What people haven't commented on in the Business Week piece is the detail from Scott McNealy's biography -- when he crossed a United Auto Workers picket line during a strike.
According to the article, "One summer, he worked in an auto-parts factory. When the United Auto Workers at the plant went on strike, McNealy didn't think twice about crossing the picket lines -- despite bomb threats and jeers from angry union members. 'It seemed incredibly stupid,' he said. 'I couldn't see how highly paid UAW workers were helping their cause' by losing the company money."
The young Scott McNealy showed the same kind of arrogance, short-sightedness, and contempt for others way back then that he has shown now. That attitude, which led him to scab on fellow workers, is the same attitude that drove a once-great company like Sun into the ground.
PDAs are things you boot up quickly, and shut off with the click of a switch. They're incredibly useful when you need to look up a detail while standing somewhere. The 'instant-on' feature is, I think, one of the strongest points of PDAs as opposed to laptops. So what's the point of making what is essentially a PDA with all its disadvantages (small screen, for example) without its main advantage of instant bootups?
I'm using Opera 7.51 for Windows and enjoying every second of it.
Anyone want to tell me how Firefox is better than Opera?
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And they still jail people for joining unions, too
on
Net-Nexus Seoul
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· Score: 2, Offtopic
It's very nice to portray South Korea as a techies' paradise, but let's not forget the more than 50 individuals languishing in jails there for the "crime" of being trade union activists.
The unions in South Korea also use the net, and they use broadband and they have been doing cutting edge stuff on the net for years, including daily video webcasts. But while the society is all very 21st century, or so it appears, in reality the present government is one of the most repressive Korea has ever known.
I know from past experience that one is likely to get flamed on Slashdot for even mentioning trade unions, but I guess that's not much of a sacrifice compared to what the Korean trade unionists are going through . ..
It may look great, but did you try the 'Select color' drop down menu? It offers a choice of silver or . . . silver. Reminds me of Henry Ford's offering the Model T in any color you like, so long as it's black.
When I tried to access MSN today using Opera 5.11 and Mozilla 0.95 I was blocked -- though I noticed that the Opera home page ( http://www.opera.com ) had already announced victory, saying that Microsoft had unblocked their site. When I told this to the folks at Opera, they pointed me to a CNET article indicating that Microsoft had promised to open their site sometime today (Thursday). Um, how long does it take to remove whatever nasty bit of code they were using to block Opera and Mozilla users? One final point: isn't it absolutely idiotic of Microsoft to block web browsers that are widely used by the computer-literate, and web designers in particular. (Who else uses Mozilla?) It's as if they were asking for a fight.
Want a better browser? Check out http://www.labourstart.org/opera.shtml
It's not clear to me the role of the United Auto Workers in all this. Early press releases indicated that they'd be involved. This is a change for the unions; until now, unions have attempted to provide PCs and Internet access themselves, without going to the employers. For example, the AFL-CIO in the US, the Australian Council of Trade Union and Sweden's national trade union centre, LO, have all brokered deals of this kind.
There's been a lot of coverage on LabourStart about the AFL-CIO and Australian deals, but this is the first time I've heard of a company, working together with a union (and one wonders - what about the other unions representing Ford workers in other countries?) to do a deal like this.
A very interesting development in any case, and one which might contribute to moving very large numbers of ordinary working people -- including those who work on assembly lines -- online. The potential for trade unions and social change activists is enormous, if this happens.
Slashdot Mirror
What people haven't commented on in the Business Week piece is the detail from Scott McNealy's biography -- when he crossed a United Auto Workers picket line during a strike.
According to the article, "One summer, he worked in an auto-parts factory. When the United Auto Workers at the plant went on strike, McNealy didn't think twice about crossing the picket lines -- despite bomb threats and jeers from angry union members. 'It seemed incredibly stupid,' he said. 'I couldn't see how highly paid UAW workers were helping their cause' by losing the company money."
The young Scott McNealy showed the same kind of arrogance, short-sightedness, and contempt for others way back then that he has shown now. That attitude, which led him to scab on fellow workers, is the same attitude that drove a once-great company like Sun into the ground.
PDAs are things you boot up quickly, and shut off with the click of a switch. They're incredibly useful when you need to look up a detail while standing somewhere. The 'instant-on' feature is, I think, one of the strongest points of PDAs as opposed to laptops. So what's the point of making what is essentially a PDA with all its disadvantages (small screen, for example) without its main advantage of instant bootups?
I'm using Opera 7.51 for Windows and enjoying every second of it.
Anyone want to tell me how Firefox is better than Opera?
---
It's very nice to portray South Korea as a techies' paradise, but let's not forget the more than 50 individuals languishing in jails there for the "crime" of being trade union activists.
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The unions in South Korea also use the net, and they use broadband and they have been doing cutting edge stuff on the net for years, including daily video webcasts. But while the society is all very 21st century, or so it appears, in reality the present government is one of the most repressive Korea has ever known.
If you want to help use the new technology to support the imprisoned Korean trade unionists, go here: http://www.labourstart.org/actnow.shtml
To learn more about repression of trade unionists in Korea, go here: http://www.kctu.org or http://www.labourstart.org/korea/
I know from past experience that one is likely to get flamed on Slashdot for even mentioning trade unions, but I guess that's not much of a sacrifice compared to what the Korean trade unionists are going through . .
It may look great, but did you try the 'Select color' drop down menu? It offers a choice of silver or . . . silver. Reminds me of Henry Ford's offering the Model T in any color you like, so long as it's black.
When I tried to access MSN today using Opera 5.11 and Mozilla 0.95 I was blocked -- though I noticed that the Opera home page ( http://www.opera.com ) had already announced victory, saying that Microsoft had unblocked their site. When I told this to the folks at Opera, they pointed me to a CNET article indicating that Microsoft had promised to open their site sometime today (Thursday). Um, how long does it take to remove whatever nasty bit of code they were using to block Opera and Mozilla users? One final point: isn't it absolutely idiotic of Microsoft to block web browsers that are widely used by the computer-literate, and web designers in particular. (Who else uses Mozilla?) It's as if they were asking for a fight.
Want a better browser? Check out http://www.labourstart.org/opera.shtml
There's been a lot of coverage on LabourStart about the AFL-CIO and Australian deals, but this is the first time I've heard of a company, working together with a union (and one wonders - what about the other unions representing Ford workers in other countries?) to do a deal like this.
A very interesting development in any case, and one which might contribute to moving very large numbers of ordinary working people -- including those who work on assembly lines -- online. The potential for trade unions and social change activists is enormous, if this happens.