Not exactly. My company actually wants some compitetion on certain products to avoid anti-trust probblems. Of course, we all know that Mircosoft doesn't have to worry about that!!
Although that's the optomistic view right now. I would be willing to bet that they will have real trouble releasing in the US before next Christmas now.
And its all going to be their own fault. There are quite literally 0 customers that are concerned if the DRM (copy protection) for Blu-Ray will be ready in time.
Personally, I hope their committment to DRM blows their release date and they lose millions of dollars. Let DRM be a problem for them for something.
Then don't buy from those companies. Make sure your friends don't buy from those companies. But don't give a business money, then turn around and say, "but you aren't giving me what I want."
But that's my point. When customers do this, then a situation develops where there isn't anything the shareholders can do to get their money out of the company other than selling off the pieces and shutting things down.
Look at Ford, they're having a hell of a time serving the best interests of their stockholders. But why is this? Its because they're not serving their customers. There's only one way out of this mess (long term) for Ford and that will be to make better cars that more people want. But for short term investors, liquidating enourmous chunks of the company works just as well (and is actually less costly) than building better cars. Short term investors (lumping the anlysts in this one) only want to make sure they don't lose money now (or next week), they really don't care whether the company is around in 1, 2, 5, 10 years from now.
Its just not the way I think business should work. Sure paying attention only to shareholder value is easy, but it won't make great companies. Those that pay attention to other factors as well are the ones that will succeed in the long term. Google knows that. They know the shell game the analysts want to play, and they don't want to play along. They want to be judged on other factors, not quarter to quarter results. I say, good for them.
And that is what is wrong with business in this world today.
Nowhere, in your entire comment, is the word customer mentioned once. Companies are now beholden ONLY to stockholders. Analysts game the system quarter to quarter to make sure they GET the short term gains. Companies look to the last and the next three months, no further.
and.....
Customers everywhere scratch their heads and wonder why customer service on nearly every level for nearly every industry is absolutely abysmal. Well look no further, there is no driver anywhere in the corprate world that says they need to care.
We all know that media companies and their obsession with DRM is leading to a dangerous and eventually (in the HDTV realm anyway) huge conflict with their customers. But we can't place all the blame on them, Wall Street has told them in the loudest possible voice they have that no customer matters and all thats important is shareholder value. Its very easy to see then how the media companies (and many other companies) can go from trying to please their customers, to treating their customers like theives or like their subjects and not their true reason for being.
True, I agree pointers are not for beginning programming.
Personally the first language I learned was basic on the Apple II. I think it was a good starting point, but Visual Basic is not the same thing. As for for other intrepreted languages (like basic was on the apple), I can't see recommending PERL either since it has so many strange (and yes wonderful at the same time) constructs.
Both these boxes are designed for the coming "digital convergence" that will be happening, uh, "real soon now!"
Yeah, you may be right, but in that case they're competing with the Mac mini and the ipod. For digital convergance Apple is the one ahead of the game there.
Apple really seems to be above the fray of politics. You mention Al Gore on the board of Apple, but Rush Limbaugh has talked about hi Powerbook on the air before and podcasts his show. Up thread from this message its noted that Bush has an Ipod.
So heres what I think. Jobs' reality distortion field doesn't care what your political persuasion is. And back on topic, for those of us under the influcence of the field, we know iTunes = good, Record Companies = bad.
I never said we shouldn't be concerned, I just said that we shouldn't only focus on malice.
Both incompetance and mailce are unacceptable factors when it comes to electronic voting machines, but people shouldn't assume malice.
As for the code on the machines, there are many different ways you could distribute/install/setup the code on the voting machines and verify the version, you just need to have appropriate validation procedures. However, I also believe that you need a paper trail with voting as well because that provides a written undeletable check on the system (mind you that means that the paper trail needs some securing for rechecks, but only as much as real paper ballots would).
I would love to see owners of old HDTVs file class action suits against the vendors of their HDTVs. They were promised higher resolutions, they lead the way to making the costs go down for the people who bought HDTV later. They spend more money and went through more trouble to get HDTV resolutions, but now their getting screwed. And do you really believe that when they were sold the set they were told "sure, your set will do 1080i, but when HD-DVDs come out we won't let you have that resolution.
Specifically I think they should sue companies that made their HDTVs that also signed on to this "Mickey Mouse" copy protection.
The other point is that the millions of HDTV owners that will get screwed over by this have absolutely NO reason to buy and HD-DVD player, ever.
Everytime I hear stories like this I always can envision the future press release that says something like "HD-DVD players not selling well". Well, lets see, you severly limit you product for a large number of your intended customers and its a suprise when they don't buy it? How many people would really buy cars limited to going just the speed limit? Ideally the argument could be made that drivers shouldn't be allowed to break the law. But how many people would actually buy these cars? Thats right absolutely no one.
So basically you're inferring that the machines setup and run by Democrats illegally gave votes to Bush right?
I think the operative phrase here is "Never attribute to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence." These machines just plain don't work, like so many other system out there.
I do agree that a FOSS voting system would be the best way to ensure accountability and reliability of the software.
Personally my children are going to be better than me. My father was a barber, I'm a computer tech. It's a step forward but we still are in the "service industry" working for someone else. Technology is a business tool and I'm just a tool that operates the tool. I want my kids to both master those tools and be the master of those tools. MBA all the way, get them some seed money and then let them become the cio, ceo or c-insert_letter_here-o of their company. Providing I can keep 'em off da drugs.
And people actually have to wonder why interest in science, engineering, and math is dropping like a rock.
The @%#$%$ MBA's don't actually create anything, most are worthless, and the core value of being the 'man' will wear off for them when they find their entire company being replaced by a foreign competitors, who instead of doing just the outsorced technical work for their companies, take over doing all the work of their companies.
I agree its a trojan, not a virus. If you turn on file extentions, you'd see that its a.app with a jpeg icon. They're just being sneaky, not really using a flaw in the OS.
If that comes to pass I (and many other myth users) will just ignore/bypass/break these laws. Ignoring bad laws like some of the ones they're trying to pass now (and the DMCA already, of course I use DeCSS to play DVDs on my Myth box) is a form of protest.
What the broadcast companies are trying to ram down our throats is pure evil. If they suceed in making my Myth box illegal, forcing me to use _their_ (limited) PVR or try to make me whatch shows only when they're on, they won't make more money off of me. I will just chuck my TV to the curb.
What is always debated is if Man is at fault for climate change or not. Clearly the climate is changing.
The question that is interesting to see never asked is: "Even if climate change is not mankinds fault, would we still be interested in trying to keep the climate from changing."
I postulate that we would want to keep the climate from changing, because of its impact on our society and economy. But, if the change is not mankinds fault, then coming up with the fix is going to be harder. I think also, that we're emotionally wired to believe that we actually can and are having an impact. On the small scale that is definately so, but on the large scale, I'm not so sure.
I know its difficult, but it would be nice to find a way to quantitatively measure climate change with regards to mankinds actions. If we make the changes some proposals require, we really must be vigilant at trying to observe change in the other direction. Otherwise we are just emotionally telling ourselves that we're making a difference when we may not be.
There is a lot of study needed here. This study is a start in seeing the bigger picture.
Yes, you've hit upon my rationailzation for visiting/.
I've actaully used a couple of things I've seen here at work, or at least mentioned them. At least a _couple_ of things, everything else errrm, well all those other articles just aren't relevant to work.... yet.;-)
What I actually meant that if the user could use mail from the command line, then they could probably find the talk command and figure out how to use it...
Slashdot Mirror
Not exactly. My company actually wants some compitetion on certain products to avoid anti-trust probblems. Of course, we all know that Mircosoft doesn't have to worry about that!!
We don't need or want new products to kill anything.
Yeah, WE don't but MICROSOFT does!!
I know. I hope the Revolution beats them to market and that that hurts their sales.
I wouldn't feel this way about the PS3 except that its DRM that is causing the schedule to slip.
Although that's the optomistic view right now. I would be willing to bet that they will have real trouble releasing in the US before next Christmas now.
And its all going to be their own fault. There are quite literally 0 customers that are concerned if the DRM (copy protection) for Blu-Ray will be ready in time.
Personally, I hope their committment to DRM blows their release date and they lose millions of dollars. Let DRM be a problem for them for something.
play protected WMAs ("Playsforsure")
Playsforsure... aren't those MP3's?
What a worthless piece of doublespeak for DRM.
Then don't buy from those companies. Make sure your friends don't buy from those companies. But don't give a business money, then turn around and say, "but you aren't giving me what I want."
But that's my point. When customers do this, then a situation develops where there isn't anything the shareholders can do to get their money out of the company other than selling off the pieces and shutting things down.
Look at Ford, they're having a hell of a time serving the best interests of their stockholders. But why is this? Its because they're not serving their customers. There's only one way out of this mess (long term) for Ford and that will be to make better cars that more people want. But for short term investors, liquidating enourmous chunks of the company works just as well (and is actually less costly) than building better cars. Short term investors (lumping the anlysts in this one) only want to make sure they don't lose money now (or next week), they really don't care whether the company is around in 1, 2, 5, 10 years from now.
Its just not the way I think business should work. Sure paying attention only to shareholder value is easy, but it won't make great companies. Those that pay attention to other factors as well are the ones that will succeed in the long term. Google knows that. They know the shell game the analysts want to play, and they don't want to play along. They want to be judged on other factors, not quarter to quarter results. I say, good for them.
And that is what is wrong with business in this world today.
Nowhere, in your entire comment, is the word customer mentioned once. Companies are now beholden ONLY to stockholders. Analysts game the system quarter to quarter to make sure they GET the short term gains. Companies look to the last and the next three months, no further.
and.....
Customers everywhere scratch their heads and wonder why customer service on nearly every level for nearly every industry is absolutely abysmal. Well look no further, there is no driver anywhere in the corprate world that says they need to care.
We all know that media companies and their obsession with DRM is leading to a dangerous and eventually (in the HDTV realm anyway) huge conflict with their customers. But we can't place all the blame on them, Wall Street has told them in the loudest possible voice they have that no customer matters and all thats important is shareholder value. Its very easy to see then how the media companies (and many other companies) can go from trying to please their customers, to treating their customers like theives or like their subjects and not their true reason for being.
True, I agree pointers are not for beginning programming.
Personally the first language I learned was basic on the Apple II. I think it was a good starting point, but Visual Basic is not the same thing. As for for other intrepreted languages (like basic was on the apple), I can't see recommending PERL either since it has so many strange (and yes wonderful at the same time) constructs.
Great post. My only minor nit, isn't C a subset of C++?
Both these boxes are designed for the coming "digital convergence" that will be happening, uh, "real soon now!"
Yeah, you may be right, but in that case they're competing with the Mac mini and the ipod. For digital convergance Apple is the one ahead of the game there.
* see also - Khaaaaannnnn
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Speaking of politics an Apple:
Apple really seems to be above the fray of politics. You mention Al Gore on the board of Apple, but Rush Limbaugh has talked about hi Powerbook on the air before and podcasts his show. Up thread from this message its noted that Bush has an Ipod.
So heres what I think. Jobs' reality distortion field doesn't care what your political persuasion is. And back on topic, for those of us under the influcence of the field, we know iTunes = good, Record Companies = bad.
I never said we shouldn't be concerned, I just said that we shouldn't only focus on malice.
Both incompetance and mailce are unacceptable factors when it comes to electronic voting machines, but people shouldn't assume malice.
As for the code on the machines, there are many different ways you could distribute/install/setup the code on the voting machines and verify the version, you just need to have appropriate validation procedures. However, I also believe that you need a paper trail with voting as well because that provides a written undeletable check on the system (mind you that means that the paper trail needs some securing for rechecks, but only as much as real paper ballots would).
I would love to see owners of old HDTVs file class action suits against the vendors of their HDTVs. They were promised higher resolutions, they lead the way to making the costs go down for the people who bought HDTV later. They spend more money and went through more trouble to get HDTV resolutions, but now their getting screwed. And do you really believe that when they were sold the set they were told "sure, your set will do 1080i, but when HD-DVDs come out we won't let you have that resolution.
Specifically I think they should sue companies that made their HDTVs that also signed on to this "Mickey Mouse" copy protection.
The other point is that the millions of HDTV owners that will get screwed over by this have absolutely NO reason to buy and HD-DVD player, ever.
Everytime I hear stories like this I always can envision the future press release that says something like "HD-DVD players not selling well". Well, lets see, you severly limit you product for a large number of your intended customers and its a suprise when they don't buy it? How many people would really buy cars limited to going just the speed limit? Ideally the argument could be made that drivers shouldn't be allowed to break the law. But how many people would actually buy these cars? Thats right absolutely no one.
So basically you're inferring that the machines setup and run by Democrats illegally gave votes to Bush right?
I think the operative phrase here is "Never attribute to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence." These machines just plain don't work, like so many other system out there.
I do agree that a FOSS voting system would be the best way to ensure accountability and reliability of the software.
No, Frank just gets to read /. for 9 hours and the GP poster gets to for 8. However, no /. for Joe!!
;-)
Personally my children are going to be better than me. My father was a barber, I'm a computer tech. It's a step forward but we still are in the "service industry" working for someone else. Technology is a business tool and I'm just a tool that operates the tool. I want my kids to both master those tools and be the master of those tools. MBA all the way, get them some seed money and then let them become the cio, ceo or c-insert_letter_here-o of their company. Providing I can keep 'em off da drugs.
And people actually have to wonder why interest in science, engineering, and math is dropping like a rock.
The @%#$%$ MBA's don't actually create anything, most are worthless, and the core value of being the 'man' will wear off for them when they find their entire company being replaced by a foreign competitors, who instead of doing just the outsorced technical work for their companies, take over doing all the work of their companies.
I agree its a trojan, not a virus. If you turn on file extentions, you'd see that its a .app with a jpeg icon. They're just being sneaky, not really using a flaw in the OS.
Hell with Linux, they could create their own back door. Of course they'd have to give it to everybody. ;-)
If that comes to pass I (and many other myth users) will just ignore/bypass/break these laws. Ignoring bad laws like some of the ones they're trying to pass now (and the DMCA already, of course I use DeCSS to play DVDs on my Myth box) is a form of protest.
What the broadcast companies are trying to ram down our throats is pure evil. If they suceed in making my Myth box illegal, forcing me to use _their_ (limited) PVR or try to make me whatch shows only when they're on, they won't make more money off of me. I will just chuck my TV to the curb.
What is always debated is if Man is at fault for climate change or not. Clearly the climate is changing.
The question that is interesting to see never asked is: "Even if climate change is not mankinds fault, would we still be interested in trying to keep the climate from changing."
I postulate that we would want to keep the climate from changing, because of its impact on our society and economy. But, if the change is not mankinds fault, then coming up with the fix is going to be harder. I think also, that we're emotionally wired to believe that we actually can and are having an impact. On the small scale that is definately so, but on the large scale, I'm not so sure.
I know its difficult, but it would be nice to find a way to quantitatively measure climate change with regards to mankinds actions. If we make the changes some proposals require, we really must be vigilant at trying to observe change in the other direction. Otherwise we are just emotionally telling ourselves that we're making a difference when we may not be.
There is a lot of study needed here. This study is a start in seeing the bigger picture.
Yes, you've hit upon my rationailzation for visiting /.
.... yet. ;-)
I've actaully used a couple of things I've seen here at work, or at least mentioned them. At least a _couple_ of things, everything else errrm, well all those other articles just aren't relevant to work
What I actually meant that if the user could use mail from the command line, then they could probably find the talk command and figure out how to use it...
see: http://unixhelp.ed.ac.uk/CGI/man-cgi?talk
It was a joke.
Of course a sysadm with too little time probably has mesg n anyway.
Oh, I am wasting so much time on this story, but I just had to respond.
<Chevy Chase>
See the bomb.... be..
be.. the bomb
</Chevy Chase>
s/mail/talk/
All fixed. Thats assuming your user is as versed in unix as he appears to be.