Yes, and just because one is intelligent enough (or depraved enough) to figure out how to concentrate extreme wealth says absolutely nothing about one's willingness to use it "intelligently". I presume the parent poster meant "for the common good" but that's not usually part of monopolistic Rockefeller-style thinking. Usually, using massive wealth "intelligently", in that context, means figuring out how to screw other people and organizations out of even more money. See: IBM, Microsoft, AT&T, SBC, or any major petroleum company and/or auto manufacturer.
Spare me. He's done a hell of a lot less than the people who do nothing but idolize him here on Slashdot, not that there are many of those. And why is that? Because the people (like me) who have been around since the beginning of the Personal Computing revolution, who made their livelihoods from it all those years, have seen firsthand the destruction Gates and his creation have wrought. Sadly, thousands of companies, products, ideas and careers have been the cost of Bill Gates' phenomenal success. In much the same way as Wal-Mart foists the cost of employees' health care upon society, so have Bill Gates and Microsoft taken from all of us and given little in return. When you get right down to it, when you think where computing might be today were it not for Microsoft, you quickly realize that they just aren't worth it.
I simply don't accept that the good he is doing in other parts of the world in any way compensates for the crimes he has committed here at home. For crimes they were... they had their day in court and were adjudged guilty. And who cares how much time he has to invest? That is a semantically void argument. I invest huge amounts of time into what I do for a living as well, but sure as Hell's a mantrap I'd never expect to be excused from wrongdoing because I work hard, especially if (like Bill Gates) I work hard at wrongdoing. And make no mistake: it is about the money with such people, it has always been about the money and always will be about the money. Otherwise I'd say he should put his money where his mouth is and give away the bulk of his fortune now, if it's so unimportant to him. But the entire population of Redmond would be overtaken by spontaneous human combustion before that would happen.
Well, I once heard it said that a psychopath is someone who doesn't know the difference between right and wrong, and a socipath is someone who does know... but just doesn't care. Balmer is probably in the latter category, which puts him right up there with the rest of corporate leadership worldwide.
Besides, you can tell a lot about a man from the caliber of his friends... which doen't say much for either Gates or Ballmer.
What do you mean, potential? Apple already has a monopoly, if the 90+% figure that keeps getting bandied about is anywhere near correct. Now that's not a problem in and of itself, since in the United States it's not illegal to be a monopolist. They gained it by good technology, good marketing and good business sense. The only question is whether they try to leverage their success in order to maintain and extend that monopoly (like Microsoft did and does.) That's what will get them into hot water. I certainly hope Apple is smart enough to resist the temptations afforded by their current position and stays away from the Dark Side.
Sure he is. Rockefeller engaged in a lot of well-publicized philanthropy in an effort to polish his image too, but in the end he was still a monster, who did a lot of damage along the way. And we'll see just how much money Gates actually gives away. Odds are it won't be as much as he claims, because there will be a lot of people that will go to court to try and prevent it, and maybe in the end he won't want to anyways. Frankly, I don't believe a word that comes out of that man's mouth.
... which require users to enroll and enter a Social Security number on a touch screen."
Asking people to enter sensitive information on a touch screen in a completely insecure environment? It's one thing to go to your local bank branch and sign up for an ATM service, it's an entirely diffent matter to do it while standing in a 7-11. customers complained about the machine's usability, but I don't care if the thing is running Mac OSX... an ATM is simply not the place to be signing up for services.
Actually, no. A light saber is just a limited directional force field modulated with a visible light frequency (helps to be able to see what you're slicing.) The field is only a few molecules thick, and simply slices right through most forms of matter. That's why light sabers work fine underwater.
Even before the Age of the Outsource came upon us, it was always a good idea to have multiple skillsets, even within a given discipline. However, I'd say that from the standpoint of avoiding being "rightsized" it's just as important to to keep the people who make such decisions aware of your value. That requires yet another skillset: politics. It's typical of software and engineering types who sit in their cubicles all day to be shocked when they get let go: they may feel (often correctly!) that their value to the company is sufficient to keep them on. What they don't often understand is that it's asking a lot to expect that information to somehow (by osmosis, telepathy or some other more direct means) to float upwards to the decision-making levels. If you're known as the "driver guy" and they can find some Indian dude to do (what appears to be) the same thing for a fraction of the cost... well. The fact that you not only write drivers, but write proposals and specs, API documentation, user manuals, handle the occasional tough customer problem, help train salespeople and are an invaluable source of product information for everyone from engineering to marketing doesn't make a damn bit of difference if the guy pulling the trigger doesn't know it. Sure, your fellow employees may be devastated after you're gone, hell your entire division may implode without you, but that won't do you any good.
Software patents. A number of countries in the EU, for example, already recognize software patents, although I don't know of any that are enforcing them to the degree that the United States' lawyers have been doing. For that matter, the EU as a whole has been dancing around that issue for some time and will probably make it law (there's a hell of a lot of political pressure to make it happen.) Anyway, it's easy (and rightly so!) to criticize the U.S. for it's foolish stance on the subject, but the rest of the world isn't behaving much better. Consider yourself lucky to be Norwegian.
Thanks Tony, your long lasting legacy will certainly be felt for decades to come, as noone ever restores civil liberties or removes draconian legislation (or emergency legislation as they like to call it) unless theres a definative sunset clause.
Oh sure. I didn't mean to single out Great Britain as the prime example of encroaching totalitarianism... everything that England has done the U.S. government has either already followed suit or is trying to. In some respects we're actually worse off, civil-liberty-wise. Video cameras, for example, are the "next big thing" here, they're showing up everywhere. Everntually we'll have more per-capita than Britain does. I recently read that the city of Chicago is putting in a giant fiber ring for the express purpose of... you guessed it, serving more cameras.
why our Federal Government, which maintains standards for everything from automobile quarter-panels to fruit punch, can't lay out and enforce a set of standards for something as basic as a goddamn electronic counter. This pisses me off, and the fact that the Feds are apparently unwilling to implement such standards indicates that they really are not serious about accurate, transparent and trustworthy voting. This is not rocket science. Furthermore, given Diebold's awful track record regarding, well, pretty much everything they do I think they should simply be banned from selling equipment for this purpose. I'm not sure what else they have to do to show they cannot be trusted. Unless, of course, the Feds step up to the plate, create and enforce a solid set of quality standards for voting equipment... in that case Diebold would have no choice but to clean up their act.
Well, forgetting for the moment politically-motivated fragmentation such as the Great Firewall, I'm sure there are any number of corporations that would just love to serve as gateways between the various segments of a fractured Internet. Of course, there would be fees involved...
If you create a.xxx TLD many of the relevant sites will have a presence there.
Which means that porn will simply become more easily accessible than it was before. Probably not what the people pushing for this really want, but then again nobody in this country is rational on the subject of pornography and sexuality anyway. That in itself is a good argument against.XXX... nobody can even agree on a common definition of porno, and there's no reason why they should have to.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, at least his nick is honest ... MSFanBoi2. Kinda says it all.
Here we go again.
Flicking LCDs, overheating and intermitting WiFi connections are all common place
If you people would stop flicking your LCD panels around they probably wouldn't break so often. They're quite delicate you know.
I never could figure out who was Number One in The Prisoner. Now we know: Patrick McGoohan's nemesis was none other than ... Gnarls Barkely. Cool.
Yes, and just because one is intelligent enough (or depraved enough) to figure out how to concentrate extreme wealth says absolutely nothing about one's willingness to use it "intelligently". I presume the parent poster meant "for the common good" but that's not usually part of monopolistic Rockefeller-style thinking. Usually, using massive wealth "intelligently", in that context, means figuring out how to screw other people and organizations out of even more money. See: IBM, Microsoft, AT&T, SBC, or any major petroleum company and/or auto manufacturer.
Spare me. He's done a hell of a lot less than the people who do nothing but idolize him here on Slashdot, not that there are many of those. And why is that? Because the people (like me) who have been around since the beginning of the Personal Computing revolution, who made their livelihoods from it all those years, have seen firsthand the destruction Gates and his creation have wrought. Sadly, thousands of companies, products, ideas and careers have been the cost of Bill Gates' phenomenal success. In much the same way as Wal-Mart foists the cost of employees' health care upon society, so have Bill Gates and Microsoft taken from all of us and given little in return. When you get right down to it, when you think where computing might be today were it not for Microsoft, you quickly realize that they just aren't worth it.
... they had their day in court and were adjudged guilty. And who cares how much time he has to invest? That is a semantically void argument. I invest huge amounts of time into what I do for a living as well, but sure as Hell's a mantrap I'd never expect to be excused from wrongdoing because I work hard, especially if (like Bill Gates) I work hard at wrongdoing. And make no mistake: it is about the money with such people, it has always been about the money and always will be about the money. Otherwise I'd say he should put his money where his mouth is and give away the bulk of his fortune now, if it's so unimportant to him. But the entire population of Redmond would be overtaken by spontaneous human combustion before that would happen.
I simply don't accept that the good he is doing in other parts of the world in any way compensates for the crimes he has committed here at home. For crimes they were
Hey ... with a name like Gnarls Barkley, it's gotta be good.
Or does that only apply to grape jelly?
They can always have her shot.
Well, I once heard it said that a psychopath is someone who doesn't know the difference between right and wrong, and a socipath is someone who does know ... but just doesn't care. Balmer is probably in the latter category, which puts him right up there with the rest of corporate leadership worldwide.
... which doen't say much for either Gates or Ballmer.
Besides, you can tell a lot about a man from the caliber of his friends
What do you mean, potential? Apple already has a monopoly, if the 90+% figure that keeps getting bandied about is anywhere near correct. Now that's not a problem in and of itself, since in the United States it's not illegal to be a monopolist. They gained it by good technology, good marketing and good business sense. The only question is whether they try to leverage their success in order to maintain and extend that monopoly (like Microsoft did and does.) That's what will get them into hot water. I certainly hope Apple is smart enough to resist the temptations afforded by their current position and stays away from the Dark Side.
Sure he is. Rockefeller engaged in a lot of well-publicized philanthropy in an effort to polish his image too, but in the end he was still a monster, who did a lot of damage along the way. And we'll see just how much money Gates actually gives away. Odds are it won't be as much as he claims, because there will be a lot of people that will go to court to try and prevent it, and maybe in the end he won't want to anyways. Frankly, I don't believe a word that comes out of that man's mouth.
... which require users to enroll and enter a Social Security number on a touch screen."
... an ATM is simply not the place to be signing up for services.
Asking people to enter sensitive information on a touch screen in a completely insecure environment? It's one thing to go to your local bank branch and sign up for an ATM service, it's an entirely diffent matter to do it while standing in a 7-11. customers complained about the machine's usability, but I don't care if the thing is running Mac OSX
If any system seemed designed to fail this is it.
Actually, no. A light saber is just a limited directional force field modulated with a visible light frequency (helps to be able to see what you're slicing.) The field is only a few molecules thick, and simply slices right through most forms of matter. That's why light sabers work fine underwater.
The entire Solar System could save on heating bills.
Even before the Age of the Outsource came upon us, it was always a good idea to have multiple skillsets, even within a given discipline. However, I'd say that from the standpoint of avoiding being "rightsized" it's just as important to to keep the people who make such decisions aware of your value. That requires yet another skillset: politics. It's typical of software and engineering types who sit in their cubicles all day to be shocked when they get let go: they may feel (often correctly!) that their value to the company is sufficient to keep them on. What they don't often understand is that it's asking a lot to expect that information to somehow (by osmosis, telepathy or some other more direct means) to float upwards to the decision-making levels. If you're known as the "driver guy" and they can find some Indian dude to do (what appears to be) the same thing for a fraction of the cost ... well. The fact that you not only write drivers, but write proposals and specs, API documentation, user manuals, handle the occasional tough customer problem, help train salespeople and are an invaluable source of product information for everyone from engineering to marketing doesn't make a damn bit of difference if the guy pulling the trigger doesn't know it. Sure, your fellow employees may be devastated after you're gone, hell your entire division may implode without you, but that won't do you any good.
Software patents. A number of countries in the EU, for example, already recognize software patents, although I don't know of any that are enforcing them to the degree that the United States' lawyers have been doing. For that matter, the EU as a whole has been dancing around that issue for some time and will probably make it law (there's a hell of a lot of political pressure to make it happen.) Anyway, it's easy (and rightly so!) to criticize the U.S. for it's foolish stance on the subject, but the rest of the world isn't behaving much better. Consider yourself lucky to be Norwegian.
Thanks Tony, your long lasting legacy will certainly be felt for decades to come, as noone ever restores civil liberties or removes draconian legislation (or emergency legislation as they like to call it) unless theres a definative sunset clause.
That doesn't work either. See: Patriot Act.
Oh sure. I didn't mean to single out Great Britain as the prime example of encroaching totalitarianism ... everything that England has done the U.S. government has either already followed suit or is trying to. In some respects we're actually worse off, civil-liberty-wise. Video cameras, for example, are the "next big thing" here, they're showing up everywhere. Everntually we'll have more per-capita than Britain does. I recently read that the city of Chicago is putting in a giant fiber ring for the express purpose of ... you guessed it, serving more cameras.
Kinda makes you want to throw up.
That's just not true.
why our Federal Government, which maintains standards for everything from automobile quarter-panels to fruit punch, can't lay out and enforce a set of standards for something as basic as a goddamn electronic counter. This pisses me off, and the fact that the Feds are apparently unwilling to implement such standards indicates that they really are not serious about accurate, transparent and trustworthy voting. This is not rocket science. Furthermore, given Diebold's awful track record regarding, well, pretty much everything they do I think they should simply be banned from selling equipment for this purpose. I'm not sure what else they have to do to show they cannot be trusted. Unless, of course, the Feds step up to the plate, create and enforce a solid set of quality standards for voting equipment ... in that case Diebold would have no choice but to clean up their act.
I'm not holding my breath.
Great Britain, meet Totalitarian State.
Isn't that rather like Satan joining the Peace Corps?
Well, forgetting for the moment politically-motivated fragmentation such as the Great Firewall, I'm sure there are any number of corporations that would just love to serve as gateways between the various segments of a fractured Internet. Of course, there would be fees involved ...
At least the flashlight is atomic-powered and doesn't need batteries.
If you create a .xxx TLD many of the relevant sites will have a presence there.
.XXX ... nobody can even agree on a common definition of porno, and there's no reason why they should have to.
Which means that porn will simply become more easily accessible than it was before. Probably not what the people pushing for this really want, but then again nobody in this country is rational on the subject of pornography and sexuality anyway. That in itself is a good argument against