For various reasons, I run multiple OS's. I was part of the recent wave of upgrades to WIN-10 because I have to anticipate what my accounting clients are going to run into when they upgrade which they tend to do without warning.
I personally think MS is just assuming that people will run through the process without thinking much about privacy settings and security issues on the other side. I'm a wee bit OCD about that, but the public I try to work with isn't even when they're told to be careful. I'm still baffled by the number of systems I deal with that have either no antivirus or outdated versions, no firewall, etc. Let's face it, if MS gains marketing data in exchange for a "free" upgrade, most folks won't complain. What I'm also concerned about from a practical manner is the fact that various support builds are going to be pushed though without the option of deciding when to install meaning that various drivers that worked earlier are suddenly off in the ozone upon restart.
There is also the matter of when, where, and how MS will acknowledge problems with the OS. For example, the Edge browser seems to have some real issues integrating with printing which simply aren't there when you switch back to IE-11 which fortunately hasn't been removed (yet), but only disappears from view.
MS's view of the future which they've been fairly clear about is a device-spanning OS that they're going to drive and I think that's one of the main things to keep in mind with WIN-10.
It used to be that the 3-letter acronyms whose existence was never confirmed - only alluded to - could claim the "right" to hide their malicious mischief under the guise of national security, but apparently no longer. The Federal Bureau of Instigation whose long record of abuse against the unworthy among us is a matter of record now feels free to confirm their addition to the other worthies.
I realize that Bush 43 thought the Constitution essentially a worthless scrap of paper, but, to paraphrase what someone once said over a millennia ago, "Who shall guard against these self-same guardians?"
First - props to developers who put in the hard work to bring these features to market; I guess we'll even find some of them useful.
BUT - IMHO - the 8,000 lb. gorilla remains the crippled Bluetooth stack and especially the HID components that were lost when the transition was made from Mobile OS 6.x; funny how resolving this issue which has over 11,000 votes in some MS blogs never even made the review.
Presenting this OS as business-oriented as some have done is blatantly half-fast as you'd know if you ever tried doing some real work with Office Mobile without something approaching a real keyboard and mouse. Yah - you can get things done, but at nothing approaching an efficient use of time.
Imagine my joy 2 years ago when upgrading to my old-by-now HTC Trophy from my Motorola Q9c only to discover I'd been ambushed by this issue which remains the red-headed stepchild all these years later.
And I'm only one of at least 11,000 still waiting.
Seriously, the RNC should set up its own programming task force and pay good money to develop their own system. It would put money into the economy and . .
Wait, how many H1-B's do you think they'll hire to save money??
I really began to appreciate business email while working at my previous employer.
In both cases, one involving a vendor and the other the company's owner, I was able to avoid some serious cases of being beaten with the old "What I told you was..." stick when I printed out some emails that proved otherwise. There are times when it's been the only real defence against randomly convenient memory loss or bad or outright wrong instructions.
It's amazing how small a piece of paper can cover a large piece of anatomy.
Seriously, however, who and how to punish is the issue.
I have little trouble with spam getting through filters either on my webmail accounts or on the POP accounts I access on my system and I suspect that's true with most/. readers. What I draw from this is that filtering software on various levels is fairly effective, but that has nothing to do with the volume increase which I've certainly noticed.
Since I suspect that a good deal of this trash is sent from people who move electronic locations frequently, perhaps there's some way of developing a protocol whereby the first receiving server refuses acceptance of messages which display specific chracteristics found in spam or might even be able to trigger the equivalent of a DOS against the offending system. Widespread acceptance of such a protocol could go a long way towards reducing the volume of spam.
Which will display her features on both an animated splashscreen and a virtual pet for your desktop pleasure.
With an special keylogger that transmits directly to the National Enquirer or the tabloid of your choice and is Bluetooth-enabled to do the same for your cellphone or PDA.
Which is reportedly going into beta with the name "Skank" distribution.
Remember what the Vorlon ships looked like - and what the Vorlons looked like outside of their encounter suits? Remember how ugly it is to deal with a pissed off Vorlon?
As for how big squid get - a Vorlon mothership makes Moby Dick look like an anchovy filet on a large all toppings pizza.
The first parallel that came to mind was the "death sentence" proposed against UUNet a few years ago for their fostering spamming activity.
The action represented the response of a group of responsible internet members that had finally tired of both the activity and the lack of response from a greedy company who seemed to have no respect for bandwidth and privacy issues.
It seemed to work then and maybe it's just what's needed now.
It's about time that some of these ISP's discover what happens when the fecal matter hits the oscillator.
I nominate samazdat
on
Heart of the Net
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
The 'net has always been about information transfer. The question underneath all the expressed angst seems to be the "value" of the information.
It seems reasonable to assume that the cost and speed of data transfer in the early days of the internet served as a filter for determining how "valuable" the information was considered. As the price decreased, the holes in the sieve grew larger and the amount of less valuable information increased. Where we stand in that trend today I will leave to your judgement, but it is arguably a collapse toward a mean where the information typically has little value at all.
In the middle of all this is the 'net's equivalent of samazdat - the underground literature of the former Soviet Union - where somehow information that's valued is being transferred. Where the traditional media is increasingly concentrated in the editorial hands of a few, the internet remains one of the few ways for either rapid broadcast to many or discreet transmission to few.
Both corporate and government policies seem bent on increasing control over this information. The heart of the net will increasingly deal with the ability to freely disseminate information of value without prior official oversight.
Some years ago, frustrated by what I felt were deficiencies in the typical business models of the day, I found myself writing a paper on developing a more organic model for analysis/description of system processes for a class in organization theory.
The article talks about HAL, "2001", and nanotechnology as well as the concept of the invention overtaking the inventor. My paper used certain ideas I found in the "Dune" series. Interesting that part of the Golden Path most clearly described in "God Emperor of Dune" involves a response to the foreseen possibility of the annihilation of humans by Ixian technology.
I think the ongoing challenge is to develop technology that supports a more organic model of ourselves and our world. The old business models of the pyramid or concentric layers are deficient not only because they inadequately describes the organization, but becauses they shape thinking into seeing organizations in static terms.
Life, it's possibilities and dangers, is less adequately described in terms of the linear dynamics of classic vectors then by elements of fractal modeling which is essentially based on clear boundaries, but my, the surprises within!!
The crux of the argument will be that a protected design was knowingly released in the full knowledge that public release of the design had not been authorized.
How hard Apple will really pursue this and the degree to which the courts assent to their application of the reasoning will have to be seen.
As someone else has pointed out, it has become almost ridiculously easy to sue and this is especially grievous the case of large corporations that use litigation without merit as part of an overall market agenda.
"...The two clearly have vast ideological differences, the open-source cowboy and the Evil Empire functionary, but they're both hard-core libertarians, an entirely unreported fact..."
Much of this "libertarian" discussion steps too quickly away from looking at the implications of what drives it. During the cold-war era, Heilbroner observed that American and Soviet middle managers often got along better than their politics might have led you to believe they would. He attributed this to the fact that both were educated in terms of production system efficiencies as core values whether they consciously assented to that or not.
Both "cowboys" and "functionaries" tend to agree on the general mechanics of IT system efficiencies although they'll toast each other at a moment's notice over the details. That's neither unpredictable nor surprising. What's more often amazing is the neophiliac embrace of technology as the means to every end from Al Gore's invention of the internet to the "V" chip equipped TV as the perfect babysitter.
Libertarianism, Objectivism, You-fill-in-the-blankism all find their roots not in mechanical efficiencies, but in the search by us carbon units for something more whether that's God, power, moderator points, or free beer. Questions as to whether or in what ways the expansion of these systems function as an a priori "good" element of our culture are often either overlooked or dismissed as low-brow luddism.
Technology's only a tool. I think the important discussions have to do with the ends we're being driven to with our too often unexamined assuptions about the means.
PS - Ayn Rand didn't care if I was charitable with my own money as long as I didn't try to tell her what to to with hers. Ah, Ayn - now there was a great rant writer!!
I'm very much the Linux newbie, but I've been futzing with PC's for a few years now; long enough in fact to still fall back to using edlin on certain uncooperative client systems. I'm trying to learn more about CLI operations because I feel I'm learning about the OS there instead of just wrestling with the vagaries of particular desktop and windows managers. Many of the folks I've exchanged posts with at linuxnewbie.org go through the same frustrations as I about Linux documentation both for the OS and applications.
I cheerfully RTFM - when I can find TFM, but getting there's the question. Whatever faults MS online documentation has (both net and PC help files), the ability to run string searches against a large information base has been a great help. I'm not saying it can't be done in the average Linux install, but it's certainly not documented.
I'm not a coder, so I'm pretty much at the level where I'm limited to using a tool like vi to hack a file, but I'll do so cheerfully when I can find the documentation on what's needed to get from point A to point B.
In addition to Freewwweb, I had the dubious distinction of using WorldSpy as well which was swallowed by JUNO a few weeks prior to Freewwweb's demise. Personally, I had no real connection problems with either other than you might expect when living in rural VA (26.4Kbps average connection - no complaints).
I also felt as though the responses I got from JUNO's tech support were noteworthy for their lack of any basic grasp of the facts other than the average PC's being powered by electricity rather than rubber bands. Of course, I may be reaching a bit there.
I did send out a letter to JUNO's president asking that they consider some level of service offering for Linux users. My stab at a windmill perhaps, but I thought it needed doing.
NetZero has announced that they're working on a Linux version of their "Zeroport", but declined to give a date in response to my e-mail. At least, they appeared interested.
For now, I'm using the nearly-free WorldShare.net which seems like a reasonable alternative and does offer the fact that you can target a favorite charity. They require taking part in regular surveys, but the ones I've seen so far haven't been too offensive.
IBM, deep in its heart of hearts, is a big iron kind of company. They don't really like dealing with the public especially where the messy issues of software support are concerned. I think the only reason they stay in the PC business is to keep some sort of market presence in front of the public. Of course, then again, there was the PC-Junior that they stuck retailers with.
How they handled OS/2 was proof enough of this to me. It really did run WINDOWS (3.X) better than WINDOWS, but IBM never had the spine to really market it against MS offerings. They also showed no real inclination to support program development by either companies they owned (Lotus) or those they didn't. Oh, they talked a good talk for a while, but even that turned into an "Are we dead or alive? We can't decide!!" dialogue.
Business partnerships with private developers might put out some needed funds into the hands of folks who deserve to reap a little after many contributions and I suspect we'd all benefit.
But please, not an IBM distro until they show they've got the heart and spine to deal with the public where an OS is concerned. I'd hate to be there when someone says, "Nah, not Linux, even IBM dropped that one."
They've got a history of habits along those lines.
" Young Netizens seem flabbergasted when the adult value system collides with and changes their world -- in arguments over copyright and Napster or the passage of laws like the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. They don't seem to grasp that their lack of political acumen and organizing skills not only make such legislation possible but increasingly inevitable in encounters with a legal and political system dominated by those older and non-technologically-centered."
I don't mind being delegated to the O.F. status for which I am qualified, but political and organizing skills are going to have as much to do with shaping the culture of the future as the technical skills of certain netizens. I can fairly cheerfully stand being lectured by someone who's obnoxious, arrogant, and right about technical issues (and I am still quite the LINUX newbie), but that's not entirely what another, older group would call real politik.
My baptism in such cultural awareness came when my government, my personal objections not withstanding, was determined to ship my rearend and the rest of me off to beautiful downtown asia. The only advantage to that situation was that daily body count on the evening news is as hard to ignore as is your place in it. A powerful incentive to polish those political and organizing skills.
I suppose what I wish is that I had a sense that some of these same brilliant (and I honestly don't say that facetiously) people were collectively working to deal with corporatism, UCITA, and other current issues that effect all of us. I mean, when the same guy/girl that righteously flames me for not knowing how to hack a config file sends a short post about UCITA that consists entirely of the enlightening words, "..that sux", you can't blame me for wondering about the future.
And please keep the flames low - a lot of people think I'm half-baked already.
When I cancelled my AOL account after almost 5 years of subscription, the CSR naturally asked, "Why?" Among other things, one answer was that I had finally gotten tired of all the ads.
You can indeed turn off a number of advertisements, but you can't escape all the little banners that now litter their interface. In addition to the average user having to go through more steps to get from point A to B than previously, each step is almost guaranteed to have a least 1 small ad graphic that will be loaded. Not that anyone's likely to click through, but talk about counting eyeballs!!
Re: the captive audience; I can't speak for today, but I've known a number of people for whom AOL was the only local access point. Much as I dislike AOL, there may be those for whom it is literally the only game in town.
As a sheer and utter LINUX (although not systems) newbie who has only recently installed 1 of each, I have only one thing to say to the folks at KDE & GNOME about the idea. "Please, please, please, please, please . . . please!!"
Myself and others at the bottom of the flame chain desperately want to see more integration of the desktop environment, which is what the public is most aware of, not only for ourselves, but because of what we want to be able to recommend to others.
Broader development coherence and better apps - in the words of one comedienne, "It could happen!!" She was being facetious, I'm not.
Laptops??!! - We don't need no stinkin' laptops!!
on
Laptops In Education
·
· Score: 1
Why do people think that throwing PC's at the school system will produce better students?
Bonus Question: If children can't read, when all else fails, how will they read the instructions?
Seriously;-), the simple way to fund this is to eliminate all high school sports with the exception of intramurals. With the money saved by not buying uniforms and the income from the sale of stadium facilities, we could realize a substantial amount of useful revenue.
Corporate sponsership of a web portal? That's a wonderful idea that the Pinkerton bunch should be working on right now. Imagine all the time and energy that could be saved if the WAVE program could be accessed directly from the classroom or, even better, if we track the little tykes cookies to see where they're really going on the ether and follow up those demonstrating dangerous tendencies right then and there (Billy - the principal would like to see you - right now!!).
My state senator's office responded to my email concerning UCITA as follows:
"SB 372, as amended, passed the Senate today. If you have not seen the amendments, you can access them via http://leg1.state.va.us"
The bill is not law yet. Both the state house and senate have to agree on a final form and study is continuing. It is not too late to halt this in Virginia. I plan on shifting to telephone and snail mail myself as it seems to make more of an impression **sigh**
One question I have is this and I hope someone knows the answer: I was under the impression that UCITA was presented to the state legislatures where it was to be voted on, but could not be amended. Now it appears that the state senate has amended it. Does this mean that the state is modifying UCITA or that each state is determining how their courts are to interpret it?
I'm a Virginian that's already emailed my state senator opposing UCITA. If you're a Virginian and haven't taken a stand yet, you should reference SJ239 as the senate resolution and HJ277 as the house resolution.
BTW, as of 2/14/2000, it wasn't clear as to the status of UCITA through the Virginia legislature's web site and it's not clear how easy it would have been to follow the twists and turns of the process electronically.
In the course of all this, I discovered that while my state senator at least has an email address, my state representative has only a kluge web slot on the legislature's site with some snail mail addresses and telephone numbers for local and capital offices. Just how connected other people find their state representatives might be interesting to know.
Anyway, regardless of your location, UCITA is coming your way and it's time to take action NOW!!
Slashdot Mirror
No, Mr. Trump - face the other side of the fan !!
For various reasons, I run multiple OS's. I was part of the recent wave of upgrades to WIN-10 because I have to anticipate what my accounting clients are going to run into when they upgrade which they tend to do without warning.
I personally think MS is just assuming that people will run through the process without thinking much about privacy settings and security issues on the other side. I'm a wee bit OCD about that, but the public I try to work with isn't even when they're told to be careful. I'm still baffled by the number of systems I deal with that have either no antivirus or outdated versions, no firewall, etc. Let's face it, if MS gains marketing data in exchange for a "free" upgrade, most folks won't complain. What I'm also concerned about from a practical manner is the fact that various support builds are going to be pushed though without the option of deciding when to install meaning that various drivers that worked earlier are suddenly off in the ozone upon restart.
There is also the matter of when, where, and how MS will acknowledge problems with the OS. For example, the Edge browser seems to have some real issues integrating with printing which simply aren't there when you switch back to IE-11 which fortunately hasn't been removed (yet), but only disappears from view.
MS's view of the future which they've been fairly clear about is a device-spanning OS that they're going to drive and I think that's one of the main things to keep in mind with WIN-10.
It used to be that the 3-letter acronyms whose existence was never confirmed - only alluded to - could claim the "right" to hide their malicious mischief under the guise of national security, but apparently no longer. The Federal Bureau of Instigation whose long record of abuse against the unworthy among us is a matter of record now feels free to confirm their addition to the other worthies.
I realize that Bush 43 thought the Constitution essentially a worthless scrap of paper, but, to paraphrase what someone once said over a millennia ago, "Who shall guard against these self-same guardians?"
First - props to developers who put in the hard work to bring these features to market; I guess we'll even find some of them useful.
BUT - IMHO - the 8,000 lb. gorilla remains the crippled Bluetooth stack and especially the HID components that were lost when the transition was made from Mobile OS 6.x; funny how resolving this issue which has over 11,000 votes in some MS blogs never even made the review.
Presenting this OS as business-oriented as some have done is blatantly half-fast as you'd know if you ever tried doing some real work with Office Mobile without something approaching a real keyboard and mouse. Yah - you can get things done, but at nothing approaching an efficient use of time.
Imagine my joy 2 years ago when upgrading to my old-by-now HTC Trophy from my Motorola Q9c only to discover I'd been ambushed by this issue which remains the red-headed stepchild all these years later.
And I'm only one of at least 11,000 still waiting.
Seriously, the RNC should set up its own programming task force and pay good money to develop their own system. It would put money into the economy and . .
Wait, how many H1-B's do you think they'll hire to save money??
Science? Schmience!!
Who do we think should take Liv Tyler's place when they film this sequel??
Oh, I see,
as in "slightly pregnant" or "slightly dead"??
I really began to appreciate business email while working at my previous employer.
..." stick when I printed out some emails that proved otherwise. There are times when it's been the only real defence against randomly convenient memory loss or bad or outright wrong instructions.
In both cases, one involving a vendor and the other the company's owner, I was able to avoid some serious cases of being beaten with the old "What I told you was
It's amazing how small a piece of paper can cover a large piece of anatomy.
Seriously, however, who and how to punish is the issue.
/. readers. What I draw from this is that filtering software on various levels is fairly effective, but that has nothing to do with the volume increase which I've certainly noticed.
I have little trouble with spam getting through filters either on my webmail accounts or on the POP accounts I access on my system and I suspect that's true with most
Since I suspect that a good deal of this trash is sent from people who move electronic locations frequently, perhaps there's some way of developing a protocol whereby the first receiving server refuses acceptance of messages which display specific chracteristics found in spam or might even be able to trigger the equivalent of a DOS against the offending system. Widespread acceptance of such a protocol could go a long way towards reducing the volume of spam.
Which will display her features on both an animated splashscreen and a virtual pet for your desktop pleasure.
With an special keylogger that transmits directly to the National Enquirer or the tabloid of your choice and is Bluetooth-enabled to do the same for your cellphone or PDA.
Which is reportedly going into beta with the name "Skank" distribution.
Oh, the humanity!!
How quickly we forget the lessons of Babylon 5.
Remember what the Vorlon ships looked like - and what the Vorlons looked like outside of their encounter suits? Remember how ugly it is to deal with a pissed off Vorlon?
As for how big squid get - a Vorlon mothership makes Moby Dick look like an anchovy filet on a large all toppings pizza.
You have been warned!!!
The first parallel that came to mind was the "death sentence" proposed against UUNet a few years ago for their fostering spamming activity.
The action represented the response of a group of responsible internet members that had finally tired of both the activity and the lack of response from a greedy company who seemed to have no respect for bandwidth and privacy issues.
It seemed to work then and maybe it's just what's needed now.
It's about time that some of these ISP's discover what happens when the fecal matter hits the oscillator.
The 'net has always been about information transfer. The question underneath all the expressed angst seems to be the "value" of the information.
It seems reasonable to assume that the cost and speed of data transfer in the early days of the internet served as a filter for determining how "valuable" the information was considered. As the price decreased, the holes in the sieve grew larger and the amount of less valuable information increased. Where we stand in that trend today I will leave to your judgement, but it is arguably a collapse toward a mean where the information typically has little value at all.
In the middle of all this is the 'net's equivalent of samazdat - the underground literature of the former Soviet Union - where somehow information that's valued is being transferred. Where the traditional media is increasingly concentrated in the editorial hands of a few, the internet remains one of the few ways for either rapid broadcast to many or discreet transmission to few.
Both corporate and government policies seem bent on increasing control over this information. The heart of the net will increasingly deal with the ability to freely disseminate information of value without prior official oversight.
Some years ago, frustrated by what I felt were deficiencies in the typical business models of the day, I found myself writing a paper on developing a more organic model for analysis/description of system processes for a class in organization theory.
The article talks about HAL, "2001", and nanotechnology as well as the concept of the invention overtaking the inventor. My paper used certain ideas I found in the "Dune" series. Interesting that part of the Golden Path most clearly described in "God Emperor of Dune" involves a response to the foreseen possibility of the annihilation of humans by Ixian technology.
I think the ongoing challenge is to develop technology that supports a more organic model of ourselves and our world. The old business models of the pyramid or concentric layers are deficient not only because they inadequately describes the organization, but becauses they shape thinking into seeing organizations in static terms.
Life, it's possibilities and dangers, is less adequately described in terms of the linear dynamics of classic vectors then by elements of fractal modeling which is essentially based on clear boundaries, but my, the surprises within!!
The crux of the argument will be that a protected design was knowingly released in the full knowledge that public release of the design had not been authorized.
How hard Apple will really pursue this and the degree to which the courts assent to their application of the reasoning will have to be seen.
As someone else has pointed out, it has become almost ridiculously easy to sue and this is especially grievous the case of large corporations that use litigation without merit as part of an overall market agenda.
Much of this "libertarian" discussion steps too quickly away from looking at the implications of what drives it. During the cold-war era, Heilbroner observed that American and Soviet middle managers often got along better than their politics might have led you to believe they would. He attributed this to the fact that both were educated in terms of production system efficiencies as core values whether they consciously assented to that or not.
Both "cowboys" and "functionaries" tend to agree on the general mechanics of IT system efficiencies although they'll toast each other at a moment's notice over the details. That's neither unpredictable nor surprising. What's more often amazing is the neophiliac embrace of technology as the means to every end from Al Gore's invention of the internet to the "V" chip equipped TV as the perfect babysitter.
Libertarianism, Objectivism, You-fill-in-the-blankism all find their roots not in mechanical efficiencies, but in the search by us carbon units for something more whether that's God, power, moderator points, or free beer. Questions as to whether or in what ways the expansion of these systems function as an a priori "good" element of our culture are often either overlooked or dismissed as low-brow luddism.
Technology's only a tool. I think the important discussions have to do with the ends we're being driven to with our too often unexamined assuptions about the means.
PS - Ayn Rand didn't care if I was charitable with my own money as long as I didn't try to tell her what to to with hers. Ah, Ayn - now there was a great rant writer!!
I'm very much the Linux newbie, but I've been futzing with PC's for a few years now; long enough in fact to still fall back to using edlin on certain uncooperative client systems. I'm trying to learn more about CLI operations because I feel I'm learning about the OS there instead of just wrestling with the vagaries of particular desktop and windows managers. Many of the folks I've exchanged posts with at linuxnewbie.org go through the same frustrations as I about Linux documentation both for the OS and applications.
I cheerfully RTFM - when I can find TFM, but getting there's the question. Whatever faults MS online documentation has (both net and PC help files), the ability to run string searches against a large information base has been a great help. I'm not saying it can't be done in the average Linux install, but it's certainly not documented.
I'm not a coder, so I'm pretty much at the level where I'm limited to using a tool like vi to hack a file, but I'll do so cheerfully when I can find the documentation on what's needed to get from point A to point B.
If I can find the information. . .
In addition to Freewwweb, I had the dubious distinction of using WorldSpy as well which was swallowed by JUNO a few weeks prior to Freewwweb's demise. Personally, I had no real connection problems with either other than you might expect when living in rural VA (26.4Kbps average connection - no complaints).
I also felt as though the responses I got from JUNO's tech support were noteworthy for their lack of any basic grasp of the facts other than the average PC's being powered by electricity rather than rubber bands. Of course, I may be reaching a bit there.
I did send out a letter to JUNO's president asking that they consider some level of service offering for Linux users. My stab at a windmill perhaps, but I thought it needed doing.
NetZero has announced that they're working on a Linux version of their "Zeroport", but declined to give a date in response to my e-mail. At least, they appeared interested.
For now, I'm using the nearly-free WorldShare.net which seems like a reasonable alternative and does offer the fact that you can target a favorite charity. They require taking part in regular surveys, but the ones I've seen so far haven't been too offensive.
Ah, but what's a penguin to do??
IBM, deep in its heart of hearts, is a big iron kind of company. They don't really like dealing with the public especially where the messy issues of software support are concerned. I think the only reason they stay in the PC business is to keep some sort of market presence in front of the public. Of course, then again, there was the PC-Junior that they stuck retailers with.
How they handled OS/2 was proof enough of this to me. It really did run WINDOWS (3.X) better than WINDOWS, but IBM never had the spine to really market it against MS offerings. They also showed no real inclination to support program development by either companies they owned (Lotus) or those they didn't. Oh, they talked a good talk for a while, but even that turned into an "Are we dead or alive? We can't decide!!" dialogue.
Business partnerships with private developers might put out some needed funds into the hands of folks who deserve to reap a little after many contributions and I suspect we'd all benefit.
But please, not an IBM distro until they show they've got the heart and spine to deal with the public where an OS is concerned. I'd hate to be there when someone says, "Nah, not Linux, even IBM dropped that one."
They've got a history of habits along those lines.
" Young Netizens seem flabbergasted when the adult value system collides with and changes their world -- in arguments over copyright and Napster or the passage of laws like the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. They don't seem to grasp that their lack of political acumen and organizing skills not only make such legislation possible but increasingly inevitable in encounters with a legal and political system dominated by those older and non-technologically-centered."
I don't mind being delegated to the O.F. status for which I am qualified, but political and organizing skills are going to have as much to do with shaping the culture of the future as the technical skills of certain netizens. I can fairly cheerfully stand being lectured by someone who's obnoxious, arrogant, and right about technical issues (and I am still quite the LINUX newbie), but that's not entirely what another, older group would call real politik.
My baptism in such cultural awareness came when my government, my personal objections not withstanding, was determined to ship my rearend and the rest of me off to beautiful downtown asia. The only advantage to that situation was that daily body count on the evening news is as hard to ignore as is your place in it. A powerful incentive to polish those political and organizing skills.
I suppose what I wish is that I had a sense that some of these same brilliant (and I honestly don't say that facetiously) people were collectively working to deal with corporatism, UCITA, and other current issues that effect all of us. I mean, when the same guy/girl that righteously flames me for not knowing how to hack a config file sends a short post about UCITA that consists entirely of the enlightening words, "..that sux", you can't blame me for wondering about the future.
And please keep the flames low - a lot of people think I'm half-baked already.
When I cancelled my AOL account after almost 5 years of subscription, the CSR naturally asked, "Why?" Among other things, one answer was that I had finally gotten tired of all the ads.
You can indeed turn off a number of advertisements, but you can't escape all the little banners that now litter their interface. In addition to the average user having to go through more steps to get from point A to B than previously, each step is almost guaranteed to have a least 1 small ad graphic that will be loaded. Not that anyone's likely to click through, but talk about counting eyeballs!!
Re: the captive audience; I can't speak for today, but I've known a number of people for whom AOL was the only local access point. Much as I dislike AOL, there may be those for whom it is literally the only game in town.
Yah, and I second the motion.
As a sheer and utter LINUX (although not systems) newbie who has only recently installed 1 of each, I have only one thing to say to the folks at KDE & GNOME about the idea. "Please, please, please, please, please . . . please!!"
Myself and others at the bottom of the flame chain desperately want to see more integration of the desktop environment, which is what the public is most aware of, not only for ourselves, but because of what we want to be able to recommend to others.
Broader development coherence and better apps - in the words of one comedienne, "It could happen!!" She was being facetious, I'm not.
Why do people think that throwing PC's at the school system will produce better students?
;-), the simple way to fund this is to eliminate all high school sports with the exception of intramurals. With the money saved by not buying uniforms and the income from the sale of stadium facilities, we could realize a substantial amount of useful revenue.
Bonus Question: If children can't read, when all else fails, how will they read the instructions?
Seriously
Corporate sponsership of a web portal? That's a wonderful idea that the Pinkerton bunch should be working on right now. Imagine all the time and energy that could be saved if the WAVE program could be accessed directly from the classroom or, even better, if we track the little tykes cookies to see where they're really going on the ether and follow up those demonstrating dangerous tendencies right then and there (Billy - the principal would like to see you - right now!!).
My state senator's office responded to my email concerning UCITA as follows:
"SB 372, as amended, passed the Senate today. If you have not seen the amendments, you can access them via http://leg1.state.va.us"
The bill is not law yet. Both the state house and senate have to agree on a final form and study is continuing. It is not too late to halt this in Virginia. I plan on shifting to telephone and snail mail myself as it seems to make more of an impression **sigh**
One question I have is this and I hope someone knows the answer: I was under the impression that UCITA was presented to the state legislatures where it was to be voted on, but could not be amended. Now it appears that the state senate has amended it. Does this mean that the state is modifying UCITA or that each state is determining how their courts are to interpret it?
I'm a Virginian that's already emailed my state senator opposing UCITA. If you're a Virginian and haven't taken a stand yet, you should reference SJ239 as the senate resolution and HJ277 as the house resolution.
BTW, as of 2/14/2000, it wasn't clear as to the status of UCITA through the Virginia legislature's web site and it's not clear how easy it would have been to follow the twists and turns of the process electronically.
In the course of all this, I discovered that while my state senator at least has an email address, my state representative has only a kluge web slot on the legislature's site with some snail mail addresses and telephone numbers for local and capital offices. Just how connected other people find their state representatives might be interesting to know.
Anyway, regardless of your location, UCITA is coming your way and it's time to take action NOW!!