"...it's not identify "theft," it's identity infringement." Well, no. "It's not identity "theft", it's identity fraud."
40 million banking customers have had privledged personal information about them compromised in a manner that would suggest that "identity fraud" perpetrated against them is likely at a future time.
There are also persons walking around with completely fraudulent identity papers - birth certificate, social security number, drivers license, employment history, credit cards and credit history, etcetera -- this too is identy fraud.
There is a whole spectrum of identity fraud between unauthorized credit card usage and the "man who never was". It is still fraud. And each and every case of identity fraud should be prosecuted, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. In fact, the law needs to be changed so that ID fraud cannot be "rolled up" into other related charges and pled down. It really needs to be a separate charge, perhaps 2 to 5 years per instance, to be served consecutively with those other charges prosecuted.
Multiple intertwined biometric parameters need to be incorporated into whatever will pass for the RealID Act that was recently signed. The only federal agency that has the expertise to actually protect that data from hackers is the NSA, so it should go into their task list.
(1) before going on-line for the first time, purchase a router and configure the firewall, then immediately download all necessary patches, plus a good anti-spyware program,
(2) download all your Windows security atches, service packs, etcetra, third-party firewall and anti-spyware software from a friend's Mac OSX machine and burn them all to CD/DVD. Apply all necessary patches and third-party software before venturing out onto the internet,
(3) choose not to play the MSFT security patch and upgrade revenue stream game - buy an Apple Mac, or reformat your hard drive and install any of these: linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris 10 x86, QNX. If in doubt, ask a knowledgeable friend for advice, or
(4) buy the absolute fastest bad-ass big disk Wintel/AMD computer you can find to make that broadband connection. Make certain that you have the OS media and valid cd-key, make backups of all your important personal data, and figure on either (a) reformatting/reimaging your computer every three months, or (b) be prepared to buy a new computer every six months. Wash, rinse, repeat.
for the atrocious English spelling and grammer of entries posted on/. (Really!) It is a combination of (1) generational issues pertaining to the quality of public education, and (2) of English as a second (or third) language. Very few problems arise from word usage (torch vs flashlight) or word spelling (colour vs color), as the true meaning readily becomes apparent, even to distant cousins of the English language like Americans.
Please practice patience, tolerance, and only gentle chiding in making corrections. Be nice.
"Oh well the grandparent hates america, is a traitor and loves terrorists like all democrats."
Not! But I also have problems with the alliance between Clinton and the Gingrich Congress that brought us NAFTA, without any of the "leveling of the playing field" add-on legislation that was to follow. IMHO, Clinto should have left the Mexican regime flounder in bankruptcy, rather than bail them out, push for NAFTA, and open the borders for the ensuing invasion. And I do admit that the DoJ anti-monopoly lawsuit against MSFT was brought forward under the Clinton administration - it's purpose just got twisted into Dubya's new fund-raising effort.
Actually, I consider myself to be a patriot - albeit not one that accepts the current regime's propaganda machine as "truth", no matter how many times it is repeated. The regime's allies in the Congress and church pews, oxymoronically named "neo-cons" (make that neo-Con(artists), not compassionate onservatives", okay?) have abandoned the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the truth, all in favor of the Dubya agenda.
I realize and acknowledge that such an admission places me squarely into the camp of the loyal opposition. As Dubya once said "If you are not for me, you are against me (and if you are against me, you must be a terrorist, too!)" Symantics. One man's freedom figher is another man's terrorist.
Isn't it strange that nearly four full years after the anthrax letters were mailed to the leadership of Bush's opposition, no progress has been made in catching the perpetrators? Beyond, of course, determining that the Ames strain of anthrax was a direct DNA match to that found at the US Army's bio-weapons facility at Ft. Detrick, MD?
"Microsoft has unparalleled influence throughout the Federal government. If by unparalleled they mean, 'a lot, but not so much as oil and pharmaceuticals', then I might agree."
Spot on target! [Ahhh!... oil and "pharacuticals"] - Dubya must constantly be flashing back to the good old bad old days, when he could do anything he wanted and fall back on his daddy's name and influence. Do not forget that it was a change of "venue" (ie. the incoming Dubya regime) that allowed MSFT to "write their own" punishment after the DoJ monopoly conviction.
Historically, MSFT and many other big IT companies totally ignored the politicos when they were passing around their campaign contribution "hats". After the DoJ monopoly conviction against MSFT, I can guarantee that few major IT companies ever made THAT mistake again. And once the "lesson" was learned, there was no need for the politicos to cripple their new found campaign contributors.
MSFT has never engaged in a single direct frontal attack against their competitors, including linux. Instead, they have followed the principles outlined in the "Art of War". (Not unlike how China is now "dicing and slicing" the USA's economy...)
The 2000 national election was not decided by the voters -- it was decided by shady politicians that illegally disenfranchised tens of thousands of voters, who used an illegal Florida state law that violated due process by barring state-wide ballot recounts, an apathetic US Senate that refused to protest the election, and a US Supreme Court. Don't blame THAT election on the voters.
The 2004 national elections were not much better. The same method of illegally disenfranchising voters was committed again. But this time, we had $6 Billion USD worth of electronic voting machines and electronic accumulators installed, with untested software, very poor or nonexistent security, and no paper trail for validating the election results. If the tabulated votes came close to matching politically motivated exit polls, the vote count was deemed "close enough".
When this country gives up on the notion of instant election returns, and switches back to hand counted paper ballots, I can almost guarantee that the election results will not favor the regime that is currently in power.
The only really "transportable" SGI that I ever worked with was the Indy Presenter c1994. It was an Indy RC4600 with 256 MB main memory and 10 GB SCSI hard disk. The video card specifically drove an LCD panel that you would set on top of a projector. It even came with a comfortable padded backpack to haul it around in -- all 28 pounds worth.
SGI is out of the MIPS business, but there are low power 32-bit cores from SGS-Thompson and others. A 64-bit MIPS laptop^H^H^H^H^H^Htransportable running whatever is the latest flavor of IRIX would be sweet. (Of course, it will never happen, alas.) SGI's wholesale adoption of Intel uP was a big tragedy for SGI, from the Visual Workstation on up to the biggest Intel IA64 cluster they now sell. (Although there is still a niche market for them today.) IMHO, the energy and money SGI wasted on the switch to the Intel juggernaut would have better spent making faster & cheaper MIPS computers. (As HP has done with their PA-RISC, and Apple is getting ready to do with their switch.)
An Intel laptop driven by a 32-bit processor with 64-bit memory addressing extensions is a total waste -- how can you put enough memory in the laptop to justify the difference? The Tadpole "laptop" and now the SUN UltraSPARC "laptop" throws the challenge down to the other legacy OEMs for (at least) "transportable" 64-bit operations. One can only wish...
SUN's new laptop is interesting, but if I truly needed a transportable UltraSPARC workstation, I would still look first at the Tadpole "laptop".
You can spec this laptop with dual UltraSPARC processors, dual hard disks, and 2 GB of main memory. As an added bonus, you can also run SUNs very capable Open Solaris 10 on it. Of course this configuration is heavy, and a real power hog. In the best case scenario, battery life untethered is about 2 hours. Still, the Tadpole is a very capable transportable computer.
The FCC is trying to force every TV manufacturer to switch to DTV early. The price differential a (standard 27" analog and 27" DTV) is at least $1000 USD. The DTV standard that the FCC adopted allows for more channels but also introduces new problems with reception, particularly in urban areas with tall buildings (so many out-of-phase signals bounced that the tuner cannot lock onto a signal). Next generation DTV tuners that can do a better job dicriminating signals will not come from the OEMs until there is much more consumer pressure -- like just not buying crap.
2006 may be the year that has been mandated for the complete transition to DTV, but considering (1) the reception problems, (2) initial cost, and (3) quality of programming offered, it may be the time when I switch back to newspapers for news and (selective) DVDs for entertainment. Somehow, I don't expect the FCC to change the DTV spec for better quality (and fewer channels) until after 2008. I'll wait. I may even find that I will not miss all the crud that passes for TV entertainment, excepting PBS (which the neo-Con (artists) will continue to try to kill off.
You don't suppose that SUN has caught MSFT's "Longhorn disease", do you?
There are a number of areas that SUN could be spending more effort on. I certainly wouldn't mind seeing StarOffice released on more platforms, like Mac OS X. But SUN is continuing development of JDS on Solaris, and may only be delayed in support for linux. Their Solaris 10 product is currently a bit shy of all SUN's enhancements -- their virtual file system is one example. If SUN's development efforts are slower than you like, at least be happy that they have not (yet) moved their entire development team to India.
Ahhh! So now you have stumbled upon the real reason that Dubya wants to "go to Mars". What better reason than that to invade, if not to scrounge new energy sources for this regime's taskmasters?
Mere water lakes implies possible life there, and the likely conflict over natural resources. OTOH, methane breathes new life into the USA's petroleum industry, even if only for export to Mars. Just think of the transportation fees Haliburton could charge! New sources of energy and new markets, but with Uncle (Sucker) Sam picking up the tab -- what's not to like (thinks Dubya)?
The whole idea of moving the US government to Alaska is preposterous -- at current "global warming" trends, Alaska will have a climate more similar to the state of Washington in ten years. The bureaucratic red tape and environmental impact studies would have pushed the project out far beyond ten ears anyway, making such efforts (your "carrot and stick" scheme) a moot point. Besides, Dubya is already planning on moving much of the US government (ala House Speaker Jim Wright's legacy) to Texas already, via the BRAP (Base Re-Alignment Project).
BRAP is a really stupid idea that will concentrate the Federal government and US military into large conclaves susceptible to terrorist attack next to our porous southern border. (of course, nobody ever claimed that Dubya was a genius, only a former dope smoking, womanizing, coke tooting son of the Texas "aristocracy").
I consider the award of the fusion project construction to France to be a true godsend. At least they will not outsource the project to China or India, which is what would have happened if the USA had won the competition. Besides, Texas already has an 18 mile oval trench in the ground that they are just now trying to fill in.
"It's all red tape and shady book-keeping anyway. Arthur Anderson and the accounting they did for Enron were amatuers compared to Hollywood accountants."
Amen! The correct term, however, is not "shady bookkeeping" but "outright fraud". The Hollywood studios have been functioning this way since the end of the prevalence of the studio "contract star" ended. The lure of an ephermeral percentage on the back-end instead of cash for services rendered has been a siren song many actors/actresses/directors/producers have been unable to resist. Two percent of a bottom line of zero is still worth nothing.
Only Hollywood accountants can take a movie that costs $100 Million USD to make, that generates $500 Million USD in revenue worldwide (theaters, TV and cable rebroadcasts, DVD rentals and sales) and have a zero (or negative) bottom line balance.
Of course, both the MPAA and the RIAA use the same dubious accounting methods. Artists and customers both continue to get screwed -- a 95% lockdown on marketing and distribution is still defined as a monopoly. Except to the Dubya regime and the neo-Con(artists) in control of Congress.
I have it from a super-reliable source (George "Dubya" Bush) that there is no such thing as global warming. It is all a knee jerk, radical left wing fantasy designed to throttle the American economy (says he).
On the very miniscule chance that "Dubya" is wrong, what exactly is wrong with global warming, anyway? The neo-Con(artists) always look at the silver lining in that dark cloud - a longer growing season, less need for winter heating, new opportunities for real estate development (sea-walls, dikes, new ocean-front property, and vast new markets for SPF-1000 suntan lotion. What's not to like?
"It's not some giant conspiracy by big oil companies."
I am not saying that it is some big conspiracy by the oil companies. I am saying that the Federal government over the past 10 years has bailed out the commercial airline industry to the tune of $6 Billion USD, not counting subsidies/tax credits/infrastructure support or the raids on airline employee pension funds. The US Congress routinely and grudgingly provides only enough funds to Amtrak to barely maintain the status quo.
The Japanese, in spite of having the largest number of earthquakes of any country in the world, manages to build railroad tracks that can support 200 plus MPH trains, and invest in new train technology. It is entirely a matter of political will to make the investment.
The US commercial airline industry continues to lose money because deregulation and price competition does not bring in enough revenue to pay their bills, and the Federal government continues to bail them out with taxpayer funds. The only US airlines that actually make a profit these days use non-hub based point-to-point flights. The major hub-based airports that have consumed so many billions of taxpayer dollars are, basically, white elephants in the current era of deregulation. But no politician wants to admit that their regional airport is just pork barrel politics, as usual.
You really have to admire the Japanese, and their striving for technical excellence. Unfortunately, this bullet train technology will never be adopted in the USA. The Japanese don't mind spending money on their infrastructure -- and having a rail system accurate enough to support 223 Mph trains IS impressive. Consider that Japan has more earthquakes per year than any other country in the world. On the other hand, the USAs neo- Con(artists) are about to pull the plug on Amtrak funding. Our rail system is so creaky that every time the temperature rises 30 degrees Fahrenheit, regional commuter rail and freight traffic must slow down in fear of a derailment. OTOH, hub- based commercial air travel has been heavily subsidized in the USA, with multi-billion USD bail-outs, raids on employee pension funds, etc. The difference is, the petroleum industry has heavy clout in the US government - enough to warrant otherwise unjustifiable foreign wars. And no industry except private automobiles consumes as much petroleum products as does the commercial airline industry. When all air traffic was shut down in the USA after 9/11/2001, gasoline, home heating oil, and natural gas prices dropped substantially for more than 6 months. No USA industry is as big a customer of the big oil companies as is the USAs commercial airlines.
Of course you are right, except that Win2K3 Server is overkill as a desktop OS replacement for WinXP. I don't know how much a 2-user or 5-user version
of the server OS costs, but I am reasonably certain that it is far more than the $200 USD that WinXP Pro SP2 costs.
Instead of "turning off" Active X, a better choice would be for an easy method to remove it and IE from the OS completely. But then, that's just me.
"Has anyone suggested that Microsoft create 2 parallel operating systems: slimware version and bloatware version?"
Well, yes actually. Microsoft now offers the following "flavors" of Windows:
(1) Windows XP Home (2) Windows XP Pro (3) Windows XP Embedded (4) Windows XP "Lite" (5) Windows XP "Thin" (6) Windows XP Home Theatre Edition (7) Windows XP 64-bit Edition (8) Windows XP N (9) Windows CE
Pray tell, just which other version of Windows were you actually looking for, that MSFT doesn't already offer (except "Windows XP Secure")? There are already more versions than you can shake a proverbial stick at, and all with varying levels of bloatware and also vulnerabilities. Pick your poison, and prepare to be "owned".
Longevity measured in millenium: Number one choice: vellum Number two choice: papyrus
OR Longevity measured in decades: Number one choice: DVD Number two choice: EIT-3 (tape) Number three choice: RAID-5 (hard disk) Number four choice: RAID-5 NAS (disk) Number five choice: RAIT-5 (EIT-3 tape)
Since you indicated a need for a long term solution, but didn't mention price range, why not consider redundent RAID-5 NAS, which could be platform agnostic?
"On the other hand, you might be thinking of bubble memory."
Right. I remember when silicon-on-sapphire bubble memory was supposed to be the "next big thing". It was always too bloody expensive and too slow (serial sequential data interface) for anything except some spacecraft applications.
A better choice than NOR flash memory (even with RAM-only swap space) would be a return to full (6 transistor cell) CMOS (battery-backed) RAM. All the problems of the number of read/erase/write cycles and bad block management would go away. As an added bonus, it would be possible to halt/shut down the computer in place, while preserving the current memory state. Basically, instant on from the state you left it in. The only feature that would need to be included would be the ability to reset/clear memory in the event of a problem.
The problem that Apple (and Apple users) have experienced with dead iPods whose internal battery cannot be replaced might otherwise be duplicated in a laptop that requires factory service to replace bad flash memory. Somehow, I don't think Apple would want to repeat such negative publicity.
Re:This really was a pointless act by the EU
on
Windows XP N a Bust
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· Score: 1
Well, duh!
These same numbingly clueless bureaucrats came up with, what, a 1000 page EU constitution filled with so much legalese cruft that nobody really knows its full effects. No freaking wonder that France and Denmark voted "NO!".
Unlike American Congresscritters that will vote "YES" to anything the Dubya regime will cram down their throats, all in the name of patriotism, mom, apple pie, and "the war on terrorism".
Slightly OT, but what exactly did the Dubya regime extract from MSFT for their conviction as monopolists (besides a fountainhead of cash into the GOP's campaign funds) -- not secret backdoors into their OS? The Chinese apparently think so. They looked at MSFT's OS source code and promptly began promoting a homegrown "Red Dragon" linux project.
"They should just privatize the system. It's insurance."
Two years ago, when I was just starting on unemployment, there was a brief big stink in the press about many states outsourcing their unemployment and welfare management. An outsourcing firm in Wisconsin has grabbed up contracts for 28 states (with the trend increasing). The punchline to this (travesty of justice) joke was that the Wisconsin firm outsourced their workload to Bangalore, India.
Since that time, there has been a backlash in only one state, NJ, while I am certain that more states have sdopted outsourcing welfare and unemployment services.
How many IT pros out of work would have preferred the opportunity to work at the low end of their pay scale for the state, rather than "twist in the wind"? BTW: The late great state of Connecticut reported last year that 78,000 IT professionals were laid off from their jobs, all while the number of H1-B "slots" for employers in this state increased by 60,000.
Between offshore outsourcing, onshore outsourcing with L1-A and H1-B visa holders, and downward wage pressure from illegal aliens in the automotive, construction, and medical services fields, there will be no viable American "middle class" in 10 years. The transition to a "Wal-Mart" economy will have been completed.
Be sure to thank your state legislators, your Congresscritters, and our same-same two party system for all their hard work on your behalf.
"It is very difficult to overemphasize quite how evil this ruling is."
Of course it is an evil ruling. So was the SCOTUS ruling that put the Dubya regime in power to begin with. The Florida law that prohibited a state-wide ballot recount should have been ruled unconstitutional, as should the arbitrary and capricious use of corporate-furnished lists of voters to be disenfranchised.
The rise of corporate political power has brought a corresponding diminishment of individual voter power. Arguably, this process started in ernest with Clinton in the White House, and Gingrich ("Contract on the American Middle Class") in the Congress. Government that is by and of the corporation, for the people, is more properly called National Socialism.
Now we have oil wars for freedom, open borders for ever cheaper labor, and a war on terror designed to leverage fear into a police state. The "Nazi" slur used in the Senate was appropriate. I am sincerely hoping that the USA still has democratic elections in 2008 -- right now that prospect looks like long odds.
I am waiting for the time when MSFT has all updates and security patches restricted by their WGA initiative. When the next trojan/virus/worm hits the internet that fouls up the Registry, every business worldwide that is chained to MSFT will come to realize that MSFT has become their "silent partner". The Mafia's "protection rackets" of the 1920's and 1930's will look like child's play in comparison to the disruption of business that MSFT will be responsible for. And by the time that realization comes, it will be too late for many businesses -- they will grudgingly pay MSFT whatever is demanded, just in order to stay in business. And Borg Bill will have swept the "World Domination" Monopoly (TM) game.
It sure must be nice to have deep enough pockets for a convicted monopolist like MSFT to delay the punishment phase of the lawsuit with DoJ until there was a "change of venue" (like the Dubya regime siezing power). Delays in court have been used numerous times by MSFT to postpone the inevitable negative judgement long enough for their their opponent's victory to be a Phyrric victory, as altered by ever-changing market forces.
When all the "positive" press that MSFT has wrongfully acquired (like their Shared Source Initiative) has been "un-spun", Microsoft's net effect on the computer industry (both software and hardware) has been negative.
Apple's transition to Intel's x86 platform could have been a major threat to Microsoft, but for the fact that MSFT has two products Apple still needs -- VirtualPC and MS Office Suite. Without MS Office Suite on OS X, Apple would have zero presence in the corporate IT world. Bundling WINE with the x86 release(s) of OS X would mitigate Apple's need for MSFT's VirtualPC.
Unfortunately, the siren call of Intel's embedded (processor/chipset) DRM will prove to be a power too great for Apple to resist: Apple will need it to differentiate the commodity x86 platform that they will need to compete. Apple does not have the deep pockets to make paper-thin margins on hardware to make up for with great software. Apple is still a hardware company, too. If Apple were to give up the hardware side of the market, they are (argueably) 18 months ahead of MSFT in OS development. MSFT would not look very favorably on Apple entering direct desktop competition for the OS wars, and the Mac platform version of MS Office Suite would quickly be dropped.
MSFT has already proven that they are quite willing to relinquish a revenue stream (like the unix/linux AV software) in favor of shoring up their OS to the threat of increasing server OS competition. Apple could consider that as a public warning to stay out of direct desktop OS competition with MSFT. Ahh, the amazing power of monopolies.
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"...it's not identify "theft," it's identity infringement."
Well, no.
"It's not identity "theft", it's identity fraud."
40 million banking customers have had privledged personal information about them compromised in a
manner that would suggest that "identity fraud" perpetrated against them is likely at a future time.
There are also persons walking around with completely fraudulent identity papers - birth certificate, social security number, drivers license, employment history, credit cards and credit history, etcetera -- this too is identy fraud.
There is a whole spectrum of identity fraud between unauthorized credit card usage and the
"man who never was". It is still fraud. And each and every case of identity fraud should be prosecuted, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. In fact, the law needs to be changed so that ID fraud cannot be "rolled up" into other related charges and pled down. It really needs to be a separate charge, perhaps 2 to 5 years per instance, to be served consecutively with those other charges prosecuted.
Multiple intertwined biometric parameters need to be incorporated into whatever will pass for the RealID Act that was recently signed. The only federal agency that has the expertise to actually protect that data from hackers is the NSA, so it should go into their task list.
As I see it, there are only 4 solutions:
(1) before going on-line for the first time, purchase a router and configure the firewall, then immediately download all necessary patches, plus a good anti-spyware program,
(2) download all your Windows security atches, service packs, etcetra, third-party firewall and anti-spyware software from a friend's Mac OSX
machine and burn them all to CD/DVD. Apply all necessary patches and third-party software before venturing out onto the internet,
(3) choose not to play the MSFT security patch and upgrade revenue stream game - buy an Apple Mac, or reformat your hard drive and install any of these: linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris 10 x86, QNX. If in doubt, ask a knowledgeable friend for advice,
or
(4) buy the absolute fastest bad-ass big disk Wintel/AMD computer you can find to make that
broadband connection. Make certain that you have the OS media and valid cd-key, make backups of all
your important personal data, and figure on either (a) reformatting/reimaging your computer every three months, or (b) be prepared to buy a new computer every six months. Wash, rinse, repeat.
for the atrocious English spelling and grammer of entries posted on /. (Really!) It is a combination of (1) generational issues pertaining to the quality of public education, and (2) of English as a second (or third) language. Very few problems arise from word usage (torch vs flashlight) or word spelling (colour vs color), as the true meaning readily becomes apparent, even to distant cousins of the English language like Americans.
Please practice patience, tolerance, and only gentle chiding in making corrections. Be nice.
"Oh well the grandparent hates america, is a traitor and loves terrorists like all democrats."
Not! But I also have problems with the alliance between Clinton and the Gingrich Congress that brought us NAFTA, without any of the "leveling of the playing field" add-on legislation that was to follow.
IMHO, Clinto should have left the Mexican regime flounder in bankruptcy, rather than bail them out, push for NAFTA, and open the borders for the ensuing invasion. And I do admit that the DoJ anti-monopoly lawsuit against MSFT was brought forward under the Clinton administration - it's purpose just got twisted into Dubya's new fund-raising effort.
Actually, I consider myself to be a patriot - albeit not one that accepts the current regime's propaganda machine as "truth", no matter how many times it is repeated. The regime's allies in the Congress and church pews, oxymoronically named "neo-cons" (make that neo-Con(artists), not compassionate onservatives", okay?) have abandoned the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the truth, all in favor of the Dubya agenda.
I realize and acknowledge that such an admission places me squarely into the camp of the loyal opposition. As Dubya once said "If you are not for me, you are against me (and if you are against
me, you must be a terrorist, too!)" Symantics. One man's freedom figher is another man's terrorist.
Isn't it strange that nearly four full years after the anthrax letters were mailed to the leadership of Bush's opposition, no progress has been made in catching the perpetrators? Beyond, of course, determining that the Ames strain of anthrax was a direct DNA match to that found at the US Army's bio-weapons facility at Ft. Detrick, MD?
"Microsoft has unparalleled influence throughout the Federal government.
... oil and "pharacuticals"] - Dubya must constantly be flashing back to the good old bad old days, when he could do anything he wanted and fall back on his daddy's name and influence.
If by unparalleled they mean, 'a lot, but not so much as oil and pharmaceuticals', then I might agree."
Spot on target!
[Ahhh!
Do not forget that it was a change of "venue" (ie. the incoming Dubya regime) that allowed MSFT to "write their own" punishment after the DoJ monopoly conviction.
Historically, MSFT and many other big IT companies totally ignored the politicos when they were passing around their campaign contribution "hats".
After the DoJ monopoly conviction against MSFT, I can guarantee that few major IT companies ever made THAT mistake again. And once the "lesson" was learned, there was no need for the politicos to cripple their new found campaign contributors.
MSFT has never engaged in a single direct frontal attack against their competitors, including linux.
Instead, they have followed the principles outlined in the "Art of War". (Not unlike how China is now "dicing and slicing" the USA's economy...)
"People have the government they deserve..."
Well, I do have to object to that statement.
The 2000 national election was not decided by the
voters -- it was decided by shady politicians
that illegally disenfranchised tens of thousands
of voters, who used an illegal Florida state law
that violated due process by barring state-wide
ballot recounts, an apathetic US Senate that
refused to protest the election, and a US Supreme
Court. Don't blame THAT election on the voters.
The 2004 national elections were not much better.
The same method of illegally disenfranchising
voters was committed again. But this time, we
had $6 Billion USD worth of electronic voting
machines and electronic accumulators installed,
with untested software, very poor or nonexistent
security, and no paper trail for validating the
election results. If the tabulated votes came
close to matching politically motivated exit
polls, the vote count was deemed "close enough".
When this country gives up on the notion of instant
election returns, and switches back to hand counted
paper ballots, I can almost guarantee that the
election results will not favor the regime that
is currently in power.
Well, you and I can agree about SGI "laptops".
The only really "transportable" SGI that I ever
worked with was the Indy Presenter c1994. It was
an Indy RC4600 with 256 MB main memory and 10 GB
SCSI hard disk. The video card specifically
drove an LCD panel that you would set on top of
a projector. It even came with a comfortable
padded backpack to haul it around in -- all 28
pounds worth.
SGI is out of the MIPS business, but there are
low power 32-bit cores from SGS-Thompson and
others. A 64-bit MIPS laptop^H^H^H^H^H^Htransportable
running whatever is the latest flavor of IRIX
would be sweet. (Of course, it will never happen,
alas.) SGI's wholesale adoption of Intel uP was
a big tragedy for SGI, from the Visual Workstation
on up to the biggest Intel IA64 cluster they now
sell. (Although there is still a niche market
for them today.) IMHO, the energy and money SGI
wasted on the switch to the Intel juggernaut
would have better spent making faster & cheaper
MIPS computers. (As HP has done with their PA-RISC,
and Apple is getting ready to do with their switch.)
An Intel laptop driven by a 32-bit processor
with 64-bit memory addressing extensions is
a total waste -- how can you put enough memory
in the laptop to justify the difference? The
Tadpole "laptop" and now the SUN UltraSPARC "laptop"
throws the challenge down to the other legacy
OEMs for (at least) "transportable" 64-bit
operations. One can only wish...
SUN's new laptop is interesting, but if I truly
needed a transportable UltraSPARC workstation, I
would still look first at the Tadpole "laptop".
You can spec this laptop with dual UltraSPARC
processors, dual hard disks, and 2 GB of main
memory. As an added bonus, you can also run
SUNs very capable Open Solaris 10 on it. Of
course this configuration is heavy, and a real
power hog. In the best case scenario, battery
life untethered is about 2 hours. Still, the
Tadpole is a very capable transportable computer.
Amen!
The FCC is trying to force every TV manufacturer
to switch to DTV early. The price differential
a (standard 27" analog and 27" DTV) is at least
$1000 USD. The DTV standard that the FCC adopted
allows for more channels but also introduces new
problems with reception, particularly in urban
areas with tall buildings (so many out-of-phase
signals bounced that the tuner cannot lock onto
a signal). Next generation DTV tuners that can
do a better job dicriminating signals will not
come from the OEMs until there is much more
consumer pressure -- like just not buying crap.
2006 may be the year that has been mandated for
the complete transition to DTV, but considering
(1) the reception problems, (2) initial cost, and
(3) quality of programming offered, it may be the
time when I switch back to newspapers for news
and (selective) DVDs for entertainment. Somehow,
I don't expect the FCC to change the DTV spec
for better quality (and fewer channels) until
after 2008. I'll wait. I may even find that I
will not miss all the crud that passes for TV
entertainment, excepting PBS (which the neo-Con
(artists) will continue to try to kill off.
You don't suppose that SUN has caught MSFT's
"Longhorn disease", do you?
There are a number of areas that SUN could be
spending more effort on. I certainly wouldn't
mind seeing StarOffice released on more platforms,
like Mac OS X. But SUN is continuing development
of JDS on Solaris, and may only be delayed in
support for linux. Their Solaris 10 product is
currently a bit shy of all SUN's enhancements --
their virtual file system is one example. If
SUN's development efforts are slower than you
like, at least be happy that they have not (yet)
moved their entire development team to India.
Ahhh!
So now you have stumbled upon the real reason that
Dubya wants to "go to Mars". What better reason
than that to invade, if not to scrounge new energy
sources for this regime's taskmasters?
Mere water lakes implies possible life there, and
the likely conflict over natural resources. OTOH,
methane breathes new life into the USA's petroleum
industry, even if only for export to Mars. Just
think of the transportation fees Haliburton could
charge! New sources of energy and new markets,
but with Uncle (Sucker) Sam picking up the tab --
what's not to like (thinks Dubya)?
The whole idea of moving the US government to Alaska is preposterous -- at current "global warming" trends, Alaska will have a climate more similar to the state of Washington in ten years. The bureaucratic red tape and environmental impact studies would have pushed the project out far beyond ten ears anyway, making such efforts (your "carrot and stick" scheme) a moot point. Besides, Dubya is already planning on moving much of the US government (ala House Speaker Jim Wright's legacy) to Texas already, via the BRAP (Base Re-Alignment Project).
BRAP is a really stupid idea that will concentrate the Federal government and US military into large conclaves susceptible to terrorist attack next to our porous southern border. (of course, nobody ever claimed that Dubya was a genius, only a former dope smoking, womanizing, coke tooting son of the Texas "aristocracy").
I consider the award of the fusion project construction to France to be a true godsend. At least they will not outsource the project to China or India, which is what would have happened if the USA had won the competition. Besides, Texas already has an 18 mile oval trench in the ground that they are just now trying to fill in.
"It's all red tape and shady book-keeping anyway. Arthur Anderson and the accounting they did for Enron were amatuers compared to Hollywood accountants."
Amen! The correct term, however, is not "shady bookkeeping" but "outright fraud". The Hollywood studios have been functioning this way since the end of the prevalence of the studio "contract star" ended. The lure of an ephermeral percentage on the back-end instead of cash for services rendered has been a siren song many actors/actresses/directors/producers have been unable to resist. Two percent of a bottom line of zero is still worth nothing.
Only Hollywood accountants can take a movie that costs $100 Million USD to make, that generates $500 Million USD in revenue worldwide (theaters, TV and cable rebroadcasts, DVD rentals and sales) and have a zero (or negative) bottom line balance.
Of course, both the MPAA and the RIAA use the same dubious accounting methods. Artists and customers both continue to get screwed -- a 95% lockdown on marketing and distribution is still defined as a monopoly. Except to the Dubya regime and the neo-Con(artists) in control of Congress.
What global warming?
I have it from a super-reliable source (George "Dubya" Bush) that there is no such thing as global warming. It is all a knee jerk, radical left wing fantasy designed to throttle the American economy (says he).
On the very miniscule chance that "Dubya" is wrong, what exactly is wrong with global warming, anyway? The neo-Con(artists) always look at the silver lining in that dark cloud - a longer growing season, less need for winter heating, new opportunities for real estate development (sea-walls, dikes, new ocean-front property, and vast new markets for SPF-1000 suntan lotion. What's not to like?
"It's not some giant conspiracy by big oil companies."
I am not saying that it is some big conspiracy by the oil companies. I am saying that the Federal government over the past 10 years has bailed out the commercial airline industry to the tune of $6 Billion USD, not counting subsidies/tax credits/infrastructure support or the raids on airline employee pension funds. The US Congress routinely and grudgingly provides only enough funds to Amtrak to barely maintain the status quo.
The Japanese, in spite of having the largest number of earthquakes of any country in the world, manages to build railroad tracks that can support 200 plus MPH trains, and invest in new train technology. It is entirely a matter of political will to make the investment.
The US commercial airline industry continues to lose money because deregulation and price competition does not bring in enough revenue to pay their bills, and the Federal government continues to bail them out with taxpayer funds. The only US airlines that actually make a profit these days use non-hub based point-to-point flights. The major hub-based airports that have consumed so many billions of taxpayer dollars are, basically, white elephants in the current era of deregulation. But no politician wants to admit that their regional airport is just pork barrel politics, as usual.
You really have to admire the Japanese, and their
striving for technical excellence. Unfortunately,
this bullet train technology will never be adopted
in the USA. The Japanese don't mind spending
money on their infrastructure -- and having a
rail system accurate enough to support 223 Mph
trains IS impressive. Consider that Japan has
more earthquakes per year than any other country
in the world. On the other hand, the USAs neo-
Con(artists) are about to pull the plug on Amtrak
funding. Our rail system is so creaky that every
time the temperature rises 30 degrees Fahrenheit,
regional commuter rail and freight traffic must
slow down in fear of a derailment. OTOH, hub-
based commercial air travel has been heavily
subsidized in the USA, with multi-billion USD
bail-outs, raids on employee pension funds, etc.
The difference is, the petroleum industry has
heavy clout in the US government - enough to
warrant otherwise unjustifiable foreign wars.
And no industry except private automobiles
consumes as much petroleum products as does the
commercial airline industry. When all air traffic
was shut down in the USA after 9/11/2001, gasoline,
home heating oil, and natural gas prices dropped
substantially for more than 6 months. No USA
industry is as big a customer of the big oil
companies as is the USAs commercial airlines.
"... I'd suggest Windows 2003 Server."
Of course you are right, except that Win2K3 Server
is overkill as a desktop OS replacement for WinXP.
I don't know how much a 2-user or 5-user version
of the server OS costs, but I am reasonably
certain that it is far more than the $200 USD that
WinXP Pro SP2 costs.
Instead of "turning off" Active X, a better choice
would be for an easy method to remove it and IE
from the OS completely. But then, that's just me.
"Has anyone suggested that Microsoft create 2 parallel operating systems: slimware version and bloatware version?"
Well, yes actually. Microsoft now offers the following "flavors" of Windows:
(1) Windows XP Home
(2) Windows XP Pro
(3) Windows XP Embedded
(4) Windows XP "Lite"
(5) Windows XP "Thin"
(6) Windows XP Home Theatre Edition
(7) Windows XP 64-bit Edition
(8) Windows XP N
(9) Windows CE
Pray tell, just which other version of Windows were you actually looking for, that MSFT doesn't already offer (except "Windows XP Secure")?
There are already more versions than you can shake a proverbial stick at, and all with varying levels of bloatware and also vulnerabilities. Pick your poison, and prepare to be "owned".
Longevity measured in millenium:
Number one choice: vellum
Number two choice: papyrus
OR
Longevity measured in decades:
Number one choice: DVD
Number two choice: EIT-3 (tape)
Number three choice: RAID-5 (hard disk)
Number four choice: RAID-5 NAS (disk)
Number five choice: RAIT-5 (EIT-3 tape)
Since you indicated a need for a long term solution, but didn't mention price range, why not consider redundent RAID-5 NAS, which could be platform agnostic?
"On the other hand, you might be thinking of bubble memory."
Right. I remember when silicon-on-sapphire bubble memory was supposed to be the "next big thing". It was always too bloody expensive and too slow (serial sequential data interface) for anything except some spacecraft applications.
A better choice than NOR flash memory (even with RAM-only swap space) would be a return to full (6 transistor cell) CMOS (battery-backed) RAM. All the problems of the number of read/erase/write cycles and bad block management would go away. As an added bonus, it would be possible to halt/shut down the computer in place, while preserving the current memory state. Basically, instant on from the state you left it in. The only feature that would need to be included would be the ability to
reset/clear memory in the event of a problem.
The problem that Apple (and Apple users) have experienced with dead iPods whose internal battery cannot be replaced might otherwise be duplicated in a laptop that requires factory service to replace bad flash memory. Somehow, I don't think Apple would want to repeat such negative publicity.
Well, duh!
These same numbingly clueless bureaucrats came up with, what, a 1000 page EU constitution filled with so much legalese cruft that nobody really knows its full effects. No freaking wonder that France and Denmark voted "NO!".
Unlike American Congresscritters that will vote "YES" to anything the Dubya regime will cram down their throats, all in the name of patriotism, mom, apple pie, and "the war on terrorism".
Slightly OT, but what exactly did the Dubya regime extract from MSFT for their conviction as monopolists (besides a fountainhead of cash into the GOP's campaign funds) -- not secret backdoors into their OS? The Chinese apparently think so. They looked at MSFT's OS source code and promptly began promoting a homegrown "Red Dragon" linux project.
"They should just privatize the system. It's insurance."
Two years ago, when I was just starting on unemployment, there was a brief big stink in the press about many states outsourcing their unemployment and welfare management. An outsourcing firm in Wisconsin has grabbed up contracts for 28 states (with the trend increasing). The punchline to this (travesty of justice) joke was that the Wisconsin firm outsourced their workload to Bangalore, India.
Since that time, there has been a backlash in only one state, NJ, while I am certain that more states have sdopted outsourcing welfare and unemployment services.
How many IT pros out of work would have preferred the opportunity to work at the low end of their pay scale for the state, rather than "twist in the wind"? BTW: The late great state of Connecticut reported last year that 78,000 IT professionals were laid off from their jobs, all while the number of H1-B "slots" for employers in this state increased by 60,000.
Between offshore outsourcing, onshore outsourcing with L1-A and H1-B visa holders, and downward wage pressure from illegal aliens in the automotive, construction, and medical services fields, there will be no viable American "middle class" in 10 years. The transition to a "Wal-Mart" economy will have been completed.
Be sure to thank your state legislators, your Congresscritters, and our same-same two party system for all their hard work on your behalf.
"It is very difficult to overemphasize quite how evil this ruling is."
Of course it is an evil ruling. So was the SCOTUS ruling that put the Dubya regime in power to begin with. The Florida law that prohibited a state-wide ballot recount should have been ruled unconstitutional, as should the arbitrary and capricious use of corporate-furnished lists of voters to be disenfranchised.
The rise of corporate political power has brought a corresponding diminishment of individual voter power. Arguably, this process started in ernest with Clinton in the White House, and Gingrich ("Contract on the American Middle Class") in the Congress. Government that is by and of the corporation, for the people, is more properly called National Socialism.
Now we have oil wars for freedom, open borders for ever cheaper labor, and a war on terror designed to leverage fear into a police state. The "Nazi" slur used in the Senate was appropriate. I am sincerely hoping that the USA still has democratic elections in 2008 -- right now that prospect looks like long odds.
I am waiting for the time when MSFT has all updates and security patches restricted by their WGA initiative. When the next trojan/virus/worm hits the internet that fouls up the Registry, every business worldwide that is chained to MSFT will come to realize that MSFT has become their "silent partner". The Mafia's "protection rackets" of the 1920's and 1930's will look like child's play in comparison to the disruption of business that MSFT will be responsible for. And by the time that realization comes, it will be too late for many businesses -- they will grudgingly pay MSFT whatever is demanded, just in order to stay in business. And Borg Bill will have swept the "World Domination" Monopoly (TM) game.
It sure must be nice to have deep enough pockets for a convicted monopolist like MSFT to delay the punishment phase of the lawsuit with DoJ until there was a "change of venue" (like the Dubya regime siezing power). Delays in court have been used numerous times by MSFT to postpone the inevitable negative judgement long enough for their their opponent's victory to be a Phyrric victory, as altered by ever-changing market forces.
When all the "positive" press that MSFT has wrongfully acquired (like their Shared Source Initiative) has been "un-spun", Microsoft's net effect on the computer industry (both software and hardware) has been negative.
Apple's transition to Intel's x86 platform could have been a major threat to Microsoft, but for the fact that MSFT has two products Apple still needs -- VirtualPC and MS Office Suite. Without MS Office Suite on OS X, Apple would have zero presence in the corporate IT world. Bundling WINE with the x86 release(s) of OS X would mitigate Apple's need for MSFT's VirtualPC.
Unfortunately, the siren call of Intel's embedded (processor/chipset) DRM will prove to be a power too great for Apple to resist: Apple will need it to differentiate the commodity x86 platform that they will need to compete. Apple does not have the deep pockets to make paper-thin margins on hardware to make up for with great software. Apple is still a hardware company, too. If Apple were to give up the hardware side of the market, they are (argueably) 18 months ahead of MSFT in OS development. MSFT would not look very favorably on Apple entering direct desktop competition for the OS wars, and the Mac platform version of MS Office Suite would quickly be dropped.
MSFT has already proven that they are quite willing to relinquish a revenue stream (like the unix/linux AV software) in favor of shoring up their OS to the threat of increasing server OS competition. Apple could consider that as a public warning to stay out of direct desktop OS competition with MSFT. Ahh, the amazing power of monopolies.