Well, I am not going to buy this book, unless I can know ahead of time if the NASA/Lockheed "hack" that destroyed a $300 Million USD satellite (by mixing up units) and crashing it into Mars is included. (Got to see if anyone I know got mentioned in that escapade...)
Of course, it wasn't really only Lockheed Martin's fault, but also NASA (mis-)management of that project. Somehow, from reading the review, I suspect that there will not even be a mention of that fiasco. (Yes, Mildred, it really IS rocket science, and mixing up units of measurement IS NOT a "smart" hack...)
Yes, that was a quick response to security vulnerabilities.
As a hostage-to-dial-up internet user, I can thank my lucky stars that the patching schema for FireFox and Thunderbird is a mere 8 MB or so new compressed binary (for each platform), instead of one of those nifty MSFT 256k binary security patches on a monthly release schedule.
(WTF! Between twice/trice weekly virus signature updates, bi-weekly spyware signature updates, monthly MSFT OS and MSFT App security updates, the 3x 8MB FoxFire and 3x 8MB Thunderbird "security patches", and all the SPAM email I can stand, all of my quality time with slashdot is being chewed up by ADMIN bandwidth...)
I'm thinking that it's about time to switch to OpenBSD, Postfix, and Lynx (and screw the rest).
The real downer is hearing: "You are being layed off. This is Rajesh. You are expected to train him before you exit the company. He will be replacing you."
Well, that is what the companies in the industry are claiming publically. But that is not what they are saying privately. What they are saying privately is "There is no demand for IT workers that expect a Middle Class salary and benefits."
In 2003, there were 78,000 IT workers layed off in Connecticut (sorry, no link to the details). But that same year in Connecticut, the IT industry in Connecticut went to Congress and got 65,000 MORE H1-B visa slots granted to them. If those jobs truly "disappeared", the increase in H1-B visas would not have been needed.
There was an interesting PBS Frontline story earlier this year about the "mini-silicon valley" in Central Florida (Orlando area). Many IT workers there were being layed off after working there for a number of years. One of the provisions for qualifying for their "exit packages" was training of their H1-B visa-enabled Indian IT replacements. The homes that the layed off workers were being forced by bankruptcy to sell were being bought up by their replacements. In some neighborhoods, more than half the homes were up for sale.
But the IT industry is not alone in the continuously downward pressure on wages. There was a news article from Boise, Idahoe, about a state legislator that was trying to drum up support for a bill that, on the state level, would penalize companies for hiring illegal aliens. Major players in the construction industry there were quoted as saying that they could not find Amwerican workers for their construction sites. But what they really meant was that they could not find American construction workers there willing to work for what they were now only willing to pay.
In 2000, President Bill Clinton's administration prosecuted over 300 employers for their blatant policy of hiring illegal aliens. In 2001, President George Bush announced (prematurely) an amnesty program for illegal aliens. The floodgates opened, and in spite of post-9/11/2001 fears about domestic terrorism, the number of illegal aliens increased by 40%. In 2003, President George Bush's administration only prosecuted 13 employers for blatantly hiring illegal aliens, even though those numbers are way up.
Face it. The Federal government, many of your Congress-critters, and industries big and small are in the middle of the (effective) destruction of the Middle Class in America. This is all in accordance with what they call "globalization", which is little more than an excuse. In the 10 years since NAFTA was passed, and "globalization" started to "snowball", the Middle Class jobs that could readily be off-shore outsourced have been, at the same time that L1-A and H1-B visas have skyrocketed, along with many domestic jobs taken by illegal aliens.
Workers' wages have gone down, but the corporate executives that buy your Congress-critters salaries have gone up, sometimes spectacularly. When NAFTA was passed, there was considerable talk about "the level playing field", with concerns about wages, worker rights, benefits, and environmental issues that needed to be addressed when jobs moved offshore. Those concerns were never met by enabling legislation. Instead, the "level playing field" that American workers must adjust to are the prevalent wages of Bangalore, India and Shanghai, PRC.
Bill Gates does the very same thing at MSFT, so he is full of it. Short of a revolution, the only way out for the American Middle Class is to throw out the bought-and-paid-for politicians of both national political parties, and the sooner the better.
Well, that is what the companies in the industry are claiming publically. But that is not what they are saying privately. What they are saying privately is "There is no demand for IT workers that expect a Middle Class salary and benefits."
In 2003, there were 78,000 IT workers layed off in Connecticut (sorry, no link to the details). But that same year in Connecticut, the IT industry in Connecticut went to Congress and got 65,000 MORE H1-B visa slots granted to them. If those jobs truly "disappeared", the increase in H1-B visas would not have been needed.
There was an interesting PBS Frontline story earlier this year about the "mini-silicon valley" in Central Florida (Orlando area). Many IT workers there were being layed off after working there for a number of years. One of the provisions for qualifying for their "exit packages" was training of their H1-B visa-enabled Indian IT replacements. The homes that the layed off workers were being forced by bankruptcy to sell were being bought up by their replacements. In some neighborhoods, more than half the homes were up for sale.
But the IT industry is not alone in the continuously downward pressure on wages. There was a news article from Boise, Idahoe, about a state legislator that was trying to drum up support for a bill that, on the state level, would penalize companies for hiring illegal aliens. Major players in the construction industry there were quoted as saying that they could not find Amwerican workers for their construction sites. But what they really meant was that they could not find American construction workers there willing to work for what they were now only willing to pay. In 2000, President Bill Clinton's administration prosecuted over 300 employers for their blatant policy of hiring illegal aliens. In 2001, President George Bush announced (prematurely) an amnesty program for illegal aliens. The floodgates opened, and in spite of post-9/11/2001 fears about domestic terrorism, the number of illegal aliens increased by 40%. In 2003, President George Bush's administration only prosecuted 13 employers for blatantly hiring illegal aliens, even though those numbers are way up.
Face it. The Federal government, many of your Congress-critters, and industries big and small are in the middle of the (effective) destruction of the Middle Class in America. This is all in accordance with what they call "globalization", which is little more than an excuse. In the 10 years since NAFTA was passed, and "globalization" started to "snowball", the Middle Class jobs that could readily be off-shore outsourced have been, at the same time that L1-A and H1-B visas have skyrocketed, along with many domestic jobs taken by illegal aliens.
Workers' wages have gone down, but the corporate executives that buy your Congress-critters salaries have gone up, sometimes spectacularly. When NAFTA was passed, there was considerable talk about "the level playing field", with concerns about wages, worker rights, benefits, and environmental issues that needed to be addressed when jobs moved offshore. Those concerns were never met by enabling legislation. Instead, the "level playing field" that American workers must adjust to are the prevalent wages of Bangalore, India and Shanghai, PRC.
Bill Gates does the very same thing at MSFT, so he is full of it. Short of a revolution, the only way out for the American Middle Class is to throw out the bought-and-paid-for politicians of both national political parties, and the sooner the better.
"Requirements to share lines decreases the incentive to invest in new infrastructure, because other companies can leech off of your investment."
If you were talking about any other industry in the USA today, I might agree with you. But when Ma Bell (AT&T) was broken up into the regional "baby bells", many of the restrictions on the expansion of their business model were removed. Additional regulation at the state corporation commission level (individual states) was introduced in place of Federal regulations.
This is why the "baby bells" have been extremely active in the states' legislatures to nip competition like municipal WiFi in the bud. These "baby bells" are still government regulated (albeit less so today) monopolies, with minimum levels of service specified as well as a GUARANTEED PROFIT MARGIN.
It is new technology, like VoIP offered by other ISPs piggybacking on the "baby bells" infrastructure that the FCC has just given them the ability to crush. VoIP is an enabling force that is reducing the slice of "baby bell" income derived from their share of long distance charges.
The "baby bells" have dangled the prospect of widespread broadband service before the FCC as the "carrot" to the increased monopoly power "stick". The FCC has bitten the lure. But the creaky POTS circuits to most residences will not be addressed by the "baby bells" for decades to come. The only regions with active development of FTTP are those with high density populations that make such a roll-out less expensive.
The "baby bells" do want to replace their POTS wiring with FTTP, but on their terms, and on their schedule. Adn when these "test" regions are up to spec with FTTP, the "baby bells" will be competing with the cable companies for digital content. The area that I live in will not see FTTP for a decade or more -- all underground services that are 35 years old. The local "baby bell" could run FTTN (Fiber To The Neighborhood) as a means of more quickly providing adequate broadband speed, but that would not eliminate their cable competition. The "baby bells" want to take the whole "pie" away from the cable companies, not coexist with them -- a situation not unlike (1) the municipal WiFi threat to crappy ADSL service, and (2) the VoIP threat to their share of long distance charges.
In retrospect, the breakup of AT&T could have been avoided by government regulators providing new avenues of business expansion. We would not have the fractured (even broken) cellular phone service we have today, and closer oversight at the Federal level could have brought broadband DSL or even FTTP nationally, long before now. AT&T the national monopolist has been replaced with even more greedy "baby bell" monopolists, but with far less oversight provided at the states' level. The result has been poorer service overall, and at far higher a cost to the consumers.
This latest FCC pronouncement is pure, unadulterated bullshit. In what way will narrowing broadband offerings to only the primary carriers make broadband more accessable? What it really is is surrendering the public's broadband choices to the pigopolists^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hmonopolists who are already interfering in other public options, like municipal WiFi. Perhaps the FCC is hoping that the increased price that will be charged for broadband will finance the rollout of more broadband. It hasn't happened yet, and the telcos are already state regulated monopolies with guaranteed profit margins. This will help no one but the monopolies, and you can be sure that the quality of service will decrease as the price (and profit margins) increase.
Right now, I can choose between Verizon, AOL, Earthlink, Netscape, and Speakeasy for my broadband DSL service. Unfortunately, it is still dependent upon that 18,000 feet of 35 year old buried copper wiring (POTS) to the nearest telephone Central Office for service. Being offered less than ADSL speeds for DSL prices by one vendor cannot be "corrected" by another DSL provider, based upon the very same infrastructure. And this POTS wiring is to be replaced with FTTP in perhaps 20 years, judging by Verizon's current rollout schedule.
The FCC's latest and greatest does nothing to inspire any hope or confidence in improvements in DSL service; increased prices -- absolutely; decreased quality of service -- probably. But what other course of action could be expected by the same administration that let MSFT off the convicted monopolist hook?
"...one of the real unfortunate sides to closed source software -- when its owner abandons it, it's dead."
That's why, when Netcraft finally announces that OS/2 is dead, it might actually be true (, unlike *BSD whose source code is free, and will therefore live forever!")
If IBM truly wanted to release OS/2 to an open source community, it would find a way to do so. MSFT had gone out of its way to make Win32 incompatible with OS/2, and might be "encouraged" to sell IBM the rights to their code. But doesn't IBM have bigger fish to fry, in the form of migration (and migration services) to the linux platform?
I cannot answer for Win2k or WinXP running "fine" on a 486 system. The parent poster is, IMHO, correct in the assessment that the ammount of main memory is the key to functionality.
I bought what I considered to be "bleeding edge" hardware in 1998, P-III/600 Mhz SMP and 512 MB memory, FW-SCSI and RAID-0. I was running NT4 on this box up to the point that MSFT pulled the plug on support. Rather than running XP, I went with Win2K, and upon reflection I am certain I made the right choice. Before I "upgrade" to XP, this will be a linux platform. The MSFT licensing issues (License 6 and the more recent EULAs) have driven me away from any further MSFT products.
While dual 600 MHz processors may seem pretty lame these days, the computer runs faster that any two applications I could run on it. The amount of memory is the key, because there is normally little or no swapping to the pagefile. And when there is, the RAID-0 SCSI keeps swaps fast enough not to be irritating.
"Yet, Beijing continues to accelerate the expansion of its military forces when Beijing has no enemies..."
There was a very recent "deja-vu" incident in Beijing, with a PRC general threatening to nuke L.A. if the USA interceded in any conflict between the PRC and Taiwan. The same thing happened 4 years ago when the USA nixed the PRC purchase of the Port of Long Beach, CA.
It has become increasingly evident that the PRC has been using North Korean nuclear weapons development as a threat to South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. Since 80% of all foreign aid going to North Korea comes from the PRC, it is hard to imagine that the PRC could not, if they so chose, "encourage" North Korea to abandon their WMD. North Korea is a client state of, and proxy for the imperial expansionist goals of the PRC.
Just as the recent attempt, thus far not consumated, of the PRC purchase of UNOCAL. This purchase would provide direct energy blackmail to Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea, since UNOCAL supplies most of their LNG from gas fields in Malaysia and Indonesia. The PRC government (not some hawkish general) warned the US Congress not to interfere with their purchase of UNOCAL.
Whatever "military adventures" the PRC has in mind against Taiwan (and US interests in the Pacific), they are well on the way towards those preparations for war, using Western balance of trade deficits and technology transfers. And since Beijing is the site for the 2008 Olympics, it would be my guess that whatever they intend to do militarily, they expect to be victorious before their Olympics "showcase".
"Sooo, what were you expecting, thermonuclear noisemakers?"
Actually, thermonuclear weapons have been considered for use in civil engineering construction (like digging canals, mining, and underground cisterns) to aerospace (like spacecraft propulsion). Of course, that was back in days while the USA was still conducting above ground nuclear tests -- when nuclear radiation was compared to "sunshine units". Uncle Sam had an impressive "spin machine" back then.
I think it's too bad that you think this subject (outing undercover intelligence officers) is some sort of joke, or unharmful at worse. It does point out some glaring shortcomings in efforts to preserve operational security.
OTOH, setting up global "tail number watchers" to keep an eye on the intelligence agencies use of a fleet of corporate jets to illegally shift suspected "enemy combatants" to countries where they more readily be tortured for info falls more into the catagory "good investigative reporting".
"Why wouldn't the government find it easier without all the bothersome citizens?"
This statement brings several very interesting video clips from M.Moore's "Fahrenheit 9-11" documentary to mind:
(1) a quick Dubya quip about "how much easier it would be to govern a dictatorship"
(2) a Washington gala fundraiser, during which Dubya is quoted as saying "Some consider you the elite. I consider you my base."
(3) two video clips, one of Condi Rice and the other of Colin Powell, each stating during the first 90 days of Dubya's inaguration "Saddam has no WMD. We have prevented him from being a threat to his people, or to his neighbors."
The larger point that I am trying to make is that Dubya ran for president as an isolationist (, or at least as a non-interventionist,) as a "compassionate" conservative, and as "a uniter, not a divider". In each and every instance, these have been revealed as bold-faced lies to the American people by Dubya's subsequent actions and revelations.
The one thing I have learned from the "Dubya experience" is that politicians cannot be trusted, beyond their lust for power. I am hoping that we all (myself, the USA, and the rest of the world) will survive this "experience".
Okay, so MSFT's "Longhorn" will have some fairly restrictive DRM -- didn't we all know that this
was coming, considering all the background "chatter" (eg. "Trusted Computing", "Palladium", etcetera)?
With this news, it isn't hard to imagine that any future "Media Center OS" from MSFT will be bundled
ONLY with some very specific hardware lockins, including exclusive and proprietary drivers -- effectively locking out (1) alternative non-MSFT and OEM (Sony?) approved hardware, as well as (2) alternative OSes (linux?). Flexibility, and IMHO user-friendliness, will be eliminated.
One cannot help but wonder, considering both the timeline for "Longhorn" and the timeline for the heavily DRMed upcoming Intel processor/chipset, if this same future awaits Apple's x86 platform?
"Then whenever you hear anybody on the TV who has the word 'CHIEF' or 'EXECUTIVE' or 'OFFICER' in
their title, you point the box at the TV and
there's your answer."
When watching these same BS artists on TV, exclaim "I know he's lying - I can see his lips move!"
I could cut way back on my high blood pressure medicine when I started watching these BS artists on TV with the sound muted, and '60s/'70s/'80s tunes cranked up. (Somehow, the rock'n'roll crowd back then weren't so gullible, and "Question Authority" was the norm.)
I don't know about working for them, but I do know that they had their bases covered when it came to having a browser for every platform. Even five years ago, you could get Netscape browser OR Communicator for everything from FreeBSD to Linux to SGI IRIX to Sun Solaris to Apple Mac OS 9 to Windows NT -- and for free! Nowadays, you are lucky just to have a version for Windows.
And apparently the lack of competition is catching on like wildfire -- the Mozilla Project has dropped mozilla (like Communicator) in favor of the concept that "less is more", apparently taking their clue from MSFT's "Longhorn" project...
Thank God for Mom, apple pie, and the American way (sue the bastards, and if possible buy your legislators)!
Since the **AA has a patent on this business process in the USA, obviously the Australian/New Zealand equivalents have paid royalties to their American "cousins" for the priviledge. Ain't corporate "Free Enterprise"(TM) wonderful?
The sodium-silica gel reaction with water is a chemical reaction, not a catalyst. The result is a mass of waste sodium-silica gel that will require reprocessing.
OTOH, two platinum grids immersed in water, with a very high direct current voltage differential applied, could be considered a catalyst. While the grids will not deteriorate, the continued application of electrical energy would be required. The oxygen could be bled off to the atmosphere, while the hydrogen could be contained for future use. Or, the oxygen could also be stored, albeit separately, to be recombined under controlled conditions to create electricity and water. The source of the electrical potential required to break the hydrogen-oxygen bond to begin with is, of course, the problem.
All of the current technologies employed for the "hydrogen economy" either (1) require more energy
to produce than can be stored, (2) are derived from the "hydrocarbon economy" it's supposed to replace, or (3) rely upon nuclear energy which has a 50,000 year environmental pollution problem. The "hydrogen economy" provides continued centralized control over energy distribution, but is not a viable long term solution.
The best long term solution is reliance upon only renewable energy sources, including initially bio- diesel/hybrid. The main obstacle to this goal has to do with political will overcoming vested corporate interests that continue to seek total centralized control over energy distribution.
Reliance upon the "hydrocarbon economy" for the source of the "hydrogen economy" does not make economic or environmental sense. Hydrocarbons are a limited resource. Excess carbon must be "sunk" in order to derive any real benefit from hydrogen, since COn are greenhouse gases.
IMHO, every politician involved in promoting
nuclear energy as "the solution" should be
willing to commit themselves, their children,
their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren,
(et.al) to perpetual servitude to the new "quasi-
religious order" that oversees the continued
safe storage of radioactive nuclear waste -- for the next 50 to 60 thousand years.
Reliance upon renewable energy, with increasingly modest demands upon hydrocarbons like biodiesel, is the only solution (barring the improbable development of controllable fusion reactors).
As someone who is part of the Mozilla team, perhaps the article submitter could make working up-to-date source code readily available for download.
The Mozilla Project has seen fit to abandon mozilla at version 1.7.8, but with source code only at 1.7.5. It would seem to me that someone on the project would be interested in seeing mozilla live on somewhere, if only as a fork.
The project management needs to come to grips with several other issues that have become mainstream since abandoning mozilla, such as:
(1) why firefox/thunderbird (et.al) cannot make use of a single rendering engine loaded into memory, when running concurrently (unlike mozilla),
and
(2) why mozilla has not yet adopted a binary patch management system, allowing for much smaller downloads, instead of a complete re-installation.
Sounds to me like some MSFT || Intel || Wintel marketing 'droids have slipped in among the Apple Developer Network. Good ol' Steve Jobs&Co. wouldn't pull any wool over my eyes, would he?
Pardon me for being somewhat skeptical, since I have seen 32-bit and 64-bit apps running on MIPS and UltraSPARC hardware. Sometimes 32-bit apps on those platforms would run faster, not slower, on the 64-bit hardware, but 64-bit apps just don't run on 32-bit processors -- period.
When the difference in architecture and system throughput allows a 2.2 GHz G5 to run faster than a 3.2 GHz x86, such preliminary nonsense like Boot-Time make little real difference. (Yes, I do realize that Wintel users must reboot more frequently, thus making this a "significant" first benchmark for them.)
A crippled 32-bit processor/chipset cannot begin to compete with a stroked-out 64-bit processor/chipset, given disk speed and memory size as common criteria. Show me honest-to-goodness benchmarks, with real-life applications (including GCC compiler switches), but don't try to pawn off some BS Boot-Time as legitimate... convince me if you can.
"And then there was a great disturbance in the force, as though a billion souls were suddenly extinguished..."
That "Happy Birthday" song (you know the one I mean) is protected, copyrighted material. It cannot be commercially reproduced without pay- ment of royalties to the copyright holder. One may take this to mean that the song may not be sung for profit (eg. singing telegram), nor can it be written down (eg. birthday card). This whole situation seems pretty ludicrous.
This is not merely a UK copyright issue, but also a USA issue. Remember the Disney-sponsored "Mickey Mouse" copyright legislation that passed with flying colors? No doubt, this same situation also exists elsewhere. (So, Mickey has been enslaved for yet another 30 years!)
AFAIK, copyright was established in order to reward the original artist/writer/composer during his/her lifetime, and not a revenue stream for the next 3 generations. Doesn't the term "public domain" and "fair use" mean anything anymore? It's a damn good thing that these onerous copyright laws were not around before the advent of the Gutenburg press -- we would all still be in the Dark Ages, thinking the world is flat. Each hand-copied manuscript would have had to be paid for with a pound of monk's flesh...
"Looks like we are going to see another Microsoft antitrust style case in Europe?"
You bet!
Only the outcome will not be the same, because the Dubya regime doesn't yet rule Europe. The only thing that saved MSFT (IMHO) from being sliced-and-diced, Cusinart-style, was the MSFT lawyers' court delays until a change in venue (ie. a change in administrations).
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I am not going to buy this book, unless I can know ahead of time if the NASA/Lockheed "hack" that destroyed a $300 Million USD satellite (by mixing up units) and crashing it into Mars is included. (Got to see if anyone I know got mentioned in that escapade...)
Of course, it wasn't really only Lockheed Martin's fault, but also NASA (mis-)management of that project. Somehow, from reading the review, I suspect that there will not even be a mention of that fiasco. (Yes, Mildred, it really IS rocket science, and mixing up units of measurement IS NOT a "smart" hack...)
Yes, that was a quick response to security vulnerabilities.
As a hostage-to-dial-up internet user, I can
thank my lucky stars that the patching schema
for FireFox and Thunderbird is a mere 8 MB or
so new compressed binary (for each platform),
instead of one of those nifty MSFT 256k binary
security patches on a monthly release schedule.
(WTF! Between twice/trice weekly virus signature
updates, bi-weekly spyware signature updates,
monthly MSFT OS and MSFT App security updates,
the 3x 8MB FoxFire and 3x 8MB Thunderbird
"security patches", and all the SPAM email I
can stand, all of my quality time with slashdot
is being chewed up by ADMIN bandwidth...)
I'm thinking that it's about time to switch to
OpenBSD, Postfix, and Lynx (and screw the rest).
"This is Rajesh. He's just replaced you."
Apparently, this hasn't actually happened to you.
The real downer is hearing: "You are being layed off. This is Rajesh.
You are expected to train him before you exit the company.
He will be replacing you."
"There is no demand for IT workers."
Well, that is what the companies in the industry are claiming publically. But that is not what they are saying privately. What they are saying privately is "There is no demand for IT workers that expect a Middle Class salary and benefits."
In 2003, there were 78,000 IT workers layed off in Connecticut (sorry, no link to the details). But that same year in Connecticut, the IT industry in Connecticut went to Congress and got 65,000 MORE H1-B visa slots granted to them. If those jobs truly "disappeared", the increase in H1-B visas would not have been needed.
There was an interesting PBS Frontline story earlier this year about the "mini-silicon valley" in Central Florida (Orlando area). Many IT workers there were being layed off after working there for a number of years. One of the provisions for qualifying for their "exit packages" was training of their H1-B visa-enabled Indian IT replacements. The homes that the layed off workers were being forced by bankruptcy to sell were being bought up by their replacements. In some neighborhoods, more than half the homes were up for sale.
But the IT industry is not alone in the continuously downward pressure on wages. There was a news article from Boise, Idahoe, about a state legislator that was trying to drum up support for a bill that, on the state level, would penalize companies for hiring illegal aliens. Major players in the construction industry there were quoted as saying that they could not find Amwerican workers for their construction sites. But what they really meant was that they could not find American construction workers there willing to work for what they were now only willing to pay.
In 2000, President Bill Clinton's administration prosecuted over 300 employers for their blatant policy of hiring illegal aliens. In 2001, President George Bush announced (prematurely) an amnesty program for illegal aliens. The floodgates opened, and in spite of post-9/11/2001 fears about domestic terrorism, the number of illegal aliens increased by 40%. In 2003, President George Bush's administration only prosecuted 13 employers for blatantly hiring illegal aliens, even though those numbers are way up.
Face it. The Federal government, many of your Congress-critters, and industries big and small are in the middle of the (effective) destruction of the Middle Class in America. This is all in accordance with what they call "globalization", which is little more than an excuse. In the 10 years since NAFTA was passed, and "globalization" started to "snowball", the Middle Class jobs that could readily be off-shore outsourced have been, at the same time that L1-A and H1-B visas have skyrocketed, along with many domestic jobs taken by illegal aliens.
Workers' wages have gone down, but the corporate executives that buy your Congress-critters salaries have gone up, sometimes spectacularly. When NAFTA was passed, there was considerable talk about "the level playing field", with concerns about wages, worker rights, benefits, and environmental issues that needed to be addressed when jobs moved offshore. Those concerns were never met by enabling legislation. Instead, the "level playing field" that American workers must adjust to are the prevalent wages of Bangalore, India and Shanghai, PRC.
Bill Gates does the very same thing at MSFT, so he is full of it. Short of a revolution, the only way out for the American Middle Class is to throw out the bought-and-paid-for politicians of both national political parties, and the sooner the better.
"There is no demand for IT workers."
Well, that is what the companies in the industry are claiming publically. But that is not what they are saying privately. What they are saying privately is "There is no demand for IT workers that expect a Middle Class salary and benefits."
In 2003, there were 78,000 IT workers layed off in Connecticut (sorry, no link to the details). But that same year in Connecticut, the IT industry in Connecticut went to Congress and got 65,000 MORE H1-B visa slots granted to them. If those jobs truly "disappeared", the increase in H1-B visas would not have been needed.
There was an interesting PBS Frontline story earlier this year about the "mini-silicon valley" in Central Florida (Orlando area). Many IT workers there were being layed off after working there for a number of years. One of the provisions for qualifying for their "exit packages" was training of their H1-B visa-enabled Indian IT replacements. The homes that the layed off workers were being forced by bankruptcy to sell were being bought up by their replacements. In some neighborhoods, more than half the homes were up for sale.
But the IT industry is not alone in the continuously downward pressure on wages. There was a news article from Boise, Idahoe, about a state legislator that was trying to drum up support for a bill that, on the state level, would penalize companies for hiring illegal aliens. Major players in the construction industry there were quoted as saying that they could not find Amwerican workers for their construction sites. But what they really meant was that they could not find American construction workers there willing to work for what they were now only willing to pay. In 2000, President Bill Clinton's administration prosecuted over 300 employers for their blatant policy of hiring illegal aliens. In 2001, President George Bush announced (prematurely) an amnesty program for illegal aliens. The floodgates opened, and in spite of post-9/11/2001 fears about domestic terrorism, the number of illegal aliens increased by 40%. In 2003, President George Bush's administration only prosecuted 13 employers for blatantly hiring illegal aliens, even though those numbers are way up.
Face it. The Federal government, many of your Congress-critters, and industries big and small are in the middle of the (effective) destruction of the Middle Class in America. This is all in accordance with what they call "globalization", which is little more than an excuse. In the 10 years since NAFTA was passed, and "globalization" started to "snowball", the Middle Class jobs that could readily be off-shore outsourced have been, at the same time that L1-A and H1-B visas have skyrocketed, along with many domestic jobs taken by illegal aliens.
Workers' wages have gone down, but the corporate executives that buy your Congress-critters salaries have gone up, sometimes spectacularly. When NAFTA was passed, there was considerable talk about "the level playing field", with concerns about wages, worker rights, benefits, and environmental issues that needed to be addressed when jobs moved offshore. Those concerns were never met by enabling legislation. Instead, the "level playing field" that American workers must adjust to are the prevalent wages of Bangalore, India and Shanghai, PRC.
Bill Gates does the very same thing at MSFT, so he is full of it. Short of a revolution, the only way out for the American Middle Class is to throw out the bought-and-paid-for politicians of both national political parties, and the sooner the better.
"Requirements to share lines decreases the incentive to invest in new infrastructure, because other companies can leech off of your investment."
If you were talking about any other industry in the USA today, I might agree with you. But when Ma Bell (AT&T) was broken up into the regional "baby bells", many of the restrictions on the expansion of their business model were removed. Additional regulation at the state corporation commission level (individual states) was introduced in place of Federal regulations.
This is why the "baby bells" have been extremely active in the states' legislatures to nip competition like municipal WiFi in the bud. These "baby bells" are still government regulated (albeit less so today) monopolies, with minimum levels of service specified as well as a GUARANTEED PROFIT MARGIN.
It is new technology, like VoIP offered by other ISPs piggybacking on the "baby bells" infrastructure that the FCC has just given them the ability to crush. VoIP is an enabling force that is reducing the slice of "baby bell" income derived from their share of long distance charges.
The "baby bells" have dangled the prospect of widespread broadband service before the FCC as the "carrot" to the increased monopoly power "stick". The FCC has bitten the lure. But the creaky POTS circuits to most residences will not be addressed by the "baby bells" for decades to come. The only regions with active development of FTTP are those with high density populations that make such a roll-out less expensive.
The "baby bells" do want to replace their POTS wiring with FTTP, but on their terms, and on their schedule. Adn when these "test" regions are up to spec with FTTP, the "baby bells" will be competing with the cable companies for digital content. The area that I live in will not see FTTP for a decade or more -- all underground services that are 35 years old. The local "baby bell" could run FTTN (Fiber To The Neighborhood) as a means of more quickly providing adequate broadband speed, but that would not eliminate their cable competition. The "baby bells" want to take the whole "pie" away from the cable companies, not coexist with them -- a situation not unlike (1) the municipal WiFi threat to crappy ADSL service, and (2) the VoIP threat to their share of long distance charges.
In retrospect, the breakup of AT&T could have been avoided by government regulators providing new avenues of business expansion. We would not have the fractured (even broken) cellular phone service we have today, and closer oversight at the Federal level could have brought broadband DSL or even FTTP nationally, long before now. AT&T the national monopolist has been replaced with even more greedy "baby bell" monopolists, but with far less oversight provided at the states' level. The result has been poorer service overall, and at far higher a cost to the consumers.
This latest FCC pronouncement is pure, unadulterated bullshit. In what way will narrowing broadband offerings to only the primary carriers make broadband more accessable? What it really is is surrendering the public's broadband choices to the pigopolists^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hmonopolists who are already interfering in other public options, like municipal WiFi. Perhaps the FCC is hoping that the increased price that will be charged for broadband will finance the rollout of more broadband.
It hasn't happened yet, and the telcos are already state regulated monopolies with guaranteed profit margins. This will help no one but the monopolies, and you can be sure that the quality of service will decrease as the price (and profit margins) increase.
Right now, I can choose between Verizon, AOL, Earthlink, Netscape, and Speakeasy for my broadband DSL service. Unfortunately, it is still dependent upon that 18,000 feet of 35 year old buried copper wiring (POTS) to the nearest telephone Central Office for service. Being offered less than ADSL speeds for DSL prices by one vendor cannot be "corrected" by another DSL provider, based upon the very same infrastructure. And this POTS wiring is to be replaced with FTTP in perhaps 20 years, judging by Verizon's current rollout schedule.
The FCC's latest and greatest does nothing to inspire any hope or confidence in improvements in DSL service; increased prices -- absolutely; decreased quality of service -- probably. But what other course of action could be expected by the same administration that let MSFT off the convicted monopolist hook?
" ...one of the real unfortunate sides to closed source software -- when its owner abandons it, it's dead."
That's why, when Netcraft finally announces that OS/2 is dead, it might actually be true (, unlike
*BSD whose source code is free, and will therefore live forever!")
If IBM truly wanted to release OS/2 to an open source community, it would find a way to do so. MSFT had gone out of its way to make Win32 incompatible with OS/2, and might be "encouraged" to sell IBM the rights to their code. But doesn't IBM have bigger fish to fry, in the form of migration (and migration services) to the linux platform?
I cannot answer for Win2k or WinXP running "fine"
on a 486 system. The parent poster is, IMHO,
correct in the assessment that the ammount of
main memory is the key to functionality.
I bought what I considered to be "bleeding edge"
hardware in 1998, P-III/600 Mhz SMP and 512 MB
memory, FW-SCSI and RAID-0. I was running NT4 on
this box up to the point that MSFT pulled the plug
on support. Rather than running XP, I went with
Win2K, and upon reflection I am certain I made the
right choice. Before I "upgrade" to XP, this will
be a linux platform. The MSFT licensing issues (License
6 and the more recent EULAs) have driven
me away from any further MSFT products.
While dual 600 MHz processors may seem pretty lame
these days, the computer runs faster that any two
applications I could run on it. The amount of
memory is the key, because there is normally little
or no swapping to the pagefile. And when there is,
the RAID-0 SCSI keeps swaps fast enough not to
be irritating.
"Yet, Beijing continues to accelerate the expansion of its military forces when Beijing has no enemies ..."
There was a very recent "deja-vu" incident in Beijing, with a PRC general threatening to nuke L.A. if the USA interceded in any conflict between the PRC and Taiwan. The same thing happened 4 years ago when the USA nixed the PRC purchase of the Port of Long Beach, CA.
It has become increasingly evident that the PRC has been using North Korean nuclear weapons development as a threat to South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. Since 80% of all foreign aid going to North Korea comes from the PRC, it is hard to imagine that the PRC could not, if they so chose, "encourage" North Korea to abandon their WMD. North Korea is a client state of, and proxy for the imperial expansionist goals of the PRC.
Just as the recent attempt, thus far not consumated, of the PRC purchase of UNOCAL. This
purchase would provide direct energy blackmail to Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea, since UNOCAL supplies most of their LNG from gas fields in Malaysia and Indonesia. The PRC government (not
some hawkish general) warned the US Congress not to interfere with their purchase of UNOCAL.
Whatever "military adventures" the PRC has in mind against Taiwan (and US interests in the Pacific), they are well on the way towards those preparations for war, using Western balance of trade deficits and technology transfers. And since Beijing is the site for the 2008 Olympics, it would be my guess that whatever they intend to do militarily, they expect to be victorious before their Olympics "showcase".
"Sooo, what were you expecting, thermonuclear noisemakers?"
Actually, thermonuclear weapons have been considered for use in civil engineering construction (like digging canals, mining, and underground cisterns) to aerospace (like spacecraft propulsion). Of course, that was back in days while the USA was still conducting above ground nuclear tests -- when nuclear radiation was compared to "sunshine units". Uncle Sam had an impressive "spin machine" back then.
Mickey Mouse can have my fingerprints when he pries them off my cold dead fingers.
I think it's too bad that you think this subject
(outing undercover intelligence officers) is some
sort of joke, or unharmful at worse. It does
point out some glaring shortcomings in efforts
to preserve operational security.
OTOH, setting up global "tail number watchers" to
keep an eye on the intelligence agencies use of
a fleet of corporate jets to illegally shift
suspected "enemy combatants" to countries where
they more readily be tortured for info falls more
into the catagory "good investigative reporting".
"Why wouldn't the government find it easier without all the bothersome citizens?"
This statement brings several very interesting video clips from M.Moore's "Fahrenheit 9-11" documentary to mind:
(1) a quick Dubya quip about "how much easier it would be to govern a dictatorship"
(2) a Washington gala fundraiser, during which Dubya is quoted as saying "Some consider you the elite. I consider you my base."
(3) two video clips, one of Condi Rice and the other of Colin Powell, each stating during the first 90 days of Dubya's inaguration "Saddam has no WMD. We have prevented him from being a threat to his people, or to his neighbors."
The larger point that I am trying to make is that Dubya ran for president as an isolationist (, or at least as a non-interventionist,) as a "compassionate" conservative, and as "a uniter, not a divider". In each and every instance, these have been revealed as bold-faced lies to the American people by Dubya's subsequent actions and revelations.
The one thing I have learned from the "Dubya experience" is that politicians cannot be trusted, beyond their lust for power. I am hoping that we all (myself, the USA, and the rest of the world) will survive this "experience".
Okay, so MSFT's "Longhorn" will have some fairly
restrictive DRM -- didn't we all know that this
was coming, considering all the background
"chatter" (eg. "Trusted Computing", "Palladium",
etcetera)?
With this news, it isn't hard to imagine that any
future "Media Center OS" from MSFT will be bundled
ONLY with some very specific hardware lockins,
including exclusive and proprietary drivers --
effectively locking out (1) alternative non-MSFT
and OEM (Sony?) approved hardware, as well as (2)
alternative OSes (linux?). Flexibility, and IMHO
user-friendliness, will be eliminated.
One cannot help but wonder, considering both the
timeline for "Longhorn" and the timeline for the
heavily DRMed upcoming Intel processor/chipset,
if this same future awaits Apple's x86 platform?
FP-RPG + PORN = $$$$$
Fujitsu undoubtedly has a winner here.
"Then whenever you hear anybody on the TV who has
the word 'CHIEF' or 'EXECUTIVE' or 'OFFICER' in
their title, you point the box at the TV and
there's your answer."
When watching these same BS artists on TV, exclaim
"I know he's lying - I can see his lips move!"
I could cut way back on my high blood pressure
medicine when I started watching these BS artists
on TV with the sound muted, and '60s/'70s/'80s
tunes cranked up. (Somehow, the rock'n'roll crowd
back then weren't so gullible, and "Question Authority"
was the norm.)
I don't know about working for them, but I do know that they had their bases covered when it came to having a browser for every platform. Even five years ago, you could get Netscape browser OR Communicator for everything from FreeBSD to Linux to SGI IRIX to Sun Solaris to Apple Mac OS 9 to Windows NT -- and for free! Nowadays, you are lucky just to have a version for Windows.
And apparently the lack of competition is catching on like wildfire -- the Mozilla Project has dropped mozilla (like Communicator) in favor of the concept that "less is more", apparently taking their clue from MSFT's "Longhorn" project...
Thank God for Mom, apple pie, and the American way (sue the bastards, and if possible buy your
legislators)!
Since the **AA has a patent on this business process in the USA, obviously the Australian/New Zealand equivalents have paid royalties to their American "cousins" for the priviledge. Ain't corporate "Free Enterprise"(TM) wonderful?
The sodium-silica gel reaction with water is a
chemical reaction, not a catalyst. The result
is a mass of waste sodium-silica gel that will
require reprocessing.
OTOH, two platinum grids immersed in water, with
a very high direct current voltage differential
applied, could be considered a catalyst. While
the grids will not deteriorate, the continued
application of electrical energy would be required.
The oxygen could be bled off to the atmosphere,
while the hydrogen could be contained for future
use. Or, the oxygen could also be stored, albeit
separately, to be recombined under controlled
conditions to create electricity and water. The
source of the electrical potential required to
break the hydrogen-oxygen bond to begin with is,
of course, the problem.
All of the current technologies employed for the
"hydrogen economy" either (1) require more energy
to produce than can be stored, (2) are derived
from the "hydrocarbon economy" it's supposed to
replace, or (3) rely upon nuclear energy which
has a 50,000 year environmental pollution problem.
The "hydrogen economy" provides continued
centralized control over energy distribution, but
is not a viable long term solution.
The best long term solution is reliance upon only
renewable energy sources, including initially bio-
diesel/hybrid. The main obstacle to this goal
has to do with political will overcoming vested
corporate interests that continue to seek total
centralized control over energy distribution.
Reliance upon the "hydrocarbon economy" for the
source of the "hydrogen economy" does not make
economic or environmental sense. Hydrocarbons
are a limited resource. Excess carbon must be
"sunk" in order to derive any real benefit from
hydrogen, since COn are greenhouse gases.
IMHO, every politician involved in promoting
nuclear energy as "the solution" should be
willing to commit themselves, their children,
their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren,
(et.al) to perpetual servitude to the new "quasi-
religious order" that oversees the continued
safe storage of radioactive nuclear waste -- for
the next 50 to 60 thousand years.
Reliance upon renewable energy, with increasingly
modest demands upon hydrocarbons like biodiesel,
is the only solution (barring the improbable
development of controllable fusion reactors).
As someone who is part of the Mozilla team, perhaps the article submitter could make working
...
up-to-date source code readily available for download.
The Mozilla Project has seen fit to abandon mozilla at version 1.7.8, but with source code only at 1.7.5. It would seem to me that someone on the project would be interested in seeing mozilla live on somewhere, if only as a fork.
The project management needs to come to grips with several other issues that have become mainstream since abandoning mozilla, such as:
(1) why firefox/thunderbird (et.al) cannot make use of a single rendering engine loaded into memory, when running concurrently (unlike mozilla),
and
(2) why mozilla has not yet adopted a binary patch management system, allowing for much smaller downloads, instead of a complete re-installation.
Just my $00.02 worth
Sounds to me like some MSFT || Intel || Wintel marketing 'droids have slipped in among the
... convince me if you can.
Apple Developer Network. Good ol' Steve Jobs&Co. wouldn't pull any wool over my eyes, would he?
Pardon me for being somewhat skeptical, since I have seen 32-bit and 64-bit apps running on MIPS and UltraSPARC hardware. Sometimes 32-bit apps on those platforms would run faster, not slower, on the 64-bit hardware, but 64-bit apps just don't run on 32-bit processors -- period.
When the difference in architecture and system throughput allows a 2.2 GHz G5 to run faster than a 3.2 GHz x86, such preliminary nonsense like Boot-Time make little real difference. (Yes, I do realize that Wintel users must reboot more frequently, thus making this a "significant" first benchmark for them.)
A crippled 32-bit processor/chipset cannot begin to compete with a stroked-out 64-bit processor/chipset, given disk speed and memory size as common criteria. Show me honest-to-goodness benchmarks, with real-life applications (including GCC compiler switches), but don't try to pawn off some BS Boot-Time as legitimate
"And then there was a great disturbance in the
force, as though a billion souls were suddenly
extinguished..."
That "Happy Birthday" song (you know the one I
mean) is protected, copyrighted material. It
cannot be commercially reproduced without pay-
ment of royalties to the copyright holder.
One may take this to mean that the song may not
be sung for profit (eg. singing telegram), nor
can it be written down (eg. birthday card).
This whole situation seems pretty ludicrous.
This is not merely a UK copyright issue, but
also a USA issue. Remember the Disney-sponsored
"Mickey Mouse" copyright legislation that
passed with flying colors? No doubt, this same
situation also exists elsewhere. (So, Mickey
has been enslaved for yet another 30 years!)
AFAIK, copyright was established in order to
reward the original artist/writer/composer
during his/her lifetime, and not a revenue
stream for the next 3 generations. Doesn't
the term "public domain" and "fair use" mean
anything anymore? It's a damn good thing that
these onerous copyright laws were not around
before the advent of the Gutenburg press -- we
would all still be in the Dark Ages, thinking
the world is flat. Each hand-copied manuscript
would have had to be paid for with a pound of
monk's flesh...
"Looks like we are going to see another Microsoft antitrust style case in Europe?"
You bet!
Only the outcome will not be the same, because
the Dubya regime doesn't yet rule Europe. The
only thing that saved MSFT (IMHO) from being
sliced-and-diced, Cusinart-style, was the MSFT
lawyers' court delays until a change in venue
(ie. a change in administrations).