I don't think the statement of cost is accurate. The media itself costs about $1 a gigabyte, I have seen prices as low as $.30 a gigabyte. The amortized cost of the burner would quickly become very much less than $1 a gigabyte. OTOH hard disk generally cost $1 a gigabyte, and the tiny ones often cost at least $5 a gigabyte.
But I think the real reason to use DVDs is the same reason we use floppy disks and CDs. There has to be a way to easily and cheaply temporarily back up or transport or give away reasonable amounts of data. In the past reasonable amounts of data were a few KB. Then they were a few MB. Now they are in the GB range. For the first time if I want to back up certain of my directories I need over a GB of storage, which would involve multiple CDs. A DVD burner would be nice for such a purpose.
In addition, I can give away a CD or DVD without any significant loss. I am not rich enough to give away micro hard disks.
First, I would mod the parent down for the TI99 link, which appears to be a mostly an ad farm tied to gator.
Beyond that, the 99 was not an impressive computer. If I remember correctly, it was one of the first computers that earned the name of 'doorstop', and not in the fun affectionate way. In fact i remember a promotion by another computer manufacturer in which a discount was given if the customer traded in an old computer. There was a joke that every office had a TI as a doorstop.
Finally, it was Compaq that created the IBM PC clone. They reversed engineered the machine. They created the PC compatible market. They fought the lawsuits that enabled others to do the same. Although compaq did not use open standards, as they were few at the time, they did standardize as the industry did. The industry they directly helped create.
Now, I agree that GPCs built on the intel compatible architecture are not all that interesting, and it may be that other architectures are both better and of more historical interest. OTOH, the vast majority of computers in use today seem to use some variant of an intel chip, and this makes Compaq an incredibly significant company. Possible even more so that MS, who mostly bought and repacked software.
How does hacking like this negatively impact end users? You mean that consumers will see even more silly DRM schemes? Or perhaps there will be another 10K of text added to the EULA stated that users are not use tools that remove DRM. Or perhaps the RIAA might go out and sue customers that purchased music of ITMS and them removed the DRM. Perish the thought!
As has been mentioned before, one place where WAP owners might get in trouble is attractive nuisance. IANAL, but the doctrine, as I understand it encompasses more that the physical things people normally think of. This combined with the fact that bandwidth is more and more considered 'property' that can be 'stolen' and needs to the 'protection' of law, and we may be at a point where such an interpretation might happen.
Specifically, I can imagine a kid having a portable computer for work at home and school. I can imagine this portable having a wireless card for connection at home and school, connections that are monitored and filtered. Compliance with rules can be punished by the removal of wireless card from the computer. The kid discovers that the next door neighbor has a WAP that is unfiltered and downloads a bunch of porn. The parents discover the infraction. Could this be neighbor be liable for creating an attractive nuisance?
Re:Snail mail is much more impressive than EMail..
on
Snail Mail Tech
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· Score: 1
Both rely on a two fundamental technologies: identification and transportation. Without both, there is no mail. Everything else is just window dressing to process large amounts of mail more efficiently and reliable. The later really spurred some large scale technological innovations.
For the postal system in the western world the turning point came when the roman empire built reliable roads which allowed mail to be delivered in a matter of weeks. (Their system of forts and aggressiveness kept the mail from being stolen.) This was the fastest in the west until the renaissance.
Of course, the means of transportation improved, and the need for a reliable postal system helped those improvements. For example, in the U.S. the delivery of mail provided needed profit for the emerging airlines. I don't think it was until the third generation commercial airplanes that airlines could make profits off passengers alone.
On the identification side i find the zip code to a marvel of technology. I often wonder how much of the money the Zip Code has saved U.S. businesses.
I agree. Imprecise language, especially when used in science, is horrible.
Key parts of the text would be better written
It has been observed over several cycles that the peak of solar activity trail trails the sunspot cycle peak...
and ... but this BBC article appears to provides a hypothesis of how.
This would more clearly indicate that we have made observation that provide a possible cause and have developed a theoretical link between he cause and effect. Furthermore, the hypothesis can be used to predict future events to test it's validity
The success of Walmart is based on three factors. The first, as commonly states, is price. The second, as less often admitted, is that people in the US believe they need a lot of stuff and deserve a lot of stuff. The third, hardly ever considered, is that Walmart represents standard US whitebread values.
The the first isn't so great for the economy. The low prices of Walmart represents deflation. Deflation is bad because it can defer purchasing of products. Extremely low prices are also bad because it can skew indication of consumer demand, as the recent discounts on cars have done. Artificially low prices also skews consumer decision making, which is one reason for the recent tariffs in response to alleged foreign dumping. What is better, and this is agreed on by most sides, as shown by Bushes tax refund and the Democrats desire to increase social benefits, is to put more money in the hands of consumers so they can consume products, even as the prices increase at expected rates of inflation.
The second thing is our desire for stuff. I see many people who obviously are not hurting for money shopping at Walmart. The reason the do so is because they can have more stuff. Why they want more stuff I do not know. I suppose have a TV in every room is important, especially if when you send the kid to the room for misbehaving you know that the kid is watching tv and not reading, or processing with friends, or pleasuring themselves. But even if one asserts that having lots of stuff is good, then the avenue to allowing consumers to get the stuff is through appropriate wages, not deflationary prices.
The third thing is whitebread values. Walmart stores are all about pretending to be upstanding US citizens. Until they got laughed at for their "Made in America" campaign, they pretended to favor US made products. They actively censor entertainment content so as not offend the dominant moral US elite. They have traditionally discriminated against gays, unwed mothers, and as we all know, the good people from Mexico. Honestly this makes for a pleasurable shopping atmosphere for many people who could not tolerate the people they had to shop with in KMart.
To be honest, so of this deflation, or at least very low inflation, may be good as an adjustment for they hyperinflation of the 70's, but still, if we want people to buy stuff, it would be better to give them the cash.
I guess because it is all about PR. It is about creating a demand and hoping people will pay for content. Which will happen as long as it is easier to pay than not to pay. Which is what they are trying to do with lawsuits. It is trivial to get music without paying licensing fees. So why pay. Apple tried to make is almost as easy, but due to high licensing fees and limited content/ The services that have more content are windows only, which poses another barrier to legal licensing.
Of couse, they can't sue everyone. The can only sue some to try and scare people into believing it is easier to buy content than not. It is a tricky PR matter. The lawsuits may dry up supply of unlicensed content. This may force some people to buy a CD. It may just return people to the traditional method of copying from friends. It may make some people decide the whole thing is not worthwhile. Many may just not have any money to spend on music. So, as with any product, the copyright is secondary to the PR. If customers like you, it doesn't matter that they can get identical sneakers or identical purses for 1/3 or what you charge.
The market has spoken loud and clear. The value of physical CD is no longer the average purchase price of that CD. Rather than responding to the market and doing something like provided DVDs with additional content, say concert footage, making of videos, etc, and selling the DVD for $10, they abuse the legal system.
The reality is that a persons time has value, the resources consumed has value, but there is no guarantee anywhere in this world that the value of the product you sell will exceed or even match the value of the resources that went into developing that product. That is why companies go bankrupt. That is the "risk" that justifies the profits of some corporations and the large salaries of many executives.
I think the real question to ask is that if all the labels went bankrupt, what would replace them? Perhaps if we had that answer, the labels could restructure and provide a valuable product.
Perhaps you make crappy coffe that way. Most guidelines indicate that the water for coffee should be just below boiling. You preheat the container to help maintain that temperature. If you are lazy, you can boil the water and pour in into a cold container, which will produce less good coffee.
In the traditional methods of making coffee and tea, using a french press of a tea pot, hot, not boiling, water is poured over the grounds and allowed to steep for five minutes. During tha time cooling has occured. Sometimes the cups are preheated to insure further cooling does not occur. In a crappy food operation where styrofoam cups are used or other cups are not preheated, it is sometimes neccesary to overheat the coffee, which damages the flavor.
Of course it is understandable that people have to come to believe the methods that are necessary for manufactured high production food are the proper methods.
The television worldisfullofshows that have gone on too long. There were many reasons to cancel these shows, either because a major character left, or the jokes got old, or the acting got lame, or the writing got lame.
Farscape is a good show. The fact that it was another rehash of a human bringing "superior" values to the ignorant races of the universe, and those western values it espoused were characterized as the values of earth, notwithstanding. I have seen most of farscape. It certainly needs closure, if not another season or two.
I would say that Northern Exposure had the advantage of being allowed closure. I would also say that the network did not take it too seriously and it caused the last season to be lame. I would also say that the story of a person being significantly changed by the places he or she goes, while still maintaining core values, is a much more interesting story and realistic story than the traditional western proselytizing.
OTOH, you evidence is pointless. Just because the group of readers feel that Farscape never had to "Jump the Shark" does not mean it didn't. And if farscape did not fall into this trap, does not mean that the writers really should have tried to pull a stunt to make the show survive. Perhaps not "jumping the shark" was an irresponsible or uncreative act on the part of the production team? Perhaps the stunts pulled on NE demostrated the care and commitment the production company had for the show?
It should be obvious not to pay invoices when no product or service has been requested, and not to allow searches unless legally required, but look at the recent reality. Customers are increasingly caving in to increasingly intrusive demands, and vendors are asking for powers once reserved for federal law enforcement. MS wants to compel customers to upgrade on a yearly basis or pay large fees as punishment. Music labels want the ability to destroy physical property on the suspicion of civil violations of their rights. I think in this reality it is quite necessary for a firm with some merit to come out say just don't do it.
The fact is that the work I have done is not so hard, and many people could do it, and the work has not in any absolute sense been worth the money I was paid. That, of course, is only because money really has not worth until it is normalized to the fiction of the people who use it.
That said, the standard of living is justified based on the culture of consumerism. Someone needs to buy those $100 pair of sneakers, or that $200 gaming system, or that $400 mp3 player. And to do that you need cash. You need enough cash so the opportunity costs of such purchases are not so great that you will decide these things are not a good value. If you have a job that brings home $1000 a month, and you need $400 for rent and $200 for food and then clothes and transportation to work and medical care, these other things are not going to seem so important. I mean you might start downloading music over your $300 used computer and your $15 dial-up connection, which are justified by your kids educational needs, instead of paying even $1 for the track.
Of course all these are way overpriced. We pay middle men, ad men, men in suits, and men in trucks to get the product to us. Certainly if we lowered our standards, bought locally, and only what we needed, then prices would fall. We could make $1000 a month and afford all we need and a few extras. Of course without ads, we would not know we may not know we need a new pair of sneakers. If we do not know we will not buy. If there are no ads, there is not TV, radio, internet. If we do not buy, there are no jobs elsewhere, unless wages in those areas go up high enough to support the infrastructure.
of course, we could buy everything used. But someone would have to buy new. So how many people would that take. 10%? 20%? Would 20% of the population have remarkable skills that would justify a high wage. Could they buy enough to support the world economy and give us their hand me downs.
It is a house of cards. No one deserves the standard of living. No one deserves to be told if they do not movies and music at full price they are killing the children of hard working artists. No one deserves to be told that if they do not spend their little expendable income on a dinner at McDonneld's or a new pair of sneakers that are they are depriving their child. Unfortunately, that is what people in the U.S. are told. Unfortunately we are told that we must spend, while the jobs that allow us to spend are shipped off to other countries.
I am not saying this is right or wrong, good or bad, necessary or not. I am just saying that I do not believe it was India or China that made MS or Nike or McDonalds rich. I believe it was citizens of the US that did that. And now that they are done with us, they will continue consuming resources elsewhere. Someone needs to buy the products at the inflated prices. Someone needs to have the wages to afford it. If it is not the US, then it is someone else. And that someone else will have deserve it no more of less than those who had it previously.
I think they were hoping to be bought out for unreasonable sums of money. A year ago they were worth about 10 million. There were suing IBM for 1 billion. I suppose it would have worth 10 million to make them go away, but I doubt SCO would be happy with that amount. The lawsuit clearly indicates they believe they had a value in the hundreds of millions.
Flash forward a year. They have seen a market cap of 200+ million, although they are now below 200 million and heading down. However, they have publicly stated that they believe they are owed a 5+ billion windfall in the near future, and expect to be a thriving business with hundred of million dollar of licenses every year. Other companies are investing millions of dollars in capital for a small share of the company. Even if someone came up with 300 million dollars, would anyone at the company sell? I doubt it.
David comes on, he's now a shareholder, he's rowing with us, and let's face it, he's added significant value to our company since February. Our stock was around a buck, now it's $14. That's some of the best money we've spent, not even money, some of the best stock we've issued.
This seems eerily similar to statements that might be made about the lawyers, accountants, and bankers that cooked the Enron books. They are worth every penny because they raise stock prices. They are now shareholders so they have a great incentive to make the stock price stay high using every trick in the book, legal or illegal. I suspect that even if Boies loses his license over this, and pays a fee, he will still be a wealthy man. It might even be worth a couple years in a country club jail.
That's the great untold story no one even asks about. We have over two million servers actively running today. Customers continue to come to us. We have laid out a growth map that will be significant for our customers. In the next year expect Legend, which will take OpenServer and update it. Longer term, expect SVR 6, which will be 64-bit Unix on Intel. That is a few years out. as compared to We are informed that participants in the Linux industry have attempted to influence participants in the markets in which we sell our products to reduce or eliminate the amount of our products and services that they purchase. They have been somewhat successful in those efforts and similar efforts and success will likely continue. There is also a risk that the assertion of our intellectual property rights will be negatively viewed by participants in our marketplace and we may lose support from such participants. Any of the foregoing could adversely affect our position in the marketplace and our results of operations.
These type of cases seem to years in the making, and i am sure there will be point when Boise will stop accepting stock and want a greater portion of cash. I suspect there is also a point at which new investors might stop pouring money into SCO, and two or three license agreement only generate so much cash. Not to mention the burn of normal operating costs. Can anyone expect them to survive the 'few year' to 'SVR 6'. And if they win and actually get a couple billion from IBM, will there be any reason to develop for a 64 bit platform. It will be MS model all over again. We own your desktop. We have all the cash. We will tell you what you need.
The second dial is the 2.5 million Linux servers out there today that are paired with our intellectual property in them. We have a licensed product $699, $1,399. Chris [Sontag] is driving that and that's another multi-billion-dollar revenue oppotunity
The third bucket has to do with the IBM settlement. We filed that at $3 billion. Every day they don't resolve this, the AIX meter is still ticking....
I seem to remember an interesting ruling several years ago. It basically said you cannot advertise certain things about certain products at certain prices unless a significant amount or product had been sold at that price. Although that ruling applied to the retail chain, I would think that publicly saying that revenue is going to be generated from a product that you do not even own and have no reasonable exception of owning with the constraints of normal sense would be really close to lying. The funny thing is he separates the ruling in the IBM from expected income from Linux users. The two are in fact connected. The later would tend to negate the former, though the later will not guarantee the former. One really wonders if the clock it winding down faster on AIX or SCO.
The issue is not so much that all the big guys are out to get you. For instance, all the big guys are out to get North Korea, but creative management and secrecy has kept it relatively safe. For instance, we are pretty sure that N Korea is ruled by as much of a maniac as Iraq, and we have been more sure about Koreas nuclear capability for many years, but there N Korea sits, not invaded.
So, it is not important that all the big guys are out to get SCO. In any business sector all the big guys are always out to get all the other competitors. The problem is that SCO has said that there can be only one *nix distributor, and the authority of all other *nixes must come from it. While this benefits certain firms, and those firms have provided as much help as they can, it does not benefit most of the sector, and actually threatens their survival. Which is just common sense. It is one thing to compete against the big guys. It is another thing to publicly call for their death. Such a thing tends to turn the fight into a death match. And no one feels sorry for the guy who starts it.
Re:What I like about this
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SCO News Roundup
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I am sure the stock transfer was negotiated to compensate for potential loss of value.
What I am waiting for in the ethics hearing against the law firm in which keepping the stock price up is used as the motive.
It just occurred to me that MS is still trying to make a go at it's internet service. Even leveraging their desktop monopoly to the fullest, they have a scant 10% of the ISP market, just double of their nearest three competitors, and about a third of AOL.
It seems to me that content and ease of use is what makes AOL so attractive. MS cannot compete with the TimeWarner content, but a music service tied to MSN may let it compete better against other competitors. They could, for instance, offer a very low price subscription music service that was tied to MSN.
So, the music service could conceivable be a loss leader.
Well. this is an improvement for MS. The announced ship date for a product is only 1 year behind the actual ship date of existing useful products. OTOH, announced ship dates from MS are usually overly aggressive to make MS look less lame in the market place. Since the real production dates run 2-3 years behind competitors, I think we can expect this in 2005.
Of course, they may have already purchased someone else's software to make this happen. I can't imagine whose. It seems like all the major players have already been purchased by other major players.
In any case, Walmart seems to be trying to launch it's music service in time for christmas. It is hard to see MS competing with this, especially given that MS has, as of now, no product and no significant relationship with the labels. Even if MS controls the front end and DRM, It would require a massive amount of shenanigans to catch up. They might be able to succeed in the EU, but MS seems to be having a number of difficulties there, and may not ship a music enable Windows after the new year.
I don't know about powerpoint or excel or word, but Excel is MS one claim to being a real software company. Although there is little that is innovative about the spreadsheet after Visicalc, and MS has done their best to destroy the usability of Excel as a spreadsheet, they should get credit for combining the GUI with a spreadsheet.
The thing to remember is that Excel is a Mac program. MS did not have GUI to support it. It was two years before it would run in the new Windows environment, and, as we all know, a few more years before Windows and the soon to be Office Suite ran well.
As far as Word is concerned, MacWrite was superior in all respects for many years. There was nothing that Word did that justified the added frustration of using it. It frankly did not work. As a matter of fact, with the constant changes and what not, it did not work well on a mac until the late 90's. Word was a hack from the DOS version and other sources.
The GUI debate is really simple. Xerox get the credit for the WIMP thing. Apple get the credit for creating a production machine. MS gets the credit for the creating something that everyone uses. It is not an issue of who though of what. It is not an issue of who was first. If is merely an issue of Apple having a well running machine by 1986 or so. Microsoft 3.1, the first workable system shipped in 1993. 3.11 for workgroups, the first usable system, shipped a year later. Just like today MS is comparing an operating system that will ship in two years with the operating system Apple is shipping now.
It is this technical disadvantage which, i believe, lead MS to become so aggressive in marketing. They were doing ok with DOS. They played unfair, but never unethical. I think the realization that they did not have the skill or forethought to create a long term competitive plan drove them to their current problems. Really, Windows and office were good enough to keep the company healthy. Office on the Mac itself was very good and could have funded a good sized company for a very long time. But they got greedy, and just did have the intelligence to fund the greed.
By the way in the early 80's to the mid 90's I regularly used many different OSes and many different packages in business and research capacities. I saw many different people interact with the machines. So this is not theoretical stuff. I saw Macs used by business people. They switched because MS was giving software away, while the Apple and the Mac developers actually expected to paid for their services. Of couse they are paying through the nose now.
First, this would have to be done independently of the FTC and the CC companies.
It would still be good because the lawyers could make a career through class action suits against the CC companies for lack of due diligence in offering CC processing, and thus contributing to the harm of the consumer, or some such thing. It would also be possible to sue the individual companies.
The downside would be that someone's credit rating would be toast. It might be possible to establish corporations to take the fall, but maybe not. Also, a finite amount of spam merely exists to harvest credit card numbers for future fraudulent use. As such, credit cards would have to be used and canceled on a regular basis.
One thing some people do with physical junk mail is to stuff as much advertising and other paraphernalia into the postage paid replied envelope as possible. This has the effect of increasing the costs to those that send junk mail, and encourages them to keep their lists as targeted as possible.
The problem is that with spam we often have no address to send anything to, or the address we have is one that will do any good. It is like those 'work at home' signs on the road. We may think we are attacking the business plan by calling the number and racking up minutes, while what we are really doing is making the business plan succeed by enriching the person at the top of the pyramid.
So, we can't reply by email, because the address is likely either bogus or that of an innocent party. If we go to the web site in an effort to consumer bandwidth, we are likely going to receive a couple ads that will then make the spammer money. For the spammer to make real money, spam has to generate a real contact, which means that we much supply the contracting company with real contact information, which will then likely get sold to many other companies.
The 419 anti-scams work because the people invest a lot of time and money. I suppose if we all get throw away fax number, voice mail number, and PO boxes, we could mess with the spammers. But is the expense really worth while. Sure such things would only cost each of us 10 dollars a month, and would cause spammer and the evil companies they work with a lot of money, but not like the 419 thing, would not likely change much at the end of they day.
Really the only thing interesting that happened here is a marketing ploy. Customers may be leaving MS because of an understandable worry that if they do not pay the MS fees on a regular basis their documents may become unreadable. Publishing the specs makes that less of a possibility, which can be used in sales meeting to make customers more secure.
It also helps MS solidify it's standing by making the MS formats seem like a standard. They have been doing much of this lately.
However this is not open source software in any reasonable sense. MS can change the format at any time, as it has done, and the licensees of this ML are going to left in the cold. They cannot, under the license, modify the specification to read the new formt. This puts licensees at a severe disadvantage to the developers who reversed engineer the specification and merely had to do additional leg work. Now all developers will have to wait for MS to release new specification because not only have we promised not to modify the specification, it will be impossible to prove that you have not seen the specifications.
There is also an issue of forking. In traditional OSS, a developer can make modification to the code to fulfill some specific purpose. These tweaks are often only for internal use, and therefore seldom ever trigger any OSS license issues. However, MS has disallowed all modification for any purpose. Therefore, even though a company has spent ungodly sums of money for a Office site license, I see no simple way for them to make simple modification to the ML that could really help the firm become more efficient. OTOH, such modification are perfectly possible and legal with OO.org.
While I appreciate and understand your sentiment, most credit cards have had a zero balance at one point, although it is becoming less common with balance transfers.
What the real issue is is whether your credit card has a revolving balance, and if you are periodically able to pay it down.
It seems this could be a great device for speed dating. Instead of a random arrangement of table, the badge could match religious beliefs, divorce status, conversion status, and number of children wanted. Hell, for the less religious it could even match income level, type of car, size of house, and whether sex on the first date is possible. People could walk around the room until the badges make a match. Instead of seven minutes perhaps 4 will be enough. Along with the rules, this could be a boon for people who desire the ultimate pragmatic relationship.
If you put a computer in your child's room it is like putting a TV and VCR in the room. You are stating you trust them and expecting them to follow the rules, with appropriate consequences if they do not. You also should expect the rules to be broken, and be willing to enforce the consequences when they are. You are in effect acknowledging that the kids will do certain things that you do not wish them to do, but are ok with it. For example, they will look at naughty sites, just like they will get a hold of naughty tapes or watch naughty shows. If you do not trust them, or feel strongly about them not seeing content, there is no reason to have such equipment in their room. Make them work in a more open area. This is why some houses have only one tv.
Also, any kid is going to lie, especially when confronted. The strongest impulse for an adolescent is not that of being punished, but that of being embarrassed. This is why a child will close perfectly harmless windows, or act guilty when doing other harmless acts. For instance, the adolescent may not want to parents or sibling to see creative works for fear of being embarrassed. Kids will in choose punishment over embarrassment. It is screwed up, but kids are weird.
I wouldn't spy on the kids. As I said, if you can't trust them then only have one computer in the house in a secure location. The specific rules for internet access are well known. Specify which types of sites are off limits. Never give personal information online. Every person online not physically known to the parent is a stranger and danger. It would be good if all email could be filtered before reaching the child. Any infraction of a specific rule, and not a general guideline, should have appropriate consequences.
Working on a computer is no different from watching TV or talking to friends on the phone or leaving the house alone. It is a privilege that comes with certain responsibilities.
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But I think the real reason to use DVDs is the same reason we use floppy disks and CDs. There has to be a way to easily and cheaply temporarily back up or transport or give away reasonable amounts of data. In the past reasonable amounts of data were a few KB. Then they were a few MB. Now they are in the GB range. For the first time if I want to back up certain of my directories I need over a GB of storage, which would involve multiple CDs. A DVD burner would be nice for such a purpose.
In addition, I can give away a CD or DVD without any significant loss. I am not rich enough to give away micro hard disks.
Beyond that, the 99 was not an impressive computer. If I remember correctly, it was one of the first computers that earned the name of 'doorstop', and not in the fun affectionate way. In fact i remember a promotion by another computer manufacturer in which a discount was given if the customer traded in an old computer. There was a joke that every office had a TI as a doorstop.
Finally, it was Compaq that created the IBM PC clone. They reversed engineered the machine. They created the PC compatible market. They fought the lawsuits that enabled others to do the same. Although compaq did not use open standards, as they were few at the time, they did standardize as the industry did. The industry they directly helped create.
Now, I agree that GPCs built on the intel compatible architecture are not all that interesting, and it may be that other architectures are both better and of more historical interest. OTOH, the vast majority of computers in use today seem to use some variant of an intel chip, and this makes Compaq an incredibly significant company. Possible even more so that MS, who mostly bought and repacked software.
How does hacking like this negatively impact end users? You mean that consumers will see even more silly DRM schemes? Or perhaps there will be another 10K of text added to the EULA stated that users are not use tools that remove DRM. Or perhaps the RIAA might go out and sue customers that purchased music of ITMS and them removed the DRM. Perish the thought!
Specifically, I can imagine a kid having a portable computer for work at home and school. I can imagine this portable having a wireless card for connection at home and school, connections that are monitored and filtered. Compliance with rules can be punished by the removal of wireless card from the computer. The kid discovers that the next door neighbor has a WAP that is unfiltered and downloads a bunch of porn. The parents discover the infraction. Could this be neighbor be liable for creating an attractive nuisance?
For the postal system in the western world the turning point came when the roman empire built reliable roads which allowed mail to be delivered in a matter of weeks. (Their system of forts and aggressiveness kept the mail from being stolen.) This was the fastest in the west until the renaissance.
Of course, the means of transportation improved, and the need for a reliable postal system helped those improvements. For example, in the U.S. the delivery of mail provided needed profit for the emerging airlines. I don't think it was until the third generation commercial airplanes that airlines could make profits off passengers alone.
On the identification side i find the zip code to a marvel of technology. I often wonder how much of the money the Zip Code has saved U.S. businesses.
Key parts of the text would be better written
... but this BBC article appears to provides a hypothesis of how.
It has been observed over several cycles that the peak of solar activity trail trails the sunspot cycle peak...
and
This would more clearly indicate that we have made observation that provide a possible cause and have developed a theoretical link between he cause and effect. Furthermore, the hypothesis can be used to predict future events to test it's validity
The the first isn't so great for the economy. The low prices of Walmart represents deflation. Deflation is bad because it can defer purchasing of products. Extremely low prices are also bad because it can skew indication of consumer demand, as the recent discounts on cars have done. Artificially low prices also skews consumer decision making, which is one reason for the recent tariffs in response to alleged foreign dumping. What is better, and this is agreed on by most sides, as shown by Bushes tax refund and the Democrats desire to increase social benefits, is to put more money in the hands of consumers so they can consume products, even as the prices increase at expected rates of inflation.
The second thing is our desire for stuff. I see many people who obviously are not hurting for money shopping at Walmart. The reason the do so is because they can have more stuff. Why they want more stuff I do not know. I suppose have a TV in every room is important, especially if when you send the kid to the room for misbehaving you know that the kid is watching tv and not reading, or processing with friends, or pleasuring themselves. But even if one asserts that having lots of stuff is good, then the avenue to allowing consumers to get the stuff is through appropriate wages, not deflationary prices.
The third thing is whitebread values. Walmart stores are all about pretending to be upstanding US citizens. Until they got laughed at for their "Made in America" campaign, they pretended to favor US made products. They actively censor entertainment content so as not offend the dominant moral US elite. They have traditionally discriminated against gays, unwed mothers, and as we all know, the good people from Mexico. Honestly this makes for a pleasurable shopping atmosphere for many people who could not tolerate the people they had to shop with in KMart.
To be honest, so of this deflation, or at least very low inflation, may be good as an adjustment for they hyperinflation of the 70's, but still, if we want people to buy stuff, it would be better to give them the cash.
Of couse, they can't sue everyone. The can only sue some to try and scare people into believing it is easier to buy content than not. It is a tricky PR matter. The lawsuits may dry up supply of unlicensed content. This may force some people to buy a CD. It may just return people to the traditional method of copying from friends. It may make some people decide the whole thing is not worthwhile. Many may just not have any money to spend on music. So, as with any product, the copyright is secondary to the PR. If customers like you, it doesn't matter that they can get identical sneakers or identical purses for 1/3 or what you charge.
The market has spoken loud and clear. The value of physical CD is no longer the average purchase price of that CD. Rather than responding to the market and doing something like provided DVDs with additional content, say concert footage, making of videos, etc, and selling the DVD for $10, they abuse the legal system.
The reality is that a persons time has value, the resources consumed has value, but there is no guarantee anywhere in this world that the value of the product you sell will exceed or even match the value of the resources that went into developing that product. That is why companies go bankrupt. That is the "risk" that justifies the profits of some corporations and the large salaries of many executives.
I think the real question to ask is that if all the labels went bankrupt, what would replace them? Perhaps if we had that answer, the labels could restructure and provide a valuable product.
In the traditional methods of making coffee and tea, using a french press of a tea pot, hot, not boiling, water is poured over the grounds and allowed to steep for five minutes. During tha time cooling has occured. Sometimes the cups are preheated to insure further cooling does not occur. In a crappy food operation where styrofoam cups are used or other cups are not preheated, it is sometimes neccesary to overheat the coffee, which damages the flavor.
Of course it is understandable that people have to come to believe the methods that are necessary for manufactured high production food are the proper methods.
Farscape is a good show. The fact that it was another rehash of a human bringing "superior" values to the ignorant races of the universe, and those western values it espoused were characterized as the values of earth, notwithstanding. I have seen most of farscape. It certainly needs closure, if not another season or two.
I would say that Northern Exposure had the advantage of being allowed closure. I would also say that the network did not take it too seriously and it caused the last season to be lame. I would also say that the story of a person being significantly changed by the places he or she goes, while still maintaining core values, is a much more interesting story and realistic story than the traditional western proselytizing.
OTOH, you evidence is pointless. Just because the group of readers feel that Farscape never had to "Jump the Shark" does not mean it didn't. And if farscape did not fall into this trap, does not mean that the writers really should have tried to pull a stunt to make the show survive. Perhaps not "jumping the shark" was an irresponsible or uncreative act on the part of the production team? Perhaps the stunts pulled on NE demostrated the care and commitment the production company had for the show?
It should be obvious not to pay invoices when no product or service has been requested, and not to allow searches unless legally required, but look at the recent reality. Customers are increasingly caving in to increasingly intrusive demands, and vendors are asking for powers once reserved for federal law enforcement. MS wants to compel customers to upgrade on a yearly basis or pay large fees as punishment. Music labels want the ability to destroy physical property on the suspicion of civil violations of their rights. I think in this reality it is quite necessary for a firm with some merit to come out say just don't do it.
That said, the standard of living is justified based on the culture of consumerism. Someone needs to buy those $100 pair of sneakers, or that $200 gaming system, or that $400 mp3 player. And to do that you need cash. You need enough cash so the opportunity costs of such purchases are not so great that you will decide these things are not a good value. If you have a job that brings home $1000 a month, and you need $400 for rent and $200 for food and then clothes and transportation to work and medical care, these other things are not going to seem so important. I mean you might start downloading music over your $300 used computer and your $15 dial-up connection, which are justified by your kids educational needs, instead of paying even $1 for the track.
Of course all these are way overpriced. We pay middle men, ad men, men in suits, and men in trucks to get the product to us. Certainly if we lowered our standards, bought locally, and only what we needed, then prices would fall. We could make $1000 a month and afford all we need and a few extras. Of course without ads, we would not know we may not know we need a new pair of sneakers. If we do not know we will not buy. If there are no ads, there is not TV, radio, internet. If we do not buy, there are no jobs elsewhere, unless wages in those areas go up high enough to support the infrastructure.
of course, we could buy everything used. But someone would have to buy new. So how many people would that take. 10%? 20%? Would 20% of the population have remarkable skills that would justify a high wage. Could they buy enough to support the world economy and give us their hand me downs.
It is a house of cards. No one deserves the standard of living. No one deserves to be told if they do not movies and music at full price they are killing the children of hard working artists. No one deserves to be told that if they do not spend their little expendable income on a dinner at McDonneld's or a new pair of sneakers that are they are depriving their child. Unfortunately, that is what people in the U.S. are told. Unfortunately we are told that we must spend, while the jobs that allow us to spend are shipped off to other countries.
I am not saying this is right or wrong, good or bad, necessary or not. I am just saying that I do not believe it was India or China that made MS or Nike or McDonalds rich. I believe it was citizens of the US that did that. And now that they are done with us, they will continue consuming resources elsewhere. Someone needs to buy the products at the inflated prices. Someone needs to have the wages to afford it. If it is not the US, then it is someone else. And that someone else will have deserve it no more of less than those who had it previously.
Flash forward a year. They have seen a market cap of 200+ million, although they are now below 200 million and heading down. However, they have publicly stated that they believe they are owed a 5+ billion windfall in the near future, and expect to be a thriving business with hundred of million dollar of licenses every year. Other companies are investing millions of dollars in capital for a small share of the company. Even if someone came up with 300 million dollars, would anyone at the company sell? I doubt it.
This seems eerily similar to statements that might be made about the lawyers, accountants, and bankers that cooked the Enron books. They are worth every penny because they raise stock prices. They are now shareholders so they have a great incentive to make the stock price stay high using every trick in the book, legal or illegal. I suspect that even if Boies loses his license over this, and pays a fee, he will still be a wealthy man. It might even be worth a couple years in a country club jail.
That's the great untold story no one even asks about. We have over two million servers actively running today. Customers continue to come to us. We have laid out a growth map that will be significant for our customers. In the next year expect Legend, which will take OpenServer and update it. Longer term, expect SVR 6, which will be 64-bit Unix on Intel. That is a few years out.
as compared to
We are informed that participants in the Linux industry have attempted to influence participants in the markets in which we sell our products to reduce or eliminate the amount of our products and services that they purchase. They have been somewhat successful in those efforts and similar efforts and success will likely continue. There is also a risk that the assertion of our intellectual property rights will be negatively viewed by participants in our marketplace and we may lose support from such participants. Any of the foregoing could adversely affect our position in the marketplace and our results of operations.
These type of cases seem to years in the making, and i am sure there will be point when Boise will stop accepting stock and want a greater portion of cash. I suspect there is also a point at which new investors might stop pouring money into SCO, and two or three license agreement only generate so much cash. Not to mention the burn of normal operating costs. Can anyone expect them to survive the 'few year' to 'SVR 6'. And if they win and actually get a couple billion from IBM, will there be any reason to develop for a 64 bit platform. It will be MS model all over again. We own your desktop. We have all the cash. We will tell you what you need.
The second dial is the 2.5 million Linux servers out there today that are paired with our intellectual property in them. We have a licensed product $699, $1,399. Chris [Sontag] is driving that and that's another multi-billion-dollar revenue oppotunity
The third bucket has to do with the IBM settlement. We filed that at $3 billion. Every day they don't resolve this, the AIX meter is still ticking....
I seem to remember an interesting ruling several years ago. It basically said you cannot advertise certain things about certain products at certain prices unless a significant amount or product had been sold at that price. Although that ruling applied to the retail chain, I would think that publicly saying that revenue is going to be generated from a product that you do not even own and have no reasonable exception of owning with the constraints of normal sense would be really close to lying. The funny thing is he separates the ruling in the IBM from expected income from Linux users. The two are in fact connected. The later would tend to negate the former, though the later will not guarantee the former. One really wonders if the clock it winding down faster on AIX or SCO.
So, it is not important that all the big guys are out to get SCO. In any business sector all the big guys are always out to get all the other competitors. The problem is that SCO has said that there can be only one *nix distributor, and the authority of all other *nixes must come from it. While this benefits certain firms, and those firms have provided as much help as they can, it does not benefit most of the sector, and actually threatens their survival. Which is just common sense. It is one thing to compete against the big guys. It is another thing to publicly call for their death. Such a thing tends to turn the fight into a death match. And no one feels sorry for the guy who starts it.
What I am waiting for in the ethics hearing against the law firm in which keepping the stock price up is used as the motive.
It seems to me that content and ease of use is what makes AOL so attractive. MS cannot compete with the TimeWarner content, but a music service tied to MSN may let it compete better against other competitors. They could, for instance, offer a very low price subscription music service that was tied to MSN.
So, the music service could conceivable be a loss leader.
Of course, they may have already purchased someone else's software to make this happen. I can't imagine whose. It seems like all the major players have already been purchased by other major players.
In any case, Walmart seems to be trying to launch it's music service in time for christmas. It is hard to see MS competing with this, especially given that MS has, as of now, no product and no significant relationship with the labels. Even if MS controls the front end and DRM, It would require a massive amount of shenanigans to catch up. They might be able to succeed in the EU, but MS seems to be having a number of difficulties there, and may not ship a music enable Windows after the new year.
The thing to remember is that Excel is a Mac program. MS did not have GUI to support it. It was two years before it would run in the new Windows environment, and, as we all know, a few more years before Windows and the soon to be Office Suite ran well.
As far as Word is concerned, MacWrite was superior in all respects for many years. There was nothing that Word did that justified the added frustration of using it. It frankly did not work. As a matter of fact, with the constant changes and what not, it did not work well on a mac until the late 90's. Word was a hack from the DOS version and other sources.
The GUI debate is really simple. Xerox get the credit for the WIMP thing. Apple get the credit for creating a production machine. MS gets the credit for the creating something that everyone uses. It is not an issue of who though of what. It is not an issue of who was first. If is merely an issue of Apple having a well running machine by 1986 or so. Microsoft 3.1, the first workable system shipped in 1993. 3.11 for workgroups, the first usable system, shipped a year later. Just like today MS is comparing an operating system that will ship in two years with the operating system Apple is shipping now.
It is this technical disadvantage which, i believe, lead MS to become so aggressive in marketing. They were doing ok with DOS. They played unfair, but never unethical. I think the realization that they did not have the skill or forethought to create a long term competitive plan drove them to their current problems. Really, Windows and office were good enough to keep the company healthy. Office on the Mac itself was very good and could have funded a good sized company for a very long time. But they got greedy, and just did have the intelligence to fund the greed.
By the way in the early 80's to the mid 90's I regularly used many different OSes and many different packages in business and research capacities. I saw many different people interact with the machines. So this is not theoretical stuff. I saw Macs used by business people. They switched because MS was giving software away, while the Apple and the Mac developers actually expected to paid for their services. Of couse they are paying through the nose now.
It would still be good because the lawyers could make a career through class action suits against the CC companies for lack of due diligence in offering CC processing, and thus contributing to the harm of the consumer, or some such thing. It would also be possible to sue the individual companies.
The downside would be that someone's credit rating would be toast. It might be possible to establish corporations to take the fall, but maybe not. Also, a finite amount of spam merely exists to harvest credit card numbers for future fraudulent use. As such, credit cards would have to be used and canceled on a regular basis.
The problem is that with spam we often have no address to send anything to, or the address we have is one that will do any good. It is like those 'work at home' signs on the road. We may think we are attacking the business plan by calling the number and racking up minutes, while what we are really doing is making the business plan succeed by enriching the person at the top of the pyramid.
So, we can't reply by email, because the address is likely either bogus or that of an innocent party. If we go to the web site in an effort to consumer bandwidth, we are likely going to receive a couple ads that will then make the spammer money. For the spammer to make real money, spam has to generate a real contact, which means that we much supply the contracting company with real contact information, which will then likely get sold to many other companies.
The 419 anti-scams work because the people invest a lot of time and money. I suppose if we all get throw away fax number, voice mail number, and PO boxes, we could mess with the spammers. But is the expense really worth while. Sure such things would only cost each of us 10 dollars a month, and would cause spammer and the evil companies they work with a lot of money, but not like the 419 thing, would not likely change much at the end of they day.
It also helps MS solidify it's standing by making the MS formats seem like a standard. They have been doing much of this lately.
However this is not open source software in any reasonable sense. MS can change the format at any time, as it has done, and the licensees of this ML are going to left in the cold. They cannot, under the license, modify the specification to read the new formt. This puts licensees at a severe disadvantage to the developers who reversed engineer the specification and merely had to do additional leg work. Now all developers will have to wait for MS to release new specification because not only have we promised not to modify the specification, it will be impossible to prove that you have not seen the specifications.
There is also an issue of forking. In traditional OSS, a developer can make modification to the code to fulfill some specific purpose. These tweaks are often only for internal use, and therefore seldom ever trigger any OSS license issues. However, MS has disallowed all modification for any purpose. Therefore, even though a company has spent ungodly sums of money for a Office site license, I see no simple way for them to make simple modification to the ML that could really help the firm become more efficient. OTOH, such modification are perfectly possible and legal with OO.org.
What the real issue is is whether your credit card has a revolving balance, and if you are periodically able to pay it down.
It seems this could be a great device for speed dating. Instead of a random arrangement of table, the badge could match religious beliefs, divorce status, conversion status, and number of children wanted. Hell, for the less religious it could even match income level, type of car, size of house, and whether sex on the first date is possible. People could walk around the room until the badges make a match. Instead of seven minutes perhaps 4 will be enough. Along with the rules, this could be a boon for people who desire the ultimate pragmatic relationship.
Also, any kid is going to lie, especially when confronted. The strongest impulse for an adolescent is not that of being punished, but that of being embarrassed. This is why a child will close perfectly harmless windows, or act guilty when doing other harmless acts. For instance, the adolescent may not want to parents or sibling to see creative works for fear of being embarrassed. Kids will in choose punishment over embarrassment. It is screwed up, but kids are weird.
I wouldn't spy on the kids. As I said, if you can't trust them then only have one computer in the house in a secure location. The specific rules for internet access are well known. Specify which types of sites are off limits. Never give personal information online. Every person online not physically known to the parent is a stranger and danger. It would be good if all email could be filtered before reaching the child. Any infraction of a specific rule, and not a general guideline, should have appropriate consequences.
Working on a computer is no different from watching TV or talking to friends on the phone or leaving the house alone. It is a privilege that comes with certain responsibilities.