-versa?
Maybe it's just me but I fail to see how this would be anything more than some icing on the cake to try and make this deal look good after it has received such negative response from the entire community.
Has this ever been a problem before for people using Linux (or Windows)? Has anybody complained that they cannot share documents and productivity is being lost because of this?
I think they will need to come up with something A LOT better to impress those in the know-how, since this is certainly not aimed at your average Joe in the office. And I don't think a lack of this "feature" would have irritated a Linux user before, and certainly not now.
Why is everyone still picking on this guy? I don't know who he worked for but.. if it was his father's home-office or the ONLY office in which the computer contained ALL client files, information, suppliers, and on-going contracts, that backup may have been worth thousands to them.
Also, why does everyone assume that this guy has thousands of dollars to build his/their own off-site backup solution? What if the person running this office was your father, and you were his "IT guy". The backup may have been in the next room over just for mirroring purposes and they would have never predicted a fire or other natural disasters, I would probably do the same thing, run in and save whatever you can.
Also, by "fire" they might mean the drapes caught on fire, or maybe the coffee machine, it doesn't mean the entire building was falling apart and the roof started to cave in.
The fact that they are using a cellphone case as a carrier for the secondary microphone or that they somehow got a hold of the Mafia's cellphone without them knowing?!
...do you?
And an open-source cellphone will do you no good when the seperate mic runs straight off the battery inside the phone regardless if your phone is on or not. This is not much different then having the FBI tap your watch, cd-rom drive, or shaver... but I guess that would be pointless since you don't talk to any of those about your secrets right?
The real puzzle here is how they managed to swap the real phone with the one that was wired by the FBI, there must have been a mole. And since they got a court order to "monitor" the suspects, is it really that *alarming* that it worked even when the phone was off? Are there limitations as to when you can and cannot monitor dangerous suspects? For example when they sleep, or go to the bathroom, or between the hours of 9-5? Anybody know?
Hmmm, well I must say I will agree with you on the general understanding of what a computer is from the average Joe, or your average family member. But if what you say is true, then I think some bussinesses are simply taking a free ride on this, hoping for some pay out at the end of the line.
From the article:
In this case, I think the bussinesses and organizations should not be allowed to have any of this money since they usually have their own IT support personell and have some sort of a plan on how to run, manage, and fix their computer problems. Any of these bussinesses who have a competant IT department and simply say "Ooops, we didn't know Windows is gonna suck" are obviously being ignorant.
Although small bussinesses who are being run by some parents from their home, running a web server off their own machine, and suddenly someone sends a trojan and wipes their drive, they could use the help of the courts.
So I will agree with you on most of what you said.. althought regardless of who you're voting for, I think it's a tough case and hopefully the decision that comes out of this, does not affect or spawn other law-suits such as these against other smaller software developers.
Some Judges are obviously not know-it-alls when it comes to who dominates a certain computer market. For example, would Apache classify as a monopoly in the server market? I`m somewhat ignorant in the details on this, but could something similiar happen to Apache if their software suddenly caused half the internet to go kaboom because someone found an exploit in their software, does it open them up to being sued because they run most of the web servers?
Is it the browser they're going after? Or is it the OS itself? Either of which would make no sense since that would basically make every software company liable for any exploits or holes uncovered in their software that would allow people or viruses to sneak through your computer.
/. will come and tell how their monopoly basically "forces" people to use their products, but in the end - the choice is up to the end-user.
If they are suing because of the "bundling" problem, then isn't/hasn't this been already done (or still ongoing)?
I would say that all these people "chose" to use Windows of their own free will, and I know someone in
As much as I don't like some of Microsoft's bussiness practices, I hope this case ammounts to nothing in the end, because it could prove to be costly to everyone, not just MS.
The other issue I see is that an ISP can block whatever they want. It is their choice as business. If the customer is not happy with their policies or practices then they can choose not to be a customer any longer.This would be true if only ONE of our Canadian ISP's was doing this. I think the issue that most are having with this, is the fact that this new "agreement" encompasses ALL ISP's who will block the same content from some questionable blacklist, leaving us with very little other choices in providers.
I think we can all agree here that the parents are at least partially at fault. I remember being younger growing up in Europe, playing army games all the time. Running around with wooden sticks pretending they're machine guns and gunning each other down, with guns, grenades (fake ones) you name it..
...if we let ourselves try.
I would personally have a hard time killing a fly, so I really don't see how this whole "video games are bad" can be applied to the general population, there MUST be another variable at play here.
Throughout my years of video games, I have had next to zero supervision from my parents since they did not know what these computers are or how to work them, but I didn't need any, because I know what is a video game and what is not. To this day I cannot see anything in a video game that has affected my judgement in real life when it comes to life or death decisions.
Sometimes I try very hard to think and come up with an idea of what the real cause and nature of these school shootings are but I`m at a loss. The only thing that comes close to mind is how the kids these days grow up a lot quicker. I think it comes with all the sex and violance on TV, in magazines, and on the Internet, but most importantly the "freedom" that people have today to express all these forms of "art" that were not available to them in the past 100 years must play a role in it, I`m sure of that.
So while video games may be a contributing factor, I think they are only a small potion of the problem. I think instead of banning the "problem" we should take a look at ourselves as a society and look for problems in ourselves, rather than those who create the games.
More education at home and a warm family will always prevail over violent video games and "hooligan" friends that your son is hanging out with, I know it has worked for me, and I`m sure it will work for 90% of the population
You sir... are absolutely correct. I came to Canada from Poland when I was at the age of 10. At that time in Poland we would be doing mathematical equations using powers (x^2) and other more "advanced" formulas while here I was sat at a desk and told to do table addition and subtraction.
It seemed a bit of a shock to me, since this was this rich and successfull "America" everyone told me about, yet how could this be possible if people at the age of 10-11 are only learning how to add and subtract? Later on as I moved onto highschool I noticed the problem with kids is the ammount of "freedom" they have in schools. I watched in disbelief as people brought in walkmans into class with them, talked back to teachers, or put their feet up on a desk ALL WHILE THE CLASS IS GOING ON. This was something completely new to me and I didn't know why these children were allowed these things by their teachers.
As I grew older I realized it was because of this whole "free country" thing, where the teacher cannot do anything to you, and if they try - they will be charged by the student's parents.. this made no sense to me. Would the parent not want their children dissaplened? Or taught what is proper and not proper to do and say at school?
This whole "freedom" to do as you wish eventually transforms into more and more freedom, wanting to skip class (because you can, no blacklash from anybody). And eventually you decide you know whats best for you at the age of 16 and decide to drop out. I think the government and the paren'ts are who is most responsible for this drop out rate, because I have seen it first hand.
He does if he just sold it on eBay!
I have *never* purchased a pre-built PC and most likely never will. There is absolutely NOTHING that Dell or anybody else can give me that will be better than having the freedom to pick and choose your own parts. As for warranty, I have yet to come across a PC component that would make me ship it back or return it because of any faults, so as long as you purchase high-quality ($$) and known big-brand products. The only time I had to return a part was a motherboard, which was already open-box when I bought it so god knows what the previous owner did with it. Also, buuilding your own computer guarentees you're not stuck with old hardware a year from now, like intergrated graphics or sound, some of them CAN be swapped with newer parts, but alot of OEM machines cannot.