> I always get the impression that IBM wants to be all things to all people... have a finger in every cookie jar...
IBM has always been this way - for many years the AS/400, RS/6000, and S/370 groups competed for customer mindshare and they still do, albeit with somewhat less intensity and a grudging pandering to Microsoft customers. (IBM's rush to embrace Linux shows their distaste for all things Microsoft.)
IBM is still all about account control (for 50 years, now) and selling hardware, even though services contribute a growing share of revenues. The only difference lately is, if IBM can't talk a CIO into outsourcing to Global Services, there is still the pitch - "We offer you _everything_." Account control means lock-in and big profits - millions of dollars annually for each captive CIO.
However [and back on topic,;-)], there's more than one reason why IBM might want to buy Novell. Sure, there's Netware... but that's a mature and declining business - even if many IBM customers are still using it, how long will this continue? There's also Novell's current stock price, which is at fire-sale levels (about $10, whereas NOVL sold for $30 less than a year ago - ouch!).
So - aside from Netware - IBM might be looking to buy Novell's cadre of software engineers (who are mostly located in a relatively low cost-of-living region - Utah) at a steep discount: a good deal.
In an IT acquisition, the buyer always perceives some undervalued assets - whether these might be infrastructure, software products, people, whatever. A weak stock price is the invitation.
There's a difference between "an OS built as a superstructure over DOS" (Win3.1/3.11/95/98) and "an OS that supports legacy apps written to run under DOS" (Win3.1/95/98/NT/2000). Abandoning DOS support under Windows ME might be just a M$ ploy to nudge corporate users to Win2000 - "But boss, WinME doesn't support our hundreds of DOS apps - we _have_ to migrate to Win2000 for desktops!." M$ is very anxious lately about lack of Win2000 sales, which have been anemic so far...
But it's also possible (and highly likely, IMHO) that WinME is still basically DOS - just that now it WON'T RUN NATIVE DOS PROGRAMS anymore! As you can guess, I have an opinion that this sucks! So much for M$ continuing to support legacy code.
[Prediction - the Appeals Court reverses Jackson, but is reversed by the Supreme Court, leading to breakup of M$... in 2002.]
NZ is modeled after Britain (the "mother country" much as they may protest that they're different).
Britain is still run on a class-privilege model (loosely translated - we're privileged and you've got nothing to say about it) - institutionalized into their security and internal policing systems. Not a place I'd choose to live, given any choice. By extension, NZ is also a tight little (pair of) island(s) - the "authorities" are too oppressive.
I spent half a year in NZ one month, early 1998. Many prostitutes advertising openly, not much of anything that was not government-sanctioned going on the economy (and I'd bet most of those many NZ prostitutes paid their taxes). Deadbeat backwater economy, eh? However, they are careful to inquire whether one is Canadian or American - Canadians somehow resent taking them for Americans - but this does not diminish the facts that NZ is stagnant and does not have resources (natural or skills) to compete well. It's a suboptimally competitive nation (comprising lots of nice people), that won't be a leading factor into this next century because its ruling elite (some of whom I've met) doesn't anticipate the need to open the society and enable kids to learn technology, young folks to start companies, entrepreneurs to forge links with the rest of the world - any of these things.
"If enough people would do this sort of thing, it would be impractical for the government to do this sort of thing, and hopefully it will just go away."
Exactly. Why isn't encryption more accessible to the ordinary user - PGP, etc.? Because Microsoft doesn't bundle it along with BSODs and GPFs? The lack of _publicly visible_ and _easily available_ such tools is a major failing of the 3L337 hax0r mindset of [academic=Unix-centric] young mavens. Put it where one can easily find and - much more importantly - easily use it, and ordinary users will adopt encryption technology in everyday use. Frustrating government control-freaks, spammers, websurf tracking voyeurs, etc. is a Good Thing, and people who know how to do this have really imperative obligations to make it widely known. I mean, where can I find PGP for Windows98, OS/2, and - oh-by-the-way Linux - (that's not on my box, just yet).
Just my 2 cents...
Re:Er, it's called "television"
on
Movies Online?
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· Score: 1
"On the plus side, the miniseries is a medium that TV can offer that theatres cannot."
This is only true because the major studios have gotten into a "home run" blockbuster mindset, motivated by greed (i.e., the need to satisfy investment analysts with quarterly profits). This also underpins the recent escalation in ticket prices ($10 per ticket is outrageous, when you can rent the video for half that, or wait for the TV release and see it for free, eventually).
It wasn't always this way. Studios used to put out movie "mini-series" but they were called "serials." Ticket prices were cheap.
In the middle of the last century, it was very common to send all the kids to the movie theater every Saturday afternoon to watch the latest episode of a "B" Western or other serial release. (And one might surmise that this helped enable couples to have much larger families years ago.)
However, the major movie studios have lost their way in recent decades. Sony got taken for about 3-4 Billion dollars in it's foray into Hollywood. More recently, Seagrams mismanaged Universal so badly that Edgar Bronfman Jr. now has to _sell_ his entire family company to a French firm, in order to gain a consolation-prize (but very big) check for his monumental mismanagement "gaffes" (the use of a French word is quite intentional).
I worked at Universal Studios last year as a mainframe contractor in their data center. (This was the year Universal lost $100 Million on their films, Seagrams fired the top exec, and the first he heard of it was from a journalist!) The LA Times business section had a good summary of the Seagrams/Universal story last weekend, couched in the form of a report card on Edgar Bronfman Jr. It didn't pull any punches, and I'd encourage any people interested in the corporateness of the movie business to read it (sorry, no link, I'm too lazy, but "it's out there" if you want it).
For me, the most amazing thing in the story was that the President and COO of Universal spent a lot of time on the Universal cafe! I ate lunch there for like six months, and yes, it's a nice cafeteria with reasonable prices, but it was _not_ worth executive attention to upgrade the burgers to blue-cheese toppings or the tuna into Ahi-melts! What _were_ they smoking, upstairs?
[Interesting aside - Seagrams consolidated the Universal data center into another in Indiana (and I extracted and gave them the statistical data to justify this move, at their request). The thought of Indiana data center technicians now reporting to France just makes me shiver. But they did deserve it - the acting IT Director at Universal wouldn't rationize his performance parameters for fear of losing lunches and golf. Now I'm long gone from there, but likely (and hopefully - the incompetant wretch), so is he.]
And yes, I've been a projectionist too, back in high school. We had a couple of rock-solid old projectors with carbon arcs (that took watching) and the big films shown after school were like "The Great Escape" and "The Guns of Navarone." [I'm old, OK?]
So yes, there is something about seeing a movie in a theater that's like going to the opera or seeing a good stage play, where the audience gets to participate and everyone gains a lot thereby.
Anyway (back on topic), I think it's a Good Thing that some movies will soon be available in many formats, on the web as well as DVD in addition to the theater experience. Competition is _very_ good, as it drives down consumer prices to levels that are marginally profitable for most the efficient vendors. This is why the (bloated, inefficient) studios are fighting so hard against wide access. They don't want to see their strangle-hold on the latest big flick evaporate, so I don't blame 'em. But I think they will lose, in the long run.
(Then again, I think it might have been Milton Friedman [economist] who said that, well "In the long run, we're all dead." But I'd hope for AOL/Time-Warner, Universal, etc. to predecease me. Their chokehold on broad-scale media is now out of date, and I'd like to see 'em all die out.)
Right now, I think the major media conglomerates have their feet on the necks of consumers, and I for one would welcome a web-shift to change this.
Look, here's a rich technofirm browbeating a rich academic bastion of "academic freedom"... and the school rolls over like some moronic crack-whore?
This ain't some cowflop community college here, this here is Harvard University, maybe the most prestigious institution of higher learning in this here country (both of my maternal uncles went there - one was a Unitarian minister for about 50 years, the other was a chemistry researcher at a major company, both are now comfortably retired, but would be appalled at Harvard as whore).
And Intel has the balls to push them around over some stupid commercial schtick? How brainless! Academic types have good memories and love to hold career-long grudges. Intel has just pissed-off a few people at Harvard, and these people don't forget any slight or brow-beating. Look for Harvard comp-sci to start investigating alternatives to Intel chip technologies real soon now.
Intel is right on the edge of losing dominance of the consumer-oriented chip market. Their latest, best-effort Pentium processors are lame on price/performance scales compared to what AMD offers, and Intel can't push out enough chips to supply customers - that's why AMD is selling chips.
Add to this Intel's continuing mobo chipset failures and stupid insistance on Rambus RDRAM (a doomed technology that even Intel's support can't save), and you've got the picture of a stagnating firm that can't see clearly: yeah, cover up those G4 Macs! What a bunch of idiot marketroids! Intel should fire 'em all wholesale.
Apple is not one of the companies that will hurt Intel in the next few years, yet the marketroids at Intel target it because it's out there now.... Intel deserves to lose half their market share to AMD and VIA because they're becoming senile.
Harvard should be ashamed of itself over this...
/rant off - Oops, did I forget/rant on? Oh well, maybe that's assumed, this is/. after all.
Excuse me? Was there a "breakup" of IBM and no one bothered to mention it either then or later?
You must be referring to the IBM Consent Decree where they didn't admit FUD or preemptive vapor "product" announcements (and a few other things) but promised never to do anything similar again.
IBM licensed DOS on a _non-exclusive_ basis from Bill Gates. This allowed Microsoft to also license DOS to other companies (Compaq, etc.) to run "IBM clone" PCs. This was IBM's big mistake because they literally _gave away_ the PC market!
He assumes that the DoJ antitrust case intended to show that Microsoft has a monopoly and that its monopoly has harmed consumers, so is illegal. He argues that the DoJ failed to establish that the Microsoft monopoly harmed consumers (and goes on to offer an argument that it did, in fact.) From this he concludes that the case might well be reversed on appeal.
The DoJ theory of this case was rather different than Cringely supposes. True, it's illegal to have a monopoly if it harms consumers. But, it's also illegal to use the power of ones monopoly to extend it to other adjacent markets! _This_ is the legal hook the DoJ hung its hat on.
I'll agree with Cringely that the case might have been stronger, had the DoJ also proven the first proposition (that consumers have been harmed), but the second transgression is also oppressive for a company that has a monopoly. It might be the case that the DoJ felt a case on the "harm" standard was weak, a matter of "what if" opinion. In any event, they went after the second theory and proved it well enough to get Judge Jackson to agree with them roundly in his Findings of Fact.
Issues decided in a Findings of Fact can't be reargued on appeal. The appellate court (be it the Federal Appeals Court or the Supreme Court) can only address Matters of Law. In this case, the relevant Law issue is whether of not the Sherman Antitrust Act applies to sanction the conduct established by the Findings of Fact. It does, and therefore the ruling will be affirmed.
"Can Microsoft buy enough lawyers, appeals, and Congressmen to turn this around?"
You mean, repeal the Sherman Antitrust Act retroactively? Not hardly. Laws don't work that way. Just as you can't be convicted of a crime for something that wasn't illegal at the time you did it (ex post facto), you can't appeal on the grounds that the law was later repealed.
Insert an exemption crafted especially for Microsoft into an appropriations bill? Wouldn't work. See above.
As someone else mentioned, this trial ruling has been made and the issue is now excusively in the hands of the Judicial branch for final decision. This means that the Executive and Legislative branches are now powerless to affect the outcome.
"...the appeals court will drop this hot potato directly to the supreme court."
The process of determining where the Microsoft appeal will be heard doesn't work this way.
First, appellate courts never "pass the buck" - instead, they rule, and it is always up to the losing party to appeal further.
In Federal antitrust law (and only for major cases having significant potential economic impact), the trial judge has the option of applying for direct review by the Supreme Court, if and only if one of the parties requests this.
In this case, it is expected that the plaintiffs will so request, and the Judge will so apply.
Microsoft certainly won't, because they're hoping for a win on appeal from their good friends in the same Federal appellate court that reversed Judge Jackson previously.
are the potential consequences, should linking to [websites or specific pages containing] illegal content be deemed illegal. If this happens, any website that contains links might be prosecuted under an even more vague and malleable theory - that of Conspiracy.
The U.S. laws relating to Conspiracy have been heavily weighted in favor of the prosecution for over thirty years (since the late '60s). I will admit that I haven't followed the evolution of relevant case law subsequently, but the powers and theories allowed then were very heavy handed.
So, how might this relate to linking? Suppose A has a website with a button "Link to My Site" and B clicks on it, adds the link to her own website. Under an arguable interpretation of this action, this constitutes Conspiracy! Well hello, RICO!
[RICO = (Federal) Racketeering Influences and Corrupt Organizations laws; nasty catchall laws devised to address the Mafia and drug cartels; more recently used by physicians to sue most California HMOs (the irony here is delicious).]
This is a very slippery slope indeed. Once Internet "freedom of speech" is abrogated then its usefulness will be greatly endangered for ALL uses (more good than bad). Then we _will_ be living in the dystopia characterized by Frank Zappa: "Ours is a nation of laws - badly written, randomly enforced." [paraphrased] One just shudders...
Other notes that might be helpful...
The "laws of the land" consist of at least three parts - Common Law, Black Letter Law, and Precedent. Each has its force and limitations. In explanation, Common Law consists of broad principles which can be applied, um... broadly, while Black Letter Law must be applied precisely as specified under the terms and conditions set forth, and Precedent is even more subtle.
Precedent typically takes force only upon its survival of Appeal, but only if the Appellate Court chooses to "publish" the case, and even then it's only recognized within the jurisdiction of that Court (although other Courts may "take notice" of it). Various jurisdictions can have different Precedents but when these conflict (and someone wants to argue the issue), then a higher Court can resolve the issue in their territory (lather, rinse, repeat; up to the Supreme Court).
Entrapment is a powerful defense (and was alluded to in a previous post about the Danish police not being allowed to recognize illegal drugs, because they are illegal - beautiful official blindness).
Thus, any website that doesn't want to be held liable for its links might do well to build a home page that requires users to declare (by clicking a button) that they don't have any law enforcement affiliation, don't have any interest in copyrighted materials that might be found on any sites linked, and hold the website harmless, etc. If they click but then complain, then they are guilty of entrapment - a rather good defense.
IANAL. But, the often cited lawyer bashing line from Shakespeare's "Richard II" - something like "First, we'll kill all the lawyers" - was written in the context of plotting a coup to seize total control of the State and subjugate the citizens. Sure, there are far too many lawyers, especially here in the U.S., but I submit that having too many is a bearable cost of making sure we have enough around that some might preserve freedom.
NASA had the "best and brightest" - in the late '60s and early '70s. Then many of the really good people moved on, especially after it became clear that the Apollo program wouldn't continue.
Now NASA has four types of programs: (1) old missions that are still running (and I've seen the mainframes at JPL running ancient software to support the surviving planetary probes); (2) old technology they're still flying (Space Shuttle); (3) the "better, faster, cheaper" missions that mostly fail, at least so far; and (4) visionary stuff like manned Mars missions that they hope will eventually gain support and massive funding.
NASA needs its long-serving staff for the first two categories, uses kids (JPL postdocs, the next crop of NASA-dependent scientist welfare cases) to burn up the most of the third missions, and keeps overpaid managers and the PR machine on #4.
NASA has outlived its usefulness in an age when a Motorola can spend $50 Billion on Iridium folly. Since there's that kind of money available for space enterprises, government subsidies are not only not necessary but counterproductive anymore.
Get 'em real interested and you'll run right into them....
[true story] A college contemporary flew to Australia and then back by way of Guam, the Phillipines, and Hawaii. He sent several, um... ill-advised postcards to (then) President Ford, one from each stop - ominous stuff about the ghost of the Vietnam War coming home for revenge.
The Secret Service was waiting on his doorstep when he arrived home. (Daddy had money though, so he was allowed to check into a mental hospital for three months rather than being prosecuted.)
which is nice if you want to use their pre-built analytical products for CPE or Census statistics. Otherwise, with SAS you're looking at a very big development project just to build your databases.
BTW, IBM isn't using "OLAP" anymore. Apparently none of the PHB's could remember what it meant, so now IBM is calling it "Business Intelligence" (as though buying DB2 could increase their IQs).
This buzzword has arisen recently in publications such as "Enterprise Computing" and "Technical Support" (which seem to keep arriving somehow).
But IBM shouldn't be dissed about DB2 WRT having really solid systems. With the right hardware, software, and technical staff, you can guarantee 100% (not 99.999%) DB2 uptime 24x7x365 (for only a few tens of millions annually, of course).;-)
When companies finally grow up and realize that they're spending millions of dollars on out of control menageries of hundreds of unstable NT database servers, they invariably go upscale to either Unix (if they're smart) or MVS (if rich).
Some are actually rational and do both, depending in the case of each application upon what really makes the most sense. (These are the minority.)
Anyway, DB2 on Linux will be a killer (if IBM doesn't totally screw it up, as they mostly do, when it comes to marketing outside their sacred "account control" business model). However, I only wish them wisdom, lest they wake up in a few years and find MS-Access running on their hot 9672's!
In fact, they are the opposition to everything that Open Source stands for and tries to do. They don't care about quality or open standards, but just want to increase the value of their stock options! They're a parasite on computing.
I sent M$ a polite but stiff note. However, here's what I sent all the links for my reps (in my case, Clinton, Feinstein, Boxer, and Cox), and I'd encourage everyone who replies to Microsoft to also write their Senators and Representives with similar messages. Don't let them prevail!
"I'm using a website Microsoft put up to provide their faithful easy access to their legislators.
However, I'm using it to oppose any attempt to let Microsoft off the hook for their criminal past of lies, outright theft, and other patently illegal practices. Resist their MS apologists!
In my opinion, Microsoft should be tarred and feathered and run out of this country on a rail.
Translating user desires into working systems is one of the major challenges of this information society. Its been difficult for about 50 years now, and innumerable books have been written on this topic. However, it all boils down to this:
1) Find out what your users _really_ want, and _why_ they want it. (The latter can allow you to modify the former, if you really understand it.)y
2) Prototype internally, and get your coders to commit to the feasibility of what you've planned.
3) Show users a prototype (story-board, expected screens with process flow, even detailed design). Get the users' feedback and reiterate 'til done.
4) Freeze the design! Don't let the users ask for "just a few more features" they'd forgotten to include in their review of the prototype spec. Tell them these are good, but will be in Rel. 2.
5) Deliver what you prototyped and promised. If you do this, you can't be reasonably criticized. If you deliver more than is expected, better yet.
WRT (5), its always best to underpromise, then overdeliver. This is how to be a software hero.
I have over 25 years experience with many roles in commercial data processing, including Systems Programming and large-firm Management Consulting. This is the best advice I can offer succinctly.
Bullshit. NT crashes often and needs too much more handholding than _any_ Linux server. Crawl back into your Redmond reality. Linux beats NT, when it comes to reliability, cost-effectiveness.
Slashdot Mirror
> I always get the impression that IBM wants to be all things to all people... have a finger in every cookie jar...
;-)], there's more than one reason why IBM might want to buy Novell. Sure, there's Netware... but that's a mature and declining business - even if many IBM customers are still using it, how long will this continue? There's also Novell's current stock price, which is at fire-sale levels (about $10, whereas NOVL sold for $30 less than a year ago - ouch!).
IBM has always been this way - for many years the AS/400, RS/6000, and S/370 groups competed for customer mindshare and they still do, albeit with somewhat less intensity and a grudging pandering to Microsoft customers. (IBM's rush to embrace Linux shows their distaste for all things Microsoft.)
IBM is still all about account control (for 50 years, now) and selling hardware, even though services contribute a growing share of revenues. The only difference lately is, if IBM can't talk a CIO into outsourcing to Global Services, there is still the pitch - "We offer you _everything_." Account control means lock-in and big profits - millions of dollars annually for each captive CIO.
However [and back on topic,
So - aside from Netware - IBM might be looking to buy Novell's cadre of software engineers (who are mostly located in a relatively low cost-of-living region - Utah) at a steep discount: a good deal.
In an IT acquisition, the buyer always perceives some undervalued assets - whether these might be infrastructure, software products, people, whatever. A weak stock price is the invitation.
There's a difference between "an OS built as a superstructure over DOS" (Win3.1/3.11/95/98) and "an OS that supports legacy apps written to run under DOS" (Win3.1/95/98/NT/2000). Abandoning DOS support under Windows ME might be just a M$ ploy to nudge corporate users to Win2000 - "But boss, WinME doesn't support our hundreds of DOS apps - we _have_ to migrate to Win2000 for desktops!." M$ is very anxious lately about lack of Win2000 sales, which have been anemic so far...
But it's also possible (and highly likely, IMHO) that WinME is still basically DOS - just that now it WON'T RUN NATIVE DOS PROGRAMS anymore! As you can guess, I have an opinion that this sucks! So much for M$ continuing to support legacy code.
[Prediction - the Appeals Court reverses Jackson, but is reversed by the Supreme Court, leading to breakup of M$... in 2002.]
NZ is modeled after Britain (the "mother country" much as they may protest that they're different).
Britain is still run on a class-privilege model (loosely translated - we're privileged and you've got nothing to say about it) - institutionalized into their security and internal policing systems. Not a place I'd choose to live, given any choice. By extension, NZ is also a tight little (pair of) island(s) - the "authorities" are too oppressive.
I spent half a year in NZ one month, early 1998. Many prostitutes advertising openly, not much of anything that was not government-sanctioned going on the economy (and I'd bet most of those many NZ prostitutes paid their taxes). Deadbeat backwater economy, eh? However, they are careful to inquire whether one is Canadian or American - Canadians somehow resent taking them for Americans - but this does not diminish the facts that NZ is stagnant and does not have resources (natural or skills) to compete well. It's a suboptimally competitive nation (comprising lots of nice people), that won't be a leading factor into this next century because its ruling elite (some of whom I've met) doesn't anticipate the need to open the society and enable kids to learn technology, young folks to start companies, entrepreneurs to forge links with the rest of the world - any of these things.
Nice people there - too bad NZ government stinks.
"If enough people would do this sort of thing, it would be impractical for the government to do this sort of thing, and hopefully it will just go away."
Exactly. Why isn't encryption more accessible to the ordinary user - PGP, etc.? Because Microsoft doesn't bundle it along with BSODs and GPFs? The lack of _publicly visible_ and _easily available_ such tools is a major failing of the 3L337 hax0r mindset of [academic=Unix-centric] young mavens. Put it where one can easily find and - much more importantly - easily use it, and ordinary users will adopt encryption technology in everyday use. Frustrating government control-freaks, spammers, websurf tracking voyeurs, etc. is a Good Thing, and people who know how to do this have really imperative obligations to make it widely known. I mean, where can I find PGP for Windows98, OS/2, and - oh-by-the-way Linux - (that's not on my box, just yet).
Just my 2 cents...
"On the plus side, the miniseries is a medium that TV can offer that theatres cannot."
This is only true because the major studios have gotten into a "home run" blockbuster mindset, motivated by greed (i.e., the need to satisfy investment analysts with quarterly profits). This also underpins the recent escalation in ticket prices ($10 per ticket is outrageous, when you can rent the video for half that, or wait for the TV release and see it for free, eventually).
It wasn't always this way. Studios used to put out movie "mini-series" but they were called "serials." Ticket prices were cheap.
In the middle of the last century, it was very common to send all the kids to the movie theater every Saturday afternoon to watch the latest episode of a "B" Western or other serial release. (And one might surmise that this helped enable couples to have much larger families years ago.)
However, the major movie studios have lost their way in recent decades. Sony got taken for about 3-4 Billion dollars in it's foray into Hollywood. More recently, Seagrams mismanaged Universal so badly that Edgar Bronfman Jr. now has to _sell_ his entire family company to a French firm, in order to gain a consolation-prize (but very big) check for his monumental mismanagement "gaffes" (the use of a French word is quite intentional).
I worked at Universal Studios last year as a mainframe contractor in their data center. (This was the year Universal lost $100 Million on their films, Seagrams fired the top exec, and the first he heard of it was from a journalist!) The LA Times business section had a good summary of the Seagrams/Universal story last weekend, couched in the form of a report card on Edgar Bronfman Jr. It didn't pull any punches, and I'd encourage any people interested in the corporateness of the movie business to read it (sorry, no link, I'm too lazy, but "it's out there" if you want it).
For me, the most amazing thing in the story was that the President and COO of Universal spent a lot of time on the Universal cafe! I ate lunch there for like six months, and yes, it's a nice cafeteria with reasonable prices, but it was _not_ worth executive attention to upgrade the burgers to blue-cheese toppings or the tuna into Ahi-melts! What _were_ they smoking, upstairs?
[Interesting aside - Seagrams consolidated the Universal data center into another in Indiana (and I extracted and gave them the statistical data to justify this move, at their request). The thought of Indiana data center technicians now reporting to France just makes me shiver. But they did deserve it - the acting IT Director at Universal wouldn't rationize his performance parameters for fear of losing lunches and golf. Now I'm long gone from there, but likely (and hopefully - the incompetant wretch), so is he.]
And yes, I've been a projectionist too, back in high school. We had a couple of rock-solid old projectors with carbon arcs (that took watching) and the big films shown after school were like "The Great Escape" and "The Guns of Navarone." [I'm old, OK?]
So yes, there is something about seeing a movie in a theater that's like going to the opera or seeing a good stage play, where the audience gets to participate and everyone gains a lot thereby.
Anyway (back on topic), I think it's a Good Thing that some movies will soon be available in many formats, on the web as well as DVD in addition to the theater experience. Competition is _very_ good, as it drives down consumer prices to levels that are marginally profitable for most the efficient vendors. This is why the (bloated, inefficient) studios are fighting so hard against wide access. They don't want to see their strangle-hold on the latest big flick evaporate, so I don't blame 'em. But I think they will lose, in the long run.
(Then again, I think it might have been Milton Friedman [economist] who said that, well "In the long run, we're all dead." But I'd hope for AOL/Time-Warner, Universal, etc. to predecease me. Their chokehold on broad-scale media is now out of date, and I'd like to see 'em all die out.)
Right now, I think the major media conglomerates have their feet on the necks of consumers, and I for one would welcome a web-shift to change this.
Thanks for reading,
R
Yeppers, I'd say you're just about alone in this.
/rant on? Oh well, maybe that's assumed, this is /. after all.
Look, here's a rich technofirm browbeating a rich academic bastion of "academic freedom"... and the school rolls over like some moronic crack-whore?
This ain't some cowflop community college here, this here is Harvard University, maybe the most prestigious institution of higher learning in this here country (both of my maternal uncles went there - one was a Unitarian minister for about 50 years, the other was a chemistry researcher at a major company, both are now comfortably retired, but would be appalled at Harvard as whore).
And Intel has the balls to push them around over some stupid commercial schtick? How brainless! Academic types have good memories and love to hold career-long grudges. Intel has just pissed-off a few people at Harvard, and these people don't forget any slight or brow-beating. Look for Harvard comp-sci to start investigating alternatives to Intel chip technologies real soon now.
Intel is right on the edge of losing dominance of the consumer-oriented chip market. Their latest, best-effort Pentium processors are lame on price/performance scales compared to what AMD offers, and Intel can't push out enough chips to supply customers - that's why AMD is selling chips.
Add to this Intel's continuing mobo chipset failures and stupid insistance on Rambus RDRAM (a doomed technology that even Intel's support can't save), and you've got the picture of a stagnating firm that can't see clearly: yeah, cover up those G4 Macs! What a bunch of idiot marketroids! Intel should fire 'em all wholesale.
Apple is not one of the companies that will hurt Intel in the next few years, yet the marketroids at Intel target it because it's out there now.... Intel deserves to lose half their market share to AMD and VIA because they're becoming senile.
Harvard should be ashamed of itself over this...
/rant off - Oops, did I forget
Excuse me? Was there a "breakup" of IBM and no one bothered to mention it either then or later?
You must be referring to the IBM Consent Decree where they didn't admit FUD or preemptive vapor "product" announcements (and a few other things) but promised never to do anything similar again.
IBM licensed DOS on a _non-exclusive_ basis from Bill Gates. This allowed Microsoft to also license DOS to other companies (Compaq, etc.) to run "IBM clone" PCs. This was IBM's big mistake because they literally _gave away_ the PC market!
Cringely's argument is interesting, but wrong.
He assumes that the DoJ antitrust case intended to show that Microsoft has a monopoly and that its monopoly has harmed consumers, so is illegal. He argues that the DoJ failed to establish that the Microsoft monopoly harmed consumers (and goes on to offer an argument that it did, in fact.) From this he concludes that the case might well be reversed on appeal.
The DoJ theory of this case was rather different than Cringely supposes. True, it's illegal to have a monopoly if it harms consumers. But, it's also illegal to use the power of ones monopoly to extend it to other adjacent markets! _This_ is the legal hook the DoJ hung its hat on.
I'll agree with Cringely that the case might have been stronger, had the DoJ also proven the first proposition (that consumers have been harmed), but the second transgression is also oppressive for a company that has a monopoly. It might be the case that the DoJ felt a case on the "harm" standard was weak, a matter of "what if" opinion. In any event, they went after the second theory and proved it well enough to get Judge Jackson to agree with them roundly in his Findings of Fact.
Issues decided in a Findings of Fact can't be reargued on appeal. The appellate court (be it the Federal Appeals Court or the Supreme Court) can only address Matters of Law. In this case, the relevant Law issue is whether of not the Sherman Antitrust Act applies to sanction the conduct established by the Findings of Fact. It does, and therefore the ruling will be affirmed.
"Can Microsoft buy enough lawyers, appeals, and Congressmen to turn this around?"
You mean, repeal the Sherman Antitrust Act retroactively? Not hardly. Laws don't work that way. Just as you can't be convicted of a crime for something that wasn't illegal at the time you did it (ex post facto), you can't appeal on the grounds that the law was later repealed.
Insert an exemption crafted especially for Microsoft into an appropriations bill? Wouldn't work. See above.
As someone else mentioned, this trial ruling has been made and the issue is now excusively in the hands of the Judicial branch for final decision. This means that the Executive and Legislative branches are now powerless to affect the outcome.
"...the appeals court will drop this hot potato directly to the supreme court."
The process of determining where the Microsoft appeal will be heard doesn't work this way.
First, appellate courts never "pass the buck" - instead, they rule, and it is always up to the losing party to appeal further.
In Federal antitrust law (and only for major cases having significant potential economic impact), the trial judge has the option of applying for direct review by the Supreme Court, if and only if one of the parties requests this.
In this case, it is expected that the plaintiffs will so request, and the Judge will so apply.
Microsoft certainly won't, because they're hoping for a win on appeal from their good friends in the same Federal appellate court that reversed Judge Jackson previously.
are the potential consequences, should linking to [websites or specific pages containing] illegal content be deemed illegal. If this happens, any website that contains links might be prosecuted under an even more vague and malleable theory - that of Conspiracy.
The U.S. laws relating to Conspiracy have been heavily weighted in favor of the prosecution for over thirty years (since the late '60s). I will admit that I haven't followed the evolution of relevant case law subsequently, but the powers and theories allowed then were very heavy handed.
So, how might this relate to linking? Suppose A has a website with a button "Link to My Site" and B clicks on it, adds the link to her own website. Under an arguable interpretation of this action, this constitutes Conspiracy! Well hello, RICO!
[RICO = (Federal) Racketeering Influences and Corrupt Organizations laws; nasty catchall laws devised to address the Mafia and drug cartels; more recently used by physicians to sue most California HMOs (the irony here is delicious).]
This is a very slippery slope indeed. Once Internet "freedom of speech" is abrogated then its usefulness will be greatly endangered for ALL uses (more good than bad). Then we _will_ be living in the dystopia characterized by Frank Zappa: "Ours is a nation of laws - badly written, randomly enforced." [paraphrased] One just shudders...
Other notes that might be helpful...
The "laws of the land" consist of at least three parts - Common Law, Black Letter Law, and Precedent. Each has its force and limitations. In explanation, Common Law consists of broad principles which can be applied, um... broadly, while Black Letter Law must be applied precisely as specified under the terms and conditions set forth, and Precedent is even more subtle.
Precedent typically takes force only upon its survival of Appeal, but only if the Appellate Court chooses to "publish" the case, and even then it's only recognized within the jurisdiction of that Court (although other Courts may "take notice" of it). Various jurisdictions can have different Precedents but when these conflict (and someone wants to argue the issue), then a higher Court can resolve the issue in their territory (lather, rinse, repeat; up to the Supreme Court).
Entrapment is a powerful defense (and was alluded to in a previous post about the Danish police not being allowed to recognize illegal drugs, because they are illegal - beautiful official blindness).
Thus, any website that doesn't want to be held liable for its links might do well to build a home page that requires users to declare (by clicking a button) that they don't have any law enforcement affiliation, don't have any interest in copyrighted materials that might be found on any sites linked, and hold the website harmless, etc. If they click but then complain, then they are guilty of entrapment - a rather good defense.
IANAL. But, the often cited lawyer bashing line from Shakespeare's "Richard II" - something like "First, we'll kill all the lawyers" - was written in the context of plotting a coup to seize total control of the State and subjugate the citizens. Sure, there are far too many lawyers, especially here in the U.S., but I submit that having too many is a bearable cost of making sure we have enough around that some might preserve freedom.
Anyway, its a very interesting discussion.
Funny! Like a SegFault piece, but even better...
NASA had the "best and brightest" - in the late '60s and early '70s. Then many of the really good people moved on, especially after it became clear that the Apollo program wouldn't continue.
Now NASA has four types of programs: (1) old missions that are still running (and I've seen the mainframes at JPL running ancient software to support the surviving planetary probes); (2) old technology they're still flying (Space Shuttle); (3) the "better, faster, cheaper" missions that mostly fail, at least so far; and (4) visionary stuff like manned Mars missions that they hope will eventually gain support and massive funding.
NASA needs its long-serving staff for the first two categories, uses kids (JPL postdocs, the next crop of NASA-dependent scientist welfare cases) to burn up the most of the third missions, and keeps overpaid managers and the PR machine on #4.
NASA has outlived its usefulness in an age when a Motorola can spend $50 Billion on Iridium folly. Since there's that kind of money available for space enterprises, government subsidies are not only not necessary but counterproductive anymore.
Just my 2 cents...
Get 'em real interested and you'll run right into them....
[true story] A college contemporary flew to Australia and then back by way of Guam, the Phillipines, and Hawaii. He sent several, um... ill-advised postcards to (then) President Ford, one from each stop - ominous stuff about the ghost of the Vietnam War coming home for revenge.
The Secret Service was waiting on his doorstep when he arrived home. (Daddy had money though, so he was allowed to check into a mental hospital for three months rather than being prosecuted.)
which is nice if you want to use their pre-built analytical products for CPE or Census statistics. Otherwise, with SAS you're looking at a very big development project just to build your databases.
;-)
BTW, IBM isn't using "OLAP" anymore. Apparently none of the PHB's could remember what it meant, so now IBM is calling it "Business Intelligence" (as though buying DB2 could increase their IQs).
This buzzword has arisen recently in publications such as "Enterprise Computing" and "Technical Support" (which seem to keep arriving somehow).
But IBM shouldn't be dissed about DB2 WRT having really solid systems. With the right hardware, software, and technical staff, you can guarantee 100% (not 99.999%) DB2 uptime 24x7x365 (for only a few tens of millions annually, of course).
When companies finally grow up and realize that they're spending millions of dollars on out of control menageries of hundreds of unstable NT database servers, they invariably go upscale to either Unix (if they're smart) or MVS (if rich).
Some are actually rational and do both, depending in the case of each application upon what really makes the most sense. (These are the minority.)
Anyway, DB2 on Linux will be a killer (if IBM doesn't totally screw it up, as they mostly do, when it comes to marketing outside their sacred "account control" business model). However, I only wish them wisdom, lest they wake up in a few years and find MS-Access running on their hot 9672's!
S390
Turn them in to the SPA and Microsoft for piracy!
(You can do this anonymously, with SPA at least.)
MS isn't part of "the community" of Open Source.
;-)
In fact, they are the opposition to everything that Open Source stands for and tries to do. They don't care about quality or open standards, but just want to increase the value of their stock options! They're a parasite on computing.
I sent M$ a polite but stiff note. However, here's what I sent all the links for my reps (in my case, Clinton, Feinstein, Boxer, and Cox), and I'd encourage everyone who replies to Microsoft to also write their Senators and Representives with similar messages. Don't let them prevail!
"I'm using a website Microsoft put up to provide their faithful easy access to their legislators.
However, I'm using it to oppose any attempt to let Microsoft off the hook for their criminal past of lies, outright theft, and other patently illegal practices. Resist their MS apologists!
In my opinion, Microsoft should be tarred and feathered and run out of this country on a rail.
Best regards,"
As they say in Chicago, vote early and often.
I agree, though it does belong in the Eeek! file.
Maybe it's time to disenfranchise the 'official' Turkish LUG, and only accept input from Turkish individuals.
This might be appropriate for Russia too, btw.
I disagree that the question is too big for /.
Translating user desires into working systems is one of the major challenges of this information society. Its been difficult for about 50 years now, and innumerable books have been written on this topic. However, it all boils down to this:
1) Find out what your users _really_ want, and _why_ they want it. (The latter can allow you to modify the former, if you really understand it.)y
2) Prototype internally, and get your coders to commit to the feasibility of what you've planned.
3) Show users a prototype (story-board, expected screens with process flow, even detailed design). Get the users' feedback and reiterate 'til done.
4) Freeze the design! Don't let the users ask for "just a few more features" they'd forgotten to include in their review of the prototype spec. Tell them these are good, but will be in Rel. 2.
5) Deliver what you prototyped and promised. If you do this, you can't be reasonably criticized. If you deliver more than is expected, better yet.
WRT (5), its always best to underpromise, then overdeliver. This is how to be a software hero.
I have over 25 years experience with many roles in commercial data processing, including Systems Programming and large-firm Management Consulting. This is the best advice I can offer succinctly.
Bullshit. NT crashes often and needs too much more handholding than _any_ Linux server. Crawl back into your Redmond reality. Linux beats NT, when it comes to reliability, cost-effectiveness.