I'm posting this anonymously because I'd be ashamed to have my name tied to defending Windows. Your comment is definitely true for versions of Windows up through ME. But I've been running XP on a Sony Vaio for the past fourteen months, and I have never had to reboot. In fact, I don't even know if XP has a blue screen of death, cuz if it does I've sure never seen it.
Contrary to longstanding contention here on Slashdot, one's personal experience with an operating system on a single computer (especially one tailor-made to be supported correctly by XP) are not indicative of product failure.
I work with Windows machines on a daily basis. Windows XP does crash. One sure-fire way to make it unstable at one point seemed to be installing differing brands of SDRAM simultaneously. Of course, another great way to make Win2k/XP as useful as a bucket of sand is to replace the motherboard. Sure, you don't have to re-install, per se, but you do have to re-copy the entire operating system and re-apply all service packs and product/security updates.
Despite its thousand liabilities and the fact that Windows helps fund a scummy corporation, I don't think that XP can be criticized for instability.
Sure, when you compare it to the house-of-cards operating systems that preceeded it (9x/ME), it's solid as a rock. However, when you get into the server arena and critical use, high load situations and start comparing it to the well-established UNIX, Solaris et al. and even the venerable Linux you start to notice a significant difference in reliability.
I can tell you emperically that I've seen more "Internal Server Error", "Server too busy to handle your request", etc. messages from IIS than from Apache. donotcall.gov, as a matter of fact, has been having reliability issues right from the outset.
Filtering out legitimate attachments is not very good policy to protect against virii. You'd be -much- better off spending a few minutes educating employees in a "Virus Prevention" seminar or something. Show them that opening emails like that is not intelligent, and that way, it's not as much of a problem.
Picture this;
User receives attachments from a colleage sometimes as often as a dozen times a day. An e-mail comes in from this user with an attachment described breifly as "The file we discussed earlier."
How does your proposed seminar cover this situation? Since most Windows maladies lately attack Outlook (Express) directly, and specifically its address book, the notion of "attachments from unknown people" or attachments that come from "a random source" are no longer valid. Attachments are coming from friends, family, colleagues, and even Microsoft Technical Support.
Malicious users have become so crafty that the entire notion of e-mail attachments and their utility has to be re-examined.
Incidentally, Microsoft's new security poilcy WRT attachments in Outlook Express has made the situation worse, not better. They've blocked so many attachments the functionality is useless to users, so they're resorting to disabling attachment blocking entirely, putting them right back at square one.
The problem is, even with baysian techniques, there is no way to quarantee that only spam was sorted out. I highly suggest a white list, in addition to filters, as the only way of ensuring that at least known mail is always received.
With Mozilla, you get the best of both worlds. You've got Bayesian filtering with an optional whitelist component. You can select any of your address books as the source of your whitelist (default is "Personal Addresses"), so any of your friends can send you all the SPAM they want without being caught.;)
Being optional, you can choose to disable it if, say, your friends addresses have been harvested for "Joe Job" SPAM runs. (I know one or two of mine have).
I've actually used the whitelist to my advantage when I requested a sample of a particular new type of SPAM from him so I could watch for it and mark it if Mozilla missed it.
Which brings me to the other big advantage of Mozilla/Bayesian; when SPAMmers adapt, so does it. New SPAM type? Click the trash can and it'll go away.
Nothing can really be a perpetual 100% guarantee of blocking SPAM, but IME, Bayesian filters are the best possible solution we have right now and that's why I emphatically reccomend them to all my friends, family, and customers.
Mozilla Mail & News is watching over my mail, including upwards of a dozen mailing lists and works almost flawlessly. Especially good is the fact that I access my mail via IMAP from as many as six different Mozilla clients in various locations, and at this point they're all trained in my e-mail habits.
It took longer for me to train it, due to the fact that I'd previously kept my address(es) close to my chest, so my SPAM intake was perhaps 2-3 messages/month at the most. Now, however, I average 4-5/week (not terrible, but annoying enough to warrant a filter) and Mozilla has only missed a small handful of them during training.
One you've gone Bayesian, you can never go back. Keyword filters, white/blacklists, DNSbls; they're all ancient history. The future is now! {groan}
to build uranium refinement equipment in Iraq - key to building ACTUAL nuclear bombs.
Yeah, amazing. After months of being unable to justify their presence in Iraq, the government's most notoriously underhanded covert operations department "finds" a handful of parts they assure us are intended for our own demise.
GNOME and KDE would both be behind without each other... I think the reason both are at this point is due to the competition.
Agreed. I didn't follow comletely, but I believe KDE (and QT) licenses were opened up (dual-licensed?) because of uproar, and availability of GNOME. Also, each advance by each project spurs the need to make same with the other project (hence, competition). Transparency and alpha-blending, w00t!;)
As for Gecko being dead... that's utter bullshit. Gecko is really the only good alternative to IE in this day in age; KHTML is still catching up.
I've tried. I've really really tried to give Konqueror a chance. Not so long about (about KDE 3.0.2 or thereabouts) it rendered my friend's page in (what appeared to be) Japaneese. It butchered my own (W3C HTML and CSS compliant) page, it had trouble on parts of Slashdot, etc.
So around about KDE 3.1.2 (the most current), I tried again. My friend's page was now displayed in the correct language, but many other pages, especially complex nested tables, were still way off.
I'm afraid I won't be able to view Konqueror as a viable option until it can handle at the bare minimum my daily viewing habits without seriously b0rking the output. I'll try again when KDE hits 3.2.x and see if the situation has improved. By that point, however, Mozilla.Org are likely to be working towards their 1.5 release...
RMS sounds like a broken record. How many times do we need to hear the explaination of Linux and GNU/Linux?
He's not addressing Slashdot, he's addressing the slightly technically inclined people who read technical headlines on Ziff Davis's network. Those slightly technically inclined people include managers and CEOs.
Moreover, how many times do we have to hear the RMS bashing? Yes, his ideals are extreme, but where do you think the free software community would be without such extreme, uncompromising ideals?
I, for one, laud the man for being so steadfast especially in the face of so much opposition. It takes courage and conviction to be true to one's ideals in our largely hypocritical world.
He had me going until I saw the responses at the end. I just have a hard time believing that every single person who would respond would be a drooling illiterate imbecile. Looks like a troll. I'd like to read a real discussion of what he has to say, though.
Much like The Death Clock and its "Dead Letter Office", I'm sure those were examples of the extremes found in his inbox, posted for effect. After all, he did mention how some Mac users are fanatics; those messages were simply case in point.
I've used PowerDVD for many years now and it works just fine with commercial, region 1 DVDs. Which DVD's didn't PowerDVD work with?
PowerDVD and Windows Media Player are actually quite poor DVD players, IME. Most of our customers switch to another package as soon as they find out they're available. That this demonstrates lack of quality on the part of closed software as a whole is doubtful, those are the facts.
(I myself have had to convince customers that their hardware was, in fact, perfectly fine; it was their DVD software hard-locking their computers in endless wait-states that was causing the problem. The parent poster has a valid point.)
Legitimate use for DeCSS? Like what? Not paying your fees and watching a DVD on Linux? Well that's illegal.
So I meander to Walmart and pick up a $25CDN DVD disc, bring it home, and I'm now not allowed to watch same because I don't run Windows on my workstation or own a DVD player? Also, I fail to see the illegality of doing so. I did pay for the right to watch my purchase, did I not?
Copying a DVD? Well that's illegal too.
That's funny, I thought copyright laws dealt with the re-distribution of copyrighted materials. Why is it anybody's business if I want to have 200 copies of Resevoir Dogs lying around my house? (Maybe they make great beer coasters... )
The only possible use I see would be to copy it to your hard drive *if you own the dvd* but it would be illegal to play it on an unlicensed dvd player so what's the point.
Illegal? You mean, the contracts/licenses established between the movie studios and the electronics manufacturers are now somehow legally binding on the end-user (who, I might add, not only had no foreknowledge of said contracts, but was never even once consulted on, or asked to agree to same, letalone sign one with a witness present)? That's some magic law you've got there.
Thank you, you are very kind. After all of the insults I got here on Slashdot just because I am a woman,
No, you get insulted because you wear your 'victimized woman' card on your sleeve and throw it in everyone's face. Your signature is tantamount to begging for abuse.
Mensa is a logical organization, but you appear to fall too much towards the emotional side to qualify. Were I you, I'd ask for a re-test. Maybe get some victim's counselling before re-considering my membership.
Apparently you just need to feel good about yourself or something. ("Look at me! I pointed out the error of a Mensa member....wheeeeee.....")
What of the pomposity of foisting membership in a group of self-righteous egotists on a public forum? Over-compensation, anyone?
The only problem with her scheme is that Mensa membership is easy to come by. Some people just find it an undesirable association. But if she feels she has to emphasize her membership because perhaps her posts can't stand on their own merits, well, that's fine by me.
Usually they have a duty cycle associated with an MTBF which can drastically alter the MTBF at a 100% duty cycle.
PNot to mention temperature. Read the environmental factors very carefully; if you exceed them by even 1 degree celicius you can cut your MTBF equally, if not more drastically.
Isn't that a really bad thing? Making the users pay the price for spreading the message of the developers?
It's not so much about PR as it is about compliance and page accessability.
If only "0.003%" of surfers seem to be using Mozilla, why would anybody want to code pages to comply with it? If, on the other hand, 25% of page hits were Mozilla, that would make it a definately viable target for developmental testing of all new pages.
This is (one of the reasons) why Opera is having problems making inroads into the market. It's so easy for users to just switch to IE6 and solve their short-term problems that they don't consider the long-term implications.
Since there is only 1 current USB specification, and since that specification defines multiple transfer speeds, the USBIF decided to distinguish by name and/or logo.
Ok, that sounds great and all, but when hardware is still being manufactured to the 1.1 spec, it is USB 1.1 and operates at 12MBit. When hardware is manufactured to the 2.0 spec, it is USB 2.0 and operates at 480Mbit.
Yes, there is only one CURRENT spec, but that doesn't mean hardware manufactured to a PREVIOUS spec is to be considered on-par with the current spec, and should therefore not be renamed. That's just outright deceit.
While your explanation is eloquent and sounds very convincing, it is incorrect.
That's part of the reason I don't go to big chain coffee places any more. Their idiosyncrasies are usually stupid (every beverage size means "big") and their employees are brainwashed enough that they think that's how the rest of the world should work.
Since I generally prefer the coffee, I'm usually found at Tim Horton's. Their sizes still make sense;
Small
Medium
Large
Extra Large
The Extra Large size is, as you would expect, bigger than large (Whoa!) and is therefore a fantastic literal interpretation. Coffee Time decided to be difficult and institute their bigger-than-large size in the form of "Jumbo". Ok, well, jumbo could be bigger than large, right?
A co-worker recently heading out for a coffee run asked what I'd like. I tossed him a toonie and asked for "Extra large double-double." to which he responded with a blank stare. "Large?" he asked. "No, extra large." "Oh, you mean jumbo!" "Yeah, sure, whatever."
The only advantage I can see to renaming the >Large (ie; to the likes of "Jumbo") is to reduce confusion when ordering, especially when there's surrounding noise. But trying to be classy (artificial class in a generic chain has always cracked me up) and using latin or other language names for sizes is just ridiculous. I mean, who's got time to translate at 5AM when they're running late for a train and have an important meeting to attend at 6 and... ?
We've got Starbucks shops around here. I avoid them. Timmy's drive-thru, thankyouverymuch.
ObTopical; I'll be enquiring of our suppliers when I speak with them tomorrow how these notations will be reflected on our product/price sheets. I certainly hope they maintain the old (and widely understood) 1.1 / 2 notations.
To this day there is no scientific proof of ADHD of which is primarily considered to be more of a behavioural disorder. This is rather sad as well that 80% of the time supposive ADHD is misdiagnosed as well when it's truely another coniditon all together and people are put on horrible medications such as Ritalin which is both addictive and extremely detrimental to your health. I would suggest checking with several other physicians if you haven't all ready and get more opinions.
Absolutely correct, sir.
I am Attention Defeceit Disorder. I can tell you absolutely, unequivocally that it is a crock of B.S. I was prescribed various medications, which I did not take. My "problems" were due to an academic course load where I require practical application to succeed. I switched schools, got a better course load and graduated quite happily. I've since moved on to post secondary education and then on to a career where I am both exceptionally good and happy at what I do.
The long and short of it is this; I was misdiagnosed. The doctor would not accept this for any amount of convincing, insisting instead to put me on drugs and be done with me.
So if you find that you honestly can't "buckle down" and do your work, try to find work in a different field. Try to discern what interests you in the working world and go for it. Try changing your diet and sleeping habits. These can lead to inability to function while awake. Habitual lack of sleep especially can cause diminished productivity.
If you honestly feel that your lifestyle is not contributing to the problem, certainly, obtain a medical opinion. However, if your doctor makes a diagnosis such as this withOUT multiple sessions, monitoring brain activity, or first attempting the steps I've listed above - GET ANOTHER OPINION! Don't take the first quick-fix that comes your way (usually medicinal) - try to find the problem rather than drugging your problems away.
I just think it's funny because I do that all the time, think little admin tasks are a big pain. *shrug*
In general, any such administrative tasks on a system with some 3/4 million users and x number of million page hits per day is not considered a trivial action.
It cannot be terminated? In 20 years will SCO be sending back an android lawyer from the future back in time to take out the guy who signed the deal?:)
I hate to respond like this, but I can't resist a good paradox.;)
A physics professor once mused thusly; "Were time travel possible, we'd know about it by now."
See, if SCO were to send a 'droid back in time from the future, it would have affected the "timeline", and therefore we wouldn't be having this conversation. On the other hand, it could be that the notion of a temperal police force exist[s|ed] which ensure that such detrimental effects are not allowed to occur.
Yet another possibility, if you ascribe to quantum theory, is that every possible reaction that can be taken, is, and that in one possible outcome, IBM and AT&T never entered that contract. In another, the contract was written differently. In another,...
So, long and short of it, I think we can rule out time travel as a possible saviour for this particular problem, so we'll have to concentrate on the here and now.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, I'd leave in a heartbeat, and I'd make sure to let them know that's why I left, as well as all their customers I could reach.
Contrary to longstanding contention here on Slashdot, one's personal experience with an operating system on a single computer (especially one tailor-made to be supported correctly by XP) are not indicative of product failure.
I work with Windows machines on a daily basis. Windows XP does crash. One sure-fire way to make it unstable at one point seemed to be installing differing brands of SDRAM simultaneously. Of course, another great way to make Win2k/XP as useful as a bucket of sand is to replace the motherboard. Sure, you don't have to re-install, per se, but you do have to re-copy the entire operating system and re-apply all service packs and product/security updates.
Sure, when you compare it to the house-of-cards operating systems that preceeded it (9x/ME), it's solid as a rock. However, when you get into the server arena and critical use, high load situations and start comparing it to the well-established UNIX, Solaris et al. and even the venerable Linux you start to notice a significant difference in reliability.
I can tell you emperically that I've seen more "Internal Server Error", "Server too busy to handle your request", etc. messages from IIS than from Apache. donotcall.gov, as a matter of fact, has been having reliability issues right from the outset.
In short, you were right to post anonymously.
Picture this;
User receives attachments from a colleage sometimes as often as a dozen times a day. An e-mail comes in from this user with an attachment described breifly as "The file we discussed earlier."
How does your proposed seminar cover this situation? Since most Windows maladies lately attack Outlook (Express) directly, and specifically its address book, the notion of "attachments from unknown people" or attachments that come from "a random source" are no longer valid. Attachments are coming from friends, family, colleagues, and even Microsoft Technical Support.
Malicious users have become so crafty that the entire notion of e-mail attachments and their utility has to be re-examined.
Incidentally, Microsoft's new security poilcy WRT attachments in Outlook Express has made the situation worse, not better. They've blocked so many attachments the functionality is useless to users, so they're resorting to disabling attachment blocking entirely, putting them right back at square one.
With Mozilla, you get the best of both worlds. You've got Bayesian filtering with an optional whitelist component. You can select any of your address books as the source of your whitelist (default is "Personal Addresses"), so any of your friends can send you all the SPAM they want without being caught. ;)
Being optional, you can choose to disable it if, say, your friends addresses have been harvested for "Joe Job" SPAM runs. (I know one or two of mine have).
I've actually used the whitelist to my advantage when I requested a sample of a particular new type of SPAM from him so I could watch for it and mark it if Mozilla missed it.
Which brings me to the other big advantage of Mozilla/Bayesian; when SPAMmers adapt, so does it. New SPAM type? Click the trash can and it'll go away.
Nothing can really be a perpetual 100% guarantee of blocking SPAM, but IME, Bayesian filters are the best possible solution we have right now and that's why I emphatically reccomend them to all my friends, family, and customers.
Absofrigginlutely.
Mozilla Mail & News is watching over my mail, including upwards of a dozen mailing lists and works almost flawlessly. Especially good is the fact that I access my mail via IMAP from as many as six different Mozilla clients in various locations, and at this point they're all trained in my e-mail habits.
It took longer for me to train it, due to the fact that I'd previously kept my address(es) close to my chest, so my SPAM intake was perhaps 2-3 messages/month at the most. Now, however, I average 4-5/week (not terrible, but annoying enough to warrant a filter) and Mozilla has only missed a small handful of them during training.
One you've gone Bayesian, you can never go back. Keyword filters, white/blacklists, DNSbls; they're all ancient history. The future is now! {groan}
Yeah, amazing. After months of being unable to justify their presence in Iraq, the government's most notoriously underhanded covert operations department "finds" a handful of parts they assure us are intended for our own demise.
Agreed. I didn't follow comletely, but I believe KDE (and QT) licenses were opened up (dual-licensed?) because of uproar, and availability of GNOME. Also, each advance by each project spurs the need to make same with the other project (hence, competition). Transparency and alpha-blending, w00t! ;)
I've tried. I've really really tried to give Konqueror a chance. Not so long about (about KDE 3.0.2 or thereabouts) it rendered my friend's page in (what appeared to be) Japaneese. It butchered my own (W3C HTML and CSS compliant) page, it had trouble on parts of Slashdot, etc.
So around about KDE 3.1.2 (the most current), I tried again. My friend's page was now displayed in the correct language, but many other pages, especially complex nested tables, were still way off.
I'm afraid I won't be able to view Konqueror as a viable option until it can handle at the bare minimum my daily viewing habits without seriously b0rking the output. I'll try again when KDE hits 3.2.x and see if the situation has improved. By that point, however, Mozilla.Org are likely to be working towards their 1.5 release ...
Keeping in mind that you only read one side of the issue.
He's not addressing Slashdot, he's addressing the slightly technically inclined people who read technical headlines on Ziff Davis's network. Those slightly technically inclined people include managers and CEOs.
Moreover, how many times do we have to hear the RMS bashing? Yes, his ideals are extreme, but where do you think the free software community would be without such extreme, uncompromising ideals?
I, for one, laud the man for being so steadfast especially in the face of so much opposition. It takes courage and conviction to be true to one's ideals in our largely hypocritical world.
Much like The Death Clock and its "Dead Letter Office", I'm sure those were examples of the extremes found in his inbox, posted for effect. After all, he did mention how some Mac users are fanatics; those messages were simply case in point.
PowerDVD and Windows Media Player are actually quite poor DVD players, IME. Most of our customers switch to another package as soon as they find out they're available. That this demonstrates lack of quality on the part of closed software as a whole is doubtful, those are the facts.
(I myself have had to convince customers that their hardware was, in fact, perfectly fine; it was their DVD software hard-locking their computers in endless wait-states that was causing the problem. The parent poster has a valid point.)
So I meander to Walmart and pick up a $25CDN DVD disc, bring it home, and I'm now not allowed to watch same because I don't run Windows on my workstation or own a DVD player? Also, I fail to see the illegality of doing so. I did pay for the right to watch my purchase, did I not?
That's funny, I thought copyright laws dealt with the re-distribution of copyrighted materials. Why is it anybody's business if I want to have 200 copies of Resevoir Dogs lying around my house? (Maybe they make great beer coasters ... )
Illegal? You mean, the contracts/licenses established between the movie studios and the electronics manufacturers are now somehow legally binding on the end-user (who, I might add, not only had no foreknowledge of said contracts, but was never even once consulted on, or asked to agree to same, letalone sign one with a witness present)? That's some magic law you've got there.
No, you get insulted because you wear your 'victimized woman' card on your sleeve and throw it in everyone's face. Your signature is tantamount to begging for abuse.
Mensa is a logical organization, but you appear to fall too much towards the emotional side to qualify. Were I you, I'd ask for a re-test. Maybe get some victim's counselling before re-considering my membership.
What of the pomposity of foisting membership in a group of self-righteous egotists on a public forum? Over-compensation, anyone?
The only problem with her scheme is that Mensa membership is easy to come by. Some people just find it an undesirable association. But if she feels she has to emphasize her membership because perhaps her posts can't stand on their own merits, well, that's fine by me.
Stop right there. It is "compliant", not complete. "USB 2.0 Compliant" is not the same as "USB 2.0" no matter how you slice it.
It's not so much about PR as it is about compliance and page accessability.
If only "0.003%" of surfers seem to be using Mozilla, why would anybody want to code pages to comply with it? If, on the other hand, 25% of page hits were Mozilla, that would make it a definately viable target for developmental testing of all new pages.
This is (one of the reasons) why Opera is having problems making inroads into the market. It's so easy for users to just switch to IE6 and solve their short-term problems that they don't consider the long-term implications.
The .1 revision will have "flexi-wings"
Ok, that sounds great and all, but when hardware is still being manufactured to the 1.1 spec, it is USB 1.1 and operates at 12MBit. When hardware is manufactured to the 2.0 spec, it is USB 2.0 and operates at 480Mbit.
Yes, there is only one CURRENT spec, but that doesn't mean hardware manufactured to a PREVIOUS spec is to be considered on-par with the current spec, and should therefore not be renamed. That's just outright deceit.
While your explanation is eloquent and sounds very convincing, it is incorrect.
Since I generally prefer the coffee, I'm usually found at Tim Horton's. Their sizes still make sense;
The Extra Large size is, as you would expect, bigger than large (Whoa!) and is therefore a fantastic literal interpretation. Coffee Time decided to be difficult and institute their bigger-than-large size in the form of "Jumbo". Ok, well, jumbo could be bigger than large, right?
A co-worker recently heading out for a coffee run asked what I'd like. I tossed him a toonie and asked for "Extra large double-double." to which he responded with a blank stare. "Large?" he asked. "No, extra large." "Oh, you mean jumbo!" "Yeah, sure, whatever."
The only advantage I can see to renaming the >Large (ie; to the likes of "Jumbo") is to reduce confusion when ordering, especially when there's surrounding noise. But trying to be classy (artificial class in a generic chain has always cracked me up) and using latin or other language names for sizes is just ridiculous. I mean, who's got time to translate at 5AM when they're running late for a train and have an important meeting to attend at 6 and ... ?
We've got Starbucks shops around here. I avoid them. Timmy's drive-thru, thankyouverymuch.
ObTopical; I'll be enquiring of our suppliers when I speak with them tomorrow how these notations will be reflected on our product/price sheets. I certainly hope they maintain the old (and widely understood) 1.1 / 2 notations.
Absolutely correct, sir.
I am Attention Defeceit Disorder. I can tell you absolutely, unequivocally that it is a crock of B.S. I was prescribed various medications, which I did not take. My "problems" were due to an academic course load where I require practical application to succeed. I switched schools, got a better course load and graduated quite happily. I've since moved on to post secondary education and then on to a career where I am both exceptionally good and happy at what I do.
The long and short of it is this; I was misdiagnosed. The doctor would not accept this for any amount of convincing, insisting instead to put me on drugs and be done with me.
So if you find that you honestly can't "buckle down" and do your work, try to find work in a different field. Try to discern what interests you in the working world and go for it. Try changing your diet and sleeping habits. These can lead to inability to function while awake. Habitual lack of sleep especially can cause diminished productivity.
If you honestly feel that your lifestyle is not contributing to the problem, certainly, obtain a medical opinion. However, if your doctor makes a diagnosis such as this withOUT multiple sessions, monitoring brain activity, or first attempting the steps I've listed above - GET ANOTHER OPINION! Don't take the first quick-fix that comes your way (usually medicinal) - try to find the problem rather than drugging your problems away.
FIN.
I have to thank you; I think that's the funniest thing I've ever read! When my sides stop hurting, I'll have to do a urine check. ;)
Actually, it's quite valid. Ask any cop who's ever pulled somebody over for doing 120KPH in a 40KPH zone, even though they only drove 5KMs. :)
In general, any such administrative tasks on a system with some 3/4 million users and x number of million page hits per day is not considered a trivial action.
I hate to respond like this, but I can't resist a good paradox. ;)
A physics professor once mused thusly; "Were time travel possible, we'd know about it by now."
See, if SCO were to send a 'droid back in time from the future, it would have affected the "timeline", and therefore we wouldn't be having this conversation. On the other hand, it could be that the notion of a temperal police force exist[s|ed] which ensure that such detrimental effects are not allowed to occur.
Yet another possibility, if you ascribe to quantum theory, is that every possible reaction that can be taken, is, and that in one possible outcome, IBM and AT&T never entered that contract. In another, the contract was written differently. In another, ...
So, long and short of it, I think we can rule out time travel as a possible saviour for this particular problem, so we'll have to concentrate on the here and now.