Oh, man, this is getting to be too much. Seems like the earth comes to an end every twenty years or so.
Hey, somebody explain something to me... why is it that an SUV is a threat to the planet, but the same vehicle with different bodywork is just fine when it's called a pickup truck or minivan? Why is a housewife who drives her SUV around town for 5000 miles a year more of a threat than the guy who drives his Civic 30,000 miles/year? Why are movie stars who fly halfway around the world for a weekend getaway exempt from criticism?
There must have been some good stuff around in the patent office the morning they approved that one. There's only about 150 years' worth of prior art for stereo viewing via mirrors. Love the part of the claim where they discussed all the prior art but said that it required the user to bend over.
Seriously, this is a perfect example of the USPTO issuing patents for trivial things. I can't even imagine calling this an invention, there are so many precedent devices that use the same optical principles.
BTW, a similar device is currently available at http://www.pokescope.com/.
And as I got into the office, and checked on the two NT servers that I just inherited from a Typical Windows Guy... yup, even he had disabled all the ISAPI filters.
Notice, too, that the site that was linked was a recruiting site. In other words, if you accept a counter-offer, they don't get paid. So, read that list with a skeptical eye. There are some thoughts worth considering, just remember where they're coming from.
First... show your financial people what it would cost to run backups of all the PCs... cost of a tape library, a year's worth of tapes, software, etc. They'll make the decision for you, and you won't have to go that route. And it will absolve you of blame if data gets lost from PC's.
Next, make sure each user has a home directory on the server, and that it gets mapped as a drive. Make it easy for them, in other words.
Then, you can try to implement a policy that all data must be stored on the server. But policies don't always fly, especially in small organizations.
If that doesn't work, you can "suggest" it: Tell them that it's safe on the server, and that it's backed up, and if they don't want to risk doing their work all over again, they'll save their work there. If you're not getting cooperation, reinstall somebody's sytem, do your best to save all their data, but maybe "lose" something unimportant... their bookmarks or whatever. That will help drive the point home. I've had pretty good luck with this approach, you just have to send frequent friendly reminders. The friendlier and funnier the reminders are, the more effective. If you can't come up with at least one good data loss joke every couple of weeks, then you're not qualified to be a sysadmin.
Well, sure, except that BART riders only pay half the cost. The rest comes from taxpayers, few of whom ride the train. Sure the service is good... with no need to break even, they can make is as good as they want it to be; they'll just go to Sacramento or Washington to make up the losses. If CSX did this, you (and I) would be pretty pissed
Any way you slice it, the cost per passenger mile is much higher by rail than by car. Putting it under government control simply hides the costs.
The US has a fantastic railroad system. But it moves mostly freight; obviously, the long distances make this the most economical use. One of Amtrak's thornier problems is that the freight companies don't want the low-revenue (but high-priority) passenger trains clogging up their systems.
Fact is, our rail system is very strong and very healthy, and it keeps a LOT of trucks off the highways. And it does that without any significant subsidy. Which I think is pretty cool.
Nothing against passenger travel, I took a couple of cross-country trips on Amtrak some years ago, and enjoyed 'em a lot. Unfortunately, people working at fast food joints were paying the taxes that subsidized my sleeping car room. Even so, it cost more than flying, took three days longer... and Amtrak still lost money.
Long-distance passenger travel just isn't viable in the US, except as a luxury, and it never will be. How could a train be built that replaces an existing Amtrak route and yet be profitable? It's impossible. Costs would be higher, and the potential for extra revenue just isn't there.
Freight trains, though, moves great quantities of stuff at little cost to the public.
Too bad all the dot-coms are gone. One of them would have paid a bundle for it as part of their "branding strategy", and then some lucky employee would have gotten to take it home when they folded.
True, but only sort of. I came right out and said we should get rid of last-mile monopolies. The other poster seemed to accept the monopolies, but lamented the way companies behave when granted one. Personally, I expect them to be greedy, but in a truly free (but lawful) market, greed isn't rewarded. When you guarantee somebody a monopoly, then that changes.
self-styled free marketeers (who apparently can't recognize a limited, non-free market when it hits them in the face)
Well, a real free-market thinker would understand that cable ISP's aren't even close to being a free market. In the US anyway, each cable company is granted a legislated monopoly in a given town. Only one company can run a cable to your house. Same for phone companies. So... service sucks and prices are too high.
restore some social responsibility to these businesses
An easy platitude to utter, but exactly what are you proposing? Brainwash the management? Throw 'em in jail as an example? Pass a law that says they have to be nice? I mean, how do you make a company more responsive to consumers, other than open it up to some good old free-market competition? Get rid of the last-mile monopolies, and you'll see the benefits of the free market.... the same greedy people will have to treat their customers much better.
To quote the old line, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."
I never understood why anybody would want to buy a cable modem anyway. Modem prices have come down, but even before AT&T's rate change change, buying your own only saved $10 a month anyway. So that means that if you bought a cable modem for $150, it would be 15 months before you broke even. That's too long a payback time for a technology investment.
SO stop paying. Maybe you can recover some of the money you paid for past service. But this is a matter for small claims court, not the Supreme Court.
If it helps, I'll join you in lobbying to remove the cable/DSL companies' monopoly protection, so that you have a real choice. You should have the right to buy service from whomever wants to sell it to you. You don't have that right, but you should.
This one IS appropriate for the YRO section. You should have the right to buy any computer, with or without copy protection in hardware. Of course, this is not a right that's very well protected by the Constitution.
Efforts to force inclusion of hardware copy protection are simply the work of a special-interest group. It's as if Microsoft or Sun wanted a law that mandated that every computer have the Java or.NET runtime included, or if AOL wanted to madate inclusion of AOL software(Ironically, MS, Sun, and AOL have been pretty successful at distribution of their clients, even without legislation).
That's what Hollywood is trying to accomplish, to use legislation to build their distribution channel. Get off your asses and figure it out yourselves.
Yes, these are just priviliges. More accurately, it's a product that you've bought and it's crappy.
Your RIGHT is to go buy Usenet service elsewhere. You were born with the ability to do that. Of course, it's not protected as thoroughly as some other rights.
And, it's RR's right to sell whatever product they want... again, this isn't absolutely protected, they have to observe all kinds of regulations.
You were boren with the ability to post to Usenet; that's a right. You were not born with the ability to post through RoadRunner.
Anything that mandates what somebody else must do for you is NOT a right. It may be a good idea, it may be justifiable, but it's not an inalienable right. You have an inalienable right to food, housing, medicine, and porn, but you don't have a right to make somebody provide it for you.
See, they're going about this all wrong. What they really should do is develop a way to uncap your neighbors' cable modems. Then, they'll get tossed off the network and you can have it all to yourself.
The desktop business isn't interesting. Neither are the handhelds, or the printer business.
What _IS_ interesting is the Big Iron stuff...
Considering that Dell's market cap is now triple that of Sun's, I'm not so sure that's the case.
It's worth noting, though, that of all the people now at HPQ from the combined companies, there's apparently not a single one who knows how to design an attracive laptop.
The question shouldn't be simply whether tabbed pallettes are innovative. Rather, does the patent protection provide sufficient incentive to justify denying others the use of these pallettes?
Because they're patented, users of nearly all software are denied the utility that comes from using tabbed pallettes. But would Adobe have developed them even without patent protection? I strongly suspect they would have.
Of course, these are not things that a judge should concern himself with; the law is the law, and as it exists, it's fairly clear. It's a matter for policy-makers (Congress) to think about, though. It's clear that the patent system is badly in need of overhaul. Most of the "innovation" that it encourages seems to consist of people trying to invent a hundred different patentable ways to do the same thing. That's wasteful, and doesn't justify denying the public the use of the numerous but trivial innovations that currently receive patent protection.
Slashdot Mirror
Geez, if this continues, Italy might become a Catholic nation.
Oh, man, this is getting to be too much. Seems like the earth comes to an end every twenty years or so.
Hey, somebody explain something to me... why is it that an SUV is a threat to the planet, but the same vehicle with different bodywork is just fine when it's called a pickup truck or minivan? Why is a housewife who drives her SUV around town for 5000 miles a year more of a threat than the guy who drives his Civic 30,000 miles/year? Why are movie stars who fly halfway around the world for a weekend getaway exempt from criticism?
So, but it's open source, so they have a patch out even before the vulnerability is discovered.
There must have been some good stuff around in the patent office the morning they approved that one. There's only about 150 years' worth of prior art for stereo viewing via mirrors. Love the part of the claim where they discussed all the prior art but said that it required the user to bend over.
Seriously, this is a perfect example of the USPTO issuing patents for trivial things. I can't even imagine calling this an invention, there are so many precedent devices that use the same optical principles.
BTW, a similar device is currently available at http://www.pokescope.com/.
>> a recruiter contacted me with a very nice potential position - I interviewed and received an offer with a 50% increase in pay
Ummm... just to be safe, you maybe oughta pinch yourself and make sure you haven't time warped to 1999 or something.
And as I got into the office, and checked on the two NT servers that I just inherited from a Typical Windows Guy... yup, even he had disabled all the ISAPI filters.
Back to sleep.
Notice, too, that the site that was linked was a recruiting site. In other words, if you accept a counter-offer, they don't get paid. So, read that list with a skeptical eye. There are some thoughts worth considering, just remember where they're coming from.
I know. Any decent admin disabled the .htr filters what... two years ago? three?
Well, it helped me wake up this morning.
First... show your financial people what it would cost to run backups of all the PCs... cost of a tape library, a year's worth of tapes, software, etc. They'll make the decision for you, and you won't have to go that route. And it will absolve you of blame if data gets lost from PC's.
Next, make sure each user has a home directory on the server, and that it gets mapped as a drive. Make it easy for them, in other words.
Then, you can try to implement a policy that all data must be stored on the server. But policies don't always fly, especially in small organizations.
If that doesn't work, you can "suggest" it: Tell them that it's safe on the server, and that it's backed up, and if they don't want to risk doing their work all over again, they'll save their work there. If you're not getting cooperation, reinstall somebody's sytem, do your best to save all their data, but maybe "lose" something unimportant... their bookmarks or whatever. That will help drive the point home. I've had pretty good luck with this approach, you just have to send frequent friendly reminders. The friendlier and funnier the reminders are, the more effective. If you can't come up with at least one good data loss joke every couple of weeks, then you're not qualified to be a sysadmin.
Well, sure, except that BART riders only pay half the cost. The rest comes from taxpayers, few of whom ride the train. Sure the service is good... with no need to break even, they can make is as good as they want it to be; they'll just go to Sacramento or Washington to make up the losses. If CSX did this, you (and I) would be pretty pissed
Any way you slice it, the cost per passenger mile is much higher by rail than by car. Putting it under government control simply hides the costs.
The US has a fantastic railroad system. But it moves mostly freight; obviously, the long distances make this the most economical use. One of Amtrak's thornier problems is that the freight companies don't want the low-revenue (but high-priority) passenger trains clogging up their systems.
Fact is, our rail system is very strong and very healthy, and it keeps a LOT of trucks off the highways. And it does that without any significant subsidy. Which I think is pretty cool.
Nothing against passenger travel, I took a couple of cross-country trips on Amtrak some years ago, and enjoyed 'em a lot. Unfortunately, people working at fast food joints were paying the taxes that subsidized my sleeping car room. Even so, it cost more than flying, took three days longer... and Amtrak still lost money.
Long-distance passenger travel just isn't viable in the US, except as a luxury, and it never will be. How could a train be built that replaces an existing Amtrak route and yet be profitable? It's impossible. Costs would be higher, and the potential for extra revenue just isn't there.
Freight trains, though, moves great quantities of stuff at little cost to the public.
Too bad all the dot-coms are gone. One of them would have paid a bundle for it as part of their "branding strategy", and then some lucky employee would have gotten to take it home when they folded.
>> You're both sort of saying the same thing
True, but only sort of. I came right out and said we should get rid of last-mile monopolies. The other poster seemed to accept the monopolies, but lamented the way companies behave when granted one. Personally, I expect them to be greedy, but in a truly free (but lawful) market, greed isn't rewarded. When you guarantee somebody a monopoly, then that changes.
>> What accounting planet are you from?
The planet where Moore's Law is in effect.
self-styled free marketeers (who apparently can't recognize a limited, non-free market when it hits them in the face)
Well, a real free-market thinker would understand that cable ISP's aren't even close to being a free market. In the US anyway, each cable company is granted a legislated monopoly in a given town. Only one company can run a cable to your house. Same for phone companies. So... service sucks and prices are too high.
restore some social responsibility to these businesses
An easy platitude to utter, but exactly what are you proposing? Brainwash the management? Throw 'em in jail as an example? Pass a law that says they have to be nice? I mean, how do you make a company more responsive to consumers, other than open it up to some good old free-market competition? Get rid of the last-mile monopolies, and you'll see the benefits of the free market.... the same greedy people will have to treat their customers much better.
To quote the old line, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."
I never understood why anybody would want to buy a cable modem anyway. Modem prices have come down, but even before AT&T's rate change change, buying your own only saved $10 a month anyway. So that means that if you bought a cable modem for $150, it would be 15 months before you broke even. That's too long a payback time for a technology investment.
SO stop paying. Maybe you can recover some of the money you paid for past service. But this is a matter for small claims court, not the Supreme Court.
If it helps, I'll join you in lobbying to remove the cable/DSL companies' monopoly protection, so that you have a real choice. You should have the right to buy service from whomever wants to sell it to you. You don't have that right, but you should.
This one IS appropriate for the YRO section. You should have the right to buy any computer, with or without copy protection in hardware. Of course, this is not a right that's very well protected by the Constitution.
.NET runtime included, or if AOL wanted to madate inclusion of AOL software(Ironically, MS, Sun, and AOL have been pretty successful at distribution of their clients, even without legislation).
Efforts to force inclusion of hardware copy protection are simply the work of a special-interest group. It's as if Microsoft or Sun wanted a law that mandated that every computer have the Java or
That's what Hollywood is trying to accomplish, to use legislation to build their distribution channel. Get off your asses and figure it out yourselves.
Yes, these are just priviliges. More accurately, it's a product that you've bought and it's crappy.
Your RIGHT is to go buy Usenet service elsewhere. You were born with the ability to do that. Of course, it's not protected as thoroughly as some other rights.
And, it's RR's right to sell whatever product they want... again, this isn't absolutely protected, they have to observe all kinds of regulations.
You were boren with the ability to post to Usenet; that's a right. You were not born with the ability to post through RoadRunner.
Anything that mandates what somebody else must do for you is NOT a right. It may be a good idea, it may be justifiable, but it's not an inalienable right. You have an inalienable right to food, housing, medicine, and porn, but you don't have a right to make somebody provide it for you.
Imagine if they did offer rebates to former Windows users. Your birth cetificate would probably qualify as Proof Of Purchase.
Windows users already have enough incentive to upgrade.
See, they're going about this all wrong. What they really should do is develop a way to uncap your neighbors' cable modems. Then, they'll get tossed off the network and you can have it all to yourself.
The desktop business isn't interesting. Neither are the handhelds, or the printer business.
What _IS_ interesting is the Big Iron stuff...
Considering that Dell's market cap is now triple that of Sun's, I'm not so sure that's the case.
It's worth noting, though, that of all the people now at HPQ from the combined companies, there's apparently not a single one who knows how to design an attracive laptop.
The question shouldn't be simply whether tabbed pallettes are innovative. Rather, does the patent protection provide sufficient incentive to justify denying others the use of these pallettes?
Because they're patented, users of nearly all software are denied the utility that comes from using tabbed pallettes. But would Adobe have developed them even without patent protection? I strongly suspect they would have.
Of course, these are not things that a judge should concern himself with; the law is the law, and as it exists, it's fairly clear. It's a matter for policy-makers (Congress) to think about, though. It's clear that the patent system is badly in need of overhaul. Most of the "innovation" that it encourages seems to consist of people trying to invent a hundred different patentable ways to do the same thing. That's wasteful, and doesn't justify denying the public the use of the numerous but trivial innovations that currently receive patent protection.
>> the on-again, off-again McNealy Linux relationship.
Suspect Scott's going to be having an on-again, off-again relationship with Carly or Lou before this is all through.