Especially that evil one down here called Bell South. The same wonderful company that has recently tacked on an additional 3 dollars disguising it as a federal fee.
Phone companies, Bell South is by the worse, don't want to offer lower priced products. Not only do they want out taxes to pay to build their lines they want to charge us insane rates to use them. Everything about the phone company is extortion. Example, if I want Caller ID I have to pay about 8 dollars extra! Now, I can get caller id as part of a package of services for only 12.95 (or thereabouts).
What about their $30 a month DSL? Sure, 256 down! and only IF I subscribe to their expensive packages on my phone, like that $12.95 I mentioned earlier.
I truly believe the only reason the Cable companies can keep such high rates is because the phone companies do it.
I have given serious consideration to backing down to dial-up through a low cost provider. 30-40 dollars a month savings doesn't sound like much until you work it out across the year, then its 360 to 480. Thats many good dinners out with someone, some good computer hardware, or one motorcylce payment for me!
1. The US is about personal freedom. The freedom to do what you want and go where you want to go. This cannot be over emphasized. Until the formation of the EU travel between countries wasn't that high.
2. Combine that with a very large UNIFIED country. We ARE free to travel where we want within the United States and even into Canada. It is not uncommon for relatives to live in very different parts of the countries yet still see each other on a yearly basis.
3. The US Highway systems is very large and connects all major cities. Many have multiple connections. These are subsidized by the GAS tax.
4. Low gasoline taxes. We still maintain one of the lowest per capita tax loads across the world. Still it is too high and only serves to be wasted on government pork and vote buying schemes.
5. I don't think health/obesity can be tied to our fascination with cars. It has more to do with this "Information Age" where you no longer have to go anywhere to converse with people or find things out. Yet at the same time this lack of need to travel was not in conjunction with a change in diets.
A lot of parents, children, educators, administrators, and politicians do not take education seriously. For these parents its an requirement and a day care. For the kids its a requirement and social event. For the educators and adminstrators it is a paycheck with guaranteed employment. For the politician it is a jobs program the gets votes.
The parents and children cannot come around to see school as a means of success and education until the people who run it similarly convert. BOTH teachers unions do nothing to promote education and everything to promote their own existance. School boards are a joke, most operate at the behest of the unions and no elected school board member, and even appointed ones, will dare challenge them.
What then is required is simply making the students prove they are learning something and then holding them back when they don't. This works in conjunction with having the schools PROVE they are teaching children. This will require teachers who KNOW what they are teaching. This will require administrators who SHOW support for teachers who succeed and either help or remove those who don't. It will require that students who do not want to LEARN are separated from those who do. It should be demonstrated to students that it is a PRIVLEDGE to learn! It will require a Teachers union that serves the students or does not exist at all.
Students who no longer are treated with kid gloves but instead are provided the means to realize that a good education is a privledge and something to strive for will generally do so. This have been proven many times by special schools, an example of which are charter schools.
Throwing money at schools CANNOT work until the money is actually spent for the direct benefit of the students. In nearly all cases it is not. An example is the Atlanta city school system. If you looked at it from a dollar per student ratio you would think that it had the best environment. Alas that is not true, they are administrator heavy and heavy with tenured teachers who do not teach.
Another common problem is that systems cannot pay to keep good teachers in schools that need them. When a teacher gets senority they can move where they want. Outside of dedication and spirt of the teacher there is nothing that school systems can do to give them benefits for staying where they are needed. The unions stamp out attempts for special pay and performance awards.
Learning Math and Science isn't rocket science. Seems to me a lot of us did just fine. In the last 20+ years schools turned into jobs programs and babysitting social clubs. Its time for parents of children and taxpayers without to demand better schools. This means standing firm in face of union entrenchment. This means parents volunteering at schools as many need all they can get. It also means not falling for the lie that it requires money. Money doesn't do anything, money cannot accomphlish anything. Its people that do things. Its also people who are doing things to keep the current system in place.
Accountability is the first step. Until you change the those who lord over the kids nothing else will be done
First, The Reagans was pure trash. I think the only thing that was factually right about where the names of the characters. Otherwise it came across as an attempt to rewrite history. CBS did as any big corporate entity that relies on customers would do, they marketed to a different consumer through a different channel.
MOVEON.ORG. Nothing more than a dodge of campaign finance laws. This group received so much bad press for what they "didn't allow - but had anyway" that I doubt anyone would touch their ads. CBS exercised its freedom of speech by keeping the superbowl ads as people expected them. CBS is consumer driven, not ideaology driven (unless you count Dan Rather and his "news" program - but its ratings aren't so great)
The real censorship going on now is the over zealous FCC. Government censorship is what needs to be addressed. What CBS did is not the result of anything the government was doing - it was reacting to market forces.
What the FCC is doing is entirely something else. Nothing prevents people from changing the channel. However a few zealots, on both sides of the aisle, in both the FCC and Congress are using Janet's exposure to score points and settle grudges.
If this organization (TJC) was serious they would realize the major difference here.
As for Howard, he is trying to save a sinking ship so it is to be expected he would claim persecution. He only has to look into the mirror to see who really is the source of his problems. The FCC is just piling on.
In Atlanta we lost the "The Regular Guys" because CC is now afraid of the FCC. Considering the size of the fines the FCC is throwing around I consider that to be the same as violating the 1st Amendment. Regulating something to the point of unaffordability is the same as stifling it.
Write your Congressman, NO E-MAIL - WRITE A REAL LETTER, and tell them your distaste for the current FCC actions.
Who is your Representative? Go here http://www.vote-smart.org/
If you just have to use e-mail http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/
I think its more from the fact everyone wants to write components but no one wants to write applications.
Combine that with trying to make it be everything to everyone when neither it or the community behind is capable.
Being in an IBM shop (minis and mainframes) we get bombarded with IBM's fascination with JAVA. What has this netted us so far? Simple, applications that take forever to load, don't provide usuable feedback when a problem occurs, and generally don't do as much as the purposeful written applications they replaced did. Hell I have green screen alternatives to JAVA apps IBM tries to get us to use that are many times faster and reliable.
JAVA does not belong on the desktop. It was fine in the browser and that is where it should have stayed.
Guess they want me to only listen to radio or XM?
on
RIAA's Nasty Easter Egg
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Because going beyond 99 cents will mean I won't be buying diddly ever again.
If they want 2-3 dollars per song I suggest they mail it to me on CD in CD quality format.
I am pretty sure the 99 cent model does crimp their profits, but honestly most music sucks today. Rarely have I heard an album with more than 2 tracks that were worth a damn, it is rare to have 3 or 4. Most CDs out today seem to be the standard one hit wonder type. One good song from a new band and the rest just suck. Granted radio stations will play it OVER AND OVER again (can you say Hero?)
Curious how they will fare against Wal-Mart. Doubt that Wal-Mart would be too keen on running up the price.
I think its pretty downright stupid to want Microsoft to collapse. People who put forth this idea need to have their heads examined.
Open source is not in any position to compete in the marketplace simply because it is not ready. Quit showing immaturity by wishing Microsoft to fail, bringing them down isn't going to make Open source or free software any better.
You want to beat Microsoft, fine, quit making neat things and start making real applications that do what users want and not what geeks want. Users are the primary market and Microsoft knows exactly how to cater to them.
The OS community is a pretty nice group but you would never know that from reading/.
as in the sound they make is used to instill fear and such. There are some real interesting uses of noise.
Of course what helicopters sound like in movies is usually different than in real life. Friends of mine can tell you what chopper is coming just by the sound from the blades.
That being said, instead of masking the sound of the train perhaps they can tune it to sound more pleasant:)
Am I missing something? The land of vid cameras is voicing privacy concerns? Maybe they are just concerned that other countries are following in their footsteps!
Besides, its an opt-in. You want the service you know what it entails. Without the ability to do what they are planning the whole system falls apart.
Mainframes and Minis will be around a long time. To get PC based systems up to their level of reliability, ease of use, and maintainability would turn the PC based system into a MINI.
I have 75 iSeries (As/400) that I oversee. You want to know how much time I spend per week checking up on them? Only an hour or so. I receive reports from the machines when they have problems. If one has a fault it is usually hardware and rarely does the downtime pass a few hours.
Meanwhile the network group (read : uses PC based technologies) is always fixing something and has 5 people dedicated to it compared to two for the iSeries boxes. That doesn't count the PC-support group which supports desktops...
We have 3 mainframes as well, some of the code from these machines has been in use since the early 70s. Some of the code migrated to the iSeries with little but header changes.
But the best, the iSeries has been on 64-bit PowerPCs natively for 10+ years. Didn't have to recompile or change 99% of our code to do it. How long has the PC base world been struggling to get there?
China is a valid reason.
on
Weapons in Space
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Anyone who believes they don't have a military objective with space is only deluding themselves.
The question is, do you want to wait till it IS a problem or do something now?
Kind of like the questions asked about our lack of reaction to the bombing WTC in the 90s... we know how that turned out.
The tax burden when you combine both embedded and the obvious taxes is destroying the American dream. Corporations are required by shareholders and owners to deliver a profit. The government seems hell bent to drive the costs of operating up.
This gets passed down to the consumer and workers as embedded taxes and loss of jobs. Look at the small business owner. You know one of the hardest decisions? To higher your first employee. The amount of regulations and such that you are subject to is astounding. Those same regulations introduce a ton of risk too, mainly being sued over ANYTHING.
Outsourcing is the result of technology and the need of companies to stay in business in a cut throat environment. Outsourcing will also be the only way to keep the amount of services we have to expect viable. As the baby boomers retire we will face a worker shortage far worse than the tech boom. This will be compounded by the fact that those newly retired persons will be eating even more of the employed's income by way of taxes.
What the US government does over the next 10 years will have far more effect on readers here than outsourcing. They tax burden is on its way to obscene. Only stupid people think that the poor pay no taxes. Their lives will simply get worse as the embedded taxes increase.
How do we fix this mess? One way is to reduce the regulatory burden faced by small business. They are the greatest producers of jobs this country knows, not big business. GOVERNMENT produces NO jobs. When government gets bigger the burden gets bigger. Hence Government must get smaller. Find the justification for some many Cabinet departments! Most are just jobs programs... providing services a PRIVATE company, one that generates revenue, can do better. Some are obvious requirements of government, like defense and foreign relations, others are just jobs programs, agriculture, energy, veteran affairs, and education.
Don't look overseas for the problem, don't look to the boardroom. It all starts here and with our Government. It is simply crushing the American dream.
He is part of the reason that MS beat the first case. The gross mishandling of that and many other cases simply points out that this guy's opinion doesn't mean jack.
If anything it should point out everything wrong with it.
LOOK.
He would favor it. It adds an embedded tax. That 600M fine is just a tax on consumers by indirect means. Hence it is a favorite means of the left. You pretend to take the high road by taking money from the big bad "EVEEEL" corporation and protecting the little guy. You just convienently forget to mention that the fine really does come out of the little guy's pocket one way or another.
Real enforcement is to put processes in place to prevent future abuse, to take corrective action to fix past transgressions, and set forth policy that is clear to others.
Fining is to impress the weak minded simpletons that infest our world.
First off, it is not a fine. No government ever accesses a FINE. They only tax. They just call it by different names.
Second, the remedies are good in regards to making them separate out the audio/video players. Though in context MS should have been congratulated if it impeded someone from getting REAL.
Back to the main point. Fines are taxes. Every consumer will being paying this "fine" for Microsoft. I don't care if you use Linux, Mac, or nothing at all. Your paying. Think of it as an embedded tax. It looks good in the press as an "evil corporation" is getting punished but tell me what corporation pays any tax? They don't, hence they don't pay fines either. You pay. Corporations make money, anything that reduces that profit is still paid for by the people bought the product or did business with someone who did.
The EU was on the right track but they may have given MS some advantages that it would have never had otherwise.
The numbers haven't really changed in many years. Just like the fact that the current unemployment rate isn't much different than the last Administration.
The economy of the US churns more jobs PER MONTH than are out sourced. When we had the big tech boom we had more jobs than people! Guess where we got them filled? The current focus is simply politics as usual.
Want a good article with some straight views on the subject?
http://www.freetrade.org/pubs/briefs/tbp-019es.h tm l
As for the decline in students. Good, CS doesn't mean fast bucks, booth babes, and games. Its a JOB. JOBS in the CS field are just like many others, they are work. If you are out sourced and haven't scored a job within 6 months something is wrong. Move, change careers, or realize that there ISN'T a job beneath you. Lastly, most people I know who are out of work that bemoan outsourcing lost their jobs because of their own actions.
You don't have any. Bought anything from the supermarket using a check? A Credit Card, or a debit card. You just lost any privacy.
Do you receive advertisements for new Credit Cards? Any service whatsoever? If you own a home you have no real privacy.
RFID are not a threat to our privacy. The only threats to our privacy occurs when the government takes it away. All these new wonderful abilities because too many Americans were willing to give up some rights to fight terrorism, which in turn accomplishes one of their goals - changing how we live.
That "war happy" President you are referring to has morals. What some people seem to have forgotten is that terrorist don't have morals.
They are more than willing, when able, to use any means to kill people. The big problem is they don't kill combatants, they prefer civilians as it causes shock. Besides their eventual goal is the destruction of their target which means the civilians that we think we are are combatants to them.
Terrorism is bringing a Chernobyl to anywhere in the world. Unfortunately that requires a different outlook to combat. So while you can label this President "war happy" it is far better than having an "appeasement" President which doesn't protect anyone. Terrorist only use appeasement to give them room to plan and setup. Taking the war to their turf is an unfortunate need of our generation.
Especially when it comes to women....
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iPod Mini Sells Out
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· Score: 2, Funny
One thing about Republican adminstrations. They go easy on businesses, BUT, if that business does something wrong they sure come down hard.
The DOJ is doing a wonderful job working its way up the Enron chain, building the case by toppling the dominoes one at a time. Notice how all these scandals popped up after the Bush was in office? Do you think they all originated then? No, what happened is that some people got replaced and their successors didn't look away. Realize the a Republican led DOJ is held to different standards than others, and Ashcroft (love him or hate him) is being held to even higher ones... and not just by the press.
The DOJ case against MS was screwed up from day one. It simply compounded its mistakes as it went on that by the time the Bush DOJ inherited it they saw the stinking cesspool for what it was and did their best to get out of a situation that should never have arisen. Yeah MS should have been investigated, but it should have been done professionally.
They come from the Labor Department's. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
* The peak unemployment rate during the recession that began in Clinton's term was 6.4 percent. The current unemployment rate is 5.6 percent.
* In the last year more than 2,000,000 new jobs have been added in the United States.
* Between 1983 and 2003 outsourcing went from 6.5 million jobs to about 10 million jobs.
* Between 1983 and 2002 jobs in-sourcing -- jobs coming TO the United States -- went from 2.5 million to 6.5 million.
* If you subtract the jobs coming to the United States every year from the jobs going out every year you come up with a "net" figure. The net outsourced jobs reached its peak in the early 1980's; a peak of about 4 million jobs. In other words, things were worse at the end of the Carter Administration then they are right now.
* During this same period... from '83 to '03 a total of 38 million jobs have been created by private businesses in the United States. No other industrialized country in the world has matched this number.
His testimony before Congress claimed that it was common practice for US Soldiers to rape, murder, and torture civilians. He and his cohorts made claims versus other soldiers. The majority if not all of his testimony has been refuted.
Kerry doesn't deserve respect. Go check out what he testified too before you give him an ounce of it.
Here is a decent article about this sordid affair.
The problem with NASA and its supply chain is one created by government meddling from the highest levels. We do not have a real space agency, we have a pork barrel that is capable of putting things in space.
Even the supply chain is subject to pork barreling and government arm twisting. The system isn't designed to be efficient. It is designed to favor powerful Senators, Government Employees, and those who curry their favor.
They have no incentive to improve. I was hoping that by essentially condeming the Shuttle that Bush might cause more people to take a serious look at NASA and all that surrounds it. Instead the hate-Bush crowd ignores the real problem and instead blames Bush for no offering detailed solutions.
A solution will not come until we acknowledge the problem. NASA must be overhauled from one end to the other. Congress must not be allowed to saddle NASA with pork-barrel political favortism requirements. NASA needs the ability to do what is right for space exploration, not what is right for "political toady #x"
I would settle for a 1600x1200 17" LCD... but find
on
Dell's Gaming Monster
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· Score: 1
I have an Inspirion with a 15" 1600x1200 display. For the life of me I cannot find anything similar in a stand alone display. When I can its large and unreasonably priced.
There is a serious disconnect between LCDs on laptops and desktop in regards to pricing.
The only real concern is ghosting, even on 20ms displays it gets noticable.
Why is it that so many people hold that Open Source == Linux? While he brings up good points about the possibilities of what will happen if.NET/C# is ported to Linux he misses the bigger point. That is, Open Source is not Linux.
Yeah MS is going to provide a lot more of the underlying OS/Compilers/Code that drives business. So can Linux. Nothing stops people from writing Open Source C# on MS platforms except for irrational hatred of all things MS.
There is a big opportunity out there to prove to the business world that open source can be and is commercial grade. That opportunity can and does exist on MS platforms. Mozilla is a great example. How better to become the number one browser than to be on the biggest platform! I do not suggest that Linux development should be dropped, far from it, I just suggest that he and others recognize that there are many ways to skin a cat.
Perhaps this groups endeavour to get.NET on Linux will spur some Linux users to try.NET and then provide their services to those bound to MS.
Its far easier to fight a war on their ground than your own.
Slashdot Mirror
Especially that evil one down here called Bell South. The same wonderful company that has recently tacked on an additional 3 dollars disguising it as a federal fee.
Phone companies, Bell South is by the worse, don't want to offer lower priced products. Not only do they want out taxes to pay to build their lines they want to charge us insane rates to use them. Everything about the phone company is extortion. Example, if I want Caller ID I have to pay about 8 dollars extra! Now, I can get caller id as part of a package of services for only 12.95 (or thereabouts).
What about their $30 a month DSL? Sure, 256 down! and only IF I subscribe to their expensive packages on my phone, like that $12.95 I mentioned earlier.
I truly believe the only reason the Cable companies can keep such high rates is because the phone companies do it.
I have given serious consideration to backing down to dial-up through a low cost provider. 30-40 dollars a month savings doesn't sound like much until you work it out across the year, then its 360 to 480. Thats many good dinners out with someone, some good computer hardware, or one motorcylce payment for me!
1. The US is about personal freedom. The freedom to do what you want and go where you want to go. This cannot be over emphasized. Until the formation of the EU travel between countries wasn't that high.
2. Combine that with a very large UNIFIED country. We ARE free to travel where we want within the United States and even into Canada. It is not uncommon for relatives to live in very different parts of the countries yet still see each other on a yearly basis.
3. The US Highway systems is very large and connects all major cities. Many have multiple connections. These are subsidized by the GAS tax.
4. Low gasoline taxes. We still maintain one of the lowest per capita tax loads across the world. Still it is too high and only serves to be wasted on government pork and vote buying schemes.
5.
I don't think health/obesity can be tied to our fascination with cars. It has more to do with this "Information Age" where you no longer have to go anywhere to converse with people or find things out. Yet at the same time this lack of need to travel was not in conjunction with a change in diets.
A lot of parents, children, educators, administrators, and politicians do not take education seriously. For these parents its an requirement and a day care. For the kids its a requirement and social event. For the educators and adminstrators it is a paycheck with guaranteed employment. For the politician it is a jobs program the gets votes.
The parents and children cannot come around to see school as a means of success and education until the people who run it similarly convert. BOTH teachers unions do nothing to promote education and everything to promote their own existance. School boards are a joke, most operate at the behest of the unions and no elected school board member, and even appointed ones, will dare challenge them.
What then is required is simply making the students prove they are learning something and then holding them back when they don't. This works in conjunction with having the schools PROVE they are teaching children. This will require teachers who KNOW what they are teaching. This will require administrators who SHOW support for teachers who succeed and either help or remove those who don't. It will require that students who do not want to LEARN are separated from those who do. It should be demonstrated to students that it is a PRIVLEDGE to learn! It will require a Teachers union that serves the students or does not exist at all.
Students who no longer are treated with kid gloves but instead are provided the means to realize that a good education is a privledge and something to strive for will generally do so. This have been proven many times by special schools, an example of which are charter schools.
Throwing money at schools CANNOT work until the money is actually spent for the direct benefit of the students. In nearly all cases it is not. An example is the Atlanta city school system. If you looked at it from a dollar per student ratio you would think that it had the best environment. Alas that is not true, they are administrator heavy and heavy with tenured teachers who do not teach.
Another common problem is that systems cannot pay to keep good teachers in schools that need them. When a teacher gets senority they can move where they want. Outside of dedication and spirt of the teacher there is nothing that school systems can do to give them benefits for staying where they are needed. The unions stamp out attempts for special pay and performance awards.
Learning Math and Science isn't rocket science. Seems to me a lot of us did just fine. In the last 20+ years schools turned into jobs programs and babysitting social clubs. Its time for parents of children and taxpayers without to demand better schools. This means standing firm in face of union entrenchment. This means parents volunteering at schools as many need all they can get. It also means not falling for the lie that it requires money. Money doesn't do anything, money cannot accomphlish anything. Its people that do things. Its also people who are doing things to keep the current system in place.
Accountability is the first step. Until you change the those who lord over the kids nothing else will be done
is exactly why Linux isn't winning...
First, The Reagans was pure trash. I think the only thing that was factually right about where the names of the characters. Otherwise it came across as an attempt to rewrite history. CBS did as any big corporate entity that relies on customers would do, they marketed to a different consumer through a different channel.
MOVEON.ORG. Nothing more than a dodge of campaign finance laws. This group received so much bad press for what they "didn't allow - but had anyway" that I doubt anyone would touch their ads. CBS exercised its freedom of speech by keeping the superbowl ads as people expected them. CBS is consumer driven, not ideaology driven (unless you count Dan Rather and his "news" program - but its ratings aren't so great)
The real censorship going on now is the over zealous FCC. Government censorship is what needs to be addressed. What CBS did is not the result of anything the government was doing - it was reacting to market forces.
What the FCC is doing is entirely something else. Nothing prevents people from changing the channel. However a few zealots, on both sides of the aisle, in both the FCC and Congress are using Janet's exposure to score points and settle grudges.
If this organization (TJC) was serious they would realize the major difference here.
As for Howard, he is trying to save a sinking ship so it is to be expected he would claim persecution. He only has to look into the mirror to see who really is the source of his problems. The FCC is just piling on.
In Atlanta we lost the "The Regular Guys" because CC is now afraid of the FCC. Considering the size of the fines the FCC is throwing around I consider that to be the same as violating the 1st Amendment. Regulating something to the point of unaffordability is the same as stifling it.
Write your Congressman, NO E-MAIL - WRITE A REAL LETTER, and tell them your distaste for the current FCC actions.
Who is your Representative? Go here http://www.vote-smart.org/
If you just have to use e-mail
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/
I think its more from the fact everyone wants to write components but no one wants to write applications.
Combine that with trying to make it be everything to everyone when neither it or the community behind is capable.
Being in an IBM shop (minis and mainframes) we get bombarded with IBM's fascination with JAVA. What has this netted us so far? Simple, applications that take forever to load, don't provide usuable feedback when a problem occurs, and generally don't do as much as the purposeful written applications they replaced did. Hell I have green screen alternatives to JAVA apps IBM tries to get us to use that are many times faster and reliable.
JAVA does not belong on the desktop. It was fine in the browser and that is where it should have stayed.
Because going beyond 99 cents will mean I won't be buying diddly ever again.
If they want 2-3 dollars per song I suggest they mail it to me on CD in CD quality format.
I am pretty sure the 99 cent model does crimp their profits, but honestly most music sucks today. Rarely have I heard an album with more than 2 tracks that were worth a damn, it is rare to have 3 or 4. Most CDs out today seem to be the standard one hit wonder type. One good song from a new band and the rest just suck. Granted radio stations will play it OVER AND OVER again (can you say Hero?)
Curious how they will fare against Wal-Mart. Doubt that Wal-Mart would be too keen on running up the price.
I think its pretty downright stupid to want Microsoft to collapse. People who put forth this idea need to have their heads examined.
/.
Open source is not in any position to compete in the marketplace simply because it is not ready. Quit showing immaturity by wishing Microsoft to fail, bringing them down isn't going to make Open source or free software any better.
You want to beat Microsoft, fine, quit making neat things and start making real applications that do what users want and not what geeks want. Users are the primary market and Microsoft knows exactly how to cater to them.
The OS community is a pretty nice group but you would never know that from reading
as in the sound they make is used to instill fear and such. There are some real interesting uses of noise.
:)
Of course what helicopters sound like in movies is usually different than in real life. Friends of mine can tell you what chopper is coming just by the sound from the blades.
That being said, instead of masking the sound of the train perhaps they can tune it to sound more pleasant
Am I missing something? The land of vid cameras is voicing privacy concerns? Maybe they are just concerned that other countries are following in their footsteps!
Besides, its an opt-in. You want the service you know what it entails. Without the ability to do what they are planning the whole system falls apart.
Mainframes and Minis will be around a long time. To get PC based systems up to their level of reliability, ease of use, and maintainability would turn the PC based system into a MINI.
I have 75 iSeries (As/400) that I oversee. You want to know how much time I spend per week checking up on them? Only an hour or so. I receive reports from the machines when they have problems. If one has a fault it is usually hardware and rarely does the downtime pass a few hours.
Meanwhile the network group (read : uses PC based technologies) is always fixing something and has 5 people dedicated to it compared to two for the iSeries boxes. That doesn't count the PC-support group which supports desktops...
We have 3 mainframes as well, some of the code from these machines has been in use since the early 70s. Some of the code migrated to the iSeries with little but header changes.
But the best, the iSeries has been on 64-bit PowerPCs natively for 10+ years. Didn't have to recompile or change 99% of our code to do it. How long has the PC base world been struggling to get there?
Anyone who believes they don't have a military objective with space is only deluding themselves.
The question is, do you want to wait till it IS a problem or do something now?
Kind of like the questions asked about our lack of reaction to the bombing WTC in the 90s... we know how that turned out.
The tax burden when you combine both embedded and the obvious taxes is destroying the American dream. Corporations are required by shareholders and owners to deliver a profit. The government seems hell bent to drive the costs of operating up.
This gets passed down to the consumer and workers as embedded taxes and loss of jobs. Look at the small business owner. You know one of the hardest decisions? To higher your first employee. The amount of regulations and such that you are subject to is astounding. Those same regulations introduce a ton of risk too, mainly being sued over ANYTHING.
Outsourcing is the result of technology and the need of companies to stay in business in a cut throat environment. Outsourcing will also be the only way to keep the amount of services we have to expect viable. As the baby boomers retire we will face a worker shortage far worse than the tech boom. This will be compounded by the fact that those newly retired persons will be eating even more of the employed's income by way of taxes.
What the US government does over the next 10 years will have far more effect on readers here than outsourcing. They tax burden is on its way to obscene. Only stupid people think that the poor pay no taxes. Their lives will simply get worse as the embedded taxes increase.
How do we fix this mess? One way is to reduce the regulatory burden faced by small business. They are the greatest producers of jobs this country knows, not big business. GOVERNMENT produces NO jobs. When government gets bigger the burden gets bigger. Hence Government must get smaller. Find the justification for some many Cabinet departments! Most are just jobs programs... providing services a PRIVATE company, one that generates revenue, can do better. Some are obvious requirements of government, like defense and foreign relations, others are just jobs programs, agriculture, energy, veteran affairs, and education.
Don't look overseas for the problem, don't look to the boardroom. It all starts here and with our Government. It is simply crushing the American dream.
He is part of the reason that MS beat the first case. The gross mishandling of that and many other cases simply points out that this guy's opinion doesn't mean jack.
If anything it should point out everything wrong with it.
LOOK.
He would favor it. It adds an embedded tax. That 600M fine is just a tax on consumers by indirect means. Hence it is a favorite means of the left. You pretend to take the high road by taking money from the big bad "EVEEEL" corporation and protecting the little guy. You just convienently forget to mention that the fine really does come out of the little guy's pocket one way or another.
Real enforcement is to put processes in place to prevent future abuse, to take corrective action to fix past transgressions, and set forth policy that is clear to others.
Fining is to impress the weak minded simpletons that infest our world.
First off, it is not a fine. No government ever accesses a FINE. They only tax. They just call it by different names.
Second, the remedies are good in regards to making them separate out the audio/video players. Though in context MS should have been congratulated if it impeded someone from getting REAL.
Back to the main point. Fines are taxes. Every consumer will being paying this "fine" for Microsoft. I don't care if you use Linux, Mac, or nothing at all. Your paying. Think of it as an embedded tax. It looks good in the press as an "evil corporation" is getting punished but tell me what corporation pays any tax? They don't, hence they don't pay fines either. You pay. Corporations make money, anything that reduces that profit is still paid for by the people bought the product or did business with someone who did.
The EU was on the right track but they may have given MS some advantages that it would have never had otherwise.
The numbers haven't really changed in many years. Just like the fact that the current unemployment rate isn't much different than the last Administration.
h tm l
The economy of the US churns more jobs PER MONTH than are out sourced. When we had the big tech boom we had more jobs than people! Guess where we got them filled? The current focus is simply politics as usual.
Want a good article with some straight views on the subject?
http://www.freetrade.org/pubs/briefs/tbp-019es.
As for the decline in students. Good, CS doesn't mean fast bucks, booth babes, and games. Its a JOB. JOBS in the CS field are just like many others, they are work. If you are out sourced and haven't scored a job within 6 months something is wrong. Move, change careers, or realize that there ISN'T a job beneath you. Lastly, most people I know who are out of work that bemoan outsourcing lost their jobs because of their own actions.
You don't have any. Bought anything from the supermarket using a check? A Credit Card, or a debit card. You just lost any privacy.
Do you receive advertisements for new Credit Cards? Any service whatsoever? If you own a home you have no real privacy.
RFID are not a threat to our privacy. The only threats to our privacy occurs when the government takes it away. All these new wonderful abilities because too many Americans were willing to give up some rights to fight terrorism, which in turn accomplishes one of their goals - changing how we live.
That "war happy" President you are referring to has morals. What some people seem to have forgotten is that terrorist don't have morals.
They are more than willing, when able, to use any means to kill people. The big problem is they don't kill combatants, they prefer civilians as it causes shock. Besides their eventual goal is the destruction of their target which means the civilians that we think we are are combatants to them.
Terrorism is bringing a Chernobyl to anywhere in the world. Unfortunately that requires a different outlook to combat. So while you can label this President "war happy" it is far better than having an "appeasement" President which doesn't protect anyone. Terrorist only use appeasement to give them room to plan and setup. Taking the war to their turf is an unfortunate need of our generation.
*ducks*
One thing about Republican adminstrations. They go easy on businesses, BUT, if that business does something wrong they sure come down hard.
The DOJ is doing a wonderful job working its way up the Enron chain, building the case by toppling the dominoes one at a time. Notice how all these scandals popped up after the Bush was in office? Do you think they all originated then? No, what happened is that some people got replaced and their successors didn't look away. Realize the a Republican led DOJ is held to different standards than others, and Ashcroft (love him or hate him) is being held to even higher ones... and not just by the press.
The DOJ case against MS was screwed up from day one. It simply compounded its mistakes as it went on that by the time the Bush DOJ inherited it they saw the stinking cesspool for what it was and did their best to get out of a situation that should never have arisen. Yeah MS should have been investigated, but it should have been done professionally.
They come from the Labor Department's. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
... from '83 to '03 a total of 38 million jobs have been created by private businesses in the United States. No other industrialized country in the world has matched this number.
* The peak unemployment rate during the recession that began in Clinton's term was 6.4 percent. The current unemployment rate is 5.6 percent.
* In the last year more than 2,000,000 new jobs have been added in the United States.
* Between 1983 and 2003 outsourcing went from 6.5 million jobs to about 10 million jobs.
* Between 1983 and 2002 jobs in-sourcing -- jobs coming TO the United States -- went from 2.5 million to 6.5 million.
* If you subtract the jobs coming to the United States every year from the jobs going out every year you come up with a "net" figure. The net outsourced jobs reached its peak in the early 1980's; a peak of about 4 million jobs. In other words, things were worse at the end of the Carter Administration then they are right now.
* During this same period
His testimony before Congress claimed that it was common practice for US Soldiers to rape, murder, and torture civilians. He and his cohorts made claims versus other soldiers. The majority if not all of his testimony has been refuted.
2 70 825.asp
Kerry doesn't deserve respect. Go check out what he testified too before you give him an ounce of it.
Here is a decent article about this sordid affair.
http://www.nationalreview.com/owens/owens200401
The problem with NASA and its supply chain is one created by government meddling from the highest levels. We do not have a real space agency, we have a pork barrel that is capable of putting things in space.
Even the supply chain is subject to pork barreling and government arm twisting. The system isn't designed to be efficient. It is designed to favor powerful Senators, Government Employees, and those who curry their favor.
They have no incentive to improve. I was hoping that by essentially condeming the Shuttle that Bush might cause more people to take a serious look at NASA and all that surrounds it. Instead the hate-Bush crowd ignores the real problem and instead blames Bush for no offering detailed solutions.
A solution will not come until we acknowledge the problem. NASA must be overhauled from one end to the other. Congress must not be allowed to saddle NASA with pork-barrel political favortism requirements. NASA needs the ability to do what is right for space exploration, not what is right for "political toady #x"
I have an Inspirion with a 15" 1600x1200 display. For the life of me I cannot find anything similar in a stand alone display. When I can its large and unreasonably priced.
There is a serious disconnect between LCDs on laptops and desktop in regards to pricing.
The only real concern is ghosting, even on 20ms displays it gets noticable.
Why is it that so many people hold that Open Source == Linux? While he brings up good points about the possibilities of what will happen if .NET/C# is ported to Linux he misses the bigger point. That is, Open Source is not Linux.
.NET on Linux will spur some Linux users to try .NET and then provide their services to those bound to MS.
Yeah MS is going to provide a lot more of the underlying OS/Compilers/Code that drives business. So can Linux. Nothing stops people from writing Open Source C# on MS platforms except for irrational hatred of all things MS.
There is a big opportunity out there to prove to the business world that open source can be and is commercial grade. That opportunity can and does exist on MS platforms. Mozilla is a great example. How better to become the number one browser than to be on the biggest platform! I do not suggest that Linux development should be dropped, far from it, I just suggest that he and others recognize that there are many ways to skin a cat.
Perhaps this groups endeavour to get
Its far easier to fight a war on their ground than your own.