regardless of the definitions, the courts decided that MS was illegaling using its monopoly power.
It's not illegal to be a monopoly, but it is illegal to use that power to stifle competition.
The best example I can think of for how MS continues to leverage its monopoly is in #1 of your definition: The "bundling" of Windows with any computer you buy from a large OEM. The OEM pays MS a fee for a Windows license for each comptuer it ships, even if you plan to run Linux on it or whatever.
Of course the OEMs all agree to this becuase if they don't bye-bye volume discount.
Does this make any sense? The huge market share that MS has gives them lots of leverage -- and they've used that leverage too much, according to the court.
Just because you, the "end user" (aka "consumer") aren't privy to what goes on behind the scenes, doesn't mean that it's all on the up and up. It's microsoft's dealings with other businesses, not directly with retail consumers, that have gotten them into trouble. As well they should be.
You should put antivirus on your mail server. Or if you don't have a mail server, and users are using Outlook or OE for POP/IMAP access, put antivirus on your internet gateway.
Get fancy and put the laptop users on a separate segment with antivirus running on the gateway to the rest of the LAN.
Or you could add the Level1Add key to the registry at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Ou tlook\Security and put.exe,.vbs, and.scr in the srting value.
There's many better options than trying to educate the (laregly uneducable) users.
Don't try and point the finger somewhere else - those guys are way overpaid, and it's no good to say "hey, they're overpaid because the other guys is a monopoly too."
You do realize how you can take that statement and apply it to both parties in the dispute, right?
Similarly, you could write: It's great that the PMR is so powerful that it can disrupt commerce worldwide. Which would actually be more accurate, since they initiated the lockout...
Not that I disagree with your characterization of Longshoreman. But your arguments are not valid, except for the first one, which is really more of a statement against both the PMR and the Longshoreman.
We pay pilots to save as many of us as they can when the turbine on number 2 spews metal into the hydraulic lines that run the control surfaces.
But the question is, is it really worth it? Considering that pilots are just "along for the ride" almost all of the time, what's the cost?
How many catastrophic situations arise on an airplane that a computer couldn't fix? Sioux City is a great example, but it's the only one I can think of. I'm sure you can think of more. Alaska Air flight 90 might be a counter-example, or for that matter ValuJet. Then again, who programs the computer to determine how serious a given alarm is?
Back to is it all worth it: I seem to recall learning, post 9/11, that the "cost" of one dead passenger is about $2.7 million. When a safety issue arises, some oversight board does a calculation comparing the cost of the fix vs. the cost of failure, where cost of failure = chance of catastrophe x 2.7 million x number of passengers on the average 737 (or whatever plane is affected).
So, what I'm getting at is, how many situations exist where human intervention saved the day? How many passengers did they save? Multiply that number by $2.7 million or whatever the "going rate" is. Compare that to how much have we been paying airline pilots over this same period.
I'm not advocating one way or the other here, I'm just wondering how the math works out.
It does seem ironic that airports are the only places I ever see subways with no human driver...
i was hoping this thread might end:) But you're incorrect about pre-9/11 gate screeners. The whole situation is pretty complicated, but the largest airlines at a given airport (say, United and Northwest) would form a private company that did all the security screening. Other airlines would have to pay that company for the service. There were dozens of these partnerships, being run by whoever was the biggest players at any given airport. I'm not sure when this system came about, whether it was in the 80s with airline deregulation or later.
I agree that the government will give us gestapo in the name of protecting our freedom (it's already happening, esp. for all the Iraqis who's new freedom we're protecting). But I don't think the airlines ever envisioned an attack like 9/11 coming. The government knew but couldn't get their ducks in a row, and didn't mention it to anybody.
Good points. I do see the larger picture. However I don't think the airlines want security so much as... profits. If they'd wanted security, they would have hired competent gate screeners before 9/11. Instead they hired immigrants and paid them eight bucks an hour.
The biggest scandal of 9/11, in my opinion, is the collective sellout of security by both the feds and the airlines. There used to be government security screeners, but the airlines complained they were "too expensive." The airlines convinced the Feds that they could provide the same security services, but far cheaper.
Security is a tough job. Just look at all the damn hackers, spammers, and so on. Everyone's happy to shift the burden onto someone else. The problem is, sometimes real security is needed, and you don't get that from kids making $8 an hour at the airport.
Earth First! (We can mine the other planets later.)
Seriously, has anyone given any thought to NOT fucking with the moon? I'm reminded of that episode of The Tick, where Chairface Chippendale carves his name into the moon with a giant laser.
Come on now. A direct result? The argument you present is more of an indirect result. 9/11 is a direct result of a good plan more than the presence or absence of firearms.
Plus, I'm not convinced that it would have been different had passengers been armed. Probably not all that many passengers would carry guns on the plane, even if they could. So I don't see a "majority" of armed passengers. And what good would it do if they didn't happen to be sitting in first class, where the action was? You don't want people just shooting willy-nilly into the cockpit... after all that might damage the magical autopilot.
Of course, had the highjackers known that the passengers might be armed, don't you think they might have done things a little differently? Like maybe destroy the radio and smash the IFF box? (Is that what they call those on civilian aircraft?) And if the passengers had the right to guns, I guarantee that every hijacker would have been armed.
I bet that the reason guns were banned from planes in the first place was to prevent hijacks. How many more hijacks do you think there might have been in the past 25 years if passengers were allowed guns? Are you saying that the consequences of allowing guns wouldn't have been worse than 9/11? How can you be sure?
Let's face it, the Rebels blew up the Death Star on 9/11. The underdogs found a chink in the armor and exploited it. It should give you hope that David, whose leader lives in a cave, still has a chance even pitted against the modern-day Goliath, the USA, that endangered species known as the World's Last Remaining Superpower. But I digress. Regardless of armed pilots, passengers, or steel doors in cockpits, it won't work again. You can only use the Trojan Horse one time.
To some degree I echo your sentiments. While I'm not wild about people on airplanes having guns, I certainly have no objection to nail clippers, knitting needles, and the occasional swiss army knife. Seriously, I could poke a hole in the side of the hull by jabbing a nice big screwdriver into the wall, so what's all the fuss? Maybe we should just handcuff everyone on board, since people can kill with their bare hands! Sheesh.
But I don't see 9/11 as a "gun issue." In fact, now that we're all wise to how they managed to pull it off, the only thing we have to do is not forget that lesson. Next time someone announces a hijack on a plane, passengers WILL storm the cockpit. Of this there is no doubt.
One thing that's always amused me is how much easier it is to find Microsoft's own Knowledge Base articles using Google rathen than searching for them straign off the Microsoft Support web page. I can Google for Q303351 (just a random example that happenes to be on my clipboard this afternoon) and I always get what I want. It doesn't always work that way when I search Microsoft. Plus, MS has made their site non-IE hostile, and dumbed-down the knowledge base search interface, making it almost impossible to find somewhat more obscure KB articles. Using Microsoft's search capabilities I have to play "keyword roulette" and thankfully with Google I don't.
Paper is well known to be discriminatory. How often have you seen a black sheet of paper in a ream of 500 white ones? We will not allow paper's prejudicial beliefs to sway our core Democratic values.
There is no way that the Saudi subjects could have gained control of either aircraft, or the one that hit the Pentagon, had the citizens been armed.
Oh really. You are a good enough shot that you'd pick off the terrorist while he's got a box cutter to the pilot's throat? Who's gonna fly the plane with no pilot? (plus, what if the highjackers had guns too...)
That was the trump card that got played, and it worked. In fact it looks like the only reason we still have a White House is because of AirPhone. Don't try to turn it into some weird gun issue.
No, we will never know who won Florida, and thus the election. Al Gore got about 500,000 more votes that George W. Bush, about half a percentage point.
In Florida the difference was something like 500 votes out of 6,000,000, much much closer than the overall results.
It's hard to picture Kenneth Lay as a victim when he hasn't been sent to prison or dispossesed of any of his ill-gotten gains.
What exactly is the nature of his sacrifice? I don't see one. He may have been served up for sacrifice by "the elites" but the bloodletting has yet to occur. The man is not in jail, and probably never will be. I don't buy your hypothesis for a minute.
The point is, it's disingenuous to go "back in time" and massage the way news was reported, when it was first reported.
With print media, there's a hard copy; "no takebacks." Not so with electronic publishing. Furthermore, it may be illegal under the DMCA or copyright law (you never can tell these days) for third parties to keep an archive of what was originally posted. So, how can you trust the electronic media, if it's subject to constant and unannounced revision?
This isn't the first time this has happened. About two weeks after 9/11, the New York Times replaced a column (published right before the attack, I think maybe even on 9/11) linking Osama bin Laden to threats against America with a "puff piece" about the challenges ahead. I googled for that story but I couldn't find it... orignially it was posted on BuzzFlash or maybe Drudge years ago.
Let me put it another way: If my sig was "The Apollo landings were faked" you probably wouldn't take me seriously either. Even if I had been making sense up until then.
I am not so informed as to really be able agree or disagree with your sig, but I will check it out.
If "everyone is at risk" for AIDS (according to the CDC), then why has AIDS remained confined to its original risk groups (IV drug users and promiscuous homosexual men) in North America?
That's a good question. I think the answer is that gay men are highly promiscuous and frequently have bloody assholes when done fucking -- a vector for transmission that even promiscuous straights are not likely to have. (Insert tangent about low rate of lesbian AIDS here) Bug Chasers and Gift Givers aren't doing any favors for the gay community either.
As for drug users, by the time you're putting needles in your arm on a regular basis, your outlook on life has... changed. "Education" doesn't really take. That's the theory at least behind a program in Vancouver where junkies come to shoot up at state run health facilities, with a nurse watching over and even helping if needed. So they're guaranteed to get clean needles, to thwart that transmission vector. Canada has public health, which is getting sticker shock from the projected costs to care for a never-ending populous of heroin addicts with AIDS.
I just realized how easy it would be to turn that state-run clean house for shooting up into a state-run program to give all the junkies hotshots one day. Hmmm that sounds like a cool story. Just to be careful: I have a copyright on the movie rights to this post.
Yep, I agree. The thing about "margin of error" is beyond most people's comprehension. That's why they are so hyped about these computers, becuase Computers Don't Make Mistakes. How is it that the general populous is both afraid of computers and yet trust them implicitly? We are a nation of simpletons.
I would add to the list #3, Systematic disenfranchisement of voters went on un-checked for years prior to the election.
I absolutely agree that chads are a poor technology choice. It should be an additive process -- making a mark on a piece of paper, not a subtractive one, where more subtractions will naturally occur as the chads wiggle loose from the substrate.
Jeb used the word "guarantee" regarding Florida's electoral votes. Then this whole shitstorm happened. I'm not saying there's a connection... there's no way to prove it either way. Perhaps it was just rhetoric. Perhaps actions were taken to back those words up. It's water under the bridge now, regardless.
I just hope our next election isn't so fucking close. Historically, American presidents who win the electoral vote but not the popular vote have done poorly in office, which seems easy to understand.
Who am I kidding I'm not a great fan of democracy in the first place. Give me a Constitutional Monarchy or a benevolent despot any day. Plus, most people can't be bothered to vote...
Or, one or two more big terror attacks and people will be *begging* for Martial Law. This Republic we live in is ripe for a change anyway!
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What does "Win" mean?
well, I used to type that a lot in Windows 3.11...
regardless of the definitions, the courts decided that MS was illegaling using its monopoly power.
It's not illegal to be a monopoly, but it is illegal to use that power to stifle competition.
The best example I can think of for how MS continues to leverage its monopoly is in #1 of your definition: The "bundling" of Windows with any computer you buy from a large OEM. The OEM pays MS a fee for a Windows license for each comptuer it ships, even if you plan to run Linux on it or whatever.
Of course the OEMs all agree to this becuase if they don't bye-bye volume discount.
Does this make any sense? The huge market share that MS has gives them lots of leverage -- and they've used that leverage too much, according to the court.
Just because you, the "end user" (aka "consumer") aren't privy to what goes on behind the scenes, doesn't mean that it's all on the up and up. It's microsoft's dealings with other businesses, not directly with retail consumers, that have gotten them into trouble. As well they should be.
You should put antivirus on your mail server. Or if you don't have a mail server, and users are using Outlook or OE for POP/IMAP access, put antivirus on your internet gateway.
u tlook\Security and put .exe, .vbs, and .scr in the srting value.
Get fancy and put the laptop users on a separate segment with antivirus running on the gateway to the rest of the LAN.
Or you could add the Level1Add key to the registry at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\O
There's many better options than trying to educate the (laregly uneducable) users.
If North Korea was properly dealt with in 1994, they wouldn't be in Bush's "Axis of Evil" today.
Bah. North Korea is a bigger problem for China than it is for the US.
And what's so wrong with NK having nukes? Israel has a pretty rabid military approach, but we're still waiting for the "sea of glass."
The genie is out of the bottle. Containment and nonproliferation couldn't last forever.
How can we keep corporate America honest?
Easy. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Don't try and point the finger somewhere else - those guys are way overpaid, and it's no good to say "hey, they're overpaid because the other guys is a monopoly too."
You do realize how you can take that statement and apply it to both parties in the dispute, right?
Similarly, you could write:
It's great that the PMR is so powerful that it can disrupt commerce worldwide. Which would actually be more accurate, since they initiated the lockout...
Not that I disagree with your characterization of Longshoreman. But your arguments are not valid, except for the first one, which is really more of a statement against both the PMR and the Longshoreman.
We pay pilots to save as many of us as they can when the turbine on number 2 spews metal into the hydraulic lines that run the control surfaces.
But the question is, is it really worth it? Considering that pilots are just "along for the ride" almost all of the time, what's the cost?
How many catastrophic situations arise on an airplane that a computer couldn't fix? Sioux City is a great example, but it's the only one I can think of. I'm sure you can think of more. Alaska Air flight 90 might be a counter-example, or for that matter ValuJet. Then again, who programs the computer to determine how serious a given alarm is?
Back to is it all worth it: I seem to recall learning, post 9/11, that the "cost" of one dead passenger is about $2.7 million. When a safety issue arises, some oversight board does a calculation comparing the cost of the fix vs. the cost of failure, where cost of failure = chance of catastrophe x 2.7 million x number of passengers on the average 737 (or whatever plane is affected).
So, what I'm getting at is, how many situations exist where human intervention saved the day? How many passengers did they save? Multiply that number by $2.7 million or whatever the "going rate" is. Compare that to how much have we been paying airline pilots over this same period.
I'm not advocating one way or the other here, I'm just wondering how the math works out.
It does seem ironic that airports are the only places I ever see subways with no human driver...
i was hoping this thread might end :) But you're incorrect about pre-9/11 gate screeners. The whole situation is pretty complicated, but the largest airlines at a given airport (say, United and Northwest) would form a private company that did all the security screening. Other airlines would have to pay that company for the service. There were dozens of these partnerships, being run by whoever was the biggest players at any given airport. I'm not sure when this system came about, whether it was in the 80s with airline deregulation or later.
I agree that the government will give us gestapo in the name of protecting our freedom (it's already happening, esp. for all the Iraqis who's new freedom we're protecting). But I don't think the airlines ever envisioned an attack like 9/11 coming. The government knew but couldn't get their ducks in a row, and didn't mention it to anybody.
Good points. I do see the larger picture. However I don't think the airlines want security so much as... profits. If they'd wanted security, they would have hired competent gate screeners before 9/11. Instead they hired immigrants and paid them eight bucks an hour.
The biggest scandal of 9/11, in my opinion, is the collective sellout of security by both the feds and the airlines. There used to be government security screeners, but the airlines complained they were "too expensive." The airlines convinced the Feds that they could provide the same security services, but far cheaper.
Security is a tough job. Just look at all the damn hackers, spammers, and so on. Everyone's happy to shift the burden onto someone else. The problem is, sometimes real security is needed, and you don't get that from kids making $8 an hour at the airport.
Earth First! (We can mine the other planets later.)
Seriously, has anyone given any thought to NOT fucking with the moon? I'm reminded of that episode of The Tick, where Chairface Chippendale carves his name into the moon with a giant laser.
Come on now. A direct result? The argument you present is more of an indirect result. 9/11 is a direct result of a good plan more than the presence or absence of firearms.
Plus, I'm not convinced that it would have been different had passengers been armed. Probably not all that many passengers would carry guns on the plane, even if they could. So I don't see a "majority" of armed passengers. And what good would it do if they didn't happen to be sitting in first class, where the action was? You don't want people just shooting willy-nilly into the cockpit... after all that might damage the magical autopilot.
Of course, had the highjackers known that the passengers might be armed, don't you think they might have done things a little differently? Like maybe destroy the radio and smash the IFF box? (Is that what they call those on civilian aircraft?) And if the passengers had the right to guns, I guarantee that every hijacker would have been armed.
I bet that the reason guns were banned from planes in the first place was to prevent hijacks. How many more hijacks do you think there might have been in the past 25 years if passengers were allowed guns? Are you saying that the consequences of allowing guns wouldn't have been worse than 9/11? How can you be sure?
Let's face it, the Rebels blew up the Death Star on 9/11. The underdogs found a chink in the armor and exploited it. It should give you hope that David, whose leader lives in a cave, still has a chance even pitted against the modern-day Goliath, the USA, that endangered species known as the World's Last Remaining Superpower. But I digress. Regardless of armed pilots, passengers, or steel doors in cockpits, it won't work again. You can only use the Trojan Horse one time.
To some degree I echo your sentiments. While I'm not wild about people on airplanes having guns, I certainly have no objection to nail clippers, knitting needles, and the occasional swiss army knife. Seriously, I could poke a hole in the side of the hull by jabbing a nice big screwdriver into the wall, so what's all the fuss? Maybe we should just handcuff everyone on board, since people can kill with their bare hands! Sheesh.
But I don't see 9/11 as a "gun issue." In fact, now that we're all wise to how they managed to pull it off, the only thing we have to do is not forget that lesson. Next time someone announces a hijack on a plane, passengers WILL storm the cockpit. Of this there is no doubt.
One thing that's always amused me is how much easier it is to find Microsoft's own Knowledge Base articles using Google rathen than searching for them straign off the Microsoft Support web page. I can Google for Q303351 (just a random example that happenes to be on my clipboard this afternoon) and I always get what I want. It doesn't always work that way when I search Microsoft. Plus, MS has made their site non-IE hostile, and dumbed-down the knowledge base search interface, making it almost impossible to find somewhat more obscure KB articles. Using Microsoft's search capabilities I have to play "keyword roulette" and thankfully with Google I don't.
Paper is well known to be discriminatory. How often have you seen a black sheet of paper in a ream of 500 white ones? We will not allow paper's prejudicial beliefs to sway our core Democratic values.
There is no way that the Saudi subjects could have gained control of either aircraft, or the one that hit the Pentagon, had the citizens been armed.
Oh really. You are a good enough shot that you'd pick off the terrorist while he's got a box cutter to the pilot's throat? Who's gonna fly the plane with no pilot? (plus, what if the highjackers had guns too...)
That was the trump card that got played, and it worked. In fact it looks like the only reason we still have a White House is because of AirPhone. Don't try to turn it into some weird gun issue.
uh, al gore got 500,000 more in the national contest, out of about 100 million votes cast. guess i shoulda previewed.
Hey Loundry, my sig used to be "By Pentagon standards, the WTC was a "dual-use" target."
Hope you're having fun with your outRAGEous sig!
No, we will never know who won Florida, and thus the election. Al Gore got about 500,000 more votes that George W. Bush, about half a percentage point.
In Florida the difference was something like 500 votes out of 6,000,000, much much closer than the overall results.
Paper ballots are the way to go. But if we did that, we might not know the outcome of the elections right away, making them a less "newsworthy" event.
It's hard to picture Kenneth Lay as a victim when he hasn't been sent to prison or dispossesed of any of his ill-gotten gains.
What exactly is the nature of his sacrifice? I don't see one. He may have been served up for sacrifice by "the elites" but the bloodletting has yet to occur. The man is not in jail, and probably never will be. I don't buy your hypothesis for a minute.
The point is, it's disingenuous to go "back in time" and massage the way news was reported, when it was first reported.
With print media, there's a hard copy; "no takebacks." Not so with electronic publishing. Furthermore, it may be illegal under the DMCA or copyright law (you never can tell these days) for third parties to keep an archive of what was originally posted. So, how can you trust the electronic media, if it's subject to constant and unannounced revision?
This isn't the first time this has happened. About two weeks after 9/11, the New York Times replaced a column (published right before the attack, I think maybe even on 9/11) linking Osama bin Laden to threats against America with a "puff piece" about the challenges ahead. I googled for that story but I couldn't find it... orignially it was posted on BuzzFlash or maybe Drudge years ago.
I am not so informed as to really be able agree or disagree with your sig, but I will check it out.
If "everyone is at risk" for AIDS (according to the CDC), then why has AIDS remained confined to its original risk groups (IV drug users and promiscuous homosexual men) in North America?
That's a good question. I think the answer is that gay men are highly promiscuous and frequently have bloody assholes when done fucking -- a vector for transmission that even promiscuous straights are not likely to have. (Insert tangent about low rate of lesbian AIDS here) Bug Chasers and Gift Givers aren't doing any favors for the gay community either.
... changed. "Education" doesn't really take. That's the theory at least behind a program in Vancouver where junkies come to shoot up at state run health facilities, with a nurse watching over and even helping if needed. So they're guaranteed to get clean needles, to thwart that transmission vector. Canada has public health, which is getting sticker shock from the projected costs to care for a never-ending populous of heroin addicts with AIDS.
As for drug users, by the time you're putting needles in your arm on a regular basis, your outlook on life has
I just realized how easy it would be to turn that state-run clean house for shooting up into a state-run program to give all the junkies hotshots one day. Hmmm that sounds like a cool story. Just to be careful: I have a copyright on the movie rights to this post.
This attitude is killing people!!!
People -- that's one thing China has no shortage of. Killing off a few, harvesting a few organs along the way, is probably healthy for the State.
Your argument lost its momentum when I got to your sig. Not that mine's much better.
Yep, I agree. The thing about "margin of error" is beyond most people's comprehension. That's why they are so hyped about these computers, becuase Computers Don't Make Mistakes. How is it that the general populous is both afraid of computers and yet trust them implicitly? We are a nation of simpletons.
I would add to the list #3, Systematic disenfranchisement of voters went on un-checked for years prior to the election.
I absolutely agree that chads are a poor technology choice. It should be an additive process -- making a mark on a piece of paper, not a subtractive one, where more subtractions will naturally occur as the chads wiggle loose from the substrate.
Jeb used the word "guarantee" regarding Florida's electoral votes. Then this whole shitstorm happened. I'm not saying there's a connection... there's no way to prove it either way. Perhaps it was just rhetoric. Perhaps actions were taken to back those words up. It's water under the bridge now, regardless.
I just hope our next election isn't so fucking close. Historically, American presidents who win the electoral vote but not the popular vote have done poorly in office, which seems easy to understand.
Who am I kidding I'm not a great fan of democracy in the first place. Give me a Constitutional Monarchy or a benevolent despot any day. Plus, most people can't be bothered to vote...
Or, one or two more big terror attacks and people will be *begging* for Martial Law. This Republic we live in is ripe for a change anyway!
Microsoft's physical layout is TOP SECRET! SUPER DUPER TOP SECRET!!!!
PS I sure hope nobody clicks on this link. Or this one from, uh, Microsoft.