Of course you realise that ST:TOS was exactly the same sort of propaganda. Folks just don't realize it because when we watch it now most of the more controversial 'lessons' from the sixties no longer seem controversial. Because the liberals won those issues, largely through the use of propaganda in the mass media like _Star Trek_. Not saying it was a good or bad thing, just wanting people to realize why B&B think they can get away with what they are doing.
Amen to that! Picard committed a crime there. Pinheaded adherence to a rulebook's letter instead of the spirit is what caused his failure. But what possible justification can Cpt. Archer give for his attempt to render a sentient spacefaring species extinct in _Dear Doctor_?
It is still a free market in as much as yo can buy unencumbered printers. Even if Best Buy (fill in your local superstore) stops carrying them, get online and buy a printer, not a 'long term relationship' with HP.
Canon still sells ink jet printers without any BS, you just have to pay a little more up front to make up for the fact that they aren't selling the printer as a loss leader to drive ink sales.
And if you don't need color, buy an OKI laser (ok, LED printer) where you don't get screwed on buying a new drum with every toner refill.
Consumers can kill off products that we decide are clearly not in our interest. Remember DIVX? (Not the video codec.) We have not lost this fight yet.
While most people are idiots, there are enough clueful people to keep companies like Okidata in business. If you need a dot matrix printer, buy OKI. They are cheap to operate and run forever. If you need a laser, buy an OKI. They still use toner tanks instead of toner+drum carts so they are dirt cheap to operate and again, they run forever.
Granted that an HP laser will also pretty much run forever, but the cost per page is several times greater.
Good point. But I'd get root on the machine and look around. If your idiot is on the console you can rm -rf his happy ass without a twitch of conscience. And if it is just another owned machine you could leave the owner a note. Safest would be to dump a page out of the system's printer so nothing is there for the kiddie to find.
Oh it isn't that bad. Pull the network plug and clean up the mess. Preserve the corrupted files for later and restore from your backup. (you DO have a backup, right?) and then use the RPM database to verify all of your binaries to make sure you weren't owned when you made the backup. Verifying the critical files against the installation media will ensure against a trojaned rpm/database.
Then once you are clean again, examine the saved files and try to figure out how they got in. Learn from your mistake and carry on.
Happened to me a couple of times, usually when I make a mistake in configuration or don't keep up with the errata. Yes I'd like to connect electrodes to the script kiddies testicles, but it really isn't something to get bent overly out of shape over either.
Sure it holds water. A Mac 10 is ntended to kill people, but that isn't the same thing as murder. Guns can be used in moral (and out here in flyover country, even legal) ways. Killing a home invader is perfectly ok in my moral code.
And remember that the 2nd Amendment was not about protecting your right to kill Bambi. It was all about us being able to defend ourselves against a government gone bad. The Founding Fathers were very distrusting of all government, even one they built. And like a strong military deters foreign aggression, just having large quantities of military grade arms in private hands tends to deter governments such that the odds of actually needing a revolution is lowered.
Remember the old axiom: If you would have peace, know war.
Hmm. Unless they are planning to call this Debian GNU/NetBSD they had damn well better remove the wretched GNU/ from GNU/Linux. If Linux plus the GNU compiler chain justifies claiming ownership of Linus's work then their 'logic' also requires them to attempt to claim BSD once Debian is running on it.
At the time the book was written UNIX and the Internet were, for all intents and purposes, one and the same. Since Mosiac was ported to Windows that has been changing, many would say for the worse.
Nice idea perhaps, but you must live in the United States. Please remember the millions of us unfortunates living in the Occupied Territories[1] are forbidden by our masters in Washington to impose a literacy test as a condition of voting.
At any rate, while there is merit to your suggestion, the devil is i the details. Both major parties would game the rules to exclude as many of their opponents as possible and I can't come up with any rules that could prevent it.
Personally I'd prefer a poll tax. Revise the Constituition to strike XXIV and allow a poll tax again except with some sort of hard limit to prevent it becoming so high as to make voting reserved to country club Republicans and hollywood Democrats. But a poll tax would serve to discourage the disinterested/uneducated from voting while avoiding the problems inherent in "who writes the test".
Collect the tax at the point of registration for voting, not at the poll itself. This would have two positive benefits. It would eliminate the temptation to have lots of little single issue elections where only the people who stand to benefit would pay to vote and make it a lot harder for Democrats to bus in a load of homeless to districts where they need a little extra boost.
[1] The so called Voting Rights Act is patently unconstituitional, which is why Congress didn't even suggest imposing it on the US, only on us provisional citizens in the Occupied Territories, which are still being ruled under special "Reconstruction" laws almost 150 years after being conquered and forced to join the Union.
Nope, the law recognizes a difference between wholesale and retail sales. It isn't 'sold' until an end user takes possession. That is why it is a EULA (End User License Agreement) in the first place. Of course the law also recognizes the difference between a sale and a contract and unless you are buying a site license you are BUYING the product and are free to ignore the EULA unless you need some permission it grants you above and beyond the rights and restrictions embodied in the copyright laws of your jurisdiction.
Not to be pendantic or anything, but the GPL only covers the act of redistribution. If you don't make copies and pass them on, the GPL doesn't apply to you. It is just that without accepting the GPL you can't redistribute without running afoul of copyright law.
> Think "Gun control" for a hard problem. (Philosophically, > increased accountability for firearm use may render it a simple > problem, but such rational approaches have not been socially > accepted on a wide scale, so the problem remains "hard").
Actually that is one of the easy ones. Either you believe the State exists as a creature of the People or you believe the People exist to serve the State. If it is all about We The People then you have to believe that a people that can be trusted to wield the awesome powers and responsibilities required of a Free People can be trusted with personal arms. On the other hand, if you believe the People are wards of the State, to be dealt with at the pleasure of an elite Ruling Class (the State) then they probably shouldn't even be entrusted with sharp objects. Hmm.... we are searching little old ladies for nail clippers at airports so I think I see which way America has turned.
What you are talking about is getting real close to a "pure democracy." Sorry, but I think the US Founding Fathers were spot on when they said democracy was a terrible idea. Democracy is 51 people voting to piss in the corn flakes of th4 49 and expecting the 49 to say "OK, it was a fair vote, piss away" instead of grabbing their sporting goods.
That is why our government is a Republic constrained by a Constituition. Of course there isn't much left of the limits built into the original system, but inflicting further damage won't get applause from me.
Sounds like you are thinking pretty hard on the political issues, but still need a nudge to come on over to the light side.:)
> one which Libertarians (for all I disagree with their > "capitalism ueber alles" mentality) are very correct in > pointing out: there exists among both liberals and > conservatives the notion that it is appropriate and good > to use governmental power to coerce the other side into > abiding by one's own personal views on what is right or wrong.
Here you almost hit enlightenment, but shied away at the last moment. Embrace it! You admit that both major parties seek to use the power of government to coerce people to follow their moral code, see it is a bad thing but reject Libertarianism because they depend of capitalism. If the government is not going to regulate people, then what? Capitalism (not the mercantilism we are currently practicing) is nothing more or less than people settling their affairs peacably through the power of the free market.
> Liberals generally want to abridge the second amendment.
Agreed, but ask why they fear your gun but don't fear the same gun in the hand of one of their jack booted goons. Because they desire to control you, and because they fear you.
Both parties kowtow to hollywood, but for different reasons. Dems do so because of the money, pure and simple. Repubs do so because they think it is good for the economy. They might talk a good free market, but all too many are mercantilists who want a managed economy.
And on a side note, and at the risk of starting the mother of all flame wars.....
> Conservatives want to take away a woman's right to choose.
No they don't. Both sides are using misleading language tricks though.
It can't be about "Choice". It is a null argument because to allow the debate to be about a "woman's right to choose" presupposes that it isn't a person. And if we aren't talking about a person there really isn't much of a "Choice" to get all worked up about now is there?
The other side is just as bad. You can't accept their debating position of "Pro Life" without conceding that it IS a debate about killing a baby. At which point the end result is a given since there aren't going to be too many lining up on the "Anti-life" or "Pro Death" side of the fence.
The question both sides dance around; the question for society to answer, and answer it must, is when is a new "Citizen" created. Of course the first question is does the Federal Government have the right to decide that for the states? (I'd say no, which means Roe was a bad decision.) Should the Constituition be amended to codify a national consensus once/if one is reached?
> As much as I dislike clickthru EULA agreements they are > perfectly valid.
No they aren't. Unless you live in Virgina they aren't worth the paper they are printed on. Don't believe the Big Lie.
> I hate to say it but people that complain about an EULA, > should also complain about GPL, and other source code > licenses.
Wrong. The GPL is NOT a EULA. A EULA attempts to remove rights that a user has under copyright law and the first sale doctrine. The GPL is an optional license that grants permissions above and beyond what ordinary copyright law would allow. There is no requirement to accept the GPL in order to make full use of a package. However unless you do accept the terms and conditions of the GPL you are forbidden by copyright law from redistribution.
> Supporting applications under WINE by omission of comment by > Microsoft would be tacitly granting that it's perfectly OK > to reverse engineer Windows.
They have no legal right to control the uses people make of their software other than to expect the protections of copyright law. A copyright holder cannot regulate what the owner of a copy does except to forbid copies (with certain exemptions and conditions such as Fair Use, etc... consult a lawyer in your jurisdiction, blah blah) and often they can forbid "public exhibition' of the work, but that probably doesn't apply to most computer programs.
For example, when I bought a copy of the new Harry Potter DVD last week AOL Time Warner can not control the brand of DVD player I stick it in. They can't even legally stop me from playing it with Xine. (The DVD Copy Control Assoc is trying to say I can't use Xine because it contains DeCSS to decrypt the movie, but that is another futile argument the industry is going to lose in the end.)
Now when we consider the current story of Microsoft Visual Foxpro we can apply the same reasoning and determine that Microsoft can not dictate the platform a user "plays" their copy of Foxpro on. Where they might get a bit of traction is in the details of their redistribution clause where they grant developers permission to redistribute the runtime to their customers. Haven't dug through it enough to offer an opinon and not being a lawyer I'd probbaly be a bit scared to offer one even if I'd read it for an hour or two. But if it is a GPL like grant of additional rights above and beyond copyright then you might be considered to have accepted it by redistributing the runtime.
> I agree with the rest of your post, but the basis for the > legality of EULAs is that you are creating a copy of the > work when you install it (or copy it into memory), I think.
Nah, you can make as many copies of a copyrighted work as you please for your OWN personal use. And there was a special addendum/clarification to copyright law regarding computers, backups and working copies back in the late 70s. (Not being a lawyer type I can't quote an official cite or know now many times the congresscritters have changed it since then.)
Basically, unless you get EULAed before FRNs changes hands, ignore it.
There is a middle ground you do realize. I download and I buy. I tend to download the things I can't get any legit way.
For example, I am a big South Park fan but until two months ago our cable system didn't carry Comedy Central. So I have a complete set of divx files (except for ep614 dammit) through the end of season 6. But I haven't been in much of a hurry to go searching for season 7 because I have been in front of the TV on Wed night, now that I can. And I have the first season box set (with the commentary CDs since I ordered direct from Comedy Central) and will be in the pre-order list for Season 2 this summer. So do I feel the slightest twinge of guilt about having the DIVX collection? Not a bit. No different that if I'd asked a friend/relative in an area with Comedy Central to send me video tapes.
A better reason to unload em is that they have lots of downside and darned little upside. Think it through. Their stock has been stagnant for several years and their whole business model is predicated on ever increasing revenues leading to an ever increasing stock price. The rising stock price allowed them to fund the bulk of their payroll with ever increasing stock options. Those options ain't worth shit these days and I'd bet it would take a couple of years back on the gravy train for the jaded rank & filers there to believe in becoming a millionare through options.
Then there is the revenue problem. Once you are a monopoly there isn't much room to increase revenue through increasing market share and the natives are already restless after their first attempt to squeeze more money from their installed base with Licensing 6.0. So if revenue is going to be flat/down the only option left is greater efficency.
But not at Microsoft because they are already too good in that dept. Their cost to produce the next rev of Windows or Office is already close to nill per copy so half of almost nill wouldn't make a big difference. Cut marketing and they are toast since the bulk of what they write off as marketing is shady deals to enforce the monopoly.
That leaves their rightly feared cash horde. They can cause much mischief with that stash, but if you are expecting that to prop up their stock value you should think again. Exercise for the student: Go to your fav stock info site and find the number of shares of common stock outstanding and divide it into the approx $40 gigabux they claim in cash and short term investments. They have split their stock so many times that even 40 bil gets watered down real heavy.
Are they doomed? Not likely, they long ago passed the size where a company is too big to be allowed to fail. But as IBM was once the mighty titan that dictated terms to the entire technology industry, Microsoft will also pass into being one among many peers.
Nah, unless you have been living in a cave the past five years you already have heard of Linux. The next big thing could be enabled by the OSS/FS wave though, much like the Internet couldn't have happened without cheap computers with decent graphics and connectivity.
> How about human hibernation. That way we can sleep through > the next slump.
Well that is one way..... if we knew how to do it. Of course if you can work out the details you just found the next Big Thing so you would get stay awake and get filthy rich freezing us poor schmucks.
Yea, because all those devices are now working and everyone understands them. But if you are foolish to think we have hit the end of development in IT you should find a new field. Something new, strange and must have will appear in a couple of years. It always does, and when it shows up everyone will start buying and hiring again.
Bill Gates might be evil but nobody thinks he is stupid and yet he missed the importance of the Internet until it was almost too late. Events like that have happened several times in this industry and history hasn't stopped. And it will probably be NOW, while the world is worrying about other 'important' things that the next world shaking invention is working it's way out a garage somewhere. Be ready for it when it happens and be an early adopter and expert on it.
Dude! If I knew I was likely to get axed in a couple of months I'd be thinking about enhancing MY skillset. It is a tough job market out there. Finding a niche where the hordes aren't and learning it sounds like a survival trait. Webmonkeys, for example, are a dime a dozen but there are a few ecological niches less crowded. I'd be researching which ones are doing better than average in the area and learning em.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course you realise that ST:TOS was exactly the same sort of propaganda. Folks just don't realize it because when we watch it now most of the more controversial 'lessons' from the sixties no longer seem controversial. Because the liberals won those issues, largely through the use of propaganda in the mass media like _Star Trek_. Not saying it was a good or bad thing, just wanting people to realize why B&B think they can get away with what they are doing.
Amen to that! Picard committed a crime there. Pinheaded adherence to a rulebook's letter instead of the spirit is what caused his failure. But what possible justification can Cpt. Archer give for his attempt to render a sentient spacefaring species extinct in _Dear Doctor_?
It is still a free market in as much as yo can buy unencumbered printers. Even if Best Buy (fill in your local superstore) stops carrying them, get online and buy a printer, not a 'long term relationship' with HP.
Canon still sells ink jet printers without any BS, you just have to pay a little more up front to make up for the fact that they aren't selling the printer as a loss leader to drive ink sales.
And if you don't need color, buy an OKI laser (ok, LED printer) where you don't get screwed on buying a new drum with every toner refill.
Consumers can kill off products that we decide are clearly not in our interest. Remember DIVX? (Not the video codec.) We have not lost this fight yet.
While most people are idiots, there are enough clueful people to keep companies like Okidata in business. If you need a dot matrix printer, buy OKI. They are cheap to operate and run forever. If you need a laser, buy an OKI. They still use toner tanks instead of toner+drum carts so they are dirt cheap to operate and again, they run forever.
Granted that an HP laser will also pretty much run forever, but the cost per page is several times greater.
Good point. But I'd get root on the machine and look around. If your idiot is on the console you can rm -rf his happy ass without a twitch of conscience. And if it is just another owned machine you could leave the owner a note. Safest would be to dump a page out of the system's printer so nothing is there for the kiddie to find.
Oh it isn't that bad. Pull the network plug and clean up the mess. Preserve the corrupted files for later and restore from your backup. (you DO have a backup, right?) and then use the RPM database to verify all of your binaries to make sure you weren't owned when you made the backup. Verifying the critical files against the installation media will ensure against a trojaned rpm/database.
Then once you are clean again, examine the saved files and try to figure out how they got in. Learn from your mistake and carry on.
Happened to me a couple of times, usually when I make a mistake in configuration or don't keep up with the errata. Yes I'd like to connect electrodes to the script kiddies testicles, but it really isn't something to get bent overly out of shape over either.
Sure it holds water. A Mac 10 is ntended to kill people, but that isn't the same thing as murder. Guns can be used in moral (and out here in flyover country, even legal) ways. Killing a home invader is perfectly ok in my moral code.
And remember that the 2nd Amendment was not about protecting your right to kill Bambi. It was all about us being able to defend ourselves against a government gone bad. The Founding Fathers were very distrusting of all government, even one they built. And like a strong military deters foreign aggression, just having large quantities of military grade arms in private hands tends to deter governments such that the odds of actually needing a revolution is lowered.
Remember the old axiom: If you would have peace, know war.
Hmm. Unless they are planning to call this Debian GNU/NetBSD they had damn well better remove the wretched GNU/ from GNU/Linux. If Linux plus the GNU compiler chain justifies claiming ownership of Linus's work then their 'logic' also requires them to attempt to claim BSD once Debian is running on it.
At the time the book was written UNIX and the Internet were, for all intents and purposes, one and the same. Since Mosiac was ported to Windows that has been changing, many would say for the worse.
> Oh, I'm sure they must have done something "innovative",
One word. Bob.
Nice idea perhaps, but you must live in the United States. Please remember the millions of us unfortunates living in the Occupied Territories[1] are forbidden by our masters in Washington to impose a literacy test as a condition of voting.
At any rate, while there is merit to your suggestion, the devil is i the details. Both major parties would game the rules to exclude as many of their opponents as possible and I can't come up with any rules that could prevent it.
Personally I'd prefer a poll tax. Revise the Constituition to strike XXIV and allow a poll tax again except with some sort of hard limit to prevent it becoming so high as to make voting reserved to country club Republicans and hollywood Democrats. But a poll tax would serve to discourage the disinterested/uneducated from voting while avoiding the problems inherent in "who writes the test".
Collect the tax at the point of registration for voting, not at the poll itself. This would have two positive benefits. It would eliminate the temptation to have lots of little single issue elections where only the people who stand to benefit would pay to vote and make it a lot harder for Democrats to bus in a load of homeless to districts where they need a little extra boost.
[1] The so called Voting Rights Act is patently unconstituitional, which is why Congress didn't even suggest imposing it on the US, only on us provisional citizens in the Occupied Territories, which are still being ruled under special "Reconstruction" laws almost 150 years after being conquered and forced to join the Union.
Nope, the law recognizes a difference between wholesale and retail sales. It isn't 'sold' until an end user takes possession. That is why it is a EULA (End User License Agreement) in the first place. Of course the law also recognizes the difference between a sale and a contract and unless you are buying a site license you are BUYING the product and are free to ignore the EULA unless you need some permission it grants you above and beyond the rights and restrictions embodied in the copyright laws of your jurisdiction.
Not to be pendantic or anything, but the GPL only covers the act of redistribution. If you don't make copies and pass them on, the GPL doesn't apply to you. It is just that without accepting the GPL you can't redistribute without running afoul of copyright law.
> Think "Gun control" for a hard problem. (Philosophically,
> increased accountability for firearm use may render it a simple
> problem, but such rational approaches have not been socially
> accepted on a wide scale, so the problem remains "hard").
Actually that is one of the easy ones. Either you believe the State exists as a creature of the People or you believe the People exist to serve the State. If it is all about We The People then you have to believe that a people that can be trusted to wield the awesome powers and responsibilities required of a Free People can be trusted with personal arms. On the other hand, if you believe the People are wards of the State, to be dealt with at the pleasure of an elite Ruling Class (the State) then they probably shouldn't even be entrusted with sharp objects. Hmm.... we are searching little old ladies for nail clippers at airports so I think I see which way America has turned.
What you are talking about is getting real close to a "pure democracy." Sorry, but I think the US Founding Fathers were spot on when they said democracy was a terrible idea. Democracy is 51 people voting to piss in the corn flakes of th4 49 and expecting the 49 to say "OK, it was a fair vote, piss away" instead of grabbing their sporting goods.
That is why our government is a Republic constrained by a Constituition. Of course there isn't much left of the limits built into the original system, but inflicting further damage won't get applause from me.
> What exactly could they counter-sue for now, that they
> couldn't have sued for beforehand?
The big win is that instead of sueing a hundred or so spammers individually, now there is one big slow moving 'high value' target.
Sounds like you are thinking pretty hard on the political issues, but still need a nudge to come on over to the light side. :)
> one which Libertarians (for all I disagree with their
> "capitalism ueber alles" mentality) are very correct in
> pointing out: there exists among both liberals and
> conservatives the notion that it is appropriate and good
> to use governmental power to coerce the other side into
> abiding by one's own personal views on what is right or wrong.
Here you almost hit enlightenment, but shied away at the last moment. Embrace it! You admit that both major parties seek to use the power of government to coerce people to follow their moral code, see it is a bad thing but reject Libertarianism because they depend of capitalism. If the government is not going to regulate people, then what? Capitalism (not the mercantilism we are currently practicing) is nothing more or less than people settling their affairs peacably through the power of the free market.
> Liberals generally want to abridge the second amendment.
Agreed, but ask why they fear your gun but don't fear the same gun in the hand of one of their jack booted goons. Because they desire to control you, and because they fear you.
Both parties kowtow to hollywood, but for different reasons. Dems do so because of the money, pure and simple. Repubs do so because they think it is good for the economy. They might talk a good free market, but all too many are mercantilists who want a managed economy.
And on a side note, and at the risk of starting the mother of all flame wars.....
> Conservatives want to take away a woman's right to choose.
No they don't. Both sides are using misleading language tricks though.
It can't be about "Choice". It is a null argument because to allow the debate to be about a "woman's right to choose" presupposes that it isn't a person. And if we aren't talking about a person there really isn't much of a "Choice" to get all worked up about now is there?
The other side is just as bad. You can't accept their debating position of "Pro Life" without conceding that it IS a debate about killing a baby. At which point the end result is a given since there aren't going to be too many lining up on the "Anti-life" or "Pro Death" side of the fence.
The question both sides dance around; the question for society to answer, and answer it must, is when is a new "Citizen" created. Of course the first question is does the Federal Government have the right to decide that for the states? (I'd say no, which means Roe was a bad decision.) Should the Constituition be amended to codify a national consensus once/if one is reached?
> As much as I dislike clickthru EULA agreements they are
> perfectly valid.
No they aren't. Unless you live in Virgina they aren't worth the paper they are printed on. Don't believe the Big Lie.
> I hate to say it but people that complain about an EULA,
> should also complain about GPL, and other source code
> licenses.
Wrong. The GPL is NOT a EULA. A EULA attempts to remove rights that a user has under copyright law and the first sale doctrine. The GPL is an optional license that grants permissions above and beyond what ordinary copyright law would allow. There is no requirement to accept the GPL in order to make full use of a package. However unless you do accept the terms and conditions of the GPL you are forbidden by copyright law from redistribution.
> Supporting applications under WINE by omission of comment by
> Microsoft would be tacitly granting that it's perfectly OK
> to reverse engineer Windows.
They have no legal right to control the uses people make of their software other than to expect the protections of copyright law. A copyright holder cannot regulate what the owner of a copy does except to forbid copies (with certain exemptions and conditions such as Fair Use, etc... consult a lawyer in your jurisdiction, blah blah) and often they can forbid "public exhibition' of the work, but that probably doesn't apply to most computer programs.
For example, when I bought a copy of the new Harry Potter DVD last week AOL Time Warner can not control the brand of DVD player I stick it in. They can't even legally stop me from playing it with Xine. (The DVD Copy Control Assoc is trying to say I can't use Xine because it contains DeCSS to decrypt the movie, but that is another futile argument the industry is going to lose in the end.)
Now when we consider the current story of Microsoft Visual Foxpro we can apply the same reasoning and determine that Microsoft can not dictate the platform a user "plays" their copy of Foxpro on. Where they might get a bit of traction is in the details of their redistribution clause where they grant developers permission to redistribute the runtime to their customers. Haven't dug through it enough to offer an opinon and not being a lawyer I'd probbaly be a bit scared to offer one even if I'd read it for an hour or two. But if it is a GPL like grant of additional rights above and beyond copyright then you might be considered to have accepted it by redistributing the runtime.
> I agree with the rest of your post, but the basis for the
> legality of EULAs is that you are creating a copy of the
> work when you install it (or copy it into memory), I think.
Nah, you can make as many copies of a copyrighted work as you please for your OWN personal use. And there was a special addendum/clarification to copyright law regarding computers, backups and working copies back in the late 70s. (Not being a lawyer type I can't quote an official cite or know now many times the congresscritters have changed it since then.)
Basically, unless you get EULAed before FRNs changes hands, ignore it.
There is a middle ground you do realize. I download and I buy. I tend to download the things I can't get any legit way.
For example, I am a big South Park fan but until two months ago our cable system didn't carry Comedy Central. So I have a complete set of divx files (except for ep614 dammit) through the end of season 6. But I haven't been in much of a hurry to go searching for season 7 because I have been in front of the TV on Wed night, now that I can. And I have the first season box set (with the commentary CDs since I ordered direct from Comedy Central) and will be in the pre-order list for Season 2 this summer. So do I feel the slightest twinge of guilt about having the DIVX collection? Not a bit. No different that if I'd asked a friend/relative in an area with Comedy Central to send me video tapes.
A better reason to unload em is that they have lots of downside and darned little upside. Think it through. Their stock has been stagnant for several years and their whole business model is predicated on ever increasing revenues leading to an ever increasing stock price. The rising stock price allowed them to fund the bulk of their payroll with ever increasing stock options. Those options ain't worth shit these days and I'd bet it would take a couple of years back on the gravy train for the jaded rank & filers there to believe in becoming a millionare through options.
Then there is the revenue problem. Once you are a monopoly there isn't much room to increase revenue through increasing market share and the natives are already restless after their first attempt to squeeze more money from their installed base with Licensing 6.0. So if revenue is going to be flat/down the only option left is greater efficency.
But not at Microsoft because they are already too good in that dept. Their cost to produce the next rev of Windows or Office is already close to nill per copy so half of almost nill wouldn't make a big difference. Cut marketing and they are toast since the bulk of what they write off as marketing is shady deals to enforce the monopoly.
That leaves their rightly feared cash horde. They can cause much mischief with that stash, but if you are expecting that to prop up their stock value you should think again. Exercise for the student: Go to your fav stock info site and find the number of shares of common stock outstanding and divide it into the approx $40 gigabux they claim in cash and short term investments. They have split their stock so many times that even 40 bil gets watered down real heavy.
Are they doomed? Not likely, they long ago passed the size where a company is too big to be allowed to fail. But as IBM was once the mighty titan that dictated terms to the entire technology industry, Microsoft will also pass into being one among many peers.
Nah, unless you have been living in a cave the past five years you already have heard of Linux. The next big thing could be enabled by the OSS/FS wave though, much like the Internet couldn't have happened without cheap computers with decent graphics and connectivity.
> How about human hibernation. That way we can sleep through
> the next slump.
Well that is one way..... if we knew how to do it. Of course if you can work out the details you just found the next Big Thing so you would get stay awake and get filthy rich freezing us poor schmucks.
Yea, because all those devices are now working and everyone understands them. But if you are foolish to think we have hit the end of development in IT you should find a new field. Something new, strange and must have will appear in a couple of years. It always does, and when it shows up everyone will start buying and hiring again.
Bill Gates might be evil but nobody thinks he is stupid and yet he missed the importance of the Internet until it was almost too late. Events like that have happened several times in this industry and history hasn't stopped. And it will probably be NOW, while the world is worrying about other 'important' things that the next world shaking invention is working it's way out a garage somewhere. Be ready for it when it happens and be an early adopter and expert on it.
Dude! If I knew I was likely to get axed in a couple of months I'd be thinking about enhancing MY skillset. It is a tough job market out there. Finding a niche where the hordes aren't and learning it sounds like a survival trait. Webmonkeys, for example, are a dime a dozen but there are a few ecological niches less crowded. I'd be researching which ones are doing better than average in the area and learning em.