The only technical things that are clearly defined, are the specific existing known product names and project codenames.
There is no entry in the list for "Internet browser," a term which Microsoft has steadfastly (and fairly reasonably) said they require, in order to know what their new boundaries would be.
For example, given the definition of "Middleware," it is hard to tell exactly what CAN be included in operating systems in the future. Is the "Windows Explorer" (not Internet Explorer) a Default Middleware product? You can use Norton Desktop or other OEM-produced item to avoid using it, but with no local file browsing at all, what use is the OS to the average person? Is the command line component CMD.EXE/COMMAND.COM (et al), a Middleware product?
7q. "Middleware" means software that operates, directly or through other software, between an Operating System and another type of software (such as an application, a server Operating System, or a database management system) by offering services via APIs or Communications Interfaces to such other software, and could, if ported to or interoperable with multiple Operating Systems, enable software products written for that Middleware to be run on multiple Operating System Products. Examples of Middleware within the meaning of this Final Judgment include Internet browsers, e-mail client software, multimedia viewing software, Office, and the Java Virtual Machine. Examples of software that are not Middleware within the meaning of this Final Judgment are disk compression and memory management.
Looking at Windows today (or any other Operating System), what fits the definition of Middleware? Everything above the kernel, and even some parts OF the kernel, could be construed as Middleware. The fact that Microsoft has, in the past, ported the majority of the Win16 API to the Macintosh (Windows on Mac), strengthens this argument.
If I were a devious Microsoft, I'd turn the Operating Systems Business into a company that produced,
disk compression [sic],
memory management,
a way to boot into a "compliant" Middleware product such as, say, USER32.EXE.
Everything else would be a part of the Applications Business, charged with developing such Middleware as,
Video device management,
Graphics rendering facilities,
Keyboard device management,
Pointing device management,
Network device management,
Installation management,
Application loading,
Registry management,
Library management,
BackOffice,
Protocol management,
Debugging interface,
SQL Server,
Window management,
Desktop management,
Shell interface,
User preferences,
Java Virtual Machines,
Office,
Internet browser.
All that the Operating Systems Business would have to do is develop interfaceless devices such as XBox, and headless/rack servers.
I think news stories about attacks are like news stories about any calamity. Earthquakes, terrorist activity, draughts, illegal-alien smugglings, LAPD scandals, whatever.
There isn't really a larger number of tornados per year, looking at the big picture. There are more people, settling in more areas, so more people reporting heretofore-unseen tornados.
If a couple stories are on the same topic in a short time, a news service will develop a "focus" on such stories, and will pick those out from the newsfeeds like Associated Press.
When it comes to people-induced tragedy, the news stories generate a lot of copy-cats. Columbine, Melissa, Oklahoma City, the list goes on.
The fact that the news services sensationalize the stories, with big numbers ($5 billion cost, blah blah), it's worse. Those big numbers are what businesses are putting in their claims forms for insurance claims against lost business, whether they really lost that much business or not.
Okay, we don't know enough about the situation, but why is everyone assuming the target account was killed or terminated? The leader on the story says SUSPENDED, which in my mind, indicates a temporary state of affairs.
If someone were causing my ISP grief due to a DDoS, even if it were directed at MY account, I'd hope the ISP would take the most prudent course of action: down the account or machine for a little while to let the kiddies feel they've won. Explain to the apparent target what happened, and explain what it will take to keep within good service agreements with the ISP.
(Suspend versus Terminate? =anagram> Instruments served pause. Massive PUT-ness returned. Invests prudent measures. )
US Interstate Gambling prohibitions http://www.compar.com/news/news1vs11.html The United States leaves the legality of gambling (gaming) up to the states. To allow one state to outlaw it while another state condones it, a complex web of federal legislation makes interstate gambling illegal, until the casino lobby petitions for another loophole. This isn't just between casinos, the Feds and you: VISA and MasterCard have been sued for allowing illegal transactions, as if they could monitor it.
International Free Speech prohibitions http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~sha llit/afraid.html "Here are just a few of the historical limits to freedom of speech that many countries have imposed: Libel and slander. Obscenity. National security. Invasion of privacy. False advertising. Age limits. Solicitation of murder. Fraud."
Providers such as CompuServe and Yahoo! have already become familiar with the technical and legislative issues of geographical censorship. If Yahoo! has a presence as a company in France, the corporate whole will likely move to follow the restrictions that a French court may impose, as far as they're technically able.
It's been said before, but people don't seem to get it. The US Constitution's First Amendment just guarantees that the US Government won't unduly hinder free speech. It says nothing about what your employer or service provider may choose to hinder, it says nothing about what International Law may choose to hinder.
(The Internet is not borderless. =anagram> Distort the terrible nonsense.)
Bill Gates has often dismissed his wealth, calling it infinite in practical terms since he'd never be able to spend it all. He also points out that it's only when you take these paper stock options and multiply it out, that you get this huge scary number. He could lose 80% of all his "net worth" tomorrow and still not have a change in his standard of living.
While I think Microsoft or any other company needs to be taken back a notch whenever the company transgresses the larger good, I do not think that stock price is a good target.
I've worked for several good companies. I've worked for several bad companies. I know that there are hundreds, thousands, even millions of people who are working, ethically, in companies of all flavors. Affecting their net worth by 80% downward means that ramen noodles and broth is for dinner.
Everyone who invests knows that there's a time to leave a stock. If I thought that the majority of Microsoft was doing the wrong thing, I'd sell, not sell out. Those who invest their paychecks into their employers' ESPPs and 401k's, well, they want their company to succeed. "Roblimo" was right, there are a lot of very good people at Microsoft. They pay local taxes, they start non-profit organizations to support their communities, they spend NASDAQ:MSFT short-term and long-term capital gains on their fellow Seattlite and American friends and families.
Lastly, many current advice-givers see NASDAQ:MSFT as a "buy," because it's got lots of products coming up, it's a political, financial and technical leader (whether you like it or not), and it's near its 52-week low.
Perhaps I should use 'Socratic Irony': Was there a reason you cut-and-pasted the third dictionary source listed by www.dictionary.com, instead of the first (which supports my thesis)? Perhaps only your definition matters to you?
Or maybe I should adopt your mocking form of 'irony': I totally missed that bit about Hemos feigning ignorance in the story about DoubleClick. You're right. He certainly used the term properly.
How about this usage note fom The American Heritage Dictionary?
The words ironic, irony, and ironically are sometimes used of events and circumstances that might better be described as simply "coincidental" or "improbable," in that they suggest no particular lessons about human vanity or folly. Thus 78 percent of the Usage Panel rejects the use of ironically in the sentence In 1969 Susie moved from Ithaca to California where she met her husband-to-be, who, ironically, also came from upstate New York (though some Panelists noted that this particular usage might be acceptable if Susie had in fact moved to California in order to find a husband, in which case the story could be taken as exemplifying the folly of supposing that we can know what fate has in store for us). By contrast, 73 percent accepted the sentence Ironically, even as the government was fulminating against American policy, American jeans and videocassettes were the hottest items in the stalls of the market, where the incongruity can be seen as an example of human inconsistency.
Lastly, let's not confuse 'dramatic irony,' the leading of an audience to see incongruity (without the actors noting the incongruity); my off-topic rant is not ironic in the least.
Hemos, Alanis Morrissette, any local news anchorman, and everyone else who can't go a couple days without using the word 'ironic':
That which you call irony is NOT irony.
It's coincidence, or meaningful juxtaposition. In Arsenio Hall's words, they're just things that make you go "hmm."
Irony is very rare. It's when things are OPPOSITES, CONTRASTED, and UNEXPECTED.
It was ironic that Ted Kaczynski thought the world would be a better place without technology, but he was caught when his UNABOMBer's Manifesto was published on the Internet. It was coincidence that it happened to be his own brother who recognized the writing and turned him in.
Quoted: Let me tell you, it is painful watching a 3,000+ page Word97 manuscript, the fruit of weeks of hard labor, rendered into rubbish by my customer's Word95. I've missed deadlines, lost money, and will never forgive Microsoft for their abuse of me and my kind.
I'm not going to get into the debate about "open" standards, XML vs proprietary format, or whether Microsoft is somehow evil.
I will say that if you prepared 3000 pages in a format that your client wasn't able to use, it's your fault. Stand up and do the legwork to understand your client's needs. If your client had the same version of Word, or you started with a copy of their version of Word, it wouldn't have mangled your "weeks of hard work." If you need critical compatibility, preview using exactly the same set of operating system, software, fonts, video drivers, printer drivers, paper and ink cartridges that they will use.
Applications extend their format all the time. I can't load a Photoshop 5.0 document into version 1.0 without problems. I can't load an HTML 2.0 compliant page into an HTML 1.0 compliant browser without problems.
The same thing would happen even if Microsoft was 100% XML 1.0 compliant, as soon as people made XML 2.0 documents.
It's your responsibility to provide the results for your client; stop blaming the tools. Get tools that will provide the results your clients want. "Gee, my hammer's left-handed, that's why I need to start your kitchen cabinets all over again."
(New file formats are not new. =anagram> Lament, now refine software.)
Give me a break. This is just a stupid story to fill space and generate a lot of banal arguments about nothing.
If the Judge wore sneakers with holes through them, it would say nothing of the judgements he made.
If the Judge drove a Fiat, it would not suggest bias or improper legal process.
If the Judge wired her decision to the clerk's office using Handspring or Linux or BeOS, it would not aid nor hinder the quality of justice.
And if the laptop in question burned up because it wasn't using a low-heat Transmeta chip, but was instead slogging away at slashdot-impoverished microsoft-laden Dell/Intel circuitry instead, the criminals would just have to wait for a handwritten slip to meet their legal fates.
(Judge, not Computer, is Interpreter of Law =anagram> Mature projection upsetting free world.)
"About Face" is one of Alan Cooper's earliest books. It's a bit raw, and I found a few disagreements with him, but in general, it's got a lot of wisdom.
I don't have his current book's title, but it would also be a solid read on interfaces.
Alan Cooper started Cooper Interaction Design as a consulting firm that specializes in optimizing any human-machine interaction. They've helped with cell phones, programmable toys, word processors, hospital records management vertical databases, you name it. They don't write the code. They help you build the RIGHT interface for YOUR application.
Cooper has trademarked the term, "Rich Visual Modeless Feedback." Rich: lots of it; Visual: seen on the screen; Modeless: doesn't interrupt you; Feedback: lets you see what the computer thinks. A classic example is the red squiggly underline in Microsoft Word: it happens automatically, you see it, you know the word is misspelled, it doesn't interrupt you, you can go back to it when you want to.
There's two sides to any interface. In computer user interfaces, the computer and the human should be considered in an implicit partnership to get the human's tasks done.
In essence:
The Computer should be able to figure out what the Human is thinking, and
The Human should be able to figure out what the Computer is thinking.
Alan likes to say things like "Don't make the user feel stupid!" By that, he means situations where the computer program seems to delight in stopping the user's flow, just to pop up annoying messages. Or they can't seem to remember the user's preferences.
Anyone who has used a computer before, bitches loudly at the Win95 default setting of showing subdirectory contents without a tree view.
As it turns out, in many useability studies, some Microsoft, some not, it turns out that a frightening percentage of people (even existing computer users) were unable to grasp the concept of a hierarchy. They just can't get it. Win95 hides the tree by default, since people can get used to "click this, click that, click that," sequences, much like driving-by-landmark.
One of Microsoft's aphorisms, which unfortunately they fail to follow, goes something like:
Make the everyday tasks simple; make the more complicated tasks possible.
Wolfenstein 3D was a re-exploration of a concept created for the Apple II, "Castle Wolfenstein."
Creating a new adaptation from an existing concept is always a risky proposition. The original creators lose their hold on a possible money-maker (Virtual Defender, or Space Invaders 2000, for hypothetical examples), if the image of the original concept has been hurt by cheap clones.
(On the shoulders of Giants =anagram> ... onto this dangerous shelf, The foulness tarnish Good)
Of course they're going to revise the DirectX API.
Four years ago, the gamut of hardware graphics acceleration features was quite limited. Texture mapping. Displacement mapping. Environment mapping. MIP mapping. Alpha mapping. Specularity mapping. (The only people who had heard the word "specularity" in 1990 were writing raytracing dissertations on SGIs and Crays for SIGgraph.) Of course the API has had to grow in that time.
Microsoft's OS sells a lot of games. Sue them. (Oh, you are? Fine.) In 1983, there were not 150 million computers out there with twitch-happy game playing buyers. Microsoft phased out MS DOS because it was way too limiting; it needed to add SOME games-oriented APIs to Windows. Maybe not the best, but it beat writing a 700Kb real-mode app trying to page 128Kb of video ram at a time.
Hardware manufacturers are optimizing and revising their whole approach to many features, and the API tries to both abstractify and follow these implementations. That leads to a very ugly API but at least the programmer has access to the hardware's features.
The DirectX API keeps generation-numbers on the API so that old games aren't obsoleted. When a new generation of API comes out, the whole universe of available hardware features has changed. Bugs fixed. Concepts abstracted and simplified.
The DirectX API has tried to incorporate software emulation of each compelling feature that a hundred hardware vendors add to their products. This (1) enables more games to sell, since games aren't dependent on the ONE current card that supports wizzy-feature-foo, and (2) enables more hardware to sell, since players want to upgrade from emulated-wizzy-feature-foo to accelerated-wizzy-feature-foo.
Hardware comes out every couple weeks, and people don't buy hardware if apps can't use it. Hardware producers don't like funding the software development process, but need to get their hardware sold.
Games live on a nine-month life cycle. (18 month gestation, nine months on the shelf, not too good, eh?) The game industry needs to reinvent itself every season, or game companies die. Diablo is antiquated before Diablo II can be released.
(Anecdote: one reason Win95 went to unidrivers instead of hardware-supplied monolithic drivers was ATI's horrible track record for writing software. ATI released to all customers over fifteen versions for the same rev of the same card within a month or so. Each driver rev broke some OTHER feature of Windows 3.1 GDI, regressed back to bugs they'd fixed earlier, and rarely fixed the bugs they were trying to fix.)
Six revisions may seem big to you, but it's not unusual for that industry. I wish they did fewer revs, too. Then again, think back: Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM, DOOM II, Quake, Quake II, Quake III.
(Six revisions in four years =anagram> I vary, or in seriousness, fix.)
I've seen several posts here today, suggesting that the way to "turn around" Pinkerton's WAVE America plans, is to bury them with false random reports.
Remember, that's your cheerleader daughter that you're reporting at random. That's your chess-club son who will be labeled as dangerous by false reports. That's your best friend whose life will be changed for the worse because somebody sent a false tip to the authorities. These are innocent kids out there, and you'd be making the problem worse, not turning around peoples' opinions.
The analogy would be exactly what was depicted in the movie and book, the Wave: let's make a bunch of neonazis, to show that the Reich was a bad thing. Let's put people on death row falsely, to show the death penalty has problems in judicial review. Let's kill a bunch of people of race X, to show that genocide isn't what we're looking for.
Spam will never be the answer. Sing along, it's a mantra. Never attack another person's computer. Never scrawl "j0o r 0wnd!" on another company's website. Never flood some email box just because you disagree with them.
Read the Linux Advocacy HOWTO. Learn to debate ethically, instead of hiding in the shadows showing off l33t skills. Show reason in the face of unreason; in time, you will be respected.
Send polite letters to each of your congressional representatives, and to each of your local school board members. State that you're very concerned that programs like WAVE America are moving in exactly the opposite direction from the one that YOU want YOUR school system to take.
(Spam will never be the answer! =anagram> New interval-blasphemers, we. Embellish new WAVE partners.)
The movies will be released on a three year train. While I think it's cool to draw it out, I liked the faster releases of "Back to the Future" and the rerelease of "Star Wars IV-VI".
I recall the big gap between Star Wars movies in my childhood, and it was way too spread. Almost all interest had died out in one before the next one began.
As for LotR, I wonder what they'll do to boost the second volume, "The Two Towers." Most people find that volume to be a hard bridge to cross between the more exciting introduction and conclusion volumes. Lots of very important things happen in TT, but it holds less interest if you're not interested in war strategy.
The human Riders of the Rohirrim, who knew nearly nothing about the saga of the Rings, but were next-door neighbors to the smooth charlatan, Saruman. It was Saruman's Uruk-hai (white hand) orc armies that were defeated on the Plains of the Pellenor.
Sauron's orc army remained in Mordor, until there was a clash at the front gates; this was fought by the humans of Gondor.
Elves don't breed like rabbits, humans do. Elves were giving up on life, waning in power and will to go on. Rivendell was an outpost, and Lothlorien was an enclave.
It has been years since I picked the books up, but I self-studied it pretty deeply at the time. If I'm inaccurate here, forgive.
While Tolkien steadfastly denied any metaphor for WWII politics, many scholars tied the Shire to England, the Elves to France, Mordor to Germany, Saruman's Orthanc to Japan, and the Rohirrim/Gondor pair as USA's two-fronted war.
I suggest that anyone who thinks that NASDAQ:MSFT is really hurting, step over to your favorite financial site. My fave is www.fool.com.
Work up a chart of MSFT stock price over the three year period that this DOJ case has been "haunting" investors and major stock-holders like Paul.
I did a neat little overlay for all you Andover fans (ANDN). It's been a plummeting stone since it opened. I added on RedHat (RHAT), and it looks like the path of a Scud missile. Up to dizzying heights, then a fall back to its opening neighborhood.
Some of Paul Allen's holdings, as found on this site on www.friends-partners.org:
Paul Allen ranks as the third-richest American with a fortune estimated at $7.5 billion.
Paul Allen owns a majority stake in TicketMaster
Paul Allen owns a chunk of Egghead Software (150 stores), and PetSmart retail businesses (397 stores internationally).
He has holdings in StarWave, Dreamworks SKG, and Trilobye Software.
He has six acres on the not-cheap Lake Washington coastline, 60 acres on the lake closer to Boeing for a business site, and 385 acres for a "family retreat" on the beautiful San Juan islands near Victoria Canada.
He buys and sells companies weekly. I doubt the MSFT "slump" (gee, back to the December 99 price) affected his decision to sell off holdings in a small one-product toy company.
The language of the 1st Amendment is clear. "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech..."... one can not yell "Fire" in a crowded theatre. As long as a constitutionally-protected right does not come in conflict with another constitutionally-protected right, it is absolute.
Just because Congress cannot pass a law abridging certain forms of speech does not mean the speech is protected from the courts. Congress != Courts.
If you yell FIRE! in a crowded place, you are willfully creating a public hazard; people will panic, people will rush around disorientedly, people will get hurt. By doing such a thing, you are acting against other peoples' rights, and are thus open to civil and criminal misconduct charges.
The speech is only one component of the act. The use of the speech for effect is still open for prosecution.
Saying "Here is an encryption algorithm, expressed in English, Sanskrit and Java" is protected. Saying "Here is a method to decimate people's hard drives with a virus, expressed in English, Sanskrit and Java" is protected.
Using either algorithm, or employing a computer to use the algorithm, to damage other people's property or to circumvent other standing laws, is not protected by the Constitution, and is therefore open game for any legislation enacted by Congress, Statute or Code; and to any civil damage arguments as well.
It's not the stability of the OS that is the issue of the case.
It's not the fight between "openness" and "closedness" of the source code.
It's not the quality of the software that was offered by the competition.
The judge has now ruled that Microsoft was acting outside the law when Microsoft added an Internet web browser component to their operating system.
They were not deemed outside the law when Windows 2.1 included the "Multiple Document Interface" that was implemented first in Microsoft Word. They weren't scoffed by a judge when Windows implemented TrueType font technology after Adobe Type Manager kept crashing the graphics layer of Windows 3.0. Nobody questioned the ethics of bundling a thousand generic "uni" drivers for printers, video and modem cards onto the Windows 3.1 installation disks, which meant that hardware could run without millions of calls to hardware manufacturers for updated drivers. Not a soul whispered 'contempt' when Windows 95 included the Rich Edit control, that simple thing (again from Word) that allowed *any* app writer to develop a program that understood italics and boldface.
But when Microsoft adds an HTML rendering control, and a URL underlining text style, to its operating system, it is deemed against the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.
Nevermind that all the Windows app writers outside of Utah commend the addition to the standard libraries of code features.
Let us, by extension, tell Ford that they must now de-package the Ford-made windshield component from their cars; we wish to bolster competition and let all the other mom and pop windshield manufacturers a chance at that market. After all, the windshield is hardly a requisite feature for an automobile? Tires, motor and seat, that's all you're allowed now, Ford.
sub tabloid { my $c1 = pick(qw(World National Super Hollywood)); my $c2 = pick(qw(Weekly Daily Informative True)); my $c3 = pick(qw(News Scoop Info Secrets Insider));
"$c1 $c2 $c3"; }
print "The " . tabloid() . " is running a story today, about ";
The first example of in-orbit advertising that I remember (other than country flags) is a movie teaser for Arnold Schwarzenegger's weak Last Action Hero, a huge poster affixed to the side of some payload.
With the breakup of Iridium, though, come new possibilities.
squelch Endeavor Captain, ready to task Iridium #20 through #30. static Roger, Marketing Officer.
squelch Iridium #20 and #21 away, flaring letter Lima over India. static Roger, Lima.
squelch Iridium #22 away, flaring letter Indigo over Indonesia. static Roger, Indigo.
squelch Iridium #23, #24, #25 away, flaring letter November over Hawaii. static Roger, November.
squelch Iridium #26, #27, #28 away, flaring letter Uniform over Hawaii. static Roger, Uniform.
squelch Iridium #29, #30 away, flaring letter X-Ray over California. static Roger, X-Ray.
squelch Iridium #20 through #30 completed, Captain. Message Lima Indigo November Uniform X-Ray spelled in the sky over the Pacific.
static Roger, orbit over Europe in fifteen minutes for another eleven Iridium satellites to spell LINUX there. Out.
(In-Orbit Advertising =anagram> It is arriving on debt.)
Tight fiscal quarters?
on
Intel Roadmap
·
· Score: 2
Perhaps it is referring to fiscal quarter 3, of fiscal year 2000? If Intel's fiscal years start in July of the previous year, then tomorrow is the last day of 3Q2000.
Microsoft works out a license arrangement, and the hardware vendor does the porting code of the very few bits of native code.
It's the hardware vendors who have given up on their own WinNT ports... MIPS and DEC.
The only hardware Microsoft has been interested in, is the hardware which the typical end-user would put their grubby mitts on. First, Apple BASIC cards (when every end-user knew what a PCB was). Then mice. A short-lived i186 booster card. Millions of more mice. Trackball. More mice. A few gaming devices. More mice. Now the X-Box. Common thread: grubby mitts of the unwashed masses.
I'm not flamebaiting here. Linux may be cool, Linux may have superior traits in some regards, but as a whole, Linux has a lot to learn about offering products to the winning markets. 'Cuz there's only two winning markets: business-to-business (Why should I trust you with my billion-dollar mission-critical apps? You don't even have the money to pay for software!*) and mass-market (I don't even know how to turn the dang thing on!**)
* Suits don't care about how kewl something is. They don't want to be surprised. They don't want risk. They want to do it just like the other guy does it, except with a somehow better profit margin.
** If you say you've never heard someone say this exact line, you're lying.
Slashdot Mirror
Whoa, now.
The only technical things that are clearly defined, are the specific existing known product names and project codenames.
There is no entry in the list for "Internet browser," a term which Microsoft has steadfastly (and fairly reasonably) said they require, in order to know what their new boundaries would be.
For example, given the definition of "Middleware," it is hard to tell exactly what CAN be included in operating systems in the future. Is the "Windows Explorer" (not Internet Explorer) a Default Middleware product? You can use Norton Desktop or other OEM-produced item to avoid using it, but with no local file browsing at all, what use is the OS to the average person? Is the command line component CMD.EXE/COMMAND.COM (et al), a Middleware product?
Looking at Windows today (or any other Operating System), what fits the definition of Middleware? Everything above the kernel, and even some parts OF the kernel, could be construed as Middleware. The fact that Microsoft has, in the past, ported the majority of the Win16 API to the Macintosh (Windows on Mac), strengthens this argument.
If I were a devious Microsoft, I'd turn the Operating Systems Business into a company that produced,
Everything else would be a part of the Applications Business, charged with developing such Middleware as,
All that the Operating Systems Business would have to do is develop interfaceless devices such as XBox, and headless/rack servers.
What do you want to install today?
I think news stories about attacks are like news stories about any calamity. Earthquakes, terrorist activity, draughts, illegal-alien smugglings, LAPD scandals, whatever.
There isn't really a larger number of tornados per year, looking at the big picture. There are more people, settling in more areas, so more people reporting heretofore-unseen tornados.
If a couple stories are on the same topic in a short time, a news service will develop a "focus" on such stories, and will pick those out from the newsfeeds like Associated Press.
When it comes to people-induced tragedy, the news stories generate a lot of copy-cats. Columbine, Melissa, Oklahoma City, the list goes on.
The fact that the news services sensationalize the stories, with big numbers ($5 billion cost, blah blah), it's worse. Those big numbers are what businesses are putting in their claims forms for insurance claims against lost business, whether they really lost that much business or not.
Okay, we don't know enough about the situation, but why is everyone assuming the target account was killed or terminated? The leader on the story says SUSPENDED , which in my mind, indicates a temporary state of affairs.
If someone were causing my ISP grief due to a DDoS, even if it were directed at MY account, I'd hope the ISP would take the most prudent course of action: down the account or machine for a little while to let the kiddies feel they've won. Explain to the apparent target what happened, and explain what it will take to keep within good service agreements with the ISP.
(Suspend versus Terminate? =anagram>
Instruments served pause.
Massive PUT-ness returned.
Invests prudent measures. )
US Interstate Gambling prohibitions
http://www.compar.com/news/news1vs11.html
The United States leaves the legality of gambling (gaming) up to the states. To allow one state to outlaw it while another state condones it, a complex web of federal legislation makes interstate gambling illegal, until the casino lobby petitions for another loophole. This isn't just between casinos, the Feds and you: VISA and MasterCard have been sued for allowing illegal transactions, as if they could monitor it.
International Free Speech prohibitions
http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~sha llit/afraid.html
"Here are just a few of the historical limits to freedom of speech that many countries have imposed: Libel and slander. Obscenity. National security. Invasion of privacy. False advertising. Age limits. Solicitation of murder. Fraud."
Providers such as CompuServe and Yahoo! have already become familiar with the technical and legislative issues of geographical censorship. If Yahoo! has a presence as a company in France, the corporate whole will likely move to follow the restrictions that a French court may impose, as far as they're technically able.
It's been said before, but people don't seem to get it. The US Constitution's First Amendment just guarantees that the US Government won't unduly hinder free speech. It says nothing about what your employer or service provider may choose to hinder, it says nothing about what International Law may choose to hinder.
(The Internet is not borderless. =anagram>
Distort the terrible nonsense.)
While I think Microsoft or any other company needs to be taken back a notch whenever the company transgresses the larger good, I do not think that stock price is a good target.
I've worked for several good companies. I've worked for several bad companies. I know that there are hundreds, thousands, even millions of people who are working, ethically, in companies of all flavors. Affecting their net worth by 80% downward means that ramen noodles and broth is for dinner.
Everyone who invests knows that there's a time to leave a stock. If I thought that the majority of Microsoft was doing the wrong thing, I'd sell, not sell out. Those who invest their paychecks into their employers' ESPPs and 401k's, well, they want their company to succeed. "Roblimo" was right, there are a lot of very good people at Microsoft. They pay local taxes, they start non-profit organizations to support their communities, they spend NASDAQ:MSFT short-term and long-term capital gains on their fellow Seattlite and American friends and families.
Lastly, many current advice-givers see NASDAQ:MSFT as a "buy," because it's got lots of products coming up, it's a political, financial and technical leader (whether you like it or not), and it's near its 52-week low.
Perhaps I should use 'Socratic Irony': Was there a reason you cut-and-pasted the third dictionary source listed by www.dictionary.com, instead of the first (which supports my thesis)? Perhaps only your definition matters to you?
Or maybe I should adopt your mocking form of 'irony': I totally missed that bit about Hemos feigning ignorance in the story about DoubleClick. You're right. He certainly used the term properly.
How about this usage note fom The American Heritage Dictionary?
The words ironic, irony, and ironically are sometimes used of events and circumstances that might better be described as simply "coincidental" or "improbable," in that they suggest no particular lessons about human vanity or folly. Thus 78 percent of the Usage Panel rejects the use of ironically in the sentence In 1969 Susie moved from Ithaca to California where she met her husband-to-be, who, ironically, also came from upstate New York (though some Panelists noted that this particular usage might be acceptable if Susie had in fact moved to California in order to find a husband, in which case the story could be taken as exemplifying the folly of supposing that we can know what fate has in store for us). By contrast, 73 percent accepted the sentence Ironically, even as the government was fulminating against American policy, American jeans and videocassettes were the hottest items in the stalls of the market, where the incongruity can be seen as an example of human inconsistency.
Lastly, let's not confuse 'dramatic irony,' the leading of an audience to see incongruity (without the actors noting the incongruity); my off-topic rant is not ironic in the least.
That which you call irony is NOT irony.
It's coincidence, or meaningful juxtaposition. In Arsenio Hall's words, they're just things that make you go "hmm."
Irony is very rare. It's when things are OPPOSITES, CONTRASTED, and UNEXPECTED.
It was ironic that Ted Kaczynski thought the world would be a better place without technology, but he was caught when his UNABOMBer's Manifesto was published on the Internet. It was coincidence that it happened to be his own brother who recognized the writing and turned him in.
I'm not going to get into the debate about "open" standards, XML vs proprietary format, or whether Microsoft is somehow evil.
I will say that if you prepared 3000 pages in a format that your client wasn't able to use, it's your fault. Stand up and do the legwork to understand your client's needs. If your client had the same version of Word, or you started with a copy of their version of Word, it wouldn't have mangled your "weeks of hard work." If you need critical compatibility, preview using exactly the same set of operating system, software, fonts, video drivers, printer drivers, paper and ink cartridges that they will use.
Applications extend their format all the time. I can't load a Photoshop 5.0 document into version 1.0 without problems. I can't load an HTML 2.0 compliant page into an HTML 1.0 compliant browser without problems.
The same thing would happen even if Microsoft was 100% XML 1.0 compliant, as soon as people made XML 2.0 documents.
It's your responsibility to provide the results for your client; stop blaming the tools. Get tools that will provide the results your clients want. "Gee, my hammer's left-handed, that's why I need to start your kitchen cabinets all over again."
(New file formats are not new. =anagram>
Lament, now refine software.)
Give me a break. This is just a stupid story to fill space and generate a lot of banal arguments about nothing.
If the Judge wore sneakers with holes through them, it would say nothing of the judgements he made.
If the Judge drove a Fiat, it would not suggest bias or improper legal process.
If the Judge wired her decision to the clerk's office using Handspring or Linux or BeOS, it would not aid nor hinder the quality of justice.
And if the laptop in question burned up because it wasn't using a low-heat Transmeta chip, but was instead slogging away at slashdot-impoverished microsoft-laden Dell/Intel circuitry instead, the criminals would just have to wait for a handwritten slip to meet their legal fates.
(Judge, not Computer, is Interpreter of Law =anagram>
Mature projection upsetting free world.)
I don't have his current book's title, but it would also be a solid read on interfaces.
Alan Cooper started Cooper Interaction Design as a consulting firm that specializes in optimizing any human-machine interaction. They've helped with cell phones, programmable toys, word processors, hospital records management vertical databases, you name it. They don't write the code. They help you build the RIGHT interface for YOUR application.
Cooper has trademarked the term, "Rich Visual Modeless Feedback." Rich: lots of it; Visual: seen on the screen; Modeless: doesn't interrupt you; Feedback: lets you see what the computer thinks. A classic example is the red squiggly underline in Microsoft Word: it happens automatically, you see it, you know the word is misspelled, it doesn't interrupt you, you can go back to it when you want to.
There's two sides to any interface. In computer user interfaces, the computer and the human should be considered in an implicit partnership to get the human's tasks done.
In essence:
Alan likes to say things like "Don't make the user feel stupid!" By that, he means situations where the computer program seems to delight in stopping the user's flow, just to pop up annoying messages. Or they can't seem to remember the user's preferences.
Anyone who has used a computer before, bitches loudly at the Win95 default setting of showing subdirectory contents without a tree view.
As it turns out, in many useability studies, some Microsoft, some not, it turns out that a frightening percentage of people (even existing computer users) were unable to grasp the concept of a hierarchy . They just can't get it. Win95 hides the tree by default, since people can get used to "click this, click that, click that," sequences, much like driving-by-landmark.
One of Microsoft's aphorisms, which unfortunately they fail to follow, goes something like:
Make the everyday tasks simple; make the more complicated tasks possible.
Creating a new adaptation from an existing concept is always a risky proposition. The original creators lose their hold on a possible money-maker (Virtual Defender, or Space Invaders 2000, for hypothetical examples), if the image of the original concept has been hurt by cheap clones.
(On the shoulders of Giants =anagram>
... onto this dangerous shelf,
The foulness tarnish Good)
Of course they're going to revise the DirectX API.
Four years ago, the gamut of hardware graphics acceleration features was quite limited. Texture mapping. Displacement mapping. Environment mapping. MIP mapping. Alpha mapping. Specularity mapping. (The only people who had heard the word "specularity" in 1990 were writing raytracing dissertations on SGIs and Crays for SIGgraph.) Of course the API has had to grow in that time.
Microsoft's OS sells a lot of games. Sue them. (Oh, you are? Fine.) In 1983, there were not 150 million computers out there with twitch-happy game playing buyers. Microsoft phased out MS DOS because it was way too limiting; it needed to add SOME games-oriented APIs to Windows. Maybe not the best, but it beat writing a 700Kb real-mode app trying to page 128Kb of video ram at a time.
Hardware manufacturers are optimizing and revising their whole approach to many features, and the API tries to both abstractify and follow these implementations. That leads to a very ugly API but at least the programmer has access to the hardware's features.
The DirectX API keeps generation-numbers on the API so that old games aren't obsoleted. When a new generation of API comes out, the whole universe of available hardware features has changed. Bugs fixed. Concepts abstracted and simplified.
The DirectX API has tried to incorporate software emulation of each compelling feature that a hundred hardware vendors add to their products. This (1) enables more games to sell, since games aren't dependent on the ONE current card that supports wizzy-feature-foo, and (2) enables more hardware to sell, since players want to upgrade from emulated-wizzy-feature-foo to accelerated-wizzy-feature-foo.
Hardware comes out every couple weeks, and people don't buy hardware if apps can't use it. Hardware producers don't like funding the software development process, but need to get their hardware sold.
Games live on a nine-month life cycle. (18 month gestation, nine months on the shelf, not too good, eh?) The game industry needs to reinvent itself every season, or game companies die. Diablo is antiquated before Diablo II can be released.
(Anecdote: one reason Win95 went to unidrivers instead of hardware-supplied monolithic drivers was ATI's horrible track record for writing software. ATI released to all customers over fifteen versions for the same rev of the same card within a month or so. Each driver rev broke some OTHER feature of Windows 3.1 GDI, regressed back to bugs they'd fixed earlier, and rarely fixed the bugs they were trying to fix.)
Six revisions may seem big to you, but it's not unusual for that industry. I wish they did fewer revs, too. Then again, think back: Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM, DOOM II, Quake, Quake II, Quake III.
(Six revisions in four years =anagram>I vary, or in seriousness, fix.)
I've seen several posts here today, suggesting that the way to "turn around" Pinkerton's WAVE America plans, is to bury them with false random reports.
Remember, that's your cheerleader daughter that you're reporting at random. That's your chess-club son who will be labeled as dangerous by false reports. That's your best friend whose life will be changed for the worse because somebody sent a false tip to the authorities. These are innocent kids out there, and you'd be making the problem worse, not turning around peoples' opinions.
The analogy would be exactly what was depicted in the movie and book, the Wave: let's make a bunch of neonazis, to show that the Reich was a bad thing. Let's put people on death row falsely, to show the death penalty has problems in judicial review. Let's kill a bunch of people of race X, to show that genocide isn't what we're looking for.
Spam will never be the answer . Sing along, it's a mantra. Never attack another person's computer. Never scrawl "j0o r 0wnd!" on another company's website. Never flood some email box just because you disagree with them.
Read the Linux Advocacy HOWTO. Learn to debate ethically, instead of hiding in the shadows showing off l33t skills. Show reason in the face of unreason; in time, you will be respected.
Send polite letters to each of your congressional representatives, and to each of your local school board members. State that you're very concerned that programs like WAVE America are moving in exactly the opposite direction from the one that YOU want YOUR school system to take.
(Spam will never be the answer! =anagram>New interval-blasphemers, we.
Embellish new WAVE partners.)
If I recall, there were no trolls in Lord of the Rings; they're not organized by Mordor.
In the Hobbit, three trolls were kept up past their bedtime, and they turned to stone.
I just want to see their rendition of Shelob. Do it wrong, and that half-goddess giant spider will come off very unbelievably.
I recall the big gap between Star Wars movies in my childhood, and it was way too spread. Almost all interest had died out in one before the next one began.
As for LotR, I wonder what they'll do to boost the second volume, "The Two Towers." Most people find that volume to be a hard bridge to cross between the more exciting introduction and conclusion volumes. Lots of very important things happen in TT, but it holds less interest if you're not interested in war strategy.
The Ents would have had a difficult time with the Great River between Fangorn forest and Mordor.
Two orc battles in LotR.
The human Riders of the Rohirrim, who knew nearly nothing about the saga of the Rings, but were next-door neighbors to the smooth charlatan, Saruman. It was Saruman's Uruk-hai (white hand) orc armies that were defeated on the Plains of the Pellenor.
Sauron's orc army remained in Mordor, until there was a clash at the front gates; this was fought by the humans of Gondor.
Elves don't breed like rabbits, humans do. Elves were giving up on life, waning in power and will to go on. Rivendell was an outpost, and Lothlorien was an enclave.
It has been years since I picked the books up, but I self-studied it pretty deeply at the time. If I'm inaccurate here, forgive.
While Tolkien steadfastly denied any metaphor for WWII politics, many scholars tied the Shire to England, the Elves to France, Mordor to Germany, Saruman's Orthanc to Japan, and the Rohirrim/Gondor pair as USA's two-fronted war.
Work up a chart of MSFT stock price over the three year period that this DOJ case has been "haunting" investors and major stock-holders like Paul.
I did a neat little overlay for all you Andover fans (ANDN). It's been a plummeting stone since it opened. I added on RedHat (RHAT), and it looks like the path of a Scud missile. Up to dizzying heights, then a fall back to its opening neighborhood.
Some of Paul Allen's holdings, as found on this site on www.friends-partners.org:
Paul Allen ranks as the third-richest American with a fortune estimated at $7.5 billion.
Paul Allen owns a majority stake in TicketMaster
Paul Allen owns a chunk of Egghead Software (150 stores), and PetSmart retail businesses (397 stores internationally).
He has holdings in StarWave, Dreamworks SKG, and Trilobye Software.
He has six acres on the not-cheap Lake Washington coastline, 60 acres on the lake closer to Boeing for a business site, and 385 acres for a "family retreat" on the beautiful San Juan islands near Victoria Canada.
He buys and sells companies weekly. I doubt the MSFT "slump" (gee, back to the December 99 price) affected his decision to sell off holdings in a small one-product toy company.
Just because Congress cannot pass a law abridging certain forms of speech does not mean the speech is protected from the courts. Congress != Courts.
If you yell FIRE! in a crowded place, you are willfully creating a public hazard; people will panic, people will rush around disorientedly, people will get hurt. By doing such a thing, you are acting against other peoples' rights, and are thus open to civil and criminal misconduct charges.
The speech is only one component of the act. The use of the speech for effect is still open for prosecution.
Saying "Here is an encryption algorithm, expressed in English, Sanskrit and Java" is protected. Saying "Here is a method to decimate people's hard drives with a virus, expressed in English, Sanskrit and Java" is protected.
Using either algorithm, or employing a computer to use the algorithm, to damage other people's property or to circumvent other standing laws, is not protected by the Constitution, and is therefore open game for any legislation enacted by Congress, Statute or Code; and to any civil damage arguments as well.
It's not the stability of the OS that is the issue of the case.
It's not the fight between "openness" and "closedness" of the source code.
It's not the quality of the software that was offered by the competition.
The judge has now ruled that Microsoft was acting outside the law when Microsoft added an Internet web browser component to their operating system.
They were not deemed outside the law when Windows 2.1 included the "Multiple Document Interface" that was implemented first in Microsoft Word. They weren't scoffed by a judge when Windows implemented TrueType font technology after Adobe Type Manager kept crashing the graphics layer of Windows 3.0. Nobody questioned the ethics of bundling a thousand generic "uni" drivers for printers, video and modem cards onto the Windows 3.1 installation disks, which meant that hardware could run without millions of calls to hardware manufacturers for updated drivers. Not a soul whispered 'contempt' when Windows 95 included the Rich Edit control, that simple thing (again from Word) that allowed *any* app writer to develop a program that understood italics and boldface.
But when Microsoft adds an HTML rendering control, and a URL underlining text style, to its operating system, it is deemed against the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.
Nevermind that all the Windows app writers outside of Utah commend the addition to the standard libraries of code features.
Let us, by extension, tell Ford that they must now de-package the Ford-made windshield component from their cars; we wish to bolster competition and let all the other mom and pop windshield manufacturers a chance at that market. After all, the windshield is hardly a requisite feature for an automobile? Tires, motor and seat, that's all you're allowed now, Ford.
#!/local/bin/perl
sub tabloid
{
my $c1 = pick(qw(World National Super Hollywood));
my $c2 = pick(qw(Weekly Daily Informative True));
my $c3 = pick(qw(News Scoop Info Secrets Insider));
"$c1 $c2 $c3";
}
print "The " . tabloid() . " is running a story today, about ";
#...
We know there's a Zero G Club, but we haven't been told by any reputable source!
singing,
Where the space debris always collects.
We possess, so it seems, two of man's greatest dreams:
Solar power and zero-gee sex.
The first example of in-orbit advertising that I remember (other than country flags) is a movie teaser for Arnold Schwarzenegger's weak Last Action Hero, a huge poster affixed to the side of some payload.
With the breakup of Iridium, though, come new possibilities.
(In-Orbit Advertising =anagram>squelch Endeavor Captain, ready to task Iridium #20 through #30.
static Roger, Marketing Officer.
squelch Iridium #20 and #21 away, flaring letter Lima over India.
static Roger, Lima.
squelch Iridium #22 away, flaring letter Indigo over Indonesia.
static Roger, Indigo.
squelch Iridium #23, #24, #25 away, flaring letter November over Hawaii.
static Roger, November.
squelch Iridium #26, #27, #28 away, flaring letter Uniform over Hawaii.
static Roger, Uniform.
squelch Iridium #29, #30 away, flaring letter X-Ray over California.
static Roger, X-Ray.
squelch Iridium #20 through #30 completed, Captain. Message Lima Indigo November Uniform X-Ray spelled in the sky over the Pacific.
static Roger, orbit over Europe in fifteen minutes for another eleven Iridium satellites to spell LINUX there. Out.
It is arriving on debt.)
Perhaps it is referring to fiscal quarter 3, of fiscal year 2000? If Intel's fiscal years start in July of the previous year, then tomorrow is the last day of 3Q2000.
(Tight fiscal quarters =anagram>Strategic half-squirt.)
Microsoft doesn't try other platforms for WinNT.
Microsoft works out a license arrangement, and the hardware vendor does the porting code of the very few bits of native code.
It's the hardware vendors who have given up on their own WinNT ports... MIPS and DEC.
The only hardware Microsoft has been interested in, is the hardware which the typical end-user would put their grubby mitts on. First, Apple BASIC cards (when every end-user knew what a PCB was). Then mice. A short-lived i186 booster card. Millions of more mice. Trackball. More mice. A few gaming devices. More mice. Now the X-Box. Common thread: grubby mitts of the unwashed masses.
I'm not flamebaiting here. Linux may be cool, Linux may have superior traits in some regards, but as a whole, Linux has a lot to learn about offering products to the winning markets. 'Cuz there's only two winning markets: business-to-business (Why should I trust you with my billion-dollar mission-critical apps? You don't even have the money to pay for software!*) and mass-market (I don't even know how to turn the dang thing on!**)
* Suits don't care about how kewl something is. They don't want to be surprised. They don't want risk. They want to do it just like the other guy does it, except with a somehow better profit margin.
** If you say you've never heard someone say this exact line, you're lying.