...Microsoft last March dispatched CEO Steve Ballmer to the rescue....Documents obtained by USA TODAY show Microsoft subsequently lowered its pricing to $31.9 million and then to $23.7 million -- an overall 35% price cut. The discounts were for naught.
for the non believers: The CEO of MS himself went to a sales call and lost the sale, you better start beliving Linux is a threat to MS.
3 Cheers for all Linux, OSS, and Choice! Hip Hip Horay!
I'm glad that some companies actually realized one can't substitute quality for low-cost. Believe it or not, North America still has some of the most highest skilled labour that is not as readily available in other places.
Take for example, Toyota, for all their quality, Toyota builds their cars in.... Canada. That's right, VERY costly to emply Canadian Auto Workers especially with their union but Toyota consitently grows and builds cars with quality that is almost unparalleled.
Another case in point, VW moved some of their production to Mexico and the effects were felt right away, their cars was below average in the number of manufacturer defects. Cheap labour: yes. Good labour: definitely not.
Because of how heavily IT jobs are affected by the markets, no high tech company will value quality of labour as much as the cost of it, all in the name of meeting analyst expectations for quarter x.
The thing that really gets to me is that by outsourcing, these companies are no longer investing in the markets that purchase from them and this short sighted quarter-by-quater view will eventually come back to hurt them.
People higher up that make these decisions don't care, because they're in charge of the company and won't get out sourced. By the time that foreign entities have the purchasing power to buy and remove these people (and this WILL happend), all the higher up's are already gone anyway, what do they care.
It makes me sick sometimes how a company's entire future can be directed by one person with no regard to all the labour that makes the company possible. I have no respect for CEO's.
My econ prof taught us that north american white collar IT types will never be able to compete against India's and Russia on a salary level, so we must instead, compete on a productivity level. But I just can't help but to think management are too ignorant to compare productivity instead of price.
I agree that there are many legal businesses in all that spam, just like telemarketing.
Unlike telemarketing however, spam has begun to significantly erode the ability for people to use email to communicate.
Costs involved in fighting spam is higher than that of telemarketers, and higher in orders of magnitude. My argument to your rebuttal is simply this: revenues generated by spam is offset by the massive cost incurred onto others to fight it. It effectively becomes a displacement of money: from those who fight it to those who make money from spam.
If AOL for example, could spend all the millions they spend on fighting the spam they receive on improving their service (which also creates jobs and thus contributes to the economy), then users of AOL will get more uility from their service which will lead to more customers for AOL.
The point is people who send spam are a minority in the world that is causing significant harm and grieve to a vast majority of other people and entities. For this very reason, I cannot possibly legitimize or even accept spam in its current state and thus am supportive of an "opt-in" system.
It is of note however, that I am conflicted over telemarketers.
I wasn't thinking the identity was the nick, but rather the IP like you suggested. And u're right, the RIAA is tracking by IP, but in terms of how Kazaa fetches the IP, it could perhaps be intercepted and tempered with...unless of course Kazaa uses this same information to connect to the other peer; in which case it just might cut you off from sharing with everybody.
Perhaps that scheme would not work out too well after all, it really depends on just how and from where the IP is fetched.
The blocking of an IP range however isin't such a hot idea either:\
Well K++ edition bascially contains a wrapper on the Kazaa application so that one can modify the memory accessed by Kazaa easily, and thus those who use K++ edition automatically has the K-Lite Master (1000) ranking on Kazaa. Its simply a matter of manipulating the values at the memory address.
I would think that extending on that principle, they could write protect or just dump gabarge into the memory space where idenities are stored.
Of course, I don't have the K++ source, so how would I know, it's just a theory.
This reminds me of what my Econ prof said of Reagan: He brought down the berlin wall.
His (almost crazy) spending on the arms race forced Russia to ramp up its spending as well. At the time however, the Soviets could not get an accurate account of its GDP (this was where the Econ stuff came in), so they asked the KGB to steal these numbers from the CIA. The CIA of course, was doing this as economic intelligence, and naturally they inflated the numbers so the CIA would get more funding.
Now the Russians are spending much more than they were making because of the inflated GDP figures from the CIA and they slowly realize that they couldn't possbily keep this up with the US without going into enormous debt. So the Soviets informed East Germany that it could no longer support their troops if there was ever an uprising.
East Germany figured they could not possibly control an uprising with its own troops and simply told the troops they can stop defending the wall. From there it was only a matter of time that the people of East Germany was informed the wall could not be defended and thus it was brought down.
So you see, Reagen brought down the Berlin Wall.
This is a little story my Econ Prof told on the class about GDP.
It seems like a good thing without giving too much thought at the moment.
This is a good thing for places where media censorship occurs regularly. The SARS crisis could not be contained by the Chinese government because of people sending SMS's to others with tales of a disease spreading in certain areas. The news of course didn't cover it, and when China finally acknowledged it, the news down played it. But the SMS's continued, and it gave people a way to do first hand accounts of an event in progress.
If this can prevent media censorship, I'm all for it.
But then... who's to say some group won't stage some sort of event in the future and use/force people to blog this to mislead others...
Beware of the tool talk. A computer is a device, and as this article already illustrates, this DEVICE can perform actions without you knowing. It will continue to perform these actions when you are not using/operating it.
Tools such as a pen or a screw driver work ONLY when you are using it. A screw driver does not screw a screw and cannot stab someone without a person operating it (and hence a TOOL).
The point is devices are inherently more dangerous than tools. One has moral agency over tools (again: stab or screw, its all up to the operator), one has much less control over a device. Which is EXACTLY why people should be educated on how to use and control these devices. While not having moral agency over a device, one most definitely carry partial responsibility for activating a device.
Even tho this is the work place, the freedom to work on our own platforms and to customize our computers to our liking is important to 1337 h4x0r5. After all, we can spend a whole day hacking away on our boxes.
Locking down on all our computers will just make it less fun, and make me less happy. Less happy employee = Less productivity ergo less quality.
I'd love to trash everything in my cubical and start fresh...but I can't stand to part with my Coke Pyramid,... it has 220 cans now...this in just 3 months, anyone have something like that? I was thinking of soddering em together to make a lil wall for my cubical:P
I've been on this site for 6 months or so but never bothered to make a login, and well here is my login and im' proud of my relatively close to first post post. AC: 0. Non-AC: 1:)
Soribada is probably affecting our business, but there is no concrete evidence," said Cho Jin-bae, who handles online marketing at the Seoul office of the EMI record label.
Well what kind of a case are they expecting to present then!?!? Guilty by association!??
BTW, how are these guys able to afford one of the largest law firms in Korea?
Slashdot Mirror
...Microsoft last March dispatched CEO Steve Ballmer to the rescue....Documents obtained by USA TODAY show Microsoft subsequently lowered its pricing to $31.9 million and then to $23.7 million -- an overall 35% price cut. The discounts were for naught.
for the non believers: The CEO of MS himself went to a sales call and lost the sale, you better start beliving Linux is a threat to MS.
3 Cheers for all Linux, OSS, and Choice! Hip Hip Horay!
You know you're a nerd when big bandwidth makes you this happy :)
I stand corrected. Thank you very much. :) Canadian workers are still expensive in comparison to other places tho.
I'm glad that some companies actually realized one can't substitute quality for low-cost. Believe it or not, North America still has some of the most highest skilled labour that is not as readily available in other places.
Take for example, Toyota, for all their quality, Toyota builds their cars in.... Canada. That's right, VERY costly to emply Canadian Auto Workers especially with their union but Toyota consitently grows and builds cars with quality that is almost unparalleled.
Another case in point, VW moved some of their production to Mexico and the effects were felt right away, their cars was below average in the number of manufacturer defects. Cheap labour: yes. Good labour: definitely not.
Because of how heavily IT jobs are affected by the markets, no high tech company will value quality of labour as much as the cost of it, all in the name of meeting analyst expectations for quarter x.
Sad really...
Well, I for one would like to move out of my parents house one day...
Yup, such is the inevitability of globalization.
The thing that really gets to me is that by outsourcing, these companies are no longer investing in the markets that purchase from them and this short sighted quarter-by-quater view will eventually come back to hurt them.
People higher up that make these decisions don't care, because they're in charge of the company and won't get out sourced. By the time that foreign entities have the purchasing power to buy and remove these people (and this WILL happend), all the higher up's are already gone anyway, what do they care.
It makes me sick sometimes how a company's entire future can be directed by one person with no regard to all the labour that makes the company possible. I have no respect for CEO's.
My econ prof taught us that north american white collar IT types will never be able to compete against India's and Russia on a salary level, so we must instead, compete on a productivity level. But I just can't help but to think management are too ignorant to compare productivity instead of price.
I agree that there are many legal businesses in all that spam, just like telemarketing.
Unlike telemarketing however, spam has begun to significantly erode the ability for people to use email to communicate.
Costs involved in fighting spam is higher than that of telemarketers, and higher in orders of magnitude. My argument to your rebuttal is simply this: revenues generated by spam is offset by the massive cost incurred onto others to fight it. It effectively becomes a displacement of money: from those who fight it to those who make money from spam.
If AOL for example, could spend all the millions they spend on fighting the spam they receive on improving their service (which also creates jobs and thus contributes to the economy), then users of AOL will get more uility from their service which will lead to more customers for AOL.
The point is people who send spam are a minority in the world that is causing significant harm and grieve to a vast majority of other people and entities. For this very reason, I cannot possibly legitimize or even accept spam in its current state and thus am supportive of an "opt-in" system.
It is of note however, that I am conflicted over telemarketers.
The United States is considering a handful of bills that take an ''opt-out'' approach
I don't get it. Why are the states taking such a reactive approach to this instead of a proactive approach?
Both are useless without the enforcement of the legislatures, but "opt-in" is alot more hassel-free.
I wasn't thinking the identity was the nick, but rather the IP like you suggested. And u're right, the RIAA is tracking by IP, but in terms of how Kazaa fetches the IP, it could perhaps be intercepted and tempered with...unless of course Kazaa uses this same information to connect to the other peer; in which case it just might cut you off from sharing with everybody.
:\
Perhaps that scheme would not work out too well after all, it really depends on just how and from where the IP is fetched.
The blocking of an IP range however isin't such a hot idea either
Well K++ edition bascially contains a wrapper on the Kazaa application so that one can modify the memory accessed by Kazaa easily, and thus those who use K++ edition automatically has the K-Lite Master (1000) ranking on Kazaa. Its simply a matter of manipulating the values at the memory address.
I would think that extending on that principle, they could write protect or just dump gabarge into the memory space where idenities are stored.
Of course, I don't have the K++ source, so how would I know, it's just a theory.
As long as the government can't control what we think...
Or... at least I've already been taught/brainwashed to believe they can't control what we think.
Control is a philosophy, and it can take many forms.
This reminds me of what my Econ prof said of Reagan: He brought down the berlin wall.
His (almost crazy) spending on the arms race forced Russia to ramp up its spending as well. At the time however, the Soviets could not get an accurate account of its GDP (this was where the Econ stuff came in), so they asked the KGB to steal these numbers from the CIA. The CIA of course, was doing this as economic intelligence, and naturally they inflated the numbers so the CIA would get more funding.
Now the Russians are spending much more than they were making because of the inflated GDP figures from the CIA and they slowly realize that they couldn't possbily keep this up with the US without going into enormous debt. So the Soviets informed East Germany that it could no longer support their troops if there was ever an uprising.
East Germany figured they could not possibly control an uprising with its own troops and simply told the troops they can stop defending the wall. From there it was only a matter of time that the people of East Germany was informed the wall could not be defended and thus it was brought down.
So you see, Reagen brought down the Berlin Wall.
This is a little story my Econ Prof told on the class about GDP.
It seems like a good thing without giving too much thought at the moment.
This is a good thing for places where media censorship occurs regularly. The SARS crisis could not be contained by the Chinese government because of people sending SMS's to others with tales of a disease spreading in certain areas. The news of course didn't cover it, and when China finally acknowledged it, the news down played it. But the SMS's continued, and it gave people a way to do first hand accounts of an event in progress.
If this can prevent media censorship, I'm all for it.
But then... who's to say some group won't stage some sort of event in the future and use/force people to blog this to mislead others...
I try to get the Computer (Easy) names in Warcarft III
and genreally stupid names like Painful_Urine
n00bz0rz1337, Runny_Diahrea and my favorite, Herpes Galore
Why the heck does Reagen get a Carrier named after him? What's next USS Bill Clinton!??
Why couldn't they just stick to US States.
Beware of the tool talk. A computer is a device, and as this article already illustrates, this DEVICE can perform actions without you knowing. It will continue to perform these actions when you are not using/operating it.
Tools such as a pen or a screw driver work ONLY when you are using it. A screw driver does not screw a screw and cannot stab someone without a person operating it (and hence a TOOL).
The point is devices are inherently more dangerous than tools. One has moral agency over tools (again: stab or screw, its all up to the operator), one has much less control over a device. Which is EXACTLY why people should be educated on how to use and control these devices. While not having moral agency over a device, one most definitely carry partial responsibility for activating a device.
Even tho this is the work place, the freedom to work on our own platforms and to customize our computers to our liking is important to 1337 h4x0r5. After all, we can spend a whole day hacking away on our boxes.
Locking down on all our computers will just make it less fun, and make me less happy. Less happy employee = Less productivity ergo less quality.
Steal your own sig!
I'd love to trash everything in my cubical and start fresh...but I can't stand to part with my Coke Pyramid,... it has 220 cans now...this in just 3 months, anyone have something like that? I was thinking of soddering em together to make a lil wall for my cubical :P
I meant, chalk one up for the Non-AC. Am I making any sense?
I've been on this site for 6 months or so but never bothered to make a login, and well here is my login and im' proud of my relatively close to first post post. AC: 0. Non-AC: 1 :)
my relatively close to first post :)