Finland and the Sami - I take your point (and it's a good one) but how have they been colonized by the Finns? Is there an independence movement? Finland itself was a colony of Sweden and then Russia for centuries. I don't doubt the Sami are people, but are they a distinct nation?
Ireland and Northern Ireland - sorry, what's your point? Ireland suffered as a colony of Britain, Northern ireland (it is argued by some) is still colonised by Britain. But who has Ireland colonized since its independence?
So I disagree - please tell me who Malta ever colonized?
I can't think of any EU state other than Belgium that doesn't have a colonialist, imperialist or otherwise expansionist past. Europe had a very violent middle-ages.
Hmm, let's see - as pointed out, Belgium does have a particularly nasty colonial past in Africa. But the EU states that don't have any colonial nasties in their history include:
Finland Ireland Luxembourg Malta Cyprus Lit huania, Estonia, Latvia Poland? Slovakia Slovenia
Czech Republic (unless you count expelling the Germans after WW2, and, er, the defenestration of Prague).
Certainly, Finland, Ireland, Slovakia and the Baltic states (and others) were themselves the victims of colonialism, as was Poland, for long stretches of their history.
Except we don't quite - only about 25% of UK school funding comes from council tax via local education authorities, and much less than that in some parts of the UK such as Wales (about 15%+). The rest comes from general taxation via central government. But one way or the other the taxpayer ends up sending big cheques to MS, so your point is valid.
I'm not surprised to read that this piece was written by Stephen Evans, the BBC's North America correspondent. Evans has been for some time a shill on behalf of big business - anyone in Britain who has had to endure his relentlessly pro-MPAA and RIAA pieces will be aware of this.
Take for example this piece where Mr Evans comments: "Many students seem to think, apparently, that the internet is a law free zone." Oh yeah?
.... are right here, thanks to Dave Barry - "Bowel Buddy" Bran Wafers:
We here at the Holiday Gift Guide sincerely believe that this may be the best product name in the history of the world. The web page for this product begins with the following statement: ''If you suffer from constipation, chances are you know it!''
How very true those words are. And if there is somebody on your holiday list who suffers from this problem, we can think of no gift more likely to bring a grimace of joy to that person's face than tearing off the wrapping paper and seeing a nice big box of Bowel Buddy bran wafers! At that point, you can shout out this traditional and festive holiday greeting: ''Bowel Buddies quickly supply a large amount of insoluble fiber directly to the bowel where, with water, it goes to work pushing, cleaning churning and clearing.'' Ho ho ho!
OK, well you are wrong, in more than one sense. Publishing that you were dancing naked is a libel (assuming it's not true), saying it (verbally) is slander. Both are possibly defamation. You certainly could sue your neighbor (how much money you get awarded is a different question - judges have awarded 10 cents damages for trivial defamation cases.) The question of defamation that courts look for (in the UK and parts of the US) is - does this (description) lower you in the eyes of "normal" or "right-thinking" members of the public? Now, if you were a respectable figure of any sort, the suggestion that you danced naked in public (which is itself an offense in many places, outraging public decency and so on) is almost certainly defamatory, however it happens.
All things being equal, a blog would have no special defence against making a defamatory claim about your naked dancing than the Sunday Times or your next door neighbour (although the size of the damages award would differ).
Now, the idea that you dance naked in public will make people (the general public) think less of you, whether it's true or not. However, there are a number of defences that the publisher or author of the statement can make. They can say, this statement is in the public interest (this defence is much more common in the US than in the UK), or that it is justified (factually correct). Or they can say that the statement was a form of opinion, known as fair comment, which is legally priviledged. This would presumably be the blogger's defence here - that this was opinion and doesn't have to be accurate or balanced as such (there are limits to this defence: you can say "I think Bill Gates is a rotten, no-good creep and a bully and an asshole" - that's fine, but you can't say "I think Madeup Name is a serial killer and serial molester of minors in Seattle" and pass that off as an opinion).
Laws differ from state to state, and from country to country. In the UK, for example, a defence of "fair comment" (opinion) usually requires the statement to be made in a clearly marked area - for example, a newspaper opinion page, rather than mixed inside a factual news story.
Note that it's not by any means a watertight defence to justify the statement on the grounds that you were merely quoting someone else. To report: "Madeup Name is a Satan-worshipping Nazi who eats children and sells dangerous operating systems," says Joe Sixpack of Nowhere - that's not enough. Publishing a statement not caring whether it is true or not can be held to be malicious, and that's game over. A court would expect you to check Joe Sixpack's claim somehow, usually by asking Madeup Name for a comment on the allegations. The rules are different for public figures, especially politicians - saying "George Bush is a brutal murderer" is ok.
In a case like the blogger here, it would be firstly up to the judge to rule that the statement is defamatory, and (if it is) then up to the judge or jury to decide on the blogger's defence, whatever that may be.
The point is that blogs are publications just like anything else, they don't have special protection under the law, but they have the same protections regarding opinion and free speech (which is much stronger in the US than many other places) that are open to any other media. In the UK an ISP (Demon) got done for defamation in the courts for refusing to remove a defamatory newsgroup posting.
Contrary to the thumbsucking BBC think-piece pointed to, this is not just about Microsoft (although it concerns them, obviously). The UK government has had its fingers burned badly in the last few years over huge IT projects that have gone wrong - the Home Office passports debacle, thanks to Siemens, was just one of them, but there have been others involving EDS and Accenture, all using proprietry software, all costing buckets of cash and all having severe problems with overruns. This has as much to do with trying to avoid those messes than the BBC's "Beast of Redmond" bogey monster.
Some more good news is that the government statement included this comment: At the same time OGC announced its latest deal on pricing arrangements for Software with IBM. This will offer enhanced discounts across the public sector with additional savings where Linux products are specified.
Red Hat's SEC filing is here and show, among other interesting facts, that RH has $307m in cash in the bank, which is more than enough to pay for the lawyers to fend off SCO.
In many respects the six monthly figures are even better: a move from a loss of $6.3m in net income to a profit of $4.8m. Sure, a drop in the bucket compared with MS, but you've got to start somewhere.
Is this right? Because that's not how the Wall Street Journal (subscription only) reported it today: SuSE Linux got a Level 2 certification, which he [Jonathan Eunice, principal analyst at market researcher Illuminata] said "isn't particularly detailed." Microsoft Corp. has a Level 4 certification, which involves "substantially more detailed" investigation by testing labs.
The Wall Street Journal gave this big play... it's subscription only, but here's some details:
To get the certification, IBM enlisted SuSE, which distributes one of the leading versions of Linux. Mr. Donofrio said IBM paid less than $500,000 to get the certification at a independent testing center in Germany run by atsec information security GmbH. [IBM's senior vice president of technology and manufacturing, Nicholas] Donofrio said the security certification required few changes. It simply assured that Linux didn't have weaknesses that could be exploited by hackers, such as failing to really erase information on command. The certification included approval of the process SuSE uses to upgrade the software without introducing new security risks.
In a statement, the Defense Information Systems Agency said it was "pleased" that Linux has attained the certification.
Jonathan Eunice, principal analyst at market researcher Illuminata, Nashua, N.H., said the certification is significant, because "competitors have openly said Linux would never get to this level of security."
The initial certification is for Linux running on servers using Intel Corp. microprocessors. Mr. Eunice said SuSE Linux got a Level 2 certification, which he said "isn't particularly detailed." Microsoft Corp. has a Level 4 certification, which involves "substantially more detailed" investigation by testing labs. IBM said it would sponsor security testing for Linux software running on other servers it makes, including its mainframes.
Never mind the kids, maybe the curfew is to protect them from adults... Reuters reports:
Child Hurt as Man Lobs Computer from Apartment Mon July 7, 2003 SEOUL (Reuters) - A South Korean man angry with his daughter's Web surfing faced possible charges on Monday after he threw a computer monitor out of his 12th-floor apartment, hitting a four-year-old girl below on the head, police said. A police official said the man, 49-year-old Park Yong-ju, had got angry when he returned to his flat in Seoul on Saturday. His 20-year-old daughter was playing an online computer game and failed to greet him, as Korean custom requires. When she declined to let him join the game, he grabbed the monitor and flung it through the balcony window, the official said by telephone. The screen hit four-year-old Han Jung-in, causing severe facial injuries but no brain damage, a hospital official said. "She was very lucky, considering the severity of the accident," the official said. The girl was in a stable condition. About 55 percent of South Korean households have at least one computer, and the country has the largest number of high-speed broadband Internet connections per capita in the world. Police said an arrest warrant had been issued and further investigations were under way. Under the South Korean legal system, police ask prosecutors to issue warrants.
Regardless of the technicalities of using eBay to price these permits, from a pure economics point of view this is very interesting indeed.
The point is that as things stand, there's an economic cost to driving on a crowded highway, you just don't see it as clearly - cars move more slowly, with more hold-ups, taking greater time and using up more fuel. So everyone currently using a congested highway is already paying a price for it being crowded, although the cost is relatively hidden.
What this idea does is make a price explicit - in return for a certain cash charge you can avoid the "crowded costs" and travel faster, using less gas, and so on. Using an auction means that those people actually doing the driving can set the price they are willing to pay in order to avoid the (hidden) costs of congestion. (Yes it does favour those with more money, but then hey, so does society as a whole, for good or bad.)
Now, there is a seperate question about whether holding an auction on eBay is the right way to do it, but the theory is a good one.
Sorry, but there's no truth to this whatsoever. The denomination of oil exports is irrelevant, since all of those transactions are essentially bank transfers, in which case it doesn't matter what currency oil is priced in. It's also nonsense to say the US has "a license to print money for the world", in fact that's so illogical as to be meaningless. There's a very good article on the subject which covers all these points, it's well worth reading.
Wrong, I'm afraid - the US economy does benefit from holdings of dollars outside its borders, in theory, but no-one is sure exactly if it does, or by how much, in reality. In any case, the benefit to the US economy is on foregone interest payments, and has nothing at all do with inflation - the amount of narrow money supply (notes and coins) in an advanced economy such as the US is so small as to be insignificant to the money supply and therefore have virtually no effect on inflation. The vast majority of the US money supply is in the form of financial deposits -- and the vast majority of US dollar holdings outside the US borders is also in deposit form - electronic rather than cash. So your conclusion is false, and based on a false premise. The currency holdings of the black economy, while large, are insignificant compared to legitimate investment and trading flows.
No western philosophy discusses in too great of detail whether this world is real or not.
Hello? Well let's see... Descartes obviously, but more importantly Kant and transcendental idealism, which are probably the most profound influence on philosophy since the ancient Greeks. Pretty much everything since has been a reaction to Kant, including your friend Nietzsche. As well as that, Berkeley's phenomenology, more recently Merleau-Ponty, alongside Wittgenstein, Moore... this is epistemology. There's a lot of it about.
Frankly, while Nietzsche has lots of interesting things to say about ethics and morality, his "cosmology" is the weaker part of his bag of tricks. Having said that, there is a Nietzschean reading of The Matrix: the "human batteries" represent the Greek chorus, Neo the "superman" steps out of it, like the mad man shouting in the market place that god is dead, he recognises the exisitence of the Matrix.... let's stop there before everyone gets bored.
Absolutely right: not much has changed in Burma, it's still a brutal and repressive military regime - one that almost makes Saddam Hussain look like Abraham Lincoln. This is one country that could really use regime change.
Frankly, even pointing an IP address there is loathsome. There's an international boycott of the country in protest at the human rights abuses, lots more information on that here.
Apart from the big Linux piece highlighted, the paper's Lex column carred a note on Linux as well today (it was in the dead tree edition - the online bit is subscription only.)
To explain, the Lex column is a very influential daily piece of analysis, read by the financial world's movers and shakers (mainly in the UK). I'd quibble about a few points - MS's Office franchise is (financially) secure? Linux suffers from "real security issues"? Nonsense. Anyway, for review purposes, here the piece:
"Technology investors should be thinking long and hard about Linux. The free, open source operating system has moved beyond the beard and sandals stage and is no longer just an option for bleeding-edge early adopters and those theologically opposed to Microsoft. Linux, whose mascot is a cuddly penguin, has developed teeth. The technology has emerged as a credible alternative for corporate IT departments and is winning significant share in the $200bn server market. "Sun, Hewlett-Packard and IBM - which have traditionally marketed high-margin Unix equipment and software - are among those that have suffered from Linux's growing popularity. All three have seen the writing on the wall and have begun supporting Linux, but the transition from Unix, with proprietary hardware and software, will be painful. "For the moment, Microsoft has not been overly affected by Linux's rise. Open source software is unlikely to gain even a foothold in personal computer operating systems, so Microsoft's $10bn Windows monopoly remains impregnable. Its $8.8bn Office franchise is equally secure. "Nonetheless, Microsoft cannot be complacent. The long-term threat to its $6.5bn server business is real. Microsoft's model has been low price, high volume, but for the first time it is being undercut on price. It can argue that Linux suffers from real security issues that are only now emerging and that the operating system has a tendency to fragment, making it difficult to ensure applications' reliability. But it has a real marketing battle on its hands."
Microsoft's not yet ready for the "join 'em" part of the "If you can't beat 'em..." argument - especially as today's Wall Street Journal has a very long, detailed article on Microsoft's efforts to lure national governments away from open source software, using carrots and sticks familiar to many/.ers. It's worth reading, and good to see the mainstream press like the WSJ taking an active interest on how Redmond deports itself.
It's a good piece, but it's subscription only... so here (for review purposes only) are highlights of the article - well worth the time:
Microsoft Wages Campaign Against Free Software By WILLIAM M. BULKELEY and REBECCA BUCKMAN Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Sometimes it seems as if Microsoft Corp. doesn't want government to save money -- at least not if it comes by using free software. Microsoft is waging a major lobbying and public-policy campaign to stop government agencies in the U.S. and abroad from embracing free, "open-source" software, especially the Linux operating system, which poses a growing threat to Microsoft's Windows. In the past year it has argued with the Defense Department over the content of a report extolling free software. It has organized a world-wide lobby to oppose laws that mandate using open-source software. It has persuaded some congressmen to ask the new Office of Homeland Security not to fund research that uses certain open software. But even Microsoft is having a tough time persuading governments from Washington to South Africa that getting software free is a bad thing -- especially when rivals like International Business Machines Corp. are telling them that open-source software works just fine. Open-source software is software whose source code, or base layer of commands, usually can be copied freely and then modified, unlike most proprietary software, which is generally controlled by a profit-making company. It is championed by a far-flung community of programmers, researchers and companies who share their work over the Internet. Open-source software has grown in recent years to become a full-fledged rival to Microsoft, used by companies, universities and others in their computer rooms. Many open-source programs are free, or nearly so. The best known open-source software, Linux, increasingly is being embraced by computer companies including IBM, Dell Computer Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. as a way to sell more hardware and services. According to International Data Corp., a technology-research firm, sales of server computers that use Linux grew 6% in the most recent four quarters, while sales of Windows-based servers grew just 1% in revenue. Microsoft says it isn't against the concept of open-source software. But it is working hard to prevent government researchers from adopting software covered by the general public license, or GPL, that governs reuse of much open-source software, including Linux. The GPL requires anyone who copies the software to freely share any improvements or additions they make to the code. Because commercial companies often adapt programs written by government-funded university scientists, Microsoft argues that wider use of GPL-licensed software would stifle innovation. Commercial companies, it argues, would have no incentive to sell "free" software derived from the research. What's more, Microsoft worries that its own developers could inadvertently combine Linux or other GPL-licensed programs with Microsoft programs, which could potentially make the Microsoft programs subject to free-sharing as well. "The GPL, in my view, is bad in all its dimensions," says Jim Allchin, the Microsoft group vice president who heads the powerful Windows group. In some cases, Microsoft has leaned on government agencies directly. The U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency, an arm of the Defense Department, says that last spring it granted a Microsoft request for an exclusive advance look at a report by research firm Mitre Corp., Bedford, Mass., on Pentagon use of open-source software. After Ira Rubinstein, a Microsoft lawyer, detailed Microsoft's objections, Dawn Meyerrick, chief technology officer at the agency, says she asked Mitre to make changes in the report. Among them, it dropped the conclusion that open-source software was more secure, and it added cautionary words about the GPL. Open-software advocates also perceived Microsoft's influence in a letter from a group of congressmen to Richard Clarke, who heads cyberspace security for the newly created federal Office of Homeland Security. The initial letter urged the government to continue past practices by "explicitly rejecting licenses that would prevent or discourage commercial adoption" of software developed under federal contracts. But as the letter was being circulated, Rep. Adam Smith, a Washington Democrat -- who receives the most donations of any representative from Microsoft's political action committee -- added a "Dear Colleague" letter to further explicate the original. That letter said that "licenses such as the General Public License (GPL) are problematic and threaten to undermine innovation and security," and suggested such open-source software shouldn't be developed by the government at all. That echoed Microsoft's position. A Microsoft spokesman acknowledges that Rep. Smith met with its chief technology officer, Craig Mundie, before the letter was sent, but only for "informational" purposes. Mr. Smith's press secretary says that the "dear colleague" letter was meant to clarify the original because "we believe in innovation." Open-source fans believe Microsoft is bringing its political power to bear because it sees a market threat to its desktop-software monopoly. But in some cases, Microsoft's appeals have fallen on deaf ears. Last year, according to people familiar with the situation, Microsoft objected "vigorously" when the super-secret National Security Agency developed a secure version of Linux and then posted it on the NSA Web site for anyone to download. But NSA didn't back down and the software is still available. In the developing world, where free software like Linux may have its greatest appeal, Linux advocates say they have "noticed that Microsoft has made a substantial portion of their quote 'gifts' to developing nations that have indicated a strong preference for open-source software," says Mark Webbink, general counsel of Red Hat Inc., a Raleigh, N.C., company that sells versions of Linux. In India, where at least one state government endorsed Linux recently, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates last month announced a $400 million gift of donated software and business-development aid. In South Africa, a Microsoft offer to provide software for 32,000 schools came just days after that country's National Advisory Council on Innovation called for the government to adopt open-source software to build local programming skills and avoid sending hard currency to the U.S. to pay for Windows. Nhlanhla Mabaso, a government chief information officer, says that while the free software from Microsoft is tempting, "Personally, I believe this is not good for South Africa." Bradford Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, says any donations "are made to meet a social need" and not to counter Linux. Microsoft concedes that its opposition to open-source software has sometimes backfired, and it says it intends to move the battle to more straightforward commercial issues.
Yes, the UK does generally suffer from retail rip-off compared with the rest of the European Union, but not in this particular case. Surprised me too. Here's the quote from the EC press release:
UK by far the cheapest country The investigation showed that during the seven-year period price differences in the European Economic Area (EEA) EU plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein -- were frequent and significant. The UK usually had the lowest prices by far, which understandably tempted traders into re-exporting cheap goods to high-price countries.
The most striking price differences were observed in early 1996, when certain Nintendo products were up to 65% cheaper in the UK when compared with the Netherlands and Germany. They were also more affordable than in Spain (up to 67% more expensive than the UK), Italy (54%) and Sweden (39%). The difference narrowed but remained significant in 1997, when the UK price for all N64 game consoles and game cartridges was 33% lower (in October) than everywhere else in the EEA.
Venture capitalists, lawyers and serial entrepreneurs drop by weekly to impart wisdom and to mentor.
Woo hoo! The dotcom glory days are back!
Listen, I've got this great idea about selling pet food over the internet! It's gonna be the next big thing. All I need is $200m in start-up capital and... hey! Come back!
Slashdot Mirror
Finland and the Sami - I take your point (and it's a good one) but how have they been colonized by the Finns? Is there an independence movement? Finland itself was a colony of Sweden and then Russia for centuries. I don't doubt the Sami are people, but are they a distinct nation?
Ireland and Northern Ireland - sorry, what's your point? Ireland suffered as a colony of Britain, Northern ireland (it is argued by some) is still colonised by Britain. But who has Ireland colonized since its independence?
So I disagree - please tell me who Malta ever colonized?
What about fox news then?
... in the UK, Fox News has fallen foul of anti-bias media regulations:
What about Fox News indeed
UK media watchdog Ofcom has criticised US cable channel Fox News over views a presenter expressed about the BBC.
Ofcom said Fox News breached guidelines when commentator John Gibson claimed the BBC had displayed "a frothing-at-the-mouth" anti-American bias.
I can't think of any EU state other than Belgium that doesn't have a colonialist, imperialist or otherwise expansionist past. Europe had a very violent middle-ages.
t huania, Estonia, Latvia
Hmm, let's see - as pointed out, Belgium does have a particularly nasty colonial past in Africa. But the EU states that don't have any colonial nasties in their history include:
Finland
Ireland
Luxembourg
Malta
Cyprus
Li
Poland?
Slovakia
Slovenia
Czech Republic (unless you count expelling the Germans after WW2, and, er, the defenestration of Prague).
Certainly, Finland, Ireland, Slovakia and the Baltic states (and others) were themselves the victims of colonialism, as was Poland, for long stretches of their history.
We pay for schools with our Council Tax
Except we don't quite - only about 25% of UK school funding comes from council tax via local education authorities, and much less than that in some parts of the UK such as Wales (about 15%+). The rest comes from general taxation via central government. But one way or the other the taxpayer ends up sending big cheques to MS, so your point is valid.
I'm not surprised to read that this piece was written by Stephen Evans, the BBC's North America correspondent. Evans has been for some time a shill on behalf of big business - anyone in Britain who has had to endure his relentlessly pro-MPAA and RIAA pieces will be aware of this.
Take for example this piece where Mr Evans comments: "Many students seem to think, apparently, that the internet is a law free zone." Oh yeah?
.... are right here, thanks to Dave Barry - "Bowel Buddy" Bran Wafers:
We here at the Holiday Gift Guide sincerely believe that this may be the best product name in the history of the world. The web page for this product begins with the following statement: ''If you suffer from constipation, chances are you know it!''
How very true those words are. And if there is somebody on your holiday list who suffers from this problem, we can think of no gift more likely to bring a grimace of joy to that person's face than tearing off the wrapping paper and seeing a nice big box of Bowel Buddy bran wafers! At that point, you can shout out this traditional and festive holiday greeting: ''Bowel Buddies quickly supply a large amount of insoluble fiber directly to the bowel where, with water, it goes to work pushing, cleaning churning and clearing.'' Ho ho ho!
OK, well you are wrong, in more than one sense. Publishing that you were dancing naked is a libel (assuming it's not true), saying it (verbally) is slander. Both are possibly defamation. You certainly could sue your neighbor (how much money you get awarded is a different question - judges have awarded 10 cents damages for trivial defamation cases.)
The question of defamation that courts look for (in the UK and parts of the US) is - does this (description) lower you in the eyes of "normal" or "right-thinking" members of the public? Now, if you were a respectable figure of any sort, the suggestion that you danced naked in public (which is itself an offense in many places, outraging public decency and so on) is almost certainly defamatory, however it happens.
All things being equal, a blog would have no special defence against making a defamatory claim about your naked dancing than the Sunday Times or your next door neighbour (although the size of the damages award would differ).
Now, the idea that you dance naked in public will make people (the general public) think less of you, whether it's true or not. However, there are a number of defences that the publisher or author of the statement can make. They can say, this statement is in the public interest (this defence is much more common in the US than in the UK), or that it is justified (factually correct).
Or they can say that the statement was a form of opinion, known as fair comment, which is legally priviledged. This would presumably be the blogger's defence here - that this was opinion and doesn't have to be accurate or balanced as such (there are limits to this defence: you can say "I think Bill Gates is a rotten, no-good creep and a bully and an asshole" - that's fine, but you can't say "I think Madeup Name is a serial killer and serial molester of minors in Seattle" and pass that off as an opinion).
Laws differ from state to state, and from country to country. In the UK, for example, a defence of "fair comment" (opinion) usually requires the statement to be made in a clearly marked area - for example, a newspaper opinion page, rather than mixed inside a factual news story.
Note that it's not by any means a watertight defence to justify the statement on the grounds that you were merely quoting someone else. To report: "Madeup Name is a Satan-worshipping Nazi who eats children and sells dangerous operating systems," says Joe Sixpack of Nowhere - that's not enough. Publishing a statement not caring whether it is true or not can be held to be malicious, and that's game over. A court would expect you to check Joe Sixpack's claim somehow, usually by asking Madeup Name for a comment on the allegations. The rules are different for public figures, especially politicians - saying "George Bush is a brutal murderer" is ok.
In a case like the blogger here, it would be firstly up to the judge to rule that the statement is defamatory, and (if it is) then up to the judge or jury to decide on the blogger's defence, whatever that may be.
The point is that blogs are publications just like anything else, they don't have special protection under the law, but they have the same protections regarding opinion and free speech (which is much stronger in the US than many other places) that are open to any other media. In the UK an ISP (Demon) got done for defamation in the courts for refusing to remove a defamatory newsgroup posting.
The government's statement is here.
Contrary to the thumbsucking BBC think-piece pointed to, this is not just about Microsoft (although it concerns them, obviously). The UK government has had its fingers burned badly in the last few years over huge IT projects that have gone wrong - the Home Office passports debacle, thanks to Siemens, was just one of them, but there have been others involving EDS and Accenture, all using proprietry software, all costing buckets of cash and all having severe problems with overruns. This has as much to do with trying to avoid those messes than the BBC's "Beast of Redmond" bogey monster.
Some more good news is that the government statement included this comment:
At the same time OGC announced its latest deal on pricing arrangements for Software with IBM. This will offer enhanced discounts across the public sector with additional savings where Linux products are specified.
Red Hat's SEC filing is here and show, among other interesting facts, that RH has $307m in cash in the bank, which is more than enough to pay for the lawyers to fend off SCO.
In many respects the six monthly figures are even better: a move from a loss of $6.3m in net income to a profit of $4.8m. Sure, a drop in the bucket compared with MS, but you've got to start somewhere.
Linux got the highest rating possible.
... it's subscription only, but here's some details:
Is this right? Because that's not how the Wall Street Journal (subscription only) reported it today:
SuSE Linux got a Level 2 certification, which he [Jonathan Eunice, principal analyst at market researcher Illuminata] said "isn't particularly detailed." Microsoft Corp. has a Level 4 certification, which involves "substantially more detailed" investigation by testing labs.
The Wall Street Journal gave this big play
To get the certification, IBM enlisted SuSE, which distributes one of the leading versions of Linux. Mr. Donofrio said IBM paid less than $500,000 to get the certification at a independent testing center in Germany run by atsec information security GmbH. [IBM's senior vice president of technology and manufacturing, Nicholas] Donofrio said the security certification required few changes. It simply assured that Linux didn't have weaknesses that could be exploited by hackers, such as failing to really erase information on command. The certification included approval of the process SuSE uses to upgrade the software without introducing new security risks.
In a statement, the Defense Information Systems Agency said it was "pleased" that Linux has attained the certification.
Jonathan Eunice, principal analyst at market researcher Illuminata, Nashua, N.H., said the certification is significant, because "competitors have openly said Linux would never get to this level of security."
The initial certification is for Linux running on servers using Intel Corp. microprocessors. Mr. Eunice said SuSE Linux got a Level 2 certification, which he said "isn't particularly detailed." Microsoft Corp. has a Level 4 certification, which involves "substantially more detailed" investigation by testing labs. IBM said it would sponsor security testing for Linux software running on other servers it makes, including its mainframes.
There's a NY Times story on the subject here (and a good SCO one on the Red Hat legal case following it).
Never mind the kids, maybe the curfew is to protect them from adults... Reuters reports:
Child Hurt as Man Lobs Computer from Apartment
Mon July 7, 2003
SEOUL (Reuters) - A South Korean man angry with his daughter's Web surfing faced possible charges on Monday after he threw a computer monitor out of his 12th-floor apartment, hitting a four-year-old girl below on the head, police said.
A police official said the man, 49-year-old Park Yong-ju, had got angry when he returned to his flat in Seoul on Saturday. His 20-year-old daughter was playing an online computer game and failed to greet him, as Korean custom requires.
When she declined to let him join the game, he grabbed the monitor and flung it through the balcony window, the official said by telephone.
The screen hit four-year-old Han Jung-in, causing severe facial injuries but no brain damage, a hospital official said.
"She was very lucky, considering the severity of the accident," the official said. The girl was in a stable condition.
About 55 percent of South Korean households have at least one computer, and the country has the largest number of high-speed broadband Internet connections per capita in the world.
Police said an arrest warrant had been issued and further investigations were under way. Under the South Korean legal system, police ask prosecutors to issue warrants.
[OK, so it's not Thailand, but still....]
Regardless of the technicalities of using eBay to price these permits, from a pure economics point of view this is very interesting indeed.
The point is that as things stand, there's an economic cost to driving on a crowded highway, you just don't see it as clearly - cars move more slowly, with more hold-ups, taking greater time and using up more fuel. So everyone currently using a congested highway is already paying a price for it being crowded, although the cost is relatively hidden.
What this idea does is make a price explicit - in return for a certain cash charge you can avoid the "crowded costs" and travel faster, using less gas, and so on. Using an auction means that those people actually doing the driving can set the price they are willing to pay in order to avoid the (hidden) costs of congestion. (Yes it does favour those with more money, but then hey, so does society as a whole, for good or bad.)
Now, there is a seperate question about whether holding an auction on eBay is the right way to do it, but the theory is a good one.
in the States, money has to cost less than what it was printed on/minted from...to do otherwise defeats the purpose, see?
If that were true, there'd be no coins below a dollar. How much do you think it costs to make a dime? 9 cents?
Sorry, but there's no truth to this whatsoever. The denomination of oil exports is irrelevant, since all of those transactions are essentially bank transfers, in which case it doesn't matter what currency oil is priced in.
It's also nonsense to say the US has "a license to print money for the world", in fact that's so illogical as to be meaningless.
There's a very good article on the subject which covers all these points, it's well worth reading.
Wrong, I'm afraid - the US economy does benefit from holdings of dollars outside its borders, in theory, but no-one is sure exactly if it does, or by how much, in reality. In any case, the benefit to the US economy is on foregone interest payments, and has nothing at all do with inflation - the amount of narrow money supply (notes and coins) in an advanced economy such as the US is so small as to be insignificant to the money supply and therefore have virtually no effect on inflation. The vast majority of the US money supply is in the form of financial deposits -- and the vast majority of US dollar holdings outside the US borders is also in deposit form - electronic rather than cash.
So your conclusion is false, and based on a false premise. The currency holdings of the black economy, while large, are insignificant compared to legitimate investment and trading flows.
No western philosophy discusses in too great of detail whether this world is real or not.
... Descartes obviously, but more importantly Kant and transcendental idealism, which are probably the most profound influence on philosophy since the ancient Greeks. Pretty much everything since has been a reaction to Kant, including your friend Nietzsche. As well as that, Berkeley's phenomenology, more recently Merleau-Ponty, alongside Wittgenstein, Moore... this is epistemology. There's a lot of it about.
.... let's stop there before everyone gets bored.
Hello? Well let's see
Frankly, while Nietzsche has lots of interesting things to say about ethics and morality, his "cosmology" is the weaker part of his bag of tricks. Having said that, there is a Nietzschean reading of The Matrix: the "human batteries" represent the Greek chorus, Neo the "superman" steps out of it, like the mad man shouting in the market place that god is dead, he recognises the exisitence of the Matrix
Absolutely right: not much has changed in Burma, it's still a brutal and repressive military regime - one that almost makes Saddam Hussain look like Abraham Lincoln. This is one country that could really use regime change.
Frankly, even pointing an IP address there is loathsome. There's an international boycott of the country in protest at the human rights abuses, lots more information on that here.
Apart from the big Linux piece highlighted, the paper's Lex column carred a note on Linux as well today (it was in the dead tree edition - the online bit is subscription only.)
To explain, the Lex column is a very influential daily piece of analysis, read by the financial world's movers and shakers (mainly in the UK). I'd quibble about a few points - MS's Office franchise is (financially) secure? Linux suffers from "real security issues"? Nonsense. Anyway, for review purposes, here the piece:
"Technology investors should be thinking long and hard about Linux. The free, open source operating system has moved beyond the beard and sandals stage and is no longer just an option for bleeding-edge early adopters and those theologically opposed to Microsoft. Linux, whose mascot is a cuddly penguin, has developed teeth. The technology has emerged as a credible alternative for corporate IT departments and is winning significant share in the $200bn server market.
"Sun, Hewlett-Packard and IBM - which have traditionally marketed high-margin Unix equipment and software - are among those that have suffered from Linux's growing popularity. All three have seen the writing on the wall and have begun supporting Linux, but the transition from Unix, with proprietary hardware and software, will be painful.
"For the moment, Microsoft has not been overly affected by Linux's rise. Open source software is unlikely to gain even a foothold in personal computer operating systems, so Microsoft's $10bn Windows monopoly remains impregnable. Its $8.8bn Office franchise is equally secure.
"Nonetheless, Microsoft cannot be complacent. The long-term threat to its $6.5bn server business is real. Microsoft's model has been low price, high volume, but for the first time it is being undercut on price. It can argue that Linux suffers from real security issues that are only now emerging and that the operating system has a tendency to fragment, making it difficult to ensure applications' reliability. But it has a real marketing battle on its hands."
If I could mod this up +1 Funny, I would.
At last, someone gets to the 3. Profit!!! stage.
There's a better Reuters coverage of the subject here.
Microsoft's not yet ready for the "join 'em" part of the "If you can't beat 'em..." argument - especially as today's Wall Street Journal has a very long, detailed article on Microsoft's efforts to lure national governments away from open source software, using carrots and sticks familiar to many /.ers. It's worth reading, and good to see the mainstream press like the WSJ taking an active interest on how Redmond deports itself.
... so here (for review purposes only) are highlights of the article - well worth the time:
It's a good piece, but it's subscription only
Microsoft Wages Campaign Against Free Software
By WILLIAM M. BULKELEY and REBECCA BUCKMAN
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Sometimes it seems as if Microsoft Corp. doesn't want government to save money -- at least not if it comes by using free software. Microsoft is waging a major lobbying and public-policy campaign to stop government agencies in the U.S. and abroad from embracing free, "open-source" software, especially the Linux operating system, which poses a growing threat to Microsoft's Windows.
In the past year it has argued with the Defense Department over the content of a report extolling free software. It has organized a world-wide lobby to oppose laws that mandate using open-source software. It has persuaded some congressmen to ask the new Office of Homeland Security not to fund research that uses certain open software.
But even Microsoft is having a tough time persuading governments from Washington to South Africa that getting software free is a bad thing -- especially when rivals like International Business Machines Corp. are telling them that open-source software works just fine.
Open-source software is software whose source code, or base layer of commands, usually can be copied freely and then modified, unlike most proprietary software, which is generally controlled by a profit-making company. It is championed by a far-flung community of programmers, researchers and companies who share their work over the Internet.
Open-source software has grown in recent years to become a full-fledged rival to Microsoft, used by companies, universities and others in their computer rooms. Many open-source programs are free, or nearly so.
The best known open-source software, Linux, increasingly is being embraced by computer companies including IBM, Dell Computer Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. as a way to sell more hardware and services. According to International Data Corp., a technology-research firm, sales of server computers that use Linux grew 6% in the most recent four quarters, while sales of Windows-based servers grew just 1% in revenue.
Microsoft says it isn't against the concept of open-source software. But it is working hard to prevent government researchers from adopting software covered by the general public license, or GPL, that governs reuse of much open-source software, including Linux. The GPL requires anyone who copies the software to freely share any improvements or additions they make to the code.
Because commercial companies often adapt programs written by government-funded university scientists, Microsoft argues that wider use of GPL-licensed software would stifle innovation. Commercial companies, it argues, would have no incentive to sell "free" software derived from the research. What's more, Microsoft worries that its own developers could inadvertently combine Linux or other GPL-licensed programs with Microsoft programs, which could potentially make the Microsoft programs subject to free-sharing as well.
"The GPL, in my view, is bad in all its dimensions," says Jim Allchin, the Microsoft group vice president who heads the powerful Windows group.
In some cases, Microsoft has leaned on government agencies directly. The U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency, an arm of the Defense Department, says that last spring it granted a Microsoft request for an exclusive advance look at a report by research firm Mitre Corp., Bedford, Mass., on Pentagon use of open-source software.
After Ira Rubinstein, a Microsoft lawyer, detailed Microsoft's objections, Dawn Meyerrick, chief technology officer at the agency, says she asked Mitre to make changes in the report. Among them, it dropped the conclusion that open-source software was more secure, and it added cautionary words about the GPL.
Open-software advocates also perceived Microsoft's influence in a letter from a group of congressmen to Richard Clarke, who heads cyberspace security for the newly created federal Office of Homeland Security. The initial letter urged the government to continue past practices by "explicitly rejecting licenses that would prevent or discourage commercial adoption" of software developed under federal contracts.
But as the letter was being circulated, Rep. Adam Smith, a Washington Democrat -- who receives the most donations of any representative from Microsoft's political action committee -- added a "Dear Colleague" letter to further explicate the original. That letter said that "licenses such as the General Public License (GPL) are problematic and threaten to undermine innovation and security," and suggested such open-source software shouldn't be developed by the government at all.
That echoed Microsoft's position. A Microsoft spokesman acknowledges that Rep. Smith met with its chief technology officer, Craig Mundie, before the letter was sent, but only for "informational" purposes. Mr. Smith's press secretary says that the "dear colleague" letter was meant to clarify the original because "we believe in innovation."
Open-source fans believe Microsoft is bringing its political power to bear because it sees a market threat to its desktop-software monopoly. But in some cases, Microsoft's appeals have fallen on deaf ears. Last year, according to people familiar with the situation, Microsoft objected "vigorously" when the super-secret National Security Agency developed a secure version of Linux and then posted it on the NSA Web site for anyone to download. But NSA didn't back down and the software is still available.
In the developing world, where free software like Linux may have its greatest appeal, Linux advocates say they have "noticed that Microsoft has made a substantial portion of their quote 'gifts' to developing nations that have indicated a strong preference for open-source software," says Mark Webbink, general counsel of Red Hat Inc., a Raleigh, N.C., company that sells versions of Linux.
In India, where at least one state government endorsed Linux recently, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates last month announced a $400 million gift of donated software and business-development aid.
In South Africa, a Microsoft offer to provide software for 32,000 schools came just days after that country's National Advisory Council on Innovation called for the government to adopt open-source software to build local programming skills and avoid sending hard currency to the U.S. to pay for Windows. Nhlanhla Mabaso, a government chief information officer, says that while the free software from Microsoft is tempting, "Personally, I believe this is not good for South Africa."
Bradford Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, says any donations "are made to meet a social need" and not to counter Linux.
Microsoft concedes that its opposition to open-source software has sometimes backfired, and it says it intends to move the battle to more straightforward commercial issues.
* * *
You forgot... what about FREE SHIPPING!? :)
.....
Hey, great idea! You wanna be on the board?
I've also got big plans for a sock-puppet advertising campaign and
Yes, the UK does generally suffer from retail rip-off compared with the rest of the European Union, but not in this particular case. Surprised me too. Here's the quote from the EC press release:
UK by far the cheapest country
The investigation showed that during the seven-year period price differences in the European Economic Area (EEA) EU plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein -- were frequent and significant. The UK usually had the lowest prices by far, which understandably tempted traders into re-exporting cheap goods to high-price countries.
The most striking price differences were observed in early 1996, when certain Nintendo products were up to 65% cheaper in the UK when compared with the Netherlands and Germany. They were also more affordable than in Spain (up to 67% more expensive than the UK), Italy (54%) and Sweden (39%). The difference narrowed but remained significant in 1997, when the UK price for all N64 game consoles and game cartridges was 33% lower (in October) than everywhere else in the EEA.
Venture capitalists, lawyers and serial entrepreneurs drop by weekly to impart wisdom and to mentor.
... hey! Come back!
Woo hoo! The dotcom glory days are back!
Listen, I've got this great idea about selling pet food over the internet! It's gonna be the next big thing. All I need is $200m in start-up capital and
p.s. AOL CD-holders were also nice for storing disks that you don't want people to pick up, few people open an AOL CD-case.
Woah! Isn't there a bigger danger that people just throw them in the trash?