Many people might ridicule this - how much control can an ISP really have over their users? Sure, they might provide their own content, but users are smart enough to go their own way, right?
I used to work for a large ISP and we found that a majority of our users thought their ISP connection would stop working if they changed their homepage to something other than us. That's how much power we had over our users - scary.
Kinda makes Microsoft look like the good guys - I feel a divide by zero error coming on!;)
I assume you volunteer your time and work in IT support for a lab full of volunteers working their butts of trying to find a cure for this and a zillion other diseases? No? You expect to be paid? So do they - and they can't get paid without patents. It's not always fair, but at least the drugs get developed this way and eventually become generic, better than a fair system with no drugs at all.
There is a big change going on at the moment - wireless mobile computing. And the thing about wireless mobile computing is that you aren't always connected to the network, but you need to be able to work regardless. That's why many new apps are all getting better at working both online and offline - Microsoft's new Outlook 11 is a great example of this.
With a thin client delivery, you MUST be on the network to work. It just doesn't cut it for the people who move around and aren't always in the office - and those are often your most valuable/highly paid employees who are the ones you most want to get a productivity boost out of!
I disagree with not telling people the gender. We found out we were having a boy, told everyone, have no regrets and plan to find out the gender of our next baby. Yes, mistakes happen sometimes, but you'll get no clothes (or lots of ghastly pale green and yellow) if you don't tell the gender.
I don't buy this whole "you want a surprise" line. You've got a friggin BABY, and you want a BIGGER suprise???????
As far as the name goes, definitely don't tell people that pre-birth. People feel that before the baby is born, the name is negotiable. So unless you want everyone making comments and contributing to the process, keep it to yourself. Once the baby is born people just accept that's the name. You can guarantee someone close to you won't like the name. They'll get used to it real fast.
It's all very easy to sit around and put each other on the back and say "yes, well, we've known this for years". We know that Bill made his big trustworthy computing announcement, and he said it was a forward looking initiative - they were going to focus on getting new products right rather than going back and re-architecting old products (a decision I agree with).
So, Windows Server 2003 was RTMed last week - the first OS released post-trustworthy computing. Let's wait and see the fruits of Bills initiative, rather than keep flogging that same dead horse. If windows 2003 has good security, well, maybe they have a chance. If it doesn't, forget it, game over.
"...debunking the myth that while the community can hack a kernel or compiler together, we can't build a large scale project designed for everyday folks to use..."
Not wanting to rain on their parade, as I agree that Mozilla is a great project, but isn't the only reason they have succeeded building a "large scale project" because of the significant backing of one company (Netscape/AOL)? While the community certainly had a very significant contribution, I think we might be giving it a little more credit than it is due.
There is a big difference between pro sports and this. Pro sports have sponsors, ticket sales, TV deals, etc., which is where they get the big $ from.
This is gambling - a zero sum game where only the best of the best make any real money.
It's more comparable to playing pool for money. You might win a few and loose a few, but only the best will make serious $. Maybe we will see frag sharking? "I lost last game, one more game... triple the stakes"
Sure, another MS exploit. Seems to be one almost every week, and it sucks.
What I do find interesting is that/. chose to post this article, but reject an article I submitted yesterday about a very serious security hole in Opera - Opera describe it as "extremely critical".
I'm not griping about having my story rejected, I've had many rejected and a few accepted, and that's the way things are, no problem. What I am questioning is the editorial bias. Here we are at a website which probably has one of the highest concentration of Opera users of any website in the world, and they chose to not post a negative story about "the good guys" (which has exploits in the wild) but did choose to post a negative story about "the bad guys".
Aren't we missing something very important here - client vs. server breakdown? The article seems to assume that it's all about clients, but I just can't believe 40% of developers are doing linux client work. Servers, of course, are another thing altogether.
And of course we all know 1 server box (or 1 cluster) can keep several developers happily employed for years, maintaining & enhancing some line of business app/web application/etc.
So it seems the relationship between the number of developers and number of installs is a pretty weak one.
These ideas obviously aren't new - I understand Canada has a "tax" on blank CDRs and other countries have similar laws in place or under consideration - although this German proposal is quite extreme.
However, you have to question the fundamental motivation of the various industry associations. Should their motivation be to maintain/replace revenue from new streams (the path they seem to have chosen), to generate new forms of revenue (online music sales being the most obvious), or to make sure they get what they are due from their current streams (antipiracy).
It seems the option they have taken is the one of least benefit to the users. As someone who pays for CDs, I am paying a "tax" to subsidise the pirates. And I get nothing new for the money - I am just unwillingly propping up their obsolete business model.
How many people have actually gotten spam from Microsoft? I get a few newsletters which I can unsubscribe to at any time. I get very infrequent mails (once every month or two) which are generally pretty targeted to my interests, I think most of them have an opt out.
This sounds like the way "spam" should be sent - target, restrained, and with the option to opt out. I don't see a problem.
How does having an equity stake 'keep propping up a "competitor"'? They gave them the money years ago when they bought the stake, that's that. Having an equity stake doesn't give Corel any money on an on going basis.
I just don't get the logic of your argument - but maybe it's that you get more karma from bashing Microsoft than presenting a coherent argument...
But your post raises an interesting question: is beauty an absolute or relative concept? If through some genetic manipulation everyone becomes "beautiful" (by current standards), does that then fail to be beautiful? Is beautiful beautiful because of the (pleasant) way it differs from the "norm"? Or will we be in heaven living in a world of super models?
The "two wrongs make a right argument". Just because some pioneer kid saw a dead body doesn't make it right. Perhaps that kid was scarred for life, or developed some mental problem as a result of that incident.
I agree that we need to teach kids the world is a nasty place - but I for one want to control the rate at which I tell my kid that. Getting hard core pr0n spam in my inbox makes it harder for me to raise my child how I want to.
I don't get this. Why should the government fiddle with prices? If the software is too expensive, don't buy it. Use open office, star office, word perfect, heck, use MS Works, whatever. If it's worth the $400, buy it. If it's not, don't buy it. As soon as the government starts controlling company prices, it's one step towards communism.
Isn't it like saying "I'd love a ferrari but I can't afford one so the government should regulate to make it cheaper". If it's not worth the $50,000 to me, then don't buy it. It's not like we are talking about food, water or shelter here (things essential to life, and therefore can arguably use some regulation).
There is no excuse for piracy. There are free alternatives. If it's such a big problem for taiwan, they should spend their time promoting the free alternatives.
'The financial effect is the same for record companies whether people get illegal compact disks for $1 on the street in China or download a song for free from the Internet in Europe,' said Jay Berman, chairman and chief executive of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, a London-based group representing 1,500 record companies worldwide.
This is a pretty cheap shot and consistent with the music industries tendency to blame all their woes on downloaded music. Personally, I often "download a song for free" but if I like it, I buy it (although I know not everyone does). I doubt very much the Chinese buying pirated CDs then go and buy the genuine CD.
Isn't this the same thing we criticised when Microsoft was certified and said that if they made it through, it must be hopelessly inadequate certification process? Now the Linux is involved, it's suddenly a good thing?
A bit of MS bashing is fine, but this is taking it a bit far for me.
Slashdot Mirror
Many people might ridicule this - how much control can an ISP really have over their users? Sure, they might provide their own content, but users are smart enough to go their own way, right?
;)
I used to work for a large ISP and we found that a majority of our users thought their ISP connection would stop working if they changed their homepage to something other than us. That's how much power we had over our users - scary.
Kinda makes Microsoft look like the good guys - I feel a divide by zero error coming on!
I assume you volunteer your time and work in IT support for a lab full of volunteers working their butts of trying to find a cure for this and a zillion other diseases? No? You expect to be paid? So do they - and they can't get paid without patents. It's not always fair, but at least the drugs get developed this way and eventually become generic, better than a fair system with no drugs at all.
There is a big change going on at the moment - wireless mobile computing. And the thing about wireless mobile computing is that you aren't always connected to the network, but you need to be able to work regardless. That's why many new apps are all getting better at working both online and offline - Microsoft's new Outlook 11 is a great example of this.
With a thin client delivery, you MUST be on the network to work. It just doesn't cut it for the people who move around and aren't always in the office - and those are often your most valuable/highly paid employees who are the ones you most want to get a productivity boost out of!
Sorry IBM, close, but no banana.
I disagree with not telling people the gender. We found out we were having a boy, told everyone, have no regrets and plan to find out the gender of our next baby. Yes, mistakes happen sometimes, but you'll get no clothes (or lots of ghastly pale green and yellow) if you don't tell the gender.
I don't buy this whole "you want a surprise" line. You've got a friggin BABY, and you want a BIGGER suprise???????
As far as the name goes, definitely don't tell people that pre-birth. People feel that before the baby is born, the name is negotiable. So unless you want everyone making comments and contributing to the process, keep it to yourself. Once the baby is born people just accept that's the name. You can guarantee someone close to you won't like the name. They'll get used to it real fast.
It's all very easy to sit around and put each other on the back and say "yes, well, we've known this for years". We know that Bill made his big trustworthy computing announcement, and he said it was a forward looking initiative - they were going to focus on getting new products right rather than going back and re-architecting old products (a decision I agree with).
So, Windows Server 2003 was RTMed last week - the first OS released post-trustworthy computing. Let's wait and see the fruits of Bills initiative, rather than keep flogging that same dead horse. If windows 2003 has good security, well, maybe they have a chance. If it doesn't, forget it, game over.
They will probably just get the same april fools joke and show it 3 times in the next 24 hours as duplicates :)
"...debunking the myth that while the community can hack a kernel or compiler together, we can't build a large scale project designed for everyday folks to use..."
Not wanting to rain on their parade, as I agree that Mozilla is a great project, but isn't the only reason they have succeeded building a "large scale project" because of the significant backing of one company (Netscape/AOL)? While the community certainly had a very significant contribution, I think we might be giving it a little more credit than it is due.
There is a big difference between pro sports and this. Pro sports have sponsors, ticket sales, TV deals, etc., which is where they get the big $ from.
This is gambling - a zero sum game where only the best of the best make any real money.
It's more comparable to playing pool for money. You might win a few and loose a few, but only the best will make serious $. Maybe we will see frag sharking? "I lost last game, one more game... triple the stakes"
Robot schmobot.
I was promised a flying car. Anyone up for a class action law suit against "Popular Mechanics"?
Sure, another MS exploit. Seems to be one almost every week, and it sucks.
/. chose to post this article, but reject an article I submitted yesterday about a very serious security hole in Opera - Opera describe it as "extremely critical".
/. displaying an unfair bias?
What I do find interesting is that
I'm not griping about having my story rejected, I've had many rejected and a few accepted, and that's the way things are, no problem. What I am questioning is the editorial bias. Here we are at a website which probably has one of the highest concentration of Opera users of any website in the world, and they chose to not post a negative story about "the good guys" (which has exploits in the wild) but did choose to post a negative story about "the bad guys".
Just more of
Aren't we missing something very important here - client vs. server breakdown? The article seems to assume that it's all about clients, but I just can't believe 40% of developers are doing linux client work. Servers, of course, are another thing altogether.
And of course we all know 1 server box (or 1 cluster) can keep several developers happily employed for years, maintaining & enhancing some line of business app/web application/etc.
So it seems the relationship between the number of developers and number of installs is a pretty weak one.
How many websites would have an article that begins:
"A very cool scientific paper..."
Oh dear, we really are geeks, aren't we.
These ideas obviously aren't new - I understand Canada has a "tax" on blank CDRs and other countries have similar laws in place or under consideration - although this German proposal is quite extreme.
However, you have to question the fundamental motivation of the various industry associations. Should their motivation be to maintain/replace revenue from new streams (the path they seem to have chosen), to generate new forms of revenue (online music sales being the most obvious), or to make sure they get what they are due from their current streams (antipiracy).
It seems the option they have taken is the one of least benefit to the users. As someone who pays for CDs, I am paying a "tax" to subsidise the pirates. And I get nothing new for the money - I am just unwillingly propping up their obsolete business model.
Seems poorly thought out to me.
How many people have actually gotten spam from Microsoft? I get a few newsletters which I can unsubscribe to at any time. I get very infrequent mails (once every month or two) which are generally pretty targeted to my interests, I think most of them have an opt out.
This sounds like the way "spam" should be sent - target, restrained, and with the option to opt out. I don't see a problem.
What experience have other people had?
How does having an equity stake 'keep propping up a "competitor"'? They gave them the money years ago when they bought the stake, that's that. Having an equity stake doesn't give Corel any money on an on going basis.
I just don't get the logic of your argument - but maybe it's that you get more karma from bashing Microsoft than presenting a coherent argument...
Is there a gene that will give everyone excellent karma?
But your post raises an interesting question: is beauty an absolute or relative concept? If through some genetic manipulation everyone becomes "beautiful" (by current standards), does that then fail to be beautiful? Is beautiful beautiful because of the (pleasant) way it differs from the "norm"? Or will we be in heaven living in a world of super models?
Food for thought...
The "two wrongs make a right argument". Just because some pioneer kid saw a dead body doesn't make it right. Perhaps that kid was scarred for life, or developed some mental problem as a result of that incident.
I agree that we need to teach kids the world is a nasty place - but I for one want to control the rate at which I tell my kid that. Getting hard core pr0n spam in my inbox makes it harder for me to raise my child how I want to.
Is it just me or does anything more than about 5 years old look like a Commodore 64?
I don't get this. Why should the government fiddle with prices? If the software is too expensive, don't buy it. Use open office, star office, word perfect, heck, use MS Works, whatever. If it's worth the $400, buy it. If it's not, don't buy it. As soon as the government starts controlling company prices, it's one step towards communism.
Isn't it like saying "I'd love a ferrari but I can't afford one so the government should regulate to make it cheaper". If it's not worth the $50,000 to me, then don't buy it. It's not like we are talking about food, water or shelter here (things essential to life, and therefore can arguably use some regulation).
There is no excuse for piracy. There are free alternatives. If it's such a big problem for taiwan, they should spend their time promoting the free alternatives.
'The financial effect is the same for record companies whether people get illegal compact disks for $1 on the street in China or download a song for free from the Internet in Europe,' said Jay Berman, chairman and chief executive of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, a London-based group representing 1,500 record companies worldwide.
This is a pretty cheap shot and consistent with the music industries tendency to blame all their woes on downloaded music. Personally, I often "download a song for free" but if I like it, I buy it (although I know not everyone does). I doubt very much the Chinese buying pirated CDs then go and buy the genuine CD.
The problem with having a voting system based on open source code is we would end up with Cowboy Neal as President.
Time to burn some Karma...
A new site (1 week old) for Australian Christian Singles (including geeks!).
Isn't this the same thing we criticised when Microsoft was certified and said that if they made it through, it must be hopelessly inadequate certification process? Now the Linux is involved, it's suddenly a good thing?
A bit of MS bashing is fine, but this is taking it a bit far for me.
Google cache here.