If I'm reading things correctly, I see three neat things about this protocol extension, which I will call, for the sake of argument, BILL.
1: Both the client (IE) and the server (IIS) can fall back to standard HTTP if the other side isn't BILL compliant.
2: The change is trivial in that it isn't very secret. Therefore, developers can make their own BILL-compliant servers and clients (or simply strap BILL onto their current open-source servers and clients).
3: BILL/HTTP impedance mismatches aren't causing a huge screw-up, especially if the the server sends a complaint packet about the first request packet.
Given the above, the HTTP developers can respond to "Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish" with a simple Embrace. If I read it correctly, the Web would be faster as a whole that way.
While I'm annoyed that MS didn't publish this (or did they?) I'm actually glad they did this.
Never mind that Microsoft stops supporting it in year 2005. Wonder how a six year time span would have looked like...
A six year study would have shown upkeep to be even cheaper. In 2006, you would be incurring zero support costs, since MS won't be offering them. Of course, the machines may not actually [em]work[/em], but it would be cheaper.
Netscape 4 users can go fuck themselves, though. Seriously.
So, I guess you can't really browse the net with a mere Unix box, right? Last time I checked, most Unix machines and distros have NS4 as the default browser.
No, free/open source software doesn't stand to be shut down, rather it stands to gain tremendously. The problem is for companies like RedHat which sell and service open source software. So, form the commercial standpoint, it hurts linux companies who don't have billions to spend on lawyers, like er um, microsoft. But it doesn;t hurt open source software.
I don't even think that it will hurt Red Hat too badly. Normally (except in the case of injury or death), the vendor's liability for any product is limited to the purchase price. And Red Hat's business model is to make money off the consulting services, not particularly off the CD distributions. So they should be able to cover small claims on this front. And remember, even if a huge company installs it on 250 machines and sues, they probably only bought one copy, so the liability is still small.
Even better, the way lemon laws work gives the vendor an option: return the purchase price or fix the problem to a customer's satisfaction. If an Open Source vendor runs into a huge bug with hundreds or thousands of claims, they are also likely to have a small army of developers (which they don't have to pay) working on fixing it. And so, they can get the fix, and distribute the patch to settle the claims. Customers like that even more than getting their money back.
One of the things I have long not understood about this country's legal system is the notion that you are suddenly old enough to do things at certain ages.
This is the law trying to do something close to the right thing because the right thing is either ludicrously hard or it is impossible.
In a perfect world, the minor/adult status of somebody should be based on their mental and emotional maturity. Some achieve that at age 16, others wait until 24, yet others never get there.
But how do you measure maturity? I certainly know of no objective test, and doubt that one exists. Without a test, the law cannot base a decision on mental and emotional maturity.
What the law can do is use a less accurate, but more objective, test of maturity. That test is chronological maturity. Basically, it's the most accurate standard the law can objectively use.
In short: I agree that going by years past birth is a lousy yardstick. I can't think of a better one that could be used in court. Can you?
Would this allow a machine built ten years from today to crack keys of today's size? If so, this will become a risk for those who use crypto to store sensitive information for long periods of time.
This isn't exactly a geek reference, but another way to look at Farenheit 451. On the Disney channel, there was an episode of The Famous Jett Jackson where Mr. Jackson's home town declared the book Farenheit 451 itself forbidden reading, on the grounds that it promotes defiance of authority. A group of high school students smuggle in some copies and stage a read-in protest, and things go on from there.
I only caught part of the episode myself. If you can, I suggest seeing it and possibly getting permission to show it to your students. The nature of the story makes it 451 in a nutshell, and might draw students into the actual book.
In the US, bartending requires a license, which requires training. Patrons are fully responsible for their actions (if one gets pulled over for drunk driving, they can't pass the buck to the bar), but the bar and the bartender are at least partially responsible for making sure that inebriated patrons don't get behind the wheel.
That is to say, if somebody gets sloshed at a bar and then T-bones you on the street, you can file two different lawsuits. You can sue the driver, who is fully responsible for driving drunk. You can also sue the bar if they didn't take reasonable precautions to prevent it (like offering to call a cab, asking for the keys, etc.). The bar can't keep you from driving drunk, but it has to put some effort into trying.
So under US alcohol law, drinkers are fully responsible for their actions. The bartenders are responsible for their actions as well; the act of serving drinks.
I don't know much about European unions besides what I was tought in school in the early '80s, but my impression is that they fulfill a different function in the US than in Europe.
The US has a more lassiez-faire economy than most European nations, so corporations have much easier hire/fire rules than in Europe. American unions exist to create collective bargaining by attempting to create monopolies of labor. This gives industry workers some (some would argue too much) leverage when hashing out contracts. Thus, if you need to hire a fleet of trucks, you won't be playing one trucker against another for the lowest per-mile rate, you'll be dealing with the Teamsters and playing by their rules.
At least, if you do that, the rich candidates that do run will be influenced by their own consciences and their constituents. This is a big deal better than Big [Oil|Tobacco|Software|Media] throwing so much money around in so many different directions that, no matter who you vote for, they've already been bought off.
I think this is one of the reasons that the e-commerce boom went bust.
As has been pointed out before, there is market share and there is profit. And in the software and online biz, the mantra of "Market share is king" has been repeated so often that many in the biz (including myself) were believing it.
Of course, in the world of business, "Profit is king". Some companies thought that they had escaped the laws of business. They were wrong.
E-commerce went bust because everybody was scrambling after market share, trying to monopolize their own small market. Amazon showed us this strategy, and everybody follows it. The problem is that there can only be one market share winner, and that winner has no guarantee of making a profit (does Amazon show profits yet?
Apple reminds us that one can survive, and thrive, in a niche market so long as one makes sure to see profits. Most markets have a combination of big "whale" companies (McDonald's, Honda, Daimler-Chrysler, Boeing) and little niche companies (many local one-off restaurants, Rolls-Royce, Cessna). And in a big enough market, both big and little companies can turn profits.
I suspect that we, the geeks (or the autistic or AG or what have you) may be evolving, but not as a replacement to the non-geeky human. IMHO, we are the symbiote.
I can't imagine a full geek culture succeeding. Maybe Microsoft is the biggest geek culture ever created. But could you really make a geek city, not just a work campus? I think such a city would collapse under its own weight. What does Silicon Valley need in non-geek people just to keep the peace and froth the latte?
I think that you could build a civilization without geeks, but you can build a better one with them. Maybe geeks will evolve their own culture beyond Slashdot and Hot Grits, but the culture will be in the context of a bigger, non-geek culture. I don't think that you could separate the two types any more than you can seperate the two genders.
The Microsoft monopoly is one of the Internet's biggest security holes.
In a competitive OS environment, security would be a selling point in today's new world. But it isn't. All these Word and Outlook viruses are Microsoft-specific.
Microsoft products are regularly cracked for two reasons. The first is that, being a monopoly, they are ubiquitous. If Yale was the only company in the nation making padlocks, criminals would only study Yale padlocks and learn to crack them, no matter how well they were built.
The second is that Microsoft is not particularly security-conscious. The road to Windows started in DOS, which needed no security--it couldn't be networked! All the DOS-based Windows--3.1, 95, 98, ME--either have no security or had security put in after the fact. Only Windows NT, 2000, and (perhaps, I don't know) XP were built with security in mind at the beginning.
Even with that, Microsoft has made a conscious decision to promote ease of use over security. It's always a trade off: security is obnoxious. If you don't believe me, think back to the last time you misplaced your car keys. Microsoft's decision has been wonderful in giving the average user unprecedented access to information, but just as wonderful in giving the average computer criminal unprecedented access to everyone else's information.
DoJ vs. Microsoft is still going on, last I checked. Anything that creates competition in the OS market will help secure the Internet. Vendors are likely to make security a selling point, and criminals will have to learn to crack multiple platforms to commit their crimes.
I'll make a stronger statement on that. Any attempt to require back doors on encryption (e.g. the Clipper Chip) will significantly increase our risk exposure. Let me illustrate.
A back door is really a master key. Government back door schemes require the encryption to have a back door key, and for the government to have that key.
If you're paranoid about the government like I am, you can see where giving it the master key can ruin your day. But even assuming that the government is all white hat, you're still in deep trouble.
That master key is worth hundreds of millions of dollars in the right hands. Organized crime could use that key to commit credit card fraud on millions of credit cards. This is also a great way for terrorists to get funding. Depending on the crypto scheme, it could be used to forge communications, rerouting shipments. If I had the Master Key and needed a couple of hundred pounds of plastic explosive, that would be my first idea.
And that key can't be kept very secure if it's being used. Thousands of people, whether law enforcement officials or court officials, will have access to that key. Out of a thousand people, somebody's going to be bribable for a mere one or two million dollars. Or be required to hand over the key to get their loved ones back. Or write down their password and have their office computer broken into. It won't be too hard for a determined criminal to get that master key.
I am a big fan of crypto, but I would honestly prefer no crypto to back door crypto. At least if you have no crypto you know you're not being spied on.
How is IT as safe as a car? You're totally unprotected on an IT, just like on a scooter or a bike.
A Segway can be used as a car for certain short-run applications. Its safety comes from the fact that you don't have to put it out on the street where two-ton metal things are going to slam into you at 30+ miles an hour. Sure, you can fall off, you can bump into other things or people at 5 mph, but I'd rather take my unprotected body into a brick wall at 5 mph than go car-vs-car at 30 mph each.
Segway is safer than a car because walking is safer than a car. Cars have steel frames and safety features up the wazoo because speed kills--double the speed, quadruple the hurt. Segway is safe because it's slow.
Given the times, I suggest reading Herbert's [em]The White Plague[/em]. The story is much more frightening today, once we find ourselves dealing with Anthrax.
Besides communicators, the original Star Trek had some other influences on technology.
I've been told from a retired Navy man that control rooms on latter-day vessels are based on the Enterprise model, which didn't exist until the show did. Previously, key combat stations (such as the helm and tactical) were not in the same room as the skipper. Note: I have not been able to confirm or deny this story; anybody else want to?
In the original series, whenever one character handed another character computer data, the prop they used was a brightly colored square wafer. IMHO, it looked 3.5" on a side--The microfloppy.
Again, unconfirmed: did the taser descend from the "stun" setting on the phaser? Trek showed just how useful it was to have a less-lethal weapon.
The military uses needle-less pneumatic hypodermic injectors to do mass injections--perhaps lining up a regiment to all get a Tetanus booster or something. How is this related to McCoy's spray hypo? I'm not sure.
Finally, a case of ST influencing technobabble rather than technology itself. Under the Unix operating system, the graphics package (X11) easily allows for one computer to run a program, but for its windows to appear on another machine's display. This is often referred to as "Beaming the app over", based on terminology for the transporter.
Most retailers expect a 100% markup on what they sell - that is, the retailer expects to pay $7.50 to $11.50 for a CD that will sell for $15 to $22. When it comes down to it, the record companies may be greedy, but not so much as the retailers, who skim larger profit margins from the sale of CD's than do the record companies.
Yup, but look at their expenses.
I used to work stock at a Caldor's (defunct discount store). They grossed about $20K per day. I have to guess that, at any time, they had no less than fifteen employees on duty--some at the checkout, some visible in certain departments, and some busy in the back loading stock. Assuming the store is open for 12 hours a day, that means that they have to pay for $600 in payroll. Assume $10.00 per hour (in paycheck, plus employer-side social security taxes, plus benefits packages), and you are spending $6K per day in payroll. With 100% markup, your $20K in sales cost you $10K in merchandise, so now you're down to $4K margin on the day.
From that $4K/day, subtract the advertising budget, PITI payments on over a million dollars of building, parking lot, and land, consider shrink (missing inventory--often theft from your employees), unsellable returns, and utility bills, and how much is left? Not bloody much.
Retailers take a lot of gross margin, but not a lot of net margin. When many hands touch the merchandise, all that money goes many ways.
The fact is, it took a lot of people to get you that CD you bought in the store. The artist, the studio techs, the CD burner people, the warehouse jockeys, the retail drones, a couple of OTR truckers--and they all have to eat. So everybody gets a little piece of the sale.
I'm not saying that one or two people in the supply chain don't get a large piece of the sale, but it's not always as large as you might think.
"Microsoft has been convicted of raping the customer and the industry. A settlement has been reached. Please bend over, and let Microsoft do it right this time."
I understand globalism as a tendancy towards fewer and larger soveriegn governments. I see two problems with the concept. One is a problem with the theory, one is a problem with the way it is currently practiced.
The first problem (the one with the theory) is an attempt to homogenize culture. Face it, most people like their culture, no matter what it is. Culture is usually not prescribed by the government, but is certainly influenced by it. On the other hand, cultural homogenization may be inevitable--more influenced by cheap transportation and communication than any political actions.
The second problem has to do with the way globalization is being done. I am a US citizen, and consider having a say in my government to be a divine right. Current globalization efforts include, IMHO, the UN, the WTO, and the EU. These agencies, these super-governments (for lack of a better term) don't answer to people, they answer to governments. This removes the person further from the government imposing laws on him or her. I don't swear allegiance to the UN, I am not permitted to help elect its members, why should I answer to it? Why should my country's business laws be prescribed by the WTO, when I have no opportunity to vote the bums out?
This looks like a pure power steal. Global agencies are not directly accountable to people. If they were, if I could protest their policies peacefully at the ballot box rather than violently at protests (the only option we now have), I would have more patience with them.
Show me where, in the Constitution, one has a right to private communication with one's lawyer.
Sure.
Sixth amendment to the US Constitution:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
One cannot have the assistance of counsel for one's defense if one cannot speak freely with said counsel. That's why we have such things as "attorney-client privelege", so that you can speak with your attorney and know for certain that the attorney isn't going to come right back and screw you around with the information you gave him. Putting a third person (who is not on the defendant's side) in the loop prevents the defendant from saying certain things to his attorney. This in turn interferes with his guaranteed assistence of counsel.
I am pro-life...for people. For corporations, however, perhaps there should be a death penalty.
I'm not saying that somebody should strap Bill Gates to an electric chair, not at all.
I'm saying that Microsoft, legally and morally, should be dismantled.
Microsoft is a corporation, which means that they have articles of incorporation. That is, the government has given them a license above and beyond that of a normal person, to be publicly traded and to produce limited liabilities (you can't sue a corporation for more money than it has, but you can sue a person that way and garnish their wages).
Incorporation is not a right, it is a privelege. And when a privelege granted by the government is abused, it can and should be rescinded. It's just like taking a driver's license away from a drunk driver.
A court of law has ruled, and has been backed up by the US Supreme Court, that Microsoft is an illegal monopoly. The same courts have also ruled that Microsoft has wilfully ignored court orders--is in fact in contempt of federal courts. IMHO, Microsoft has shown that they believe themselves to be Above the Law.
When a person is given a court order (such as to stay 200 feet away from another person) and intentionally disobeys that order, they show that mere laws cannot stop them. As such, stronger forces are used--they are incarcerated, sentenced to jail.
Microsoft has shown that mere laws and court orders cannot stop them from doing whatever they please. As such, teeth are necessary.
Their articles of inrporation should be rescinded. The corporation has exceeded its lawful charter, and must not have the benefits of that charter.
Think about it. This freezes their stock--you can't trade stock on the open market anymore, how useful are those stock options in pulling in new employees?
Does this trample the rights of the shareholders? No. Their property (the stock, a percentage of Microsoft) cannot be taken away without due process of law. I see tremendous due process here, backed by the supreme court.
The DOJ is part of the executive branch, so its character changes with the president.
The DOJ didn't investigate Microsoft during Bush I. It started with Clinton. Now that Bush II is in office, he's not persuing antitrust action against Microsoft, so the DOJ is easing off.
The Republican party claims to be pro-big-business. Microsoft is as big business as it gets. Most Republicans aren't big on antitrust legislation at all, because it interferes with a big corporation's right to run unmolested.
The Democrat party claims to be pro-little-guy. Since Microsoft is perceived as trampling over the little guy (forget the users, the Little Guy is Netscape and Sun), Clinton had a vested interest in canning Microsoft.
Slashdot Mirror
If I'm reading things correctly, I see three neat things about this protocol extension, which I will call, for the sake of argument, BILL.
1: Both the client (IE) and the server (IIS) can fall back to standard HTTP if the other side isn't BILL compliant.
2: The change is trivial in that it isn't very secret. Therefore, developers can make their own BILL-compliant servers and clients (or simply strap BILL onto their current open-source servers and clients).
3: BILL/HTTP impedance mismatches aren't causing a huge screw-up, especially if the the server sends a complaint packet about the first request packet.
Given the above, the HTTP developers can respond to "Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish" with a simple Embrace. If I read it correctly, the Web would be faster as a whole that way.
While I'm annoyed that MS didn't publish this (or did they?) I'm actually glad they did this.
A six year study would have shown upkeep to be even cheaper. In 2006, you would be incurring zero support costs, since MS won't be offering them. Of course, the machines may not actually [em]work[/em], but it would be cheaper.
So, I guess you can't really browse the net with a mere Unix box, right? Last time I checked, most Unix machines and distros have NS4 as the default browser.
I don't even think that it will hurt Red Hat too badly. Normally (except in the case of injury or death), the vendor's liability for any product is limited to the purchase price. And Red Hat's business model is to make money off the consulting services, not particularly off the CD distributions. So they should be able to cover small claims on this front. And remember, even if a huge company installs it on 250 machines and sues, they probably only bought one copy, so the liability is still small.
Even better, the way lemon laws work gives the vendor an option: return the purchase price or fix the problem to a customer's satisfaction. If an Open Source vendor runs into a huge bug with hundreds or thousands of claims, they are also likely to have a small army of developers (which they don't have to pay) working on fixing it. And so, they can get the fix, and distribute the patch to settle the claims. Customers like that even more than getting their money back.
This is the law trying to do something close to the right thing because the right thing is either ludicrously hard or it is impossible.
In a perfect world, the minor/adult status of somebody should be based on their mental and emotional maturity. Some achieve that at age 16, others wait until 24, yet others never get there.
But how do you measure maturity? I certainly know of no objective test, and doubt that one exists. Without a test, the law cannot base a decision on mental and emotional maturity.
What the law can do is use a less accurate, but more objective, test of maturity. That test is chronological maturity. Basically, it's the most accurate standard the law can objectively use.
In short: I agree that going by years past birth is a lousy yardstick. I can't think of a better one that could be used in court. Can you?
Would this allow a machine built ten years from today to crack keys of today's size? If so, this will become a risk for those who use crypto to store sensitive information for long periods of time.
I only caught part of the episode myself. If you can, I suggest seeing it and possibly getting permission to show it to your students. The nature of the story makes it 451 in a nutshell, and might draw students into the actual book.
That is to say, if somebody gets sloshed at a bar and then T-bones you on the street, you can file two different lawsuits. You can sue the driver, who is fully responsible for driving drunk. You can also sue the bar if they didn't take reasonable precautions to prevent it (like offering to call a cab, asking for the keys, etc.). The bar can't keep you from driving drunk, but it has to put some effort into trying.
So under US alcohol law, drinkers are fully responsible for their actions. The bartenders are responsible for their actions as well; the act of serving drinks.
The US has a more lassiez-faire economy than most European nations, so corporations have much easier hire/fire rules than in Europe. American unions exist to create collective bargaining by attempting to create monopolies of labor. This gives industry workers some (some would argue too much) leverage when hashing out contracts. Thus, if you need to hire a fleet of trucks, you won't be playing one trucker against another for the lowest per-mile rate, you'll be dealing with the Teamsters and playing by their rules.
How close is this to the European model?
At least, if you do that, the rich candidates that do run will be influenced by their own consciences and their constituents. This is a big deal better than Big [Oil|Tobacco|Software|Media] throwing so much money around in so many different directions that, no matter who you vote for, they've already been bought off.
As has been pointed out before, there is market share and there is profit. And in the software and online biz, the mantra of "Market share is king" has been repeated so often that many in the biz (including myself) were believing it.
Of course, in the world of business, "Profit is king". Some companies thought that they had escaped the laws of business. They were wrong.
E-commerce went bust because everybody was scrambling after market share, trying to monopolize their own small market. Amazon showed us this strategy, and everybody follows it. The problem is that there can only be one market share winner, and that winner has no guarantee of making a profit (does Amazon show profits yet?
Apple reminds us that one can survive, and thrive, in a niche market so long as one makes sure to see profits. Most markets have a combination of big "whale" companies (McDonald's, Honda, Daimler-Chrysler, Boeing) and little niche companies (many local one-off restaurants, Rolls-Royce, Cessna). And in a big enough market, both big and little companies can turn profits.
nd what do we have?
I can't imagine a full geek culture succeeding. Maybe Microsoft is the biggest geek culture ever created. But could you really make a geek city, not just a work campus? I think such a city would collapse under its own weight. What does Silicon Valley need in non-geek people just to keep the peace and froth the latte?
I think that you could build a civilization without geeks, but you can build a better one with them. Maybe geeks will evolve their own culture beyond Slashdot and Hot Grits, but the culture will be in the context of a bigger, non-geek culture. I don't think that you could separate the two types any more than you can seperate the two genders.
Seriously, WPI does this to people. I know somebody from there who turned a line printer into a railgun.
In a competitive OS environment, security would be a selling point in today's new world. But it isn't. All these Word and Outlook viruses are Microsoft-specific.
Microsoft products are regularly cracked for two reasons. The first is that, being a monopoly, they are ubiquitous. If Yale was the only company in the nation making padlocks, criminals would only study Yale padlocks and learn to crack them, no matter how well they were built.
The second is that Microsoft is not particularly security-conscious. The road to Windows started in DOS, which needed no security--it couldn't be networked! All the DOS-based Windows--3.1, 95, 98, ME--either have no security or had security put in after the fact. Only Windows NT, 2000, and (perhaps, I don't know) XP were built with security in mind at the beginning.
Even with that, Microsoft has made a conscious decision to promote ease of use over security. It's always a trade off: security is obnoxious. If you don't believe me, think back to the last time you misplaced your car keys. Microsoft's decision has been wonderful in giving the average user unprecedented access to information, but just as wonderful in giving the average computer criminal unprecedented access to everyone else's information.
DoJ vs. Microsoft is still going on, last I checked. Anything that creates competition in the OS market will help secure the Internet. Vendors are likely to make security a selling point, and criminals will have to learn to crack multiple platforms to commit their crimes.
A back door is really a master key. Government back door schemes require the encryption to have a back door key, and for the government to have that key.
If you're paranoid about the government like I am, you can see where giving it the master key can ruin your day. But even assuming that the government is all white hat, you're still in deep trouble.
That master key is worth hundreds of millions of dollars in the right hands. Organized crime could use that key to commit credit card fraud on millions of credit cards. This is also a great way for terrorists to get funding. Depending on the crypto scheme, it could be used to forge communications, rerouting shipments. If I had the Master Key and needed a couple of hundred pounds of plastic explosive, that would be my first idea.
And that key can't be kept very secure if it's being used. Thousands of people, whether law enforcement officials or court officials, will have access to that key. Out of a thousand people, somebody's going to be bribable for a mere one or two million dollars. Or be required to hand over the key to get their loved ones back. Or write down their password and have their office computer broken into. It won't be too hard for a determined criminal to get that master key.
I am a big fan of crypto, but I would honestly prefer no crypto to back door crypto. At least if you have no crypto you know you're not being spied on.
A Segway can be used as a car for certain short-run applications. Its safety comes from the fact that you don't have to put it out on the street where two-ton metal things are going to slam into you at 30+ miles an hour. Sure, you can fall off, you can bump into other things or people at 5 mph, but I'd rather take my unprotected body into a brick wall at 5 mph than go car-vs-car at 30 mph each.
Segway is safer than a car because walking is safer than a car. Cars have steel frames and safety features up the wazoo because speed kills--double the speed, quadruple the hurt. Segway is safe because it's slow.
Given the times, I suggest reading Herbert's [em]The White Plague[/em]. The story is much more frightening today, once we find ourselves dealing with Anthrax.
I've been told from a retired Navy man that control rooms on latter-day vessels are based on the Enterprise model, which didn't exist until the show did. Previously, key combat stations (such as the helm and tactical) were not in the same room as the skipper. Note: I have not been able to confirm or deny this story; anybody else want to?
In the original series, whenever one character handed another character computer data, the prop they used was a brightly colored square wafer. IMHO, it looked 3.5" on a side--The microfloppy.
Again, unconfirmed: did the taser descend from the "stun" setting on the phaser? Trek showed just how useful it was to have a less-lethal weapon.
The military uses needle-less pneumatic hypodermic injectors to do mass injections--perhaps lining up a regiment to all get a Tetanus booster or something. How is this related to McCoy's spray hypo? I'm not sure.
Finally, a case of ST influencing technobabble rather than technology itself. Under the Unix operating system, the graphics package (X11) easily allows for one computer to run a program, but for its windows to appear on another machine's display. This is often referred to as "Beaming the app over", based on terminology for the transporter.
15 employees X 12 hours x 10 hours = $1800 not $6000. That margin just went up to $8200!
D'oh! You're right, I'm wrong.
Yup, but look at their expenses.
I used to work stock at a Caldor's (defunct discount store). They grossed about $20K per day. I have to guess that, at any time, they had no less than fifteen employees on duty--some at the checkout, some visible in certain departments, and some busy in the back loading stock. Assuming the store is open for 12 hours a day, that means that they have to pay for $600 in payroll. Assume $10.00 per hour (in paycheck, plus employer-side social security taxes, plus benefits packages), and you are spending $6K per day in payroll. With 100% markup, your $20K in sales cost you $10K in merchandise, so now you're down to $4K margin on the day.
From that $4K/day, subtract the advertising budget, PITI payments on over a million dollars of building, parking lot, and land, consider shrink (missing inventory--often theft from your employees), unsellable returns, and utility bills, and how much is left? Not bloody much.
Retailers take a lot of gross margin, but not a lot of net margin. When many hands touch the merchandise, all that money goes many ways.
The fact is, it took a lot of people to get you that CD you bought in the store. The artist, the studio techs, the CD burner people, the warehouse jockeys, the retail drones, a couple of OTR truckers--and they all have to eat. So everybody gets a little piece of the sale.
I'm not saying that one or two people in the supply chain don't get a large piece of the sale, but it's not always as large as you might think.
"Microsoft has been convicted of raping the customer and the industry. A settlement has been reached. Please bend over, and let Microsoft do it right this time."
The first problem (the one with the theory) is an attempt to homogenize culture. Face it, most people like their culture, no matter what it is. Culture is usually not prescribed by the government, but is certainly influenced by it. On the other hand, cultural homogenization may be inevitable--more influenced by cheap transportation and communication than any political actions.
The second problem has to do with the way globalization is being done. I am a US citizen, and consider having a say in my government to be a divine right. Current globalization efforts include, IMHO, the UN, the WTO, and the EU. These agencies, these super-governments (for lack of a better term) don't answer to people, they answer to governments. This removes the person further from the government imposing laws on him or her. I don't swear allegiance to the UN, I am not permitted to help elect its members, why should I answer to it? Why should my country's business laws be prescribed by the WTO, when I have no opportunity to vote the bums out?
This looks like a pure power steal. Global agencies are not directly accountable to people. If they were, if I could protest their policies peacefully at the ballot box rather than violently at protests (the only option we now have), I would have more patience with them.
Sure.
Sixth amendment to the US Constitution:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
One cannot have the assistance of counsel for one's defense if one cannot speak freely with said counsel. That's why we have such things as "attorney-client privelege", so that you can speak with your attorney and know for certain that the attorney isn't going to come right back and screw you around with the information you gave him. Putting a third person (who is not on the defendant's side) in the loop prevents the defendant from saying certain things to his attorney. This in turn interferes with his guaranteed assistence of counsel.
I'm not saying that somebody should strap Bill Gates to an electric chair, not at all.
I'm saying that Microsoft, legally and morally, should be dismantled.
Microsoft is a corporation, which means that they have articles of incorporation. That is, the government has given them a license above and beyond that of a normal person, to be publicly traded and to produce limited liabilities (you can't sue a corporation for more money than it has, but you can sue a person that way and garnish their wages).
Incorporation is not a right, it is a privelege. And when a privelege granted by the government is abused, it can and should be rescinded. It's just like taking a driver's license away from a drunk driver.
A court of law has ruled, and has been backed up by the US Supreme Court, that Microsoft is an illegal monopoly. The same courts have also ruled that Microsoft has wilfully ignored court orders--is in fact in contempt of federal courts. IMHO, Microsoft has shown that they believe themselves to be Above the Law.
When a person is given a court order (such as to stay 200 feet away from another person) and intentionally disobeys that order, they show that mere laws cannot stop them. As such, stronger forces are used--they are incarcerated, sentenced to jail.
Microsoft has shown that mere laws and court orders cannot stop them from doing whatever they please. As such, teeth are necessary.
Their articles of inrporation should be rescinded. The corporation has exceeded its lawful charter, and must not have the benefits of that charter.
Think about it. This freezes their stock--you can't trade stock on the open market anymore, how useful are those stock options in pulling in new employees?
Does this trample the rights of the shareholders? No. Their property (the stock, a percentage of Microsoft) cannot be taken away without due process of law. I see tremendous due process here, backed by the supreme court.
The DOJ didn't investigate Microsoft during Bush I. It started with Clinton. Now that Bush II is in office, he's not persuing antitrust action against Microsoft, so the DOJ is easing off.
The Republican party claims to be pro-big-business. Microsoft is as big business as it gets. Most Republicans aren't big on antitrust legislation at all, because it interferes with a big corporation's right to run unmolested.
The Democrat party claims to be pro-little-guy. Since Microsoft is perceived as trampling over the little guy (forget the users, the Little Guy is Netscape and Sun), Clinton had a vested interest in canning Microsoft.