Why are you so sure? What does it mean to be Protectionist anyway? When in history has there ever existed a pure unrestricted free market?
One of the lessons we took from the failure of the Gold Standardduring the 1920s-30s was that free markets when left unrestricted create horrible consequences, one of which being the abuse of weaker nations and peoples by dominant economic powers; and another being the economic collapse of nations with uncompetitive currencies. And yet another lesson we learned was that a major reason why unrestricted free market capitalism dooms a nation is that participants act to protect their own limited interests, and so with every participant "protecting" his interest, the sole guy out there playing fairly is fated to being swallowed up.
I personally think that Filipinos/Indians are being used.
Yes, they are - it's a side effect of unrestricted capitalism, but this is not a worst case scenario. For that, look at the diamond market's effect on Africa.
As an American techie, I'm not at all worried about my career. There will always be work here for people like me who are creative, resourceful and motivated.
How do you know? What makes you so special? I know some very motivated and very creative techies who are still looking for work in their field. Perhaps you are a contract worker in the defense industry, in which case you arguably have more job security than other techies; or maybe you possess some rare talent and skill that shifts this employer's market more in your favor? If you either, then I am truly happy for you. There needs to be a place for American techies in this field.
You had something there when you mentioned a nearly hack-proof game. I can imagine a lot of people scouring for flaws in the game code to exploit or creating character hacking tools - not to create an uber-character, but to create a fixer whose got a stockpile of nice things to sell.
But worse than that... it will be a (short) matter of time before players start seeing virtual advertising billboards in the game.;)
The only Win-anything I can think of are third-party applications developed specifically for Windows such as WinZip; which is no better or worse than Mac-this and Mac-that...
Actually windows since 2k has virtual desktop via powertools iirc
Windows has had it longer than that actually; or rather a utility has been available much longer than that. I remember using a virtual desktop program under Windows 3.11. I think it was called "imp" or something like that and was shareware. I distictively remember it looking a lot like the virtual desktop apps in Motif/FVWM, which is why I tried it out in the first place. I'm sure it's still somewhere on Simtel;)
I imagine everyone has a book list for their field. I certainly do in mine. The discontinued books at college bookstores are definitely a steal. I bought a couple of calculus text books as well as a physical chemistry book... why? I don't know. I love a bargain... shoes, books... doesn't matter.
Obviously the patents so broad as to be void for vagueness (note that term doesn't actually here, but it should!)
And that's the sheer stupidity of it. According to NCR, basically anyone who has a dynamic site is likely violating their patents. According to the original article, they've sued somewhere in the area of 150 or so companies.
Incidentally, I hold the patent to posting long ranting replies that obfuscate whether I support or oppose an issue in question... can I have a check now?
So relating back to an earlier story about the new Solaris 9, does this mean Solaris on Intel will certainly be going away? As it sounds, it will be Linux on Intel and Solaris on SPARC.
Since SUN will be reselling SuSe, does that mean that SUN won't actually be developing Linux using technologies from Solaris? It could be great if SUN were to put a hand into enhancing Linux.
USENET isn't worthwhile only to porn addicts, pirates, and geaks. Those of us in the social sciences use it quite often. There are some very good communities on USENET for discussions of international politics, economics issues, etc. USENET is also great for some entertainment. There are a lot of active groups with a great sense of community that meet to discuss hobbies like art collection, carpentry, or even train wrecks like the Anna Nicole show.
In addition to BWJones' comments, USENET is often much more efficient than equivalent web-based forums. I don't have to deal with cookies, improperly formatted HTML, binary advertisements, etc. If the answer is there on USENET, I'll surely find it faster than if I were to navigate a website.
When I want to refamiliarize myself with a subject or just learn something new, I like browsing college bookstores that way I can see what titles are being selected for particular courses. Of course I never actually buy from a college bookstore. Is that what other Slashdotters do or does Oprah have a book of the month club just for the scholarly set that I don't know about?
There is a difference between running a university like a business and actually running a university as a business. I agree to that. It's like hospital administration. The fact remains, that is is solid business and management principles that when followed lead to fiscal and administrative responsility, keeping budgets intact, preventing universities from making disasterous mistakes.
I did a visit of one major internatioal university in Chicago a few years ago that was (and still is) going through a financial crisis. As it turned out, the university made several bad investments, and on top of that made several ill-thought policy changes that resulted in numerous lawsuits and threats of lawsuits. I'm not saying "make universities for profit." I'm saying, understand project management, understand accounting...
Let real businesses chase after the profits while universities increase human knowledge, which is not always profitable in the short term.
I could not have said it better. The result of building a culture of bad decision-making leads to budget cuts in academic units of lessor importance and the inability to truly serve students and society the way it ought to.
Here's something to consider. That same Chicago-based university I mentioned earlier owns dilapidated slums in an impoverished (mostly black) part of the city. Should universities be in the real estate business? I don't think so.
How about this... universities instead focus on improving their curriculum or improving the general state of student life on campus. How about investing more in improving general quality of living in dorm rooms, open up campus bookstores to the free market instead of monopolizing vendors like Follets. There are many worthwhile things universities SHOULD be doing for students instead of getting into the music business! Students WILL find a way to get their MP3s without the help of the school.
There are a lot major universities in dire straits financially, and of the ones I've observed, their problems are owed to very poor decision making by presidents and boards that don't know how to run universities as a business. If universities want to increase profits, they should reengineer their existing business processes
The federal government doesn't have a grudge against SBC Ameritech, several state governments including Illinois and Ohio do. But that means little. Illinois has been fining Ameritech for years, and the company still has yet to pay a single dime.
Why is anyone talking about the Modified Final Judgment???? That was AT&T, and that was 1984. If someone needs proof that the federal government actually loves the telcos, look at the Telecom Act of 1996, and look at the government's shoddy handling of Global Crossing, Qwest, and WorldCom to name a few.
I don't care what WorldCom or even John Sidgmore says, there is no more MCI... ah, that felt better.
SBC Ameritech has pretty much pissed off every jurisdiction in which they service, so SBC would have a difficult time courting favor in any courtroom.
A court might easily consider SBC's obligations under the DMCA as a separate from any obligations under Contract Law to SBC customers. The DMCA would likely trump any preexisting contractual obligations, and that wouldn't be an Expos Facto application of the DMCA law. I think in that circumstance, SBC would have to revise its terms of service and privacy policy. As for existing customers, well... SBC revises its policies all the time. Customers would just be free to leave, not that they could easily get away.
Yes it does... it's a cultural faux pas in today's post-boom tech economy. I want you to work for me, put in the time and effort, and I will pay you in stock. I've been offered deals like more than a few times, and saying 'no' everytime has paid off.
Granted, the execs now are doing okay. It's paying off for them. Now they're just ass-clowns for working for a company like SCO. If their stock tanks before they sell, they'll be ass-clowns for my original reason.
It's a simple rule of business. A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow.
Maybe I'm ignoring the severity of this new Microsoft flaw, but why the Dept. of Homeland Security issuing ANY statement about security flaws in any operating system? The Department was created to combat terrorism, and it's resources (and hopefully skills) are vested in doing just that, but providing a service I can get for free from the computing community...
The next thing you know, the government will be raising the threat level in response to a Slashdot poll.
Linux may indeed be a process and not a product, but that doesn't matter if you're not a Debian. If you are a business trying to make money off of Linux or you are a consumer looking to purchase Linux, waxing philosophical about Socratic nature of Linux is a waste of time.
It's not my fault for not getting it, it's your fault (vendors, advocates, press) for calling the resulting OS and application suite Linux, when technically Linux is only the kernel. If you want me to think of Linux as a process, rename all instances of Linux products and OS distributions to something equally snappy like, PixieOS!
Because when I as an informed consumer am standing in CompUSA with Windows XP in one hand and SuSe Linux in the other, I'm looking at products, not processes.
Payment in stock options... in 2003? Anyone who took stock options in a tech company after Dec 2000 is an ass-clown.
But then, chances are back then, at least some of these execs had no idea what SCO would do. Other than lawsuits, just what else does SCO sell nowadays?
So there I am in my cubicle playing my usual rounds of mental foursquare with three other cube-mates. One of them still refers to her desktop wallpaper as a "screensaver." One of the men passes corrupted floppy disks around with the glee of an idiot passing out used condoms; and the other still thinks no one can see him playing Solitaire. As for me, I routinely spill coffee and break the no smoking policy while clogging the email system with idiotic Flash movies...
So who and where the hell are these marauding rogue agents running around installing Linux on office desktops. It can't be IS, they're too busy, and it can't be cube workers, they're afraid of their CDROMs!
One would hope that students wouldn't be turned into lab rats for the analytical amusement of administrators and statisticians, but it might. Schools profile now as it is, but it would be interesting to see what long-term effects a codified profile of a student would have on that student's future in college or the job market. Would a univeristy deny me admittance because I have a statistically high percentage of dropping anyway?
There's potential for some hot Constitutional challenges later down the road when these kids grow up.
I agree somewhat. I still believe highschool teachers are in it for the kids. I've since altered my views about college professors though.
But is this really necessary? Shouldn't teachers be able to determine these sudden shifts in behavior patterns without the aid of a computer? Maybe if classroom sizes were smaller and teachers were encouraged to be one-to-one with their students...
Why apply technology to a problem than can be solved organizationally?
I still believe in the power of an interactive multimedia driven Internet to improve society, especially in small isolated geographies.
Webcams would be great. Grandparents love webcams. Older people love being able to see pictures of grandchildren or actually hear their voices. Ergo, a computer would need support for a wide range of audio/video codecs as well as solid set of players to handle them.
I used to spend a lot of time using GOPHER. There was something thrilling about moving from one part of the world to another through the Internet. Perhaps the computer should have links to very cool sites around the world so that people can be encourage to think globally instead of locally...
Yep. I can always give it a try. I glanced at the product website again and noticed a small price listed by the Intel release. There was no such price listed by the SPARC version. Hmmm.
Eh, it's all probably moot anyway as I no longer *need* to use Solaris. I can always go Linux if I find myself yearning for UNIX again... which probably suggests that SUN's future on Intel might be limited to just a small niche unless there's big interest in running Solaris on Intel hardware.
That's true. But it is influential since it gives lawmakers a feel for the founding fathers' tone, which is absent from the Constitution. There are several sources of law that aren't law in the strict sense, such as the Restatement Second of Torts, an amalgamation of tort law across the country
And I didn't do that. The 10th amendment is the "other rights" amendment.
Oops, let me clarify. I wasn't suggested you were mixing the two. I was just making a poorly-worded blanket statement about Privacy vs. Profit.
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Protectionism doesn't work. Period.
Why are you so sure? What does it mean to be Protectionist anyway? When in history has there ever existed a pure unrestricted free market?
One of the lessons we took from the failure of the Gold Standardduring the 1920s-30s was that free markets when left unrestricted create horrible consequences, one of which being the abuse of weaker nations and peoples by dominant economic powers; and another being the economic collapse of nations with uncompetitive currencies. And yet another lesson we learned was that a major reason why unrestricted free market capitalism dooms a nation is that participants act to protect their own limited interests, and so with every participant "protecting" his interest, the sole guy out there playing fairly is fated to being swallowed up.
I personally think that Filipinos/Indians are being used.
Yes, they are - it's a side effect of unrestricted capitalism, but this is not a worst case scenario. For that, look at the diamond market's effect on Africa.
As an American techie, I'm not at all worried about my career. There will always be work here for people like me who are creative, resourceful and motivated.
How do you know? What makes you so special? I know some very motivated and very creative techies who are still looking for work in their field. Perhaps you are a contract worker in the defense industry, in which case you arguably have more job security than other techies; or maybe you possess some rare talent and skill that shifts this employer's market more in your favor? If you either, then I am truly happy for you. There needs to be a place for American techies in this field.
No, Novell's dumping NetWare... they just don't realize it yet. It's like Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense, he doesn't know he's dead.
You had something there when you mentioned a nearly hack-proof game. I can imagine a lot of people scouring for flaws in the game code to exploit or creating character hacking tools - not to create an uber-character, but to create a fixer whose got a stockpile of nice things to sell.
;)
But worse than that... it will be a (short) matter of time before players start seeing virtual advertising billboards in the game.
I guess at least the Windows people and the Mac people take a break from their naming conventions... not like those BeOS people out there ;)
The only Win-anything I can think of are third-party applications developed specifically for Windows such as WinZip; which is no better or worse than Mac-this and Mac-that...
Actually windows since 2k has virtual desktop via powertools iirc
;)
Windows has had it longer than that actually; or rather a utility has been available much longer than that. I remember using a virtual desktop program under Windows 3.11. I think it was called "imp" or something like that and was shareware. I distictively remember it looking a lot like the virtual desktop apps in Motif/FVWM, which is why I tried it out in the first place. I'm sure it's still somewhere on Simtel
I imagine everyone has a book list for their field. I certainly do in mine. The discontinued books at college bookstores are definitely a steal. I bought a couple of calculus text books as well as a physical chemistry book... why? I don't know. I love a bargain... shoes, books... doesn't matter.
Obviously the patents so broad as to be void for vagueness (note that term doesn't actually here, but it should!)
And that's the sheer stupidity of it. According to NCR, basically anyone who has a dynamic site is likely violating their patents. According to the original article, they've sued somewhere in the area of 150 or so companies.
Incidentally, I hold the patent to posting long ranting replies that obfuscate whether I support or oppose an issue in question... can I have a check now?
So relating back to an earlier story about the new Solaris 9, does this mean Solaris on Intel will certainly be going away? As it sounds, it will be Linux on Intel and Solaris on SPARC.
Since SUN will be reselling SuSe, does that mean that SUN won't actually be developing Linux using technologies from Solaris? It could be great if SUN were to put a hand into enhancing Linux.
USENET isn't worthwhile only to porn addicts, pirates, and geaks. Those of us in the social sciences use it quite often. There are some very good communities on USENET for discussions of international politics, economics issues, etc. USENET is also great for some entertainment. There are a lot of active groups with a great sense of community that meet to discuss hobbies like art collection, carpentry, or even train wrecks like the Anna Nicole show.
In addition to BWJones' comments, USENET is often much more efficient than equivalent web-based forums. I don't have to deal with cookies, improperly formatted HTML, binary advertisements, etc. If the answer is there on USENET, I'll surely find it faster than if I were to navigate a website.
When I want to refamiliarize myself with a subject or just learn something new, I like browsing college bookstores that way I can see what titles are being selected for particular courses. Of course I never actually buy from a college bookstore. Is that what other Slashdotters do or does Oprah have a book of the month club just for the scholarly set that I don't know about?
There is a difference between running a university like a business and actually running a university as a business. I agree to that. It's like hospital administration. The fact remains, that is is solid business and management principles that when followed lead to fiscal and administrative responsility, keeping budgets intact, preventing universities from making disasterous mistakes.
I did a visit of one major internatioal university in Chicago a few years ago that was (and still is) going through a financial crisis. As it turned out, the university made several bad investments, and on top of that made several ill-thought policy changes that resulted in numerous lawsuits and threats of lawsuits. I'm not saying "make universities for profit." I'm saying, understand project management, understand accounting...
Let real businesses chase after the profits while universities increase human knowledge, which is not always profitable in the short term.
I could not have said it better. The result of building a culture of bad decision-making leads to budget cuts in academic units of lessor importance and the inability to truly serve students and society the way it ought to.
Here's something to consider. That same Chicago-based university I mentioned earlier owns dilapidated slums in an impoverished (mostly black) part of the city. Should universities be in the real estate business? I don't think so.
How about this... universities instead focus on improving their curriculum or improving the general state of student life on campus. How about investing more in improving general quality of living in dorm rooms, open up campus bookstores to the free market instead of monopolizing vendors like Follets. There are many worthwhile things universities SHOULD be doing for students instead of getting into the music business! Students WILL find a way to get their MP3s without the help of the school.
There are a lot major universities in dire straits financially, and of the ones I've observed, their problems are owed to very poor decision making by presidents and boards that don't know how to run universities as a business. If universities want to increase profits, they should reengineer their existing business processes
The federal government doesn't have a grudge against SBC Ameritech, several state governments including Illinois and Ohio do. But that means little. Illinois has been fining Ameritech for years, and the company still has yet to pay a single dime.
Why is anyone talking about the Modified Final Judgment???? That was AT&T, and that was 1984. If someone needs proof that the federal government actually loves the telcos, look at the Telecom Act of 1996, and look at the government's shoddy handling of Global Crossing, Qwest, and WorldCom to name a few.
I don't care what WorldCom or even John Sidgmore says, there is no more MCI... ah, that felt better.
SBC Ameritech has pretty much pissed off every jurisdiction in which they service, so SBC would have a difficult time courting favor in any courtroom.
A court might easily consider SBC's obligations under the DMCA as a separate from any obligations under Contract Law to SBC customers. The DMCA would likely trump any preexisting contractual obligations, and that wouldn't be an Expos Facto application of the DMCA law. I think in that circumstance, SBC would have to revise its terms of service and privacy policy. As for existing customers, well... SBC revises its policies all the time. Customers would just be free to leave, not that they could easily get away.
Yes it does... it's a cultural faux pas in today's post-boom tech economy. I want you to work for me, put in the time and effort, and I will pay you in stock. I've been offered deals like more than a few times, and saying 'no' everytime has paid off.
Granted, the execs now are doing okay. It's paying off for them. Now they're just ass-clowns for working for a company like SCO. If their stock tanks before they sell, they'll be ass-clowns for my original reason.
It's a simple rule of business. A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow.
Maybe I'm ignoring the severity of this new Microsoft flaw, but why the Dept. of Homeland Security issuing ANY statement about security flaws in any operating system? The Department was created to combat terrorism, and it's resources (and hopefully skills) are vested in doing just that, but providing a service I can get for free from the computing community...
The next thing you know, the government will be raising the threat level in response to a Slashdot poll.
Linux may indeed be a process and not a product, but that doesn't matter if you're not a Debian. If you are a business trying to make money off of Linux or you are a consumer looking to purchase Linux, waxing philosophical about Socratic nature of Linux is a waste of time.
It's not my fault for not getting it, it's your fault (vendors, advocates, press) for calling the resulting OS and application suite Linux, when technically Linux is only the kernel. If you want me to think of Linux as a process, rename all instances of Linux products and OS distributions to something equally snappy like, PixieOS!
Because when I as an informed consumer am standing in CompUSA with Windows XP in one hand and SuSe Linux in the other, I'm looking at products, not processes.
Payment in stock options... in 2003? Anyone who took stock options in a tech company after Dec 2000 is an ass-clown.
But then, chances are back then, at least some of these execs had no idea what SCO would do. Other than lawsuits, just what else does SCO sell nowadays?
So there I am in my cubicle playing my usual rounds of mental foursquare with three other cube-mates. One of them still refers to her desktop wallpaper as a "screensaver." One of the men passes corrupted floppy disks around with the glee of an idiot passing out used condoms; and the other still thinks no one can see him playing Solitaire. As for me, I routinely spill coffee and break the no smoking policy while clogging the email system with idiotic Flash movies...
So who and where the hell are these marauding rogue agents running around installing Linux on office desktops. It can't be IS, they're too busy, and it can't be cube workers, they're afraid of their CDROMs!
One would hope that students wouldn't be turned into lab rats for the analytical amusement of administrators and statisticians, but it might. Schools profile now as it is, but it would be interesting to see what long-term effects a codified profile of a student would have on that student's future in college or the job market. Would a univeristy deny me admittance because I have a statistically high percentage of dropping anyway?
There's potential for some hot Constitutional challenges later down the road when these kids grow up.
I agree somewhat. I still believe highschool teachers are in it for the kids. I've since altered my views about college professors though.
But is this really necessary? Shouldn't teachers be able to determine these sudden shifts in behavior patterns without the aid of a computer? Maybe if classroom sizes were smaller and teachers were encouraged to be one-to-one with their students...
Why apply technology to a problem than can be solved organizationally?
I still believe in the power of an interactive multimedia driven Internet to improve society, especially in small isolated geographies.
Webcams would be great. Grandparents love webcams. Older people love being able to see pictures of grandchildren or actually hear their voices. Ergo, a computer would need support for a wide range of audio/video codecs as well as solid set of players to handle them.
I used to spend a lot of time using GOPHER. There was something thrilling about moving from one part of the world to another through the Internet. Perhaps the computer should have links to very cool sites around the world so that people can be encourage to think globally instead of locally...
I killed the Video Professor...
Yep. I can always give it a try. I glanced at the product website again and noticed a small price listed by the Intel release. There was no such price listed by the SPARC version. Hmmm.
Eh, it's all probably moot anyway as I no longer *need* to use Solaris. I can always go Linux if I find myself yearning for UNIX again... which probably suggests that SUN's future on Intel might be limited to just a small niche unless there's big interest in running Solaris on Intel hardware.
it's historic and important, but it's not law.
That's true. But it is influential since it gives lawmakers a feel for the founding fathers' tone, which is absent from the Constitution. There are several sources of law that aren't law in the strict sense, such as the Restatement Second of Torts, an amalgamation of tort law across the country
And I didn't do that. The 10th amendment is the "other rights" amendment.
Oops, let me clarify. I wasn't suggested you were mixing the two. I was just making a poorly-worded blanket statement about Privacy vs. Profit.