"Smart" people are easy vicitims of social engineering. People who follow orders often are not. I think a good mix of both is necessary to have good security.
Talk about convenient. This topic just came up yesterday. My mom called, asked me what type of PBX she should purchase for home use. And to think that someone had this very thought in mind today! Wow. Thanks everyone.
I don't think you get it. Using JPEG or TIFF is not nearly as useful. Raw format (Nikon's NEF format) allows the user to adjust white balance and other settings after the shot. It's far easier to do it in raw than it is in JPEG or TIFF.
This whole thing seems like it's driven by Nikon's greed. They want money for their software, and they don't want anyone else taking a slice of the pie. Frankly, I think this will turn Nikon customers towards Canon, Konica-Minolta, etc.
Frankly, you'd think that Nikon, with a smaller market share than Canon, would do everything in their power to attract customers rather than alienate them. This is clearly NOT going to win the hearts and minds of photographers everywhere.
Nikon is not a software company. They're a camera company. They should stick to lenses, camera bodies, and flash units.
I'm glad I left Nikon for Canon.
Balloney!
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Voom No More
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I think they died because they don't have a PVR. Hi-Def folks are early adopters and they want the technology. Of course, with all the mess swirling around DirecTV's move to Mpeg4 and the obsolesence of the HD-Tivo, it will be interesting to see what happens next.
Voom died because they didn't know how to compete. They were the 3rd player in a 2 player race. If you want to break into an established market, you go back to the basics and compete on price. First and foremost, people are going to ask, "What does it cost?" You do what it takes to bring in the subscribers. Voom didn't do that. Sure, they had a big lineup of channels, but half of those channels, no one had ever seen. There's not enough marketshare to survive on HD alone. What incentive did Voom offer to switch? You couldn't walk into Sears, Best Buy, or anywhere and look at their lineup. Why? I've had an HDTV from the moment the 2nd gen Mitsubishis were introduced. I picked up a DirecTV HD receiver as soon as they offered service. I have no interest in the HD TIVO box because you have to reboot the thing EVERY DAY. What a piece of junk! It's more aggravation that it's worth. There aren't enough HD owners out there yet for a satellite company to survive. And HD owners that want TIVO? There's no way I'd gamble on such a specific audience. Your speculation doesn't wash.
The truth is, PVR, MPEG4 and the impending doom of the current HD-TIVO box have nothing to do with the decline of Voom. Voom never acquired enough subscribers to pay for their programming. And their programming stunk. They had a hodge-podge of everything, which meant they were excellent at nothing. If you want subscribers, you've got to go after the sports market first.
Their sports lineup stunk. Instead, Voom chose to compete with custom programming. Switching to Voom was a risk, and in the beginning, no one was willing to risk it because Voom wasn't willing to offer any fantastic deals. I would have done the opposite. I would have worked hard to get the sports market, and ALSO undercut everyone's prices... a lot more than what they were willing to do. Subsidize the hardware... from the beginning. And then word of mouth might have gotten them more subs. I don't have a single friend that asked me about Voom. Not one. And I'm the early adopter. No one was interested in trying Voom. I mentioned it. But no one cared.
Grocery store and Best Buy are two different types of stores. A bag of groceries is $15 to $20, and up until recently, grocery stores only took checks or cash.
Best Buy took cash, but how many items are cheap enough to require the use of a $2.00 bill? Not many. Yet a grocery store might see them ten times a week.
Best Buy handled this very poorly. They treated the customer like dirt. They have uneducated sales staff that don't know the truth, then make promises that they can't keep, or have no intention of keeping, and then when someone is angry, they call the police and have them arrested for using $2 bills. And when Best Buy gets bad press, they blaim the customer!
It's clear that with the recent changes at Best Buy that they're doing everything they can to drive away various segments of their customer base. Their attempt to drive away the "bad" customers is more successful at driving away "bad" and "good" customers. They clearly don't deserve my business.
I've got two $2 bills, and I acquired them each in the past 3 months. One in an airport, and the other in a card. They're not that rare.
And who counterfeits $2.00 bills? Who has that kind of time? And contrary to what the story says, counterfeit bills often have the SAME serial number... not consecutive numbers.
The big issue here is the callous disregard for this customer by Best Buy. They blatantly went back on their word, and they should ultimately pay for their mistake.
I've seen better April Fools Day pranks than this one.
Besides, if this were true, would it matter what the UN said or did?
Actually, it would probably be a good thing, I wouldn't get so much SPAM from China. I'd sure like to filter the entire country of China from sending me anything.
Remember DIVX?
Circuit City attempted to market Divx as a cheap DVD solution? You bought a DIVX movie, you got 2 days to watch the movie after you stuck it in the player, and then you had to pay more money if you wanted to watch it again. The public didn't buy it. It never got ugly, DIVX just died a slow death. It really had no value.
People saw it as a greedy attempt to control users' viewing habits. It was painful. People want value, and they want to be able to take that value with them. They want something that they can hold in their hands and look at. They can put it on their mantel, or their bookshelf and look at, read, or listen to. In the vinyl days, there was a ritual. Load the record, clean it with D4, sit back, and listen to side 1. Nowadays, it's a little different, but the audiophiles among us don't mind loading a CD.
Now, fast-forward a few years. Apple is being told by the labels, "Charge the customer to keep their library." So Apple says, "$20 a month, you keep your library." Never mind that we sold you the music once, this is how it's going to be in the future if you want to keep using iTunes and your iPod.
What do you think will happen? I think people will start collecting rocks, hopping on airplanes, or in their VW microbus, Eurovan, Mini, or pedaling their bicycles over to Apple HQ and they'll tell them what they think. The labels are going to keep pushing, and eventually, the consumers will just snap. And they won't be happy unless they get a LOT more freedom back than just a simple reversion to the last iteration of iTunes. I think it'll take a lot more cajoling than that to get the buying public back. I hope the labels rot. I hope the musicians finally do an end-around on the labels and start selling their own music. Tell the label execs to go f*** themselves.
There's no one more despicable on this planet than a record label exec. Wait. I think lawyers are almost as bad. Ok. The worst is definitely a lawyer record label exec.
There's a HUGE difference between whistleblowers and the morons blogging their pea-sized brains out. Most of these bloggers are NOT whistleblowers. They're complaining about the boss. Or they're complaining about him, her, or the people down in department 99. They usually admit to doing stupid shit on company time, and that, my friends, is tantamount to theft. You fuck around on company time, that's grounds for dismissal. I don't care whose rights you think are being violated. If you cash your paycheck, and you did nothing to earn some or all of that money, that's tough shit.
Let's face it. Most people are stupid. They blog, they send emails, and they admit to shit that they wouldn't dream in their wildest hallucinations would come back to haunt them. Yet when the boss drops them the pink slip, they have the nerve to be shocked! Most of these dumb fucks that work for Best Buy or these other places were not there to put in an honest days' work, they were there to scam their way to some free shit. And they did their best not to get caught. While Best Buy happens to be the company in this particular post, I don't think that Best Buy is totally without blame either. They're just as bad (or as good) as any other company out there. But I think the actual number of whistleblower bloggers is a very small number.
The rest of these bloggers, spouting off a bunch of noise? They have no clue that this shit will come back to haunt them. Face it. Email, blogs, this shit is forever. Google (and dozens of other sites) capture all this stuff and archive it. What are you going to do when your blog says you fuck off all day at work, and your employer fires you for admitting it? Are you trying to tell me that you think these morons have a right to a job?
If I were an ISP, and I were faced with this, I'd simply cease to offer business in Utah. What are the fines going to be like? It's a fucking nightmare to consider such a task.
Someone go offshore, and cut access to Costa Rica. Let them have their private internet. If they want to set rules, then they should have to live with the results. If they want freedom and choice, then we stay hooked up.
Actually, if you read my post, you'll see that I suggested an answer. Choose between 3 or 4 companies.
There are dozens of companies waiting to offer broadband or Wi-Fi. If they aren't willing to offer it in some areas, there might be a reason! The free market decides where and when. I don't want to depend on the government. The average voter gets their news from the main stream media. Do you trust the media? I'd much rather choose from a selection of different companies. And if it's not offered in my area, and I feel it's important, I'll move to where the services are offered. If people can't afford to move, I suggest to you that broadband/wi-fi isn't their only problem, and that the governement might do FAR better to solve some of those problems more than anything else. You can either give out welfare, or teach people a vocation. No one is happy sitting at home on welfare. It's never enough.
You did bring up a good point. If you look at the original parent.... way up there, they don't really suggest a solution either! My guess is they're complaining about big corporations more than anything else. Frankly, who likes government run institutions? If you have a choice, would you go to the government run grocery store? Or would you go to a privately owned grocery store? Do you want politicians telling you what you can eat? How about what price you can pay? How about letting the government drive private businesses out of business?
Let the government do what it was intended for. Saving the homeless. Feeding the poor. Education, protection. Offering luxuries like wi-fi and broadband? While people are dying? And private companies are waiting to offer service?
I know.. there are people in NY that don't have wi-fi/broadband. Too bad. Move to where it's offered? It's a solution, and it's not spending tax money on luxuries.
Politicians have picked Wi-Fi/Broadband because it's trendy. It's popular. They want to leave their legacy. Frankly, too many politicians leave too many expensive white elephants after they're gone. Tell the politicians to solve the problems that remain unsolved. Literacy. Homelessness. Starvation.
I don't get the dreamy types who want the government to run something technical? Most people on/. are bloody paranoid about government abuse of power, spying, etc. Why on EARTH would you want the government building a muni network?
Personally, I think muni networks stifle innovation. Sure, there are the exceptions, but on the whole, most muni networks are a day late and a dollar short. Who wants their local network run by a committee that hasn't ANY CLUE about technology? Worse, they'll hire some crooked contractor to administer the thing, and offer incentive-based pay to keep costs as low as possible. I've seen government contracts like these, and they frequently accomplish the opposite of what they were intended, and the politicians who are responsible are long gone by the time the full effects are felt.
Which would you rather have? 3 or 4 companies vying to offer broadband? A little competition, different features, upgrades every few years? Or a local government that bought a white elephant from the lowest bidder? And then have it governed by a group of politicians who are non-technical glory hounds, probably bought off by the white elephant equipment vendor?
Hmmm. Tough choice.
Do you really want your next door neighbors telling the city that they don't want anymore upgrades because they don't care? Or would you rather vote with your pocketbook and choose from a selection of providers?
I adblock all SWF, all fastclick, so that would explain why I've yet to see a popup. I hate flash.
In fact, if you use flash, I just don't need to see what you're offering. Too many banners (ESPN for example) use flash for too many ads. I don't need it.
The city of Chicago offers a permit, $325, which allows commercial photography in ANY city park for one day. You may take personal photos in any park at any time without paying anything. So, I think I'll just shoot away, buy the permit for $325, and "turn pro", releasing all my images on one day.
Oh... most people missed the part about ALL CITY PARKS. That's right. You can't shoot commercially in ANY city park in Chicago. So the Millenium Park "rights" belonging to the artists might hold a little water... but what about the hundreds of other parks? I suppose the trees are copyrighted? Does the park superintendent own the rights to the flower bed designs?
I think people should start a call-in campaign. Don't call the politicians. Call every business in Chicago that depends on tourism and shopping. Restaurants, bars, hotels, and all the ritzy stores on Michigan Ave. Tell them that you were considering a trip to Chicago. That it really would have been a lot of money... but since the fascists running Chicago don't see fit to allow free use of a camera, the trip won't be possible.
Don't blame technology or isolationistic behavior for any of this. Hate is hate. People are looking to belong. These sad souls simply have twisted values, and those values are most often passed on from family members. End of story.
Bringing these people attention is the last thing I'd do. Bullys and hate-mongers? They don't deserve the attention. Leave them alone. Let them have their private discussions. The rest of the planet sees them for what they are.
I think that this will self-regulate itself very nicely.
Here's why: I have friends who already live in my area code, yet use cell phones with numbers from out of state. If I call them on my landline, I incur long distance charges. They know this, and they don't really like it. It's tough to order a pizza from an out-of-state cellphone. Pizza shops don't like it. I use my cellphone more and more to avoid long distance, and I have really no interest in VoIP although I've been a courtesy customer, trialing VoIP for almost 18 months. I don't want to have a different area code than my neighborhood.
There are a lot of things that won't be very pretty. 911 service will be the one that the phone company will complain about.
People are used to area codes and exchanges being located in certain areas. Moving... well, it'll make the numbers less important. And wrong numbers could get to be VERY expensive.
The saddest part is that most legislators aren't bright enough to figure any of this out for themselves. They'll go with whoever sends them campaign money. They'll say that they're looking into it, but really, they'll just vote by whichever lobbyist gets them the most money.
Dell (and many other businesses) divide their customers into categories. They have marketing units that go after these categories. Different categories get different levels of service and support, and it's often tied to volume of product sold. If you are big enough, you might even get on-site spares and service support, or strategically-placed spares to reduce downtime.
Large businesses frequently negotiate specific contracts providing for deep discounts on spares, or new equipment, or service, or all three.
So the price you see might not be the final price paid by large businesses. That price might be the starting point for the discounts to begin.
My old job, I bought Cisco and Lucent equipment. Cisco said, just take 40% off list. Lucent would get us a quote, and I could never quite tell what the discount was. I never really cared, but I did always try to get favorable spare parts pricing and support.
If marketing budgets were the ONLY measuring stick for search engines, MS would have surely won a long time ago. Thankfully, the internet rewards innovation far more than marketing budgets. Otherwise, MS could simply spend their way to the top. Where MS wins is when they distribute IE and use MSN as the default. Take that away, and MSN would be below Webcrawler.
The part that gets me is the fact that a marketing juggernaut like MS can issue PR all day long, and the news media treats it like genuine news! The public certainly can't tell the difference between shameless PR and genuine news.
Sure, there are analysts who can see through the BS, but who really listens to them?/.ers do, but that's not everyone. Mainstream public believes whatever is published in the newspapers or on TV. If MS came out today and said that they were the #1 search engine, there's not much that anyone could say, because no matter what happens, there's at least one or two ways to spin the story so that no matter what, MS looks like they're #1.
MS is a sad company. They aren't that interested in the product, they're more interested in outspending the competition to win market share. I've always liked Google. I hope they innovate, stay ahead of the game.
Tax revenue & political grandstanding! Some might call an agenda to create more government jobs. "Look what I did! I created 1000 government jobs nationwide!"
Funny, we don't see or hear anything about TVs or microwaves, and I guarantee you that there are more TVs out there, and more TVs getting thrown away than there are computers. Microwaves, same thing. Yet we don't hear a thing from any of these politicians about those...
I suspect that this is a popular topic simply because it's fashionable. People talk about getting a new computer all the time. They rarely talk about getting a new TV, yet new TVs are sold in amazing quantities. 99% of the people have more TVs than they have computers.
I smell some narrow-minded politicians, looking for "face time".
I'd imagine that most of the local computer stores closed due to lack of business? I know small business owners that buy approximately 10 computers every year. They'd simply drive outside city limits to save $300. It's a no-brainer.
I don't see how this law is effective.
Wasn't there Tax software that did this too?
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Steam Users Steamed
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· Score: 1
Didn't someone make Tax software that fucked the legitimate users, and let all the hackers have their way? What was the software? I can't remember. They had some kind of online thing... and you got to install it on a computer once, activate it, use it, and if you ever moved to a different computer, you were fucked. I remember the online activation didn't work for many people either... did they ever fix it? What became of it? Did someone sue? I have a tax accountant, I've never needed tax software, but I remember the newspapers making a stink about it.
Frankly, I'd take the fucking box, CDs, receipt, and go back to whatever slimy electronics store that sold the piece of shit, and I'd demand my money back. Tell them that Valve sucks, that you're unsatisfied with the product, and you want your money back, every stinking penny. Teach Valve a lesson!
And if the store won't get you your money back, I'd be calling up Valve, saying that you're not satisfied, demand a 100% refund.
Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are all thinking about how this might affect the PS2, Gamecube and Xbox. Ok... Microsoft is probably NOT thinking about it in any useful way, they're probably trying to contact their legal staff to see what this means, and then they're going to go yell at all their subcontractors.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the DMCA.
Reverse-engineering, undermining security, hacking. I wonder when the IpodLinux webserver will be confiscated by the FBI?
Lean forward or lean back for controlling speed is probably patented by Segway. I bet there's a lawsuit. And who do you think has more money?
In fact, using a gyroscope of any kind to keep a wheeled vehicle balanced is probably patented by Segway. The patent office certainly wouldn't deny such a patent.
Slashdot Mirror
"Smart" people are easy vicitims of social engineering. People who follow orders often are not. I think a good mix of both is necessary to have good security.
Talk about convenient. This topic just came up yesterday. My mom called, asked me what type of PBX she should purchase for home use. And to think that someone had this very thought in mind today! Wow. Thanks everyone.
20's don't burn like that. They smolder. Geez. Where have you been?
I don't think you get it. Using JPEG or TIFF is not nearly as useful. Raw format (Nikon's NEF format) allows the user to adjust white balance and other settings after the shot. It's far easier to do it in raw than it is in JPEG or TIFF.
This whole thing seems like it's driven by Nikon's greed. They want money for their software, and they don't want anyone else taking a slice of the pie. Frankly, I think this will turn Nikon customers towards Canon, Konica-Minolta, etc.
Frankly, you'd think that Nikon, with a smaller market share than Canon, would do everything in their power to attract customers rather than alienate them. This is clearly NOT going to win the hearts and minds of photographers everywhere.
Nikon is not a software company. They're a camera company. They should stick to lenses, camera bodies, and flash units.
I'm glad I left Nikon for Canon.
I think they died because they don't have a PVR. Hi-Def folks are early adopters and they want the technology. Of course, with all the mess swirling around DirecTV's move to Mpeg4 and the obsolesence of the HD-Tivo, it will be interesting to see what happens next.
Voom died because they didn't know how to compete. They were the 3rd player in a 2 player race. If you want to break into an established market, you go back to the basics and compete on price. First and foremost, people are going to ask, "What does it cost?" You do what it takes to bring in the subscribers. Voom didn't do that. Sure, they had a big lineup of channels, but half of those channels, no one had ever seen. There's not enough marketshare to survive on HD alone. What incentive did Voom offer to switch? You couldn't walk into Sears, Best Buy, or anywhere and look at their lineup. Why? I've had an HDTV from the moment the 2nd gen Mitsubishis were introduced. I picked up a DirecTV HD receiver as soon as they offered service. I have no interest in the HD TIVO box because you have to reboot the thing EVERY DAY. What a piece of junk! It's more aggravation that it's worth. There aren't enough HD owners out there yet for a satellite company to survive. And HD owners that want TIVO? There's no way I'd gamble on such a specific audience. Your speculation doesn't wash.
The truth is, PVR, MPEG4 and the impending doom of the current HD-TIVO box have nothing to do with the decline of Voom. Voom never acquired enough subscribers to pay for their programming. And their programming stunk. They had a hodge-podge of everything, which meant they were excellent at nothing. If you want subscribers, you've got to go after the sports market first.
Their sports lineup stunk. Instead, Voom chose to compete with custom programming. Switching to Voom was a risk, and in the beginning, no one was willing to risk it because Voom wasn't willing to offer any fantastic deals. I would have done the opposite. I would have worked hard to get the sports market, and ALSO undercut everyone's prices... a lot more than what they were willing to do. Subsidize the hardware... from the beginning. And then word of mouth might have gotten them more subs. I don't have a single friend that asked me about Voom. Not one. And I'm the early adopter. No one was interested in trying Voom. I mentioned it. But no one cared.
Grocery store and Best Buy are two different types of stores. A bag of groceries is $15 to $20, and up until recently, grocery stores only took checks or cash.
Best Buy took cash, but how many items are cheap enough to require the use of a $2.00 bill? Not many. Yet a grocery store might see them ten times a week.
Best Buy handled this very poorly. They treated the customer like dirt. They have uneducated sales staff that don't know the truth, then make promises that they can't keep, or have no intention of keeping, and then when someone is angry, they call the police and have them arrested for using $2 bills. And when Best Buy gets bad press, they blaim the customer!
It's clear that with the recent changes at Best Buy that they're doing everything they can to drive away various segments of their customer base. Their attempt to drive away the "bad" customers is more successful at driving away "bad" and "good" customers. They clearly don't deserve my business.
I've got two $2 bills, and I acquired them each in the past 3 months. One in an airport, and the other in a card. They're not that rare.
And who counterfeits $2.00 bills? Who has that kind of time? And contrary to what the story says, counterfeit bills often have the SAME serial number... not consecutive numbers.
The big issue here is the callous disregard for this customer by Best Buy. They blatantly went back on their word, and they should ultimately pay for their mistake.
I've seen better April Fools Day pranks than this one.
Besides, if this were true, would it matter what the UN said or did?
Actually, it would probably be a good thing, I wouldn't get so much SPAM from China. I'd sure like to filter the entire country of China from sending me anything.
Remember DIVX?
Circuit City attempted to market Divx as a cheap DVD solution? You bought a DIVX movie, you got 2 days to watch the movie after you stuck it in the player, and then you had to pay more money if you wanted to watch it again. The public didn't buy it. It never got ugly, DIVX just died a slow death. It really had no value.
People saw it as a greedy attempt to control users' viewing habits. It was painful. People want value, and they want to be able to take that value with them. They want something that they can hold in their hands and look at. They can put it on their mantel, or their bookshelf and look at, read, or listen to. In the vinyl days, there was a ritual. Load the record, clean it with D4, sit back, and listen to side 1. Nowadays, it's a little different, but the audiophiles among us don't mind loading a CD.
Now, fast-forward a few years. Apple is being told by the labels, "Charge the customer to keep their library." So Apple says, "$20 a month, you keep your library." Never mind that we sold you the music once, this is how it's going to be in the future if you want to keep using iTunes and your iPod.
What do you think will happen? I think people will start collecting rocks, hopping on airplanes, or in their VW microbus, Eurovan, Mini, or pedaling their bicycles over to Apple HQ and they'll tell them what they think. The labels are going to keep pushing, and eventually, the consumers will just snap. And they won't be happy unless they get a LOT more freedom back than just a simple reversion to the last iteration of iTunes. I think it'll take a lot more cajoling than that to get the buying public back. I hope the labels rot. I hope the musicians finally do an end-around on the labels and start selling their own music. Tell the label execs to go f*** themselves. There's no one more despicable on this planet than a record label exec. Wait. I think lawyers are almost as bad. Ok. The worst is definitely a lawyer record label exec.
There's a HUGE difference between whistleblowers and the morons blogging their pea-sized brains out. Most of these bloggers are NOT whistleblowers. They're complaining about the boss. Or they're complaining about him, her, or the people down in department 99. They usually admit to doing stupid shit on company time, and that, my friends, is tantamount to theft. You fuck around on company time, that's grounds for dismissal. I don't care whose rights you think are being violated. If you cash your paycheck, and you did nothing to earn some or all of that money, that's tough shit.
Let's face it. Most people are stupid. They blog, they send emails, and they admit to shit that they wouldn't dream in their wildest hallucinations would come back to haunt them. Yet when the boss drops them the pink slip, they have the nerve to be shocked! Most of these dumb fucks that work for Best Buy or these other places were not there to put in an honest days' work, they were there to scam their way to some free shit. And they did their best not to get caught. While Best Buy happens to be the company in this particular post, I don't think that Best Buy is totally without blame either. They're just as bad (or as good) as any other company out there. But I think the actual number of whistleblower bloggers is a very small number. The rest of these bloggers, spouting off a bunch of noise? They have no clue that this shit will come back to haunt them. Face it. Email, blogs, this shit is forever. Google (and dozens of other sites) capture all this stuff and archive it. What are you going to do when your blog says you fuck off all day at work, and your employer fires you for admitting it? Are you trying to tell me that you think these morons have a right to a job?
Bullshit.
If I were an ISP, and I were faced with this, I'd simply cease to offer business in Utah. What are the fines going to be like? It's a fucking nightmare to consider such a task.
Next up, the People's Republic of California!
Someone go offshore, and cut access to Costa Rica. Let them have their private internet. If they want to set rules, then they should have to live with the results. If they want freedom and choice, then we stay hooked up.
Actually, if you read my post, you'll see that I suggested an answer. Choose between 3 or 4 companies.
There are dozens of companies waiting to offer broadband or Wi-Fi. If they aren't willing to offer it in some areas, there might be a reason! The free market decides where and when. I don't want to depend on the government. The average voter gets their news from the main stream media. Do you trust the media? I'd much rather choose from a selection of different companies. And if it's not offered in my area, and I feel it's important, I'll move to where the services are offered. If people can't afford to move, I suggest to you that broadband/wi-fi isn't their only problem, and that the governement might do FAR better to solve some of those problems more than anything else. You can either give out welfare, or teach people a vocation. No one is happy sitting at home on welfare. It's never enough.
You did bring up a good point. If you look at the original parent.... way up there, they don't really suggest a solution either! My guess is they're complaining about big corporations more than anything else. Frankly, who likes government run institutions? If you have a choice, would you go to the government run grocery store? Or would you go to a privately owned grocery store? Do you want politicians telling you what you can eat? How about what price you can pay? How about letting the government drive private businesses out of business?
Let the government do what it was intended for. Saving the homeless. Feeding the poor. Education, protection. Offering luxuries like wi-fi and broadband? While people are dying? And private companies are waiting to offer service?
I know.. there are people in NY that don't have wi-fi/broadband. Too bad. Move to where it's offered? It's a solution, and it's not spending tax money on luxuries.
Politicians have picked Wi-Fi/Broadband because it's trendy. It's popular. They want to leave their legacy. Frankly, too many politicians leave too many expensive white elephants after they're gone. Tell the politicians to solve the problems that remain unsolved. Literacy. Homelessness. Starvation.
I don't get the dreamy types who want the government to run something technical? Most people on /. are bloody paranoid about government abuse of power, spying, etc. Why on EARTH would you want the government building a muni network?
Personally, I think muni networks stifle innovation. Sure, there are the exceptions, but on the whole, most muni networks are a day late and a dollar short. Who wants their local network run by a committee that hasn't ANY CLUE about technology? Worse, they'll hire some crooked contractor to administer the thing, and offer incentive-based pay to keep costs as low as possible. I've seen government contracts like these, and they frequently accomplish the opposite of what they were intended, and the politicians who are responsible are long gone by the time the full effects are felt.
Which would you rather have? 3 or 4 companies vying to offer broadband? A little competition, different features, upgrades every few years? Or a local government that bought a white elephant from the lowest bidder? And then have it governed by a group of politicians who are non-technical glory hounds, probably bought off by the white elephant equipment vendor?
Hmmm. Tough choice.
Do you really want your next door neighbors telling the city that they don't want anymore upgrades because they don't care? Or would you rather vote with your pocketbook and choose from a selection of providers?
I adblock all SWF, all fastclick, so that would explain why I've yet to see a popup. I hate flash.
In fact, if you use flash, I just don't need to see what you're offering. Too many banners (ESPN for example) use flash for too many ads. I don't need it.
The city of Chicago offers a permit, $325, which allows commercial photography in ANY city park for one day. You may take personal photos in any park at any time without paying anything. So, I think I'll just shoot away, buy the permit for $325, and "turn pro", releasing all my images on one day.
Oh... most people missed the part about ALL CITY PARKS. That's right. You can't shoot commercially in ANY city park in Chicago. So the Millenium Park "rights" belonging to the artists might hold a little water... but what about the hundreds of other parks? I suppose the trees are copyrighted? Does the park superintendent own the rights to the flower bed designs?
I think people should start a call-in campaign. Don't call the politicians. Call every business in Chicago that depends on tourism and shopping. Restaurants, bars, hotels, and all the ritzy stores on Michigan Ave. Tell them that you were considering a trip to Chicago. That it really would have been a lot of money... but since the fascists running Chicago don't see fit to allow free use of a camera, the trip won't be possible.
Don't blame technology or isolationistic behavior for any of this. Hate is hate. People are looking to belong. These sad souls simply have twisted values, and those values are most often passed on from family members. End of story.
Bringing these people attention is the last thing I'd do. Bullys and hate-mongers? They don't deserve the attention. Leave them alone. Let them have their private discussions. The rest of the planet sees them for what they are.
I think that this will self-regulate itself very nicely.
Here's why: I have friends who already live in my area code, yet use cell phones with numbers from out of state. If I call them on my landline, I incur long distance charges. They know this, and they don't really like it. It's tough to order a pizza from an out-of-state cellphone. Pizza shops don't like it.
I use my cellphone more and more to avoid long distance, and I have really no interest in VoIP although I've been a courtesy customer, trialing VoIP for almost 18 months. I don't want to have a different area code than my neighborhood.
There are a lot of things that won't be very pretty. 911 service will be the one that the phone company will complain about.
People are used to area codes and exchanges being located in certain areas. Moving... well, it'll make the numbers less important. And wrong numbers could get to be VERY expensive.
The saddest part is that most legislators aren't bright enough to figure any of this out for themselves. They'll go with whoever sends them campaign money. They'll say that they're looking into it, but really, they'll just vote by whichever lobbyist gets them the most money.
Dell (and many other businesses) divide their customers into categories. They have marketing units that go after these categories. Different categories get different levels of service and support, and it's often tied to volume of product sold. If you are big enough, you might even get on-site spares and service support, or strategically-placed spares to reduce downtime.
Large businesses frequently negotiate specific contracts providing for deep discounts on spares, or new equipment, or service, or all three. So the price you see might not be the final price paid by large businesses. That price might be the starting point for the discounts to begin.
My old job, I bought Cisco and Lucent equipment. Cisco said, just take 40% off list. Lucent would get us a quote, and I could never quite tell what the discount was. I never really cared, but I did always try to get favorable spare parts pricing and support.
If marketing budgets were the ONLY measuring stick for search engines, MS would have surely won a long time ago. Thankfully, the internet rewards innovation far more than marketing budgets. Otherwise, MS could simply spend their way to the top. Where MS wins is when they distribute IE and use MSN as the default. Take that away, and MSN would be below Webcrawler.
/.ers do, but that's not everyone. Mainstream public believes whatever is published in the newspapers or on TV. If MS came out today and said that they were the #1 search engine, there's not much that anyone could say, because no matter what happens, there's at least one or two ways to spin the story so that no matter what, MS looks like they're #1.
The part that gets me is the fact that a marketing juggernaut like MS can issue PR all day long, and the news media treats it like genuine news! The public certainly can't tell the difference between shameless PR and genuine news.
Sure, there are analysts who can see through the BS, but who really listens to them?
MS is a sad company. They aren't that interested in the product, they're more interested in outspending the competition to win market share. I've always liked Google. I hope they innovate, stay ahead of the game.
Tax revenue & political grandstanding! Some might call an agenda to create more government jobs. "Look what I did! I created 1000 government jobs nationwide!"
Funny, we don't see or hear anything about TVs or microwaves, and I guarantee you that there are more TVs out there, and more TVs getting thrown away than there are computers. Microwaves, same thing. Yet we don't hear a thing from any of these politicians about those...
I suspect that this is a popular topic simply because it's fashionable. People talk about getting a new computer all the time. They rarely talk about getting a new TV, yet new TVs are sold in amazing quantities. 99% of the people have more TVs than they have computers.
I smell some narrow-minded politicians, looking for "face time".
I'd imagine that most of the local computer stores closed due to lack of business? I know small business owners that buy approximately 10 computers every year. They'd simply drive outside city limits to save $300. It's a no-brainer.
I don't see how this law is effective.
Didn't someone make Tax software that fucked the legitimate users, and let all the hackers have their way? What was the software? I can't remember. They had some kind of online thing... and you got to install it on a computer once, activate it, use it, and if you ever moved to a different computer, you were fucked. I remember the online activation didn't work for many people either... did they ever fix it? What became of it? Did someone sue? I have a tax accountant, I've never needed tax software, but I remember the newspapers making a stink about it.
Frankly, I'd take the fucking box, CDs, receipt, and go back to whatever slimy electronics store that sold the piece of shit, and I'd demand my money back. Tell them that Valve sucks, that you're unsatisfied with the product, and you want your money back, every stinking penny. Teach Valve a lesson!
And if the store won't get you your money back, I'd be calling up Valve, saying that you're not satisfied, demand a 100% refund.
Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are all thinking about how this might affect the PS2, Gamecube and Xbox. Ok... Microsoft is probably NOT thinking about it in any useful way, they're probably trying to contact their legal staff to see what this means, and then they're going to go yell at all their subcontractors.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the DMCA. Reverse-engineering, undermining security, hacking. I wonder when the IpodLinux webserver will be confiscated by the FBI?
Lean forward or lean back for controlling speed is probably patented by Segway. I bet there's a lawsuit. And who do you think has more money?
In fact, using a gyroscope of any kind to keep a wheeled vehicle balanced is probably patented by Segway. The patent office certainly wouldn't deny such a patent.