You start. Turn of your computer. We'll have another industrial revolution and you'll be left in the dust with that kind of attitude. Would you like to move to Africa or Cuba?
He'd fit right in in Northwestern Pakistan...9th century Taliban mentality, eschewing all modernity, and waxing self-righteous as they force themselves and others into deprevation. He'd even get to keep the hypocrasy of using modern technology (chemicals, bomb-making materials, land rovers) while depriving others. He might even make it through the next predator-drone strike if he keeps his head down, though life expenctancy isn't great, and the retirement benefits pretty much suck.
As for the rest of us, we'll continue going about trying to improve our world, rather than demanding others shrink theirs, thank you very much.
Do yourself a favor and buy Atomic Web browser for iPad. It's only $0.99 and it does all of the things you want to do. Tap and hold on a link and choose "open in a background tab". Supports ad-block, private browsing (porn mode), full screen browsing, user agent switching, etc.
Sorry, that app's been banned from the App Store. Steve Jobs could not be reached for comment.
(Well, it hasn't happened yet, but I wouldn't risk $800 on a device with a browsing experience the grandparent described, on the gamble it won't happen any time soon.)
Think about it for a minute. There is a huge contingent of diehard Flash haters here on/. and then you have this post, which decries the lack of Flash on the iPad.
Hint: Slashdot isn't one monolithic group entity. It is a population of individuals, many of whom love flash, many of whom hate it, and some of whom drop reflexivly to their knees when Steve Jobs enters the room.
And that doesn't even covor the large portion of said population that is ambivelant about various technologies (like flash well enough, find it annoying, wouldn't want to be without it when watching youtube), excited but reserved in judgement about others (HTML5? Looks promising, if google can deliver an unencumbered video format to compete with H.264 and muscle it into the defacto web standards), and disturbed by the policies of some technology companies whose long term strategy seems to include vendor lockin, and restrictions on where that technology can take us (Microsoft's desktop monopoly, Apple's attempt at a vertical monopoly restrictive of just about every development model, Apple's random habit of banning apps for no good reason from the user's point of view, but very good reason from an aspiring monopolist's, Oracles treatment of Sun firmware and Open Solaris, etc.).
On each of those points there will be dozens, probably thousands, of slashdotters who agree, and probably even more who disagree (but on widely varying, mutually exclusive grounds). Welcome to the world, where there are many people, not all of whome tout the same party line (whatever you might be used to if you work for Steve Jobs).
It's amazing the extremes some politicans will go to to cover up affairs from their wives. "You see honey, I spend all weekend with...uh...ALIENS!" In other news, Ilyumzhinov is also planning a hiking trip this weekend on the Appalachian Trail--where his cellphone won't work, so don't even bother calling.
Well, it wouldn't be the first time a rediculously tall tail helped through the missus off the scent. When (Mormon founder) Joseph Smith was caught molesting a 14-year-old child, he simply told his followers (and his wife) that an angel with a sword commanded him to do it, and that everyone thereafter was ordered (by God, by way of sword-wielding angel and self-proclaimed prophet) to have more than one wife, on pain of death and damnation.
Which of course led to such wonderful quotes as:
"I think no more of taking another wife than I do of buying a cow." - Apostle Heber C. Kimball, The Twenty Seventh Wife, Irving Wallace, p. 101.
It's an interesting progression of excuses:
1. The Devil made me do it! 2. God, in the form of an angel with a flaming sword, made me do it! 3. Aliens made me do it!
At least with aliens, it's trendy and captures the zeitgeist
Do you have to actively work to create sentences like this? Is there some kind of system of analysis and theory behind poor sentence construction that you employ? I can't imagine anyone would actually be able to write like that without concerted effort and thought put into it, and yet you trolls do it every day. Perhaps it is an under-appreciated art.
It's how yobs (thugs/losers/hoodies) in the UK speak. Average IQ pushing one digit, average time from hitting puberty to pregnancy (female) about 9 months, average time from hitting puberty to contracting a venerial disease (both genders) about ten minutes.
In fairness to the grandparent, that kind of verbiage has also filtered into other (non-destructive) youth groups, in kind of a mish-mash of UK-yob and US-gangsta speak that for whatever reason is percieved as "cool" among the under 14s. Perhaps s/he fits into that category. Otherwise, you're right, it takes real talent for someone to fuck up a perfectly good English sentence like s/he did.
Provided that you agree with the limits that the court gave the FCC, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this.
Actually, unless the GP seized power in a coup none of us were aware of, their agreement or disagreement with the court's decision (and underlying law) is immaterial. The court explicitly noted that the FCC is perfectly within its rights to determine ISPs are subject to title II and regulate accordingly, thus bringing into action net neutrality.
Which is what they should have been all along: common carriers of data, as opposed to voice. It was always a byzantine argument that excluded ISPs from title II in the first place... one that is long overdue in being reversed.
To the telcos: be careful what you wish for (courts striking down net neutrality). You just might get what you wish for (provision struck down under title I, and -- oops -- regulated even more effectively under title II).
Not quite. SG Warburg was bought by SBC (Swiss Bank Corporation) and became SBC Warburg.
Yeah, I was there for that bit (we bought our Chicago operation back from S.G. Warburg when SBC took over, and went on as a very successful prop trading company for another decade-plus. I did muddle up the acronyms after that... UBS is indeed correct. SBC Warburg did indeed inherit its NeXT machines from SBC--Alas, when I was there we had no such cool toys to play with (though sparc stations weren't a terrible consolation prize, and lots of world travel sweetened the deal).
I worked on contract in IT dept of an international bank based in the UK, actually somewhat in the north, more I dare not say. They used addresses from 10/8 like crazy, and when they ran out, started using 11/8
Some of the skeptics will think I'm making it up. Battle-hardened IT pros will probably facepalm and know it has the ring of truth and that no-one would possibly come up with such a stupid plan and therefore it must be true!
When I worked at SG Warburg (15+ years ago) I was shocked that they'd just gone ahead and used all kinds of class A networks... not just the 10/8 reserved for private networks, but any ol' class A they pleased, whether or not it belonged to MIT, the DoD, or whoever. When I told them they would have to reengineer their entire network before they could hook up to the Internet, the lead network engineer replied breezily: "We won't be letting anyone on the 'net for at least another ten years, and by then we'll all be using IPv6 anyway." I replied that, knowing how long COBOL had (at that time) held on, I'd be surprised if we moved to IPv6 within 20 years, and if we did, it would be because the IPv4 address space was well and truly exhausted, and that, if SG Warburg was still not on the Internet in even half that time, it probably wouldn't exist as an investment bank (or any other entity, for that matter).
The company tanked about a year later (for reasons unrelated to my prediction, bad network practices, or indeed technology at all. It was an interesting lesson in what happens to an organisation rife with nepotisim and led by boarding school buddies when markets get a little tough, but I digress), was ultimately absorbed by Swissbank to become UBC, and as far as I know had their entire network infrastructure chucked in favour of something that was at least moderately compatible with public IP addressing. Not that connecting to the exchanges doesn't remain NATting hell, and probably will for at least another decade (they'll be dragged kicking and screaming into the ipv6 world long after the rest of us have moved, and I don't see too many organisations west of the Atlantic moving anytime soon).
Now I might be missing something, but what did they gain through this acquisition? Why buy a one of the many competitors.. I mean yes it was a great service but there are others out there as well... I just don't get Apples gain from this purchase in the first place...
By all accounts LaLa was one of the best services out there--perhaps one of the few that could give iTunes a real run for its money (indeed, everything I've heard says it was a better service than Apple's itunes).
That's now one less competitor Apple has to worry about...and it's not just any competitor they've wiped out, it's one of the better ones. Seems like a pretty wise (if sleazy) purchase to me.
Example of Microsoft actually *having* monopolistic power in a market? Desktop OS; office apps. Equivalent in Apple? Yup, again NONE! Nope, it wasn't Apple who forced a proprietary, ill-defined spec down the throat of an international standards body, it was "that other company"!
"But-but-but... The iPhone is a walled garden!" And, before the iPhone, exactly what did you have to do to develop an app for a cell phone?
You are probably a troll (I doubt anyone actually modded this tripe up, so your +1 mod probably comes from having a user account and cowardly chosing to post anonymously instead), but on the off chance some poor unsuspecting reader might take any of this nonsense seriously I guess I'd better reply.
At the very least, you are confusing vertical and horizontal monopolies. No one has suggested Apple has a horizontal monopoly, such as the one Microsoft carved out for itself on the PC desktop. Apple is, however, working very hard to create a vertical monopoly for itself, where it controls outright (even if it doesn't own) every layer of the digital stack a customer can access, from interface to application to data to communication link, to hardware, to storage, to data. These efforts are most obvious on the iPhone, but also present on the iPad and creeping onto their more general computing platforms such as the iMac.
The App Store and iPhone are a quintessential example of a vertical monopoly, with Apple as absolute gatekeeper and final authority in what the user may do with the overpriced iPhone they purchased, which which venders are permitted to sell their wares to said user for the moment. And woe unto any vendor whose product Apple happens to like enough to clone and then ban from the site, and any user who has come to rely on said product. That is a vertical monopoly, and that is the future Apple is trying to corral all of us into.
But thank you for playing. Next time, you might want to get a couple of more neurons to rub together before trying again. There might be an App for that, but don't try finding it in the Apple App Store. It's already been banned.
Bostin=Boston. God, I really should check for typos before hitting submit. Welsch=Welsh, except in Germany. Probably a dozen or so others I've missed...alas.
So how do they prove their citizenship when stopped? Would they just be detained until they can have someone bring their passport to the local jail? No one seems too concerned with that scenario because of the unspoken assumption that anyone who "looked" like a citizen wouldn't be stopped.
And since 80% of us have never held a passport, things get really interesting really fast. Birth certificates are often time consuming to get (mine took several weeks from when it was ordered to when it arrived), and don't exactly offer photographic proof that you are the person on the certificate (how could they: you were a baby at the time and probably look very different now...though in the case Rush Limbaugh, maybe not).
This will be a nightmare for anyone, citizen or not, who the cops don't like. It may start with racists going after those of hispanic origin, or those with foreign sounding accents (like, say, someone from Bostin in Montana the locals think sounds English, Irish, Scottish, or Welsch cuz, don't ya know, no 'Mericans talk like that), but eventually it could be any of us. After all, what's to say your lilly white, perfect American accented self isn't Canadian? Papers please! (Except this is America, so we'll just drop the 'please' part).
Apple is screwing others over... nothing to see here move along.
Is it just me or has Apples attitude have gone down the gutters since Steve Jobs has returned from his sick leave. It is not like they did not pull evil stunts before, but it has become way worse.
I said this years ago (it is probably archived in more than one slashdot comment somewhere), but it bears repeating:
Steve Jobs is a Bill Gates wannabe. His illness (and his return) has changed nothing. What has changed is that he has the confidence of his market position, and is now showing his true colors.
What I said (back in the early naughties IIRC): Apple's behavior historically has been that of a company aspiring to monopoly status, and only their (back then) weakness in the market holds that in check. I predicted that, once Apple has achieved enough of a market share to feel secure, they would revert to their old ways and their behavior would make Microsoft and Bill Gates look like good corporate citizens in comparison (and that takes real effort given their long and well documented history of anti-competative practices).
We are now there (and have been for some months, arguably a year or more), and as night follows day, Apple is behaving exactly as expected.
I recommended Apple to my wife a number of years ago, as at the time Microsoft was far worse, and Linux wasn't quite ready for what she needed to do (and she was unwilling to climb the learning curve). I now regret that...as bad as Microsoft is in terms of trampling its users' freedoms and invading its users' privacy, Apple has become significantly worse (and far, far sooner than I expected). Alas, my wife is used to a simple computer that works, and while Linux works perfectly and would now do all she needs, I doubt she'll be willing to take on the effort required to learn a new, slightly different interface
I'm afraid we will all have to keep learning these lessons time and time again: if you want digital freedom, you absolutely cannot cede your basic infrastructure to monopolists or monopolist-wannabes. Indeed, Richard Stallman will probably turn out to have been right all along: if you want freedom, you cannot build your digital world on top of a proprietary platform, no matter how beneign your master may appear today. Apple 2005 vs. Apple 2010 is a strong case in point (and I'm as guilty as anyone for being seduced by the former).
Eventually we'll all have to learn Linux, FreeBSD, or some other free alternative, or face similar attempts at vertical digital monopolies and gatekeepers. It may sound trite, it may sound radical, and it is certainly inviting contempt on this forum to cite RMS on this point, but in my 20+ years in the field I've had my pragmatic feet knocked out from under me at least 4 times by proprietary vendors such as Apple and Microsoft (and others), usually with very negative results. In every case, Stallman's argument against basing a product, business, or day-to-day operating environment on proprietary infrastructure has been vindicated, in spades. Now it's time for the happy shiny Apple-ites to experience this lesson first hand.
"Want digital freedom in the 21st century? There's an App for that... too bad it's been banned from the iPhone App Store."
I don't know if what I am saying is 100% correct. But people who might vote for Pirate, Green, ect ect. are mostly geeks or people directly involved in this.
True, and it is unfortunate that the "geek" vote is being split so badly. The LibDems are the only one of the three major parties that stood up to this law (voting against it and calling for its repeal). Whether someone's agreement with them on this issue outweighs any disagreements they may have with them on other issues is an open question.
Why do people go straight for "scorched Earth" approaches, when a simple media campaign would do.
To the GP post: they fire and sue the guy. Blog, report, and blow the shit out of the company's reputation among those in the technical field if it comes to that.
They might do, if they continue to grow a reputation for Stasi style tactics and policies that make Orwell look like an optimist. Which firing and suing this guy would certainly do.
How far Apple is from the tipping point of going from "a cool place to work" to "last chance saloon for those desperate enough and unable to get work elsewhere" is an open question, particularly in today's economy. But one thing is certain...they are closer to that point now than they were two years ago, and will be a whole lot closer still if they act in a vindictive manner toward a guy who simply made a mistake any of us could have made.
After all, who hasn't lost a cell phone at least once in their life? (A good reason to never volunteer to test prototypes, especially if your lifestyle includes the occasional pub visit)
Yeah, this is a manufactured controversy issue by the GOP. They are attacking the SEC because its attacking Goldman Sachs and trying to regulate the industry that almost took the economy down. Republicans have no shame.
They don't have any memory either (or more accurately: they're counting on the rest of us to have no memory).
Let's review once again WHEN the economy was tanking, and WHEN these people were surfing porn.
It was in the 8th year of the Bush interregnum, where we had
1. A Republican Controlled Senate 2. A Republican Controlled House of Representatives 3. A Republican President 4. An SEC led and managed by Republican Appointees, appointed by a Republican president and confirmed by a Republican congress.
Amusing that they are now making an issue out of, to put not too fine a point on it, the surfing habits of an organisation that had been Republican dominated for the better part of 8 years (longer, actually, when you factor in the Republican congress beneath Clinton, and the influence peddling the Banks, and the Right, have had on the SEC for many years prior).
Basically, it's misbehavior by part of a Republican administration for which the Republicans are now raising hell and brazenly pointing the figure at the Democrat who has gone some way in his first fifteen months cleaning their mess up, as if their misbehavior is somehow their successor's fault.
Actually, It was the Clinton administration that started the deregulation with it's push for everyone to own a house. They started the push to make getting a mortgage easier.
No, Clinton essentially rubber-stamped legislation pushed through by a Republican controlled congress with veto-proof majorities, including the repeal of Glass-Stiegl (with nearly disasterous consequences of its own). Yes, the democrats managed to attach a couple of riders to make getting mortgages easier, but that has almost nothing to do with this crisis. The sub-prime frenzy wasn't driven by government mandate or even "easy lending" (contrary to popular myth), it was driven by an unregulated marketplace where loans could be repackaged, resold, with one party pocketing the profits while another, unsuspecting party, took on all the liabilities, all in a very opaque manner that left no-one in a position to value the instruments or assess the risk. With even a modicum of regulation, which Republicans and conservative Democrats have blocked at every turn, there wouldn't have been a free-for-all in issueing CDOs and swaps, and selling them on (often under fraudulant pretenses) that enabled, encouraged, and powered the lending frenzy that resulted in the crash.
The Democrats have done plenty wrong over the years, but record deficits and the near-collapse of our banking system lies squarely at the feet of the Republicans and their corporate masters, the occasional cross-over conservative Democrat notwithstanding.
FAIL: I would have thought, as a slashdotter, you were more interested in the facts. Do some homework: The banks were bullied into lowering their lending standards by left-wing idealists intent on equal opportunities at any cost.
Ah, no, that would be your collassal FAIL for swallowing right-wing talking points and fiction hook, line, and sinker and calling them "facts".
This crisis had nothing to do with the tiny minority of sub-prime loans disbursed under federal fair lending requirements. These banks were not "bullied" into anything--they aggressively sold sub-prime loans to far less debtworthy recipients than specified in any federal fair lending statutes, and did so for one very simple reason: profit. Not long term profits for the bank, but for short term paper profits off the back of irresponsibly low interest rates that translated into large bonuses for the Bankers and Traders involved, and then packaging up the toxicity and selling it onward as CDOs and CDSes that were fraudulantly sold to investors in a climate of no oversight, little to no regulation, and a business model of raking in the profits and shedding the liability as fast as possible...initially onto investers, then ultimately onto the shareholders while the main culprits pocketed millions and made for the hills. I work in this industry (for the investment arm of a large bank BTW), and there is nothing "poor" or "bullied" about these banks...this is pure, unadulterated, and unregulated greed--raw, freewhelling free markets just as the Libertarians and "small 'L' libertarian Republicans tout as the answer to all of society's ills.
And guess what, it had results that were entirely predictable to anyone thinking outside of the right-wing dogma of the Chicago School of Ecomonics (which seems to require debunking about once every generation or so), and the right-wint Libertarian and Republican economic policies it inspires.
It's amazing the level of audacity the right has, to try and place the blame on their successors, whom they've left to clean up their mess. I'm not a particular fan of Obama, but to try and blame him for cleaning up Bush's economic mess (and seeing Bush's bailout through to the end, no less), and to blame a statistically insignificant number of fair lending loans as the cause of this crisis is absurd to the point it beggars belief, and belies a willful ignorance of the facts that appears to stem more from political (some might say 'religious') dogma than any fundamental inability to grasp the basics of economics and credit markets. Fair lending loans weren't the cause of this crisis, nor were the policies that put them in place. The cause was a combination of low interest rates creating a real-estate bubble, and investors who were lied to about the underlying risk and value of the credit instruments they were sold, which in turn created a lending frenzy whose enormity far outstripped anything mandated by government, by orders of magnitude in size and risk. In short, the very CDOs and CDSes that have Goldman in the sights of the SEC right now (and very rightly so, I might add).
Slashdot Mirror
You start. Turn of your computer. We'll have another industrial revolution and you'll be left in the dust with that kind of attitude. Would you like to move to Africa or Cuba?
He'd fit right in in Northwestern Pakistan...9th century Taliban mentality, eschewing all modernity, and waxing self-righteous as they force themselves and others into deprevation. He'd even get to keep the hypocrasy of using modern technology (chemicals, bomb-making materials, land rovers) while depriving others. He might even make it through the next predator-drone strike if he keeps his head down, though life expenctancy isn't great, and the retirement benefits pretty much suck.
As for the rest of us, we'll continue going about trying to improve our world, rather than demanding others shrink theirs, thank you very much.
Forgive me if I'm wrong ... but companies could face anti-trust action even if they don't own a monopoly over a product or service. (Confirm/Deny?)
ACK
Do yourself a favor and buy Atomic Web browser for iPad. It's only $0.99 and it does all of the things you want to do. Tap and hold on a link and choose "open in a background tab". Supports ad-block, private browsing (porn mode), full screen browsing, user agent switching, etc.
Sorry, that app's been banned from the App Store. Steve Jobs could not be reached for comment.
(Well, it hasn't happened yet, but I wouldn't risk $800 on a device with a browsing experience the grandparent described, on the gamble it won't happen any time soon.)
Think about it for a minute. There is a huge contingent of diehard Flash haters here on /. and then you have this post, which decries the lack of Flash on the iPad.
Hint: Slashdot isn't one monolithic group entity. It is a population of individuals, many of whom love flash, many of whom hate it, and some of whom drop reflexivly to their knees when Steve Jobs enters the room.
And that doesn't even covor the large portion of said population that is ambivelant about various technologies (like flash well enough, find it annoying, wouldn't want to be without it when watching youtube), excited but reserved in judgement about others (HTML5? Looks promising, if google can deliver an unencumbered video format to compete with H.264 and muscle it into the defacto web standards), and disturbed by the policies of some technology companies whose long term strategy seems to include vendor lockin, and restrictions on where that technology can take us (Microsoft's desktop monopoly, Apple's attempt at a vertical monopoly restrictive of just about every development model, Apple's random habit of banning apps for no good reason from the user's point of view, but very good reason from an aspiring monopolist's, Oracles treatment of Sun firmware and Open Solaris, etc.).
On each of those points there will be dozens, probably thousands, of slashdotters who agree, and probably even more who disagree (but on widely varying, mutually exclusive grounds). Welcome to the world, where there are many people, not all of whome tout the same party line (whatever you might be used to if you work for Steve Jobs).
It's amazing the extremes some politicans will go to to cover up affairs from their wives. "You see honey, I spend all weekend with...uh...ALIENS!" In other news, Ilyumzhinov is also planning a hiking trip this weekend on the Appalachian Trail--where his cellphone won't work, so don't even bother calling.
Well, it wouldn't be the first time a rediculously tall tail helped through the missus off the scent. When (Mormon founder) Joseph Smith was caught molesting a 14-year-old child, he simply told his followers (and his wife) that an angel with a sword commanded him to do it, and that everyone thereafter was ordered (by God, by way of sword-wielding angel and self-proclaimed prophet) to have more than one wife, on pain of death and damnation.
Which of course led to such wonderful quotes as:
"I think no more of taking another wife than I do of buying a cow."
- Apostle Heber C. Kimball, The Twenty Seventh Wife, Irving Wallace, p. 101.
It's an interesting progression of excuses:
1. The Devil made me do it!
2. God, in the form of an angel with a flaming sword, made me do it!
3. Aliens made me do it!
At least with aliens, it's trendy and captures the zeitgeist
Do you have to actively work to create sentences like this? Is there some kind of system of analysis and theory behind poor sentence construction that you employ? I can't imagine anyone would actually be able to write like that without concerted effort and thought put into it, and yet you trolls do it every day. Perhaps it is an under-appreciated art.
It's how yobs (thugs/losers/hoodies) in the UK speak. Average IQ pushing one digit, average time from hitting puberty to pregnancy (female) about 9 months, average time from hitting puberty to contracting a venerial disease (both genders) about ten minutes.
In fairness to the grandparent, that kind of verbiage has also filtered into other (non-destructive) youth groups, in kind of a mish-mash of UK-yob and US-gangsta speak that for whatever reason is percieved as "cool" among the under 14s. Perhaps s/he fits into that category. Otherwise, you're right, it takes real talent for someone to fuck up a perfectly good English sentence like s/he did.
Provided that you agree with the limits that the court gave the FCC, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this.
Actually, unless the GP seized power in a coup none of us were aware of, their agreement or disagreement with the court's decision (and underlying law) is immaterial. The court explicitly noted that the FCC is perfectly within its rights to determine ISPs are subject to title II and regulate accordingly, thus bringing into action net neutrality.
Which is what they should have been all along: common carriers of data, as opposed to voice. It was always a byzantine argument that excluded ISPs from title II in the first place ... one that is long overdue in being reversed.
To the telcos: be careful what you wish for (courts striking down net neutrality). You just might get what you wish for (provision struck down under title I, and -- oops -- regulated even more effectively under title II).
Not quite. SG Warburg was bought by SBC (Swiss Bank Corporation) and became SBC Warburg.
Yeah, I was there for that bit (we bought our Chicago operation back from S.G. Warburg when SBC took over, and went on as a very successful prop trading company for another decade-plus. I did muddle up the acronyms after that ... UBS is indeed correct. SBC Warburg did indeed inherit its NeXT machines from SBC--Alas, when I was there we had no such cool toys to play with (though sparc stations weren't a terrible consolation prize, and lots of world travel sweetened the deal).
microsoft itself recommends to not use the 64 bit version unless you have very specific needs.
Dude, 2039 is right around the corner!
A zettabyte is more data than you generate during your whole lifetime. It's pointless to have so much space.
Speak for yourself.
UBS, not UBC. Damn typos.
I worked on contract in IT dept of an international bank based in the UK, actually somewhat in the north, more I dare not say. They used addresses from 10/8 like crazy, and when they ran out, started using 11/8
Some of the skeptics will think I'm making it up. Battle-hardened IT pros will probably facepalm and know it has the ring of truth and that no-one would possibly come up with such a stupid plan and therefore it must be true!
When I worked at SG Warburg (15+ years ago) I was shocked that they'd just gone ahead and used all kinds of class A networks ... not just the 10/8 reserved for private networks, but any ol' class A they pleased, whether or not it belonged to MIT, the DoD, or whoever. When I told them they would have to reengineer their entire network before they could hook up to the Internet, the lead network engineer replied breezily: "We won't be letting anyone on the 'net for at least another ten years, and by then we'll all be using IPv6 anyway." I replied that, knowing how long COBOL had (at that time) held on, I'd be surprised if we moved to IPv6 within 20 years, and if we did, it would be because the IPv4 address space was well and truly exhausted, and that, if SG Warburg was still not on the Internet in even half that time, it probably wouldn't exist as an investment bank (or any other entity, for that matter).
The company tanked about a year later (for reasons unrelated to my prediction, bad network practices, or indeed technology at all. It was an interesting lesson in what happens to an organisation rife with nepotisim and led by boarding school buddies when markets get a little tough, but I digress), was ultimately absorbed by Swissbank to become UBC, and as far as I know had their entire network infrastructure chucked in favour of something that was at least moderately compatible with public IP addressing. Not that connecting to the exchanges doesn't remain NATting hell, and probably will for at least another decade (they'll be dragged kicking and screaming into the ipv6 world long after the rest of us have moved, and I don't see too many organisations west of the Atlantic moving anytime soon).
Now I might be missing something, but what did they gain through this acquisition? Why buy a one of the many competitors.. I mean yes it was a great service but there are others out there as well... I just don't get Apples gain from this purchase in the first place...
By all accounts LaLa was one of the best services out there--perhaps one of the few that could give iTunes a real run for its money (indeed, everything I've heard says it was a better service than Apple's itunes).
That's now one less competitor Apple has to worry about...and it's not just any competitor they've wiped out, it's one of the better ones. Seems like a pretty wise (if sleazy) purchase to me.
Example of Microsoft actually *having* monopolistic power in a market? Desktop OS; office apps. Equivalent in Apple? Yup, again NONE! Nope, it wasn't Apple who forced a proprietary, ill-defined spec down the throat of an international standards body, it was "that other company"!
"But-but-but ... The iPhone is a walled garden!" And, before the iPhone, exactly what did you have to do to develop an app for a cell phone?
You are probably a troll (I doubt anyone actually modded this tripe up, so your +1 mod probably comes from having a user account and cowardly chosing to post anonymously instead), but on the off chance some poor unsuspecting reader might take any of this nonsense seriously I guess I'd better reply.
At the very least, you are confusing vertical and horizontal monopolies. No one has suggested Apple has a horizontal monopoly, such as the one Microsoft carved out for itself on the PC desktop. Apple is, however, working very hard to create a vertical monopoly for itself, where it controls outright (even if it doesn't own) every layer of the digital stack a customer can access, from interface to application to data to communication link, to hardware, to storage, to data. These efforts are most obvious on the iPhone, but also present on the iPad and creeping onto their more general computing platforms such as the iMac.
The App Store and iPhone are a quintessential example of a vertical monopoly, with Apple as absolute gatekeeper and final authority in what the user may do with the overpriced iPhone they purchased, which which venders are permitted to sell their wares to said user for the moment. And woe unto any vendor whose product Apple happens to like enough to clone and then ban from the site, and any user who has come to rely on said product. That is a vertical monopoly, and that is the future Apple is trying to corral all of us into.
But thank you for playing. Next time, you might want to get a couple of more neurons to rub together before trying again. There might be an App for that, but don't try finding it in the Apple App Store. It's already been banned.
Fuck.
After all, Arbeit macht Frei.
Unless your an undocumented alien in AZ...then Arbeit (work) lands your ass in jail.
Bostin=Boston. God, I really should check for typos before hitting submit.
Welsch=Welsh, except in Germany. Probably a dozen or so others I've missed...alas.
So how do they prove their citizenship when stopped? Would they just be detained until they can have someone bring their passport to the local jail? No one seems too concerned with that scenario because of the unspoken assumption that anyone who "looked" like a citizen wouldn't be stopped.
And since 80% of us have never held a passport, things get really interesting really fast. Birth certificates are often time consuming to get (mine took several weeks from when it was ordered to when it arrived), and don't exactly offer photographic proof that you are the person on the certificate (how could they: you were a baby at the time and probably look very different now...though in the case Rush Limbaugh, maybe not).
This will be a nightmare for anyone, citizen or not, who the cops don't like. It may start with racists going after those of hispanic origin, or those with foreign sounding accents (like, say, someone from Bostin in Montana the locals think sounds English, Irish, Scottish, or Welsch cuz, don't ya know, no 'Mericans talk like that), but eventually it could be any of us. After all, what's to say your lilly white, perfect American accented self isn't Canadian? Papers please! (Except this is America, so we'll just drop the 'please' part).
Apple is screwing others over... nothing to see here move along.
Is it just me or has Apples attitude have gone down the gutters since Steve Jobs has returned from his sick leave.
It is not like they did not pull evil stunts before, but it has become way worse.
I said this years ago (it is probably archived in more than one slashdot comment somewhere), but it bears repeating:
Steve Jobs is a Bill Gates wannabe. His illness (and his return) has changed nothing. What has changed is that he has the confidence of his market position, and is now showing his true colors.
What I said (back in the early naughties IIRC): Apple's behavior historically has been that of a company aspiring to monopoly status, and only their (back then) weakness in the market holds that in check. I predicted that, once Apple has achieved enough of a market share to feel secure, they would revert to their old ways and their behavior would make Microsoft and Bill Gates look like good corporate citizens in comparison (and that takes real effort given their long and well documented history of anti-competative practices).
We are now there (and have been for some months, arguably a year or more), and as night follows day, Apple is behaving exactly as expected.
I recommended Apple to my wife a number of years ago, as at the time Microsoft was far worse, and Linux wasn't quite ready for what she needed to do (and she was unwilling to climb the learning curve). I now regret that...as bad as Microsoft is in terms of trampling its users' freedoms and invading its users' privacy, Apple has become significantly worse (and far, far sooner than I expected). Alas, my wife is used to a simple computer that works, and while Linux works perfectly and would now do all she needs, I doubt she'll be willing to take on the effort required to learn a new, slightly different interface
I'm afraid we will all have to keep learning these lessons time and time again: if you want digital freedom, you absolutely cannot cede your basic infrastructure to monopolists or monopolist-wannabes. Indeed, Richard Stallman will probably turn out to have been right all along: if you want freedom, you cannot build your digital world on top of a proprietary platform, no matter how beneign your master may appear today. Apple 2005 vs. Apple 2010 is a strong case in point (and I'm as guilty as anyone for being seduced by the former).
Eventually we'll all have to learn Linux, FreeBSD, or some other free alternative, or face similar attempts at vertical digital monopolies and gatekeepers. It may sound trite, it may sound radical, and it is certainly inviting contempt on this forum to cite RMS on this point, but in my 20+ years in the field I've had my pragmatic feet knocked out from under me at least 4 times by proprietary vendors such as Apple and Microsoft (and others), usually with very negative results. In every case, Stallman's argument against basing a product, business, or day-to-day operating environment on proprietary infrastructure has been vindicated, in spades. Now it's time for the happy shiny Apple-ites to experience this lesson first hand.
"Want digital freedom in the 21st century? There's an App for that ... too bad it's been banned from the iPhone App Store."
I don't know if what I am saying is 100% correct. But people who might vote for Pirate, Green, ect ect. are mostly geeks or people directly involved in this.
True, and it is unfortunate that the "geek" vote is being split so badly. The LibDems are the only one of the three major parties that stood up to this law (voting against it and calling for its repeal). Whether someone's agreement with them on this issue outweighs any disagreements they may have with them on other issues is an open question.
You get right on that, Sparky.
lol!
Why do people go straight for "scorched Earth" approaches, when a simple media campaign would do.
To the GP post: they fire and sue the guy. Blog, report, and blow the shit out of the company's reputation among those in the technical field if it comes to that.
But arson? c'mon.
Apple's got no trouble attracting applicants.
They might do, if they continue to grow a reputation for Stasi style tactics and policies that make Orwell look like an optimist. Which firing and suing this guy would certainly do.
How far Apple is from the tipping point of going from "a cool place to work" to "last chance saloon for those desperate enough and unable to get work elsewhere" is an open question, particularly in today's economy. But one thing is certain...they are closer to that point now than they were two years ago, and will be a whole lot closer still if they act in a vindictive manner toward a guy who simply made a mistake any of us could have made.
After all, who hasn't lost a cell phone at least once in their life? (A good reason to never volunteer to test prototypes, especially if your lifestyle includes the occasional pub visit)
Yeah, this is a manufactured controversy issue by the GOP. They are attacking the SEC because its attacking Goldman Sachs and trying to regulate the industry that almost took the economy down. Republicans have no shame.
They don't have any memory either (or more accurately: they're counting on the rest of us to have no memory).
Let's review once again WHEN the economy was tanking, and WHEN these people were surfing porn.
It was in the 8th year of the Bush interregnum, where we had
1. A Republican Controlled Senate
2. A Republican Controlled House of Representatives
3. A Republican President
4. An SEC led and managed by Republican Appointees, appointed by a Republican president and confirmed by a Republican congress.
Amusing that they are now making an issue out of, to put not too fine a point on it, the surfing habits of an organisation that had been Republican dominated for the better part of 8 years (longer, actually, when you factor in the Republican congress beneath Clinton, and the influence peddling the Banks, and the Right, have had on the SEC for many years prior).
Basically, it's misbehavior by part of a Republican administration for which the Republicans are now raising hell and brazenly pointing the figure at the Democrat who has gone some way in his first fifteen months cleaning their mess up, as if their misbehavior is somehow their successor's fault.
Shameless indeed.
Actually, It was the Clinton administration that started the deregulation with it's push for everyone to own a house. They started the push to make getting a mortgage easier.
No, Clinton essentially rubber-stamped legislation pushed through by a Republican controlled congress with veto-proof majorities, including the repeal of Glass-Stiegl (with nearly disasterous consequences of its own). Yes, the democrats managed to attach a couple of riders to make getting mortgages easier, but that has almost nothing to do with this crisis. The sub-prime frenzy wasn't driven by government mandate or even "easy lending" (contrary to popular myth), it was driven by an unregulated marketplace where loans could be repackaged, resold, with one party pocketing the profits while another, unsuspecting party, took on all the liabilities, all in a very opaque manner that left no-one in a position to value the instruments or assess the risk. With even a modicum of regulation, which Republicans and conservative Democrats have blocked at every turn, there wouldn't have been a free-for-all in issueing CDOs and swaps, and selling them on (often under fraudulant pretenses) that enabled, encouraged, and powered the lending frenzy that resulted in the crash.
The Democrats have done plenty wrong over the years, but record deficits and the near-collapse of our banking system lies squarely at the feet of the Republicans and their corporate masters, the occasional cross-over conservative Democrat notwithstanding.
FAIL: I would have thought, as a slashdotter, you were more interested in the facts. Do some homework: The banks were bullied into lowering their lending standards by left-wing idealists intent on equal opportunities at any cost.
Ah, no, that would be your collassal FAIL for swallowing right-wing talking points and fiction hook, line, and sinker and calling them "facts".
This crisis had nothing to do with the tiny minority of sub-prime loans disbursed under federal fair lending requirements. These banks were not "bullied" into anything--they aggressively sold sub-prime loans to far less debtworthy recipients than specified in any federal fair lending statutes, and did so for one very simple reason: profit. Not long term profits for the bank, but for short term paper profits off the back of irresponsibly low interest rates that translated into large bonuses for the Bankers and Traders involved, and then packaging up the toxicity and selling it onward as CDOs and CDSes that were fraudulantly sold to investors in a climate of no oversight, little to no regulation, and a business model of raking in the profits and shedding the liability as fast as possible...initially onto investers, then ultimately onto the shareholders while the main culprits pocketed millions and made for the hills. I work in this industry (for the investment arm of a large bank BTW), and there is nothing "poor" or "bullied" about these banks...this is pure, unadulterated, and unregulated greed--raw, freewhelling free markets just as the Libertarians and "small 'L' libertarian Republicans tout as the answer to all of society's ills.
And guess what, it had results that were entirely predictable to anyone thinking outside of the right-wing dogma of the Chicago School of Ecomonics (which seems to require debunking about once every generation or so), and the right-wint Libertarian and Republican economic policies it inspires.
It's amazing the level of audacity the right has, to try and place the blame on their successors, whom they've left to clean up their mess. I'm not a particular fan of Obama, but to try and blame him for cleaning up Bush's economic mess (and seeing Bush's bailout through to the end, no less), and to blame a statistically insignificant number of fair lending loans as the cause of this crisis is absurd to the point it beggars belief, and belies a willful ignorance of the facts that appears to stem more from political (some might say 'religious') dogma than any fundamental inability to grasp the basics of economics and credit markets. Fair lending loans weren't the cause of this crisis, nor were the policies that put them in place. The cause was a combination of low interest rates creating a real-estate bubble, and investors who were lied to about the underlying risk and value of the credit instruments they were sold, which in turn created a lending frenzy whose enormity far outstripped anything mandated by government, by orders of magnitude in size and risk. In short, the very CDOs and CDSes that have Goldman in the sights of the SEC right now (and very rightly so, I might add).