Some thoughts on the power of the written Word...
on
Microsoft Edits English
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· Score: 2, Interesting
The issue here is really the implications of a corporate, lowest-common-denominator, approach as applied to the single most widely used word processing tool. Can you still use a *shudder* hard copy thesaurus as you write, absolutely. How many people do so? So when a company guts a tool that is widely used to add depth and breadth to countless users prose, it does have bad implications.
The written word is a profoundly powerful tool. This move potentially removes a means for many to "find their voice," which is to say, to find the word that *truly* voices their intent. VI Lenin said the following about the power of language, it is, I think, apropos:
Why should freedom of speech and freedom of the press be allowed? Why should a government which is doing what it believes to be right allow itself to be criticized? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns. Why should a man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinions calculated to embarrass the government?
I remember the day when you bought a dictionary/thesaurus as a third party add on for the word processor of your choice. I stopped buying them when those that were included were as strong as what I could get elsewhere. Perhaps it is time to rethink that decision.
I agree completely. I think, with respect, that you miss his point. He is *not* saying that it is not religious in nature. He is saying the religious issue is deeper than the simple "them" and "us." We, Jews and other non-fundamentalist Muslims, are a very real and immediate threat to the very core of their beliefs. This is in now way a justification for the actions...just a questing for understanding...
/rr
at least not in a meaningful sense. This idea is the logic behind a police state, and if you are advocating that, fine, as it is logically consistant. Otherwise, the reality is that we no amount of "tech" intrusion is going to significantly improved "security." It simply becomes a route that those with a plan will *not* use.
What it *does* supply is the facade of security. It allows those with little vision to sleep better at night. Personally, I think that false sence of security is far more dangerous.
Dear AC (subtle irony...why do you opt to post with privacy???):
I am in no way liberal. Personally, I think the focus should be on very small teams of very cold men each with a short list humans who no longer need to exist.
What I do *not* want to see is the typical American response...throw lots of money (and in this case, lives) at a "problem" with very little attention on long term goals/solutions. We are a very "reactive" culture with little patience for systemic solutions.
There are broader issues at risk here too...a writer friend of mine, Harvey Ardman, just sent the following and I thought it was worth sharing:
Who are the combatants in this war?
On the one side, you have the secular, multi-ethnic Western nations, dedicated to progress, as they define it, embracing technology and change, extolling prosperity and materialism, tolerating differences, promoting freedom of speech and freedom of choice, and bent on imposing their forms of commerce, government, philosophy and even religion on the rest of the world--all in a spirit of good will, of course.
On the other, you have fundamentalist religion, most particularly Islam fundamentalism but not limited to it. These people despise what the Western nations stand for and fear that their beliefs and their world cannot survive the secular tsunami. Let me say this again: they believe their spiritual survival is at stake.
When Osama Ben Laden saw American troops operating in Saudi Arabia, his homeland, during the Gulf War, he was not only furious, he was afraid--afraid for his culture, his religion, his social beliefs. He saw this degraded culture, this wave of infidels, from his point of view, threatening everything that he loved and believed in.
This, by the way, is why the Arabs continue to attack Israel, and to speak of it with loathing. It is a secular state in a fundamentalist world. It is a western bastion, even a Trojan horse. This is why the Arabs have NEVER attacked any Israeli religious targets. It is not the religion that bothers them. It is the lack of religion. It is the secular Israel that offends, not the Jewish one.
There is a key difference between the combatants. The secular westerners believe, in a vague and comfortable way, that their way of life is desirable and superior to the lives and values of the fundamentalists. They are intellectually and philosophically committed to their beliefs. The fundamentalists, on the other hand, believe in their cause with every molecule of their bodies. Ours is a reasoned, reasonable belief. Theirs is fanatic.
How can we prevail over this level of belief, especially since we cannot match it. How can we outlast such passion? Well, I don't believe that we can win the battle militarily, although we might be able to strip the terrorists of most of their power, at least for awhile.
What's needed here, I believe, is both a military and a social war. The military war must be fought against identifiable terrorists. The social war must be fought against poverty, inequality and famine--for these are the seeds of fundamentalism, this is the food of fanaticism.
It is not much of a sacrifice for us to fight that military war. We're good at that. We secretly enjoy it. To fight the social war, however, we must find new reserves within us. We must make genuine sacrifices, sacrifices to which we are unaccustomed. We must give not as we gave during World War II, but as we gave afterward. I'm talking about the Marshall Plan, which resurrected Europe from the ashes of war.
On the surface, the Marshall plan--billions in relief for Europe--was a generous act. But of course self interest was involved, in at least three ways. First, we were desperate to keep Western Europe out of Soviet control. Second, we had pressing economic reasons to make sure Europe became strong and prosperous again. The people of Europe were our best customers. Finally, the values of Western Europe were the same as ours. Supporting them strengthened us.
We have a self-interest in undertaking similar programs for the 3rd world. It is the only way we can keep these people from fanatic fundamentalism. It is the only way we can hope to once and for all defeat terrorism. We must reduce the difference between the haves and the have-nots. We must end abject poverty at the very least.
Here's what makes the socialwar so difficult: We will be sorely tempted--because we strongly believe in our values---to attempt to impose them on those we aid. We will demand they embrace democracy?. We will demand they allow freedom of speech and yes, religion? Will we insist that they become as secular as we are? And if we do, will we just be creating more Osama Ben Ladens?
I don't know the answers to these questions. I do know that the social war is much more complicated than the military one. And it is also more important, because no military victory is forever, in the long run of history. No conversion at the point of a gun is a genuine one. Vengeance always leads to revenge.
We need to change minds more than we need to kill terrorists. It will not be easy. I hope we have the stomach for it.
It is easy to throw away the 4th Amend. in a state of fear and/or rage. It remains my hope that rational minds will prevail...sadly, while the individual may be rational, the mob tends to act with passion.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-Benjamin Franklin
Overall, it is worth keeping in mind that it was hate and revenge that created this tragedy and that to give way to hate and revenge is to let this tragedy demean and lessen us. Understanding something this massive and monstrous will take a long time, and the dialogue we will engage in about this will, eventually, be healthy and worthwhile. The trick is to not fall into the trap of knee-jerk "reactive" action.
Perhaps the next move will be to ban mathmatics....
--
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
increase the weight and annoyance of them. I have for years returned any envelopes full of twigs, rocks and, to certain tediously conservative outfits, decaying biomass...
I've a close friend who has used this method to dispose of all his old socks and underwear for the last several years...
"The person with the most votes gets in."...Clearly this is not always the case. The person who got over 500,000 *more* votes is *not* going to be the president. I personally find this quite sad and disturbing. Time will tell as to whether it will result in an increase in people feeling disenfranchised and powerless *or* if it will get more people fired up about the system itself .
We live in strange times, the curve of technology is *extremely* sharp...which tend to make those who are not "early adapters" very nervous...nervous folk tend to dig in their heels and refuse to move forward. The reality is that social acceptance is lagging behind where we are technologically and the law *far* behind that. These are dangerous variables...with luck, time and cool heads will prevail...we shall see. Worse comes to worse, I live in coastal Maine and just live off the land.
I forget where I found this, but it seems apropos:
First they came for the hackers.
But I never did anything illegal with my computer, so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the pornographers.
But I thought there was too much smut on the Internet anyway, so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the anonymous remailers.
But a lot of nasty stuff gets sent from anon.penet.fi, so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the encryption users.
But I could never figure out how to work PGP anyway, so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for me.
And by that time there was no one left to speak up. [appologies to Martin Niemoller]
it is *outstanding*...I can not recommend it highly enough. I travel a great deal, coast to coast and mexico to canada and this plan is just outstanding. Slightly higher upfront cost, but far lower if you are likely to end up doing a considerable amount of "roaming."
Snowcrash, Neuromancer and many others over the last decade or so. I think we are seeing the foundations of virtual-scape presented in books like snowcrash, et al...this idea of commerce centers (evolving), gated communities (evolving and here, e.g. aol>,and the arguable anarchy between these stable realms.
Personally, I think the writing is on the wall for net governance as we know it. The reality is that the net is *global*...that the laws that the US or any other sovereign state attempts to impliment only holds substantive force in the country of origin, treaties notwithstanding.
Either there needs to be a global government with actual enforcement powers (I'll just hold my breath and wait for that one)...or there will eventually be some sort of global internet "treaty" wherein all signatories agree to abide by certain agreed upon terms etc. Again...I'm just going to hold my breath... Even if the later comes into being, there will always be those who refuse to sign...or sign and violate (the whole issue of enforcability is an entirely seperate and monumental issue).
I think we are seeing the birth of a form of virtual company town...where you can be...and buy...and play...in exchange for various amounts of freedom. What is your comfort level...are you very timid and want relative safty, live in aolville (but we will be watching over you quite closely, but you don't mind that do you *gentle smile*).....or do you want no structure whatsoever, it's yours..but who do (or can) you trust then.
It's an amazing applied sociological experiment we are watching evolve. I look forward to witnessing it...and making a living integrating it into others lives...
Brick and block retailers have done this forever, it is simply a method of tracking buying habits.
*Long* ago, when working in retail during undergrad, I remember putting the same exact same sweater in two parts of the store. One pile had signage stating "Handknit $80.00"...the other had signage of "Sale 20% Off List Price" and that stack was priced at $100. Sold absolutely none of the $80 sweaters but sold about 75 off the "sale" stack.
All amazon is doing is a more organized version of the same thing...what makes people by different things at different prices. Bottom line is, shop price between the handful of companies that you like to use and take the best deal. Personally, I have found that amazon tends to do very well under this approach.
The more interesting thing is that they seem to be selling books that should not be sold in this country (the US) under thier distribution agreements. I was excited to find a copy of Iain Bank's book "Use of Weapons" on amazon as it had been out of print in the US for some time. When I received it I checked the back. Sure enough, it listed the EU and Canadian prices and *specifically* stated, "not for sale in the US"...there are considerable fines and, more importantly, loss of distribution rights for violations of dist. rights. Chances are, it slipped through the proverbial cracks...either that or they just assume that given who they are, the rules don't apply in exactly the same way (e.g. see the recent Harry Potter flap).
rootrot
it would be the following..../p
01000111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01100001 01100001 01100001 01100001 01100001 01100001 01100001 01100001 01100001 01100001 01100001 01100001 01101100/p
I go with the traditional 0=oo sound and 1=l/p
a catchy beat if ooled appropriately...
This is, perhaps sadly, a relatively easy analysis. Do you have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" on you company's machines/network?
Whether you like it or not, the answer is NO, you do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. The security issues are actually irrelevant. The substantive issue is simply that on a company owned system, you can not reasonably expect "business" conducted on such systems to be "private."
While I tend to fall on the radical side of most issues, I do not find this to be especially unreasonable. If you want to conduct "personal" business, do it on your own machine *or* don't care that it might/will be monitored.
As John Gilmore said, "The Internet treats censorship as a disease and routes around it." In this case...route around it...cerf from another launch point.
When will/. be announcing it's endorsement of Al Gore, the only candidate who runs his site on Linux. This would appear to be a foregone conclusion given the general "one-issue" tendencies of the group.
Remember, Al-Gorithms drive the net...perhaps there is more to his claim of creation than meets the eye...
While I wish France luck and think that their "evidence" should make for fun reading over the next x period of time, I think they have a serious credibility issue.
This is the same country that used their commandos to BLOW UP and SINK Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior to ends it's interference in their activities . Further, as has been indicated in other posts, they, *like all other countries*, have routinely engaged in whatever corporate espionage presented itself since time immemorial.
Hypocrisy is an artform...
I think I am going to go have a glass of champagne...oh, pardon, "sparkling wine" as it is from CA.
It certainly appears that Gibson's futurescape is shaping up nicely as the new status quo. Nice big "safe" gated cyber-communities for the wealthy/nervous/new and arguable anarchy for the rest.>
I am not certain that this is not a good idea. A huge percentage of the population *wants* to stare at the shadows on the wall, secure in their "knowledge" that what they see is..er..real. Let the be safe and pablum fed...as long as those who have crawled from the cave are not forced back in.
Having said that, I'd like to stress that the most important part of the alagory is that we, as those who have crawled beyond the mouth of the cave, need to return and attempt to help those still bound...rather than simply mock them. Granted, some will never want to leave, never want to forfeit the security of the cave and the shadows. Just remember that some simply bought into the hype and don't know any better...and need to be shown that just because it came pre-installed on their new it is not the only option.
Ver 5 is simply a further "refinement" of the walls . Get used to it...it appears Earthlink is also heading to the pervasive with their 5.0. Just reach out to those you know who still believe the shadows are real and try to guide them. I have personally helped at least 20 people in the last 10 months or so evolve beyond aol.
I just finished building a new, very tricked out, K7 machine. I spent a great deal of time researching the pros and cons of building vs boxed.
What I wanted was something along the lines of one of Alienware's highend machines...all in the $3K to$4K+ range but I did not want to spend that kind of cash. I found that I could build a high end machine for about $1500 less than I could buy a comperable machine.
If you are in the market for an entry to mid-level machine, I think you are much better off buying off the shelf from a cost/feature standpoint, but on higher end toys, building saves a sigificant amount of money.
FWIW, I used MultiWave and found them to be *exceptional* on all fronts. Fast, great selection and best of all, significantly better prices than pcconnection/warehouse/zone.
Best of all, it was really quite fun building him. First one in well over a decade though I have no doubt it will not be the last...
it is a much more complex issue than the two days of media blitz has exposed. Should OSHA inspectors come into your home and inspect the "work areas" for compliance...no, clearly that is a ridiculous. Should employers be liable under OSHA for a cut on your leg from an exposed nail on the stairway to your basement "work area"...again, clearly no.
However, should your company be required to comply with the regs addressing ergodynamics. I'm not so certain that it is not unreasonable to require an employer to supply a worker with a good chair . While an employer should not have to renovate an employee's home they should likewise not be able to escape the duty to provide a relatively safe working environment.
My bet is that you are going to see a hybrid set of regs promulgated shortly addressing telecommuters/at home employees. The issue will be heavily lobbied however, as I am certain that most corps have little or no interest in even providing chairs and wrist rests if they aren't compelled to do so. That bodes poorly for the at home workers as their lobbying might is, well, underwhelming.
I do, however, guarantee that this is not the last we have heard about OSHA compliance in the home. It's always fun to watch government at work.
government. First off, of course A. Gore invented the net as he is the father of algor[e]-ithms.
Secondly, I do not think it should come as any suprise that the Whitehouse would want to keep an finger/be involved with this settlement. Our government has a history of being involved with *major* corportate events, particularly when such events involve the judical branch. I wager Congress will also get in the act.
With all due respect, it is the beauty or bane of a political system based on checks and balances. I would be considerably more concerned if the other branches of the government simply ignored what was happening in the judiciary.
Whether you are for or against the Court's action, you must admit that it is going to have far-reaching implications for the corporate, economic and political arenas. The Whitehouse would be derelict in its responsibilities if it did not have some form of involvement.
That said, the nature of the involvement is...er...dangerous. One one hand, they should be involved in some form. On the other, they have no business interferring with the function of the judiciary branch. So they walk a thin line in which they lose no matter which side they "step over" on. This is to say, if they get "involved" they will be derided for interferring with another branch of the government. If they stay too remote, they will be accused of, literally, not being involved enough in the process. I really do see this as a loose-loose situation for virtually everyone *except* MicroSith.
a nice internal tribute to slashdot: "When the netizens of slashdot.org came to our rescue with a conscientious outpouring of letters and feedback, we were saved."
The bottom line being that a cease and desist letter is standard fair these days and usually just a starting point. A gentle response letter stating your position is the best first step.
Slashdot Mirror
The issue here is really the implications of a corporate, lowest-common-denominator, approach as applied to the single most widely used word processing tool. Can you still use a *shudder* hard copy thesaurus as you write, absolutely. How many people do so? So when a company guts a tool that is widely used to add depth and breadth to countless users prose, it does have bad implications.
The written word is a profoundly powerful tool. This move potentially removes a means for many to "find their voice," which is to say, to find the word that *truly* voices their intent. VI Lenin said the following about the power of language, it is, I think, apropos:
Why should freedom of speech and freedom of the press be allowed? Why should a government which is doing what it believes to be right allow itself to be criticized? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns. Why should a man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinions calculated to embarrass the government?
I remember the day when you bought a dictionary/thesaurus as a third party add on for the word processor of your choice. I stopped buying them when those that were included were as strong as what I could get elsewhere. Perhaps it is time to rethink that decision.
/rootrot
I agree completely. I think, with respect, that you miss his point. He is *not* saying that it is not religious in nature. He is saying the religious issue is deeper than the simple "them" and "us." We, Jews and other non-fundamentalist Muslims, are a very real and immediate threat to the very core of their beliefs. This is in now way a justification for the actions...just a questing for understanding...
/rr
at least not in a meaningful sense. This idea is the logic behind a police state, and if you are advocating that, fine, as it is logically consistant. Otherwise, the reality is that we no amount of "tech" intrusion is going to significantly improved "security." It simply becomes a route that those with a plan will *not* use.
What it *does* supply is the facade of security. It allows those with little vision to sleep better at night. Personally, I think that false sence of security is far more dangerous.
/rr
Dear AC (subtle irony...why do you opt to post with privacy???):
I am in no way liberal. Personally, I think the focus should be on very small teams of very cold men each with a short list humans who no longer need to exist.
What I do *not* want to see is the typical American response...throw lots of money (and in this case, lives) at a "problem" with very little attention on long term goals/solutions. We are a very "reactive" culture with little patience for systemic solutions.
We sall see.
/rr
There are broader issues at risk here too...a writer friend of mine, Harvey Ardman, just sent the following and I thought it was worth sharing:
Who are the combatants in this war?
On the one side, you have the secular, multi-ethnic Western nations, dedicated to progress, as they define it, embracing technology and change, extolling prosperity and materialism, tolerating differences, promoting freedom of speech and freedom of choice, and bent on imposing their forms of commerce, government, philosophy and even religion on the rest of the world--all in a spirit of good will, of course.
On the other, you have fundamentalist religion, most particularly Islam fundamentalism but not limited to it. These people despise what the Western nations stand for and fear that their beliefs and their world cannot survive the secular tsunami. Let me say this again: they believe their spiritual survival is at stake.
When Osama Ben Laden saw American troops operating in Saudi Arabia, his homeland, during the Gulf War, he was not only furious, he was afraid--afraid for his culture, his religion, his social beliefs. He saw this degraded culture, this wave of infidels, from his point of view, threatening everything that he loved and believed in.
This, by the way, is why the Arabs continue to attack Israel, and to speak of it with loathing. It is a secular state in a fundamentalist world. It is a western bastion, even a Trojan horse. This is why the Arabs have NEVER attacked any Israeli religious targets. It is not the religion that bothers them. It is the lack of religion. It is the secular Israel that offends, not the Jewish one.
There is a key difference between the combatants. The secular westerners believe, in a vague and comfortable way, that their way of life is desirable and superior to the lives and values of the fundamentalists. They are intellectually and philosophically committed to their beliefs. The fundamentalists, on the other hand, believe in their cause with every molecule of their bodies. Ours is a reasoned, reasonable belief. Theirs is fanatic.
How can we prevail over this level of belief, especially since we cannot match it. How can we outlast such passion? Well, I don't believe that we can win the battle militarily, although we might be able to strip the terrorists of most of their power, at least for awhile.
What's needed here, I believe, is both a military and a social war. The military war must be fought against identifiable terrorists. The social war must be fought against poverty, inequality and famine--for these are the seeds of fundamentalism, this is the food of fanaticism.
It is not much of a sacrifice for us to fight that military war. We're good at that. We secretly enjoy it. To fight the social war, however, we must find new reserves within us. We must make genuine sacrifices, sacrifices to which we are unaccustomed. We must give not as we gave during World War II, but as we gave afterward. I'm talking about the Marshall Plan, which resurrected Europe from the ashes of war.
On the surface, the Marshall plan--billions in relief for Europe--was a generous act. But of course self interest was involved, in at least three ways. First, we were desperate to keep Western Europe out of Soviet control. Second, we had pressing economic reasons to make sure Europe became strong and prosperous again. The people of Europe were our best customers. Finally, the values of Western Europe were the same as ours. Supporting them strengthened us.
We have a self-interest in undertaking similar programs for the 3rd world. It is the only way we can keep these people from fanatic fundamentalism. It is the only way we can hope to once and for all defeat terrorism. We must reduce the difference between the haves and the have-nots. We must end abject poverty at the very least.
Here's what makes the socialwar so difficult: We will be sorely tempted--because we strongly believe in our values---to attempt to impose them on those we aid. We will demand they embrace democracy?. We will demand they allow freedom of speech and yes, religion? Will we insist that they become as secular as we are? And if we do, will we just be creating more Osama Ben Ladens?
I don't know the answers to these questions. I do know that the social war is much more complicated than the military one. And it is also more important, because no military victory is forever, in the long run of history. No conversion at the point of a gun is a genuine one. Vengeance always leads to revenge.
We need to change minds more than we need to kill terrorists. It will not be easy. I hope we have the stomach for it.
/rr
It is easy to throw away the 4th Amend. in a state of fear and/or rage. It remains my hope that rational minds will prevail...sadly, while the individual may be rational, the mob tends to act with passion.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-Benjamin Franklin
Overall, it is worth keeping in mind that it was hate and revenge that created this tragedy and that to give way to hate and revenge is to let this tragedy demean and lessen us. Understanding something this massive and monstrous will take a long time, and the dialogue we will engage in about this will, eventually, be healthy and worthwhile. The trick is to not fall into the trap of knee-jerk "reactive" action.
/rr
Perhaps the next move will be to ban mathmatics....
."
--
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed
-Dwight D. Eisenhower
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin
That pretty much sums it up for me...
/rr
I can read the headline now: Microsoft Ordered to Perform 482 Years of Community Service At least the parks will be clean....
increase the weight and annoyance of them. I have for years returned any envelopes full of twigs, rocks and, to certain tediously conservative outfits, decaying biomass...
I've a close friend who has used this method to dispose of all his old socks and underwear for the last several years...
"The person with the most votes gets in."...Clearly this is not always the case. The person who got over 500,000 *more* votes is *not* going to be the president. I personally find this quite sad and disturbing. Time will tell as to whether it will result in an increase in people feeling disenfranchised and powerless *or* if it will get more people fired up about the system itself .
.
We live in strange times, the curve of technology is *extremely* sharp...which tend to make those who are not "early adapters" very nervous...nervous folk tend to dig in their heels and refuse to move forward. The reality is that social acceptance is lagging behind where we are technologically and the law *far* behind that. These are dangerous variables...with luck, time and cool heads will prevail...we shall see. Worse comes to worse, I live in coastal Maine and just live off the land
I forget where I found this, but it seems apropos:
First they came for the hackers.
But I never did anything illegal with my computer, so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the pornographers.
But I thought there was too much smut on the Internet anyway, so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the anonymous remailers.
But a lot of nasty stuff gets sent from anon.penet.fi, so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the encryption users.
But I could never figure out how to work PGP anyway, so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for me.
And by that time there was no one left to speak up.
[appologies to Martin Niemoller]
rootrot
it is *outstanding*...I can not recommend it highly enough. I travel a great deal, coast to coast and mexico to canada and this plan is just outstanding. Slightly higher upfront cost, but far lower if you are likely to end up doing a considerable amount of "roaming."
Snowcrash, Neuromancer and many others over the last decade or so. I think we are seeing the foundations of virtual-scape presented in books like snowcrash, et al...this idea of commerce centers (evolving), gated communities (evolving and here, e.g. aol>,and the arguable anarchy between these stable realms.
Personally, I think the writing is on the wall for net governance as we know it. The reality is that the net is *global*...that the laws that the US or any other sovereign state attempts to impliment only holds substantive force in the country of origin, treaties notwithstanding.
Either there needs to be a global government with actual enforcement powers (I'll just hold my breath and wait for that one)...or there will eventually be some sort of global internet "treaty" wherein all signatories agree to abide by certain agreed upon terms etc. Again...I'm just going to hold my breath... Even if the later comes into being, there will always be those who refuse to sign...or sign and violate (the whole issue of enforcability is an entirely seperate and monumental issue).
I think we are seeing the birth of a form of virtual company town...where you can be...and buy...and play...in exchange for various amounts of freedom. What is your comfort level...are you very timid and want relative safty, live in aolville (but we will be watching over you quite closely, but you don't mind that do you *gentle smile*).....or do you want no structure whatsoever, it's yours..but who do (or can) you trust then.
It's an amazing applied sociological experiment we are watching evolve. I look forward to witnessing it...and making a living integrating it into others lives...
rootrot
Brick and block retailers have done this forever, it is simply a method of tracking buying habits.
*Long* ago, when working in retail during undergrad, I remember putting the same exact same sweater in two parts of the store. One pile had signage stating "Handknit $80.00"...the other had signage of "Sale 20% Off List Price" and that stack was priced at $100. Sold absolutely none of the $80 sweaters but sold about 75 off the "sale" stack.
All amazon is doing is a more organized version of the same thing...what makes people by different things at different prices. Bottom line is, shop price between the handful of companies that you like to use and take the best deal. Personally, I have found that amazon tends to do very well under this approach.
The more interesting thing is that they seem to be selling books that should not be sold in this country (the US) under thier distribution agreements. I was excited to find a copy of Iain Bank's book "Use of Weapons" on amazon as it had been out of print in the US for some time. When I received it I checked the back. Sure enough, it listed the EU and Canadian prices and *specifically* stated, "not for sale in the US"...there are considerable fines and, more importantly, loss of distribution rights for violations of dist. rights. Chances are, it slipped through the proverbial cracks...either that or they just assume that given who they are, the rules don't apply in exactly the same way (e.g. see the recent Harry Potter flap).
rootrot
not certain where my brain was re the /ps
need coffee..or sleep
it would be the following..../p 01000111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01100001 01100001 01100001 01100001 01100001 01100001 01100001 01100001 01100001 01100001 01100001 01100001 01101100 /p
I go with the traditional 0=oo sound and 1=l /p
a catchy beat if ooled appropriately...
Whether you like it or not, the answer is NO, you do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. The security issues are actually irrelevant. The substantive issue is simply that on a company owned system, you can not reasonably expect "business" conducted on such systems to be "private."
While I tend to fall on the radical side of most issues, I do not find this to be especially unreasonable. If you want to conduct "personal" business, do it on your own machine *or* don't care that it might/will be monitored.
As John Gilmore said, "The Internet treats censorship as a disease and routes around it." In this case...route around it...cerf from another launch point.
rootrot
However, I have had repeated crashes and I've been pounding through various sites, usually when I have had mulitple windows open.
Flash does not seem to function well/at all .
Has anyone else run into similar issues???
Bottom line, the interface is great and overall it seems like a real winner....but betas are betas...
rootrot
Remember, Al-Gorithms drive the net...perhaps there is more to his claim of creation than meets the eye...
rootrot
This is the same country that used their commandos to BLOW UP and SINK Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior to ends it's interference in their activities . Further, as has been indicated in other posts, they, *like all other countries*, have routinely engaged in whatever corporate espionage presented itself since time immemorial.
Hypocrisy is an artform...
I think I am going to go have a glass of champagne...oh, pardon, "sparkling wine" as it is from CA.
rootrot
I am not certain that this is not a good idea. A huge percentage of the population *wants* to stare at the shadows on the wall, secure in their "knowledge" that what they see is..er..real. Let the be safe and pablum fed...as long as those who have crawled from the cave are not forced back in.
Having said that, I'd like to stress that the most important part of the alagory is that we, as those who have crawled beyond the mouth of the cave, need to return and attempt to help those still bound...rather than simply mock them. Granted, some will never want to leave, never want to forfeit the security of the cave and the shadows. Just remember that some simply bought into the hype and don't know any better...and need to be shown that just because it came pre-installed on their new it is not the only option.
Ver 5 is simply a further "refinement" of the walls . Get used to it...it appears Earthlink is also heading to the pervasive with their 5.0. Just reach out to those you know who still believe the shadows are real and try to guide them. I have personally helped at least 20 people in the last 10 months or so evolve beyond aol.
Education is better than apoplexy.
rootrot
What I wanted was something along the lines of one of Alienware's highend machines ...all in the $3K to$4K+ range but I did not want to spend that kind of cash. I found that I could build a high end machine for about $1500 less than I could buy a comperable machine.
If you are in the market for an entry to mid-level machine, I think you are much better off buying off the shelf from a cost/feature standpoint, but on higher end toys, building saves a sigificant amount of money.
FWIW, I used MultiWave and found them to be *exceptional* on all fronts. Fast, great selection and best of all, significantly better prices than pcconnection/warehouse/zone.
Best of all, it was really quite fun building him. First one in well over a decade though I have no doubt it will not be the last...
rootrot
However, should your company be required to comply with the regs addressing ergodynamics. I'm not so certain that it is not unreasonable to require an employer to supply a worker with a good chair . While an employer should not have to renovate an employee's home they should likewise not be able to escape the duty to provide a relatively safe working environment.
My bet is that you are going to see a hybrid set of regs promulgated shortly addressing telecommuters/at home employees. The issue will be heavily lobbied however, as I am certain that most corps have little or no interest in even providing chairs and wrist rests if they aren't compelled to do so. That bodes poorly for the at home workers as their lobbying might is, well, underwhelming.
I do, however, guarantee that this is not the last we have heard about OSHA compliance in the home. It's always fun to watch government at work.
rootrot
Secondly, I do not think it should come as any suprise that the Whitehouse would want to keep an finger/be involved with this settlement. Our government has a history of being involved with *major* corportate events, particularly when such events involve the judical branch. I wager Congress will also get in the act.
With all due respect, it is the beauty or bane of a political system based on checks and balances. I would be considerably more concerned if the other branches of the government simply ignored what was happening in the judiciary.
Whether you are for or against the Court's action, you must admit that it is going to have far-reaching implications for the corporate, economic and political arenas. The Whitehouse would be derelict in its responsibilities if it did not have some form of involvement.
That said, the nature of the involvement is...er...dangerous. One one hand, they should be involved in some form. On the other, they have no business interferring with the function of the judiciary branch. So they walk a thin line in which they lose no matter which side they "step over" on. This is to say, if they get "involved" they will be derided for interferring with another branch of the government. If they stay too remote, they will be accused of, literally, not being involved enough in the process. I really do see this as a loose-loose situation for virtually everyone *except* MicroSith.
rootrot
The bottom line being that a cease and desist letter is standard fair these days and usually just a starting point. A gentle response letter stating your position is the best first step.