And its effects have been described in literature at least since 1949.
I can't think of any military offenses that weren't natively described and strategized as "defensive" maneuvers. Germany had to "defend" it's territory from Allied Forces. France had to "defend" Indochina from the Indochinese. The U.S. had to "defend" Vietnam from the Soviets and Vietnamese.
It's not possible for the United States to take offensive military action because the U.S. citizenry would reject it with the ultimate veto of electoral power. Therefore, all U.S. miltary action has to be defined as "defensive" or "peacekeeping".
Similarly, foreign capitalist governments which remain open to U.S. trade are described as "democratic" if they were elected, or "moderate" if not, however repressive or totalitarian they may be. Governments which close themselves to U.S. trade are described as "totalitarian" if they are unelected, and "revolutionary" or "communist" if they were chosen by their citizenry.
Most American citizens don't even realize they're applying these terms selectively. The doublethink happens naturally, and without concious effort, because, in general Americans are decent folk who believe in what America stands for. Therefore, it's inconceivable that we would do anything but the right thing in any given circumstance. So whatever we are currently doing as a nation is the "right thing" by definition.
Of course, if we didn't do the "right thing," we certainly wouldn't enjoy the standard of living we currently enjoy, so obviously, it's the "right thing" for that reason too. Pretty much you just got to accept it, or fight the uphill battle against everyone who truly believes in their heart that our current level of economic and cultural success is really based on freedom and strict adherence to democratic ideals.
I don't know what companies you're applying at, but I assure you with a decent helping of determination and self-confidence, you can do pretty much anything you set your mind to.
I started college as a biology major, thinking to go into medical research or biotech (I had always enjoyed the life sciences in primary and secondary education). About a year into it, I realized I hated math, and biology just wasn't as fun anymore. I decided English (historically one of my weaker subjects) was more fun anyway, so I changed my major to creative writing. Meanwhile, I bought a computer and started tinkering around with it. I spent the rest of my college years, playing on the internet, partying, and barely getting passing grades.
a few years later, I've got a B.A. in Creative Writing, with a Biological Science minor thrown together from my first year and a half of classes. I'm making $40k as a systems administrator for a large and successful tech R&D company, I love my job, and the people around the office love me. During my interview, the hiring manager asked about my educational background. I looked him in the eye and said, I decided when I was in college that I needed some time to decompress and went for the life experience and growth process, not to get training for a professional field that would just force me to relearn everything once I started the job anyway. I also pointed out my experience working with Unix systems at my last job, and my experience troubleshooting PC systems and dealing with end users at the job before that. They hired me, and I was hired.
Some of you may scoff and say "well, he's not making that much, and he's had to work a few years to even get there" but I shrug and say "what do I really need?" I'm well into a comfortable income bracket for a single male of 25. I have a career that provides me with plenty of interesting challenges and a variety of tasks and projects to work on. I work with friendly people who appreciate that I'll step up to do pretty much anything that needs to get done around the office, and most importantly, I'm happy with what I do, and I feel fulfilled at the end of the day.
Am I lucky? maybe. But it was the same story at the job I worked before this, and after an unfortunate layoff in September, it was only 6 weeks before I had my current position.
A local Linux company, IDEAL Technologies, helped a local private school set up a Linux-based infrastructure, and provided training to the school. The company mentions it on the Community Involvement page of their web-site. The school also has a web-site running with contact info. It might be useful to contact them for more details.
We know Arabs and they are some of the most loving, gracious, and hospitable people in the world. As long as you don't try to change their culture. They are happy to do business with outsiders but the will not allow them to attempt to change their society. You and I agree, freedom is the natural state of humans. Oppression is not moral. However, if you demand that these people to change overnight then they will react violently. The internet would not even be in Saudi Arabia today if it were not for this filtering technology.
If the Arabs are that dedicated to their own culture, give them unfiltered internet access and they simply won't look at material that is supposedly offensive or disruptive to their way of life.
The fact that the government needs to actively prevent people from viewing certain information that might encourage changes leads to the logical conclusion that a lot of people there aren't all that happy with the current state of their culture.
No one's demanding anyone change anything. Mere access to porno, religious criticism, and sociological commentary isn't by itself going to turn a society on its head. It takes a substantial portion of the population to ACT on that information to create such an upheaval. If the people in Saudi Arabia are as happy with the status quo as you say, they'll probably just ignore the "infidels bad-mouthing god," and not download the latest XXX vids.
The government has nothing to fear from content people.
The ability of this new product to unleash all the problems of the world upon an unsuspecting humanity at once is a key selling point. With the release of Apocalypse 2.0 we plan to provide mankind with it's greatest unifying challenge since the Toa eruption.
Oh what an experience this will be. Think of how much we'll LEARN in the next 30 years!
Well, in Central Florida (and other hot places), where a large chunk of our energy costs go to cooling anyway, this would have an enhanced cost benefit.
The question is how this design would hold up in very high-wind situations like a Hurricane. Granted, a damaging hurricane hasn't come as far inland as Orlando in my memory, but it could happen. Doing something like this in Miami, Tampa or Jacksonville might be a recipe for disaster, though (but then, any tall buildings in those areas could be considered a risk).
I disagree. There are plenty of people at school who just get along. They stay out of everyone else's business. They don't feel like they have to be the best at everything. They don't stretch themselves out to be involved with everything and everyone. Popularity, wealth and power is not their primary concern. Conciously or not, they walk in humility. They treat their fellows as equals, not as bullies to be afraid of, or as followers to be led, but as partners and friends in peace and learning.
If you're going for the schoolyard model, that is a position we should emulate.
and if its an Islamic minority on a holy war - Simple death would not suffice. We have to find some way to injure their culture.
Can't injure their culture much more than we have already. And if we try, we'll alienate the moderates and U.S. sympathizers among them, acquiring more enemies and guaranteeing another round of attacks.
No we didn't, but we did ambush British soldiers in transit and camp without warning, and ran away before they could organize or return fire, not just to whittle down their numbers, but mostly to cause terror and confusion among their forces and the loyal colonists who would support them (don't forget that the decision to Revolt was not unanimous). We did target attacks to kill officers before enlisted troops. Both of these tactics were considered cowardly and horrific (to the Brits anyway) and were against the established rules of warfare at the time. Both of these tactics also were the only way we had a chance of victory.
There is no way a small force can hope to win by attacking U.S. military production facilities by the rules of warfare that WE have established. I'm not saying it's right, and I'm not saying "hate whitey" I'm saying the consequences of our economic imperialism include that people will eventually get pissed off enough at us to revolt, And that with no realistic alternatives for combatting against our military and economic institutions on our terms, they will resort to breaking the rules and making attacks like this.
The more invincible we make our military defenses, the more we will force our enemies to circumvent them and attack us where it really hurts instead. And the more we continue to implement imperialist policies which advance our interests against those of people who already have good cause to hate us, the more we will assure that we have enemies with the will to attack us.
When Americans dressed as natives and dumped tea into Boston Harbor, we are taught it was a brave act of patriotism.
Americans subverting the rules and traditions of warfare to obtain their independence from a tyrannical king were brave, noble and selfless.
Anyone who shows the same values (willingness to attack property, willingness to break the rules) yet uses them against our interests, is now re-labeled a coward and a terrorist.
How do you suppose the American Revolution was covered in the British Press at the time?
Like it or not, this is a brave act by a resolute individual. They hit us where it hurts, and it's easy to denounce such actions as evil, cowardly, and wrong. Yes, these actions contradict international law, they break the established rules and traditions of warfare. But how else can individuals or groups who view themselves as oppressed win their independence and freedom by any other means?
The fact is, weak nations of the world CAN NOT effectively advance their interests at the expense of stronger nations by following the rules of international law, because those rules are written by the powerful, and enforced by the powerful. The struggle to develop into a position of power is too hard, takes too long, and only results in more debt, increased poverty, and greater inequality.
We can crush the people who did this, and retain our pride, but we will then have to acknowledge it can happen again. Unless we, and the other "leading" nations learn to walk humbly among our neighbors in the world, it WILL happen again.
Cut Time Life Books from your list...that division was the first to get the ax. I called up a few months ago to subscribe to their Home Improvement series and was informed that they were no longer taking subscriptions, and would only be operating until the current inventory was gone. (Damn shame too, since some of their reference books were quite useful)
Seriously though, in the timeline for the roleplaying game Cyberpunk, corporations successfully lobbied for a federal law deputizing their security officers to enforce the law within corporate controlled "security zones" (city business districts, company owned housing developments, etc). How long before that happens for real?
Read Strunk and White before you correct people on their grammar, especially if you go so far as to call them pedantic. It's very impolite to insultingly correct people when they're right.
Any singular noun can be made posessive by adding an 's, with the exception of ancient proper nouns ending in "s" or "x" (i.e. Jesus' robe, Moses' mountain, Isis' temple)
Restrictive Approach - Opposed to most software patents
Members - Students, academics, engineers, start-up companies
Liberal Approach - Apply traditional patentability criteria to computer-implemented inventions
Members - Lawyers, established industry players, government agencies
Isn't it interesting that the groups of people which traditionally are responsible for the greatest amount of innovation are almost unanimous against the idea of software patentability. Yet the rhetoric used by the other groups to defend software patents always seems to revolve around "protecting the interests of those who innnovate". Are we really to believe that the segments of the population responsible for the greatest volume of innovation are that clueless as to their own interests and the interests of continued innovation?
Some people don't like the Aeron, some people love it. I've sat in one and found it somewhat comfortable, but was more impressed that anyone would actually pay so much for an office chair, especially since the office I was in (a successful CLEC, which is still operating) had several hundred if not thousand of them.
It occurred to me though that a management staff who found that their workforce likes the chairs can probably eke quite a bit of extra hours out of their employees by providing simple luxuries like this. I haven't used one long-term, so I can't address the "sandpaper" issue, but I did find that my back wasn't sore after sitting in one for a day.
Also it should be noted that with all the formerly VC-saturated companies going out of business lately, the average going price for an Aeron on Ebay is around $3-400
Sounds pretty unimportant to me. But if your life revolves around weed... well, each to their own.
Even if your life doesn't revolve around weed, this issue affects every American, once you factor in the $billions of taxes which are spent every year prosecuting and imprisoning people for the crime of smoking or selling it. Compound this with the demoralizing social effects of the Drug War upon large segments of the population, then ask yourself if prohibiting a very large minority of the U.S. population from indulging in a largely innocuous vice is REALLY worth what it's costing us all when viewed in those terms.
Repealing alcohol prohibition was probably viewed as "unimportant" by non-drinkers, as well, but remember crime went down when prohibition ended. The War on Drugs has done nothing but cost our country countless dollars and lives since it was implemented and drugs are just as prevalent, if not moreso now as when we started. I think it's about damn time the government changed its tune on the issue, because it IS important.
Of course, this is not to imply that the Microsoft issue is trivial fluff, either. By eliminating the freedom of individuals and companies to effectively compete, Microsoft is undermining the health and stability of an important industry, and through it, the national and global economies. They are weilding immense amounts of power, money and influence in a very irresponsible manner, and their corrupting influence on the economy has grown to the point where it needs to be checked.
Unfortunately, this appeal to the Supreme Court is merely a delaying tactic, exquisitely timed and calculated for Microsoft's benefit. Even they must know that the Supreme Court will probably not alter the decision of the previous two lower courts. However, by appealing now, just days before the District Court is scheduled to take back the case for rehearing and Remedy procedings, Microsoft has effectively crippled the DoJ and States' ability to obtain an injunction against the release of Windows XP, which is surely to be one of the first agenda items brought up at the lower court. There simply isn't enough time between now and October for the courts to decide all these issues, and thus the company is hoping to lock its product and monopoly business into another entire generation of PCs and customers, and making those customers even more dependent upon the "service" Microsoft provides.
Ultimately, what Microsoft hopes is that the "court of public opinion" will swing into their favor after the release of XP, with all it's clever bangs and whistles, added fun features, and "innovative" new technologies, thus provoking a serious negative public reaction to any remedies the courts might propose which would necessitate the breaking up of the company or dismantling of its software. After all, to break Microsoft up will prevent them from distributing their candy to the masses. They believe that if they can get America addicted to one more generation of its product, they will have additional power at the negotiating table when hammering out a settlement that could potentially keep them intact, with no real restraints on their methods of doing business.
The lawyers out there will know the Latin word (and there is one) but there has to be something received by both parties entering into a contract for that contract to be enforceable in the USA.
Quid pro quo, loosely translated as "this for that."
No reason to assume Microsoft will be the ONLY company to figure out the usefulness of Authentication services, or that some creative software libertarians won't be able to implement a decent system that gets people some of the benefits of Authentication/billing management without necessarily sacrificing the options of end users or locking everyone into a monopolizing service provider.
It's still to early to tell how the Market will react to these technologies, but I don't recall Microsoft ever getting as much flack in the mainstream press over it's business practices and proposed technologies as it has been lately. The battle lines are becoming more clear, and a lot of people apparently want to hurt Microsoft, so I bet these projects will attract a lot of developer mindshare.
The big question for me is how RMS and other hardline Free Software leaders will react to the idea of integrating content-billing into a Free Software project. Clearly, such capability (combined with Free Software's reputation for reliability and security) would entice content providers into using it as an alternative to.NET (which assuredly will provide similar abilities), but it seems to fly in the face of the FSF's stated goals. I'm very curious what the long-term destiny of these projects will be.
"Sweet! IBM is sounding cooler and cooler all the time. I distinctly recall the Apple TV advertisement that ran once during the '84 Olympics, announcing Macintosh, and portraying IBM as the Big Brother (1984, get it?). I guess IBM has been undergoing some revamping of their corporate culture."
Not to pick nits, but that commercial actually aired during the '84 Super Bowl.
It was an excellent commercial, though. There used to be a copy of it hosted at www.adcritic.com in the archives under Apple. They removed it when Apple threatened to sue, but there's another copy here, which also includes text translating the rather scratchy voice-over.
I can't say how IBM is as a place to work nowadays, but I hear back in the early 80s it was a bitch. A fellow I know worked at their South Florida office around that time, where they enforced a strict white shirt, coat and tie dress code...even in the summer. I can't imagine what the smell must have been like on 98-degree 98% humidity days, which is pretty much every day from May to September in Florida.
The Guerrilla News Network has a story up about how far Corporate America is willing to go to buy "justice", and how willing the courts are to sell it to them, even at the expense of their own credibility.
The question is, though. Exactly how can we impose accountability on federal judges who are appointed for life, and who have the power to control access to their own courtrooms, the very place where final arbitration of the law must inevitably occur?
It will not be good! I'm afraid this 'shared source' initiative will spread itself like a cancer through our community!
This is not only funny, but very true in a rather scary way. I didn't think it was possible, but it looks like Microsoft is now trying to "embrace and extend" our development model. If it works (and a quick rundown of Microsoft's marketing history gives very little reason to believe that they won't convince people to buy into it), we're in for a bumpy ride, to say the least.
Look at where Microsoft is after 10 years of dominating the desktop OS/office market and buying up or undercutting their competition and having all major hardware vendors except Apple specifically tailoring workstation hardware to run various flavors of Windows. Then compare the state of GNOME, KDE, and Linux and how much the groups responsible for each have accomplished in less than a decade, often meeting complete apathy or heavy resistance from larger manufacturer's on various fronts.
You're absolutely right, except that GNU, which currently comprises almost half of most GNU/Linux distributions (a vastly higher percentage than the Linux kernel itself), was actually started over 17 years ago, not less than a decade. Of course, Microsoft had several years of head start, along with a very lucrative licensing arrangement with IBM for the original DOS, and later with other manufacturers for Windows.
I'm not trying to disparage Free (or Open Source) Software at all, because it is amazing how well it is competing against software that was developed with such a head start, market advantages, and financial support. Just setting the dates straight.
Wow, you're going to have to show me how I can use code as shelter next time it rains. That's gotta be a neat trick.
Last time I checked, the carpenters of our time were still carpenters. But programmers don't need to feel left out...most carpenters have been doing exceedingly shoddy work for the past few years, too. I look around at the quality of construction in a lot of the new developments going up lately, and I figure they'll barely last longer than it takes for software to go obsolete.
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And its effects have been described in literature at least since 1949.
I can't think of any military offenses that weren't natively described and strategized as "defensive" maneuvers. Germany had to "defend" it's territory from Allied Forces. France had to "defend" Indochina from the Indochinese. The U.S. had to "defend" Vietnam from the Soviets and Vietnamese.
It's not possible for the United States to take offensive military action because the U.S. citizenry would reject it with the ultimate veto of electoral power. Therefore, all U.S. miltary action has to be defined as "defensive" or "peacekeeping".
Similarly, foreign capitalist governments which remain open to U.S. trade are described as "democratic" if they were elected, or "moderate" if not, however repressive or totalitarian they may be. Governments which close themselves to U.S. trade are described as "totalitarian" if they are unelected, and "revolutionary" or "communist" if they were chosen by their citizenry.
Most American citizens don't even realize they're applying these terms selectively. The doublethink happens naturally, and without concious effort, because, in general Americans are decent folk who believe in what America stands for. Therefore, it's inconceivable that we would do anything but the right thing in any given circumstance. So whatever we are currently doing as a nation is the "right thing" by definition.
Of course, if we didn't do the "right thing," we certainly wouldn't enjoy the standard of living we currently enjoy, so obviously, it's the "right thing" for that reason too. Pretty much you just got to accept it, or fight the uphill battle against everyone who truly believes in their heart that our current level of economic and cultural success is really based on freedom and strict adherence to democratic ideals.
I don't know what companies you're applying at, but I assure you with a decent helping of determination and self-confidence, you can do pretty much anything you set your mind to.
I started college as a biology major, thinking to go into medical research or biotech (I had always enjoyed the life sciences in primary and secondary education). About a year into it, I realized I hated math, and biology just wasn't as fun anymore. I decided English (historically one of my weaker subjects) was more fun anyway, so I changed my major to creative writing. Meanwhile, I bought a computer and started tinkering around with it. I spent the rest of my college years, playing on the internet, partying, and barely getting passing grades.
a few years later, I've got a B.A. in Creative Writing, with a Biological Science minor thrown together from my first year and a half of classes. I'm making $40k as a systems administrator for a large and successful tech R&D company, I love my job, and the people around the office love me. During my interview, the hiring manager asked about my educational background. I looked him in the eye and said, I decided when I was in college that I needed some time to decompress and went for the life experience and growth process, not to get training for a professional field that would just force me to relearn everything once I started the job anyway. I also pointed out my experience working with Unix systems at my last job, and my experience troubleshooting PC systems and dealing with end users at the job before that. They hired me, and I was hired.
Some of you may scoff and say "well, he's not making that much, and he's had to work a few years to even get there" but I shrug and say "what do I really need?" I'm well into a comfortable income bracket for a single male of 25. I have a career that provides me with plenty of interesting challenges and a variety of tasks and projects to work on. I work with friendly people who appreciate that I'll step up to do pretty much anything that needs to get done around the office, and most importantly, I'm happy with what I do, and I feel fulfilled at the end of the day.
Am I lucky? maybe. But it was the same story at the job I worked before this, and after an unfortunate layoff in September, it was only 6 weeks before I had my current position.
Of course, that was a hoax from years ago...Here's the explanation. Funny as hell when it came out, though.
A local Linux company, IDEAL Technologies, helped a local private school set up a Linux-based infrastructure, and provided training to the school. The company mentions it on the Community Involvement page of their web-site. The school also has a web-site running with contact info. It might be useful to contact them for more details.
If the Arabs are that dedicated to their own culture, give them unfiltered internet access and they simply won't look at material that is supposedly offensive or disruptive to their way of life.
The fact that the government needs to actively prevent people from viewing certain information that might encourage changes leads to the logical conclusion that a lot of people there aren't all that happy with the current state of their culture.
No one's demanding anyone change anything. Mere access to porno, religious criticism, and sociological commentary isn't by itself going to turn a society on its head. It takes a substantial portion of the population to ACT on that information to create such an upheaval. If the people in Saudi Arabia are as happy with the status quo as you say, they'll probably just ignore the "infidels bad-mouthing god," and not download the latest XXX vids.
The government has nothing to fear from content people.
The ability of this new product to unleash all the problems of the world upon an unsuspecting humanity at once is a key selling point. With the release of Apocalypse 2.0 we plan to provide mankind with it's greatest unifying challenge since the Toa eruption.
Oh what an experience this will be. Think of how much we'll LEARN in the next 30 years!
The question is how this design would hold up in very high-wind situations like a Hurricane. Granted, a damaging hurricane hasn't come as far inland as Orlando in my memory, but it could happen. Doing something like this in Miami, Tampa or Jacksonville might be a recipe for disaster, though (but then, any tall buildings in those areas could be considered a risk).
If you're going for the schoolyard model, that is a position we should emulate.
Can't injure their culture much more than we have already. And if we try, we'll alienate the moderates and U.S. sympathizers among them, acquiring more enemies and guaranteeing another round of attacks.
There is no way a small force can hope to win by attacking U.S. military production facilities by the rules of warfare that WE have established. I'm not saying it's right, and I'm not saying "hate whitey" I'm saying the consequences of our economic imperialism include that people will eventually get pissed off enough at us to revolt, And that with no realistic alternatives for combatting against our military and economic institutions on our terms, they will resort to breaking the rules and making attacks like this.
The more invincible we make our military defenses, the more we will force our enemies to circumvent them and attack us where it really hurts instead. And the more we continue to implement imperialist policies which advance our interests against those of people who already have good cause to hate us, the more we will assure that we have enemies with the will to attack us.
Americans subverting the rules and traditions of warfare to obtain their independence from a tyrannical king were brave, noble and selfless.
Anyone who shows the same values (willingness to attack property, willingness to break the rules) yet uses them against our interests, is now re-labeled a coward and a terrorist.
How do you suppose the American Revolution was covered in the British Press at the time?
Like it or not, this is a brave act by a resolute individual. They hit us where it hurts, and it's easy to denounce such actions as evil, cowardly, and wrong. Yes, these actions contradict international law, they break the established rules and traditions of warfare. But how else can individuals or groups who view themselves as oppressed win their independence and freedom by any other means?
The fact is, weak nations of the world CAN NOT effectively advance their interests at the expense of stronger nations by following the rules of international law, because those rules are written by the powerful, and enforced by the powerful. The struggle to develop into a position of power is too hard, takes too long, and only results in more debt, increased poverty, and greater inequality.
We can crush the people who did this, and retain our pride, but we will then have to acknowledge it can happen again. Unless we, and the other "leading" nations learn to walk humbly among our neighbors in the world, it WILL happen again.
Cut Time Life Books from your list...that division was the first to get the ax. I called up a few months ago to subscribe to their Home Improvement series and was informed that they were no longer taking subscriptions, and would only be operating until the current inventory was gone. (Damn shame too, since some of their reference books were quite useful)
Seriously though, in the timeline for the roleplaying game Cyberpunk, corporations successfully lobbied for a federal law deputizing their security officers to enforce the law within corporate controlled "security zones" (city business districts, company owned housing developments, etc). How long before that happens for real?
Any singular noun can be made posessive by adding an 's, with the exception of ancient proper nouns ending in "s" or "x" (i.e. Jesus' robe, Moses' mountain, Isis' temple)
Restrictive Approach - Opposed to most software patents Members - Students, academics, engineers, start-up companies
Liberal Approach - Apply traditional patentability criteria to computer-implemented inventions Members - Lawyers, established industry players, government agencies
Isn't it interesting that the groups of people which traditionally are responsible for the greatest amount of innovation are almost unanimous against the idea of software patentability. Yet the rhetoric used by the other groups to defend software patents always seems to revolve around "protecting the interests of those who innnovate". Are we really to believe that the segments of the population responsible for the greatest volume of innovation are that clueless as to their own interests and the interests of continued innovation?
It occurred to me though that a management staff who found that their workforce likes the chairs can probably eke quite a bit of extra hours out of their employees by providing simple luxuries like this. I haven't used one long-term, so I can't address the "sandpaper" issue, but I did find that my back wasn't sore after sitting in one for a day.
Also it should be noted that with all the formerly VC-saturated companies going out of business lately, the average going price for an Aeron on Ebay is around $3-400
Even if your life doesn't revolve around weed, this issue affects every American, once you factor in the $billions of taxes which are spent every year prosecuting and imprisoning people for the crime of smoking or selling it. Compound this with the demoralizing social effects of the Drug War upon large segments of the population, then ask yourself if prohibiting a very large minority of the U.S. population from indulging in a largely innocuous vice is REALLY worth what it's costing us all when viewed in those terms.
Repealing alcohol prohibition was probably viewed as "unimportant" by non-drinkers, as well, but remember crime went down when prohibition ended. The War on Drugs has done nothing but cost our country countless dollars and lives since it was implemented and drugs are just as prevalent, if not moreso now as when we started. I think it's about damn time the government changed its tune on the issue, because it IS important.
Of course, this is not to imply that the Microsoft issue is trivial fluff, either. By eliminating the freedom of individuals and companies to effectively compete, Microsoft is undermining the health and stability of an important industry, and through it, the national and global economies. They are weilding immense amounts of power, money and influence in a very irresponsible manner, and their corrupting influence on the economy has grown to the point where it needs to be checked.
Unfortunately, this appeal to the Supreme Court is merely a delaying tactic, exquisitely timed and calculated for Microsoft's benefit. Even they must know that the Supreme Court will probably not alter the decision of the previous two lower courts. However, by appealing now, just days before the District Court is scheduled to take back the case for rehearing and Remedy procedings, Microsoft has effectively crippled the DoJ and States' ability to obtain an injunction against the release of Windows XP, which is surely to be one of the first agenda items brought up at the lower court. There simply isn't enough time between now and October for the courts to decide all these issues, and thus the company is hoping to lock its product and monopoly business into another entire generation of PCs and customers, and making those customers even more dependent upon the "service" Microsoft provides.
Ultimately, what Microsoft hopes is that the "court of public opinion" will swing into their favor after the release of XP, with all it's clever bangs and whistles, added fun features, and "innovative" new technologies, thus provoking a serious negative public reaction to any remedies the courts might propose which would necessitate the breaking up of the company or dismantling of its software. After all, to break Microsoft up will prevent them from distributing their candy to the masses. They believe that if they can get America addicted to one more generation of its product, they will have additional power at the negotiating table when hammering out a settlement that could potentially keep them intact, with no real restraints on their methods of doing business.
Quid pro quo, loosely translated as "this for that."
Actually, since all Slashdot posts are (C) the Author, the winner of this contest will be able to sue the paper for infringement.
Of course, these newspapers know this, and therefore I doubt there will be a winner. Wouldn't it be ironic, though?
Good luck!
Or maybe DotGNU
No reason to assume Microsoft will be the ONLY company to figure out the usefulness of Authentication services, or that some creative software libertarians won't be able to implement a decent system that gets people some of the benefits of Authentication/billing management without necessarily sacrificing the options of end users or locking everyone into a monopolizing service provider.
It's still to early to tell how the Market will react to these technologies, but I don't recall Microsoft ever getting as much flack in the mainstream press over it's business practices and proposed technologies as it has been lately. The battle lines are becoming more clear, and a lot of people apparently want to hurt Microsoft, so I bet these projects will attract a lot of developer mindshare.
The big question for me is how RMS and other hardline Free Software leaders will react to the idea of integrating content-billing into a Free Software project. Clearly, such capability (combined with Free Software's reputation for reliability and security) would entice content providers into using it as an alternative to .NET (which assuredly will provide similar abilities), but it seems to fly in the face of the FSF's stated goals. I'm very curious what the long-term destiny of these projects will be.
"Sweet! IBM is sounding cooler and cooler all the time. I distinctly recall the Apple TV advertisement that ran once during the '84 Olympics, announcing Macintosh, and portraying IBM as the Big Brother (1984, get it?). I guess IBM has been undergoing some revamping of their corporate culture."
Not to pick nits, but that commercial actually aired during the '84 Super Bowl.
It was an excellent commercial, though. There used to be a copy of it hosted at www.adcritic.com in the archives under Apple. They removed it when Apple threatened to sue, but there's another copy here, which also includes text translating the rather scratchy voice-over.
I can't say how IBM is as a place to work nowadays, but I hear back in the early 80s it was a bitch. A fellow I know worked at their South Florida office around that time, where they enforced a strict white shirt, coat and tie dress code...even in the summer. I can't imagine what the smell must have been like on 98-degree 98% humidity days, which is pretty much every day from May to September in Florida.
The Guerrilla News Network has a story up about how far Corporate America is willing to go to buy "justice", and how willing the courts are to sell it to them, even at the expense of their own credibility.
The question is, though. Exactly how can we impose accountability on federal judges who are appointed for life, and who have the power to control access to their own courtrooms, the very place where final arbitration of the law must inevitably occur?
It will not be good! I'm afraid this 'shared source' initiative will spread itself like a cancer through our community!
This is not only funny, but very true in a rather scary way. I didn't think it was possible, but it looks like Microsoft is now trying to "embrace and extend" our development model. If it works (and a quick rundown of Microsoft's marketing history gives very little reason to believe that they won't convince people to buy into it), we're in for a bumpy ride, to say the least.
Ph3ar.
Look at where Microsoft is after 10 years of dominating the desktop OS/office market and buying up or undercutting their competition and having all major hardware vendors except Apple specifically tailoring workstation hardware to run various flavors of Windows. Then compare the state of GNOME, KDE, and Linux and how much the groups responsible for each have accomplished in less than a decade, often meeting complete apathy or heavy resistance from larger manufacturer's on various fronts.
You're absolutely right, except that GNU, which currently comprises almost half of most GNU/Linux distributions (a vastly higher percentage than the Linux kernel itself), was actually started over 17 years ago, not less than a decade. Of course, Microsoft had several years of head start, along with a very lucrative licensing arrangement with IBM for the original DOS, and later with other manufacturers for Windows.
I'm not trying to disparage Free (or Open Source) Software at all, because it is amazing how well it is competing against software that was developed with such a head start, market advantages, and financial support. Just setting the dates straight.
Programmers are the carpenters of our time.
Wow, you're going to have to show me how I can use code as shelter next time it rains. That's gotta be a neat trick.
Last time I checked, the carpenters of our time were still carpenters. But programmers don't need to feel left out...most carpenters have been doing exceedingly shoddy work for the past few years, too. I look around at the quality of construction in a lot of the new developments going up lately, and I figure they'll barely last longer than it takes for software to go obsolete.