If you want to stop WAVE dead in its tracks, ask them what responsibility they are willing to take for the various aspects of their program (use the words "legal liability")
They cannot rely on the "open conduit" principle used by ISPs because they specifically stated that the 'kids will be trained' in the danger signs to recognize. As Governor Hunt noted, "This program is more than just a tip line, it teaches students and parents to look for the early signs of violent behavior and to resolve conflicts constructively."
Training children does not automatically induce liability (if it did, few would dare teach anyone anything out of fear that the student might not learn well or might deliberately misuse the knowledge), but the possibility clearly exists
I hate the fact that we live in a litigious society, but note that my examples (below) are just issues of responsibility. Corporations are not people (except in the eyes of the law) so the legal system stands in lieu of many of the elements of societal conditioning and 'conscience' that individuals are expected to have
The WAVE training and hotline will be the equivalent of showing a few Driver's Ed videos in assembly, leaving a Pinkerton car in the parking lot with the keys in the ignition, and telling the kids "it's for you to use only in serious situations."
If anything goes wrong, there will be two or more "innocent" minors involved, a 'beleagered' school, and a Big Corporation. And perhaps third party victims as well. Whatever the details of the case, no lawyer could overlook the deep pockets of the corporation.
There are a hundred issues of access/liability in such an unreliable database: Will they relay all tips blindly? Will they accept responsibility for those they choose to relay? Those that they choose NOT to relay? Will they keep all tips confidential (hiding them from potential victims)? Or does the public have 'a right to know'? Will the info be available freely to law enforcement or only under specific subpoena? Will the 'subject' be told of the detailss of the tip made against him/her? Or will it ne an undefendable slur?
What are the specific criteria for reportable actions? Example: drugs, yes -- but casual use or dealing; and what type of drugs? Tobacco? Alcohol? Only 'illegal' drugs? Oops, sorry, both butts and beers are illegal in this group, and being drunk poses the same dangers as being high when it comes to both violence and lethally poor judgement (e.g. throwing rock off the water tower onto the school yard)
What about pornography? Allegations of danger signs or situations inside the family (physical or sexual abuse -- gee, I guess even the parents aren't safe, after all)? Depression? Sexual activity? Religious beliefs? Political beliefs? (Look out Satanists and neo-Nazis... but also, wiccans, politically active Arab refugees, etc. it doesn't take much to be labeled a potential terrorist or 'cult')
Oh yeah, I'm waiting for Crosstown High's entire football team to be hauled in for questioning the week before the state finals... on a series of tips from Riverdale High. A rumor of last week's kegger is one thing, but with an outside company making the report, the pricipal doesn't dare risk one of the kids getting in a drunk driving accident next month.)
Oh I'm sorry, is this a downer? Is this getting awfully complicated when all you wanted to do was stamp out DOOM players, kids who wear black, freshman whose AP Chemistry scores suggest "more than adequate knowledge to make a bomb" (it happened to me, and the shadow followed me through HS. Funny thing - a senior with the same knowledge would be applauded)
Lord help them if they decide 'on a case-by-case basis'. That's pretty much full liability.
In short. THEY design a system. THEY implement it. THEY are going to have a tough time if something goes wrong. And it WILL, perhaps not because of them, but nonetheless their nose will be inextricably stuck into a situation fraught with inherent perils... with a plan that's untested and has had relatively few man-months of thought. (something with this kind of impact needs tens or hundreds of thousands of man-months of debate -- e.g. a public referendum on the ballot)
I know it's bad form to reply to your own post, but I wanted to make two posts, one based on facts I verified before posting (with my +1, since the error could lead people to believe 'Intrepid' was an autobiography, and needed to be corrected) and one based on opinions and slightly faded which don't warrant a (+1) Alas, this is the only way/. will let me post the second part.
When I read the book, I was amazed by the ease and success with which this man moved between widely disparate fields. While this was common for the great polymaths of past centuries and was probably still possible in England in the mid 20th century (when social contacts were everything -- though they're still pretty bloody important today, in almost any nation) I felt a surge of envy at the 'good old days' for polymaths
But it really did strain credulity that this man knocked Baron von Richthoven out of the sky (Sir Stephenson was an ace, but with, I'm told, 8 kills not 26), helped develop a television system at Bell Labs, was key in developing an Allied jet engine (which didn't fit my recollection of jet engine history), pushed critical military technologies through (like the Spitfire), and kept a full plate of intelligence credits, any one of which would hav earned him a place in history on both sides of the Atlantic.
Clearly he was a major player in Anglo-US intelligence, but a lot of historians dismissed the book as 'historical fiction', and cited very specific objections.
In fairness, I have been told by a friend who keeps up on such things that records declassified in the 80's and 90's offer some justification for some (but not all) of the book's claims. I say "some justification" because the facts still don't quite jibe, but many of the new revelations were surprising enough that they are strong points in the book's favor.
It's fascinating reading, and gets many obscure details exactly right, but it's far from a history text (biographies seldom lack 'spin') and can still be accused of getting significant events quite seriously wrong.
I loved the book, but I was disturbed to hear the original poster claim that reading it mean he probably had his facts straight. The history of debate on this book makes it an unlikely contender for *that* comment
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Re:The *real* story of the Enigma [correction]
on
Enigma Machine Stolen
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· Score: 2
Oy Vey!
I hate it when people cite this book without even getting the name of the main character right!
The author of the book is William SteVenson The main character is William StePHenson
It always makes me worry about how carefully they read the book. When I read it (as a teenager, back in the 70's), the coincidence in names struck me immediately -- it's kind of hard to miss, no?
Here's my DMCA cooment, as submitted, minus a few paragraphs of credentals, personal ID stuff, which I'm sure is of no conceivable interest [Gov-types like credentials, but/. judges us by our ideas] ------------------------------------------------ -
This document is a comment on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Public Law 105-304 (1998), specifically the new Chapter 12 to title 17 United States Code, with special attention to section 1201 provides that "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." It is submitted as solicited
A brief review of the comments posted on the official internet site for the initial public comment period, shows that most of the points I intended have been made, and made well, so in the interests of clarity, I will add only two points that I feel deserve special attention, and which fall into my specific expertise.
[list of profesional qualifications deleted] Though I do not hold these offices or represent these bodies in an offical capacity any longer, my experience in these positions suggest that there is absolutely no question that making access control a matter of 'vendor right' rather than 'user control of data', invites exploitation in ways that are almost impossible for men of good will to conceive.
The Impact of DMCA on Medical Records, Physician Office Management and Patient Care as a Specific Case of a More General Threat
I. Access control of user data From the time of the first computerized office management systems (through, I imagine, the present), many physicians have found their office billing, scheduling and patient medical record data held hostage by the companies that owned the billing system. This data was deliberately stored in a proprietary format to keep it out of the hands of the physician, effectively holding it hostage. If physicians did not renew annual software license and maintenance contracts with their original vendor, they would lose access to all their data, despite having physical possession of it
The vendor wished to keep the customer, even if the vendor's product did not meet his or her needs; even if licensing fees had become exorbitant; even if another company's product offered improved patient care, better medical record security; etc. One might argue that vendors of inferior software might be especially interested in "locking clients into" their product (even if it were buggy or unreliable) to stay in business.
To change to better software, while retaining the existing data (to ensure best medical care), the physician was forced to hire a programmer to convert the data from the vendor's proprietary format to a public one, such a field delimited text. Numerous court cases were fought, where vendors argued that this conversion was a violation of their proprietary rights. I will not review them, because the details varied greatly.
Under DCMA, the physician would have no such recourse. His/Her data would forever be the possession, though not the property, of the original vendor, to be read only under the terms of the vendor.
This is just a specific case of a general evil of DCMA.
This abuse could be generalized to any form of program that manipulates or alters data (e.g. graphics program, database, word processor, audio 'studio' program, etc.) and stores it in a proprietary format. In each of these cases, the data clearly belongs to the user, not the vendor, yet the vendor controls access under DMCA. This is an implicit threat of most 'shrinkwrap licenses', come to life: "This program is not warranted for suitability for any specific user purpose, or any general purpose, whatsoever."
When combined with the 'license change' provision of UCITA (below) this creates horrific scenarios.
II. DMCA in conjunction with UCITA It should also be noted that under the provisions of UCITA (which has already been passed in at least one state, Virginia, and is pending in many others), a vendor may change the terms of licensing, and the new license would apply to grantees under the old license. That is to say, that if a vendor license grants certain rights, the license may later be altered, and the granted rights lost.
Even id a vendor granted usage rights in perpetuity (e.g. allowing a physician to use the program to read the data stored in the proprietary format forever), he can now alter the license to revoke that grant. Under UCITA alone, this only prevented the physician from using the licensed program, but under DMCA, it would permanently ban his/her access to the data. In short, the vendor is granted rights. It also means that formats that are licensed for free public use under explicit licenses such as the GPL (Gnu Public License) could be converted to proprietary licenses at some later data. This would be a data boobytrap for even the most conscientious physician seeking to protect his/her access to his/her data.
The very review process to which this comment is being submitted accepts Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Word 7.0 or older, Rich Text Format (RTF) submissions as MIME attachments, but not a plain text e-mail. Please be warned that if DMCA were in effect, and this comment were initially read in a Virginia office, the owner of these file format could alter their license to deny you the right to open this document, to convert it to another format, or perhaps even to transmit it to another jurisdiction like DC, where the 'access control' could be circumvented. They could even argue that hardcopy created with their word processor, and without their express license (revocable at their will, under UCITA) is a violation.
Today, few documents are created by hand or manual typewriter from inception to final form. Access control can become very effective censorship on any subject.
Companies will and do censor criticism. Earlier this week, Mattel used DMCA to block distribution of a free program that allowed users to see data (stored on their own hard drive) which revealed that a Mattel consumer software program did not function effectively at its intended purpose. Mattel obtained an injunction on the basis that that data was stored in a file on the user's computer in a proprietary format, and acknowledged that it would harm their business if users could read it.
Access control can also be used to co-opt the property rights of any user. Most major graphics, audio, and work processing programs are stored in a proprietary file during the work process of creating a work, and only converted to exportable 'open' form on request. Under DMCA (especially in a UCITA state) any such program could begin to charge me fees to export, distribute or use my own work product.
I have heard testimony from physicians whose data has been held hostage, and read accounts of many more cases. Medical software vendors who invariably advertises the life-saving benefits of instant access to patient data will lock data knowing the effects are potentially lethal (in an ER there may be only minutes to determine previous drug reactions, allergies, and medical history). Put bluntly, though I know of no specific cases, it is easy to see that deaths may already have occurred due to this practice.
I think it is clear that less dramatic abuses of the principle of 'access control' will be the rule, rather than the exception. Why would it not? Access Control will be a legal right, arguably not an abuse at all.
CONCLUSION: Please do not assume this provision of DMCA is simply about CDs and pirated videotapes. Its consequences could reach deep into you own family at any time, with tragic results.
Freedom of information is among the founding liberties of this nation, and rightfully so. When access to information is controlled, much else is controlled besides. We must act with utmost caution in this area.
Yikes, the implications of the 'our viewer only' rulings (e.g. DeCSS/DVD and the Glassbook cited in the Stephen King article) can effectively control the distribution of thought (especially when combined with the UCITA 'retroactive license change' provision.)
There's just one generalizable example of the half dozen broad abuses that just occurred to me in five minute's thought: word processors (and other output producing programs like studio, graphics, or databases). Until now, the 'work product' has always separate from the software that made it. However now MS could decide (retroactively) that documents produced with MS-Word could only be viewed with MS-Word, and that conversion to other formats (including printed output for use by anyone except the licensed user) is a 'circumvention of their access control', They could also revoke the license to their public viewers, like Wordpad.
Rrsult: Better hope you had a straight text copy of your Great American Novel and Monday's Big Presentation. Or your company database. Because the word Processor could steal some very major rights to your use of your own work. You wouldn't be able to send your word-processed novel to the publisher, even in hardcopy (e.g. King w/ Glassbook) etc. or allow public access to your previously accessible database-generated data without a specific negotiated license from the publisher. Who cares if you bought the word processor or database to specifically do these things and that you've been doing them for decades? Read your Shrinkwrap licence: the program is not guaranteed to be suitable for any specific purpose. You knew it. Everyone knew it. We all laughed at it. It's been in the SWL for decades. No excuses.
This is not outlandish. This exact thing happened with many medical office administration programs in the 70's/80's/90's. Physicians could not access their own office/billing data or their patient medical info unless they renewed their contract with the original software company. [And a court ruled that booting a proprietary program to erase it or to retrieve/convert the data was unauthorize d access. Fortunately, you *could* remove the hard drive and have a programmer read/convert it on his system. Under DMCA, even this would be illegal!)
There are many similar, more public examples of brazen corporate greed: the sudden demand for licensing fees for usage of GIFs is a very recent one. In short, when they figure out they can do this, the only thing that would stop them would be fear of angering enough people to cause a change in the law -- and even then, they might decide to draw a year or two of profit, since if they didn't risk overturning the apple cart, they'd be left out in the cold when some other company overturned the apple cart. [i.e. MS would 'seize control' of all MS-Word docs, though a new laws would surely be passed in a year or so, because if MS didn't, they'd lose the rights in a year or two anyway, when WordPerfect or Star triggered the backlash]
I don't know how I could have missed this implication (I was deeply involved in physician data issue on a high level many years ago), but I guess we'll be stumbling across unintended consequnces for years
[or is it actually 'unintended'? Whether this specific strategy is planned or not, there's no question that the industry would like nothing more than full control on a pay-per-view basis of all media. Should we be surprised that disparate elements directed at a common end can combine to further that end in unexpected ways? ]
Unfortunately, there is no safe way to change intellectual laws quickly. We'd have to institute a moratorum so that each major change (e.g. DMCA) could be understood and explored in the coursts before the next change (e.g. UCITA) was passed.
And I'd have to admit, in that case, justice defered would be justice denied.
Yeah, that was my philosophy regarding the 'pencil eraser' webserver I'm building, based on this the 'match-head' server [My design has an iPic, EEPROM, LED driver chip and IRDA LED stacked/epoxied with the pins bent out ['flat'] for interconnections)
After all, like the only man to ever use nukes for their intended purpose said: "If you can't stand the hits, get off of my keychain"
My concern is primarily about the effect on investors (and the general industry) that could be caused by a lack of uncerstand ing of the accounting practices outlined in the article cited at the beginning of the thread.
I don't want to press this issue except to say that I do not understand your definition of fundamentals. That term was once used strictly, and was calculated by the 'technical analysis' you disparage. Now 'fundamentals' is used to mean something very loose and intuitive, and technical analysis is often used to mean meaningless short-term number crunching, often used in an attempt to time the market. I think most people who use the words today don't *have* a strict definition of either.
The data is there. the accounting practices are extreme by industry standards (what other company MS's size accounts their stock option this way?) Therefore, I worry that the usual 'quickie indices like P/E or profit are misleading for MS. That's why I think volatility will enhanced if there is a downturn.
There are solid issues here. I'm pointing, not prognosticating. let those who read the article decide if they were already aware of these factors -- and if they weren't, then they couldn't possibly have factored them into their decisions.
"Fundamentals" are not the opposite of hard numbers, they are the basic underlying hard numbers. the website this article came from is a major proponent of fundamentals. That's why they not only mention the MS stock buybacks, you mentioned, but gave the numbers: $3B in 1999 vs. $60B in outstanding employee stock options exercised -- $9B this year alone (a mere mitigating factor). MS, as most investors know, has over $650B in outstanding stock overall. $3B is a sneeze.
Please don't take the length of this reply to indicate that I think MS is going to tank. I just don't have time to do a succinct explanation. (I have to run a errand in ten minutes -- or else) I thought the article explained well, but you seem to have missed some key distinctions
Basically, Microsoft is getting their employees to pay them to buy stock. There's no Ponzi scheme here, though.
"Ponzi scheme" is of course a deliberate overstatement, with humorous intent, however, I don't think the sistuation is as benign as you represent it.
First off, they are not "getting them to buy stock", they are offering stock options as a major part of the compensation package -- i.e. "Instead of $150K cash, we'll give you $90K in cash and $70K in stock options" (e.g. he can buy $70K in stock for $10K. The article said 'tiny fraction of the stock price' without specifying. I estimate a 7:1 option from the option and tax figures)
Using these made-up numbers, here's how it works:
MS saves $40K in cash (increased profit) $60K MS counts the $10K the employee pays to exercise the option as MS income $10K (that's in the article) MS deducts 35% of 70K from its Fed taxes $24.5K ----- $94.5K
MS gets a $150K programmer for (150-94.5 = 53.5K) (don't you wish you could do that!)
Employee gets: $90K cash 70K of rising stock spends: (10K) ----- $150K and rising.
If the stock is rising, he hangs on to the stock, MS gets a bargain, and the employee gets richer. When the stock is falling, the employee must sell immediately to collect $148k instead of $150K. This pushes MS stock down ($9 billion more MS stock per year being actively pushed onto the market is is a huge downward force.)
Then maybe (as you say) the programmer starts looking for a place he can get more cash up front, or where a rising stock makes the option more valuable. Not immediately, as you say, but...
The 'margin loans' are a kicker. These guys live on money borrowed against their stock option -- saving themselves huge top bracket income tax until they sell, and are taxed at the capital gains rate. But why sell at all, when their stock is rising?
When it starts falling, they have to sell -- and fast, which makes the stock drop faster. That's tens of billions in stock that have to be sold pronto! (if the market could absorb that, the price would be higher!)
The 700 million in 'puts' becomes a tremendous liability. They'd force MS to buy back its stock at more than the market price (since the stock is falling) Either MS quits selling them (making MS stock less attractive, so it falls more) or MS loses money if the puts are exercised. Subtract 700M income or incur huge expense, take you pick.
Institutional holders like MS, but they will have an obligation to partially liquidate. Remember, we are talking 5.5 giga-shares (5.5x10^9 shares) worth almost 600 billion dollars.
Microsoft's employees won't all go broke when Microsoft stock starts to fall. They're still getting cash salaries. They just won't become millionaires as they do today.
They are being paid "mediocre at best" (from the article); the millionaires are people who got in a long time ago, under more favorable conditions, and also have *many* years of cumulative stock options.
When Microsoft's stock starts to fall, they may find it harder to hire good people. But that will take a long time to affect the company--we're not talking about any sort of crash.
it's generally agreed that MS is an unpleasant plkace to work. it's even more unpleasant to be bought by - see Cringeley- and that was where they got most of their new product. it'll be a lot harder to keep up with mediocre new programmers, far fewere willing sellers (the purchase targets aren't IPO'd; there are no stockholder pressures) from which to buy new technologies/features!
Sensible investors understand how Microsoft manages their stock options.
Sensible ones do -- but most aren't that knowledgable.
They then look at Microsoft's monopoly and conclude that the company is likely to do pretty well in any case.
For every transaction, there's a buyer and a seller, Someone who want's to get in and someone who wants to get out.
MS may look like a good deal when it's rising, but a lousy deal when it's falling. It happens all the time. it's the rule not the exception. Your statement that "investors like it" is *equivalent* to "the stock is rising" and will no longer be valid if it falls for more than a short period.
Am I trying to scare people out of MS? Heck no. All I said is "if you're interested, look at the article"
It suggests that without the stock options, MS would not be posting the profits that are a big part of the reason they look good to investors. And without looking good to investors the stock options won't work very well. That's my concern.
If you favor a breakup of MS, then I think one of the goals would have to be to integrate the parts into the marketplace as individual competitors.
In other words, PicoSofts (micro-Microsofts) would have to compete against each other, just as the rest of the market would comepete against them.
I would be skeptical of this possibility, but we did somehow manage this with the RBOCs/baby Bells (it was a hassle, but it worked)
However, dividing MS along strictly functional lines would probably have the problems people have described, because Win9x does not compete with NT or Office or MSIE etc.
So how do we divide it along non-function lines? How do we create competing teams and projects working on the same problems. It seemed a nightmare, until it hit me: Regional Microsofts.
That's obviously not the answer. MS is not uniformly distributed across the states as a corporate entity (unlike the Bell system). Still, it was the first glimmer of a manageable breakup strategy I'd seen.
Think about it, if you wanted to split a person, you wouldn't split the kidneys from the liver, etc. You'd split the liver, give each progeny one kidney, lung, etc... then let them live independently
(thinks back on Gross Anatomy and all those exotic surgeries we did in third year pig lab... and gets immmediate headache from trying to make this analogy work)
Okay... I know someone else out there can come up with a better division strategy that doesn't just slice along non-competing product lines. Remember, division for it's own sake won't serve us here. If we divide (and I'm not saying we should) we need to divide well -- for competition.
They are charged with anti-competitive practices, after all
I must admit that I am very pleased by the relatively standard architecture that descended from the IBM/MS PC, not because it isn't chock full of technical compromises -- of course it is -- but because we could every easily be a shattered tangle of architectures now, with few sharing enough market share to make intercompatibility very promising.
I don't think that the Unices would be in as good a position today, if we'd continued the trend of the early 80's: even "PC clones" weren't entirely compatible. Apple, Atari, Amiga, etc. were fine hardware, but can you imagine a market with 5-6 primary architectures (and their clones) with 10-20% share each?
Does anyone remember when the exciting 'intercompatibility' technology was the 'emulator board' (basically an entirely separate processor, on a limited motherboard, communicating over a peripheral bus). I shudder to think how easily this could have remained widespread, despite its many drawbacks. [Internetworking full-featured machines would not be a viable alternative to slot-cards, because few small shops or SOHO's would want to support many very different platforms and their associated OS's]
Today's desktop market of a single overwhelmingly common general architecture provides a single large market for initial development, which actually helps cross-platform development more than 5 disparate platforms with 20% market share. Even when hampered by legacy hardware support (e.g. ISA) these desktops function well into the 'big iron range' (SMP quad PIII/K7 1GHz; server farms; Beowulf).
OS legacy support of hardware (CPUs) has served us well, even if we may choose not to keep that as a primary feature of our OS's. A low end pentium server can be bought for $50, minus HDD or maybe RAM. I bought 2 in the past month for my home LAN. Time to let go of 386/486 (except as hobbies), not because of a lack of capacity for special tasks, but because of cheaper easier alternatives.
But I'm glad things were backwards compatible while they were. It made things a lot easier.
I am pleased that the Unices (and others will follow) are returning to re-compiling to suitm hardware, but I admit the binary-only era that actually *did* make life easier as we transitioned into a era of widespread computing.
Look, it's been a long, crazy ride. There have been some dark chapters, and some of us have lost our hair unnecessarily, but...
You know, things didn't work out half-bad.
Of course, in a few years it'll all fragment. Let it. We've learned some things along the way, and we're better suited to face it now. We've got a lot of experience, and solved a lot of problems. Now we can face the next set of 'needlessly irritating, suboptimal solutions to fundametal problems' and curse compilers instead of installers -- or whatever we'll be doing.
That *is* part of the fun, after all.
Smile. if you didn't enjoy the hassles, you probably wouldn't be/.'ing right now.
I'd like to draw the attention of interested parties to a basic fact underlying Microsoft's "wealth"...
Most of their so-called 'profits' are really just wages deferred as stock options, and the funds MS collects when employees collect them, reported as income (Yes, they found a way to move employees and benefits from debits to credits!)
This will certainly make it interesting when the Ponzi scheme unravels and MS stock prices suffer their first real sustained decline.
Considering how many outstanding shares there are in institutional holding, and how the scheme only works in a steadily climbing stock... we could be looking at the Big Dump
To the company whose inefficient OS ...drove users to needlessly upgrade ...drove developers to write programs that did the same ...made insecure computing so real that it might never be so ignored again.
To the company whose inefficient OS ...created massive demand for faster/better hardware ...which spurred the hardware makers to develop and introduce faster (when profiting from established products had always been more prudent) ...which drove prices down on the the new and supposedly-obsolete alike
Leading to Horror That Ruled The Earth and will someday fall,
...leaving an Open Source movement that is something more than a extremist corner of geekdom ...leaving lots of cheap, perfectly good, but 'outdated' hardware (and the will to turn them to clever uses) ...leaving a hardware highwater mark might not otherwise have reached (or needed) so soon ...and a better chance for a new beginning ...and a memory of a cautionary chapter that may make us wiser
May this toast help us remember MS fondly if it falls, and console our sorrows if it doesn't
I'm sorry, I meant that I thought the AMSAT satellites were undoubtedly designed for cheap ornbital maintanance (and undoubtedly have a more practical orbit than Iridium's decaying LEO)
In penance for my lack of clarity, I looked up the specifications for their next satellite (launching in July on an Ariane 5)
It's interesting reading, but I won't quote it here, to avoid boring those who don't care.
You know perfectly well what that means - don't deny it!
I was trying to get some specs for the satellite transmitters and earth-based phone units (after all, they are going to be flooding the market now -- I *have* to check out the hacking potential)
I don't know the details of their current 'fleet' but I'm guessing they were designed for practical inexpensive long-term upkeep and orbit maintenence.
Imagine what they could do with some extra volunteer manpower, and a few of those IPO millions. Alas, it woul certainly overload the day after it was announced on/.
Aside from the technical prospects, the symbolism is absolutely not to be overlooked. If I were an IPO or public cause looking for a real show-stopper, I might consider funding...
Space station L1nus? [that's "L1"] The GNU Frontier?
Please moderate this up. It deserves to be seen by those with an interest in this topic, even if you don't think saving Iridium is practical.
Before chasing the unfeasible (like S.O.S)., look into AMSAT These guys have a real amateur satellite system (over 30 satellites, 20 currently operational) going back 30+ years. Their satellites are 'open source' public designs, garage built (none rejected for failing clean room standards) by volunteers and launched by international cooperation in exchange for their collaboration and expertise. They pioneered some techniques used on commercial satellites today!
Consider contributing your efforts here. This is Linux in space, but with a heck of a track record!
They are a 501(3)(c) certified not-for-profit, so Iridium could conceivably be donated with full tax benefits (if any). And it they decide Iridium is unsalvageable, then you can be sure that it truly is. They have the volunteer/hacker base of regulatory and technical know-how and experience that most of us obviously didn't believe existed.
Iridium or not, doesn't his sound like a group you want to join? (I'm currently working on the details of a proposal to test modern era CPUs in space. Most current space-certified CPUs are ancient - pre286)
(from the web page http://amsat.org/amsat/amsat-na/amhist.html) The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (as AMSAT is officially known) was formed in 1969 as a not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) educational organization chartered in the District of Columbia. Its aim is to foster Amateur Radio's participation in space research and communication. Since that time, other like-minded groups throughout the world have formed to pursue the same goals. Many of these groups share the "AMSAT" name. While the affiliations between the various groups are not formal, they do cooperate very closely with one another. For example, international teams of AMSAT volunteers are often formed to help build each other's space hardware, or to help launch and control each other's satellites. Since the very first OSCAR satellites (OSCAR stands for Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio) were launched in the early 1960s, AMSAT's international volunteers, often working quite literally in their basements and garages, have pioneered a wide variety of new communications technologies that are now taken for granted in the world's satellite marketplace. These breakthroughs have included some of the very first satellite voice transponders as well as highly advanced digital "store-and-forward" messaging transponder techniques. All of these accomplishments have been achieved through close cooperation with international space agencies which often have provided launch opportunities at significantly reduced costs in return for AMSAT's technical assistance in developing new ways to launch paying customers. Spacecraft design, development and construction has also occurred in a fiscal environment of individual AMSAT member donations, thousands of hours of volunteer effort, and the creative use of leftover materials donated from aerospace industries worldwide.
1) The website on AOL is someone paraphrasing De Aquino's work. De Aquino's own website isn't any better, but the papers in peer-review journals seem to be much better. Sometimes any of us can sound like a fool without a good editor.
2) I'm not sure you're interpreting 'gravitational mass' as Aquino intended. Specifically, De Aquino has papers addressing addressing the (non?) equivalence of gravitational and inertial mass (e.g.) as an underpinning of his (her) theories.
3) How do you reconcile the stress tensor and the type of gravitons you espouse (spin = 2, and therefore require quadrupolar transitions to be emitted) with the fact that gravitons must escape from black holes? It would seem that this type of graviton could not (as far as I can tell)? (Yes, gravitons interact with gravity. Hence the fact that gravitational fields have their own 'mass equivalence' induced gravitational fields.)
I've been worried for a long time that GPL has never been tested in the courts. Now I wonder what will happen if Mattel finds a suitably dumb judge (I know they can't exactly pick and choose, but they can revisit the issue in various guises or jurisdictions with successively revised arguments)
However, as the numerous resurgent web hoaxes (like the 'modem tax') have shown:
a) the public at large enjoys panicking, if you can show them a reason why a geek issue affects them;
b) the groundswell is impossible to stomp out;
c) politicians will support the groundswell, even if it is baseless.
If Mattel wins a case in Virginia (where UNITA allowa them to change the license), then we can readily start a campaign against UNITA. Imagine (just imagine, I'm not hinting at anything, and I certainly don't suggest you do so, either) that Microsoft retroactively changes their license to require annual fees on old OS's or to make them effectively illegal to use.
"The Battle of the Desktop" could move our cause to the next phase, and make some copyright issues very real. It's not necessarily the strategy we should pursue, but we better have some contingency plan if GPL is undermined by UNITA,/b>
Here's a webpage (from one of the three websites recommended by Greenglow) that seems to give sufficient details for one of us to try to confirm or deny (one of) the results by Monday.
I bet the materials are gathering dust in countless university labs around the country. It's simple stuff -- not quite Home Depot, but not so terribly far from it, either
One of the aims of this site is to build an index of links to other related Gravitational Physics based resources available on the Web. Please email us the address of sites you think should be on our list.
Send comments or suggestions on this site or the Project's aims to webmaster@greenglow.co.uk
I'm amazed I haven't seen anyone discuss the history of the Japanese patent usage with all the pontificating that's been going on lately here.
The only surprising thing about this 'patent war' is that it seems to have reached the point of actual litigation.
In Japan, companies tend to patent much smaller, details and modificantion than are considered patentable in, say, the US. If you patent a new type of lightbulb, you can expect other companies to patent all sorts of minor modifications to it: your new bulb with different bases, shapes and colors (if they can show a benefit or special application), with multiple filaments, higher output, lower voltage, etc.
50+ years ago, the net effect was to allow them to (in essence) bypass international patents for the domestic market (Okay, GE has the patent on that, but we have the patent on it in green!) This would hold up in a Japanese court -- not that many companies tried to enforce their rights in Japanese courts, it was 'small fry back then'
In time, this also led to a strangling network of interlocking patents. Any big company could push you to license your patents, relse they'd threaten to enforce the myriad tiny patents they or their corporate allies (it was like politics or the schoolyard) held to paralyze you or block your use of your own patent.
Result, lots of sharing and intertwined relationships, which is, of course, how the Japanese preferred to do business, anyway.
Of course, today's geek might be horrified to see the ultimate effect: locking out the little guy. He doesn't have a ton of patents to play the Pokemon Patent Trading Game (TM) (pat pend), so he usually gets bought out, absorbed or ignored (The sea of tiny modifications effectively allow the companies to use his innovation, masked as their own). Their start-up environment is dismal.
Ask anyone who tried to open a Japanese market (or business presence) in the 70's/80's. The culture shock was like a 2x4 to the head. It felt like socially condoned fraud, theft, monopolism, -- and a lot of words I can't print here. Comparisons to the Mafia were common (behind closed doors)
Now the trend in the US seems to be to patent anything that isn't tied down, and lots of things that are. We've seen where this leads. Is it where we really want to go?
There are many proven techniques fot parachutes. On the ultralight I flew (many many moons ago) the prop was wood (birch, I believe) and the parachute had a metal chain that would foul the prop and snap it off. Obviously, you couldn't take off again with replacing the propeller, which was a wee bit harder to come by than 5 gallons of 93 octane
There are parachutes that deploy 'explosively' much like an airbag, and where the guy lines lead to a single pivot chain (like the one you use on a spinner lure when fishing). It's not much like sjy diving - there's no control over where you land.
I've seen parachutes that were post-mounted (above/away from the airframe) and and center mounted (above the rotor shaft) but I don't know how common each o these designs were, nor have I observed a deployment I'm way out of date on this. I went to a skydiving airport a couple of years ago, and I was stunned to see everyone using what we would have called 'flying wings' 15-20 years ago. (back then, we all used round silk chutes, and debated if PIADs (Parachute Inflation Assist Devices - semi-stiff plastic flaps that scooped air into your depolying canopy to help it inflate) really worked. The US military wasn't much better off (though they were using PIADs in 1980)
Dang... 20 years ago... I'm only 37... perils of doing too much, too early, I guess
Slashdot Mirror
They cannot rely on the "open conduit" principle used by ISPs because they specifically stated that the 'kids will be trained' in the danger signs to recognize. As Governor Hunt noted, "This program is more than just a tip line, it teaches students and parents to look for the early signs of violent behavior and to resolve conflicts constructively."
Training children does not automatically induce liability (if it did, few would dare teach anyone anything out of fear that the student might not learn well or might deliberately misuse the knowledge), but the possibility clearly exists
I hate the fact that we live in a litigious society, but note that my examples (below) are just issues of responsibility. Corporations are not people (except in the eyes of the law) so the legal system stands in lieu of many of the elements of societal conditioning and 'conscience' that individuals are expected to have
The WAVE training and hotline will be the equivalent of showing a few Driver's Ed videos in assembly, leaving a Pinkerton car in the parking lot with the keys in the ignition, and telling the kids "it's for you to use only in serious situations."
If anything goes wrong, there will be two or more "innocent" minors involved, a 'beleagered' school, and a Big Corporation. And perhaps third party victims as well. Whatever the details of the case, no lawyer could overlook the deep pockets of the corporation.
There are a hundred issues of access/liability in such an unreliable database: Will they relay all tips blindly? Will they accept responsibility for those they choose to relay? Those that they choose NOT to relay? Will they keep all tips confidential (hiding them from potential victims)? Or does the public have 'a right to know'? Will the info be available freely to law enforcement or only under specific subpoena? Will the 'subject' be told of the detailss of the tip made against him/her? Or will it ne an undefendable slur?
What are the specific criteria for reportable actions? Example: drugs, yes -- but casual use or dealing; and what type of drugs? Tobacco? Alcohol? Only 'illegal' drugs? Oops, sorry, both butts and beers are illegal in this group, and being drunk poses the same dangers as being high when it comes to both violence and lethally poor judgement (e.g. throwing rock off the water tower onto the school yard)
What about pornography? Allegations of danger signs or situations inside the family (physical or sexual abuse -- gee, I guess even the parents aren't safe, after all)? Depression? Sexual activity? Religious beliefs? Political beliefs? (Look out Satanists and neo-Nazis... but also, wiccans, politically active Arab refugees, etc. it doesn't take much to be labeled a potential terrorist or 'cult')
Oh yeah, I'm waiting for Crosstown High's entire football team to be hauled in for questioning the week before the state finals... on a series of tips from Riverdale High. A rumor of last week's kegger is one thing, but with an outside company making the report, the pricipal doesn't dare risk one of the kids getting in a drunk driving accident next month.)
Oh I'm sorry, is this a downer? Is this getting awfully complicated when all you wanted to do was stamp out DOOM players, kids who wear black, freshman whose AP Chemistry scores suggest "more than adequate knowledge to make a bomb" (it happened to me, and the shadow followed me through HS. Funny thing - a senior with the same knowledge would be applauded)
Lord help them if they decide 'on a case-by-case basis'. That's pretty much full liability.
In short. THEY design a system. THEY implement it. THEY are going to have a tough time if something goes wrong. And it WILL, perhaps not because of them, but nonetheless their nose will be inextricably stuck into a situation fraught with inherent perils... with a plan that's untested and has had relatively few man-months of thought. (something with this kind of impact needs tens or hundreds of thousands of man-months of debate -- e.g. a public referendum on the ballot)
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When I read the book, I was amazed by the ease and success with which this man moved between widely disparate fields. While this was common for the great polymaths of past centuries and was probably still possible in England in the mid 20th century (when social contacts were everything -- though they're still pretty bloody important today, in almost any nation) I felt a surge of envy at the 'good old days' for polymaths
But it really did strain credulity that this man knocked Baron von Richthoven out of the sky (Sir Stephenson was an ace, but with, I'm told, 8 kills not 26), helped develop a television system at Bell Labs, was key in developing an Allied jet engine (which didn't fit my recollection of jet engine history), pushed critical military technologies through (like the Spitfire), and kept a full plate of intelligence credits, any one of which would hav earned him a place in history on both sides of the Atlantic.
Clearly he was a major player in Anglo-US intelligence, but a lot of historians dismissed the book as 'historical fiction', and cited very specific objections.
In fairness, I have been told by a friend who keeps up on such things that records declassified in the 80's and 90's offer some justification for some (but not all) of the book's claims. I say "some justification" because the facts still don't quite jibe, but many of the new revelations were surprising enough that they are strong points in the book's favor.
It's fascinating reading, and gets many obscure details exactly right, but it's far from a history text (biographies seldom lack 'spin') and can still be accused of getting significant events quite seriously wrong.
I loved the book, but I was disturbed to hear the original poster claim that reading it mean he probably had his facts straight. The history of debate on this book makes it an unlikely contender for *that* comment
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I hate it when people cite this book without even getting the name of the main character right!
The author of the book is William SteVenson
The main character is William StePHenson
It always makes me worry about how carefully they read the book. When I read it (as a teenager, back in the 70's), the coincidence in names struck me immediately -- it's kind of hard to miss, no?
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This document is a comment on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Public Law 105-304 (1998), specifically the new Chapter 12 to title 17 United States Code, with special attention to section 1201 provides that "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." It is submitted as solicited
A brief review of the comments posted on the official internet site for the initial public comment period, shows that most of the points I intended have been made, and made well, so in the interests of clarity, I will add only two points that I feel deserve special attention, and which fall into my specific expertise.
[list of profesional qualifications deleted]
Though I do not hold these offices or represent these bodies in an offical capacity any longer, my experience in these positions suggest that there is absolutely no question that making access control a matter of 'vendor right' rather than 'user control of data', invites exploitation in ways that are almost impossible for men of good will to conceive.
The Impact of DMCA on Medical Records, Physician Office Management and Patient Care as a Specific Case of a More General Threat
I. Access control of user data
From the time of the first computerized office management systems (through, I imagine, the present), many physicians have found their office billing, scheduling and patient medical record data held hostage by the companies that owned the billing system. This data was deliberately stored in a proprietary format to keep it out of the hands of the physician, effectively holding it hostage. If physicians did not renew annual software license and maintenance contracts with their original vendor, they would lose access to all their data, despite having physical possession of it
The vendor wished to keep the customer, even if the vendor's product did not meet his or her needs; even if licensing fees had become exorbitant; even if another company's product offered improved patient care, better medical record security; etc. One might argue that vendors of inferior software might be especially interested in "locking clients into" their product (even if it were buggy or unreliable) to stay in business.
To change to better software, while retaining the existing data (to ensure best medical care), the physician was forced to hire a programmer to convert the data from the vendor's proprietary format to a public one, such a field delimited text. Numerous court cases were fought, where vendors argued that this conversion was a violation of their proprietary rights. I will not review them, because the details varied greatly.
Under DCMA, the physician would have no such recourse. His/Her data would forever be the possession, though not the property, of the original vendor, to be read only under the terms of the vendor.
This is just a specific case of a general evil of DCMA.
This abuse could be generalized to any form of program that manipulates or alters data (e.g. graphics program, database, word processor, audio 'studio' program, etc.) and stores it in a proprietary format. In each of these cases, the data clearly belongs to the user, not the vendor, yet the vendor controls access under DMCA. This is an implicit threat of most 'shrinkwrap licenses', come to life: "This program is not warranted for suitability for any specific user purpose, or any general purpose, whatsoever."
When combined with the 'license change' provision of UCITA (below) this creates horrific scenarios.
II. DMCA in conjunction with UCITA
It should also be noted that under the provisions of UCITA (which has already been passed in at least one state, Virginia, and is pending in many others), a vendor may change the terms of licensing, and the new license would apply to grantees under the old license. That is to say, that if a vendor license grants certain rights, the license may later be altered, and the granted rights lost.
Even id a vendor granted usage rights in perpetuity (e.g. allowing a physician to use the program to read the data stored in the proprietary format forever), he can now alter the license to revoke that grant. Under UCITA alone, this only prevented the physician from using the licensed program, but under DMCA, it would permanently ban his/her access to the data. In short, the vendor is granted rights. It also means that formats that are licensed for free public use under explicit licenses such as the GPL (Gnu Public License) could be converted to proprietary licenses at some later data. This would be a data boobytrap for even the most conscientious physician seeking to protect his/her access to his/her data.
The very review process to which this comment is being submitted accepts Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Word 7.0 or older, Rich Text Format (RTF) submissions as MIME attachments, but not a plain text e-mail. Please be warned that if DMCA were in effect, and this comment were initially read in a Virginia office, the owner of these file format could alter their license to deny you the right to open this document, to convert it to another format, or perhaps even to transmit it to another jurisdiction like DC, where the 'access control' could be circumvented. They could even argue that hardcopy created with their word processor, and without their express license (revocable at their will, under UCITA) is a violation.
Today, few documents are created by hand or manual typewriter from inception to final form. Access control can become very effective censorship on any subject.
Companies will and do censor criticism. Earlier this week, Mattel used DMCA to block distribution of a free program that allowed users to see data (stored on their own hard drive) which revealed that a Mattel consumer software program did not function effectively at its intended purpose. Mattel obtained an injunction on the basis that that data was stored in a file on the user's computer in a proprietary format, and acknowledged that it would harm their business if users could read it.
Access control can also be used to co-opt the property rights of any user. Most major graphics, audio, and work processing programs are stored in a proprietary file during the work process of creating a work, and only converted to exportable 'open' form on request. Under DMCA (especially in a UCITA state) any such program could begin to charge me fees to export, distribute or use my own work product.
I have heard testimony from physicians whose data has been held hostage, and read accounts of many more cases. Medical software vendors who invariably advertises the life-saving benefits of instant access to patient data will lock data knowing the effects are potentially lethal (in an ER there may be only minutes to determine previous drug reactions, allergies, and medical history). Put bluntly, though I know of no specific cases, it is easy to see that deaths may already have occurred due to this practice.
I think it is clear that less dramatic abuses of the principle of 'access control' will be the rule, rather than the exception. Why would it not? Access Control will be a legal right, arguably not an abuse at all.
CONCLUSION:
Please do not assume this provision of DMCA is simply about CDs and pirated videotapes. Its consequences could reach deep into you own family at any time, with tragic results.
Freedom of information is among the founding liberties of this nation, and rightfully so. When access to information is controlled, much else is controlled besides. We must act with utmost caution in this area.
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There's just one generalizable example of the half dozen broad abuses that just occurred to me in five minute's thought: word processors (and other output producing programs like studio, graphics, or databases). Until now, the 'work product' has always separate from the software that made it. However now MS could decide (retroactively) that documents produced with MS-Word could only be viewed with MS-Word, and that conversion to other formats (including printed output for use by anyone except the licensed user) is a 'circumvention of their access control', They could also revoke the license to their public viewers, like Wordpad.
Rrsult: Better hope you had a straight text copy of your Great American Novel and Monday's Big Presentation. Or your company database. Because the word Processor could steal some very major rights to your use of your own work. You wouldn't be able to send your word-processed novel to the publisher, even in hardcopy (e.g. King w/ Glassbook) etc. or allow public access to your previously accessible database-generated data without a specific negotiated license from the publisher. Who cares if you bought the word processor or database to specifically do these things and that you've been doing them for decades? Read your Shrinkwrap licence: the program is not guaranteed to be suitable for any specific purpose. You knew it. Everyone knew it. We all laughed at it. It's been in the SWL for decades. No excuses.
This is not outlandish. This exact thing happened with many medical office administration programs in the 70's/80's/90's. Physicians could not access their own office/billing data or their patient medical info unless they renewed their contract with the original software company. [And a court ruled that booting a proprietary program to erase it or to retrieve/convert the data was unauthorize d access. Fortunately, you *could* remove the hard drive and have a programmer read/convert it on his system. Under DMCA, even this would be illegal!)
There are many similar, more public examples of brazen corporate greed: the sudden demand for licensing fees for usage of GIFs is a very recent one. In short, when they figure out they can do this, the only thing that would stop them would be fear of angering enough people to cause a change in the law -- and even then, they might decide to draw a year or two of profit, since if they didn't risk overturning the apple cart, they'd be left out in the cold when some other company overturned the apple cart. [i.e. MS would 'seize control' of all MS-Word docs, though a new laws would surely be passed in a year or so, because if MS didn't, they'd lose the rights in a year or two anyway, when WordPerfect or Star triggered the backlash]
I don't know how I could have missed this implication (I was deeply involved in physician data issue on a high level many years ago), but I guess we'll be stumbling across unintended consequnces for years
[or is it actually 'unintended'? Whether this specific strategy is planned or not, there's no question that the industry would like nothing more than full control on a pay-per-view basis of all media. Should we be surprised that disparate elements directed at a common end can combine to further that end in unexpected ways? ]
Unfortunately, there is no safe way to change intellectual laws quickly. We'd have to institute a moratorum so that each major change (e.g. DMCA) could be understood and explored in the coursts before the next change (e.g. UCITA) was passed.
And I'd have to admit, in that case, justice defered would be justice denied.
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After all, like the only man to ever use nukes for their intended purpose said: "If you can't stand the hits, get off of my keychain"
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My concern is primarily about the effect on investors (and the general industry) that could be caused by a lack of uncerstand ing of the accounting practices outlined in the article cited at the beginning of the thread.
I don't want to press this issue except to say that I do not understand your definition of fundamentals. That term was once used strictly, and was calculated by the 'technical analysis' you disparage. Now 'fundamentals' is used to mean something very loose and intuitive, and technical analysis is often used to mean meaningless short-term number crunching, often used in an attempt to time the market. I think most people who use the words today don't *have* a strict definition of either.
The data is there. the accounting practices are extreme by industry standards (what other company MS's size accounts their stock option this way?) Therefore, I worry that the usual 'quickie indices like P/E or profit are misleading for MS. That's why I think volatility will enhanced if there is a downturn.
There are solid issues here. I'm pointing, not prognosticating. let those who read the article decide if they were already aware of these factors -- and if they weren't, then they couldn't possibly have factored them into their decisions.
"Fundamentals" are not the opposite of hard numbers, they are the basic underlying hard numbers. the website this article came from is a major proponent of fundamentals. That's why they not only mention the MS stock buybacks, you mentioned, but gave the numbers: $3B in 1999 vs. $60B in outstanding employee stock options exercised -- $9B this year alone (a mere mitigating factor). MS, as most investors know, has over $650B in outstanding stock overall. $3B is a sneeze.
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Basically, Microsoft is getting their employees to pay them to buy stock. There's no Ponzi scheme here, though.
"Ponzi scheme" is of course a deliberate overstatement, with humorous intent, however, I don't think the sistuation is as benign as you represent it.
First off, they are not "getting them to buy stock", they are offering stock options as a major part of the compensation package -- i.e. "Instead of $150K cash, we'll give you $90K in cash and $70K in stock options" (e.g. he can buy $70K in stock for $10K. The article said 'tiny fraction of the stock price' without specifying. I estimate a 7:1 option from the option and tax figures)
Using these made-up numbers, here's how it works:
MS saves $40K in cash (increased profit) $60K
MS counts the $10K the employee pays to
exercise the option as MS income $10K
(that's in the article)
MS deducts 35% of 70K from its Fed taxes $24.5K
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$94.5K
MS gets a $150K programmer for (150-94.5 = 53.5K)
(don't you wish you could do that!)
Employee gets: $90K cash
70K of rising stock
spends: (10K)
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$150K and rising.
If the stock is rising, he hangs on to the stock, MS gets a bargain, and the employee gets richer. When the stock is falling, the employee must sell immediately to collect $148k instead of $150K. This pushes MS stock down ($9 billion more MS stock per year being actively pushed onto the market is is a huge downward force.)
Then maybe (as you say) the programmer starts looking for a place he can get more cash up front, or where a rising stock makes the option more valuable. Not immediately, as you say, but...
The 'margin loans' are a kicker. These guys live on money borrowed against their stock option -- saving themselves huge top bracket income tax until they sell, and are taxed at the capital gains rate. But why sell at all, when their stock is rising?
When it starts falling, they have to sell -- and fast, which makes the stock drop faster. That's tens of billions in stock that have to be sold pronto! (if the market could absorb that, the price would be higher!)
The 700 million in 'puts' becomes a tremendous liability. They'd force MS to buy back its stock at more than the market price (since the stock is falling) Either MS quits selling them (making MS stock less attractive, so it falls more) or MS loses money if the puts are exercised. Subtract 700M income or incur huge expense, take you pick.
Institutional holders like MS, but they will have an obligation to partially liquidate. Remember, we are talking 5.5 giga-shares (5.5x10^9 shares) worth almost 600 billion dollars.
Microsoft's employees won't all go broke when Microsoft stock starts to fall. They're still getting cash salaries. They just won't become millionaires as they do today.
They are being paid "mediocre at best" (from the article); the millionaires are people who got in a long time ago, under more favorable conditions, and also have *many* years of cumulative stock options.
When Microsoft's stock starts to fall, they may find it harder to hire good people. But that will take a long time to affect the company--we're not talking about any sort of crash.
it's generally agreed that MS is an unpleasant plkace to work. it's even more unpleasant to be bought by - see Cringeley- and that was where they got most of their new product. it'll be a lot harder to keep up with mediocre new programmers, far fewere willing sellers (the purchase targets aren't IPO'd; there are no stockholder pressures) from which to buy new technologies/features!
Sensible investors understand how Microsoft manages their stock options.
Sensible ones do -- but most aren't that knowledgable.
They then look at Microsoft's monopoly and conclude that the company is likely to do pretty well in any case.
For every transaction, there's a buyer and a seller, Someone who want's to get in and someone who wants to get out.
MS may look like a good deal when it's rising, but a lousy deal when it's falling. It happens all the time. it's the rule not the exception. Your statement that "investors like it" is *equivalent* to "the stock is rising" and will no longer be valid if it falls for more than a short period.
Am I trying to scare people out of MS? Heck no. All I said is "if you're interested, look at the article"
It suggests that without the stock options, MS would not be posting the profits that are a big part of the reason they look good to investors. And without looking good to investors the stock options won't work very well. That's my concern.
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In other words, PicoSofts (micro-Microsofts) would have to compete against each other, just as the rest of the market would comepete against them.
I would be skeptical of this possibility, but we did somehow manage this with the RBOCs/baby Bells (it was a hassle, but it worked)
However, dividing MS along strictly functional lines would probably have the problems people have described, because Win9x does not compete with NT or Office or MSIE etc.
So how do we divide it along non-function lines? How do we create competing teams and projects working on the same problems. It seemed a nightmare, until it hit me: Regional Microsofts.
That's obviously not the answer. MS is not uniformly distributed across the states as a corporate entity (unlike the Bell system). Still, it was the first glimmer of a manageable breakup strategy I'd seen.
Think about it, if you wanted to split a person, you wouldn't split the kidneys from the liver, etc. You'd split the liver, give each progeny one kidney, lung, etc... then let them live independently
(thinks back on Gross Anatomy and all those exotic surgeries we did in third year pig lab... and gets immmediate headache from trying to make this analogy work)
Okay... I know someone else out there can come up with a better division strategy that doesn't just slice along non-competing product lines. Remember, division for it's own sake won't serve us here. If we divide (and I'm not saying we should) we need to divide well -- for competition.
They are charged with anti-competitive practices, after all
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I don't think that the Unices would be in as good a position today, if we'd continued the trend of the early 80's: even "PC clones" weren't entirely compatible. Apple, Atari, Amiga, etc. were fine hardware, but can you imagine a market with 5-6 primary architectures (and their clones) with 10-20% share each?
Does anyone remember when the exciting 'intercompatibility' technology was the 'emulator board' (basically an entirely separate processor, on a limited motherboard, communicating over a peripheral bus). I shudder to think how easily this could have remained widespread, despite its many drawbacks. [Internetworking full-featured machines would not be a viable alternative to slot-cards, because few small shops or SOHO's would want to support many very different platforms and their associated OS's]
Today's desktop market of a single overwhelmingly common general architecture provides a single large market for initial development, which actually helps cross-platform development more than 5 disparate platforms with 20% market share. Even when hampered by legacy hardware support (e.g. ISA) these desktops function well into the 'big iron range' (SMP quad PIII/K7 1GHz; server farms; Beowulf).
OS legacy support of hardware (CPUs) has served us well, even if we may choose not to keep that as a primary feature of our OS's. A low end pentium server can be bought for $50, minus HDD or maybe RAM. I bought 2 in the past month for my home LAN. Time to let go of 386/486 (except as hobbies), not because of a lack of capacity for special tasks, but because of cheaper easier alternatives.
But I'm glad things were backwards compatible while they were. It made things a lot easier.
I am pleased that the Unices (and others will follow) are returning to re-compiling to suitm hardware, but I admit the binary-only era that actually *did* make life easier as we transitioned into a era of widespread computing.
Look, it's been a long, crazy ride. There have been some dark chapters, and some of us have lost our hair unnecessarily, but...
You know, things didn't work out half-bad.
Of course, in a few years it'll all fragment. Let it. We've learned some things along the way, and we're better suited to face it now. We've got a lot of experience, and solved a lot of problems. Now we can face the next set of 'needlessly irritating, suboptimal solutions to fundametal problems' and curse compilers instead of installers -- or whatever we'll be doing.
That *is* part of the fun, after all.
Smile. if you didn't enjoy the hassles, you probably wouldn't be
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Most of their so-called 'profits' are really just wages deferred as stock options, and the funds MS collects when employees collect them, reported as income (Yes, they found a way to move employees and benefits from debits to credits!)
Here' s a fairly well written, clear description of the practice
This will certainly make it interesting when the Ponzi scheme unravels and MS stock prices suffer their first real sustained decline.
Considering how many outstanding shares there are in institutional holding, and how the scheme only works in a steadily climbing stock... we could be looking at the Big Dump
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...drove users to needlessly upgrade
...drove developers to write programs that did the same
...made insecure computing so real that it might never be so ignored again.
To the company whose inefficient OS
...created massive demand for faster/better hardware
...which spurred the hardware makers to develop and introduce faster
(when profiting from established products had always been more prudent)
...which drove prices down on the the new and supposedly-obsolete alike
Leading to Horror That Ruled The Earth
and will someday fall,
...leaving an Open Source movement that is something more than a extremist corner of geekdom
...leaving lots of cheap, perfectly good, but 'outdated' hardware (and the will to turn them to clever uses)
...leaving a hardware highwater mark might not otherwise have reached (or needed) so soon
...and a better chance for a new beginning
...and a memory of a cautionary chapter that may make us wiser
May this toast help us remember MS fondly if it falls, and console our sorrows if it doesn't
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In penance for my lack of clarity, I looked up the specifications for their next satellite (launching in July on an Ariane 5)
It's interesting reading, but I won't quote it here, to avoid boring those who don't care.
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...buyer pays actual delivery costs.
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I was trying to get some specs for the satellite transmitters and earth-based phone units (after all, they are going to be flooding the market now -- I *have* to check out the hacking potential)
... when I encountered This list of two dozen mobile satellite comm services coming on line in 2000 (three are already live).
I figure others might find this information as interesting as I did.
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Imagine what they could do with some extra volunteer manpower, and a few of those IPO millions. Alas, it woul certainly overload the day after it was announced on
Aside from the technical prospects, the symbolism is absolutely not to be overlooked. If I were an IPO or public cause looking for a real show-stopper, I might consider funding...
Space station L1nus? [that's "L1"]
The GNU Frontier?
Heck, I'd settle for Space:1999 OSR2!
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Before chasing the unfeasible (like S.O.S)., look into AMSAT These guys have a real amateur satellite system (over 30 satellites, 20 currently operational) going back 30+ years. Their satellites are 'open source' public designs, garage built (none rejected for failing clean room standards) by volunteers and launched by international cooperation in exchange for their collaboration and expertise. They pioneered some techniques used on commercial satellites today!
Consider contributing your efforts here. This is Linux in space, but with a heck of a track record!
They are a 501(3)(c) certified not-for-profit, so Iridium could conceivably be donated with full tax benefits (if any). And it they decide Iridium is unsalvageable, then you can be sure that it truly is. They have the volunteer/hacker base of regulatory and technical know-how and experience that most of us obviously didn't believe existed.
Iridium or not, doesn't his sound like a group you want to join? (I'm currently working on the details of a proposal to test modern era CPUs in space. Most current space-certified CPUs are ancient - pre286)
(from the web page http://amsat.org/amsat/amsat-na/amhist.html)
The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (as AMSAT is officially known) was formed in 1969 as a not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) educational organization chartered in the District of Columbia. Its aim is to foster Amateur Radio's participation in space research and communication. Since that time, other like-minded groups throughout the world have formed to pursue the same goals. Many of these groups share the "AMSAT" name. While the affiliations between the various groups are not formal, they do cooperate very closely with one another. For example, international teams of AMSAT volunteers are often formed to help build each other's space hardware, or to help launch and control each other's satellites.
Since the very first OSCAR satellites (OSCAR stands for Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio) were launched in the early 1960s, AMSAT's international volunteers, often working quite literally in their basements and garages, have pioneered a wide variety of new communications technologies that are now taken for granted in the world's satellite marketplace. These breakthroughs have included some of the very first satellite voice transponders as well as highly advanced digital "store-and-forward" messaging transponder techniques. All of these accomplishments have been achieved through close cooperation with international space agencies which often have provided launch opportunities at significantly reduced costs in return for AMSAT's technical assistance in developing new ways to launch paying customers. Spacecraft design, development and construction has also occurred in a fiscal environment of individual AMSAT member donations, thousands of hours of volunteer effort, and the creative use of leftover materials donated from aerospace industries worldwide.
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1) The website on AOL is someone paraphrasing De Aquino's work. De Aquino's own website isn't any better, but the papers in peer-review journals seem to be much better. Sometimes any of us can sound like a fool without a good editor.
2) I'm not sure you're interpreting 'gravitational mass' as Aquino intended. Specifically, De Aquino has papers addressing addressing the (non?) equivalence of gravitational and inertial mass (e.g.) as an underpinning of his (her) theories.
3) How do you reconcile the stress tensor and the type of gravitons you espouse (spin = 2, and therefore require quadrupolar transitions to be emitted) with the fact that gravitons must escape from black holes? It would seem that this type of graviton could not (as far as I can tell)? (Yes, gravitons interact with gravity. Hence the fact that gravitational fields have their own 'mass equivalence' induced gravitational fields.)
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However, as the numerous resurgent web hoaxes (like the 'modem tax') have shown:
a) the public at large enjoys panicking, if you can show them a reason why a geek issue affects them;
b) the groundswell is impossible to stomp out;
c) politicians will support the groundswell, even if it is baseless.
If Mattel wins a case in Virginia (where UNITA allowa them to change the license), then we can readily start a campaign against UNITA. Imagine (just imagine, I'm not hinting at anything, and I certainly don't suggest you do so, either) that Microsoft retroactively changes their license to require annual fees on old OS's or to make them effectively illegal to use.
"The Battle of the Desktop" could move our cause to the next phase, and make some copyright issues very real. It's not necessarily the strategy we should pursue, but we better have some contingency plan if GPL is undermined by UNITA,/b>
"Grovelworm! Prepare a meme based on Good Times!"
"Yes, Your Effulgence!"
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Here's a webpage (from one of the three websites recommended by Greenglow) that seems to give sufficient details for one of us to try to confirm or deny (one of) the results by Monday.
I bet the materials are gathering dust in countless university labs around the country. It's simple stuff -- not quite Home Depot, but not so terribly far from it, either
http://members.aol.com/jnaudin509/systemg/html/
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I'd share what it said... namely very little.
Welcome to Project Greenglow
[Logo] [ydot]What is Project GREENGLOW?
[ydot]Future plans for the Greenglow web site
One of the aims of this site is to build an index of links to other related
Gravitational Physics based resources available on the Web. Please email us
the address of sites you think should be on our list.
Send comments or suggestions on this site or the Project's aims to
webmaster@greenglow.co.uk
Related Subject Links
NASA.. Break Through Propulsion Physics
Quantum Cavorite
Electrogravity
Last Modified 5th July 1999
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Oh dear. Then I must have hallucinated 25 years of flame wars on USENET.
I hate it when that happens.
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The only surprising thing about this 'patent war' is that it seems to have reached the point of actual litigation.
In Japan, companies tend to patent much smaller, details and modificantion than are considered patentable in, say, the US. If you patent a new type of lightbulb, you can expect other companies to patent all sorts of minor modifications to it: your new bulb with different bases, shapes and colors (if they can show a benefit or special application), with multiple filaments, higher output, lower voltage, etc.
50+ years ago, the net effect was to allow them to (in essence) bypass international patents for the domestic market (Okay, GE has the patent on that, but we have the patent on it in green!) This would hold up in a Japanese court -- not that many companies tried to enforce their rights in Japanese courts, it was 'small fry back then'
In time, this also led to a strangling network of interlocking patents. Any big company could push you to license your patents, relse they'd threaten to enforce the myriad tiny patents they or their corporate allies (it was like politics or the schoolyard) held to paralyze you or block your use of your own patent.
Result, lots of sharing and intertwined relationships, which is, of course, how the Japanese preferred to do business, anyway.
Of course, today's geek might be horrified to see the ultimate effect: locking out the little guy. He doesn't have a ton of patents to play the Pokemon Patent Trading Game (TM) (pat pend), so he usually gets bought out, absorbed or ignored (The sea of tiny modifications effectively allow the companies to use his innovation, masked as their own). Their start-up environment is dismal.
Ask anyone who tried to open a Japanese market (or business presence) in the 70's/80's. The culture shock was like a 2x4 to the head. It felt like socially condoned fraud, theft, monopolism, -- and a lot of words I can't print here. Comparisons to the Mafia were common (behind closed doors)
Now the trend in the US seems to be to patent anything that isn't tied down, and lots of things that are. We've seen where this leads. Is it where we really want to go?
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There are many proven techniques fot parachutes. On the ultralight I flew (many many moons ago) the prop was wood (birch, I believe) and the parachute had a metal chain that would foul the prop and snap it off. Obviously, you couldn't take off again with replacing the propeller, which was a wee bit harder to come by than 5 gallons of 93 octane
... perils of doing too much, too early, I guess
.sig: Join AMSAT
There are parachutes that deploy 'explosively' much like an airbag, and where the guy lines lead to a single pivot chain (like the one you use on a spinner lure when fishing). It's not much like sjy diving - there's no control over where you land.
I've seen parachutes that were post-mounted (above/away from the airframe) and and center mounted (above the rotor shaft) but I don't know how common each o these designs were, nor have I observed a deployment
I'm way out of date on this. I went to a skydiving airport a couple of years ago, and I was stunned to see everyone using what we would have called 'flying wings' 15-20 years ago. (back then, we all used round silk chutes, and debated if PIADs (Parachute Inflation Assist Devices - semi-stiff plastic flaps that scooped air into your depolying canopy to help it inflate) really worked. The US military wasn't much better off (though they were using PIADs in 1980)
Dang... 20 years ago... I'm only 37
My new
Trust me...
.sig: Join AMSAT
Anyone past the third year of medical school looks forward to this a lot less than even you do!
My new