The right tool for the right job, right? Game support with WINE would be nice, but I think that it's just asking for trouble since coding compatibility with Microsoft graphics APIs is like shooting at a moving target (and an erratically moving one at that!)
Why not just consider an operating system as a tool? That's what I do. If there is something that I need to do that I can only do (or more efficiently do) with Windows, then I do it with Windows. If Linux works better, then I use that. If Be did the job better, I'd use it, but so far that isn't the case.
A much better idea is to advocate genuine binary compatibility, and that's the best approach with games. Sure, Office on WINE is a great target since business software stays (relatively) static for long periods of time. It's probably a pipe dream to envision Office for Linux anyway. Of course, Office on Windows is maybe more efficient.
Maybe it's time to shed the idea of avoiding Microsoft products at any cost and consider operating systems for what they are: a tool to get a job done.
Here in Idaho, we have a 5% sales tax. If you buy something in Idaho, you pay the tax.
If you purchase something outside of Idaho, via mail order, the Internet or however you manage to do it, and have that item delivered to you, you owe some sort of tax on it.
If you paid sales tax based on where you purchased it, your tax obligation has been met. But if you didn't, then you owe a "use tax". It's (technically) not a sales tax, but you still owe it. 5%, in Idaho. And the state income tax form gives you a place to calculate the total of your non-taxed purchases, then pay the appropriate use tax.
Does anybody actually do that? Maybe a few people. Should businesses be aware of it? Of course. The company I work for keeps meticulous records and pays their use tax at the end of the year.
This shouldn't be any surprise. The fact that it is speaks volumes about the quality of your accountants' knowledge.
This business about taxing business on the Internet is a red herring. Business is already taxed. Those who support sales tax collection on the Internet are really just looking for a federal version of existing state laws. Naturally, it's easier to deal with one federal law than 50 state laws, but that's a whole 'nother issue.
But it's also business. Network Solutions is hardly doing this without contacting the domain holder, as the published email clearly shows.
It's a little hypocritical in that NSI seems to have claimed in a court case that domain names are not property, but there are plenty of examples of corporate hypocracy out there. This is a pretty minor example, in my book.
I think that the answer to the problem is simple: Pay your bill! NSI is due their money if your domain is registered through them. If you don't re-register it with another registrar, or if you don't cancel the domain, they are certainly entitled to their payment for maintaining it in their system.
My gut feeling is that all the people complaining about this don't like NSI because they are NSI...it's great to pile on NSI just like it is with Microsoft. But I don't think that NSI is doing anything wrong, other than maybe looking a little foolish in their arguments over what is property and what is not.
Bungie is a singular entity. Just like every other corporation, organization and association. When you say "Bungie have..." you only show your ignorance.
Singular nouns go with singular verbs. Just because Taco says it doesn't make it true.
I have to comment once again on the deliberately poor use of grammar on Slashdot.
Why...why do so many people insist on mismatching plural verbs with singular nouns? It's right in the heart of this article:
...Microsoft have promised products...
My friends, no matter how many people work at Microsoft, there is only one company (for now). Microsoft is an "it". Not a "they". Don't follow the herd. Just because the staff on Slashdot can't seem to figure this out doesn't mean that everyone has to do it.
Since virtually all of the communication through this site is written, doesn't it make sense to make the most of the language?
One of the reasons that I liked The Cuckoo's Egg was that Cliff Stoll didn't pump himself up to be some kind of superhero. But more importantly, he actually explained what he did.
All that I can see in "Man in the Wilderness'" claims are a few addresses and phone numbers that anyone could come up with using WHOIS and one of the gazillion phone directory web sites. His claim of capturing a screen shot of the spammer's computer is just outrageous...Windows may be full of networking holes, but c'mon...
I don't doubt that he was spammed...and I don't doubt that he was spammed by the spammers that he's claiming to have cracked. But I think that almost everything on that web site is made up.
Sure, he probably feels good that he could associate some names to the pages that he posted, but the text reads like a really bad detective story.
Maybe I'm wrong, but looking at the story with an impassioned eye sure makes it look like some guy with an ego and an axe to grind needs to take a creative writing class.
I'm not a lawyer and even I can see that this bit of news is wrong. The license doesn't say that you can't criticize Apogee. It says that you can't use its trademarked or copyrighted property as part of that criticism.
Maybe someday/. will get back to publishing "News For Nerds". You guys have a really serious problem with accuracy and interpretation.
So I look down the list of comments, and besides the usual assortment of first posts and Natalie Portman ate my grits, I see two things:
1. UNIX is copyrighted by the Open Group, so anybody who buys unix.com is screwed.
2. Domain names want to be free and selling them is nothing more than taking advantage of the system.
Does anybody but me see a problem here? I mean, these comments are pretty much the summary of any comments on Slashdot. Somebody posts something and all you amateur lawyers come popping out of the woodwork spewing buzzwords that you don't even understand! Honestly...who knows how much it will go for or if it's even sellable? And, for that matter, who cares? Maybe the Open Group...maybe Union Metals Company...maybe Industria del Vestido...maybe Unix Systems Laboratories...maybe AT&T...maybe Rodenstock USA, Inc...but how in the world could it make a difference to anybody here?
And so what if somebody is making a buck or two off the domain name? VA Linux Systems paid a bunch of money for linux.com. I guess that it was OK, though, because they guy who sold it took care to make sure that it went to the "right people".
Everybody wants to make buck. But I swear, you'd think that Slashdot was a breeding ground for socialism if you gave many of the comments you read much credence. Maybe the real deal is that everybody should be allowed to make a buck after I make a buck.
Sheesh. This has turned into a rant. Don't take my word for it, take a look at the comments you see on the site. And, for that matter, take a look at that last 10 or 15 "Ask Slashdot" questions. Maybe the default answer ought to be, "Talk to your lawyer, 'cause if you take the advice you find here, you'll be in BIG trouble!"
OK, rant mode off.
=h=
Sorry, dude, it wasn't the day traders...
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Tech Stocks Tumble
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I do spend time studying the market, and I've been out of it for a while because it's horrendously overpriced. And other people do to. CNBC, WSJ, CNN and others took a good look at what happened and the story of the crash only peripherally involves day trading.
The market crashed because large institutional traders, the guys at Fidelity and Merrill Lynch and the people who manage huge retirement plans and such all decided that the market was just unreasonably priced. So they bailed.
I don't have any heartache about day traders. If they want to risk their money, then have at it! But what you describe isn't what happened...
The "jarbonis" inflated the market, but the slow and steady long-term investment people really took advantage of the day traders. So I guess that this ought to be a feather in the cap of the anti day trading crowd.
/. has been biased for a long time. After all, that's what attracted such a staggering audience to the site. Prior to Andover's acquisition,/.'s editorial independence was what Hemos and Taco said it would be. And that's OK with the people who read/. because, generally speaking, their idea of what ought to be covered was our idea.
Then Andover bought/.. And we got assurances that/. would continue to enjoy the same editorial independence. I think that's probably the case...as long as the same staff runs the show. And since Andover is really nothing more than a collection of web sites, they are very dependent upon maintaining their audience in order to maintain their advertising revenues.
Or are they?
Andover's acquisition by VA Linux kind of throws that into question, in my mind. You can hardly say that VA Linux's goals are the same as Andover's (unless "make money" is the only goal). But I think that, for now,/. will remain the same/. that it has become.
Maybe/. will change and it will become just another highly focused techno-news portal. Maybe somebody at VA Linux will decide that things need to be different at/. and order a change. It's their site...they can do what they want. And if that happens, and if it creates a void in the nerd news system, another site will spring up. Never fear.
But, after not just a few years working in the merger happy tech world, I can say with some degree of certainty that management will defend an ideal only until the heat is turned up just so high. Everyone has a boss and at some point somebody's integrity will collapse.
This merger isn't the downfall of/.. It's part of the natural evolution of a hugely popular web site. And it's just business.
A $20K annual licensing fee seems a little stiff for a developing industry, but if Geoworks holds the patents and the manufacturers are infringing on them, then that puts Geoworks firmly in the driver's seat.
I don't think that it's a fatal blow...if the industry is going to be successful, that fee will not stop it. But I think that it might have been more politic to license the the technology at no charge for a certain period, then consider charging a fee, if only to foster rapid deployment of WAP.
Since this is the era of intellectual property companies, I guess this will become the standard way of doing business...create an idea, patent it, then license it. I suppose the only real difference between IP now and IP ten years ago is that ten years ago a company would have been more vertically integrated. Now the idea seems to be to patent the idea, then license it instead of developing it.
Complain all you want about patenting ideas, models and concepts...but the heart of the matter is that the patent system, as it exists in the United States, allows for that very thing. And as long as the system allows it, companies will take advantage of it...and who can blame them? For the most part, the US PTO isn't a bunch of blithering idiots. They are following the letter of the law, so if you don't like it, then you should work to change it.
Like Scott Kurtz, I worked in technical support for a top 5 computer company. As a call center manager, I heard it all, over and over again. Most of the time I just shook my head and laughed. Sure, using a computer isn't an innate ability, but it's becoming a common one, and like any common practice, jokes abound. A comic strip is just an extension of those jokes.
User Friendly has an audience, just as Dilbert, B.C. and Garfield does. Is Iliad doing computer users a disservice by making fun of them in the help desk calls that his fictional company receives? I don't think so. Like much of our humor, there is some class of people who get made fun of. That's just the way it is.
I managed almost 200 people in a call center. In a Dilbertian world, I was the pointy-haired boss. I found Dilbert cartoons all over my cubicle. Was I offended? Nope. Even though some of the cartoons hit pretty close to home, I recognized that they were nothing more than humor.
And that's all that cartoons like User Friendly are: humor
Scott Kurtz may not think that User Friendly and its ilk are funny, but I'll bet that things that he thinks are funny would make me shake my head. That's the beauty of being an individuals.
Re:Defense Dept Lost Satellites
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Apocalypse Not
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As 2000 problems go, I suppose that this was as serious a problem as there was in the US, but even so, it wasn't very serious at all.
The DOD didn't lose the satellite system, they lost the ability to process data from it. They were always in complete control of all of their satellite assets.
A critical eye at the Washington Post report shows that all the "Y2K" buzzwords are in place:
significant problem major computer failure major Y2K computer glitch
The Post's claim that "word of the computer failure was leaked to reporters" is laughable...I was watching TV as a Pentagon spokesman stood behind the lecturn and told the reporters about the problem.
Rather than a serious problem, it seems like a last gasp "Y2K" FUD report.
Johannes Gutenberg His invention of the moveable type press was a huge breakthrough in communications.
Albert Einstein More than just a groundbreaking physicist, he was also well read, an excellent speaker and a scientist who felt no schism between his science and his religion.
Leonardo DaVinci Set the definition of rennaisance man. He was more than just a great practical and theoretical inventor, he was a masterful artist, a one of a kind fusion of left and right brains.
James Clerk Maxwell Maxwell made ground breaking discoveries in physics without possessing the necessary mathematical background to create some of the equations that we take for granted today. His ability to intuitively understand how some of the most fundamental pieces of the universe behave set the groundwork for a generation of physicists.
Isaac Newton His theories of motion and gravity are still valid today. The work that he did centuries ago enabled man to send vehicles into space with pinpoint accuracy. And much of his work was done in his 20's.
Galileo Galilee His studies of the solar system branded him a heretic by the church until near the end of the 20th century. Using simple equipment, he discovered moons around other planets, determined that the earth was not the center of the universe and performed important work on the nature of gravity.
Niels Bohr His work on the nature of electrons led to improvements in spectroscopy and ultimately to the atomic bomb and nuclear power (for better or worse).
Alan Turing He performed some of the most fundamental work that led to the development of computers. He had the genius to envision the modern computer as a device with as many purposes as there are programs.
Nikolai Tesla AC power, early radio, efficient transformers, flourescent lighting, Tesla was the physic's answer to Thomas Edison.
Re:Why Intel chips are slower than AMD chips
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News on Pentium IV
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· Score: 1
I guess that resolves the floating point issue once and for all.
Yeah, that P-IV running at MCC MHz ought to be just the thing to replace this sluggish Celeron.
Now if I could just figure out how to write zero in RN...
Such clumsy expressions just because someone decided that joule was not an acceptable measure of energy for commercial electricity.
It's not a matter of being acceptable or not. A watt isn't a joule. A watt is a measure of energy used per unit time...dJ/dt, or 1 joule per second.
We use the term watt just like we use the term amp (or ampere). Just as it's easier to express current as amps instead of coulombs per second, it's a matter of convenience to use watts instead of joules per second.
Now if you really want to get cranky over something, how about the ridiculous English measurement system???
For the most part,/. is widely viewed by American Internet users. Remember, this is a case that originated in a country outside of the US. It's easy for us here in the States to get on our high horse and cry, "malicious prosecution" or "we have rights." Well, perhaps in the US it is malicious...and we do have rights. But the case is not in the US, and I think that it's safe to say that here we enjoy the most sweeping freedoms of any society that has ever existed. It's too bad that others do not.
I think that taking the position that this "tea rodent" is being maliciously prosecuted, or that the case is unfair is the wrong thing to do. I think that we should speak out more on the injustice and lack of freedom of other countries when compared to ours. While we continue to see our freedoms erode somewhat, they are still a veritable smorgasbord when compared to other countries. What's happening to this kid is a damn shame...and we ought to be angry about the situation in general...not just this particular case.
I used to work for one of the large computer manufacturing companies. Virtually all of the work was done by in-house staff, from programming to technical support to assembly. I don't work there anymore, and, since I've left, things have changed dramatically. Technical support has been farmed out to contractors, but the quality has plummeted, probably because the support staff has no direct connection to the company, and because training them on the products is very difficult when the call center is hundreds or thousands of miles away.
More importantly, I think, is that a significant number of in-house development positions have been given to contractors...and many of the contractors are former employees who quit, then returned as contractors. Certainly the company may come out ahead in that they don't have to pay such things as social security and other taxes, nor do they provide any benefits, but the IRS looks very closely at the use of contractors for more than just short-term jobs.
Also, I would question that you get the best and brightest of people. I think that you get individuals who are seeking a lot of money...but they are also giving up security, important benefits and entangling themselves in a potential tax nightmare. Unless you know that you are dealing with savvy business people, I would question the wisdom of your contractors. The pay that they command may be a lot of dollars in their pocket, but when all is said and done, chances are very good that they have forgone a substantial long-term financial gain for some short term money. And that doesn't sound like a smart move to me.
But it's true that to quickly ramp up a rapidly growing operation contractors can be a boon. Just make sure that you're using your resources wisely. You'd probably be well advised for your first contractor to be a human resources analyst.
Amazon.com. Yahoo.com. Excite.com. There are a few examples of companies whose stocks are booming, yet haven't managed to ever make a profit. And, except for Amazon, almost none of the Internet companies even have a product to sell. The rather obvious answer is that these investments are investments in the future...they are also investments in the competency of the company. The old days of scrutinizing PE, PS and PEG statements are a thing of the past with these new companies. RedHat has two key advantages, in my opinion. The first is that they have a product and the accompanying services to sell. The second is that they are the first of a new wave of an Internet/software hybrid company to hit the market. That differentiates them from the recent plethora of IPOs that have flooded the market. Sure they're overcapitalized. But that seems to be the rule of the day for these things. And if everyone sold IBM, that stock would drop, too. Check out the market caps of some of the Internet darlings...you'll find incredible valuations for companies who have never turned a profit! Conventional wisdom, in these cases, appears to be unconventional.
Sure I've been lost in the woods. I live in Idaho...over half the state is wilderness. And even with a compass and WITHOUT a map, I never had a problem getting out. Yeah, it's easy to get confused if you spend your time in panic.
I can suspend my disbelief. I love movies. But just because the camera jiggles and everybody acts really scared doesn't mean that I'm going to jump up and down and bow to some new paradigm in filmmaking. This would have been a good movie from a couple of guys studying film at UCLA, or maybe it deserves a place in that low budget "art" film niche, but as a mainstream movie, all I can determine is that everyone went gaga because it received great reviews from a film festival and cost less than a bedroom in San Jose. But the premise was tired, the plot was weak and the ending was so anticlimactic that as soon as I saw the house I told my friend what was about to happen. All that was left was to scrape the popcorn off my shoe.
Yeah...I can suspend disbelief. But that doesn't mean that any old crap that flickers and jiggles on the screen will catch my eye.
I honestly have to wonder how you can call me a dolt in one sentence, then actually be able to state that an obvious ending is a component of suspense. No, I say that this was a movie about three very stupid people who didn't have enough sense to follow a river back to civilization.
Further, having spent a fair amount of time in Maryland, I'll also postulate that anyone who cannot find their way out of one of those woods after three days deserves what they get.
By the end of the movie I was cheering for the witch.
I'm perfectly used to the fact that this movie has made more money than other movies. But I think that it's very clear that receipts != quality. This is a great case of how well marketing works. It's a bad movie...deal with it!
Loved it? Yeah, ok, if you're into watching three really stupid people who can walk into a "forest" on the eastern seaboard for a day, but CAN'T WALK OUT IN THREE DAYS. I would call it excruciatingly boring. CNN had it right...it should have been called The Blair Insomnia Project. I thought that the shaky cameras and "you are there" style of filming went out with Homicide.
I think that this movie proves nothing more than that with a good marketing machine and plenty of hype, along with a lot of screaming, running and cursing, it's possible to sucker a few million people into parting with their money.
The Blair Witch Project did nothing more than strain the audience's credibility and present yet another telling of some tired old summer camp ghost story. The only time that I got scared was when I realized that the stuff that was sticking to my shoe wasn't a spilled Coke, but bubble gum.
Not only was the movie completely un-scary, but the ending was PURE cheese. I mean, I could see it coming a mile away. My prediction? This movie is going to fade from the scope very quickly. All that has been proven is that with a very low budget, it's possible to rake in a very large amount of money. At least the accountants will walk away happy.
The copyright issue is a non-sequitur. It really has no relationship to personal privacy, but it is an interesting space filler in an article that has a veneer of doom and gloom, but little substance to back it up.
I have a hard time taking issue with the copyright law. Why should Disney be forced to surrender the copyright to Mickey Mouse when the character is still a current, thriving, revenue generating business? The copyright law was created under different circumstances than exist today. It's hardly fair to lobby for changes in, say, telecommunications laws that were created with no regard for modern communications without examining other laws that were created during similar times.
While the author's opinion is correct that nobody is going to starve in a garret because some works are passing into the public domain, he is incorrect when he suggests that writers, artists and musicians sign over virtually all of their rights to their publishers. I've written for publication for over ten years and I own the copyrights to everything that I've written. A writer makes a choice upon sale to a publisher: Sell all of the rights and take a big(ger) check or sell some portion (perhaps first publishing rights) and take a small(er) check.
The Internet, and to a greater degree all modern entertainment delivery systems, have opened a Pandora's box of issues regarding copyright issues. If a company is successfully using an icon after 70 years or more, why should they find themselves in danger of losing it?
And even more pointedly, what right does the public have to confiscate that property?
FUD is FUD, whether it comes from Microsoft, governments or paranoid writers.
In contrast, the Weekly World News has pointed out that a significant number of Nostradamus' predictions have come true as well, but I'm not holding my breath for a decade long world war, followed by a thousand years of paradise.
Slashdot Mirror
Why not just consider an operating system as a tool? That's what I do. If there is something that I need to do that I can only do (or more efficiently do) with Windows, then I do it with Windows. If Linux works better, then I use that. If Be did the job better, I'd use it, but so far that isn't the case.
A much better idea is to advocate genuine binary compatibility, and that's the best approach with games. Sure, Office on WINE is a great target since business software stays (relatively) static for long periods of time. It's probably a pipe dream to envision Office for Linux anyway. Of course, Office on Windows is maybe more efficient.
Maybe it's time to shed the idea of avoiding Microsoft products at any cost and consider operating systems for what they are: a tool to get a job done.
=h=
If you purchase something outside of Idaho, via mail order, the Internet or however you manage to do it, and have that item delivered to you, you owe some sort of tax on it.
If you paid sales tax based on where you purchased it, your tax obligation has been met. But if you didn't, then you owe a "use tax". It's (technically) not a sales tax, but you still owe it. 5%, in Idaho. And the state income tax form gives you a place to calculate the total of your non-taxed purchases, then pay the appropriate use tax.
Does anybody actually do that? Maybe a few people. Should businesses be aware of it? Of course. The company I work for keeps meticulous records and pays their use tax at the end of the year.
This shouldn't be any surprise. The fact that it is speaks volumes about the quality of your accountants' knowledge.
This business about taxing business on the Internet is a red herring. Business is already taxed. Those who support sales tax collection on the Internet are really just looking for a federal version of existing state laws. Naturally, it's easier to deal with one federal law than 50 state laws, but that's a whole 'nother issue.
=h=
It's a little hypocritical in that NSI seems to have claimed in a court case that domain names are not property, but there are plenty of examples of corporate hypocracy out there. This is a pretty minor example, in my book.
I think that the answer to the problem is simple: Pay your bill! NSI is due their money if your domain is registered through them. If you don't re-register it with another registrar, or if you don't cancel the domain, they are certainly entitled to their payment for maintaining it in their system.
My gut feeling is that all the people complaining about this don't like NSI because they are NSI...it's great to pile on NSI just like it is with Microsoft. But I don't think that NSI is doing anything wrong, other than maybe looking a little foolish in their arguments over what is property and what is not.
=h=
Singular nouns go with singular verbs. Just because Taco says it doesn't make it true.
Why...why do so many people insist on mismatching plural verbs with singular nouns? It's right in the heart of this article:
My friends, no matter how many people work at Microsoft, there is only one company (for now). Microsoft is an "it". Not a "they". Don't follow the herd. Just because the staff on Slashdot can't seem to figure this out doesn't mean that everyone has to do it.
Since virtually all of the communication through this site is written, doesn't it make sense to make the most of the language?
I thought so...
=h=
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/06/07/151823 8&mode=thread
All that I can see in "Man in the Wilderness'" claims are a few addresses and phone numbers that anyone could come up with using WHOIS and one of the gazillion phone directory web sites. His claim of capturing a screen shot of the spammer's computer is just outrageous...Windows may be full of networking holes, but c'mon...
I don't doubt that he was spammed...and I don't doubt that he was spammed by the spammers that he's claiming to have cracked. But I think that almost everything on that web site is made up.
Sure, he probably feels good that he could associate some names to the pages that he posted, but the text reads like a really bad detective story.
Maybe I'm wrong, but looking at the story with an impassioned eye sure makes it look like some guy with an ego and an axe to grind needs to take a creative writing class.
-h-
Maybe someday /. will get back to publishing "News For Nerds". You guys have a really serious problem with accuracy and interpretation.
1. UNIX is copyrighted by the Open Group, so anybody who buys unix.com is screwed.
2. Domain names want to be free and selling them is nothing more than taking advantage of the system.
Does anybody but me see a problem here? I mean, these comments are pretty much the summary of any comments on Slashdot. Somebody posts something and all you amateur lawyers come popping out of the woodwork spewing buzzwords that you don't even understand! Honestly...who knows how much it will go for or if it's even sellable? And, for that matter, who cares? Maybe the Open Group...maybe Union Metals Company...maybe Industria del Vestido...maybe Unix Systems Laboratories...maybe AT&T...maybe Rodenstock USA, Inc...but how in the world could it make a difference to anybody here?
And so what if somebody is making a buck or two off the domain name? VA Linux Systems paid a bunch of money for linux.com. I guess that it was OK, though, because they guy who sold it took care to make sure that it went to the "right people".
Everybody wants to make buck. But I swear, you'd think that Slashdot was a breeding ground for socialism if you gave many of the comments you read much credence. Maybe the real deal is that everybody should be allowed to make a buck after I make a buck.
Sheesh. This has turned into a rant. Don't take my word for it, take a look at the comments you see on the site. And, for that matter, take a look at that last 10 or 15 "Ask Slashdot" questions. Maybe the default answer ought to be, "Talk to your lawyer, 'cause if you take the advice you find here, you'll be in BIG trouble!"
OK, rant mode off.
=h=
The market crashed because large institutional traders, the guys at Fidelity and Merrill Lynch and the people who manage huge retirement plans and such all decided that the market was just unreasonably priced. So they bailed.
I don't have any heartache about day traders. If they want to risk their money, then have at it! But what you describe isn't what happened...
The "jarbonis" inflated the market, but the slow and steady long-term investment people really took advantage of the day traders. So I guess that this ought to be a feather in the cap of the anti day trading crowd.
Then Andover bought /.. And we got assurances that /. would continue to enjoy the same editorial independence. I think that's probably the case...as long as the same staff runs the show. And since Andover is really nothing more than a collection of web sites, they are very dependent upon maintaining their audience in order to maintain their advertising revenues.
Or are they?
Andover's acquisition by VA Linux kind of throws that into question, in my mind. You can hardly say that VA Linux's goals are the same as Andover's (unless "make money" is the only goal). But I think that, for now, /. will remain the same /. that it has become.
Maybe /. will change and it will become just another highly focused techno-news portal. Maybe somebody at VA Linux will decide that things need to be different at /. and order a change. It's their site...they can do what they want. And if that happens, and if it creates a void in the nerd news system, another site will spring up. Never fear.
But, after not just a few years working in the merger happy tech world, I can say with some degree of certainty that management will defend an ideal only until the heat is turned up just so high. Everyone has a boss and at some point somebody's integrity will collapse.
This merger isn't the downfall of /.. It's part of the natural evolution of a hugely popular web site. And it's just business.
I don't think that it's a fatal blow...if the industry is going to be successful, that fee will not stop it. But I think that it might have been more politic to license the the technology at no charge for a certain period, then consider charging a fee, if only to foster rapid deployment of WAP.
Since this is the era of intellectual property companies, I guess this will become the standard way of doing business...create an idea, patent it, then license it. I suppose the only real difference between IP now and IP ten years ago is that ten years ago a company would have been more vertically integrated. Now the idea seems to be to patent the idea, then license it instead of developing it.
Complain all you want about patenting ideas, models and concepts...but the heart of the matter is that the patent system, as it exists in the United States, allows for that very thing. And as long as the system allows it, companies will take advantage of it...and who can blame them? For the most part, the US PTO isn't a bunch of blithering idiots. They are following the letter of the law, so if you don't like it, then you should work to change it.
Like Scott Kurtz, I worked in technical support for a top 5 computer company. As a call center manager, I heard it all, over and over again. Most of the time I just shook my head and laughed. Sure, using a computer isn't an innate ability, but it's becoming a common one, and like any common practice, jokes abound. A comic strip is just an extension of those jokes.
User Friendly has an audience, just as Dilbert, B.C. and Garfield does. Is Iliad doing computer users a disservice by making fun of them in the help desk calls that his fictional company receives? I don't think so. Like much of our humor, there is some class of people who get made fun of. That's just the way it is.
I managed almost 200 people in a call center. In a Dilbertian world, I was the pointy-haired boss. I found Dilbert cartoons all over my cubicle. Was I offended? Nope. Even though some of the cartoons hit pretty close to home, I recognized that they were nothing more than humor.
And that's all that cartoons like User Friendly are: humor
Scott Kurtz may not think that User Friendly and its ilk are funny, but I'll bet that things that he thinks are funny would make me shake my head. That's the beauty of being an individuals.
The DOD didn't lose the satellite system, they lost the ability to process data from it. They were always in complete control of all of their satellite assets.
A critical eye at the Washington Post report shows that all the "Y2K" buzzwords are in place:
significant problem
major computer failure
major Y2K computer glitch
The Post's claim that "word of the computer failure was leaked to reporters" is laughable...I was watching TV as a Pentagon spokesman stood behind the lecturn and told the reporters about the problem.
Rather than a serious problem, it seems like a last gasp "Y2K" FUD report.
Johannes Gutenberg
His invention of the moveable type press was a huge breakthrough in communications.
Albert Einstein
More than just a groundbreaking physicist, he was also well read, an excellent speaker and a scientist who felt no schism between his science and his religion.
Leonardo DaVinci
Set the definition of rennaisance man. He was more than just a great practical and theoretical inventor, he was a masterful artist, a one of a kind fusion of left and right brains.
James Clerk Maxwell
Maxwell made ground breaking discoveries in physics without possessing the necessary mathematical background to create some of the equations that we take for granted today. His ability to intuitively understand how some of the most fundamental pieces of the universe behave set the groundwork for a generation of physicists.
Isaac Newton
His theories of motion and gravity are still valid today. The work that he did centuries ago enabled man to send vehicles into space with pinpoint accuracy. And much of his work was done in his 20's.
Galileo Galilee
His studies of the solar system branded him a heretic by the church until near the end of the 20th century. Using simple equipment, he discovered moons around other planets, determined that the earth was not the center of the universe and performed important work on the nature of gravity.
Niels Bohr
His work on the nature of electrons led to improvements in spectroscopy and ultimately to the atomic bomb and nuclear power (for better or worse).
Alan Turing
He performed some of the most fundamental work that led to the development of computers. He had the genius to envision the modern computer as a device with as many purposes as there are programs.
Nikolai Tesla
AC power, early radio, efficient transformers, flourescent lighting, Tesla was the physic's answer to Thomas Edison.
Yeah, that P-IV running at MCC MHz ought to be just the thing to replace this sluggish Celeron.
Now if I could just figure out how to write zero in RN...
It's not a matter of being acceptable or not. A watt isn't a joule. A watt is a measure of energy used per unit time...dJ/dt, or 1 joule per second.
We use the term watt just like we use the term amp (or ampere). Just as it's easier to express current as amps instead of coulombs per second, it's a matter of convenience to use watts instead of joules per second.
Now if you really want to get cranky over something, how about the ridiculous English measurement system???
I think that taking the position that this "tea rodent" is being maliciously prosecuted, or that the case is unfair is the wrong thing to do. I think that we should speak out more on the injustice and lack of freedom of other countries when compared to ours. While we continue to see our freedoms erode somewhat, they are still a veritable smorgasbord when compared to other countries. What's happening to this kid is a damn shame...and we ought to be angry about the situation in general...not just this particular case.
=h=
More importantly, I think, is that a significant number of in-house development positions have been given to contractors...and many of the contractors are former employees who quit, then returned as contractors. Certainly the company may come out ahead in that they don't have to pay such things as social security and other taxes, nor do they provide any benefits, but the IRS looks very closely at the use of contractors for more than just short-term jobs.
Also, I would question that you get the best and brightest of people. I think that you get individuals who are seeking a lot of money...but they are also giving up security, important benefits and entangling themselves in a potential tax nightmare. Unless you know that you are dealing with savvy business people, I would question the wisdom of your contractors. The pay that they command may be a lot of dollars in their pocket, but when all is said and done, chances are very good that they have forgone a substantial long-term financial gain for some short term money. And that doesn't sound like a smart move to me.
But it's true that to quickly ramp up a rapidly growing operation contractors can be a boon. Just make sure that you're using your resources wisely. You'd probably be well advised for your first contractor to be a human resources analyst.
=h=
Amazon.com. Yahoo.com. Excite.com. There are a few examples of companies whose stocks are booming, yet haven't managed to ever make a profit. And, except for Amazon, almost none of the Internet companies even have a product to sell.
The rather obvious answer is that these investments are investments in the future...they are also investments in the competency of the company. The old days of scrutinizing PE, PS and PEG statements are a thing of the past with these new companies.
RedHat has two key advantages, in my opinion. The first is that they have a product and the accompanying services to sell. The second is that they are the first of a new wave of an Internet/software hybrid company to hit the market. That differentiates them from the recent plethora of IPOs that have flooded the market.
Sure they're overcapitalized. But that seems to be the rule of the day for these things.
And if everyone sold IBM, that stock would drop, too.
Check out the market caps of some of the Internet darlings...you'll find incredible valuations for companies who have never turned a profit! Conventional wisdom, in these cases, appears to be unconventional.
Sure I've been lost in the woods. I live in Idaho...over half the state is wilderness. And even with a compass and WITHOUT a map, I never had a problem getting out. Yeah, it's easy to get confused if you spend your time in panic.
I can suspend my disbelief. I love movies. But just because the camera jiggles and everybody acts really scared doesn't mean that I'm going to jump up and down and bow to some new paradigm in filmmaking. This would have been a good movie from a couple of guys studying film at UCLA, or maybe it deserves a place in that low budget "art" film niche, but as a mainstream movie, all I can determine is that everyone went gaga because it received great reviews from a film festival and cost less than a bedroom in San Jose. But the premise was tired, the plot was weak and the ending was so anticlimactic that as soon as I saw the house I told my friend what was about to happen. All that was left was to scrape the popcorn off my shoe.
Yeah...I can suspend disbelief. But that doesn't mean that any old crap that flickers and jiggles on the screen will catch my eye.
=h=
I honestly have to wonder how you can call me a dolt in one sentence, then actually be able to state that an obvious ending is a component of suspense. No, I say that this was a movie about three very stupid people who didn't have enough sense to follow a river back to civilization.
Further, having spent a fair amount of time in Maryland, I'll also postulate that anyone who cannot find their way out of one of those woods after three days deserves what they get.
By the end of the movie I was cheering for the witch.
I'm perfectly used to the fact that this movie has made more money than other movies. But I think that it's very clear that receipts != quality. This is a great case of how well marketing works. It's a bad movie...deal with it!
=h=
Loved it? Yeah, ok, if you're into watching three really stupid people who can walk into a "forest" on the eastern seaboard for a day, but CAN'T WALK OUT IN THREE DAYS. I would call it excruciatingly boring. CNN had it right...it should have been called The Blair Insomnia Project. I thought that the shaky cameras and "you are there" style of filming went out with Homicide.
I think that this movie proves nothing more than that with a good marketing machine and plenty of hype, along with a lot of screaming, running and cursing, it's possible to sucker a few million people into parting with their money.
The Blair Witch Project did nothing more than strain the audience's credibility and present yet another telling of some tired old summer camp ghost story. The only time that I got scared was when I realized that the stuff that was sticking to my shoe wasn't a spilled Coke, but bubble gum.
Not only was the movie completely un-scary, but the ending was PURE cheese. I mean, I could see it coming a mile away. My prediction? This movie is going to fade from the scope very quickly. All that has been proven is that with a very low budget, it's possible to rake in a very large amount of money. At least the accountants will walk away happy.
=h=
The copyright issue is a non-sequitur. It really has no relationship to personal privacy, but it is an interesting space filler in an article that has a veneer of doom and gloom, but little substance to back it up.
I have a hard time taking issue with the copyright law. Why should Disney be forced to surrender the copyright to Mickey Mouse when the character is still a current, thriving, revenue generating business? The copyright law was created under different circumstances than exist today. It's hardly fair to lobby for changes in, say, telecommunications laws that were created with no regard for modern communications without examining other laws that were created during similar times.
While the author's opinion is correct that nobody is going to starve in a garret because some works are passing into the public domain, he is incorrect when he suggests that writers, artists and musicians sign over virtually all of their rights to their publishers. I've written for publication for over ten years and I own the copyrights to everything that I've written. A writer makes a choice upon sale to a publisher: Sell all of the rights and take a big(ger) check or sell some portion (perhaps first publishing rights) and take a small(er) check.
The Internet, and to a greater degree all modern entertainment delivery systems, have opened a Pandora's box of issues regarding copyright issues. If a company is successfully using an icon after 70 years or more, why should they find themselves in danger of losing it?
And even more pointedly, what right does the public have to confiscate that property?
=h=
FUD is FUD, whether it comes from Microsoft, governments or paranoid writers.
In contrast, the Weekly World News has pointed out that a significant number of Nostradamus' predictions have come true as well, but I'm not holding my breath for a decade long world war, followed by a thousand years of paradise.
FUD is FUD.