I wish we had known about this before he settled. I bet he could have raised a decent legal defense fund.
I'm 41. I probably buy half a dozen CDs a year. When I was 19, I often bought half a dozen records a week. I also went to half a dozen arena shows a year and club shows all the time; I haven't been to one in over five years now (unless you count Sesame Street Live).
I doubt things are different for this generation, which leads me to believe that the RIAA are smacking down their own core customer base. How is this good business?
I stand corrected in that the original poster was referring to efficiency in economist's terms, not in terms of value returned for effort expended. And no, I've never run a business, nor do I have any desire to.
For that matter, the LAST thing I want to do is run my life like a business. My life is a whole lot more than product line and profit motive. The things that add the most to my life are the least businesslike, and sometimes frightfully unprofitable.
(Picture Scott Adams's Family Circus panel where there were only two kids, and the mom, complete with pointy hair, was telling them how the new changes would help prevent further downsizing...)
lower-frequency VHF signal can be bounced off the ionosphere, giving a greater coverage area
Um, nope. Any novice-class ham will tell you that HF (3-30MHz) is where the ionosphere bounces occur regularly and predictably enough to be useful. Occasionally, the upper limit "maximum useable frequency" will shoot well up into VHF (I've seen it get to 2 meters, 146 MHz, and 6 meters, 50 MHz, is fairly common), but for all intents and purposes, VHF is line of sight.
The UHF TV broadcast channels were allocated when it was apparent that the 12 VHF channels would not be enough. Google for things like "why is there no channel 1" and you'll get more details on this.
Don't confuse "more efficiently" with "less expensively". Although they often go hand in hand (e.g., when "computer" refers to a machine instead of a job title), they're not interchangeable.
If I close my textile plant in Massachusetts and start a new one in Saipan, it'll cost me a lot less to operate, but I'll need the same machines and the same workers to do the same work, plus the extra effort to get the goods back to the mainland. Not more efficient. (This is analogous to moving IT operations to India.)
If I convert my movie theater from film to digital, then my projection operation will be more efficient, but at least for the time I'm amortizing the costly digital projectors, it won't necessarily be less expensive.
(Good lord, how petit bourgeois have I become in my old age???)
[Claimer: I worked at USL and Novell doing configuration management for parts of Unix System V from 1993 to 1996. Disclaimer: I have no involvement with the development of Linux or any proprietary Unix now.]
They probably won't have to go to AT&T or Novell for historical data, except as secondary verification. SCO has the source code repository (in ClearCase and in other formats) going back to 1984 and, for some things, earlier.
IANAL, but if I were working for SCO and were asked to prove the charges, showing the matching code would only be the first step. The second step would be to show where the code was first introduced in the USL-originated repository. The third step would be to be prepare to show that the timelines in the repository were not altered (think "cleartool setevent"; this is where AT&T might come into the picture). The fourth step would be to show that the code was the IP of SCO or its ancestors from the day it was checked in (i.e., it's not itself stolen GNU code or something). The fifth step would be to show (possibly through subpoena of the AIX source repository) that the code in question was introduced into AIX as a result of a code drop from SCO or its ancestors. The sixth step would be to show (through examination of the Linux [etc.] repositories) that the code in question was introduced into Linux (etc.) as a result of a code drop from IBM subsequent to its being obtained from SCO.
That's the easy (if time consuming) part, establishing the paper trail.
The hard part is then proving that the transfer of the IP into the Linux source base was done knowingly (or whatever else would be actionable under the SCO/IBM contract), and that the Linux coders couldn't possibly have thought it up on their own (e.g., it can't be some algorithm every freshman CompSci student implements as a class project.)
I really can't see SCO's "they can't possibly have had the knowledge or resources to build and test this" claim holding up. They're going to have to present much more convincing positive evidence than that.
A casual observer might question whether Microsoft's patent is anything original, especially since most cable systems offer movies on demand along with viewer program guides. However, the patent inspectors employed by the U.S. government apparently felt Microsoft's work was original.
Then the inspectors were given bananas and spent the rest of the night swinging in trees by their prehensile tails.
It's also illegal to pump your own gas here in New Jersey, a fact I relish when it's 20F and sleeting, or when I'm all dressed up on my way to a fancy dinner. And, the price of gas here is generally lower than the national average--you don't pay that extra 30 cents per gallon for "full serve" versus "self serve".
You're right. Never let them say no. Ask them something like, "What size fries can I get you with that," or more simply, "What else can I get for you today?" Whatever answer they give won't roll off the tongue as easily as "No".
To step back one level of abstraction, the fact that a bunch of barely- or not-quite-employed techies are even talking about whether people "want fries with that" makes me shudder.
The worst suggestive sell: I went to one of the Big Three Burger Chains once, ordered my heart attack on a plate, and the poor sod behind the counter asked, as he was required to do, "Would you like HOT CRISPY FRIES with that?" No, I want COLD SOGGY FRIES, just like I got the last time I was here.
Sure, but Cleveland is not a small town. Drive out into the hinterlands and the only local content you'll hear is the ads and the Sunday morning worship service. If you live in tornado country you might get local stations trying to out-DOPPLER TEN MILLION BAZOOKA RADAR each other. Everything else on AM and above 88.9 FM is syndicated.
At 88.9 or below, you get Tibetan yak calls, Nicaraguan Socialist Womyn's Music, CMJ charts, Nicaraguan Communist Womyn's Music or cellphone-quality cassettes from third-rate punk bands. But they only do this at 40 watts so you go out of range before the yak call is halfway through.
I think it would be pretty much impossible to make a tournament-level competitive player this way.
50FPS is way too slow to react to even a simple three-man push shot. Humans generally can't see the ball when it's done well; they have to build up the skill to Just Know where the ball's going to go. It would be very easy to put some tiny variation into the shot that would completely throw off an AI.
Plus, the AI only models the field and the playing figures, so it can't respond to poker-style cues a human opponent might give off, like a slight pretensioning of the forearm, that would indicate when the shot would be attempted.
It would be amazing for practice drills though, both offensive and defensive.
The longest one I actualy saw was 1-800-333-DIAMONDS, and they did emphasize the S at the end (unlike 1-800-MATTRES, "leave off the last S for savings").
Do they do that idiocy outside the US too, or is this another example of our monopoly on stupidity?
I'll respond to the second part first: That's whay I said SOME of these folks. I'm not saying that everything else should grind to a halt (besides, didn't Bill try that already?). What I am saying is that, especially with all the legacy issues, solving these problems is going to be HARD, and that it warrants MS putting some of their best people on it.
As or the first part, let me reword your question: Imagine, for a minute, you're a software configuration management guru. You got hired for those skills, and it's what you like doing. Should your employer ask you to a) do SCM, b) specialize in file system internals and rework existing products to use your newly learned knowledge?
One of my employers did exactly B with me. Why? Because that's what their business needs dictated. For a couple years, they needed more help in file systems than they needed in SCM. They paid my salary, so they had every right to change my job assignment. In return, I drew a paycheck a lot longer than I might otherwise have, I picked up a boatload of new skills, and polished off quite a few old ones.
So yes, in some cases, the answer to your question is B.
I've always been curious about this. I was baptized (Catholic) under emergency conditions minutes after birth, using a name different from the name on my birth certificate (after my mother came to, she vetoed my father's name choice--hilarity ensued).
So, technically, which is my "Christian name"? And does the Church have a definition of "Christian name" different from the common British usage?
"C of E, sir!"
"Do you mean THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, six-double-five-three-two-one?"
Re:Lawyers to the rescue!
on
Today's SCO News
·
· Score: 2, Informative
It looks like Microsoft is going to provide me a dream palette of languages to pick from.
It'd be nice if they'd put some of that effort into developing a decent platform to run them on.
I think that's the thing that frustrates me the most about MS. They've got some SERIOUS brain power in Redmond, and they're doing some really neat things. Why can't they temporarily reassign some of those folks to fixing the really intractable problems in their existing products? I know it's not fun, but I also know I'd hate them a lot less if they could make Windows (etc.) less vulnerable to viruses, spyware, etc.
This has interesting implications for the definition of the term "applicant".
At least in the US, nobody puts their race, gender or age[1] on their resumes. Does this mean that "applicant" is defined as "someone who has completed an application for employment", not simply "someone who sent email containing the words 'work experience' to careers@ourcompany.com"?
[1] Or "Health: excellent (mostly affected by the gym)"
USL (not AT&T) and Novell created a joint venture called Univel to productize the heretofore OEM-only Unix System V source base into a shrink-wrapped binary (UnixWare) installable on Intel boxes.
When Novell acquired USL, Univel ceased to exist.
All this happened because Ray Noorda thought that NetWare, UnixWare and WordPerfect (itself the ultimate buy-high-sell-low deal) would comprise enough of a vertical market to topple Microsoft.
Sorry Ray, it didn't work, but at least you lost a lot of money and destroyed a lot of jobs.
Re:Wonder what Ray Noorda thinks of all this?
on
OSI vs SCO
·
· Score: 1
The about.com article was an interesting capsule summary, I found the comma-splices disturbing.
Have we forgotten the BSD lawsuit so soon? Imagine something as stupid as what SCO is doing, only with the resources of all three of those companies behind it. *shudder*
No, the real trick would be to wait until SCO is gasping its last breath, and then buy the rights to the Unix IP for pennies on the dollar, then give the IP to the Open Group on the condition that they make it freely available, while letting them keep the Unix trademark.
Slashdot Mirror
I've got a good picture of it here.
I wish we had known about this before he settled. I bet he could have raised a decent legal defense fund.
I'm 41. I probably buy half a dozen CDs a year. When I was 19, I often bought half a dozen records a week. I also went to half a dozen arena shows a year and club shows all the time; I haven't been to one in over five years now (unless you count Sesame Street Live).
I doubt things are different for this generation, which leads me to believe that the RIAA are smacking down their own core customer base. How is this good business?
What would happen if the RIAA bought SCO?
I stand corrected in that the original poster was referring to efficiency in economist's terms, not in terms of value returned for effort expended. And no, I've never run a business, nor do I have any desire to.
For that matter, the LAST thing I want to do is run my life like a business. My life is a whole lot more than product line and profit motive. The things that add the most to my life are the least businesslike, and sometimes frightfully unprofitable.
(Picture Scott Adams's Family Circus panel where there were only two kids, and the mom, complete with pointy hair, was telling them how the new changes would help prevent further downsizing...)
Um, nope. Any novice-class ham will tell you that HF (3-30MHz) is where the ionosphere bounces occur regularly and predictably enough to be useful. Occasionally, the upper limit "maximum useable frequency" will shoot well up into VHF (I've seen it get to 2 meters, 146 MHz, and 6 meters, 50 MHz, is fairly common), but for all intents and purposes, VHF is line of sight.
The UHF TV broadcast channels were allocated when it was apparent that the 12 VHF channels would not be enough. Google for things like "why is there no channel 1" and you'll get more details on this.
Don't confuse "more efficiently" with "less expensively". Although they often go hand in hand (e.g., when "computer" refers to a machine instead of a job title), they're not interchangeable.
If I close my textile plant in Massachusetts and start a new one in Saipan, it'll cost me a lot less to operate, but I'll need the same machines and the same workers to do the same work, plus the extra effort to get the goods back to the mainland. Not more efficient. (This is analogous to moving IT operations to India.)
If I convert my movie theater from film to digital, then my projection operation will be more efficient, but at least for the time I'm amortizing the costly digital projectors, it won't necessarily be less expensive.
(Good lord, how petit bourgeois have I become in my old age???)
[Claimer: I worked at USL and Novell doing configuration management for parts of Unix System V from 1993 to 1996. Disclaimer: I have no involvement with the development of Linux or any proprietary Unix now.]
They probably won't have to go to AT&T or Novell for historical data, except as secondary verification. SCO has the source code repository (in ClearCase and in other formats) going back to 1984 and, for some things, earlier.
IANAL, but if I were working for SCO and were asked to prove the charges, showing the matching code would only be the first step. The second step would be to show where the code was first introduced in the USL-originated repository. The third step would be to be prepare to show that the timelines in the repository were not altered (think "cleartool setevent"; this is where AT&T might come into the picture). The fourth step would be to show that the code was the IP of SCO or its ancestors from the day it was checked in (i.e., it's not itself stolen GNU code or something). The fifth step would be to show (possibly through subpoena of the AIX source repository) that the code in question was introduced into AIX as a result of a code drop from SCO or its ancestors. The sixth step would be to show (through examination of the Linux [etc.] repositories) that the code in question was introduced into Linux (etc.) as a result of a code drop from IBM subsequent to its being obtained from SCO.
That's the easy (if time consuming) part, establishing the paper trail.
The hard part is then proving that the transfer of the IP into the Linux source base was done knowingly (or whatever else would be actionable under the SCO/IBM contract), and that the Linux coders couldn't possibly have thought it up on their own (e.g., it can't be some algorithm every freshman CompSci student implements as a class project.)
I really can't see SCO's "they can't possibly have had the knowledge or resources to build and test this" claim holding up. They're going to have to present much more convincing positive evidence than that.
Good bloody luck.
Then the inspectors were given bananas and spent the rest of the night swinging in trees by their prehensile tails.
It's also illegal to pump your own gas here in New Jersey, a fact I relish when it's 20F and sleeting, or when I'm all dressed up on my way to a fancy dinner. And, the price of gas here is generally lower than the national average--you don't pay that extra 30 cents per gallon for "full serve" versus "self serve".
You're right. Never let them say no. Ask them something like, "What size fries can I get you with that," or more simply, "What else can I get for you today?" Whatever answer they give won't roll off the tongue as easily as "No".
To step back one level of abstraction, the fact that a bunch of barely- or not-quite-employed techies are even talking about whether people "want fries with that" makes me shudder.
The worst suggestive sell: I went to one of the Big Three Burger Chains once, ordered my heart attack on a plate, and the poor sod behind the counter asked, as he was required to do, "Would you like HOT CRISPY FRIES with that?" No, I want COLD SOGGY FRIES, just like I got the last time I was here.
Simplification: Trinity College moves from Dublin 2 to Dublin 1BF45S8I0A.
Precision: Swap two digits and your letter to Grandma ends up Beyond Rangoon.
Availability: MS owns the postal system. Can't wait to see the EULA ("By licking this stamp...").
Sure, but Cleveland is not a small town. Drive out into the hinterlands and the only local content you'll hear is the ads and the Sunday morning worship service. If you live in tornado country you might get local stations trying to out-DOPPLER TEN MILLION BAZOOKA RADAR each other. Everything else on AM and above 88.9 FM is syndicated.
At 88.9 or below, you get Tibetan yak calls, Nicaraguan Socialist Womyn's Music, CMJ charts, Nicaraguan Communist Womyn's Music or cellphone-quality cassettes from third-rate punk bands. But they only do this at 40 watts so you go out of range before the yak call is halfway through.
I think it would be pretty much impossible to make a tournament-level competitive player this way.
50FPS is way too slow to react to even a simple three-man push shot. Humans generally can't see the ball when it's done well; they have to build up the skill to Just Know where the ball's going to go. It would be very easy to put some tiny variation into the shot that would completely throw off an AI.
Plus, the AI only models the field and the playing figures, so it can't respond to poker-style cues a human opponent might give off, like a slight pretensioning of the forearm, that would indicate when the shot would be attempted.
It would be amazing for practice drills though, both offensive and defensive.
They already do that 1-800-TOO-MANY-DIGITS thing.
The longest one I actualy saw was 1-800-333-DIAMONDS, and they did emphasize the S at the end (unlike 1-800-MATTRES, "leave off the last S for savings").
Do they do that idiocy outside the US too, or is this another example of our monopoly on stupidity?
I'll respond to the second part first: That's whay I said SOME of these folks. I'm not saying that everything else should grind to a halt (besides, didn't Bill try that already?). What I am saying is that, especially with all the legacy issues, solving these problems is going to be HARD, and that it warrants MS putting some of their best people on it.
As or the first part, let me reword your question: Imagine, for a minute, you're a software configuration management guru. You got hired for those skills, and it's what you like doing. Should your employer ask you to a) do SCM, b) specialize in file system internals and rework existing products to use your newly learned knowledge?
One of my employers did exactly B with me. Why? Because that's what their business needs dictated. For a couple years, they needed more help in file systems than they needed in SCM. They paid my salary, so they had every right to change my job assignment. In return, I drew a paycheck a lot longer than I might otherwise have, I picked up a boatload of new skills, and polished off quite a few old ones.
So yes, in some cases, the answer to your question is B.
So, technically, which is my "Christian name"? And does the Church have a definition of "Christian name" different from the common British usage?
"C of E, sir!"
"Do you mean THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, six-double-five-three-two-one?"
Among others, David Boies.
I don't want to guess what he bills. $400/hour? I bet he bills his paralegals out at more than that.
It'd be nice if they'd put some of that effort into developing a decent platform to run them on.
I think that's the thing that frustrates me the most about MS. They've got some SERIOUS brain power in Redmond, and they're doing some really neat things. Why can't they temporarily reassign some of those folks to fixing the really intractable problems in their existing products? I know it's not fun, but I also know I'd hate them a lot less if they could make Windows (etc.) less vulnerable to viruses, spyware, etc.
This has interesting implications for the definition of the term "applicant".
At least in the US, nobody puts their race, gender or age[1] on their resumes. Does this mean that "applicant" is defined as "someone who has completed an application for employment", not simply "someone who sent email containing the words 'work experience' to careers@ourcompany.com"?
[1] Or "Health: excellent (mostly affected by the gym)"
Gates to SCO: "Someday, and that day may never come, I'll call upon you to do a service for me."
But they've held onto their red staplers...
[From hazy memory:]
USL (not AT&T) and Novell created a joint venture called Univel to productize the heretofore OEM-only Unix System V source base into a shrink-wrapped binary (UnixWare) installable on Intel boxes.
When Novell acquired USL, Univel ceased to exist.
All this happened because Ray Noorda thought that NetWare, UnixWare and WordPerfect (itself the ultimate buy-high-sell-low deal) would comprise enough of a vertical market to topple Microsoft.
Sorry Ray, it didn't work, but at least you lost a lot of money and destroyed a lot of jobs.
The about.com article was an interesting capsule summary, I found the comma-splices disturbing.
That's the sound of the nickel I get every time someone predicts the death of the net.
I paid off my car with the proceeds from the non-death of USENET. I'll probably pay off my mortgage before the Internet truly dies.
Oh, sweet Jesus, no!
Have we forgotten the BSD lawsuit so soon? Imagine something as stupid as what SCO is doing, only with the resources of all three of those companies behind it. *shudder*
No, the real trick would be to wait until SCO is gasping its last breath, and then buy the rights to the Unix IP for pennies on the dollar, then give the IP to the Open Group on the condition that they make it freely available, while letting them keep the Unix trademark.