Whoever modded the parent post Flamebait proved the poster's point. It's pretty upsetting to irresponsible people when they are confronted with their lack of responsibility.
When the first production version of Vista comes out, I'll be very surprised if I can get much use out of my system with less than a gig of RAM. In other words, I need to run a development IDE, web browser, Word, and music player without the thing grinding to a halt when I open an email.
This is what happens when you tell government workers, most of which are not especially good at what they do, to throw something together really quickly. Give it a few more months and I bet they'll have something better in place, right as the number of claims to be filed dies down.
I say let people build there, but they're on their own if the place gets destroyed. No taxpayer assisted insurance, and it's likely that no private insurer will cover them. Somehow I think that pretty view won't be worth it anymore.
This comment may sound harsh at first, but keep in mind that in a war zone (which this has definitely become), criminal rights are an unaffordable luxury. The reason such rights don't exist in undeveloped countries is because limited resources must go very far. The police cannot spend time locking up the same criminals over and over. It's all they can do to preserve any resemblance of order. In this case, there is no jail to put them in. Anyone causing a problem should be warned if possible, and if they don't cooperate then appropriate force must be used.
I actually didn't know the exclusive EA license covered all of those sports. I have heard only bad things about this years' "exclusive" NFL game. So the scenario you describe won't be so laughable if EA's quality goes down too much more.
It's not really a matter of whether EA can stay on top, but will they? GM could be the leading US carmaker again, if only they really wanted to. Sears and KMart could have remained leading retailers, if only they wanted to. Management can develop some really narrowly focused ways of thinking once a company gets big. Forward thinking management, like the ones who turned around IBM, can keep a company large for a long time. But if the EA executives become anything like the KMart executives, expect to see the giant fall.
As far as licensing is concerned, anybody can make a football video game so long as it isn't NFL-themed. Provide enough interesting features that EA doesn't, and people will buy it anyway. And some things can't be locked up via licensing anyway. Good luck getting an exclusive contract to make non-NASCAR racing games.
In many ways, the gaming industry has become a victim of their own success. When a certain business model brings in lots of cash, it's very tough to give up that model, even if it obviously won't work forever. Successful companies become very fat and happy and will resist change as much as possible. Smaller game makers can eat EA's lunch, since they will be able to effectively innovate as opposed to just tweaking last year's release a little bit. When another company offers gamers something that EA doesn't, the switch will take place. Like in any other industry, the giants will have to reinvent themselves or die off. It's just a matter of how long it takes them to see the changing marketplace.
I guess you missed the part about OPEN standards. Whether it's worth switching is certainly a topic for debate. The reason Mass. is switching was stated as wanting documents to be open (nevermind that PDF is proprietary). What I said was that the idea of open document formats would not have gone very far had Microsoft more effectively lobbied the state government like they have in other states. You don't hear the Washington state gov. talking about making documents available in open formats. I wonder why.
Because Microsoft did not effectively lobby the Kennedys. For those that don't know, that is the political family who runs Massachusetts. If they want something to happen, it happens.
The reason Slashdot hasn't been sued (successfully, anyhow) is because there is a large company behind them that would pay for lawyers. Anyone knows they would not just fold and take down the site. Lawyers know that small site operators can be intimidated by a legal letter and just take their site down. That is what they are hoping for.
If you run a website that is the slightest bit controversial, you had better be prepared to deal with legal threats. Otherwise, you might as well just save yourself the trouble and shut down. Not saying that's the way it should be, but that's the way it is in the United States and just about everywhere else for that matter.
Because there's no money in it (for the phone companies, that is). They make their money on service provided through their networks, not on the phones themselves.
Because compulsory union membership on the part of the employee and the employer is somehow better? Unionized workplaces in right to work states can still charge non-union employees a collective bargaining fee, to make up for the union rewards that the employee gets. The employee is not, however, required to pay dues to the union that will be used to support political campaigns.
It would be really nice if US card issuers would get rid of this antiquated signature system. A PIN would at least provide security for people who are smart enough not to write the number on the card. Signatures provide NO security, especially when the signature is on the back of the card for any thief to use for practice. Showing a seperate ID is cumbersome and holds up checkout lines. A PIN would be so simple and effective.
I agree that new grads can certainly pick up on mainframe concepts but most of them, myself included, don't really want to. Nobody chooses a career in programming so they can work with mainframes that were built before they were even born. The only way younger employees are going to show any interest in mainframes is if they are working on a migration project. The newer languages will always be more attractive, even if they aren't necessarily the best choice for a business environment.
Actually I can. There's nothing stopping me from taking a picture of your billboard. The only way you would have a case against me is if I used your copyrighted images in some public way without your consent. My private photo album doesn't count. If you never want anyone to be able to use something of yours at all, don't display it. IANAL, but I highly suspect that case law would back me up on this.
Um, what are you talking about? The reason competitive DSL failed is because the providers had to operate over the phone monopoly's lines, which made it all too convenient for the phone companies to push them out in favor of their own DSL. This won't happen with VOIP.
Sure, many people get their internet access through phone company DSL, but it isn't so easy for phone companies to screw with it. In the United States, if a phone or cable company decided to block Vonage and only allow their own digital phone service, that would be called "restraint of trade" and would immediately trigger a lawsuit complete with injunction.
In addition, there are numerous ways to get internet access and there will only be more as time goes on, so it's not something phone companies even have the power to control. People would drop DSL in an instant if they started to restrict what websites and services the average person could use.
As much as phone companies might want to go back to the days of $0.25/min long distance, they can't. There are too many alternatives such as cell phones, calling cards, VOIP, bundled services, that everybody knows that would be way too much to pay for long distance. Vonage may have to fight some uphill battles, but the phone companies do not automatically have them beat like they did the DSL providers.
Having a manager take credit for employee ideas seems to be a common complaint among technical people. There is a great remedy to this problem, however. Managers like this are usually totally incompetent, so they won't know when they're being jacked with. Suggest some really stupid idea, like consolidating all database tables into one table for "efficiency". To guarantee that he will take credit for it, tell him to make sure to tell his boss it was your idea. Listen in the background as his boss reams him out.
That's what happens when MBAs are in charge of the studios instead of music/movie people who happen to have some business sense. MBAs are not passionate about what the business is producing; all they can see are numbers on a balance sheet and bullet points on a PowerPoint slide.
I could've sworn there are banking regulations concerning proper storage of customer data. Do they not cover who can have access to the banks' information systems? If it is currently legal for banks to outsource critical development to foreign countries, it should not be, for security reasons. How can the bank possibly guarantee the integrity of the system? In the case of a backdoor, what can the bank possibly do about it, go to court in a foreign country? Yea, I'm sure they'd really get a fair hearing.
It sounds like the bank got what they had coming to them. Anybody stupid enough to outsource to Nigeria just to save a few bucks deserves to have their system rooted.
You can barely even see it. Are you really going to get fired for clicking on that page? It's pretty tame considering it's a GNAA sponsored page, as indicated at the top.
Slashdot Mirror
Whoever modded the parent post Flamebait proved the poster's point. It's pretty upsetting to irresponsible people when they are confronted with their lack of responsibility.
When the first production version of Vista comes out, I'll be very surprised if I can get much use out of my system with less than a gig of RAM. In other words, I need to run a development IDE, web browser, Word, and music player without the thing grinding to a halt when I open an email.
This is what happens when you tell government workers, most of which are not especially good at what they do, to throw something together really quickly. Give it a few more months and I bet they'll have something better in place, right as the number of claims to be filed dies down.
Which bridge do you live under?
I say let people build there, but they're on their own if the place gets destroyed. No taxpayer assisted insurance, and it's likely that no private insurer will cover them. Somehow I think that pretty view won't be worth it anymore.
Did you just say that all corporations should lose their privilege to make money?
This comment may sound harsh at first, but keep in mind that in a war zone (which this has definitely become), criminal rights are an unaffordable luxury. The reason such rights don't exist in undeveloped countries is because limited resources must go very far. The police cannot spend time locking up the same criminals over and over. It's all they can do to preserve any resemblance of order. In this case, there is no jail to put them in. Anyone causing a problem should be warned if possible, and if they don't cooperate then appropriate force must be used.
I actually didn't know the exclusive EA license covered all of those sports. I have heard only bad things about this years' "exclusive" NFL game. So the scenario you describe won't be so laughable if EA's quality goes down too much more.
It's not really a matter of whether EA can stay on top, but will they? GM could be the leading US carmaker again, if only they really wanted to. Sears and KMart could have remained leading retailers, if only they wanted to. Management can develop some really narrowly focused ways of thinking once a company gets big. Forward thinking management, like the ones who turned around IBM, can keep a company large for a long time. But if the EA executives become anything like the KMart executives, expect to see the giant fall.
As far as licensing is concerned, anybody can make a football video game so long as it isn't NFL-themed. Provide enough interesting features that EA doesn't, and people will buy it anyway. And some things can't be locked up via licensing anyway. Good luck getting an exclusive contract to make non-NASCAR racing games.
In many ways, the gaming industry has become a victim of their own success. When a certain business model brings in lots of cash, it's very tough to give up that model, even if it obviously won't work forever. Successful companies become very fat and happy and will resist change as much as possible. Smaller game makers can eat EA's lunch, since they will be able to effectively innovate as opposed to just tweaking last year's release a little bit. When another company offers gamers something that EA doesn't, the switch will take place. Like in any other industry, the giants will have to reinvent themselves or die off. It's just a matter of how long it takes them to see the changing marketplace.
I guess you missed the part about OPEN standards. Whether it's worth switching is certainly a topic for debate. The reason Mass. is switching was stated as wanting documents to be open (nevermind that PDF is proprietary). What I said was that the idea of open document formats would not have gone very far had Microsoft more effectively lobbied the state government like they have in other states. You don't hear the Washington state gov. talking about making documents available in open formats. I wonder why.
Because Microsoft did not effectively lobby the Kennedys. For those that don't know, that is the political family who runs Massachusetts. If they want something to happen, it happens.
The reason Slashdot hasn't been sued (successfully, anyhow) is because there is a large company behind them that would pay for lawyers. Anyone knows they would not just fold and take down the site. Lawyers know that small site operators can be intimidated by a legal letter and just take their site down. That is what they are hoping for.
If you run a website that is the slightest bit controversial, you had better be prepared to deal with legal threats. Otherwise, you might as well just save yourself the trouble and shut down. Not saying that's the way it should be, but that's the way it is in the United States and just about everywhere else for that matter.
Because there's no money in it (for the phone companies, that is). They make their money on service provided through their networks, not on the phones themselves.
Because compulsory union membership on the part of the employee and the employer is somehow better? Unionized workplaces in right to work states can still charge non-union employees a collective bargaining fee, to make up for the union rewards that the employee gets. The employee is not, however, required to pay dues to the union that will be used to support political campaigns.
It would be really nice if US card issuers would get rid of this antiquated signature system. A PIN would at least provide security for people who are smart enough not to write the number on the card. Signatures provide NO security, especially when the signature is on the back of the card for any thief to use for practice. Showing a seperate ID is cumbersome and holds up checkout lines. A PIN would be so simple and effective.
I agree that new grads can certainly pick up on mainframe concepts but most of them, myself included, don't really want to. Nobody chooses a career in programming so they can work with mainframes that were built before they were even born. The only way younger employees are going to show any interest in mainframes is if they are working on a migration project. The newer languages will always be more attractive, even if they aren't necessarily the best choice for a business environment.
Actually I can. There's nothing stopping me from taking a picture of your billboard. The only way you would have a case against me is if I used your copyrighted images in some public way without your consent. My private photo album doesn't count. If you never want anyone to be able to use something of yours at all, don't display it. IANAL, but I highly suspect that case law would back me up on this.
Um, what are you talking about? The reason competitive DSL failed is because the providers had to operate over the phone monopoly's lines, which made it all too convenient for the phone companies to push them out in favor of their own DSL. This won't happen with VOIP.
Sure, many people get their internet access through phone company DSL, but it isn't so easy for phone companies to screw with it. In the United States, if a phone or cable company decided to block Vonage and only allow their own digital phone service, that would be called "restraint of trade" and would immediately trigger a lawsuit complete with injunction.
In addition, there are numerous ways to get internet access and there will only be more as time goes on, so it's not something phone companies even have the power to control. People would drop DSL in an instant if they started to restrict what websites and services the average person could use.
As much as phone companies might want to go back to the days of $0.25/min long distance, they can't. There are too many alternatives such as cell phones, calling cards, VOIP, bundled services, that everybody knows that would be way too much to pay for long distance. Vonage may have to fight some uphill battles, but the phone companies do not automatically have them beat like they did the DSL providers.
Having a manager take credit for employee ideas seems to be a common complaint among technical people. There is a great remedy to this problem, however. Managers like this are usually totally incompetent, so they won't know when they're being jacked with. Suggest some really stupid idea, like consolidating all database tables into one table for "efficiency". To guarantee that he will take credit for it, tell him to make sure to tell his boss it was your idea. Listen in the background as his boss reams him out.
That's what happens when MBAs are in charge of the studios instead of music/movie people who happen to have some business sense. MBAs are not passionate about what the business is producing; all they can see are numbers on a balance sheet and bullet points on a PowerPoint slide.
I could've sworn there are banking regulations concerning proper storage of customer data. Do they not cover who can have access to the banks' information systems? If it is currently legal for banks to outsource critical development to foreign countries, it should not be, for security reasons. How can the bank possibly guarantee the integrity of the system? In the case of a backdoor, what can the bank possibly do about it, go to court in a foreign country? Yea, I'm sure they'd really get a fair hearing.
It sounds like the bank got what they had coming to them. Anybody stupid enough to outsource to Nigeria just to save a few bucks deserves to have their system rooted.
You can barely even see it. Are you really going to get fired for clicking on that page? It's pretty tame considering it's a GNAA sponsored page, as indicated at the top.
So maybe that's a little harsh. How about making spammers spend a couple of years working for AOL tech support at minimum wage?
Firefox too is immune from LastMeasure.