Before, attendants would talk to nice/normal people from time to time. Now, only angry customers will get to be transfered to them.
Also, doesn't this strike you as a system that rewards (1) Aggressiveness, (2) Stupidity ? I mean, how dumb must you be to talk to a dumb machine? Reminds me of that Dilbert cartoon where the PHB enters his address book into his new PDA by speaking the names loudly.
First, of course I hope your son is feeling better.
Now, I can't help the uneasy feeling that you use weasel-speak in your description. A lot of things are worded in that subtle way to make a casual reader assume things that you don't actually say. Specifically :
- You hint (without actually saying so) that you always check warnings on video games
- You hint (without actually saying so) that the presence or absence of warnings is a major factor in your decision to purchase a game.
- You hint (without actually saying so) that you knew that your son was particularly sensitive.
Basically what you say is "many games have warnings", "I assume that a harmful game would mention so" and "I assume that some game I buy will be safe". You know, I ignore this kind of warnings since I have no known health problems and I consider them to be meaningless legalese "cover your ass". Yet, everything you write also applies to me.
I might sound paranoid but recently some politicians have been trying very hard to convince me of things without actually saying them that clearly. (I say this to explain my suspicions, not to start a political flame war). So it would be interesting if you could bring a short (and clear) answer to the following questions:
- Did you know prior to purchasing the game that your son had a special senitivity to light?
- Do you always check warnings prior to purchasing a game?
- Have you ever purchased a game that portrayed such warnings?
- Had such a warning shown on the box, would you have purchased it anyway or refrained from it?
Again, I wish your son the best. Please accept my apologies if my suspicions are unfounded. Maybe it's just a poor choice of words. Maybe I'm really paranoid and I should consult a shrink;)
Well, I'm French and I'm puzzled about this ADHD stuff. From Slashdot posts and other US mainstream media stories, I gather that ADHD/ADD is a massive problem in the US, everybody knows about it and everyone has suffered it or knows someone who did. My point is that nobody in France knows/talks of this disorder. OK, there may be some researchers/doctors working on it but it's NOT common knowledge. TV doesn't mention it, papers don't either... We don't seem to have ADHD/ADD in France or we don't label it that way. It would be interesting to know if other countries's slashdotters have the same feeling.
Also, if I'm right, I wonder if the point is that we don't have the symptoms or if we just don't label them ADD.
To support the latter, from what I understand of ADD/ADHD symptoms, most people in France would just see bad parenting, spoiled brats, tired kids, "normal" behavior appearing disorderly in an overly PC/conformist society...
But if the former is true, what could explain it? Too many TV channels? Ultra-aggressive marketing/advertising? I read an article last year in a US paper wondering if the US, as a nation, was struck by ADD. Does it make sense?
Making it an international program would be another disaster just like the ISS.
Well, it depends how you structure it. You could set it up as an autonomous entity. This would involve an independant management appointed and controlled by the funding states. Essentially, it would work as a corporation, with countries acting as shareholders and directors. Most corporations manage to perform decently despite having numerous shareholders with (possibly) conflicting objectives.
The ONLY drawback of such a structure is that it would not be "US-led". Basically, if a majority of shareholders/directors/countries agreed on a given decision, the US would have to comply. **shudders** Can you imagine that? The US funding a project they don't have absolute control on? Won't happen before 2008.
So what we'll see is a PURE US initiative. The ONLY drawback is that you can't blame the French if anyone screws up. Well, actually one doesn't need to make even remotely plausible claims to blame the French these days. I can imagine rubbish in the tone of : "The French have been pushing fuel cell technologies since the early 2000's. Now our Halliburton-built, 5 billion tons, gasoline launcher has blown up sending half of Florida into the Atlantic. Who benefits the most? France. Can't be a coincidence."
This administration is treating the US constitution pretty much like they treated the UN recently. As a mere tool. They use it when it suits them, and ignore it otherwise.
The analogy is striking. Back in February, allied countries opposing war in Iraq were traitors; now citizens opposing these laws are un-American. If the trend follows, we'll next hear : "our prime mandate is to the American people, not some centuries-old paper", "the Constitution has shown itself to be irrelevant" or "our opponents represent Old America". What about renaming the Bill of Rights "Bill of Freedom"?
If this was not so frightening, I would be amused.
Also, an important difference is that the guy is NOT trying to raise capital (AFAIK), which is the main incentive to overrate your market.
Sure, such an article is a free ad and can't be bad for his business. But he has no desperate need to convince anyone that the market's gonna soar to gazillions.
Maybe the proper normalization isn't each persons share of the GDP, but rather each man hour that went into making it. Certainly, such a statistic could be computed, at least in broad terms. Dollars per person, or man-hour?
That's called hourly productivity. It's actually computed regularly by international institutions such as OECD. I remember reading in a paper that France and Belgium came slightly above the US in hourly productivity but I'm too lazy to find a link. Basically it boils down to Frenchmen working on average 1,300 hours per year while USians are around 1,650 IIRC.
C'mon! There's this "research" paper claiming some figures for WiFi spending in 2008 in Europe and the US. And everybody and his brother goes with his insightful explanation, as if it was a fact.
Last time I checked, 2008 was in the future. And AFAIK, nobody knows the future. It's not like we never experienced that. The Internet bubble is not so old that we forgot its lessons. Do you remember the 2004 projections for internet advertising or 3G mobile data consumption back in 2000?
No, the US are not lagging behind because of the neo-cons, population density or consumer culture or whatever. The US ARE not lagging behind, period. The ONLY fact we can comment is that some (unknown) guy pretends that they WILL in 5 years.
Very interesting study. Their methodology is clever. It's a much better way of measuring news sources' accuracy than trying to list each time a given source published a wrong info.
Now, this study was bound to show that Fox is the least reliable news source. Their editorial line was pro-war and it's not surprising that their audience would have misperceptions on those questions (Saddam-Al Qaeda links, WMD and international support).
What would be REALLY interesting would be a study on common liberal misperceptions (like Arafat is NOT corrupt, US killed more Iraqis than Saddam did etc...) It would be interesting to see if liberal news sources' audiences have such a high rate of misperception.
Don't know where you got your facts, but they don't fit with my understanding.
First, the nuclear industry is not exactly prospering for lack of international and domestic demand for new nuclear plants. Second, EDF, France's main electricity producer and only (it is a statutory monopoly) electricity retailer is one of the few state-owned companies that actually earns money. Its revenues come from the electricity bill they charge to corporations and the public. No trace of subsidy here. Also Areva, which designs and sells reactors is a publicly traded company which does not get state subsidies (to the best of my knwledge, but maybe you know better). Third, we have in Europe this thing called the European Commission which hunts down country-specific state subsidies. Recently, the state-sponsored recovery plan of Alstom was nearly struck down by the Commission, since it was regarded as an indirect subsidy to the company. Basically, the EU allows for subsidies (agricultural products etc...) that benefit to the whole EU against the ROTW but not subsidies that help a single EU country against other EU countries. I guess you have a similar system in the US (State subsidies vs Federal subsidies).
You're right : we have a high tax burden in France. Yet it is more used to fund generous benefits (unemployment and health insurance, retirement plans etc...) or to feed a plethoric and sub-optimal government than to subside the industry.
I'm far from an expert but I read that we reprocess it and bury the ultimate waste deep under mountains. I've also read (some time ago) that we actually import nuclear waste from Germany, reprocess it and send the ultimate waste back to them for storage.
Re:No difference for a long while, but...
on
The End of the Oil Age
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
France also has its share of irrational fear of the nukes - hehe, another common point between us;) - I don't think any new plant has been built in the latest 20 years and Greenpeace guys call Doomsday everytime a lightbulb dies within 20 miles of a nuclear plant. Our plants are safe, no significant problem has been reported since the beginning of the program (like 50 years ago). I guess our safety standard are world-class too. Still electricity can be produced cheaply.
I think the main barrier to nuclear power is not economical, it's political. No elected official wants to risk his (her) reelection by building a new nuclear plant.
Actually, Germany is one of the worst European countries wrt deficit and debt. The Maastricht agreements demand that all EU countries have a deficit below 3% of GDP and public debt below 60% of GDP. Germany and France blow the deficit criteria in 2003, with approximately 4% (IIRC) and this has produced a serious mess in the EU. But the debt criteria is still holding, both Germany and France are still slightly below 60% of GDP.
Now compare with the US. GDP~5 trillions, debt~6,5 trillions (ie. 130%GDP), deficit between 300 and 500 billions (ie. 6% to 10% GDP). US public debt and deficit are twice as big as the worst European countries.
Re:No difference for a long while, but...
on
The End of the Oil Age
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Not quite sure oil & coal are cheaper than nukes to produce energy. In France, 90% of our electricity comes from nuclear plants and it's reasonnably cheap. I gather that the investments were huge but they're paying off. We're actually exporting electricity to our neighbors which would hint that our cost is competitive.
Middle East is a huge region with various cultures, regimes and levels of economic development. I'm not quite sure there's a strong correlation between oil resources and democracy/wealth.
OPEC members in the Middle East include : Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Emirates, Qatar, Lybia and Algeria. Iran and Lybia are currently dictatorships; everybody knows about the current situation of Iraq; Saudi Arabia, Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar are Absolute Monarchies; Algeria is supposedly a republic but has a strong historic (and recent) tendency towards dictatorship.
Now about non OPEC countries in the Middle East : we have Israel (not exactly a 3rd world country). Turkey, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt are at various stages of their transition to democracy but are definitely improving. Lebanon, Syria, Jordan are in bad shape for various reasons. Yemen is utterly poor and Oman is a Monarchy.
All in all I can think of some non oil-producing countries where I would live but I'm not exactly enthusiastic at the idea of living in any Middle-East oil-producing country. Oil seems to encourage corruption and authoritative forms of government and does not seem to bring wealth, education, well-being or political stability to the people.
Apparently, there seems to have been a mysterious netting of -16,022 votes for Gore on a Diebold machine in the 2000 Florida election. IIRC, Bush won by a very small margin (hundreds) in Florida.
I have never been that interested about pregnant chads or various conspiracy theories relating to absentee votes, voters written off from the lists etc... Basically, those claims usually lacked consistence and these kind of dirty tricks were probably played by both sides.
Now, this kind of direct tampering with the results can be proved (or disproved) and that makes a big difference IMHO.
Maybe Gore actually won the 2000 election after all.
Slashdot has an interesting text about the US strategy of insulting and bullying its Allies. As ThinWhiteDuke points out, this same tactic was tried 200 years ago by Napoleon against Russia. It didn't work then, and it won't work today.
This guy tells us what everybody already knows: Sun's not going well, the stock is plummeting, sales are low, market shares are shrinking, their position in the server market is unsustainable... Thank you buddy!! Do you realize all of this already hit the mainstream media? It's not news for anyone who just follows the tech industry casually. Add some obvious generalities : "Sun's mistakes are well documented, but the biggest one is believing that what made them successful in the past would make them successful in the future." All in all, we have a random guy trying to make us believe that he's smart.
So long for the diagnosis. And what cure does he suggest? Cut and focus, fire the CEO, be acquired... blah, blah, blah... Standard cut&paste from recommandations to ANY firm that's not doing well.
This "open letter" would have been useful 2 or 3 years ago. It would have been interesting if Merril had a clue about what's really going on at Sun and which options they have left.
Analysis involves more than reading the press, going through the accounts and talking to the CEO twice per year. If you want to have any informed opinion on a large company (especially in the tech sector), you need to talk to R&D, talk to the product marketing guys, appraise the quality of the people, have a clue to where the industry is going, evaluate customers' and employees' loyalty...
That's a tough job. Far tougher than picking easy scapegoats (McNealy). If you're not prepared to do it, better find a real job.
Re:Blah, blah, blah, whine, whine, whine...
on
TIA Project to End
·
· Score: 1
No, I 'd complain about some French mainstream news source reporting about some neocons publishing this kind of moronic cards deck. Especially if this is the only occurrence such a news source would tell us about how people on the other side of the pond think.
You know, there's low-end, hate-inducing stuff on both sides. Yet, I read the US press as much as the French one (mainstream, "respectable" sources like Le Monde, Le Figaro, CNN, NYT)... The overall message on the French side seems to be "The US were/are wrong"; on the American side it leans toward "the French hate us". I think there's a difference.
Re:The 52 most dangerous American officials
on
TIA Project to End
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Just FYI. While this idea "could" be "slightly" amusing, I guess you might be interested in knowing a little more about Meyssan.
This guy is a known leftist activist with a blatant anti-American agenda. (Yes there are *some* anti-Americans in France). His book, "L'Effroyable Imposture", has been repeatedly debunked in French mainstream media and is widely considered as a failed marketing coup. Interestingly, previous work by Meyssan had earned him the reputation of a good investigator. His work on the French extreme right parties is viewed as solid and professional. For many, "L'Effroyable Imposture" is a sort of political/intellectual suicide.
Back to the msnbc article, I'm not quite comfortable about their decision to publish it that way, especially under the header "French cards spoof U.S. government". To the casual reader, this article hammers the message : "the French hate us". I would not be surprised if most Americans were offended by this deck and added this piece of information into the "France sucks" column. Of course, msnbc is absolutely free to publish whatever it wishes, but I still think they fell here into demagoguery and populism. Believe me, there are a lot of very insightful and interesting articles in the French press about the whole 911/Iraq/diplomacy stuff, none of which are stained by anti-americanism. I think it's sad that msnbc chose this one French initiative to report.
That RedHat are a bad company? That IBM are a bad company? No. Neither Red Hat nor IBM are bad companies; they don't steal anything.
That open source is not working? That there's no money in open source anything? Somehow. My point is that people should not expect making money if they mainly give away what they produce. Open source *does* work in the sense that it produces good software. It doesn't work to bring revenues to an open source developper. IMHO, the economics of open source work as follows. Some people develop free software. They get a lot out of that (knowledge, skills, contacts with other bright people, self-fulfilment...); but no money. Others take OSS, brand it, package it with some proprietary stuff and sell it, thus making money. I'm fine with this. It's a fair deal if everybody is clear about his objectives.
What bugs me is when people describe Red Hat as a company producing open source code. They aren't. Or they aren't primarily that. They're primarily a packaging and service company, run by marketers. Open source code is their raw material, they don't produce it.
Slashdot Mirror
Before, attendants would talk to nice/normal people from time to time. Now, only angry customers will get to be transfered to them.
Also, doesn't this strike you as a system that rewards (1) Aggressiveness, (2) Stupidity ? I mean, how dumb must you be to talk to a dumb machine? Reminds me of that Dilbert cartoon where the PHB enters his address book into his new PDA by speaking the names loudly.
First, of course I hope your son is feeling better.
:
;)
Now, I can't help the uneasy feeling that you use weasel-speak in your description. A lot of things are worded in that subtle way to make a casual reader assume things that you don't actually say. Specifically :
- You hint (without actually saying so) that you always check warnings on video games
- You hint (without actually saying so) that the presence or absence of warnings is a major factor in your decision to purchase a game.
- You hint (without actually saying so) that you knew that your son was particularly sensitive.
Basically what you say is "many games have warnings", "I assume that a harmful game would mention so" and "I assume that some game I buy will be safe". You know, I ignore this kind of warnings since I have no known health problems and I consider them to be meaningless legalese "cover your ass". Yet, everything you write also applies to me.
I might sound paranoid but recently some politicians have been trying very hard to convince me of things without actually saying them that clearly. (I say this to explain my suspicions, not to start a political flame war). So it would be interesting if you could bring a short (and clear) answer to the following questions
- Did you know prior to purchasing the game that your son had a special senitivity to light?
- Do you always check warnings prior to purchasing a game?
- Have you ever purchased a game that portrayed such warnings?
- Had such a warning shown on the box, would you have purchased it anyway or refrained from it?
Again, I wish your son the best. Please accept my apologies if my suspicions are unfounded. Maybe it's just a poor choice of words. Maybe I'm really paranoid and I should consult a shrink
Well, I'm French and I'm puzzled about this ADHD stuff. From Slashdot posts and other US mainstream media stories, I gather that ADHD/ADD is a massive problem in the US, everybody knows about it and everyone has suffered it or knows someone who did. My point is that nobody in France knows/talks of this disorder. OK, there may be some researchers/doctors working on it but it's NOT common knowledge. TV doesn't mention it, papers don't either... We don't seem to have ADHD/ADD in France or we don't label it that way. It would be interesting to know if other countries's slashdotters have the same feeling.
Also, if I'm right, I wonder if the point is that we don't have the symptoms or if we just don't label them ADD.
To support the latter, from what I understand of ADD/ADHD symptoms, most people in France would just see bad parenting, spoiled brats, tired kids, "normal" behavior appearing disorderly in an overly PC/conformist society...
But if the former is true, what could explain it? Too many TV channels? Ultra-aggressive marketing/advertising? I read an article last year in a US paper wondering if the US, as a nation, was struck by ADD. Does it make sense?
Making it an international program would be another disaster just like the ISS.
Well, it depends how you structure it. You could set it up as an autonomous entity. This would involve an independant management appointed and controlled by the funding states. Essentially, it would work as a corporation, with countries acting as shareholders and directors. Most corporations manage to perform decently despite having numerous shareholders with (possibly) conflicting objectives.
The ONLY drawback of such a structure is that it would not be "US-led". Basically, if a majority of shareholders/directors/countries agreed on a given decision, the US would have to comply. **shudders** Can you imagine that? The US funding a project they don't have absolute control on? Won't happen before 2008.
So what we'll see is a PURE US initiative. The ONLY drawback is that you can't blame the French if anyone screws up. Well, actually one doesn't need to make even remotely plausible claims to blame the French these days. I can imagine rubbish in the tone of : "The French have been pushing fuel cell technologies since the early 2000's. Now our Halliburton-built, 5 billion tons, gasoline launcher has blown up sending half of Florida into the Atlantic. Who benefits the most? France. Can't be a coincidence."
Do you know the difference between a clitoris and a Lego brick?
If you don't, keep playing with Lego.
This administration is treating the US constitution pretty much like they treated the UN recently. As a mere tool. They use it when it suits them, and ignore it otherwise.
The analogy is striking. Back in February, allied countries opposing war in Iraq were traitors; now citizens opposing these laws are un-American. If the trend follows, we'll next hear : "our prime mandate is to the American people, not some centuries-old paper", "the Constitution has shown itself to be irrelevant" or "our opponents represent Old America". What about renaming the Bill of Rights "Bill of Freedom"?
If this was not so frightening, I would be amused.
More to the point ; nothing, because his company is not listed on public markets.
True.
Also, an important difference is that the guy is NOT trying to raise capital (AFAIK), which is the main incentive to overrate your market.
Sure, such an article is a free ad and can't be bad for his business. But he has no desperate need to convince anyone that the market's gonna soar to gazillions.
A hostage negotiator is largely a psychologist, and psychologists are fairly good with people in denial.
:)
Someone should assign one of those hostage negotiators to GWB's crew
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Maybe the proper normalization isn't each persons share of the GDP, but rather each man hour that went into making it. Certainly, such a statistic could be computed, at least in broad terms. Dollars per person, or man-hour?
That's called hourly productivity. It's actually computed regularly by international institutions such as OECD. I remember reading in a paper that France and Belgium came slightly above the US in hourly productivity but I'm too lazy to find a link. Basically it boils down to Frenchmen working on average 1,300 hours per year while USians are around 1,650 IIRC.
C'mon! There's this "research" paper claiming some figures for WiFi spending in 2008 in Europe and the US. And everybody and his brother goes with his insightful explanation, as if it was a fact.
Last time I checked, 2008 was in the future. And AFAIK, nobody knows the future. It's not like we never experienced that. The Internet bubble is not so old that we forgot its lessons. Do you remember the 2004 projections for internet advertising or 3G mobile data consumption back in 2000?
No, the US are not lagging behind because of the neo-cons, population density or consumer culture or whatever. The US ARE not lagging behind, period. The ONLY fact we can comment is that some (unknown) guy pretends that they WILL in 5 years.
Very interesting study. Their methodology is clever. It's a much better way of measuring news sources' accuracy than trying to list each time a given source published a wrong info.
Now, this study was bound to show that Fox is the least reliable news source. Their editorial line was pro-war and it's not surprising that their audience would have misperceptions on those questions (Saddam-Al Qaeda links, WMD and international support).
What would be REALLY interesting would be a study on common liberal misperceptions (like Arafat is NOT corrupt, US killed more Iraqis than Saddam did etc...) It would be interesting to see if liberal news sources' audiences have such a high rate of misperception.
Oops, you're right, I fucked up. CIA factbook gives 10.4 Trillions. Don't know where I got this 5 Trillions figure.
;)
Thanks for correcting me. So the US is not twice as bad as the worst Europeans, but just as bad
Don't know where you got your facts, but they don't fit with my understanding.
First, the nuclear industry is not exactly prospering for lack of international and domestic demand for new nuclear plants.
Second, EDF, France's main electricity producer and only (it is a statutory monopoly) electricity retailer is one of the few state-owned companies that actually earns money. Its revenues come from the electricity bill they charge to corporations and the public. No trace of subsidy here. Also Areva, which designs and sells reactors is a publicly traded company which does not get state subsidies (to the best of my knwledge, but maybe you know better).
Third, we have in Europe this thing called the European Commission which hunts down country-specific state subsidies. Recently, the state-sponsored recovery plan of Alstom was nearly struck down by the Commission, since it was regarded as an indirect subsidy to the company. Basically, the EU allows for subsidies (agricultural products etc...) that benefit to the whole EU against the ROTW but not subsidies that help a single EU country against other EU countries. I guess you have a similar system in the US (State subsidies vs Federal subsidies).
You're right : we have a high tax burden in France. Yet it is more used to fund generous benefits (unemployment and health insurance, retirement plans etc...) or to feed a plethoric and sub-optimal government than to subside the industry.
I'm far from an expert but I read that we reprocess it and bury the ultimate waste deep under mountains. I've also read (some time ago) that we actually import nuclear waste from Germany, reprocess it and send the ultimate waste back to them for storage.
France also has its share of irrational fear of the nukes - hehe, another common point between us ;) - I don't think any new plant has been built in the latest 20 years and Greenpeace guys call Doomsday everytime a lightbulb dies within 20 miles of a nuclear plant. Our plants are safe, no significant problem has been reported since the beginning of the program (like 50 years ago). I guess our safety standard are world-class too. Still electricity can be produced cheaply.
I think the main barrier to nuclear power is not economical, it's political. No elected official wants to risk his (her) reelection by building a new nuclear plant.
Actually, Germany is one of the worst European countries wrt deficit and debt. The Maastricht agreements demand that all EU countries have a deficit below 3% of GDP and public debt below 60% of GDP. Germany and France blow the deficit criteria in 2003, with approximately 4% (IIRC) and this has produced a serious mess in the EU. But the debt criteria is still holding, both Germany and France are still slightly below 60% of GDP.
Now compare with the US. GDP~5 trillions, debt~6,5 trillions (ie. 130%GDP), deficit between 300 and 500 billions (ie. 6% to 10% GDP). US public debt and deficit are twice as big as the worst European countries.
Not quite sure oil & coal are cheaper than nukes to produce energy. In France, 90% of our electricity comes from nuclear plants and it's reasonnably cheap. I gather that the investments were huge but they're paying off. We're actually exporting electricity to our neighbors which would hint that our cost is competitive.
Middle East is a huge region with various cultures, regimes and levels of economic development. I'm not quite sure there's a strong correlation between oil resources and democracy/wealth.
OPEC members in the Middle East include : Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Emirates, Qatar, Lybia and Algeria. Iran and Lybia are currently dictatorships; everybody knows about the current situation of Iraq; Saudi Arabia, Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar are Absolute Monarchies; Algeria is supposedly a republic but has a strong historic (and recent) tendency towards dictatorship.
Now about non OPEC countries in the Middle East : we have Israel (not exactly a 3rd world country). Turkey, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt are at various stages of their transition to democracy but are definitely improving. Lebanon, Syria, Jordan are in bad shape for various reasons. Yemen is utterly poor and Oman is a Monarchy.
All in all I can think of some non oil-producing countries where I would live but I'm not exactly enthusiastic at the idea of living in any Middle-East oil-producing country. Oil seems to encourage corruption and authoritative forms of government and does not seem to bring wealth, education, well-being or political stability to the people.
Apparently, there seems to have been a mysterious netting of -16,022 votes for Gore on a Diebold machine in the 2000 Florida election. IIRC, Bush won by a very small margin (hundreds) in Florida.
I have never been that interested about pregnant chads or various conspiracy theories relating to absentee votes, voters written off from the lists etc... Basically, those claims usually lacked consistence and these kind of dirty tricks were probably played by both sides.
Now, this kind of direct tampering with the results can be proved (or disproved) and that makes a big difference IMHO.
Maybe Gore actually won the 2000 election after all.
Slashdot has an interesting text about the US strategy of insulting and bullying its Allies. As ThinWhiteDuke points out, this same tactic was tried 200 years ago by Napoleon against Russia. It didn't work then, and it won't work today.
;)
Sorry, I could not resist
Where to begin?
This guy tells us what everybody already knows: Sun's not going well, the stock is plummeting, sales are low, market shares are shrinking, their position in the server market is unsustainable... Thank you buddy!! Do you realize all of this already hit the mainstream media? It's not news for anyone who just follows the tech industry casually. Add some obvious generalities : "Sun's mistakes are well documented, but the biggest one is believing that what made them successful in the past would make them successful in the future." All in all, we have a random guy trying to make us believe that he's smart.
So long for the diagnosis. And what cure does he suggest? Cut and focus, fire the CEO, be acquired... blah, blah, blah... Standard cut&paste from recommandations to ANY firm that's not doing well.
This "open letter" would have been useful 2 or 3 years ago. It would have been interesting if Merril had a clue about what's really going on at Sun and which options they have left.
Analysis involves more than reading the press, going through the accounts and talking to the CEO twice per year. If you want to have any informed opinion on a large company (especially in the tech sector), you need to talk to R&D, talk to the product marketing guys, appraise the quality of the people, have a clue to where the industry is going, evaluate customers' and employees' loyalty...
That's a tough job. Far tougher than picking easy scapegoats (McNealy). If you're not prepared to do it, better find a real job.
No, I 'd complain about some French mainstream news source reporting about some neocons publishing this kind of moronic cards deck. Especially if this is the only occurrence such a news source would tell us about how people on the other side of the pond think.
You know, there's low-end, hate-inducing stuff on both sides. Yet, I read the US press as much as the French one (mainstream, "respectable" sources like Le Monde, Le Figaro, CNN, NYT)... The overall message on the French side seems to be "The US were/are wrong"; on the American side it leans toward "the French hate us". I think there's a difference.
Just FYI. While this idea "could" be "slightly" amusing, I guess you might be interested in knowing a little more about Meyssan.
This guy is a known leftist activist with a blatant anti-American agenda. (Yes there are *some* anti-Americans in France). His book, "L'Effroyable Imposture", has been repeatedly debunked in French mainstream media and is widely considered as a failed marketing coup. Interestingly, previous work by Meyssan had earned him the reputation of a good investigator. His work on the French extreme right parties is viewed as solid and professional. For many, "L'Effroyable Imposture" is a sort of political/intellectual suicide.
Back to the msnbc article, I'm not quite comfortable about their decision to publish it that way, especially under the header "French cards spoof U.S. government". To the casual reader, this article hammers the message : "the French hate us". I would not be surprised if most Americans were offended by this deck and added this piece of information into the "France sucks" column.
Of course, msnbc is absolutely free to publish whatever it wishes, but I still think they fell here into demagoguery and populism. Believe me, there are a lot of very insightful and interesting articles in the French press about the whole 911/Iraq/diplomacy stuff, none of which are stained by anti-americanism. I think it's sad that msnbc chose this one French initiative to report.
That RedHat are a bad company? That IBM are a bad company?
No. Neither Red Hat nor IBM are bad companies; they don't steal anything.
That open source is not working? That there's no money in open source anything?
Somehow. My point is that people should not expect making money if they mainly give away what they produce. Open source *does* work in the sense that it produces good software. It doesn't work to bring revenues to an open source developper.
IMHO, the economics of open source work as follows. Some people develop free software. They get a lot out of that (knowledge, skills, contacts with other bright people, self-fulfilment...); but no money. Others take OSS, brand it, package it with some proprietary stuff and sell it, thus making money. I'm fine with this. It's a fair deal if everybody is clear about his objectives.
What bugs me is when people describe Red Hat as a company producing open source code. They aren't. Or they aren't primarily that. They're primarily a packaging and service company, run by marketers. Open source code is their raw material, they don't produce it.