One banner ad displayed, one email address databased.... ahhhh. Isn't the meaningless fiction of internet polling fun? I have to shake my head when I see any sort of polling these days-it's jsut so much more important to know WHY do people believe what they believe, not just tally broad opinions. Maybe the poll should ask quiz questions to make sure people have even read the judge's ruling, or know anything about the case. But even that doesn't tell us who's a FUD addict and who has a reasoned opinion on why Microsoft should be left alone. The current obsession with polls like these are the same sort of thing that has people talking more about how well a movie grossed rather than how good the movie was. Bah!
IT's actually not likely that the Supreme Court would hear this case. Finding of fact, and... can you name the constitutional issue involved? I can, but they're all heavily in favor of a ruling against Microsoft... Unless Rehnquist is feeling REALLY cocky.
Uh, so why are you insulting me- we aren't disagreeing. All I'm saying is that unlike what Don implies, this is NOT the deathblow ruling from the government as a matter of illegal monopoly law. As you note though, it makes filing and winning civil lawsuits against M$ much much much easier, because their monopoly is no longer a legal matter of argument. Think of that- they CANNOT make the argument in court that they aren't a monopoly! If they so much as hint that they aren't the judge can rebuke them on the spot! That's like OJ not being able to claim that he wasn't in the house when his wife was killed. This will hurt them a lot.
But Jackson also ruled that Microsoft abused it's monopoly power. So it IS a "naughty" ruling. he can rule anything he wants, but because it was a finding of fact, not criminality, it isn't itself the deathblow ruling or sentancing. That may be much more certain now, but still not assured.
I may be wrong on this, but the judge ruled that Microsoft was a monopoly. As much as we'd like it to be, that's not illegal- case law has shown that companies are perfectly within their rights to attain a monopoly as long as they do it competitivaly, which M$ will now be trying VERY hard to prove that they did. This judge was authorized to rule on findings of fact, which was basically limited to whether or not M$ was a monopoly or not, NOT whether it was an illegal monopoly or not. That gets decided later, and a different question of law. So even if this ruling implies that Microsoft was "naughty" the judge isn't yet empowered to legally rule on that (he can say so all he wants, but that's not the ruling, just like Supreme Court justices go on and on about things that may not bear on their actual findings).
Considering that this thing uses wheels, I'm not sure it'll be as effective as it might immediately seem. We mostly see slugs on pavement, but they mostly hang out in the sides of things, under leaves, in rocky places- things that wheeled robots are going to have a bit of difficulty navigating.
No, Government allocation is just as lousy, not to mention chock full of moral hazards. Yes, the stock market basically does decide where society invests it's captial. The reason you can justify the supposedly overvalued tech stocks is, of course, that people think they'll pay off BIG time in the future. We, via bank loans and direct investment, are supporting these companies almost entirely out of thin air. This is a CHOICE that society has made, and it could have put it's money into other things. Not deliberate choice, but rather herd-like. I don't like the idea of anyone being in control either, but the market incentives in stock markets are too screwed up for free market magic to work correctly. Let's say it's 1800. I stand up and say that I'm going to start an internet company- there may not be an internet yet, or electricity, but I'm just starting early. Should you invest in me? I mean I WILL make huge amounts of money SOMETIME in the future, but is it really a great use of societies' productive resources to support me for 200 years? No. The same thing to a much smaller extent is happening here. There are alternatives, such as democraticaly invested, non-inheritable shares. This would give everyone an equal say in what the economy does, instead of these HUGE, untankable funds that we have to continually bail out with our tax money.
I remember reading a Salon article about how the Dow and M$ weren't getting along very well recently- M$ got really pissed at something the Dow people published about them- anyone remember what happened? It seemed a little fishy to me, but I can't recall...
In many cases, it looks like the Asian bug hasn't taught anyone much of anything. Even super developed Japan still can't get the basics of macro controls down (though that's much more to do with the messy state of coalition politics there)! Though keep in mind that transparency doesn't stop speculation, and regulation doesn't insure wise investment decisions, or optimal social outcomes- too many externalities, and too many purely speculative concerns. Part of the reason so much of the really "risky" traders are interested in those markets is precisely because they are so screwed up and susceptible to manipulation. That's how we get crazy things like George Soros litterally begging the world to protect itself from people like him!
And yet, people still think that stock markets are a great way for society to decide how to invest it's time and resources. It's not democratic, and it's very obviously not even pragmatic. So what is it? A casino in which the more money you have, the more likely you are to win. And now all these companies like AmeriTrade are trying to get smaller traders into the game? Sure- pour in your money! Pour in half of the Social Security funds! Anything to keep those meaningless values from tanking!
Looking over this article I'm not greatly impressed. Stock values and gaining/losing money are just too hard to gauge without an extremely rigorous model, and this guy hasn't impressed me, or mentioned much I hadn't already heard about. Many very intelligent people have serious arguments about the financial health of entire countries like China, and no one really has "the answer." But I DO know from personal experience that his complaint about the media is definately true- it's kind of sad too. It's not so much that Microsoft is a major advertiser, but rather that the econ/financial divisions of most major media outlets have lately been unapologetic "rah-rah" guys for the stock market in general, and put far too much faith in it reflecting actual economic value. It's not a conspiracy, it's just that most of these reporters are heavily invested, both personally and financially, in the very markets they review, they see everything getting better and better, and get irritated with people trying to point out dangerous bubbles or potential instability. They also don't believe that rich people would EVER be duplictitious. Oh well, the future is a crap shoot- maybe they're right. (but hey- they're not:) )
Hey moderators- I'm getting REALLY irritated when I see people with unpopular or uncommon opinions rated as flamebait. And this isn't "offtopic" either- it's a comment on the silly moderation done to the above post.
To be perfectly callous, the issue isn't just privacy. The difference is the extent of information they can get without my direct consent, and the potential revenue this accrues to them. If they want my personal info they should PAY for it, because they're going to make money off of it one way or another. I have a legal right to my information, and if people want to send me advertisements, or even use my info for statistical purposes, I have a right to demand some sort of compensation. By them covertly secreting info, they are, in effect stealing it. Now, of course, I'm being completely silly here, because currently it's very little info that's available, and they aren't doing anything with it (not to mention that I don't use RealJukebox- I use the much sleeker various AMPs). But these sorts of efforts by software companies are just testing the waters- you can't tell me that they wouldn't LOVE to someday be able to sell my personal info, spy on my activities, or profit off of it some way without my knowledge or paying me for it. Why shouldn't I raise my voice now so to determine how things will go in the future?
It's actually quite amusing, because most of the "ghost" proof photos are really just very common jpeg compression and aliasing artifacts. I see stuff like that all the time when working on low bandwidth graphic designs: Look! That (--edited out for legal reasons--) company logo is waving at me!
Like too many news articles this days, this one was just filled with bland moralizing and "teaching" language. And the number one "hack" of all time is the movie "War Games?" What? I'm getting sick and tired of "reports" that merely express what people are suppose to think about a subject under the cover of "informing" them. Bah. Not worth the read- any slashdotter could give you a more interesting, historically accurate, and comprehensive list.
Should I penalized for my browser crashing after hitting the submit button? And then trying to submit it again (slashdot doesn't update new articles every second- I didn't see it there, I assumed it hadn't gone through)? Sniff sniff- I'm really hurt.
"You'll find the highest quality sites fast, and without a fuss." I'd call this garbage a fuss. What else could anyone call it? Again- not a big deal at all- but possibily portentious of policy to come.
"You'll find the highest quality sites fast, and without a fuss." I'd call this garbage a fuss. What else could anyone possibly call it? Again- not a big deal at all- but possibily portentious of policy to come.
What do you really think of Google then? I've personally always had much better success with google, mostly because it don't get as much "the same damn site 50 times in a row" problem. But anecdotal evidence is not useful- what's the stats: alta or google? Or are they each better for different sorts of searches?
But don't you think this could a disturbing precedent? Part of the appeal of the web is the "you CAN get there from here" mentality. And you should be able to do it without getting preached at. Sure, this is probably harmless- but think about the way media companies tend to operate- I bet that within a decade or so, if major regulatory efforts aren't made (and they probably wont be) most major search engines will have parent company owners. Lycos could easily end up part of Viacom. When searching for another media company on Lycos, would you really want a sales pitch thrown back at you, and a long maze to navigate before finding your link? This is another rumble of something big- will the ethos of the web survive under corporate ownership? If the journalistic integrity of most modern multinational/subsidiary/commercial press orgs is any indication- it'll definately suffer FAIR ain't the best themselves, but they have the right idea...
click here to search for yahoo on lycos You get their page asking you to please consider them first. Read through as tears come to your eyes. Then- after they're done pitching to you, they finally say, basically: "Okay, if you still want to search for Yahoo on Lycos, click here. Guess where this link takes you? Read through again as tears come to your eyes....
not "faster" and "cheaper" in the sense that people using them do it faster and cheaper, but rather that the computers can replace the people altogether. This doesn't increase human productivtity, which is the only thing that increases living standards.
The Solow paradox is certainly not gospel. And even if it IS true, it may very well be BECAUSE of buggy software killing as much time as it saves. The paradox actually makes the most sense like this: computers are great at replacing back office workers- they do the work about as fast and as efficiently, and so they don't affect back office productivity in the long run, but they are way cheaper. As for non back office computer tasks, the problem is that most real economic capital generating tasks aren't just organizing your rolodex, but rather coming up with good ideas and solutions to problems. Computers don't really aid that task too much either, and if people spend too much time fooling around with getting their Outlook and desktop settings configured just right, instead of thinking and writing- well, then that's the Solow paradox in force. But what computers do change, without ANY doubt, is the end quality of the work. It's better looking, organized, smelling, and tasting.
For what it did, it didn't drop my system performance much at all. As a future holy grail for the precise and realistic 3d engine, however, I'm rather skeptical. The horrible mouse interface (pretty random as far as what dragging in any given direction does) in the demo makes it very hard to tell, but this method of iterative equations seems to have a problem- no consistently accurate solid 3d shapes. Sizes and relative shapes seem to stretch around far too much with a change of perspective. And I imagine that really beautiful, fractal and super-complex at any distance of viewing images that this tech could create wouldn't stay consistent as you move around. Apparent textures would swin all over the place. Maybe this is just a limitation of the demo, or my flawed analysis of the tech. But the reason polygon engines (or voxel engines!) are so popular is that they have consistent world geometry that works intuitively from any angle of viewing, making it well suited for virtual reality in which you can interact- even at the high speeds of quake-style games. This engine might turn out to be better suited for acid trip-heads than Quake4...
In my professional opinion as a janitor, I think that theory is a little weak on the evidence. Even if a huge mass was deflecting comets from the Oort cloud, why exactly would they consistently hit Earth every 20 million years? There's a lot of empty space out there- even if a whole legion of comets got sent our way, they would have much more chance of hitting us than shooting a bunch of electrons at a nucleus.
Slashdot Mirror
One banner ad displayed, one email address databased.... ahhhh. Isn't the meaningless fiction of internet polling fun? I have to shake my head when I see any sort of polling these days-it's jsut so much more important to know WHY do people believe what they believe, not just tally broad opinions. Maybe the poll should ask quiz questions to make sure people have even read the judge's ruling, or know anything about the case. But even that doesn't tell us who's a FUD addict and who has a reasoned opinion on why Microsoft should be left alone. The current obsession with polls like these are the same sort of thing that has people talking more about how well a movie grossed rather than how good the movie was. Bah!
IT's actually not likely that the Supreme Court would hear this case. Finding of fact, and... can you name the constitutional issue involved? I can, but they're all heavily in favor of a ruling against Microsoft... Unless Rehnquist is feeling REALLY cocky.
Uh, so why are you insulting me- we aren't disagreeing. All I'm saying is that unlike what Don implies, this is NOT the deathblow ruling from the government as a matter of illegal monopoly law. As you note though, it makes filing and winning civil lawsuits against M$ much much much easier, because their monopoly is no longer a legal matter of argument. Think of that- they CANNOT make the argument in court that they aren't a monopoly! If they so much as hint that they aren't the judge can rebuke them on the spot! That's like OJ not being able to claim that he wasn't in the house when his wife was killed. This will hurt them a lot.
But Jackson also ruled that Microsoft abused it's monopoly power. So it IS a "naughty" ruling. he can rule anything he wants, but because it was a finding of fact, not criminality, it isn't itself the deathblow ruling or sentancing. That may be much more certain now, but still not assured.
I may be wrong on this, but the judge ruled that Microsoft was a monopoly. As much as we'd like it to be, that's not illegal- case law has shown that companies are perfectly within their rights to attain a monopoly as long as they do it competitivaly, which M$ will now be trying VERY hard to prove that they did. This judge was authorized to rule on findings of fact, which was basically limited to whether or not M$ was a monopoly or not, NOT whether it was an illegal monopoly or not. That gets decided later, and a different question of law. So even if this ruling implies that Microsoft was "naughty" the judge isn't yet empowered to legally rule on that (he can say so all he wants, but that's not the ruling, just like Supreme Court justices go on and on about things that may not bear on their actual findings).
Considering that this thing uses wheels, I'm not sure it'll be as effective as it might immediately seem. We mostly see slugs on pavement, but they mostly hang out in the sides of things, under leaves, in rocky places- things that wheeled robots are going to have a bit of difficulty navigating.
No, Government allocation is just as lousy, not to mention chock full of moral hazards. Yes, the stock market basically does decide where society invests it's captial. The reason you can justify the supposedly overvalued tech stocks is, of course, that people think they'll pay off BIG time in the future. We, via bank loans and direct investment, are supporting these companies almost entirely out of thin air. This is a CHOICE that society has made, and it could have put it's money into other things. Not deliberate choice, but rather herd-like. I don't like the idea of anyone being in control either, but the market incentives in stock markets are too screwed up for free market magic to work correctly. Let's say it's 1800. I stand up and say that I'm going to start an internet company- there may not be an internet yet, or electricity, but I'm just starting early. Should you invest in me? I mean I WILL make huge amounts of money SOMETIME in the future, but is it really a great use of societies' productive resources to support me for 200 years? No. The same thing to a much smaller extent is happening here. There are alternatives, such as democraticaly invested, non-inheritable shares. This would give everyone an equal say in what the economy does, instead of these HUGE, untankable funds that we have to continually bail out with our tax money.
I remember reading a Salon article about how the Dow and M$ weren't getting along very well recently- M$ got really pissed at something the Dow people published about them- anyone remember what happened? It seemed a little fishy to me, but I can't recall...
In many cases, it looks like the Asian bug hasn't taught anyone much of anything. Even super developed Japan still can't get the basics of macro controls down (though that's much more to do with the messy state of coalition politics there)! Though keep in mind that transparency doesn't stop speculation, and regulation doesn't insure wise investment decisions, or optimal social outcomes- too many externalities, and too many purely speculative concerns. Part of the reason so much of the really "risky" traders are interested in those markets is precisely because they are so screwed up and susceptible to manipulation. That's how we get crazy things like George Soros litterally begging the world to protect itself from people like him!
And yet, people still think that stock markets are a great way for society to decide how to invest it's time and resources. It's not democratic, and it's very obviously not even pragmatic. So what is it? A casino in which the more money you have, the more likely you are to win. And now all these companies like AmeriTrade are trying to get smaller traders into the game? Sure- pour in your money! Pour in half of the Social Security funds! Anything to keep those meaningless values from tanking!
Looking over this article I'm not greatly impressed. Stock values and gaining/losing money are just too hard to gauge without an extremely rigorous model, and this guy hasn't impressed me, or mentioned much I hadn't already heard about. Many very intelligent people have serious arguments about the financial health of entire countries like China, and no one really has "the answer." But I DO know from personal experience that his complaint about the media is definately true- it's kind of sad too. It's not so much that Microsoft is a major advertiser, but rather that the econ/financial divisions of most major media outlets have lately been unapologetic "rah-rah" guys for the stock market in general, and put far too much faith in it reflecting actual economic value. It's not a conspiracy, it's just that most of these reporters are heavily invested, both personally and financially, in the very markets they review, they see everything getting better and better, and get irritated with people trying to point out dangerous bubbles or potential instability. They also don't believe that rich people would EVER be duplictitious. Oh well, the future is a crap shoot- maybe they're right. (but hey- they're not :) )
Hey moderators- I'm getting REALLY irritated when I see people with unpopular or uncommon opinions rated as flamebait. And this isn't "offtopic" either- it's a comment on the silly moderation done to the above post.
To be perfectly callous, the issue isn't just privacy. The difference is the extent of information they can get without my direct consent, and the potential revenue this accrues to them. If they want my personal info they should PAY for it, because they're going to make money off of it one way or another. I have a legal right to my information, and if people want to send me advertisements, or even use my info for statistical purposes, I have a right to demand some sort of compensation. By them covertly secreting info, they are, in effect stealing it. Now, of course, I'm being completely silly here, because currently it's very little info that's available, and they aren't doing anything with it (not to mention that I don't use RealJukebox- I use the much sleeker various AMPs). But these sorts of efforts by software companies are just testing the waters- you can't tell me that they wouldn't LOVE to someday be able to sell my personal info, spy on my activities, or profit off of it some way without my knowledge or paying me for it. Why shouldn't I raise my voice now so to determine how things will go in the future?
It's actually quite amusing, because most of the "ghost" proof photos are really just very common jpeg compression and aliasing artifacts. I see stuff like that all the time when working on low bandwidth graphic designs: Look! That (--edited out for legal reasons--) company logo is waving at me!
Like too many news articles this days, this one was just filled with bland moralizing and "teaching" language. And the number one "hack" of all time is the movie "War Games?" What? I'm getting sick and tired of "reports" that merely express what people are suppose to think about a subject under the cover of "informing" them. Bah. Not worth the read- any slashdotter could give you a more interesting, historically accurate, and comprehensive list.
Should I penalized for my browser crashing after hitting the submit button? And then trying to submit it again (slashdot doesn't update new articles every second- I didn't see it there, I assumed it hadn't gone through)? Sniff sniff- I'm really hurt.
"You'll find the highest quality sites fast, and without a fuss." I'd call this garbage a fuss. What else could anyone call it? Again- not a big deal at all- but possibily portentious of policy to come.
"You'll find the highest quality sites fast, and without a fuss." I'd call this garbage a fuss. What else could anyone possibly call it? Again- not a big deal at all- but possibily portentious of policy to come.
What do you really think of Google then? I've personally always had much better success with google, mostly because it don't get as much "the same damn site 50 times in a row" problem. But anecdotal evidence is not useful- what's the stats: alta or google? Or are they each better for different sorts of searches?
But don't you think this could a disturbing precedent? Part of the appeal of the web is the "you CAN get there from here" mentality. And you should be able to do it without getting preached at. Sure, this is probably harmless- but think about the way media companies tend to operate- I bet that within a decade or so, if major regulatory efforts aren't made (and they probably wont be) most major search engines will have parent company owners. Lycos could easily end up part of Viacom. When searching for another media company on Lycos, would you really want a sales pitch thrown back at you, and a long maze to navigate before finding your link? This is another rumble of something big- will the ethos of the web survive under corporate ownership? If the journalistic integrity of most modern multinational/subsidiary/commercial press orgs is any indication- it'll definately suffer FAIR ain't the best themselves, but they have the right idea...
click here to search for yahoo on lycos You get their page asking you to please consider them first. Read through as tears come to your eyes. Then- after they're done pitching to you, they finally say, basically: "Okay, if you still want to search for Yahoo on Lycos, click here. Guess where this link takes you? Read through again as tears come to your eyes....
not "faster" and "cheaper" in the sense that people using them do it faster and cheaper, but rather that the computers can replace the people altogether. This doesn't increase human productivtity, which is the only thing that increases living standards.
The Solow paradox is certainly not gospel. And even if it IS true, it may very well be BECAUSE of buggy software killing as much time as it saves. The paradox actually makes the most sense like this: computers are great at replacing back office workers- they do the work about as fast and as efficiently, and so they don't affect back office productivity in the long run, but they are way cheaper. As for non back office computer tasks, the problem is that most real economic capital generating tasks aren't just organizing your rolodex, but rather coming up with good ideas and solutions to problems. Computers don't really aid that task too much either, and if people spend too much time fooling around with getting their Outlook and desktop settings configured just right, instead of thinking and writing- well, then that's the Solow paradox in force. But what computers do change, without ANY doubt, is the end quality of the work. It's better looking, organized, smelling, and tasting.
For what it did, it didn't drop my system performance much at all. As a future holy grail for the precise and realistic 3d engine, however, I'm rather skeptical. The horrible mouse interface (pretty random as far as what dragging in any given direction does) in the demo makes it very hard to tell, but this method of iterative equations seems to have a problem- no consistently accurate solid 3d shapes. Sizes and relative shapes seem to stretch around far too much with a change of perspective. And I imagine that really beautiful, fractal and super-complex at any distance of viewing images that this tech could create wouldn't stay consistent as you move around. Apparent textures would swin all over the place. Maybe this is just a limitation of the demo, or my flawed analysis of the tech. But the reason polygon engines (or voxel engines!) are so popular is that they have consistent world geometry that works intuitively from any angle of viewing, making it well suited for virtual reality in which you can interact- even at the high speeds of quake-style games. This engine might turn out to be better suited for acid trip-heads than Quake4...
In my professional opinion as a janitor, I think that theory is a little weak on the evidence. Even if a huge mass was deflecting comets from the Oort cloud, why exactly would they consistently hit Earth every 20 million years? There's a lot of empty space out there- even if a whole legion of comets got sent our way, they would have much more chance of hitting us than shooting a bunch of electrons at a nucleus.