Microsoft's annual revenue is $30 Billion dollars. (Information Week)
The EU fine is $613 Million.
$613 Million / $30 Billion = 0.024
So... they fined Microsoft roughly 2% of one year's sales. This "proportionate" and "balanced" ruling was because the "near-monopoly" tried for several years to "shut competitors out of the market". (quotes are from the EU Commission)
This is how losing 2% of my gross income would impact me on a weekly basis.
(myGrossIncome * 0.02) / 52 = myWeeklyImpactIfFined
So what do you casually spend more than 2% of your gross income on? Lunch? State sales (or VAT) tax? Gasoline? Porn?
The fine is neither harsh nor effective. Anyone want to take a guess at how much the competitors have lost every year?
An interesting side-effect is that because of the publicity, the search engine will rank his 'alarming, false, misleading and injurious' information even higher!
What would you consider the most important/effective gains that have been made recently in preserving and expanding online liberties? Can most progress be labeled as simply a defense against the further erosion of online rights?
Don't toll-free 800 numbers cost the company money on a per-user basis? What would the financial impact of everyone with an interest in Linux dialing in to listen?
We have also stopped supporting the OpenServer and UNIXWare platforms.
Seems ineffective to me. Couldn't anyone else simply modify the source code, create a compatible version, and re-distribute?
Perhaps they should have included a line such as - "we hereby terminate rights to modify for compatibility with OpenServer and UNIXWare platforms." But then, with selective revocation, could it still be under GPL license?
When I was in the Navy we were grouped 25 guys to a living compartment. After a drunken brawl, the speaker on the (shared) television got broken. Well, I noticed that there was a speaker mounted on the wall/bulkhead with a four channel selector switch - apparently for selecting one of 4 music channels. Being a very old ship, and the fact that that no one had never heard any sounds come out of it, I thought it was a defunct system.
So I jumpered the TV output into the speaker using some scrounged wire, and a bic lighter to solder the connections. Worked great, however...
A week later I was walking through one of the other sleeping areas aboard ship and heard moaning and grunting coming from somewhere (disturbing on an all-male ship). It seemed that the guys in my compartment were playing a porn movie and the audio was being broadcast on "channel one" of every box throughout the ship!
It took lots of explaining when I when I ran back and disconnected the sound from their porn movie!
I was at Six-Flags theme park last summer and they scanned my Connecticut driver's license to determine if I was of legal age for a $4 cup of beer. They trusted the scanner and didn't even bother looking at the birthdate on the front. I now have concerns that my purchase info is in the company's database. If (or when?) this data is sold it could affect my health/life/auto insurance, privacy, etc.
Also, if I were stopped by the police on the way home this data could declare me guilty of DUI before proven innocent. Pretty bad since my girlfriend coaxed the beer away for herself before I could drink it.
Its been a growing trend to put responsibility on the manufacturer, instead of the people who use/abuse products. This has also been demonstrated in the US by recent law suits directly against the manufacturer of otherwise safe products. The fast food industry has even been blamed for obesity and poor eating habits!
Its easier turn a blind eye to personal accountability when there's a highly visible (evil) corporation to blame.
(No, I don't intend this as flame-bait, and I don't know Bill Gates personally.)
Guns/knives/WinNt/burgers don't kill people, people kill people.
A ZDNet article says Java made communicating between multiple software pieces very flexible and James Gosling, inventor of Java, spent considerable time helping develop the system. Sun also describes how the same application was used for the Pathfinder mission back in 1997.
Perhaps the real news is that someone credible noticed this time and was able to report it. Was the intention to bubble to the top of the search results, or to gauge reactions to such a purchase?
(A scary non-news story from the future...)
A small, obscure news agency is reporting rumors that google searches for "White House corruption" were prechased today by private organization with close ties to government funding. A Google spokesperson offered no comment, citing client confidentiality agreements. White House officials would only comment that they were certain that "no public funds have been used such alleged purchases". Perhaps this is just rumor.
I realize that google is out to make a buck, but will this eventually become so commonplace that we will neither notice nor care?
From the article...
Like Challenger's crew, the Columbia astronauts met their fates alone and the details will never be known.
The initial government line is always that that people die instantly. After the Challenger crew compartment was recovered, it surfaced that some of crew's PEAPs (Personal Egress Air Packs) had been activated. This lead to the debate on whether anyone was conscious prior to impact with the ocean, and if there was any improvements that could be made to escape such a fate.
It may seem morbid as first but spacecraft, unlike automobiles, aren't as easy to crash-test. This promotes learning as much as you can from the mistakes.
Unfortunately, its unlikely more meaningful debris will be recovered from the Columbia.
Sounds like the corporate model that supports such poor choices needs inspection.
If my (stock broker, hospital, retailer, manufacturer, spouse, etc.) is documented at only making good choices 10% of the time, then its time to re-think both the people involved and the process that supports such decisions. Or face failure.
Unfortunately, the existing record industry system (ie. monopoly) supports those high failure rates, also known as poor decisions, by overcharging the consumer. In a non-monopoly situation where the distribution channels are more open, the competitors making slightly better choices would promote the evolution of a better business model.
I would have liked to have provided an example, but I couldn't think of an industry/group that can survive with a 90% failure rate for its product choices (other than the government).
The only thing your subconcious has going for it is that it doesn't have to process the terrabytes of data
So a sensory deprivation tank would produce hyper-focus? From what I've read, they tend to produce dream-like hallucinations instead.
The human mind has a natural tendency to wander. Perhaps its an evolutionary trait that provides for continuous refinement. Or it could just be a way if burning its excess CPU cycles.
A sleep-depraved Saddam is forced to stare at a photo of his dead son's bodies. After he's finally allowed to sleep and REM kicks in, a voice-over script explains to him that its all his fault and guides him on how he should cooperate fully.
After steering his dream through freedom, a comfortable exile, and a harem of virgins he is conveniently woken up for his next round of questioning.
"Would you believe it's 5 below zero right now, back in Boston?" "The only thing worse than the actual temperature where you are right now is having the wind chill factored in." "It doesn't get any worse than this, when do we get a break from temperatures in the low 60's?"
Happens all the time in politics -
"I did not have sex with Ms Lewinsky, if we're not counting that oral stuff." "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most conventional lethal weapons ever devised."
With apologies to Mr. Cronkite -
And that's the way it is - according to news feeds, the internet, and my web cam.
Where do software updates and additions go? A 256Mb USB "key" isn't going to hold much, and I'd hate to have to re-install my "non-standard" software every time I switched machines. Also, The product specs mention "no risk to existing data on hard drives". Does that mean no hard-drive access or no hard-drive partitioning?
Examples - Open Office releases a newer version than what's on the CD (with a 300Mb footprint), or there's a browser secuity patch. Now what?
Slashdot Mirror
The EU fine is $613 Million.
$613 Million / $30 Billion = 0.024
So ... they fined Microsoft roughly 2% of one year's sales. This "proportionate" and "balanced" ruling was because the "near-monopoly" tried for several years to "shut competitors out of the market". (quotes are from the EU Commission)
This is how losing 2% of my gross income would impact me on a weekly basis.
(myGrossIncome * 0.02) / 52 = myWeeklyImpactIfFined
So what do you casually spend more than 2% of your gross income on? Lunch? State sales (or VAT) tax? Gasoline? Porn?
The fine is neither harsh nor effective. Anyone want to take a guess at how much the competitors have lost every year?
Wonder if this will add strength to his case?
We seldom hear of gaining any online rights.
What would you consider the most important/effective gains that have been made recently in preserving and expanding online liberties? Can most progress be labeled as simply a defense against the further erosion of online rights?
The slashdot-effect on an 800 number?
A few tweaks in an Open-Source piece and a simple re-compile may be all that's needed to qualify as "Made In China".
Seems ineffective to me. Couldn't anyone else simply modify the source code, create a compatible version, and re-distribute?
Perhaps they should have included a line such as - "we hereby terminate rights to modify for compatibility with OpenServer and UNIXWare platforms." But then, with selective revocation, could it still be under GPL license?
So I jumpered the TV output into the speaker using some scrounged wire, and a bic lighter to solder the connections. Worked great, however ...
A week later I was walking through one of the other sleeping areas aboard ship and heard moaning and grunting coming from somewhere (disturbing on an all-male ship). It seemed that the guys in my compartment were playing a porn movie and the audio was being broadcast on "channel one" of every box throughout the ship!
It took lots of explaining when I when I ran back and disconnected the sound from their porn movie!
Also, if I were stopped by the police on the way home this data could declare me guilty of DUI before proven innocent. Pretty bad since my girlfriend coaxed the beer away for herself before I could drink it.
Its easier turn a blind eye to personal accountability when there's a highly visible (evil) corporation to blame.
(No, I don't intend this as flame-bait, and I don't know Bill Gates personally.)
Guns/knives/WinNt/burgers don't kill people, people kill people.
As noted in a previous slashdot posting, the software in the control room was written in Java.
A ZDNet article says Java made communicating between multiple software pieces very flexible and James Gosling, inventor of Java, spent considerable time helping develop the system. Sun also describes how the same application was used for the Pathfinder mission back in 1997.
(A scary non-news story from the future ...)
I realize that google is out to make a buck, but will this eventually become so commonplace that we will neither notice nor care?
At this time I still don't notice a difference, so I have to wonder if Google didn't pay the BBC for all this publicity.
Like Challenger's crew, the Columbia astronauts met their fates alone and the details will never be known.
The initial government line is always that that people die instantly. After the Challenger crew compartment was recovered, it surfaced that some of crew's PEAPs (Personal Egress Air Packs) had been activated. This lead to the debate on whether anyone was conscious prior to impact with the ocean, and if there was any improvements that could be made to escape such a fate.
It may seem morbid as first but spacecraft, unlike automobiles, aren't as easy to crash-test. This promotes learning as much as you can from the mistakes.
Unfortunately, its unlikely more meaningful debris will be recovered from the Columbia.
Like trying to keep your server up after you get yourself slashdotted?
OTOH, your load-testing's complete.
What if a virus were written by the RIAA? It could plant itself, activate when it sees a violation, and report the user over the internet.
Similar to the way the FBI operates. Only the FBI (usually) uses warrants.
If my (stock broker, hospital, retailer, manufacturer, spouse, etc.) is documented at only making good choices 10% of the time, then its time to re-think both the people involved and the process that supports such decisions. Or face failure.
Unfortunately, the existing record industry system (ie. monopoly) supports those high failure rates, also known as poor decisions, by overcharging the consumer. In a non-monopoly situation where the distribution channels are more open, the competitors making slightly better choices would promote the evolution of a better business model.
I would have liked to have provided an example, but I couldn't think of an industry/group that can survive with a 90% failure rate for its product choices (other than the government).
Pssst ... the Golden Arches of Mc Donalds are not really gold. But the hot coffee ...
I guess it was fun while it lasted ...
So a sensory deprivation tank would produce hyper-focus? From what I've read, they tend to produce dream-like hallucinations instead.
The human mind has a natural tendency to wander. Perhaps its an evolutionary trait that provides for continuous refinement. Or it could just be a way if burning its excess CPU cycles.
A sleep-depraved Saddam is forced to stare at a photo of his dead son's bodies. After he's finally allowed to sleep and REM kicks in, a voice-over script explains to him that its all his fault and guides him on how he should cooperate fully.
After steering his dream through freedom, a comfortable exile, and a harem of virgins he is conveniently woken up for his next round of questioning.
"Would you believe it's 5 below zero right now, back in Boston?"
"The only thing worse than the actual temperature where you are right now is having the wind chill factored in."
"It doesn't get any worse than this, when do we get a break from temperatures in the low 60's?"
Happens all the time in politics -
"I did not have sex with Ms Lewinsky, if we're not counting that oral stuff."
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most conventional lethal weapons ever devised."
With apologies to Mr. Cronkite -
And that's the way it is - according to news feeds, the internet, and my web cam.
Its listed here - Mental Help: Procedures to Avoid
(You'll have to scroll down the page a bit. Its two spaces up from Past-Life Therapy.)
>> jobs and promote technology and development
Oh great! And here I was worried about US tech jobs being sent overseas!
Headline in 2030 - Mars attacks! Dell transfers their service department to Olympus Mons!
We can convert our landfill areas into an alternative source of energy.
We can clothe the homeless and they can plug into the grid at the end of the day to earn a few extra bucks.
Or we can just give them to the geeks for hacking ... oh, wait! That's where they came from!
Examples - Open Office releases a newer version than what's on the CD (with a 300Mb footprint), or there's a browser secuity patch. Now what?
Seems like expansion may be limited.