The reason the US doesn't do more is it's too risky. Speaking as an expert (I saw 3 Days of the Condor _twice_), it's clear that we're simply putting bookish analysts (who happen to look like Robert Redford) at risk when the evil oil cartels discover the location of their open source reading rooms.
Also, given that the bookish chaps have to resort to phone phreaking and even kidnapping to thwart Max von Sydow, OS int would put homeland security at risk.
"An empty project does nothing but take up space."
Woah, deep. Seriously wrong though. Empty projects clutter up searching and indices, but by definition take negligible space compared to a thriving, active project.
I love the sentences some well-intentioned people neverless write.
"Apparently, in the book trade, tearing the cover off a book and throwing it in the dumpster counts as destroyed."
Actually, it's: the bookstore gets refunded for all returned books, but postage to return them would be ridiculous, so the torn covers are sent instead as proof of non-sale.
Many a publisher has gone under due to returnable policies. Publisher pays for print run in advance, 1 year later gets a bunch o' torn covers plus a refund request for 60% cover price for each. No books and no pay = big loss for publisher.
" The most disturbing part of the story is that they claim deleting commercials is violating the copyright."
Well, doesn't the fact that they cut portions of the show to add room for new commercials mean they have already violated the copyright of the original show producers/owners, then...
I worked out the cost. There's almost exactly a 1 week latency (i.e. drop the movie in your mailbox to return, wait for the next in your queue to arrive). So its easy to figure. Each 'slot' you have available means you can watch 4 movies that month (assuming you watch it right away), maximum.
So their '2 movies out for $14' means at best you'll hit 8 movies, at $1.75/movie.
'3 movies for $20/month' means 12 movies max that month, or $1.66/movie.
'8 movies for $40' means 32 viewings, at just over a buck a movie.
Assuming you keep most movies 3 days, that means a latency of 1.5 weeks or 3 'views'/month, and the cost per movie ends up around the $2.50 range.
So it's pretty easy to compare with your local rental place.
Personally, I love Netflix, because
a) I always procrastinate with returning stuff,
b) I can't get out much,
c) I can catch up on the classics or tv episodes.
It's really good for seeing movies that you sorta wanted to see, but never got around to watching. In particular, I'm slowly catching up on Twilight Zone episodes, older classic movies, and marginal movies I thought were interesting. So for a dilettante, it's great.
I know your post was funny (+1) and rhetorical (+1), but I thought I'd answer it anyway because, hey, I'm pedantic (-1).
Central black holes only are bright if they are sucking in matter. When they suck in matter and generate radiation, the radiation tends to blow away the surrounding gas a bit. Also, just sucking in the matter of course depletes the region.
So after a bit, the space around the central black hole gets kinda sparse and there's not much for it it eat, so things cool down. This lets the gas further out get dragged in a bit (since there's not as much radiation blowing it away) and eventually enough accumulates that the emission from the black hole increases again.
A lot of astrophysical stuff has cycles of basically 'eat and blow, thus clearing out the area, then sit there empty until more food gets drawn to you by your superior mass'.
If you imagine a fat friend with a PS2 who requires chips and soda, you get the picture-- people get sucked in by the cool PS2 games but when the chips are gone and the farting has cleared out the area, he sits there alone until things have time to settle and friends begin to get drawn back to the PS2 again. [Yeah, I know, I'm now a Contendor for Worst Analogy of 2002].
At the AAS meeting a few weeks ago, a Chandra (X-Ray observatory) team produced this stunning mosiac of the Galactic Center.
It's amazing. Also, apparently the supposed massive black hole in our galaxy's center is 'off', so there's not a lot of emission from it, instead we see remnants of earlier activity (such as Sagittarius A).
EUVE _far_ exceeded the expected lifetime of the mission and produced data well past the "costs recovered" portion.
I suspect at some point a decision was made to extend its lifetime (which requires station-keeping fuel) at the risk of less control when de-orbiting later.
Plus, the mission was eventually shut down, not because of the satellite's condition, but because a) the regular cost of ground control were eating into the budget for other projects and b) it was hard to propose to build a new EUV-range satellite as long as the old one was up and working.
The page talks about the fun of live broadcasts. Imagine if a Star Trek series was done as _live TV_. Just pre-render the CGI and pray the actors remember the script.
Actually, given Shatner's admission that his... unique... speakingstyle as... Kirk in ST:TOS was due to the need to pause to remember his just-given-that-day lines, maybe we sort of had that once.
Still, watching live actors attempting to remember the current crop of technobabble would at least improve Star Trek scriptwriting.
Be careful. I read the surepay site and couldn't find the specific terms of service (TOS), but based on experience with other sites (paypal, propay, instabill, etc), your plan may be illegal.
If they are going the cheap way (visit their site, buy via link to surepay, return to their site), then the TOS likely says "customers must enter information themselves" (merchants cannot just fill out the 'credit slip' for them).
This comes up even with some online merchant accounts-- that the _customer_ must fill out each charge slip that gets processed, and the merchant can't just fill it out for them.
It's a crucial difference that means implementing your own 'fake the customer re-submitting the info to mimic recurrent billing' could violate the TOS and, in turn, Surepay's own arrangements for their bank.
Of course, if they're using Surepay's premium, it might be do-able-- but that that point, between paying Surepay premium plus hiring you for coding, they're best off just getting their own merchant account and having you code locally-- and securely-- to do what they wanted in the first place.
Ironically, with Bin Laden a) being suspected of having advanced weapons and b) being a millionaire, I don't think for-pay software is an impediment to him.
Frankly, when for-pay software is still cheaper than a few rifles, any third-world arms program isn't going to be hurting. Remember, warlords and tyrants skim the cash first-- and if they can afford to build the stuff, the software costs are negligible.
No, free scientific software really benefits education, schools that can't afford resources.
Although it (in later chapters) assumes a more organized and linear organization than many OSS projects, I'd highly recommend "Code Complete" (full title, "Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction") by Steve McConnell. The bulk of it is essential for good coding.
Described simply, it tells how to design then write good code and code pieces, and how to document without the usual burden of "oh, rats, I guess I have to document now". Among his suggestions is to use your outline and/or pseudocode _as_ the documentation, by just filling the code in, rather than seeing documentation as a seperate step. If it's good enough for you to code by, it's probably better than any after-the-fact retro attempt at documenting.
He also deals with managing code projects that have high programmer turnover, very relevant to OSS.
The ISBN is 1-55615-484-4, ignore who published it. Seriously-- it's from (he shudders to say on/.) Microsoft Press but this is BY COINCIDENCE, a mere accident of fate! Please do not doom this work just because of this quirk of fate! It really is an MS-free book, guaranteed pure.
Some trusted, independent survey company really needs to do an RIAA client survey. Call 1000 of their clients, chosen at random from their listings. Ask them:
* Do you credit the RIAA with enabling or assisting in your success
* Do you feel that the RIAA protects your artistic rights effectively
* If there was a competitor to the RIAA, would you: a) remain with RIAA, b) evaluate both then decide, or c) switch immediatly
... and similar questioons. See if the RIAA is really representing the artists or not.
Probably cost around $150,000 to run, but would be useful when RIAA issues come up.
"Monk" has a nice 'overhead view' of the people part of the equation. Other books in this genre that 'get it right' always focus on people,t oo.
"Burn Rate" was about people screwing over people. Guy Kawalski's startup books are about people self-dedicating themselves to motivating other people. "Monk"'s sort of in the middle, in a lot of ways. Of the set, I favor the pragmatics of Kawalski, but 'Monk' is more uplifting. "Burn Rate" is what you read when you get bitter.
At a certain point, you realize success is totally abut people. Not tech, not even business, just people.
Alas, he didn't seem to be consistent, rather, he was just providing feel-good answers. Under the first 'Define reasonable' question, he said hardware wasn't a valid comparison:
We've come to that
conclusion because there do not seem to be well-established models
for Web software royalties, as there are in your hardware examples.
But later, in promoting his pro-RAND stance under a later question, he write:
There is evidence that in other technology arenas RAND
standards work perfectly well. For example, CD players, TVs, phones,
all come with significant patent royalty obligations for their producers,
but these devices are nevertheless widely available at seemingly
affordable prices.
So, the conclusion is: hardware standards are irrelevant if you use them to bolster your case, but are highly relevant when we use them to support our case.
Always a good idea, but many projects either involve several folks or have a history.
If there are several developers, all have to agree-- and even if you can get several programmers to agree to let you use it, you're still asking the contact person to do a lot of talking on your behalf.
If there's historical code (i.e. programs built on earlier GPLed work, or similar), even the Lead Developer of the current version can't necessarily break "their" own license, since their use of older code requires abiding by the license _it_ was made under.
So negotiating is best if it's a new, from-scratch, single developer project. That's a narrow subset of robust open source stuff.
The purpose of a license is to clearly state how people can use it. Negotiating 'better' terms is an option, but also keep in mind that, having provided a license, a developer can easily say 'no' to requests without stigma. So I hope folks don't ask for better terms, then kvetch if they aren't granted. Hey, they _did_ open source it in the first place!
We use server-side includes (SSIs) with our side, i.e. a standard header file for every page. Over 9000 pages, and I can change them all by editing one file.
So it would be very easy for me to add a uniform ratings tag to each and every page. You might want to consider such a system, it's easy to implement on most machines and really saves time when you need to do changes-- or even redesign the site.
You do raise a very good point, though-- what if each article you publish may have a different rating than 'the default'.
Does 1 article about sex mean the entire site is R-rated, or does per-article blocking take effect? I can see front pages that are (of course) 'G' rates even when the content is 'X'-- naturally a visitor to that site will obey the filtering of the lower pages.
So a child seeing the 'G' cover for "House of Goatsex" will no doubt say "oops, no need to alter the filter, I didn't want to go deeper" [err, bad choice of words there, but you get my meaning]
So will it be per-site or per-page? If per-page, you get the 'lure' factor above. If per-site, how do you rate geocities.com?
Oh, this is pretty clear, but not necessarily good.
Optional ratings. But the free filters will likely default to automatically blocking unrated sites. After all, the goal is clearly stated that they want to convince parents to install the software, ergo, they need the ratings to have value in order to convince them, ergo unrated sites have to be put down.
So site owners have to rate. But, aha, rating incorrectly will have to be made a crime, else those illegal pornographers will rate themselves as 'kid-friendly', dontchaknowit.
After all, if there isn't a _law_ forcing honest ratings, who can trust the ratings? They'll fail otherwise.
Then, with this law, hmm... we'll need a way to handle complaints and dispute ratings. Hey, they do a good job with those domain disputes and such, use a closed board like that. Heck, use the same WIFO!
Small sites then get "Your site was reported as illegally abusing the rating scheme with inaccurate ratings. Please reply to each complaint in this 20-page form within 10 days or your domain will be revoked."
Suddenly, small sites are either a) bogged down in paperwork or b) unrated and thus blocked by most browsers.
*sigh* And don't even get me started if they decide they don't need a top ratings board, that ratings can be enforced through 'local standard', i.e. any state can file in their state court to contest your site's ratings. Suddenly, small sites get suits in any state that disagrees with the site owner's interpretation of the ratings.
And in other news, fiction writers world-over have layed down their pens and quit. With King, Grisham, and a handful of others having 98% of the bookshelf space, other writers have realized the lost the Bookshelf War. This columnist suggests they all shift to tech writing, a market where freelace talent has a chance to compete. Said Random House on all this, "Sounds good to us! After all, if you don't control 100%, why bother?"
Mr. Gates said "Our customers do want us to make Windows richer and more reliable".
Ironically, all my Windows-using relatives (3) and neighbors (4) only say theyy want Windows to be stable. And hey, have to reinstall itself less often! And maybe not have to reboot 3 times just to install a minor application.
And "new featuritis" seems the main thing _preventing_ stability/reliabilty-- so MS's goals are antithetical.
I have yet to find a _customer_ who demands Windows be "more richer", though I'm sure Gates et al want the "more richer" part.
Summary: "Polaroid invented the dot-com model before anyone else!"
Speaking as an owner of a Digital Polaroid (PDC1100), one issue was that their digital camera just wasn't that well made.
Looking at their instant cameras (which I also own one of), these weren't particularly ergonomic and certainly not cost effective. It was simply that they were the only instant cameras (due to patents).
And CostCo warehouse was having weird Polaroid-sponsored rebates-- buy a 4-pack of film and get a camera for free! After you have 4 cameras just by buying refills, you start to think maybe Polaroid's profit model was a little wacked.
Let's see... lossy marketing schemes, shoddy goods, reliance on a patent instead of a good product, entrance into new markets with substandard goods... yep, they were a dot-com without the dot or com part:)
I concur. When setting up my corporation, my accountant told me my Articles of Inc had to explicitly state that edu work and developing new concepts were our first goals _ahead of maximizing profits_. Otherwise, the default is "maximizing profits takes precedence" and shareholders could act on that (nixing a new approach, say, because it threatens an existing line.)
It's not even a question of listing priorities-- you have to specifically state if something overrules profit-making, else profit-making is always the top (unspoken) goal of a corporation.
Slashdot Mirror
The reason the US doesn't do more is it's too risky. Speaking as an expert (I saw 3 Days of the Condor _twice_), it's clear that we're simply putting bookish analysts (who happen to look like Robert Redford) at risk when the evil oil cartels discover the location of their open source reading rooms.
Also, given that the bookish chaps have to resort to phone phreaking and even kidnapping to thwart Max von Sydow, OS int would put homeland security at risk.
Nope, it's just to dangerous to risk.
"An empty project does nothing but take up space."
Woah, deep. Seriously wrong though. Empty projects clutter up searching and indices, but by definition take negligible space compared to a thriving, active project.
I love the sentences some well-intentioned people neverless write.
"Apparently, in the book trade, tearing the cover off a book and throwing it in the dumpster counts as destroyed."
Actually, it's: the bookstore gets refunded for all returned books, but postage to return them would be ridiculous, so the torn covers are sent instead as proof of non-sale.
Many a publisher has gone under due to returnable policies. Publisher pays for print run in advance, 1 year later gets a bunch o' torn covers plus a refund request for 60% cover price for each. No books and no pay = big loss for publisher.
" The most disturbing part of the story is that they claim deleting commercials is violating the copyright."
Well, doesn't the fact that they cut portions of the show to add room for new commercials mean they have already violated the copyright of the original show producers/owners, then...
Actually, meta-information is all the rage, in science and in consumer data. So, if they establish that precedent...
"It's illegal to let companies record and store people's profiles based on the location, income or other words in their profile."
My goodness, we could eliminate demographics entirely!
I worked out the cost. There's almost exactly a 1 week latency (i.e. drop the movie in your mailbox to return, wait for the next in your queue to arrive). So its easy to figure. Each 'slot' you have available means you can watch 4 movies that month (assuming you watch it right away), maximum.
So their '2 movies out for $14' means at best you'll hit 8 movies, at $1.75/movie.
'3 movies for $20/month' means 12 movies max that month, or $1.66/movie.
'8 movies for $40' means 32 viewings, at just over a buck a movie.
Assuming you keep most movies 3 days, that means a latency of 1.5 weeks or 3 'views'/month, and the cost per movie ends up around the $2.50 range.
So it's pretty easy to compare with your local rental place.
Personally, I love Netflix, because
a) I always procrastinate with returning stuff,
b) I can't get out much,
c) I can catch up on the classics or tv episodes.
It's really good for seeing movies that you sorta wanted to see, but never got around to watching. In particular, I'm slowly catching up on Twilight Zone episodes, older classic movies, and marginal movies I thought were interesting. So for a dilettante, it's great.
I know your post was funny (+1) and rhetorical (+1), but I thought I'd answer it anyway because, hey, I'm pedantic (-1).
Central black holes only are bright if they are sucking in matter. When they suck in matter and generate radiation, the radiation tends to blow away the surrounding gas a bit. Also, just sucking in the matter of course depletes the region.
So after a bit, the space around the central black hole gets kinda sparse and there's not much for it it eat, so things cool down. This lets the gas further out get dragged in a bit (since there's not as much radiation blowing it away) and eventually enough accumulates that the emission from the black hole increases again.
A lot of astrophysical stuff has cycles of basically 'eat and blow, thus clearing out the area, then sit there empty until more food gets drawn to you by your superior mass'.
If you imagine a fat friend with a PS2 who requires chips and soda, you get the picture-- people get sucked in by the cool PS2 games but when the chips are gone and the farting has cleared out the area, he sits there alone until things have time to settle and friends begin to get drawn back to the PS2 again. [Yeah, I know, I'm now a Contendor for Worst Analogy of 2002].
At the AAS meeting a few weeks ago, a Chandra (X-Ray observatory) team produced this stunning mosiac of the Galactic Center.
It's amazing. Also, apparently the supposed massive black hole in our galaxy's center is 'off', so there's not a lot of emission from it, instead we see remnants of earlier activity (such as Sagittarius A).
EUVE _far_ exceeded the expected lifetime of the mission and produced data well past the "costs recovered" portion.
I suspect at some point a decision was made to extend its lifetime (which requires station-keeping fuel) at the risk of less control when de-orbiting later.
Plus, the mission was eventually shut down, not because of the satellite's condition, but because a) the regular cost of ground control were eating into the budget for other projects and b) it was hard to propose to build a new EUV-range satellite as long as the old one was up and working.
The page talks about the fun of live broadcasts. Imagine if a Star Trek series was done as _live TV_. Just pre-render the CGI and pray the actors remember the script.
Actually, given Shatner's admission that his... unique... speakingstyle as... Kirk in ST:TOS was due to the need to pause to remember his just-given-that-day lines, maybe we sort of had that once.
Still, watching live actors attempting to remember the current crop of technobabble would at least improve Star Trek scriptwriting.
Be careful. I read the surepay site and couldn't find the specific terms of service (TOS), but based on experience with other sites (paypal, propay, instabill, etc), your plan may be illegal.
If they are going the cheap way (visit their site, buy via link to surepay, return to their site), then the TOS likely says "customers must enter information themselves" (merchants cannot just fill out the 'credit slip' for them).
This comes up even with some online merchant accounts-- that the _customer_ must fill out each charge slip that gets processed, and the merchant can't just fill it out for them.
It's a crucial difference that means implementing your own 'fake the customer re-submitting the info to mimic recurrent billing' could violate the TOS and, in turn, Surepay's own arrangements for their bank.
Of course, if they're using Surepay's premium, it might be do-able-- but that that point, between paying Surepay premium plus hiring you for coding, they're best off just getting their own merchant account and having you code locally-- and securely-- to do what they wanted in the first place.
Merchant banking is not a place for hacks.
Ironically, with Bin Laden a) being suspected of having advanced weapons and b) being a millionaire, I don't think for-pay software is an impediment to him.
Frankly, when for-pay software is still cheaper than a few rifles, any third-world arms program isn't going to be hurting. Remember, warlords and tyrants skim the cash first-- and if they can afford to build the stuff, the software costs are negligible.
No, free scientific software really benefits education, schools that can't afford resources.
Alas, this PDA makes the same mistake as all the others. From the sales page:
"DataSync Program Only Available in MS Windows Platform"
It'd be nice to have a PDA running Linux, but if it can't talk to my other computers, it's pointless.
Rats.
Although it (in later chapters) assumes a more organized and linear organization than many OSS projects, I'd highly recommend "Code Complete" (full title, "Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction") by Steve McConnell. The bulk of it is essential for good coding.
/.) Microsoft Press but this is BY COINCIDENCE, a mere accident of fate! Please do not doom this work just because of this quirk of fate! It really is an MS-free book, guaranteed pure.
Described simply, it tells how to design then write good code and code pieces, and how to document without the usual burden of "oh, rats, I guess I have to document now". Among his suggestions is to use your outline and/or pseudocode _as_ the documentation, by just filling the code in, rather than seeing documentation as a seperate step. If it's good enough for you to code by, it's probably better than any after-the-fact retro attempt at documenting.
He also deals with managing code projects that have high programmer turnover, very relevant to OSS.
The ISBN is 1-55615-484-4, ignore who published it. Seriously-- it's from (he shudders to say on
Actually, all programmers should read it.
Some trusted, independent survey company really needs to do an RIAA client survey. Call 1000 of their clients, chosen at random from their listings. Ask them:
* Do you credit the RIAA with enabling or assisting in your success
* Do you feel that the RIAA protects your artistic rights effectively
* If there was a competitor to the RIAA, would you: a) remain with RIAA, b) evaluate both then decide, or c) switch immediatly
... and similar questioons. See if the RIAA is really representing the artists or not.
Probably cost around $150,000 to run, but would be useful when RIAA issues come up.
"Monk" has a nice 'overhead view' of the people part of the equation. Other books in this genre that 'get it right' always focus on people,t oo.
"Burn Rate" was about people screwing over people. Guy Kawalski's startup books are about people self-dedicating themselves to motivating other people. "Monk"'s sort of in the middle, in a lot of ways. Of the set, I favor the pragmatics of Kawalski, but 'Monk' is more uplifting. "Burn Rate" is what you read when you get bitter.
At a certain point, you realize success is totally abut people. Not tech, not even business, just people.
(Though perhaps not as extreme as the sarcastic
Anyone Can Be an Internet Success-- Why Aren't You? article!)
Alas, he didn't seem to be consistent, rather, he was just providing feel-good answers. Under the first 'Define reasonable' question, he said hardware wasn't a valid comparison:
We've come to that
conclusion because there do not seem to be well-established models
for Web software royalties, as there are in your hardware examples.
But later, in promoting his pro-RAND stance under a later question, he write:
There is evidence that in other technology arenas RAND
standards work perfectly well. For example, CD players, TVs, phones,
all come with significant patent royalty obligations for their producers,
but these devices are nevertheless widely available at seemingly
affordable prices.
So, the conclusion is: hardware standards are irrelevant if you use them to bolster your case, but are highly relevant when we use them to support our case.
*sigh*
>Why not drop the developer/company an email?
Always a good idea, but many projects either involve several folks or have a history.
If there are several developers, all have to agree-- and even if you can get several programmers to agree to let you use it, you're still asking the contact person to do a lot of talking on your behalf.
If there's historical code (i.e. programs built on earlier GPLed work, or similar), even the Lead Developer of the current version can't necessarily break "their" own license, since their use of older code requires abiding by the license _it_ was made under.
So negotiating is best if it's a new, from-scratch, single developer project. That's a narrow subset of robust open source stuff.
The purpose of a license is to clearly state how people can use it. Negotiating 'better' terms is an option, but also keep in mind that, having provided a license, a developer can easily say 'no' to requests without stigma. So I hope folks don't ask for better terms, then kvetch if they aren't granted. Hey, they _did_ open source it in the first place!
>Why does Slashdot never get Slashdotted?
:)
To steal from Yogi Berra, because "no one reads Slashdot anymore, it's too popular."
Besides, we're all too busy slashdotting the other sites to spend time here
We use server-side includes (SSIs) with our side, i.e. a standard header file for every page. Over 9000 pages, and I can change them all by editing one file.
So it would be very easy for me to add a uniform ratings tag to each and every page. You might want to consider such a system, it's easy to implement on most machines and really saves time when you need to do changes-- or even redesign the site.
You do raise a very good point, though-- what if each article you publish may have a different rating than 'the default'.
Does 1 article about sex mean the entire site is R-rated, or does per-article blocking take effect? I can see front pages that are (of course) 'G' rates even when the content is 'X'-- naturally a visitor to that site will obey the filtering of the lower pages.
So a child seeing the 'G' cover for "House of Goatsex" will no doubt say "oops, no need to alter the filter, I didn't want to go deeper" [err, bad choice of words there, but you get my meaning]
So will it be per-site or per-page? If per-page, you get the 'lure' factor above. If per-site, how do you rate geocities.com?
Ah, rating is always sticky.
Oh, this is pretty clear, but not necessarily good.
Optional ratings. But the free filters will likely default to automatically blocking unrated sites. After all, the goal is clearly stated that they want to convince parents to install the software, ergo, they need the ratings to have value in order to convince them, ergo unrated sites have to be put down.
So site owners have to rate. But, aha, rating incorrectly will have to be made a crime, else those illegal pornographers will rate themselves as 'kid-friendly', dontchaknowit.
After all, if there isn't a _law_ forcing honest ratings, who can trust the ratings? They'll fail otherwise.
Then, with this law, hmm... we'll need a way to handle complaints and dispute ratings. Hey, they do a good job with those domain disputes and such, use a closed board like that. Heck, use the same WIFO!
Small sites then get "Your site was reported as illegally abusing the rating scheme with inaccurate ratings. Please reply to each complaint in this 20-page form within 10 days or your domain will be revoked."
Suddenly, small sites are either a) bogged down in paperwork or b) unrated and thus blocked by most browsers.
*sigh* And don't even get me started if they decide they don't need a top ratings board, that ratings can be enforced through 'local standard', i.e. any state can file in their state court to contest your site's ratings. Suddenly, small sites get suits in any state that disagrees with the site owner's interpretation of the ratings.
Then there's the world level...
And in other news, fiction writers world-over have layed down their pens and quit. With King, Grisham, and a handful of others having 98% of the bookshelf space, other writers have realized the lost the Bookshelf War. This columnist suggests they all shift to tech writing, a market where freelace talent has a chance to compete. Said Random House on all this, "Sounds good to us! After all, if you don't control 100%, why bother?"
Mr. Gates said "Our customers do want us to make Windows richer and more reliable".
Ironically, all my Windows-using relatives (3) and neighbors (4) only say theyy want Windows to be stable. And hey, have to reinstall itself less often! And maybe not have to reboot 3 times just to install a minor application.
And "new featuritis" seems the main thing _preventing_ stability/reliabilty-- so MS's goals are antithetical.
I have yet to find a _customer_ who demands Windows be "more richer", though I'm sure Gates et al want the "more richer" part.
Summary: "Polaroid invented the dot-com model before anyone else!"
:)
Speaking as an owner of a Digital Polaroid (PDC1100), one issue was that their digital camera just wasn't that well made.
Looking at their instant cameras (which I also own one of), these weren't particularly ergonomic and certainly not cost effective. It was simply that they were the only instant cameras (due to patents).
And CostCo warehouse was having weird Polaroid-sponsored rebates-- buy a 4-pack of film and get a camera for free! After you have 4 cameras just by buying refills, you start to think maybe Polaroid's profit model was a little wacked.
Let's see... lossy marketing schemes, shoddy goods, reliance on a patent instead of a good product, entrance into new markets with substandard goods... yep, they were a dot-com without the dot or com part
I concur. When setting up my corporation, my accountant told me my Articles of Inc had to explicitly state that edu work and developing new concepts were our first goals _ahead of maximizing profits_. Otherwise, the default is "maximizing profits takes precedence" and shareholders could act on that (nixing a new approach, say, because it threatens an existing line.)
It's not even a question of listing priorities-- you have to specifically state if something overrules profit-making, else profit-making is always the top (unspoken) goal of a corporation.