Payola, in the American music industry, is the illegal corruption practice of payment or other inducement by record companies for the broadcast of recordings on music radio, in which the song is presented as being part of the normal day's broadcast. Under US law, 47 U.S.C. 317, a radio station can play a specific song in exchange for money, but this must be disclosed on the air as being sponsored airtime, and that play of the song should not be counted as a "regular airplay."
Yeah, yeah, it talks only about radio. But it is the definition for payola. So do we have the same law for other media channels?
And now we have Microsoft paying for blog space. So, you say? Well I don't think it would be such a problem until you stop and think of how other bloggers have consistently maintained to the world that their blog and the material contained in it is protected by free speech, and in many sites, also to fall under consideration as journalism.
I'm sorry, you cannot have both. Either you're a schill for a company and identify yourself as such, or you refuse payments. Is there a law to prefent or that or protect the consumer [reader] of tainted blogs? We won't know until a case comes to trial.
The German government started a project today to train experts to contribute to Wikipedia
Are there Wiki professionals out there that go around and train people on how to use a wiki? Outstanding! I knew my resume had a blank space that needed filling.
As for the US-based wiki, we may not be professionals but dammit we're a union. Now where did I put that union card anyway...
From what i have gathered by reading columns through the Internet (Internet!=true) is that Mr. Shuttleworth is okay with where he stands in life. He built a business that in turn was bought by Verisign which made him a lot of money. Using some of that money, he created Canonical as a framework for housing the Ubuntu development team.
So does he need to cross license with Microsoft? No. Why bother? He doesn't need the money, his company is small in terms of staff and he set forth a goal which is not to compete directly with Microsoft but a more altruistic level by addressing the computing needs of people in general. Hence the African word, Ubuntu, which means 'Humanity to others', or 'I am what I am because of who we all are.'
With the latest level, 7.04, Canonical has made great strides in what I call the 'YMAD' (Your Mom and Dad's) environment. Using the Live CD, you can run the Ubuntu OS from the CD upon booting. Except for some encrypted wireless schemes, this OS basically runs well for the YMADs without us geeks stepping in to play help desk. But again, there are issues so it is not perfect. Installing the OS from the CD needs work as well.
Shuttleworth has taken the high road in his blog to state that he is pursuing an free (as in beer) Ubuntu or nothing configuration, meaning all apps, runtimes, and codecs are free according to GPL. And he is right to do so. By maintaining a clear Ubuntu track, this OS does not get bogged down in maintaining cross licensing or product dependencies. However there is one big dependency - Debian.
Debian must not sell out to Microsoft or Ubuntu will have a very rough road ahead. And for Debian not go with Microsoft will take the whole community to back it.
The ramifications? Microsoft is picking up the Linux stragglers from the herd. While in of itself is basically harmless to the Linux community, an aggregate of Linux distros may in effect encircle the community and slow it down due to the time it takes to fork and go on separately. Microsoft has the dollars and sheer momentum to go down this path. Ultimately, it will come down to [pure] Linux having just a few main branches to compete with Microsoft.
So really what he is saying is that, as scientists, we should be more vocal as a minority and join together as group that will change the dictates of the majority (as said through yet another minority)?
Microsoft does not give a flying f*** about fans. They care about 10,000+ employee businesses that are MS shops. And even then, they want them to pay for premium level of support.
Even if the total number of MS haters exceed the total number of MS licenses on any given year, MS still goes to the bank with those licenses.
Do they want the haters to become joiners? No, not really. They do however want businesses to buy laptops for their workforce so that work done outside the office is still done with MS products.
Gee...I sometimes wonder how come every subject I submit gets rejected while this dreck gets posted...
Mr. Ken Andrews, of Leighton Road, Slough has concealed himself extremely well. He could be almost anywhere. He could be behind the wall, inside the water barrel, beneath a pile of leaves, up in the tree, squatting down behind the car, concealed in a hollow, or crouched behind any one of a hundred bushes. However, we happen to know he's in the water barrel.
Clearly, Apple wants people to buy it because of it's coolness factor, not because you can create a new environment. Apple is first and foremost proprietary with its goods. Expect an SDK only if someone has found a way to shim the phone OS and opens a hole in the system.
Apple wants you to be free. To be free of independent thought and action. Just drink the kool-aid, it tastes great and makes you look hip at the same time!
and said don't bother. Zombie-robot Microsoft President-for-Life Ballmer stuns the world of 2021 that he indeed owns the patents for time travel (both Windows and Linux versions).
Instead my future self tells me that I am very wealthy because I [will] license my genome to some guy named Palpatine...
I could have used it upside your head but I choose not to at this moment. But I could.
This is worse than FUD, it's an outright threat. By simply announcing you could sue, challenges large business into accepting risk. To the person in the trenches, they know Microsoft's got nothing. However to the CEO and the CIO, the same people who move a company forward, this is a challenge to their capital expense planning. They see the threat of lawsuit and immedietely classifiy that as risk.
How to mitigate it? Unfortunately you don't. Because it is the idea of lawsuit you cannot work around this risk unless you avoid it altogether. And this is what Microsoft is banking on. And by avoiding Linux for this year and next in capital planning, you avoid implementation of Linux in a corporate environment for at least three years. And by that time, Microsoft is betting that you will have spent so much T&E in their shop that it would be very expensive and time consuming to leave.
As one person trying to migrate off of Windows (XP and Win2K user), I liked the features of Feisty Fawn running from the Live CD that I wanted to install it to the hard drive.
If we want Ubuntu to move forward, the developers need to recognize the thousands of people who will see it as an installation on top of Microsoft instead of getting a fresh clean installed image from Dell. Get these people comfortable and then the others will follow.
If screen four can be made a little more clear of explain that it has detected a Windows OS and lead the user from there, then we have a wonderful comfort level even before they get to see how Linux is so much better than Windows.
For/. readers, this may be a slow and cumbersome process but then again, if you can have the CD help Mom and Dad install Linux instead of you doing it for her, then there is one less family help desk call you have to make. Also, it makes them feel like they can actually maintain and operate there own systems.
Don't worry, they will still love you, even if they don't need your help anymore.
Dell sells a buttload of Ubuntu machines. With what? Certainly not ATI cards.
ATI sees nVidia touting Linux friendly lifestyle with their cards to the newly awakening non-Windows groups (parents, teachers, *egad* politicians) and will then be more responsive. But by then, too late?
By the way, how hard is it for a company to spend the money on five or six Linux developers anyway?
I mean they must be sniffing some sort of gas to think that anything coming out will be blockbusters.
But then again it doesn't have to be fantastic or great or even mediocre to be a success. It just has to perform well enough to turn a profit. And that is good for them.
Quoting Red Hat, how does this differ from my weather app I run on my desktop? Was I "first class" and not know it?
"It will take online services and integrate them richly into a client desktop, and make them first class citizens with the traditional applications," Red Hat's chief technology officer Brian Stevens said in a keynote at the Red Hat Summit in San Diego.
maybe it is not about being bored but more about not wanting to do that crappy assignment your boss wants you to do? Maybe creating a better disk partition method for detecting NTSF, sizing correctly, and loading GRUB efficiently feels better to do than that cover sheet for the TPS report?
People want to feel useful at work. Certainly the greatest percentage doesn't do it for the money so what about doing something useful with your time than being a cog in someone else's soulless business machine?
Quit being disingenuous. We all know what Photobucket is used for. Flickr's cute bunnies, landscapes, and OMG! silliness can never compete against pics of 40 DD's and the latest upskirt of a celebrity.
How much Photobucket traffic comes from a few major sources like Myspace? How many page views does it get per user.
I see links images on Flickr on lots of websites. I cannot remember seeing any to Photobucket.
My guess is that Photobucket has more hits, but Flickr has greater reach.
You see not all problems have been fixed by Apple. I am sure there are many more complaints that have been filed against defective systems. This is just one lone incident.
Jobs right now has issues with US government about stock options. Greenpeace is wailing on him and someone, somewhere told Steve he is losing his coolness factor with the kids. He did what politicians do, choose a photo-op and make good on an issue. In this case, he probably told one of his PAs to pick a disgruntled Apple user and answer their complaint, no questions asked. It doesn't cost the company much, if anything at all, to express this largess, all the while appearing to be in touch with the community.
So there is nothing sinister. There is nothing hidden in the agenda except that one lucky person received what he should have gotten all along just because of Steve needed a little positive spin this week.
Slashdot Mirror
From ye olde wikipedia:
Yeah, yeah, it talks only about radio. But it is the definition for payola. So do we have the same law for other media channels?
And now we have Microsoft paying for blog space. So, you say? Well I don't think it would be such a problem until you stop and think of how other bloggers have consistently maintained to the world that their blog and the material contained in it is protected by free speech, and in many sites, also to fall under consideration as journalism.
I'm sorry, you cannot have both. Either you're a schill for a company and identify yourself as such, or you refuse payments. Is there a law to prefent or that or protect the consumer [reader] of tainted blogs? We won't know until a case comes to trial.
Are there Wiki professionals out there that go around and train people on how to use a wiki? Outstanding! I knew my resume had a blank space that needed filling.
As for the US-based wiki, we may not be professionals but dammit we're a union. Now where did I put that union card anyway...
Maybe he mistook role playing for role playing
So...was he hoping for someone younger?
From what i have gathered by reading columns through the Internet (Internet!=true) is that Mr. Shuttleworth is okay with where he stands in life. He built a business that in turn was bought by Verisign which made him a lot of money. Using some of that money, he created Canonical as a framework for housing the Ubuntu development team.
So does he need to cross license with Microsoft? No. Why bother? He doesn't need the money, his company is small in terms of staff and he set forth a goal which is not to compete directly with Microsoft but a more altruistic level by addressing the computing needs of people in general. Hence the African word, Ubuntu, which means 'Humanity to others', or 'I am what I am because of who we all are.'
With the latest level, 7.04, Canonical has made great strides in what I call the 'YMAD' (Your Mom and Dad's) environment. Using the Live CD, you can run the Ubuntu OS from the CD upon booting. Except for some encrypted wireless schemes, this OS basically runs well for the YMADs without us geeks stepping in to play help desk. But again, there are issues so it is not perfect. Installing the OS from the CD needs work as well.
Shuttleworth has taken the high road in his blog to state that he is pursuing an free (as in beer) Ubuntu or nothing configuration, meaning all apps, runtimes, and codecs are free according to GPL. And he is right to do so. By maintaining a clear Ubuntu track, this OS does not get bogged down in maintaining cross licensing or product dependencies. However there is one big dependency - Debian.
Debian must not sell out to Microsoft or Ubuntu will have a very rough road ahead. And for Debian not go with Microsoft will take the whole community to back it.
The ramifications? Microsoft is picking up the Linux stragglers from the herd. While in of itself is basically harmless to the Linux community, an aggregate of Linux distros may in effect encircle the community and slow it down due to the time it takes to fork and go on separately. Microsoft has the dollars and sheer momentum to go down this path. Ultimately, it will come down to [pure] Linux having just a few main branches to compete with Microsoft.
NUTS.
Signed,
Mark Shuttleworth
So really what he is saying is that, as scientists, we should be more vocal as a minority and join together as group that will change the dictates of the majority (as said through yet another minority)?
I swear, those guys down there weigh my kilos short every time.
Microsoft does not give a flying f*** about fans. They care about 10,000+ employee businesses that are MS shops. And even then, they want them to pay for premium level of support.
Even if the total number of MS haters exceed the total number of MS licenses on any given year, MS still goes to the bank with those licenses.
Do they want the haters to become joiners? No, not really. They do however want businesses to buy laptops for their workforce so that work done outside the office is still done with MS products.
Gee...I sometimes wonder how come every subject I submit gets rejected while this dreck gets posted...
[BOOM!]
This demonstrates the value of not being seen.
Clearly, Apple wants people to buy it because of it's coolness factor, not because you can create a new environment. Apple is first and foremost proprietary with its goods. Expect an SDK only if someone has found a way to shim the phone OS and opens a hole in the system.
Apple wants you to be free. To be free of independent thought and action. Just drink the kool-aid, it tastes great and makes you look hip at the same time!
and said don't bother. Zombie-robot Microsoft President-for-Life Ballmer stuns the world of 2021 that he indeed owns the patents for time travel (both Windows and Linux versions).
Instead my future self tells me that I am very wealthy because I [will] license my genome to some guy named Palpatine...
It's the planet drain hole? That's why they all died off because some knucklehead pulled the plug.
And they call themselves scientists.
Doesn't anybody use a coaster these days?
And when I use a solvent to clean it, will it "melt" what's on the screen?
a dithering blonde to me.
I could have used it upside your head but I choose not to at this moment. But I could.
This is worse than FUD, it's an outright threat. By simply announcing you could sue, challenges large business into accepting risk. To the person in the trenches, they know Microsoft's got nothing. However to the CEO and the CIO, the same people who move a company forward, this is a challenge to their capital expense planning. They see the threat of lawsuit and immedietely classifiy that as risk.
How to mitigate it? Unfortunately you don't. Because it is the idea of lawsuit you cannot work around this risk unless you avoid it altogether. And this is what Microsoft is banking on. And by avoiding Linux for this year and next in capital planning, you avoid implementation of Linux in a corporate environment for at least three years. And by that time, Microsoft is betting that you will have spent so much T&E in their shop that it would be very expensive and time consuming to leave.
Triple that amount of cash. Or more. Or your life. Or, the well being of those you love.
You get the point.
Ubuntu is brown and Dell is blue! Jeebus, how will they ever get over that hump?
Hmmm...Isn't Kubuntu blue?
As one person trying to migrate off of Windows (XP and Win2K user), I liked the features of Feisty Fawn running from the Live CD that I wanted to install it to the hard drive.
If we want Ubuntu to move forward, the developers need to recognize the thousands of people who will see it as an installation on top of Microsoft instead of getting a fresh clean installed image from Dell. Get these people comfortable and then the others will follow.
If screen four can be made a little more clear of explain that it has detected a Windows OS and lead the user from there, then we have a wonderful comfort level even before they get to see how Linux is so much better than Windows.
For /. readers, this may be a slow and cumbersome process but then again, if you can have the CD help Mom and Dad install Linux instead of you doing it for her, then there is one less family help desk call you have to make. Also, it makes them feel like they can actually maintain and operate there own systems.
Don't worry, they will still love you, even if they don't need your help anymore.
MIT Media Lab made Programming Fun For Adults
Dell sells a buttload of Ubuntu machines. With what? Certainly not ATI cards.
ATI sees nVidia touting Linux friendly lifestyle with their cards to the newly awakening non-Windows groups (parents, teachers, *egad* politicians) and will then be more responsive. But by then, too late?
By the way, how hard is it for a company to spend the money on five or six Linux developers anyway?
I mean they must be sniffing some sort of gas to think that anything coming out will be blockbusters.
But then again it doesn't have to be fantastic or great or even mediocre to be a success. It just has to perform well enough to turn a profit. And that is good for them.
Hmmm...lemme have a sniff at that gas, too.
My Ubuntu console? I kid, I kid.
Quoting Red Hat, how does this differ from my weather app I run on my desktop? Was I "first class" and not know it?
maybe it is not about being bored but more about not wanting to do that crappy assignment your boss wants you to do? Maybe creating a better disk partition method for detecting NTSF, sizing correctly, and loading GRUB efficiently feels better to do than that cover sheet for the TPS report?
People want to feel useful at work. Certainly the greatest percentage doesn't do it for the money so what about doing something useful with your time than being a cog in someone else's soulless business machine?
Quit being disingenuous. We all know what Photobucket is used for. Flickr's cute bunnies, landscapes, and OMG! silliness can never compete against pics of 40 DD's and the latest upskirt of a celebrity.
You see not all problems have been fixed by Apple. I am sure there are many more complaints that have been filed against defective systems. This is just one lone incident.
Jobs right now has issues with US government about stock options. Greenpeace is wailing on him and someone, somewhere told Steve he is losing his coolness factor with the kids. He did what politicians do, choose a photo-op and make good on an issue. In this case, he probably told one of his PAs to pick a disgruntled Apple user and answer their complaint, no questions asked. It doesn't cost the company much, if anything at all, to express this largess, all the while appearing to be in touch with the community.
So there is nothing sinister. There is nothing hidden in the agenda except that one lucky person received what he should have gotten all along just because of Steve needed a little positive spin this week.