I would really like to know who has hearing that is so good that they would instantly know when a CD is being played and say "That sounds like crap, its not vinyl". And then there's the fact that vinyl is only better when you are playing a perfectly preserved album on an excellent turntable with a top quality stylus. One spec of dust or one little scar will make it sound like a scratchy old record.
Interesting idea. I've always wondered why it wasn't easier and more common to register top level domains. For example, a large company like General Motors could have their own.gm TLD. For information on a Chevrolet, you would go to www.chevrolet.gm instead of a.com. Is ICANN politics the only thing holding this up?
This is just one reason why an automated counter attack system would never be a good idea. If, however, your organization were repeatedly victimized by a DOS attack, and you could accurately identify who was responsible, counter attacking would make all the sense in the world. Not only would it make the attacker unable to perform new attacks, but if the company got lucky the attacker might even try to sue them. Why is this a good thing? You have to identify yourself to sue someone. Then the company knows who to countersue, and for much more money than the original suit. DOS attacks will only stop when there is a possibility of real consequences against the offender.
But Viacom won't allow this. Because who would actually pay extra for the garbage channels? If any satellite or cable operator were to threaten to seperate the channels into their own package or to charge individually for them, Viacom would then pull the plug on all of their channels. No company could survive with no Viacom channels, so they give in and pay a huge amount of money for all of them. Disney tried the same thing with Cox Cable. Funny, these types of sales tactics used to be called racketeering and were actually illegal. Imagine if GM had 95% of the American auto market and built their cars to only run on GM brand gasoline?
This is just noise. If AT&T couldn't afford to litigate this suit back in the days when they had more money than God, SCO has a snowball's chance in hell of litigating it now. Of course, as usual, they would have no intent of winning the case, just in scaring a few people into paying them off.
They'd much rather sell it on a monthly payment finance plan than to have you pay cash for the same reason that car dealers do: its easier to screw the customer when you don't know exactly how much you will end up paying. I haven't seen how much the interest rate is on their finance plans, but I can imagine it makes a credit card look economical in comparison. That being said, their sales methods are not only irritating for the customer but they hurt the company much more than they help.
SCO's success hinges on making people feel sorry for them.
In other words, SCO is the computer equivalent of Palestinians. Replace suicide bombings with suicide press releases, and SCO has a lot in common with them.
Honestly, I do not have a problem with this. The purpose of a textbook is to instruct a wide range of readers on a particular topic, not to provide an outlet for the author's free expression. I would certainly not be in favor of this type of standard for literary works, or for that matter in an English text which features reprints of actual stories, but for something that is strictly technical, the author's intentional and unintentional personal biases need to be removed. Textbooks are published to instruct, not for the author to make a statement.
Unless AT&T recognizes that the old monopoly days are over, they will be out of business in less than 10 years, maybe even sooner. Since they started as a monopoly company and operated throughout most of their history as a monopoly, they are ill prepared to deal with the new telecom environment. They should keep their backbone data services and get rid of everything else. If they think their future is in charging people 10 cents a minute for long distance, they've got another thing coming. And since 'competitive' local phone service has been a colossal disaster, I don't think the future is there either. Considering how badly they mangled their cable TV and cellphone business ventures, its best they stick to only what they can do best.
Re:Striking out with Baseball
on
Real's Reality
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· Score: 1
The way I understood it, MLB is one organization that is even greedier than Real, and they wanted so much money for the rights that nobody is really considering webcasting the games anymore. This would be pretty consistant for an organization that blacks out home games thinking it will make more people go to the ballgames. Within the next 25 years, I suspect that we will see major league baseball collapse under its own greed, possibly followed by a new and reformed professional baseball league.
I think what really makes the whole malpractice lawsuit situation worse is the lack of action by state medical licensing boards. When a complaint is filed against a doctor, it is usually in a pending status for years before anyone even looks into it. This is true of most professional licensing boards, by the way. If the disciplinary process moved faster, bad doctors could be taken out of practice sooner, fewer patients would be harmed, and the cost of covering malpractice suit payouts would be much less. Legitimate malpractice suits are often filed against repeat offenders, so the sooner their license is pulled, the better off everyone is.
The way I see it, many people feel justified about lying on a resume if companies have lied to them in the past about job duties, salaries, etc. Not saying that makes it OK, but that is how some peoples' minds work. The internet is putting more power in the hands of people on both sides of the issue to find out more about each other.
You never miss the chance for a good class warfare argument, do you? If anything, this type of software will bring a little more power to the people, considering the type of information you can find with it is already available to anyone who can pay lots of money for database access. As far as someone using it improperly, the risk is already there. Its not that difficult to run a credit report on someone illegally and not get caught.
I was going to say. If some startup electronics firm wants to get ahold of the inkjet printer market, what better way to do it than to advertise cheap refills? Maybe even allow the first 2 refills to be included in the cost of the printer, which will be a little higher than the existing models. Then inkjet refills will become commoditized just like the printers themselves.
They're just waiting a little longer so they can maximize royalties, then watch them try to collect. I know, this probably won't happen, but it wouldn't entirely surprise me.
I've seen this troll before on a related topic. What this 'admin' fails to realize is that the company computer network does not exist for the purpose of providing system administrators with power trips and an empire to control. It exists to provide value to the company. How much value does it provide when programmers need to ask the network monkey to come and change a setting so they can compile something? How much productivity is lost because people don't have the ability to install so much as a new font? If you can't run a network where you have a centrally monitored anti virus and firewall system along with a good data backup/recovery methodology, which does not require keeping the system completely locked down from everyone, then find a new job. Most admins for companies large and small have this figured out. Why don't you?
This policy only works if your users are not technical staff. Try telling your developers that they can't install software. Or try telling some researcher that they can't put software on the computers that their research grants bought. Do you really want them calling you every 10 minutes to install something or change a setting?
I thought about that when I read the site. What better way to pull off a scam than to tell people that others are saying something about them and charge money for them to see it. People being curious, they will want to see it, but most internet-savvy people would know that something like this is probably not legit and would not pay.
I wouldn't call this unchecked police power unless the guy actually gets convicted and sent away for 20 years, which I guarantee won't happen. That is what the courts are for, to provide a check to police power. I'd be surprised if they even go to trial without substantially reducing the charges first. The guy might even have a case for a malicious prosecution lawsuit, since it seems like the charges are much more severe than they should be for the actual crime committed.
I think its obvious that this sheriffs department has no idea how the internet works. Otherwise they would have retained control of their domain name from the beginning.
Re:Other mappable relationship environments?
on
Guilty By Association
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· Score: 4, Interesting
If you think that's scary, check out the mission of these people.
It doesn't have to be this way for Dell. They used to make premium machines with top notch support. They cost a little more than Gateway or the end aisle special at Best Buy, but people would pay it for a better machine that was customized to their needs. But now, there is really no reason to buy a Dell over any other machine. Sure, their prices are lower, but so is the quality. With service and customizability declining as well, Dell has completely lost their competitive advantage and are just living off their name. Having become just another dime a dozen consumer electronics company, it won't take much for other competitors to eat their lunch. Dell will still have a very lucrative server market, which has not become as commoditized as the desktops and laptops, but I think this company is in for a rough future if they don't change soon.
Have you ever noticed how many board members of large companies are CEOs of other large corporations? I think it's a conspiracy!
Its an old boy's network that consists of CEOs giving each other pay raises and having no real accountability to anyone. Even if shareholders do become aware of this and try to stop the fleecing of their company, there is usually little they can do. Shareholder resolutions typically do no good, so the only real hope for change is if a majority shareholder gets fed up and starts voting out directors. If you are thinking about buying stock in a publically traded company, it may be helpful to know the makeup of the company board so you can avoid the stock if the company is not being run for the long term good.
Slashdot Mirror
I would really like to know who has hearing that is so good that they would instantly know when a CD is being played and say "That sounds like crap, its not vinyl". And then there's the fact that vinyl is only better when you are playing a perfectly preserved album on an excellent turntable with a top quality stylus. One spec of dust or one little scar will make it sound like a scratchy old record.
Interesting idea. I've always wondered why it wasn't easier and more common to register top level domains. For example, a large company like General Motors could have their own .gm TLD. For information on a Chevrolet, you would go to www.chevrolet.gm instead of a .com. Is ICANN politics the only thing holding this up?
This is just one reason why an automated counter attack system would never be a good idea. If, however, your organization were repeatedly victimized by a DOS attack, and you could accurately identify who was responsible, counter attacking would make all the sense in the world. Not only would it make the attacker unable to perform new attacks, but if the company got lucky the attacker might even try to sue them. Why is this a good thing? You have to identify yourself to sue someone. Then the company knows who to countersue, and for much more money than the original suit. DOS attacks will only stop when there is a possibility of real consequences against the offender.
But Viacom won't allow this. Because who would actually pay extra for the garbage channels? If any satellite or cable operator were to threaten to seperate the channels into their own package or to charge individually for them, Viacom would then pull the plug on all of their channels. No company could survive with no Viacom channels, so they give in and pay a huge amount of money for all of them. Disney tried the same thing with Cox Cable. Funny, these types of sales tactics used to be called racketeering and were actually illegal. Imagine if GM had 95% of the American auto market and built their cars to only run on GM brand gasoline?
This is just noise. If AT&T couldn't afford to litigate this suit back in the days when they had more money than God, SCO has a snowball's chance in hell of litigating it now. Of course, as usual, they would have no intent of winning the case, just in scaring a few people into paying them off.
They'd much rather sell it on a monthly payment finance plan than to have you pay cash for the same reason that car dealers do: its easier to screw the customer when you don't know exactly how much you will end up paying. I haven't seen how much the interest rate is on their finance plans, but I can imagine it makes a credit card look economical in comparison. That being said, their sales methods are not only irritating for the customer but they hurt the company much more than they help.
SCO's success hinges on making people feel sorry for them.
In other words, SCO is the computer equivalent of Palestinians. Replace suicide bombings with suicide press releases, and SCO has a lot in common with them.
Honestly, I do not have a problem with this. The purpose of a textbook is to instruct a wide range of readers on a particular topic, not to provide an outlet for the author's free expression. I would certainly not be in favor of this type of standard for literary works, or for that matter in an English text which features reprints of actual stories, but for something that is strictly technical, the author's intentional and unintentional personal biases need to be removed. Textbooks are published to instruct, not for the author to make a statement.
Unless AT&T recognizes that the old monopoly days are over, they will be out of business in less than 10 years, maybe even sooner. Since they started as a monopoly company and operated throughout most of their history as a monopoly, they are ill prepared to deal with the new telecom environment. They should keep their backbone data services and get rid of everything else. If they think their future is in charging people 10 cents a minute for long distance, they've got another thing coming. And since 'competitive' local phone service has been a colossal disaster, I don't think the future is there either. Considering how badly they mangled their cable TV and cellphone business ventures, its best they stick to only what they can do best.
The way I understood it, MLB is one organization that is even greedier than Real, and they wanted so much money for the rights that nobody is really considering webcasting the games anymore. This would be pretty consistant for an organization that blacks out home games thinking it will make more people go to the ballgames. Within the next 25 years, I suspect that we will see major league baseball collapse under its own greed, possibly followed by a new and reformed professional baseball league.
Here is an article that mentions this exact situation. A lawyer sued someone who refused to sell to him, but he ultimately lost.
I think what really makes the whole malpractice lawsuit situation worse is the lack of action by state medical licensing boards. When a complaint is filed against a doctor, it is usually in a pending status for years before anyone even looks into it. This is true of most professional licensing boards, by the way. If the disciplinary process moved faster, bad doctors could be taken out of practice sooner, fewer patients would be harmed, and the cost of covering malpractice suit payouts would be much less. Legitimate malpractice suits are often filed against repeat offenders, so the sooner their license is pulled, the better off everyone is.
The way I see it, many people feel justified about lying on a resume if companies have lied to them in the past about job duties, salaries, etc. Not saying that makes it OK, but that is how some peoples' minds work. The internet is putting more power in the hands of people on both sides of the issue to find out more about each other.
You never miss the chance for a good class warfare argument, do you? If anything, this type of software will bring a little more power to the people, considering the type of information you can find with it is already available to anyone who can pay lots of money for database access. As far as someone using it improperly, the risk is already there. Its not that difficult to run a credit report on someone illegally and not get caught.
I was going to say. If some startup electronics firm wants to get ahold of the inkjet printer market, what better way to do it than to advertise cheap refills? Maybe even allow the first 2 refills to be included in the cost of the printer, which will be a little higher than the existing models. Then inkjet refills will become commoditized just like the printers themselves.
They're just waiting a little longer so they can maximize royalties, then watch them try to collect. I know, this probably won't happen, but it wouldn't entirely surprise me.
I've seen this troll before on a related topic. What this 'admin' fails to realize is that the company computer network does not exist for the purpose of providing system administrators with power trips and an empire to control. It exists to provide value to the company. How much value does it provide when programmers need to ask the network monkey to come and change a setting so they can compile something? How much productivity is lost because people don't have the ability to install so much as a new font? If you can't run a network where you have a centrally monitored anti virus and firewall system along with a good data backup/recovery methodology, which does not require keeping the system completely locked down from everyone, then find a new job. Most admins for companies large and small have this figured out. Why don't you?
This policy only works if your users are not technical staff. Try telling your developers that they can't install software. Or try telling some researcher that they can't put software on the computers that their research grants bought. Do you really want them calling you every 10 minutes to install something or change a setting?
How is this not a virus? Norton and other supposed security firms should include patterns in their anti-virus products that remove cancer like this.
I thought about that when I read the site. What better way to pull off a scam than to tell people that others are saying something about them and charge money for them to see it. People being curious, they will want to see it, but most internet-savvy people would know that something like this is probably not legit and would not pay.
I wouldn't call this unchecked police power unless the guy actually gets convicted and sent away for 20 years, which I guarantee won't happen. That is what the courts are for, to provide a check to police power. I'd be surprised if they even go to trial without substantially reducing the charges first. The guy might even have a case for a malicious prosecution lawsuit, since it seems like the charges are much more severe than they should be for the actual crime committed.
I think its obvious that this sheriffs department has no idea how the internet works. Otherwise they would have retained control of their domain name from the beginning.
If you think that's scary, check out the mission of these people.
It doesn't have to be this way for Dell. They used to make premium machines with top notch support. They cost a little more than Gateway or the end aisle special at Best Buy, but people would pay it for a better machine that was customized to their needs. But now, there is really no reason to buy a Dell over any other machine. Sure, their prices are lower, but so is the quality. With service and customizability declining as well, Dell has completely lost their competitive advantage and are just living off their name. Having become just another dime a dozen consumer electronics company, it won't take much for other competitors to eat their lunch. Dell will still have a very lucrative server market, which has not become as commoditized as the desktops and laptops, but I think this company is in for a rough future if they don't change soon.
Have you ever noticed how many board members of large companies are CEOs of other large corporations? I think it's a conspiracy!
Its an old boy's network that consists of CEOs giving each other pay raises and having no real accountability to anyone. Even if shareholders do become aware of this and try to stop the fleecing of their company, there is usually little they can do. Shareholder resolutions typically do no good, so the only real hope for change is if a majority shareholder gets fed up and starts voting out directors. If you are thinking about buying stock in a publically traded company, it may be helpful to know the makeup of the company board so you can avoid the stock if the company is not being run for the long term good.