Your fair share of taxes is what the law says it is, whether or not that law is fair. If the law doesn't determine what someones fair share is, who does? You?
The rest of your post boils down to 'code page translation is hard'. No kidding. That has nothing to do with mainframes or backwards compatibility however. And what is harder about translating between ASCII and EBCDIC as compared to translating between the hundreds of ASCII variants (code pages) out there?
Wrong. Backwards compatibilty means not breaking existing stuff. It has nothing to do with new features. And by the way, current mainframes have instructions for converting from one utf code (or unicode) to another.
More to the point - in 4Q 2012, mainframe revenue was UP 56% (in growth markets it was up 68%). In 4Q 2012, IBM shipped more mainframe MIPS than at any point in it's entire history. And HALF of those MIPS were in the form of 'new workload' (Linux, Java, DB2) engines.
It sounds to me like you are confusing incompetent admins with bad products. You absolutely do not need IBM service people to install DB2 and have it perform like you want.
A mainframe is not a PC. You can not just buy an off-the-shelf mainframe, load some software on it, and expect it to perform as you want. Every mainframe is built to customer order, and there are literally millions of possible configurations. This includes not only obvious stuff like how much memory and how many cores do you want, but workload-dependant stuff like what speed should the processors run at, how many cores are dedicated to running IO operations, how many to DB2 functions, how many to Java functions, etc. It is up to the customer to understand their workload and configure the machine appropriately.
Then, once the machine is installed, there is more configuration to be done (by the customer). You must create your IOCDS to properly balance your expected IO over all of the IO domains. You must dedicate enough channel paths to your busiest devices, etc.
So, it is no surpise that someone who does not know what they are doing can make an unholy mess of things and wind up with an extremely poor performing system. Yes, IBM will help you fix your mess. No, that does not mean IBM produced a shoddy product. Then, you need to define your LPARs. What percentage of the resources does each LPAR get? Do the LPARs have caps on them, etc?
Huh? The only thing that changed was what happened when an invalid sign digit was detected. In both cases a program check - data exception was raised, and the instruction counter in the old program psw pointed to the next sequential instruction. The difference was that in 360 the operation was terminated, and ln 370 it was suppressed. Terminated meant the state of the output operand and condition code were unpredictable. Supressed meant that the operand and condition code were the same as they were when the instruction started.
So, no âperfectly fineâ programs had to change because of this. However, some programmers who thought they were clever probably found out that âunpredictableâ meant âdo not rely on this behaviorâ. Perhaps you were one of them?
The first link says 'cases', but doesn't cite one. The other three are farmers who sued Monsanto, which hardly counts as 'Monsanto sued farmers out of existence'.
So an infalation adjusted house cost $35K in 1970? No, it did not. This is called lying - using inflation adjusted wages, but not inflation adjusted prices.
OK, so the inflation adjusted wage has not changed, neither has the inflation adjusted price. Why is that 'indefensible'? What more are people doing today than they were in 1970 that would justify them being able to have more purchase power? In 1970, a person doing an average job could by certain items. Same today.
Of course in reality the average worker's wage did not only increase fifty cents, those were complete bullshit numbers he made up. In reality, in 1970 the average income was $6186 (about $3/hour) and in 2011 it was $42976 (about $21/hour).
Where did you get those bullshit numbers? In 1970 the average worker earned $19.20 (I guess that is per hour). Well, according to the SSA the US average income in 1970 was $6,186.24 (in 2011 it was $42,979.61). So, if the average worker was making $19.20 in 1970, they were only working 322 hours per year, which is of course nonsense. In reality, the actual average earner was making about $3/hour in 1970.
As for your idiotic example of Circuit City, do you have the slightest bit of evidence that retaining the 3000 fired people would have made any difference to the longevity of the company? No, you do not. Circuit City did not die because they replaced those workers, it died because people no longer went to the stores, they purchased online. And you can't compete with price online when you are paying 3000 people who aren't resulting in any sales.
Under the Apple deal, there is NO WHOLESALE. The publisher sets the price the customer pays, and gives the retailer a percentage of that. Therefore, a retailer CAN NOT undersell Apple. Even if a retailer was willing to take a loss on the book, that just means the publisher gets more money, because the price to the consumer stays the same.
The agency model (which Apple got the publsihers to switch to) is like a real estate agent. The homeowner (publisher) sets the price of the house (book). The realtor (retailer) MUST sell it for the price that the homeowner wants. The realtor (retailer) can not sell it for less (without permission of the owner/publisher) and can certainly not sell it for more and pocket the difference. And the deal with Apple means that permission to sell for less will not be forthcoming.
Putting pressure on your suppliers is not predatory or illegal. Every successful business pressures it's suppliers. Sometimes the pressure is cost, sometimes delivery, sometimes quality, etc. You may as well complain that the consumers are the real predators here, because they are the ones who want the low prices from Amazon, Walmart, etc.
What is wrong with being a monopoly? Simply being a monopoly is not a problem, and is not illegal. What IS illegal is when the power of that monopoly is used to gain an unfair (anticompetitive) advantage in a DIFFERENT area.
It is dirt cheap to sell ebooks. There is almost no barrier to entry at all, especialy for an established retailer. Therefore, your scenario can't happen, because as soon as Amazon raises the price the competitors will re-appear. Yes, in some industries predatory pricing is a real problem. Ebooks is not one of those industries.
Are you really that stupid? Price fixing is when a MINIMUM price to the public for A PARTICULAR ITEM has been set. Since two publishers do NOT sell the same books, how could they possibly be in collusion? The price was fixed because Apple had a deal that NOBODY could sell to the public at a price lower than they could. The collusion was between Apple and the individual publishers. It was collusion because Apple said 'We can sell all the books you like, at a higher price than you are getting now. Stop wholesaling to everyone else and switch to the agency model. And once you do that, make sure nobody can sell your book at a lower price than we can'. If you can't see what is wrong with that, there really is no hope for you.
The point is not that 'Book A' costs exactly the same as 'Book B'. The point is that NOBODY can sell 'Book A' for a lower price than anyone else.
The collusion and price fixing was not between the publishers. The collusion and price fixing was the switch to the agency model and the guarantee that nobody could sell books to the public for a lower price than Apple. Amazon was using it's clout to force prices down. Apple was using it's clout to force prices up - for EVERYONE. As to the anti-trust aspect - there is no law against being the biggest at something. There is no law against being a monopoly at something. There IS a law against using the fact that you are dominant in one area to use anti-competitive tactics in a different area. It does not matter at all even if Apple had 0% of the ebook market. What mattered is that they used there dominant position in one market (mobile apps and iTunes) to make it impossible for anyone to compete with them in a different market (ebooks). How did they make it impossible to compete? By fixing the price.
Yes, Amazon and Walmart, etc have contracts that say THEY will be given the lowest cost. However, Amazon, Walmart, and everyone else can set whatever price their customer pays. Prices are not 'fixed' in that scenario. One retailer may use their lower cost to lower the price for their customers, someone else may use their lower cost to increase their profits. Even someone who was not given a lower cost can sell to the public for a lower price than Amazon or Walmart if they want. In the agency model, the PUBLISHER sets the price the final customer, not the retailer, pays. And the deal with Apple (nobody gets less of a cut than us) means that even if Amazon were to say 'Apple is getting a 30% cut, we'll take 20%, cut our customers price accordingly', they publishers can't do it. The price has been fixed.
Amazon was operating under a normal wholesale/retail model. They bought from the publisher for some agreed-on price, and sold the books to the public for a price they set (which could be higher or lower than what they paid the publisher). Apple convinced the publishers to stop selling to Amazon and switch to an agency model. Under the agency model, the publisher set the price the public paid, and gave the retailers a cut of that. Apple also managed to write into the contracts that nobody could get less of a cut than Apple. That is price fixing.
Nope. First, if you don't want your site open to the public, protect it. There is no indication that MS tried to get around any authentication methods or used false credentials to gain access to the site.
Second, robots.txt is a convention and nothing else. Nobody is required to abide by it, and there certainly is no law against ignoring it.
Third, the article said the requests came in 'several hours' after the messages were sent, so any one-time URLs should have already been used or expired.
Last, and most importantly, any questions of improper access would be strictly between MS and the web site owner, not some third party who happened to reference the URL. Granted, in some (very few) cases the web site owner and the third party can be the same person, but even then the person would have to be acting in the capacity of web site owner. not Skype user.
So no, they do not need the permission of the Skype user to access the URL.
Since you don't have any way to know exactly what they are doing, it is kind of silly to call that a 'problem'. Maybe they only do a HEAD because the response indicates authorization is required. Maybe they only visit a URL once, and already have visited the http site. Maybe they only do anything if something else triggers it (number of hits on a URL in a certain amount of time). You have no way of knowing that they only check https, you just know that in this particular case they only checked https. You have no way of knowing that that only get the headers, just that in this particular case they only got the headers.
Why would they possibly need your permission to go to a web site you referenced? If I overhear you say you are going to McDonald's, do I need to get YOUR permission to go to McDonalds?
buying something that contained patented technology automatically conferred the right to use the patented tech in the object that you bought
The only time that is true (in your good old days and still today) is when the maker of the patented item had a license to do so. In that case, the license to use the item automatically passes to you when you buy it. If you buy a waffle iron from someone authorized to make waffle irons, you are allowed to use it to make waffles. If you buy a waffle iron from someone not authorized to make waffle irons you do not magically gain authorization to make waffles, because the maker has no right to give you that authorization. To quote you 'anything else would be absurd'.
Buying patented seeds from a grain elevator that does not have authorization to sell those seeds for growing does not magically remove the patent protection or somehow give you authorization to use the patent.
Slashdot Mirror
But it is so hard to read all the way to the first question of the interview.
Your fair share of taxes is what the law says it is, whether or not that law is fair. If the law doesn't determine what someones fair share is, who does? You?
The rest of your post boils down to 'code page translation is hard'. No kidding. That has nothing to do with mainframes or backwards compatibility however. And what is harder about translating between ASCII and EBCDIC as compared to translating between the hundreds of ASCII variants (code pages) out there?
Wrong. Backwards compatibilty means not breaking existing stuff. It has nothing to do with new features. And by the way, current mainframes have instructions for converting from one utf code (or unicode) to another.
More to the point - in 4Q 2012, mainframe revenue was UP 56% (in growth markets it was up 68%). In 4Q 2012, IBM shipped more mainframe MIPS than at any point in it's entire history. And HALF of those MIPS were in the form of 'new workload' (Linux, Java, DB2) engines.
It sounds to me like you are confusing incompetent admins with bad products. You absolutely do not need IBM service people to install DB2 and have it perform like you want.
A mainframe is not a PC. You can not just buy an off-the-shelf mainframe, load some software on it, and expect it to perform as you want. Every mainframe is built to customer order, and there are literally millions of possible configurations. This includes not only obvious stuff like how much memory and how many cores do you want, but workload-dependant stuff like what speed should the processors run at, how many cores are dedicated to running IO operations, how many to DB2 functions, how many to Java functions, etc. It is up to the customer to understand their workload and configure the machine appropriately.
Then, once the machine is installed, there is more configuration to be done (by the customer). You must create your IOCDS to properly balance your expected IO over all of the IO domains. You must dedicate enough channel paths to your busiest devices, etc.
So, it is no surpise that someone who does not know what they are doing can make an unholy mess of things and wind up with an extremely poor performing system. Yes, IBM will help you fix your mess. No, that does not mean IBM produced a shoddy product.
Then, you need to define your LPARs. What percentage of the resources does each LPAR get? Do the LPARs have caps on them, etc?
Huh? The only thing that changed was what happened when an invalid sign digit was detected. In both cases a program check - data exception was raised, and the instruction counter in the old program psw pointed to the next sequential instruction. The difference was that in 360 the operation was terminated, and ln 370 it was suppressed. Terminated meant the state of the output operand and condition code were unpredictable. Supressed meant that the operand and condition code were the same as they were when the instruction started.
So, no âperfectly fineâ programs had to change because of this. However, some programmers who thought they were clever probably found out that âunpredictableâ meant âdo not rely on this behaviorâ. Perhaps you were one of them?
The first link says 'cases', but doesn't cite one. The other three are farmers who sued Monsanto, which hardly counts as 'Monsanto sued farmers out of existence'.
So an infalation adjusted house cost $35K in 1970? No, it did not. This is called lying - using inflation adjusted wages, but not inflation adjusted prices.
OK, so the inflation adjusted wage has not changed, neither has the inflation adjusted price. Why is that 'indefensible'? What more are people doing today than they were in 1970 that would justify them being able to have more purchase power? In 1970, a person doing an average job could by certain items. Same today.
Of course in reality the average worker's wage did not only increase fifty cents, those were complete bullshit numbers he made up. In reality, in 1970 the average income was $6186 (about $3/hour) and in 2011 it was $42976 (about $21/hour).
Where did you get those bullshit numbers? In 1970 the average worker earned $19.20 (I guess that is per hour). Well, according to the SSA the US average income in 1970 was $6,186.24 (in 2011 it was $42,979.61). So, if the average worker was making $19.20 in 1970, they were only working 322 hours per year, which is of course nonsense. In reality, the actual average earner was making about $3/hour in 1970.
As for your idiotic example of Circuit City, do you have the slightest bit of evidence that retaining the 3000 fired people would have made any difference to the longevity of the company? No, you do not. Circuit City did not die because they replaced those workers, it died because people no longer went to the stores, they purchased online. And you can't compete with price online when you are paying 3000 people who aren't resulting in any sales.
Every point in your post is wrong.
Under the Apple deal, there is NO WHOLESALE. The publisher sets the price the customer pays, and gives the retailer a percentage of that. Therefore, a retailer CAN NOT undersell Apple. Even if a retailer was willing to take a loss on the book, that just means the publisher gets more money, because the price to the consumer stays the same.
The agency model (which Apple got the publsihers to switch to) is like a real estate agent. The homeowner (publisher) sets the price of the house (book). The realtor (retailer) MUST sell it for the price that the homeowner wants. The realtor (retailer) can not sell it for less (without permission of the owner/publisher) and can certainly not sell it for more and pocket the difference. And the deal with Apple means that permission to sell for less will not be forthcoming.
Um, people who SELL ebooks in competition with Amazon don't produce them. Authors and publishers produce them. You did know that, right?
Putting pressure on your suppliers is not predatory or illegal. Every successful business pressures it's suppliers. Sometimes the pressure is cost, sometimes delivery, sometimes quality, etc. You may as well complain that the consumers are the real predators here, because they are the ones who want the low prices from Amazon, Walmart, etc.
Ohh, Wikipedia. Well, you got me there.
What is wrong with being a monopoly? Simply being a monopoly is not a problem, and is not illegal. What IS illegal is when the power of that monopoly is used to gain an unfair (anticompetitive) advantage in a DIFFERENT area.
It is dirt cheap to sell ebooks. There is almost no barrier to entry at all, especialy for an established retailer. Therefore, your scenario can't happen, because as soon as Amazon raises the price the competitors will re-appear. Yes, in some industries predatory pricing is a real problem. Ebooks is not one of those industries.
Are you really that stupid? Price fixing is when a MINIMUM price to the public for A PARTICULAR ITEM has been set. Since two publishers do NOT sell the same books, how could they possibly be in collusion? The price was fixed because Apple had a deal that NOBODY could sell to the public at a price lower than they could. The collusion was between Apple and the individual publishers. It was collusion because Apple said 'We can sell all the books you like, at a higher price than you are getting now. Stop wholesaling to everyone else and switch to the agency model. And once you do that, make sure nobody can sell your book at a lower price than we can'. If you can't see what is wrong with that, there really is no hope for you.
The point is not that 'Book A' costs exactly the same as 'Book B'. The point is that NOBODY can sell 'Book A' for a lower price than anyone else.
The collusion and price fixing was not between the publishers. The collusion and price fixing was the switch to the agency model and the guarantee that nobody could sell books to the public for a lower price than Apple. Amazon was using it's clout to force prices down. Apple was using it's clout to force prices up - for EVERYONE. As to the anti-trust aspect - there is no law against being the biggest at something. There is no law against being a monopoly at something. There IS a law against using the fact that you are dominant in one area to use anti-competitive tactics in a different area. It does not matter at all even if Apple had 0% of the ebook market. What mattered is that they used there dominant position in one market (mobile apps and iTunes) to make it impossible for anyone to compete with them in a different market (ebooks). How did they make it impossible to compete? By fixing the price.
Yes, Amazon and Walmart, etc have contracts that say THEY will be given the lowest cost. However, Amazon, Walmart, and everyone else can set whatever price their customer pays. Prices are not 'fixed' in that scenario. One retailer may use their lower cost to lower the price for their customers, someone else may use their lower cost to increase their profits. Even someone who was not given a lower cost can sell to the public for a lower price than Amazon or Walmart if they want. In the agency model, the PUBLISHER sets the price the final customer, not the retailer, pays. And the deal with Apple (nobody gets less of a cut than us) means that even if Amazon were to say 'Apple is getting a 30% cut, we'll take 20%, cut our customers price accordingly', they publishers can't do it. The price has been fixed.
Amazon was operating under a normal wholesale/retail model. They bought from the publisher for some agreed-on price, and sold the books to the public for a price they set (which could be higher or lower than what they paid the publisher). Apple convinced the publishers to stop selling to Amazon and switch to an agency model. Under the agency model, the publisher set the price the public paid, and gave the retailers a cut of that. Apple also managed to write into the contracts that nobody could get less of a cut than Apple. That is price fixing.
Nope. First, if you don't want your site open to the public, protect it. There is no indication that MS tried to get around any authentication methods or used false credentials to gain access to the site.
Second, robots.txt is a convention and nothing else. Nobody is required to abide by it, and there certainly is no law against ignoring it.
Third, the article said the requests came in 'several hours' after the messages were sent, so any one-time URLs should have already been used or expired.
Last, and most importantly, any questions of improper access would be strictly between MS and the web site owner, not some third party who happened to reference the URL. Granted, in some (very few) cases the web site owner and the third party can be the same person, but even then the person would have to be acting in the capacity of web site owner. not Skype user.
So no, they do not need the permission of the Skype user to access the URL.
Since you don't have any way to know exactly what they are doing, it is kind of silly to call that a 'problem'. Maybe they only do a HEAD because the response indicates authorization is required. Maybe they only visit a URL once, and already have visited the http site. Maybe they only do anything if something else triggers it (number of hits on a URL in a certain amount of time). You have no way of knowing that they only check https, you just know that in this particular case they only checked https. You have no way of knowing that that only get the headers, just that in this particular case they only got the headers.
Why would they possibly need your permission to go to a web site you referenced? If I overhear you say you are going to McDonald's, do I need to get YOUR permission to go to McDonalds?
buying something that contained patented technology automatically conferred the right to use the patented tech in the object that you bought
The only time that is true (in your good old days and still today) is when the maker of the patented item had a license to do so. In that case, the license to use the item automatically passes to you when you buy it. If you buy a waffle iron from someone authorized to make waffle irons, you are allowed to use it to make waffles. If you buy a waffle iron from someone not authorized to make waffle irons you do not magically gain authorization to make waffles, because the maker has no right to give you that authorization. To quote you 'anything else would be absurd'.
Buying patented seeds from a grain elevator that does not have authorization to sell those seeds for growing does not magically remove the patent protection or somehow give you authorization to use the patent.