It's taken on faith--you have to assume some axioms.
Axioms aren't in question; it's whether all of the steps of the proof are correct. It seems to me that it's just as easy to make a mistake in a proof as it is in a program.
Proprietary software rules. People still need to buy software, so new companies pop up to fill the need. $270B is simply redistributed. Since most of the market cap ends up in Baby Bills anyway, current stockholders aren't really affected that much.
A breakup would also free the baby Bills to pursue opportunities that they were disallowed from pursuing before because it might upset a monopoly position of another division.
Also, breaking up Microsoft would destroy wealth, not create it. One obvious loss is that the three "baby Bills" would have to hire redundant workers. Microsoft had only one CFO but now they would have to have three. The end result is wasted money on wages with net increase in GNP, a loss for everyone.
That sounds a little short-sighted. Competition is very good for a free market. If innovation (in the dictionary sense) was actually allowed in consumer operating systems and office-productivity tools, more companies with new and better products would come along, with more cash circulating to more people.
In other news, song swapping reached a record high level on the Internet in August as 3.05-billion files were swapped using various systems. The peak for the "Napster era" was 2.79-billion files, but, of course, the RIAA took care of that problem.
A web site should be set up, like "fuckedcd.org" or something, that maintains a registry of copy-protected CDs, so that consumers can find out what albums they should avoid buying. Maybe it could be called "fuckedrecordcompany.com".
On the plus side, some day there may no longer be the need to collect blood from those dirty, disease-infested human animals, who are always so stingy that there are always shortages.
-Craig
Ban DHMO! -- it's a major component of that synthetic blood!
Say what you will about poor software quality, and I'm sure that there are various things that could be done to improve it, but the real problem is with the users. Most consumers are more interested in having software that mostly works today rather than software that works perfectly a year from now. This is how the markets work and managers know this, and they supply the market with inferior software in the shortest time possible.
In theory, the software can be fixed in the second version if it turns out to be popular enough, but in practice, the same process happens over and over with each release. Screw it, ship it!
In order to change this trend, consumers will actually have to hold out for high-quality software, rather than low-quality software available earlier.
And some of the public transit is way better than anything in the US...
That's because public infrastructure is much more socialized in Europe. But, since socialized spending does not produce innovation because only large private corporations can produce innovation, you must therefore be mistaken about the public transit being better over there.
Maybe it's an example of people pretenting to be perfectly law-abiding citizens when a stranger calls them up on the phone and asks if they are doing questionable things with their computer.
...why not just use SPECfp/SPECint or some other established performance-rating criteria?
Exactly, in the same way that (in some places anyway) you pay for natural gas by the number of megajoules rather than the volume, because the volume can vary and be misleading.
Slashdot Mirror
It's taken on faith--you have to assume some axioms.
Axioms aren't in question; it's whether all of the steps of the proof are correct. It seems to me that it's just as easy to make a mistake in a proof as it is in a program.
Proprietary software rules. People still need to buy software, so new companies pop up to fill the need. $270B is simply redistributed. Since most of the market cap ends up in Baby Bills anyway, current stockholders aren't really affected that much.
A breakup would also free the baby Bills to pursue opportunities that they were disallowed from pursuing before because it might upset a monopoly position of another division.
Also, breaking up Microsoft would destroy wealth, not create it. One obvious loss is that the three "baby Bills" would have to hire redundant workers. Microsoft had only one CFO but now they would have to have three. The end result is wasted money on wages with net increase in GNP, a loss for everyone.
That sounds a little short-sighted. Competition is very good for a free market. If innovation (in the dictionary sense) was actually allowed in consumer operating systems and office-productivity tools, more companies with new and better products would come along, with more cash circulating to more people.
Then the code has to be proved to be mathematically perfect.
Does the proof itself need to be prooved to be correct, or is that taken on faith?
In other news, song swapping reached a record high level on the Internet in August as 3.05-billion files were swapped using various systems. The peak for the "Napster era" was 2.79-billion files, but, of course, the RIAA took care of that problem.
A web site should be set up, like "fuckedcd.org" or something, that maintains a registry of copy-protected CDs, so that consumers can find out what albums they should avoid buying. Maybe it could be called "fuckedrecordcompany.com".
In 2006 or so, someone is going to submit to Slashdot about the 10th anniversary of Microsoft inventing the browser.
Today would be a good time for someone to submit a story about the 10th anniversary of AOL inventing the Internet.
And since the characters might be hard to remember, you can tattoo it on their foreheads so the won't forget it.
It'd be more practical if we used binary numbers and had bar codes tattooed on our foreheads.
Lean forward please, Sir. *beep* Thank you. Would you like fries with that?
and you can arrive at a general aviation airport about 15 minutes before takeoff
Wouldn't that require faster-than-light speeds, rather than just faster-than-sound?
Hi Rob ;-)
On the plus side, some day there may no longer be the need to collect blood from those dirty, disease-infested human animals, who are always so stingy that there are always shortages.
-Craig
Ban DHMO! -- it's a major component of that synthetic blood!
Say what you will about poor software quality, and I'm sure that there are various things that could be done to improve it, but the real problem is with the users. Most consumers are more interested in having software that mostly works today rather than software that works perfectly a year from now. This is how the markets work and managers know this, and they supply the market with inferior software in the shortest time possible.
In theory, the software can be fixed in the second version if it turns out to be popular enough, but in practice, the same process happens over and over with each release. Screw it, ship it!
In order to change this trend, consumers will actually have to hold out for high-quality software, rather than low-quality software available earlier.
And some of the public transit is way better than anything in the US...
That's because public infrastructure is much more socialized in Europe. But, since socialized spending does not produce innovation because only large private corporations can produce innovation, you must therefore be mistaken about the public transit being better over there.
Maybe it's an example of people pretenting to be perfectly law-abiding citizens when a stranger calls them up on the phone and asks if they are doing questionable things with their computer.
on the other hand, just letting people know it is possible creates the same community sentiment without ending up in jail for the rest of your life.
But you can be sure that governments and corporate sponsors are working to solve that problem too.
...why not just use SPECfp/SPECint or some other established performance-rating criteria?
Exactly, in the same way that (in some places anyway) you pay for natural gas by the number of megajoules rather than the volume, because the volume can vary and be misleading.
Dirk steps away from SuSE to pursue his personal and professional interests.
Reads to me more like he was pushed than he jumped.
My VIC-20 will also boot up in .8 seconds, and it only has a 1-MHz processor, and it'll go all the way up into the command-input mode!
READY.
I think I know the real source of the more-poorly written documents...
It looks like you are writing a term paper... Would you like to use a template wizard to:
* create an outline
* fill in generic content
* have me write it for you
Doesn't all of this product tying, threatening distributors, manipulating markets, etc. sound kind of familiar?
If you mean "Does it matter in the course of
computer history?", the answer is yes; it's place in history is undeniable.
It probably means "Does it matter to the future of computing?"
100% of statistics are misleading.
64.3% of statistics are made up on the spot.
I would expect that we could stop world hunger within six months if we really wanted to. But we don't.
Maybe things become more serious once all of the obvious jokes are used up.
Anything greater than 21st technology and chances are they'll find us a LOT sooner than we'll find them.
Chances are they'd have blown themselves to kingdom come.
But what if I grow a 256th ear?