They did a great job of disarming the most worried school folks and then hosted an open bar for the rest of the afternoon.
I underestimated the ability of MS to react so well and do such a good job. The most effective motivation for change is pain. MS did everything they could that day to make sure we would not feel any pain.;-^)
Yeah, that will usually take care of the foul moods. Buy the beer and then pormise the world. It is good that the schools took the time to understand that this is not going to just happen once. If they have been keeping up, they would realize that this is something that MS is gearing towards with the subscrition modules.
"You don't want to suffer an audit and get caught...why, just subscribe to our Auto Update plan and pay $30.00 per machine per year, whether you use our software or not"
MS expects the Business world to go this route, so how long do you think it will be before they force the home user to do this also?
Due to the cost of the cartridge, I have gone through 3 different inkjet printers. It has gotten to the point, with rebates and specials and inclusions, that instead of buying a new cartridge, I just get a new printer. Heck, for the amount of printing I do (maybe 10 pages a month if that) buying a new printer is cheaper than messing with the cartridge cost and replacements anyhow.
HP seems to be the most expensive, with Epson a close second. Canon however has some decent prices on the dual cartridge packs.
I have tried the refill cartridges (a LONG time ago) and found out it was not even worth the effort the first time, much less the third attempt to refill the same cartridge.
"Wonder what I would do with" the money...but rather What WOULDN'T I do with the money? Just think about it. If you had 40 BILLION dollars, why, you could buy Microsoft and shut them down!
Or does it seem like MS is trying awfully hard to get involved in "every thing " to appear to be helping. Yet, it seems to be all about control. Now, This may be off topic and modded as such, but maybe Government is not what we should be fearing...but rather the Corporations behind the government votes. Everyone in the US learned that their vote doesn't amount to much with the past Presidential election...so maybe this is where the "Big Brother" aspect will appear...
This is similar to when they initially advertised "24/7" usage for dial-up connections. Which, when people actually started USING them 24/7, they changed the "meaning" to CONNECT rather than CONNECTED. Which basically stated, instead of having the ability to be connected 24/7, you could connect for a limited time 24 hours a day.
This made the dial up worthless IMHO, because there were times I NEEDED to be connected 24 hours or more.
I pay for an ALWAYS ON connection. I run a Mail Server, a Web Server, and I LIKE to play online games. I made the smart decision when ordering my connection and got a Business Account with my ISP. If they start charging by the MB, or even try to cap my limit of transfer a month, it won't be because they need to build a better infrastructure. it will be because PEOPLE ALLOW them too. All this grabage about "If you d/.l or u/l more than... you are doing it for Pron/warez/something"
If you don't use your connection more than 50MB a week, thats YOUR issue. Not my problem. You have no basis for saying what a NORMAL user does, because the normal user would be the idiot who barely knows how to click the mouse, much less actually have to depend on the service and system he PAYS for as a BUSINESS.
If you ALLOW them to Charge more for Less....they WILL. Everytime.
So, you would rather pay more for less performance just because you got your feelings hurt by a chip manufacturing marketing scheme? I have a bridge you would LOVE then.
AMD rates and equates themselves with the "Industry Standard" that Intel has set forth. I have used and recommended AMD CPU's since they were able to produce a chip that met or beat anything Intel has ever produced. I did not care what the marketing was, other than the speed I was running to the speed I WOULD be running. Truth in advertising? Wake up and smell the Athlon burning....and Intel choking on the fumes
To say I have an attitude about what I know? Definitely I have an attitude about knowing. The reason being is that it has taken me 20 years to get this far. I have been working with computers and computer systems since the CP/M days. It was a hobby that turned into a passion that turned into an obsession that turned into a Way Of Life.
Why SHOULDN'T I have an attitude when someone who uses the product I create doesn't BOTHER to read the operating instructions, and can't even tell me what Operating System they are running on?
Should I coddle the morons? Or should I try to explain, and when they realize they have no clue, ask them if they understand? Only to find out later that when they said "Oh....I see" they were talking about the stack of donuts in the other room and not what I had been painstakingly detailing for them about the system they NEED to use?
Should I be in awe of a Manager who is terrified to talk to me or ask a pertinent question because I have a tendency to "Talks to technical" when it is supposed to be this persons job to rate my performance?
This is the real world. If you want to succeed, there HAS to be a desire to KNOW. If I can take the time and the effort to KNOW, they should take the time and the effort to LEARN. I should not have to tolerate Ignorance. They would not tolerate it from me if each time I went to them and responded to their questions with "you know...I just don't really know".
At the current time we publish only established professional authors. You can be writing out of your established category, however. In other words, if you're an established magazine writer seeking a publisher for a first book; or a successful novelist seeking publication for a nonfiction book, or a science-fiction writer with an historical novel to submit, we're interested. Please do not submit proposals or outlines of incomplete books. We offer contracts only for finished books.
so this limits the "first time" author from ever being published. My question is...if I can't get published because I am a first time author...how does one break out of that mold? I can see why the publishers have a strngle hold on the authors and limit what they are and are not responsible for. If you are a publisher, and you invest money in a first time author, you are putting a lot down as a risk. Same with the Music company. I guess my argument about that is that the contract should only appliy to that initial book. rather than stretching out the options the way it appears the publishers do. It turns from the publishing of information or the exchange of ideas to a mere exchange of money from the buyer to the publishing house.
Just aoppears lately that all the news has been geared towards these big corporations getting caught (or their practice of extorting the artist) and being exposed. Yet, nothing seems to be done once the light has been shown.
I guess you don't pay for a subscription either? At least based on the fact that you seem to be waving those MS pom pom's pretty loudly.
MS is a monopoly. That is not illegal. What is illegal is how they ACHEIVED it. If you kept up with your beloved gods you would know this...
This is a double edged sword. People bought MS because that is all they were using at work. not because it worked. Windows 3.0 was a mystery to most people, however 3.1 opened the floodgates. it was a decent interface, and people could get away from the DOS prompt. This is what MADE MS the juggernaut. However, the ONLY way they could acheive and maintain this status was to LIMIT what people could order on their computers when they bought them! It is in the HISTORY of computing. Microsoft forced a vendor to choose either to ONLY load Windows on machines, or not load ANYTHING MS related. Their were limited choices back then, however their WERE choices. OS/2 was one, DesqView (and X) was another. Once MS achieved the foothold, they simply tightened the grip until they were able to FORCE others out of the market. People didn't use Windows because it was better than the others. They used it initially because it was what the computer came with.
I think people are missing the brilliance of this tactic. Yes, Be is no more. It has ceased to Be. (haha) However, they are illustrating the WHOLE POINT of suing by being out of business.
What better way to illustrate a Monopoly that prohibited vendors from bundling competing products, therby limiting the market and competition to any Microsoft monopoly, than to be a competing product driven out of business by the same monopoly?
Now, as long as they can afford the legal fee's, they may actually have a chance at illsutrating WHY MS should be broken up, and WHY MS IS a monopoly in the truest sense of the word.
You want to integrate the robustness (is this a word) of Linux in a Corporate environment FIRST. This way, when the people who are running these systems go home at the end of the day, and have to use Windows on their home PC, they will wonder why.
Microsoft dominates the Home User due to the fact that it is what people most run AT WORK. If the foothold takes, and Linux actually gets more than "Geek" approval, it will be a major step towards eliminating the Microsoft dominated users.
It will require applications, and with home access via Broadband, people will also want to use the same applications. this could start a trend towards "If it isn't available, I will create it" similar to what happened under Windows. the development tools are already there. Linux just needs to be a presence and illustrate its effectiveness in daily Business Use.
It would be great if DELL and COMPAQ would get back on the bandwagon, but sometimes you take what you can get.
and decided to conduct a little test of my friends. Some are AVID gun fanatics, whereas I feel a handgun has one sole purpose (to kill another person.) It was purely accidental that this happened however. I was perusing the gaming sites and http://www.Bluesnews.com had a link to a site that had recently toured the Offices of iD. The person had taken photos of the poster art that was hanging in the building, of the original DOOM and CW releases.
One of the posters for DOOM had the slogan
"There are a lot of people Opposed to Violence. They are all dead"
and it illustrated what appeared to be a guy strung up by his hands and missing half his body. I edited the JPG (to remove the DOOM logo) and sent it to these people. No one recognized it (which absolutely amazed me because I remember seeing these ALL over the place when DOOM first appeared) and one of the "Pro Gun" persons replied with
"Its shit like this that fuels anti-gun tendencies"
My point being, it was just a poster, depicting a man hanging. Nothing to do with Guns was illustrated, yet the first thing this person grabbed onto was how it would fuel anti-gun activity. Maybe the image said more, or hit a certain aspect of his mind, as the others that saw the same picture asked if it was from a Marilyn Manson album.
Draw your own conclusions, as I am sure we all do. I feel the mind makes itself, and while it is influenced by everything around it, there are going to be many times when it comes to a specific conclusion WITHOUT any evidence pointing or relating to that subject.
Maybe we as a people should look at controlling who has ACCESS to firearms (yes, I know....Cold Dead Fingers and all that) and calling accountability to the parents that provide the kids with access. My kid isn't going to take a gun to school unless they buy it for themselves. They won't be able to "raid the gun closet" because Daddy doesn't need a gun to kill anyone. The person who has it on his file cabinet....don't you ever wonder if "little Jimmy" has a bad day...and he decides he wants to take that anger out on someone...that he won't think it through, but would rather "Grab the gun" because he KNOWS how to use it...rather than use his MIND to solve the problem?
The article stated that if the company returns back a report of "No, we did not find anything" then the BSA will go in and LOOK for stuff. If they find it, then that company/business is fined an exhorbant amount and none of it goes to the software company. They never said what they would do if they DON'T find anything.
More than likely because they ALWAYS find something.
If my LICENSE to run the software, which was received when the software was purchased, isn't convincing enough to them, they will fine the company.
Sounds to me like a nice way to cover the bills, when all you have to do is find ONE unlicensed or unproven (not unlicensed...Wheres the receipt>?!?!?) piece of software to get $150,000
Damn...what difference does the medium make if I am STILL capturing the picture when I want to for playback at MY leisure?
Ya gotta love the last quote too:
Mark Lemley, a UC Berkeley law professor, said, "It's troubling to say,
'This thing that everybody does has been illegal for 20 years.... We're
just getting around to catching you.'
"Nobody's suing people who actually infringe copyrights anymore. Everyone is
suing people who make devices," Lemley said. "The [studios] are going after
the creation of new technology."
We can't sue the individual.....so we will just prevent the Creation of NEW & Better technology. Change is bad.....change is wrong....improvement is taboo......
Most companies come back with a different settlement number, and we negotiate," says Jenny Blank, the BSA's director of enforcement. "I'm not going to say they're cheerful about it, but they recognize that this is probably easier and less expensive than taking the case to court."
This is just amazing that they can organize a settlement without even investigating the actual accounting of the licenses. If I have a license and no receipt, does that mean I stole the software? I would think just the opposite. It means I legally purchased the software and did not keep the receipt.
My question has to be, if they are judging the settlement on how long the software has been in use, who's to say it was loaded and EVER used? I have a ton of software that I NEVER use, but it is still loaded on the system. Mostly because I am waiting on an update, or patch, or Service Pack for it before I devote any type of time to running it.
It sounds cool, to have your portable device just 'hook up' to nearby protable devices and share information. Maybe I am just being paranoid, but wouldn't this also be a way to tabulate where you are? Whith the increase of sanctions against our liberties as civilians who can say it won't be REQUIRED to have one of these devices on your person at all times?
Or, similar to the devices as illustrated in Impostor or even Logan's Run? Would we be so willing to have our devices "link up" while we were required to regulate ourselves in this type of police state?
It sounds really cool to be able to share, but with the direction the general populous and governments are headed, this may be a development we all learn to regret.
Slashdot Mirror
They did a great job of disarming the most worried school folks and then hosted an open bar for the rest of the afternoon. I underestimated the ability of MS to react so well and do such a good job. The most effective motivation for change is pain. MS did everything they could that day to make sure we would not feel any pain. ;-^)
Yeah, that will usually take care of the foul moods. Buy the beer and then pormise the world. It is good that the schools took the time to understand that this is not going to just happen once. If they have been keeping up, they would realize that this is something that MS is gearing towards with the subscrition modules.
"You don't want to suffer an audit and get caught...why, just subscribe to our Auto Update plan and pay $30.00 per machine per year, whether you use our software or not"
MS expects the Business world to go this route, so how long do you think it will be before they force the home user to do this also?
HP seems to be the most expensive, with Epson a close second. Canon however has some decent prices on the dual cartridge packs.
I have tried the refill cartridges (a LONG time ago) and found out it was not even worth the effort the first time, much less the third attempt to refill the same cartridge.
Yes, but I think with 40 BILLION I could get a loan for the rest.......
"Wonder what I would do with" the money...but rather What WOULDN'T I do with the money? Just think about it. If you had 40 BILLION dollars, why, you could buy Microsoft and shut them down!
Or does it seem like MS is trying awfully hard to get involved in "every thing " to appear to be helping. Yet, it seems to be all about control. Now, This may be off topic and modded as such, but maybe Government is not what we should be fearing...but rather the Corporations behind the government votes. Everyone in the US learned that their vote doesn't amount to much with the past Presidential election...so maybe this is where the "Big Brother" aspect will appear...
This is similar to when they initially advertised "24/7" usage for dial-up connections. Which, when people actually started USING them 24/7, they changed the "meaning" to CONNECT rather than CONNECTED. Which basically stated, instead of having the ability to be connected 24/7, you could connect for a limited time 24 hours a day.
This made the dial up worthless IMHO, because there were times I NEEDED to be connected 24 hours or more.
I pay for an ALWAYS ON connection. I run a Mail Server, a Web Server, and I LIKE to play online games. I made the smart decision when ordering my connection and got a Business Account with my ISP. If they start charging by the MB, or even try to cap my limit of transfer a month, it won't be because they need to build a better infrastructure. it will be because PEOPLE ALLOW them too. All this grabage about "If you d/.l or u/l more than ... you are doing it for Pron/warez/something"
If you don't use your connection more than 50MB a week, thats YOUR issue. Not my problem. You have no basis for saying what a NORMAL user does, because the normal user would be the idiot who barely knows how to click the mouse, much less actually have to depend on the service and system he PAYS for as a BUSINESS. If you ALLOW them to Charge more for Less....they WILL. Everytime.
AMD rates and equates themselves with the "Industry Standard" that Intel has set forth. I have used and recommended AMD CPU's since they were able to produce a chip that met or beat anything Intel has ever produced. I did not care what the marketing was, other than the speed I was running to the speed I WOULD be running. Truth in advertising? Wake up and smell the Athlon burning....and Intel choking on the fumes
To say I have an attitude about what I know? Definitely I have an attitude about knowing. The reason being is that it has taken me 20 years to get this far. I have been working with computers and computer systems since the CP/M days. It was a hobby that turned into a passion that turned into an obsession that turned into a Way Of Life.
Why SHOULDN'T I have an attitude when someone who uses the product I create doesn't BOTHER to read the operating instructions, and can't even tell me what Operating System they are running on?
Should I coddle the morons? Or should I try to explain, and when they realize they have no clue, ask them if they understand? Only to find out later that when they said "Oh....I see" they were talking about the stack of donuts in the other room and not what I had been painstakingly detailing for them about the system they NEED to use?
Should I be in awe of a Manager who is terrified to talk to me or ask a pertinent question because I have a tendency to "Talks to technical" when it is supposed to be this persons job to rate my performance?
This is the real world. If you want to succeed, there HAS to be a desire to KNOW. If I can take the time and the effort to KNOW, they should take the time and the effort to LEARN. I should not have to tolerate Ignorance. They would not tolerate it from me if each time I went to them and responded to their questions with "you know...I just don't really know".
At the current time we publish only established professional authors. You can be writing out of your established category, however. In other words, if you're an established magazine writer seeking a publisher for a first book; or a successful novelist seeking publication for a nonfiction book, or a science-fiction writer with an historical novel to submit, we're interested. Please do not submit proposals or outlines of incomplete books. We offer contracts only for finished books.
so this limits the "first time" author from ever being published. My question is...if I can't get published because I am a first time author...how does one break out of that mold? I can see why the publishers have a strngle hold on the authors and limit what they are and are not responsible for. If you are a publisher, and you invest money in a first time author, you are putting a lot down as a risk. Same with the Music company. I guess my argument about that is that the contract should only appliy to that initial book. rather than stretching out the options the way it appears the publishers do. It turns from the publishing of information or the exchange of ideas to a mere exchange of money from the buyer to the publishing house.
Just aoppears lately that all the news has been geared towards these big corporations getting caught (or their practice of extorting the artist) and being exposed. Yet, nothing seems to be done once the light has been shown.
More like a FireWire connection to the IPOD connected to his Apple.
Actually, only 19 million people saw the Grammy's. Count half of those as not even knowing what he was talking about. 9 Million is a good estimate.
I guess you don't pay for a subscription either? At least based on the fact that you seem to be waving those MS pom pom's pretty loudly. MS is a monopoly. That is not illegal. What is illegal is how they ACHEIVED it. If you kept up with your beloved gods you would know this...
You ask why they can't be more like that site?
Maybe because the don't want to be boring?
"Ten bucks is ten bucks, eh?"
"At What Price Justice?" "If you have to ASK the price, you obviously cannot afford it"
This is a double edged sword. People bought MS because that is all they were using at work. not because it worked. Windows 3.0 was a mystery to most people, however 3.1 opened the floodgates. it was a decent interface, and people could get away from the DOS prompt. This is what MADE MS the juggernaut. However, the ONLY way they could acheive and maintain this status was to LIMIT what people could order on their computers when they bought them! It is in the HISTORY of computing. Microsoft forced a vendor to choose either to ONLY load Windows on machines, or not load ANYTHING MS related. Their were limited choices back then, however their WERE choices. OS/2 was one, DesqView (and X) was another. Once MS achieved the foothold, they simply tightened the grip until they were able to FORCE others out of the market. People didn't use Windows because it was better than the others. They used it initially because it was what the computer came with.
I think people are missing the brilliance of this tactic. Yes, Be is no more. It has ceased to Be. (haha) However, they are illustrating the WHOLE POINT of suing by being out of business.
What better way to illustrate a Monopoly that prohibited vendors from bundling competing products, therby limiting the market and competition to any Microsoft monopoly, than to be a competing product driven out of business by the same monopoly?
Now, as long as they can afford the legal fee's, they may actually have a chance at illsutrating WHY MS should be broken up, and WHY MS IS a monopoly in the truest sense of the word.
Take the money. Because, you already sold out when you first started playing "gigs"
You want to integrate the robustness (is this a word) of Linux in a Corporate environment FIRST. This way, when the people who are running these systems go home at the end of the day, and have to use Windows on their home PC, they will wonder why.
Microsoft dominates the Home User due to the fact that it is what people most run AT WORK. If the foothold takes, and Linux actually gets more than "Geek" approval, it will be a major step towards eliminating the Microsoft dominated users.
It will require applications, and with home access via Broadband, people will also want to use the same applications. this could start a trend towards "If it isn't available, I will create it" similar to what happened under Windows. the development tools are already there. Linux just needs to be a presence and illustrate its effectiveness in daily Business Use.
It would be great if DELL and COMPAQ would get back on the bandwagon, but sometimes you take what you can get.
and decided to conduct a little test of my friends. Some are AVID gun fanatics, whereas I feel a handgun has one sole purpose (to kill another person.) It was purely accidental that this happened however. I was perusing the gaming sites and http://www.Bluesnews.com had a link to a site that had recently toured the Offices of iD. The person had taken photos of the poster art that was hanging in the building, of the original DOOM and CW releases.
One of the posters for DOOM had the slogan
"There are a lot of people Opposed to Violence. They are all dead"
and it illustrated what appeared to be a guy strung up by his hands and missing half his body. I edited the JPG (to remove the DOOM logo) and sent it to these people. No one recognized it (which absolutely amazed me because I remember seeing these ALL over the place when DOOM first appeared) and one of the "Pro Gun" persons replied with
"Its shit like this that fuels anti-gun tendencies"
My point being, it was just a poster, depicting a man hanging. Nothing to do with Guns was illustrated, yet the first thing this person grabbed onto was how it would fuel anti-gun activity. Maybe the image said more, or hit a certain aspect of his mind, as the others that saw the same picture asked if it was from a Marilyn Manson album.
Draw your own conclusions, as I am sure we all do. I feel the mind makes itself, and while it is influenced by everything around it, there are going to be many times when it comes to a specific conclusion WITHOUT any evidence pointing or relating to that subject.
Maybe we as a people should look at controlling who has ACCESS to firearms (yes, I know....Cold Dead Fingers and all that) and calling accountability to the parents that provide the kids with access. My kid isn't going to take a gun to school unless they buy it for themselves. They won't be able to "raid the gun closet" because Daddy doesn't need a gun to kill anyone. The person who has it on his file cabinet....don't you ever wonder if "little Jimmy" has a bad day...and he decides he wants to take that anger out on someone...that he won't think it through, but would rather "Grab the gun" because he KNOWS how to use it...rather than use his MIND to solve the problem?
Wonder if My "Catcher in the Rye" purchases sparked any attention.
The article stated that if the company returns back a report of "No, we did not find anything" then the BSA will go in and LOOK for stuff. If they find it, then that company/business is fined an exhorbant amount and none of it goes to the software company. They never said what they would do if they DON'T find anything.
More than likely because they ALWAYS find something.
If my LICENSE to run the software, which was received when the software was purchased, isn't convincing enough to them, they will fine the company.
Sounds to me like a nice way to cover the bills, when all you have to do is find ONE unlicensed or unproven (not unlicensed...Wheres the receipt>?!?!?) piece of software to get $150,000
TiVO, PVR, VCR, DVD-RW, CD-R
Damn...what difference does the medium make if I am STILL capturing the picture when I want to for playback at MY leisure?
Ya gotta love the last quote too:
Mark Lemley, a UC Berkeley law professor, said, "It's troubling to say, 'This thing that everybody does has been illegal for 20 years."Nobody's suing people who actually infringe copyrights anymore. Everyone is suing people who make devices," Lemley said. "The [studios] are going after the creation of new technology."
We can't sue the individual.....so we will just prevent the Creation of NEW & Better technology. Change is bad.....change is wrong....improvement is taboo......
Damn......
Most companies come back with a different settlement number, and we negotiate," says Jenny Blank, the BSA's director of enforcement. "I'm not going to say they're cheerful about it, but they recognize that this is probably easier and less expensive than taking the case to court."
This is just amazing that they can organize a settlement without even investigating the actual accounting of the licenses. If I have a license and no receipt, does that mean I stole the software? I would think just the opposite. It means I legally purchased the software and did not keep the receipt.
My question has to be, if they are judging the settlement on how long the software has been in use, who's to say it was loaded and EVER used? I have a ton of software that I NEVER use, but it is still loaded on the system. Mostly because I am waiting on an update, or patch, or Service Pack for it before I devote any type of time to running it.
BSA = Extortion, plain & simple.
It sounds cool, to have your portable device just 'hook up' to nearby protable devices and share information. Maybe I am just being paranoid, but wouldn't this also be a way to tabulate where you are? Whith the increase of sanctions against our liberties as civilians who can say it won't be REQUIRED to have one of these devices on your person at all times?
Or, similar to the devices as illustrated in Impostor or even Logan's Run? Would we be so willing to have our devices "link up" while we were required to regulate ourselves in this type of police state?
It sounds really cool to be able to share, but with the direction the general populous and governments are headed, this may be a development we all learn to regret.