I believe that SCOX is trying to become a company that derives it's income from licensing or leasing property (in this case intellectual). Their problem is they don't own the property and are in essence trying to sell the Broklyn Bridge.
I've owned three companies, so I'm no master of the art of building businesses. What I can tell you from my experience is The "Business Model" rarely is responsible for success or failure. Blaming failure on "the model" is about as accurate as say, blaming the OS for a complile time error in your code. Reality is there are very few business models. Here are some examples:
* Comodity service, periodic (annuity) style bill. * Distributor * Reseller (buy, markup, market, resell) * Service - flat fee (I'll do that website for $50K) * Service - hourly rate (I'll bill you $150/hr)
The top causes of business failure are well documented. If memory serves correctly here are five top business killers:
* Undercapitalization - Not enough jack, jack. * Demand Over/Under estimation - Build it they don't come... or too many crash your party * Fraud & Embezzlement - Where did the money go? * Cost overruns - 50% of the budget on furniture? Eghad! * Poor sales - We're a ____ company. Our product is 733t. We don't need to sell anything.
Most of these mistakes are fairly easy to make and usually gang rape the business owner - as in you are undercapitalized because you underestimated the demand, cant produce enough widgets to fill orders and are experiencing legal expenses because you overpromised and underdelivered.
Why should Vint Cerf know what he's talking about?
Why should you? Seriously, Vint has had a huge impact on the way the world works. His ideas and implementation of ideas changed the world once already.
Most of the flops being discussed were not flops in the sense of being a bad idea that died a bad death.
Here's my top 5 list:
* Attempts at making the IBM compatible PC proprietary. Everyone who has tried has failed, including IBM!
* Copy Protection. From the damaged sector floppies of the 80s to dongles, to encryption schemes to future DRM. All of it has been an abject failure. Anyone remember Copy IIpc?
* Proprietary removable media formats with the exception of iomega.
* Razor blade business model for technology with less than a two year lifespan.
* Proprietary networking technologies. They work for a year then die. Proprietary means only one company makes it. Thomas-Conrad comes to mind.
It's fun to protest in the street and get suspended from school for spray-painting fur coats and leather jackets, but when it comes to mundane decisions like choosing one's representatives, they're no-shows.
This is exactly the problem. Many kids don't understand that our system is one where change can be made without resorting to extremism. Instead young people are preyed on by extremists who recruit them to have fun - like getting arrested at protests and getting fired for token lawsuits so the older leaders don't have to risk their fortune and families for the cause.
Unfortunately, we don't do a good job explaining this to kids. Instead we show the few exceptions where mass civil unrest caused change (civil rights, sufferage, unionization) and leave out the thousands of times that the system worked without unrest. I think young people don't understand three things:
* Local government is the most powerful and easiest to change via democratic and legislative process.
* Extreme positions (I.E. BAN ALL FURS!) rarely win because there is an equal and offsetting group of extremists on the other side. Slow change works. Rapid change results in bizzare episodes like prohibition.
* Our system is fairly open to anyone who wants to participate. You can get involved often even in the policy making process if you are willing to be reasonable, articulate and respectful. That does not mean agree with the status quo.
I blame it on the trend that started when I was a young GenXer - to treat young people like a potential danger instead of a vital resource.
Actually 18-30s not voting is nothing new at all. It's been this way since the 1800s.
Exactly. Kids don't vote. Besides it would take more than one small high school as only the 18 year olds can vote. Most 18-30 year olds have no investment in society and as a result don't vote. when you start to accumulate property, pay taxes or what have you all of the sudden participation in democracy matters!
Whats the big deal here? Everyone knows bios is obsolete. It doesn't start with the all powerful internet letters "e" or "i". It doesn't have an embedded web browser. It can't play downloadable games. It even sounds all 80's - logo, DOS, bios, ROM... Not sexy. So here's the marketing redesign:
* Start with a leter "e" or "i". "e" is more powerful because it evokes environmentalist images of birds singing, clean water, air, beaches. I is too industrial... Let's go with E * No StudlyCaps - Too 90s * Avoid anything that sounds like a computer part from the movie Tron. To 80s. * Add features that journalists want: pre-os software load (we don't want the OPERATING SYSTEM RUNNING THE COMPUTER), DRM, Support for hard drive loaded modules, and OnStar w/GPS for convenient assistance for law enforcement.
Everyone on Slashdot gets laid. optimism springs eternal. Unfortunately her dad will use Onstar w/GPS to track you down just about the time the windows get steamy.
I'm not taking the bait on this one to argue about God's existance, etc. That was never the point. My point is this:
People accept God's existance based on proof that can only be taken on faith. They see things as proof that God exists that you obviously and argumentativly see as evidence God does not exist. In fact, you feel so strongly about it that you had to try to convince me that your point of view is right. This is my point: The existence of God and the brand of global warming being discussed are so far removed from our ability to prove the correctness or incorrectness of the position that we can only rely on faith.
Incidentally, another critical part of science is having the courage to test your theory and have equal courage in accepting the results of your test - even if they invalidate your assertion. Skepticism is healthy. Honesty is more important.
None of the evidence you've pointed to is direct or conclusive. Some of it is just plain wrong.
You missed the point completely. I was not offering a debate about the existance or not of God. I did point out that many of those who believe in God do so for reasons that people with your point of view see as reasons that God does not exist.
You've also confused the concept of academic soundness with science. Academic soundess appies to the work of economists, historians, political scientists and even those scientists that cannot validate their theories. Academic soundness does nothing to assure the absence of bias nor does it guarantee accuracy or correctness. A scientific theory, though is different. It is not valid until it can be proven through experimentation - and the results can be duplicated. Does that make the theory correct? Possibly not. Regardless, most studies regarding global warming (for or against) are so damn politically charged that they don't even begin to meet the standard for academic soundness let alone deserve the to be considered science. Because of this, at the end of the day, all you have left is the same method of validation as you do for the existance of God. Faith.
Relax a little and have fun, life is to short to make every conversation into an argument!
You missed the point. None of your arguments really matter to someone who doesn't see the world and existance the way you do. Your proof against is their proof for. Likewise with global warming. since there is no way to prove scientifically anything (too many variables in the earth's environment, many that we don't even know exist) all you have left is faith. Any if you have faith in our cities being flooded and fertile lands turned to a desert and so on, then you should live your life accordingly. Of course, just like those who put their faith in God or something like that, you could be just as right or wrong as they are.
. Since most religious people will admit that there is no direct evidence for God, belief in God would decline drastically.
I always enjoy reading these kinds of posts because it shows how little many people understand of faith and of God. To those of faith every aspect of life as we know it evidence of God's existance:
* That we exist. For motion to exist there must be a prime mover. * The sophistication of life and nature. * Beauty and ugliness. * Serendipidous events that often determine our situation in life.
You see the scientific method isn't fundamentally incompatible with faith - but it cannot be blinded by it. Science requires that we look to the results of assertions proven by controled experiments. Faith requires that we assume a particular belief without the benefit of detailed, verified proof often because the subject is too complex, or simply does not lend itself to the scientific method.
With respect to environmentalism, in particular global warming believers, in many respects, it is more of a faith than a science. You see to truly be scientific, it requires that an assertion be proven through controled experimentation. And I'm not aware of a planet size lab that would give science the ability to even begin to perform what would be true scientific work.
So we're left, much like those in the realm of the religous with huge assertions, a mass of uncomprehendable data with nearly infinite variables.
Chrichton is right that global warming and little green men are in the same boat: it's easy to accept that there may be life out there for many BUT THERE IS NO SCIENTIFIC PROOF THAT IS THE CASE.
As for me, I'm not sure why this global warming matters so much. Even if it does exist, is it caused by anything I or mankind can control?
I picked up Packet 8 two weeks ago at home. I just fired the phone company. Packet 8 is easy - works fine and appears to be pretty damn reliable. The only real issues I've seen are:
* Doesn't work with the power out. * Dependent on the cable company. * If I take my terminal adapter with me, 911 will dial the response center close to my phone number.
I also like the way the bill breaks out:
$15 - basic cable service - from the cable company $35 - high speed internet - from the cable company $20.90 - Packet 8 + tax ---------- $70.90 - Total cost, phone, cable tv, interet
Before the bill was ridiculous:
$15 - basic cable $35 - hs internet $27 - local phone line $30 - long distance $15 - taxes on local phone line and long distance ----------------------- $122 - Total cost, phone, cable tv, internet
Basically, I am now not paying for a bunch of marketing, slamming and marked up taxes!
If the infrastructure needs to be upgraded, someone will have to pay for it, and I don't think VoIP companies should then be absolved from participating, being the cause of that upgrade.
Wrong. If my ISP has to upgrade their capacity, then they will increase my internet bill. Likewise with the T-1 guys. And so on. Why should a data service that runs on top of my telecom and internet services pay the telecom god?
As a consumer, I can't see at all your logic. And frankly a growth in demand for bandwidth is good for telecom. Good for ISP and good for consumer.
Call in the gov'ment regulators and union reps, and you can watch your IT jobs disappear twice as quickly. Just look what unionizing did to our manufacturing jobs.
What part of unionization didn't you like? The safe working conditions? Perhaps the concept of no forced overtime? How about fair wages (i.e. same wages for the same experience in the same job)? What about better benefits like health insurance? How about requiring that management actually negotiate rather than dictate working conditions? What about making people actually want to work in factories because those jobs enabled people to join the middle class? I guess unions had nothing to do with the US's industrial success from 1930-2004. Of course, I shouldn't say this as I own my own company.
As for regulation, the problem is that you can outsource IT to countries where our privacy, accountability and civil tort system don't apply. Global outsourcing is dangerous and it needs to be regulated on that basis alone. A side effect is that in regulating, the government would create barriers to entry to the US IT market that would protect US workers for a few years.
I am so sick of hearing tech workers whine about loosing their jobs to outsourcing. Yes it is a problem. Yes it is unjust. Here's the travesty:
It's our own damn fault.
IT workers have allowed themselves to be pushed around by business owners because of their high wages/salaries. At the end of the day the result is ugly:
* Entire business units with at will contracts * No established standards on who can do the work * No use of worker leverage to get better working conditions.
Here are three solutions:
1) Get laws passed requiring foreign companies to be held to US standards for handling data. Restrict outsourcing only to nations willing to play by our rules - like HIPPAA, Fair Credit Reporting act etc.
2) Unionize. Get collective bargaining agreements that offer a level of protection against unfair labor practices and ensure fair working conditions (none of that emergency saturday meeting to test loyalty thing). Mass layoffs and other job actions become a little more difficult as workers have to be paid per the CBA rather than individually negotiated. CBAs also allow the union a say when outsourcing occurs. Unions aren't tough to start, either. Call the US NLRB for mor info.
3) Establish licensing requirments. Construction workers (who really aren't that far off from IT Contractors) have been very good at getting better wages, conditions, etc in a business where people are a dime a dozen and you can use foreign workers.
Neither KDE nor Gnome is ready to be the only choice . Both are very very good compared to what we had four or five years ago, and both offer developers quite a bit. Unfortunately, some Linux apps are dependent on QT and others on Gnome, and ultimately, it's a showstopper when joe user wants to install software and discovers they can't (or it is difficult) because of dependencies on a library that is part of KDE or Gnome and they don't have it and cant get it because the IT dept won't let them.
"Trust us, we're the government" doesn't carry any weight these days.
Acually, it never did and it never will. In the case of democracy, the people must NEVER give in to government for voting systems that are not accountable, accurate and reliable. Diebold's #@$@ machines are none of the above.
Slashdot Mirror
SCOX: litigation to intimidate and extort
I believe that SCOX is trying to become a company that derives it's income from licensing or leasing property (in this case intellectual). Their problem is they don't own the property and are in essence trying to sell the Broklyn Bridge.
Companies that have a business that Microsoft approves of will succeed.
They are not that powerful. If they were, there would be no unix, no Oracle, no Intuit, no sun Java, no choice.
They are a tough competitor, though.
I've owned three companies, so I'm no master of the art of building businesses. What I can tell you from my experience is The "Business Model" rarely is responsible for success or failure. Blaming failure on "the model" is about as accurate as say, blaming the OS for a complile time error in your code. Reality is there are very few business models. Here are some examples:
* Comodity service, periodic (annuity) style bill.
* Distributor
* Reseller (buy, markup, market, resell)
* Service - flat fee (I'll do that website for $50K)
* Service - hourly rate (I'll bill you $150/hr)
The top causes of business failure are well documented. If memory serves correctly here are five top business killers:
* Undercapitalization - Not enough jack, jack.
* Demand Over/Under estimation - Build it they don't come... or too many crash your party
* Fraud & Embezzlement - Where did the money go?
* Cost overruns - 50% of the budget on furniture? Eghad!
* Poor sales - We're a ____ company. Our product is 733t. We don't need to sell anything.
Most of these mistakes are fairly easy to make and usually gang rape the business owner - as in you are undercapitalized because you underestimated the demand, cant produce enough widgets to fill orders and are experiencing legal expenses because you overpromised and underdelivered.
Why should Vint Cerf know what he's talking about?
Why should you? Seriously, Vint has had a huge impact on the way the world works. His ideas and implementation of ideas changed the world once already.
Most of the flops being discussed were not flops in the sense of being a bad idea that died a bad death.
Here's my top 5 list:
* Attempts at making the IBM compatible PC proprietary. Everyone who has tried has failed, including IBM!
* Copy Protection. From the damaged sector floppies of the 80s to dongles, to encryption schemes to future DRM. All of it has been an abject failure. Anyone remember Copy IIpc?
* Proprietary removable media formats with the exception of iomega.
* Razor blade business model for technology with less than a two year lifespan.
* Proprietary networking technologies. They work for a year then die. Proprietary means only one company makes it. Thomas-Conrad comes to mind.
It's fun to protest in the street and get suspended from school for spray-painting fur coats and leather jackets, but when it comes to mundane decisions like choosing one's representatives, they're no-shows.
This is exactly the problem. Many kids don't understand that our system is one where change can be made without resorting to extremism. Instead young people are preyed on by extremists who recruit them to have fun - like getting arrested at protests and getting fired for token lawsuits so the older leaders don't have to risk their fortune and families for the cause.
Unfortunately, we don't do a good job explaining this to kids. Instead we show the few exceptions where mass civil unrest caused change (civil rights, sufferage, unionization) and leave out the thousands of times that the system worked without unrest. I think young people don't understand three things:
* Local government is the most powerful and easiest to change via democratic and legislative process.
* Extreme positions (I.E. BAN ALL FURS!) rarely win because there is an equal and offsetting group of extremists on the other side. Slow change works. Rapid change results in bizzare episodes like prohibition.
* Our system is fairly open to anyone who wants to participate. You can get involved often even in the policy making process if you are willing to be reasonable, articulate and respectful. That does not mean agree with the status quo.
I blame it on the trend that started when I was a young GenXer - to treat young people like a potential danger instead of a vital resource.
Actually 18-30s not voting is nothing new at all. It's been this way since the 1800s.
That's what, a small high school?
Exactly. Kids don't vote. Besides it would take more than one small high school as only the 18 year olds can vote. Most 18-30 year olds have no investment in society and as a result don't vote. when you start to accumulate property, pay taxes or what have you all of the sudden participation in democracy matters!
Whats the big deal here? Everyone knows bios is obsolete. It doesn't start with the all powerful internet letters "e" or "i". It doesn't have an embedded web browser. It can't play downloadable games. It even sounds all 80's - logo, DOS, bios, ROM... Not sexy. So here's the marketing redesign:
* Start with a leter "e" or "i". "e" is more powerful because it evokes environmentalist images of birds singing, clean water, air, beaches. I is too industrial... Let's go with E
* No StudlyCaps - Too 90s
* Avoid anything that sounds like a computer part from the movie Tron. To 80s.
* Add features that journalists want: pre-os software load (we don't want the OPERATING SYSTEM RUNNING THE COMPUTER), DRM, Support for hard drive loaded modules, and OnStar w/GPS for convenient assistance for law enforcement.
Everyone on Slashdot gets laid.
optimism springs eternal. Unfortunately her dad will use Onstar w/GPS to track you down just about the time the windows get steamy.
So we have to ask ourselves what umbrella will mitigate the risk against global catastrophic climate change.
Can it be an attractive shade of green with golf balls printed on it?
I'm not taking the bait on this one to argue about God's existance, etc. That was never the point. My point is this:
People accept God's existance based on proof that can only be taken on faith. They see things as proof that God exists that you obviously and argumentativly see as evidence God does not exist. In fact, you feel so strongly about it that you had to try to convince me that your point of view is right. This is my point: The existence of God and the brand of global warming being discussed are so far removed from our ability to prove the correctness or incorrectness of the position that we can only rely on faith.
Incidentally, another critical part of science is having the courage to test your theory and have equal courage in accepting the results of your test - even if they invalidate your assertion. Skepticism is healthy. Honesty is more important.
None of the evidence you've pointed to is direct or conclusive. Some of it is just plain wrong.
You missed the point completely. I was not offering a debate about the existance or not of God. I did point out that many of those who believe in God do so for reasons that people with your point of view see as reasons that God does not exist.
You've also confused the concept of academic soundness with science. Academic soundess appies to the work of economists, historians, political scientists and even those scientists that cannot validate their theories. Academic soundness does nothing to assure the absence of bias nor does it guarantee accuracy or correctness. A scientific theory, though is different. It is not valid until it can be proven through experimentation - and the results can be duplicated. Does that make the theory correct? Possibly not. Regardless, most studies regarding global warming (for or against) are so damn politically charged that they don't even begin to meet the standard for academic soundness let alone deserve the to be considered science. Because of this, at the end of the day, all you have left is the same method of validation as you do for the existance of God. Faith.
Relax a little and have fun, life is to short to make every conversation into an argument!
You missed the point. None of your arguments really matter to someone who doesn't see the world and existance the way you do. Your proof against is their proof for. Likewise with global warming. since there is no way to prove scientifically anything (too many variables in the earth's environment, many that we don't even know exist) all you have left is faith. Any if you have faith in our cities being flooded and fertile lands turned to a desert and so on, then you should live your life accordingly. Of course, just like those who put their faith in God or something like that, you could be just as right or wrong as they are.
Chrichton is right.
. Since most religious people will admit that there is no direct evidence for God, belief in God would decline drastically.
I always enjoy reading these kinds of posts because it shows how little many people understand of faith and of God. To those of faith every aspect of life as we know it evidence of God's existance:
* That we exist. For motion to exist there must be a prime mover.
* The sophistication of life and nature.
* Beauty and ugliness.
* Serendipidous events that often determine our situation in life.
You see the scientific method isn't fundamentally incompatible with faith - but it cannot be blinded by it. Science requires that we look to the results of assertions proven by controled experiments. Faith requires that we assume a particular belief without the benefit of detailed, verified proof often because the subject is too complex, or simply does not lend itself to the scientific method.
With respect to environmentalism, in particular global warming believers, in many respects, it is more of a faith than a science. You see to truly be scientific, it requires that an assertion be proven through controled experimentation. And I'm not aware of a planet size lab that would give science the ability to even begin to perform what would be true scientific work.
So we're left, much like those in the realm of the religous with huge assertions, a mass of uncomprehendable data with nearly infinite variables.
Chrichton is right that global warming and little green men are in the same boat: it's easy to accept that there may be life out there for many BUT THERE IS NO SCIENTIFIC PROOF THAT IS THE CASE.
As for me, I'm not sure why this global warming matters so much. Even if it does exist, is it caused by anything I or mankind can control?
In a couple of hundred years we'll know for sure if he was stupid :)
Lumping global warming with little green men seems like the stupidest thing I have heard in a long time.
It's hard when someone takes something you belive in on faith and trashes isn't it?
BTW over 90% of americans believe in god.
LOLx4. You have no problem trashing what others take on faith though. Hypocrite.
I picked up Packet 8 two weeks ago at home. I just fired the phone company. Packet 8 is easy - works fine and appears to be pretty damn reliable. The only real issues I've seen are:
* Doesn't work with the power out.
* Dependent on the cable company.
* If I take my terminal adapter with me, 911 will dial the response center close to my phone number.
I also like the way the bill breaks out:
$15 - basic cable service - from the cable company
$35 - high speed internet - from the cable company
$20.90 - Packet 8 + tax
----------
$70.90 - Total cost, phone, cable tv, interet
Before the bill was ridiculous:
$15 - basic cable
$35 - hs internet
$27 - local phone line
$30 - long distance
$15 - taxes on local phone line and long distance
-----------------------
$122 - Total cost, phone, cable tv, internet
Basically, I am now not paying for a bunch of marketing, slamming and marked up taxes!
If the infrastructure needs to be upgraded, someone will have to pay for it, and I don't think VoIP companies should then be absolved from participating, being the cause of that upgrade.
Wrong. If my ISP has to upgrade their capacity, then they will increase my internet bill. Likewise with the T-1 guys. And so on. Why should a data service that runs on top of my telecom and internet services pay the telecom god?
As a consumer, I can't see at all your logic. And frankly a growth in demand for bandwidth is good for telecom. Good for ISP and good for consumer.
Call in the gov'ment regulators and union reps, and you can watch your IT jobs disappear twice as quickly. Just look what unionizing did to our manufacturing jobs.
What part of unionization didn't you like? The safe working conditions? Perhaps the concept of no forced overtime? How about fair wages (i.e. same wages for the same experience in the same job)? What about better benefits like health insurance? How about requiring that management actually negotiate rather than dictate working conditions? What about making people actually want to work in factories because those jobs enabled people to join the middle class? I guess unions had nothing to do with the US's industrial success from 1930-2004. Of course, I shouldn't say this as I own my own company.
As for regulation, the problem is that you can outsource IT to countries where our privacy, accountability and civil tort system don't apply. Global outsourcing is dangerous and it needs to be regulated on that basis alone. A side effect is that in regulating, the government would create barriers to entry to the US IT market that would protect US workers for a few years.
usual channels for a New Program Installation proposal to the IT department remain open.
Tell that to the CEO or SVP Finance. Some users are more equal than others.
I am so sick of hearing tech workers whine about loosing their jobs to outsourcing. Yes it is a problem. Yes it is unjust. Here's the travesty:
It's our own damn fault.
IT workers have allowed themselves to be pushed around by business owners because of their high wages/salaries. At the end of the day the result is ugly:
* Entire business units with at will contracts
* No established standards on who can do the work
* No use of worker leverage to get better working conditions.
Here are three solutions:
1) Get laws passed requiring foreign companies to be held to US standards for handling data. Restrict outsourcing only to nations willing to play by our rules - like HIPPAA, Fair Credit Reporting act etc.
2) Unionize. Get collective bargaining agreements that offer a level of protection against unfair labor practices and ensure fair working conditions (none of that emergency saturday meeting to test loyalty thing). Mass layoffs and other job actions become a little more difficult as workers have to be paid per the CBA rather than individually negotiated. CBAs also allow the union a say when outsourcing occurs. Unions aren't tough to start, either. Call the US NLRB for mor info.
3) Establish licensing requirments. Construction workers (who really aren't that far off from IT Contractors) have been very good at getting better wages, conditions, etc in a business where people are a dime a dozen and you can use foreign workers.
Neither KDE nor Gnome is ready to be the only choice . Both are very very good compared to what we had four or five years ago, and both offer developers quite a bit. Unfortunately, some Linux apps are dependent on QT and others on Gnome, and ultimately, it's a showstopper when joe user wants to install software and discovers they can't (or it is difficult) because of dependencies on a library that is part of KDE or Gnome and they don't have it and cant get it because the IT dept won't let them.
"Trust us, we're the government" doesn't carry any weight these days.
Acually, it never did and it never will. In the case of democracy, the people must NEVER give in to government for voting systems that are not accountable, accurate and reliable. Diebold's #@$@ machines are none of the above.
Call me back when all these online music peddlers are able to compete on price... Oh wait, the music industry would never fix prices.
I think you have a lot to learn about politics young man.
:)
This is the first time someone's called me young in a long time