Microsoft's spin on 'Innovation' bourn out.
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Mundie Responds
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· Score: 1
One thing I find interesting about this response is that it bears out what I've maintained for awhile about Microsoft's spin on 'Innovation'. Talk to most people about 'Innovation' and they'll think of the process of creating new technologies and ideas. How can you be against the 'Right to Innovate' - we want people to create new stuff!
But when Microsoft talks about their 'Right to Innovate', they're talking about the process of incorporating new technologies and ideas into product, which is something different. As some have noted, Microsoft isn't necessarily that innovative in the first sense - their 'innovations' are largely derivative of other people's work. But when you get down to it, Microsoft is more of a marketing company than it is a technology company, and to a marketer, technology doesn't matter until it's a product he can sell. Hence the focus is more on getting technology into product then it is on the actual creation of the technology
Note that Mundie shows exactly this viewpoint - new development doesn't really matter until it's made into product. They've got enough awareness of the other viewpoint to use it to spin with; one reason they harp on 'Innovation' is likely that they know people will take it in the first sense, and who can oppose that? But the marketer's viewpoint is entrenched (and to some degree explains the long-noted tendency to act as if no technology is real until it's been incorporated into a Microsoft product).
is there truth in this? if so, i'll scrap my plans to make a small clear cube for my linux tv box.
It's true. Even the metal boxes don't alway provide enough shielding (as many hams have found out when using computers in the radio shack). Try tuning around on an AM/FM radio in a building filled with PCs - you'll often find a lot of spurs from the computers. You're likely to find that the RFI covers up all but the strongest stations. Then imagine what it would be like if there were *no* shielding on the computers.
But in that EULA
it will say that you agree to laws in the state that software company resides in.
Yes, software licenses do typically try to specify jurisdiction. That's not unusual. What is unusual about this MS license is the cancellation of the license if you're in a jurisdiction where all of it's terms aren't enforcable. That's what all of this fuss is about.
Hmmm. 3 laptops running Win95 and one NT server. Gee, why does that ring a bell somehow?
Re:What is "Bill S.1618 TITLE III" ?
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Buried in email?
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· Score: 1
What's up with that bill ? Is that true or is it just FUD, a lie ?
Well, it's true that that bill passed Congress. That, however, is irrelevant because it didn't pass the Senate, and wasn't signed by the President. It isn't law in the U.S. or anywhere else.
It gets rather amusing to see this disclaimer appearing on spam that originates outside the U.S. or advertises products/services for non-U.S. businesses. Gee, the U.S. must have become really powerful if a bill that didn't actually make it into law affects the rest of the world.
All in all, it again reinforces the 3 laws of anti-spamming:
Spammers Lie.
If a spammer appears to be telling the truth, see rule 1.
Spammers are stupid.
Re:Free e-mail Services and Spam
on
Buried in email?
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Most of the spam I get is from accounts at hotmail or whatever similar service. Some spammers seem to have scripts to create multiple accounts on these sites and abuse them quite easily.
If you're concluding that the spam is from accounts at hotmail, etc, because a free account address appears in the From: line, you're making an erroneous conclusion. From: lines on spam are almost always forged, and typically do not indicate the real originator or the spam. For the originator, you have to trace the Received: lines, and the best that can typically give you is an ip address. A better conclusion would be that it's popular among spammers to forge a free account in the From: field. I don't think this is something that you can hold hotmail et al responsible for.
Re:Like the last 100 instances, the school was rig
on
Sean In The Middle
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· Score: 1
If he feels that he is being genuinely harrassed by people, and being physically abused, he should seek an authority.
You seem to be making the erroneous assumption that school authorities will actually do something about the harrassment.
In my case, transmitting on 20 meter brings down the DSL connection. With any other band, no problems, but a few minutes on 20 meters and the DSL connection goes down, typically requiring that I reset the DSL modem to get it going again. I'm not sure if the Alcatel SpeedTouch Home I have is just sensitive at that frequency (I'll note that putting ferrites on every wire going into the DSL modem didn't affect it) or if my ladder-line fed doublet just manages to put a lot of RF into the DSL line at that frequency (I'm about to replace the doublet, so I'll find out, I guess).
The rest of the home network doesn't seem to have EMC problems, but I'm using 10Base2.
I may have to think about replacing the Cat5 from the demark to the inside connection with shielded cable. It also just occurred to me that the demark/inside connection cable is probably close to a quarter-wavelength on 20 meters, which might explain why that band is the problem.
Who in their right mind would expect reliability, security, and privacy from anything Microsoft does?
Thousands, nay millions, of technically ignorant users and managers. How do you think Microsoft got 90% of the desktop market anyhow? They market towards the desires ("I want a computer I don't have to think about to use") and fantasies ("I want enterprise-level computer systems that don't require that I hire a lot of those irritating techies who think they're smarter than I am (I'm your manager, so I obviously have to be smarter than you) and who command a salary that's an irritatingly large percentage of my own (how do you maintain a culture of managerial superiority when your underlings make more than you do?)" of technically ignorant people who are nevertheless in a position to control computer purchases.
Not that Microsoft ever really delivers on these things, but the mere fact that they dangle the carrot out there gets a lot of people following
I'm sure that they have an autocheck that puts these back to keep customers from missing valuable communications and not spam.
But they've provided a method for customers to decline those communications, so they obviously realize some people don't want them. Why provide the option and then turn around and negate the user's choice?
The articles I put on my various Web sites are not intended to help people who just want to live a quiet comfortable life (I'm not an expert on this). They are intended to help young people turn into Linus Torvalds or Richard Stallman or Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston (Visicalc)
Perhaps. But they're going to be used by brain-dead PHBs whose egos can't accept their own mediocrity to push their developers (who *should* be able to live quiet comfortable lives) into unnecessary overtime.
Peopleware has some useful advice but it is fundamentally about corporate IT projects where there isn't any competition. In the real world (cf. Silicon Valley), a few months of slippage can very well mean death.
Since when is Silicon Valley 'real world' and corporate IT not? Last I knew, far more software is written by corporate IT than is written for shrink-wrap.
So you've never used the WPS? I wish there were a desktop for *ix as powerful as the WPS
Agreed. My main home box still runs OS/2 (the other 4 run Linux), and the WPS is part of the reason why (the other reason is I've yet to see a Linux personal finance program worth moving away from InCharge for - particularly since I still use CheckFree). I'd probably pay retail for an X version of the WPS.
If it ever becomes clear to users that winders is not a fundamental part of the computer in the same way the mobo is there will be a mass revolt and people will start to understand that they do in fact have choices and this will be very bad for M$.
Security guards have reportedly been confiscating cocacola products. It seems Pepsi is the official soft drink of the 2000 olympics, and someone thinks "official" ought to mean "the only thing allowed".
Though I think you've got the brands backwards, I'm not surprised, as something like this went on at the Atlanta games with regard to credit cards. Seems being the 'official credit card' of the Olympics was interpreted to mean that no other card could be used. Merchants who dared accept payments via anything else risked getting thrown out. Now you know why the Visa advertisement says "They don't take anything else but Visa at the Olympics". It's because Visa's 'sponsorship' of the Olympics has been turned into the purchase of monopolistic rights to credit-card usage.
I'll go on record as saying that Kylix* will be the next killer app for Linux, thus paving the way for a multitude of killer apps.
This is why a number of us who use Clarion on the Windows side of things have been trying to convince SoftVelocity(previously TopSpeed) to port to Linux. Most software written *isn't* off-the-shelf software, and a decent RAD environment could make Linux even more attractive to the corporate types.
no formal software engineering specs were ever written.
Last I knew, Microsoft doesn't do formal software engineering specs. Bill thinks they're a waste of time. "No design documentation but the code itself" were the operative words, IIRC.
I guess the "smartest people in the world" stuff is a bit misleading. They indeed hired a number of "big names" for the research department. Unfortunately none of them had done anything serious AFTER they've moved to Microsoft. One of the reasons might be that the research department is completely isolated from the rest of the company, and regular employees speak about them as "those idiots and weenies, they don't have release schedules, they never do anything useful". In conclusion: the big names are there to serve as a "prestige facade".
This helps explain a bit. It's a little disconcerting to find that the author of "The Emperor's Old Clothes" is working for Microsoft. What does one of the prime, classic spokespersons for simplicity in software construction have to do with this bastion of bloatware?
Although its interesting to note that some of his commentary regarding Ada seems to be singularly appropriate to Windows:
At first I hoped that such a technically unsound project would collapse but I soon realized it was doomed to success. Almost anything in software can be implemented, sold, and even used given enough determination. There is nothing a mere scientist can say that will stand against the flood of a hundred million dollars. But there is one quality that cannot be purchased in this way -- and that is reliability. The price of reliability is the pursuit of utmost simplicity. It is a price which the very rich find most hard to pay.
My word, what a horrible, almost unreadable page! I refuse to believe Dr. Hoare maintains that page himself. He'd have done a much better job. Actually, the typical luser would have done a much better job, let alone someone as intelligent as Dr. Hoare. The page is an insult to him, and makes you wonder if anyone at Microsoft really appreciates who they have working for them.
YOu CANNOT equate the laziness of a user with Closed-Source.
You don't have to. Battening on the laziness of the consumer is a typical marketing tactic nowadays. That's why you get so many offers that go "We'll sign you up now, but there's no obligation - if you decide you don't want it within X days, just call 1-800-xxx-xxxx and cancel" or "We'll sign you up now, and send the full information. If, after looking at the information, you decide you don't want it, just call, etc, etc, etc". Marketers *have* to know that many people won't ever get around to making the call, even though they don't really want the product. This is why I now routinely turn down any such offers. I want my own laziness working *against* my making extraneous purchases, not for it.
Same goes for mail-in rebates. Attract a sale via the mail-in rebate offer, knowing that many people won't get around to getting together the serial numbers, receipts, etc, required for getting the rebate.
Microsoft, as a marketing company, has to know this. And strange as it may seem to us, who are likely used to finding things on the net, many consumers, faced with a choice between going down to the store and buying an upgrade vs. hunting the net for a free viewer, will opt for the store. They understand buying things at the store. They're less sure of their knowledge of finding things on the net. Faced with doing something they know, vs having to learn something new, an appreciable number of them will opt for what they know. Given the state of marketing nowadays, I can't imagine a marketing type passing this up.
The kicker is that I said, ok, we'll do a full install into a separate directory, to make windows happy. Nope, don't work. Got the same message. Had to go delete win.com to trick it.
Careful. Under the DMCA, Microsoft just might come after you for getting around their protection like that.
Slashdot Mirror
One thing I find interesting about this response is that it bears out what I've maintained for awhile about Microsoft's spin on 'Innovation'. Talk to most people about 'Innovation' and they'll think of the process of creating new technologies and ideas. How can you be against the 'Right to Innovate' - we want people to create new stuff!
But when Microsoft talks about their 'Right to Innovate', they're talking about the process of incorporating new technologies and ideas into product, which is something different. As some have noted, Microsoft isn't necessarily that innovative in the first sense - their 'innovations' are largely derivative of other people's work. But when you get down to it, Microsoft is more of a marketing company than it is a technology company, and to a marketer, technology doesn't matter until it's a product he can sell. Hence the focus is more on getting technology into product then it is on the actual creation of the technology
Note that Mundie shows exactly this viewpoint - new development doesn't really matter until it's made into product. They've got enough awareness of the other viewpoint to use it to spin with; one reason they harp on 'Innovation' is likely that they know people will take it in the first sense, and who can oppose that? But the marketer's viewpoint is entrenched (and to some degree explains the long-noted tendency to act as if no technology is real until it's been incorporated into a Microsoft product).
It's true. Even the metal boxes don't alway provide enough shielding (as many hams have found out when using computers in the radio shack). Try tuning around on an AM/FM radio in a building filled with PCs - you'll often find a lot of spurs from the computers. You're likely to find that the RFI covers up all but the strongest stations. Then imagine what it would be like if there were *no* shielding on the computers.
Well, depends. Is it worse if a neighborhood radio user can have you forced to not use the computer because it's throwing out too much RFI?
Yes, software licenses do typically try to specify jurisdiction. That's not unusual. What is unusual about this MS license is the cancellation of the license if you're in a jurisdiction where all of it's terms aren't enforcable. That's what all of this fuss is about.
Hmmm. 3 laptops running Win95 and one NT server. Gee, why does that ring a bell somehow?
Well, it's true that that bill passed Congress. That, however, is irrelevant because it didn't pass the Senate, and wasn't signed by the President. It isn't law in the U.S. or anywhere else.
It gets rather amusing to see this disclaimer appearing on spam that originates outside the U.S. or advertises products/services for non-U.S. businesses. Gee, the U.S. must have become really powerful if a bill that didn't actually make it into law affects the rest of the world.
All in all, it again reinforces the 3 laws of anti-spamming:
If you're concluding that the spam is from accounts at hotmail, etc, because a free account address appears in the From: line, you're making an erroneous conclusion. From: lines on spam are almost always forged, and typically do not indicate the real originator or the spam. For the originator, you have to trace the Received: lines, and the best that can typically give you is an ip address. A better conclusion would be that it's popular among spammers to forge a free account in the From: field. I don't think this is something that you can hold hotmail et al responsible for.
You seem to be making the erroneous assumption that school authorities will actually do something about the harrassment.
In my case, transmitting on 20 meter brings down the DSL connection. With any other band, no problems, but a few minutes on 20 meters and the DSL connection goes down, typically requiring that I reset the DSL modem to get it going again. I'm not sure if the Alcatel SpeedTouch Home I have is just sensitive at that frequency (I'll note that putting ferrites on every wire going into the DSL modem didn't affect it) or if my ladder-line fed doublet just manages to put a lot of RF into the DSL line at that frequency (I'm about to replace the doublet, so I'll find out, I guess).
The rest of the home network doesn't seem to have EMC problems, but I'm using 10Base2.
I may have to think about replacing the Cat5 from the demark to the inside connection with shielded cable. It also just occurred to me that the demark/inside connection cable is probably close to a quarter-wavelength on 20 meters, which might explain why that band is the problem.
Well, all of the currently offered classes, yes. Those still holding Novice licenses don't have 2 meter privileges.
Thousands, nay millions, of technically ignorant users and managers. How do you think Microsoft got 90% of the desktop market anyhow? They market towards the desires ("I want a computer I don't have to think about to use") and fantasies ("I want enterprise-level computer systems that don't require that I hire a lot of those irritating techies who think they're smarter than I am (I'm your manager, so I obviously have to be smarter than you) and who command a salary that's an irritatingly large percentage of my own (how do you maintain a culture of managerial superiority when your underlings make more than you do?)" of technically ignorant people who are nevertheless in a position to control computer purchases.
Not that Microsoft ever really delivers on these things, but the mere fact that they dangle the carrot out there gets a lot of people following
But they've provided a method for customers to decline those communications, so they obviously realize some people don't want them. Why provide the option and then turn around and negate the user's choice?
Hence the pressing need for someone to finally really invent Transparent Aluminum.
Or set up a program of regular keyboard disposal and replacement.
Perhaps. But they're going to be used by brain-dead PHBs whose egos can't accept their own mediocrity to push their developers (who *should* be able to live quiet comfortable lives) into unnecessary overtime.
Since when is Silicon Valley 'real world' and corporate IT not? Last I knew, far more software is written by corporate IT than is written for shrink-wrap.
Agreed. My main home box still runs OS/2 (the other 4 run Linux), and the WPS is part of the reason why (the other reason is I've yet to see a Linux personal finance program worth moving away from InCharge for - particularly since I still use CheckFree). I'd probably pay retail for an X version of the WPS.
Ah, yes, the Great Redmond Riots of 2010
Though I think you've got the brands backwards, I'm not surprised, as something like this went on at the Atlanta games with regard to credit cards. Seems being the 'official credit card' of the Olympics was interpreted to mean that no other card could be used. Merchants who dared accept payments via anything else risked getting thrown out. Now you know why the Visa advertisement says "They don't take anything else but Visa at the Olympics". It's because Visa's 'sponsorship' of the Olympics has been turned into the purchase of monopolistic rights to credit-card usage.
This is why a number of us who use Clarion on the Windows side of things have been trying to convince SoftVelocity(previously TopSpeed) to port to Linux. Most software written *isn't* off-the-shelf software, and a decent RAD environment could make Linux even more attractive to the corporate types.
Last I knew, Microsoft doesn't do formal software engineering specs. Bill thinks they're a waste of time. "No design documentation but the code itself" were the operative words, IIRC.
This helps explain a bit. It's a little disconcerting to find that the author of "The Emperor's Old Clothes" is working for Microsoft. What does one of the prime, classic spokespersons for simplicity in software construction have to do with this bastion of bloatware?
Although its interesting to note that some of his commentary regarding Ada seems to be singularly appropriate to Windows:
My word, what a horrible, almost unreadable page! I refuse to believe Dr. Hoare maintains that page himself. He'd have done a much better job. Actually, the typical luser would have done a much better job, let alone someone as intelligent as Dr. Hoare. The page is an insult to him, and makes you wonder if anyone at Microsoft really appreciates who they have working for them.
You don't have to. Battening on the laziness of the consumer is a typical marketing tactic nowadays. That's why you get so many offers that go "We'll sign you up now, but there's no obligation - if you decide you don't want it within X days, just call 1-800-xxx-xxxx and cancel" or "We'll sign you up now, and send the full information. If, after looking at the information, you decide you don't want it, just call, etc, etc, etc". Marketers *have* to know that many people won't ever get around to making the call, even though they don't really want the product. This is why I now routinely turn down any such offers. I want my own laziness working *against* my making extraneous purchases, not for it.
Same goes for mail-in rebates. Attract a sale via the mail-in rebate offer, knowing that many people won't get around to getting together the serial numbers, receipts, etc, required for getting the rebate.
Microsoft, as a marketing company, has to know this. And strange as it may seem to us, who are likely used to finding things on the net, many consumers, faced with a choice between going down to the store and buying an upgrade vs. hunting the net for a free viewer, will opt for the store. They understand buying things at the store. They're less sure of their knowledge of finding things on the net. Faced with doing something they know, vs having to learn something new, an appreciable number of them will opt for what they know. Given the state of marketing nowadays, I can't imagine a marketing type passing this up.
Careful. Under the DMCA, Microsoft just might come after you for getting around their protection like that.