The PIN isn't on the magnetic strip. The card number is on the strip. The PIN is stored in a central database. Smart cards are more or less a gimmick. Anything that can be done with a smart card can be done with a normal card and a central DB.
It's time congress steps in and creates a compulsory license for digital music, and explicitly explain that it is within that license to copy that music to different formats. The RIAA seems to think they are entitled to be able to abuse the system as they have for years. I don't mind paying a fee, but I should have the right to choose how I use and store the music. If I want to be able to listen to it at off CD, Cassette, CD-R, Hard Disk, whatever, that should be my explicit right.
This would end up being good for everyone (except the RIAA, but who really cares). Distribution channels would pop up all over the place, giving more choice to artists and consumers. We'd have the ability to not feel like criminals when we burn a CD.
The only thing I'd rather see, is congress revoke all of the RIAA's copyrights because they've been using them to stifle innovation and competition.
Could we someday see a Mac with an IBM Technology logo on it? I've heard there's a possibility that Apple may use IBM chips at some point, and they already use some IBM drives. Wouldn't that be something to behold? It'd really confuse the folks who still use the term IBM Compatable.
That would be a large precentage of companies. A lot of companies purchase software, and support along with it. They only support a particular OS, and in many cases that's RH 6.2.
Beyond that 6.2 isn't old. Last year it was the current release, and when 7.0 came out it was shit. Believe it or not, in the real world we don't go out and get the newest revs all the time. We have to test, test and test again before it goes live. RedHat has had terrible luck with new releases, and no one in their right mind will go grab a new copy and put it live the day it's released.
Know how many companies are still installing NT instead of 2000? Same with 6.2
Install RedHat 6.2 lately? Telnet's there. Know how many folks are still using 6.2 because they have software that is only certified for it? Besides, the advantage of ssh is that traffic is encrypted, and sniffers can't pick up passwords, there have been vulnerabilities found before in sshd.
This is a futile argument. Linux is not inherently more secure than NT and NT is not inherently more secure than Linux. OOTB they both have to be considered insecure, maybe not today, but there's going to be a wu-ftpd, iis, bind, or heaven forbid, sshd exploit after release.
Listen up people, this is important and you will be tested on it at some point: A MACHINE IS ONLY AS SECURE AS IT'S ADMIN IS VIGILANT! Your machines are not secure today. They can be compromised. Someone may not have discovered the vulnerability yet, but they will.
My point is to dismiss some very valid complaints as FUD, is ignoring the problems that do exist. Most criticism of linux should be taken as constructive. We can correct the problems that exist by identifing them, and addressing them. I think several distros have done that in the install process.
Sure, Email, Word Processing work just fine, but can't they be better? Can't they be a lot easier to use? Can't the word processors have better on-screen rendering of fonts out of the box? Can't all these tools have tighter integration with each other? Yes they can. 'Good Enough' never is.
Do we want to strive to have a product that is acceptable, or a product that is superior?
Beyond that, people need to be able to screw with it for fun. People who have computers at home, and play with them, in my experience, tend to be more productive with them at work. UI and Software installation problems can be addressed and correct these problems. Installing Mozilla on Linux isn't like installing it on Windows, but it should be, because there's no reason it can't.
Roblimo got a chance to see the system in action to find out how ordinary office workers are proving that the old "Linux is tough to use" shibboleth is nothing but FUD
We all know that the truth is, linux is hard to use for novices, and a good portion of linux users are not inclined to help newbies out. Read a few usenet posts to see this. "Linux is tough to use" is not FUD, it's the ugly truth. The people who realize this, and don't shrug it off as "FUD" are the ones who are positioned to correct this flaw.
Don't get me wrong, there's been tremendous progress made in linux usability, but the majority of it has been in the initial install area. There are still a lot of problems with UI consitancy, and any usability expert will tell you that this isn't a minor flaw. There's also the problem with installing software, because there's not the same one-click method for every program that Mac and Windows have.
Progress has been made, but we are certainly in no position to dismiss problems with linux' usability as FUD. When we do that, the progress will stop.
Ethics is all about the shades of grey between black and white. Legality however should have no shades of grey.
Something may be ethical, but not legal, and vice versa. In this case, a white-hat worm would most certainly be illegal, because you are modifing someone's property without their concent, but to simply say it isn't ethical doesn't look at the whole picture.
What has to be asked is do people benifit more from your actions than the harm being caused? If this is so, you can ethically justify your actions. If by modifing one person's machine you prevent 50 from being infected, you're doing overall good, and while still outside the law, you are benifitting society.
If a white-hat worm were to be released into the wild and become widespread and clean up code red's damage, I think it would spark a lot of conversation on the potential of other such worms and the regulation of them for their possible future and benificial use.
Where does Burger King build a new store? Generally across the street from a McDonalds, right? They do this why? To attract people who are interested in their competitor's similar products.
I myself majored in advertising, and this is exactly what you are supposed to do. You hit people who are interested in your product. If I go to a site looking for memory, and another site pops up an ad with free shipping on all memory orders, this ad is going to have a much higher success rate then if say, it were at the top of the page on/.
You're right, pop-up ads will get worse. Significantly, but these ads aren't the beginning of the end. It's the end of the beginning. The industry is starting to wise up and realize that silly banner ads don't work when they aren't tuned into you. The geeks and traditional advertising washouts are getting out, and people who know what they're doing are taking over.
These types of ads are going to be much more successful, because we will learn to live with them. This may seem underhanded, and it may very well be, but people will tolerate them because they don't want to pay for content. Banners caused the same response as this.
At this point, the last thing you need to do is shove more ads into people's faces trying to get them to buy your product. Instead of trying to force people to buy what you make, you should be making what people want to buy.
You're a marketing major? That will be your job someday, bud. Your job is going to make people need what you have to sell. People don't want the product? Fix the people, or hit the street.
If you're a marketing major, and afraid to piss people off (or piss on them, for that matter), or think that ethics should get in the way, you're best of to change your major. Geology would probably be nice because you don't have to deal with people. A customer your competitor has, is a customer you don't have.
Marketing and Advertising are certainly not the place for people who are idealistic about privacy, or believe "the truth will set them free". Myself, I was lucky enough to get into programming.
utilities are something that the government has extensive experience in and a history of regulating.
Yes, utilities are one of the very few things that work well in a socialistic fashion. Gov't regulated or owned utilities have worked terribly well. However AOL/TW isn't a utility. You must understand that AOL/TW isn't just AOL anymore. It's the largest mixed media company in the world. What they control or have an extensive interest in is mindboggling.
Sure, MS can control the PC OS, and even the office application market. But that's a miniscule niche to what AOL/TW controls.
Microsoft can rely on threats while AOL has to offer sweeteners
In the business world the difference between a threat and sweetener is negligiable. If your competitor is keeping back 35$ more than you a unit it effects your bottom line. You have to counter that by taking the offer too, whether you want to or not. The EXACT same reason PC makers had to agree to MS's demands. AOL is simply taking advantage of the current situation, because MS can't counter because of PR backlash (See AOL's holdings in CNN, CNN/fn etc).
Choose your evils. Myself, I hate to see any company go unchallenged. MS at least had some challengers, no matter how small, But AOL/TW has none. Go without MS for a month, no problem. Now try to go without AOL/TW, good luck, hopefully you're blind, deaf and dumb and live in a very remote cave.
It's laughable that anyone who can say MS was/is in a monopoly position, can believe that AOL/TW is not in a monopoly position. They have over 4 times the subscribers of their nearest competitor, control IM protocols that they are abusing, own the largest chunk of broadcast, print and online media, own one of the largest cable companies in the US and are working on a deal to handle the online customers for THE largest cable company. They control the largest portion of content and delivery.
MS did not threaten to raise OS prices, they threatened not to nearly give it away any more. Otherwise they'd have to pay the full price(that everyone else pays) of 89$ for the software. Same thing AOL wants to do by giving 35$ per PC. MS just did it as a credit, because they had a product that PC makers saw as valuable. AOL doesn't really have a lot that PC makers consider to add value to their product, so they pay cash.
Maybe this isn't an abuse of their monopoly, because they're not forcing you to subscribe to AOL to see CNN, yet. But AOL/TW most certainly holds a monopoly position.
Bury your head in the sand, but this is just as bad as the things MS did, probably worse because of the horizontal layout of AOL/TW.
School is supposed to teach concepts, not what menu in Word to use to get the right fancy font.
You're thinking of college. We need to acknowledge that there are two distinct tracks in HS. Those who will be continuing their education and those who won't. Concepts can be useful to those who are continuing on, but some students NEED to learn skills. And you may know that if someone knows one word processor, they can likely figure out another, but does the hiring authority for an entry level job know this? Maybe not. A lot of folks might shrug off someone who has no MS experience for someone who does.
What has to be realized is not all students are going into our professions, most won't. Also, not all students have the ability or desire to take concepts and apply them. The latter may be a failing of the educational system, or it may just be a fact of life, but that's certainly another debate. I am just of the mind that we need to provide students who are going to look for jobs right out of school with some skills they can use immediately.
And yet, when you got out of HS, somehow you survived having been trained on Apples when the business world wasn't using them. Do you really think it's that much harder for kids today, who are more technically savvy than you or I in HS?
I had apple ]['s in school. At home I had an 8088 , and later a 286 to play with. (I even had access to a server that allowed me to telnet) Which were machines that the buisiness world was using. I was a rather privlidged person. Most people that I went to school with didn't have these. Schools should allow less privlidged students access to what is being used in the "Real World"tm, because they are more likely to be in the group of people who will not continue their education.
Jeeze Jon... You should have watched the Discovery channel last night. According to 'Supervolcanos' we're due for a major eruption of Yellowstone National Park which will lower the earths temperature by 5 degrees C. We definately should be worried about global warming... If we don't speed it up and counter the effects of this imminent supervolcano, we're screwed.
this would foster a generation of people who are knowledgable in open/free appliactions.
Hmmm... And what good would it do these students? How many entry level jobs say "KOffice Experience Required"? Keep in mind that the computers are used by more than just the geeks at school anymore.
Promoting the Free Software agenda should not be done at the expense of others. Schools have a responsibility to give students some real world skills that they can use, not to enlighten or indoctrinate. I believe there is room for free software in schools, but certainly not that they should ignore the software that is in 90% of the desktops out there.
Take away Microsoft's demand at this level and this will most likely continue through the student's lives.
Doubtful. They'll have to learn to use MS software sometime. Few of us jump out of high school into our own companies or positions that have the authority to choose what software is run.
By the time most of these folks get to the position where they can make these decisions, things will have changed so much since then, it will be a moot point. I don't see a lot of Apple ][e's around today to remind me of my HS education.
Would it be too much for a slashdot edit^h^h^h^h babysitter, to actually read the submitted articles and see if they make sense. For the uninformed, the article is about an email sent out to people offering a free pager which is billed as a Motorola (but is not), not messages sent out to people over pagers.
Beyond that, how could anyone believe Motorola would sue someone for using their pagers? They're equipment manufacturers, not service providers. Duh.
My cable modem has had nearly perfect uptime. I can't speak for everyone out there, but I've been with two companies, and have had about 99.99% uptime.
My local phone bill is over 50$ US. Which is more than my Cable bill. I don't know about Canada, but in the US, a fair portion of my phone bill is taxes.
A one time 19.99 fee isn't too bad, considering a lot of telcos around here charge installation fees.
Savings is savings, whether it's marginal or not, but for most people they probably would save about 20$ a month, or $240 a year. I could buy a lot of junk with that:).
I've been looking for a way to dump my home phone for a while, the main hangup, is my wife likes having the number, and not having to charge her cellphone battery. If I could save a few bucks and still have a number based at my house I'd go for it.
I think that's pretty close to whats happened. The most important findings in this case is that the finding that the claim MS attempted to create a monopoly in the browser market is not viable, and that tying windows and IE together was acceptable.
While they upheld that many of MS' buisiness practices were not acceptable for their position in the market, they indicated that the punishment must fit the crime, and that they did not believe that Jackson's plan was appropriate. I think we will likely see a punishement similar to what you predict, but probably a bit lighter. What will probably work itself into the mix (but shouldn't) is the effect that this ruling has had on the markets, and the effect the previous ruling had as well.
There's also the chance that we're going to see the DOJ drop the case entirely, because there's not much of a chance for huge results, and the fact that the current administration doesn't want this to adversely effect the economy.
But, IANAL, and this is just my opinion of what's likely to happen.
The ruling to split up Microsoft was overturned because the Appeals Court decided that Judge Jackson was biased, broke codes of conduct, and "motivated by a desire to punish the company."
This is untrue. According to the judgement no actual bias was found or even alleged by MS. Smart move by their lawyers, as appearance is much easier to prove.
The District Judge 's conduct destroyed the appearance of
impartiality. Microsoft neither alleged nor demonstrated
that it rose to the level of actual bias or prejudice.
The judgement also does not state that he was "motivated by a desire to punish" MS. In fact they were in agreement with most of Jackson's findings. The brunt of the problems came in the remedy phase, where the desire to punish should be implied. His major failing was to publically chastize MS before his remedy had been issued. If he would have kept his mouth shut, MS would have had a much harder time winning this appeal.
Here's a quick guide to the ruling as I've read it...
Upheld MS is a monopoly and abused monopoly powers.
Stated that the IE intergration claim by the DOJ was unfounded
Upheld that MS aggreements with Internet providers violates the Sherman Act.
Upheld exclusive dealings with Apple are excusionary and violate the Sherman Act
Upheld MS threats to Intel regarding Java support were in violation of the Sherman Act
Reversed conclusion that MS' course of conduct separately violates Sherman Act
Found that the plaintiffs did not sufficently define a relevant market
Reversed finding of liability for Attempted Monopolization
Heeded Microsoft 's warning that the separate-products element
of the per se rule may not give newly integrated products a fair shake.
Found that DOJ's Tying argument cause severe problems for product innovation.
neither the use of the
summary witnesses nor any other aspect of the District
Court 's conduct of the trial phase amounted to an abuse of
discretion.
The District Court erred when it resolved the
parties 'remedies-phase factual disputes by consulting only
the evidence introduced during trial and plaintiffs 'remedies-
phase submissions,without considering the evidence Micro-
soft sought to introduce.
Vacated final judgement and ordered a remedies-specific evidentiary hearing.
Found that the District Court did not have adequate reason for the remedies it imposed.
Found that Jackson created an appearance of partiality, particularly during the remedy phase.
There was not proof of bias, only an appearance, so the entire ruling was not overturned.
Finally the Conclusion: The judgment of the District Court is affirmed in part,
reversed in part,and remanded in part.We vacate in full the
Final Judgment embodying the remedial order,and remand
the case to the District Court for reassignment to a different
trial judge for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
I can't understand their decision. They just can't *loose* money. VA Linux hardware is expensive compared to the same hardware built by your own. And it's selling. And well, according to what I saw in racks.
You won't see an VA boxes in our shop. Why pay twice the price of a local company that gives better turnaround and service? There's not a compelling reason. Things are tight for everyone out there, and if you can save some bucks by not buying overpriced (but prettily cased) equipment, that's a bonus. I think I'd have to punch anyone who bought a VA linux box in the face, right about now, because it just doesn't make sense.
Obviously they're not selling enough hardware right now to cover their overhead. The future doesn't look too good either... Staff, Advertising, space, all these cost money. Unless you're selling A LOT of hardware, or have a very low overhead, you can't make money, and VA met none of these.
To me, this looks the same as the RIAA requiring radio stations to pay royalties again for content that is webcast. It caused a good many stations to pull their audio streams and hurt consumers.
The publications here are going to do the same. They will pull content from the web instead of paying the second royalties because the web content doesn't make any aditional money. What people need to realize is that the delivery doesn't matter. If you have a license to use something, you should be able to use it in different media.
I just don't understand how this is good, when the RIAA wanting us to pay twice for the same song on CD and MP3 is wrong. Please someone enlighten me.
If the device was actually in the shoe, I don't see a lot of demand. Who really wants a wire running from their shoe to somewhere else on your body. So I'd be all for a Maxwell Smart-ish "Shoe Phone" that never needed charging... But wiring my pager to my shoe, or strapping a couple double-A batteries to the back seems less than desireable.
The other question is, how many of us geeks actually spend most of the day on their feet. Might be a good thing, we'd be in better shape as a whole... "Gotta run, battery's dead"
They want our CD's to be rendered useless just like all other media formats before. Just wait, until we see the DVD-Audio format billed as fungi-proof.
Slashdot Mirror
The PIN isn't on the magnetic strip. The card number is on the strip. The PIN is stored in a central database. Smart cards are more or less a gimmick. Anything that can be done with a smart card can be done with a normal card and a central DB.
This would end up being good for everyone (except the RIAA, but who really cares). Distribution channels would pop up all over the place, giving more choice to artists and consumers. We'd have the ability to not feel like criminals when we burn a CD.
The only thing I'd rather see, is congress revoke all of the RIAA's copyrights because they've been using them to stifle innovation and competition.
Could we someday see a Mac with an IBM Technology logo on it? I've heard there's a possibility that Apple may use IBM chips at some point, and they already use some IBM drives. Wouldn't that be something to behold? It'd really confuse the folks who still use the term IBM Compatable.
Beyond that 6.2 isn't old. Last year it was the current release, and when 7.0 came out it was shit. Believe it or not, in the real world we don't go out and get the newest revs all the time. We have to test, test and test again before it goes live. RedHat has had terrible luck with new releases, and no one in their right mind will go grab a new copy and put it live the day it's released.
Know how many companies are still installing NT instead of 2000? Same with 6.2
Install RedHat 6.2 lately? Telnet's there. Know how many folks are still using 6.2 because they have software that is only certified for it? Besides, the advantage of ssh is that traffic is encrypted, and sniffers can't pick up passwords, there have been vulnerabilities found before in sshd.
This is a futile argument. Linux is not inherently more secure than NT and NT is not inherently more secure than Linux. OOTB they both have to be considered insecure, maybe not today, but there's going to be a wu-ftpd, iis, bind, or heaven forbid, sshd exploit after release.
Listen up people, this is important and you will be tested on it at some point: A MACHINE IS ONLY AS SECURE AS IT'S ADMIN IS VIGILANT! Your machines are not secure today. They can be compromised. Someone may not have discovered the vulnerability yet, but they will.
My point is to dismiss some very valid complaints as FUD, is ignoring the problems that do exist. Most criticism of linux should be taken as constructive. We can correct the problems that exist by identifing them, and addressing them. I think several distros have done that in the install process.
Sure, Email, Word Processing work just fine, but can't they be better? Can't they be a lot easier to use? Can't the word processors have better on-screen rendering of fonts out of the box? Can't all these tools have tighter integration with each other? Yes they can. 'Good Enough' never is.
Do we want to strive to have a product that is acceptable, or a product that is superior?
Beyond that, people need to be able to screw with it for fun. People who have computers at home, and play with them, in my experience, tend to be more productive with them at work. UI and Software installation problems can be addressed and correct these problems. Installing Mozilla on Linux isn't like installing it on Windows, but it should be, because there's no reason it can't.
We all know that the truth is, linux is hard to use for novices, and a good portion of linux users are not inclined to help newbies out. Read a few usenet posts to see this. "Linux is tough to use" is not FUD, it's the ugly truth. The people who realize this, and don't shrug it off as "FUD" are the ones who are positioned to correct this flaw.
Don't get me wrong, there's been tremendous progress made in linux usability, but the majority of it has been in the initial install area. There are still a lot of problems with UI consitancy, and any usability expert will tell you that this isn't a minor flaw. There's also the problem with installing software, because there's not the same one-click method for every program that Mac and Windows have.
Progress has been made, but we are certainly in no position to dismiss problems with linux' usability as FUD. When we do that, the progress will stop.
Something may be ethical, but not legal, and vice versa. In this case, a white-hat worm would most certainly be illegal, because you are modifing someone's property without their concent, but to simply say it isn't ethical doesn't look at the whole picture.
What has to be asked is do people benifit more from your actions than the harm being caused? If this is so, you can ethically justify your actions. If by modifing one person's machine you prevent 50 from being infected, you're doing overall good, and while still outside the law, you are benifitting society.
If a white-hat worm were to be released into the wild and become widespread and clean up code red's damage, I think it would spark a lot of conversation on the potential of other such worms and the regulation of them for their possible future and benificial use.
Where does Burger King build a new store? Generally across the street from a McDonalds, right? They do this why? To attract people who are interested in their competitor's similar products.
/.
I myself majored in advertising, and this is exactly what you are supposed to do. You hit people who are interested in your product. If I go to a site looking for memory, and another site pops up an ad with free shipping on all memory orders, this ad is going to have a much higher success rate then if say, it were at the top of the page on
You're right, pop-up ads will get worse. Significantly, but these ads aren't the beginning of the end. It's the end of the beginning. The industry is starting to wise up and realize that silly banner ads don't work when they aren't tuned into you. The geeks and traditional advertising washouts are getting out, and people who know what they're doing are taking over.
These types of ads are going to be much more successful, because we will learn to live with them. This may seem underhanded, and it may very well be, but people will tolerate them because they don't want to pay for content. Banners caused the same response as this.
At this point, the last thing you need to do is shove more ads into people's faces trying to get them to buy your product. Instead of trying to force people to buy what you make, you should be making what people want to buy.
You're a marketing major? That will be your job someday, bud. Your job is going to make people need what you have to sell. People don't want the product? Fix the people, or hit the street.
If you're a marketing major, and afraid to piss people off (or piss on them, for that matter), or think that ethics should get in the way, you're best of to change your major. Geology would probably be nice because you don't have to deal with people. A customer your competitor has, is a customer you don't have.
Marketing and Advertising are certainly not the place for people who are idealistic about privacy, or believe "the truth will set them free". Myself, I was lucky enough to get into programming.
Yes, utilities are one of the very few things that work well in a socialistic fashion. Gov't regulated or owned utilities have worked terribly well. However AOL/TW isn't a utility. You must understand that AOL/TW isn't just AOL anymore. It's the largest mixed media company in the world. What they control or have an extensive interest in is mindboggling.
Sure, MS can control the PC OS, and even the office application market. But that's a miniscule niche to what AOL/TW controls.
Microsoft can rely on threats while AOL has to offer sweeteners
In the business world the difference between a threat and sweetener is negligiable. If your competitor is keeping back 35$ more than you a unit it effects your bottom line. You have to counter that by taking the offer too, whether you want to or not. The EXACT same reason PC makers had to agree to MS's demands. AOL is simply taking advantage of the current situation, because MS can't counter because of PR backlash (See AOL's holdings in CNN, CNN/fn etc).
Choose your evils. Myself, I hate to see any company go unchallenged. MS at least had some challengers, no matter how small, But AOL/TW has none. Go without MS for a month, no problem. Now try to go without AOL/TW, good luck, hopefully you're blind, deaf and dumb and live in a very remote cave.
It's laughable that anyone who can say MS was/is in a monopoly position, can believe that AOL/TW is not in a monopoly position. They have over 4 times the subscribers of their nearest competitor, control IM protocols that they are abusing, own the largest chunk of broadcast, print and online media, own one of the largest cable companies in the US and are working on a deal to handle the online customers for THE largest cable company. They control the largest portion of content and delivery.
MS did not threaten to raise OS prices, they threatened not to nearly give it away any more. Otherwise they'd have to pay the full price(that everyone else pays) of 89$ for the software. Same thing AOL wants to do by giving 35$ per PC. MS just did it as a credit, because they had a product that PC makers saw as valuable. AOL doesn't really have a lot that PC makers consider to add value to their product, so they pay cash.
Maybe this isn't an abuse of their monopoly, because they're not forcing you to subscribe to AOL to see CNN, yet. But AOL/TW most certainly holds a monopoly position.
Bury your head in the sand, but this is just as bad as the things MS did, probably worse because of the horizontal layout of AOL/TW.
You're thinking of college. We need to acknowledge that there are two distinct tracks in HS. Those who will be continuing their education and those who won't. Concepts can be useful to those who are continuing on, but some students NEED to learn skills. And you may know that if someone knows one word processor, they can likely figure out another, but does the hiring authority for an entry level job know this? Maybe not. A lot of folks might shrug off someone who has no MS experience for someone who does.
What has to be realized is not all students are going into our professions, most won't. Also, not all students have the ability or desire to take concepts and apply them. The latter may be a failing of the educational system, or it may just be a fact of life, but that's certainly another debate. I am just of the mind that we need to provide students who are going to look for jobs right out of school with some skills they can use immediately.
And yet, when you got out of HS, somehow you survived having been trained on Apples when the business world wasn't using them. Do you really think it's that much harder for kids today, who are more technically savvy than you or I in HS?
I had apple ]['s in school. At home I had an 8088 , and later a 286 to play with. (I even had access to a server that allowed me to telnet) Which were machines that the buisiness world was using. I was a rather privlidged person. Most people that I went to school with didn't have these. Schools should allow less privlidged students access to what is being used in the "Real World"tm, because they are more likely to be in the group of people who will not continue their education.
Jeeze Jon... You should have watched the Discovery channel last night. According to 'Supervolcanos' we're due for a major eruption of Yellowstone National Park which will lower the earths temperature by 5 degrees C. We definately should be worried about global warming... If we don't speed it up and counter the effects of this imminent supervolcano, we're screwed.
this would foster a generation of people who are knowledgable in open/free appliactions.
Hmmm... And what good would it do these students? How many entry level jobs say "KOffice Experience Required"? Keep in mind that the computers are used by more than just the geeks at school anymore.
Promoting the Free Software agenda should not be done at the expense of others. Schools have a responsibility to give students some real world skills that they can use, not to enlighten or indoctrinate. I believe there is room for free software in schools, but certainly not that they should ignore the software that is in 90% of the desktops out there.
Take away Microsoft's demand at this level and this will most likely continue through the student's lives.
Doubtful. They'll have to learn to use MS software sometime. Few of us jump out of high school into our own companies or positions that have the authority to choose what software is run. By the time most of these folks get to the position where they can make these decisions, things will have changed so much since then, it will be a moot point. I don't see a lot of Apple ][e's around today to remind me of my HS education.
Beyond that, how could anyone believe Motorola would sue someone for using their pagers? They're equipment manufacturers, not service providers. Duh.
I can hear slashdot getting stupider...
- My cable modem has had nearly perfect uptime. I can't speak for everyone out there, but I've been with two companies, and have had about 99.99% uptime.
-
My local phone bill is over 50$ US. Which is more than my Cable bill. I don't know about Canada, but in the US, a fair portion of my phone bill is taxes.
-
A one time 19.99 fee isn't too bad, considering a lot of telcos around here charge installation fees.
- Savings is savings, whether it's marginal or not, but for most people they probably would save about 20$ a month, or $240 a year. I could buy a lot of junk with that
:).
I've been looking for a way to dump my home phone for a while, the main hangup, is my wife likes having the number, and not having to charge her cellphone battery. If I could save a few bucks and still have a number based at my house I'd go for it.I think that's pretty close to whats happened. The most important findings in this case is that the finding that the claim MS attempted to create a monopoly in the browser market is not viable, and that tying windows and IE together was acceptable.
While they upheld that many of MS' buisiness practices were not acceptable for their position in the market, they indicated that the punishment must fit the crime, and that they did not believe that Jackson's plan was appropriate. I think we will likely see a punishement similar to what you predict, but probably a bit lighter. What will probably work itself into the mix (but shouldn't) is the effect that this ruling has had on the markets, and the effect the previous ruling had as well.
There's also the chance that we're going to see the DOJ drop the case entirely, because there's not much of a chance for huge results, and the fact that the current administration doesn't want this to adversely effect the economy.
But, IANAL, and this is just my opinion of what's likely to happen.
The ruling to split up Microsoft was overturned because the Appeals Court decided that Judge Jackson was biased, broke codes of conduct, and "motivated by a desire to punish the company."
This is untrue. According to the judgement no actual bias was found or even alleged by MS. Smart move by their lawyers, as appearance is much easier to prove.
The judgement also does not state that he was "motivated by a desire to punish" MS. In fact they were in agreement with most of Jackson's findings. The brunt of the problems came in the remedy phase, where the desire to punish should be implied. His major failing was to publically chastize MS before his remedy had been issued. If he would have kept his mouth shut, MS would have had a much harder time winning this appeal.I can't understand their decision. They just can't *loose* money. VA Linux hardware is expensive compared to the same hardware built by your own. And it's selling. And well, according to what I saw in racks.
You won't see an VA boxes in our shop. Why pay twice the price of a local company that gives better turnaround and service? There's not a compelling reason. Things are tight for everyone out there, and if you can save some bucks by not buying overpriced (but prettily cased) equipment, that's a bonus. I think I'd have to punch anyone who bought a VA linux box in the face, right about now, because it just doesn't make sense.
Obviously they're not selling enough hardware right now to cover their overhead. The future doesn't look too good either... Staff, Advertising, space, all these cost money. Unless you're selling A LOT of hardware, or have a very low overhead, you can't make money, and VA met none of these.
To me, this looks the same as the RIAA requiring radio stations to pay royalties again for content that is webcast. It caused a good many stations to pull their audio streams and hurt consumers.
The publications here are going to do the same. They will pull content from the web instead of paying the second royalties because the web content doesn't make any aditional money. What people need to realize is that the delivery doesn't matter. If you have a license to use something, you should be able to use it in different media.
I just don't understand how this is good, when the RIAA wanting us to pay twice for the same song on CD and MP3 is wrong. Please someone enlighten me.
If the device was actually in the shoe, I don't see a lot of demand. Who really wants a wire running from their shoe to somewhere else on your body. So I'd be all for a Maxwell Smart-ish "Shoe Phone" that never needed charging... But wiring my pager to my shoe, or strapping a couple double-A batteries to the back seems less than desireable.
The other question is, how many of us geeks actually spend most of the day on their feet. Might be a good thing, we'd be in better shape as a whole... "Gotta run, battery's dead"
Erm... actually the quotes in the actual interview which is here.
/. post takes things out of context quite a bit.
Read it, the article in the
They want our CD's to be rendered useless just like all other media formats before. Just wait, until we see the DVD-Audio format billed as fungi-proof.