Sorry, but that can only be the outer layer of the "onion" of cover stories. The **AA already has enough resources to goosestep over everyone's privacy rights, from sueing grandmothers for hundreds of thousands of dollars. They don't really need this kind of access via the FBI to deal with p2p filesharing (think Sony DRM rootkit here, as well as poisoned/trojan files).
It has a lot more to do with some other fascist initiatives like MATRIX, which has far less to do with the "war on terrorism" and a lot more to do with control.
The FBI was ruled (along with a large chunk of the government) for 30 years by a man that had extensive files on virtually everyone. Remember the "File-Gate" fiasco during the Clinton administration, where all the neo(Con)artists were up in arms over the possibility that the Whitehouse was holding onto FBI dossiers of some political opponents?
This is nothing more than the Dubya regime's "over the top" response in kind. It makes the Nixon administration's "Watergate" break-in to the Democratic Party's campaign headquarters look like a bunch of amateurs and pikers. It isn't enough anymore for them to know what the opposition's political strategies are -- like the break-in to the Senate Democrats fileservers and leaking sensitive info to the press. By virtue of the US Patriot Act, they want to build dossiers (and whatever "dirt" they can find) on activists, the political opposition, and corporate officers. By cranking up the intel gathering beginning with teenagers and young adults attending college/university, that can exert control over who gets what job (faulty credit reports or some veiled hint of criminal behavior) as potential employers vett their applicants. Or when the appropriately compromised target obtains a position of power or influence, just what kind of leverage the government will have on them.
Does this smack of the type of fascism seen in the 1930's and 1940's, or of the nature of the control exerted by the communists over their subjects? -- Damn right it does! The USA is quickly shifting from having a government "of, by, and for the people" to one of "corporate interests". The term I have for this (albeit somewhat redundant), is "Corporate National Socialism".
Welcome to 1984 - the real deal, and just a bit behind the predicted schedule.
The only thing an effective boycott of either the RIAA or MPAA will do is drive down their profits. At which point, they will claim that piracy, not a boycott, is responsible for their (projected) losses.
Since these two industry groups hold so much sway in the US Congress, even more draconian measures will be taken against their shrinking customer base. A dollar (or two, or even five) tax per blank CD or DVD might be charged to the public, with those funds being returned to the RIAA and MPAA to compensate for their "losses". Don't think that this could not happen in the USA -- other countries already do this, and so it remains possible.
I cannot offer any alternative solution, short of pointing out prior relevant posts on this forum. I think that a web site that has the name, photo, and particulars of ALL members of the RIAA and MPAA might introduce enough psychological pressure on these two groups to moderate their Nazi storm- trooper tendencies. 'Nuff said?
Anyone with a spare $500 USD/month could be leasing a 5-series BMW instead of a run-of-the-mill (crappy) H2 Honda. Even Honda's gas/electric hybrids are not as good as Toyota's (or even Ford's "Escape").
Personally, I would tell Honda to take a hike. I owned a run-of-the-mill (nice) Honda (Accord EX), and I would never buy another Honda, period!
As far as hybrid or alternative fuel vehicles are concerned, I will wait until multi-fuel biodiesel/ electric hybrid SUVs patterned after Toyota's operating parameters (initial start is totally electric, and with aftermarket kit to boost the battery capacity) becomes available. Use PVs (photovoltaics) to recharge the batteries for all those short commutes, with biodiesel to those longer road trips. That probably means a VW or GE (yes, GE and not GM) vehicle.
For a market segment (INTERNET) that Microsoft had largely ignored, they have expended a large amount of money and energy (and legal woes) to catch up. They invented a new business process (embrace, extend, extinguish) that they have applied against all competition in whatever market segment they have focused on.
As one portal business (WebTV) has been stagnant, Microsoft has placed more emphasis upon MSN more successfully. At least one telco (Verizon) and one media distribution channel (DirectTV) have embraced MSN as their portal of choice. While more knowledgable internet users might prefer an unfiltered and direct internet experience, many users prefer the warm fuzzy experience of a web portal. Microsoft's indominable desire to control a market segment end-to-end has led them to the goal of controlling content. The primary "new feature" of MS Windows Vista appears to be its support of tight DRM control. Microsoft's lack of ownership of nearly all content avoids the inevitable DoJ monopoly review.
Furnishing a server-based UI (Windows functions) via the internet, as well as metered server-based Office functions will lower the initial cost to new internet users, particularly those who prefer a portal. It may also appeal to small busness owners who might find the financial burdeon of a full-blown MS-based business rollout daunting. While various government entities worldwide continue to challenge Microsoft hegenomy, MS is exploring a way to (1) generate new revenue streams from existing product lines, and (2) expanding exposure to neophite users to "The One Way".
The only downside that Microsoft might experience from this new profit center, at least in the USA, is reliance upon the telcos and cable companies for the ubiquitous broadband internet access that server-based metered applications require . In the USA, even the FCC cannot skew the marketplace enough to ensure ubiquitous broadband internet access. Of course, with a nod from the DoJ, they could out-source that objective to Microsoft.
"The public is the LAST group you want involved with decisions like this."
Damn right! The public is the absolute worst group to rely upon for such a long term (epochal) issue as high level radioactive storage. All you get from them is NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard).
A far better group to rely upon: a religious fundamentalist organization that has an innate faith in a higher being that will come to their rescue when things go badly, and several millenia of longevity since plutonium has a half-life of 20,000 years. The solution -- get the Roman Catholic Church to found a new religious order (the Order of Nuclear Environmental Engineers) that will be required to keep tabs on that radioactive waste until the Second Coming...
Breaking up the Microsoft monopoly will never happen under the regime currently in power -- these are the "corporate sock-puppets" that let Microsoft write their own punish^H^H^H^H^H^Hslap on the wrist as their DoJ settlement.
The regime currently in power LIKES larger corporations and less competition -- just that many fewer CEOs to strong-arm for campaign contributions. Famous Dubya quote: "You are the haves, and the have mores. Some people call you the elite - I call you my base." (As spoken before a Washington DC GOP fundraiser in 2004.)
"To boil it down to/. terms: the Pentagon loves Microsoft, the NSA released its own Linux distro. You figure it out."
AND, the Department of Homeland Security loves Microsoft, having signed a multi-year $6 Billion USD contract.
Doesn't the DHS's widespread adoption of MS OSes qualify it as an oxymoron? No wonder the USA's borders and seaports, chemical and nuclear plants, and our military bases are all sitting targets still.
I cannot tell you how relieved I am that all of my personal information, as well as that of the other 370 million Americans is so well protected.
Losing one key employee is bad for business. Losing two key employees is carelessness.
I understand that employee tours through the Gates' underground mansion now requires that each employee be roped to the next in line -- so this will not happen again...
Back in the day, when I was first exposed to *nix (SGI's IRIX, SUN's Solaris, and Novell's Unixware), I had the good fortune to come across a set of Slackware distribution CD's. For a multiplatform enthusiast (DOS, Win, Netware, Mac), I found that the Slackware linux was easy to install and easy to maintain. That release was, after some rummaging about, discovered to be version 0.94. (Okay, so I am something of a pack-rat.)
Paul's latest incarnation of Slackware (10.2) shows the same dedication and vision that attracted me to the first slackware release. It rocks!
Actually, the USA did build the internet, pre-w3c. DARPA wanted to create a packetized redundant communications network for the US military command & control.
Al Gore did not "invent" the internet, but had a significant impact upon funding DARPA's networking project while serving in the US Congress.
It was USA taxpayer and USA pension fund money that much of the world's fiber optic network was laid. Overbuilding and the dot-com bomb caused "Global Crossing" and "PSINet" to collapse into bankruptcy and oblivion, having taken their investors and employees "to the cleaners" financially. Most of the "dark fiber" that exists in the USA and across the globe today originated with American money.
AFAIK, the USA's educational system will not flower again until a major shake-up happens with the government and the telcos. Affordable and virtually universal broadband internet access across the USA would provide the tipping point. Unfortunately, this will not happen so long as regimes take power that would rather funnel energy and money into private "free" enterprise, instead of focusing upon upgrading the USA's economic infrastructure. American corporations are too preoccupied with their own agendas (short term profit) to invest in public infrastructure with a long term payback.
and has been for many years. Health care costs have gone up between 10% and 15% per year for over a decade. Costs of higher education have gone up between 8% and 20% per year for even longer. Energy costs (home heating oil, natural gas, and transportation) have gone up 200% in the past 20 years. Housing costs have doubled in the past decade. Prescription medicine costs have also far outpaced "inflation".
The government has been fudging exactly how the CPI is calculated because they can, and in doing so effects government costs. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, government worker pay raises, and even state welfare benefits are all part of the "entitlements programs" that impact the governments budgets. Someone smart once said that "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics."
The current regime in power is attempting to roll back all of the federal government's entitlement programs, in order to divert funds to their corporate sponsers. War in Iraq, war on "terrorism", war on "drugs", war on "porn" are all mechanisms to bleed off the money and credit of the US Treasury and Federal Reserve. The neo(Con)artist term is "Draining the swamp." The government will be forced to choose between funding the unending war in Iraq and increasing Social Security benefits. George W. Bush's "Social Security Realization" program to give SS benefits to illegal aliens doesn't make much sense if Social Security is really at risk, except within the parameters of "draining the swamp".
The regime currently in power does not have a sense of humor. They don't really need one -- they have been annointed by God for their task of turning this country into a bible-thumping theocracy, not unlike that (unnamed) ME country whose heroic sons and brothers inflicted all that pain and destruction on 9/11/2001.
Unfortunately, the regime currently in power has had a lot of guidance from the right-wing think tanks and corporate sponsers, but without the necessary management skills. So the USA is being managed pretty much the same way as George W. Bush's "Arbusto Drilling" and "Harkenin Oil". Nepotism and personal fealty to Dubya ranks far higher than actually having management skills (or a brain), which is also why Harriet Miers is Bush's Supreme Court nominee. If I were in charge of an administration that has committed as many crimes as Dubya's has, I would want to pack the USSC with my ardent "true-believers", too.
I will readily admit that I am anti-Bush, but a troll? Hardly. But you have apparently been asleep for the past five years, or wearing blinders and getting all your news from Fox News (fair & balanced?, Rush Limbaugh (dopehead extrodinaire), or Ollie North (ex-felon).
I will be happy to make my points, one at a time.
In 2000, the Clinton administration prosecuted 334 employers for knowingly hiring illegal aliens. In 2003, the Bush administration prosecuted exactly 13 employers for hiring illegal aliens. The number of illegal aliens crossing USA borders increased after George W. Bush announced his plans for amnesty and guest worker program for illegal aliens, many caught telling US Border Patrol "We're here for our amnesty." (The shear number of news articles regarding illegal aliens, false documentation and identity theft, violent foreign street gangs, and employer hiring of illegal aliens has increased so much that I cannot list them here -- check www.cis.org, which aggragates news stories from across the nation for yourself.) Illegal aliens are not taking merely "migrant worker" jobs -- they have been found to be working on US military bases, chemical and nuclear facilities, construction and auto repair, etc. And this is not happening in southern border states, but Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, Virginia, Minnesota, and Vermont. When there is enough public backlash to "light a fire" under the local politicians, it finally makes the news.
George W. Bush suspended US labor laws along the Gulf Coast after the Katrina and Rita hurricanes so that clean-up and construction contractors can bring in cheaper illegal alien labor working under FEMA/DHS contracts. Hundreds of thousands of displaced American families who would like nothing better than to go back home, who have lost their jobs and their employers to the destruction, are disallowed from returning home or working for these contractors. How does this make sense?
In the last five years, more than half of the states (28) have outsourced their welfare/unemployment/social services departments -- first to contractors in Wisconsin, and then to Bangalore, India. In 2003, IT companies in Connecticut layed off 78,000 employees while at the same time requesting nearly 68,000 more H1-B visas for that state. How is this merely a coincidence?
As far as YOUR salary is concerned, I suspect that Bush has NOT cut your salary since you likely work for him. As events and the truth catch up with the regime currently in power, your job will be at risk. Or until January 2009, when Dubya leaves office.
The shuttle is also the only currently available space vehicle capable of pushing the ISS back up into a higher orbit. Due to atmospheric drag, the ISS has only about 12 months to go before it reaches a point of no return (to normal orbit). After that, no known spacecraft will have sufficient power to push the ISS back into a maintainable orbit, and it will have begun its death spiral into the Earth.
"Or they (Like my company) will replace these people..."
Meager wage increases (if you get them at all) are now the norm rather than the exception. The change to labor laws under George W. Bush were not an anomally -- your employer now expects you to work longer hours for less pay and benefits. Consider yourself lucky if your job hasn't already been offshore outsourced, or not in the planning stages. Your 401K overseas investments are growing fastest because you are helping to finance your company's globalization. But do not expect to gain enough from these investments to make up for when your job finally disappears overseas -- it won't.
The government's job is no longer to be of any particular benefit to you -- only to your employer. The tax cuts, tax loopholes, and outright federal grants were never intended for you, but for your employers. There was never any possibility that your political campaign contributions would ever provide the politicians with either an evenhanded or even populist world view -- you cannot compete with your employers when it comes to buying those politicians because they do not come cheap.
Expect that the time will come when your job will disappear overseas, or that your employer will replace you with cheaper imported (L1-A or H1-B) labor. And do not expect that you can fall back on the experience from those summer construction jobs you took while a student -- those jobs are now taken by the hundreds of thousands of illegal alien laborers that have continued to pour across our borders. This is no accident, but a concerted effort by the George W. Bush administration to force all wages down for his corporate sponsers. Between open borders, the INS "catch and release" policies, and zero enforcement against employers hiring illegal aliens, the plan is to do for domestic skilled blue collar jobs what has been done to the shoe, textile, steel, and IT white collar jobs.
The only substantial wage and benefit increases are destined for the pockets of upper management and the executive board room, and especially for those companies who not only cater to government contracting but also make the largest campaign contributions. And by the way, don't make too much noise when you protest the current status quo, because the term "terrorist" is largely undefined in the latest and greatest version of the US Patriot Act.
Welcome to "1984", and be certain to take your daily dose of "soma". Not taking your meds could provide you with an extended stay at Club Med - Gitmo.
Bill Gates's (MSFT's) position regarding the BLU-RAY HD-DVD has virtually nothing to do with "protecting" "consumers' rights". If that was even a credible position, neither Trusted Computing nor MS-Vista DRM would be in their roadmap. It is all about who controls the DRM-protected IP that is to be spoon-fed and metered out to the lowly consumer. The larger (and longer term) revenue stream will come from the control of the DRM, rather than the IP it restricts.
If you were to eliminate most of the funding of religious fundamentalist terrorists by driving the cost of a barrel of oil down to $10, there would be (nearly universal) world peace -- a new Pax Americana.
There are powerful lobbies within the USA that would fight "tooth and nail" against either widespread semi-autonomous power generation (energy & power companies), cheap fusion power production (energy & power companies), or a reduction in worldwide conflict (military-industrial complex). Considering the influence that these groups have with the central government (both main political parties), there will be very little headway made in the USA's energy independence until either (1) these lobbies have determined that they have extracted all available monitary resources, or (2) there is a near-armageddon-like event that spawns a revolution against the status quo.
Sorry, but that isn't denial. It is a grammatical misquote of "I have never honestly thrown a chair in my life."
Not unlike some other "famous" quotes: "I am not a (convicted) crook!" Richard Nixon (Pres.); "The USA does (not) negotiate with terrorists!" Ronald Reagan (Pres.); "We can(not) prove that Saddam has WMD." Richard Cheney (V.Pres.).
This sounds like just another opportunity for commercial software vendors to "slip the noose" of corporate liability.
The USA's airline industy begs for government aid (at taxpayer expense), all while slashing employee wages, reducing airfares to cash-hemmoraging levels, and then in bankruptcy court eliminate pension and healthcare obligations. All of this while management still draws obscene pay and benefits packages, and a wondorous golden parachute.
The commercial software houses, apparently, want the same sort of deal: reduced or no liability for their products, shift labor costs overseas, and play the "blame game". Whatever happened to "top-down design", guidelines for prevailing programming practices, and real project management? Oh, yeah - the only things that they should have to worry about is meeting self-imposed project deadlines, their company's quarterly financial reports, and those all-important quarterly bonuses, right? Seeing MSFT's Bill Gates (et.al.) crying crocodile tears for more software engineers to fill their company's ranks makes me ROTFL. Grabbing up nonsensical software patents to obtain "industry leverage", releasing incomplete software documentation to maintain vendor lock-in, and using (still illegal) monopolistic practices to "rape and pillage" their customer base are all business practices that do not deserve to be rewarded with a "blame the programmers" blame game.
I predict that if MSFT should relent and offer OpenDoc compatability, it will be a clean conversion only importing into MS-Word format. The export capabilities of any OpenDoc support added to MS Office will be the absolute minimum required to meet specification (ala MSFT NT posix). Also, just because one version of MS Office may have support for OpenDoc does not mean that all subsequent versions will also support it.
"Competition drives innovation, and lowers prices - it also forces the inept and the profiteering out of the market."
I call "Bollocks!" on that statement, which would be appropriate for a real capitalist free market economy. But the USA does not now have, and has not had for quite some time, such a free market economy. The government (current regime included) favors market segments dominated by just a few major competitors -- it cuts down on the legwork required to gin up that next round of corporate campaign contributions.
The same (okay, merely similar) problems exist for both the USA's telecom industry (including widespread broadband internet access) as the airline industry.
How is it that the airlines can continue to offer cut-rate airfares in spite of bleeding billions of dollars in debt due to rising jet fuel prices, health care and pension costs? The USA taxpayers have been asked to subsidize the airline industry (repeatedly, and even to pick up their pension fund liabilities) with billions of dollars in "aid", which primarily goes to the largest shareholders and corporate officers while the workers continue to get shafted.
With the fragmented (but well organized) telecom industry, the taxpayers subsidized the original copper POTS roll-out, and now the taxpayers are asked to shell out for new telecom subsidies, at the same time that the taxpayer as ratepayer gets shafted by less competition and higher rates. Our politicians at both the state and federal level are busy looking out for the best interests of their constituents (the corporations) instead of their constituents (the consuming public). The companies are (1) better organized, with one voice, and (2) pay our politicians far better than the public does.
How can any outcome other than what benefits the corporations be expected?
The USA has relinquished technological leadership in many areas in recent years, all for the sake of the short-term bottom line. Spin off or cast off entire operating divisions of a company after having decades of primacy in that particular market. Offshore outsource product development and manufacturing, all while hoping that the short term perceived (by shareholders) economic benefit outweighs loosing control of your company's IP. Slash wages and benefits for your few remaining professional staff in the hopes that they cannot flee to some other (non-existent) domestic competitor. The corporate officers of many of these companies are grabbing what inflated renumeration they can while they can, before the entire house of cards collapses.
This reminds me of that old Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times..."
OEM equipment manufacturers are in the same boat as everyone else -- support the single largest market share OS, keep your heads down, and pray for salvation (in some form). That MSFT is using market pressure to help consumers deselect alternative software choices is not news, and has not been news ever since they became convicted monopolists. That the political regime currently in power would do whatever they can to support their largest corporate campaign contributors, instead of opening up real "free market" competition is also not news. Money, especially big money, is the "mother's milk" of politics.
Any author that promotes a "grass-roots" rebellion against the current status quo is little more than a modern day Don Quiote. The USA has relinquished its role as the world's incubator of innovation, in favor of JIT increased profits to qualify for those fat Board of Directors/Corporate officer bonuses. It will be ironic that a communist-led country that has espoused a capitalist-style free market will take over the "king of the hill" position that the USA has held for 50 years. Corporate national socialism, USA-style, will be no real competition for the Communist Chinese.
I, for one, reluctantly welcome our new Chinese overlords.
Apparently you are totally oblivious in the bubble of your imagined world. John Poindexter (DHS) had a "wonderful" idea of a giant database of everything known about everybody, called "Total Information Awareness" (or TIA). When the political opposition, government beancounters, and government contractor IT experts got through with THAT "great idea", it was shelved as impractical but not abandoned. It was morphed into a newer plan called "MATRIX", which is alive and well. It combines access to all the government 3 letter agency databases with other private and public databases. Many corporations are falling all over themselves rushing to make the databases of their contacts/clients/victims available to big brother for a fat fee. Think about companies like "Checkpoint" that sell THEIR mined data to anyone with the right cash, and then combine that with "civic-minded" corporations who don't want to risk the loss of present or future government contracts, and then mix in some of the more abusive provisions of the US Patriot Act and the DMCA.
Voila! Not a (single) database, but a union of access to government AND "private" databases -- welcome to "1984", just twenty years late due to "technical difficulties". (Hope I burst your bubble...)
"There seem to be a lot of people who confuse *freedom* with *freedom to do antisocial stuff and remain anonymous*."
Ahh. Spoken like a true facist. You are taking the right of free expression in a democratic society and chaining it to the dungeon wall with the use of another as yet to be defined term, "antisocial stuff". Would that be "antisocial" as defined by the ruling political party, whichever religious sect is currently in vogue, or perhaps as determined by a public poll?
"Free speech is not free *anonymous* speech."
What a crock! One of the basic rights any citizen of a democracy has is the right to vote, PRIVATELY. No other person, group of persons, or government entity is granted the right to know how an individual votes -- without such privacy protections the entire foundation of democracy is open to the social, political or financial pressure to vote a particular way.
And only in a democracy falling to the continued pressures of fascist stateism would the government redefine the ephemeral and undefined term "free press" only as persons engaged in journalistic activities employed by corporate media moguls.
I would suggest that you spend a few years in the "new and improved" fascist USSR, being run by an ex-KGB general, and experience the fruits of your specious argument firsthand.
Slashdot Mirror
"...enforcement of intellectual property law(s)"?
Sorry, but that can only be the outer layer of the "onion" of cover stories. The **AA already has enough resources to goosestep over everyone's privacy rights, from sueing grandmothers for hundreds of thousands of dollars. They don't really need this kind of access via the FBI to deal with p2p filesharing (think Sony DRM rootkit here, as well as poisoned/trojan files).
It has a lot more to do with some other fascist initiatives like MATRIX, which has far less to do with the "war on terrorism" and a lot more to do with control.
The FBI was ruled (along with a large chunk of the government) for 30 years by a man that had extensive files on virtually everyone. Remember the "File-Gate" fiasco during the Clinton administration, where all the neo(Con)artists were up in arms over the possibility that the Whitehouse was holding onto FBI dossiers of some political opponents?
This is nothing more than the Dubya regime's "over the top" response in kind. It makes the Nixon administration's "Watergate" break-in to the Democratic Party's campaign headquarters look like a bunch of amateurs and pikers. It isn't enough anymore for them to know what the opposition's political strategies are -- like the break-in to the Senate Democrats fileservers and leaking sensitive info to the press. By virtue of the US Patriot Act, they want to build dossiers (and whatever "dirt" they can find) on activists, the political opposition, and corporate officers. By cranking up the intel gathering beginning with teenagers and young adults attending college/university, that can exert control over who gets what job (faulty credit reports or some veiled hint of criminal behavior) as potential employers vett their applicants. Or when the appropriately compromised target obtains a position of power or influence, just what kind of leverage the government will have on them.
Does this smack of the type of fascism seen in the 1930's and 1940's, or of the nature of the control exerted by the communists over their subjects? -- Damn right it does! The USA is quickly shifting from having a government "of, by, and for the people" to one of "corporate interests". The term I have for this (albeit somewhat redundant), is "Corporate National Socialism".
Welcome to 1984 - the real deal, and just a bit behind the predicted schedule.
WTF! A boycott?
The only thing an effective boycott of either the RIAA
or MPAA will do is drive down their profits. At which
point, they will claim that piracy, not a boycott, is
responsible for their (projected) losses.
Since these two industry groups hold so much sway in the
US Congress, even more draconian measures will be taken
against their shrinking customer base. A dollar (or two,
or even five) tax per blank CD or DVD might be charged to
the public, with those funds being returned to the RIAA
and MPAA to compensate for their "losses". Don't think
that this could not happen in the USA -- other countries
already do this, and so it remains possible.
I cannot offer any alternative solution, short of pointing
out prior relevant posts on this forum. I think that a web
site that has the name, photo, and particulars of ALL members
of the RIAA and MPAA might introduce enough psychological
pressure on these two groups to moderate their Nazi storm-
trooper tendencies. 'Nuff said?
Amen to that!
Anyone with a spare $500 USD/month could be leasing
a 5-series BMW instead of a run-of-the-mill (crappy)
H2 Honda. Even Honda's gas/electric hybrids are not
as good as Toyota's (or even Ford's "Escape").
Personally, I would tell Honda to take a hike. I
owned a run-of-the-mill (nice) Honda (Accord EX),
and I would never buy another Honda, period!
As far as hybrid or alternative fuel vehicles are
concerned, I will wait until multi-fuel biodiesel/
electric hybrid SUVs patterned after Toyota's
operating parameters (initial start is totally
electric, and with aftermarket kit to boost the
battery capacity) becomes available. Use PVs
(photovoltaics) to recharge the batteries for all
those short commutes, with biodiesel to those longer
road trips. That probably means a VW or GE (yes,
GE and not GM) vehicle.
Amen, brother!
For a market segment (INTERNET) that Microsoft had largely ignored, they have expended a large amount of money and energy (and legal woes) to catch up. They invented a new business process (embrace, extend, extinguish) that they have applied against all competition in whatever market segment they have focused on.
As one portal business (WebTV) has been stagnant, Microsoft has placed more emphasis upon MSN more successfully. At least one telco (Verizon) and one media distribution channel (DirectTV) have embraced MSN as their portal of choice. While more knowledgable internet users might prefer an unfiltered and direct internet experience, many users prefer the warm fuzzy experience of a web portal. Microsoft's indominable desire to control a market segment end-to-end has led them to the goal of controlling content. The primary "new feature" of MS Windows Vista appears to be its support of tight DRM control. Microsoft's lack of ownership of nearly all content avoids the inevitable DoJ monopoly review.
Furnishing a server-based UI (Windows functions) via the internet, as well as metered server-based Office functions will lower the initial cost to new internet users, particularly those who prefer a portal. It may also appeal to small busness owners who might find the financial burdeon of a full-blown MS-based business rollout daunting. While various government entities worldwide continue to challenge Microsoft hegenomy, MS is exploring a way to (1) generate new revenue streams from existing product lines, and (2) expanding exposure to neophite users to "The One Way".
The only downside that Microsoft might experience from this new profit center, at least in the USA, is reliance upon the telcos and cable companies for the ubiquitous broadband internet access that server-based metered applications require . In the USA, even the FCC cannot skew the marketplace enough to ensure ubiquitous broadband internet access. Of course, with a nod from the DoJ, they could out-source that objective to Microsoft.
"The public is the LAST group you want involved with decisions like this."
Damn right! The public is the absolute worst group to rely upon for such a long term (epochal) issue as high level radioactive storage. All you get from them is NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard).
A far better group to rely upon: a religious fundamentalist organization that has an innate faith in a higher being that will come to their rescue when things go badly, and several millenia of longevity since plutonium has a half-life of 20,000 years. The solution -- get the Roman Catholic Church to found a new religious order (the Order of Nuclear Environmental Engineers) that will be required to keep tabs on that radioactive waste until the Second Coming...
Breaking up the Microsoft monopoly will never happen under the regime currently in power -- these are the "corporate sock-puppets" that let Microsoft write their own punish^H^H^H^H^H^Hslap on the wrist as their DoJ settlement.
The regime currently in power LIKES larger corporations and less competition -- just that many fewer CEOs to strong-arm for campaign contributions. Famous Dubya quote: "You are the haves, and the have mores. Some people call you the elite - I call you my base." (As spoken before a Washington DC GOP fundraiser in 2004.)
"To boil it down to /. terms: the Pentagon loves Microsoft, the NSA released its own Linux distro. You figure it out."
AND, the Department of Homeland Security loves Microsoft, having signed a multi-year $6 Billion USD contract.
Doesn't the DHS's widespread adoption of MS OSes qualify it as an oxymoron? No wonder the USA's borders and seaports, chemical and nuclear plants, and our military bases are all sitting targets still.
I cannot tell you how relieved I am that all of my personal information, as well as that of the other 370 million Americans is so well protected.
Losing one key employee is bad for business.
Losing two key employees is carelessness.
I understand that employee tours through the Gates' underground mansion now requires that
each employee be roped to the next in line --
so this will not happen again...
Back in the day, when I was first exposed to *nix (SGI's IRIX, SUN's Solaris, and Novell's Unixware), I had the good fortune to come across a set of Slackware distribution CD's. For a multiplatform enthusiast (DOS, Win, Netware, Mac), I found that the Slackware linux was easy to install and easy to maintain. That release was, after some rummaging about, discovered to be version 0.94. (Okay, so I am something of a pack-rat.)
Paul's latest incarnation of Slackware (10.2) shows the same dedication and vision that attracted me to the first slackware release. It rocks!
Actually, the USA did build the internet, pre-w3c. DARPA wanted to create a packetized redundant communications network for the US military command & control.
Al Gore did not "invent" the internet, but had a significant impact upon funding DARPA's networking project while serving in the US Congress.
It was USA taxpayer and USA pension fund money that much of the world's fiber optic network was laid. Overbuilding and the dot-com bomb caused "Global Crossing" and "PSINet" to collapse into bankruptcy and oblivion, having taken their investors and employees "to the cleaners" financially. Most of the "dark fiber" that exists in the USA and across the globe today originated with American money.
AFAIK, the USA's educational system will not flower again until a major shake-up happens with the government and the telcos. Affordable and virtually universal broadband internet access across the USA would provide the tipping point. Unfortunately, this will not happen so long as regimes take power that would rather funnel energy and money into private "free" enterprise, instead of focusing upon upgrading the USA's economic infrastructure. American corporations are too preoccupied with their own agendas (short term profit) to invest in public infrastructure with a long term payback.
and has been for many years. Health care costs have gone up between 10% and 15% per year for over a decade. Costs of higher education have gone up between 8% and 20% per year for even longer. Energy costs (home heating oil, natural gas, and transportation) have gone up 200% in the past 20 years. Housing costs have doubled in the past decade. Prescription medicine costs have also far outpaced "inflation".
The government has been fudging exactly how the CPI is calculated because they can, and in doing so effects government costs. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, government worker pay raises, and even state welfare benefits are all part of the "entitlements programs" that impact the governments budgets. Someone smart once said that "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics."
The current regime in power is attempting to roll back all of the federal government's entitlement programs, in order to divert funds to their corporate sponsers. War in Iraq, war on "terrorism", war on "drugs", war on "porn" are all mechanisms to bleed off the money and credit of the US Treasury and Federal Reserve. The neo(Con)artist term is "Draining the swamp." The government will be forced to choose between funding the unending war in Iraq and increasing Social Security benefits. George W. Bush's "Social Security Realization" program to give SS benefits to illegal aliens doesn't make much sense if Social Security is really at risk, except within the parameters of "draining the swamp".
The regime currently in power does not have a sense of humor. They don't really need one -- they have been annointed by God for their task of turning this country into a bible-thumping theocracy, not unlike that (unnamed) ME country whose heroic sons and brothers inflicted all that pain and destruction on 9/11/2001.
Unfortunately, the regime currently in power has had a lot of guidance from the right-wing think tanks and corporate sponsers, but without the necessary management skills. So the USA is being managed pretty much the same way as George W. Bush's "Arbusto Drilling" and "Harkenin Oil". Nepotism and personal fealty to Dubya ranks far higher than actually having management skills (or a brain), which is also why Harriet Miers is Bush's Supreme Court nominee. If I were in charge of an administration that has committed as many crimes as Dubya's has, I would want to pack the USSC with my ardent "true-believers", too.
I will readily admit that I am anti-Bush, but a troll? Hardly. But you have apparently been asleep for the past five years, or wearing blinders and getting all your news from Fox News (fair & balanced?, Rush Limbaugh (dopehead extrodinaire), or Ollie North (ex-felon).
I will be happy to make my points, one at a time.
In 2000, the Clinton administration prosecuted 334 employers for knowingly hiring illegal aliens. In 2003, the Bush administration prosecuted exactly 13 employers for hiring illegal aliens. The number of illegal aliens crossing USA borders increased after George W. Bush announced his plans for amnesty and guest worker program for illegal aliens, many caught telling US Border Patrol "We're here for our amnesty." (The shear number of news articles regarding illegal aliens, false documentation and identity theft, violent foreign street gangs, and employer hiring of illegal aliens has increased so much that I cannot list them here -- check www.cis.org, which aggragates news stories from across the nation for yourself.)
Illegal aliens are not taking merely "migrant worker" jobs -- they have been found to be working on US military bases, chemical and nuclear facilities, construction and auto repair, etc. And this is not happening in southern border states, but Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, Virginia, Minnesota, and Vermont. When there is enough public backlash to "light a fire" under the local politicians, it finally makes the news.
George W. Bush suspended US labor laws along the Gulf Coast after the Katrina and Rita hurricanes so that clean-up and construction contractors can bring in cheaper illegal alien labor working under FEMA/DHS contracts. Hundreds of thousands of displaced American families who would like nothing better than to go back home, who have lost their jobs and their employers to the destruction, are disallowed from returning home or working for these contractors. How does this make sense?
In the last five years, more than half of the states (28) have outsourced their welfare/unemployment/social services departments -- first to contractors in Wisconsin, and then to Bangalore, India. In 2003, IT companies in Connecticut layed off 78,000 employees while at the same time requesting nearly 68,000 more H1-B visas for that state. How is this merely a coincidence?
As far as YOUR salary is concerned, I suspect that Bush has NOT cut your salary since you likely work for him. As events and the truth catch up with the regime currently in power, your job will be at risk. Or until January 2009, when Dubya leaves office.
The shuttle is also the only currently available space vehicle capable of pushing the ISS back up into a higher orbit. Due to atmospheric drag, the ISS has only about 12 months to go before it reaches a point of no return (to normal orbit). After that, no known spacecraft will have sufficient power to push the ISS back into a maintainable orbit, and it will have begun its death spiral into the Earth.
"Or they (Like my company) will replace these people..."
Meager wage increases (if you get them at all) are now the norm rather than the exception. The change to labor laws under George W. Bush were not an anomally -- your employer now expects you to work longer hours for less pay and benefits. Consider yourself lucky if your job hasn't already been offshore outsourced, or not in the planning stages. Your 401K overseas investments are growing fastest because you are helping to finance your company's globalization. But do not expect to gain enough from these investments to make up for when your job finally disappears overseas -- it won't.
The government's job is no longer to be of any particular benefit to you -- only to your employer. The tax cuts, tax loopholes, and outright federal grants were never intended for you, but for your employers. There was never any possibility that your political campaign contributions would ever provide the politicians with either an evenhanded or even populist world view -- you cannot compete with your employers when it comes to buying those politicians because they do not come cheap.
Expect that the time will come when your job will disappear overseas, or that your employer will replace you with cheaper imported (L1-A or H1-B) labor. And do not expect that you can fall back on the experience from those summer construction jobs you took while a student -- those jobs are now taken by the hundreds of thousands of illegal alien laborers that have continued to pour across our borders. This is no accident, but a concerted effort by the George W. Bush administration to force all wages down for his corporate sponsers. Between open borders, the INS "catch and release" policies, and zero enforcement against employers hiring illegal aliens, the plan is to do for domestic skilled blue collar jobs what has been done to the shoe, textile, steel, and IT white collar jobs.
The only substantial wage and benefit increases are destined for the pockets of upper management and the executive board room, and especially for those companies who not only cater to government contracting but also make the largest campaign contributions. And by the way, don't make too much noise when you protest the current status quo, because the term "terrorist" is largely undefined in the latest and greatest version of the US Patriot Act.
Welcome to "1984", and be certain to take your daily dose of "soma". Not taking your meds could provide you with an extended stay at Club Med - Gitmo.
Amen!
Bill Gates's (MSFT's) position regarding the BLU-RAY HD-DVD has virtually nothing to do with "protecting" "consumers' rights". If that was even a credible position, neither Trusted Computing nor MS-Vista DRM would be in their roadmap. It is all about who controls the DRM-protected IP that is to be spoon-fed and metered out to the lowly consumer. The larger (and longer term) revenue stream will come from the control of the DRM, rather than the IP it restricts.
If you were to eliminate most of the funding of religious fundamentalist terrorists by driving the cost of a barrel of oil down to $10, there would be (nearly universal) world peace -- a new Pax Americana.
There are powerful lobbies within the USA that would fight "tooth and nail" against either widespread semi-autonomous power generation (energy & power companies), cheap fusion power production (energy & power companies), or a reduction in worldwide conflict (military-industrial complex). Considering the influence that these groups have with the central government (both main political parties), there will be very little headway made in the USA's energy independence until either (1) these lobbies have determined that they have extracted all available monitary resources, or (2) there is a near-armageddon-like event that spawns a revolution against the status quo.
Sorry, but that isn't denial. It is a grammatical misquote of "I have never honestly thrown a chair in my life."
Not unlike some other "famous" quotes:
"I am not a (convicted) crook!" Richard Nixon (Pres.);
"The USA does (not) negotiate with terrorists!" Ronald Reagan (Pres.);
"We can(not) prove that Saddam has WMD." Richard Cheney (V.Pres.).
Right on target!
This sounds like just another opportunity for commercial software vendors to "slip the noose" of corporate liability.
The USA's airline industy begs for government aid (at taxpayer expense), all while slashing employee wages, reducing airfares to cash-hemmoraging levels, and then in bankruptcy court eliminate pension and healthcare obligations. All of this while management still draws obscene pay and benefits packages, and a wondorous golden parachute.
The commercial software houses, apparently, want the same sort of deal: reduced or no liability for their products, shift labor costs overseas, and play the "blame game". Whatever happened to "top-down design", guidelines for prevailing programming practices, and real project management? Oh, yeah - the only things that they should have to worry about is meeting self-imposed project deadlines, their company's quarterly financial reports, and those all-important quarterly bonuses, right? Seeing MSFT's Bill Gates (et.al.) crying crocodile tears for more software engineers to fill their company's ranks makes me ROTFL. Grabbing up nonsensical software patents to obtain "industry leverage", releasing incomplete software documentation to maintain vendor lock-in, and using (still illegal) monopolistic practices to "rape and pillage" their customer base are all business practices that do not deserve to be rewarded with a "blame the programmers" blame game.
I could accept "The End Of The World As We Know It", except that I couldn't get on-line to get confirmation from Netcraft.
What, exactly, does Netcraft have to say on the subject? (They are, after all, the premier internet authority...)
I predict that if MSFT should relent and offer OpenDoc compatability, it will be a clean conversion only importing into MS-Word format. The export capabilities of any OpenDoc support added to MS Office will be the absolute minimum required to meet specification (ala MSFT NT posix). Also, just because one version of MS Office may have support for OpenDoc does not mean that all subsequent versions will also support it.
"Competition drives innovation, and lowers prices - it also forces the inept and the profiteering out of the market."
I call "Bollocks!" on that statement, which would be appropriate for a real capitalist free market economy. But the USA does not now have, and has not had for quite some time, such a free market economy. The government (current regime included) favors market segments dominated by just a few major competitors -- it cuts down on the legwork required to gin up that next round of corporate campaign contributions.
The same (okay, merely similar) problems exist for both the USA's telecom industry (including widespread broadband internet access) as the airline industry.
How is it that the airlines can continue to offer cut-rate airfares in spite of bleeding billions of dollars in debt due to rising jet fuel prices, health care and pension costs? The USA taxpayers have been asked to subsidize the airline industry (repeatedly, and even to pick up their pension fund liabilities) with billions of dollars in "aid", which primarily goes to the largest shareholders and corporate officers while the workers continue to get shafted.
With the fragmented (but well organized) telecom industry, the taxpayers subsidized the original copper POTS roll-out, and now the taxpayers are asked to shell out for new telecom subsidies, at the same time that the taxpayer as ratepayer gets shafted by less competition and higher rates. Our politicians at both the state and federal level are busy looking out for the best interests of their constituents (the corporations) instead of their constituents (the consuming public). The companies are (1) better organized, with one voice, and (2) pay our politicians far better than the public does.
How can any outcome other than what benefits the corporations be expected?
Not just economics, but also conspiracy!
The USA has relinquished technological leadership in many areas in recent years, all for the sake of the short-term bottom line. Spin off or cast off entire operating divisions of a company after having decades of primacy in that particular market. Offshore outsource product development and manufacturing, all while hoping that the short term perceived (by shareholders) economic benefit outweighs loosing control of your company's IP. Slash wages and benefits for your few remaining professional staff in the hopes that they cannot flee to some other (non-existent) domestic competitor. The corporate officers of many of these companies are grabbing what inflated renumeration they can while they can, before the entire house of cards collapses.
This reminds me of that old Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times..."
OEM equipment manufacturers are in the same boat as everyone else -- support the single largest market share OS, keep your heads down, and pray for salvation (in some form). That MSFT is using market pressure to help consumers deselect alternative software choices is not news, and has not been news ever since they became convicted monopolists. That the political regime currently in power would do whatever they can to support their largest corporate campaign contributors, instead of opening up real "free market" competition is also not news. Money, especially big money, is the "mother's milk" of politics.
Any author that promotes a "grass-roots" rebellion against the current status quo is little more than a modern day Don Quiote. The USA has relinquished its role as the world's incubator of innovation, in favor of JIT increased profits to qualify for those fat Board of Directors/Corporate officer bonuses. It will be ironic that a communist-led country that has espoused a capitalist-style free market will take over the "king of the hill" position that the USA has held for 50 years. Corporate national socialism, USA-style, will be no real competition for the Communist Chinese.
I, for one, reluctantly welcome our new Chinese overlords.
Apparently you are totally oblivious in the bubble of your imagined world. John Poindexter (DHS) had a "wonderful" idea of a giant database of everything known about everybody, called "Total Information Awareness" (or TIA). When the political opposition, government beancounters, and government contractor IT experts got through with THAT "great idea", it was shelved as impractical but not abandoned. It was morphed into a newer plan called "MATRIX", which is alive and well. It combines access to all the government 3 letter agency databases with other private and public databases. Many corporations are falling all over themselves rushing to make the databases of their contacts/clients/victims available to big brother for a fat fee. Think about companies like "Checkpoint" that sell THEIR mined data to anyone with the right cash, and then combine that with "civic-minded" corporations who don't want to risk the loss of present or future government contracts, and then mix in some of the more abusive provisions of the US Patriot Act and the DMCA.
Voila! Not a (single) database, but a union of access to government AND "private" databases -- welcome to "1984", just twenty years late due to "technical difficulties". (Hope I burst your bubble...)
"There seem to be a lot of people who confuse *freedom* with *freedom to do antisocial stuff and remain anonymous*."
Ahh. Spoken like a true facist. You are taking the right of free expression in a democratic society and chaining it to the dungeon wall with the use of another as yet to be defined term, "antisocial stuff". Would that be "antisocial" as defined by the ruling political party, whichever religious sect is currently in vogue, or perhaps as determined by a public poll?
"Free speech is not free *anonymous* speech."
What a crock! One of the basic rights any citizen of a democracy has is the right to vote, PRIVATELY. No other person, group of persons, or government entity is granted the right to know how an individual votes -- without such privacy protections the entire foundation of democracy is open to the social, political or financial pressure to vote a particular way.
And only in a democracy falling to the continued pressures of fascist stateism would the government redefine the ephemeral and undefined term "free press" only as persons engaged in journalistic activities employed by corporate media moguls.
I would suggest that you spend a few years in the "new and improved" fascist USSR, being run by an ex-KGB general, and experience the fruits of your specious argument firsthand.