Slap a tarriff on all Chinese imports until Microsoft, the MPAA, and the RIAA have been paid back for all of the pirated works that they estimate have been scattered around China.
Of course, the recipients will only get a percentage after the usual administrative expenses are deducted.
Nyahh -- it'll never sell. Hell, I don't even like it.
For all those pointing out that zoneinfo files will make this easy on *nix, do please keep in mind that MS systems (that is, the great majority) don't use zoneinfo.
In fact, they use the hardware clock -- most of which do DST at hardware-preset dates last time I looked. If not, it's still hardcoded in the OS.
The difference is that one will take years to get straightened out and the other will take even longer.
You think Wal-Mart is somehow less evil than Microsoft?
Sure, it's a slam-dunk. Wal-Mart screws its employees and gives its customers good value. Microsoft just leers at its employees and screws everyone else.
Re-reading the OP I should have been clearer that the "they" was national, not just MS.
I am leading a team of developers myself, and I have an open position, you just have to have some coding/design/intellectual skills above the regular Slashdot wannabe level to get it.
Thanks, but
I have a BSCS and 30 years experience, a score of patents or so, and am well-known in my field
I quit software to do circuit design, which pays better and is much more fun
"Decent" for Microsoft doesn't cover what I cost even if it weren't that
I have some ethics. I can't imagine being that hard up; if nothing else, Wal-Mart is still hiring greeters.
In the USA, they're not only laying off IT and CS staff, they're even letting H1-B visas go unused, not that that's keeping Bill and others from lobbying to raise the H1-B cap anyway.
Cut all competition out of the process, and you get what we had in 1995: Baby Bells that would charge you for running a "study" of whether they could hook you up in five or ten years.
That, and of course you also get (surprise!) the "preferred network solution provider" as the one-and-only choice. Guess which "preferred network solution provider" has the most sweetheart deals in the USA?
Hint: they not only "support" only one operating system, they don't allow others to connect.
I wonder why it is cheaper to buy a new $400 PC than paying top rate of, say $100 per machine, to get someone to insert the recovery CD and get everything back to factory defaults.
Objection, Your Honor! Assumes digital media not in evidence!
Last I heard, MS was prohibiting OEMs from shipping recovery CDs. That hard drive is all you get.
IBM is also a member of the TCG. Getting a nub from IBM would be a whole lot less work than switching CPU architectures. Sheesh, Apple could do their own nub if it comes to that; they do their own system chips all the time.
IPTV forever frees the broadcasters from the shackles of fair use: with Microsoft's help, they can dictate whatever terms they like for viewing.
IPTV also frees the system manfacturers from the shackles of competing with an installed base: at any time, they can declare your particular display, computer, hard drive, etc. to be noncompliant and the system will stop working until you upgrade.
Between these two, it's a Brave New World for two business sectors which were facing market saturation and declining revenues.
Someone smart enough to teach should be EASILY able to do much better then that.
Work the numbers -- even 44k for a year of less than 200 7-hour days amounts to a pretty fair hourly: $28.6/hour, including two weeks of vacation and ten paid holidays (the usual industrial practice.)
Teacher hourly pay is quite good. Outside of engineering, law, and medicine you're unlikely to find a white-collar job that pays better.
A big part of the problem is that teachers have been enjoying the French "short weeks and long holidays" lifestyle for generations while making hay over the fact that they don't get as much annual compensation as those who work longer and harder.
Yes, harder. Try construction sometime.
For the record: both parents, one brother, and a sister-in-law were/are teachers. I'm channeling their complaints as much as anything.
It's not like teachers around here are all that well paid by national standards, but median teacher pay is still considerably more than $30/hour. Sure, it's a short year (less than 200 days/year) and a short day, but the hourly is great.
Nothing like what they could make as longshoremen in LA, but on the other hand it's mostly air-conditioned.
By comparison, senior tech writers and electronic technicians are doing very well to get $30/hour.
They could join my retirement plan: a percentage of my kids' income. For teachers, a percentage of their students' income, adjusted to the district's Census wage.
Puts a whole new meaning to "these children are our future," eh?
like why some proprietary applications run so much better on Intel hardware than on AMD chips that have markedly better performance on any open-source benchmarks.
I don't blame Intel for putting out a compiler that tweaks code for optimal results on their chips; the P4 in particular has some properties that scream for compiler workarounds (really long pipelines, long memory latency, nasty branch misprediction costs, etc.) That's kosher.
Active sabotage, on the other hand, is just slimy. Maybe not illegal, but slimy.
Great idea. Ought to work wonderfully for those terrorists who send each other e-mails with "We will attact the Great Satan today with UA Flight 255 at 10:33 exactly!" in plaintext.
How it will work with a one-time-pad set of coded messages is something else again.
I can't decide whether I'm more disturbed by my government's attempts to get more power over honest citizens or over their apparent dependence on the Bad Guys all having IQs in the room temperature range. Celsius.
Microsoft apps are nonexistent, and open-source apps tend to have crappy performance due to the fact that IA-64 depends overwhelmingly on compiler optimization. Developers can use Intel's compiler, but it requires work to use with most Linux systems (the only other platform that supports IA-64 besides MS, AFAIK).
Some guy at Ars quotes some guy on Groklaw named "overshoot" who says he "worked with Apple."
It's an old handle. For those who do more gaming than engineering, it has to do with signal integrity. Which in turn has to do with how I know things about being an Apple chip supplier.
As for anonymity, I rather doubt that said Apple supplier would appreciate being named. Deal with it.
I thought consumers paid lower prices since Intel charged less to vendors with exclusive contracts?
That's the beauty of cliff-tiered rebates. The OEMs pay less for that last 5% if they don't include AMD in the mix, but the presumption is that the first 95% is going to Intel at monopoly rates regardless.
There's a reason for the fact that AMD ships 20% of the unit volume but only gets 10% of the revenues for processors, despite selling to the high end of the market where margins are normally better.
Yes, theoretically excessive publication [1] waives the normally-absolute priveledge that legal filings enjoy.
On the other hand, AMD seems to have done this fairly carefully. They haven't repeated the charges so much as called people's attention to the filings themselves. As the proceedings of the courts are a matter of public interest, that's going to be hard to challenge.
At least, it will be as long as Dr. Ruiz doesn't take Darl McBride as his role model.
You know, because it would be horrible to have this as an emmissions-free source of energy. Incredible.
No, intolerable. If a source of energy emits no pollution, greenhouse gasses, or nuclear waste (etc.) then there's no reason not to use it. That would never do, now, would it? What would the protesters do?
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, the recipients will only get a percentage after the usual administrative expenses are deducted.
Nyahh -- it'll never sell. Hell, I don't even like it.
In fact, they use the hardware clock -- most of which do DST at hardware-preset dates last time I looked. If not, it's still hardcoded in the OS.
The difference is that one will take years to get straightened out and the other will take even longer.
Sure, it's a slam-dunk. Wal-Mart screws its employees and gives its customers good value. Microsoft just leers at its employees and screws everyone else.
Go with the numbers.
Re-reading the OP I should have been clearer that the "they" was national, not just MS.
I am leading a team of developers myself, and I have an open position, you just have to have some coding/design/intellectual skills above the regular Slashdot wannabe level to get it.
Thanks, but
In the USA, they're not only laying off IT and CS staff, they're even letting H1-B visas go unused, not that that's keeping Bill and others from lobbying to raise the H1-B cap anyway.
That, and of course you also get (surprise!) the "preferred network solution provider" as the one-and-only choice. Guess which "preferred network solution provider" has the most sweetheart deals in the USA?
Hint: they not only "support" only one operating system, they don't allow others to connect.
Objection, Your Honor! Assumes digital media not in evidence!
Last I heard, MS was prohibiting OEMs from shipping recovery CDs. That hard drive is all you get.
Like, about 12 minutes short. (Assuming you don't connect to your old data on a network, in which case it's even shorter.)
At that rate, the annual cost is going to get ugly!
IBM is also a member of the TCG. Getting a nub from IBM would be a whole lot less work than switching CPU architectures. Sheesh, Apple could do their own nub if it comes to that; they do their own system chips all the time.
IPTV forever frees the broadcasters from the shackles of fair use: with Microsoft's help, they can dictate whatever terms they like for viewing.
IPTV also frees the system manfacturers from the shackles of competing with an installed base: at any time, they can declare your particular display, computer, hard drive, etc. to be noncompliant and the system will stop working until you upgrade.
Between these two, it's a Brave New World for two business sectors which were facing market saturation and declining revenues.
Work the numbers -- even 44k for a year of less than 200 7-hour days amounts to a pretty fair hourly: $28.6/hour, including two weeks of vacation and ten paid holidays (the usual industrial practice.)
Teacher hourly pay is quite good. Outside of engineering, law, and medicine you're unlikely to find a white-collar job that pays better.
A big part of the problem is that teachers have been enjoying the French "short weeks and long holidays" lifestyle for generations while making hay over the fact that they don't get as much annual compensation as those who work longer and harder.
Yes, harder. Try construction sometime.
For the record: both parents, one brother, and a sister-in-law were/are teachers. I'm channeling their complaints as much as anything.
Nothing like what they could make as longshoremen in LA, but on the other hand it's mostly air-conditioned.
By comparison, senior tech writers and electronic technicians are doing very well to get $30/hour.
Puts a whole new meaning to "these children are our future," eh?
I don't blame Intel for putting out a compiler that tweaks code for optimal results on their chips; the P4 in particular has some properties that scream for compiler workarounds (really long pipelines, long memory latency, nasty branch misprediction costs, etc.) That's kosher.
Active sabotage, on the other hand, is just slimy. Maybe not illegal, but slimy.
That would amount to, what? A year or two in Club Fed, with weekends off and reduced sentence for good behavior?
How it will work with a one-time-pad set of coded messages is something else again.
I can't decide whether I'm more disturbed by my government's attempts to get more power over honest citizens or over their apparent dependence on the Bad Guys all having IQs in the room temperature range. Celsius.
Microsoft apps are nonexistent, and open-source apps tend to have crappy performance due to the fact that IA-64 depends overwhelmingly on compiler optimization. Developers can use Intel's compiler, but it requires work to use with most Linux systems (the only other platform that supports IA-64 besides MS, AFAIK).
Net result: no applications => no uptake, QED.
Egg, chicken, all that.
It's an old handle. For those who do more gaming than engineering, it has to do with signal integrity. Which in turn has to do with how I know things about being an Apple chip supplier.
As for anonymity, I rather doubt that said Apple supplier would appreciate being named. Deal with it.
They're solving that. Once MS buys Gator, they'll fix the bugs that make it removable.
"Integrated into the operating system," like IE, Media, etc. The script should be familiar by now.
Considering that in a private antitrust action the only possible resolution is a cash settlement, I don't see the difference.
The only party in a position to change the competitive landscape (with either a behavioral or structural remedy) is the Department of Justice.
Oh, wait ...
That's the beauty of cliff-tiered rebates. The OEMs pay less for that last 5% if they don't include AMD in the mix, but the presumption is that the first 95% is going to Intel at monopoly rates regardless.
There's a reason for the fact that AMD ships 20% of the unit volume but only gets 10% of the revenues for processors, despite selling to the high end of the market where margins are normally better.
On the other hand, AMD seems to have done this fairly carefully. They haven't repeated the charges so much as called people's attention to the filings themselves. As the proceedings of the courts are a matter of public interest, that's going to be hard to challenge.
At least, it will be as long as Dr. Ruiz doesn't take Darl McBride as his role model.
[1] For an extreme example, consider SCOX.
It's not like getting modded down is going to affect my karma worth mentioning. Just enjoy the show -- it's all comedy anyway.
Welcome to /. moderation.
No, intolerable. If a source of energy emits no pollution, greenhouse gasses, or nuclear waste (etc.) then there's no reason not to use it. That would never do, now, would it? What would the protesters do?