Even if you have practically endless funding, I can see better uses of that funding then paying for first class airline tickets and limo service. These ARE students we're talking about, right? They certainly don't fit into the "starving college student" role very well.
Not that the rest of the dot-com wave didn't suffer from the same problems. And yes, when any college student who once turned on a computer could land a lucrative job in this industry, with all the lavish perks that go with it, I can see where MIT might have to compete on those grounds to attract that same talented individuals. But there would always be others. There would always be people to whom the research was more important then the perks. Yeah, you'd have to search a little harder, but I'm sure there were a few real starving college students at MIT that would have been happy for a $9 an hour starting salary job.
And when the wave collapsed, MIT labs wouldn't be struggling, and wouldn't HAVE to cut back or cut jobs, and the people in those jobs would be VERY happy.
and how is this accomplished exactly? What credible research shows that one person is more likely to be affected by radio waves then someone else. Does this also mean that there are no TV broadcasts, no radio broadcasts, no police radios, no satellite reception. I mean... if you're going to cut one source of RF, you better cut it all, just to be on the safe side.
But you CAN'T blame the parents. I mean.. who are WE to say that parents should have responsibility over their kids? Its always someone else's fault. So in this instance, it must be the fault of the internet cafe's, or whoever else might possibly have an influence. Because it CAN'T be the parents.
We all know very well that the internet is to blame for every problem since the first kid downloaded a bomb recipie. Everytime a 14 year old girl hooks up with a pedophile, its the INTERNET's fault. The fact that her parents never bothered to keep tabs on who she was talking to or that this kind of activity predates the internet is of no consequence.
Violent kids? Blame the internet. We used to blame the TV, but everyone's on the internet now so that has to be the problem. Quake and Doom is the REASON that a couple of deranged lunatics shoot up a school. There is NO OTHER REASON. So QUIT TRYING TO BLAME THE PARENTS.
Ok.. enough sarcasm. Parents have neglected their responsibility. And yes.. They need to be the ones that take care of this problem. But I don't know what we can do to make them. They can be held legally responible for the actions of their children, but this doesn't seem to be much of a deterrant factor.
But blaming internet cafe's is not the solution. Just as blaming arcades/malls/movie theatres or anywhere else is a solution. And bad neighborhoods are the kind of places where internet cafes are going to be more prominant. More people around who don't have computers at home or can't afford decent internet access. Maybe they need more supervision. If the majority of the customer base are minors, then perhaps some extra supervision is required, but its hard to require that of a low margin company without willing volunteers. And yes, a single parent accompanying their children might assist in these matters.
and onto the internet. And you thought script kiddies were a pain. Maybe I'm getting old, but when I was a minor, the LAST thing that your average "gang" would do is gather to go play on computers.
How times have changed. And as they change, the less reputable members of our society have adapted.
Need a large scale example of this working, and it might get replicated elsewhere in the world. Doing it wireless means that everyone invests their own share of the infrastructure cost when they get connected, and therefore a single entity isn't hauling around a huge pile of debt while trying to make a profitable business out of it.
The USPS is a business like any other. Sure, they have some governmental influence, both ways, but if someone wants to pay them to put up posters.... why not?
And besides.. asking clerks about it won't get you very far. I'm surprised that your post office wasn't so busy that the clerk actually had enough time to ask you if there was anything else you needed.
I won't disagree that Microsoft has performed their fair share of monopolistic anticompetitive activities. What less can you expect from your favorite corporate giant intent on dominating the industry.
But netscape had a running head start in the browser market, and for a while, Microsoft was constantly playing catchup. Had netscape kept Microsoft in that position, then browser integration would never have been a viable option, because people would have been upset with microsoft if netscape failed to perform properly, or if they didn't really want IE tightly integrated with their OS. The fact that Microsoft already had the market share of the browser market by the time the integration took place makes the whole issue a non-issue after all.
Netscape lost their market because they stumbled. They got so caught up on insane stock prices and trying to be the supreme leader in the computer industry that they completely neglected to do the exact things required to achieve those goals. And they got blindsided by Microsoft. They have nobody to blame but themselves.
Of course Microsoft has/had an almost inexhaustable source of capital to work with. They can throw money at a problem forever. But Netscape wasn't exactly broke. They had plenty of working capital and they had friendly business relations with other significant corporations like Sun. They had every ability to set the standards and run with it. When early implementations of IE with ineffective java support were breaking, Netscape and friends should have made the push to drag those customers to their camp, while Microsoft was behind.
And they needed to KEEP RUNNING. But they didn't. They chose to stagnate. They let Microsoft catch up, and clean up their browser, along with adding the ability to properly render buggy code so they would be the "more compatible" browser when netscape would break on poorly written HTML code. They gave Microsoft the chance to play the "embrace and extend" game and were forced to switch into playing catchup themselves. And that's a game Microsoft can play forever.
So don't cry too much for Netscape. They had their chance. And they blew it. They've done wonderful things, and I really wished they would have remained on top. But those days are gone. Crying about it now won't help them.
-Restil
I've always been antisocial.
on
Browsing Alone
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· Score: 2
Certainly, there was a time when the internet wasn't a primary aspect of my life, but I still played with computers. I went out to see movies.... alone. I don't communicate much with my family, I don't know any of my neighbors and some of them I've never so much as said hello to.
If anything, the internet has made me MORE social. Its just that I'm social with a lot of people I've never met in person. Has it held me back from TRYING to get out there? Probably not. I've made that effort. And I've been largely disappointed. So I quit bothering. I'm happy as I am, as things are. What do I care if social norms clash with my way of life.
The primary disadvantage of clustering is the network bottleneck. You lose out because even 100mbps is only a small fraction of what the pci bus of even low end pentium systems are able to handle. At LEAST go with gigabit ethernet so you can push over 100 megs per second between processors. This will greatly increase the usefulness of an integrated cluster by decreasing the one primary disadvantage.
Also a bit pricey, but there would be some cost advantage in reduced footprint for some environments.
A couple issues here. First of all, anyone can sue anyone for anything. In the end it usually comes down to who has the better lawyer, especially in civil cases. Its also not "The Court" but "the jury" that makes the irrational decisions, not that the court isn't responsible for their fair share of them.
However, when an individual says something and another individual has a problem with it, a lawsuit isn't likely to go very far. He first has to be able to prove that organized *unjustified* slander by anti-spam individuals was the reason he was not hired. I don't recongize any of this as unjustified as half of it is comprised of words out of his own mouth.
And how WOULD that look? If the reason I didn't get a job is because of something I wrote. How exactly can I blame that on someone else? I suppose I COULD, but it would take a rather moronic jury to find it acceptable.
Secondly, disparaging comments take a different light when done so against a public figure. I can say pretty much anything I want to about a public figure and they can't do a whole lot about it. Why? Because its expected. Its also expected that the public knows enough to make an informed decision based on a wealth of available information rather than the single ravings of a mininformed individual.
Is Bernie a public figure? Thats debatable, but getting an article written about you in a major newspaper in the city you live in, tends to lean you in that direction. Granted, he does have the issue that it was attention he didn't WANT, but his activites did warrant it.
I'm not familiar with the Sea World case. However, if they fired him and didn't press criminal charges, the ex-employee is in a better position. Why? Because of a lack of proof. If they had filed criminal charges and had a police record and perhaps even a conviction to back them up on it, it would be a LOT harder to lose a court case. Without it, the question tends to fall on whether they had the right to say it, and if it was never proven to have happened....
Once upon a time, I was a member of a mailing list and I posted a rather controversial message. Someone replied telling me how much of an idiot I was. I responded privately to him, attempting to explain why I felt I was right and based it on my own personal (yet somewhat embarrasing) history. I kept it off the group primarily because I mentioned issues I felt I really didn't want the whole world knowing about and also I didn't feel like carrying on a public flamewar.
Needless to say, he decided to post a reply to it on the mailing list, complete with my message fully quoted. NOT what I wanted to happen. Of course, the response was less than friendly. I could have decided at this point to reply again, either to him or to the group (same thing really) and continue the war, but instead I just dropped it. Completely. A few people responded once, but in a day the thread was dead and I doubt anyone remembered it.
Bernie started out by doing a stupid thing. He spammed a bunch of people trying to advertise his "services" through what he STILL seems to believe is a reasonable method and when confronted chose to reply and carry on the problem by REALLY making a name for himself.
What if he just let the issue drop? If he just quit spamming and never said another word about it? In a matter of a couple days nobody would ever recognize him. Whatever little damage was caused by a letter to his isp would have been the extent of his embarrasment. He could have EASILY picked up the pieces from that debacle and avoided further problems. Now, its getting to the point where he may very well be unemployable in his industry of choice because not only has he made a professional ass out of himself, he is causing people to look VERY carefully at the type of work he supposively has experience with and relating it to his behavior in this matter and creating the (probably correct) impression that he is most unqualified for the very positions he seeks.
If only he had shut his mouth and walked away while he had the chance to do so gracefully. The world is a big place. You have to screw up pretty badly to make a name for yourself. I despise spammers as much as the next guy, but its a foolish mistake he could have recovered from easily. Now he won't live it down for a LONG time.
I hope fame was what you sought dear Bernie. For you have found it.
I wasn't really directing my ire per sae. Slashdot really doesn't do much more than post links to news posted elsewhere and allows people to comment on it. Yet, if not for slashdot's post, even with a newspaper as big as the Washingon Post, the coverage would have been significantly less.
Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. Its perfectly acceptable to speculate. And like I said, there's always the chance that its true to some degree and the PR people at AOL aren't aware of it.
My point was, that for a great many people, geeks in particular, slashdot is accepted as a credible source of information. And in most cases, this is true. And sometimes they drop the ball. We complain rather viciously when other news agencies don't do so much as pick up a phone to attempt to verify the validity of a news source, yet when slashdot does exactly the same thing, we generally accept it as par for the course. This is fine if slashdot is a rumor site or if it only reflects news reported elsewhere. However, if it wants to reflect known accurate information, then it needs to make some effort to assure that while information may not be completely accurate, at least someone who is an authority on that information has verified it as accurate.
When articles are posted multiple times, or article summaries contrast greatly with the actual content of the article linked to, the credibility, or lack there of, of slashdot is brought into light. They will make the occasional snafu. It happens. It can't be completely avoided. But they need to make at least SOME effort to avoid the obvious ones. That
way, when they only reflect on the poor quality reporting of some other news agency on rare occasions, then ire WOULD be misplaced.
So it WAS another rumor. We've managed to have at least 4 (who knows how many repeated articles I might have missed out on) posts about this very topic and it appears to be a non-topic afterall.
Most likely it was one of those "what if we..." things that got tossed out in a meeting somewhere. Something along the same lines as 200 other ideas that probably got passed around the same day. Something that someone spent 5 minutes thinking about and probably never got seriously discussed, but someone overheard it, and said something about it to someone, who said something else, and so on, and so forth, until it gets on Slashdot.. then all hell breaks loose.
We've had discussions on the future potential demise of Redhat under an AOL flag. We've had the #2 linux guy's threatened defection. And the VIP's at AOL/TW are probably going "huh?" right about now as someone finally tells them what's going around in the news. Even if it IS a valid rumor, chances are it hasn't worked its way up the corporate hierarchy yet.
And in two weeks, a bigwig from AOL will claim they're considering it, and we'll all think it was all this discussion that prompted them to consider it in the first place.
So what is it? Are we one step ahead or two steps behind? Who knows.
I can't really tell much of a difference between 128kbps mp3 and the original cd. Maybe others can, but mp3 is plenty good enough for me. As is ogg. To me, it doesn't really matter about the format as long as its convienent. And considering the 200+ cd's of mp3's are full of mp3's and no other format... and the effort required to convert them would outweigh the slight gain by converting to another format.
It doesn't mean he'd stop supporting the linux community, although he might not find as many lucrative offers to pay him to do what he loves doing. But still, thats what principle is all about. Don't let a simple thing like money and job security stand in the way of what you believe. At least he's willing to put something on the line.
We might not agree with it. AOL has not exactly been the best neighbor in the internet community. They've been responsible for putting a lot of people on the internet that were better off never discovering it. This could be good or bad depending on how you look at it.
They've provided me with an almost endless supply of free coasters.
I can think of worse companies that could buy Redhat out with far more nefarious intentions, although in AOL's case, I feel they're better refered to as the better of two evils rather than a helpful benefactor.
Alan's decision may not be a good one, but its his to make. And if Redhat will be detrimentally affected by his leaving, then its an issue they need to consider.
Micropayments are being touted as a replacement for ad revenue. And this SHOULD be the case. To pay a few cents to eliminate annoying ads would be worthwhile for some people, but for others who have grown very accustomed to the web being free will probably go on prefering intrusive ads.
It also differs on the artist's needs. If he's just trying to cover his bandwidth costs, he has more options than if he's trying to use the web as his only source of income. Even with a readership in the 10's of thousands, it can still be a challenge to do much more than break even.
Ultimately it would work best as a complimentary feature. It's less expensive from the publisher's point of view, and that should certainly be taken into account when considering the per-issue pricing scheme. But as other posters have mentioned, some value of the comic's is the collectable value as well as the content value.
I don't think its unreasonable at all. While I think that what he did was more of a fireable offense rather than a legal one, there's still no doubt that what he did was wrong, and that it cost the company money to root out the problem and correct it.
Remember, when this whole thing started, the company was under the impression that there was some program leaking out information. They thought that this was MUCH more serious than a simple distributed program. And when they went
running to law enforcement, this was their original complaint.
As we saw in the Adobe case, just because the complaintant backs down, that doesn't mean the government will. Once you choose to press charges, its out of your hands. This isn't a civil case. Parties in a civil case can settle their differences any way they want and only need to go to court if they can't. This was a criminal case, and while a criminal case is somewhat hurt by the loss of cooperation by the "victim" it does not mean they have to stop prosescution.
I would prefer that the EFF and the community at whole give more attention to those cases where people aren't actually guilty of anything. Not where someone did something wrong and everyone else is just overreacting. Certainly, I don't agree with the initial time he was facing, but if he had been doing his job correctly he never would have had this problem in the first place.
Show some responsibility people!
People are used to a certain status quo. They expect to be able to record TV shows. They expect to be able to watch what they want, when they want to. And despite efforts to restrict this in the past, people are legally allowed to do so.
Certainly, almost anything worth watching can be obtained in an illegal way. I can download any popular TV show off the internet from SOMEWHERE, although these methods most certainly violate copyright. And while quite a few people partcipate in these activities, the greater majority doesn't and won't because its more trouble than its worth.
However, if people are suddenly unable to do what they've been used to doing for many many years, then some of these other methods might start appealing to them. TV shows will still get copied, just as DVD's are converted to DivX's. The underground scene will not be affected by this, at leat not in the long run. But the average consumer will find it annoying, and they will be driven to seek out other ways to obtain their media content.
And when they download an episode of "Friends" off the internet, they realize that they can watch it whenever they want. Not only that, but there are no commercials. And they can obtain ANY episode of "Friends" from the first season on, and all they have to do is be patient. If they're going to go to the trouble to do this once, they might realize its not that much trouble after all and might use this method to obtain other TV shows.
And eventually, they might start realizing they simply don't NEED their cable/satellite/whatever anymore because its become less convienent than obtaining it from the internet, not to mention there's no additional cost as long as they already have broadband.
Except for the few that still only recieve the broadcast stations, people pay money monthly to watch their programs. They do actually expect something in return, and one of those things is the ability to do so as they wish. In the blind rage of the media corporations to prevent the evil "pirates" from stealing their precious programming and distributing it for free to the less than 1% of the audience who bothers to make use of it, they will alienate the remaining 99%.
Heck, even in the open source world, I can't copy someone else's program verbatim and claim I wrote it.
Even if two people work together on a project, as long as they write their code separately, the code will be significantly different enough that it shouldn't be recognized as cheating.
Probably what this will catch is the last minute "Quick, let me copy your program" right before it's due. And this DOES happen, and I find nothing "right" about that at all. That IS cheating, plain and simple, and should be stopped. In a class of 30 students, the instructor (or TA's) will probably be able to notice similarities. In larger classes, its easy for these things to slip by, especially if the grading process is split amongst multiple TA's.
-Restil
Lack of compelling broadband content.
on
Broadband Obstacles
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· Score: 3, Insightful
This is probably the biggest issue. People aren't eating up broadband in droves because simply there just aren't that many legitimate needs for it.
Note I point out "legitimate". I know of plenty illegitimate uses for broadband which would be difficult if not impossible without it. Excessive mp3 downloading, movies, tv shows, software. Broadband makes these activities simple.
The problem is, because of the RIAA and MPAA and others' stalling, these services simply aren't offered in a way that makes any sense, and those of us who have the means would rather do it our own way, even if that means that the feetdraggers miss out on the opportunity.
Granted, not everyone who has broadband is using it illegally. A lot of people like the always-on capability. A lot of people like their webpages loading super fast. But fact of the matter is, most of those people don't NEED it. Its merely a convienence, and they wouldn't hesitate to move somewhere that it isn't available, where thats the first question I ask after "how much does it cost?"
Set up a company completely with open source software, and find window managers that perfectly emulate windows, or at least close enough that your average "my cupholder is broken" employee won't recognize the difference. Then brag excessively internally that you never pay for ANY software, which is true. Have some of these rants taped, and have one of your employees inform the BSA about your possible copyright violations.
This "clueless" employee assumes he's running Windows, so thats what he tells the BSA. That with taped evidence might be enough to justify a warranted search.
Have a few computers that are bombs that nobody uses. Any use of those computers will automatically script the opening of a dos window and format of the hard disk. Videotape those screens and the BSA "agent" at the computer while its happening. It will very much appear that these people are intentionally destroying company property without cause. And they can whine and deny actually doing it, but you've got them redhanded on videotape doing so.
Take them to court. Claim excessive damagers. I mean... how would they know what was on those systems.. they formatted the drives. Sure, it might have been foolish to store the only copy of the source to a multimillion dollar project on that computer, but its not YOUR fault that the BSA guy came in and destroyed your property without just cause, now is it? And the best part is, the search was completely unjustified since you own no proprietary software AT ALL.
Is this right? Not at all. And I would never actually endorse doing it. But someone vindictive enough might. And the BSA better realize this. I remember a news story a couple years ago, when bounty hunters broke into someone's house looking for a bond jumper, wearing skimasks and with no warrant. They bound up some of the residents and ended up killing two others who tried to fight back.
Turns out, they had the wrong house. And none of the people who lived there had warrants out for them. Law enforement and other related activies are not organizations you're allowed to make mistakes in. The cost of those mistakes means someone losing their freedom, or someone losing their life.
The BSA better realize that they could be placed into a similar situation by someone who doesn't care much for their tactics. Granted, if that company actually broke the law while staging this, the BSA would have some recourse, but the fact of the matter is, they act as a law enforcement agency, even though they aren't one. They need to realize that there are checks and balances for a reason. If you're going to break in somewhere and start scouring for something illegal, you better be damn well sure that there's a 100% chance you're going to find something that you're looking for. Otherwise you not only make yourself look like a fool, you make the software companies that you're "representing" look like fools for ever endorsing you in the first place.
And some lucky company will get a lot of free unencombered VC capital on your behalf.
First of all, its not IMPOSSIBLE to get software right. No more difficult than it is to build a car or a housse correctly, and while on occasion they break down, generally speaking they function as they're supposed to with minimal failures.
You've heard the joke about the first woodpecker destroying civilization if buildings were built the way that software was written. There's a fundamental truth here. Coders, for the most part, are sloppy. Why? Because they CAN be. However, there are examples of cases where software was done correctly the first time. It takes careful planning and controls and peer review, and in most cases the end result is clean code in less time than it would have taken to do it sloppy and spend lots of time cleaning up bugs.
There SHOULD be accountability here. But people don't hold Microsoft accountable. And I don't blame the monopoly factor either. People have just been brainwashed to believe that its NORMAL that computers crash. Its NORMAL that there are viruses. These things are just a part of life, and there can't be anything done about it. And as long as they believe that, they will keep buying into Microsoft.
These things generally don't bother the individual. They bother a large corporation as a whole that has to deal with the cleanup after one of the messier outlook viruses goes around. But, the corporation, run by people, simply look past the problem. The sys admins might be screaming bloody murder about it, but everyone else just considers it to be the status quo and goes on with their lives as best they can while the servers are being reloaded.
In my opinion, Sircam was the first windows virus/worm that had the potential to have a real effect on how people looked at Microsoft. If the virus was somewhat more malicious and made the data that was being sent out easily readable (as well as passing along a virus) and a few big corps had a lot of confidential internal memos sent all over the world.... THEN maybe people would start to reconsider the value of Microsoft
brand products, as soon as it is made clear to them, that its Microsoft and their software that made all this possible.
Slashdot Mirror
Even if you have practically endless funding, I can see better uses of that funding then paying for first class airline tickets and limo service. These ARE students we're talking about, right? They certainly don't fit into the "starving college student" role very well.
Not that the rest of the dot-com wave didn't suffer from the same problems. And yes, when any college student who once turned on a computer could land a lucrative job in this industry, with all the lavish perks that go with it, I can see where MIT might have to compete on those grounds to attract that same talented individuals. But there would always be others. There would always be people to whom the research was more important then the perks. Yeah, you'd have to search a little harder, but I'm sure there were a few real starving college students at MIT that would have been happy for a $9 an hour starting salary job.
And when the wave collapsed, MIT labs wouldn't be struggling, and wouldn't HAVE to cut back or cut jobs, and the people in those jobs would be VERY happy.
But hey. What can ya do?
-Restil
and how is this accomplished exactly? What credible research shows that one person is more likely to be affected by radio waves then someone else. Does this also mean that there are no TV broadcasts, no radio broadcasts, no police radios, no satellite reception. I mean... if you're going to cut one source of RF, you better cut it all, just to be on the safe side.
-Restil
But you CAN'T blame the parents. I mean.. who are WE to say that parents should have responsibility over their kids? Its always someone else's fault. So in this instance, it must be the fault of the internet cafe's, or whoever else might possibly have an influence. Because it CAN'T be the parents.
:)
We all know very well that the internet is to blame for every problem since the first kid downloaded a bomb recipie. Everytime a 14 year old girl hooks up with a pedophile, its the INTERNET's fault. The fact that her parents never bothered to keep tabs on who she was talking to or that this kind of activity predates the internet is of no consequence.
Violent kids? Blame the internet. We used to blame the TV, but everyone's on the internet now so that has to be the problem. Quake and Doom is the REASON that a couple of deranged lunatics shoot up a school. There is NO OTHER REASON. So QUIT TRYING TO BLAME THE PARENTS.
Ok.. enough sarcasm. Parents have neglected their responsibility. And yes.. They need to be the ones that take care of this problem. But I don't know what we can do to make them. They can be held legally responible for the actions of their children, but this doesn't seem to be much of a deterrant factor.
But blaming internet cafe's is not the solution. Just as blaming arcades/malls/movie theatres or anywhere else is a solution. And bad neighborhoods are the kind of places where internet cafes are going to be more prominant. More people around who don't have computers at home or can't afford decent internet access. Maybe they need more supervision. If the majority of the customer base are minors, then perhaps some extra supervision is required, but its hard to require that of a low margin company without willing volunteers. And yes, a single parent accompanying their children might assist in these matters.
Yeah... like THAT's ever going to happen.
-Restil
They CAN index their home page. They just can't index their search page. Which, just so happens, to be most of google.
-Restil
Ahh.. but google can't index google. Check the robots.txt on google. They block their search directory. :)
-Restil
and onto the internet. And you thought script kiddies were a pain. Maybe I'm getting old, but when I was a minor, the LAST thing that your average "gang" would do is gather to go play on computers.
How times have changed. And as they change, the less reputable members of our society have adapted.
-Restil
Need a large scale example of this working, and it might get replicated elsewhere in the world. Doing it wireless means that everyone invests their own share of the infrastructure cost when they get connected, and therefore a single entity isn't hauling around a huge pile of debt while trying to make a profitable business out of it.
Good luck to these guys.
-Restil
The USPS is a business like any other. Sure, they have some governmental influence, both ways, but if someone wants to pay them to put up posters.... why not?
And besides.. asking clerks about it won't get you very far. I'm surprised that your post office wasn't so busy that the clerk actually had enough time to ask you if there was anything else you needed.
-Restil
I won't disagree that Microsoft has performed their fair share of monopolistic anticompetitive activities. What less can you expect from your favorite corporate giant intent on dominating the industry.
But netscape had a running head start in the browser market, and for a while, Microsoft was constantly playing catchup. Had netscape kept Microsoft in that position, then browser integration would never have been a viable option, because people would have been upset with microsoft if netscape failed to perform properly, or if they didn't really want IE tightly integrated with their OS. The fact that Microsoft already had the market share of the browser market by the time the integration took place makes the whole issue a non-issue after all.
Netscape lost their market because they stumbled. They got so caught up on insane stock prices and trying to be the supreme leader in the computer industry that they completely neglected to do the exact things required to achieve those goals. And they got blindsided by Microsoft. They have nobody to blame but themselves.
Of course Microsoft has/had an almost inexhaustable source of capital to work with. They can throw money at a problem forever. But Netscape wasn't exactly broke. They had plenty of working capital and they had friendly business relations with other significant corporations like Sun. They had every ability to set the standards and run with it. When early implementations of IE with ineffective java support were breaking, Netscape and friends should have made the push to drag those customers to their camp, while Microsoft was behind.
And they needed to KEEP RUNNING. But they didn't. They chose to stagnate. They let Microsoft catch up, and clean up their browser, along with adding the ability to properly render buggy code so they would be the "more compatible" browser when netscape would break on poorly written HTML code. They gave Microsoft the chance to play the "embrace and extend" game and were forced to switch into playing catchup themselves. And that's a game Microsoft can play forever.
So don't cry too much for Netscape. They had their chance. And they blew it. They've done wonderful things, and I really wished they would have remained on top. But those days are gone. Crying about it now won't help them.
-Restil
Certainly, there was a time when the internet wasn't a primary aspect of my life, but I still played with computers. I went out to see movies.... alone. I don't communicate much with my family, I don't know any of my neighbors and some of them I've never so much as said hello to.
If anything, the internet has made me MORE social. Its just that I'm social with a lot of people I've never met in person. Has it held me back from TRYING to get out there? Probably not. I've made that effort. And I've been largely disappointed. So I quit bothering. I'm happy as I am, as things are. What do I care if social norms clash with my way of life.
-Restil
The primary disadvantage of clustering is the network bottleneck. You lose out because even 100mbps is only a small fraction of what the pci bus of even low end pentium systems are able to handle. At LEAST go with gigabit ethernet so you can push over 100 megs per second between processors. This will greatly increase the usefulness of an integrated cluster by decreasing the one primary disadvantage.
Also a bit pricey, but there would be some cost advantage in reduced footprint for some environments.
-Restil
A couple issues here. First of all, anyone can sue anyone for anything. In the end it usually comes down to who has the better lawyer, especially in civil cases. Its also not "The Court" but "the jury" that makes the irrational decisions, not that the court isn't responsible for their fair share of them.
However, when an individual says something and another individual has a problem with it, a lawsuit isn't likely to go very far. He first has to be able to prove that organized *unjustified* slander by anti-spam individuals was the reason he was not hired. I don't recongize any of this as unjustified as half of it is comprised of words out of his own mouth.
And how WOULD that look? If the reason I didn't get a job is because of something I wrote. How exactly can I blame that on someone else? I suppose I COULD, but it would take a rather moronic jury to find it acceptable.
Secondly, disparaging comments take a different light when done so against a public figure. I can say pretty much anything I want to about a public figure and they can't do a whole lot about it. Why? Because its expected. Its also expected that the public knows enough to make an informed decision based on a wealth of available information rather than the single ravings of a mininformed individual.
Is Bernie a public figure? Thats debatable, but getting an article written about you in a major newspaper in the city you live in, tends to lean you in that direction. Granted, he does have the issue that it was attention he didn't WANT, but his activites did warrant it.
I'm not familiar with the Sea World case. However, if they fired him and didn't press criminal charges, the ex-employee is in a better position. Why? Because of a lack of proof. If they had filed criminal charges and had a police record and perhaps even a conviction to back them up on it, it would be a LOT harder to lose a court case. Without it, the question tends to fall on whether they had the right to say it, and if it was never proven to have happened....
Difficult to say.
-Restil
Once upon a time, I was a member of a mailing list and I posted a rather controversial message. Someone replied telling me how much of an idiot I was. I responded privately to him, attempting to explain why I felt I was right and based it on my own personal (yet somewhat embarrasing) history. I kept it off the group primarily because I mentioned issues I felt I really didn't want the whole world knowing about and also I didn't feel like carrying on a public flamewar.
Needless to say, he decided to post a reply to it on the mailing list, complete with my message fully quoted. NOT what I wanted to happen. Of course, the response was less than friendly. I could have decided at this point to reply again, either to him or to the group (same thing really) and continue the war, but instead I just dropped it. Completely. A few people responded once, but in a day the thread was dead and I doubt anyone remembered it.
Bernie started out by doing a stupid thing. He spammed a bunch of people trying to advertise his "services" through what he STILL seems to believe is a reasonable method and when confronted chose to reply and carry on the problem by REALLY making a name for himself.
What if he just let the issue drop? If he just quit spamming and never said another word about it? In a matter of a couple days nobody would ever recognize him. Whatever little damage was caused by a letter to his isp would have been the extent of his embarrasment. He could have EASILY picked up the pieces from that debacle and avoided further problems. Now, its getting to the point where he may very well be unemployable in his industry of choice because not only has he made a professional ass out of himself, he is causing people to look VERY carefully at the type of work he supposively has experience with and relating it to his behavior in this matter and creating the (probably correct) impression that he is most unqualified for the very positions he seeks.
If only he had shut his mouth and walked away while he had the chance to do so gracefully. The world is a big place. You have to screw up pretty badly to make a name for yourself. I despise spammers as much as the next guy, but its a foolish mistake he could have recovered from easily. Now he won't live it down for a LONG time.
I hope fame was what you sought dear Bernie. For you have found it.
-Restil
I wasn't really directing my ire per sae. Slashdot really doesn't do much more than post links to news posted elsewhere and allows people to comment on it. Yet, if not for slashdot's post, even with a newspaper as big as the Washingon Post, the coverage would have been significantly less.
Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. Its perfectly acceptable to speculate. And like I said, there's always the chance that its true to some degree and the PR people at AOL aren't aware of it.
My point was, that for a great many people, geeks in particular, slashdot is accepted as a credible source of information. And in most cases, this is true. And sometimes they drop the ball. We complain rather viciously when other news agencies don't do so much as pick up a phone to attempt to verify the validity of a news source, yet when slashdot does exactly the same thing, we generally accept it as par for the course. This is fine if slashdot is a rumor site or if it only reflects news reported elsewhere. However, if it wants to reflect known accurate information, then it needs to make some effort to assure that while information may not be completely accurate, at least someone who is an authority on that information has verified it as accurate.
When articles are posted multiple times, or article summaries contrast greatly with the actual content of the article linked to, the credibility, or lack there of, of slashdot is brought into light. They will make the occasional snafu. It happens. It can't be completely avoided. But they need to make at least SOME effort to avoid the obvious ones. That
way, when they only reflect on the poor quality reporting of some other news agency on rare occasions, then ire WOULD be misplaced.
-Restil
So it WAS another rumor. We've managed to have at least 4 (who knows how many repeated articles I might have missed out on) posts about this very topic and it appears to be a non-topic afterall.
Most likely it was one of those "what if we..." things that got tossed out in a meeting somewhere. Something along the same lines as 200 other ideas that probably got passed around the same day. Something that someone spent 5 minutes thinking about and probably never got seriously discussed, but someone overheard it, and said something about it to someone, who said something else, and so on, and so forth, until it gets on Slashdot.. then all hell breaks loose.
We've had discussions on the future potential demise of Redhat under an AOL flag. We've had the #2 linux guy's threatened defection. And the VIP's at AOL/TW are probably going "huh?" right about now as someone finally tells them what's going around in the news. Even if it IS a valid rumor, chances are it hasn't worked its way up the corporate hierarchy yet.
And in two weeks, a bigwig from AOL will claim they're considering it, and we'll all think it was all this discussion that prompted them to consider it in the first place.
So what is it? Are we one step ahead or two steps behind? Who knows.
-Restil
I can't really tell much of a difference between 128kbps mp3 and the original cd. Maybe others can, but mp3 is plenty good enough for me. As is ogg. To me, it doesn't really matter about the format as long as its convienent. And considering the 200+ cd's of mp3's are full of mp3's and no other format... and the effort required to convert them would outweigh the slight gain by converting to another format.
-Restil
Well, I haven't been modded UP yet, so we'll see. :)
-Restil
It doesn't mean he'd stop supporting the linux community, although he might not find as many lucrative offers to pay him to do what he loves doing. But still, thats what principle is all about. Don't let a simple thing like money and job security stand in the way of what you believe. At least he's willing to put something on the line.
We might not agree with it. AOL has not exactly been the best neighbor in the internet community. They've been responsible for putting a lot of people on the internet that were better off never discovering it. This could be good or bad depending on how you look at it.
They've provided me with an almost endless supply of free coasters.
I can think of worse companies that could buy Redhat out with far more nefarious intentions, although in AOL's case, I feel they're better refered to as the better of two evils rather than a helpful benefactor.
Alan's decision may not be a good one, but its his to make. And if Redhat will be detrimentally affected by his leaving, then its an issue they need to consider.
-Restil
Micropayments are being touted as a replacement for ad revenue. And this SHOULD be the case. To pay a few cents to eliminate annoying ads would be worthwhile for some people, but for others who have grown very accustomed to the web being free will probably go on prefering intrusive ads.
It also differs on the artist's needs. If he's just trying to cover his bandwidth costs, he has more options than if he's trying to use the web as his only source of income. Even with a readership in the 10's of thousands, it can still be a challenge to do much more than break even.
Ultimately it would work best as a complimentary feature. It's less expensive from the publisher's point of view, and that should certainly be taken into account when considering the per-issue pricing scheme. But as other posters have mentioned, some value of the comic's is the collectable value as well as the content value.
-Restil
I don't think its unreasonable at all. While I think that what he did was more of a fireable offense rather than a legal one, there's still no doubt that what he did was wrong, and that it cost the company money to root out the problem and correct it.
Remember, when this whole thing started, the company was under the impression that there was some program leaking out information. They thought that this was MUCH more serious than a simple distributed program. And when they went
running to law enforcement, this was their original complaint.
As we saw in the Adobe case, just because the complaintant backs down, that doesn't mean the government will. Once you choose to press charges, its out of your hands. This isn't a civil case. Parties in a civil case can settle their differences any way they want and only need to go to court if they can't. This was a criminal case, and while a criminal case is somewhat hurt by the loss of cooperation by the "victim" it does not mean they have to stop prosescution.
I would prefer that the EFF and the community at whole give more attention to those cases where people aren't actually guilty of anything. Not where someone did something wrong and everyone else is just overreacting. Certainly, I don't agree with the initial time he was facing, but if he had been doing his job correctly he never would have had this problem in the first place.
Show some responsibility people!
-Restil
People are used to a certain status quo. They expect to be able to record TV shows. They expect to be able to watch what they want, when they want to. And despite efforts to restrict this in the past, people are legally allowed to do so.
Certainly, almost anything worth watching can be obtained in an illegal way. I can download any popular TV show off the internet from SOMEWHERE, although these methods most certainly violate copyright. And while quite a few people partcipate in these activities, the greater majority doesn't and won't because its more trouble than its worth.
However, if people are suddenly unable to do what they've been used to doing for many many years, then some of these other methods might start appealing to them. TV shows will still get copied, just as DVD's are converted to DivX's. The underground scene will not be affected by this, at leat not in the long run. But the average consumer will find it annoying, and they will be driven to seek out other ways to obtain their media content.
And when they download an episode of "Friends" off the internet, they realize that they can watch it whenever they want. Not only that, but there are no commercials. And they can obtain ANY episode of "Friends" from the first season on, and all they have to do is be patient. If they're going to go to the trouble to do this once, they might realize its not that much trouble after all and might use this method to obtain other TV shows.
And eventually, they might start realizing they simply don't NEED their cable/satellite/whatever anymore because its become less convienent than obtaining it from the internet, not to mention there's no additional cost as long as they already have broadband.
Except for the few that still only recieve the broadcast stations, people pay money monthly to watch their programs. They do actually expect something in return, and one of those things is the ability to do so as they wish. In the blind rage of the media corporations to prevent the evil "pirates" from stealing their precious programming and distributing it for free to the less than 1% of the audience who bothers to make use of it, they will alienate the remaining 99%.
Way to go guys!
Way to go.
-Restil
Heck, even in the open source world, I can't copy someone else's program verbatim and claim I wrote it.
Even if two people work together on a project, as long as they write their code separately, the code will be significantly different enough that it shouldn't be recognized as cheating.
Probably what this will catch is the last minute "Quick, let me copy your program" right before it's due. And this DOES happen, and I find nothing "right" about that at all. That IS cheating, plain and simple, and should be stopped. In a class of 30 students, the instructor (or TA's) will probably be able to notice similarities. In larger classes, its easy for these things to slip by, especially if the grading process is split amongst multiple TA's.
-Restil
This is probably the biggest issue. People aren't eating up broadband in droves because simply there just aren't that many legitimate needs for it.
Note I point out "legitimate". I know of plenty illegitimate uses for broadband which would be difficult if not impossible without it. Excessive mp3 downloading, movies, tv shows, software. Broadband makes these activities simple.
The problem is, because of the RIAA and MPAA and others' stalling, these services simply aren't offered in a way that makes any sense, and those of us who have the means would rather do it our own way, even if that means that the feetdraggers miss out on the opportunity.
Granted, not everyone who has broadband is using it illegally. A lot of people like the always-on capability. A lot of people like their webpages loading super fast. But fact of the matter is, most of those people don't NEED it. Its merely a convienence, and they wouldn't hesitate to move somewhere that it isn't available, where thats the first question I ask after "how much does it cost?"
-Restil
Set up a company completely with open source software, and find window managers that perfectly emulate windows, or at least close enough that your average "my cupholder is broken" employee won't recognize the difference. Then brag excessively internally that you never pay for ANY software, which is true. Have some of these rants taped, and have one of your employees inform the BSA about your possible copyright violations.
This "clueless" employee assumes he's running Windows, so thats what he tells the BSA. That with taped evidence might be enough to justify a warranted search.
Have a few computers that are bombs that nobody uses. Any use of those computers will automatically script the opening of a dos window and format of the hard disk. Videotape those screens and the BSA "agent" at the computer while its happening. It will very much appear that these people are intentionally destroying company property without cause. And they can whine and deny actually doing it, but you've got them redhanded on videotape doing so.
Take them to court. Claim excessive damagers. I mean... how would they know what was on those systems.. they formatted the drives. Sure, it might have been foolish to store the only copy of the source to a multimillion dollar project on that computer, but its not YOUR fault that the BSA guy came in and destroyed your property without just cause, now is it? And the best part is, the search was completely unjustified since you own no proprietary software AT ALL.
Is this right? Not at all. And I would never actually endorse doing it. But someone vindictive enough might. And the BSA better realize this. I remember a news story a couple years ago, when bounty hunters broke into someone's house looking for a bond jumper, wearing skimasks and with no warrant. They bound up some of the residents and ended up killing two others who tried to fight back.
Turns out, they had the wrong house. And none of the people who lived there had warrants out for them. Law enforement and other related activies are not organizations you're allowed to make mistakes in. The cost of those mistakes means someone losing their freedom, or someone losing their life.
The BSA better realize that they could be placed into a similar situation by someone who doesn't care much for their tactics. Granted, if that company actually broke the law while staging this, the BSA would have some recourse, but the fact of the matter is, they act as a law enforcement agency, even though they aren't one. They need to realize that there are checks and balances for a reason. If you're going to break in somewhere and start scouring for something illegal, you better be damn well sure that there's a 100% chance you're going to find something that you're looking for. Otherwise you not only make yourself look like a fool, you make the software companies that you're "representing" look like fools for ever endorsing you in the first place.
And some lucky company will get a lot of free unencombered VC capital on your behalf.
-Restil
First of all, its not IMPOSSIBLE to get software right. No more difficult than it is to build a car or a housse correctly, and while on occasion they break down, generally speaking they function as they're supposed to with minimal failures.
You've heard the joke about the first woodpecker destroying civilization if buildings were built the way that software was written. There's a fundamental truth here. Coders, for the most part, are sloppy. Why? Because they CAN be. However, there are examples of cases where software was done correctly the first time. It takes careful planning and controls and peer review, and in most cases the end result is clean code in less time than it would have taken to do it sloppy and spend lots of time cleaning up bugs.
There SHOULD be accountability here. But people don't hold Microsoft accountable. And I don't blame the monopoly factor either. People have just been brainwashed to believe that its NORMAL that computers crash. Its NORMAL that there are viruses. These things are just a part of life, and there can't be anything done about it. And as long as they believe that, they will keep buying into Microsoft.
These things generally don't bother the individual. They bother a large corporation as a whole that has to deal with the cleanup after one of the messier outlook viruses goes around. But, the corporation, run by people, simply look past the problem. The sys admins might be screaming bloody murder about it, but everyone else just considers it to be the status quo and goes on with their lives as best they can while the servers are being reloaded.
In my opinion, Sircam was the first windows virus/worm that had the potential to have a real effect on how people looked at Microsoft. If the virus was somewhat more malicious and made the data that was being sent out easily readable (as well as passing along a virus) and a few big corps had a lot of confidential internal memos sent all over the world.... THEN maybe people would start to reconsider the value of Microsoft
brand products, as soon as it is made clear to them, that its Microsoft and their software that made all this possible.
-Restil