You have to remember that when the average user thinks of "chat" they don't think IRC, hell they don't even know what IRC is. The average user thinks "chat" is a room on AOL unless you want to talk one on one and then you IM. Any of the none AOL users are just using MSN/Yahoo/AIM for one on one talk and hitting websites with Java or something for group chats. Most average users that I've spoken to, which is the market that Mozilla supposedly should be capturing, wouldn't understand "channels" or what efnet or dalnet was, or how to do much of anything in an IRC client. I think that was more the point of the statement.
1. giving other animals raw material for shelter 2. peat bogs have a great amount of biodiversity and provide habitat for many animals and plants. The lifecycle of coal is a downward cycle. Layer upon layer of mass is placed on top of the peat and eventually it becomes coal. The cycle should be that it continues to be burried and is at some point reclaimed into the earth's core to be melted and recycled to another area as new sea floor or new island etc. Another part of the lifecycle is that coal can provide home and food for bacteria which produce waste product in the form of natural gas (there are many different theories and processes for natural gas BTW). Natural gas/Methane/etc. then provide part of the component for climate regulation/"global warming" that keeps the planet warm and life sustaining.
Re:Maybe I'm missing something, but...
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Cotton, hemp, wool, etc. are all natural fibers that decompose easily when left to the forces of nature. Yet when those same materials are used for durable goods and cared for or left in the right conditions they can last for thousands of years without decomposing. Therefore assuming that the couch will decompose in your living room the same as it would outside exposed is incorrect. Likewise the steak you have would decompose much differently inside than it would outside because of the lack of external forces speeding it's decomposition. A steak left on the floor of your living room might just dry up, get hard and become a peice of jerky, whereas a steak outside would attract wildlife, flies, and other insects that would convert the majority of it's mass into fuel for themselves.
Some people have also scoffed at the idea that eco-friendly could be cost effective. But if you look at just the one example above - taking a material that could be made from thousands of chemicals and producing a similar product with only thirty eight - couldn't it easily be argued that the manufacturing equipment, cost of supplies, cost of training, cost of development, etc. would all go down using this methodology. While initial retooling and design costs might be up the end result is a product that costs less to produce and therefore provides a quick turn around on the initial investment.
What's the lifecycle of the average polyester shirt? While I know that thrift stores are filled with 20 year old polyester shirts and pants, how many more went into landfills and are still there relatively intact today? We have the knowledge today to create buildings that use the environment itself to create a comfortable work and living environment inside - lessening the need for electricity and other utilities, yet most companies continue to build the same old environmentally unfriendly and people unfriendly buildings they always have. Twenty years later (sometimes only a year later) people end up gettng sick because of poor ventilation, carpet fumes, ceiling tiles, what have you. What's the cost when that happens?
Re:While I will not address the eco-notions. . .
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can you give some examples of what waste products in nature do not become "food" for some other part of the system?
There are two assumptions that I think are being made, incorrectly, by both sides. One assumption is that given a specific technology like commercial skipping, that everyone will use it. The second assumption is that, with the absence of a specific technology like commercial skipping, that commercials won't get skipped.
In general the majority of the population will not use commercial skipping technology. I know that most of the people that I've sat around with when watching a tape recorded show, rarely if ever hit the forward button and I think this is similar with the PVR folk. Additionally people will skip commercials even during live broadcasts, they'll flip channels (mostly the men) or find something else to do (especially if you have kids or your multitasking TV with some other chore). I would say that skipping technology would be statistically insignifant in it's effects on the ad market. I'd love to see someone come up with independent results to show one way or another.
Or they can move to the Max Headroom (1984) model of TV viewing by making it illegal for a TV to have an OFF button.
Re:the beauty of credit cards
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Disconnecting
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Bank Of America. They temporarily reversed the charge waiting for me to come up with documentation about the cancellation, which was dependent on AT&T giving me the contents of the e-mail that was with the account. In the end they never forwarded any of that e-mail even though I requested it multiple times and from multiple reps. The damning e-mail showing that I had in fact hit the online cancellation system seemed out of my reach. I requested to talk to an engineer about the page and about logging that might be taking place but everyone involved at AT&T acted ignorant of how to get a hold of anyone or how the page worked or why they even had a cancellation page if it didn't do anything.
Eventually without the "proof" the credit card company put the charges back on and I was stuck with them.
okay that didn't make any sense. Explain the efficiency loss.
Re:the beauty of credit cards
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Unfortunately that doesn't always work. I was with AT&T briefly (about a month). I cancelled the account via an online page. Because of problems that I had with previous ISP's (namely AOL) I called the credit card company and put a stop payment out. To be sure that the account was closed I tried it again a couple of weeks later and it was still open and there was an e-mail from the online cancellation system stating "We've received your request for cancellation please call xxx-xxx-xxxx". So I jumped through the extra hoop of calling waiting on hold for 15 minutes to get a rep on the phone. The rep promptly said, I'll note the account but I have to transfer you to a "cancellation specialist". After another 15 minute hold I got the cancellation specialist who said "Not a problem, I'll cancel the account immediately, sorry for the problems.". So I assume the account is closed.
Somehow a $38 charge from AT&T shows up on my CC bill. I call AT&T to see what's up and they state "Yes the account is closed due to non-payment". Evidently the first payment charged was for two months, then when the third payment for the third month went through it was the one that got rejected. I politely told the rep that I had cancelled the account months before. She replied that she did see the note on the account that I had called to cancel, BUT that I had not cancelled the account because there was not a cancellation number on the account. I attempted to argue using logic, but it appears that logic doesn't work anymore. My argument was "why would I call in to cancel wait on hold for thirty minutes and then not cancel the account?". She said she didn't know but that if I didn't pay the $19 I would be sent to collections.
Note that I have 2 other accounts with AT&T and even the threat of losing those two accounts (worth about $100 month) didn't deter AT&T from continuing to seek their $19 and flat refusing to refund the $38 dollars they in essence stole from me. The credit card company was little help and basically stated that without me having the "cancellation" number from the "cancellation specialist" that they could do nothing for me. The CC company had no excuse for why the stop payment hadn't worked and had no remedy for me.
It amazes me how careless companies have become with their customers and with customer or even ex-customer satisfaction. These companies work hard to draw in new customers but do nothing to retain the current ones and set up a dynamic where ex-customers are very unlikely to return.
My philosophy is that if you are my customer I treat you like gold. If you don't want to be my customer I find out why and fix the problem to try to keep you. If you still don't want to stay then I let you go nice and easy with the hopes that you'll remember my company and return some day after being treated poorly by some other company. At least there at the end of someone being a customer with me they might still have enough good feelings about how they were treated to recommend my company to others.
I think people are very tired of being a customer for years with a company and then getting screwed, either through poor service or by not being offered any incentive at all to remain a customer. Look at all the special deals that NEW customers get that existing customers can't even touch. There should be proactive customer retention programs like "Mr Smith, we see that you've been our customer for 5 years, been late only once and we've only received 3 customer service calls from you, how would you like our "Customer Thank You" package which includes a slightly discounted monthly rate and more features". Instead you get calls like "Mr. Smith we see that you're two year contract is almost up and we'd like to introduce you to a new package that might better fit your needs. We see that you don't use your current package completely but we feel that this new package that costs only a little more might be better for you" and in the end you get less than what you had before for higher cost. Worse is getting one of those crappy letters after a couple of years of being a customer saying charges are going up 5% - meanwhile all new customers are getting 10% off.
Well if what they say about the chips is true and you can use them to convert heat to electricity then you just stick another "chip" on the waste heat side of the first "chip" and suppliment your power with the waste heat.
Personally I see a couple of things that could be improved to provide a buffer for both the ad industry and the consumer.
1) go back to old style TV/Radio ads where the stars of your favorite shows are actually the ones pitching the product right from the set. Here in St. Louis we have the Dave Glover Show and almost all of the ads during his show are either him live, or recordings by him trying to sell the product. It's much more personal and really talks just about the product not all the hype and flash (no models, no stunts, no underwater SUV's, just the pitchman and the product)
2) Try new business models. Instead of just saturating the market with ads, try to find some niche. Change the way you're creating the ads or placing the ads so that they get people where you need them. Ads for food products that are not on the way to the food product are useless. It seems that most ad models are more focused on creating brand recognition instead of selling product. Refocus on the product and the brand recognition will follow. Likewise with the "branding" of TV channels. Most people know what channel they are watching during any given program and therefore the quarter sized or larger "branding" icon on the TV is just there detracting from the show.
3) Shorten commercials. In an hour long show there are between 22 and 28 minutes worth of commercial. Long commercial blocks encourage the viewer to go away and do something else or flip channels to fill the space and possibly find another program with fewer ads or your competitors ads. Reducing the length of a block of commercials reduces the risk of losing the consumer eyeballs and increases the chance that they will see something they like. In an hour long show one might make the longest block of commercials towards the middle of the programming, say 2 to 3 minutes, long enough for a quick bathroom break but short enough to sit through if no break is needed. Space the commercials more evenly. I use my PVR to record shows for my wife. I then cut the commercials and burn them to VCD for her to watch on the weekends. During one hour long show the break down looked like this. 0-3 min Story intro 3-4 min Show theme/title 4-7 min commercials 7-16 min Show 16-20 min commercials 20-23 min Show 23-26 min commercials 26-32 min Show 32-34 min commercials 34-40 min Show 40-44 min commercials 44-50 min Show 50-56 min commercials 56-60 min Show wrap-up and credits/mixed with news/station ID/what's next
6 commercial breaks, 22 minutes worth of commercials mostly repeats (one SUV ad showed every single commercial break), plus 3 minutes or so of credits, intros, station branding, and information on the next ad filled show, leaving 35 minutes for the actual show and plenty of opportunities for program switching or other attention diverting possibilities.
My model would be 15 minutes worth of commercials between 2 and 2.5 minutes per break except for the "intermission" commercial that would be 4 minutes (tops). Then show intervals would be between 5 minutes (beginning and end) and 6-7.5 minutes for the rest of the show. I think once it gets taken down to that level and a return on investment starts to show then the advertisers could see the benefits of taking it even farther below those thresholds. Oh and no repeat commercials. If you are getting the consumer to watch the whole show then there's no reason for repeat commercials.
Maybe we should start the Obfuscated Mathmatics Competition. We could get AOL/TW, the US Government, Oracle and California, the Democratic and Republican Parties, and the RIAA/MPAA all together competing against each other.
x = number of people on the internet y = number of people watching movie z = some arbitrary encrypted number covered by the DMCA use DVD style encryption i = number of times average user sees movie
((y - x)*i)*z = -1,800,000,000,000
Now using algeabra we should be able to figure out 'z' but since it's encrypted and covered by the DMCA that would be illegal.
Okay so then can you tell me why everyone else started integrating browser components into everything? What are they trying to get around? Intuit uses browser compenents for it's Quicken stuff, some IDE's do, KDE has integrated Konqueror, etc. If MS's sole reason for integrating IE was to bypass restrictions then what's everyone elses excuse.
Note: Marc Andreessen stated prior to IE OS bundling that (and I paraphrase here) "We don't want to sell a shrink wrapped product. We want to bundle our software with other packages and preload it on the equipment." The part where MS got into trouble was that they owned the "other packages" and leveraged those to get the browser bundled. Otherwise bundling appears to be a valid option.
Uh no. You've got your information screwed up from what I can tell. In 1995 MS was under a consent decree that dissallowed them from forcing OEM's to license one piece of software to get another piece of software (i.e. having to license Office to get Windows or IE to get Windows). This decree was more concerned with DOS issues and protecting the makers of other OSes. The consent decree doesn't say anything specific about the removal and/or unbundling of IE.
After Win98 shipped MS attempted to retroactively state that Win95 installs needed to be shipped with IE because IE was "integrated" into the OS (this despite the fact that it wasn't until 98 that it was truly seen as "integrated"). The state saw it as dual licensing again while MS maintained that IE was an integral part of the "user experience" and that they weren't pushing two licenses but only pushing one and that was the OS license.
Websphere studio at least the newer versions run using the Eclipse package which is open source based off of netbeans I believe. Additionally I believe that the webserver itself uses apache code and tomcat.
The newer builds of Websphere studio are amazing. I've edited HTML/XML/XSL/CSS/Javascript/Java/XHTML in it and it's great. Unfortunately the price tag is pretty steep at 3000-6000 per seat for the studio package depending on who you talk to. Eclipse is "free" and is the core that Websphere studio is built off of but it doesn't appear to have ALL the features studio has (but hey for editing Java it's excellent compared to some of the other crap out there).
I guess what I keep seeing is them say "It's not feasible" which is different than "It's impossible". XP embedded is geared towards a much different market with much different needs than the consumer desktop market. Therefore it's feasible to have a modular version that the end developer compiles to be embedded into a product that does not change often. The end developer then does all of the support for the OS based on what they've compiled into the unit. If MS could create a "modular" version of the desktop OS and the OEM's compiling it did all of the support then that might be more feasible but it sounds as if that's not being open as an option.
Desktop PC's change much more often and have much much more software and hardware changed out than embedded systems do. So to test XP Embedded and equate it to what can be done with XP desktop is not a fair or accurate comparison and doesn't address issues of support.
I'll have to agree to most of what you said. I do think that MS used it's position to get better product placement and further their own goals.
But, I don't really agree that you have to special case your web pages in order for them to work. I currently design web pages for a large corporation that are strictly standard web pages with no special browser handling instruction that work equally well and display identically in both IE 5/5.5/6 and Mozilla/NS 6.2. We use CSS1/2, XHTML, XML, XSL and Javascript. I've seen plenty of pages out there that stick to the standards and work just fine and are good advocates for how to operate within the standards.
The problems mostly are that in the beginning NO-ONE stuck to the standards, and NS had the same agenda that MS did. The problem was that MS used it's already established products to further it's grasp while NS had no previously established in-roads or leverage to perform similarly, otherwise it would have (See AOL, ORACLE, SUN, IBM, INTEL etc.).
Thank you for the clean and concise conversation and for refraining from calling me names or demeaning my character.
Actually to say that "I did not have sex." when referring to a blow job is accurate. To say "I did not have sexual relations" when referring to a blow job would be the innacurate statement (I won't go into defining 'is' that's truly moronic). The definition of sex is tied to penetration and the act of copulation usually for reproduction. Sexual intercourse can be seen as sex and can include acts like a blow job. But when you lump all things sexual into sex you lose some of the meaning of sex. Masterbation isn't sex it might be a sexual act but it's not sex. Masterbation, cunnilingus, fellatio, etc. could be considered sexual acts or acts of a sexual nature, but cannot be considered 'sex'. Therefore it's your argument that fails.
Extinguish also means to dim, nullify, or to reduce to silence or ineffectiveness. Lovely throwing in the Nazis in all this. Makes a nice little comparison MS == Nazis. It's the comparison that so many MS bashers love to use.
When I'm talking about MS or anyone else "embracing and extending" I'm talking about embracing and extending a methodology, practice or standard. I'm not talking about a company or entity. In your wording you act as if MS "embracing and extending" a standard is tantamount to them walking into an office building and hacking all the workers who worked on the standard into little bitty pieces. I think you can see that MS has embraced and extended several languages, standards and ideals without the necessity of those standards bodies or creators to themselves be silenced (W3C, ECMA, ANSI, c++, etc.). I see plenty of evidence to suggest that MS did little that extinguished their "enemies" while I see plenty of evidence to suggest that the "enemies" caused a significant amount of their own downfall.
I never said that "embrace and extend" was equated to "embrace and extinguish". I stated that somewhere the phrase came up "embrace, extend, and extinguish" and I didn't know where it came from and couldn't assign to it being directly from Microsoft because I haven't seen evidence to suggest it (doesn't mean that evidence doesn't exist).
And do you actually work in any type of large business. I see e-mails getting floated all the time and hear discussions daily that have all kinds of conjecture. I've worked for several companies that this happens on a regular basis. Additionally I've worked in plenty of companies that have hired loud mouthed argumentative and opinionative employees and they seem to be the last to get fired usually because the management A) Likes the go getter attitude or B) is afraid of lawsuits and bad press. Point in fact I sit an isle away from a guy who does nothing all day but bitch about the stupid stuff his boss makes him do, complains about how his benefits are screwed up, moans about the government, and craps on his fellow employees. He hasn't been fired yet because nothing he's done is against company policy, but people avoid him like the plague and try not to bring up his "hot topic" issues within ear shot. He's annoying and could probably be written up as "disruptive" but it would be a hard fight and cause more problems than management wants to deal with.
My question is "Why are you so vehement?" at any point have I insulted someone, spoke down to, or demeaned. I'm simply stating what I see and I'm getting insults and barbed responses.
While it might rightly be said that MS has pursued "predatory" business practices and has been convicted of such, that's not what I'm arguing here. I'm arguing that you can't use one line from an e-mail without any corroberating evidence and say "See! There! I told you so, their guilty!" and that's what most people are doing. They are taking one line at a time and making up their own stories about what happened/is happening at MS without any thought for the accuracy.
First I'm not a "microsoftie". I hate how people attempt to disuade an argument simply by putting a label on someone hoping that the label will make them seem stupid as opposed to arguing the facts. Additionally where in my statement did I say that MS had done nothing wrong in the past or where did I state that MS had not been found guilty by the courts. I didn't. Did I ever state "MS rules", "Gates is God", or "IE is the best"? Then how can you imply that I'm an "microsoftie"? Again the conversation doesn't say anything quite so obvious. If it had said "Hey guys because of the pending legal issues we need to keep this offline" that would be obvious. Or "Let's stay out of trouble here and take it offline" that might have been obvious. But to simply say "No more replies" "Let's take this off the airwaves" could just as easily be "Stop wasting time with this ignorant waste of resources and get back to work". Of course you don't want 50 workers going and talking to their lawyers saying that the veep called them ignorant so you have to be more diplomatic about it. If the gentleman had made any statement about the trial or legal issues or "recent problems" then I might be inclined to agree that squashing the conversation was due to the trial. My other problem is that he doesn't say "Stop this discussion" or site any company policy that would prohibit further discussion. He simply states - take it offline. Now the offline conversation might be hear-say in a court of law but not always. So I still can't say that this one line statement is a clear indictment of wrong doing by the VP.
So let me get this straight since I disagree that it's clear cut based on the on-liner evidence then suddenly I'm so low on the IQ chart that I can't even support life processes with my inadequate brain power. Why is it that when someon disagrees with the "mob rule" here on slashdot that they get insulted and accused of being a shill or a "microsoftie" or worse a troll. One is not a troll for having an opinion that's unpopular, one is a troll for taking a stance contrary to the popular one for the sole purpose of being unpopular. I'm attempting to get people to use their brains in that a ONE LINE STATEMENT is not an HUGE evidence towards guilt. I never implied that MS had not done something illegal or that they had not been found in a court of law guilty of crimes. What I stated was that people are going overboard taking one line statements and adding their own implied intent to them. Much like everyone took my statement and suddenly implied that I'm a shill, or a troll simply because I like to try logic first.
I don't see anywhere in your quote where the gentlemen acknowledges why they need to keep it off the airwaves nor do I see anything that implies that he thinks the discussion implies guilt or wrongdoing.
It would seem to me that alot of people are implying some evil intent where it's very possible that none may have been. Often when you get a group of people discussing a topic, especially one like "embrace/extend" you get into discussions that should not be had. Additionally you get people responding that know little about what they are talking about or who think they know or who've heard from a friend of a friend. What started as normal business conversation can quickly turn to rumor, conjecture, and assumption. Then when records get supoened the lawyers go through and find a statement like "I heard on the internet that Bill said he was poised to take over the world with some new hidden code". The whole thing gets put into evidence but they only mention "Bill said he was..." and noone ever has the time to put it all in context. Hence you get alot of implied intent by statements that really don't have anything evil behind them. Maybe the veep just didn't want to see "Tom" (the guy who has an opinion about everything (usually a negative one)) get into the discussion and turn it into a flame fest.
Additionally the "Embrace, Extend" ideal is not a bad one. It's the premise that almost everything that we have is built on including opensource. How could we ever progress without embracing what we have and extending upon it. The problem is that there is a last word that keeps getting added to the conversation "Extinguish". I'm not sure that this is something that can be directly attributed to MS or not as I see it passed only by Anti-MS zealots.
"Extinguish" is an ambiguous term. As you embrace a concept and extend it eventually the original concept is replaced by it's newer extended and in theory better counterpart. The original concept is not destroyed, it remains, just unused. But if the "extinguishment" of an object is for the control of the object then you get into the wrongfulness of the practice.
My point is that in order to show wrong doing you have to do more than just throw in a couple of disparate statements made by who knows. You have to show a consistent pattern of intent. You have to have a focus, because if you take 40 different statements by 40 different people in a 1000+ person company you can't really equate that to a conspiracy or evil. On the flip side if you take 40 different statments by 4 different people in the same company and they are of sufficient rank and privilage to motivate the company towards certain practices then you MAY be able to show intent.
Personally I'm just tired of buzz word bingo and buzz phrase bingo where the media and people take statements without qualification and read deeper more meaningful intent into them.
It's like if I said "I want to feed the world" and someone started conspiracy theories about how "I want to rule the world". Oh it all makes perfect sense. If I want to feed the world I could only do it if things were in proper order and how can I get them into the proper order if I don't control everything.
sophistry - 1 : subtly deceptive reasoning or argumentation
Segways use a key system that can limit the speed of the vehicle based on the encrypted key used. Therefore you could have keys based on where you will be driving and simply switch them when you are moving from one mode of travel to another. Say 0-6 miles per hour on the sidewalk and 0-topspeed on biketrails, street, and all terain mode.
The thing that frustrates me about people's complaints about others using this is that the assumption is segways won't be regulated. I think that if a police officer sees someone speeding on a segway on a sidewalk full of people then he's going to get involved. Just like when he see's someone skateboarding or bicycling on a sidewalk where it's clearly not allowed. As always the police are there to promote public safety and I think they'll be there to curb anyone being overzealous on this device.
Medford is an employee of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. He's taken a sabatical to work with DEKA on product safety. It does not clearly limit which products he's working on. There may be other products that he's giving feedback on. So that it can't be said he is biased or has been bribed he continues to be paid only by the US government. This way someone can't come back down the line and say "DEKA paid you to say that". Additionally when he returns to his normal job he will make no further product decisions in regards to DEKA or the Segway. I think that's pretty clear to say that he will have no involvement in approving the product to the consumer.
I think this is a very good honest move by all parties involved and there doesn't appear to be any conflict of interests that I can see. While some might scoff at $138,200 a year the government pays while the gentleman is on sebatical I think that it is better in the long run to help retain a good employee, reduce the risk for outside lawsuits or costly inquiries or bad press relations.
Slashdot Mirror
You have to remember that when the average user thinks of "chat" they don't think IRC, hell they don't even know what IRC is. The average user thinks "chat" is a room on AOL unless you want to talk one on one and then you IM. Any of the none AOL users are just using MSN/Yahoo/AIM for one on one talk and hitting websites with Java or something for group chats. Most average users that I've spoken to, which is the market that Mozilla supposedly should be capturing, wouldn't understand "channels" or what efnet or dalnet was, or how to do much of anything in an IRC client. I think that was more the point of the statement.
Technophiles - chat == IRC
AverageJoe - chat == IM/ChatRoom
1. giving other animals raw material for shelter
2. peat bogs have a great amount of biodiversity and provide habitat for many animals and plants. The lifecycle of coal is a downward cycle. Layer upon layer of mass is placed on top of the peat and eventually it becomes coal. The cycle should be that it continues to be burried and is at some point reclaimed into the earth's core to be melted and recycled to another area as new sea floor or new island etc. Another part of the lifecycle is that coal can provide home and food for bacteria which produce waste product in the form of natural gas (there are many different theories and processes for natural gas BTW). Natural gas/Methane/etc. then provide part of the component for climate regulation/"global warming" that keeps the planet warm and life sustaining.
Cotton, hemp, wool, etc. are all natural fibers that decompose easily when left to the forces of nature. Yet when those same materials are used for durable goods and cared for or left in the right conditions they can last for thousands of years without decomposing. Therefore assuming that the couch will decompose in your living room the same as it would outside exposed is incorrect. Likewise the steak you have would decompose much differently inside than it would outside because of the lack of external forces speeding it's decomposition. A steak left on the floor of your living room might just dry up, get hard and become a peice of jerky, whereas a steak outside would attract wildlife, flies, and other insects that would convert the majority of it's mass into fuel for themselves.
Some people have also scoffed at the idea that eco-friendly could be cost effective. But if you look at just the one example above - taking a material that could be made from thousands of chemicals and producing a similar product with only thirty eight - couldn't it easily be argued that the manufacturing equipment, cost of supplies, cost of training, cost of development, etc. would all go down using this methodology. While initial retooling and design costs might be up the end result is a product that costs less to produce and therefore provides a quick turn around on the initial investment.
What's the lifecycle of the average polyester shirt? While I know that thrift stores are filled with 20 year old polyester shirts and pants, how many more went into landfills and are still there relatively intact today? We have the knowledge today to create buildings that use the environment itself to create a comfortable work and living environment inside - lessening the need for electricity and other utilities, yet most companies continue to build the same old environmentally unfriendly and people unfriendly buildings they always have. Twenty years later (sometimes only a year later) people end up gettng sick because of poor ventilation, carpet fumes, ceiling tiles, what have you. What's the cost when that happens?
can you give some examples of what waste products in nature do not become "food" for some other part of the system?
There are two assumptions that I think are being made, incorrectly, by both sides. One assumption is that given a specific technology like commercial skipping, that everyone will use it. The second assumption is that, with the absence of a specific technology like commercial skipping, that commercials won't get skipped.
In general the majority of the population will not use commercial skipping technology. I know that most of the people that I've sat around with when watching a tape recorded show, rarely if ever hit the forward button and I think this is similar with the PVR folk. Additionally people will skip commercials even during live broadcasts, they'll flip channels (mostly the men) or find something else to do (especially if you have kids or your multitasking TV with some other chore). I would say that skipping technology would be statistically insignifant in it's effects on the ad market. I'd love to see someone come up with independent results to show one way or another.
Or they can move to the Max Headroom (1984) model of TV viewing by making it illegal for a TV to have an OFF button.
Bank Of America. They temporarily reversed the charge waiting for me to come up with documentation about the cancellation, which was dependent on AT&T giving me the contents of the e-mail that was with the account. In the end they never forwarded any of that e-mail even though I requested it multiple times and from multiple reps. The damning e-mail showing that I had in fact hit the online cancellation system seemed out of my reach. I requested to talk to an engineer about the page and about logging that might be taking place but everyone involved at AT&T acted ignorant of how to get a hold of anyone or how the page worked or why they even had a cancellation page if it didn't do anything.
Eventually without the "proof" the credit card company put the charges back on and I was stuck with them.
Didn't work that way for me. You must have gotten someone with a brain.
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okay that didn't make any sense. Explain the efficiency loss.
Unfortunately that doesn't always work. I was with AT&T briefly (about a month). I cancelled the account via an online page. Because of problems that I had with previous ISP's (namely AOL) I called the credit card company and put a stop payment out. To be sure that the account was closed I tried it again a couple of weeks later and it was still open and there was an e-mail from the online cancellation system stating "We've received your request for cancellation please call xxx-xxx-xxxx". So I jumped through the extra hoop of calling waiting on hold for 15 minutes to get a rep on the phone. The rep promptly said, I'll note the account but I have to transfer you to a "cancellation specialist". After another 15 minute hold I got the cancellation specialist who said "Not a problem, I'll cancel the account immediately, sorry for the problems.". So I assume the account is closed.
Somehow a $38 charge from AT&T shows up on my CC bill. I call AT&T to see what's up and they state "Yes the account is closed due to non-payment". Evidently the first payment charged was for two months, then when the third payment for the third month went through it was the one that got rejected. I politely told the rep that I had cancelled the account months before. She replied that she did see the note on the account that I had called to cancel, BUT that I had not cancelled the account because there was not a cancellation number on the account. I attempted to argue using logic, but it appears that logic doesn't work anymore. My argument was "why would I call in to cancel wait on hold for thirty minutes and then not cancel the account?". She said she didn't know but that if I didn't pay the $19 I would be sent to collections.
Note that I have 2 other accounts with AT&T and even the threat of losing those two accounts (worth about $100 month) didn't deter AT&T from continuing to seek their $19 and flat refusing to refund the $38 dollars they in essence stole from me. The credit card company was little help and basically stated that without me having the "cancellation" number from the "cancellation specialist" that they could do nothing for me. The CC company had no excuse for why the stop payment hadn't worked and had no remedy for me.
It amazes me how careless companies have become with their customers and with customer or even ex-customer satisfaction. These companies work hard to draw in new customers but do nothing to retain the current ones and set up a dynamic where ex-customers are very unlikely to return.
My philosophy is that if you are my customer I treat you like gold. If you don't want to be my customer I find out why and fix the problem to try to keep you. If you still don't want to stay then I let you go nice and easy with the hopes that you'll remember my company and return some day after being treated poorly by some other company. At least there at the end of someone being a customer with me they might still have enough good feelings about how they were treated to recommend my company to others.
I think people are very tired of being a customer for years with a company and then getting screwed, either through poor service or by not being offered any incentive at all to remain a customer. Look at all the special deals that NEW customers get that existing customers can't even touch. There should be proactive customer retention programs like "Mr Smith, we see that you've been our customer for 5 years, been late only once and we've only received 3 customer service calls from you, how would you like our "Customer Thank You" package which includes a slightly discounted monthly rate and more features". Instead you get calls like "Mr. Smith we see that you're two year contract is almost up and we'd like to introduce you to a new package that might better fit your needs. We see that you don't use your current package completely but we feel that this new package that costs only a little more might be better for you" and in the end you get less than what you had before for higher cost. Worse is getting one of those crappy letters after a couple of years of being a customer saying charges are going up 5% - meanwhile all new customers are getting 10% off.
Well if what they say about the chips is true and you can use them to convert heat to electricity then you just stick another "chip" on the waste heat side of the first "chip" and suppliment your power with the waste heat.
Personally I see a couple of things that could be improved to provide a buffer for both the ad industry and the consumer.
1) go back to old style TV/Radio ads where the stars of your favorite shows are actually the ones pitching the product right from the set. Here in St. Louis we have the Dave Glover Show and almost all of the ads during his show are either him live, or recordings by him trying to sell the product. It's much more personal and really talks just about the product not all the hype and flash (no models, no stunts, no underwater SUV's, just the pitchman and the product)
2) Try new business models. Instead of just saturating the market with ads, try to find some niche. Change the way you're creating the ads or placing the ads so that they get people where you need them. Ads for food products that are not on the way to the food product are useless. It seems that most ad models are more focused on creating brand recognition instead of selling product. Refocus on the product and the brand recognition will follow. Likewise with the "branding" of TV channels. Most people know what channel they are watching during any given program and therefore the quarter sized or larger "branding" icon on the TV is just there detracting from the show.
3) Shorten commercials. In an hour long show there are between 22 and 28 minutes worth of commercial. Long commercial blocks encourage the viewer to go away and do something else or flip channels to fill the space and possibly find another program with fewer ads or your competitors ads. Reducing the length of a block of commercials reduces the risk of losing the consumer eyeballs and increases the chance that they will see something they like. In an hour long show one might make the longest block of commercials towards the middle of the programming, say 2 to 3 minutes, long enough for a quick bathroom break but short enough to sit through if no break is needed.
Space the commercials more evenly. I use my PVR to record shows for my wife. I then cut the commercials and burn them to VCD for her to watch on the weekends. During one hour long show the break down looked like this.
0-3 min Story intro
3-4 min Show theme/title
4-7 min commercials
7-16 min Show
16-20 min commercials
20-23 min Show
23-26 min commercials
26-32 min Show
32-34 min commercials
34-40 min Show
40-44 min commercials
44-50 min Show
50-56 min commercials
56-60 min Show wrap-up and credits/mixed with news/station ID/what's next
6 commercial breaks, 22 minutes worth of commercials mostly repeats (one SUV ad showed every single commercial break), plus 3 minutes or so of credits, intros, station branding, and information on the next ad filled show, leaving 35 minutes for the actual show and plenty of opportunities for program switching or other attention diverting possibilities.
My model would be 15 minutes worth of commercials between 2 and 2.5 minutes per break except for the "intermission" commercial that would be 4 minutes (tops). Then show intervals would be between 5 minutes (beginning and end) and 6-7.5 minutes for the rest of the show. I think once it gets taken down to that level and a return on investment starts to show then the advertisers could see the benefits of taking it even farther below those thresholds. Oh and no repeat commercials. If you are getting the consumer to watch the whole show then there's no reason for repeat commercials.
Maybe we should start the Obfuscated Mathmatics Competition. We could get AOL/TW, the US Government, Oracle and California, the Democratic and Republican Parties, and the RIAA/MPAA all together competing against each other.
x = number of people on the internet
y = number of people watching movie
z = some arbitrary encrypted number covered by the DMCA use DVD style encryption
i = number of times average user sees movie
((y - x)*i)*z = -1,800,000,000,000
Now using algeabra we should be able to figure out 'z' but since it's encrypted and covered by the DMCA that would be illegal.
Okay so then can you tell me why everyone else started integrating browser components into everything? What are they trying to get around? Intuit uses browser compenents for it's Quicken stuff, some IDE's do, KDE has integrated Konqueror, etc. If MS's sole reason for integrating IE was to bypass restrictions then what's everyone elses excuse.
Note: Marc Andreessen stated prior to IE OS bundling that (and I paraphrase here) "We don't want to sell a shrink wrapped product. We want to bundle our software with other packages and preload it on the equipment." The part where MS got into trouble was that they owned the "other packages" and leveraged those to get the browser bundled. Otherwise bundling appears to be a valid option.
Uh no. You've got your information screwed up from what I can tell. In 1995 MS was under a consent decree that dissallowed them from forcing OEM's to license one piece of software to get another piece of software (i.e. having to license Office to get Windows or IE to get Windows). This decree was more concerned with DOS issues and protecting the makers of other OSes. The consent decree doesn't say anything specific about the removal and/or unbundling of IE.
After Win98 shipped MS attempted to retroactively state that Win95 installs needed to be shipped with IE because IE was "integrated" into the OS (this despite the fact that it wasn't until 98 that it was truly seen as "integrated"). The state saw it as dual licensing again while MS maintained that IE was an integral part of the "user experience" and that they weren't pushing two licenses but only pushing one and that was the OS license.
Websphere studio at least the newer versions run using the Eclipse package which is open source based off of netbeans I believe. Additionally I believe that the webserver itself uses apache code and tomcat.
The newer builds of Websphere studio are amazing. I've edited HTML/XML/XSL/CSS/Javascript/Java/XHTML in it and it's great. Unfortunately the price tag is pretty steep at 3000-6000 per seat for the studio package depending on who you talk to. Eclipse is "free" and is the core that Websphere studio is built off of but it doesn't appear to have ALL the features studio has (but hey for editing Java it's excellent compared to some of the other crap out there).
I guess what I keep seeing is them say "It's not feasible" which is different than "It's impossible". XP embedded is geared towards a much different market with much different needs than the consumer desktop market. Therefore it's feasible to have a modular version that the end developer compiles to be embedded into a product that does not change often. The end developer then does all of the support for the OS based on what they've compiled into the unit. If MS could create a "modular" version of the desktop OS and the OEM's compiling it did all of the support then that might be more feasible but it sounds as if that's not being open as an option.
Desktop PC's change much more often and have much much more software and hardware changed out than embedded systems do. So to test XP Embedded and equate it to what can be done with XP desktop is not a fair or accurate comparison and doesn't address issues of support.
I'll have to agree to most of what you said. I do think that MS used it's position to get better product placement and further their own goals.
But, I don't really agree that you have to special case your web pages in order for them to work. I currently design web pages for a large corporation that are strictly standard web pages with no special browser handling instruction that work equally well and display identically in both IE 5/5.5/6 and Mozilla/NS 6.2. We use CSS1/2, XHTML, XML, XSL and Javascript. I've seen plenty of pages out there that stick to the standards and work just fine and are good advocates for how to operate within the standards.
The problems mostly are that in the beginning NO-ONE stuck to the standards, and NS had the same agenda that MS did. The problem was that MS used it's already established products to further it's grasp while NS had no previously established in-roads or leverage to perform similarly, otherwise it would have (See AOL, ORACLE, SUN, IBM, INTEL etc.).
Thank you for the clean and concise conversation and for refraining from calling me names or demeaning my character.
So then we are going from the "guilty until proven innocent" point of view?
Actually to say that "I did not have sex." when referring to a blow job is accurate. To say "I did not have sexual relations" when referring to a blow job would be the innacurate statement (I won't go into defining 'is' that's truly moronic). The definition of sex is tied to penetration and the act of copulation usually for reproduction. Sexual intercourse can be seen as sex and can include acts like a blow job. But when you lump all things sexual into sex you lose some of the meaning of sex. Masterbation isn't sex it might be a sexual act but it's not sex. Masterbation, cunnilingus, fellatio, etc. could be considered sexual acts or acts of a sexual nature, but cannot be considered 'sex'. Therefore it's your argument that fails.
Extinguish also means to dim, nullify, or to reduce to silence or ineffectiveness. Lovely throwing in the Nazis in all this. Makes a nice little comparison MS == Nazis. It's the comparison that so many MS bashers love to use.
When I'm talking about MS or anyone else "embracing and extending" I'm talking about embracing and extending a methodology, practice or standard. I'm not talking about a company or entity. In your wording you act as if MS "embracing and extending" a standard is tantamount to them walking into an office building and hacking all the workers who worked on the standard into little bitty pieces. I think you can see that MS has embraced and extended several languages, standards and ideals without the necessity of those standards bodies or creators to themselves be silenced (W3C, ECMA, ANSI, c++, etc.). I see plenty of evidence to suggest that MS did little that extinguished their "enemies" while I see plenty of evidence to suggest that the "enemies" caused a significant amount of their own downfall.
I never said that "embrace and extend" was equated to "embrace and extinguish". I stated that somewhere the phrase came up "embrace, extend, and extinguish" and I didn't know where it came from and couldn't assign to it being directly from Microsoft because I haven't seen evidence to suggest it (doesn't mean that evidence doesn't exist).
And do you actually work in any type of large business. I see e-mails getting floated all the time and hear discussions daily that have all kinds of conjecture. I've worked for several companies that this happens on a regular basis. Additionally I've worked in plenty of companies that have hired loud mouthed argumentative and opinionative employees and they seem to be the last to get fired usually because the management A) Likes the go getter attitude or B) is afraid of lawsuits and bad press. Point in fact I sit an isle away from a guy who does nothing all day but bitch about the stupid stuff his boss makes him do, complains about how his benefits are screwed up, moans about the government, and craps on his fellow employees. He hasn't been fired yet because nothing he's done is against company policy, but people avoid him like the plague and try not to bring up his "hot topic" issues within ear shot. He's annoying and could probably be written up as "disruptive" but it would be a hard fight and cause more problems than management wants to deal with.
My question is "Why are you so vehement?" at any point have I insulted someone, spoke down to, or demeaned. I'm simply stating what I see and I'm getting insults and barbed responses.
While it might rightly be said that MS has pursued "predatory" business practices and has been convicted of such, that's not what I'm arguing here. I'm arguing that you can't use one line from an e-mail without any corroberating evidence and say "See! There! I told you so, their guilty!" and that's what most people are doing. They are taking one line at a time and making up their own stories about what happened/is happening at MS without any thought for the accuracy.
First I'm not a "microsoftie". I hate how people attempt to disuade an argument simply by putting a label on someone hoping that the label will make them seem stupid as opposed to arguing the facts. Additionally where in my statement did I say that MS had done nothing wrong in the past or where did I state that MS had not been found guilty by the courts. I didn't. Did I ever state "MS rules", "Gates is God", or "IE is the best"? Then how can you imply that I'm an "microsoftie"?
Again the conversation doesn't say anything quite so obvious. If it had said "Hey guys because of the pending legal issues we need to keep this offline" that would be obvious. Or "Let's stay out of trouble here and take it offline" that might have been obvious. But to simply say "No more replies" "Let's take this off the airwaves" could just as easily be "Stop wasting time with this ignorant waste of resources and get back to work". Of course you don't want 50 workers going and talking to their lawyers saying that the veep called them ignorant so you have to be more diplomatic about it. If the gentleman had made any statement about the trial or legal issues or "recent problems" then I might be inclined to agree that squashing the conversation was due to the trial.
My other problem is that he doesn't say "Stop this discussion" or site any company policy that would prohibit further discussion. He simply states - take it offline. Now the offline conversation might be hear-say in a court of law but not always. So I still can't say that this one line statement is a clear indictment of wrong doing by the VP.
So let me get this straight since I disagree that it's clear cut based on the on-liner evidence then suddenly I'm so low on the IQ chart that I can't even support life processes with my inadequate brain power.
Why is it that when someon disagrees with the "mob rule" here on slashdot that they get insulted and accused of being a shill or a "microsoftie" or worse a troll. One is not a troll for having an opinion that's unpopular, one is a troll for taking a stance contrary to the popular one for the sole purpose of being unpopular. I'm attempting to get people to use their brains in that a ONE LINE STATEMENT is not an HUGE evidence towards guilt. I never implied that MS had not done something illegal or that they had not been found in a court of law guilty of crimes. What I stated was that people are going overboard taking one line statements and adding their own implied intent to them. Much like everyone took my statement and suddenly implied that I'm a shill, or a troll simply because I like to try logic first.
I don't see anywhere in your quote where the gentlemen acknowledges why they need to keep it off the airwaves nor do I see anything that implies that he thinks the discussion implies guilt or wrongdoing.
It would seem to me that alot of people are implying some evil intent where it's very possible that none may have been. Often when you get a group of people discussing a topic, especially one like "embrace/extend" you get into discussions that should not be had. Additionally you get people responding that know little about what they are talking about or who think they know or who've heard from a friend of a friend. What started as normal business conversation can quickly turn to rumor, conjecture, and assumption. Then when records get supoened the lawyers go through and find a statement like "I heard on the internet that Bill said he was poised to take over the world with some new hidden code". The whole thing gets put into evidence but they only mention "Bill said he was..." and noone ever has the time to put it all in context. Hence you get alot of implied intent by statements that really don't have anything evil behind them. Maybe the veep just didn't want to see "Tom" (the guy who has an opinion about everything (usually a negative one)) get into the discussion and turn it into a flame fest.
Additionally the "Embrace, Extend" ideal is not a bad one. It's the premise that almost everything that we have is built on including opensource. How could we ever progress without embracing what we have and extending upon it. The problem is that there is a last word that keeps getting added to the conversation "Extinguish". I'm not sure that this is something that can be directly attributed to MS or not as I see it passed only by Anti-MS zealots.
"Extinguish" is an ambiguous term. As you embrace a concept and extend it eventually the original concept is replaced by it's newer extended and in theory better counterpart. The original concept is not destroyed, it remains, just unused. But if the "extinguishment" of an object is for the control of the object then you get into the wrongfulness of the practice.
My point is that in order to show wrong doing you have to do more than just throw in a couple of disparate statements made by who knows. You have to show a consistent pattern of intent. You have to have a focus, because if you take 40 different statements by 40 different people in a 1000+ person company you can't really equate that to a conspiracy or evil. On the flip side if you take 40 different statments by 4 different people in the same company and they are of sufficient rank and privilage to motivate the company towards certain practices then you MAY be able to show intent.
Personally I'm just tired of buzz word bingo and buzz phrase bingo where the media and people take statements without qualification and read deeper more meaningful intent into them.
It's like if I said "I want to feed the world" and someone started conspiracy theories about how "I want to rule the world". Oh it all makes perfect sense. If I want to feed the world I could only do it if things were in proper order and how can I get them into the proper order if I don't control everything.
sophistry - 1 : subtly deceptive reasoning or argumentation
Segways use a key system that can limit the speed of the vehicle based on the encrypted key used. Therefore you could have keys based on where you will be driving and simply switch them when you are moving from one mode of travel to another. Say 0-6 miles per hour on the sidewalk and 0-topspeed on biketrails, street, and all terain mode.
The thing that frustrates me about people's complaints about others using this is that the assumption is segways won't be regulated. I think that if a police officer sees someone speeding on a segway on a sidewalk full of people then he's going to get involved. Just like when he see's someone skateboarding or bicycling on a sidewalk where it's clearly not allowed. As always the police are there to promote public safety and I think they'll be there to curb anyone being overzealous on this device.
I think that you are missing what's being said.
Medford is an employee of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. He's taken a sabatical to work with DEKA on product safety. It does not clearly limit which products he's working on. There may be other products that he's giving feedback on. So that it can't be said he is biased or has been bribed he continues to be paid only by the US government. This way someone can't come back down the line and say "DEKA paid you to say that". Additionally when he returns to his normal job he will make no further product decisions in regards to DEKA or the Segway. I think that's pretty clear to say that he will have no involvement in approving the product to the consumer.
I think this is a very good honest move by all parties involved and there doesn't appear to be any conflict of interests that I can see. While some might scoff at $138,200 a year the government pays while the gentleman is on sebatical I think that it is better in the long run to help retain a good employee, reduce the risk for outside lawsuits or costly inquiries or bad press relations.