Are you out of your MIND? A Republican Missy Big Boots who definitlyl hopes to get a job from GWB not just flouts a state supreme court ruling...she also announces she will ignore the efforts of a carefuly monitored league of citizens who slaved away to re-count the votes in HER state.....
If you heard David Boies explain (concisely and correctly) to Ted Koppel Florida's relevant statutes and legal precendents, you should have detected a VERY CLEAR difference from the perorations of Dubya's lawyer (Ginsburg). The latter simply shuffled and re-shuffled a bunch of opinionated vagueries and generalizations ("We believe this to have been improper")
...Talk about specious! The whole Bush campaign has been based on incredibly specious premises - "likeability" and corny homilies (often contradictory) as oposed to actual qualifications and a record that bears examining.
Now if you'd said you voted for Bush just because you're a died in the wool Republican or because, frankly, you want the "pubs to help Big Biz and save YOU bucks, OK. Fair enough. But there are PLENTY of people behind Gore, when it cmes to the amazing shit that the "pubs have tried (are trying) to pull in Florida.
Gore never gave in on national television, he phoned a concession directly to GW Bush (the dumb thing was he paid attention to "national television" and believed them when they said Bush was a clear winner.
Subsequently, he retracted his concession call in person to Dumb-ass Dubya. Nixon fought the Kennedy tallies in the courts etc for a month AFTER he made his OFFICIAl concession speech.
Remember that a lot of complainants were older people, perhaps with not the steadiest eyesight or hands. Do they deserve a lesser chance (or the insult of that thrity-something blonde bimbette who was explaining she "designed it to help the elderly"?)
More than the numbers are talking too....The head of elections in the county is FURIOUS...his exact words were "I saw people coming out of the booths in hysterics, they were so upset and angry....I know these people, Pat Buchanan wouldn't have gotten a *dozen* votes here...When I see a lot of staright Democratic tickets and the only vote that's not Democratic is Pat Buchanan...I know something's wrong."
...only the 3% makes the difference for Bush. Not for anti-WTO, US workers and the environment. Thanks for nothing, Ralph. Hope yr inflating ego feels it, big time.
...that "some voters meant to vote for Gore but somehow, due to the structure of the ballot" ended up voting for....Pat Buchanan.
Are they getting those votes back?
No! "It seems it was just a few hundred voters", said Tom Brokaw. Then he wnet on to talk about the "missing Boxes" ("they seem to have located most of them and are cheking the seals to se that no tampering has occured")
Just so the MS-is-a-fair-employer brigade knows: This am, in Redmond, WA, Microsoft sent out an e-mail to everyone in the company. It was prefaced with a "of course we don't want to influence your vote", but went on to mention what it *claimed* to be statements "representing the views of each candidate" about....Guess what? Not the future of welfare or taxes or health care or education but...MICROSOFT!!!!!!
Control freaks? Interfering bosses? Obsessives bent on world domination? If you have a non-Bush, non-slade Gorton pal at MS, get 'em to send you their copy.
The only other question is...do they *track* how emnployees actually vote???
Tom Brokaw just "mentioned" that "a few hundred" people in Fla thought they were voting for Gore but..."due to the structure of the ballots" they voted for..Pat Buchanan.
Plus he note,s they have "located the mising ballot boxes" (!) in Fla. What the hell is going on there?????
Check out salon.com today and be impressed that Bush thought Yale "went downhill" after it admitted women. To Ken Burns' co-producer (a woman) no less:
From salon: "There's also Lynn Novick, a co-producer of Ken Burns' PBS series "Baseball," who had the rare treat of accompanying Bush to a Texas Rangers game in the summer of 1994, before he was elected governor. "He was a very gracious host," Novick says. "He was perfectly pleasant. Until he changed the subject."
Bush mentioned something about Yale University, from which he graduated in 1968. Novick graduated from Yale in 1983, so she brought it up, thinking it would be "like a bonding thing."
"When did you graduate?" Bush asked her, as she recalls. She told him. That's when Bush told her that Yale "went downhill since they admitted women."
"I said, 'Excuse me?'" Novick says. "I thought
he was kidding. But he didn't seem to be kidding. I said, 'What do you mean?'"
Bush replied that "something had been lost" when women were fully admitted to Yale in 1969, that fraternities were big when he'd been there, providing a "great camaraderie for the men." But that went out the window when women were allowed in, Bush said.
"He said something like, 'Women changed the social dynamic for the worse,'" she says. "I was so stunned, shocked and insulted, I didn't know what to say."
She says two things offended her the most:"That he would think that, but almost more so that he would say that to a woman who went to Yale."
Then combine that with his position on abortion.
So much for trotting out Condoleeza Rice all the time.
Maybe personally you're voting for Nader but actually, you're voting for Bush. With actual "serious campaign reform" that wouldn't be the case but dream on if you think it isn't. esp since you don't want a "green run US" don't expect any thanks if Bush wins.
Telling phrase, "our wealth". If you know much about FDR (clearly you don't) he was no more a "socialist" than Tony Blair is.
Interesting you also make a personal claim on the Brits who founded the US. But there were "indidviduals" who couldn't live how they pleased and do what they "wanted": people who didn't own property couldn't vote, women had less rights than men and slaves certainly weren't such free & happy folk.
My girlfriend's old boss made a big deal of being a libertarian. Never met a more self-serving, sanctimonoius cuss. But his grasp of history was about the same.
So women whose contraceptives happen to fail when they are in high school or college all just made a "bad life decision"? What did they do - fail to shop properly? Or someone with few qualifications thanks to being in some nowhere town with crappy education end up making a "bad career choice" as a result?
Give us a break. Maybe you got to choose how your life has unwound thus far - if so you'
re lucky. But get real. All people don't get to CHOOSE.
That's part of what (some) candidates are trying to say...But it's interesting to realize they have to keep hammering away at such a banal and obvious fact because there ARE people who simply fixate on their own personal income and taxes.
It's a big world out here; take a look around. You seem to need additional information about class in the good old US...not to mention a few pointers about the relations of workers in Mexico to their local and national governments as well as "the auto workers".
Excuse me? Where did you get this stuff? I've spent 15 years in Europe and no-one here thinks Bush has any grip on anything - let alone "foreign" policy. People do, of course, feel almost any European media moderator (esp a BBC attack dog journo like Jeremy Paxman) would have done a better job than the patsy chosen to "moderate" your Presidential deabtes.
The saddest thing about the whole US election process is the media and it's insistence on ranking success in the very same terms you use: who "maneuvers" best; who "wins on charm", etc. Of course these "reporters" are very well-paid and thus will benefit from any Bush regime. Of course major coporations also own the mainstream US stations/broadcast outlets. It's not 'fuzzy" at all to the rest of the world what's going on...just very sad.
It's hardly "leftist crap" to observe these things, either. Anyone with eyes and ears can see what's right in front of them: one articulate candidate who is basically consistent - whether you agree with him or not. Additionally (leaving his years-ago education aside) Gore's record bears out 99% of his statements. This is being pointed out in most of the "foreign" press.
Then there's the ONLY OTHER REAL candidate - who clearly says whatever comes into his mind, regardless of the facts and heedless of things such as basic grammtical skills.
Bush brags about putting 3 people to death when he's only frying 2, fails to remember which state he governs (check out the online Bush interview with Lehrer at pbs.org where Shrub refers to his own "little brother" as governor of Texas; it was linked on/.), says Greek citizens speak "Grecian"...etc., etc., etc. - The guy's quite clearly a dolt. His trying to make fun of it is downright scary ("Ah may have mangled a syll-AH-ble or two mahself").
The idea there is any "left bias" in US mainstream media is utterly ridiculous...So much so it has to be seen from outside the US to be fully appreciated. As does the sadness of the idea many on/. evidently sincerely hold that a vote for anyone other than Gore constitutes some registration of their independence from the US system. You have two choices, that's it. Any way US voters vote, it counts for Gore OR Bush.
If you think the random spouting of platitudes constitutes political "manuevering" on a world stage, you need to adjust your world view. The "furriners" expect a good bit more of a nation's chief representative.
Gore has actually been dealing with in-the-flesh politicians of many countries for years, as a Vice-President; additionally, he enjoys respect abroad. Bush most assuredly does not.
If you look higher up in the postings, you can find out how the "Gore thinks he owns the Internet" story got spread and, later, rebutted.
You owe it to yourself to check if you think you haven't got a candidate. I was born in Tejas and my folks are still stuck there under Bush. You don't want to know (or maybe you better find out) what his REAL record there has been.
If you don't vote for Gore - depending of course on yr state - sad to say, you WILL GET Bush.
Well don't expect many of the posters to agree with you until they get older. Or disabled. Or one of their loved ones gets an illness their "plan" doens't cover any more - because they happened to age out of being so incredibly valuable.
...and it helps to boycott all the crappy books churned out by "ethicists at the University of Richmond" to try and eke their own bucks out of said Gravy Train.
However, my teenage factory job _was_ far superior to my Seattle dot.com stint. Factory stayed in biz; ran well; good union fought for good conditions and wages and saw that they were kept. (Even a winning bowling team)
Dot-com: unorganized, know-nothing bosses, endless meetings, Dilbert to the max...plus endless strings of hosannas in parise of MS (their former employer and perceived future savior)
Uh yeah but it's not like everyone on/. hasn't made these points over and over in different discussions. (And usually much more concisely.)
This woman's book sounds like the typical fodder run by "Lifestyle" pages in newspapers: a saggy, windbaggy extrapolation of something utterly obvious.
All the papers need to add to her cliches are little sidebars such as the (Katz-suggests-we-might-like-to-take-it) "meaningful work quiz".
What is this thread turning into, the Wall Street Gazette? The "well-managed portfolio"? This sounds like my dad...although that's a compliment, I'd rather not talk to him via/.
>Unfortunately for Microsoft, Judge Jackson gave the government almost everything they could have asked for in his Findings of Fact.
"Unfortunately for Microsoft".....why unbfortunately?
It's been very interesting to see what semantics the MS case has revealed. I mean, if you actually followed the whole shebang (no matter whose stocks & systems you endorse, etc) it has been incredible to watch a government team - of all things - conduct such a factually superior, legalistically adept, technologically informed case...against the odds.
All of this is reflected in the various decisions, peripheral papers, responses and findings. As long as one actually read them, that is.
Maybe it is "unfortunate" for Microsoft that they were able to counter only with petulance, doctored video, disinformation, subsequently-retracted statements, boasts, arrogance, and just...well, plain old denial.
Of course they also countered with MONEY (lobbyists, donations, etc.) and it's MONEY that has folks sying stuff like - to quote my ex-boss - "If the DOJ would just get off Microsoft's ass the stock market will be back to normal!!" In his case meaning, Iin an ideal world, like the one I knew at Microsoft, insane people would flock to throw money at _my_ company".
It's "unfortunate" indeed that more people don't look at the facts and realize just what this company can do, has done and may yet do. When someone has their history and about a million bucks in the bank for every employee, it's unlikely they will be a force for general good...ie it's unlikely anyone really has the luxury of de facto disinterest.
It doesn't take reaching 40 to realize
American work values really lag behind many European job considerations. There are bad managers everywhere but they can certainly have a field day with tangled webs of woe such as the US "health care system"...
I've worked both places and it _still_ shocks me how completely and totally money-seeking essentially RUNS everything in America. the majority are out to get every buck they can and (I thought this was a joke until I lived in the US and experienced it non-stop) people often do define themselves in financial terms. It is tiring and leads, however subliminally, to all kinds of unhappiness.
Americans really DO tend to get their identities from what they buy, whereas in general Europeans get them more from what they do. A generalization of course but even the most resolutely opposed American has to deal with this, every day.
Thus the tone of weariness form the posts already up here on this topic is entirely typical of the whole US working world and not merely IT positions.
Little digs at MS??? Come on, since they're trying - as hard as ever - not just to merchandise products but, literally, to lock out the rest of the world, I'd say: LET"S GO FOR MORE BIG DIGS!!!!
Truth never hurts and ther are plenty of unpleasant real "news stories" about MS around. Some make it onto/., some don't.
Not only is serial publication an old idea, it used to be a major determinant of how things evolved....Dickens' novels have so many sub-plots for instance because, needing money, he gained more by stringing them out.
Not only are you right that e-books are nothing new (nor is Print On demand, which now gives all the major publishers copies, esp out-of-print stuff, BLAH BLAH BLAH). You are also right that Katz ought to be checking out history rather than just hitting the keyboard.
Specifically,/. history...This is about the third or fourth article in recent days here on e-type publishing - and it says nothing new or informative.
When you actually work in the news....
on
The New Mediascape
·
· Score: 2
When you actually work in the news, you become hyper-aware of WHY THIS CONTINUES TO BE.
From the (way over-reverenced) BBC and NYT to the (indescribably worse) US local newscast, there is one ambition whiah predominates. It's no longer just pleasing advertisers...although that certainly plays a central role.
More often choices come down to an individual's self-advancement. This will always be determined by the rules of the organ or the corporation in question.
Primarily this means lots of people with absolutely no curiosity about others report on only those "others" whose stories will do their own careers some good. This is why minorities who appear on the news are always there because they have "overcome challenges" or "served as an example". Food Bank stories are always run at Thanksgiving, Latino stories on Cinco de Mayo or Day or the Dead. Black reporters dread February aka Black Heritage Month - they always note it's the shortest month of the year. Etc etc.
Don't even look for anything new - no one else is out there looking for you!!!
Once you get this, it explains a lot. People who are paying less and less for TV and print editors get editors who genuinely see "the audience" through their own perceptions. Believe me, they have a LOW opinion of YOU...they think you WANT the dreck you get, because that's what they know & do.
Why do most arts editors think "the arts" are opera and theater?? Because they never questioned what they were told and don't like to listen. Listening (the actual heart of decent journalism) would be a threat to their always-guarded hegemonies.
The idea that code could be art, that copyright emerged as one of today's most important political battlegrounds, that the RIGHT spokesperson is needed to comment on something - rather than the person it is easiest to contact? These are alien thoughts indeed.
For these folks, opinion (their own) is king.
Every rag in every town in the English-speaking world has some columnist just dying to have their little picture next to an endless screed of their thoughts. The concept they OWE you a trip outside the study or office, into real life, just to see what the story IS...this really never occurs to them. Columnists are interested in what gets them in with the editor. TV anchors want the ratings guy to smile on their set of numbers.
Instead of actual devlepments, "experts" and "surveys" and announcements BECOME the news - simply by virtue of their release. (Certainly this is the case with Mr.Katz, who did not bother with the beginnning findings of this ONGOING Pew Center survey!!!)
There are always honorable exceptions to this, online and offline. But never underestimate the pressures anyone who tries to get "the real story" instead of "enough for today" is fighting.
Unless, of course, you actually _work_ in the news and keep plugging away, trying to deliver.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you out of your MIND? A Republican Missy Big Boots who definitlyl hopes to get a job from GWB not just flouts a state supreme court ruling...she also announces she will ignore the efforts of a carefuly monitored league of citizens who slaved away to re-count the votes in HER state.....
If you heard David Boies explain (concisely and correctly) to Ted Koppel Florida's relevant statutes and legal precendents, you should have detected a VERY CLEAR difference from the perorations of Dubya's lawyer (Ginsburg). The latter simply shuffled and re-shuffled a bunch of opinionated vagueries and generalizations ("We believe this to have been improper")
...Talk about specious! The whole Bush campaign has been based on incredibly specious premises - "likeability" and corny homilies (often contradictory) as oposed to actual qualifications and a record that bears examining.
Now if you'd said you voted for Bush just because you're a died in the wool Republican or because, frankly, you want the "pubs to help Big Biz and save YOU bucks, OK. Fair enough. But there are PLENTY of people behind Gore, when it cmes to the amazing shit that the "pubs have tried (are trying) to pull in Florida.
Gore never gave in on national television, he phoned a concession directly to GW Bush (the dumb thing was he paid attention to "national television" and believed them when they said Bush was a clear winner.
Subsequently, he retracted his concession call in person to Dumb-ass Dubya. Nixon fought the Kennedy tallies in the courts etc for a month AFTER he made his OFFICIAl concession speech.
Remember that a lot of complainants were older people, perhaps with not the steadiest eyesight or hands. Do they deserve a lesser chance (or the insult of that thrity-something blonde bimbette who was explaining she "designed it to help the elderly"?)
More than the numbers are talking too....The head of elections in the county is FURIOUS...his exact words were "I saw people coming out of the booths in hysterics, they were so upset and angry....I know these people, Pat Buchanan wouldn't have gotten a *dozen* votes here...When I see a lot of staright Democratic tickets and the only vote that's not Democratic is Pat Buchanan...I know something's wrong."
...only the 3% makes the difference for Bush. Not for anti-WTO, US workers and the environment. Thanks for nothing, Ralph. Hope yr inflating ego feels it, big time.
...that "some voters meant to vote for Gore but somehow, due to the structure of the ballot" ended up voting for....Pat Buchanan.
Are they getting those votes back?
No! "It seems it was just a few hundred voters", said Tom Brokaw. Then he wnet on to talk about the "missing Boxes" ("they seem to have located most of them and are cheking the seals to se that no tampering has occured")
And WHO governs Florida??????
un-fucking-believable
Just so the MS-is-a-fair-employer brigade knows: This am, in Redmond, WA, Microsoft sent out an e-mail to everyone in the company. It was prefaced with a "of course we don't want to influence your vote", but went on to mention what it *claimed* to be statements "representing the views of each candidate" about....Guess what? Not the future of welfare or taxes or health care or education but...MICROSOFT!!!!!!
Control freaks? Interfering bosses? Obsessives bent on world domination? If you have a non-Bush, non-slade Gorton pal at MS, get 'em to send you their copy.
The only other question is...do they *track* how emnployees actually vote???
Tom Brokaw just "mentioned" that "a few hundred" people in Fla thought they were voting for Gore but..."due to the structure of the ballots" they voted for..Pat Buchanan.
Plus he note,s they have "located the mising ballot boxes" (!) in Fla. What the hell is going on there?????
might be worth your consideration if he wrote it himself.
Check out salon.com today and be impressed that Bush thought Yale "went downhill" after it admitted women. To Ken Burns' co-producer (a woman) no less:
From salon: "There's also Lynn Novick, a co-producer of Ken Burns' PBS series "Baseball," who had the rare treat of accompanying Bush to a Texas Rangers game in the summer of 1994, before he was elected governor. "He was a very gracious host," Novick says. "He was perfectly pleasant. Until he changed the subject."
Bush mentioned something about Yale University, from which he graduated in 1968. Novick graduated from Yale in 1983, so she brought it up, thinking it would be "like a bonding thing."
"When did you graduate?" Bush asked her, as she recalls. She told him. That's when Bush told her that Yale "went downhill since they admitted women."
"I said, 'Excuse me?'" Novick says. "I thought
he was kidding. But he didn't seem to be kidding. I said, 'What do you mean?'"
Bush replied that "something had been lost" when women were fully admitted to Yale in 1969, that fraternities were big when he'd been there, providing a "great camaraderie for the men." But that went out the window when women were allowed in, Bush said.
"He said something like, 'Women changed the social dynamic for the worse,'" she says. "I was so stunned, shocked and insulted, I didn't know what to say."
She says two things offended her the most:"That he would think that, but almost more so that he would say that to a woman who went to Yale."
Then combine that with his position on abortion.
So much for trotting out Condoleeza Rice all the time.
Maybe personally you're voting for Nader but actually, you're voting for Bush. With actual "serious campaign reform" that wouldn't be the case but dream on if you think it isn't. esp since you don't want a "green run US" don't expect any thanks if Bush wins.
Telling phrase, "our wealth". If you know much about FDR (clearly you don't) he was no more a "socialist" than Tony Blair is.
Interesting you also make a personal claim on the Brits who founded the US. But there were "indidviduals" who couldn't live how they pleased and do what they "wanted": people who didn't own property couldn't vote, women had less rights than men and slaves certainly weren't such free & happy folk.
My girlfriend's old boss made a big deal of being a libertarian. Never met a more self-serving, sanctimonoius cuss. But his grasp of history was about the same.
So women whose contraceptives happen to fail when they are in high school or college all just made a "bad life decision"? What did they do - fail to shop properly? Or someone with few qualifications thanks to being in some nowhere town with crappy education end up making a "bad career choice" as a result?
Give us a break. Maybe you got to choose how your life has unwound thus far - if so you'
re lucky. But get real. All people don't get to CHOOSE.
That's part of what (some) candidates are trying to say...But it's interesting to realize they have to keep hammering away at such a banal and obvious fact because there ARE people who simply fixate on their own personal income and taxes.
It's a big world out here; take a look around. You seem to need additional information about class in the good old US...not to mention a few pointers about the relations of workers in Mexico to their local and national governments as well as "the auto workers".
Excuse me? Where did you get this stuff? I've spent 15 years in Europe and no-one here thinks Bush has any grip on anything - let alone "foreign" policy. People do, of course, feel almost any European media moderator (esp a BBC attack dog journo like Jeremy Paxman) would have done a better job than the patsy chosen to "moderate" your Presidential deabtes.
/.), says Greek citizens speak "Grecian"...etc., etc., etc. - The guy's quite clearly a dolt. His trying to make fun of it is downright scary ("Ah may have mangled a syll-AH-ble or two mahself").
/. evidently sincerely hold that a vote for anyone other than Gore constitutes some registration of their independence from the US system. You have two choices, that's it. Any way US voters vote, it counts for Gore OR Bush.
The saddest thing about the whole US election process is the media and it's insistence on ranking success in the very same terms you use: who "maneuvers" best; who "wins on charm", etc. Of course these "reporters" are very well-paid and thus will benefit from any Bush regime. Of course major coporations also own the mainstream US stations/broadcast outlets. It's not 'fuzzy" at all to the rest of the world what's going on...just very sad.
It's hardly "leftist crap" to observe these things, either. Anyone with eyes and ears can see what's right in front of them: one articulate candidate who is basically consistent - whether you agree with him or not. Additionally (leaving his years-ago education aside) Gore's record bears out 99% of his statements. This is being pointed out in most of the "foreign" press.
Then there's the ONLY OTHER REAL candidate - who clearly says whatever comes into his mind, regardless of the facts and heedless of things such as basic grammtical skills.
Bush brags about putting 3 people to death when he's only frying 2, fails to remember which state he governs (check out the online Bush interview with Lehrer at pbs.org where Shrub refers to his own "little brother" as governor of Texas; it was linked on
The idea there is any "left bias" in US mainstream media is utterly ridiculous...So much so it has to be seen from outside the US to be fully appreciated. As does the sadness of the idea many on
If you think the random spouting of platitudes constitutes political "manuevering" on a world stage, you need to adjust your world view. The "furriners" expect a good bit more of a nation's chief representative.
Gore has actually been dealing with in-the-flesh politicians of many countries for years, as a Vice-President; additionally, he enjoys respect abroad. Bush most assuredly does not.
If you look higher up in the postings, you can find out how the "Gore thinks he owns the Internet" story got spread and, later, rebutted.
You owe it to yourself to check if you think you haven't got a candidate. I was born in Tejas and my folks are still stuck there under Bush. You don't want to know (or maybe you better find out) what his REAL record there has been.
If you don't vote for Gore - depending of course on yr state - sad to say, you WILL GET Bush.
Well don't expect many of the posters to agree with you until they get older. Or disabled. Or one of their loved ones gets an illness their "plan" doens't cover any more - because they happened to age out of being so incredibly valuable.
...and it helps to boycott all the crappy books churned out by "ethicists at the University of Richmond" to try and eke their own bucks out of said Gravy Train.
However, my teenage factory job _was_ far superior to my Seattle dot.com stint. Factory stayed in biz; ran well; good union fought for good conditions and wages and saw that they were kept. (Even a winning bowling team)
Dot-com: unorganized, know-nothing bosses, endless meetings, Dilbert to the max...plus endless strings of hosannas in parise of MS (their former employer and perceived future savior)
Uh yeah but it's not like everyone on /. hasn't made these points over and over in different discussions. (And usually much more concisely.)
This woman's book sounds like the typical fodder run by "Lifestyle" pages in newspapers: a saggy, windbaggy extrapolation of something utterly obvious.
All the papers need to add to her cliches are little sidebars such as the (Katz-suggests-we-might-like-to-take-it) "meaningful work quiz".
!!!! please!!!!
We're rootin' for ya
What is this thread turning into, the Wall Street Gazette? The "well-managed portfolio"? This sounds like my dad...although that's a compliment, I'd rather not talk to him via /.
I really hope no-one entrusts the dopes who run the startup I worked at (and quit) with a BOOK contract!!!!! It would be too risible....
...One has to wonder...are you?
>Unfortunately for Microsoft, Judge Jackson gave the government almost everything they could have asked for in his Findings of Fact.
"Unfortunately for Microsoft".....why unbfortunately?
It's been very interesting to see what semantics the MS case has revealed. I mean, if you actually followed the whole shebang (no matter whose stocks & systems you endorse, etc) it has been incredible to watch a government team - of all things - conduct such a factually superior, legalistically adept, technologically informed case...against the odds.
All of this is reflected in the various decisions, peripheral papers, responses and findings. As long as one actually read them, that is.
Maybe it is "unfortunate" for Microsoft that they were able to counter only with petulance, doctored video, disinformation, subsequently-retracted statements, boasts, arrogance, and just...well, plain old denial.
Of course they also countered with MONEY (lobbyists, donations, etc.) and it's MONEY that has folks sying stuff like - to quote my ex-boss - "If the DOJ would just get off Microsoft's ass the stock market will be back to normal!!" In his case meaning, Iin an ideal world, like the one I knew at Microsoft, insane people would flock to throw money at _my_ company".
It's "unfortunate" indeed that more people don't look at the facts and realize just what this company can do, has done and may yet do. When someone has their history and about a million bucks in the bank for every employee, it's unlikely they will be a force for general good...ie it's unlikely anyone really has the luxury of de facto disinterest.
It doesn't take reaching 40 to realize
American work values really lag behind many European job considerations. There are bad managers everywhere but they can certainly have a field day with tangled webs of woe such as the US "health care system"...
I've worked both places and it _still_ shocks me how completely and totally money-seeking essentially RUNS everything in America. the majority are out to get every buck they can and (I thought this was a joke until I lived in the US and experienced it non-stop) people often do define themselves in financial terms. It is tiring and leads, however subliminally, to all kinds of unhappiness.
Americans really DO tend to get their identities from what they buy, whereas in general Europeans get them more from what they do. A generalization of course but even the most resolutely opposed American has to deal with this, every day.
Thus the tone of weariness form the posts already up here on this topic is entirely typical of the whole US working world and not merely IT positions.
Little digs at MS??? Come on, since they're trying - as hard as ever - not just to merchandise products but, literally, to lock out the rest of the world, I'd say: LET"S GO FOR MORE BIG DIGS!!!!
/., some don't.
Truth never hurts and ther are plenty of unpleasant real "news stories" about MS around. Some make it onto
Not only is serial publication an old idea, it used to be a major determinant of how things evolved....Dickens' novels have so many sub-plots for instance because, needing money, he gained more by stringing them out.
/. history...This is about the third or fourth article in recent days here on e-type publishing - and it says nothing new or informative.
Not only are you right that e-books are nothing new (nor is Print On demand, which now gives all the major publishers copies, esp out-of-print stuff, BLAH BLAH BLAH). You are also right that Katz ought to be checking out history rather than just hitting the keyboard.
Specifically,
When you actually work in the news, you become hyper-aware of WHY THIS CONTINUES TO BE.
From the (way over-reverenced) BBC and NYT to the (indescribably worse) US local newscast, there is one ambition whiah predominates. It's no longer just pleasing advertisers...although that certainly plays a central role.
More often choices come down to an individual's self-advancement. This will always be determined by the rules of the organ or the corporation in question.
Primarily this means lots of people with absolutely no curiosity about others report on only those "others" whose stories will do their own careers some good. This is why minorities who appear on the news are always there because they have "overcome challenges" or "served as an example". Food Bank stories are always run at Thanksgiving, Latino stories on Cinco de Mayo or Day or the Dead. Black reporters dread February aka Black Heritage Month - they always note it's the shortest month of the year. Etc etc.
Don't even look for anything new - no one else is out there looking for you!!!
Once you get this, it explains a lot. People who are paying less and less for TV and print editors get editors who genuinely see "the audience" through their own perceptions. Believe me, they have a LOW opinion of YOU...they think you WANT the dreck you get, because that's what they know & do.
Why do most arts editors think "the arts" are opera and theater?? Because they never questioned what they were told and don't like to listen. Listening (the actual heart of decent journalism) would be a threat to their always-guarded hegemonies.
The idea that code could be art, that copyright emerged as one of today's most important political battlegrounds, that the RIGHT spokesperson is needed to comment on something - rather than the person it is easiest to contact? These are alien thoughts indeed.
For these folks, opinion (their own) is king.
Every rag in every town in the English-speaking world has some columnist just dying to have their little picture next to an endless screed of their thoughts. The concept they OWE you a trip outside the study or office, into real life, just to see what the story IS...this really never occurs to them. Columnists are interested in what gets them in with the editor. TV anchors want the ratings guy to smile on their set of numbers.
Instead of actual devlepments, "experts" and "surveys" and announcements BECOME the news - simply by virtue of their release. (Certainly this is the case with Mr.Katz, who did not bother with the beginnning findings of this ONGOING Pew Center survey!!!)
There are always honorable exceptions to this, online and offline. But never underestimate the pressures anyone who tries to get "the real story" instead of "enough for today" is fighting.
Unless, of course, you actually _work_ in the news and keep plugging away, trying to deliver.