this was one reason I was going to avoid the threads (until my slashdot addiction took over). If it makes you feel better, the stupid/insulting posts are probably made by kids who don't really put any thought into what they're writing. They're just being stupid, and haven't really meant to be insulting or insensitive and would probably revoke their comments if they had the chance
If you want to make a bet on SCOX, you can try going short if you think they won't make the reporting deadline
Too risky. This one has short squeeze written all over it. Remember: by the time everyone knows it's time to short, it's already too late.
Speaking of which, was anyone here lucky enough to short SCOX back when they were way up at 10-20 price? If there's one thing sweeter than watching a crappy company fall, it's profiting from the fall of a crappy company. I didn't know anything about stock trading at the time.
As an investor, you have the wonderful ability to take positions for or against a publicly traded stock. This isn't an un-American thing to do; it keeps the markets in check. Lots of short positions or put options show that people are betting money that the company's share is overvalued. Sometimes it even alerts those monkeys on Wal Street to important problems. When Enron collapsed, people started blaming some guy who took a huge short position -- he didn't bring down Enron of course, but he tipped off other investors that Enron was fscked.
So next time, instead of sitting around on slashdot, take your $699 and invest it. Remember how many people here in the forums knew distinctly that SCO was screwed. No business plan, just a bunch of lawyers. That's valuable knowledge that the nerds had, that the suits ignored.
Not to mention the un-intuitive user interface which encourages posting without quoting the parent.
I agree with you, Google's groups service (the beta) really isn't impressive at all. There is no quoting of parents, and the threads are difficult to navigate. I still use the old groups system, which was far superior. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I really hope Google reverts to their old interface.
Are you really getting "Internet" access from the cable provider now? Sound like some of AOL's problems?
I have been arguing this for a long time, but it's always fallen on deaf ears. "We have to block port 25, email viruses are bad" sez the ISP. Or, "Our transparent port 80 proxy is good for you, it makes the Internet go faster".
By setting precedent (of norms, not law) like this ISPs have given themselves the power to severely curtail open and flexible communication. The real Internet, unfettered IPv4, is dying I'm sorry to say. This isn't just among cable companies; DSL also routinely blocks TCP packets by ports. The only real solution I see is creating new uncensored realms within say VPNs. Unfortunately, many ISPs also ban VPNs.
The best thing an Internet user can probably do is complain to their ISP if certain types of traffic seems to be blocked. One better step would be to threaten your ISP over breach of contract, if they were to provide you "Internet" (i.e. IPv4) service but aren't delivering.
When we built our own VoIP technology we used blowfish encryption and used dynamic ports. As a result, the packets look like generic TCP packets and there is no way to tell what's underneath.
Why the hell would it be smarter to "move apps to OS X"?
Because unlike Linux, customers will actually pay for the OS X software, funding your time/effort and making it worthwhile for you to develop even more good software for that platform. Also I suspect there are more serious Mac users out there. Think of all the multimedia people and Engineers who use Macs because of the power. (I'm not a Mac nut, btw)
man you have got to look at wxWidgets. It provides a uniform API under many platforms, so you can use wx's threads, wx's file I/O, wx's sockets (instead of say winsock vs BSD sockets), wx's GUI and widgets. This will seriously cut down, if not eliminate, OS-dependent stuff.
I don't think portability is such a big problem for somebody who has time and resources. I think the biggest problem is people who make software for money are concerned that Linux users want everything to be available for free
Put me in this category. I use both Windows and Linux and would love to partially rewrite some of my best selling apps so that they run under Linux. But I'm not sure whether it's worth the effort. I will want to release the binaries (versions for a few different libc's for example) and am definitely not going to be releasing my source code. btw I'm also an open source developer but I don't intend to make money off that UNIX software.
I'll bet there are tons of other programmers in my situation. For instance, Mac OS X looks like a more attractive destination platform for diversifying my market, rather than Linux.
And what the hell is POWER and pSeries? I'm pretty much going to ignore this article. I've been writing win32 software for quite some time and am seriously fed up with that platform. Rather than tweaking my software so that it works with Wine I'm much more interested in rewriting the GUI from scratch using wxWidgets. With a wx based application, you can then compile it into native Linux (GTK+), native win32, or even Mac OS X apps. To me that seems like the most promising route. I've used some wx based applications like Audacity and they're just amazing, really look like they belong on each target platform.
unless your friend is exceedingly careful, it looks like he might violate google's policy so it seems like risky business. I also don't know if google would have recourse to collect back from you earnings even after they have been paid.
They've got enough cash in the bank to run the business for decades if they never made another cent
It doesn't work like that, really. However I have recently analyzed Microsoft's balance sheets from the past few years and there are many encouraging things about their accounting. Note, this is only the analysis of their books -- assuming they're not lying -- and really is not enough to judge the health of a company.
First, Microsoft is smart enough to use very little debt financing. Financing for business operations can come from two places: (1) loans/debt, (2) money from selling stock shares. Because MSFT is such a huge stock, the company is blessed with lots of financing from their shareholders' money. Microsoft has been smart enough to not go and take out huge loans on top of this. They already have all the money they need to drive business, and they don't have to pay anyone back for the privilege. Smart.
Second, Microsoft's cash/liquidity position is quite good. When interest rates rise or they otherwise have to start repaying their debts, I would be surprised if they become cash strapped.
These measures don't mean much alone, but they do suggest that Microsoft's finances are not in awful shape. I'm not saying they're in great shape, nor that their products have a future, nor that it's worth investing in Microsoft.
The additional penalties have NOTHING to do with the sharing. It's simply because the movie industry has more power and influence with Congress than local retailers.
Actually, when the media industry first pitched the changes to copyright law (pre-DMCA) they were shot down by Congress. As a recourse, the IITF in 1995 pushed those copyright law reforms through the United Nations to create the WIPO Copyright treaty. Then the US just ratified this international treaty in 1996 to create the DMCA. It's really not that Congress supported the media industry's crazy demands, but got tricked into ratifying them through a legislative workaround.
I usually don't charge, but end up having a favour(s) in pocket
Yes! This is exactly the way to approach something of this nature. In fact, at my business school I have often overheard computer illiterate accountants and marketing people mention they have reciprocal service arrangements with computer professionals. Too bad the marketing people are so useless;)
Remember, you're ahead of the game whenever you can keep money out of the system. When a professional renders their services they must collect tax. If there is no money exchanged, there is no tax to collect. You don't even have to keep a record of the service. The professional's income does not increase (again, good for taxes).
I just pretend I don't know anything practical. Common (honest) responses are, "sorry but I don't even own a copy of Windows XP", or "I haven't used Microsoft Word since 1999". Within my business I do offer technical support for paid customers without charging extra, but only provide support over email and of course will only answer relevant questions about my software, definitely not generic computer problems.
That number sounds wrong, how could spam cost anyone billions when all they have to do is hit the delete key!!!
I'm being sarcastic. Spam is a huge cost to resources, of course (probably not even counting hijacked resources, an intangible figure). Too bad the government basically told companies they CAN-SPAM as much as they want. Marketing drives America.
I didn't get good vibes from this guy
on
Blink
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
It was either him or one of his colleagues on CBC radio some time recently (past month or so) and the way the theory was pitched, it just sounded like nonsense. On top of it they spoke like marketing people, which made me think it's all really B.S.
I don't even live in a particularly large city, and I have been regularly using Google local to find businesses. If you're not really sure what it's for, here is what I have used it to find: nearest branch locations, taxi services, pizza order lines, etc.
Do Canadians get fingerprinted and photographed at the border like all us other foreign criminals?... I wonder how many terrorists this amazingly intrusive and expensive system has actually caught.
It's about to get crazier. The Dept. of Homeland security has now announced that visitors will be monitored with RFID (press release end of January). It sounds too crazy to be true, but the press release is from dhs.gov. As a Canadian business person, this will probably just keep me from visiting the USA. Hell, I already conduct my business in euros, it doesn't make a difference to me.
I mean no offence by this, but the British PM has been acting like a little USA fan boy. War? Sure! Our own citizens don't want it? To hell with them! Britain will invade and help spread freedom shoulder to shoulder with their American friends.
As a Canadian, I'm proud of our former prime minister (Jean Chretien) had the balls to stay out of an aggressive unprovoked invasion on a soverign nation rather than being just another American cheerleader.
I am a Canadian contractor who lives and works from Canada. On occasion, I have developed software for the Canadian government. However, my business servers are located in California and when I got my servers I pretty much accepted the fact that any data I send down south is intercepted by a police agency.
The way I protect myself and sensitive data is through heavy use of GnuPG, where the keys are not stored in the USA obviously. This way I can tell my Canadian government/corporate clients that sensitive data is never readable while it is stored in the USA.
Both those cartoons are entirely tongue in cheek. They are satires. The sitcoms are not, though they are meant to portray humorous situations the mode of behavioural interaction between spouses is meant to be "realistic" rather than satirical. Big difference, boy.
The reason TV ratings are plummetting is because TV is full of idiotic shows that make women look perfect and men look like a bunch of retards
WOW! You noticed this too, huh? To lend a little more legitimacy to this AC's opinion, I'll second it. Turn on TV at any given time in prime time and you'll see some moron man (Everyone Loves Raymond) being bossed around by his bitchy wife. I'm not gonna watch shit like that, and if any marketing people are reading this, you had better put back something on the air I am gonna watch -- not a sappy drama, not an immasculating sitcom, and not a braindead talent search. I'm a middle class male and my pockets are overflowing with money, entertain me already.
And if TV isn't going to entertain me, then I'm going to watch Family Guy and Futurama reruns until the cows come home. Or I'm just going to throw the damn TV out the window and go find entertainment on the Internet. Because playing Enemy Territory is a heluvalot more entertaining than watching a frigin busload of women redecorate their houses and elimidate each other.
For a similar discussion, but from the perspective of an OpenOffice.org user, check out this article (even though it's really talking about OO.org, there is a section where it goes into the advantages of open formats for data interchange and longevity/archival). The XML format discussed there is I believe the same as OpenDocument
I mean, it would be sad if after these things being rescued from the ravages of time and analog media, they were lost to the ravages of time
This is precisely why we need industry standard open formats, not proprietary formats (QuickTime won't fly). All specifications have to be out in the open since we don't want the death of a company to take its format to the grave.
The second threat to archival is digital rights management, content protection, keys or any other kind of 'protection' is basically going to kill long term archival.
I think pure MPEG video is still the best candidate.
Slashdot Mirror
this was one reason I was going to avoid the threads (until my slashdot addiction took over). If it makes you feel better, the stupid/insulting posts are probably made by kids who don't really put any thought into what they're writing. They're just being stupid, and haven't really meant to be insulting or insensitive and would probably revoke their comments if they had the chance
Speaking of which, was anyone here lucky enough to short SCOX back when they were way up at 10-20 price? If there's one thing sweeter than watching a crappy company fall, it's profiting from the fall of a crappy company. I didn't know anything about stock trading at the time.
As an investor, you have the wonderful ability to take positions for or against a publicly traded stock. This isn't an un-American thing to do; it keeps the markets in check. Lots of short positions or put options show that people are betting money that the company's share is overvalued. Sometimes it even alerts those monkeys on Wal Street to important problems. When Enron collapsed, people started blaming some guy who took a huge short position -- he didn't bring down Enron of course, but he tipped off other investors that Enron was fscked.
So next time, instead of sitting around on slashdot, take your $699 and invest it. Remember how many people here in the forums knew distinctly that SCO was screwed. No business plan, just a bunch of lawyers. That's valuable knowledge that the nerds had, that the suits ignored.
By setting precedent (of norms, not law) like this ISPs have given themselves the power to severely curtail open and flexible communication. The real Internet, unfettered IPv4, is dying I'm sorry to say. This isn't just among cable companies; DSL also routinely blocks TCP packets by ports. The only real solution I see is creating new uncensored realms within say VPNs. Unfortunately, many ISPs also ban VPNs.
The best thing an Internet user can probably do is complain to their ISP if certain types of traffic seems to be blocked. One better step would be to threaten your ISP over breach of contract, if they were to provide you "Internet" (i.e. IPv4) service but aren't delivering.
When we built our own VoIP technology we used blowfish encryption and used dynamic ports. As a result, the packets look like generic TCP packets and there is no way to tell what's underneath.
man you have got to look at wxWidgets. It provides a uniform API under many platforms, so you can use wx's threads, wx's file I/O, wx's sockets (instead of say winsock vs BSD sockets), wx's GUI and widgets. This will seriously cut down, if not eliminate, OS-dependent stuff.
I'll bet there are tons of other programmers in my situation. For instance, Mac OS X looks like a more attractive destination platform for diversifying my market, rather than Linux.
And what the hell is POWER and pSeries? I'm pretty much going to ignore this article. I've been writing win32 software for quite some time and am seriously fed up with that platform. Rather than tweaking my software so that it works with Wine I'm much more interested in rewriting the GUI from scratch using wxWidgets. With a wx based application, you can then compile it into native Linux (GTK+), native win32, or even Mac OS X apps. To me that seems like the most promising route. I've used some wx based applications like Audacity and they're just amazing, really look like they belong on each target platform.
unless your friend is exceedingly careful, it looks like he might violate google's policy so it seems like risky business. I also don't know if google would have recourse to collect back from you earnings even after they have been paid.
First, Microsoft is smart enough to use very little debt financing. Financing for business operations can come from two places: (1) loans/debt, (2) money from selling stock shares. Because MSFT is such a huge stock, the company is blessed with lots of financing from their shareholders' money. Microsoft has been smart enough to not go and take out huge loans on top of this. They already have all the money they need to drive business, and they don't have to pay anyone back for the privilege. Smart.
Second, Microsoft's cash/liquidity position is quite good. When interest rates rise or they otherwise have to start repaying their debts, I would be surprised if they become cash strapped.
These measures don't mean much alone, but they do suggest that Microsoft's finances are not in awful shape. I'm not saying they're in great shape, nor that their products have a future, nor that it's worth investing in Microsoft.
recording industry pwns Congress
Remember, you're ahead of the game whenever you can keep money out of the system. When a professional renders their services they must collect tax. If there is no money exchanged, there is no tax to collect. You don't even have to keep a record of the service. The professional's income does not increase (again, good for taxes).
I just pretend I don't know anything practical. Common (honest) responses are, "sorry but I don't even own a copy of Windows XP", or "I haven't used Microsoft Word since 1999". Within my business I do offer technical support for paid customers without charging extra, but only provide support over email and of course will only answer relevant questions about my software, definitely not generic computer problems.
That number sounds wrong, how could spam cost anyone billions when all they have to do is hit the delete key!!!
I'm being sarcastic. Spam is a huge cost to resources, of course (probably not even counting hijacked resources, an intangible figure). Too bad the government basically told companies they CAN-SPAM as much as they want. Marketing drives America.
It was either him or one of his colleagues on CBC radio some time recently (past month or so) and the way the theory was pitched, it just sounded like nonsense. On top of it they spoke like marketing people, which made me think it's all really B.S.
I don't even live in a particularly large city, and I have been regularly using Google local to find businesses. If you're not really sure what it's for, here is what I have used it to find: nearest branch locations, taxi services, pizza order lines, etc.
I mean no offence by this, but the British PM has been acting like a little USA fan boy. War? Sure! Our own citizens don't want it? To hell with them! Britain will invade and help spread freedom shoulder to shoulder with their American friends.
As a Canadian, I'm proud of our former prime minister (Jean Chretien) had the balls to stay out of an aggressive unprovoked invasion on a soverign nation rather than being just another American cheerleader.
[Posted AC to protect my freedom!]
I am a Canadian contractor who lives and works from Canada. On occasion, I have developed software for the Canadian government. However, my business servers are located in California and when I got my servers I pretty much accepted the fact that any data I send down south is intercepted by a police agency.
The way I protect myself and sensitive data is through heavy use of GnuPG, where the keys are not stored in the USA obviously. This way I can tell my Canadian government/corporate clients that sensitive data is never readable while it is stored in the USA.
Both those cartoons are entirely tongue in cheek. They are satires. The sitcoms are not, though they are meant to portray humorous situations the mode of behavioural interaction between spouses is meant to be "realistic" rather than satirical. Big difference, boy.
And if TV isn't going to entertain me, then I'm going to watch Family Guy and Futurama reruns until the cows come home. Or I'm just going to throw the damn TV out the window and go find entertainment on the Internet. Because playing Enemy Territory is a heluvalot more entertaining than watching a frigin busload of women redecorate their houses and elimidate each other.
For a similar discussion, but from the perspective of an OpenOffice.org user, check out this article (even though it's really talking about OO.org, there is a section where it goes into the advantages of open formats for data interchange and longevity/archival). The XML format discussed there is I believe the same as OpenDocument
The second threat to archival is digital rights management, content protection, keys or any other kind of 'protection' is basically going to kill long term archival.
I think pure MPEG video is still the best candidate.