I think you're missing the point. If the offenders have stolen credit cards, they likely also have the correct name and address to go along with them. Adding electronic verification does absolutely nothing to solve the problem, unless we start requiring matching state issued IDs or SSNs to our cards. The obvious problem with that is now we're allowing even more private, extremely sensitive data to flow across the internet.
It's a difficult problem to solve; certainly more so than simply requiring matching names and addresses to a credit card.
Actually, tough luck to vendor who allowed the fraudulent transaction. The credit card companies themselves typically have very little (any?) responsibilities when it comes to fraudulent transactions. It's entirely up to the vendor to do the proper verification prior to billing a transaction, as far as I know.
The problem is that these small fraudulent transactions are typically more expensive to track down than they are to write off. If someone racks up a $1,000 bill on the ec2 cloud with a stolen card, the credit card company isn't out a dime, and the vendor (in this case Amazon) isn't likely to spend much time finding and prosecuting whoever is using the stolen card because it's expensive and time consuming to do so. Sure, maybe some ip addresses will be blocked and cards added to blacklists (temporarily?) but that doesn't stop the next guy from doing the same with a new stolen card.
What is important, however, is that, despite all this, we can actually, with enough thought, make decisions based on logic, as opposed to "feelings" or "what we think is reasonable."
You've acknowledged that Yahoo is endangered if it doesn't merger. (Something I think most people outside of Yahoo would agree with.) Yahoo may also be endangered with a merger with MS, however there is a huge premium paid for the acquisition. When the opportunity to gain 70%+ guaranteed presents itself, it begs an obvious question.
The obvious question is will Yahoo be able to give more value than the MS acquisition offered in the long term. The answer is almost certainly no. I can see how people may think the merger is a short term gain, which it is, but it's also the most value that a shareholder will likely ever receive for their Yahoo shares.. short term or otherwise.
Abu Dabi has a US$15B solar venture building solar power plants, and is joining with Sener (Spain) on a new venture called Torresol Energy. (details here)
The article has a great quote about the obvious US procrastination in the green energy market.
The irony is too rich to leave unsaid: A leading oil producer invests billions in carbon-free energy while a leading consumer of fossil fuels - the United States - continues to subsidize Big Oil while while offering only tepid support for green technology.
The rich get richer, and our country grows further and further behind due to the deep pockets of big oil and the ever growing crowd of greedy politicians. It makes me sad. The end.
I too would recommend an EEE from Asus. Solid state is necessary if you're going as high as the Everest base camps. DVD burning makes absolutely no sense to me, for your purposes. Rugged conditions don't seem to lend well to fragile discs. Bring along a bunch of 512 or 1gb memory cards with your EEE and you'll be fine. Hell, spend another $400 and get a backup laptop, and only add 2.2 pounds to your pack. Also note that the power supply for an EEE is basically like a cellphone charger, instead of the larger power bricks usually associated with laptops. This saves additional weight and space that is often overlooked. It's a no brainer to me.
The machines to administer aren't going away. The operating systems on these administered machines aren't going away. The users using these machines aren't going away. All of the things that sysadmins support are still going to be there if the servers move from our in-house server room down to the colo. The sysadmin's role is still the same, just the machines are now remote.
I guess I may be biased here as a sysadmin, but how do you propose a sysadmin's demand is going to diminish when all of the services and servers we support are simply being moved to the datacenter?
Unfortunately, in typical Slashdot fashion, everyone responding to your post has decided to focus their attention on something that isn't even fucking relevant.
Don't forget that most open source software comes with big warnings that there are absolutely no warranties. Do most consumers really expect the same from their hardware?
The responses have been quick with rebuttals about that closed source typically doesn't either, with the usual Microsoft bashing. Focus here folks, the open source software comparison was used to lead into to the open source hardware question. Nobody was talking about closed source software. JFC.
Anyway, on to the OP's question about the 'average' consumer being likely to buy open source hardware without a warranty. I don't think so. I think the technology adept crowd will definitely appreciate the ability to hack away at hardware, but most people don't care. They don't buy their hardware because of what it could possibly do if they spend XYZ hours hacking away and manage not to break it. (Of course, without any warranty, the odds of the average Joe even attempting this are probably even more slim.) They buy it for what it does do, and how well it does it. (Whatever 'it' is.)
So, I liked the sound of this little guy and looked around as to where to buy it. I noticed that Amazon has a pre-order option for an 8gb drive, 1gb ram machine.
Does anyone happen to know when this version may be released?
Most of us have probably heard the supposed Chinese proverb "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime." I'm all for world hunger relief, but I think the OLPC has a chance to make a bigger impact than simply dropping off loads of rice and then leaving the poor no better than they were, save the few meals they'll have before starving again. If some of these people can learn computer skills, they can learn to feed themselves and their people. I don't see how that's a bad thing.
While I don't agree with the latter part of your post, the first two sentences seem appropriate enough. If you agree to the privacy policy (which is a god damn nightmare of a policy, imo) and then turn around and cry bloody murder when your information is used in ways that are covered in the policy, take a look in the mirror when you start pointing fingers.
I don't agree with the way they use information, and coincidentally I don't have an account with facebook. Seems pretty simple to me.
I agree. For our particular job, supporting 24x7 operations required being able to work from home on occasion. Instead of allowing potentially 'dirty' traffic from a users' home machine via VPN, the company decided on the approach I mentioned above with a customized VPN installation.
It's certainly not for every company, but I think it was the right way in this particular case.
This really isn't much of an issue if you don't give your users admin rights. I used to work for a company who's name represents a really long river and we weren't given admin rights on our laptops. (I was a system engineer)
At first, I hated it and even more I just hated the idea of not controlling my own machine. In the end though, it really came down to them providing me everythingI needed. If I wanted something that wasn't already installed and pertinent to me doing my job, it was almost instantly handled and installed over the intranet via what I can only guess were custom tools.
It's give and take with the portability that laptops provide. OK Joe User, you can go do your work from home, but in exchange for that we need to, among other things, take precautions that you won't be bringing in viruses to our network.
The key ingredient to my successful situation in such an environment was the capability of the supporting IT team. Without a very solid support team, I think the users would become frustrated with not being able to either install their own apps, or have the support staff provide a way to get them installed.
Or, just visit the USPTO documentation relating to this. Essentially, it boils down to this:
A mark composed of a domain name is registrable as a trademark or service mark only if it functions as a source identifier. The mark as depicted on the specimens must be presented in a manner that will be perceived by potential purchasers as indicating source and not as merely an informational indication of the domain name address used to access a web site.
See this is the main reason why our patent system is completely messed up. If you patent flash memory technology, you shouldn't have the right to stop all other companies from making similar products. Wheres the fair market?
Hmm, what? Our patent system is certainly flawed, but your argument is exactly what patents are for. If I develop a way to do something that hasn't been done before, then you either need to figure a new way to do it or license my technology. Maybe we disagree on the underlying idea that I should be able to prevent people/companies from simply copying an idea, using their big bank accounts to market it into oblivion, and eventually making fortunes off of my invention. I like patents, as long as the idea is actually new and the technology is not obvious.
PS: I don't know what SanDisk's lawsuit is based on as the articles seem to be light on details, so I can't really comment to this particular case.
Unless you like paying more for communicating less with others, you will reconsider your position.
Are you serious? In case you haven't been paying attention to the real world, proprietary formats dominate the majority of the communication markets. I'm certainly no fan of getting locked into what XYZ corporation's version oF ABC either, but that doesn't mean it's not happening...
Want to write a document? Microsoft dominates here. (Word) Also Pages (Apple) and Wordperfect (Corel)
Want to send an IM to someone? AOL (AIM), Microsoft (MSN), Yahoo (YMSG) are all proprietary, and that's only listing a few.
Spreadsheets? Microsoft again dominates (Excel) and I can't even think of another application that's used outside of the very small OpenOffice crowd, other than the brand new Numbers '08 (Apple)
Presentations? Keynote (Apple) and Powerpoint (Microsoft)
I purposely didn't go through an exhaustive list of every possible piece of software you can use to do the things outlined here, as there are alternatives for each, including open source. I just listed the most commonly used applications, all of which are proprietary. We could continue, with stuff like diagrams/flow charts (Visio/OmniGraffle) or video formats (too many to list) and a number of others.
I've been a Linux (GNU/Linux, if you must) user since '96. I love it. I've made a career out of utilizing it's strengths. Would I like to see more open standards and less proprietary garbage floating around? I most definitely would. Unfortunately, that's just not how it is... yet? I live in this place called reality, where we have to work with what's here until it's changed.
Some may argue that if we support these formats, then we're contributing to stagnation. Turn it around and ask, if we made it easier for Joe User to use Linux and introduce him to how Linux works, what could that Joe User potentially mean to Linux?
As a sysadmin, Linux is heads and shoulders above windows. Transparent, logical, flexible while remaining secure. The same cannot be said for a Win32 server. Auditing? Very limited and cryptic. Logging? Cryptic and inflexible. Secure? Who knows! Flexible? Certainly not as delivered. Don't get me started on the when the myriad of license limits kick in.
A bit off-topic, as I think this conversation is about Linspire which is obviously aimed at the desktop. As I've tried to outline above, I don't think it's a bad idea to include proprietary format support in a Linux distribution. If an end user wants less headaches when it comes to getting support for the most commonly used applications, what's the problem? If you don't like it then don't buy it. Isn't that easy?:)
It's absolutely no surprise to me that the Linux desktop has not gotten to where it needs to be. If you want to actually communicate with the real world, you're going to have to include support (preferably seamless support) for these proprietary formats that are going to put so many of the zealots up in arms. Just because your operating system supports these formats doesn't mean that you're a proponent of non-open standards, does it? To me it simply means that you want to be able to communicate with the vast majority of the rest of the world who, believe it or not (GASP!), aren't using Linux.
I think if we made Linux more accessible, then it'd likely lead to more people understanding that there are free, alternative ways to do the things we do today. If that happened, then it's my opinion we could slowly start eating away at these proprietary standards. Without a big enough user base, our complaints aren't heard loud enough and are largely ignored... in my opinion.
Please read the summary again, and maybe even (gasp!) the story? He has activated his other Office components, save Visio. The problem isn't that he can't update Visio because it's not activated, which would be a non-issue. The problem is that he can't activate all of the other Office components that are activated. You're arguing that should be the case?
He should be able to update his activated Office apps, but he can't because Visio isn't activated. Microsoft is to blame when you can't update your registered and activated applications.
I think it's a bigger issue than simply market share of the Linux desktop. In a word, standardization. Developing for the Linux desktop in a way that requires little to no end-user tweaking has to be a nightmare. The libraries for distro XYZ are completely different than those of distro ABC, and both of those are different than my own home-grown distro I installed on my machine. Uninstalling and re-installing different versions of libraries just so you can use a single application which may or may not break other applications (who are dependent on the version you just uninstalled) is a god damn nightmare.
This is the same problem that Linux has had on the desktop for a long time, and I just don't see the light at the end of the tunnel. How can we expect people to write us applications if we don't have a standard platform for them to write it on? Are they (the vendors) expected to write an app that only works with the libraries of a select distribution (Ubuntu? RHEL? Debian? Suse?) and say the hell with everyone else?
It's unfortunate we've sidetracked so far off of the original thread. Stay focused so I don't have to keep doing this to you..:(
Stay at home moms play a whole host of games. Why would you possibly think otherwise? Welcome to 2007, my disillusioned friend. Honestly, teenage to 20 something males playing The Sims? 54+ million of them? Are you serious? A report in 2004 showed 2/3 of MSN's 8.7 million users were women.
My earlier statements come from first hand knowledge. My mom is a grandparent, and my sister is a stay at home mom, and they both play The Sims. They both have a whole host of friends within their same demographic that they talk to online about the game, if not play along with them. Myself, I've played with countless non-teenager or 20 something males in numerous games. (WoW, Command & Conquer, Age of Empires, etc.) Since I know my first hand experiences mean nothing to you, I'll continue on.
I could honestly post hundreds of articles that disprove your unfortunately naive view of gaming, but I'll start with just a few to hopefully make it easier to digest.
Have a look at this article which outlines the fact that women over 18 are 38% of all gamers. I don't know, but that doesn't seem like..what'd you call it.. "in the noise" to me.
Please keep reading and have a look at another article about women playing WoW, and why they enjoy it as an outlet. The article states there are over 5 million stay at home moms, and you're lead to believe that when the kids are gone to school, all they do is cook and clean?
Don't stop now. Read another piecethat outlines all of the myths that you apparently still believe. How about that less than 30% of gamers are under age 18? How about nearly half (48.6%) of the PC entertainment software purchases in 1998 were women. Oh, and nearly half of the purchases of online games of any genre are women. Most of this data is from a few years ago, and the trends were already starting.
I'd agree, you won't find women playing games like Quake, Counterstrike, or Madden as often as men, but you will find them casually gaming, most likely online, as the social aspect seems to be a key factor in attracting women to games. Many of the games women play may not necessarily have DX prerequisite (web based games), but the gaming demographic is not limited to teenage or 20 something males. Not even close.
But back to my previous point, how many people care about playing DX games on their desktop? Sure, the teenagers think that's the only reason to own a computer, but for us adults who have real work to do, gaming is a non-factor. If I want to play a game, I'll open up KMahjongg or something. The rest of the time, I'm too busy using OpenOffice, Firefox/Konqueror, GIMP, K3b, gcc, etc. to play games.
I really don't want to derail the thread, but I had to respond to this..
Uh, what? I think gaming is a huge part of what a desktop computer is used for. Whether you're a teenager, a stay at home mom, a middle aged geek, or a retired grandparent; games are popular. For 'us adults who have work to do', we have offices with productivity software like you've mentioned. At home, however, there are an ever increasing number of people who use their computer for entertainment.
There are countless people worldwide who game for fun, and it's certainly not restricted to the teenager demographic. If, for example, you like sports games on your computer, think of how many hundreds of thousands of people play games like Madden or Tiger Woods. A single game, World of Warcraft, has revolutionized mmo gaming and currently boasts upwards of 8 million subscribers. The grand daddy of them all (as far as I know) is The Sims franchise, selling well over 50 million units worldwide. Do you honestly think that it's only teenagers playing these games? That's 58+ million purchases, and I've only mentioned 4 DX games.
I could go on and on, but I think the point has been made. It's no longer a time when computer gaming is strictly a teenager thing, and it hasn't been for quite awhile.
Oh boy. A company is (typically) in the business of making money. If you allow a company to operate without any rules or regulations, they're simply going to do whatever it is that most increases their bottom line. As the article points out, SBC's goal from the beginning was to maximize profits during their 5 year 'exclusivity period' and then exit quickly. It's not pretty, soft, or fuzzy.. but that's how the real world works.
Conversely, it is a government's job to serve it's people. Their 'bottom line' is doing what best suits the people that they serve.
I don't see it being much more than a company doing exactly what companies do, and a government completely turning a blind eye on it's people All in the name of the same greed that drove SBC. How can you possibly blame SBC without first pointing all 10 of your fingers at the government for allowing it to happen?
Slashdot Mirror
I think you're missing the point. If the offenders have stolen credit cards, they likely also have the correct name and address to go along with them. Adding electronic verification does absolutely nothing to solve the problem, unless we start requiring matching state issued IDs or SSNs to our cards. The obvious problem with that is now we're allowing even more private, extremely sensitive data to flow across the internet.
It's a difficult problem to solve; certainly more so than simply requiring matching names and addresses to a credit card.
Actually, tough luck to vendor who allowed the fraudulent transaction. The credit card companies themselves typically have very little (any?) responsibilities when it comes to fraudulent transactions. It's entirely up to the vendor to do the proper verification prior to billing a transaction, as far as I know.
The problem is that these small fraudulent transactions are typically more expensive to track down than they are to write off. If someone racks up a $1,000 bill on the ec2 cloud with a stolen card, the credit card company isn't out a dime, and the vendor (in this case Amazon) isn't likely to spend much time finding and prosecuting whoever is using the stolen card because it's expensive and time consuming to do so. Sure, maybe some ip addresses will be blocked and cards added to blacklists (temporarily?) but that doesn't stop the next guy from doing the same with a new stolen card.
That's a lot of commas.
You've acknowledged that Yahoo is endangered if it doesn't merger. (Something I think most people outside of Yahoo would agree with.) Yahoo may also be endangered with a merger with MS, however there is a huge premium paid for the acquisition. When the opportunity to gain 70%+ guaranteed presents itself, it begs an obvious question.
The obvious question is will Yahoo be able to give more value than the MS acquisition offered in the long term. The answer is almost certainly no. I can see how people may think the merger is a short term gain, which it is, but it's also the most value that a shareholder will likely ever receive for their Yahoo shares.. short term or otherwise.
The article has a great quote about the obvious US procrastination in the green energy market.
The rich get richer, and our country grows further and further behind due to the deep pockets of big oil and the ever growing crowd of greedy politicians. It makes me sad. The end.
I too would recommend an EEE from Asus. Solid state is necessary if you're going as high as the Everest base camps. DVD burning makes absolutely no sense to me, for your purposes. Rugged conditions don't seem to lend well to fragile discs. Bring along a bunch of 512 or 1gb memory cards with your EEE and you'll be fine. Hell, spend another $400 and get a backup laptop, and only add 2.2 pounds to your pack. Also note that the power supply for an EEE is basically like a cellphone charger, instead of the larger power bricks usually associated with laptops. This saves additional weight and space that is often overlooked. It's a no brainer to me.
The machines to administer aren't going away. The operating systems on these administered machines aren't going away. The users using these machines aren't going away. All of the things that sysadmins support are still going to be there if the servers move from our in-house server room down to the colo. The sysadmin's role is still the same, just the machines are now remote.
I guess I may be biased here as a sysadmin, but how do you propose a sysadmin's demand is going to diminish when all of the services and servers we support are simply being moved to the datacenter?
The responses have been quick with rebuttals about that closed source typically doesn't either, with the usual Microsoft bashing. Focus here folks, the open source software comparison was used to lead into to the open source hardware question. Nobody was talking about closed source software. JFC.
Anyway, on to the OP's question about the 'average' consumer being likely to buy open source hardware without a warranty. I don't think so. I think the technology adept crowd will definitely appreciate the ability to hack away at hardware, but most people don't care. They don't buy their hardware because of what it could possibly do if they spend XYZ hours hacking away and manage not to break it. (Of course, without any warranty, the odds of the average Joe even attempting this are probably even more slim.) They buy it for what it does do, and how well it does it. (Whatever 'it' is.)
So, I liked the sound of this little guy and looked around as to where to buy it. I noticed that Amazon has a pre-order option for an 8gb drive, 1gb ram machine.
Does anyone happen to know when this version may be released?
Most of us have probably heard the supposed Chinese proverb "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime." I'm all for world hunger relief, but I think the OLPC has a chance to make a bigger impact than simply dropping off loads of rice and then leaving the poor no better than they were, save the few meals they'll have before starving again. If some of these people can learn computer skills, they can learn to feed themselves and their people. I don't see how that's a bad thing.
While I don't agree with the latter part of your post, the first two sentences seem appropriate enough. If you agree to the privacy policy (which is a god damn nightmare of a policy, imo) and then turn around and cry bloody murder when your information is used in ways that are covered in the policy, take a look in the mirror when you start pointing fingers.
I don't agree with the way they use information, and coincidentally I don't have an account with facebook. Seems pretty simple to me.
I agree. For our particular job, supporting 24x7 operations required being able to work from home on occasion. Instead of allowing potentially 'dirty' traffic from a users' home machine via VPN, the company decided on the approach I mentioned above with a customized VPN installation.
It's certainly not for every company, but I think it was the right way in this particular case.
This really isn't much of an issue if you don't give your users admin rights. I used to work for a company who's name represents a really long river and we weren't given admin rights on our laptops. (I was a system engineer)
At first, I hated it and even more I just hated the idea of not controlling my own machine. In the end though, it really came down to them providing me everythingI needed. If I wanted something that wasn't already installed and pertinent to me doing my job, it was almost instantly handled and installed over the intranet via what I can only guess were custom tools.
It's give and take with the portability that laptops provide. OK Joe User, you can go do your work from home, but in exchange for that we need to, among other things, take precautions that you won't be bringing in viruses to our network.
The key ingredient to my successful situation in such an environment was the capability of the supporting IT team. Without a very solid support team, I think the users would become frustrated with not being able to either install their own apps, or have the support staff provide a way to get them installed.
Food for thought at the very least.
Looks pretty clear to me.
You just compared smoking marijuana to slavery and equal rights? God damn, you must be smoking the good shit.
Are you serious? In case you haven't been paying attention to the real world, proprietary formats dominate the majority of the communication markets. I'm certainly no fan of getting locked into what XYZ corporation's version oF ABC either, but that doesn't mean it's not happening...
I purposely didn't go through an exhaustive list of every possible piece of software you can use to do the things outlined here, as there are alternatives for each, including open source. I just listed the most commonly used applications, all of which are proprietary. We could continue, with stuff like diagrams/flow charts (Visio/OmniGraffle) or video formats (too many to list) and a number of others.
I've been a Linux (GNU/Linux, if you must) user since '96. I love it. I've made a career out of utilizing it's strengths. Would I like to see more open standards and less proprietary garbage floating around? I most definitely would. Unfortunately, that's just not how it is... yet? I live in this place called reality, where we have to work with what's here until it's changed.
Some may argue that if we support these formats, then we're contributing to stagnation. Turn it around and ask, if we made it easier for Joe User to use Linux and introduce him to how Linux works, what could that Joe User potentially mean to Linux?
A bit off-topic, as I think this conversation is about Linspire which is obviously aimed at the desktop. As I've tried to outline above, I don't think it's a bad idea to include proprietary format support in a Linux distribution. If an end user wants less headaches when it comes to getting support for the most commonly used applications, what's the problem? If you don't like it then don't buy it. Isn't that easy?
It's absolutely no surprise to me that the Linux desktop has not gotten to where it needs to be. If you want to actually communicate with the real world, you're going to have to include support (preferably seamless support) for these proprietary formats that are going to put so many of the zealots up in arms. Just because your operating system supports these formats doesn't mean that you're a proponent of non-open standards, does it? To me it simply means that you want to be able to communicate with the vast majority of the rest of the world who, believe it or not (GASP!), aren't using Linux.
I think if we made Linux more accessible, then it'd likely lead to more people understanding that there are free, alternative ways to do the things we do today. If that happened, then it's my opinion we could slowly start eating away at these proprietary standards. Without a big enough user base, our complaints aren't heard loud enough and are largely ignored... in my opinion.
Please read the summary again, and maybe even (gasp!) the story? He has activated his other Office components, save Visio. The problem isn't that he can't update Visio because it's not activated, which would be a non-issue. The problem is that he can't activate all of the other Office components that are activated. You're arguing that should be the case?
He should be able to update his activated Office apps, but he can't because Visio isn't activated. Microsoft is to blame when you can't update your registered and activated applications.
I think it's a bigger issue than simply market share of the Linux desktop. In a word, standardization. Developing for the Linux desktop in a way that requires little to no end-user tweaking has to be a nightmare. The libraries for distro XYZ are completely different than those of distro ABC, and both of those are different than my own home-grown distro I installed on my machine. Uninstalling and re-installing different versions of libraries just so you can use a single application which may or may not break other applications (who are dependent on the version you just uninstalled) is a god damn nightmare.
This is the same problem that Linux has had on the desktop for a long time, and I just don't see the light at the end of the tunnel. How can we expect people to write us applications if we don't have a standard platform for them to write it on? Are they (the vendors) expected to write an app that only works with the libraries of a select distribution (Ubuntu? RHEL? Debian? Suse?) and say the hell with everyone else?
Thoughts?
It's unfortunate we've sidetracked so far off of the original thread. Stay focused so I don't have to keep doing this to you.. :(
..what'd you call it.. "in the noise" to me.
Stay at home moms play a whole host of games. Why would you possibly think otherwise? Welcome to 2007, my disillusioned friend. Honestly, teenage to 20 something males playing The Sims? 54+ million of them? Are you serious? A report in 2004 showed 2/3 of MSN's 8.7 million users were women.
My earlier statements come from first hand knowledge. My mom is a grandparent, and my sister is a stay at home mom, and they both play The Sims. They both have a whole host of friends within their same demographic that they talk to online about the game, if not play along with them. Myself, I've played with countless non-teenager or 20 something males in numerous games. (WoW, Command & Conquer, Age of Empires, etc.) Since I know my first hand experiences mean nothing to you, I'll continue on.
I could honestly post hundreds of articles that disprove your unfortunately naive view of gaming, but I'll start with just a few to hopefully make it easier to digest.
Have a look at this article which outlines the fact that women over 18 are 38% of all gamers. I don't know, but that doesn't seem like
Please keep reading and have a look at another article about women playing WoW, and why they enjoy it as an outlet. The article states there are over 5 million stay at home moms, and you're lead to believe that when the kids are gone to school, all they do is cook and clean?
Don't stop now. Read another piecethat outlines all of the myths that you apparently still believe. How about that less than 30% of gamers are under age 18? How about nearly half (48.6%) of the PC entertainment software purchases in 1998 were women. Oh, and nearly half of the purchases of online games of any genre are women. Most of this data is from a few years ago, and the trends were already starting.
I'd agree, you won't find women playing games like Quake, Counterstrike, or Madden as often as men, but you will find them casually gaming, most likely online, as the social aspect seems to be a key factor in attracting women to games. Many of the games women play may not necessarily have DX prerequisite (web based games), but the gaming demographic is not limited to teenage or 20 something males. Not even close.
I really don't want to derail the thread, but I had to respond to this..
Uh, what? I think gaming is a huge part of what a desktop computer is used for. Whether you're a teenager, a stay at home mom, a middle aged geek, or a retired grandparent; games are popular. For 'us adults who have work to do', we have offices with productivity software like you've mentioned. At home, however, there are an ever increasing number of people who use their computer for entertainment.
There are countless people worldwide who game for fun, and it's certainly not restricted to the teenager demographic. If, for example, you like sports games on your computer, think of how many hundreds of thousands of people play games like Madden or Tiger Woods. A single game, World of Warcraft, has revolutionized mmo gaming and currently boasts upwards of 8 million subscribers. The grand daddy of them all (as far as I know) is The Sims franchise, selling well over 50 million units worldwide. Do you honestly think that it's only teenagers playing these games? That's 58+ million purchases, and I've only mentioned 4 DX games.
I could go on and on, but I think the point has been made. It's no longer a time when computer gaming is strictly a teenager thing, and it hasn't been for quite awhile.
Oh boy. A company is (typically) in the business of making money. If you allow a company to operate without any rules or regulations, they're simply going to do whatever it is that most increases their bottom line. As the article points out, SBC's goal from the beginning was to maximize profits during their 5 year 'exclusivity period' and then exit quickly. It's not pretty, soft, or fuzzy.. but that's how the real world works.
Conversely, it is a government's job to serve it's people. Their 'bottom line' is doing what best suits the people that they serve.
I don't see it being much more than a company doing exactly what companies do, and a government completely turning a blind eye on it's people All in the name of the same greed that drove SBC. How can you possibly blame SBC without first pointing all 10 of your fingers at the government for allowing it to happen?
My two pennies..