Re:Any ideas?
on
Back To SCO
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· Score: 2, Interesting
They obviously want to drag this out long enough for their options to mature so they can cash out; McSlime has already said 'a buyout would make this all go away'. I just assume IBM doesn't want to get any SCO-stink on them.
"I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." - Aliens
Much as I'd love to see the guy's house taken away and then dropped on him, Florida's one of those wonderful states with an unlimited homestead exemption (used by any number of South Florida real-estate swindlers to cover their posteriors when the suckers, er, investors found out they actually HAD bought swampland...)
Given the more recent efforts, The Puppet Masters and especially the atrocity that was Starship Troopers, I don't know that I'd WANT Hollywood to try "adapting" any more of his books.
(a) cash in on the stock run-up after announcing the lawsuit (b) hope that your Deep-Pocketed Opponent will simply buy you out from their petty cash fund rather than bother going to trial (why they didn't start out going after, say , Red Hat or SuSE) (c) thinking they actually had a case due to severe psychological problems ["we'd have had market share except for You Pesky Linux Kids and your penguin" ]:-)
Of course what they apparently didn't figure on was that dropping a case like this on IBM's lawyers was like dumping a barrel of chum into the water around a school of sharks...
What the "diamond manufacturers" (yow, think about that) should be doing at this point is grinding out a relatively small number of high-margin stones like the yellows mentioned in the Wired article (make 'em for $5, sell 'em for $10K) to fund the facilities build-up, then start cranking out in bulk for the semiconductor industry, where the REAL money would be had. They shut DeBeers up by threatening to flood the market with the headlight-sized rocks at $20 if they get shirty about it.
Because most of the actual pirates are offshore and effectively immune to prosecution by the RIAA, while slamming a couple of college kids provides (to their minds) an object lesson to discourage P2P among their primary market, though in some cases it's backfired.
The usually quoted article about the record industry's stats show they've reduced the number of new releases substantially, and only suffered slightly on revenues in the process. Add the sagging economy and the shifting tastes of their primary market (more interest in gaming, CD cost vs. DVD), and their apparent problems are almost entirely of their own making. The industry's focus on heavy marketing of a handful of artists causes problems when the teens lose interest, i.e. boy bands and This Month's Cute Chick (Brittany/Christina/Avril/???). Blaming the resounding thud of their marketing failures on Those Meddlesome Kids and their file-sharing absolves them of blame. Their promotion tactics are failing in the face of media consolidation; the radio conglomerates are happy to take their dough, then tell THEM what sort of music they want to play. The fact the recording companies are pushing for a cut of concert revenues shows they're aware their business model is breaking and they need to look elsewhere for their ongoing bloated paychecks.
The parent almost rates a Troll; the first edition was definitely to the field what Schneier's and Knuth's was to theirs; Ches' honeypot suckered in more than a few would-be 'wily hackers' (hacking into BELL LABS was considered a Big Thing). The technology has moved on, but I expect the new version (the first one landed on my shelf just after publication) is, again, practical tactics and suggestions from people who have most definitely Been There...
Check out the gallery at the site in the previous post. The 'reflector' is a 4" square of wire screening bent into a basic parabola and then stood up behind the antenna pod hanging out of the card slot so the pod is roughly at the focal point. If nothing else, the mesh will direct the card's signal in the desired direction somewhat and reflect a little more incoming signal to the card's antenna. The bang/buck is incomparable; 15 min work with some scrap material for 5-6 db of gain.
Similar problem with my kids' laptop using the Netgear card (MA401). Poor to no connection from her room. Broke down and got an Orinoco Gold Card and immediately jumped to good-to-marginal. Added the Chicken Wire Antenna on the SMC gateway and an extra 'reflector' square behind the Orinoco on her desk and got another 5-6 db gain.
Can't recommend these cards enough, especially since you can get them for about $60 street price these days.
BoA wasn't using the public network for the ATMs; the worm was putting so much chatter on their we-just-migrated-everybody-to-Win2K INTERNAL network that the ATMs couldn't get to the Big Iron in the Back Room...
Lauren's rep is impeccable, but this is just a non-starter. It's basically a rehash of the 'whitelisted mailers' proposal that many anti-spam crusaders are pushing, with the [sarcasm mode on]MINOR CHANGE[/sarcasm] of replacing SMTP as the mail transport.
As bad as the spam problem is, it's unlikely that you can get sufficient momentum in the community to displace one of the primal IP application protocols anytime soon. The solution, for better or worse, is probably going to be a combination of filtering technology, $$ legal judgements $$, and Ghu help us, legislation.
(Though anyone taking up a collection to hire the Narn Bat Squad for re-educating spammers please let me know...)
About Windows when a "clone of a 20-year old system" is taking share from you at an increasing rate? That your "innovations" aren't interesting anyone? That your security holes are growing tiresome? That businesses would rather spend the $$ on growing their business instead of yours?
The penguinistas are knocking at the door, and they're coming in...
The Labs open-sourced ksh as of August 2000. Head to kornshell.com for source and binary builds for The Usual Systems.
Have to agree with the above poster, commercial systems at this point will have it, and it's available open-sourced for Linux, so I use it as my preferred shell between the Sun boxes I use at work and the Linux desktops I reach them through.
some bean-counter at IBM is probably doing the math right now: buy them up at current value and bury them, or sue the fecal matter out of them, drive their value into the dirt and THEN buy up the remains for even less - and STILL bury them...
(a) sue the Linux company with the deepest pockets. Those Red Hat guys are barely making any money, let's go after Big Blue with their $1B Linux budget.
(b) IBM unchains the Lawyer Horde, buckles on their Patent Shield (c) and proceeds to lay the legal smackdown on SCO
(c) then buys up the smoking ruins of SCO for even less than they're worth now
WHICH IS STILL A BETTER DEAL FOR THE SCO PEOPLE THAN RIDING THEIR PITIFUL IP HOLDINGS INTO OBLIVION
Look, go back to the original Green Card spam across Usenet. The lawyer scum (sorry, that was redundant) involved figured even if they only got a handful of hits, the cost was so low it was a profitable deal. Same for the current crop - they bear none of the costs of delivery, so they can get by if they get a vanishingly small hitrate.
The problem with Barry's plan is it requires co-operation across all the ISPs to chargeback. Lots of spammers are already using Third World ISPs that could care less about the headaches they're causing as long as they get their billing.
Re:The Uplift Saga (MOD PARENT DOWN PLEASE!!!)
on
Ask Larry Niven
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· Score: 1
Wrong author, binkie; the Uplift books are by David Brin. Niven's 'universe' is Known Space (Ringworld, Gift from Earth, Protector, Gil Hamilton).
FYI on mail-order, if the company has a 'presence' in your state, they have to collect tax. Living in FL, where lots of catalog companies keep their toll-free call-in centers, I'm whacked regularly for it [,dammit].
Scroll up and see that SimDesk is based in Houston. The IT guys get to walk into the city council and say (a) they're saving the city $$$ and (b) supporting a local small business in the process. Financially and politically palatable. Microsoft's big-stick audit threat probably just reinforced the support-your-local-entrepreneur sentiments.
And if the stuff is even halfway usable, since this stuff is supposed to be server-based, it means the city can leave the employees stuck on all that old iron and not have to cough up for new boxes to run more current office suites.
But if you read his Uplift books, they're all about us devious Earthers (humans/apes/dolphins) ignoring the Library's traditions and bending/breaking the Uplift "rules" and ending up winning against the stodgy old Galactics...
Slashdot Mirror
"I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." - Aliens
Much as I'd love to see the guy's house taken away and then dropped on him, Florida's one of those wonderful states with an unlimited homestead exemption (used by any number of South Florida real-estate swindlers to cover their posteriors when the suckers, er, investors found out they actually HAD bought swampland...)
Given the more recent efforts, The Puppet Masters and especially the atrocity that was Starship Troopers, I don't know that I'd WANT Hollywood to try "adapting" any more of his books.
(a) cash in on the stock run-up after announcing the lawsuit :-)
(b) hope that your Deep-Pocketed Opponent will simply buy you out from their petty cash fund rather than bother going to trial (why they didn't start out going after, say , Red Hat or SuSE)
(c) thinking they actually had a case due to severe psychological problems ["we'd have had market share except for You Pesky Linux Kids and your penguin" ]
Of course what they apparently didn't figure on was that dropping a case like this on IBM's lawyers was like dumping a barrel of chum into the water around a school of sharks...
What the "diamond manufacturers" (yow, think about that) should be doing at this point is grinding out a relatively small number of high-margin stones like the yellows mentioned in the Wired article (make 'em for $5, sell 'em for $10K) to fund the facilities build-up, then start cranking out in bulk for the semiconductor industry, where the REAL money would be had. They shut DeBeers up by threatening to flood the market with the headlight-sized rocks at $20 if they get shirty about it.
Because most of the actual pirates are offshore and effectively immune to prosecution by the RIAA, while slamming a couple of college kids provides (to their minds) an object lesson to discourage P2P among their primary market, though in some cases it's backfired.
The usually quoted article about the record industry's stats show they've reduced the number of new releases substantially, and only suffered slightly on revenues in the process. Add the sagging economy and the shifting tastes of their primary market (more interest in gaming, CD cost vs. DVD), and their apparent problems are almost entirely of their own making. The industry's focus on heavy marketing of a handful of artists causes problems when the teens lose interest, i.e. boy bands and This Month's Cute Chick (Brittany/Christina/Avril/???). Blaming the resounding thud of their marketing failures on Those Meddlesome Kids and their file-sharing absolves them of blame. Their promotion tactics are failing in the face of media consolidation; the radio conglomerates are happy to take their dough, then tell THEM what sort of music they want to play. The fact the recording companies are pushing for a cut of concert revenues shows they're aware their business model is breaking and they need to look elsewhere for their ongoing bloated paychecks.
The parent almost rates a Troll; the first edition was definitely to the field what Schneier's and Knuth's was to theirs; Ches' honeypot suckered in more than a few would-be 'wily hackers' (hacking into BELL LABS was considered a Big Thing). The technology has moved on, but I expect the new version (the first one landed on my shelf just after publication) is, again, practical tactics and suggestions from people who have most definitely Been There...
Check out the gallery at the site in the previous post. The 'reflector' is a 4" square of wire screening bent into a basic parabola and then stood up behind the antenna pod hanging out of the card slot so the pod is roughly at the focal point. If nothing else, the mesh will direct the card's signal in the desired direction somewhat and reflect a little more incoming signal to the card's antenna. The bang/buck is incomparable; 15 min work with some scrap material for 5-6 db of gain.
Can't recommend these cards enough, especially since you can get them for about $60 street price these days.
FAR more satisfying to drag them out of their crypt into the sunlight, watch them go up in flames, then see the ashes blow off in the wind....
And if your company hasn't upgraded to Exchange 2000, you're equally hosed, since it won't work with earlier versions...
BoA wasn't using the public network for the ATMs; the worm was putting so much chatter on their we-just-migrated-everybody-to-Win2K INTERNAL network that the ATMs couldn't get to the Big Iron in the Back Room...
As bad as the spam problem is, it's unlikely that you can get sufficient momentum in the community to displace one of the primal IP application protocols anytime soon. The solution, for better or worse, is probably going to be a combination of filtering technology, $$ legal judgements $$, and Ghu help us, legislation.
(Though anyone taking up a collection to hire the Narn Bat Squad for re-educating spammers please let me know...)
The penguinistas are knocking at the door, and they're coming in...
The work of the mad stop-motion master Mike Jittlov. I'm surprised I haven't seen it already from someone else...
"Why is there a watermelon there?"
Have to agree with the above poster, commercial systems at this point will have it, and it's available open-sourced for Linux, so I use it as my preferred shell between the Sun boxes I use at work and the Linux desktops I reach them through.
some bean-counter at IBM is probably doing the math right now: buy them up at current value and bury them, or sue the fecal matter out of them, drive their value into the dirt and THEN buy up the remains for even less - and STILL bury them...
(b) IBM unchains the Lawyer Horde, buckles on their Patent Shield (c) and proceeds to lay the legal smackdown on SCO
(c) then buys up the smoking ruins of SCO for even less than they're worth now
WHICH IS STILL A BETTER DEAL FOR THE SCO PEOPLE THAN RIDING THEIR PITIFUL IP HOLDINGS INTO OBLIVION
The problem with Barry's plan is it requires co-operation across all the ISPs to chargeback. Lots of spammers are already using Third World ISPs that could care less about the headaches they're causing as long as they get their billing.
Wrong author, binkie; the Uplift books are by David Brin. Niven's 'universe' is Known Space (Ringworld, Gift from Earth, Protector, Gil Hamilton).
FYI on mail-order, if the company has a 'presence' in your state, they have to collect tax. Living in FL, where lots of catalog companies keep their toll-free call-in centers, I'm whacked regularly for it [,dammit].
And if the stuff is even halfway usable, since this stuff is supposed to be server-based, it means the city can leave the employees stuck on all that old iron and not have to cough up for new boxes to run more current office suites.
But if you read his Uplift books, they're all about us devious Earthers (humans/apes/dolphins) ignoring the Library's traditions and bending/breaking the Uplift "rules" and ending up winning against the stodgy old Galactics...