Not to mention that, as I understand it, they actually impede certain methods of communication over the Internet (anything that needs a real end-to-end connection, I think).
Must be refering to H.323 protcol? Any protocol that embeds addressing information in the data portion of the packet is IMHO broken.:)
Eventually IPV6 will catch on, primarly due to networking companies depolying it on all devices by default. But the cost of changing over the basic infrastructure for no real competetive advantage will keep the major ISPs from adopting it for some time. Most likely it will be forced on the ISPs by government decree at some point. For now the basic networking gear and operating systems are being equipped to handle it so when that decree comes down ISPs can start switching people over. Kind of like HD TV is being forced on everyone. Eventually you won't be able to buy a standard NTSC TV anymore.
You are correct, security by obscurity is not the complete answer. However it helps my systems be just a little harder to crack than the guy down the street. As a result the hackers and script kiddies leave my systems alone. The goal is not to be hack proof, just to be a little harder to hack than the next system.
Kind of like the two hikers that stumble upon a wolf. The one hiker stops to put on running shoes. The second hiker says, "You can't out run that wolf." The first hiker says, "Don't have to out run the wolf, I just have to out run you!"
In other news, aluminum stocks fell sharply and tin stocks rose sharply as hundreds of thousands of/.'ers switched their head gear.
Landfills report thousands of tons of aluminum foil being discarded and filling up available dump space.
Reports that governments everywhere are switching frequencies used to control selected individuals in order to by pass new tin foil head gear.
Alien's that control governments around the world requesting everyone go back to wearing aluminum foil hats. The alien's prefer them over tin foil since they are shinier. Apparently the alien's started the aluminum foil fad back in the 60's because they think it just looks cool.
(voices in side my head, must kill all, must kill all........)
Part of this Sandstorm tool kit is the Sony root kit. Have to get access to all those system first in order to collect the data. However due to a software bug the Sony root kit was found, instead of quietly being installed unnoticed.
In other news Governments all over the world are passing legislation that requires all consumers to utilize Microsoft Windows operating systems. This move is to insure the goverment has an easy way to take over all computers in the hands of it's citizens. Purely for their own protection. And those that refuse to run Windows will be placed on terrorist watch lists since they are breaking the very laws meant to protect everyone.
This memo is just another indication that Microsoft is in a downward spiral. There are good alternatives now for their main products, Windows and Office. Microsoft knows they are in a downward spiral. They issued a special dividend recently to allow stock holders to get some money out. They will be doing this again at some point. And you will see more memos like this one. Microsoft trying to find a way to reinvent itself and generate new revenue streams since they know their current revenue streams are going to decline.
The up take of Vista will start to show this big time. There will be many companies that will seriously look at the alternatives that are available instead of just plunking down money on Vista. Particularly when they realize that the new licensing will require an annual fee.
As to why they would move away from software development, they have been good at marketing but not that good at producing secure bug free code. There is a fundamental shift that will become evident over the next decade and Microsoft will not be a major player in the new environments. Unless they change what they do. Becoming a big player in the services area is one place to try and carve out a recurring revenue stream. Will they be able to do it? That is not clear. I suspect that there will be much internal strife within the company. Look for executives to start jumping ship. (Actually a few already have in the past couple of months.) Reorganizations will be come common. (hmm, seem to recall a story about them reorganizing into three main groups.) Eventually they will start spinning off or selling off some groups. Then there will be annual layoffs and the spiral will tighten even quicker.
Ah! But what facts, real hard facts, are presented to the jury? Both sides attempt to twist the so called "facts" to try and fit what ever twisted theory they can expound on to get the jury to vote for their side. Saw this first hand as a juror. The defense threw out theories that the victims scary tattoos were why the defendent shot the victim. And then the defense fought to have a huge stack of medical records submitted as evidence. Just showed the defendent had a propensity for violence based on the number of broken bones and cuts requiring stitches. The prosecuter actually did very little, the defense attorney actually did more to get his client convicted.
The fact that some juries can see past the chaff that the lawyers throw out is amazing.
Has anyone asked/answerd why the UN want's control of the Internet?
My guess is that the oil for food scam went so well (billions of dollars stolen) that more of the UN wants in on such a deal. And what better way to get your fingers into billions of dollars of commerce than to get control of the Internet. The members of the UN committee that run the Internet will be able to tax all the countries (primarly the richest ones) to setup infrastructure to run and monitor the whole Internet. This is not a simple or easy thing so they will require billions if not trillions of dollars to set this up. Of course they will get all the votes they need to do this by promising inexpensive or free Internet access to all the third world countries (as well as a small taste of the trillions to be taken).
So it is just another grab for money. Now what I want to know is how the UN would do things any differently?
You are probably correct it was a typo. But SCO could not wait for their monkeys to type out another legal brief with the correction. It took them 5 years to get this one almost right. They were just hoping that no one would notice. (damn interns can't get one thing right...)
Of course now that it has been filed IBM can provide a response that says nothing has been contributed to Linux 2.7 kernel since it does not exist yet.
If SCO comes back and claims that there will be a 2.7 kernel and they know this because they saw it during a time travel trip then everyone will know the end is near.:)
Of course if it is a typo it does not look good for SCO's lawyers. The reason most legal documents are mostly incomprehensible is because lawyers are suppose to use very precise unambigous language which leaves little or no room for interpetation. At least that is what they keep telling us. The actual end result is that no one can really understand any of it. But the lawyers take an oath to pretend they understand it so they can keep skimming money off the rest of us. Reality is they keep using copies of the same boiler plate document that someone said sounded good hundreds of years ago which has lost all meaning in todays world.
This case just proves the point that the court system has little to do with reality, justice, or the facts. It is two groups of lawyers trying to snow the jury and or judge with irrelavent information that has no baring on the facts of the case or the truth. They just argue hoping to convince the jury and/or judge to vote for their side. And guess what? The lawyers don't really care who wins, both sides lawyers will get paid regardless of who wins. In some cases the lawyer that wins does get a big cut of the money recovered but none of them go away with nothing. What is even funnier is if the lawyer does not think they will make enough money, either by losing the case or just not enough money on the table to start with, they just won't take the case.
I keep thinking I should have gone to school and become a lawyer. But then I realize I would not be able to pass the bar exam. I have ethics.:)
I honestly wonder what historians will think of this time period, say, one hundred years from now.
They will think exactly what RIAA wants them to think. And they won't have any materials (recordings, videos, written words) available that will allow the historians to find out about what went on. Similar problem to documents getting stored on the Internet. Most of them will be lost over time as web sites are discarded, backups lost, and content is copyrighted or expunged by the likes of RIAA.
Those with the most expensive lawyers will get to rewrite history as they see fit.
Before that happens make sure you run out and buy those unregistered capture cards before selling them is illegal.:)
If such a thing passes, which is unlikely, it may just mean that people will switch back to reading books and possibly talking with each other.
Of course the next bit of legislation to be passed will allow the RIAA to form their own investigative organization whit full police powers. They will be allowed to deploy detection and monitoring equipment so they can find those that managed to smuggle in illegal capture cards and video equipment. Then they will break the door down and ransack your house confiscating all your electronic equipment. On the nightly news they will display a table of electronics and harddrives and boast that they have removed 500GB of illegally copied TV shows followed by a perp walk as they haul you off in handcuffs.
He has now noticed that some people are using the broadband connection instead of the voice service.
Actually what happened is they just closed the purchase of AT&T and found out that what is left of AT&T, the voice part, is losing money hand over fist. Revenues are declining and there is nothing they have to take its place.
As a result he is looking for revenue where ever he can squeeze it from. In this case someone asked the question "if we are losing customers and revenue where is it going?". And someone showed that some of them (maybe most) have moved to voip services some of which happens to run over SBC/AT&T pipes. So now they want to manufacture revenue on pipes which have been paid for by the existing customers. What better way than to impose a tariff on specific traffic that passes over their pipes? Of course this could be extended to all kinds of traffic. Now they want a tariff on voip, next they will want a penny for each song downloaded over their network. Why not? Without the network the music companies could not provide their service. And what's to stop them there? Lets start charging the customers for each packet they get? Run a metered service like they did when dialup was new. That will show the sneaky little bastards, they will have to pay SBC to use their pipes!
The do not call list here in the U.S. has worked very well. Prior to the list the phone would ring all the time. Now it is very rare that that a solicitor calls. And those that do seem to not know about the do not call list. They get kind of nervous when you explain it to them. Of course prior to explaining it to them get their names, company names, and a contact number. That makes it much easier to report them on the web site for the do not call list.
Of course now that they don't call anymore I can't yank their chains with things like:
"Hello, this is Sears. You recently purchased a TV and we would like to you know there is an extended warrantee available."
"My God woman! Don't call here asking about that TV. I bought that for my girlfriend! I don't want my wife to find out about it!"
"Uh...hmmm...Uh....CLICK!"
Or lead them on with appropriate "uh huh"s. Did this once with a long distance solicitor. Must have kept them on the phone for 15 minutes. Figured it would give someone else a rest during that time.
And shortly after the do not call list went in place there were a fair number of automated calls that did not identify who they were but wanted you to leave a message with your name and phone number. Try leaving a really good rant with lots of cuss words for as long as the system will record. There were some that must have run for five minutes or more. Should have tied up a number of their operators listening to that over and over.:)
This virus is not really a big deal, you just have to have half a brain to deal with it.
The problem is that most of the users on the Internet would have a hard time putting half a brain together between them.
Intelligence in the Universe is a constant. The population is growing. You do the math if you can.:)
There should be a project created that is designed to catch idiot users. If they are caught clicking on links in unsolicited emails/IM sessions, buying things from spam, or replying to 419 scams those users have their computers confiscated (and donated to schools) and are barred from accessing the Internet for life. Their names would go on a list similar to the DRPL lists and all sites would be required to check users against that list and report them if they are found on the Internet. These people would also be required to where signs so everyone knows they have been banned from the Internet.
At a past job one of the engineers pulled a number of pranks on the other unsuspecting victims. In on persons cube he taped an outline as if a dead body had been laying in the cube. The next day the victim laughed and pulled the tape up. The next day the outline was back. But this time the prankster took a razor blade and cut the tape in 1/8 inch segments along the entire outline of the dead body. It took better than a week for the victim to pull up the tape from the outline. But then the spooky thing happened. A couple of weeks later the outline reappeared. This time it was not made of tape but dirt that collected on the gummy residue that was left on the carpet since it took so long to remove it.
This same prankster also rigged a container of muster seeds behind a grate in the ceiling over one of the managers cubes. The container was tipped over at the appropriate time scattering seeds all over the place. The fun part was again a few weeks later when the stray musterd seeds started sprouting in the carpet.
And of course the big prank one year was when he removed the tires from one of his coworkers truck. Managed to pull two of the tires and rolled them through the office to find a hiding place. He then passed out the lug nuts to various people in the office with instructions to give them back through the day.
Those are not ghosts in the hallways at work, those are peoples lives that they gave up when they went to work there. The physical shells you see lumbering through the hallways are those that lost their souls to the corporate grinder. Working many hours of overtime, being on call 24x7 for months if not years at a time have resulted in hundreds of IT works being lost to the niether world.
Grieve for these lost souls, they are lost to the world forever.
But does it come with sharks with friggin lasers on their heads? All good underground bunkers come with sharks with friggin lasers on thier heads.:)
The U.S. has a hotel outside Washington that had an underground bunker that was kept secret for many years. It was decommissioned a few years ago. The hotel on top of it continues to operate.
PowerPoint(TM) is an essential thought-prevention tool. Nothing else can extend a vapid piece of generalising self-important blather into 45 minutes of a dynamic + snappy prevarocation. PowerPoint helps our management to feel better about their mission, about their goals and comitment to the cutting-edge innovation. It helps them to highlight the synergies. It facilitates indentification of the go/no-go checkpoints on their flowcharts.
Hey! Were you in Monday's meeting also? Could you believe that presentation? They keep saying the same thing using different slide sets. It was funny though when his laptop froze up. Took him long enough to reboot Windows.:)
I have to wonder, is Microsoft's future sales of Windows starting to look so bleak that Microsoft needs to play poker with their customers?
This is just another indicator that Microsoft knows it's days are numbered. The recent news that several executives have left the company along with the special dividend they granted earlier this year and all indications. Executives know when the getting is good. And the special dividend is how they will draw down that huge pile of money they are sitting on. Expect to see that again next year some time as they try to get as much value out of the company as they can before everyone catches on. Microsoft makes its money on two main items, Windows and Office. In both cases there are viable alternatives available today to replace both of these for the vast majority of companies and home users. The tipping point has almost been reached. And when it happens is may happen fairly quickly. Countries should take notice of what Microsoft is doing. If they do then it would not be surprising to see news items listing countries that are initiating programs to move to OSS. No reason to wait around until Microsoft tries to put the screws to them. Move now in an orderly migration and prevent it from being a problem.
The only way Microsoft can turn this around is to simplify the licensing of their products and reduce the costs as well as improve the quality of the code. Unfortunately it is doubtful that they can re-invent themselves this way. It will take many years for Microsoft to completely come apart. Same thing happened to AT&T. It took many years for AT&T to finally get bought out by SBC but it finally happened this year. Micrsoft will most likely spin off a few divisions to start with then go into a final decline.
Slashdot Mirror
Not to mention that, as I understand it, they actually impede certain methods of communication over the Internet (anything that needs a real end-to-end connection, I think).
:)
Must be refering to H.323 protcol? Any protocol that embeds addressing information in the data portion of the packet is IMHO broken.
Eventually IPV6 will catch on, primarly due to networking companies depolying it on all devices by default. But the cost of changing over the basic infrastructure for no real competetive advantage will keep the major ISPs from adopting it for some time. Most likely it will be forced on the ISPs by government decree at some point. For now the basic networking gear and operating systems are being equipped to handle it so when that decree comes down ISPs can start switching people over. Kind of like HD TV is being forced on everyone. Eventually you won't be able to buy a standard NTSC TV anymore.
You are correct, security by obscurity is not the complete answer. However it helps my systems be just a little harder to crack than the guy down the street. As a result the hackers and script kiddies leave my systems alone. The goal is not to be hack proof, just to be a little harder to hack than the next system.
Kind of like the two hikers that stumble upon a wolf. The one hiker stops to put on running shoes. The second hiker says, "You can't out run that wolf." The first hiker says, "Don't have to out run the wolf, I just have to out run you!"
In other news, aluminum stocks fell sharply and tin stocks rose sharply as hundreds of thousands of /.'ers switched their head gear.
Landfills report thousands of tons of aluminum foil being discarded and filling up available dump space.
Reports that governments everywhere are switching frequencies used to control selected individuals in order to by pass new tin foil head gear.
Alien's that control governments around the world requesting everyone go back to wearing aluminum foil hats. The alien's prefer them over tin foil since they are shinier. Apparently the alien's started the aluminum foil fad back in the 60's because they think it just looks cool.
(voices in side my head, must kill all, must kill all........)
Part of this Sandstorm tool kit is the Sony root kit. Have to get access to all those system first in order to collect the data. However due to a software bug the Sony root kit was found, instead of quietly being installed unnoticed.
In other news Governments all over the world are passing legislation that requires all consumers to utilize Microsoft Windows operating systems. This move is to insure the goverment has an easy way to take over all computers in the hands of it's citizens. Purely for their own protection. And those that refuse to run Windows will be placed on terrorist watch lists since they are breaking the very laws meant to protect everyone.
Sounds kind of like having an acid that can eat through anything. How do you can you keep it in a container if it can eat through anything?
Wonder if it will take more than 48 hours for someone to figure out a way to crack this one?
So now they can market a fuel cell cell phone with built in formic acid dispenser that is even more effective than a mace dispenser.
Just don't hit the wrong button when dialing and discharge it into your own face!
So this means that if I attach that old ant farm to my cell phone I won't have to ever recharge my cell phone? Cool!
Now the real question is will I be able to get this through security at the airport and on to the airplane?
But when will they have little tiny gas pumps to refuel your cell phone? And how much is that going to cost per milli-liter?
Will this bring back waiting lines at the fuel cell pumps? "Hey! I have an important call, hurry up!"
This memo is just another indication that Microsoft is in a downward spiral. There are good alternatives now for their main products, Windows and Office. Microsoft knows they are in a downward spiral. They issued a special dividend recently to allow stock holders to get some money out. They will be doing this again at some point. And you will see more memos like this one. Microsoft trying to find a way to reinvent itself and generate new revenue streams since they know their current revenue streams are going to decline.
:)
The up take of Vista will start to show this big time. There will be many companies that will seriously look at the alternatives that are available instead of just plunking down money on Vista. Particularly when they realize that the new licensing will require an annual fee.
As to why they would move away from software development, they have been good at marketing but not that good at producing secure bug free code. There is a fundamental shift that will become evident over the next decade and Microsoft will not be a major player in the new environments. Unless they change what they do. Becoming a big player in the services area is one place to try and carve out a recurring revenue stream. Will they be able to do it? That is not clear. I suspect that there will be much internal strife within the company. Look for executives to start jumping ship. (Actually a few already have in the past couple of months.) Reorganizations will be come common. (hmm, seem to recall a story about them reorganizing into three main groups.) Eventually they will start spinning off or selling off some groups. Then there will be annual layoffs and the spiral will tighten even quicker.
At least we can all hope!
Ah! But what facts, real hard facts, are presented to the jury? Both sides attempt to twist the so called "facts" to try and fit what ever twisted theory they can expound on to get the jury to vote for their side. Saw this first hand as a juror. The defense threw out theories that the victims scary tattoos were why the defendent shot the victim. And then the defense fought to have a huge stack of medical records submitted as evidence. Just showed the defendent had a propensity for violence based on the number of broken bones and cuts requiring stitches. The prosecuter actually did very little, the defense attorney actually did more to get his client convicted.
The fact that some juries can see past the chaff that the lawyers throw out is amazing.
Has anyone asked/answerd why the UN want's control of the Internet?
My guess is that the oil for food scam went so well (billions of dollars stolen) that more of the UN wants in on such a deal. And what better way to get your fingers into billions of dollars of commerce than to get control of the Internet. The members of the UN committee that run the Internet will be able to tax all the countries (primarly the richest ones) to setup infrastructure to run and monitor the whole Internet. This is not a simple or easy thing so they will require billions if not trillions of dollars to set this up. Of course they will get all the votes they need to do this by promising inexpensive or free Internet access to all the third world countries (as well as a small taste of the trillions to be taken).
So it is just another grab for money. Now what I want to know is how the UN would do things any differently?
You are probably correct it was a typo. But SCO could not wait for their monkeys to type out another legal brief with the correction. It took them 5 years to get this one almost right. They were just hoping that no one would notice. (damn interns can't get one thing right...)
:)
:)
Of course now that it has been filed IBM can provide a response that says nothing has been contributed to Linux 2.7 kernel since it does not exist yet.
If SCO comes back and claims that there will be a 2.7 kernel and they know this because they saw it during a time travel trip then everyone will know the end is near.
Of course if it is a typo it does not look good for SCO's lawyers. The reason most legal documents are mostly incomprehensible is because lawyers are suppose to use very precise unambigous language which leaves little or no room for interpetation. At least that is what they keep telling us. The actual end result is that no one can really understand any of it. But the lawyers take an oath to pretend they understand it so they can keep skimming money off the rest of us. Reality is they keep using copies of the same boiler plate document that someone said sounded good hundreds of years ago which has lost all meaning in todays world.
This case just proves the point that the court system has little to do with reality, justice, or the facts. It is two groups of lawyers trying to snow the jury and or judge with irrelavent information that has no baring on the facts of the case or the truth. They just argue hoping to convince the jury and/or judge to vote for their side. And guess what? The lawyers don't really care who wins, both sides lawyers will get paid regardless of who wins. In some cases the lawyer that wins does get a big cut of the money recovered but none of them go away with nothing. What is even funnier is if the lawyer does not think they will make enough money, either by losing the case or just not enough money on the table to start with, they just won't take the case.
I keep thinking I should have gone to school and become a lawyer. But then I realize I would not be able to pass the bar exam. I have ethics.
Their marketing department need to rethink the name of the car, Hindenburg, just does not seem right. :)
How hard did they squeeze these mice before they started singing? And who did they rat out? Or would that be mouse out?
And finally, who is going to get in trouble for using torture methods to get these mice to sing?
I honestly wonder what historians will think of this time period, say, one hundred years from now.
:)
They will think exactly what RIAA wants them to think. And they won't have any materials (recordings, videos, written words) available that will allow the historians to find out about what went on. Similar problem to documents getting stored on the Internet. Most of them will be lost over time as web sites are discarded, backups lost, and content is copyrighted or expunged by the likes of RIAA.
Those with the most expensive lawyers will get to rewrite history as they see fit.
Before that happens make sure you run out and buy those unregistered capture cards before selling them is illegal.
If such a thing passes, which is unlikely, it may just mean that people will switch back to reading books and possibly talking with each other.
Of course the next bit of legislation to be passed will allow the RIAA to form their own investigative organization whit full police powers. They will be allowed to deploy detection and monitoring equipment so they can find those that managed to smuggle in illegal capture cards and video equipment. Then they will break the door down and ransack your house confiscating all your electronic equipment. On the nightly news they will display a table of electronics and harddrives and boast that they have removed 500GB of illegally copied TV shows followed by a perp walk as they haul you off in handcuffs.
He has now noticed that some people are using the broadband connection instead of the voice service.
Actually what happened is they just closed the purchase of AT&T and found out that what is left of AT&T, the voice part, is losing money hand over fist. Revenues are declining and there is nothing they have to take its place.
As a result he is looking for revenue where ever he can squeeze it from. In this case someone asked the question "if we are losing customers and revenue where is it going?". And someone showed that some of them (maybe most) have moved to voip services some of which happens to run over SBC/AT&T pipes. So now they want to manufacture revenue on pipes which have been paid for by the existing customers. What better way than to impose a tariff on specific traffic that passes over their pipes? Of course this could be extended to all kinds of traffic. Now they want a tariff on voip, next they will want a penny for each song downloaded over their network. Why not? Without the network the music companies could not provide their service. And what's to stop them there? Lets start charging the customers for each packet they get? Run a metered service like they did when dialup was new. That will show the sneaky little bastards, they will have to pay SBC to use their pipes!
The do not call list here in the U.S. has worked very well. Prior to the list the phone would ring all the time. Now it is very rare that that a solicitor calls. And those that do seem to not know about the do not call list. They get kind of nervous when you explain it to them. Of course prior to explaining it to them get their names, company names, and a contact number. That makes it much easier to report them on the web site for the do not call list.
:)
Of course now that they don't call anymore I can't yank their chains with things like:
"Hello, this is Sears. You recently purchased a TV and we would like to you know there is an extended warrantee available."
"My God woman! Don't call here asking about that TV. I bought that for my girlfriend! I don't want my wife to find out about it!"
"Uh...hmmm...Uh....CLICK!"
Or lead them on with appropriate "uh huh"s. Did this once with a long distance solicitor. Must have kept them on the phone for 15 minutes. Figured it would give someone else a rest during that time.
And shortly after the do not call list went in place there were a fair number of automated calls that did not identify who they were but wanted you to leave a message with your name and phone number. Try leaving a really good rant with lots of cuss words for as long as the system will record. There were some that must have run for five minutes or more. Should have tied up a number of their operators listening to that over and over.
This virus is not really a big deal, you just have to have half a brain to deal with it.
:)
The problem is that most of the users on the Internet would have a hard time putting half a brain together between them.
Intelligence in the Universe is a constant. The population is growing. You do the math if you can.
There should be a project created that is designed to catch idiot users. If they are caught clicking on links in unsolicited emails/IM sessions, buying things from spam, or replying to 419 scams those users have their computers confiscated (and donated to schools) and are barred from accessing the Internet for life. Their names would go on a list similar to the DRPL lists and all sites would be required to check users against that list and report them if they are found on the Internet. These people would also be required to where signs so everyone knows they have been banned from the Internet.
At a past job one of the engineers pulled a number of pranks on the other unsuspecting victims. In on persons cube he taped an outline as if a dead body had been laying in the cube. The next day the victim laughed and pulled the tape up. The next day the outline was back. But this time the prankster took a razor blade and cut the tape in 1/8 inch segments along the entire outline of the dead body. It took better than a week for the victim to pull up the tape from the outline. But then the spooky thing happened. A couple of weeks later the outline reappeared. This time it was not made of tape but dirt that collected on the gummy residue that was left on the carpet since it took so long to remove it.
This same prankster also rigged a container of muster seeds behind a grate in the ceiling over one of the managers cubes. The container was tipped over at the appropriate time scattering seeds all over the place. The fun part was again a few weeks later when the stray musterd seeds started sprouting in the carpet.
And of course the big prank one year was when he removed the tires from one of his coworkers truck. Managed to pull two of the tires and rolled them through the office to find a hiding place. He then passed out the lug nuts to various people in the office with instructions to give them back through the day.
Those are not ghosts in the hallways at work, those are peoples lives that they gave up when they went to work there. The physical shells you see lumbering through the hallways are those that lost their souls to the corporate grinder. Working many hours of overtime, being on call 24x7 for months if not years at a time have resulted in hundreds of IT works being lost to the niether world.
Grieve for these lost souls, they are lost to the world forever.
But does it come with sharks with friggin lasers on their heads? All good underground bunkers come with sharks with friggin lasers on thier heads. :)
The U.S. has a hotel outside Washington that had an underground bunker that was kept secret for many years. It was decommissioned a few years ago. The hotel on top of it continues to operate.
PowerPoint(TM) is an essential thought-prevention tool. Nothing else can extend a vapid piece of generalising self-important blather into 45 minutes of a dynamic + snappy prevarocation. PowerPoint helps our management to feel better about their mission, about their goals and comitment to the cutting-edge innovation. It helps them to highlight the synergies. It facilitates indentification of the go/no-go checkpoints on their flowcharts.
:)
Hey! Were you in Monday's meeting also? Could you believe that presentation? They keep saying the same thing using different slide sets. It was funny though when his laptop froze up. Took him long enough to reboot Windows.
I have to wonder, is Microsoft's future sales of Windows starting to look so bleak that Microsoft needs to play poker with their customers?
This is just another indicator that Microsoft knows it's days are numbered. The recent news that several executives have left the company along with the special dividend they granted earlier this year and all indications. Executives know when the getting is good. And the special dividend is how they will draw down that huge pile of money they are sitting on. Expect to see that again next year some time as they try to get as much value out of the company as they can before everyone catches on. Microsoft makes its money on two main items, Windows and Office. In both cases there are viable alternatives available today to replace both of these for the vast majority of companies and home users. The tipping point has almost been reached. And when it happens is may happen fairly quickly. Countries should take notice of what Microsoft is doing. If they do then it would not be surprising to see news items listing countries that are initiating programs to move to OSS. No reason to wait around until Microsoft tries to put the screws to them. Move now in an orderly migration and prevent it from being a problem.
The only way Microsoft can turn this around is to simplify the licensing of their products and reduce the costs as well as improve the quality of the code. Unfortunately it is doubtful that they can re-invent themselves this way. It will take many years for Microsoft to completely come apart. Same thing happened to AT&T. It took many years for AT&T to finally get bought out by SBC but it finally happened this year. Micrsoft will most likely spin off a few divisions to start with then go into a final decline.
Yep! That really surprised me too. :)