Having mentioned this many times and been modded down into the netherworld, I'll mention it again in hopes that someone will catch on.
This book is all about one thing: negotiating. It's a skill that is seldom taught formally, and yet is used every day of your life. Even when you were a wee babe trying to figure out how to get a cookie from mommy, you were learning to negotiate.
Unfortunately techs are usually poorly equipped to negotiate skillfully, a fact I learned personally when my scum-of-a-boss-who-I-thought-was-a-friend ripped me off for thousands because I didn't know how to negotiate properly. For years I was bitter, until I started checking out books and audio tapes on how to negotiate effectively. Bottom line: it was my fault I got ripped off.
You've only got three resources: time, energy and money. When you work for an employer, it's a give and take of how much of those three resources you're willing to exchange. The best teacher of negotiating I've heard so far is a guy named Roger Dawson (I won't post the link, just Google his name or go to your local library).
So now you MBA's out there who know what I'm talking about can mod me down now.
In the case of the threat to release UCSF patient records online, a chain of three different subcontractors was used. UCSF and its original contractor, Sausalito's Transcription Stat, say they had no knowledge that the work eventually would find its way abroad.
Bookmark this story and recall it next time some company or government agency talks about their serious commitment to protecting your privacy. Outsourcing is a method too lucrative to pass up for most companies who don't want to pay employee benefits or be able to dismiss people without cause. This case shows that your contractor may be trustworthy, but there's no stopping the sub-sub-subcontractor.
The only person I trust with my personal information is me. Everyone else can coax others to cough up their social insurance number (oh great...I just revealed that I live in Canada!)
Having been a consultant for over 8 years, most business users I know still haven't grasped the feature set from Office 95, little alone '97, 2000, XP and now 2003. The reason they upgrade has largley been due to compatibility issues (users unable to open documents sent to them buy users with newer versions).
The "need for features" is not because most users need them, but rather Microsoft needs them to make the case for upgrading.
Open Office, Star Office and other suites will eventually win over Microsoft Office. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but soon.
"With each version of Office it gets harder for Microsoft to move customers up," said Michael A. Silver, vice president and research director at the research and advisory firm Gartner Inc.
Therein lies the devil, ladies and gentlemen. Microsoft had the victory, but has no other business model than to sell Windows and Office (all other products fail to generate enough revenue to sustain the company). They have failed to move people over to a continuing license model, and with Linux slowly moving across the landscape like a juggernaut, Linux and products like Open Office will be "good enough" for Joe User and Ma & Pa Small Business. If Microsoft cannot come up with other solid revenues other than Windows and Office, they will lose.
After 7 years of working in IT (started with NetWare, then NT, now Linux), life has never been easier with Debian GNU/Linux. Most of the time, a reboot is not necessary, which means servers can be updated from remote with a high degree of certainty that a visit will not be required. I now live about an hour's drive from my nearest client. They're running two servers, one in a DMZ with an Internet-acessible app, the other behind the firewall with SAMBA, backup and intranet web server. Both run Debian GNU/Linux stable for a small network of about 30 Windows workstations.
Working with Microsoft products is emotionally not worth it. Too much change in the way administration needs to be done. Too many problems with viruses, worms, bad patches, politics, hardware requrements, and application interaction. I have other colleagues who work more than me with longer hours and make a lot more money because they're constantly fixing Windows, but I'm happily married with two children and focussing my efforts on Python and Perl scripting so I can automate even more adminsitration.
So to make matters worse, Slashdot posts their plight and their webserver gets slashdotted, causing even more chaos as suppliers are unable to get information on the problem.
Is there a way I can invest in Louisiana alcohol stocks? I think there's going to be a whole lotta drinkin' after this crisis!
Chips based on the K9 architecture will likely be released--at least in sample quantities--by the second half of 2005, Weber said. AMD engineer Randy Allen is overseeing the project.
Note to marketing department: New "K9" chip promises to be "a real dog".
iTunes 4 is the best software jukebox in the world, with a great music store inside. With it, you can create your own personal digital music library to manage and listen to your music collection, all with drag-and-drop simplicity.
iTunes encodes high-quality MP3s as well as pristine AAC, all in a free application. If you don't like getting charged a subscription fee or paying for additional features like fast CD burning, your digital music experience is about to get a whole lot better.
Although I use ogg myself, frankly I hope Apple gets top spot for legal music distribution. Teaming with Pepsi is a brilliant move. Makes you wonder why Microsoft can't be this creative. Oh, that's right, someone else needed to think of it so they can steal it.
Guess I'll be seeing Windows Media Player songs on Coke cans soon.
On the contrary, we are demanding and creating a stimulating, diverse, and strikingly well-designed world. We like our vacuum cleaners and mobile phones to sparkle, our backpacks and laptops to express our personalities
Maybe so, but Unix guys like me want my tools to WORK!. Take the building a house analogy. When you walk into a finished home, it's the paint and fabrics you notice. But that house was built in the rain and cold by framers and drywallers who use simple, ugly tools like hammers, drills and saws. Tools should be simple and most of all reliable.
Building a home with "Windows" is a nightmare. Lock-ups, crashes, special case API's and the endless "need another do-it-all tool" makes programming Windows expensive and painful. I agree that Mac and Windows look prettier than most Unixes, but Mac is now a Unix-variant, and all the style is built on after the muddy and dirty gut work was done using small, reliable tools.
I think most programming projects simply fail to finish. They get it working well, but then forget to put on the style and panache. Microsoft tries to build with complex tools, and pays the price with their bloated, endlessly insecure crap code.
Today Microsoft was granted a patent for "the movement of air molecules using an organic bellows device for the purpose of saturating oxygen transport devices".
Next thing you know, Gates and Ballmer will be licensing the air we breathe.
Will Cisco and Broadcom be the first? Probably they'll decide, like everyone else, that it's cheaper to settle than to fight.
Such a pity, comrade.
I love the 'ol American trump card. If someone threatens to stop your abuse of their right to do something gratis, call them a COMMUNIST!!!
Re:Spacing them out may not be so bad
on
Longhorn in 2006
·
· Score: 1
A few people have said MS should be following Apple's example, with substantial OS releases every year or so. I'm wondering, are these the same people who moan about the $99 cost every year or so too?
And how often does Mandrake release a new version? About 2 or 3 times a year?
I stopped using Windows about 3 years ago and switched to Linux. Although it took me awhile to get comfortable with things, I will never go back. But I depend on the rest of the gullible buying public to keep buying faster machines so I can have a steady supply of cheap parts. If people en-masse start using Linux, there won't be the need to have faster machines. Linux is "good enough" even on a slow system.
Please Joe User - don't switch away from Microsoft! Keep buying Windows.
I was a SFV (read the article) for Microsoft's Digital Nervous System. Granted it's not a product/technology per se, but after reading "business @ the speed of thought", I thought Gates had hit the nail on the head.
Now that some time has passed, I realize I was hit over the head by the Microsoft marketing machine. I'm sure when 'ol Billy releases his next ghost-written book, millions will buy it. I'll just keep using Linux and coding with C thank you very much.
Stop what you're doing right now, go to the library and listen to Roger Dawson's Secrets of Power Negotiating. If they don't have it, order it (and no, I'm not a rep or get paid to plug his stuff).
Too many techs I know think that employers will "just know" how much they're worth. No one will value your worth as a programmer unless you can stucture the negotiation so that you not only get what you want, but your employer gets what he wants too. It's called win-win negotiating, and Roger Dawson is simply the best at it.
October 2, 2003 Now Hear This, Quickly By DOUGLAS HEINGARTNER
E call it the 66-second minute," Laura Gaines said.
Ms. Gaines is the vice president of Prime Image, a maker of devices like the Digital Time Machine that shorten audio and video recordings by up to 12 percent with "no discernible results." Micro-editing, as the process is called, created a stir last year when some broadcasters were reported to be using the technology to squeeze more advertisements into the same block of time.
As it turns out, it was hardly an isolated phenomenon. Creating more time is the impetus behind many new technologies that allow listeners to pick up the pace.
From call centers and intelligence agencies to radio stations and universities, such technology helps listeners try to keep up with the growing number of audio recordings piling up on the air, on the phone and on the Web. Wading though this mountain of words faster than it takes to say them not only saves companies money; it might help people absorb more knowledge.
The new software programs, DVD players and phone services rising to this challenge all take advantage of the human ability to comprehend speech much more quickly than the typical spoken rate of 140 to 180 words a minute. How many times as fast? "I've heard of instances where people go to 4X, and they still want it to go faster," said Blake Erickson of Telex Communications, which makes "talking book" audio players for the educational market.
Scientists have long known that people can understand speech at a rate of up to 400 words a minute and beyond. "Speech rate isn't limited by the listener," said Arthur Wingfield, a psychology professor at Brandeis University. "It's limited by the speaker."
In normal conversation, only a small part of the brain is taxed, leaving excess processing power to be used for listening for lurking predators, filtering out background noise or simply daydreaming.
But speeding up speech on analog equipment like cassette decks traditionally led to the dreaded chipmunk effect, making long-term listening untenable. Digital time compression, however, works by discarding tiny segments of repetitive audio (for example, 30 milliseconds of a vowel) and reconnecting the remaining bits, leaving the pitch unaltered.
Simple versions of digital time compression have been available for years in devices like answering machines and hand-held recorders but did not offer much in terms of user control. A confluence of smart software, wider Internet access and inexpensive hardware, however, now enables listeners to choose when to step on the gas.
Auxiliary programs, or plug-ins, that allow digital audio and video recordings to be played faster (or slowed down) at will have recently become available for popular software like RealOne and Windows Media Player. Perhaps the most popular is Enounce's 2XAV plug-in (which works with both Real and Windows players and costs $29.95); the latest version of Windows Media Player offers a proprietary version of this feature. Similar capabilities are finding their way into other hardware - for example, the latest DVD recorders from Panasonic.
"You can watch a two-hour movie on a one-hour flight," said Chris Binace, an Enounce software developer. Yet this kind of software is not generally intended for entertainment listening. So far most end-user applications have involved academia, for example, allowing students to listen to archived audio or video lectures.
Online, the amount of recorded audio is growing at an overwhelming rate, providing a new impetus for speed listening. A spokeswoman for National Public Radio said that demand for NPR audio on the Web was about 50 percent greater in June than it was a year earlier, and now averaged 5.5 to 7 million audio downloads a month.
"You just have oodles of data,'' said Ed Rucinski, a vice president of the Dictaphone Corporation, "and if you can only listen to it in a real-
"Participation in and release of the report was not sanctioned by @Stake," the security and consulting company said. "The values and opinions of the report are not in line with @Stake's views."
What?! What exactly wasn't true about what was said?
Quote: Daniel Geer "As fast as the world's computing infrastructure is growing, vulnerability to attack is growing faster still"
Quote: Daniel Geer "Microsoft's attempts to tightly integrate myriad applications with its operating system have significantly contributed to excessive complexity and vulnerability. This deterioration of security compounds when nearly all computers rely on a single operating system subject to the same vulnerabilities the world over"
Quote: Ed Black "Microsoft's monopoly threatens consumers in a number of ways, it it's clear it is now also a threat to our security, our safety, and even our national security."
Quote: Bruce Schneier "The problem is that of monoculture. As long as all computers are running the same OS, they're all vulnerable."
If @stake is saying they don't agree with these statements, then their credibility as a security company is seriously in question. It's one thing to say they fired someone for violating professional protocol, it's quite another to terminate them because what they said was incorrect.
Everything said by Geer, Black and Schneier is correct. What does @stake not agree with?
"Your business success will depend on the extent to which programmers essentially live at your office. For this to be a common choice, your office had better be nicer than the average programmer's home."
What crap! The best office I've ever had is the one I have now - a home office. Any employer that sucks the marrow out of their staff by having them work 90 hours a week will only burn their staff out.
Maybe I won't create the greatest apps overnight, but next week is just fine. Plus I have a healthy relationship with my 2 year old son, a beautiful wife, and another child on the way. I love programming, and having worked with computers for over 20 years. Because I take care of my health and mind, I'll still be here 20 years from now while slave drivers like Joel Spolsky have moved on to greener pastures with other anti-human ideals.
The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long.
For months many of us have speculated that Microsoft was behind SCO in their attempt to destroy Linux. This recent announcement of announcing the source of their funding should be enough to get the Ralph Nader's of the world active in finding Microsoft guilty of yet more anti-competivite behavior. That is they're funding SCO to be their thugs to try and steal the code from the Open Source developers.
So now that we can follow the money, is there anyone out there building a case against Microsoft?
"That makes Ford's defection to Linux the biggest potential threat to Microsoft in the software developer's 28-year history"
Yeah, I agree. Microsoft has lost all credibility in the public eye for their ability to fix their permanently defective product line (watched the Comedy channels lately? Comedians are getting laughs at Microsoft's expense). Windows is simply getting in the way of people doing their work (updates, upgrades, security patch, REPEAT!).
Ford's a big name brand company, it's American as apple pie, and has nothing to do with technology. That Microsoft couldn't hang on to them speaks to the value proposition of Linux over Windows. To restate the quote above another way, this is the biggest win for Linux to date.
Wow! I just spilled beer on my Windows 95 CD, popped it into my computer, and it installed - and I can't crash it!
Completely unpatched, I've thrown every virus I could get my hands on. The result? Nothing! I've discovered a version of Windows that actually works!
Unfortunately, after contacting Microsoft, they've already brought legal action against me. Seem that they knew all along how to make Windows work well, but it prevents them from making money since Windows problems make them billions in support services and upgrades.
It also explains why Linux is so stable: Beer = Perfect Code. That is, it worked when I used Canadian beer, but I can't seem to get the same results with Budweiser or any other US brands. Any thoughts?
Great! There's $15.00 right there. Only $1985.00 to go. Seriously, anyone know what the best way would be to go about this? For those of you who think "what a bunch of suckers! This could all be fake"...so what? I spend more renting a movie on a friday night.
[SOAPBOX] I'm willing to roll the dice that this single mom and her daughter are real, and that they really can't afford $2000.00. Her daughter didn't commit some heinous, evil act by downloading N'Sync. The RIAA is sending a message that "no one is safe". Slashdot can send an even louder message, that people do care and that Recording Industry Association of America ought to be ashamed of themselves. Standing behind a single mom and her 12-year old daughter's a good place to start. [/SOAPBOX]
It's not age. It's money and PR. They'll hurt people absolutely as much as they can get away with. If they don't get beaten down by a David and soon, I honestly expect them to be destroying computers with baseball bats and professional hackers by Christmas 2005.
Hey Dave, that's you and me. If out of the millions of readers of/. only a small percentage ponied up a nickel each, not only would that $2000.00 fine not injure a family who doesn't need to be the scapegoat of an industry gone mad from greed, but it would show that there are many willing to stand behind a small family and fight the RIAA.
Slashdot Mirror
Having mentioned this many times and been modded down into the netherworld, I'll mention it again in hopes that someone will catch on.
This book is all about one thing: negotiating. It's a skill that is seldom taught formally, and yet is used every day of your life. Even when you were a wee babe trying to figure out how to get a cookie from mommy, you were learning to negotiate.
Unfortunately techs are usually poorly equipped to negotiate skillfully, a fact I learned personally when my scum-of-a-boss-who-I-thought-was-a-friend ripped me off for thousands because I didn't know how to negotiate properly. For years I was bitter, until I started checking out books and audio tapes on how to negotiate effectively. Bottom line: it was my fault I got ripped off.
You've only got three resources: time, energy and money. When you work for an employer, it's a give and take of how much of those three resources you're willing to exchange. The best teacher of negotiating I've heard so far is a guy named Roger Dawson (I won't post the link, just Google his name or go to your local library).
So now you MBA's out there who know what I'm talking about can mod me down now.
In the case of the threat to release UCSF patient records online, a chain of three different subcontractors was used. UCSF and its original contractor, Sausalito's Transcription Stat, say they had no knowledge that the work eventually would find its way abroad.
Bookmark this story and recall it next time some company or government agency talks about their serious commitment to protecting your privacy. Outsourcing is a method too lucrative to pass up for most companies who don't want to pay employee benefits or be able to dismiss people without cause. This case shows that your contractor may be trustworthy, but there's no stopping the sub-sub-subcontractor.
The only person I trust with my personal information is me. Everyone else can coax others to cough up their social insurance number (oh great...I just revealed that I live in Canada!)
Having been a consultant for over 8 years, most business users I know still haven't grasped the feature set from Office 95, little alone '97, 2000, XP and now 2003. The reason they upgrade has largley been due to compatibility issues (users unable to open documents sent to them buy users with newer versions).
The "need for features" is not because most users need them, but rather Microsoft needs them to make the case for upgrading.
Open Office, Star Office and other suites will eventually win over Microsoft Office. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but soon.
"With each version of Office it gets harder for Microsoft to move customers up," said Michael A. Silver, vice president and research director at the research and advisory firm Gartner Inc.
Therein lies the devil, ladies and gentlemen. Microsoft had the victory, but has no other business model than to sell Windows and Office (all other products fail to generate enough revenue to sustain the company). They have failed to move people over to a continuing license model, and with Linux slowly moving across the landscape like a juggernaut, Linux and products like Open Office will be "good enough" for Joe User and Ma & Pa Small Business. If Microsoft cannot come up with other solid revenues other than Windows and Office, they will lose.
Torvalds was right: "We want to take over the world but we don't have to do it by tomorrow - its OK to do it by next week, or even next month"
After 7 years of working in IT (started with NetWare, then NT, now Linux), life has never been easier with Debian GNU/Linux. Most of the time, a reboot is not necessary, which means servers can be updated from remote with a high degree of certainty that a visit will not be required. I now live about an hour's drive from my nearest client. They're running two servers, one in a DMZ with an Internet-acessible app, the other behind the firewall with SAMBA, backup and intranet web server. Both run Debian GNU/Linux stable for a small network of about 30 Windows workstations.
Working with Microsoft products is emotionally not worth it. Too much change in the way administration needs to be done. Too many problems with viruses, worms, bad patches, politics, hardware requrements, and application interaction. I have other colleagues who work more than me with longer hours and make a lot more money because they're constantly fixing Windows, but I'm happily married with two children and focussing my efforts on Python and Perl scripting so I can automate even more adminsitration.
So to make matters worse, Slashdot posts their plight and their webserver gets slashdotted, causing even more chaos as suppliers are unable to get information on the problem.
Is there a way I can invest in Louisiana alcohol stocks? I think there's going to be a whole lotta drinkin' after this crisis!
Chips based on the K9 architecture will likely be released--at least in sample quantities--by the second half of 2005, Weber said. AMD engineer Randy Allen is overseeing the project.
Note to marketing department: New "K9" chip promises to be "a real dog".
From Apple's website:
iTunes 4 is the best software jukebox in the world, with a great music store inside. With it, you can create your own personal digital music library to manage and listen to your music collection, all with drag-and-drop simplicity.
iTunes encodes high-quality MP3s as well as pristine AAC, all in a free application. If you don't like getting charged a subscription fee or paying for additional features like fast CD burning, your digital music experience is about to get a whole lot better.
Although I use ogg myself, frankly I hope Apple gets top spot for legal music distribution. Teaming with Pepsi is a brilliant move. Makes you wonder why Microsoft can't be this creative. Oh, that's right, someone else needed to think of it so they can steal it.
Guess I'll be seeing Windows Media Player songs on Coke cans soon.
On the contrary, we are demanding and creating a stimulating, diverse, and strikingly well-designed world. We like our vacuum cleaners and mobile phones to sparkle, our backpacks and laptops to express our personalities
Maybe so, but Unix guys like me want my tools to WORK!. Take the building a house analogy. When you walk into a finished home, it's the paint and fabrics you notice. But that house was built in the rain and cold by framers and drywallers who use simple, ugly tools like hammers, drills and saws. Tools should be simple and most of all reliable.
Building a home with "Windows" is a nightmare. Lock-ups, crashes, special case API's and the endless "need another do-it-all tool" makes programming Windows expensive and painful. I agree that Mac and Windows look prettier than most Unixes, but Mac is now a Unix-variant, and all the style is built on after the muddy and dirty gut work was done using small, reliable tools.
I think most programming projects simply fail to finish. They get it working well, but then forget to put on the style and panache. Microsoft tries to build with complex tools, and pays the price with their bloated, endlessly insecure crap code.
Today Microsoft was granted a patent for "the movement of air molecules using an organic bellows device for the purpose of saturating oxygen transport devices".
Next thing you know, Gates and Ballmer will be licensing the air we breathe.
Will Cisco and Broadcom be the first? Probably they'll decide, like everyone else, that it's cheaper to settle than to fight.
Such a pity, comrade.
I love the 'ol American trump card. If someone threatens to stop your abuse of their right to do something gratis, call them a COMMUNIST!!!
A few people have said MS should be following Apple's example, with substantial OS releases every year or so. I'm wondering, are these the same people who moan about the $99 cost every year or so too?
And how often does Mandrake release a new version? About 2 or 3 times a year?
Users switching away from Windows?! I hope not!
I stopped using Windows about 3 years ago and switched to Linux. Although it took me awhile to get comfortable with things, I will never go back. But I depend on the rest of the gullible buying public to keep buying faster machines so I can have a steady supply of cheap parts. If people en-masse start using Linux, there won't be the need to have faster machines. Linux is "good enough" even on a slow system.
Please Joe User - don't switch away from Microsoft! Keep buying Windows.
I was a SFV (read the article) for Microsoft's Digital Nervous System. Granted it's not a product/technology per se, but after reading "business @ the speed of thought", I thought Gates had hit the nail on the head.
Now that some time has passed, I realize I was hit over the head by the Microsoft marketing machine. I'm sure when 'ol Billy releases his next ghost-written book, millions will buy it. I'll just keep using Linux and coding with C thank you very much.
Stop what you're doing right now, go to the library and listen to Roger Dawson's Secrets of Power Negotiating. If they don't have it, order it (and no, I'm not a rep or get paid to plug his stuff).
Too many techs I know think that employers will "just know" how much they're worth. No one will value your worth as a programmer unless you can stucture the negotiation so that you not only get what you want, but your employer gets what he wants too. It's called win-win negotiating, and Roger Dawson is simply the best at it.
Mod this up for those who don't want to register:
October 2, 2003
Now Hear This, Quickly
By DOUGLAS HEINGARTNER
E call it the 66-second minute," Laura Gaines said.
Ms. Gaines is the vice president of Prime Image, a maker of devices like the Digital Time Machine that shorten audio and video recordings by up to 12 percent with "no discernible results." Micro-editing, as the process is called, created a stir last year when some broadcasters were reported to be using the technology to squeeze more advertisements into the same block of time.
As it turns out, it was hardly an isolated phenomenon. Creating more time is the impetus behind many new technologies that allow listeners to pick up the pace.
From call centers and intelligence agencies to radio stations and universities, such technology helps listeners try to keep up with the growing number of audio recordings piling up on the air, on the phone and on the Web. Wading though this mountain of words faster than it takes to say them not only saves companies money; it might help people absorb more knowledge.
The new software programs, DVD players and phone services rising to this challenge all take advantage of the human ability to comprehend speech much more quickly than the typical spoken rate of 140 to 180 words a minute. How many times as fast? "I've heard of instances where people go to 4X, and they still want it to go faster," said Blake Erickson of Telex Communications, which makes "talking book" audio players for the educational market.
Scientists have long known that people can understand speech at a rate of up to 400 words a minute and beyond. "Speech rate isn't limited by the listener," said Arthur Wingfield, a psychology professor at Brandeis University. "It's limited by the speaker."
In normal conversation, only a small part of the brain is taxed, leaving excess processing power to be used for listening for lurking predators, filtering out background noise or simply daydreaming.
But speeding up speech on analog equipment like cassette decks traditionally led to the dreaded chipmunk effect, making long-term listening untenable. Digital time compression, however, works by discarding tiny segments of repetitive audio (for example, 30 milliseconds of a vowel) and reconnecting the remaining bits, leaving the pitch unaltered.
Simple versions of digital time compression have been available for years in devices like answering machines and hand-held recorders but did not offer much in terms of user control. A confluence of smart software, wider Internet access and inexpensive hardware, however, now enables listeners to choose when to step on the gas.
Auxiliary programs, or plug-ins, that allow digital audio and video recordings to be played faster (or slowed down) at will have recently become available for popular software like RealOne and Windows Media Player. Perhaps the most popular is Enounce's 2XAV plug-in (which works with both Real and Windows players and costs $29.95); the latest version of Windows Media Player offers a proprietary version of this feature. Similar capabilities are finding their way into other hardware - for example, the latest DVD recorders from Panasonic.
"You can watch a two-hour movie on a one-hour flight," said Chris Binace, an Enounce software developer. Yet this kind of software is not generally intended for entertainment listening. So far most end-user applications have involved academia, for example, allowing students to listen to archived audio or video lectures.
Online, the amount of recorded audio is growing at an overwhelming rate, providing a new impetus for speed listening. A spokeswoman for National Public Radio said that demand for NPR audio on the Web was about 50 percent greater in June than it was a year earlier, and now averaged 5.5 to 7 million audio downloads a month.
"You just have oodles of data,'' said Ed Rucinski, a vice president of the Dictaphone Corporation, "and if you can only listen to it in a real-
"Participation in and release of the report was not sanctioned by @Stake," the security and consulting company said. "The values and opinions of the report are not in line with @Stake's views."
What?! What exactly wasn't true about what was said?
Quote: Daniel Geer "As fast as the world's computing infrastructure is growing, vulnerability to attack is growing faster still"
Quote: Daniel Geer "Microsoft's attempts to tightly integrate myriad applications with its operating system have significantly contributed to excessive complexity and vulnerability. This deterioration of security compounds when nearly all computers rely on a single operating system subject to the same vulnerabilities the world over"
Quote: Ed Black "Microsoft's monopoly threatens consumers in a number of ways, it it's clear it is now also a threat to our security, our safety, and even our national security."
Quote: Bruce Schneier "The problem is that of monoculture. As long as all computers are running the same OS, they're all vulnerable."
If @stake is saying they don't agree with these statements, then their credibility as a security company is seriously in question. It's one thing to say they fired someone for violating professional protocol, it's quite another to terminate them because what they said was incorrect.
Everything said by Geer, Black and Schneier is correct. What does @stake not agree with?
"Your business success will depend on the extent to which programmers essentially live at your office. For this to be a common choice, your office had better be nicer than the average programmer's home."
What crap! The best office I've ever had is the one I have now - a home office. Any employer that sucks the marrow out of their staff by having them work 90 hours a week will only burn their staff out.
Maybe I won't create the greatest apps overnight, but next week is just fine. Plus I have a healthy relationship with my 2 year old son, a beautiful wife, and another child on the way. I love programming, and having worked with computers for over 20 years. Because I take care of my health and mind, I'll still be here 20 years from now while slave drivers like Joel Spolsky have moved on to greener pastures with other anti-human ideals.
The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long.
At the rate Microsoft is going, soon every search will result in a location of Redmond, Washington.
All roads lead to Gates
>>Ford ... has nothing to do with technology.
>ROFLMAO! I know what you meant... but many would not disagree with what you said, either.
Glad to see someone caught my slight slam against Ford. I'd mod you guys up, but I've already posted.
I wonder how many humor gems have been lost in the Score:1's and 2's of Slashdot?
For months many of us have speculated that Microsoft was behind SCO in their attempt to destroy Linux. This recent announcement of announcing the source of their funding should be enough to get the Ralph Nader's of the world active in finding Microsoft guilty of yet more anti-competivite behavior. That is they're funding SCO to be their thugs to try and steal the code from the Open Source developers.
So now that we can follow the money, is there anyone out there building a case against Microsoft?
"That makes Ford's defection to Linux the biggest potential threat to Microsoft in the software developer's 28-year history"
Yeah, I agree. Microsoft has lost all credibility in the public eye for their ability to fix their permanently defective product line (watched the Comedy channels lately? Comedians are getting laughs at Microsoft's expense). Windows is simply getting in the way of people doing their work (updates, upgrades, security patch, REPEAT!).
Ford's a big name brand company, it's American as apple pie, and has nothing to do with technology. That Microsoft couldn't hang on to them speaks to the value proposition of Linux over Windows. To restate the quote above another way, this is the biggest win for Linux to date.
Wow! I just spilled beer on my Windows 95 CD, popped it into my computer, and it installed - and I can't crash it!
Completely unpatched, I've thrown every virus I could get my hands on. The result? Nothing! I've discovered a version of Windows that actually works!
Unfortunately, after contacting Microsoft, they've already brought legal action against me. Seem that they knew all along how to make Windows work well, but it prevents them from making money since Windows problems make them billions in support services and upgrades.
It also explains why Linux is so stable: Beer = Perfect Code. That is, it worked when I used Canadian beer, but I can't seem to get the same results with Budweiser or any other US brands. Any thoughts?
Great! There's $15.00 right there. Only $1985.00 to go. Seriously, anyone know what the best way would be to go about this? For those of you who think "what a bunch of suckers! This could all be fake"...so what? I spend more renting a movie on a friday night.
[SOAPBOX]
I'm willing to roll the dice that this single mom and her daughter are real, and that they really can't afford $2000.00. Her daughter didn't commit some heinous, evil act by downloading N'Sync. The RIAA is sending a message that "no one is safe". Slashdot can send an even louder message, that people do care and that Recording Industry Association of America ought to be ashamed of themselves. Standing behind a single mom and her 12-year old daughter's a good place to start.
[/SOAPBOX]
It's not age. It's money and PR. They'll hurt people absolutely as much as they can get away with. If they don't get beaten down by a David and soon, I honestly expect them to be destroying computers with baseball bats and professional hackers by Christmas 2005.
/. only a small percentage ponied up a nickel each, not only would that $2000.00 fine not injure a family who doesn't need to be the scapegoat of an industry gone mad from greed, but it would show that there are many willing to stand behind a small family and fight the RIAA.
Hey Dave, that's you and me. If out of the millions of readers of