"Return to Neverland" sounds like one of Disney's interminable made-for-video sequels, in which the hero and heroine from the first movie get married and their adorable offspring gets to participate in the Wacky Adventures. The premise never varies; I wonder if Disney's getting a government grant to promote nuclear families for cartoon characters.
Did he write that? I'm only aware of one Python sketch he wrote: the one where the patient who's just been stabbed by the nurse has to fill out the paperwork before seeing the doctor. "Look, surely you knew number four...It's from 'The Merchant of Venice -- even I knew that!"
Rather than having the script delete iTunes.app, have it move it to the appropriate.Trashes folder. Nothing gets deleted, and if there's a problem, the old version is sitting in the Trash can.
You don't generally get previews attached to a print. They arrive as separate reels and can be mixed and matched as desired. If previews were actually part of the movie, it would be difficult for projectionists to insert the theater chain's traditional "turn off your cell phone/enjoy our concessions stand" spiel right before the movie itself.
Since the movie came from Disney's distributors and the teaser came from Fox, I think it's feasible that one came but the other didn't, especially if Lucas was still touching it up at deadline.
On the other hand, it also distracted non-critics of MS. It happened in the midst of MS's biggest intentional marketing campaign and drew attention back to their traditional monopolistic behavior, even from outlets inclined to treat XP favorably. It may have even given Opera grounds for a lawsuit -- remember, the message specifically said that the browser was not fully standards-compliant, which reminds me of the phrasing Windows 3 used when running on top of DR-DOS.
I personally think this stroke of marketing genius is closer to the New Coke debacle. Sure, it got people talking about Classic Coke, but the embarassment to the company was hard to live down.
OTOH, this could very well blow up in the industry's face. If the majority of complaints come from legitimate users rather than from the/. crowd (and that's generally the case with obtrusive copy protection), the high profile of 'NSync guarantees huge coverage of consumer complaints.
I personally would love to see the labels botch copy protection early, and with maximum embarassment and blowback, before they come up with something that works better.
The TNG episode was, in fact, called "First Contact." It's the one where Bebe Neuwirth plays the hospital worker who boffs an alien (i.e., Riker), thereby assuring publication in that planet's equivalent of the National Enquirer.
It's a moot point for me to boycott XP, since it's never going to run on my Mac anyway. What I plan to concentrate on is a boycott of Passport, and any services that require registering with it.
MS knows that the big money is selling services through Windows. Therefore, it doesn't matter how many copies of XP go out as warez or how few home users install it at first, because MS will make its money back through.NET, through media tie-ins with WMP, or through other goods and services bought by means of my name and vital statistics sold through Passport. It's even conceivable that I won't have the option of "Don't want it? Don't buy it!" -- if my employer, for example, were to require use of Messenger, and Messenger requires a Passport account, I become an unwilling MS customer, and my name goes onto Passport's ultra-secure (?) database.
What I hope to see is for MS to get out of the services business, and to stop their leveraging their OS monopoly to get me to require MS products I don't need. The Electronic Privacy Information Center [epic.org] has a detailed list of complaints about Passport (note: the official complaints are in.pdf format).
So a bad law gets passed because software publishers panic about their copyrights being violated, and you're going to respond by pirating Adobe's non-encrypted software? This protest is as misdirected as tossing a brick through a window.
A story from the front lines
on
IT Unions?
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· Score: 1
Too many of the comments already posted here make the assumptions that 1) all IT workers are 133t d00dz who command six-figure wages and call their own shots and 2) unions are an anachronism that in the 21st century only exist to steal wages from workers. Let me tell you a more typical story.
I do first-level phone support for Windows 98 in the Seattle office of what used to be Keane, Inc. When I was hired three years ago, I supported Adobe's type products. That ended in 1999 when Adobe decided to move their front-line support to North Carolina, Adobe having decided that the $11-12-an-hour positions they were obliged to staff in the Puget Sound area could be filled elsewhere for a lot less. I transferred to the Windows project, immediately discovering that while the work load grew in response to Win 9x's grievous flaws, the pay did not. And it was not expected to -- at Keane, you either moved upstairs to a senior tech position or outward to the then-robust dot.com world.
Keane had, I believe, a 150% attrition rate, mainly people who either left for better-paying IT positions elsewhere or got sick of the entire industry. Because the position was considered entry-level, Keane found plenty of other people to fill the positions.
Earlier this year, the branch was purchased by Convergys, which decided that the entire Washington operation was too expensive to maintain; they're shutting us down next month. During the last few months, WashTech took an active interest in the branch, not so much to get dues-paying members into the union as to give employees a way to discuss the frustrations they were experiencing on duty. Even during the Keane period, Microsoft decided to increase the amount of documentation and customer callbacks required by its phone techs, without increasing pay or changing the job definitions. With Convergys in charge, phone techs were required to take calls continuously until the end of their shifts, even if that meant working overtime (although Convergys didn't use the term "mandatory). In this case, WashTech wasn't aiming for a work stoppage; they wanted to give employees the opportunity to do the jobs they wanted without the like-it-or-leave attitude typical for entry-level IT positions.
Would a union have preserved our positions? Maybe not, but having one would have let management know that its employees are far more than just entry-level serfs who can be replaced by someone else for less.
Slashdot Mirror
We don't have a bay. How about throwing it in Lake Washington?
"Return to Neverland" sounds like one of Disney's interminable made-for-video sequels, in which the hero and heroine from the first movie get married and their adorable offspring gets to participate in the Wacky Adventures. The premise never varies; I wonder if Disney's getting a government grant to promote nuclear families for cartoon characters.
Picking nits: King actually writes from, and about, New England, which is a bit east of the Midwest.
But I love the way you worked Douglas Hofstadter into your post. I recommend Metamagical Themas if you haven't read it already.
Did he write that? I'm only aware of one Python sketch he wrote: the one where the patient who's just been stabbed by the nurse has to fill out the paperwork before seeing the doctor. "Look, surely you knew number four...It's from 'The Merchant of Venice -- even I knew that!"
Rather than having the script delete iTunes.app, have it move it to the appropriate .Trashes folder. Nothing gets deleted, and if there's a problem, the old version is sitting in the Trash can.
You don't generally get previews attached to a print. They arrive as separate reels and can be mixed and matched as desired. If previews were actually part of the movie, it would be difficult for projectionists to insert the theater chain's traditional "turn off your cell phone/enjoy our concessions stand" spiel right before the movie itself.
Since the movie came from Disney's distributors and the teaser came from Fox, I think it's feasible that one came but the other didn't, especially if Lucas was still touching it up at deadline.
On the other hand, it also distracted non-critics of MS. It happened in the midst of MS's biggest intentional marketing campaign and drew attention back to their traditional monopolistic behavior, even from outlets inclined to treat XP favorably. It may have even given Opera grounds for a lawsuit -- remember, the message specifically said that the browser was not fully standards-compliant, which reminds me of the phrasing Windows 3 used when running on top of DR-DOS.
I personally think this stroke of marketing genius is closer to the New Coke debacle. Sure, it got people talking about Classic Coke, but the embarassment to the company was hard to live down.
This was actually John Quincy Adams (as seen in "Amistad").
OTOH, this could very well blow up in the industry's face. If the majority of complaints come from legitimate users rather than from the /. crowd (and that's generally the case with obtrusive copy protection), the high profile of 'NSync guarantees huge coverage of consumer complaints.
I personally would love to see the labels botch copy protection early, and with maximum embarassment and blowback, before they come up with something that works better.
The TNG episode was, in fact, called "First Contact." It's the one where Bebe Neuwirth plays the hospital worker who boffs an alien (i.e., Riker), thereby assuring publication in that planet's equivalent of the National Enquirer.
It's a moot point for me to boycott XP, since it's never going to run on my Mac anyway. What I plan to concentrate on is a boycott of Passport, and any services that require registering with it.
.NET, through media tie-ins with WMP, or through other goods and services bought by means of my name and vital statistics sold through Passport. It's even conceivable that I won't have the option of "Don't want it? Don't buy it!" -- if my employer, for example, were to require use of Messenger, and Messenger requires a Passport account, I become an unwilling MS customer, and my name goes onto Passport's ultra-secure (?) database.
.pdf format).
MS knows that the big money is selling services through Windows. Therefore, it doesn't matter how many copies of XP go out as warez or how few home users install it at first, because MS will make its money back through
What I hope to see is for MS to get out of the services business, and to stop their leveraging their OS monopoly to get me to require MS products I don't need. The Electronic Privacy Information Center [epic.org] has a detailed list of complaints about Passport (note: the official complaints are in
So a bad law gets passed because software publishers panic about their copyrights being violated, and you're going to respond by pirating Adobe's non-encrypted software? This protest is as misdirected as tossing a brick through a window.
And FireWire. The last low-end iMac only had USB.
I do first-level phone support for Windows 98 in the Seattle office of what used to be Keane, Inc. When I was hired three years ago, I supported Adobe's type products. That ended in 1999 when Adobe decided to move their front-line support to North Carolina, Adobe having decided that the $11-12-an-hour positions they were obliged to staff in the Puget Sound area could be filled elsewhere for a lot less. I transferred to the Windows project, immediately discovering that while the work load grew in response to Win 9x's grievous flaws, the pay did not. And it was not expected to -- at Keane, you either moved upstairs to a senior tech position or outward to the then-robust dot.com world.
Keane had, I believe, a 150% attrition rate, mainly people who either left for better-paying IT positions elsewhere or got sick of the entire industry. Because the position was considered entry-level, Keane found plenty of other people to fill the positions.
Earlier this year, the branch was purchased by Convergys, which decided that the entire Washington operation was too expensive to maintain; they're shutting us down next month. During the last few months, WashTech took an active interest in the branch, not so much to get dues-paying members into the union as to give employees a way to discuss the frustrations they were experiencing on duty. Even during the Keane period, Microsoft decided to increase the amount of documentation and customer callbacks required by its phone techs, without increasing pay or changing the job definitions. With Convergys in charge, phone techs were required to take calls continuously until the end of their shifts, even if that meant working overtime (although Convergys didn't use the term "mandatory). In this case, WashTech wasn't aiming for a work stoppage; they wanted to give employees the opportunity to do the jobs they wanted without the like-it-or-leave attitude typical for entry-level IT positions.
Would a union have preserved our positions? Maybe not, but having one would have let management know that its employees are far more than just entry-level serfs who can be replaced by someone else for less.