It's not clear what is meant by the opening statement "Microsoft's Windows platform is losing traction" means.
If I am writing a web application that happens to run on IIS, am I really "targeting Microsoft Windows"? I don't think so - all I'm "targeting" a web browser running on a client machine, and I shouldn't know nor care what operating system, platform nor browser it has installed.
TFA doesn't seem to be making much of a point other than saying "we hate Microsoft, we think others do too, and therefore so should you".
By the same logic, the folks writing COBOL to run on big iron should have packed it in decades ago. Guess what? They're still around, and they're still going to be around.
Nice try, Redmond-bashers. You gotta come up with something better than that...
Mars will be transformed into a shirt-sleeve, habitable world for humanity before century's end, made livable by thawing out the coldish climes of the red planet and altering its now carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere.
And then we'll go there with our SUVs and crap the whole place up again. Transforming Mars into a shirt-sleeve, habitable world for humanity is already "crapping the whole place up".
SUV's are not the problem. They don't cause planetary issues here on earth, especially in light of volcanic activity, animals and other natural causes that have been going on for years. And please, folks, don't start all that "global warming" nonsense with me. The same bunch of "concerned scientists" 30 years ago predicted the Next Great Ice Age, which never came, either.
The debate above, notwithstanding... the very idea of trying to shape an entire other planet when people can't even figure out what's going on with our own is maddening.
Yet another example of media and technology companies ultimately biting the hand that is feeding them.
Sometimes I think that if they could devise a way to charge for every single time a DVD (other recorded medium) is *played*, they would try to do so. I'm not talking PPV by cable, but PPV by the recorded media that is the consumer's own possession.
Trying this backhanded way of "banning" all copying is not going to matter one whit. If a person is sufficiently motivated and has the means to to do so, they will make whatever copy of whatever media they want. Period.
I'd say this stupid proposal adds to the motivation.
If the industry continues to inflict damage on its relationship with content consumers, and is not happy with the revenue stream that it still has... and is unwilling to accept that every other business tolerates a small percentage of "theft and/or losses" (no matter HOW defined)... if it can't be happy with having a reasonable percentage of the profits......it will eventually end up owning 100% of nothing.
Well, that will help... almost nobody.
on
Internet Tax Imminent?
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Lots of crazy implications here by taxing online sales.
Watch the pendulum swing back toward brick-and-mortar stores. Previously I would go to the showroom or store to physically see/touch/learn about a product, then go back home and order it online (because it would invariably be cheaper). Taxing the product online makes me less inclined to take that additional step if I decide to make the purchase. YMMV.
This is going to hurt the online-only shops, as the taxes will dip into profits. Some small shops (and startups) are only in business because a physical shop (either buying, building or leasing) was simply not feasible, and taxation is not going to help.
How is this going to work if the collecting of funds and the supply-chain fulfillment happens outside of the taxing authority's jurisdiction? If I'm a US business setting up shop in the Bahamas and decide to sell goods made and warehoused in China, and drop-shipping from there back to US customers, what authority would anyone on US soil have to force me to pony up the taxes back to the States? (BTW, I'm just asking... I don't own or operate any business as of this writing.)
How would any government (State and/or Federal) plan to enforce any legislation it plans, with regard to online taxation? Seems I may not have a lot to worry about, given it's track record in reducing and regulating spam. (I don't know about you all, but last week's arrest of Robert Soloway didn't do much to unclog any of my Inboxes).
If successful, all this may do is make the small shops run away. Who will this help, anyway?
Did anyone think about the implications beyond "oooohhh... free money!"...?!
> The author ought to be immediately forthcoming with the who, what, and when of his experiment if he really wants some serious consideration and feedback.
You bet he would be getting feedback... in the form of one or more court summons.
The suits would be coming out of the woodwork at him.
This should be a day and age where social engineering should not work anymore, but it does.
It also should be a day and age where a company or person should not intimidate others into silence with possible legal action... but we're not there yet.
I wasn't questioning her judgment for drinking and partying, but the fact that she posted it online for the whole world to see, including any prospective school (employer), it's students, thier parents, and others who may be interested.
I'm not suggesting that having a good time on your own time is wrong, by any stretch of the imagination. Rather, that she should have thought about the implications of publicly documenting her personal activities where it could come in potential conflict with that of her profession.
Like it or not, right or wrong, everyone makes judgements. And you sure as hell don't want to be on the wrong end of an unfavorable one from your employer, because that will hit you directly where you live.
As for your assessment of my original post as an "I have better judgment than you" attitude on the internet... the nature of your own response comes off to me as a proverbial Pot Calling The Kettle Black.
A school district may pick and choose whomever it chooses to employ, subject to prevailing law. Anything beyond that, and it is "at-will", barring the grant of tenure.
As far as the University goes... let's see what happens in the lawsuit.
In an era of instant information and broader access to it, this lady should have been more careful. Forget the moralistic implications for a minute, because clearly there's nothing immoral about what she did, as an adult.
But for crying out loud. She's trying to be a school teacher... in contact with children. Obviously she wouldn't drink beer and wear a pirate suit in the classroom... but is this the image she wants to communicate with your classroom, who surely will see this at some point in time? How about the parents? How are they going to feel, knowing that she's a party girl? I'm not so sure they would want an "uptight" person as their kid's teacher, but how about someone who might be coming to work all hung over, or at a minimum, "unfocused" on occasion?
Not only should she be thinking about the parents, how about a prospective employer?
If I were a school district, not only would I be thinking about the drinking and partying, I would also be looking at what appears to be an out-and-out "I don't give a damn who sees this" attitude.
I wish her well in the lawsuit, but I think that if she really wants this career, she should take the following steps:
1. Take down all the party stuff from her MySpace page, and anywhere else that portrays her in this unfavorable light. 2. Take a year or two off, let the story fade. 3. Build a new, more serious and mature image. 4. Reassess and if teaching is still in the cards, then pursue it. 5. (No "????") Have fun, have a good career, and enjoy life, just don't be irresponsible and flaunt something that can damage your career and reputation. 6. Profit (from being successful).
...will have him wearing a blue apron with the white letters and yellow smiley-face. He'll look wistfully upon the computers in the center aisle that are pre-loaded with "his" operating system.
And he'll mutter to himself: "ahh, what might have been"...
Great, not only will they offer terrible service, but now I get an offer to waste my time and bandwidth with advertising.
And whether the advertisers pay for the space (or I would get asked to pay, since it is my phone and service time), it doesn't matter, because I'll be goddamned if I'm going to have a cellphone company foist their own content on me.
All I want to do on my phone and my time is make or receive my phone calls. Since Verizon apparently has a problem sticking to that script, I'm sure there are still others willing to play along...
Microsoft had best find a way of NOT blocking LEGITIMATE COPIES then.
Because false positives will lead to negative perceptions, not just among the usual MS-bashers but among the masses of the unknowing average consumer as well.
If that happens, it's going to take a long time to repair MS's reputation... and that's assuming it can be salvaged.
Well, when lawyers are involved, a law (or application of the law) can mean any single thing that the lawyer can convince 12 members of the general public that it is.
I don't volunteer at the polls because I have a money-paying job. A job that, by the way, also requires me to be away from home. I suppose that makes me a selfish greedy bastard that only cares about myself... fine, so be it. Consider, though, that a portion of my (not-so-)ill-gotten-gains were confiscated by greedy government, but I digress. This morning, as per my normal schedule, I left for work before the polls opened. I routinely do not return home until around the time the polls close.
That's why I voted absentee in the first place... what's your name? Oh, Anonymous Coward, I see.
(My wife also commutes to her own day job... in the opposite direction.)
And yes, I was dead serious about not bringing kids into the polling place. They have ZERO business being there. They cannot vote, and while certainly not all kids are unruly or screaming brats (and it seems you missed the sarcasm, but oh well, not everyone has a sense of either humor nor common sense) they can do nobody at the polling place any good.
What the hell do I expect parents to do? I expect them not to bring thier kids into the polling place. I expect them to be considerate and respectful of other people there who are trying to make thier own important choices about the future of our country.
Don't tell me that parents have a right to come in to a polling place, bring their kids in and let them run around the polling place unsupervised while he or she is making their choices. Common sense dictates that is a really, really dumb thing to do.
If both parents are there at the same time, they can take turns waiting in the car while the other one votes. Only one parent? Got a friend or relative who can watch the kids for a minute? No? Then TRY VOTING ABSENTEE, which was what I was trying to recommend in the first place. This is yet another situation that voting absentee can address.
I already voted Absentee, and probably will do so from now on, every chance I get.
Absentee Ballots are the way to go:
* No campaginer gauntlet outside the polling place. * No long lines at the polls. * No clueless or senile volunteer workers that have to be shown where you are on the Registered Voter Roster, even when you fill out your "application to vote form" legibly. (God Bless the elderly, but please, keep them away from being a polling place volunteer. It's frustrating, every time I have voted in person.) * No clueless or senile volunteer workers that have to be shown the VOTING PROCEDURES, because you know what they are and THEY DON'T. (That's also maddening.) * No touch screens. * No hacker-inviting electronic voting machines. * No harassment from "election monitors". * No screaming, colicky brat kids that were dragged there by their parents. (God Bless the children, but please... stay out of the damn polling place until of legal voting age!)
My voting experience was much nicer this time. Ten minutes of marking a paper ballot, stuffing an envelope, and off to turn the thing in.
Now if only there were technology to filter out political ads for those of us who already cast our ballots...
Slashdot Mirror
Other companies have used their chief product as thier ticker symbol. Anheuser-Busch, for example, has a ticker symbol of BUD.
But in reading TFA, I can't help but feel like I'm being beat over the head with a marketing stick.
I mean, come on now... "a technology whose value is near infinite to the internet"???
Give me a break... I work in a
A patent on Virtual Flying Chairs?!
It's not clear what is meant by the opening statement "Microsoft's Windows platform is losing traction" means.
If I am writing a web application that happens to run on IIS, am I really "targeting Microsoft Windows"? I don't think so - all I'm "targeting" a web browser running on a client machine, and I shouldn't know nor care what operating system, platform nor browser it has installed.
TFA doesn't seem to be making much of a point other than saying "we hate Microsoft, we think others do too, and therefore so should you".
By the same logic, the folks writing COBOL to run on big iron should have packed it in decades ago. Guess what? They're still around, and they're still going to be around.
Nice try, Redmond-bashers. You gotta come up with something better than that...
SUV's are not the problem. They don't cause planetary issues here on earth, especially in light of volcanic activity, animals and other natural causes that have been going on for years. And please, folks, don't start all that "global warming" nonsense with me. The same bunch of "concerned scientists" 30 years ago predicted the Next Great Ice Age, which never came, either.
The debate above, notwithstanding... the very idea of trying to shape an entire other planet when people can't even figure out what's going on with our own is maddening.
Yet another example of media and technology companies ultimately biting the hand that is feeding them.
Sometimes I think that if they could devise a way to charge for every single time a DVD (other recorded medium) is *played*, they would try to do so. I'm not talking PPV by cable, but PPV by the recorded media that is the consumer's own possession.
Trying this backhanded way of "banning" all copying is not going to matter one whit. If a person is sufficiently motivated and has the means to to do so, they will make whatever copy of whatever media they want. Period.
I'd say this stupid proposal adds to the motivation.
If the industry continues to inflict damage on its relationship with content consumers, and is not happy with the revenue stream that it still has... and is unwilling to accept that every other business tolerates a small percentage of "theft and/or losses" (no matter HOW defined)... if it can't be happy with having a reasonable percentage of the profits...
Allow yourselves to be assimilated, and we will drop all litigation. Hell, we'll even let you call yourselves a "vendor".
Resistance is futile, indeed...
Then, after that - pr0n, spam, hax0rs, skr1p7 k1dd13z, and all the rest.
After all, the first part of "Internet2" is "Internet".
Won't it be great? Getting all those worms delivered at breakneck speeds?
Lots of crazy implications here by taxing online sales.
Watch the pendulum swing back toward brick-and-mortar stores. Previously I would go to the showroom or store to physically see/touch/learn about a product, then go back home and order it online (because it would invariably be cheaper). Taxing the product online makes me less inclined to take that additional step if I decide to make the purchase. YMMV.
This is going to hurt the online-only shops, as the taxes will dip into profits. Some small shops (and startups) are only in business because a physical shop (either buying, building or leasing) was simply not feasible, and taxation is not going to help.
How is this going to work if the collecting of funds and the supply-chain fulfillment happens outside of the taxing authority's jurisdiction? If I'm a US business setting up shop in the Bahamas and decide to sell goods made and warehoused in China, and drop-shipping from there back to US customers, what authority would anyone on US soil have to force me to pony up the taxes back to the States? (BTW, I'm just asking... I don't own or operate any business as of this writing.)
How would any government (State and/or Federal) plan to enforce any legislation it plans, with regard to online taxation? Seems I may not have a lot to worry about, given it's track record in reducing and regulating spam. (I don't know about you all, but last week's arrest of Robert Soloway didn't do much to unclog any of my Inboxes).
If successful, all this may do is make the small shops run away. Who will this help, anyway?
Did anyone think about the implications beyond "oooohhh... free money!"...?!
...why we refer to attorneys... you know, those nice folks who would prosecute and litigate issues of paternity and whatnot... ...as "sharks"?
> The author ought to be immediately forthcoming with the who, what, and when of his experiment if he really wants some serious consideration and feedback.
You bet he would be getting feedback... in the form of one or more court summons.
The suits would be coming out of the woodwork at him.
This should be a day and age where social engineering should not work anymore, but it does.
It also should be a day and age where a company or person should not intimidate others into silence with possible legal action... but we're not there yet.
I wasn't questioning her judgment for drinking and partying, but the fact that she posted it online for the whole world to see, including any prospective school (employer), it's students, thier parents, and others who may be interested.
I'm not suggesting that having a good time on your own time is wrong, by any stretch of the imagination. Rather, that she should have thought about the implications of publicly documenting her personal activities where it could come in potential conflict with that of her profession.
Like it or not, right or wrong, everyone makes judgements. And you sure as hell don't want to be on the wrong end of an unfavorable one from your employer, because that will hit you directly where you live.
As for your assessment of my original post as an "I have better judgment than you" attitude on the internet... the nature of your own response comes off to me as a proverbial Pot Calling The Kettle Black.
A school district may pick and choose whomever it chooses to employ, subject to prevailing law. Anything beyond that, and it is "at-will", barring the grant of tenure.
As far as the University goes... let's see what happens in the lawsuit.
In an era of instant information and broader access to it, this lady should have been more careful. Forget the moralistic implications for a minute, because clearly there's nothing immoral about what she did, as an adult.
But for crying out loud. She's trying to be a school teacher... in contact with children. Obviously she wouldn't drink beer and wear a pirate suit in the classroom... but is this the image she wants to communicate with your classroom, who surely will see this at some point in time? How about the parents? How are they going to feel, knowing that she's a party girl? I'm not so sure they would want an "uptight" person as their kid's teacher, but how about someone who might be coming to work all hung over, or at a minimum, "unfocused" on occasion?
Not only should she be thinking about the parents, how about a prospective employer?
If I were a school district, not only would I be thinking about the drinking and partying, I would also be looking at what appears to be an out-and-out "I don't give a damn who sees this" attitude.
I wish her well in the lawsuit, but I think that if she really wants this career, she should take the following steps:
1. Take down all the party stuff from her MySpace page, and anywhere else that portrays her in this unfavorable light.
2. Take a year or two off, let the story fade.
3. Build a new, more serious and mature image.
4. Reassess and if teaching is still in the cards, then pursue it.
5. (No "????") Have fun, have a good career, and enjoy life, just don't be irresponsible and flaunt something that can damage your career and reputation.
6. Profit (from being successful).
Good luck.
The "logic" behind those comments vary little from the neighborhood crack dealer who gives the first "hit" for free.
Get you on the habit, get you hooked, then pay through the nose... so to speak.
And he'll mutter to himself: "ahh, what might have been"...
Great, not only will they offer terrible service, but now I get an offer to waste my time and bandwidth with advertising.
And whether the advertisers pay for the space (or I would get asked to pay, since it is my phone and service time), it doesn't matter, because I'll be goddamned if I'm going to have a cellphone company foist their own content on me.
All I want to do on my phone and my time is make or receive my phone calls. Since Verizon apparently has a problem sticking to that script, I'm sure there are still others willing to play along...
Let's hope the spammers aren't able latch on to that kind of hardware any time soon.
The blankety-blank bastards will be cranking the junk out by the hundreds of billions per day.
Microsoft had best find a way of NOT blocking LEGITIMATE COPIES then.
Because false positives will lead to negative perceptions, not just among the usual MS-bashers but among the masses of the unknowing average consumer as well.
If that happens, it's going to take a long time to repair MS's reputation... and that's assuming it can be salvaged.
Well, when lawyers are involved, a law (or application of the law) can mean any single thing that the lawyer can convince 12 members of the general public that it is.
It has absolutely zero to do with reality.
SuSE is dead.
After the dust has settled, Novell will follow... suit.
I don't volunteer at the polls because I have a money-paying job. A job that, by the way, also requires me to be away from home. I suppose that makes me a selfish greedy bastard that only cares about myself... fine, so be it. Consider, though, that a portion of my (not-so-)ill-gotten-gains were confiscated by greedy government, but I digress. This morning, as per my normal schedule, I left for work before the polls opened. I routinely do not return home until around the time the polls close.
That's why I voted absentee in the first place... what's your name? Oh, Anonymous Coward, I see.
(My wife also commutes to her own day job... in the opposite direction.)
And yes, I was dead serious about not bringing kids into the polling place. They have ZERO business being there. They cannot vote, and while certainly not all kids are unruly or screaming brats (and it seems you missed the sarcasm, but oh well, not everyone has a sense of either humor nor common sense) they can do nobody at the polling place any good.
What the hell do I expect parents to do? I expect them not to bring thier kids into the polling place. I expect them to be considerate and respectful of other people there who are trying to make thier own important choices about the future of our country.
Don't tell me that parents have a right to come in to a polling place, bring their kids in and let them run around the polling place unsupervised while he or she is making their choices. Common sense dictates that is a really, really dumb thing to do.
If both parents are there at the same time, they can take turns waiting in the car while the other one votes. Only one parent? Got a friend or relative who can watch the kids for a minute? No? Then TRY VOTING ABSENTEE, which was what I was trying to recommend in the first place. This is yet another situation that voting absentee can address.
And stop trying to be such a jackass yourself.
I already voted Absentee, and probably will do so from now on, every chance I get.
Absentee Ballots are the way to go:
* No campaginer gauntlet outside the polling place.
* No long lines at the polls.
* No clueless or senile volunteer workers that have to be shown where you are on the Registered Voter Roster, even when you fill out your "application to vote form" legibly. (God Bless the elderly, but please, keep them away from being a polling place volunteer. It's frustrating, every time I have voted in person.)
* No clueless or senile volunteer workers that have to be shown the VOTING PROCEDURES, because you know what they are and THEY DON'T. (That's also maddening.)
* No touch screens.
* No hacker-inviting electronic voting machines.
* No harassment from "election monitors".
* No screaming, colicky brat kids that were dragged there by their parents. (God Bless the children, but please... stay out of the damn polling place until of legal voting age!)
My voting experience was much nicer this time. Ten minutes of marking a paper ballot, stuffing an envelope, and off to turn the thing in.
Now if only there were technology to filter out political ads for those of us who already cast our ballots...