"Well, be serious here. By telling me I'm a sucker, weren't you looking forward a bit to a Slashdot bar fight?"
Not really. I've had my dad tell me I'm a sucker for believing something that was obviously wrong. There are a lot of suckers out there. Try not to be one. I try not to even if I fail at it from time to time. If you took it as an insult it wasn't meant as one.
I'm a firm believer in rules for the game. If there are no rules, then there really isn't a game. Indeed, if you make a comparison to online games, the ones that become unplayable are the ones with rampant cheating.
I'm willing to accept a death in a game if it's part of the game. Same way with investing. I'm willing to accept losing money as long as other people play by the same rules. Insider trading is not a victimless crime. I don't like being a sucker.
Obviously, you disagree. So I'll leave it at that.
"A method and system for dynamic pricing of web services utilization. According to one embodiment, a method may include dynamically predicting utilization of a web services computing resource that is expected to occur during a given interval of time,"
"Oh look, we want to charge you differently for usage rates"
As if this doesn't happen every day in all industries. This is *obvious.*
This belongs in a fucking contract, not a goddamn patent.
Amazon is evil in this regard. Jeff Bezos is one of a handful of people who have been the driving force behind patenting obviousness. The others reside(d) at IBM, Microsoft, and Unisys.
"You don't want them shitting in your yard, build a fence."
If I build a fence (firewall) and there is a truck up against the gate (DoS) and I can't get in or out, I'm calling the towing company.
Similarly, if someone succeeds in climbing over the fence, I have a few choices:
1. do nothing 2. release the hounds 3. call police 4. shoot them.
1 is out of the question. I don't have any dogs. Calling the police would be the socially acceptable solution. Shooting them might get me in hot water.
I downloaded a network scanner (forgot what one it was, this was like, 16-17 years ago).
"Hey, this is kinda cool"
I immediately began to scan the entire ip range of the *offices* of ids.net, my ISP. (trollface.jpg.png.tiff)
But this was back in the days of BBS barbecues and whatnot and I personally knew some of the people (Hi Andy!) and all it took was a phone call and a promise not to do it again.:-D
In all seriousness, your attitude you're using while you "educate me" wouldn't go far with many people.
You can ignore "throwaway statements" like I normally do, or you can point them out and imply the maker of the statement is stupid. The former doesn't make enemies. The latter sometimes starts fights in bars.
3. Quarantining a home IP adress is *not* the same thing as the state taking your kids or garnishing your pay. Come on, really. Do you equate being pulled over for speeding as the same as the state garnishing your pay?
Ridiculous hyperbole does not make a good argument.
4. The ISPs already have the authority to do this.
5. If you still don't believe #4 reread you AUP/TOS until you do.
6. This is about an organized way of having a policy to enforce standing AUPs/TOSes.
7. Your tinfoil is waaaaaaaay too tight. Government inspection? No. Logistically impossible when a typical single botnet is thousands of nodes. You format and reinstall and then call up the ISP to tell them you indeed nailed the infection. They look at whether your machine is still trying to spew while it's in quarantine (this can be automated) and turn you back on. If you're truly no longer spewing (because you're no longer under the thumb of a control node), you stay on.
8. "This could be used for censorship" No. The ISP already has the authority to shut you off for DMCA violation. This has not been a problem.
9. I'll reiterate, the ISPs already have the authority to shut off machines/networks that are being bad neighbors.
10. What do you suppose be done instead? Let the situation get worse? Continue to not enforce AUPs?
It's just up until now, nobody's been serious about it. There needs to be able to take down the hundred-thousand-node botnets in an organized manner. You're not allowed to ping my machine or network to death with the equivalent of a zergling rush and you're not allowed to shit in my yard.
Your AUP and TOS covers your ISP quarantining your computer/home network.
They could do it today if they really wanted. Go ahead, read it. You're essentially supposed to be a good neighbor/netizen.
The thing is that it is rarely, if ever, enforced except under extreme circumstances (someone like me makes a stink).
This is more along the lines of "OK guys, we really need to get serious about this and we need a systematic way of doing it, not just ad-hoc." Which is what should have happened back when the botnets were simply spewing spam.
This should have been done years ago when the botnets really started going full bore.
You think you're the sole victim if you're running an infected machine? You're not. I have no sympathy at all. Getting ISPs to boot compromised machines has been impossible when done from the private sector. I know. I've tried. You know how many machines I know that I've gotten shut down?
One. That's right, one machine, and that took writing email personally to someone higher in the chain of command than the help desk.
ISPs don't want to quarantine customers. Customers give them money. Whether they are good neighbors or not doesn't matter. What it says in the TOS doesn't matter. All that does is simply cover the ISP's butt legally if the ISP has a case of elbow syndrome.
This is not installing secret software on your computer to send out to the Three Letter Agencies to spy on you and take away your rights. This is so people can be stopped from being bad neitzens. Your computer is part of a botnet that is blackmailing a.com or attacking a.gov site like the IRS? Sorry, but you're disconnected until it's cleaned up.
So don't give me your "help help I'm being repressed" BS.
If you're going to shit on my lawn, I'm going to call a cop.
"My only real concern is that of privacy. How exactly do they go about telling you're a zombie? Well written malware isn't exactly going to advertise infection, "
Yes it does.
It does every time it broadcasts. This is not to stop the criminals from stealing your CC, this is to stop the DDoS attacks and other silliness.
There is software that analyses DDoS attacks at the victim's end. We've seen videos of it referenced here, with 3D graphs in almost a Neuromancer display. I believe the video in question was a government network being DDoS attacked at the time. The feds know when the botnets are active and when they're quiet. When the botnet wakes from its slumber, grab the IPs and issue the quarantine orders.
This is far better than the insane "kill switch" that Lieberman likes so much. The twat.
Refundable airframe reservations are being accepted with first delivery scheduled for late 2011.
HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR
Do you know what an unsecured debt is? That's what this is. Unsecured debts are *last* on the list in any bankruptcy.
Considering the Moller skycar being anything but pure decades-old vaporware, the "refundable" feature doesn't take the edge off of the potential that the company might go belly up in the next minute.
For an extreme example, I personally think it should be legal for insiders to trade at any time on the respective assets of which they have inside knowledge (I should add here that I have probably already been a victim of insider trading, that is, I have probably lost money to someone with inside knowledge).
Then you are, as PT Barnum put it, a sucker. Allowing insider trading will only beget insiders making a profit at the expense of everyone else. And the likelihood of you being a "true" insider (i.e., of the "secret club") means you will get screwed repeatedly. You admit being screwed by insider trading once. Do you think you will get screwed less often if it is legalized?
I put it to you that you'd have to buy K-Y lube in 55 gallon drums.
And you are better off at a real casino.
"Here is a class of traders who aren't gambling or getting hosed by HFT."
Are you seriously trying to say that "real traders" (for lack of a better definition) didn't get hosed by the HFT induced crash?
Nonsense.
>reductio ad absurdum argument (mars, alpha centuri)
No, there would be local markets. The "local market" for the US is the NYSE, NASDAQ, Chicago, etc. Saying that the speed of light should be a factor in setting trades is stupid. A 15ms (amount of time it takes for light to go from California to Maine) "delay" as a solution is not outrageous. Saying that people deserve to lose out on trades because they don't live within the Tri-State area of NY,NJ,and CT, is.
Here is a list of inoffensive websites. This is a comprehensive list which will encompass every single website that is not insulting to Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Shintoism, Republicans, Democrats, Randroids, Scientists, Fantasy Writers, Raisin Smugglers, Budgie Smugglers, and Serial Murderers:
And it's a form of voting used in the US. The most famous is the Iowa Caucuses.
There is no clause in the US Constitution saying that voting should be public or private or even how votes should be counted. That's left up to the state election commissions.
"though is that if someone wants to gamble on the stock market with either their money or money given by people who agree to the risks, then I have no problem with that."
I have no problem with people gambling at all. My issue, which you are simply ignoring, is that HFT is making it *all* gambling while making the field of play favor some players over others.
HFT favors those who are physically closer than those who are farther away. This is not because of some conspiracy, but it's the laws of physics, specifically that of the speed of light. As HFT gets faster and faster, the radius of those with the best advantage gets smaller and smaller.
Physically
As in, in space.
Everyone else is hosed.
Do you see what problem this creates? Obviously not. A free market insists on a level playing field. When you tilt the roulette wheel to favor some bettors over others, you have cheated, and people refuse to play with cheats.
And there goes the market, down the toilet. Stuffing money in a matress will become more reliable.
Only if you have a broad enough definition as to make the word "investing" useless.
Buying a company because you've done research and think it makes a worthwhile product (widget, service, whatever) is far different than buying/selling on "spread" and wild, factless speculation that is little more than throwing darts at the financial page tacked to a wall.
Berkshire Hathaway isn't gambling. Spinning a roulette wheel is.
To insist that buying and selling stocks is (or should be) a game of chance is a dangerous mindset.
Indeed, it's beginning to become obvious that the "game" of this "gambling house" is rigged by the High Frequency Traders. Reputable casinos make sure that games are at least consistent and the rules understood because bettors would simply leave. What we have now is potentially worse. What happens when there are *no* reliable house rules at all, like we saw with this nearly instantaneous crash? You want to see a stock market crash that makes 1929 look like a dip in the road? Remove all faith in the system like this has the potential to do.
Writing this off as "just one of those things" is myopic and dangerous. Do you really want to see what happens when most people are at a disadvantage because they are not 10 or 5 milli-light-seconds away from the trading computers? Do you really want to give the advantage to those who are physically situated close enough or do you want a level playing field for everyone?
Because that's what's happening with HFT. It's all about a game about who can take advantage of the speed of light instead of investment.
Without a mandate to move all porn to xxx, a new xxx TLD would be worse than useless. Indeed, since the laws of the US (supposedly) end at the borders, how would this stop a (foreign to the US) porn site owner from using the standard.com TLD?
Therefore blocking.xxx would not mean you are blocking all porn.
There are only two winners in this scenario of mandating porn go to.xxx: the politicians for doing something that doesn't actually, well, do anything substantial or helpful in any way. The other winner would be the.xxx registrar. Money and campaign contributions for nothing..xxx would be just another TLD ghetto like.biz. I don't know of any legitimate businesses that use.biz instead of.com, and the ones that probably do have FQDNs that end in both.biz and.com.
It's not like domain names or TLDs matter much anymore. Yes, sex.com was worth a lot of money at one time. But that was before decent search engines. I have not gone anywhere on the Internet in many years by guessing a FQDN. It's been a long time since the 'net has been a "library without a card catalog."
While I don't know the details on what all is is alleged to have done -- he did set a goal to deliberately try to see if they would detect his behavior. He was planning on sending emails with words that would get him flagged by any hypothetical electronic searches they were running, and generally trying to look suspicious to see if they've noticed him. All in the name of seeing what kind of security they had in place, and how well it works.
This is otherwise known as the Naked Man vs. Bear Gene Pool Strength Test.
Fine, we've got a computer on every desktop as Bill Gates dreamed, and Microsoft has 90 percent of the market, since the late 1990s. When this happened, the question to have been asked was "Now What?" Apparently nobody asked, not in 10 years, at least. They got soft. Complacent.
Vaporware and demo products don't count. I had someone honestly tell me that KIN was not meant to be profitable, or even good. What? Is this what softies actually believe?
Microsoft: Google is eating your lunch. Apple is eating your lunch. Every mobile device maker is eating your lunch.
Oh well. That's like telling the same thing to IBM in 1980s when the clone makers started making "IBM Compatible" PCs. IBM didn't listen then, and Microsoft won't listen now. The King never listens when he's been told he's naked.
Microsoft doesn't get nearly as much a cut of the games as Sony and Nintendo do, especially Nintendo. Indeed, Nintendo has an iron fisted grip around their publishers because they own so much of the market. They couldn't do so otherwise, unless they decide to pull a Texas Instruments and become suicidal over principles.
It's only since last year that the XBox division came out in the black. It's a money pit for Microsoft, who can afford to subsidize it with the amount of cash they have on hand. Indeed, if you look at 2009's 4th quarter, where the Entertainment division was all to itself, it posted an operating loss (real loss), but in 2010, you see Entertainment grouped with Devices in the earnings reports. The earnings reports are no longer as broken down now as they used to be. This allows for Microsoft to hide the losses and subsidizing better - buying a Microsoft mouse or keyboard subsidizes the entertainment (Xbox) division.
If the Xbox division had to sink or swim on its own, it would have sunk before the 360 came out.
Microsoft tried so hard to be a monopoly in the desktop market that it actually succeeded. Where is Microsoft going to find any growth in anything other than the overall growth of the desktop market itself?
It either must find new markets, or be content with the "public utility" form of growth - like an Electrical or Natural Gas utility, which rises and falls with the overall economy. The only way to get more growth is to find other markets.
Microsoft has big problems trying outside of its core competency of Operating Systems and Office divisions. These two divisions make the bulk of the profits for Microsoft by far. The other divisions, not so much. The Xbox division is a huge money sink. Winmo is laughable as witnessed by the KIN phone. Sony and Nintendo bend Microsoft over a chair and take turns having their way. Nobody likes Windows Mobile based devices. Apple has recognized that a market for tablet computing works if the interface isn't a pain in the behind. Where is Microsoft's tablet OS? I'm not talking about a tablet-ized 7, but something meant for lower power and a desktop meant for fingers.
Microsoft has become what they hated - the IBM of the 1980s. They are big, fat, and slow, with a forest of deadwood rivaling the trees of the Great Northwet. A government breakup of Microsoft would have been a boon to investors and the computing community at large, but they fought it tooth and nail, and here they are, a lumbering monolithic sloth of a company.
It should be broken up, by division for each to sink or swim on their own merits. This would set fire to that deadwood. Every forest needs a cleansing burn from time to time.
They are worth more in pieces than they are as a whole.
Slashdot Mirror
So what, just surrender?
Fuck that.
Fuck your attitude, too.
--
BMO
"Well, be serious here. By telling me I'm a sucker, weren't you looking forward a bit to a Slashdot bar fight?"
Not really. I've had my dad tell me I'm a sucker for believing something that was obviously wrong. There are a lot of suckers out there. Try not to be one. I try not to even if I fail at it from time to time. If you took it as an insult it wasn't meant as one.
I'm a firm believer in rules for the game. If there are no rules, then there really isn't a game. Indeed, if you make a comparison to online games, the ones that become unplayable are the ones with rampant cheating.
I'm willing to accept a death in a game if it's part of the game. Same way with investing. I'm willing to accept losing money as long as other people play by the same rules. Insider trading is not a victimless crime. I don't like being a sucker.
Obviously, you disagree. So I'll leave it at that.
--
BMO
"Oh look, we want to charge you differently for usage rates"
As if this doesn't happen every day in all industries. This is *obvious.*
This belongs in a fucking contract, not a goddamn patent.
Amazon is evil in this regard. Jeff Bezos is one of a handful of people who have been the driving force behind patenting obviousness. The others reside(d) at IBM, Microsoft, and Unisys.
--
BMO
"You don't want them shitting in your yard, build a fence."
If I build a fence (firewall) and there is a truck up against the gate (DoS) and I can't get in or out, I'm calling the towing company.
Similarly, if someone succeeds in climbing over the fence, I have a few choices:
1. do nothing
2. release the hounds
3. call police
4. shoot them.
1 is out of the question. I don't have any dogs. Calling the police would be the socially acceptable solution. Shooting them might get me in hot water.
--
BMO
Pah. That's nothing.
I downloaded a network scanner (forgot what one it was, this was like, 16-17 years ago).
"Hey, this is kinda cool"
I immediately began to scan the entire ip range of the *offices* of ids.net, my ISP. (trollface.jpg.png.tiff)
But this was back in the days of BBS barbecues and whatnot and I personally knew some of the people (Hi Andy!) and all it took was a phone call and a promise not to do it again. :-D
--
BMO
In all seriousness, your attitude you're using while you "educate me" wouldn't go far with many people.
You can ignore "throwaway statements" like I normally do, or you can point them out and imply the maker of the statement is stupid. The former doesn't make enemies. The latter sometimes starts fights in bars.
--
BMO
If the large ISPs had been enforcing their service policies, this wouldn't even be a discussion today.
You're right. It's all about penny pinching.
--
BMO
1. I don't think you know how botnets work.
2. Sorry about Texas.
3. Quarantining a home IP adress is *not* the same thing as the state taking your kids or garnishing your pay. Come on, really. Do you equate being pulled over for speeding as the same as the state garnishing your pay?
Ridiculous hyperbole does not make a good argument.
4. The ISPs already have the authority to do this.
5. If you still don't believe #4 reread you AUP/TOS until you do.
6. This is about an organized way of having a policy to enforce standing AUPs/TOSes.
7. Your tinfoil is waaaaaaaay too tight. Government inspection? No. Logistically impossible when a typical single botnet is thousands of nodes. You format and reinstall and then call up the ISP to tell them you indeed nailed the infection. They look at whether your machine is still trying to spew while it's in quarantine (this can be automated) and turn you back on. If you're truly no longer spewing (because you're no longer under the thumb of a control node), you stay on.
8. "This could be used for censorship" No. The ISP already has the authority to shut you off for DMCA violation. This has not been a problem.
9. I'll reiterate, the ISPs already have the authority to shut off machines/networks that are being bad neighbors.
10. What do you suppose be done instead? Let the situation get worse? Continue to not enforce AUPs?
It's just up until now, nobody's been serious about it. There needs to be able to take down the hundred-thousand-node botnets in an organized manner. You're not allowed to ping my machine or network to death with the equivalent of a zergling rush and you're not allowed to shit in my yard.
--
BMO
Your AUP and TOS covers your ISP quarantining your computer/home network.
They could do it today if they really wanted. Go ahead, read it. You're essentially supposed to be a good neighbor/netizen.
The thing is that it is rarely, if ever, enforced except under extreme circumstances (someone like me makes a stink).
This is more along the lines of "OK guys, we really need to get serious about this and we need a systematic way of doing it, not just ad-hoc." Which is what should have happened back when the botnets were simply spewing spam.
--
BMO
Take off the tinfoil.
This should have been done years ago when the botnets really started going full bore.
You think you're the sole victim if you're running an infected machine? You're not. I have no sympathy at all. Getting ISPs to boot compromised machines has been impossible when done from the private sector. I know. I've tried. You know how many machines I know that I've gotten shut down?
One. That's right, one machine, and that took writing email personally to someone higher in the chain of command than the help desk.
ISPs don't want to quarantine customers. Customers give them money. Whether they are good neighbors or not doesn't matter. What it says in the TOS doesn't matter. All that does is simply cover the ISP's butt legally if the ISP has a case of elbow syndrome.
This is not installing secret software on your computer to send out to the Three Letter Agencies to spy on you and take away your rights. This is so people can be stopped from being bad neitzens. Your computer is part of a botnet that is blackmailing a .com or attacking a .gov site like the IRS? Sorry, but you're disconnected until it's cleaned up.
So don't give me your "help help I'm being repressed" BS.
If you're going to shit on my lawn, I'm going to call a cop.
--
BMO
"I would like to see compromised PCs neutered or otherwise stopped. I would like my rights and freedoms not to be tampered with"
You do not have the right to shit in my yard.
And that's what the botnets do. They shit in *everyone's* yard.
--
BMO
"My only real concern is that of privacy. How exactly do they go about telling you're a zombie? Well written malware isn't exactly going to advertise infection, "
Yes it does.
It does every time it broadcasts. This is not to stop the criminals from stealing your CC, this is to stop the DDoS attacks and other silliness.
There is software that analyses DDoS attacks at the victim's end. We've seen videos of it referenced here, with 3D graphs in almost a Neuromancer display. I believe the video in question was a government network being DDoS attacked at the time. The feds know when the botnets are active and when they're quiet. When the botnet wakes from its slumber, grab the IPs and issue the quarantine orders.
This is far better than the insane "kill switch" that Lieberman likes so much. The twat.
--
BMO
Refundable airframe reservations are being accepted with first delivery scheduled for late 2011.
HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR
Do you know what an unsecured debt is? That's what this is. Unsecured debts are *last* on the list in any bankruptcy.
Considering the Moller skycar being anything but pure decades-old vaporware, the "refundable" feature doesn't take the edge off of the potential that the company might go belly up in the next minute.
--
BMO
>Sounds to me like a throwaway comment
You keep using this, yet you have no justification except to be passive-agressive insult. Look, I can do the same: "Whatever."
>I disagree. There's no reason for a California HFT
So your "solution" is for people outside of the tri-state area to simply not do HFT? Why?
>Moving on, there is the appearance of a cascade failure in the market.
(interesting article)
I don't disagree that it was a cascade failure.
So what caused the cascade failure? Was it spamming bids? Quote stuffing used as a kind of DoS to disrupt the system as hinted at in TFA?
And what do we do about it?
--
BMO
Then you are, as PT Barnum put it, a sucker. Allowing insider trading will only beget insiders making a profit at the expense of everyone else. And the likelihood of you being a "true" insider (i.e., of the "secret club") means you will get screwed repeatedly. You admit being screwed by insider trading once. Do you think you will get screwed less often if it is legalized?
I put it to you that you'd have to buy K-Y lube in 55 gallon drums.
And you are better off at a real casino.
"Here is a class of traders who aren't gambling or getting hosed by HFT."
Are you seriously trying to say that "real traders" (for lack of a better definition) didn't get hosed by the HFT induced crash?
Nonsense.
>reductio ad absurdum argument (mars, alpha centuri)
No, there would be local markets. The "local market" for the US is the NYSE, NASDAQ, Chicago, etc. Saying that the speed of light should be a factor in setting trades is stupid. A 15ms (amount of time it takes for light to go from California to Maine) "delay" as a solution is not outrageous. Saying that people deserve to lose out on trades because they don't live within the Tri-State area of NY,NJ,and CT, is.
--
BMO
Here is a list of inoffensive websites. This is a comprehensive list which will encompass every single website that is not insulting to Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Shintoism, Republicans, Democrats, Randroids, Scientists, Fantasy Writers, Raisin Smugglers, Budgie Smugglers, and Serial Murderers:
http://127.0.0.1/
There. You will never be offended.
Pakistan: We are laughing at you.
--
BMO
It's called Caucusing.
And it's a form of voting used in the US. The most famous is the Iowa Caucuses.
There is no clause in the US Constitution saying that voting should be public or private or even how votes should be counted. That's left up to the state election commissions.
--
BMO
"though is that if someone wants to gamble on the stock market with either their money or money given by people who agree to the risks, then I have no problem with that."
I have no problem with people gambling at all. My issue, which you are simply ignoring, is that HFT is making it *all* gambling while making the field of play favor some players over others.
HFT favors those who are physically closer than those who are farther away. This is not because of some conspiracy, but it's the laws of physics, specifically that of the speed of light. As HFT gets faster and faster, the radius of those with the best advantage gets smaller and smaller.
Physically
As in, in space.
Everyone else is hosed.
Do you see what problem this creates? Obviously not. A free market insists on a level playing field. When you tilt the roulette wheel to favor some bettors over others, you have cheated, and people refuse to play with cheats.
And there goes the market, down the toilet. Stuffing money in a matress will become more reliable.
--
BMO
"Investing is gambling."
Only if you have a broad enough definition as to make the word "investing" useless.
Buying a company because you've done research and think it makes a worthwhile product (widget, service, whatever) is far different than buying/selling on "spread" and wild, factless speculation that is little more than throwing darts at the financial page tacked to a wall.
Berkshire Hathaway isn't gambling. Spinning a roulette wheel is.
To insist that buying and selling stocks is (or should be) a game of chance is a dangerous mindset.
Indeed, it's beginning to become obvious that the "game" of this "gambling house" is rigged by the High Frequency Traders. Reputable casinos make sure that games are at least consistent and the rules understood because bettors would simply leave. What we have now is potentially worse. What happens when there are *no* reliable house rules at all, like we saw with this nearly instantaneous crash? You want to see a stock market crash that makes 1929 look like a dip in the road? Remove all faith in the system like this has the potential to do.
Writing this off as "just one of those things" is myopic and dangerous. Do you really want to see what happens when most people are at a disadvantage because they are not 10 or 5 milli-light-seconds away from the trading computers? Do you really want to give the advantage to those who are physically situated close enough or do you want a level playing field for everyone?
Because that's what's happening with HFT. It's all about a game about who can take advantage of the speed of light instead of investment.
--
BMO
Without a mandate to move all porn to xxx, a new xxx TLD would be worse than useless. Indeed, since the laws of the US (supposedly) end at the borders, how would this stop a (foreign to the US) porn site owner from using the standard .com TLD?
Therefore blocking .xxx would not mean you are blocking all porn.
There are only two winners in this scenario of mandating porn go to .xxx: the politicians for doing something that doesn't actually, well, do anything substantial or helpful in any way. The other winner would be the .xxx registrar. Money and campaign contributions for nothing. .xxx would be just another TLD ghetto like .biz. I don't know of any legitimate businesses that use .biz instead of .com, and the ones that probably do have FQDNs that end in both .biz and .com.
It's not like domain names or TLDs matter much anymore. Yes, sex.com was worth a lot of money at one time. But that was before decent search engines. I have not gone anywhere on the Internet in many years by guessing a FQDN. It's been a long time since the 'net has been a "library without a card catalog."
--
BMO
This is otherwise known as the Naked Man vs. Bear Gene Pool Strength Test.
--
BMO
... Is Microsoft's tablet/small device OS?
Yes, there are "tablet" versions of Windows ever since XP, but where is the small, lightweight, finger friendly OS for tablets?
I brought this very fact up earlier in another post with regards to Microsoft's ability for growth here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1695766&cid=32667752
Fine, we've got a computer on every desktop as Bill Gates dreamed, and Microsoft has 90 percent of the market, since the late 1990s. When this happened, the question to have been asked was "Now What?" Apparently nobody asked, not in 10 years, at least. They got soft. Complacent.
Vaporware and demo products don't count. I had someone honestly tell me that KIN was not meant to be profitable, or even good. What? Is this what softies actually believe?
Microsoft: Google is eating your lunch. Apple is eating your lunch. Every mobile device maker is eating your lunch.
Oh well. That's like telling the same thing to IBM in 1980s when the clone makers started making "IBM Compatible" PCs. IBM didn't listen then, and Microsoft won't listen now. The King never listens when he's been told he's naked.
--
BMO
Because it's no longer investing.
It's gambling.
In gambling, the only winner is the house. In this case it's the brokerages.
I hope this helps.
--
BMO
Microsoft doesn't get nearly as much a cut of the games as Sony and Nintendo do, especially Nintendo. Indeed, Nintendo has an iron fisted grip around their publishers because they own so much of the market. They couldn't do so otherwise, unless they decide to pull a Texas Instruments and become suicidal over principles.
It's only since last year that the XBox division came out in the black. It's a money pit for Microsoft, who can afford to subsidize it with the amount of cash they have on hand. Indeed, if you look at 2009's 4th quarter, where the Entertainment division was all to itself, it posted an operating loss (real loss), but in 2010, you see Entertainment grouped with Devices in the earnings reports. The earnings reports are no longer as broken down now as they used to be. This allows for Microsoft to hide the losses and subsidizing better - buying a Microsoft mouse or keyboard subsidizes the entertainment (Xbox) division.
If the Xbox division had to sink or swim on its own, it would have sunk before the 360 came out.
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BMO
Microsoft tried so hard to be a monopoly in the desktop market that it actually succeeded. Where is Microsoft going to find any growth in anything other than the overall growth of the desktop market itself?
It either must find new markets, or be content with the "public utility" form of growth - like an Electrical or Natural Gas utility, which rises and falls with the overall economy. The only way to get more growth is to find other markets.
Microsoft has big problems trying outside of its core competency of Operating Systems and Office divisions. These two divisions make the bulk of the profits for Microsoft by far. The other divisions, not so much. The Xbox division is a huge money sink. Winmo is laughable as witnessed by the KIN phone. Sony and Nintendo bend Microsoft over a chair and take turns having their way. Nobody likes Windows Mobile based devices. Apple has recognized that a market for tablet computing works if the interface isn't a pain in the behind. Where is Microsoft's tablet OS? I'm not talking about a tablet-ized 7, but something meant for lower power and a desktop meant for fingers.
Microsoft has become what they hated - the IBM of the 1980s. They are big, fat, and slow, with a forest of deadwood rivaling the trees of the Great Northwet. A government breakup of Microsoft would have been a boon to investors and the computing community at large, but they fought it tooth and nail, and here they are, a lumbering monolithic sloth of a company.
It should be broken up, by division for each to sink or swim on their own merits. This would set fire to that deadwood. Every forest needs a cleansing burn from time to time.
They are worth more in pieces than they are as a whole.
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BMO