I don't think the cult of the celebrity will ever die out. Instead, I think, it will be used as a source of wealth.
Consider a practical function of record execs. They filter out the lesser talent and promote the greater talent. You can debate all day what defines greater and lesser, but the fact remains that these people perform a function most of us have no time for.
If we assume that the money-making capability of recorded media declines to the point of non-profitability, then the obvious place to make money lies in personal appearances and live television and radio. Making the big time may not involve distributing music at all, but rather the amount of live media exposure.
Will this enhance an artist reputation or will we see more acts such as the Backstreet Boys and In-Sync? These are acts that can be created and destroyed by a whim and are backed by organized media efforts (actually the same one since the Backstreet Boys tried to sue their management and thereby bit the hand that fed them. Their creator then shifted his efforts to his "new" band In-Sync).
Personally, I think we'll see more of the latter type, since passable talent is easy to come by, easier to manage and cheaper to replace. Every couple of years a new group of 12-14 year olds "discovers" popular music. Even more quickly, they forget the bands in favor of the next new flavor of the year. Recorded music will become more of a cost of doing business in the industry of endless media sparkle.
The article says that the single was "a work in progress." If this was the case, isn't the custodian of the music, namely the record label, to blame for a lack of security regarding it?
Recorded music doesn't just fly away like a little bird. Someone released it - that's who Madonna should be worried about, not Napster or Gnutella.
Besides, who's to say she didn't do it herself to get some free publicity? She was never above creating controversy, no matter how popular she became...
They won't move everybody at once. If they do this, they'll offer relocation packages, severance pay, early retirement (if some employees ARE that old) and other deals to suit their workforce.
When you think about it, Microsoft's greatest assets ARE the imaginations of it's employees - and employees have legs. I would imagine a good number of them have already relocated great distances just to work for MS. What's a few more miles across the US/Canadian border? General Motors and AT&T didn't have this option in the 1960's and 1980's. Certainly Standard Oil didn't.
What I don't understand is the provincial government's offer of a loan to rebuild MS's facilities. Faced with a breakup, you would think MS would be paying THEM for the right to move over.
I don't see it happening. The more variables (people) you add, the more static you get.
Plato complained that too many people talking in the marketplace yielded no real debate on issues, just a lot of yelling. Apparently, the greater the crowd, the lower the common denominator (and quality of speech).
I've seen the same thing on a lot of bulletin boards. Back in the days of 300 baud modems, discussion could be interesting because only relatively intelligent people could figure out how to use a computer and modem and dial in. These same people were also capable of conducting themselves intelligently. As the technology improved and more people got online, the quality of discourse declined.
In the end, we will need major organizations to filter out the noise so that information can be usefully disseminated.
One would expect that a candidate's information would be more documented on the internet. On a web page political history, stands on issues and essays written by political candidates can be posted, giving the voter the opportunity to examine the real person and his/her ideas so that an intelligent decision can be made at election time.
and then reality set in....
But this really won't happen, will it? The last 20 years have seen debate in congress degenerate into partisan shouting matches and 3-second sound bites replace answers to reporters' questions - to name a few things. Why then should we expect decent content on politicians on the internet when the opposite has been the trend?
Maybe they can vote on line? What for? We have absentee ballots for this. If able-bodied people can, they should get out and walk to the polls. We take for granted a right that few people will ever have - we should have to work to exercise it if only to remind us that RIGHTS don't come easy.
With the dismantling of the LLFF, HRDC has eliminated the computer program used to link its information with information from the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency and data on social assistance from provincial/territorial governments.
So this was more of a data warehouse than anything else. The information is still being kept and gathered - just like it has always been. I'll place good money on betting that the "new" protocols to handle and disseminate the data mirror closely procedures already in place at the various gov't offices.
it's a deep linking issue. Here is a quote from the article:
Whyte granted the injunction on the grounds that Bidder's Edge's searches slowed or had the potential to slow eBay's service.
If Bidder's Edge sent thousands of requests for information per minute, it could overwhelm EBay. As a (hopefully) reputable business, I can't see Bidder's Edge doing this. It would be like shooting themselves in the foot. More likely, if Bidder's Edge conducts a search, EBay's advertising banners won't get read.
Regarding deep linking, the lack of it probably won't harm the web in general. It seems only retail businesses consider this an issue because their advertisements generate cash. I can't see entities like universities and private individuals making an issue of it.
Combatting drugs, Communism and terrorism are good reasons to provide employment to people in all sectors of government that deal with them. The US government, no matter what it does, needs the "approval of the people."
In order to justify its actions overseas and at home, it needs to create "enemies" and "just causes."
There may be some people in the US State Department and other places that sincerely believe that all cryptography should be classified as munitions - after all, a lack of cryptography on the part of the Germans and Japanese in WWII did severely compromise their respective war efforts.
But like all issues regarding the Internet, things are changing. No longer is cryptography and its transmission sole domain of government, banks and other large institutions. Today, anyone with a personal computer can easily create and distribute a coded message anywhere in the world. And why stop there? Why not get a bunch of people together and start a CRYPTO.ORG-type website with the purpose of creating a suite of super-secure client/server tools (telnet, ftp, e-mail, web, etc) that when plugged into UNIX/Linux, NT/2000, etc. would create a highly secure communications platform?
Terrorists and anybody else interested in covering their tracks can probably do it. Governments like the US, France, Britain, Israel, China and Russia probably have their own protocols and tools to communicate over open data channels.
We can have freedom or security; we can't have both. Security is an easy, clean thing to manage and takes care of problems before they occur. Freedom is hard, dirty and difficult to manage and comes with all sorts of problems. Security keeps people on one straight and narrow path while freedom beckons people to explore the untraveled paths....
Multiple revenue streams are required or else it is all for naught.
That's pretty good advice for any business. Selling support is a reactive strategy. What is needed is a proactive strategy.
I think that the so-called Linux companies are going to have to evolve into consulting companies. They will have to hire aggressive (but informed) sales staffs to create alliances with established, well known companies (ie IBM and RedHat) in order to survive. Eventually, I can see where these companies either buy up the business of other companies or are bought out buy larger entities like IBM.
Well, given that I am ALSO the proud owner of an MBA, a degree in accounting and several "suits," I would think I would know something about business. Valuation is loosely defined as the net present value of expected future economic earnings.
In other words: You have no value unless you can reasonably expect to make value (ie cash).
When you are creating value, you have cash to pay bills. I would think that they would have at least hired a clerk to write the checks. When you don't have cash, you the clerk can't write the checks.
Constant refinancing without the hope of maintaining a going concern is either stupid or illegal, depending on the circumstances.
And what's wrong with Geeks running a company? Gates, Allen, Dell, Jobs, Wozniak and others have done a fairly good job of it.
"The stock-market instability got to us," says Linuxcare's interim CEO Pat Lambs, who usually runs the firm's services unit.
Such an irresponsible comment. As any student in business school will tell you, stock market prices reflect expected FUTURE economic value. They shouldn't blame the market for their poor business decisions or choice of management.
On one hand, we have the Internet, which allows for the exchange of a plethora of ideas. On the other hand, some factions (countries, groups, whatever) consider the ideas of other factions to be stupid, rude and/or illegal.
With so many different opinions existing and the internet growing daily, clashes are bound to occur with increasing frequency.
If we are to live in a "Global Village," perhaps common rules should be set down. Not only are cultural philosophies clashing, but ideas regarding intellectual property, economic trade, criminal law, etc. are being rethought almost on a daily basis. Geography, it seems, doesn't count as much as it did even five years ago.
Everybody wondered what the kind of "Peace Dividend" the "New World Order" was going to bring after Communism. As usual, nobody was able to predict accurately the future. Perhaps this is the start of a "One World Government." Not a government brought on by high-minded idealism, but by plain, old-fashioned practicality.
...the one about quality control at NASA, also posted today on/. Sure it's all fine and dandy to make something of passable quality. But wouldn't we all like to like to see AMD (and other companies) go the extra mile to ensure very good quality in all facets of their products. Sure the Athlon is a good processor, but what good is it if it can be subject to heating problems because of an avoidable design oversight?
Sure, it can be compensated for by applying a conductive paste, but someone should have seen this at the design phase.
Microsoft got really rich when it decided that passable quality was good enough. Others copied this philosophy and now we have bloatware
Why is it that the robots have to become the Dangerous Ones? Most people tend to think of humans as the pinnacle of evolution. Does this mean that we're a Dead End and are slated to go into eventual decline leading to extinction?
If robots and computers can be upgraded, why can't we? To date, better nutrition and medicine has doubled the average human life span. With these benefits have come problems, but surely the net benefit is positive. I think we'll eventually have sentient machine, but we'll also have super intelligent, genetically engineered humans controlling them. If natural selection for humans has stopped, why can't artificial selection take it's place? It'll probably happen over a long period of time and gradually the next species created (our children) will replace us.
Alternately, intelligent robots and humans can merge into one new creation.
Either path is probable over time. Sure we'll lose some aspects we treasure now, but we'll probably trade them for aspects we'll treasure more.
Re:E-Commerce Collapse?
on
Boo No More
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· Score: 1
I read the comments about the site from the other users' postings, then browsed the site myself.
Beyond all the Flash stuff and the multiple window opens, that I personally don't like, but tolerate if used in moderation, I was struck by the lack of attention paid to the images of clothes that they posted. I brought up an image of a man's casual jacket and was surprised to see that it was a 6.5K GIF file. The zoom feature on the Flash module did little to improve the quality. They could have used real models instead of gray mannequins. Also, the prices were a bit steep. While I'm not poor, I'm a firm believer that my money is happiest in my own pocket, not in someone elses'.
On a more positive note, the dressing room feature was kind of cool. It would be interesting to see this technology used on different web sites.
Re:E-Commerce Collapse?
on
Boo No More
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· Score: 1
Right at the end they posted a paper catalogue out to there pervious customers But doesn't strike you as odd that an e-commerce site, as a last resort, would publish a paper catalog? That probably goes in the "too little, too late" catagory.
Re:E-Commerce Collapse?
on
Boo No More
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· Score: 2
It's just like a normal store, only the cost of running it is a bit cheaper. No different than mail-order stores, really.
And that's the key isn't it? How does one differentiate a traditional mail order business from these new-fangled e-commerce businesses? Functionally, they are the same. E-commerce has the advantage of not needing to print and mail paper catalogs (big cost savings) and can also eliminate clerks in the back office to process requests. As with everything, there are problems with implementing these advantages.
A lot of mail order places still print catalogs. I think there are three reasons for this:
1. Some electronic catalogs suck. The people commissioning them decided to pay the least expensive developer - and it shows.
2. Paper is VISIBLE. Electrons aren't. When the computer shuts off, the catalog is still on the desk in full view. 3. Culture, which goes something like this: Well, Smarty Pants computer-person, we have been printing a catalog for 50 years....(get it?)
There are also problems in the back office. While some places have really good front-end web sites, they still use varying degrees of paper processing. Reasons for this range from not understanding how to streamline business process to include paperless processing to not wanting to spend the money to being overly conservative about change in general.
While there are sites that offer great deals on merchandise, I have found a lot of instances where the cost of something online, plus shipping, is nearly equal to the cost of buying it in a local store and paying sales tax.
There are other sites that actually charge more than their local retail counterparts. Last year, for example, I was looking for blue jeans at the Levi's website. If I remember correctly, they were charging an average of $35 per pair plus shipping. The local mall sold them for $25, with no sales tax on clothes. Granted, I live in an area with a lower cost of living, so this might have been a good deal in a place like Manhattan. But more people live outside of Manhattan than in it. If an e-merchandising is to remain a viable choice, then these businesses must adjust to the geo-economic realities of their expanded client base.
The pettyness is in expecting personal information several orders of magnitude more personal than they are asking for from you.
But don't they wield personal and political power several orders of magnitude more than the average person? And since they do, don't they have a greater responsibility to wield it wisely? And if they don't wield it wisely, shouldn't they have to endure penalites proportionate to the trust they've broken?
If I lie in a deposition, I am fined and/or serve some jail time. Afterward, I am free to go about my business. If the US President, who is charged with enforcing the law (and is also a lawyer), lies in a deposition, shouldn't he endure a penalty more severe, especially since he used his Office to stymie the Jones Investigation?
As an aside, Clinton's adventures in the Oval Office may have been distasteful, but were not illegal. The events with Paula Jones, in my opinion, can't be conclusively proved to have happened or not happened. However, his own choices led to questions about Lewinsky, which he lied about in a deposition. That action is against the law, and the law must seek remedies. Personally, I don't think a sitting president who lets himself be placed into precarious situations like this shouldn't be allowed to walk away with paying a penalty. It sets a dangerous precedent for the future.
Or maybe you think that for you to admit how many guns you own, clinton should give detailed accounts of his sex life. Sounds a little too petty for that to be it.
Why is it so petty? Personally, I don't care to know about the sex lives of Clinton or anybody else for that matter. But, if I'm required to disclose information to a government agency, I would want to know about the people I'm disclosing my information to. The keepers of information can have no power over you if you know how to get to them. Secrecy IS power. If I must give up personal anonymity, then the entity I give it to MUST allow me access to it.
It might refer to the DLL's and other binaries included with the product. In the excerpt, "software" is capitalized, leading me to think that it refers to the compiler, not source created by the user. It wouldn't make much sense to prohibit programmers from distributing source code, especially when you're giving your product away for free to get those same people to use it.
Re:Intolerance of Swedes is destroying this countr
on
Dialectizer Shut Down
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· Score: 1
Reedeeng zee Bunk ooff Emereeca seete-a in zee Svedeesh Cheff deeelect geefes noo meuneeng tu bunkeeng und cummerce-a. Zee Ingleesh-Impeured HEFE A RIGHT tu reed in zeeur neteefe-a perudy deeelect!!!!
With regard to DoS attacks, REAL child porn (the stuff that makes you tremble with rage), spamming and other abuses on the net, it does make sense for an international law enforcement structure to be put in place, subject to a separate judicial system - after all, the police can't be expected to police themselves.
International commerce rules also need to be put in place or redefined to fit the ever changing reality of the Internet.
As always, different countries and cultures will clash over priorities. These need to be worked out in a open rational forum or the result could be the equivalent the tarriff laws that were passed in the 1920's that all but shut down international trade and were prime contributors to the Great Depression.
I, for one, think the French can come up with a decent regulatory structure. After all, they did come up with such a structure to successfully regulate nuclear power in their own country (but that's another issue).
My mother once told me to never put in writing anything you don't want people knowing about. With the compilation of huge databases, this may be hard to avoid, but EVERYONE need not admit to anything beyond the required minimum. What if the required minimum grows? Well, then we should start clammoring for requirements that POLITICANS disclose personal details about their lives as an exchange for details on ours. I don't think most politicians would go for that. I KNOW Bill Clinton wouldn't.
In this day in age with the coming (or is it here?) of what someone called the "Global Electronic Village," should we really be surprised that huge databases are being compiled? In a real village or small town, everyone knows everyone else and each other's business. Cheap mass transportation has enabled anonymity on a scale never before seen. Cheap information transfer, storage and retrieval seems to be scaling this back a bit.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think the cult of the celebrity will ever die out. Instead, I think, it will be used as a source of wealth.
Consider a practical function of record execs. They filter out the lesser talent and promote the greater talent. You can debate all day what defines greater and lesser, but the fact remains that these people perform a function most of us have no time for.
If we assume that the money-making capability of recorded media declines to the point of non-profitability, then the obvious place to make money lies in personal appearances and live television and radio. Making the big time may not involve distributing music at all, but rather the amount of live media exposure.
Will this enhance an artist reputation or will we see more acts such as the Backstreet Boys and In-Sync? These are acts that can be created and destroyed by a whim and are backed by organized media efforts (actually the same one since the Backstreet Boys tried to sue their management and thereby bit the hand that fed them. Their creator then shifted his efforts to his "new" band In-Sync).
Personally, I think we'll see more of the latter type, since passable talent is easy to come by, easier to manage and cheaper to replace. Every couple of years a new group of 12-14 year olds "discovers" popular music. Even more quickly, they forget the bands in favor of the next new flavor of the year. Recorded music will become more of a cost of doing business in the industry of endless media sparkle.
The article says that the single was "a work in progress." If this was the case, isn't the custodian of the music, namely the record label, to blame for a lack of security regarding it?
Recorded music doesn't just fly away like a little bird. Someone released it - that's who Madonna should be worried about, not Napster or Gnutella.
Besides, who's to say she didn't do it herself to get some free publicity? She was never above creating controversy, no matter how popular she became...
Just a thought...
They won't move everybody at once. If they do this, they'll offer relocation packages, severance pay, early retirement (if some employees ARE that old) and other deals to suit their workforce.
When you think about it, Microsoft's greatest assets ARE the imaginations of it's employees - and employees have legs. I would imagine a good number of them have already relocated great distances just to work for MS. What's a few more miles across the US/Canadian border? General Motors and AT&T didn't have this option in the 1960's and 1980's. Certainly Standard Oil didn't.
What I don't understand is the provincial government's offer of a loan to rebuild MS's facilities. Faced with a breakup, you would think MS would be paying THEM for the right to move over.
I don't see it happening. The more variables (people) you add, the more static you get.
Plato complained that too many people talking in the marketplace yielded no real debate on issues, just a lot of yelling. Apparently, the greater the crowd, the lower the common denominator (and quality of speech).
I've seen the same thing on a lot of bulletin boards. Back in the days of 300 baud modems, discussion could be interesting because only relatively intelligent people could figure out how to use a computer and modem and dial in. These same people were also capable of conducting themselves intelligently. As the technology improved and more people got online, the quality of discourse declined.
In the end, we will need major organizations to filter out the noise so that information can be usefully disseminated.
One would expect that a candidate's information would be more documented on the internet. On a web page political history, stands on issues and essays written by political candidates can be posted, giving the voter the opportunity to examine the real person and his/her ideas so that an intelligent decision can be made at election time.
and then reality set in....
But this really won't happen, will it? The last 20 years have seen debate in congress degenerate into partisan shouting matches and 3-second sound bites replace answers to reporters' questions - to name a few things. Why then should we expect decent content on politicians on the internet when the opposite has been the trend?
Maybe they can vote on line? What for? We have absentee ballots for this. If able-bodied people can, they should get out and walk to the polls. We take for granted a right that few people will ever have - we should have to work to exercise it if only to remind us that RIGHTS don't come easy.
With the dismantling of the LLFF, HRDC has eliminated the computer program used to link its information with information from the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency and data on social assistance from provincial/territorial governments.
So this was more of a data warehouse than anything else. The information is still being kept and gathered - just like it has always been. I'll place good money on betting that the "new" protocols to handle and disseminate the data mirror closely procedures already in place at the various gov't offices.
it's a deep linking issue. Here is a quote from the article:
Whyte granted the injunction on the grounds that Bidder's Edge's searches slowed or had the potential to slow eBay's service.
If Bidder's Edge sent thousands of requests for information per minute, it could overwhelm EBay. As a (hopefully) reputable business, I can't see Bidder's Edge doing this. It would be like shooting themselves in the foot. More likely, if Bidder's Edge conducts a search, EBay's advertising banners won't get read.
Regarding deep linking, the lack of it probably won't harm the web in general. It seems only retail businesses consider this an issue because their advertisements generate cash. I can't see entities like universities and private individuals making an issue of it.
Combatting drugs, Communism and terrorism are good reasons to provide employment to people in all sectors of government that deal with them. The US government, no matter what it does, needs the "approval of the people."
In order to justify its actions overseas and at home, it needs to create "enemies" and "just causes."
There may be some people in the US State Department and other places that sincerely believe that all cryptography should be classified as munitions - after all, a lack of cryptography on the part of the Germans and Japanese in WWII did severely compromise their respective war efforts.
But like all issues regarding the Internet, things are changing. No longer is cryptography and its transmission sole domain of government, banks and other large institutions. Today, anyone with a personal computer can easily create and distribute a coded message anywhere in the world. And why stop there? Why not get a bunch of people together and start a CRYPTO.ORG-type website with the purpose of creating a suite of super-secure client/server tools (telnet, ftp, e-mail, web, etc) that when plugged into UNIX/Linux, NT/2000, etc. would create a highly secure communications platform?
Terrorists and anybody else interested in covering their tracks can probably do it. Governments like the US, France, Britain, Israel, China and Russia probably have their own protocols and tools to communicate over open data channels.
We can have freedom or security; we can't have both. Security is an easy, clean thing to manage and takes care of problems before they occur. Freedom is hard, dirty and difficult to manage and comes with all sorts of problems. Security keeps people on one straight and narrow path while freedom beckons people to explore the untraveled paths....
Multiple revenue streams are required or else it is all for naught.
That's pretty good advice for any business. Selling support is a reactive strategy. What is needed is a proactive strategy.
I think that the so-called Linux companies are going to have to evolve into consulting companies. They will have to hire aggressive (but informed) sales staffs to create alliances with established, well known companies (ie IBM and RedHat) in order to survive. Eventually, I can see where these companies either buy up the business of other companies or are bought out buy larger entities like IBM.
Well, given that I am ALSO the proud owner of an MBA, a degree in accounting and several "suits," I would think I would know something about business. Valuation is loosely defined as the net present value of expected future economic earnings.
In other words: You have no value unless you can reasonably expect to make value (ie cash).
When you are creating value, you have cash to pay bills. I would think that they would have at least hired a clerk to write the checks. When you don't have cash, you the clerk can't write the checks.
Constant refinancing without the hope of maintaining a going concern is either stupid or illegal, depending on the circumstances.
And what's wrong with Geeks running a company? Gates, Allen, Dell, Jobs, Wozniak and others have done a fairly good job of it.
"The stock-market instability got to us," says Linuxcare's interim CEO Pat Lambs, who usually runs the firm's services unit.
Such an irresponsible comment. As any student in business school will tell you, stock market prices reflect expected FUTURE economic value. They shouldn't blame the market for their poor business decisions or choice of management.
I think they should also offer a free viewing of a modeling session for those of us who are shy, butt ugly or both!!
But who's the goose?
On one hand, we have the Internet, which allows for the exchange of a plethora of ideas. On the other hand, some factions (countries, groups, whatever) consider the ideas of other factions to be stupid, rude and/or illegal.
With so many different opinions existing and the internet growing daily, clashes are bound to occur with increasing frequency.
If we are to live in a "Global Village," perhaps common rules should be set down. Not only are cultural philosophies clashing, but ideas regarding intellectual property, economic trade, criminal law, etc. are being rethought almost on a daily basis. Geography, it seems, doesn't count as much as it did even five years ago.
Everybody wondered what the kind of "Peace Dividend" the "New World Order" was going to bring after Communism. As usual, nobody was able to predict accurately the future. Perhaps this is the start of a "One World Government." Not a government brought on by high-minded idealism, but by plain, old-fashioned practicality.
...the one about quality control at NASA, also posted today on /. Sure it's all fine and dandy to make something of passable quality. But wouldn't we all like to like to see AMD (and other companies) go the extra mile to ensure very good quality in all facets of their products. Sure the Athlon is a good processor, but what good is it if it can be subject to heating problems because of an avoidable design oversight?
Sure, it can be compensated for by applying a conductive paste, but someone should have seen this at the design phase.
Microsoft got really rich when it decided that passable quality was good enough. Others copied this philosophy and now we have bloatware
Why is it that the robots have to become the Dangerous Ones? Most people tend to think of humans as the pinnacle of evolution. Does this mean that we're a Dead End and are slated to go into eventual decline leading to extinction?
If robots and computers can be upgraded, why can't we? To date, better nutrition and medicine has doubled the average human life span. With these benefits have come problems, but surely the net benefit is positive. I think we'll eventually have sentient machine, but we'll also have super intelligent, genetically engineered humans controlling them. If natural selection for humans has stopped, why can't artificial selection take it's place? It'll probably happen over a long period of time and gradually the next species created (our children) will replace us.
Alternately, intelligent robots and humans can merge into one new creation.
Either path is probable over time. Sure we'll lose some aspects we treasure now, but we'll probably trade them for aspects we'll treasure more.
I read the comments about the site from the other users' postings, then browsed the site myself.
Beyond all the Flash stuff and the multiple window opens, that I personally don't like, but tolerate if used in moderation, I was struck by the lack of attention paid to the images of clothes that they posted. I brought up an image of a man's casual jacket and was surprised to see that it was a 6.5K GIF file. The zoom feature on the Flash module did little to improve the quality. They could have used real models instead of gray mannequins. Also, the prices were a bit steep. While I'm not poor, I'm a firm believer that my money is happiest in my own pocket, not in someone elses'.
On a more positive note, the dressing room feature was kind of cool. It would be interesting to see this technology used on different web sites.
Right at the end they posted a paper catalogue out to there pervious customers But doesn't strike you as odd that an e-commerce site, as a last resort, would publish a paper catalog? That probably goes in the "too little, too late" catagory.
It's just like a normal store, only the cost of running it is a bit cheaper. No different than mail-order stores, really.
And that's the key isn't it? How does one differentiate a traditional mail order business from these new-fangled e-commerce businesses? Functionally, they are the same. E-commerce has the advantage of not needing to print and mail paper catalogs (big cost savings) and can also eliminate clerks in the back office to process requests. As with everything, there are problems with implementing these advantages.
A lot of mail order places still print catalogs. I think there are three reasons for this:
1. Some electronic catalogs suck. The people commissioning them decided to pay the least expensive developer - and it shows.
2. Paper is VISIBLE. Electrons aren't. When the computer shuts off, the catalog is still on the desk in full view. 3. Culture, which goes something like this: Well, Smarty Pants computer-person, we have been printing a catalog for 50 years....(get it?)
There are also problems in the back office. While some places have really good front-end web sites, they still use varying degrees of paper processing. Reasons for this range from not understanding how to streamline business process to include paperless processing to not wanting to spend the money to being overly conservative about change in general.
While there are sites that offer great deals on merchandise, I have found a lot of instances where the cost of something online, plus shipping, is nearly equal to the cost of buying it in a local store and paying sales tax.
There are other sites that actually charge more than their local retail counterparts. Last year, for example, I was looking for blue jeans at the Levi's website. If I remember correctly, they were charging an average of $35 per pair plus shipping. The local mall sold them for $25, with no sales tax on clothes. Granted, I live in an area with a lower cost of living, so this might have been a good deal in a place like Manhattan. But more people live outside of Manhattan than in it. If an e-merchandising is to remain a viable choice, then these businesses must adjust to the geo-economic realities of their expanded client base.
The pettyness is in expecting personal information several orders of magnitude more personal than they are asking for from you.
But don't they wield personal and political power several orders of magnitude more than the average person? And since they do, don't they have a greater responsibility to wield it wisely? And if they don't wield it wisely, shouldn't they have to endure penalites proportionate to the trust they've broken?
If I lie in a deposition, I am fined and/or serve some jail time. Afterward, I am free to go about my business. If the US President, who is charged with enforcing the law (and is also a lawyer), lies in a deposition, shouldn't he endure a penalty more severe, especially since he used his Office to stymie the Jones Investigation?
As an aside, Clinton's adventures in the Oval Office may have been distasteful, but were not illegal. The events with Paula Jones, in my opinion, can't be conclusively proved to have happened or not happened. However, his own choices led to questions about Lewinsky, which he lied about in a deposition. That action is against the law, and the law must seek remedies. Personally, I don't think a sitting president who lets himself be placed into precarious situations like this shouldn't be allowed to walk away with paying a penalty. It sets a dangerous precedent for the future.
Or maybe you think that for you to admit how many guns you own, clinton should give detailed accounts of his sex life. Sounds a little too petty for that to be it.
Why is it so petty? Personally, I don't care to know about the sex lives of Clinton or anybody else for that matter. But, if I'm required to disclose information to a government agency, I would want to know about the people I'm disclosing my information to. The keepers of information can have no power over you if you know how to get to them. Secrecy IS power. If I must give up personal anonymity, then the entity I give it to MUST allow me access to it.
It might refer to the DLL's and other binaries included with the product. In the excerpt, "software" is capitalized, leading me to think that it refers to the compiler, not source created by the user. It wouldn't make much sense to prohibit programmers from distributing source code, especially when you're giving your product away for free to get those same people to use it.
Reedeeng zee Bunk ooff Emereeca seete-a in zee Svedeesh Cheff deeelect geefes noo meuneeng tu bunkeeng und cummerce-a. Zee Ingleesh-Impeured HEFE A RIGHT tu reed in zeeur neteefe-a perudy deeelect!!!!
-Babelfish, eat your heart out...
With regard to DoS attacks, REAL child porn (the stuff that makes you tremble with rage), spamming and other abuses on the net, it does make sense for an international law enforcement structure to be put in place, subject to a separate judicial system - after all, the police can't be expected to police themselves.
International commerce rules also need to be put in place or redefined to fit the ever changing reality of the Internet.
As always, different countries and cultures will clash over priorities. These need to be worked out in a open rational forum or the result could be the equivalent the tarriff laws that were passed in the 1920's that all but shut down international trade and were prime contributors to the Great Depression.
I, for one, think the French can come up with a decent regulatory structure. After all, they did come up with such a structure to successfully regulate nuclear power in their own country (but that's another issue).
My mother once told me to never put in writing anything you don't want people knowing about. With the compilation of huge databases, this may be hard to avoid, but EVERYONE need not admit to anything beyond the required minimum. What if the required minimum grows? Well, then we should start clammoring for requirements that POLITICANS disclose personal details about their lives as an exchange for details on ours. I don't think most politicians would go for that. I KNOW Bill Clinton wouldn't.
In this day in age with the coming (or is it here?) of what someone called the "Global Electronic Village," should we really be surprised that huge databases are being compiled? In a real village or small town, everyone knows everyone else and each other's business. Cheap mass transportation has enabled anonymity on a scale never before seen. Cheap information transfer, storage and retrieval seems to be scaling this back a bit.