IF MS really wanted to lock you into Windows, they could have broken Netscape or any of their other competitors at any time. It would have been trivial to make newer versions of Windows incompatible with competing browsers, media players, etc. or required MS licensing for all software to run on the OS. But they never did.
You do know that once upon a time they did just that? There was a saying that "DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run". Back when Lotus 1-2-3 was MS' biggest software competitor, every new version of DOS would have some "feature" that would cause Lotus 1-2-3 to "break". The reason they never required MS licensing was because their dominance has always been based on their installed base. If I have to buy all new software to run the new version of MS OS, I might as well switch to OS/2 or a MAC.
What you linked to is the US government fiscal year, which runs October to October. I have worked for several companies that had different fiscal years. One was April to April, one was July to July. The oddball was a large privately held company that ran May to May. When I see a Q? listed I assume it means the calendar year unless otherwise listed. For example when the U.S. government releases quarterly economic figures they are usually based on the calendar year not the government's fiscal year.
Oh, I'd say 2008 is shaping up quite nicely to be one of the worst years in their history. The huge revenue miss in Q3, combined with the total lack of organic revenue growth, the continued exodus of top execs, and the pending layoff of up to 3000 employees doesn't exactly bode well for the future of Sun.
I'm curious, how do you have the Q3 revenue numbers when Q2 isn't even over yet?
The problem is you aren't guaranteed to get your $300,000 are you? If you watch the documentary Sicko by Michael Moore you will see some good examples of people that obviously need their insurance and have paid a shit load of money already, yet aren't getting what they paid for. Yes, I know that documentary is heavily slanted but it does have some good points to it. At least with universal health care you are guaranteed that you will be looked after. The problems with the speed of care is a separate issue. Speed of care is not a separate issue, many health problems become uncorrectable if not treated within a minimum length of time.
I constantly hear mention of "those tobacco studies industry did in the 70s and 80s". What studies were those? I don't remember hearing about them in the 70s or 80s. I was able to find reference to one study sponsored by the tobacco industry on second hand smoke conducted in the 80s.
I, also, remember hearing about the tobacco industry hiding the results of their studies on the health affects of tobacco in the 50's, but as far as I know the tobacco industry had given up on trying to conduct a study that showed that tobacco was not harmful by the 70s.
We call it "Faux" news because it is. Learn this: Fox went to court and defended its right to knowingly broadcast untruth as news because the law does not specifically say they can't. Again, in case you still don't get it: Fox defended its right to broadcast lies that they knew were lies.
And that, among other reasons*, is why it is "faux".
* blending opinion with news and calling it objective
putting only one political view on the air and calling themselves "balanced"
reporting as factual news (and almost verbatim) the "talking points" released by the GOP
The links you supply fail to support your allegation. According to the link Fox challenged the only charge sustained against them in a law suit; that they had illegally fired the reporters for threatening to report them to the FCC. The statute in question makes it illegal to fire someone for reporting a violation of the law, since none of the allegations that Fox had violated the law in how they handled the story had been upheld Fox contended that the firing did not violate the "whistleblower" protection statute.
No, the bookseller has already sold the book back to the publisher. When the bookseller sends the cover back to the publisher the publisher gives the bookseller a credit on their account equal to what thye would have paid for the book in the first place (minus "restocking fees" in some cases), this would be a completely different case.
You do realize that study after study has shown that conservatives give a much larger share of their income to charity than liberals. According to the book "Who Really Cares", in the U.S., a household headed by a conservative will donate 30% more to charity than a household headed by a liberal, even though the liberal families, on average, earn slightly more.
That's right, the press are part of it. You haven't heard about all of the attacks against common U.S. citizens in the US since the 9/11 attacks because the press is covering it up./s
2005 was a watershed year. Americans looked at Katrina, and said to themselves, "this isn't working." It isn't just the possible connection of climate change in the intensity of the storm, it was disgust at the inefficiency of the response that made people decide things had gone far enough. It was Katrina that killed the SUV. High prices and economic uncertainty finished it off. What are you talking about? There was nothing special about the intensity of Katrina. Storms of that intensity hit the mainland US with significant frequency. What was special about Katrina was the incompetence of the La. government in dealing with it.
The OP did not oppose taxes in general (or even government spending in general). The OP opposed taxes used for wealth redistribution. So your argument is completely irrelevant to the OP.
Sorry, I had to add my own personal favorite. Spray paint cans in a bonfire. My Dad worked next to a company that manufactured spray paint. He used to bring home the defective cans that they threw away. We, also, burned our trash in a 50 gallon barrel with the top cut off. I would throw cans in when the flames got hot. They used to go off like a rocket. Alternatively, my older brothers owned a small fishing trident, I found it to be just about the perfect length to pierce the sides of the can and send them flying without getting hit by the paint as it sprayed out of the hole (it wasn't quite the perfect length, occasionally, I would get caught in the spray, then I got in trouble).
The issue is that in order for a company to do business in Canada it must respect this nation's privacy laws. In this case, it's about notifying people how their information will be used.
Check it out:
"[PIPEDA is] an Act to support and promote electronic commerce by protecting personal information that is collected..."
http://www.privcom.gc.ca/legislation/02_06_01_01_e.asp
Facebook is being accused of not following the law of the land. The interesting legal test will be to see whether or not a US-hosted site is required to conform to this law, and how this will impact application developers inside and outside of Canada. Actually, the question is, does Facebook do business in Canada, or does it merely do business with Canadians? If it is the former, it must follow Canadian law when doing business in Canada. If it is the latter, Canadian law does not apply. Or to put it another way, does Facebook have a physical presence in Canada?
If Facebook does not have a physical presence in Canada, exactly how will Canada enforce this law on them, should Canada rule that it does apply? I am pretty sure that the current U.S. Supreme Court would not rule in Canada's favor on this, considering that they still seem to support the ruling that state's cannot enforce their laws on businesses located in other states that do business with residents of said state (sales tax).
Sorry, To make a second reply to you so soon. I forgot to add this, if your point is correct, what does it matter if we preserve these people's "uncorrupted" society. We can recreate the same type of social structures in just a couple of generations if we wish, by placing a group of people in this setting and denying them any technology. If the people are volunteers, they will possibly even be willing to not teach their children about the technology they had been exposed to before joining the project.
There is something to what you say, however, I have often seen people make the claim that we know that early human cultures were XYZ because such and such low technology culture was XYZ (where XYZ was ideal society according to the person speaking). Just because a group of people lives a subsistence life and has little or no contact with the outside world does not mean that the construction of their social relationships is the same as the social relationships of our ancestors from before the rise of civilization.
For example, just because one low technology society in an environment is patriarchal/matriarchal does not mean that every low tech society in a similar environment will be patriarchal/matriarchal.
Let's not forget that these people represent a kind of norm. This biological form that we take right now more or less developed during the long Stone Age -- i.e. most of our unwritten history is in that way of life. It means that the roots of our culture, and perhaps the way our brains are organised, draw sustenance from this long period.
We need these people to be just who they are, unchanged, for our own understanding of ourselves.
The problem is the ethics of contact: do we withhold the benefits of civilization? Is modernization a fair process? It's easy to dismiss a preservationist approach as romanticizing the savage, from your abstracted armchair reality. But, live with tribal peoples for a while, and you realize that short of modern medicine and food surpluses, not only is it not so bad, it has distinct advantages as a lifestyle, and is not so different from our own.
Whatever. I expect them to be overrun, poisoned, shot, and assimilated, then held up as an example of the superiority of civilization. Upon what do you base the assumption that the culture of these people bears any resemblance to early human culture? How do we know that these people are not the descendants of people who were at one time part of civilization? This group is just as far removed temporally from those early ancestors as our own, upon what basis can we conclude that they have preserved the culture of their long ago ancestors while we have not?
This reminds me of a story of an anthropologist who went into the jungles of Burma looking for a tribe that was unsullied by exposure to Western Civilization sometime in the 70's or early 80's. This anthropologist selected a location deep within the jungles of Burma near the border with China, a place that had no access by roads for quite a distance. He flew in by helicopter and was dropped off and made contact with the natives. He made recordings of their wonderful tribal singing and observations of their "unsullied" culture. He came back to the U.S. (I believe he was an American), and wrote some papers about his experiences. He played his recordings for people and they all commented on how beautiful and "pristine" the music was. This story was picked up by NPR and they played some of his recordings. NPR got a bunch of phone calls from people who recognized the songs, they were old fashioned hymns. It turns out that a group of missionaries were driven from China by the Communists in the early 50's and lived out their lives among this "uncontacted" tribe. Until someone makes contact and learns the history of the tribe, we have no way to know that they are actually uncontacted.
When Star Wars came out, the real geeks hated it. Come on sound in space? That's not real science fiction. We had other objections as well, but I can't remember them now.
Over time the geeks started to warm to Star Wars, because the cool kids liked it and thought it was "geeky", so it made them like geeks more.
Religion is responsible for more genocide than anything else. Today's rallying cry of "Save the babies!" is typically political babble to earn votes. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler, Darwinists all. So what persons of religion come anywhere close to their murder totals?
This isn't so much about Linux, as it is about MS recognizing that if some OS other than their's is the default OS on the low end PC's, it is only a matter of time until it starts to displace MS OS's further up the price point chain.
Or to put it another way, no Linux is not currently a competitor for MS OS's, but if Linux ever reaches 20% of the market, MS is finished (unless they come up with a completely new business model). Apple is a competitor, but Apple does not threaten MS's business model.
I'm totally against (hands full) cellphone calls while driving. I really don't care if somebody wrecks his or her car against a tree while calling and breaks all the bones in their body, but there are other people on the road aswell.
When on the road there is only one thing that is important and that is safety. All of the studies that I have seen about cell phone usage and driving have shown that drivers with "hands free" cell phones are no less distracted (read, "just as likely to hit obstacles and traffice cones) than those using hand held cell phones. So, if you want to be consistent, you should be against all cell phone usage while driving.
3. Mark Steyn's thesis is that muslims are taking over the west, "breeding like mosquitoes," and that they plan to replace our western legal system with Sharia law. And he is pretty offensive in the way he argues it. But the REAL issue of why he's on trial is because McLean's magazine (Canada's largest circulated magazine) has him as a regular contributer while refusing to let anyone offer a rebuttal. So, people complained. Specifically, they refused to publish an article written by the complainants without editing it. The group that filed the initial complaint demanded that McLean's publish a lengthy response that they had written without making any changes to it. McLean's responded that if they submitted the article they would like published, McLean's editors would edit it and place it in the magazine. The complainants refused this counter offer.
Slashdot Mirror
You do know that once upon a time they did just that? There was a saying that "DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run". Back when Lotus 1-2-3 was MS' biggest software competitor, every new version of DOS would have some "feature" that would cause Lotus 1-2-3 to "break". The reason they never required MS licensing was because their dominance has always been based on their installed base. If I have to buy all new software to run the new version of MS OS, I might as well switch to OS/2 or a MAC.What you linked to is the US government fiscal year, which runs October to October. I have worked for several companies that had different fiscal years. One was April to April, one was July to July. The oddball was a large privately held company that ran May to May. When I see a Q? listed I assume it means the calendar year unless otherwise listed. For example when the U.S. government releases quarterly economic figures they are usually based on the calendar year not the government's fiscal year.
Sorry, I'm not an employee or stockholder of Sun, so I didn't know what their fiscal year was. Not all companies have the same fiscal year.
Oh, I'd say 2008 is shaping up quite nicely to be one of the worst years in their history. The huge revenue miss in Q3, combined with the total lack of organic revenue growth, the continued exodus of top execs, and the pending layoff of up to 3000 employees doesn't exactly bode well for the future of Sun.
I'm curious, how do you have the Q3 revenue numbers when Q2 isn't even over yet?I constantly hear mention of "those tobacco studies industry did in the 70s and 80s". What studies were those? I don't remember hearing about them in the 70s or 80s. I was able to find reference to one study sponsored by the tobacco industry on second hand smoke conducted in the 80s.
I, also, remember hearing about the tobacco industry hiding the results of their studies on the health affects of tobacco in the 50's, but as far as I know the tobacco industry had given up on trying to conduct a study that showed that tobacco was not harmful by the 70s.
We call it "Faux" news because it is. Learn this: Fox went to court and defended its right to knowingly broadcast untruth as news because the law does not specifically say they can't. Again, in case you still don't get it: Fox defended its right to broadcast lies that they knew were lies.
And that, among other reasons*, is why it is "faux".
http://www.2dca.org/opinion/February%2014,%202003/2D01-529.pdf
http://www.foxbghsuit.com/
* blending opinion with news and calling it objective putting only one political view on the air and calling themselves "balanced" reporting as factual news (and almost verbatim) the "talking points" released by the GOP
The links you supply fail to support your allegation. According to the link Fox challenged the only charge sustained against them in a law suit; that they had illegally fired the reporters for threatening to report them to the FCC. The statute in question makes it illegal to fire someone for reporting a violation of the law, since none of the allegations that Fox had violated the law in how they handled the story had been upheld Fox contended that the firing did not violate the "whistleblower" protection statute.No, the bookseller has already sold the book back to the publisher. When the bookseller sends the cover back to the publisher the publisher gives the bookseller a credit on their account equal to what thye would have paid for the book in the first place (minus "restocking fees" in some cases), this would be a completely different case.
You do realize that study after study has shown that conservatives give a much larger share of their income to charity than liberals. According to the book "Who Really Cares", in the U.S., a household headed by a conservative will donate 30% more to charity than a household headed by a liberal, even though the liberal families, on average, earn slightly more.
That's right, the press are part of it. You haven't heard about all of the attacks against common U.S. citizens in the US since the 9/11 attacks because the press is covering it up. /s
The OP did not oppose taxes in general (or even government spending in general). The OP opposed taxes used for wealth redistribution. So your argument is completely irrelevant to the OP.
What reputable media source? The summary references the New York Times.
Right, the world would be so much better if Saddam Hussein was still in power. /s
Since when is Facebook a large company?
Sorry, I had to add my own personal favorite. Spray paint cans in a bonfire. My Dad worked next to a company that manufactured spray paint. He used to bring home the defective cans that they threw away. We, also, burned our trash in a 50 gallon barrel with the top cut off. I would throw cans in when the flames got hot. They used to go off like a rocket. Alternatively, my older brothers owned a small fishing trident, I found it to be just about the perfect length to pierce the sides of the can and send them flying without getting hit by the paint as it sprayed out of the hole (it wasn't quite the perfect length, occasionally, I would get caught in the spray, then I got in trouble).
If Facebook does not have a physical presence in Canada, exactly how will Canada enforce this law on them, should Canada rule that it does apply? I am pretty sure that the current U.S. Supreme Court would not rule in Canada's favor on this, considering that they still seem to support the ruling that state's cannot enforce their laws on businesses located in other states that do business with residents of said state (sales tax).
Sorry, To make a second reply to you so soon. I forgot to add this, if your point is correct, what does it matter if we preserve these people's "uncorrupted" society. We can recreate the same type of social structures in just a couple of generations if we wish, by placing a group of people in this setting and denying them any technology. If the people are volunteers, they will possibly even be willing to not teach their children about the technology they had been exposed to before joining the project.
There is something to what you say, however, I have often seen people make the claim that we know that early human cultures were XYZ because such and such low technology culture was XYZ (where XYZ was ideal society according to the person speaking). Just because a group of people lives a subsistence life and has little or no contact with the outside world does not mean that the construction of their social relationships is the same as the social relationships of our ancestors from before the rise of civilization.
For example, just because one low technology society in an environment is patriarchal/matriarchal does not mean that every low tech society in a similar environment will be patriarchal/matriarchal.
This reminds me of a story of an anthropologist who went into the jungles of Burma looking for a tribe that was unsullied by exposure to Western Civilization sometime in the 70's or early 80's. This anthropologist selected a location deep within the jungles of Burma near the border with China, a place that had no access by roads for quite a distance. He flew in by helicopter and was dropped off and made contact with the natives. He made recordings of their wonderful tribal singing and observations of their "unsullied" culture. He came back to the U.S. (I believe he was an American), and wrote some papers about his experiences. He played his recordings for people and they all commented on how beautiful and "pristine" the music was. This story was picked up by NPR and they played some of his recordings. NPR got a bunch of phone calls from people who recognized the songs, they were old fashioned hymns. It turns out that a group of missionaries were driven from China by the Communists in the early 50's and lived out their lives among this "uncontacted" tribe. Until someone makes contact and learns the history of the tribe, we have no way to know that they are actually uncontacted.
When Star Wars came out, the real geeks hated it. Come on sound in space? That's not real science fiction. We had other objections as well, but I can't remember them now.
Over time the geeks started to warm to Star Wars, because the cool kids liked it and thought it was "geeky", so it made them like geeks more.
This isn't so much about Linux, as it is about MS recognizing that if some OS other than their's is the default OS on the low end PC's, it is only a matter of time until it starts to displace MS OS's further up the price point chain.
Or to put it another way, no Linux is not currently a competitor for MS OS's, but if Linux ever reaches 20% of the market, MS is finished (unless they come up with a completely new business model). Apple is a competitor, but Apple does not threaten MS's business model.