No - that's why you choose to take your business elsewhere, to a company that is as accomodating to the individual home user as to the small business owner.
Dell's small business division isn't so teriffic on support either, IMHO. I dealt with them quite a bit when I did corporate buying for a small business. They pulled some nasty stunts on us, leading us to seek out other vendors - despite using all Dell for 7+ years before that.
(As one example, they switched over from their original "NET 30" payment terms on our business purchases to outsourcing the financing to a bank, who was effectively putting all of our Dell purchases on a credit card. Of course, they neglected to inform us of this change. We only found out when we disputed a charge for items we never received one time, and all of a sudden, a bank started demanding payment with late charges added. Even after Dell removed the incorrect charges, the bank still wanted those late fees and interest accrued!)
Well, this "no call list" is one of those things that, I think, is relatively harmless compared to the many other ways in which we grant our government power over us.
Still, the more I thought it over, the more I did have some concerns.
1. Is any real effort being made to ensure the "no call" lists are promptly updated when phone numbers change hands? (I really don't know, but I'm guessing not?) For example, I used to have the "distinctive ring" service on my phone - so calling a different number rang my same line, only with a "double ring" instead of the normal, single "ring". I put both of the number on the Missouri "no call" list, but now I got rid of the distinctive ring service. Before long, I'm sure that spare phone number will get re-assigned to a new person. Will the telco ensure it's "reset" from their list until the new owner re-applies? If this isn't done, that means over time, the "no call" list will end up containing pretty much all the assigned phone numbers - meaning it effectively just places a complete ban on telemarketing to anyone. (That's a little more govt. power than we probably intended to give with the law.)
2. When will the "loopholes" be closed up in this legislation? Last I checked, the Missouri "no call" list (and I believe the nationwide one too) had lots of provisions in them to allow charitable organizations and companies you "did business with before" to solicit you, even if you're on the list. I believe banking institutions and lenders are allowed to always call people too. That makes up a large percentage of harassing calls I get! It's pretty easy for a firm to just keep a database of previous customers and only telemarket to them.... And I'm so tired of the calls asking me to donate to the retired policeman's/fireman's funds. I think they bug me every month or two, on a regular basis.
Sure, but I wonder how much of this is simply history repeating itself - except none of us are old enough to have observed it in a past generation?
The grandparents who are "afraid of the ATM machine" and can't master the VCR have already spent many years on this planet learning and mastering other things. Retirement should be somewhat of an escape from all the work and learning one has to do throughout their life. Fact is, they're not going to be on this planet that much longer - and their decisions to avoid new technologies shouldn't necessarily be interpreted as "warning signs" that things have gotten "too complicated".
I can't help but think that before my time, the older folks were just as scared of such new things as the automobile or the railroad, or electricty in the home.
Well, yeah - but does it *ever* really work out well when you send a group of people into someone's house (on a tight schedule, no less), and start making buying decisions for them?
This was money spent for the sake of writing a story... not for the sake of ensuring the family's goals are achieved.
It's no different than the shows where they remodel your house for you. People following up on it later find that at least 50% of the time, the homeowners undo all the remodeling work shortly after they're done being on TV.
I think, all things considered, they didn't do TOO badly. I mean, almost anyone can enjoy a large screen TV set, "technology-impaired" or not. They were already using the net for email, so they'll at least use the DSL connection for the same things as before. (Yeah, they might not need the speed, really, but it's nice having an "instant on" connection, and none of the dropped carriers in the middle of sessions.) It looks like they'll mess around with the digital camera too. I don't think I've ever met someone who got a digital camera, learned the basics of using it, and then let it collect dust - opting to go back to the film camera instead. They're not THAT tough to figure out, really - unless you dig in to the advanced features, and saving hassle and money on film developing is usually motivating enough to keep people using them.
Well, the problem with your logic is it's over simplified. Sure, it sounds good to say "Just stop pumping out all the CO2, in case it's the problem. Beats risking all those lives if it turns out it *is* causing global warming."
Problem is, modern society relies heavily on transportation technologies that create most of that CO2 people are worried about.
Are you suggesting the best choice is to get rid of the entire trucking industry, get rid of automobiles, and eliminate diesel powered locomotives - thereby destroying hundreds of years of technological progress - just *in case* that CO2 was causing a problem we couldn't compensate for or work around?
(Honestly, I think some of the more extreme environmentalists really do want this. They'd like to see us all living in caves, washing our clothes by hand in the local stream (no soap, mind you), and writing with sticks. If they don't, they're sure preaching a lot of things that would drive us back towards that type of living if we listened to them.)
All these silly little "emissions controls" we place on vehicles aren't really accomplishing much either, besides lining the pockets of favored businesses providing them. We're to the point now where devices adding hundreds of dollars to the price of each car are reducing emissions by fractions of a percent. It's all a bunch of "feel good" stuff that lets the car makers brag that they're "doing their part for the environment". Electric hybrid cars? Sure, it's eco-friendly until you start asking how they plan to dispose of the worn out batteries.
Yes, this is true - but the cable companies are moving more and more towards receiving data back from the viewers. Even the satellite providers are working on this. I have Dish Network and they're starting to offer a learning channel for kids where they interact by using their remote control to answer quiz questions, etc.
I realize we're still talking about two different technologies, but the trend is towards making TV more interactive. As that happens, I don't see them being able to get away with raising prices much to cover the costs of going 2-way. Again, I say they'll gladly eat those expenses as a "developmental cost" and "expense of operation", as long as it helps them retain/gain new viewers.
When it comes to the telco offering broadband Internet (or even the cable co. doing it), they seem to always take a different attitude. They don't want to invest in the technology until govt. puts pressure on them. If a project looks like it will mean a big short-term financial loss, they'll skip it - rather than look at long-term potential gains. (I dare say we'd still not have cellular networks today if they treated wireless phones the way they're treating broadband connections for the masses right now.)
Re:ITX prices are becoming very attractive
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Honestly, I think it's because the manufacturers realize there's a lot of profit to be milked from thin client sales. They're not really interested in getting in big price wars with them - because despite the advertising talk about how inexpensive they're supposed to be, they know they've got a niche market that will keep paying the higher prices. Discounting the thin clients isn't likely to increase that market very much.
I worked with the Netier thin clients for a while (now bought out by Wyse Corp.), and they provide centralized management software for them that helps get users "locked in" to buying more and more of their thin clients. Why? Well, you have to go to considerable effort to build update packages that their software can push out to the clients, so software in their flash memory can be modified. If you spent a whole day building a package to, say, update the Citrix ICA client on your thin clients, you're not going to be too happy if it only gets used to update 15 or 20 systems. You'd rather have it do all 200, 300, or even 1000 systems in your company, right? So right there, Wyse knows you'll be back for more thin clients - whether they cost $600 each, or $150 each.
The majority of people I've seen using a freeware solution like LTSP are on tight budgets to begin with, so they're generally using it as a way to recycle old, existing computers - as opposed to shopping for bargains on new thin clients.
All very good suggestions, but as I'm located in the midwest, we don't have a plethora of film-makers located around here. The architectural firms I've worked with were all still using Windows products, as a whole. (Generally, what I've seen is the occasional architect who is "pro Mac" using a Powerbook laptop, but having to plug it into an all-Windows environment in the workplace.) I've done a bit of freelance consulting for these types of people, helping them get their Powerbook printing on networked PC printers, etc. (The bad thing is, once you do one of these jobs once, you usually don't get an opportunity to bill them for much of anything else - because it all works so well, they don't need you to come back out again!)
I'm sure there are some opportunities out there for OS X in Biotech.... but I'm less certain if they'll considering hiring someone like myself. So far, the Biotech firms I've seen with job openings are leaning heavily towards finding someone with both the computer experience, and a good background in biology/life sciences (which I certainly don't have).
I think the above statement depends LARGELY on how you define "what you get".
I find it interesting that the cable companies have no problem feeding you nearly 100 channels of television, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (remember, that's bandwidth too - voice and full screen video), for, say, $50 a month -- yet when it's *Internet* bandwidth people want, suddenly we're supposed to respect all these artifically set limits/caps, and understand what a "great value" we're getting for that additional $49.95 per month.
True, home users' Internet broadband is currently subsidized by businesses - but that's only because they've got the current rates jacked up so high for T1 and T3 connections. There's no real, concrete reason I can see why a T1 should cost a business many hundreds of dollars per month. They've simply created artifical "costs" for connections, and tried to justify them by claiming they "help offset" expenses giving home users service.
DSL runs over existing copper, and shouldn't really present a telco with any additional overhead - other than maintaining the routers and the customer support/billing aspects of it.
It's just one more reason I'm becoming completely unmotivated to work in corporate I.T.
I've been an "I.T. guy" ever since my first job, and frankly, I banked on "PCs and DOS/Windows solutions" as the stuff one needed to keep up with to retain a decent job.
Somewhere along the way (I think roughly around the time Microsoft started pushing Active Directory integrated with Exchange 2000, but that's far from the ONLY factor), I started becoming disillusioned with the whole thing. I had always tinkered with Linux as a curiousity and fun "alternative OS" to use at home - but couldn't spark any interest in it where I worked.
I decided to "rock the boat" a little bit, building Linux-based thin clients PCs out of old, depreciated systems being taken out of service, and asking employees to try using them on a "trial" basis. I had few complaints, and got most of the ones I did have ironed out in short order. (Mostly, people whining about needing support for their scroll wheel mice, stuff like that.)
I think it threatened my co-workers though, who were die-hard "MS only!" people. My boss was "on the fence" about the whole project, basically not wanting to stop me from experimenting - yet uneasy about it disrupting his little "happy family" of I.T. employees.
Next thing I knew, I was let go. By this time, the job market was quickly drying up, and I spent a long time collecting unemployment checks, and trying to find another, similar job to no avail.
I finally found work with Apple Mac systems. Wow, what a difference! Problem is, it's a small mom and pop place that's hanging on by a shoestring. My hours got cut back to part-time recently, because he couldn't make ends meet otherwise. It's really disappointing more folks haven't yet discovered the things Apple has done/is doing with OS X.
But anyway, here in the present, I see the I.T. job market SLOWLY starting to open back up, but when I read the job descriptions, my stomach churns. I don't even want to apply for most of them! It just seems like signing up to administer hundreds (or thosands?) of users on Exchange email while helping develop roll-outs of the latest MS technologies is like signing one's death warrant.
This DRM garbage is just another nail in the coffin, the way I see it. I can just imagine the fun it'll be explaining to the higher-ups why everyone's locked out of hundreds of important documents because Joe Schmoe encrypted them and then got laid off/fired/took a vacation/whatever. It's already insane enough trying to keep up with all these security fixes (and fixes for broken fixes!), stop the floods of email from woms/virii, and all the other MS headaches.
Obviously, there are still plenty of I.T. folks out there happy and willing to take on these jobs, risks and all. But maybe all my experience has made me too jaded? I'm about to throw in the towel. I don't have nearly enough "real world experience" using the OS's I see as superior solutions (Solaris, Linux, BSD, etc.) to get a decent paying job supporting/administering them. I spent too much time in the MS camp for that. I think I can handle the Mac OS X support quite well, but nobody's hiring for that. MS's current offerings give me the creeps....
Yes, and it's worth noting, some folks are doing little "mods" to popular PC laptops to get more keyboard stiffness out of them, too. I recently saw a web site where they had instructions on taking out the keyboards of some Dell Inspiron laptops and inserting double-sided foam tape "pads" on the bottom, center portion of them, and re-installing, to eliminate annoying "flex" when you press on keys near the center.
I don't know why manufacturers ever skimped on reinforcing the notebook keyboards in the first place? I had a Toshiba Tecra 8000 one time with a horribly flimsy feeling keyboard. They had it basically sitting on a few plastic posts, and it made the whole laptop feel "cheap" (despite it being their most expensive "flagship" notebook at the time!).
Actually, that *might* be an intentional part of its design. Using the metal shell as a heat conductor probably helps save the innards from as much heat stress as you'd have otherwise. It may be unsettling as a user to get constant "feedback" on how hot the system is running - but I'd rather have that than a system burning up inside that feels fine on the outside.
I think the main point of this whole discussion is to shock the majority of us into the realization that the "Dewey Decimal System" is, in fact, trademarked and NOT just a public domain concept for sorting of books.
Quite frankly, I'm still a little shocked by this fact itself. Perhaps I shouldn't be, but I never heard of libraries actually paying yearly fees for the rights to use it, until now.
Somehow, it just rings hollow - like someone telling me I'm not allowed to express computer notation in hexidecimal (or even announce publically that I'm offering a "decimal to hexidecimal conversion calculator" on my web site) without paying someone for the privilege.
I never particularly cared for the Dewey Decimal System to begin with. I just assumed it was a public domain method developed by and for use by public libraries - and was used simply because it was an (inter?)national standard. I certainly don't see why it's worth paying licensing fees for it! If I had a library, I'd dump it in a heartbeat.
Seriously - anyone asking these questions who really doesn't have an idea what the answers are hasn't taken enough time to learn from history, nor has much of an imagination!
The Internet is, quite simply, an entirely new form of mass communications. Arguments about the "Net being too centered around Americans to be very useful for " are invalid. *Anyone* can publish his/her own web pages once he/she is online! If the Internet currently offers nothing for you, then all you need is enough motivation to *create* some content that IS useful to you.
Perhaps too many of us have gotten used to all the passive forms of mass media (television, newspapers, magazines, radio) where the "end user" sits down and digests whatever the publisher/content creator chooses to feed you?
The Internet makes *everyone* a potential publisher with the ability to reach the entire world at minimal cost (practically free in many cases!). Write fluent Japanese and think there aren't enough sites in Japanese? Make some! Can't find a discussion board covering political issues in Zaire? Maybe you'll be the first to offer one to the masses?
Tell me again why this seems to be of little use to citizens of a country?
There's never anything wrong with a desire to learn how to do more things! The fact is, though, not all of us are motivated by more than one or two things in life that really grab our attention and keep it.
I know myself, I like cars and have always been willing to spend a big chunk of my paychecks on them, relative to my other expenses. I really *tried* to learn how to be a decent mechanic, even taking the "power tech" classes offered in my high-school and joining several car clubs over the years since then.
Ultimately though, I've found it's just not the thing for me. Yes, I've upgraded a car or two to a higher performance cat-back exhaust, changed a set of spark plugs, and done some car stereo installations - but beyond that, I always find it unenjoyable, and too laborious. A job that seems to take other guys 20 minutes takes me a whole afternoon of fighting with stuck bolts that don't want to come loose, parts I can't get back together properly, and whatever.
So, too, with most home improvement/repair tasks. I've bought the books, and I've succeeded in doing some of the small things (fixing broken flushers on toilets, hanging new curtain rods for drapes, and even re-tiling a bathroom once, with some help from my wife). But ultimately, I again find this sort of work uninteresting, and usually tedious + frustrating. I'm not good at sawing things along straight lines. I'm horrible at painting without making a huge mess to clean up afterwards. It's just not for me.
Computers, however, I took to like a fish to water since I got my hands on my first one - a Timex/Sinclair 1000, years ago. I know I'm good at working with them, and they've held my interest continuously for over 12 years. Arrogance is never really a good trait, but hey - some folks do earn a right to it. I had one friend, in particular, who everyone immediately labeled as "pompous" and "arrogant" about computers and computer security, but you know what? He was almost never wrong when I heard him give advice or suggestions, review a piece of software or hardware, or troubleshoot problems.
Sort of like that line in one of Kid Rock's songs, "It ain't bragging if you can back it up!"
As things get more and more complex, there's also a real danger in becoming "jack of all trades, and master of none". I've met a lot of these people, who seem to know just enough to be dangerous at all sorts of trades and skills - but I'd never want to hire them for any of the things they claim to "know how to do".
Yeah, my wife is seriously hooked on playing Shadowbane, and I've noticed most of the "more effective" clans in the game agree to run Teamspeak while they play. That way, they can form attack strategies and figure out amongst themselves which character attributes are best to have against other types of characters.
It's almost become the unofficial "other half" of a Shadowbane installation, for anyone serious about playing the game.
I've witnessed similar situations myself. In fact, just a couple weeks ago, I visited an elementary school that's still using old (pre PowerPC) Macs in all of the classrooms. They've gotten by for at least 7 or 8 years now with the same Mac hardware and *no* full-time I.T. guy at all.
They have a "technology department", but it doesn't appear to consist of much more than a storage area for all the spare/unused computer stuff, and a teacher who volunteered to operate it when he's not teaching other classes.
The only problem they're running up against now is some of the old systems finally dying (mostly hard drives wearing out). Nobody there knows how to fix them, so they throw away everything that breaks and juggle the remaining systems around. (Basically, teachers not using their computer in the room anyway give it up for someone who does use one.)
Obviously, they're sorely in need of some more funding for new machines.... but it's amazing they've gotten by so well with basically *zero* I.T. support. Teachers simply work together to solve any problems that come up, make sure things are installed and configured the way they need them, etc.
I think reality is, if you don't place a lot of restrictions on what people "can and can't do" with the machines - you'll find that folks generally find ways to make and keep everything working in a manner that suits them best. I generally see large I.T. staffs spending the vast majority of their time dictating what they think the users need, and constructing complex environments to support these plans of theirs. (That, or policing things, fretting over software license compliance, updating inventory sheets of hardware, etc.)
Ultimately, you're absolutely correct. This is probably the most important issue that needs resolution. The recording industry "middle men" haven't been offering nearly enough value for the percentage of the profits they take, nor have they really shown good taste in their recent choices of who is "worthy of promotion".
Still, there will *always* be a steady flow of music swapping/copying - because most people realize that intangible items being copied never really equate with stealing tangibles.
Bottom line: You take a physical CD off the store shelf without paying for it, you deprive the store of that sale. (They had to pay to get the disc in the first place, and now they can't recoup what they spent to put it there by reselling it.) You copy a CD, the original is still unharmed and in the hands of its original owner. Nobody can prove you would really have paid the money out to buy the music you copied. No provable, direct harm is done.
As for theories about people feeling it's "more wrong" to post MP3s to the web than share via P2P, I'm not so sure that's true. If ISPs all gave you hundreds of megs. of web storage space for free, and didn't care about bandwidth used -- and -- if someone wrote a tool making it really easy to post your music to the sites without learning HTML, etc., it'd be just like the P2P network is today.
I never said the laws would be changed for how speeding and wreckless driving is punished, depending on the type of car driven, or income level of the driver!
My point was merely that the original post is trying to build a case for more restrictive legislation (a la "big brother" chips inside the cars logging the speeds driven). In reality though, the scenarios given aren't very realistic.
it's just not a common occurance that some teenager takes his new Porsche 959 out for a spin at 200Mph on the freeway during rush hour.
The financial barrier to entry on these top-performance cars tends to weed out the types of drivers who would be prone to doing those things. Reality is, most of these cars are being bought by people who collect them. It's ridiculous to go through all the effort to obtain a rare car like that, only to risk totalling it on the interstate for a 2 minute thrill.
Actually, I still agree with you - despite the nay-sayers who think it would become a script-kiddie disaster.
Here's the thing... This isn't something I'd necessarily want to see a huge, nation-wide ISP doing. It's more like a specialty service that a small "mom and pop" ISP could offer (at least experimentally).
Maybe the IPs could be masked so while they don't specifically indicate which user is doing a particular file transfer, they do still point to originating at that small ISP?
In this scenario, any trouble-makers could at least be tracked down to the ISP they're using, and from there - any *proper* legal authority could go through normal channels to get the person's information and make arrests as needed. (With a proper court order, the ISP could do some observation on their end to see which connection is causing the problem, even though the outside world still only sees that person's masked IP.)
I'd just like to see a measure of security in place so one's IP address doesn't automatically let anyone with the knowledge and inclination track you back to your home. You're allowed to buy unlisted/unpublished phone numbers... The Internet should have the same options.
I don't agree with your idea about logging the speeds a performance vehicle is driven, and punishing someone automatically for driving in excess of some predetermined limit.
From strictly a standpoint of increased safety, sure - it might help a little bit. But there's much more to it than that. For one thing, the people spending the money needed to own one of these cars in the first place aren't generally the "average" or even "inexperienced" driver. They're more likely to fit the profile of a wealthy individual who buys the car for "show" and "bragging rights", while not really having much time or inclination to drive around at reckless speeds on public roads.
Therefore, I think you're talking about legal solutions to problems that hardly exist. In the meantime, putting such laws in place sets the stage for car insurance companies to start requiring monitoring in all vehicles, and using it against customers trying to file claims. ("We're sorry, but an analysis of your car's computer shows us you didn't take the steps a safe driver would have taken to avoid this accident, so we're not compensating you for this claim!")
Also, in all the time I've been driving, I don't think I've *ever* witnessed some "nitwit sharing the road with me, while driving 200Mph". Sure, I've seen cars fly past me in the fast lane doing maybe 100 or 110Mph (and a couple times, seen them pulled over on the side of the road by a cop shortly thereafter!), but again - your scenario just doesn't really happen.
What *may* happen is someone doing performance tuning to a performance car needs to see if the tuning accomplished their goals or not, so they go out on a deserted stretch of road at 3AM and test it out. That has a measure of risk, too, but nothing like driving 200Mph in traffic. I don't think someone doing these deserves to have their car seized and license revoked permanently. By picking the most deserted road possible at a time least likely to have someone driving there - they're showing they took steps to make what they're doing as safe as possible.
Actually, I thought it was a great story of one person's tenacity winning out over government red tape!
From your comment, I'm assuming you're not really that interested in high-performance automobiles - but please keep in mind that many folks are.
This was a case where the barrier to entry was so high, only the richest people could afford to be bothered with it - but similar situations happen all the time with foreign cars desired by American citizens.
I thnk the law that they finally got pushed through is a sensible one, and should help out many more people than just Bill Gates and his friends. Most of us might not be buying street legal, rare Porsches any time soon - but this same law would help make it possible to obtain a number of more inexpensive collector cars.
IMHO, in cases like these, all that's really happened is the stakes are higher. If you feel you're getting forced up against a wall, where you're suddenly looking at a $30,000+ investment in MS hardware just because some "core business application" requires it - maybe it starts making sense to develop your own alternative application?
I'm surely not suggesting this is an easy decision to make, but it's worth seriously looking into. If you have a good, solid Linux-based server environment already - your costs to break that up are going to be much higher than just the initial cost of the Microsoft software and rollout!
If I were in your shoes, I'd really start thinking about hiring a few good software developers, and putting them on a project to build your company some custom loan origination software for Linux. If done correctly, it would offer numerous side benefits, such as the flexibility to tailor it to exactly what your business needs, instead of settling for what you're handed in a particular version of someone else's program. Bug fixes? Can be done as quickly as your developers can get to them.
I used to work for a company that built their own in-house application for order processing and report generation. It may have turned into the most expensive computer-related business decision they ever made - BUT, that application also became the cornerstone for the company. Competitors even attempted to buy the company out, simply to get their hands on that application - because it met a need they couldn't fill with "off the shelf" products.
I've been repeating and repeating this same fact for years, and it generally seems to fall on deaf ears.
This has been true for computer software, just as it's true for movies.
The bottom line is this:
People have a certain amount of their total income they're willing to spend on entertainment. Whether it's video games, computer software, books, music or movies - it's all under that one umbrella. After buying the essentials (paying rent or the house payment, car payment, utilities, etc.) - there's only so much left for entertainment purposes.
Realizing that, it becomes obvious that all of these industries compete directly against each other for some of those dollars. (As they merge, they compete against themselves in many cases. Look at Sony for example. They sell video game system, music and movies!) What WON'T happen is getting people to spend more money on buying those games, movies or music by putting pressure on them not to duplicate them.
People generally already spend all they're willing to spend on a mix of these items. Everyone I know shells out at least $40 to $80 per month simply to have older films piped in to them via cable TV or satellite! Then they go out and see a movie in the theater here or there, rent a few more titles, and buy the occasional DVD. How much more does the industry think a single person is going to buy? It matters not, ultimately, if this person has hundreds of VHS tape copies of movies. He/she did his/her part to support the industry already. The only way he/she might STOP doing so is if he/she gets legally harassed enough to rebel against the whole industry. That's where this is headed.
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No - that's why you choose to take your business elsewhere, to a company that is as accomodating to the individual home user as to the small business owner.
Dell's small business division isn't so teriffic on support either, IMHO. I dealt with them quite a bit when I did corporate buying for a small business. They pulled some nasty stunts on us, leading us to seek out other vendors - despite using all Dell for 7+ years before that.
(As one example, they switched over from their original "NET 30" payment terms on our business purchases to outsourcing the financing to a bank, who was effectively putting all of our Dell purchases on a credit card. Of course, they neglected to inform us of this change. We only found out when we disputed a charge for items we never received one time, and all of a sudden, a bank started demanding payment with late charges added. Even after Dell removed the incorrect charges, the bank still wanted those late fees and interest accrued!)
Well, this "no call list" is one of those things that, I think, is relatively harmless compared to the many other ways in which we grant our government power over us.
Still, the more I thought it over, the more I did have some concerns.
1. Is any real effort being made to ensure the "no call" lists are promptly updated when phone numbers change hands? (I really don't know, but I'm guessing not?) For example, I used to have the "distinctive ring" service on my phone - so calling a different number rang my same line, only with a "double ring" instead of the normal, single "ring". I put both of the number on the Missouri "no call" list, but now I got rid of the distinctive ring service. Before long, I'm sure that spare phone number will get re-assigned to a new person. Will the telco ensure it's "reset" from their list until the new owner re-applies? If this isn't done, that means over time, the "no call" list will end up containing pretty much all the assigned phone numbers - meaning it effectively just places a complete ban on telemarketing to anyone. (That's a little more govt. power than we probably intended to give with the law.)
2. When will the "loopholes" be closed up in this legislation? Last I checked, the Missouri "no call" list (and I believe the nationwide one too) had lots of provisions in them to allow charitable organizations and companies you "did business with before" to solicit you, even if you're on the list. I believe banking institutions and lenders are allowed to always call people too. That makes up a large percentage of harassing calls I get! It's pretty easy for a firm to just keep a database of previous customers and only telemarket to them.... And I'm so tired of the calls asking me to donate to the retired policeman's/fireman's funds. I think they bug me every month or two, on a regular basis.
Sure, but I wonder how much of this is simply history repeating itself - except none of us are old enough to have observed it in a past generation?
The grandparents who are "afraid of the ATM machine" and can't master the VCR have already spent many years on this planet learning and mastering other things. Retirement should be somewhat of an escape from all the work and learning one has to do throughout their life. Fact is, they're not going to be on this planet that much longer - and their decisions to avoid new technologies shouldn't necessarily be interpreted as "warning signs" that things have gotten "too complicated".
I can't help but think that before my time, the older folks were just as scared of such new things as the automobile or the railroad, or electricty in the home.
Well, yeah - but does it *ever* really work out well when you send a group of people into someone's house (on a tight schedule, no less), and start making buying decisions for them?
This was money spent for the sake of writing a story... not for the sake of ensuring the family's goals are achieved.
It's no different than the shows where they remodel your house for you. People following up on it later find that at least 50% of the time, the homeowners undo all the remodeling work shortly after they're done being on TV.
I think, all things considered, they didn't do TOO badly. I mean, almost anyone can enjoy a large screen TV set, "technology-impaired" or not. They were already using the net for email, so they'll at least use the DSL connection for the same things as before. (Yeah, they might not need the speed, really, but it's nice having an "instant on" connection, and none of the dropped carriers in the middle of sessions.) It looks like they'll mess around with the digital camera too. I don't think I've ever met someone who got a digital camera, learned the basics of using it, and then let it collect dust - opting to go back to the film camera instead. They're not THAT tough to figure out, really - unless you dig in to the advanced features, and saving hassle and money on film developing is usually motivating enough to keep people using them.
Well, the problem with your logic is it's over simplified. Sure, it sounds good to say "Just stop pumping out all the CO2, in case it's the problem. Beats risking all those lives if it turns out it *is* causing global warming."
Problem is, modern society relies heavily on transportation technologies that create most of that CO2 people are worried about.
Are you suggesting the best choice is to get rid of the entire trucking industry, get rid of automobiles, and eliminate diesel powered locomotives - thereby destroying hundreds of years of technological progress - just *in case* that CO2 was causing a problem we couldn't compensate for or work around?
(Honestly, I think some of the more extreme environmentalists really do want this. They'd like to see us all living in caves, washing our clothes by hand in the local stream (no soap, mind you), and writing with sticks. If they don't, they're sure preaching a lot of things that would drive us back towards that type of living if we listened to them.)
All these silly little "emissions controls" we place on vehicles aren't really accomplishing much either, besides lining the pockets of favored businesses providing them. We're to the point now where devices adding hundreds of dollars to the price of each car are reducing emissions by fractions of a percent. It's all a bunch of "feel good" stuff that lets the car makers brag that they're "doing their part for the environment". Electric hybrid cars? Sure, it's eco-friendly until you start asking how they plan to dispose of the worn out batteries.
Yes, this is true - but the cable companies are moving more and more towards receiving data back from the viewers. Even the satellite providers are working on this. I have Dish Network and they're starting to offer a learning channel for kids where they interact by using their remote control to answer quiz questions, etc.
I realize we're still talking about two different technologies, but the trend is towards making TV more interactive. As that happens, I don't see them being able to get away with raising prices much to cover the costs of going 2-way. Again, I say they'll gladly eat those expenses as a "developmental cost" and "expense of operation", as long as it helps them retain/gain new viewers.
When it comes to the telco offering broadband Internet (or even the cable co. doing it), they seem to always take a different attitude. They don't want to invest in the technology until govt. puts pressure on them. If a project looks like it will mean a big short-term financial loss, they'll skip it - rather than look at long-term potential gains. (I dare say we'd still not have cellular networks today if they treated wireless phones the way they're treating broadband connections for the masses right now.)
Honestly, I think it's because the manufacturers realize there's a lot of profit to be milked from thin client sales. They're not really interested in getting in big price wars with them - because despite the advertising talk about how inexpensive they're supposed to be, they know they've got a niche market that will keep paying the higher prices. Discounting the thin clients isn't likely to increase that market very much.
I worked with the Netier thin clients for a while (now bought out by Wyse Corp.), and they provide centralized management software for them that helps get users "locked in" to buying more and more of their thin clients. Why? Well, you have to go to considerable effort to build update packages that their software can push out to the clients, so software in their flash memory can be modified. If you spent a whole day building a package to, say, update the Citrix ICA client on your thin clients, you're not going to be too happy if it only gets used to update 15 or 20 systems. You'd rather have it do all 200, 300, or even 1000 systems in your company, right? So right there, Wyse knows you'll be back for more thin clients - whether they cost $600 each, or $150 each.
The majority of people I've seen using a freeware solution like LTSP are on tight budgets to begin with, so they're generally using it as a way to recycle old, existing computers - as opposed to shopping for bargains on new thin clients.
All very good suggestions, but as I'm located in the midwest, we don't have a plethora of film-makers located around here. The architectural firms I've worked with were all still using Windows products, as a whole. (Generally, what I've seen is the occasional architect who is "pro Mac" using a Powerbook laptop, but having to plug it into an all-Windows environment in the workplace.) I've done a bit of freelance consulting for these types of people, helping them get their Powerbook printing on networked PC printers, etc. (The bad thing is, once you do one of these jobs once, you usually don't get an opportunity to bill them for much of anything else - because it all works so well, they don't need you to come back out again!)
I'm sure there are some opportunities out there for OS X in Biotech.... but I'm less certain if they'll considering hiring someone like myself. So far, the Biotech firms I've seen with job openings are leaning heavily towards finding someone with both the computer experience, and a good background in biology/life sciences (which I certainly don't have).
I think the above statement depends LARGELY on how you define "what you get".
I find it interesting that the cable companies have no problem feeding you nearly 100 channels of television, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (remember, that's bandwidth too - voice and full screen video), for, say, $50 a month -- yet when it's *Internet* bandwidth people want, suddenly we're supposed to respect all these artifically set limits/caps, and understand what a "great value" we're getting for that additional $49.95 per month.
True, home users' Internet broadband is currently subsidized by businesses - but that's only because they've got the current rates jacked up so high for T1 and T3 connections. There's no real, concrete reason I can see why a T1 should cost a business many hundreds of dollars per month. They've simply created artifical "costs" for connections, and tried to justify them by claiming they "help offset" expenses giving home users service.
DSL runs over existing copper, and shouldn't really present a telco with any additional overhead - other than maintaining the routers and the customer support/billing aspects of it.
It's just one more reason I'm becoming completely unmotivated to work in corporate I.T.
I've been an "I.T. guy" ever since my first job, and frankly, I banked on "PCs and DOS/Windows solutions" as the stuff one needed to keep up with to retain a decent job.
Somewhere along the way (I think roughly around the time Microsoft started pushing Active Directory integrated with Exchange 2000, but that's far from the ONLY factor), I started becoming disillusioned with the whole thing. I had always tinkered with Linux as a curiousity and fun "alternative OS" to use at home - but couldn't spark any interest in it where I worked.
I decided to "rock the boat" a little bit, building Linux-based thin clients PCs out of old, depreciated systems being taken out of service, and asking employees to try using them on a "trial" basis. I had few complaints, and got most of the ones I did have ironed out in short order. (Mostly, people whining about needing support for their scroll wheel mice, stuff like that.)
I think it threatened my co-workers though, who were die-hard "MS only!" people. My boss was "on the fence" about the whole project, basically not wanting to stop me from experimenting - yet uneasy about it disrupting his little "happy family" of I.T. employees.
Next thing I knew, I was let go. By this time, the job market was quickly drying up, and I spent a long time collecting unemployment checks, and trying to find another, similar job to no avail.
I finally found work with Apple Mac systems. Wow, what a difference! Problem is, it's a small mom and pop place that's hanging on by a shoestring. My hours got cut back to part-time recently, because he couldn't make ends meet otherwise. It's really disappointing more folks haven't yet discovered the things Apple has done/is doing with OS X.
But anyway, here in the present, I see the I.T. job market SLOWLY starting to open back up, but when I read the job descriptions, my stomach churns. I don't even want to apply for most of them! It just seems like signing up to administer hundreds (or thosands?) of users on Exchange email while helping develop roll-outs of the latest MS technologies is like signing one's death warrant.
This DRM garbage is just another nail in the coffin, the way I see it. I can just imagine the fun it'll be explaining to the higher-ups why everyone's locked out of hundreds of important documents because Joe Schmoe encrypted them and then got laid off/fired/took a vacation/whatever. It's already insane enough trying to keep up with all these security fixes (and fixes for broken fixes!), stop the floods of email from woms/virii, and all the other MS headaches.
Obviously, there are still plenty of I.T. folks out there happy and willing to take on these jobs, risks and all. But maybe all my experience has made me too jaded? I'm about to throw in the towel. I don't have nearly enough "real world experience" using the OS's I see as superior solutions (Solaris, Linux, BSD, etc.) to get a decent paying job supporting/administering them. I spent too much time in the MS camp for that. I think I can handle the Mac OS X support quite well, but nobody's hiring for that. MS's current offerings give me the creeps....
Yes, and it's worth noting, some folks are doing little "mods" to popular PC laptops to get more keyboard stiffness out of them, too. I recently saw a web site where they had instructions on taking out the keyboards of some Dell Inspiron laptops and inserting double-sided foam tape "pads" on the bottom, center portion of them, and re-installing, to eliminate annoying "flex" when you press on keys near the center.
I don't know why manufacturers ever skimped on reinforcing the notebook keyboards in the first place? I had a Toshiba Tecra 8000 one time with a horribly flimsy feeling keyboard. They had it basically sitting on a few plastic posts, and it made the whole laptop feel "cheap" (despite it being their most expensive "flagship" notebook at the time!).
Actually, that *might* be an intentional part of its design. Using the metal shell as a heat conductor probably helps save the innards from as much heat stress as you'd have otherwise. It may be unsettling as a user to get constant "feedback" on how hot the system is running - but I'd rather have that than a system burning up inside that feels fine on the outside.
I think the main point of this whole discussion is to shock the majority of us into the realization that the "Dewey Decimal System" is, in fact, trademarked and NOT just a public domain concept for sorting of books.
Quite frankly, I'm still a little shocked by this fact itself. Perhaps I shouldn't be, but I never heard of libraries actually paying yearly fees for the rights to use it, until now.
Somehow, it just rings hollow - like someone telling me I'm not allowed to express computer notation in hexidecimal (or even announce publically that I'm offering a "decimal to hexidecimal conversion calculator" on my web site) without paying someone for the privilege.
I never particularly cared for the Dewey Decimal System to begin with. I just assumed it was a public domain method developed by and for use by public libraries - and was used simply because it was an (inter?)national standard. I certainly don't see why it's worth paying licensing fees for it! If I had a library, I'd dump it in a heartbeat.
Seriously - anyone asking these questions who really doesn't have an idea what the answers are hasn't taken enough time to learn from history, nor has much of an imagination!
The Internet is, quite simply, an entirely new form of mass communications. Arguments about the "Net being too centered around Americans to be very useful for " are invalid. *Anyone* can publish his/her own web pages once he/she is online! If the Internet currently offers nothing for you, then all you need is enough motivation to *create* some content that IS useful to you.
Perhaps too many of us have gotten used to all the passive forms of mass media (television, newspapers, magazines, radio) where the "end user" sits down and digests whatever the publisher/content creator chooses to feed you?
The Internet makes *everyone* a potential publisher with the ability to reach the entire world at minimal cost (practically free in many cases!). Write fluent Japanese and think there aren't enough sites in Japanese? Make some! Can't find a discussion board covering political issues in Zaire? Maybe you'll be the first to offer one to the masses?
Tell me again why this seems to be of little use to citizens of a country?
There's never anything wrong with a desire to learn how to do more things! The fact is, though, not all of us are motivated by more than one or two things in life that really grab our attention and keep it.
I know myself, I like cars and have always been willing to spend a big chunk of my paychecks on them, relative to my other expenses. I really *tried* to learn how to be a decent mechanic, even taking the "power tech" classes offered in my high-school and joining several car clubs over the years since then.
Ultimately though, I've found it's just not the thing for me. Yes, I've upgraded a car or two to a higher performance cat-back exhaust, changed a set of spark plugs, and done some car stereo installations - but beyond that, I always find it unenjoyable, and too laborious. A job that seems to take other guys 20 minutes takes me a whole afternoon of fighting with stuck bolts that don't want to come loose, parts I can't get back together properly, and whatever.
So, too, with most home improvement/repair tasks. I've bought the books, and I've succeeded in doing some of the small things (fixing broken flushers on toilets, hanging new curtain rods for drapes, and even re-tiling a bathroom once, with some help from my wife). But ultimately, I again find this sort of work uninteresting, and usually tedious + frustrating. I'm not good at sawing things along straight lines. I'm horrible at painting without making a huge mess to clean up afterwards. It's just not for me.
Computers, however, I took to like a fish to water since I got my hands on my first one - a Timex/Sinclair 1000, years ago. I know I'm good at working with them, and they've held my interest continuously for over 12 years. Arrogance is never really a good trait, but hey - some folks do earn a right to it. I had one friend, in particular, who everyone immediately labeled as "pompous" and "arrogant" about computers and computer security, but you know what? He was almost never wrong when I heard him give advice or suggestions, review a piece of software or hardware, or troubleshoot problems.
Sort of like that line in one of Kid Rock's songs, "It ain't bragging if you can back it up!"
As things get more and more complex, there's also a real danger in becoming "jack of all trades, and master of none". I've met a lot of these people, who seem to know just enough to be dangerous at all sorts of trades and skills - but I'd never want to hire them for any of the things they claim to "know how to do".
Yeah, my wife is seriously hooked on playing Shadowbane, and I've noticed most of the "more effective" clans in the game agree to run Teamspeak while they play. That way, they can form attack strategies and figure out amongst themselves which character attributes are best to have against other types of characters.
It's almost become the unofficial "other half" of a Shadowbane installation, for anyone serious about playing the game.
I've witnessed similar situations myself. In fact, just a couple weeks ago, I visited an elementary school that's still using old (pre PowerPC) Macs in all of the classrooms. They've gotten by for at least 7 or 8 years now with the same Mac hardware and *no* full-time I.T. guy at all.
They have a "technology department", but it doesn't appear to consist of much more than a storage area for all the spare/unused computer stuff, and a teacher who volunteered to operate it when he's not teaching other classes.
The only problem they're running up against now is some of the old systems finally dying (mostly hard drives wearing out). Nobody there knows how to fix them, so they throw away everything that breaks and juggle the remaining systems around. (Basically, teachers not using their computer in the room anyway give it up for someone who does use one.)
Obviously, they're sorely in need of some more funding for new machines.... but it's amazing they've gotten by so well with basically *zero* I.T. support. Teachers simply work together to solve any problems that come up, make sure things are installed and configured the way they need them, etc.
I think reality is, if you don't place a lot of restrictions on what people "can and can't do" with the machines - you'll find that folks generally find ways to make and keep everything working in a manner that suits them best. I generally see large I.T. staffs spending the vast majority of their time dictating what they think the users need, and constructing complex environments to support these plans of theirs. (That, or policing things, fretting over software license compliance, updating inventory sheets of hardware, etc.)
Ultimately, you're absolutely correct. This is probably the most important issue that needs resolution. The recording industry "middle men" haven't been offering nearly enough value for the percentage of the profits they take, nor have they really shown good taste in their recent choices of who is "worthy of promotion".
Still, there will *always* be a steady flow of music swapping/copying - because most people realize that intangible items being copied never really equate with stealing tangibles.
Bottom line: You take a physical CD off the store shelf without paying for it, you deprive the store of that sale. (They had to pay to get the disc in the first place, and now they can't recoup what they spent to put it there by reselling it.) You copy a CD, the original is still unharmed and in the hands of its original owner. Nobody can prove you would really have paid the money out to buy the music you copied. No provable, direct harm is done.
As for theories about people feeling it's "more wrong" to post MP3s to the web than share via P2P, I'm not so sure that's true. If ISPs all gave you hundreds of megs. of web storage space for free, and didn't care about bandwidth used -- and -- if someone wrote a tool making it really easy to post your music to the sites without learning HTML, etc., it'd be just like the P2P network is today.
What's not to get? It's like most computer industry lawsuits.... Nit-picking over small details in an attempt to earn notoriety and profit.
I never said the laws would be changed for how speeding and wreckless driving is punished, depending on the type of car driven, or income level of the driver!
My point was merely that the original post is trying to build a case for more restrictive legislation (a la "big brother" chips inside the cars logging the speeds driven). In reality though, the scenarios given aren't very realistic.
it's just not a common occurance that some teenager takes his new Porsche 959 out for a spin at 200Mph on the freeway during rush hour.
The financial barrier to entry on these top-performance cars tends to weed out the types of drivers who would be prone to doing those things. Reality is, most of these cars are being bought by people who collect them. It's ridiculous to go through all the effort to obtain a rare car like that, only to risk totalling it on the interstate for a 2 minute thrill.
Actually, I still agree with you - despite the nay-sayers who think it would become a script-kiddie disaster.
Here's the thing... This isn't something I'd necessarily want to see a huge, nation-wide ISP doing. It's more like a specialty service that a small "mom and pop" ISP could offer (at least experimentally).
Maybe the IPs could be masked so while they don't specifically indicate which user is doing a particular file transfer, they do still point to originating at that small ISP?
In this scenario, any trouble-makers could at least be tracked down to the ISP they're using, and from there - any *proper* legal authority could go through normal channels to get the person's information and make arrests as needed. (With a proper court order, the ISP could do some observation on their end to see which connection is causing the problem, even though the outside world still only sees that person's masked IP.)
I'd just like to see a measure of security in place so one's IP address doesn't automatically let anyone with the knowledge and inclination track you back to your home. You're allowed to buy unlisted/unpublished phone numbers... The Internet should have the same options.
I don't agree with your idea about logging the speeds a performance vehicle is driven, and punishing someone automatically for driving in excess of some predetermined limit.
From strictly a standpoint of increased safety, sure - it might help a little bit. But there's much more to it than that. For one thing, the people spending the money needed to own one of these cars in the first place aren't generally the "average" or even "inexperienced" driver. They're more likely to fit the profile of a wealthy individual who buys the car for "show" and "bragging rights", while not really having much time or inclination to drive around at reckless speeds on public roads.
Therefore, I think you're talking about legal solutions to problems that hardly exist. In the meantime, putting such laws in place sets the stage for car insurance companies to start requiring monitoring in all vehicles, and using it against customers trying to file claims. ("We're sorry, but an analysis of your car's computer shows us you didn't take the steps a safe driver would have taken to avoid this accident, so we're not compensating you for this claim!")
Also, in all the time I've been driving, I don't think I've *ever* witnessed some "nitwit sharing the road with me, while driving 200Mph". Sure, I've seen cars fly past me in the fast lane doing maybe 100 or 110Mph (and a couple times, seen them pulled over on the side of the road by a cop shortly thereafter!), but again - your scenario just doesn't really happen.
What *may* happen is someone doing performance tuning to a performance car needs to see if the tuning accomplished their goals or not, so they go out on a deserted stretch of road at 3AM and test it out. That has a measure of risk, too, but nothing like driving 200Mph in traffic. I don't think someone doing these deserves to have their car seized and license revoked permanently. By picking the most deserted road possible at a time least likely to have someone driving there - they're showing they took steps to make what they're doing as safe as possible.
Actually, I thought it was a great story of one person's tenacity winning out over government red tape!
From your comment, I'm assuming you're not really that interested in high-performance automobiles - but please keep in mind that many folks are.
This was a case where the barrier to entry was so high, only the richest people could afford to be bothered with it - but similar situations happen all the time with foreign cars desired by American citizens.
I thnk the law that they finally got pushed through is a sensible one, and should help out many more people than just Bill Gates and his friends. Most of us might not be buying street legal, rare Porsches any time soon - but this same law would help make it possible to obtain a number of more inexpensive collector cars.
IMHO, in cases like these, all that's really happened is the stakes are higher. If you feel you're getting forced up against a wall, where you're suddenly looking at a $30,000+ investment in MS hardware just because some "core business application" requires it - maybe it starts making sense to develop your own alternative application?
I'm surely not suggesting this is an easy decision to make, but it's worth seriously looking into. If you have a good, solid Linux-based server environment already - your costs to break that up are going to be much higher than just the initial cost of the Microsoft software and rollout!
If I were in your shoes, I'd really start thinking about hiring a few good software developers, and putting them on a project to build your company some custom loan origination software for Linux. If done correctly, it would offer numerous side benefits, such as the flexibility to tailor it to exactly what your business needs, instead of settling for what you're handed in a particular version of someone else's program. Bug fixes? Can be done as quickly as your developers can get to them.
I used to work for a company that built their own in-house application for order processing and report generation. It may have turned into the most expensive computer-related business decision they ever made - BUT, that application also became the cornerstone for the company. Competitors even attempted to buy the company out, simply to get their hands on that application - because it met a need they couldn't fill with "off the shelf" products.
I've been repeating and repeating this same fact for years, and it generally seems to fall on deaf ears.
This has been true for computer software, just as it's true for movies.
The bottom line is this:
People have a certain amount of their total income they're willing to spend on entertainment. Whether it's video games, computer software, books, music or movies - it's all under that one umbrella. After buying the essentials (paying rent or the house payment, car payment, utilities, etc.) - there's only so much left for entertainment purposes.
Realizing that, it becomes obvious that all of these industries compete directly against each other for some of those dollars. (As they merge, they compete against themselves in many cases. Look at Sony for example. They sell video game system, music and movies!) What WON'T happen is getting people to spend more money on buying those games, movies or music by putting pressure on them not to duplicate them.
People generally already spend all they're willing to spend on a mix of these items. Everyone I know shells out at least $40 to $80 per month simply to have older films piped in to them via cable TV or satellite! Then they go out and see a movie in the theater here or there, rent a few more titles, and buy the occasional DVD. How much more does the industry think a single person is going to buy? It matters not, ultimately, if this person has hundreds of VHS tape copies of movies. He/she did his/her part to support the industry already. The only way he/she might STOP doing so is if he/she gets legally harassed enough to rebel against the whole industry. That's where this is headed.