Only thing I don't see how to work in is the kitchen angle.
Oh, that's easy: Bobby Flay will use it in an Iron Chef America episode (something with Ancho peppers is a good bet), where it will jump up and go on an apeshit rampage after a food critic downs it ("too salty").
Possibly because they (Apple + AT&T combined) have a better legal team than the last two victims/defendants? Also note that Comcast and eBay (for Skype) are included as defendants. There are at least three really big names in that pile...
Not real sure, but I'm thinking that just because two other companies folded (Vonage, who was already under a ton of legal strain and prolly wanted to get this out of the way quickly, and AOL, who was at that time undergoing serious problems of their own)... why should these guys follow suit?
None of the named defendants look as if they're too awful invested in software patents, and this could be a perfect vehicle to get the appeals process going and eventually invalidate the damned things once and for all. The bits are all there: A patent which is damned obvious (from nearly any SciFi movie made), tons of prior art (AT&T prolly has something similar if not exact in its archives from the old Bell Labs days in the '60s and 70's), and a blatant patent troll who seems to be just begging for a good hard kick upside the head.
Personally, if this gets anywhere, I think it could possibly be the one to destroy the software patent circus for good.
As someone who (strangely enough) has no cellphone (and doesn't want one after years of toting the damned thing around), I usually just go into a business and ask to borrow their phone for a local call if it's that important. 19 times out of 20 (or so), it's not a problem.
While not all places do this, I suspect that the one and only instance where using a phone would actually be required (911) would be easily accessible enough almost anywhere in town anyway, and I doubt there would be a business or the like which would refuse to let you do that on their phone (if they themselves aren't doing it already).
Speaking of 911, I was right next a semi-truck accident that occurred back in 2005. There were four people (myself included) helping the truck driver out of the flipped cab and checking on the minivan driver (he got plowed into pretty bad, and we couldn't move him for fear of his neck breaking). Meanwhile, no less than twenty people were standing up on the embankment, gabbing away on their cell phones (with at least one using her built-in camera in between bits of conversation...) The county emergency dispatch operator reported on the news later that night that she literally had to hang up on a few of the callers, because they were all jamming up the lines trying to call 911.
To Hell with that - I'm a SysAdmin; I'm not so sure I want to be typing root/sudo passwords all day long in plain sight where any fool could be eyeballing it... and yes, I like keeping my parts stash close-by, where I can lock it up w/o some junior admin (or anyone else w/ access to the server room) getting their sticky little fingers on 'em.
(not to mention all the confidential stuff, esp. at companies ; now any guest can cruise through the joint and take a peek at any screen he wants to. A small, quiet cell phone camera and *poof* - corporate espionage made easy. I also don't see folks like, oh, HR, doing this anytime soon...)
Cubes by their nature are icky, but damn... I've gotten a bit too used to having at least something that I can call a 'home' away from home.
The township can make the guy's life hell-- can make his friend's lives hell so he loses his friends (assuming it is a guy).
I don't doubt that for a second. OTOH, this assumes a lot - that the guy/girl actually lives within reach of the township (anywhere along the Eastern Seaboard? Odds are fairly decent that the blogger may live in the town next door or somesuch). It also assumes that the blogger is actually the source, and not just typing it all on behalf of the source.
Seems to be a whole lot of work that may net them little-to-no gain, politically or otherwise. I mean, SCO went balls-out to try and get PJ (of Groklaw)'s personal info, but they at least stated clearly that they thought she was some sort of s00p4r-s3kr4t IBM operative or front (and yes, they would've tried to make her life Hell in retaliation, I have zero doubts about that... but at least they had a somewhat plausible purpose -- which in turn was shot down, so I'm not sure if the NJ case will fare any better).
you miss the point. that is happening is that the councilors he is attacking online want to sue him personally for lible. it's not the council itself, as government departments aren't able to bring civil suits. hell if someone was attacking me very publicly online i'd probably sue them as well if it wasn't true.
This would assume that 1) what the blogger was saying actually constitutes libel, and 2) the council member would have a very hard time, as a public figure, getting past the general rules and precedents set against public figures suing for libel.
example. what if someone on a local forum accused you of being a pedo and it got picked up in the local news? it could ruin your life, and the internet is NOT a platform to get up and ruin other peoples lives.
First off, I'm not a publicly elected figure, so I can happily sue whomever said such things for libel, and most likely their ISP/host/whomever would shut them down and retract said allegations immediately.
Second, if a blogger started leveling falsehoods in my direction and I were a public figure, the last thing I'd want to do is lend them any credence or credibility by trying to bull through a court order to expose the blogger. It would be easier to ignore them, which cuts off their air supply and hit rates all at once. If that doesn't work, you respond to media inquiries by saying that the blogger is an outright liar, and challenge said blogger to prove the accusations to any respected media source. After that, it can be safely ignored... either the blogger shuts up, or he/she loses any and all credibility among the media (either by not responding w/ evidence/proof, or by having such "evidence" or "proof" proven false through media investigation).
A smart politician who knows he/she is in the clear against such allegations, knows that it's easier and politically safer to have an anonymous opponent shoved into Tin Foil Territory (in the public's collective judgement) than anywhere else. Otherwise, you end up wasting resources to fix a problem that in ordinary circumstance would simply die off quickly by itself... and as a Murphy Bonus, you'd end up drawing attention to it than it would have otherwise warranted.
Now - that said, if you're a public figure with something to hide, and someone keeps exposing those somethings, then you would still be smart to take the same route as much as possible, until/unless the evidence starts piling up and can be confirmed. Even in such cases, suing for libel or outing the blogger isn't really going to get you anything good - you're still a public figure and cannot credibly sue for libel in most cases, and your attempts are automatically going to be read as something that the public is going to pay attention to. After all, if you're so eager to shut someone up, then there must be something to what that someone is saying, no?
While agree with the EFF's premise (in that someone shouldn't be forced into identifying him/herself just because they've been vocal about a public issue), I have to wonder... WTF would the township do with the info?
Sure, if the blogger turns out to be a public employee of said township, he/she would prolly be fired. Then again, the nanosecond after they did such a thing, esp. after outing him/her in such a public manner, would likely put themselves at substantial legal risk.
But the main point for the township being stupid by doing it is this: what was once a thing that could be scoffed at as 'some guy on the Internet who knows nothing about this'... now has credence, credibility, and a firm aura of truth; all of which has now been granted to him/her/it by the township's idiot legal team.
Personally, if Congress wants to do something useful (well...), they could work on something legislative-like that would prevent government-as-plaintiff in a civil suit from ever being allowed to out any anonymous posting, publication, or what-have-you.
Man - some people just can't grok the concept of not using every tool they have for a difficult problem, simply because they're all there and sitting in the toolbox.
Heh - funny you should say that, since Fluke is a company which makes some damned fine (and unlike HP stuff, damned tough) electronics measurement equipment.:)
IOW, this is a company whose primary biz isn't even related to the Internet (aside from diong so indirectly, by selling the tools to keep the telecom end of it going, I suppose).
My point was that people will overlook their own faults in order to look down on other people because of their faults. Adulterous men will speak bad of another man who was found to be adulterous. People who pick their nose will laugh at 'worlds funniest nosepickers caught on camera'. People who make typos (especially when excited/stressed), will think stupid a man who's logged IRC chat from 10 years ago shows a few grammatical mistakes.
Oh, easily. It stems from a societal need to strive towards a higher set of standards... the individual doesn't like to be chastised, but will happily chastise others in order to nudge society upwards. It is a basic human instinct, from long before civilization, one would think. IT's what prompted one of the the best object/philosophical lessons in History concerning it: "Let he who is without sin..."
I'm objecting to the recording and archiving (which, if it doesn't happen, soon will).
When it comes to the Internet, I think it'll be damned tough to trace an individual's online history, esp. if it stretches back awhile. Hell, I remember the very first time I discovered USENET in 1991. Even if it was all recorded back that far, I sincerely doubt you'd be able to couple my original email addy (which ended in *af.mil back then) and the original nick I used (I ain't tellin').
Even someone who has those two bits of info would have a hard time tracking my entire online history down, even if it were perfectly recorded.
The 'net is simply too damned big, people change 'nyms once in awhile, and they change IP addys with amazing frequency (DHCP, physically moving, etc). It could be done, but it would take a whole lot of digging around and (at least in my case) a very long time to piece together... resources that a potential employer really wouldn't want to spend, short of the gov't.
Finally, unless you have a really, really unique name (e.g. "Steve Wirzengrubel" or somesuch), it's too easy to get your history lost in real life - personally, I've lost count of how many times I'd get a phone call looking for someone else who shares my first and last name (both are fairly common; a quick peek at the phone book reveals seventeen others in my local metro area who have that, or some close variation thereof).
I guess I just don't see the large danger that others do in this.
But when Clinton did it, how many of the millions overlooked their own infidelities and called for his impeachment?
Point of order... Clinton was impeached nor for getting a blow-job by his intern (or even making her play the Human Humidor). He was impeached for lying under oath (a.k.a. committing Perjury). If you or I were to have done so to cover our asses as defendants in a civil lawsuit, we'd go straight to PIMTA prison for it. Remember, Clinton was a defendant in a sexual harassment lawsuit, and sex in the office was relevant to the whole deal (now whether it was justified or not isn't the deal - fact is he was there, under oath, and still purposely lied about a relevant fact in the lawsuit). Since (IIRC) you can't simply chuck The Prez in jail w/o removing him from office first, the impeachment was put into motion.
No, it isn't that I've "already made up" my mind, I'm just relaying what I've seen. Your semi-elitist dismissal aside, you've provided no rebuttal at all aside from anecdotal evidence. If you're so certain that this isn't a problem, then please, show us examples. That's all you have to do.
I've provided a very simple means to check against this (and actively encourage anyone in the IT or games biz --respectively-- to use it). You've provided little more than "tin foil hat" and "you have no idea what you're talking about" coupled with a variation of 'because I say so' as evidence.
I'm afraid that you'll have to do far better than that, unless you're simply trolling.
When it comes to comments, I (mostly) agree (because it would make no sense to troll the small sites... but a big site like, say, C|Net?)
OTOH, the Acer Ferrari laptop debacle was proof enough that there's more than just a little purchasing on the sly... which is why I mentioned Microsoft specifically.
It's not like it's unexpected or anything... or even a new or Internet-only phenomenon. I guess it points to a larger, lazier picture in journalism these days.
On that note, I'd much more easily trust the known and respected cynic who gives the occasional positive review than a bubbly human mimeograph of a reporter who damns anything that's not the object of his or her affection.
Nice... you assume automatically that I meant the entire industry fully does it. No... just most of them. It doesn't take much more than reading the articles half the time, and then checking said against the relevant vendor's press release. It's frightening how often the two items mate up in tone and tempo. It's even more frightening how quickly it is to disassemble a lot of the articles for the barely-masked marketing bullshit that it is.
Also, note that there are still good sources of tech journalism out there, just that they've become rarer as time goes on. The reason hexus.net stands out clearly enough to mention is because a year or so ago, they exposed a flat-out attempt of extortion on a vendor's part. From a big-name gamer rig vendor, no less (IIRC Alienware, but I'd have to dig around and check before I'd say for certain).
Finally, there's no way you can sit there and say with any honesty that a large (or even moreso a medium-sized) outfit wouldn't at least give pause towards giving vendors editorial/review leeway when said vendor is spending a metric shedload of cash to advertise on the same site. No. Fucking. Way. Even in dead-tree land, Consumer Reports stands out specifically because they accept no advert dollars of any kind, which gives them the perfect freedom to call crap/overprised products for what they are.
Anything positive about Micro$oft is obviously bought and paid for by a M$ shill. Now Apple however...
No, not "anything" positive, just a nice, healthy chunk of it. Take the recent Zune story we played with on/. this morning for instance... it was quickly disassembled and found to be pure marketing bullshit - with not even five minutes' checking. Any decent reporter could've done the same thing, and should have.
A real tech reporter would've done this checking and would have tempered the story with at least those caveats (that is, no, the Zune isn't the hottest selling portable music player overall, just the hottest selling 'year-old-model-in-this-narrow-category' item). Yet our intrepid "Tech Diva" was too enraptured by the Zune to do even the most cursory checks.
But MSFT aside, my big complaint is that basic cynicism in tech journalism ("rule #1 - if a vendor posts a press release, it's liable to be bullshit") is about as rare as virginity in a porn flick these days.
Agreed for the likes of those particular pubs (and others similar to it), but they were usually outnumbered by a cadre of smaller yet honest (and more probing) sites which didn't give a damn about who got their panties bunched-up about what they wrote. That's what I'm increasingly beginning to miss these days.
I think I might have found a partial solution to it, though it wouldn't work for everyone: If you run a games review site, only accept advertising from hardware vendors and the like, but none from games publishers, or businesses which sell games (this means, for instance, no MSFT money, since they sell xboxes and games for it). Hardware review sites could happily take ad money from app and games publishers, but none from Intel, AMD, etc etc. At least this way you can get some related ads still put up and money coming in, but at the same time you don't end up with the dilemma.
No, really - let's include all of tech journalism in the pile. I've lost count of how many articles that are more than obviously bought-and-paid for either by a vendor, or because the whole damn site is nothing more than a front for the vendor and its buddies (yes Microsoft, I'm looking in your direction when I say that).
While we're at it, how about a solution to the other two big problems on tech and game journalism's part? Even The Register is starting to show cracks of laziness (and occasionally outright fanboyism) in their articles nowadays.
The dead tree media may not be perfect, but at least they do have one thing they can rightly claim over most tech and gaming journals online: they have and at least halfway adhere to a code of ethics and diligence.
There's a couple places online which still do at least some due diligence and hold onto their ethics (hexus.net comes to mind), but they're getting rare. Question is, how do you fix it (short of hunting down the paid-for/fanboy shitheads like, oh, Rob Enderle, and subjecting them to a public stoning)?
True - which says more about certain unions than it does about management.
A good union (like I mentioned before, the Ironworkers) aren't power-hungry and small-minded, and have done a whole hell of a lot to make a dangerous industry relatively safe and attractive. They're one of the few who go out of their way to work with management, not against it. They have a solid grasp of reality. It's one of the few groups that look out for their members' interests without being obnoxious and egotistical about it.
The UEA (Utah teachers' union) OTOH are only after one thing - power. They're ruled by ego and a solid grasp of how to abuse petty authority. I have learned to give no respect to them based on how they interact with school districts and legislatures, and had pretty much rejected them when I was a teacher.
So teaming up into a state/nation-wide organisation that would have financial and political pull is a NOT a good way to stop your jobs getting outsourced?
So tell us exactly how successful the Automotive and manufacturing industries has been at that (think NAFTA here).
Can you please list your name, adress, date of birth and any other form of ID here so that when YOU end up as the above mentioned "poor bastard" everyone can say "Fuck you! Suck it up.".
We could also add a kick in the balls, if that is "to your satisfaction"?
Sorry, kid - but if you're not adult enough to suck it up and negotiate the best deal you can in your career, that's your problem. IT is supposed to be a professional career, not a clearinghouse for time-markers and the weak-minded.
(and half a bazillion other projects... Hell, not it's been going on before Microsoft decided they needed a working TCP/IP stack for Windows 2000 or anything...)
Not like it took deep thought to arrive at that conclusion - a look at the nearest sysadmin (myself just as guilty) and the wee habit of script-scavenging is sufficient to serve as a parallel.
Is there any reason that we CAN NOT have a computer tech or programmers union? Seriously.
We could, but the question is - would you really want to?
I mean, Unions are great for certain career fields, but this ain't one of them. While yes a Union would curb management excess, it also tends to retard employee excellence.
Case in point - Seniority. You, I, and pretty much most folks who think it through know full well that time-on-the-job does not equal competency-on-the-job. Problem is, most Union shops (I've worked in a few as a member) eat, sleep, and breathe Seniority. This means that merit no longer counts.
Admittedly, these obstacles are few, but some of them can be rather large ones.
Go on strike? Err, why, because some poor bastard in some other company or division thereof got a raw deal by some jackass manager? Screw that. I saw something similar as a teacher once. The whole damned state union (UEA) wanted to walk out on a week of school days, because they only got a modest annual raise instead of a large one... Meanwhile, I had just got on, and had fully negotiated my own salary and benefits --to my satisfaction-- before I accepted the position; just like each and every one of them could have done (Utah state law fully allows this).
I don't know... I guess I just prefer the free agency of it all. I like the fact that I can advance without waiting for someone ahead of me to die off or retire. I like being able to move into a senior position at a new place without having to pay the dues (both monetary and otherwise), or being locked into something I know I can get a better deal out of - if only I am allowed to negotiate it independently. If I want to do something after-hours, I can (okay, sometimes it's a have-to deal, but I knew that going in and I get paid overtime for such cases, so...)
Anyrate, it's a whole other culture, and not exactly the panacea that it appears to be. Having been in good Unions (Ironworkers, local 493) and bad (Utah Educators Ass'n), I know that it's a whole other world that what most folks expect.
(and if you think outsourcing is ugly now - just wait'll the PHB's realize you gave them a friggin' union to deal with. Your job will disappear faster than grain alcohol in a frat house).
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No problem: Red Food Coloring (#2) and a ballpoint pen should do it (see also the MacGyver list further up).
Oh, that's easy: Bobby Flay will use it in an Iron Chef America episode (something with Ancho peppers is a good bet), where it will jump up and go on an apeshit rampage after a food critic downs it ("too salty").
Not real sure, but I'm thinking that just because two other companies folded (Vonage, who was already under a ton of legal strain and prolly wanted to get this out of the way quickly, and AOL, who was at that time undergoing serious problems of their own)... why should these guys follow suit?
None of the named defendants look as if they're too awful invested in software patents, and this could be a perfect vehicle to get the appeals process going and eventually invalidate the damned things once and for all. The bits are all there: A patent which is damned obvious (from nearly any SciFi movie made), tons of prior art (AT&T prolly has something similar if not exact in its archives from the old Bell Labs days in the '60s and 70's), and a blatant patent troll who seems to be just begging for a good hard kick upside the head.
Personally, if this gets anywhere, I think it could possibly be the one to destroy the software patent circus for good.
While not all places do this, I suspect that the one and only instance where using a phone would actually be required (911) would be easily accessible enough almost anywhere in town anyway, and I doubt there would be a business or the like which would refuse to let you do that on their phone (if they themselves aren't doing it already).
Speaking of 911, I was right next a semi-truck accident that occurred back in 2005. There were four people (myself included) helping the truck driver out of the flipped cab and checking on the minivan driver (he got plowed into pretty bad, and we couldn't move him for fear of his neck breaking). Meanwhile, no less than twenty people were standing up on the embankment, gabbing away on their cell phones (with at least one using her built-in camera in between bits of conversation...) The county emergency dispatch operator reported on the news later that night that she literally had to hang up on a few of the callers, because they were all jamming up the lines trying to call 911.
(not to mention all the confidential stuff, esp. at companies ; now any guest can cruise through the joint and take a peek at any screen he wants to. A small, quiet cell phone camera and *poof* - corporate espionage made easy. I also don't see folks like, oh, HR, doing this anytime soon...)
Cubes by their nature are icky, but damn... I've gotten a bit too used to having at least something that I can call a 'home' away from home.
I don't doubt that for a second. OTOH, this assumes a lot - that the guy/girl actually lives within reach of the township (anywhere along the Eastern Seaboard? Odds are fairly decent that the blogger may live in the town next door or somesuch). It also assumes that the blogger is actually the source, and not just typing it all on behalf of the source.
Seems to be a whole lot of work that may net them little-to-no gain, politically or otherwise. I mean, SCO went balls-out to try and get PJ (of Groklaw)'s personal info, but they at least stated clearly that they thought she was some sort of s00p4r-s3kr4t IBM operative or front (and yes, they would've tried to make her life Hell in retaliation, I have zero doubts about that... but at least they had a somewhat plausible purpose -- which in turn was shot down, so I'm not sure if the NJ case will fare any better).
This would assume that 1) what the blogger was saying actually constitutes libel, and 2) the council member would have a very hard time, as a public figure, getting past the general rules and precedents set against public figures suing for libel.
example. what if someone on a local forum accused you of being a pedo and it got picked up in the local news? it could ruin your life, and the internet is NOT a platform to get up and ruin other peoples lives.First off, I'm not a publicly elected figure, so I can happily sue whomever said such things for libel, and most likely their ISP/host/whomever would shut them down and retract said allegations immediately.
Second, if a blogger started leveling falsehoods in my direction and I were a public figure, the last thing I'd want to do is lend them any credence or credibility by trying to bull through a court order to expose the blogger. It would be easier to ignore them, which cuts off their air supply and hit rates all at once. If that doesn't work, you respond to media inquiries by saying that the blogger is an outright liar, and challenge said blogger to prove the accusations to any respected media source. After that, it can be safely ignored... either the blogger shuts up, or he/she loses any and all credibility among the media (either by not responding w/ evidence/proof, or by having such "evidence" or "proof" proven false through media investigation).
A smart politician who knows he/she is in the clear against such allegations, knows that it's easier and politically safer to have an anonymous opponent shoved into Tin Foil Territory (in the public's collective judgement) than anywhere else. Otherwise, you end up wasting resources to fix a problem that in ordinary circumstance would simply die off quickly by itself... and as a Murphy Bonus, you'd end up drawing attention to it than it would have otherwise warranted.
Now - that said, if you're a public figure with something to hide, and someone keeps exposing those somethings, then you would still be smart to take the same route as much as possible, until/unless the evidence starts piling up and can be confirmed. Even in such cases, suing for libel or outing the blogger isn't really going to get you anything good - you're still a public figure and cannot credibly sue for libel in most cases, and your attempts are automatically going to be read as something that the public is going to pay attention to. After all, if you're so eager to shut someone up, then there must be something to what that someone is saying, no?
Sure, if the blogger turns out to be a public employee of said township, he/she would prolly be fired. Then again, the nanosecond after they did such a thing, esp. after outing him/her in such a public manner, would likely put themselves at substantial legal risk.
But the main point for the township being stupid by doing it is this: what was once a thing that could be scoffed at as 'some guy on the Internet who knows nothing about this'... now has credence, credibility, and a firm aura of truth; all of which has now been granted to him/her/it by the township's idiot legal team.
Personally, if Congress wants to do something useful (well...), they could work on something legislative-like that would prevent government-as-plaintiff in a civil suit from ever being allowed to out any anonymous posting, publication, or what-have-you.
Man - some people just can't grok the concept of not using every tool they have for a difficult problem, simply because they're all there and sitting in the toolbox.
IOW, this is a company whose primary biz isn't even related to the Internet (aside from diong so indirectly, by selling the tools to keep the telecom end of it going, I suppose).
Oh, easily. It stems from a societal need to strive towards a higher set of standards... the individual doesn't like to be chastised, but will happily chastise others in order to nudge society upwards. It is a basic human instinct, from long before civilization, one would think. IT's what prompted one of the the best object/philosophical lessons in History concerning it: "Let he who is without sin..."
I'm objecting to the recording and archiving (which, if it doesn't happen, soon will).When it comes to the Internet, I think it'll be damned tough to trace an individual's online history, esp. if it stretches back awhile. Hell, I remember the very first time I discovered USENET in 1991. Even if it was all recorded back that far, I sincerely doubt you'd be able to couple my original email addy (which ended in *af.mil back then) and the original nick I used (I ain't tellin').
Even someone who has those two bits of info would have a hard time tracking my entire online history down, even if it were perfectly recorded.
The 'net is simply too damned big, people change 'nyms once in awhile, and they change IP addys with amazing frequency (DHCP, physically moving, etc). It could be done, but it would take a whole lot of digging around and (at least in my case) a very long time to piece together... resources that a potential employer really wouldn't want to spend, short of the gov't.
Finally, unless you have a really, really unique name (e.g. "Steve Wirzengrubel" or somesuch), it's too easy to get your history lost in real life - personally, I've lost count of how many times I'd get a phone call looking for someone else who shares my first and last name (both are fairly common; a quick peek at the phone book reveals seventeen others in my local metro area who have that, or some close variation thereof).
I guess I just don't see the large danger that others do in this.
Point of order... Clinton was impeached nor for getting a blow-job by his intern (or even making her play the Human Humidor). He was impeached for lying under oath (a.k.a. committing Perjury). If you or I were to have done so to cover our asses as defendants in a civil lawsuit, we'd go straight to PIMTA prison for it. Remember, Clinton was a defendant in a sexual harassment lawsuit, and sex in the office was relevant to the whole deal (now whether it was justified or not isn't the deal - fact is he was there, under oath, and still purposely lied about a relevant fact in the lawsuit). Since (IIRC) you can't simply chuck The Prez in jail w/o removing him from office first, the impeachment was put into motion.
I've provided a very simple means to check against this (and actively encourage anyone in the IT or games biz --respectively-- to use it). You've provided little more than "tin foil hat" and "you have no idea what you're talking about" coupled with a variation of 'because I say so' as evidence.
I'm afraid that you'll have to do far better than that, unless you're simply trolling.
OTOH, the Acer Ferrari laptop debacle was proof enough that there's more than just a little purchasing on the sly... which is why I mentioned Microsoft specifically.
It's not like it's unexpected or anything... or even a new or Internet-only phenomenon. I guess it points to a larger, lazier picture in journalism these days.
On that note, I'd much more easily trust the known and respected cynic who gives the occasional positive review than a bubbly human mimeograph of a reporter who damns anything that's not the object of his or her affection.
Also, note that there are still good sources of tech journalism out there, just that they've become rarer as time goes on. The reason hexus.net stands out clearly enough to mention is because a year or so ago, they exposed a flat-out attempt of extortion on a vendor's part. From a big-name gamer rig vendor, no less (IIRC Alienware, but I'd have to dig around and check before I'd say for certain).
Finally, there's no way you can sit there and say with any honesty that a large (or even moreso a medium-sized) outfit wouldn't at least give pause towards giving vendors editorial/review leeway when said vendor is spending a metric shedload of cash to advertise on the same site. No. Fucking. Way. Even in dead-tree land, Consumer Reports stands out specifically because they accept no advert dollars of any kind, which gives them the perfect freedom to call crap/overprised products for what they are.
No, not "anything" positive, just a nice, healthy chunk of it. Take the recent Zune story we played with on /. this morning for instance... it was quickly disassembled and found to be pure marketing bullshit - with not even five minutes' checking. Any decent reporter could've done the same thing, and should have.
A real tech reporter would've done this checking and would have tempered the story with at least those caveats (that is, no, the Zune isn't the hottest selling portable music player overall, just the hottest selling 'year-old-model-in-this-narrow-category' item). Yet our intrepid "Tech Diva" was too enraptured by the Zune to do even the most cursory checks.
But MSFT aside, my big complaint is that basic cynicism in tech journalism ("rule #1 - if a vendor posts a press release, it's liable to be bullshit") is about as rare as virginity in a porn flick these days.
I think I might have found a partial solution to it, though it wouldn't work for everyone: If you run a games review site, only accept advertising from hardware vendors and the like, but none from games publishers, or businesses which sell games (this means, for instance, no MSFT money, since they sell xboxes and games for it). Hardware review sites could happily take ad money from app and games publishers, but none from Intel, AMD, etc etc. At least this way you can get some related ads still put up and money coming in, but at the same time you don't end up with the dilemma.
While we're at it, how about a solution to the other two big problems on tech and game journalism's part? Even The Register is starting to show cracks of laziness (and occasionally outright fanboyism) in their articles nowadays.
The dead tree media may not be perfect, but at least they do have one thing they can rightly claim over most tech and gaming journals online: they have and at least halfway adhere to a code of ethics and diligence.
There's a couple places online which still do at least some due diligence and hold onto their ethics (hexus.net comes to mind), but they're getting rare. Question is, how do you fix it (short of hunting down the paid-for/fanboy shitheads like, oh, Rob Enderle, and subjecting them to a public stoning)?
A good union (like I mentioned before, the Ironworkers) aren't power-hungry and small-minded, and have done a whole hell of a lot to make a dangerous industry relatively safe and attractive. They're one of the few who go out of their way to work with management, not against it. They have a solid grasp of reality. It's one of the few groups that look out for their members' interests without being obnoxious and egotistical about it.
The UEA (Utah teachers' union) OTOH are only after one thing - power. They're ruled by ego and a solid grasp of how to abuse petty authority. I have learned to give no respect to them based on how they interact with school districts and legislatures, and had pretty much rejected them when I was a teacher.
So teaming up into a state/nation-wide organisation that would have financial and political pull is a NOT a good way to stop your jobs getting outsourced?
So tell us exactly how successful the Automotive and manufacturing industries has been at that (think NAFTA here).
Can you please list your name, adress, date of birth and any other form of ID here so that when YOU end up as the above mentioned "poor bastard" everyone can say "Fuck you! Suck it up.".We could also add a kick in the balls, if that is "to your satisfaction"?
Sorry, kid - but if you're not adult enough to suck it up and negotiate the best deal you can in your career, that's your problem. IT is supposed to be a professional career, not a clearinghouse for time-markers and the weak-minded.
(and half a bazillion other projects... Hell, not it's been going on before Microsoft decided they needed a working TCP/IP stack for Windows 2000 or anything...)
Oh, c'mon! It has one potential use - It sounds like a munged pr0n version of something for Perl. That alone would make the effort worth it, no?
We could, but the question is - would you really want to?
I mean, Unions are great for certain career fields, but this ain't one of them. While yes a Union would curb management excess, it also tends to retard employee excellence.
Case in point - Seniority. You, I, and pretty much most folks who think it through know full well that time-on-the-job does not equal competency-on-the-job. Problem is, most Union shops (I've worked in a few as a member) eat, sleep, and breathe Seniority. This means that merit no longer counts.
Admittedly, these obstacles are few, but some of them can be rather large ones.
Go on strike? Err, why, because some poor bastard in some other company or division thereof got a raw deal by some jackass manager? Screw that. I saw something similar as a teacher once. The whole damned state union (UEA) wanted to walk out on a week of school days, because they only got a modest annual raise instead of a large one... Meanwhile, I had just got on, and had fully negotiated my own salary and benefits --to my satisfaction-- before I accepted the position; just like each and every one of them could have done (Utah state law fully allows this).
I don't know... I guess I just prefer the free agency of it all. I like the fact that I can advance without waiting for someone ahead of me to die off or retire. I like being able to move into a senior position at a new place without having to pay the dues (both monetary and otherwise), or being locked into something I know I can get a better deal out of - if only I am allowed to negotiate it independently. If I want to do something after-hours, I can (okay, sometimes it's a have-to deal, but I knew that going in and I get paid overtime for such cases, so...)
Anyrate, it's a whole other culture, and not exactly the panacea that it appears to be. Having been in good Unions (Ironworkers, local 493) and bad (Utah Educators Ass'n), I know that it's a whole other world that what most folks expect.
(and if you think outsourcing is ugly now - just wait'll the PHB's realize you gave them a friggin' union to deal with. Your job will disappear faster than grain alcohol in a frat house).