MS can afford to undersell any competitor for as long as it takes to bankrupt them. They can also afford to pay customers not to use Google, for example by selling exclusive contracts at lower rates than non-exclusive. They can bundle up software along with advertising sales and give Windows away to companies that agree not to deal with Google. They can hire Google's star performers at 3x their current salaries, and put them on extended vacations just to keep them from working for Google. Most of this is illegal but in Bill Gates' world, big legal settlements are just the price one pays to own the planet.
IE citizen are treated like any other renewable resource; the problem is the same for vampire victim management and for fishery management -- extract the maximum from the citizen. If the government tried to get more, they'd get less.
Bill Gates is a principal author of M$ business practice, and Pablo Escobar, who got his start stealing tombstones and selling them to smugglers, also donated heavily to charities and soccer clubs in Colombia. He ameliorated his reputation to such an extent that he won a seat in Parliament, until his on-going terrorist activities that claimed the lives of many people landed him in jail and eventually got him killed. What else could Bill possibly buy with 40 billion that would mean as much to him as his reputation? Another $750,000 Porsche 959? Maybe he could apologize to Connie Chung for calling her "f-ing stupid" on the air.
Bill Gates donates to charity because he cannot find any more ways to spend the money on himself. He would rather buy a reputation as a philanthropist than another 2,000 Ferrari Testarossas. The reputation has more utility to him.
Al Capone set up a soup kitchen during the Depression for similar reasons.
Pick up a copy of "Faster than the Speed of Light" which is a wonderful book about physics and physicists. It's an argument that light may have travelled much faster in the early universe than it does now.
I think that it's very nice of FCC to publish a Notice of Proposed Rule-Making, as the FAA has apparently decided that such things are a waste of time. In fact, it doesn't even publish the rules anymore!
============= "except for spilling, graph coloring register allocation did well"
I think you have your figures wrong, however, this table shows every single Demo president since Carter _decreasing_ national debt as a percentage of GNP, and every Repo president _increasing_ it. So the common wisdom that Demo's overspend vis-a-vis Repo's is just wrong, and your point is basically correct even though the number is wrong.
In its last two big rulings, the court has explicitly delineated the scope of private rights: none. If a State is screwing you, tough, it's a 10th Amendment issue and the Federal Government is explicitly prohibited from doing anything about it. If the Feds are screwing you, tough, it's a Wheat case issue, and anything you do that might possibly affect Interstate Commerce (like breathing, for example) are governable as such.
In practice, what the 10th Amendment seems to mean today is that the States can stomp on people and the people won't get any help from the Feds. (This case). Also, the Feds can stomp on people and they won't get any help from the States (California's medical marijuana case, last week).
William Buckley said he'd rather be governed by the first 200 people in the phone book than by the faculty of Harvard. I agree, although I don't know if I'd want to be governed by AAA Towing Company...
Yes, the Supremes, in the 50's, decided that growing wheat for personal consumption constituted interstate commerce, as the farmer might have bought the wheat interstate, had he not grown it himself. It's all been downhill from there. "The Judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1820
They always reminded me of "My Pretty Pony" which was a toy my daughter played with when she was 2. So I renamed them all: "My Pretty Network Places", "My Pretty Computer", "My Pretty Documents", etc.
I had a GSM phone with AT&T and the AT&T/Cingular store wouldn't let me activate it for use with Cingular!! They were going to require me to buy another phone or indenture myself for another two years. I've had this phone for about 4 years. Three reps told me it was impossible to move from AT&T GSM to Cingular; as I don't like being lied to I cancelled my AT&T account and opened with Alltel.
This kind of class action suit is great for the lawyers, obviously. It's also good for Microsoft because it innoculates them against other lawsuits involving the same facts. The cost to Microsoft was $29 of merchandise credits per consumer, largely unclaimed, plus legal fees.
The only people who didn't really benefit were the consumers in whose name the case was filed.
If there were no class action suits, Microsoft would have to invent them.
Robert Heinlein in one of his stories required that telephone callers post a bond before the hero would answer the phone. If the hero agreed that the phone call was worth it, he'd reverse the charges.
Microsoft hired some of Borland's developers at twice their salary and then put them on extended vacations, just to screw up development at Borland. I wonder if Alan Cox's contract prohibits him from retiring in exchange for 200K/year from Microsoft?
------
Of course, like everything that Microsoft does, this was done by mistake, by a renegade executive, the dog ate the email server, it's not corporate policy.
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MS can afford to undersell any competitor for as long as it takes to bankrupt them. They can also afford to pay customers not to use Google, for example by selling
exclusive contracts at lower rates than non-exclusive. They can bundle up software along with advertising sales and give Windows away to companies that agree not to deal with Google. They can hire Google's star performers at 3x their current salaries, and put them on extended vacations just to keep them from working for Google. Most of this is illegal but in Bill Gates' world, big legal settlements are just the price one pays to own the planet.
Try googling "DOS Isnt done until Lotus won't run"
IE citizen are treated like any other renewable resource; the problem
is the same for vampire victim management and for fishery management --
extract the maximum from the citizen. If the government tried to get
more, they'd get less.
How far out was Lon Horiuchi when he shot Randy Weaver's wife out from underneath their baby?
Bill Gates is a principal author of M$ business practice, and
Pablo Escobar, who got his start stealing tombstones and selling
them to smugglers, also donated heavily to charities and soccer
clubs in Colombia. He ameliorated his reputation to such an
extent that he won a seat in Parliament, until his on-going terrorist
activities that claimed the lives of many people landed him in jail
and eventually got him killed. What else could Bill possibly buy
with 40 billion that would mean as much to him as his reputation? Another
$750,000 Porsche 959? Maybe he could apologize to Connie Chung for
calling her "f-ing stupid" on the air.
Bill Gates donates to charity because he cannot find any more ways to spend the money on himself. He would rather buy a reputation as a philanthropist than another 2,000 Ferrari Testarossas. The reputation has more utility to him.
Al Capone set up a soup kitchen during the Depression for similar reasons.
Pick up a copy of "Faster than the Speed of Light" which is a wonderful book about physics and physicists. It's an argument that light may have travelled much faster in the early universe than it does now.
A space elevator for Mars is certainly possible 20 years from now.
Use terminally-ill people in hospice care to redact the names, replacing them with unique identifiers before handing them over to reporters.
I think that it's very nice of FCC to publish a Notice of Proposed Rule-Making, as the FAA has apparently decided that such things are a waste of time. In fact, it doesn't even publish the rules anymore!
=============
"except for spilling, graph coloring register allocation did well"
I think you have your figures wrong, however,
a pita_Percent_of_GDP_and_by_President_1976-2004.htm
this table shows every single Demo president since Carter _decreasing_ national debt as a percentage of GNP, and every Repo president _increasing_ it. So the common wisdom that Demo's overspend vis-a-vis Repo's is just wrong, and your point is basically correct even though the number is wrong.
http://www.skymachines.com/US_National_Debt_Per_C
In its last two big rulings, the court has explicitly delineated the scope of private rights: none. If a State is screwing you, tough, it's a 10th Amendment issue and the Federal Government is explicitly prohibited from doing anything about it. If the Feds are screwing you, tough, it's a Wheat case issue, and anything you do that might possibly affect Interstate Commerce (like breathing, for example) are governable as such.
However, the people that MS stole the technology from in the first place (Digital Research, Stacker, etc) are not very happy about it.
In practice, what the 10th Amendment seems to mean today is that the States can stomp on people and the people won't get any help from the Feds. (This case). Also, the Feds can stomp on people and they won't get any help from the States (California's medical marijuana case, last week).
William Buckley said he'd rather be governed by the first 200 people in the phone book than by the faculty of Harvard. I agree, although I don't know if I'd want to be governed by AAA Towing Company...
> I'm writing my congressman, we shouldn't have to > > deal with this shit.
This is a joke, right?
Yes, the Supremes, in the 50's, decided that growing wheat for personal consumption constituted interstate commerce, as the farmer might have bought the wheat interstate, had he not grown it himself. It's all been downhill from there. "The Judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1820
According to Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything", streptococcus was found on a lens cap brought back from the moon.
They always reminded me of "My Pretty Pony" which was a toy my daughter played with when she was 2. So I renamed them all: "My Pretty Network Places", "My Pretty Computer", "My Pretty Documents", etc.
I had a GSM phone with AT&T and the AT&T/Cingular store wouldn't let me activate it for use with Cingular!! They were going to require me to buy another phone or indenture myself for another two years. I've had this phone for about 4 years. Three reps told me it was impossible to move from AT&T GSM to Cingular; as I don't like being lied to I cancelled my AT&T account and opened with Alltel.
This kind of class action suit is great for the lawyers, obviously. It's also good for Microsoft because it innoculates them against other lawsuits involving the same facts. The cost to Microsoft was $29 of merchandise credits per consumer, largely unclaimed, plus legal fees.
The only people who didn't really benefit were the consumers in whose name the case was filed.
If there were no class action suits, Microsoft would have to invent them.
I think in order to make any progress on this issue, you're going to have to stop using the word "is".
See for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Korzybski
Alan
Robert Heinlein in one of his stories required that telephone callers post a bond before the hero would answer the phone. If the hero agreed that the phone call was worth it, he'd reverse the charges.
They did match the original deal. They were really concerned. And Microsoft doubled the deal.
Microsoft hired some of Borland's developers at twice their salary and then put them on extended vacations, just to screw up development at Borland. I wonder if Alan Cox's contract prohibits him from
retiring in exchange for 200K/year from Microsoft?
------
Of course, like everything that Microsoft does, this was done by mistake, by a renegade executive, the dog ate the email server, it's not corporate policy.