While all that cash on hand is nice, shareholders in MSFT are not too happy about it. Yeah, MS could never sell another product and keep itself going for a long time, but at a certain point investors are going to want a piece.
Also, what can MSFT do with all that cash? If they try and buy up too many companies, even Dubya's DOJ is going to come knocking at the door. So, they sit on a huge pile of cash while the stock stays flat. Eventually people who own MSFT are going to want a cut of that cash.
As pointed out above, they'll just send you spam, which is what they've done in the first place - so who cares!
One thing is clear - there are more of us then there are of them. If everyone immediately bounced 20 messages back for every one they sent us, they'd be in trouble. Of course, given that they are using zombie machines to do their spamming, this isn't exactly going to work...
Re:How is this embarassing to the buyer?
on
Both Sides of Wii
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· Score: 1
You know, who gives a shit what the name of the product is? I mean AMD 3800+ means about as much to me as "Wii". If you are that insecure that you fear that your friends might mock your console name, you've got some problems.
Package updates were my favorite feature of Ubuntu. Unfortuantely, on my HP, the clock ran 2x fast and the machine hung every few days. So, I switched over to FC4 and later FC5.
I do think Ubuntu is forcing other distros into better package and update management. FC4 had pretty terrible features out of the box, but FC5 is a lot better. So, while not everyone loves Ubuntu, they've been a factor in increasing usablity.
I realize that this doesn't fit nicely into your libertarian view, but we often do science just for the sake of doing it. Knowledge in and of itself is a good thing, and funding some cycles on a computer that would otherwise be simulating nukes or finding prime numbers doesn't seem wasteful to me at all.
As long as the Jack Thompsons of the world are around, there will always be folks that think video games equal violence. So, to get a grasp on this, we need to do actual study. While it think most of us would agree that playing violent games doesn't make you violent, it is possible that they increase your tendency towards violence. As gamers and as a society we need to acknowledge this.
It took a bit of time to figure out that "ps" and "top" were compromised. It wasn't until we got the IP of our portscanning machine that we realized just how hacked we were. Then again, none of these machines was behind a firewall or anything, they were just sitting on the external internet!
When I started at my previous job, the office was pretty much a 100% linux shop. And, the previous admins had assumed that since everything was linux, everything was safe. We had something like 10 machines with external ip addresses sitting out there for every hacker in creation to use. One machine was compromised just like yours - custom versions of every command, etc. It was so bad the DOD sent us a nasty email about a week after I started. One of the rooted machines was portscanning a bunch of DOD machines.
Regardless of this guy's competence, no 911 call should EVER be put on hold. At least not until you are talking to an actual 911 dispatcher. This is a legit issue for all VOIP providers, since they are supposedly competing for our phone service.
Now, it is not smart to only have a VOIP phone. It is relatively cheap to have even an old cell phone as backup, since even a cell phone with no calling plan can reach 911.
You know what - who cares? I have both a Pentium 4 and an AMD 64 and they both do what they are supposed to do. Both seem pretty zippy. The fact that Intel is playing catch up is good for us, since we'll get better chips from both companies.
From "Flaming Moe" episode... Homer is pissed that Moe has stolen the "Flaming Moe" recipe, and tells Moe that he's just lost a customer. Moe cannot hear Homer over the sound of the cash register constantly ringing.
The point is, Blizzard is raking in so much cash that they can afford to be ban-happy. Some guy looks like he's using a bot - ban the sucker! Who cares about one account when you've got 8 million?
I'm a Linux enthusiast and I agree with many of your points. I also think that one of the biggest issues is the number of distros, and how those distros differ.
I installed Ubuntu and it worked great - recognized my nVidia card, loaded and updated fast, etc. I loved it. Then it would hang. The clock also ran 2x faster than it should. Both problems were unacceptable. Went to FC4. Nice, solid distro, except that getting nVidia drivers is painful. Updates suck. I won't go into Mandriva.
The point is, depending on your hardware, one distro may just suck rocks when you load it. Since users think Linux is one big thing, this colors their view. At least with Windows you know what you will get - even if it is painful.
It may not be enough, but it would be a good-faith gesture on their part. More people would feel comfortable with the process if it were more transparent.
I think groupthink in this case is exactly the point - the voters don't want Diebold machines counting their votes. Diebold has taken virtually no action to reassure the public that everything is legit - they could release their source code, for example.
You know, I don't care. I have both AMD and Intel chips in my PCs at home and they both work fine. I'm glad Intel is making improvements in their chips, rather than just bumping the clock speed every few months. AMD had to make better chips to stay in business and now Intel has to do the same. We, the nerdly consumers who care about pipelines and memory access times, benefit.
Let's see, if I'm a record exec and I see a digital copy of a song sell 3 million copies, which cost me nothing to reproduce or distribute, why do I care about CDs at all? Selling 300K CDs is pretty good in a week, but the lable had to press and ship all those CDs. They sent one digital copy to iTunes and sold 3 million, and they are complaining? These folks are really working hard at being stupid.
For every old professor trying to justify grants, there are a larger number of young bucks who want to make a name for themselves. Data that can't easily be explained is a great place to do that.
Now we're really getting carried away. In a couple of years MMOs have gone from hard-core only nerd fests to mainstream. Worse, they seem to be well on their way to being the trendy choice when making a new game.
Are MMOs the next dotcom? Will every tv or movie franchise have a corresponding MMO? At least it should cut down on the number of rushed single player games based on movies or tv shows... I hope.
What you say is true, but how much of that trivial use is promoted by the providors themselves? Here in the SF Bay Area, SBC/at&t Yahoo! bombards us with ads about their DSL service with talk about streaming video from live concerts, downloading the latest songs, etc. The most bloated sites are often the provider sites themselves!
All that said, if they wanted to squeeze an extra $10 a month out of me for no throughput cap, I'd pay it. It isn't clear that this is what they will do, however.
Now that WoW is a big hit, it seems that every fantasy or sci-fi franchise is grist for the MMO mill. We'll soon have a Firefly MMO, a Lost MMO, etc. I wonder how this will impact single player games - will publishers only want MMOs?
MS makes a product that due to its nature, has led to a huge industry. There are ant-virus companies, but also admins, security experts, network gear - all produced and sold on the premise of keeping Windows secure. If MS produced a much more secure version of the OS, all these folks would have to work harder or find other sources of income.
It is like Income Tax reform in the US - we all want it, but if it were to happen, accountants, lawyers, software companies and IRS agents would suddenly be out of work...
Slashdot Mirror
While all that cash on hand is nice, shareholders in MSFT are not too happy about it. Yeah, MS could never sell another product and keep itself going for a long time, but at a certain point investors are going to want a piece.
Also, what can MSFT do with all that cash? If they try and buy up too many companies, even Dubya's DOJ is going to come knocking at the door. So, they sit on a huge pile of cash while the stock stays flat. Eventually people who own MSFT are going to want a cut of that cash.
As pointed out above, they'll just send you spam, which is what they've done in the first place - so who cares!
One thing is clear - there are more of us then there are of them. If everyone immediately bounced 20 messages back for every one they sent us, they'd be in trouble. Of course, given that they are using zombie machines to do their spamming, this isn't exactly going to work...
You know, who gives a shit what the name of the product is? I mean AMD 3800+ means about as much to me as "Wii". If you are that insecure that you fear that your friends might mock your console name, you've got some problems.
Package updates were my favorite feature of Ubuntu. Unfortuantely, on my HP, the clock ran 2x fast and the machine hung every few days. So, I switched over to FC4 and later FC5.
I do think Ubuntu is forcing other distros into better package and update management. FC4 had pretty terrible features out of the box, but FC5 is a lot better. So, while not everyone loves Ubuntu, they've been a factor in increasing usablity.
I realize that this doesn't fit nicely into your libertarian view, but we often do science just for the sake of doing it. Knowledge in and of itself is a good thing, and funding some cycles on a computer that would otherwise be simulating nukes or finding prime numbers doesn't seem wasteful to me at all.
As long as the Jack Thompsons of the world are around, there will always be folks that think video games equal violence. So, to get a grasp on this, we need to do actual study. While it think most of us would agree that playing violent games doesn't make you violent, it is possible that they increase your tendency towards violence. As gamers and as a society we need to acknowledge this.
As far as I could tell, they just replaced all the files in the bin directory. The machine was so owned it was funny.
It took a bit of time to figure out that "ps" and "top" were compromised. It wasn't until we got the IP of our portscanning machine that we realized just how hacked we were. Then again, none of these machines was behind a firewall or anything, they were just sitting on the external internet!
When I started at my previous job, the office was pretty much a 100% linux shop. And, the previous admins had assumed that since everything was linux, everything was safe. We had something like 10 machines with external ip addresses sitting out there for every hacker in creation to use. One machine was compromised just like yours - custom versions of every command, etc. It was so bad the DOD sent us a nasty email about a week after I started. One of the rooted machines was portscanning a bunch of DOD machines.
Regardless of this guy's competence, no 911 call should EVER be put on hold. At least not until you are talking to an actual 911 dispatcher. This is a legit issue for all VOIP providers, since they are supposedly competing for our phone service.
Now, it is not smart to only have a VOIP phone. It is relatively cheap to have even an old cell phone as backup, since even a cell phone with no calling plan can reach 911.
You know what - who cares? I have both a Pentium 4 and an AMD 64 and they both do what they are supposed to do. Both seem pretty zippy. The fact that Intel is playing catch up is good for us, since we'll get better chips from both companies.
From "Flaming Moe" episode... Homer is pissed that Moe has stolen the "Flaming Moe" recipe, and tells Moe that he's just lost a customer. Moe cannot hear Homer over the sound of the cash register constantly ringing.
The point is, Blizzard is raking in so much cash that they can afford to be ban-happy. Some guy looks like he's using a bot - ban the sucker! Who cares about one account when you've got 8 million?
I'm a Linux enthusiast and I agree with many of your points. I also think that one of the biggest issues is the number of distros, and how those distros differ.
I installed Ubuntu and it worked great - recognized my nVidia card, loaded and updated fast, etc. I loved it. Then it would hang. The clock also ran 2x faster than it should. Both problems were unacceptable. Went to FC4. Nice, solid distro, except that getting nVidia drivers is painful. Updates suck. I won't go into Mandriva.
The point is, depending on your hardware, one distro may just suck rocks when you load it. Since users think Linux is one big thing, this colors their view. At least with Windows you know what you will get - even if it is painful.
It may not be enough, but it would be a good-faith gesture on their part. More people would feel comfortable with the process if it were more transparent.
I think groupthink in this case is exactly the point - the voters don't want Diebold machines counting their votes. Diebold has taken virtually no action to reassure the public that everything is legit - they could release their source code, for example.
You know, I don't care. I have both AMD and Intel chips in my PCs at home and they both work fine. I'm glad Intel is making improvements in their chips, rather than just bumping the clock speed every few months. AMD had to make better chips to stay in business and now Intel has to do the same. We, the nerdly consumers who care about pipelines and memory access times, benefit.
Let's see, if I'm a record exec and I see a digital copy of a song sell 3 million copies, which cost me nothing to reproduce or distribute, why do I care about CDs at all? Selling 300K CDs is pretty good in a week, but the lable had to press and ship all those CDs. They sent one digital copy to iTunes and sold 3 million, and they are complaining? These folks are really working hard at being stupid.
Thanks, that slide show assumed that we are all extreme speed readers who don't like to look at pictures.
Yeah, those monopoly charges really slowed Microsoft down, didn't they?
For every old professor trying to justify grants, there are a larger number of young bucks who want to make a name for themselves. Data that can't easily be explained is a great place to do that.
Or, "hot sexy grandmas!"
Maybe "lesbian action with real lesbians"?
Now we're really getting carried away. In a couple of years MMOs have gone from hard-core only nerd fests to mainstream. Worse, they seem to be well on their way to being the trendy choice when making a new game.
Are MMOs the next dotcom? Will every tv or movie franchise have a corresponding MMO? At least it should cut down on the number of rushed single player games based on movies or tv shows... I hope.
What you say is true, but how much of that trivial use is promoted by the providors themselves? Here in the SF Bay Area, SBC/at&t Yahoo! bombards us with ads about their DSL service with talk about streaming video from live concerts, downloading the latest songs, etc. The most bloated sites are often the provider sites themselves!
All that said, if they wanted to squeeze an extra $10 a month out of me for no throughput cap, I'd pay it. It isn't clear that this is what they will do, however.
Now that WoW is a big hit, it seems that every fantasy or sci-fi franchise is grist for the MMO mill. We'll soon have a Firefly MMO, a Lost MMO, etc. I wonder how this will impact single player games - will publishers only want MMOs?
MS makes a product that due to its nature, has led to a huge industry. There are ant-virus companies, but also admins, security experts, network gear - all produced and sold on the premise of keeping Windows secure. If MS produced a much more secure version of the OS, all these folks would have to work harder or find other sources of income.
It is like Income Tax reform in the US - we all want it, but if it were to happen, accountants, lawyers, software companies and IRS agents would suddenly be out of work...