Compatibility. By installing a simple update, users of Office 2000, Office XP, and Office 2003 Editions can open, edit, and save documents in one of the Office XML Formats.
So they would not even need to upgrade, but simply update. I don't see this being a big deal, really. Even the betanews article (From June, I would point out) mentions the state's open standard requirements and how the MS approach would address it.
Actually the answer to this lies in vocational use of a PC. Businesses use operating systems with integrated GUIs. That's just the way things are. As such they have applications that run on those things. For the business to give the visually impaired a chance to contribute to the full extent they are able, it is important there exist some parity between the tools they use and those of sighted workers. The same applications are needed to create sharable data files. As such integrating both worlds IS important.
I have been working with a gentleman once a week. He has never used a computer before and it is a challenge to teach. Still, we do so on a Windows machine because the purpose is to provide vocational training. I'm very interested in the outcomes of this topic. I think some very creative thinking is needed to create this integration.
In the short term, I would say the screen readers need to be improved to provide better navigation of screen content. There also needs to be improvements made to the User interface to provide better cues to screen readers. In the long term, perhaps interpreters should be created to translate GUI apps into simple text based apps that create and read the standard documents created by those other applications.
Well, for one, it is only applicable to their new Beta anti-spyware push. I think they are trying to simply counter fears that they are out to block non-M$ software from machines. By offering $5 up to people as a promise that their new anti-spyware program won't do irreparable harm, they can -- theoretically -- gain some credibility for their efforts.
Well, ok. I have a million and one reasons why this is a stupid idea (the iPods). As far as the free side goes....there is a potential argument. Many universities seem to be loaning iPods to students for the same "reason" Duke is; to download lectures, etc. This means they are purchasing them as well. They cost $303 and change ($500,000 / 1650 students). They remain property of the schol until year end. That's one whole year to depreciate in value. Technology generally depreciates quickly due to "useful" life being truncated by advances etc. I would guess they are going to depreciate them almost to zero by the end of the year -- as would ALL universities loaning the iPods. What they end up giving away to Students is of zero value.
To take them back in, clean them and re-use them for the next year would cost some money. Many would be broken and need replaced. By then older versions would be unavailable (uniformity would count here for incoming students). Big mess. So in the end giving them to the students maybe makes sense, if you are going to consider any kind of loan program.
I'm not a fan of the program, but there is an argument here.
Actually, that link isn't the kicker. The link (assuming the testers wanted to "emmulate" the actual links by using the mouseover functions to reveal their normal destinations) for the user to click for updating the records "points" to http://www.pmf.sc.gov.br/sadm/.USBank/
USBank doesn't do much business in Brazilian government.......
Simple truth created by this attitude is that only developer perspectives get built into products. This makes the end product less than it could be. Just a perpetuation of the itch-scratching he refers to.
not necessarily true. There are many filtering solutions that employ user level on the mail server itself. IT this filter is able to update the server's filter lists dynamically from the findings of the end user, it would work to lessen mail server congestion as well.
The point of the method is to tackle the bulk mailers. In that case, there would still be a high degree of other people in the to: cc: and Bcc: fields not at all related to other mail in the recipient's inbox and other folders. It's the fact that the bulking mailing sends a single message to some many people of such a diverse nature that triggers the sorting. What you describe probably falls into the roughly 50% of all mail received that does not get specifically identified.
Actually, The author doesn't seem to say that Business knowledge is a hiring requirement, just a career building one. You can't build a useful product for someone unless you understand what they need. They can't adequately communicate a product idea for you to build if they can't understand the basics of what is required in building it.
There's a seemingly one-sided approach being taken to this post by many. The way I read it, the author made a conscious effort to learn the side of the equation they did not know when they were hired. A manager who does not endevor to understand the technical side of coding is just as bad as the programmer who does not attempt to understand the complete needs of the product they are creating. All the author says is the indepth knowledge is what will save your job and your wage.
Thing is that the scope of this is not limited to cookies. Most of the language refers to server side information and manipulation. The specific item covered is a user's unique identifier being used to reference settings and other information. So this includes session based links as well.
This argument will continue in a cycle simply because of your insistance that the buyer "loses" something. If this is so, why would anyone buy anything but raw materials? If the buyer is actually losing something buying a finished product, why would he continue to do so? Once again you have conveniently ignored the basis of what I am arguing. The end consumer pays a price equal to the value they place on the product. If the product did not have that value to them, they would not buy it. Exchanging one resource (money) for another (the product) does not represent a loss. The companies are only ABLE to profit because they somehow manipulated the inputs to make them more valuable to the consumer than the materials available directly from those further up the chain. Certainly, this change may be as simple as offering a single unit for sale instead of a full case, but that is a manipulation of the inputs that adds value to the product for the end consumer. Your argument says one thing in the end -- if it is followed to its conclusion. Consumers are stupid enough to be taken advantage of. If there is no additional value to the products they buy over the materials and labor needed to produce them, they are wasting their money. They should only by materials and PERHAPS pay someone to put them together in the way needed to create the finished products because there is no reason for them to pay the "overpriced" products in existance for the purpose of making a profit for someone else. Wealth is indeed created because value is added along the chain. The very definition of wealth is directly tied to the value resources have. The system could not continue if someone were losing value for any prolonged period of time; especially if that group was made up of consumers. Demand is only present in accordance to value. Without demand, supply makes no one a profit. Without profit, there is no business.
The products that are made, bought, and sold, do not constitute wealth. They are items that may be exchanged for the real source of wealth, currency. Money.
I never said the products constituted wealth. The profit made by combining or using resources in a way that others were not immediately able to created wealth. Coal and iron are of no use to an Auto maker, but steel is. A Steel maker can combine the needed elements to make steel at a lower cost than the value of the steel to the automaker. The process of doing this creates wealth; not in terms of cahs in the bank, but an asset that can be sold to the automaker and others.
I fear you have oversimplified my answer to mean that products = assets = profit= wealth. This is not what I said. What I did say was that providing particular products or services from certain inputs of resources does constitute the creation of wealth. This is only true because the result has more value than the inputs did. Wealth is not a physical measure of resources. Rather, it is a measure of value. If your create value, you create wealth.
You seem to forget the wealth creation does not equate with wealth transfer. Wealth is created not by taking from one source and giving it to another. Here are two examples:
1) A plant takes in raw materials at a certain cost; transferring wealth from their resource of money in exchange for an equal or nearly equal amount of materials. That is a transfer of wealth. They employ workers to combine and modify those materials into goods; a transfer of wealth to the workers of money for the use of their time. The resultant product has a greater value to the manufacturer's customers because of the function it performs and the customer pays the manufacturer said price. The difference between the cost and revenue is the wealth created by the manufacturer. The greater efficiency with which the manufacturer does this, the greater the wealth created -- all things being equal.
2) A distributor buys large quantities from someone at a price that covers that person's needs (profit included). The distributor is able to sell more of that product to those who needs it (by transporting and packaging it is such a way that it is useful to the end customer) than the person it was purchased from. He does so at higher price than all of his costs. The difference is once again wealth created.
Don't be too scared. Your sumation of his pionts makes it clear what this guy's deal is:
1. Write free software for individual industries (ie, give custom built small business software away for free). His thinking is this will help the small business get started and they will in turn hire more people. But damn the person who wrote the software, he's SOL. But it was for the 'good' of the 'people'.
2. "Make devices more responsive and easy to customize", he request: "I would like a computer to plan ahead for me, track things that are too much trouble for me to remember, and combine inputs to suggest efficient courses of action" OK so he wants smart agents. What this has to do with this article is beyond me. I think he just threw it in there because he wanted to.
3. "Create a truly public key infrastructure" I don't understand why he feels the need for a 'truly PKI is so important. It seems to go along with his socialist viewpoint. I guess it would make on line filing of unemployment that much easier when he plans leads to the failing of a nations economy.
This guy tried to write an e-commerce website using software he bought for his PDA and got upset with how much a certificate cost.
I think I like the theory of including the ISP in the process where legal control exists (i.e the U.S. and other "moral" countries), but it would be difficult to implement without a distributed means of enforcement. PA can't go in to GA to make much happen -- they should report the ISP to the Feds and let them take up the fight from there. Still, most of the child porn will be hosted in other countries. The ISP's should be notified as would be their local Governments. If this would fail because the laws in those locations allow the sites or the governmets are uncooperative, then you block the address.
But the problem presented in the article seems to be caused by only doing half the work in identifying the sites. They found the site and tracked down their IP address. Once you find the address, are you done? No. It should be easy to verify that address is only hosting one site. If it isn't flag it and build the address into the filter. It isn't brain surgery -- just not followed through completely.
While it may turn out that this is exactly what it appears to be, it could basically come down to valuation of the amount of the money they expect to see with the combination of the lawsuit and future licensing. There is a limit to which the lawsuit and licenses can produce value to the company. Many times, executives use insider sales of stock to signal that they believe the market has over-reacted to a "positive" bit of news. In fact, this may be a CYA move by the execs to prove to the SEC that they in fact tried to warn investors that the stock is over-valued.
"Good question, Mr. Brokaw. I'm glad you asked. I refuse to use either. I've written my own protocol because SCO has claimed rights over POP and Microsoft is in talks to buy IMAP."
So as SCO claims the work as theirs, the source of the code they used has had its copyright infringed. Boy, is AT&T gonna make a killing by suing SCO for damages of the amount they get from any lawsuits, settlements, licenses and the versions of Linux they sold as a distributor. I think I may call my broker and buy some of that "T" stock now.....
SCO was formerly Caldera International Inc., a Linux distributor
Doesn't this mean that by distirbuting Linux they may have implicitly agreed to the terms of contributing their code? Wouldn't that then mean they have no right to charge for it as it was contributed to the benefit of the open source community? Just a thought. I'm sure it's been said before.
Uh oh.......I once drew a flag with 10 stripes....I'm going to hell aren't I?
Re:Socialism is all that works for information
on
Want Freedom?
·
· Score: 1
Enron and Worldcom situations should not be tolerated at all
I would also like to point out that both of these companies are in sectors that are still highly regulated for the purpose of "socializing" their effects to the general populous. The Utility sectors are far from the clearest examples of capitalist thought in this country. A Friend of mine is roomates with a WorldCOm salesperson. No one in the sales staff is concerned about their job as the customers are not going anywhere. Why are they not going anywhere? Too few choices. Why so few choices? The regulation of the industry was put into place to intentially form a controlled monopolistic industry. It is extremely early in the game for the deregulation that has been put into effect to make competition viable in this sector. Sure prices have been drastically reduced since the break up of AT&T, but the other competitive factors have not caught up.
In short, using companies which do not truly represent the economic ideology to point out that system's flaws is not a valid argument.
I'm not saying that law should be removed from the equation, but that a system should be judged on its own merits and faults. Capitalism's successes lie in its ability to spur competition, inovation and effeciency. The last of these things is what has brought the greatest social benefit to the first world. Its benefits are slow in coming to the rest of the planet, but to date, no one has shown a system which does any better job of elevating the standard of living -- even for the third world. Globalism brings development to remote areas. In spite of the evils that are argued to be created by sucha system, one should not overlook the benefits that accompany them. The world can not be changed overnight and the slow progression of the "evil" capitalist effeciency still seems to me to be the best hopoe for a universal raising of living standards.
Re:OT: Source for your version of Gettysburg?
on
Want Freedom?
·
· Score: 1
There are actually five different drafts of the address, most of which were written at the request of personal or political friends of Lincoln. Unfortunately, I am about 15 years from the days when I worked in the "Lincoln Room Musuem" in Gettysburg where the first draft was written, but I am certain that at least one of the versions included the phrase.
Short answer, it wasn't simply moved from the Pledge when that was deemed unconstitutional...;)
The bidding is already up to $7,000.00 US. I tell you...Luke really got ripped off! I guess that's what happens when you have to leave the planet in a hurry.
Because I am located near my employer. Labor is not a static resource. This or one of many other reasons may exist.
To get back to why a GMW is not practical (the real question you posed in the beginning):
What is a minimum wage. It's a Price floor for labor. If can agree to that, then a look at the effect of a price floor to demand:
By setting a floor, demand for the resource is limited. If you artificially set the floor higher than the economy settle to, demand will decrease to compensate. (please find an economics textbook and take a look at a demand curve as I am not able to illustrate one here)
This is the argument I am making. It always sounds noble to give people a "fair" wage in spite of market factors. However, the end result is normally far from it's intention. This much you have not argued effectively to convince me (and probably many economists) that a Global Minimum Wage is necessary or even feasible.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually the answer to this lies in vocational use of a PC. Businesses use operating systems with integrated GUIs. That's just the way things are. As such they have applications that run on those things. For the business to give the visually impaired a chance to contribute to the full extent they are able, it is important there exist some parity between the tools they use and those of sighted workers. The same applications are needed to create sharable data files. As such integrating both worlds IS important.
I have been working with a gentleman once a week. He has never used a computer before and it is a challenge to teach. Still, we do so on a Windows machine because the purpose is to provide vocational training. I'm very interested in the outcomes of this topic. I think some very creative thinking is needed to create this integration.
In the short term, I would say the screen readers need to be improved to provide better navigation of screen content. There also needs to be improvements made to the User interface to provide better cues to screen readers. In the long term, perhaps interpreters should be created to translate GUI apps into simple text based apps that create and read the standard documents created by those other applications.
Well, for one, it is only applicable to their new Beta anti-spyware push. I think they are trying to simply counter fears that they are out to block non-M$ software from machines. By offering $5 up to people as a promise that their new anti-spyware program won't do irreparable harm, they can -- theoretically -- gain some credibility for their efforts.
That's my take.
Well, ok. I have a million and one reasons why this is a stupid idea (the iPods). As far as the free side goes....there is a potential argument. Many universities seem to be loaning iPods to students for the same "reason" Duke is; to download lectures, etc. This means they are purchasing them as well. They cost $303 and change ($500,000 / 1650 students). They remain property of the schol until year end. That's one whole year to depreciate in value. Technology generally depreciates quickly due to "useful" life being truncated by advances etc. I would guess they are going to depreciate them almost to zero by the end of the year -- as would ALL universities loaning the iPods. What they end up giving away to Students is of zero value.
To take them back in, clean them and re-use them for the next year would cost some money. Many would be broken and need replaced. By then older versions would be unavailable (uniformity would count here for incoming students). Big mess. So in the end giving them to the students maybe makes sense, if you are going to consider any kind of loan program.
I'm not a fan of the program, but there is an argument here.
Actually, that link isn't the kicker. The link (assuming the testers wanted to "emmulate" the actual links by using the mouseover functions to reveal their normal destinations) for the user to click for updating the records "points" to http://www.pmf.sc.gov.br/sadm/.USBank/
USBank doesn't do much business in Brazilian government.......
Simple truth created by this attitude is that only developer perspectives get built into products. This makes the end product less than it could be. Just a perpetuation of the itch-scratching he refers to.
not necessarily true. There are many filtering solutions that employ user level on the mail server itself. IT this filter is able to update the server's filter lists dynamically from the findings of the end user, it would work to lessen mail server congestion as well.
The point of the method is to tackle the bulk mailers. In that case, there would still be a high degree of other people in the to: cc: and Bcc: fields not at all related to other mail in the recipient's inbox and other folders. It's the fact that the bulking mailing sends a single message to some many people of such a diverse nature that triggers the sorting. What you describe probably falls into the roughly 50% of all mail received that does not get specifically identified.
Actually, The author doesn't seem to say that Business knowledge is a hiring requirement, just a career building one. You can't build a useful product for someone unless you understand what they need. They can't adequately communicate a product idea for you to build if they can't understand the basics of what is required in building it.
There's a seemingly one-sided approach being taken to this post by many. The way I read it, the author made a conscious effort to learn the side of the equation they did not know when they were hired. A manager who does not endevor to understand the technical side of coding is just as bad as the programmer who does not attempt to understand the complete needs of the product they are creating. All the author says is the indepth knowledge is what will save your job and your wage.
Thing is that the scope of this is not limited to cookies. Most of the language refers to server side information and manipulation. The specific item covered is a user's unique identifier being used to reference settings and other information. So this includes session based links as well.
This argument will continue in a cycle simply because of your insistance that the buyer "loses" something. If this is so, why would anyone buy anything but raw materials? If the buyer is actually losing something buying a finished product, why would he continue to do so? Once again you have conveniently ignored the basis of what I am arguing. The end consumer pays a price equal to the value they place on the product. If the product did not have that value to them, they would not buy it. Exchanging one resource (money) for another (the product) does not represent a loss. The companies are only ABLE to profit because they somehow manipulated the inputs to make them more valuable to the consumer than the materials available directly from those further up the chain. Certainly, this change may be as simple as offering a single unit for sale instead of a full case, but that is a manipulation of the inputs that adds value to the product for the end consumer.
Your argument says one thing in the end -- if it is followed to its conclusion. Consumers are stupid enough to be taken advantage of. If there is no additional value to the products they buy over the materials and labor needed to produce them, they are wasting their money. They should only by materials and PERHAPS pay someone to put them together in the way needed to create the finished products because there is no reason for them to pay the "overpriced" products in existance for the purpose of making a profit for someone else.
Wealth is indeed created because value is added along the chain. The very definition of wealth is directly tied to the value resources have. The system could not continue if someone were losing value for any prolonged period of time; especially if that group was made up of consumers. Demand is only present in accordance to value. Without demand, supply makes no one a profit. Without profit, there is no business.
I never said the products constituted wealth. The profit made by combining or using resources in a way that others were not immediately able to created wealth. Coal and iron are of no use to an Auto maker, but steel is. A Steel maker can combine the needed elements to make steel at a lower cost than the value of the steel to the automaker. The process of doing this creates wealth; not in terms of cahs in the bank, but an asset that can be sold to the automaker and others.
I fear you have oversimplified my answer to mean that products = assets = profit= wealth. This is not what I said. What I did say was that providing particular products or services from certain inputs of resources does constitute the creation of wealth. This is only true because the result has more value than the inputs did. Wealth is not a physical measure of resources. Rather, it is a measure of value. If your create value, you create wealth.
You seem to forget the wealth creation does not equate with wealth transfer. Wealth is created not by taking from one source and giving it to another. Here are two examples:
1) A plant takes in raw materials at a certain cost; transferring wealth from their resource of money in exchange for an equal or nearly equal amount of materials. That is a transfer of wealth. They employ workers to combine and modify those materials into goods; a transfer of wealth to the workers of money for the use of their time. The resultant product has a greater value to the manufacturer's customers because of the function it performs and the customer pays the manufacturer said price. The difference between the cost and revenue is the wealth created by the manufacturer. The greater efficiency with which the manufacturer does this, the greater the wealth created -- all things being equal.
2) A distributor buys large quantities from someone at a price that covers that person's needs (profit included). The distributor is able to sell more of that product to those who needs it (by transporting and packaging it is such a way that it is useful to the end customer) than the person it was purchased from. He does so at higher price than all of his costs. The difference is once again wealth created.
How can it then be a zero-sum game?
This guy tried to write an e-commerce website using software he bought for his PDA and got upset with how much a certificate cost.
I think I like the theory of including the ISP in the process where legal control exists (i.e the U.S. and other "moral" countries), but it would be difficult to implement without a distributed means of enforcement. PA can't go in to GA to make much happen -- they should report the ISP to the Feds and let them take up the fight from there. Still, most of the child porn will be hosted in other countries. The ISP's should be notified as would be their local Governments. If this would fail because the laws in those locations allow the sites or the governmets are uncooperative, then you block the address.
But the problem presented in the article seems to be caused by only doing half the work in identifying the sites. They found the site and tracked down their IP address. Once you find the address, are you done? No. It should be easy to verify that address is only hosting one site. If it isn't flag it and build the address into the filter. It isn't brain surgery -- just not followed through completely.
Don't be fooled by this "open" letter! We've all heard that word used before and now it is costing us $699 per proc!!!
While it may turn out that this is exactly what it appears to be, it could basically come down to valuation of the amount of the money they expect to see with the combination of the lawsuit and future licensing. There is a limit to which the lawsuit and licenses can produce value to the company. Many times, executives use insider sales of stock to signal that they believe the market has over-reacted to a "positive" bit of news. In fact, this may be a CYA move by the execs to prove to the SEC that they in fact tried to warn investors that the stock is over-valued.
"Good question, Mr. Brokaw. I'm glad you asked. I refuse to use either. I've written my own protocol because SCO has claimed rights over POP and Microsoft is in talks to buy IMAP."
So as SCO claims the work as theirs, the source of the code they used has had its copyright infringed. Boy, is AT&T gonna make a killing by suing SCO for damages of the amount they get from any lawsuits, settlements, licenses and the versions of Linux they sold as a distributor. I think I may call my broker and buy some of that "T" stock now.....
Doesn't this mean that by distirbuting Linux they may have implicitly agreed to the terms of contributing their code? Wouldn't that then mean they have no right to charge for it as it was contributed to the benefit of the open source community? Just a thought. I'm sure it's been said before.
Uh oh.......I once drew a flag with 10 stripes....I'm going to hell aren't I?
Enron and Worldcom situations should not be tolerated at all
I would also like to point out that both of these companies are in sectors that are still highly regulated for the purpose of "socializing" their effects to the general populous. The Utility sectors are far from the clearest examples of capitalist thought in this country. A Friend of mine is roomates with a WorldCOm salesperson. No one in the sales staff is concerned about their job as the customers are not going anywhere. Why are they not going anywhere? Too few choices. Why so few choices? The regulation of the industry was put into place to intentially form a controlled monopolistic industry. It is extremely early in the game for the deregulation that has been put into effect to make competition viable in this sector. Sure prices have been drastically reduced since the break up of AT&T, but the other competitive factors have not caught up.
In short, using companies which do not truly represent the economic ideology to point out that system's flaws is not a valid argument.
I'm not saying that law should be removed from the equation, but that a system should be judged on its own merits and faults. Capitalism's successes lie in its ability to spur competition, inovation and effeciency. The last of these things is what has brought the greatest social benefit to the first world. Its benefits are slow in coming to the rest of the planet, but to date, no one has shown a system which does any better job of elevating the standard of living -- even for the third world. Globalism brings development to remote areas. In spite of the evils that are argued to be created by sucha system, one should not overlook the benefits that accompany them. The world can not be changed overnight and the slow progression of the "evil" capitalist effeciency still seems to me to be the best hopoe for a universal raising of living standards.
There are actually five different drafts of the address, most of which were written at the request of personal or political friends of Lincoln. Unfortunately, I am about 15 years from the days when I worked in the "Lincoln Room Musuem" in Gettysburg where the first draft was written, but I am certain that at least one of the versions included the phrase.
Short answer, it wasn't simply moved from the Pledge when that was deemed unconstitutional...;)
The bidding is already up to $7,000.00 US. I tell you...Luke really got ripped off! I guess that's what happens when you have to leave the planet in a hurry.
To answer your question:
Because I am located near my employer. Labor is not a static resource. This or one of many other reasons may exist.
To get back to why a GMW is not practical (the real question you posed in the beginning):
What is a minimum wage. It's a Price floor for labor. If can agree to that, then a look at the effect of a price floor to demand:
By setting a floor, demand for the resource is limited. If you artificially set the floor higher than the economy settle to, demand will decrease to compensate. (please find an economics textbook and take a look at a demand curve as I am not able to illustrate one here)
This is the argument I am making.
It always sounds noble to give people a "fair" wage in spite of market factors. However, the end result is normally far from it's intention. This much you have not argued effectively to convince me (and probably many economists) that a Global Minimum Wage is necessary or even feasible.
The economics simply do not work out.