I live in Belgium. For the geographically-disabled: Belgium's a country in Europe that should be known for hosting the European parliament and the NATO-headquarters. Recently we've also caught some press with our politicians anti-Iraq-war attitude (you've gotta love politicians in pre-elections time).
Two months ago I've tried to buy a digital camera on several US-websites. The reason why I would have preferred buying in the US is that (not only for cameras) prices are about 30% cheaper than in the EU. Even after shipping, taxes, whatever. This is probably partly due to the current low price of the dollar compared to the euro, but also 'cause a lot off products are simply sold cheaper in the US (it's actually cheaper to buy a BMW in the US and ship it here, than buying it here: having a high standard of living has a rather unfortunate effect on prices).
None of the US-sites I've visited (Amazon, BestBuy,...) wanted to sell to me. I'm still unclear as to why they wouldn't sell to me: The anti-fraud argument is not applicable here: Belgium's fraud rate for creditcards is (at 0.6% of total transaction volume) less than that in the US.
Not being willing to set up the proper canals for selling seems a much likelier candidate: The shipping itself is probably no extra hassle, but we have for instance laws that say that any products that are sold here to customers (not businesses) should have manuals in our languages (Dutch, French and German). I can imagine that providing guarantees and other sorts of customer service aren't easy or cheap either.
I ended up buying locally at a higher price. (well actually: I bought it in The Netherlands so the shipping problem still applied and if I'll ever need the guarantee, I'm probably screwed anyway).
It's a very Good Thing(tm) that companies like HP are lending their support to Linux. In order to get a more widespread adoption of Linux in the business world, it will be necessary to provide extensive and reliable support, like HP is promising now.
I know that some companies are allready giving good Linux support (RedHat comes to mind) but for the PHB's it's very important that a big company name like HP stands behind these promises. It will make it easier for them to convince upper management that Linux is a viable choice for more than it's pricing.
The company I work for is in the proces of upgrading al PC's (about 1500). The choice has been made to go for WIN NT for several reasons:
Stability: it's better than the WIN3.11 that a lot of users have now
Software Price: it's a LOT cheaper than what MS is charging for WIN ME etc. Subscription in itself is not really a problem (we have a few mainframes and IBM's software is mostly subscription based, but that usually includes upgrades and consultancy).
Total cost of ownership: It can be run on 'slower' hardware than what's needed for the newer flavors of WIN. It's also upgraded less frequently (upgrading 1500 PC's is a lot of work and therefor expensive).
PS: We also checked out Linux. The (sadly enough) only reason not to go for that was the (at that time) lack of support for MS-fileformats.
I'm Belgian (admitting this should either merrit a '+1 couragious', or a '-1 morron').
In order to evaluate the proposal to give away free computers to everyone, one has to know one or two things about Belgium.
First (and hopefully commonly known) Belgium is divided in two parts, one part speaking Dutch (5.5 million inhabitants), and another part speaking French (4.5 million inhabitants).
Second: the Dutch part is economically doing a great deal better than the French part. This is true when you evaluate on number of unemployed people, average wages,...
Third: There have been socialists in our government for the last 50 years or so. Hence there is a lot of protection for the 'needy'. For example: Belgium has just about the highest income-tax in Europe (to startle some Americans: I (and my wife) pay 55% taxes on our income. Another example: Belgium has the highest rate of people getting money from government compared to working people. A staggering 103 people getting unemployment, disability, pension,... per 100 working people. For comparison: France has 90/100, US has 60/100.
Last: As people are most concerned about themselves (this merrits a '-1 obvious') the 103 vote socialist to get more money/computers/free healthcare/whatever from the government. The 100 vote liberal (or central Christian) to pay less taxes.
Minister Onckelinckx is, as you may have gathered by now, a member of the socialist party of the French speaking part of Belgium. Her proposal is therefore perhaps great for the people that vote for her, but it obviously isn't for those (like me) that have to pay the bills.
On a side note: I wouldn't be at all surprised if that would turn out to be 'Pay the Bill'.
This proposal will eventually be burried, like so many other proposals from our ministers. A green party minister once suggested to close our national airport at night because of noise-problems. It's like all ministers agreed to each get a week in which they can try to step into the light by making the silliest possible suggestions. I'd suggest not paying too much attention to it.
I would have expected to see The Cure's 'Killing an Arab' in the list.
The song starts of:
Standing at the beach with a gun in my hand
Staring at the sea, staring at the sand.
Whatever I choose it amounts to the same
Absolutely nothing
I'm alive
I'm dead
I'm a stranger
Killing an Arab
Microsoft did not omit the smart tags because of the noise generated by protesters on/. . Everyone (and especially everyone that reads/. regularly) has known for a long time now that Microsoft doesn't give a rat's ass about whether or not people like what they are doing. The story about mandatory MS Passport usage on this site just a few hours ago was yet another example of that.
Microsoft is however concerned about whether or not they are able to sell their products. In my company (big bank) management had allready decided to update our entire website so it couldn't be smart-tagged. Seems our management would have a problem with the fact Microsoft links every occurance of the words 'bank', 'loan', etc. to one of our competitors. Not that we mind advertisements. We just mind other banks advertising on our site. If other companies have reacted the same (as can be expected) and word of this has gotten out to Microsoft, it's no wonder they've reverted their decision. It'll make sure they'll sell more, so removing the Smart Tags is a Smart Move(tm).
The cynic in me sees a strange result of this decision: if Microsoft is able to embed Smart Tags in their OS, but leave it out of their browser, then perhaps the OS and the browser are not one and the same, contrary to Microsoft's defense in the Monopoly case. Just a thought.
This doesn't really sound like a good idea. The argument made in the article that saving the content in a central place will result in having more content available is of course correct. On first sight this looks like the customers will be getting a better service than they are getting now.
However it's one thing to have a giant (think Beowulf cluster) computer that stores everything that is being broadcast. It's a whole different story to get that content to a customer when that customers wants to get it. Distributing that kind of heavyweight (bandwith-wise) content on an as-you-request basis will quickly result in giant bandwidth shortages. It's just not feasible.
The cynic in me however does not think that improving the quality of service is the first target here however. I presume that this company has just smelled the money of delivering a pay-per-view to its customers.
There's nothing new in 'going underground' to enforce the safety of a computerpark. My company - a large european bank - has had similar facilities for the last decade. To be exact: we have one computer centre that is built intirely under the ground, and a second (a complete copy of the first) that sits on the second floor of another building. Both sites are complete copies, so if one goes down, the idea is that the other should be able to take over all the work. To give an idea of the scrutiny which we use to make sure that the two sites are fully redundant: The sites are connected only by fiber (no copper) to make sure that for instance a lightning blast cannot be propagated through the network from one site to the other.
Having a site on a second floor protects against floods. Having an underground site should protect against plane crashes (although we haven't really tested that, perhaps we should ask that Richard Branson guy if he could help us out with that).
I just mean to say: if my company could have reused an existing safe cellar for their underground location, they probably would have too. That has got to be cheaper than what we're doing now.
It is logical that media put limits on what you are allowed to advertise through them. For example, if a publication is tailored to a specific target audience (like fishermen) then it is logical that they will not publish content that does not support getting more readers. This may be
content that annoys their readers (like articles about the pain that a fish feels when it bites)
or content that affects more directly on the number of readers (like placing ads for other publications with the same audience).
There's even a chance that shareholders might sue a company if it does not try to protect its revenue stream, because that would mean that the company is not working in the shareholders best interest. For OAL the same principle applies: gaining a bigger market share implies trying to minimize other companies' market share. This has nothing to do with monopolies. It's just the natural and healthy survival of the fittest that has always been the core of capitalism.
Although Flash is undoubtedly an interesting implementation to get an end-user solution for not-too-static websites, I'd really appreciate it if all how-to's of this kind of technology would spend the half of their pages in explaining
why this shouldn't be used too much
that forcing a surfer through an entry-tunnel to access a website is Bad Practice (tm)
and that most sites are actually being visited for their content, rather than their flashy look (no pun intended)
A very interesting point of view on this subject can be found in Phillip Greenspun's Guide to web publishing. Phillip even practices what he preaches on photo.net.
I'm guessing you can't log in to slashdot as your school's proxy blocks all JavaScript. Try surfing to www.safeweb.com and then surf to slashdot.org from there. If the proxy at your school allows SSL-connections (which it probably does), then you should be able to view whatever site you want (without even the content being logged at the proxy).
I really don't see the point in discussing the ethics of having someone pay to go into space.
After all, it's strictly a question of filling an existing demand, namely doing something that very few people are able to do. The fact that customers that want to fullfill this demand, are being asked exorbitant amounts of money isn't even relevant. Half of the attraction of going into space is the fact that it shows that you have a gazillion to spend on the little luxuries of life.
I'd say, let's hope there will be a lot of companies to offer this service. And let's hope they even make a profit. They'll pay taxes (which is actually money taken of their rich clients) and, consequently, I'll pay less taxes.
That's what we are all looking for right? Deeper and wider content for free. Well, these full-page ads would do that. I would love to see the Times' website add staff instead of making cuts as they have done. If I have to sit through a 20-second ad for every 10 pages so they can keep the free content coming, bring it on.
I feel this is only partly correct. Sure it is true that I want to get Good Content (tm), and it is even more true that I am not willing to pay for that. This site is one of the finest examples of how the internet (and a popular website) can create a community that delivers far more interesting and far more to-the-point information than any marketing-droid could ever hope to feed trough any means of advertisement.
Let's face it, hardly any of us are right now e.g. looking for a car that even remotely matches what some marketing department has decided should be pushed out of the assembly halls in the next quarter. It immediately follows that any car-commercial will be completely lost on me. And even if I wanted to buy a car, I'd make sure that I get the right information, and I know I won't be getting that from any advertisement.
On the other hand, if 'they' would decide to start feeding me interrupt based ads while I'm visiting a website, then I'll just install whatever workaround needed to not be bugged by that. Hey, These are computers remember. Computers can do anything. Even blocking ads.
Actually it makes perfect sense to use budget from the military to make space technology better.
After all, it's time that everyone starts to realise that, now the iron curtain is down, there are no more enemies for the US to combat. So if the military is still to be deserving a budget, they might as well spend it on stuff that has some actual use (or at least a slightly less dim chance of being used than e.g. new atomic bombs).
If the project eventually turns out to reduce the cost of getting stuff into space from 10,000 USD per pound to 1,000 USD per pound, then anything that is spent on this, is money well spent. I'd rather see my tax dollars being used on something that might improve my quality of life, than on something that is aimed at terminating my life.
We are currently seeking outside funding partners to help cover the start-up and annual costs of the project for the first decade of operation. We anticipate that development costs during the initial phase of the project will be between $7.5 million and $10 million per year.
The plan is to make some 2,000 courses available in the next 10 years. This means that they're expecting to spend $75 million to $100 million on 2,000 courses, or up to $50,000 per course.
It seems to me that, at these prices, we shouldn't hold our breaths expecting a rapid roll out of these courses. They're gona be needing a lot of funding to get this going (not to mention to maintain the courses up to date), and I doubt if the current stock market situation will be helpful in raising this sort of cash.
I don't think it's surprising that Microsoft should choose not to incorporate BlueTooth capabilities in their new products. One has to remind himself that BlueTooth technologie is still far from stable.
Slashdot had a story on this only 1 week ago. Biggest problem at this time seems to be that a BlueTooth 'standard' has yet to be implemented (there is even talk of creating a new standard that would merge the 'standards' that are now set by the different manufacturers).
Without a single standard that everybody is willing to adhere to, the sad truth is that BlueTooth may have the same destiny as WAP. Gartner Group and others proclaimed WAP to be The-Future (tm) and the Solution-to-all-your-Problems (tm). When WAP showed teething problems, it was immediately dumped by those same people. This may also happen to BlueTooth, if industry watchers will again show to be unwilling to value the technologie to its merits, and not by just trying to find the 10 reasons why BlueTooth doesn't solve the world's problems.
As long as Microsoft (and any other company) is faced with these uncertainties (BlueTooth standards still under development + public acceptance and succes far from sure) then it's only logical that they are not prepared to pour money in this.
Slashdot Mirror
I've experienced the same problem.
...) wanted to sell to me. I'm still unclear as to why they wouldn't sell to me: The anti-fraud argument is not applicable here: Belgium's fraud rate for creditcards is (at 0.6% of total transaction volume) less than that in the US.
I live in Belgium. For the geographically-disabled: Belgium's a country in Europe that should be known for hosting the European parliament and the NATO-headquarters. Recently we've also caught some press with our politicians anti-Iraq-war attitude (you've gotta love politicians in pre-elections time).
Two months ago I've tried to buy a digital camera on several US-websites. The reason why I would have preferred buying in the US is that (not only for cameras) prices are about 30% cheaper than in the EU. Even after shipping, taxes, whatever. This is probably partly due to the current low price of the dollar compared to the euro, but also 'cause a lot off products are simply sold cheaper in the US (it's actually cheaper to buy a BMW in the US and ship it here, than buying it here: having a high standard of living has a rather unfortunate effect on prices).
None of the US-sites I've visited (Amazon, BestBuy,
Not being willing to set up the proper canals for selling seems a much likelier candidate: The shipping itself is probably no extra hassle, but we have for instance laws that say that any products that are sold here to customers (not businesses) should have manuals in our languages (Dutch, French and German). I can imagine that providing guarantees and other sorts of customer service aren't easy or cheap either.
I ended up buying locally at a higher price. (well actually: I bought it in The Netherlands so the shipping problem still applied and if I'll ever need the guarantee, I'm probably screwed anyway).
Bummer.
I know that some companies are allready giving good Linux support (RedHat comes to mind) but for the PHB's it's very important that a big company name like HP stands behind these promises. It will make it easier for them to convince upper management that Linux is a viable choice for more than it's pricing.
Stability: it's better than the WIN3.11 that a lot of users have now
Software Price: it's a LOT cheaper than what MS is charging for WIN ME etc. Subscription in itself is not really a problem (we have a few mainframes and IBM's software is mostly subscription based, but that usually includes upgrades and consultancy).
Total cost of ownership: It can be run on 'slower' hardware than what's needed for the newer flavors of WIN. It's also upgraded less frequently (upgrading 1500 PC's is a lot of work and therefor expensive).
PS: We also checked out Linux. The (sadly enough) only reason not to go for that was the (at that time) lack of support for MS-fileformats.
In order to evaluate the proposal to give away free computers to everyone, one has to know one or two things about Belgium.
First (and hopefully commonly known) Belgium is divided in two parts, one part speaking Dutch (5.5 million inhabitants), and another part speaking French (4.5 million inhabitants).
Second: the Dutch part is economically doing a great deal better than the French part. This is true when you evaluate on number of unemployed people, average wages, ...
Third: There have been socialists in our government for the last 50 years or so. Hence there is a lot of protection for the 'needy'. For example: Belgium has just about the highest income-tax in Europe (to startle some Americans: I (and my wife) pay 55% taxes on our income. Another example: Belgium has the highest rate of people getting money from government compared to working people. A staggering 103 people getting unemployment, disability, pension, ... per 100 working people. For comparison: France has 90/100, US has 60/100.
Last: As people are most concerned about themselves (this merrits a '-1 obvious') the 103 vote socialist to get more money/computers/free healthcare/whatever from the government. The 100 vote liberal (or central Christian) to pay less taxes.
Minister Onckelinckx is, as you may have gathered by now, a member of the socialist party of the French speaking part of Belgium. Her proposal is therefore perhaps great for the people that vote for her, but it obviously isn't for those (like me) that have to pay the bills.
On a side note: I wouldn't be at all surprised if that would turn out to be 'Pay the Bill'.
This proposal will eventually be burried, like so many other proposals from our ministers. A green party minister once suggested to close our national airport at night because of noise-problems. It's like all ministers agreed to each get a week in which they can try to step into the light by making the silliest possible suggestions. I'd suggest not paying too much attention to it.
The song starts of:
Standing at the beach with a gun in my hand
Staring at the sea, staring at the sand.
Whatever I choose it amounts to the same
Absolutely nothing
I'm alive
I'm dead
I'm a stranger
Killing an Arab
Probably just an oversight from ClearChannel.
Microsoft is however concerned about whether or not they are able to sell their products. In my company (big bank) management had allready decided to update our entire website so it couldn't be smart-tagged. Seems our management would have a problem with the fact Microsoft links every occurance of the words 'bank', 'loan', etc. to one of our competitors. Not that we mind advertisements. We just mind other banks advertising on our site. If other companies have reacted the same (as can be expected) and word of this has gotten out to Microsoft, it's no wonder they've reverted their decision. It'll make sure they'll sell more, so removing the Smart Tags is a Smart Move(tm).
The cynic in me sees a strange result of this decision: if Microsoft is able to embed Smart Tags in their OS, but leave it out of their browser, then perhaps the OS and the browser are not one and the same, contrary to Microsoft's defense in the Monopoly case. Just a thought.
However it's one thing to have a giant (think Beowulf cluster) computer that stores everything that is being broadcast. It's a whole different story to get that content to a customer when that customers wants to get it. Distributing that kind of heavyweight (bandwith-wise) content on an as-you-request basis will quickly result in giant bandwidth shortages. It's just not feasible.
The cynic in me however does not think that improving the quality of service is the first target here however. I presume that this company has just smelled the money of delivering a pay-per-view to its customers.
Having a site on a second floor protects against floods. Having an underground site should protect against plane crashes (although we haven't really tested that, perhaps we should ask that Richard Branson guy if he could help us out with that).
I just mean to say: if my company could have reused an existing safe cellar for their underground location, they probably would have too. That has got to be cheaper than what we're doing now.
content that annoys their readers (like articles about the pain that a fish feels when it bites)
or content that affects more directly on the number of readers (like placing ads for other publications with the same audience).
There's even a chance that shareholders might sue a company if it does not try to protect its revenue stream, because that would mean that the company is not working in the shareholders best interest. For OAL the same principle applies: gaining a bigger market share implies trying to minimize other companies' market share. This has nothing to do with monopolies. It's just the natural and healthy survival of the fittest that has always been the core of capitalism.
I'd like to see if this solution is better on those fields. That would definitely be a big Thumbs Up for the Open Source movement.
why this shouldn't be used too much
that forcing a surfer through an entry-tunnel to access a website is Bad Practice (tm)
and that most sites are actually being visited for their content, rather than their flashy look (no pun intended)
A very interesting point of view on this subject can be found in Phillip Greenspun's Guide to web publishing. Phillip even practices what he preaches on photo.net.
I'm guessing you can't log in to slashdot as your school's proxy blocks all JavaScript. Try surfing to www.safeweb.com and then surf to slashdot.org from there. If the proxy at your school allows SSL-connections (which it probably does), then you should be able to view whatever site you want (without even the content being logged at the proxy).
Good luck
After all, it's strictly a question of filling an existing demand, namely doing something that very few people are able to do. The fact that customers that want to fullfill this demand, are being asked exorbitant amounts of money isn't even relevant. Half of the attraction of going into space is the fact that it shows that you have a gazillion to spend on the little luxuries of life.
I'd say, let's hope there will be a lot of companies to offer this service. And let's hope they even make a profit. They'll pay taxes (which is actually money taken of their rich clients) and, consequently, I'll pay less taxes.
You gotta love'em.
That's what we are all looking for right? Deeper and wider content for free. Well, these full-page ads would do that. I would love to see the Times' website add staff instead of making cuts as they have done. If I have to sit through a 20-second ad for every 10 pages so they can keep the free content coming, bring it on.
I feel this is only partly correct. Sure it is true that I want to get Good Content (tm), and it is even more true that I am not willing to pay for that. This site is one of the finest examples of how the internet (and a popular website) can create a community that delivers far more interesting and far more to-the-point information than any marketing-droid could ever hope to feed trough any means of advertisement.
Let's face it, hardly any of us are right now e.g. looking for a car that even remotely matches what some marketing department has decided should be pushed out of the assembly halls in the next quarter. It immediately follows that any car-commercial will be completely lost on me. And even if I wanted to buy a car, I'd make sure that I get the right information, and I know I won't be getting that from any advertisement.
On the other hand, if 'they' would decide to start feeding me interrupt based ads while I'm visiting a website, then I'll just install whatever workaround needed to not be bugged by that. Hey, These are computers remember. Computers can do anything. Even blocking ads.
After all, it's time that everyone starts to realise that, now the iron curtain is down, there are no more enemies for the US to combat. So if the military is still to be deserving a budget, they might as well spend it on stuff that has some actual use (or at least a slightly less dim chance of being used than e.g. new atomic bombs).
If the project eventually turns out to reduce the cost of getting stuff into space from 10,000 USD per pound to 1,000 USD per pound, then anything that is spent on this, is money well spent. I'd rather see my tax dollars being used on something that might improve my quality of life, than on something that is aimed at terminating my life.
We are currently seeking outside funding partners to help cover the start-up and annual costs of the project for the first decade of operation. We anticipate that development costs during the initial phase of the project will be between $7.5 million and $10 million per year.
The plan is to make some 2,000 courses available in the next 10 years. This means that they're expecting to spend $75 million to $100 million on 2,000 courses, or up to $50,000 per course.
It seems to me that, at these prices, we shouldn't hold our breaths expecting a rapid roll out of these courses. They're gona be needing a lot of funding to get this going (not to mention to maintain the courses up to date), and I doubt if the current stock market situation will be helpful in raising this sort of cash.
Slashdot had a story on this only 1 week ago. Biggest problem at this time seems to be that a BlueTooth 'standard' has yet to be implemented (there is even talk of creating a new standard that would merge the 'standards' that are now set by the different manufacturers).
Without a single standard that everybody is willing to adhere to, the sad truth is that BlueTooth may have the same destiny as WAP. Gartner Group and others proclaimed WAP to be The-Future (tm) and the Solution-to-all-your-Problems (tm). When WAP showed teething problems, it was immediately dumped by those same people. This may also happen to BlueTooth, if industry watchers will again show to be unwilling to value the technologie to its merits, and not by just trying to find the 10 reasons why BlueTooth doesn't solve the world's problems.
As long as Microsoft (and any other company) is faced with these uncertainties (BlueTooth standards still under development + public acceptance and succes far from sure) then it's only logical that they are not prepared to pour money in this.
At least this thing will give you an excellent excuse while you're at work to say at 10AM: 'Hey I'm going home, my computer's telling me it's 5PM.'
Physically removing their heads would actually suffice. I wish I had a sig.
Weird, This guy is a student AND human. Must be a freshman.