There was nothing wrong with the technology itself (something most people don't seem to realize), just the potential for abuse by Microsoft (who doesn't have a great track record).
What would have been nice is if the smart tag technology was left in the browser but either left disabled, or even better, left enabled but with no default filter DLLs. That would have given the USER the power to control what they wanted and not Microsoft.
Actually, the biggest problem with 60Hz is the fact you get a low frequency beat with the light output from 60Hz flourescent or incandescent lights. I've noticed that moving from Austrlia (50Hz lighting) to the USA (60Hz lighting) that a 60Hz refresh is a LOT worse here than in Australia.
Taco, in your anti-MS frenzy could you at least get some of the facts straight?
i) You don't need Passport to get MSDN, or develop for Windows. MSDN subscriptions are delivered to your door (or office) and you use them from there. There is no reason to access the downloads unless you NEED the latest and greatest betas right now.
ii) If you've signed up for MSDN, and signed up online for the downloads then you've already given Microsoft all the information you need to create a passport account anyhow - where's the issue here?
iii) You can create separate passport accounts for home and work. Only give work info (which is all you should do with an MSDN subscription anyhow) to Passport for the downloads.
Now I know that these three things probably got lost in the rabid frothing and knee jerking, but at least you should consider them sometimes, please?
Microsoft does bad things at times, but just because Microsoft does something doesn't AUTOMATICALLY make it bad. You've been given a brain - use it.
This is completely false. Nyquist doesn't apply to a synchronous transfer.
The electron gun scan rate is CONTROLLED by the video card, so the frame rate coming out of the card is constant. The RAMDAC accesses memory at a constant rate, determined entirely by this refresh rate. Frames are generated into the back buffer and flipped into the front buffer once the entire frame is generated.
Nothing is actually "sampled" in the chain from frame generation to displaying the image (unless we want to talk about pixels rather than frames).
This means you need 30fps generated by the card to get 30fps displayed on the screen - not the 120fps you are suggesting!!
You got the subject right and then proceeded to throw it all away in the body of your article.
Rendering is not raytracing. Rendering (in terms of 3D) tends to be an all-encompassing term which covers the conversion of the model (ie bytes that describe a scene) into the image (ie bytes that depict a scene). Raytracing is simply one tool at the disposal of the rendering engine.
Raytracing isn't even the best you can do as it can't cater for atmospehric effects and diffusion of light through a scene.
A commercial renderer (LW, Maya, 3DSMax) will use a lot of different methods to generate the final scene. Some objects will used simple renders that you find on a Voodoo 1 chip, others will use complex ray traced algorithms that can't be done in 3d hardware yet.
The GF3 with it's pixel and vertex shaders is just one step closer to what Pixar and ILM managed to achieve in the 80s. The problem is that Pixar and ILM are just getting better and better every day. There is no way a GF3 would ever be able to produce something like Shrek in real time, and by the time a GF* does it will pale in comparison to what is coming out of the movie studios.
Many games now have some rather complex IK effects to get more realistic motion. The Halo engine produces some fairly impressive physical effects - look at the way the jeep drives sometime, it is quite realistic. Games have the distinct disadvantage to cinematic animation at this point - in the movie you know exactly what is going to happen and you can write special exceptions where needed, even altering the vertexes by hand if needed. In a game EVERYTHING has to be either anticipated, or computed in real time. No wonder things are still a little forced.
3D cards are getting there. Most can put out plenty of FPS when required (remember the cinima renders are only 24fps - below what most gamers consider even passable). It's really getting the polygon count up and the parallel processing power up now. Given that most 3D cores have MORE processing power than the CPU in your machine, it's hardly surprising that the processing load is steadily going from the CPU to the 3D card.
Who knows where the future is going, but I'll assure you that 3D engines are just going to get better and better, and movies are certainly going to improve to the point where you won't be able to tell an animated film from the real thing.
There is a filter that ships with IE6, but appears to be turned off by default that links to the stock quotes, sports news etc. That in itself is mildly disturbing as it's still on the client and at install is the only one available to turn on - of course we'll have to wait and see what happens in the shipping product, but you can be sure none of the default "installed but disabled" ones will be competitors of MS.
As for email clients (-1, I know), I'm not defending Outlook, just saying I like it - "security flaws" and all. Strangely enough I've never propogated a trojan and only received one on two occasions (which I recognized immediately). Honestly, would you run a bash script before you looked at it, especially if it was called "Love letter for you"?
Actually you have the important point wrong and that is by default (from all reports I've read) the Smart Tags do NOT link to any Microsoft site. If it's like Office XP, all they link to is your own contact list. According to Reuters they are disabled by default - which is even more benign.
From your own argument then, this means only users clued up on what they are will turn on the tags that link to web content and hence all the other arguments are just knee jerk reactions of the anti-MS sheep.
HOWEVER: If there are Smart Tags which are turned on by default that link to Microsoft sites (or anywhere really) then I'll join the crowd in saying Microsoft done bad.
btw - I use Outlook because I haven't found a better mail client. Believe me, I've tried a few (even on Linux) and Outlook XP is by far the best I've used to date.
This is contradictory then. First you agree that the tags are disabled and then you get worried that users just accept what they see (ie no tags)?
Maybe privacy was the wrong term. Freedom of speech might be more appropriate? If someone asks me what I think of your web site then you have no right to tell me I can't reply. If someone enables my smart tag on your web site, you have no right to say I can't mark it up for that person.
No, you are wrong. I've assumed that the ratio of Linux servers to Linux desktops is 1:1, not 150:1.
If 50% of the Linux market is desktop and 50% is server then that means there are the same number of Linux servers as desktops.
If there are twice as many Windows servers as Linux servers, and 150 times as many Windows desktops as Windows servers, then it follows (from simple algebra that somehow eluded you) that there are 300 times as many Windows desktops as Linux desktops.
Or, mathematically:
Assume Ls = Ld.
Assume Ls * 2 = Ws.
Assume Ws * 150 = Wd.
Then Ld * 2 * 150 = Wd.
or Ld * 300 = Wd.
I have no idea where you got your 10% from because I was not lumping both market segments together in any way. Perhaps you need to reread my post??
(I know what the true numbers are - I'm just going to show how stats can tell all sorts of wonderful lies).
Let's say Windows has about twice the market share of Linux in the server market (40% to 20%). Let's even assume that the client:server ratio on Linux is 1:1. Both of these are on the generous side to Linux (I believe).
Now, Windows clients outnumber Windows servers by about 150:1. This means Windows clients outnumber Linux clients by 300:1.
By anyone's books, 0.3% of the market is a LONG way from cracking it. Even if my numbers are a factor of 5 off (1.5%), Linux is still a long way away from cracking the market.
you still don't understand that by embedding links
in my content and making them indistinguishable from the links i placed there
myself, this feature alters the context of my piece of work and therefore
violates my copyright. the only way they'll get away with this is that - people
have to choose to turn it on, or be duped into turning it on.
They are not "indistinguishable". They look VERY different from a normal
link. A normal link you click on and it takes you somewhere. A Smart
Tag pops a "Info" tooltip above the word when you hover over it, which you have
to click on to access a menu of things that the current set of enabled filters
provided about that word. Check out a
screen shot.
let's look at this objectively. a holocaust webpage where ever occurence of
"Hitler" turns into a Smart Tag link to purchase Mein Kampf?
If a user installs a Nazi smart tag filter then that's exactly what they
get. Let's also see that a web page run by Nazis can also have links to
factual data about the holocaust. The classic cry of an oppressive
censorship regime is the removal of offensive material. Are you suggesting
that the web should be censored so that searching for 'holocaust' would also
return only "appropriate" things?
a web page about child abuse or molestation where specific words turn into
Smart Tag links to adult content?
If the user has enabled a XXX Smart Tag Filter, sure. Again you are
advocating censorship over individual rights. Who are you to suggest a
user cannot install a Smart Tag Filter that does exactly this? You are
starting to sound like a pro-censorship nut.
the problem here is, they're assuming the context of an individual word and
acting upon it - in a way that fools the reader into thinking that's what the
author meant.
No. The user is enabling a set of filters that simply look through text
and provide links to things on that text (in a way that is completely different
to web site provided links). The simple fact is you are saying that a user
has no right to annotate a web page. Perhaps you also believe that if
someone buys a copy of Schindler's List that they don't have the right to scrawl
Nazi slogan all through it for their own private use? Should people
be allowed to annotate Mein Kampf with factual data that shows it's political
flaws? You seem to think not. I believe a person has the right to do
what they like with published data for their own private use, including
requesting a 3rd party to annotate it for them.
whether you realize it or not, this is diabolical. Smart Tags in office are
very very different- my desktop is a controlled environment, and if my company
wants every occurence of the word "payroll" and "vacation time" to link to the
HR site, _THAT_ is useful.
Exactly. A company can set policies to only permit their computers to have
these tags. Arguing that a technology has potential for misuse and
therefore should be banned is one of the most narrow minded viewpoints that can
be taken. Potential for misuse is not a crime - after all, shouldn't we
ban search engines because they too can link "holocaust" to Nazi propoganda, and
"rape" to perverted stories encouraging it. Censorship is not the answer,
and never was.
embedding Smart Tags in outside-the-box content is a severe violation of the
rights of writers & publishers.
Wrong. Copyright law has no influence on what the end user is
permitted to do with a work as long as they don't republish the material to
someone else. You are permitted through copyright law to request a
3rd party's opinion on a work, and this is exactly what Smart Tags are.
The user installs and enables the specific filters they want and hence
those filters are authorized by the user to annotate any works the user views.
As the tags are specific to the filter, any work sent on by the user will not
contain those tags. There is no violation of publisher's rights
because the publisher has no control over an individual's private actions.
They day they do is the day they change the US Constitution.
I'd be interested to see links to the articles that say the Microsoft filter is enabled by default. The articles I've seen say they aren't.
Reuters:
Although it hadn't publicized the fact, Microsoft also put smart tags in the latest test version of Explorer, though they were turned off by default.
Given that it appears that at best, only content neutral tags are going to be enabled I don't see your problem.
Removing ads is not apples and oranges. As a web developer you should know that most of a site's income comes from advertising and removing those ads means that the hits don't go through to the advertiser. That is, in a very real way, more damaging to the web site than a user placing their own annotations on the page via smart tags could ever be.
Because the tags are enabled by the user, the user is effectively requesting a 3rd party to mark up the page. They have this right in the same way they can send a textbook they buy off to a friend and ask them to comment on it. Denying a user that right is an invasion of privacy and I'm very much against that.
Microsoft isn't changing your web site. Smart Tags can be made by anyone, and far more smart tag filters are currently made by 3rd parties than are made by Microsoft themselves. Microsoft just provide the hook in the browser for them to work.
Smart Tags aren't spam. Spam (by definition) is unsolicited by the user. Smart Tags are SPECIFICALLY ENABLED by the user.
Opt-in is a stupid argument. Smart Tags ARE opt-in. The user requests them to be placed on the pages they are viewing. As a web publisher, your rights cease the instant you send the HTTP message to the browser. There is no requirement that the browser do anything with that HTTP data, let alone render it in some way you feel it should. If I decide I want something to grep through the text you send and add extra things, you have NO right to tell me I can't do that.
Perhaps you also believe in censorship? That's exactly what the opposition to smart tags is. You are saying that a user has no right to annotate any content you provide. That's simply wrong. Users have every right to do anything they like with the content you provide for their own private use. There is nothing you can do to stop that and any attempt on your part is infringing on my privacy in a way that even the most repressive governments on the planet don't attempt.
Users have rights. Get over it.
Re:Difference between "adjusted" and "reported"?
on
Red Hat In The Black
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· Score: 2
It's not really the good will that bothers me (and thanks for the good illustrations - they helped a lot). What bothers me is the fact that other things have been left out:
Stock options should never be left out. These are in a very real sense loans to the employees and can make up a big component of a company's outgoing wages - especially for someone like RHAT. Detailing exactly how much these options were would be useful to an analyst.
It seems the/. editorial team still doesn't have a clue what Smart Tags actually are, and resorting to name calling (eXPerimental) is just infantile.
Smart Tags are just an API that allows anyone (not just Microsoft) to write an ActiveX DLL which will recognize words or phrases and provide a list of 'relavent' data for that word or phrase. Go to www.officesmarttags.com and see just how many people are already providing tags that you can use (these will all work in IE6). These DLLs can be enabled or disabled INDIVIDUALLY for each application (read the SDK if you don't yet have a clue).
The news media has managed to work itself up into a frenzy over something that hasn't yet happened - if you look at the implementation in Office XP, the default set of smart tags are *content neutral* and don't link to any specific company on the web. Sure, you can turn on the ones that link to the MSN stock ticker if you want, but it isn't there by default.
I've seen no indication from Microsoft (via their SDK, or what's implemented in Office XP) that they are going to do anything different to Office XP in their release of IE6.
If you want to know how difficult it is to download or enable new Smart Tags on the machine, then consider how most people seem to be able to download the Shockwave or Flash plugins just fine. Smart Tags are no different - just include an OBJECT=xxx tag on your page and you've made the browser download the code (subject to the user agreeing to trust and install it).
From what I can see, this is pretty much a knee-jerk reaction from all the anti-MS sheep out there. Microsoft does something so it must be bad. Perhaps if people got a little clued up on what the tags actually were, how easy it is to implement your own and how beneficial these can be to the user that wants them then we'd see some intelligent debate rather than the clueless flamage we've seen so far.
Ask yourself, if someone included an API in a proxy server (say squid or apache) to remove advertising content (ie DoubleClick) would you be against it? If not then you should ask whether you really are a hypocrite.
Re:Difference between "adjusted" and "reported"?
on
Red Hat In The Black
·
· Score: 2
Ok, makes sense to some degree as far as cash flow goes. Still sounds like incurring a debt (to the shareholders) and calling it a profit when you have more cash in the hand.
The thing that really does bother me is leaving out the issuing of stock options, which is a *real* debt because they can be called in at any time and the company must buy them at the price they issued at.
Of course, if RHAT's stock continues on the slightly negative trend then this isn't a problem. If it starts to pick up on the other hand then I can see a lot of options serving to hammer the stock straight back down again as they incur significant negative cashflow.
In the end, I simply don't believe a company that says they are making a profit when their net worth is significantly below what is was a year ago. Even if the core business is making a little money, the acquisitions, options and other "abnormals" much be taken into account and you have to ask whether they were worth the price incurred.
Re:Difference between "adjusted" and "reported"?
on
Red Hat In The Black
·
· Score: 2
Yup. That's exactly what I figured. Effectively RH borrows against future earnings to fund purchases today (borrowing meaning issuing shares, options, real loans etc.).
Which takes me back to my original point - if a company is going forward in cash flow, but significantly backward in book value (ie the "reported" value in the press release) then it's like borrowing a whole stack of money then saying you are better off because you have more in your wallet than you used to.
Most financial advisors I know seem to take a dim view of people that keep taking more and more loans and hence decreasing their net worth despite an outward show of affluence. This seems to be exactly what RH is doing and is exactly why I'm more than a little worried.
Remember 3dfx seemed to be having a big turnaround with it's Voodoo 5500/6000 cards until they all of a sudden went under...
I'm vaguely pro-Microsoft, in the sense that I'm not exclusively Linux or Mac. I just use the system that works best for me at the time.
I don't care if Red Hat makes a profit - in fact I sincerely hope they do because I hate seeing businesses fail and people's dreams go up in Chapter 11 smoke.
In the case of Red Hat, I'll believe it when I see it. I'm still dubious as to their business model and long term viability. I can see how commercial software and vendor lock-in will generate a profit. I'm having problems with simply providing support for a GPL'd system though.
Re:Difference between "adjusted" and "reported"?
on
Red Hat In The Black
·
· Score: 2
So let me get this straight.
They pay $30m for a company worth $2m, don't include the $28m loss and everyone is ok with that?
I still don't get how paying $28m doesn't affect cash flow - where did the cash come from to pay for that? Even if they issued more stock, then that is effectively a net outflow of cash.
I know I'm not an accountant, but as an engineer this sounds highly suspicious.
Re:Difference between "adjusted" and "reported"?
on
Red Hat In The Black
·
· Score: 2
What it is commonly called is doctoring the figures.
Amortized money directly affects cashflow when they actually paid the money. If they've only just taken it off the books then that means their previous year's figures are out.
Goodwill and intangibles affect future cashflow because sooner or later someone is going to cash in on them.
Stock options are effectively a loan to the employees in leiu of pay, so again that doesn't affect cash flow but is a debt that will be called in at some stage.
One time expenses are still expenses and directly affect cash flow. The interesting thing about one time expenses is that there always seem to be more of them each year, just for different things.
What this really smacks of is someone taking out a cash loan and then claiming that they made a profit because they have more cash now than they did before they took the loan.
Overall, I'd still be very wary of Red Hat until they can report a profit on non-adjusted numbers.
Re:Difference between "adjusted" and "reported"?
on
Red Hat In The Black
·
· Score: 3
It can't be written off because it is, in fact, money that they don't have any more. As pointed out by other in this thread though, it does NOT include stock options which are a going to be a major hit to that income figure.
Realistically, Red Hat isn't in the black and still won't be for some time. Don't go spending your hard earned cash on RHAT just yet...
Re:Nothing to do with cost of product...
on
VA Layoff Rumors
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· Score: 2
Crap. There's plenty of other ways to do this. None of the times I've called MS support have I been charged by the minute.
Slashdot Mirror
There was nothing wrong with the technology itself (something most people don't seem to realize), just the potential for abuse by Microsoft (who doesn't have a great track record).
What would have been nice is if the smart tag technology was left in the browser but either left disabled, or even better, left enabled but with no default filter DLLs. That would have given the USER the power to control what they wanted and not Microsoft.
Actually, the biggest problem with 60Hz is the fact you get a low frequency beat with the light output from 60Hz flourescent or incandescent lights. I've noticed that moving from Austrlia (50Hz lighting) to the USA (60Hz lighting) that a 60Hz refresh is a LOT worse here than in Australia.
If you are gonna bitch at Microsoft for spreading FUD then you are a hypocrite if you don't bitch at Taco for spreading FUD.
I just hate the fact I have to use THEIR download program and can't use my own download manager (which is a hell of a lot better).
Taco, in your anti-MS frenzy could you at least get some of the facts straight?
i) You don't need Passport to get MSDN, or develop for Windows. MSDN subscriptions are delivered to your door (or office) and you use them from there. There is no reason to access the downloads unless you NEED the latest and greatest betas right now.
ii) If you've signed up for MSDN, and signed up online for the downloads then you've already given Microsoft all the information you need to create a passport account anyhow - where's the issue here?
iii) You can create separate passport accounts for home and work. Only give work info (which is all you should do with an MSDN subscription anyhow) to Passport for the downloads.
Now I know that these three things probably got lost in the rabid frothing and knee jerking, but at least you should consider them sometimes, please?
Microsoft does bad things at times, but just because Microsoft does something doesn't AUTOMATICALLY make it bad. You've been given a brain - use it.
This is completely false. Nyquist doesn't apply to a synchronous transfer.
The electron gun scan rate is CONTROLLED by the video card, so the frame rate coming out of the card is constant. The RAMDAC accesses memory at a constant rate, determined entirely by this refresh rate. Frames are generated into the back buffer and flipped into the front buffer once the entire frame is generated.
Nothing is actually "sampled" in the chain from frame generation to displaying the image (unless we want to talk about pixels rather than frames).
This means you need 30fps generated by the card to get 30fps displayed on the screen - not the 120fps you are suggesting!!
You got the subject right and then proceeded to throw it all away in the body of your article.
Rendering is not raytracing. Rendering (in terms of 3D) tends to be an all-encompassing term which covers the conversion of the model (ie bytes that describe a scene) into the image (ie bytes that depict a scene). Raytracing is simply one tool at the disposal of the rendering engine.
Raytracing isn't even the best you can do as it can't cater for atmospehric effects and diffusion of light through a scene.
A commercial renderer (LW, Maya, 3DSMax) will use a lot of different methods to generate the final scene. Some objects will used simple renders that you find on a Voodoo 1 chip, others will use complex ray traced algorithms that can't be done in 3d hardware yet.
The GF3 with it's pixel and vertex shaders is just one step closer to what Pixar and ILM managed to achieve in the 80s. The problem is that Pixar and ILM are just getting better and better every day. There is no way a GF3 would ever be able to produce something like Shrek in real time, and by the time a GF* does it will pale in comparison to what is coming out of the movie studios.
Many games now have some rather complex IK effects to get more realistic motion. The Halo engine produces some fairly impressive physical effects - look at the way the jeep drives sometime, it is quite realistic. Games have the distinct disadvantage to cinematic animation at this point - in the movie you know exactly what is going to happen and you can write special exceptions where needed, even altering the vertexes by hand if needed. In a game EVERYTHING has to be either anticipated, or computed in real time. No wonder things are still a little forced.
3D cards are getting there. Most can put out plenty of FPS when required (remember the cinima renders are only 24fps - below what most gamers consider even passable). It's really getting the polygon count up and the parallel processing power up now. Given that most 3D cores have MORE processing power than the CPU in your machine, it's hardly surprising that the processing load is steadily going from the CPU to the 3D card.
Who knows where the future is going, but I'll assure you that 3D engines are just going to get better and better, and movies are certainly going to improve to the point where you won't be able to tell an animated film from the real thing.
There is a filter that ships with IE6, but appears to be turned off by default that links to the stock quotes, sports news etc. That in itself is mildly disturbing as it's still on the client and at install is the only one available to turn on - of course we'll have to wait and see what happens in the shipping product, but you can be sure none of the default "installed but disabled" ones will be competitors of MS.
As for email clients (-1, I know), I'm not defending Outlook, just saying I like it - "security flaws" and all. Strangely enough I've never propogated a trojan and only received one on two occasions (which I recognized immediately). Honestly, would you run a bash script before you looked at it, especially if it was called "Love letter for you"?
Actually you have the important point wrong and that is by default (from all reports I've read) the Smart Tags do NOT link to any Microsoft site. If it's like Office XP, all they link to is your own contact list. According to Reuters they are disabled by default - which is even more benign.
From your own argument then, this means only users clued up on what they are will turn on the tags that link to web content and hence all the other arguments are just knee jerk reactions of the anti-MS sheep.
HOWEVER: If there are Smart Tags which are turned on by default that link to Microsoft sites (or anywhere really) then I'll join the crowd in saying Microsoft done bad.
btw - I use Outlook because I haven't found a better mail client. Believe me, I've tried a few (even on Linux) and Outlook XP is by far the best I've used to date.
This is contradictory then. First you agree that the tags are disabled and then you get worried that users just accept what they see (ie no tags)?
Maybe privacy was the wrong term. Freedom of speech might be more appropriate? If someone asks me what I think of your web site then you have no right to tell me I can't reply. If someone enables my smart tag on your web site, you have no right to say I can't mark it up for that person.
No, you are wrong. I've assumed that the ratio of Linux servers to Linux desktops is 1:1, not 150:1.
If 50% of the Linux market is desktop and 50% is server then that means there are the same number of Linux servers as desktops.
If there are twice as many Windows servers as Linux servers, and 150 times as many Windows desktops as Windows servers, then it follows (from simple algebra that somehow eluded you) that there are 300 times as many Windows desktops as Linux desktops.
Or, mathematically:
Assume Ls = Ld.
Assume Ls * 2 = Ws.
Assume Ws * 150 = Wd.
Then Ld * 2 * 150 = Wd.
or Ld * 300 = Wd.
I have no idea where you got your 10% from because I was not lumping both market segments together in any way. Perhaps you need to reread my post??
(I know what the true numbers are - I'm just going to show how stats can tell all sorts of wonderful lies).
The answer is deceptively simple:
Let's say Windows has about twice the market share of Linux in the server market (40% to 20%). Let's even assume that the client:server ratio on Linux is 1:1. Both of these are on the generous side to Linux (I believe).
Now, Windows clients outnumber Windows servers by about 150:1. This means Windows clients outnumber Linux clients by 300:1.
By anyone's books, 0.3% of the market is a LONG way from cracking it. Even if my numbers are a factor of 5 off (1.5%), Linux is still a long way away from cracking the market.
you still don't understand that by embedding links
in my content and making them indistinguishable from the links i placed there
myself, this feature alters the context of my piece of work and therefore
violates my copyright. the only way they'll get away with this is that - people
have to choose to turn it on, or be duped into turning it on.
They are not "indistinguishable". They look VERY different from a normal
link. A normal link you click on and it takes you somewhere. A Smart
Tag pops a "Info" tooltip above the word when you hover over it, which you have
to click on to access a menu of things that the current set of enabled filters
provided about that word. Check out a
screen shot.
let's look at this objectively. a holocaust webpage where ever occurence of
"Hitler" turns into a Smart Tag link to purchase Mein Kampf?
If a user installs a Nazi smart tag filter then that's exactly what they
get. Let's also see that a web page run by Nazis can also have links to
factual data about the holocaust. The classic cry of an oppressive
censorship regime is the removal of offensive material. Are you suggesting
that the web should be censored so that searching for 'holocaust' would also
return only "appropriate" things?
a web page about child abuse or molestation where specific words turn into
Smart Tag links to adult content?
If the user has enabled a XXX Smart Tag Filter, sure. Again you are
advocating censorship over individual rights. Who are you to suggest a
user cannot install a Smart Tag Filter that does exactly this? You are
starting to sound like a pro-censorship nut.
the problem here is, they're assuming the context of an individual word and
acting upon it - in a way that fools the reader into thinking that's what the
author meant.
No. The user is enabling a set of filters that simply look through text
and provide links to things on that text (in a way that is completely different
to web site provided links). The simple fact is you are saying that a user
has no right to annotate a web page. Perhaps you also believe that if
someone buys a copy of Schindler's List that they don't have the right to scrawl
Nazi slogan all through it for their own private use? Should people
be allowed to annotate Mein Kampf with factual data that shows it's political
flaws? You seem to think not. I believe a person has the right to do
what they like with published data for their own private use, including
requesting a 3rd party to annotate it for them.
whether you realize it or not, this is diabolical. Smart Tags in office are
very very different- my desktop is a controlled environment, and if my company
wants every occurence of the word "payroll" and "vacation time" to link to the
HR site, _THAT_ is useful.
Exactly. A company can set policies to only permit their computers to have
these tags. Arguing that a technology has potential for misuse and
therefore should be banned is one of the most narrow minded viewpoints that can
be taken. Potential for misuse is not a crime - after all, shouldn't we
ban search engines because they too can link "holocaust" to Nazi propoganda, and
"rape" to perverted stories encouraging it. Censorship is not the answer,
and never was.
embedding Smart Tags in outside-the-box content is a severe violation of the
rights of writers & publishers.
Wrong. Copyright law has no influence on what the end user is
permitted to do with a work as long as they don't republish the material to
someone else. You are permitted through copyright law to request a
3rd party's opinion on a work, and this is exactly what Smart Tags are.
The user installs and enables the specific filters they want and hence
those filters are authorized by the user to annotate any works the user views.
As the tags are specific to the filter, any work sent on by the user will not
contain those tags. There is no violation of publisher's rights
because the publisher has no control over an individual's private actions.
They day they do is the day they change the US Constitution.
I'd be interested to see links to the articles that say the Microsoft filter is enabled by default. The articles I've seen say they aren't.
Reuters:
Although it hadn't publicized the fact, Microsoft also put smart tags in the latest test version of Explorer, though they were turned off by default.
Given that it appears that at best, only content neutral tags are going to be enabled I don't see your problem.
Removing ads is not apples and oranges. As a web developer you should know that most of a site's income comes from advertising and removing those ads means that the hits don't go through to the advertiser. That is, in a very real way, more damaging to the web site than a user placing their own annotations on the page via smart tags could ever be.
Because the tags are enabled by the user, the user is effectively requesting a 3rd party to mark up the page. They have this right in the same way they can send a textbook they buy off to a friend and ask them to comment on it. Denying a user that right is an invasion of privacy and I'm very much against that.
You can do that at the moment. You don't need any smart tags. Just subclass the browser control and parse out the text.
Script kiddies just aren't smart enough to do it yet (or haven't thought of it).
Microsoft isn't changing your web site. Smart Tags can be made by anyone, and far more smart tag filters are currently made by 3rd parties than are made by Microsoft themselves. Microsoft just provide the hook in the browser for them to work.
Smart Tags aren't spam. Spam (by definition) is unsolicited by the user. Smart Tags are SPECIFICALLY ENABLED by the user.
Opt-in is a stupid argument. Smart Tags ARE opt-in. The user requests them to be placed on the pages they are viewing. As a web publisher, your rights cease the instant you send the HTTP message to the browser. There is no requirement that the browser do anything with that HTTP data, let alone render it in some way you feel it should. If I decide I want something to grep through the text you send and add extra things, you have NO right to tell me I can't do that.
Perhaps you also believe in censorship? That's exactly what the opposition to smart tags is. You are saying that a user has no right to annotate any content you provide. That's simply wrong. Users have every right to do anything they like with the content you provide for their own private use. There is nothing you can do to stop that and any attempt on your part is infringing on my privacy in a way that even the most repressive governments on the planet don't attempt.
Users have rights. Get over it.
It's not really the good will that bothers me (and thanks for the good illustrations - they helped a lot). What bothers me is the fact that other things have been left out:
Stock options should never be left out. These are in a very real sense loans to the employees and can make up a big component of a company's outgoing wages - especially for someone like RHAT. Detailing exactly how much these options were would be useful to an analyst.
It seems the /. editorial team still doesn't have a clue what Smart Tags actually are, and resorting to name calling (eXPerimental) is just infantile.
Smart Tags are just an API that allows anyone (not just Microsoft) to write an ActiveX DLL which will recognize words or phrases and provide a list of 'relavent' data for that word or phrase. Go to www.officesmarttags.com and see just how many people are already providing tags that you can use (these will all work in IE6). These DLLs can be enabled or disabled INDIVIDUALLY for each application (read the SDK if you don't yet have a clue).
The news media has managed to work itself up into a frenzy over something that hasn't yet happened - if you look at the implementation in Office XP, the default set of smart tags are *content neutral* and don't link to any specific company on the web. Sure, you can turn on the ones that link to the MSN stock ticker if you want, but it isn't there by default.
I've seen no indication from Microsoft (via their SDK, or what's implemented in Office XP) that they are going to do anything different to Office XP in their release of IE6.
If you want to know how difficult it is to download or enable new Smart Tags on the machine, then consider how most people seem to be able to download the Shockwave or Flash plugins just fine. Smart Tags are no different - just include an OBJECT=xxx tag on your page and you've made the browser download the code (subject to the user agreeing to trust and install it).
From what I can see, this is pretty much a knee-jerk reaction from all the anti-MS sheep out there. Microsoft does something so it must be bad. Perhaps if people got a little clued up on what the tags actually were, how easy it is to implement your own and how beneficial these can be to the user that wants them then we'd see some intelligent debate rather than the clueless flamage we've seen so far.
Ask yourself, if someone included an API in a proxy server (say squid or apache) to remove advertising content (ie DoubleClick) would you be against it? If not then you should ask whether you really are a hypocrite.
Ok, makes sense to some degree as far as cash flow goes. Still sounds like incurring a debt (to the shareholders) and calling it a profit when you have more cash in the hand.
The thing that really does bother me is leaving out the issuing of stock options, which is a *real* debt because they can be called in at any time and the company must buy them at the price they issued at.
Of course, if RHAT's stock continues on the slightly negative trend then this isn't a problem. If it starts to pick up on the other hand then I can see a lot of options serving to hammer the stock straight back down again as they incur significant negative cashflow.
In the end, I simply don't believe a company that says they are making a profit when their net worth is significantly below what is was a year ago. Even if the core business is making a little money, the acquisitions, options and other "abnormals" much be taken into account and you have to ask whether they were worth the price incurred.
Yup. That's exactly what I figured. Effectively RH borrows against future earnings to fund purchases today (borrowing meaning issuing shares, options, real loans etc.).
Which takes me back to my original point - if a company is going forward in cash flow, but significantly backward in book value (ie the "reported" value in the press release) then it's like borrowing a whole stack of money then saying you are better off because you have more in your wallet than you used to.
Most financial advisors I know seem to take a dim view of people that keep taking more and more loans and hence decreasing their net worth despite an outward show of affluence. This seems to be exactly what RH is doing and is exactly why I'm more than a little worried.
Remember 3dfx seemed to be having a big turnaround with it's Voodoo 5500/6000 cards until they all of a sudden went under...
I'm vaguely pro-Microsoft, in the sense that I'm not exclusively Linux or Mac. I just use the system that works best for me at the time.
I don't care if Red Hat makes a profit - in fact I sincerely hope they do because I hate seeing businesses fail and people's dreams go up in Chapter 11 smoke.
In the case of Red Hat, I'll believe it when I see it. I'm still dubious as to their business model and long term viability. I can see how commercial software and vendor lock-in will generate a profit. I'm having problems with simply providing support for a GPL'd system though.
So let me get this straight.
They pay $30m for a company worth $2m, don't include the $28m loss and everyone is ok with that?
I still don't get how paying $28m doesn't affect cash flow - where did the cash come from to pay for that? Even if they issued more stock, then that is effectively a net outflow of cash.
I know I'm not an accountant, but as an engineer this sounds highly suspicious.
What it is commonly called is doctoring the figures.
Amortized money directly affects cashflow when they actually paid the money. If they've only just taken it off the books then that means their previous year's figures are out.
Goodwill and intangibles affect future cashflow because sooner or later someone is going to cash in on them.
Stock options are effectively a loan to the employees in leiu of pay, so again that doesn't affect cash flow but is a debt that will be called in at some stage.
One time expenses are still expenses and directly affect cash flow. The interesting thing about one time expenses is that there always seem to be more of them each year, just for different things.
What this really smacks of is someone taking out a cash loan and then claiming that they made a profit because they have more cash now than they did before they took the loan.
Overall, I'd still be very wary of Red Hat until they can report a profit on non-adjusted numbers.
It can't be written off because it is, in fact, money that they don't have any more. As pointed out by other in this thread though, it does NOT include stock options which are a going to be a major hit to that income figure.
Realistically, Red Hat isn't in the black and still won't be for some time. Don't go spending your hard earned cash on RHAT just yet...
Crap. There's plenty of other ways to do this. None of the times I've called MS support have I been charged by the minute.
Check your "facts".