"Meet the twins, Vreeeeeeeeeet and Bob" - K from Men in Black.
Seriously, names all mean something. So, if you were an alien, wouldn't your name be translated too? You'd have aliens with Indian sounding names like "Son of the stars".
It always bugged me on Star Trek (really any Scifi) show when they just sprinkle alien words (or even worse...subtitles) throughout the otherwise English dialog. How exactly does the translator know when to let a word slip through untranslated? The fact that the aliens would then explain the meaning of the alien word was another irritation. How does the alien even know the word isn't being translated? Aren't they supposed to be speaking their own language?
I don't mean to be unreasonable, I'm willing to put up with a little suspension of belief but it would be nice for script writers to pay attention once and a while and think about it. I mean, we all rag on any SciFi show that doesn't display perfect 100% physics rules ("you can't see lasers!" "there are no booms in space") so why don't we get equally uppity about things like obvious language paradoxes?
Thank you for clearing that up...not that it really matters but...I really question the direction and general quality of a show when major plot points are subject to such huge revisions. Case in point...
Enterprise was sold on the principle of a "simpler, earlier Trek". Remember the exolinguist Hoshi? Remember the struggle to communicate? Wasn't that supposed to be a major theme of the series? It took precisely five episodes for the show to go from "omg omg omg the computer will take six hours to translate this so we know if this alien is hostile" to "I'm Captain Archer onboard an alien prison ship but apparently everyone speaks English or the Universal Translator is now small enough to fit invisibly in my ear". Enterprise has pretty much thrown out everything it was based on, giving us episodes involving time plots and DeathStars more complicated that anything from the other so-called advanced series.
Back to Andromeda...I gave it a try or two for the first half season or so then promptly forgot about it. A couple years later when I revisited it during a bout of insomnia, I remember thinking that absolutely nothing was the same. The angry fend for himself bounty hunter was somehoe like the chief ship security officer, the pacifist preacher was doing some kind of ninja kung fu, and the hologram of the ship was somehow walking around and trying to get laid. Or something like that. Anyway, I got the sense that the series had probably been through two or three shark jumps and flipped back to Cheers reruns for the 10000th time.
I mean...seriously...these shows are unwatchable. Completely. Why in God's name would anyone mourn these shows being cancelled?
There's no science. Please, someone find me the gene that lets a guy turn into some kind of Lava monster. That's a more amazing evolutionary feat than the bombadier beetle. It's like the worst parts of the worst episodes of X-Files all jammed into an solid 40 minutes, with an entire rip on the whole X-Men concept to boot.
And Andromeda...starts out with this gimmick of a holographic hot chick representing the ship (sort of a video version of Star Trek's talking female ship voice). Then they drop all pretense and somehow she becomes a walking talking hologram. And then later, I'm not sure, but did she end up turning into a real girl somehow? And those stupid names. God, who the hell green lights crap like "Rev Blem" or "Trance Gemini"...oooo! So alien! So spacey future sounding!
Forget it. Other shows, like Farscape or whatever, hey...I'm not a fan, but I can be appropriately sad to hear another Sci-Fi show bites the dust. But Mutant X? No. Andromeda? Quit beating the dead Roddenbery. These shows should die...every dollar not wasted on them is perhaps another dollar that can maybe somehow through a miracle end up going towards new Firefly episodes.
Er, S1...that's the one I meant. I looked at that when I was shopping for a sub-$1000 projector to test the feasibility of this project, but the bulbs at the store were closer to $300. I probably should have froogled them, but since they all seemed close to the same price, I figured it was normal.
Does anyone know who makes the bulbs/projectors for Dell? I'm trying to froogle the bulbs but I'm not having much luck with Dell's part number.
If these bulb really lasts longer than 2000 hours...well great but I wish consumer reports or someone would actually do a conclusive test and not just rely on ancedote or vague impressions.
And if the halogens have shorter lifetimes, that would explain why a lot of projectors were giving three digit bulb life projections.
So, you're telling me that no one has considered making a projection bulb that costs 10x less even though it doesnn't have the same color temperature? That nothing could be done to the video image (add more blue, whatever) to compensate for a warmer color source? Didn't the world have this problem with fluorscent lighting being too cool to provide a natural color balance? Yet, we apparently have figured that one out since they use fluorscents for even bathrooms lighting nowadays.
Hell, my LCD monitor gives me a choice of three color temperatures (aside from of course, choose your own RGB mix style) so, I don't think the world is as married to 6500K light as you suggest. Maybe no one's gonna be use it for PANTONE color matching but to put Cheaper By the Dozen on your living room wall, is it really that important? Speaking of which, unless you are using a specially coated project screen, you are probably throwing picture quality out the window anyway.
Regardless, I'm still seeking information about cheaper lighting options for LCD projection...since all I have to display is 16 colors at most, I really wouldn't care if they were all shades of puce if it cost what my floor lamp cost me.
This is a good idea, however, don't these kind of monitors require some kind of funky non-standard video interface? I vaguely remember people building MAME cabinets out of old arcade games having to do something to get a computer signal on the arcade monitor.
Resolution-wise, people need to be able to read it from across the room so we actually try to avoid large resolution with corresponding tiny font sizes. 800x600 at the most and 640x480 would be perfectly acceptible.
However, I wonder if these arcade monitors would be interlaced like a TV set? That's what causes us a problem using regular TV sets. Scan convertors don't work so well we find. Even the slightest jitter makes reading text onscreen too difficult and headache-inducing. "Monitors" even though they can be interlaces, are almost always non-interlaced in at least the lowest standard resolution of 640x480.
Most new consumer projectors will have bulb lives of around 3000 hours. Many also feature low pressure bulbs that can be replaced for around $200
Dell 2100MP = 2000 hours = $379.98/bulb. That's an example of a consumer ranged projector. Maybe Dell is doing the "cheap razor, expensive blades" thing, but they certainly aren't alone. I'd love to hear an example of a projector with replacement bulbs that cost less than $200, although if the projector itself costs $6000 that may explain something.
If you used your projector for 4 hours a day (and I don't know anyone who would do this), one bulb would last about two years
Okay, so 20 hundred hours is technically two thousand, but...compare that to the 20000 hours you'll get from a fluorescent light source. Halogens (which I think is what these projectors use) run hot, and can be very delicate. I think they even have long-life incandesents that last 5000 or so.
I doubt, serious doubt, that most people are going to get full life expectancy from their projection bulbs. Why else would they only be waranteed for 90 days when the projector itself is waranteed for a year or more? Maybe turning them on and off is stressful on the bulbs...in which case, are you going to get full life in any real world scenario?
I'd like for someone to point out some real world data on bulb life before they make the blanket statement that someone trying to save a couple hundred dollars on a projection system for his home shouldn't worry about blowing the money saved the first year for a new bulb.
There's a reason projectors (overhead or video) use fancy bulbs. They need lots of brightness and even lighting.
My living room needs a lot of brightness and lighting. My car needs a lot of brightness and lighting. But I don't pay $200/bulb to keep either supplied. As I said, I think a significant portion of the cost is that they need a small package. I can buy a 500Watt halogen for my floor standing torch lamp for what...$20? That's got to be just about as bright as whatever's in your average consumer projector. So why does it cost $20 in a lamp and $200 in a projector. The bulb isn't doing anything technological! It's a light source, period.
So, explain why I can't use a cheaper light source that is just as bright if I don't need it necessarily to fit into a itty bitty plastic case?
LCD is simply too costly right now. Granted, these 29" monitors are no bargain, but they are still under $1000. To get a comparable LCD display is more like $3000-4000. So they aren't really an option for replacements.
You can get LCD projectors for less than $1000 (800x600, which is good enough)...Dell 2100MP, the Epson H1something...whatever's on sale on pricewatch.
Once you go beyond 20" in the LCD realm, the price/size ratio seems to jump sharply and every extra inch throws several hundreds of dollars onto the price. A 20" Dell is $900...a 21" NEC is $1600...A Samsung 24" is $2600...etc.
We've even tried using big off-the-shelf CRT TV sets like Sony VEGA plus a scan convertor. However, these look terrible even at the lowest 640x480 resolution and TV's seem especially susceptible to "Burn-in". We had an NEC monitor show the same picture for months on end with no problem, yet three weeks in, the expensive Sony was ruined by bright white lettering.
I have several customers who desire big display screens (like how they always do in movies and TV) so they can monitor the status of certain things.
Currently, we use a lot of old NEC 29" monitors which haven't been made in 10 years and are going away for good. I've talked about replacing them with rear-projection systems, by putting a cloth or plastic across the opening for the CRT and parking a projector behind it to display.
There's just one problem...virtually every projector under the sun measures bulb life in "hundreds of hours". At $300/ea this is not going to work as a monitoring display. Plus, we can't really turn them off because if someone needs to look at it, you apparently can't just turn them back on until the cooldown cycle has finished.
What's the solution here? Is there any way possible to use standard (read low cost) lighting in a projection system? I think these bulbs must be so costly and delicate because they have to fit in a tiny projection unit. If size/portability isn't an issue...what other options are there?
Could I get a couple of 150watt incandenscent bulbs, throw them through a polarizing filter and shine them through, say a gutted laptop display? I seem to remember that back in the beginning of time (the early 90s) the only way to do LCD projection was to lay some kind of LCD panel over an existing off-the-shelf overhead projector. Do they still make these things? Can they be modified to work with other light sources (given that overhead projector bulbs are no bargain either)
This also has to do with the home theater question, because if you watch a lot of movies or TV shows, you're going to find youself using a bulb or two each year and that's not cheap.
Remember those? Only instead of working with electrical energy, it was all about working with mechanical energy. Some of the capsules were differentials, some where gear reducers, and some interacted with the outside world, with lights or vacuums or propellors.
Other than the fact that they were bulky as hell, it was one of my favorite toys. Ah fond bathtub memories of running the vacuum in reverse and making a squirt powered pontoon boat.
I can't find the article, but Family Guy's greatest opponent was Catholic advocacy groups. Family Guy was 100 times harder on Catholism than Judism or the handicapped. Practically every episode had some dig, from...
Peter: "We need a book to potty train our son." Clerk: "This is the most popular book 'Everybody Poops'. It has won many awards" Peter: "Ah, we're Catholic" Clerk: "Oh in that case you'll want "You're a Very Bad Boy and That's Concentrated Evil Coming Out of You'"
to the numerous episode where the Pope get placed in undignified positions or hob-nobs with the Griffin family members with-a da cheezy-a Italiana accento. Not to mention Peter's stereotypical Irish Catholic father role...and his overly-stereotypical Irish Catholic father.
Anyway, Catholics are a rather large group, and I think enough letters were written to get FOX nervous. Supposedly, outrage from Catholic groups over the first pope episode was the reason it was put on hiatus the first time, only it won an Emmy that year so FOX decided it was worth the risk...but when ratings failed to materialize from the award (thanks to timeslot shuffle) the continued pressure from Catholic groups finally made FOX buckle.
This was like five years ago, so I have no clue where to look for the article, but it made sense to me.
Unfortunately, it's not a thought crime once you start talking. There's tons of examples where talking can get you into trouble...performing a public broadcast of a copyrighted work would be one of them.
Even without any encryption you could technically get in trouble for giving public readings of a copyrighted book. Not to mention, it seems a little silly to engage in the mental exercise of decoding a book when that's what your eyes are already doing when they stare at printed words. There's no crime in decoding anything in your head, text, DVDs, government databases. The crime is sharing that information by speaking, uploading, posting, etc.
Thought crimes are appaling, but only because it implies someone has the ability to get inside my head. That's a long ways off. Everything else is just speech or action crime.
That's what legal defense funds, and perhaps the EFF, are for. I think the big problem is that people don't really know which way the wind is blowing with regard to digital civil disobedience. Would anyone want to end up being scapegoated like Kevin Mitnick? Of course not, but he did what he did at a time that public opinion wasn't all too clear on the subject, so no one backed him up. He also ran, which didn't help matters. If you are going to challenge something in the court system, you unforunately have to pay attention to the subject. Even thought 2600 had a perfectly valid points, they were tainted by the media painting 2600 as a "hacker" magazine.
What we need is a civil disobedience pact. Someone creates a website. The website contains a contract that you download, sign, and fax/mail back to the group running the website. The contract basically states that should the number of people who sign this contract reach X, you will commit this act of civil disobedience and then turn yourself into the authorities and demand a trial by jury. If you welch, you agree to be liable for a sum of money that would then go to pay for the legal costs incured by the others who did go through with it.
Think about what it would mean if a million people did that. On a given day, they all run DVDXCopy to make a backup of a DVD they own, then march down to the FBI office and demand they be booked, processed, and given a court date. It would literally be a human DDoS attack against the enforcement agencies that would require immediate action by the government. Now put yourself in the shoes of congress. If a million people feel strongly enough about something to risk jail or fine, would you want to find yourself on the other side of the issue?
Napster had 60 million members...what if every single one turned themselves in for violating that proposed law that makes sharing files a crime? No one wants to be the scapegoat, but I think everyone would join in with a large crowd for the same reason that people continue to download music...there are so many people doing it the odds of you actually getting singled out are slim to none.
So, would I be the first one to step onto the battlefield and get shot? No...but would I take a step alongside a million other people and take that 1/1000000 chance of getting shot? Absolutely.
Now, ironically, all we need is one person to start the movement by making the website/contract...
Of course, I'd dearly like to know what exactly this broadcast flag is supposed to be...but I'm willing to bet that this broadcast flag is going to essentially come down to a small sequence of bits (like the "second generation" marker that is used to prevent you from dubbing one MiniDisc digitally to another) or a signal overlay (like Macrovision that causes severe degredation if you copy the content). I don't think there's ever been a time that all the various hardware and content groups have been able to agree on a standard.
So, here's how I think it will shake out. There will be a small bit sequence in a digital broadcast that says "do not copy". It will be trivial to add that support to hardware, and simple to include that in broadcasts.
AND...simple to remove. Sure, the majority of the audience will be stymied, seeing the error message on their VCR/PVR/DVR and giving up, but there will also be a large percentage...the same people who go out and purchase "video enhancers" to remove Macrovision...that find ways to defeat it. That works for me. Sure, we are breaking the law, but it's civil disobedience, just like making backups of your DVDs and, just like the original Betamax case, time shifting your viewing material.
Maybe, eventually, some company somewhere will sue people who bypass this signal, or a company who makes a signal filter. When that happens, hopefully they will have the balls to take it through the court system to try and positively affirm the public's rights the way previous cases have.
No, actually warez of this era used 1.4MB floppy-sized pieces. AOL'ers would repack multiple pieces into AOL-sized 15MB attachements. It was a tad sloppy, since the original releases were often ZIP files that had been RAR'd, so you would sometimes need to unarchive three or four levels just to get the original release.
Group releases were divided into 1.4MB floppy sized pieces probably because every archival program could make floppy-sized pieces. It was a convenient way to disassemble a large program and then reassemble it on the other end. Also, if there was a bad bit, you only had to download one small piece not the whole program.
As things grew, some groups moved to 2.88MB sized pieces, I suppose in honor of the IBM format nobody used...but with CD-ROM game images (not just rips) and movies becoming popular, it became clear this wasn't enough of a bump. So 15MB became the standard. An now, we enter the DVD era and so we move to 50MB pieces. These sizes are small enough that it's not an enormous burden to redownload one, but large enough that the total number of pieces is under 100.
Incidentally, they aren't really 15MB or 50MB...it's 15000000 or 50000000 bytes...which is actually 14.3MB or 47MB...but well...no one wants to have to remember the actual number when they are typing it into RAR.
Yes, obviously forwarding didn't necessitate extra copies, but it still was 40GB of information that had been uploaded and stored somewhere. Forwarding kept those files alive while uploading continued. For a brief time AOL groups were keeping track of files in their group inboxes and the arguments were about TB.
See AOL had broadband connectivity right around the same time as all this was going on so people could connect from college networks and do most of the uploading on those speedy T3's.
In fact, a lot of people were using AOL accounts to backup their home systems. This was back when hard drives were 2-4GB so it wasn't unthinkable that someone on a fast connection could back up their entire system segmented into their AOL mailbox.
Despite the fact that this "feature" had absolutely no legitamate business use (in fact, your AOL webspace was around 10MB total)...AOL continued to invest what must have been millions of dollars on this mail attachment system. It wasn't until they became the largest ISP in America that the gravy trade ended. Coincidence? Nah.
That's right AOL. Don't believe me? Here's how it worked. Anyone who grew up on AOL knows what I'm talking about.
Each AOL account could have up to five screen names. Each screen name could have up to 550 e-mails* in their Inbox. Each e-mail could have a maximum file attachment of 15MB.
So...15MB times 550 is 8GB times 5 is about 40GB. That's per account, and thanks to the various account generation/phishing tricks, it wasn't uncommon to have several AOL accounts at any one time.
What did this mean? Well, it meant that AOL became one of the biggest warez havens in the blossoming Internet. And all with point and click easy, none of the file decoding nonsense of USENET.
How did AOL do this? I have no idea...but there were entire groups of people uploading warez non-stop so they could forward the mails around. At some point AOL cracked wise and started nuking attachments that had been downloaded X times. But for many years, it was glorious. Imagine sending several GB of software to someone with a single click of a button.
* actually you could have 550 in both Inbox, Outbox, and Read mail and various AOL tools helped you do this, bringing your capacity to a whopping 120GB.
You know, I can do exactly what this guy is doing, only I don't need a backpack full of batteries and equipment. All I need is a sign that reads:
"Ad-Hoc Wireless Network here. Use SSID "TempNet" and 192.168.1.x addressing"
For bonus points maybe even one of the Ad-Hoc users could be running DHCP or something to keep people from all picking 192.168.1.69 etc.
Seriously, I'm under the impression that wireless devices can already talk to each other, and that Windows at least already has a button to check to make it work. Maybe the IP issues need to be resolved, but hauling around a hikers pack of gonad frying gear seems like the dumb way to do it.
No no no...you've got it all wrong. You can just click the close button or disable popups or disable Java. Imagine if only brick and mortar was as easy...
You walking onto car lot. Salesguy runs up going "Hey how are you find folks this day can I interest you in a test drive you know we have zero interest financing..." You calmly poke the salesguy in his right shoulder. Salesguy vanishes into thin air.
You walk into the computer store. You see a herd of clueless blue shirts galloping your way. You calming pull out your indestructable wall and place it between you and the sales people. You go about your business as the sales people furiously wail and beat at the wall.
I feel like I'm talking to someone who can't even comprehend his own writing:
Many companies disallow their employees from accepting gifts over a certain amount Okay, so what word that would describe knowingly giving a gift to an employee whose value was over this certain amount?
How about the word BRIBE.
Or do you tink Army or any business would be okay with employee gifts valued at $500? Of course not. And that's why it's a bribe. Microsoft knows the retail price of their software, and is knowingly sending a free copies to employees of potential clients. They think they can get away with it because the media that Office comes on is essentially worthless (maybe a few cents to press a CD and print a label). But the license (if they are truly giving away full retail copies and not some stripped down evaluation) is worth $500. Buying a copy of Office is not just buying a copy of a CD. It's getting the damn license. If I get one on a card at work, guess what, that saved me from paying $500 at CompUSA.
A bribe by any other name, does it not stink the same?
I referred to your definition. If I end up looking like an idiot, consider the source of the definition.
It would be perfectly legal for GM to hand out keys to their SUVs
No, it would not be legal for GM to hand out keys to an SUV, period. Had you ever worked in a corporate environment for five minutes, you would know that employees are specifically prohibited from accepting anything from a vendor or potential vendor. There are even companies that prevent employees from accepting promotional items like notepads/pens with a vendor name, even though that have virtually no retail value.
There is no justification for gifts in the name of "familiarization". There are more than enough legitamate methods for vendors to demonstrate features that don't involve transferring wealth. Vendors need a level playing field so that products stand or fall on their own merits, not because one vendor is rich/unethical enough to use payola.
You operate under the misguided assumption that you can give something to a decision maker and call it ethical because you can't 100% prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the gift led directly to a "quid pro quo". In real life, you aren't allowed to give something because it is impossible to prove that the gift didn't lead to "quid pro quo". It's called "conflict of interest". Look that up.
"If you were able to make the connection between free versions of Office and a quid pro quo"
Yeah, and I suppose there is no connection between Microsoft giving away Internet Explorer for free and Internet Explorer becoming the number one browser. Oh wait, US courts have ruled that it happened precisely because Microsoft was able to give it away for free. How about that.
Let me give you an example so perhaps you can understand how absurd your logic is. You are the director of an art institute. On your own, you decide to purchase Adobe Photoshop because that's what companies want when they hire graphic artists. The next day, in the mail you receive a CD from Adobe that says "Here is a completely free retail copy of Photoshop for you to install on your personal computer. Familiarize yourself with our product! We look forward to working with you in the future. " Okay, now what do you do:
A) Keep the free copy of Photoshop. Continue with your decision to purchase Photoshop for all the computers in the school. Get fired for "quid pro quo" since Adobe gave you $1200 in software and you gave them back thousands in sales.
B) Keep the free copy of Photoshop. Realize that to continue with your Photoshop decision will be viewed as quid pro quo, so you change your mind and standardize on an inferior competitor's product. Get fired because you didn't make the best decision for your school since students don't sign up once they realize they won't be learning Photoshop.
C) Return the free copy to Adobe. Continue with your original decision to purchase Photoshop for the school computers. Keep your job and have your students become successful graphic designers.
Figure out your answer and then figure out why it would be unethical for Microsoft to do the same thing as Adobe did in this situation, then figure out why the Department of Defense asking Microsoft to stop. Hint. They are able to make the connection between free versions of Office and quid pro quo, as am I.
Yes but some user-installed applications (especially spyware) is never going to have the popularity of an Internet Explorer solution. Back when all these alternate DNS registries were trying to get a piece of the online pie, this quickly became obvious. Now, if Microsoft had been smart, they would have redone the 404 page in Internet Explorer to lookup the registry that "owns" that particular TLD and give a standard download prompt for the particular DNS update to access it. If Microsoft had been really clever they would have had their own DNS registry. Of course, that would have been one more nail in the antitrust arguments about Microsoft embracing-and-extending Internet standards but I still think it would be worth it.
I'd rather be beholden to Microsoft who at least is profit-driven and would probably saturate us with too many TLDs instead of ICANN who is moron-driven and hasn't made one right decision in five years.
Messing with DNS could be as simple to understand as "messing" with a user's homepage. A simple configuration dialog with a list of DNS servers in priority order. Start with the root servers at the top of the list, then new.net then alternet or whoever. Let users make the decision who to trust for domain resolution. Sure there will be conflicts, but as long as there is one DNS group controlled by responsible people, people can always fall back to that.
"A personal benefit" - An employee of the US Army now has a full version of Office 2003 to keep/take home/install on their laptop, home PC, child's PC...that's a personal benefit
"Offered to an employee" - These free versions (prefaced with postcard) were sent directly to employees within the Department of Defense, not from some employee discount program or sold in the cafeteria...that's offered to an employee
"with expectation that a favor will be granted in return" - And why the bloody hell do you think Microsoft does anything? Humanitarian aid? Support our troops? No. Obviously if you send thousands of free copies of Office to an entity, odds are that you are bound to put one in front of people who are in charge of software purchasing. Thus they are now more likely to plunk down someone else's (taxpayer) money for Office than perform due diligence and find more cost efficient options...that's expecting a favor.
"They are offering a useable version" just like GM could offer a useable version of its SUV instead of a pamphlet and a test drive at a dealership. All Microsoft eval version are fully function with time limits (even XP retail is technically eval for 30 days if it's not activated). There is no reason to give full versions other than one has long term value as a personal possession and the other has only short term value as evaluation material which is supposedly the purpose of this software.
GM would hand out keys to SUVs in a heartbeat to anyone who worked in Army aquisitions. "Gee, we need some vehicles for MP's to tool around the base, do we get 1 Humvee for $256000 or 5 Yukons for the same price?" What stops them is that people can more clearly see the connection between giving away free cars to decision makers. While the cost difference between a $50000 truck and a $500 software package may seem big, I'd be willing to bet that the Army buys a LOT more software than civilian vehicles (after all, every employee "needs" Outlook for e-mail, but few needs official transportation) so who is to say the profits are stake aren't just as high?
The Air Force is currently getting a congressional spanking because the person in charge of deciding who would get to fill an air tanker contract (Boeing) ended up being hired for a cushy VP position at the same company (Boeing). Hrrrrm. I guarantee that Congress is looking into this as a bribe and not merely an "unethical" mistake.
As I pointed out when I submitted the story, Microsoft already makes copies of Office that time out after 90-days or let you register via CC during the trial period. You can get them at most Kinko's and so on, and certainly somewhere on Microsoft's website.
So if Microsoft true intention was to familiarize large customers with new features, wouldn't it make a lot more sense to send them:
a) a self-running slideshow/video showing demonstrations of the new features (a la Video Professor, autoplay and go)
b) the aformentioned 90-day trial edition so they could install and see how well it works and then turn around and requisition it if they find a reason to keep it
c) MSDN or other licensed version that has no restrictions but the EULA clearly states the copy is not legit and cannot be used for actual business (development and testing only)
Somehow I don't think that's what Microsoft is doing. What they are doing is handing out free license keys to what retails for $499+. That means whoever happend to open the colonel's mail could just slip the key in his or her pocket and take it home with them, register it on their home system and enjoy a free copy of an outragously priced package. I mean, if everyone gets a free copy for personal use, stands to reason when requisition time comes around, people will suggest Office 2003 like they have at home.
This is bribery. Just because they call it marketting doesn't make it any less unethical. Otherwise, why can't GM just hand over the keys to their new SUV so that people can become "more familiar with our new features"? A legit Microsoft license (the actual hologrammed piece of paper with the key on it) is just as tangible and valuable as any other real-world freebie.
ICANN charges a non-refundable $45,000 for an application, and the total cost of developing a proper bid is reckoned to run into millions
What better way to foster innovation and good ideas than to make sure the barrier to entry is so unbelievably high that even three of the largest corporations on the planet --combined-- are thought to have "barely" a chance at floating a few new letters through cyberspace?
There's articifical scarcity, then there is intellegence scarcity. Five years after ICANN's creation, we still have (for all intents and purposes) no new TLDs. How many meetings in Hawaii and Barbados has that taken?
If Microsoft wants.mobile, guess what, they can add it to Internet Explorer and the new TLD will exist literally overnight. I'd actually be in favor of this horrible break of standards because it would teach everyone a valuable lesson that these precious root servers are modern feudalism and we serfs should wise up and go form our own government and let the 14 non-elected lords go out and dig up their own turnips.
Slashdot Mirror
"Meet the twins, Vreeeeeeeeeet and Bob" - K from Men in Black.
Seriously, names all mean something. So, if you were an alien, wouldn't your name be translated too? You'd have aliens with Indian sounding names like "Son of the stars".
It always bugged me on Star Trek (really any Scifi) show when they just sprinkle alien words (or even worse...subtitles) throughout the otherwise English dialog. How exactly does the translator know when to let a word slip through untranslated? The fact that the aliens would then explain the meaning of the alien word was another irritation. How does the alien even know the word isn't being translated? Aren't they supposed to be speaking their own language?
I don't mean to be unreasonable, I'm willing to put up with a little suspension of belief but it would be nice for script writers to pay attention once and a while and think about it. I mean, we all rag on any SciFi show that doesn't display perfect 100% physics rules ("you can't see lasers!" "there are no booms in space") so why don't we get equally uppity about things like obvious language paradoxes?
- JoeShmoe
.
Thank you for clearing that up...not that it really matters but...I really question the direction and general quality of a show when major plot points are subject to such huge revisions. Case in point...
Enterprise was sold on the principle of a "simpler, earlier Trek". Remember the exolinguist Hoshi? Remember the struggle to communicate? Wasn't that supposed to be a major theme of the series? It took precisely five episodes for the show to go from "omg omg omg the computer will take six hours to translate this so we know if this alien is hostile" to "I'm Captain Archer onboard an alien prison ship but apparently everyone speaks English or the Universal Translator is now small enough to fit invisibly in my ear". Enterprise has pretty much thrown out everything it was based on, giving us episodes involving time plots and DeathStars more complicated that anything from the other so-called advanced series.
Back to Andromeda...I gave it a try or two for the first half season or so then promptly forgot about it. A couple years later when I revisited it during a bout of insomnia, I remember thinking that absolutely nothing was the same. The angry fend for himself bounty hunter was somehoe like the chief ship security officer, the pacifist preacher was doing some kind of ninja kung fu, and the hologram of the ship was somehow walking around and trying to get laid. Or something like that. Anyway, I got the sense that the series had probably been through two or three shark jumps and flipped back to Cheers reruns for the 10000th time.
- JoeShmoe
.
I mean...seriously...these shows are unwatchable. Completely. Why in God's name would anyone mourn these shows being cancelled?
There's no science. Please, someone find me the gene that lets a guy turn into some kind of Lava monster. That's a more amazing evolutionary feat than the bombadier beetle. It's like the worst parts of the worst episodes of X-Files all jammed into an solid 40 minutes, with an entire rip on the whole X-Men concept to boot.
And Andromeda...starts out with this gimmick of a holographic hot chick representing the ship (sort of a video version of Star Trek's talking female ship voice). Then they drop all pretense and somehow she becomes a walking talking hologram. And then later, I'm not sure, but did she end up turning into a real girl somehow? And those stupid names. God, who the hell green lights crap like "Rev Blem" or "Trance Gemini"...oooo! So alien! So spacey future sounding!
Forget it. Other shows, like Farscape or whatever, hey...I'm not a fan, but I can be appropriately sad to hear another Sci-Fi show bites the dust. But Mutant X? No. Andromeda? Quit beating the dead Roddenbery. These shows should die...every dollar not wasted on them is perhaps another dollar that can maybe somehow through a miracle end up going towards new Firefly episodes.
- JoeShmoe
.
Er, S1...that's the one I meant. I looked at that when I was shopping for a sub-$1000 projector to test the feasibility of this project, but the bulbs at the store were closer to $300. I probably should have froogled them, but since they all seemed close to the same price, I figured it was normal.
Does anyone know who makes the bulbs/projectors for Dell? I'm trying to froogle the bulbs but I'm not having much luck with Dell's part number.
If these bulb really lasts longer than 2000 hours...well great but I wish consumer reports or someone would actually do a conclusive test and not just rely on ancedote or vague impressions.
And if the halogens have shorter lifetimes, that would explain why a lot of projectors were giving three digit bulb life projections.
- JoeShmoe
.
So, you're telling me that no one has considered making a projection bulb that costs 10x less even though it doesnn't have the same color temperature? That nothing could be done to the video image (add more blue, whatever) to compensate for a warmer color source? Didn't the world have this problem with fluorscent lighting being too cool to provide a natural color balance? Yet, we apparently have figured that one out since they use fluorscents for even bathrooms lighting nowadays.
Hell, my LCD monitor gives me a choice of three color temperatures (aside from of course, choose your own RGB mix style) so, I don't think the world is as married to 6500K light as you suggest. Maybe no one's gonna be use it for PANTONE color matching but to put Cheaper By the Dozen on your living room wall, is it really that important? Speaking of which, unless you are using a specially coated project screen, you are probably throwing picture quality out the window anyway.
Regardless, I'm still seeking information about cheaper lighting options for LCD projection...since all I have to display is 16 colors at most, I really wouldn't care if they were all shades of puce if it cost what my floor lamp cost me.
- JoeShmoe
.
This is a good idea, however, don't these kind of monitors require some kind of funky non-standard video interface? I vaguely remember people building MAME cabinets out of old arcade games having to do something to get a computer signal on the arcade monitor.
Resolution-wise, people need to be able to read it from across the room so we actually try to avoid large resolution with corresponding tiny font sizes. 800x600 at the most and 640x480 would be perfectly acceptible.
However, I wonder if these arcade monitors would be interlaced like a TV set? That's what causes us a problem using regular TV sets. Scan convertors don't work so well we find. Even the slightest jitter makes reading text onscreen too difficult and headache-inducing. "Monitors" even though they can be interlaces, are almost always non-interlaced in at least the lowest standard resolution of 640x480.
Nevertheless, I will look into this, thanks!
- JoeShmoe
.
Most new consumer projectors will have bulb lives of around 3000 hours. Many also feature low pressure bulbs that can be replaced for around $200
Dell 2100MP = 2000 hours = $379.98/bulb. That's an example of a consumer ranged projector. Maybe Dell is doing the "cheap razor, expensive blades" thing, but they certainly aren't alone. I'd love to hear an example of a projector with replacement bulbs that cost less than $200, although if the projector itself costs $6000 that may explain something.
If you used your projector for 4 hours a day (and I don't know anyone who would do this), one bulb would last about two years
Okay, so 20 hundred hours is technically two thousand, but...compare that to the 20000 hours you'll get from a fluorescent light source. Halogens (which I think is what these projectors use) run hot, and can be very delicate. I think they even have long-life incandesents that last 5000 or so.
I doubt, serious doubt, that most people are going to get full life expectancy from their projection bulbs. Why else would they only be waranteed for 90 days when the projector itself is waranteed for a year or more? Maybe turning them on and off is stressful on the bulbs...in which case, are you going to get full life in any real world scenario?
I'd like for someone to point out some real world data on bulb life before they make the blanket statement that someone trying to save a couple hundred dollars on a projection system for his home shouldn't worry about blowing the money saved the first year for a new bulb.
There's a reason projectors (overhead or video) use fancy bulbs. They need lots of brightness and even lighting.
My living room needs a lot of brightness and lighting. My car needs a lot of brightness and lighting. But I don't pay $200/bulb to keep either supplied. As I said, I think a significant portion of the cost is that they need a small package. I can buy a 500Watt halogen for my floor standing torch lamp for what...$20? That's got to be just about as bright as whatever's in your average consumer projector. So why does it cost $20 in a lamp and $200 in a projector. The bulb isn't doing anything technological! It's a light source, period.
So, explain why I can't use a cheaper light source that is just as bright if I don't need it necessarily to fit into a itty bitty plastic case?
- JoeShmoe
.
LCD is simply too costly right now. Granted, these 29" monitors are no bargain, but they are still under $1000. To get a comparable LCD display is more like $3000-4000. So they aren't really an option for replacements.
...Dell 2100MP, the Epson H1something...whatever's on sale on pricewatch.
You can get LCD projectors for less than $1000 (800x600, which is good enough)
Once you go beyond 20" in the LCD realm, the price/size ratio seems to jump sharply and every extra inch throws several hundreds of dollars onto the price. A 20" Dell is $900...a 21" NEC is $1600...A Samsung 24" is $2600...etc.
We've even tried using big off-the-shelf CRT TV sets like Sony VEGA plus a scan convertor. However, these look terrible even at the lowest 640x480 resolution and TV's seem especially susceptible to "Burn-in". We had an NEC monitor show the same picture for months on end with no problem, yet three weeks in, the expensive Sony was ruined by bright white lettering.
- JoeShmoe
.
I have several customers who desire big display screens (like how they always do in movies and TV) so they can monitor the status of certain things.
Currently, we use a lot of old NEC 29" monitors which haven't been made in 10 years and are going away for good. I've talked about replacing them with rear-projection systems, by putting a cloth or plastic across the opening for the CRT and parking a projector behind it to display.
There's just one problem...virtually every projector under the sun measures bulb life in "hundreds of hours". At $300/ea this is not going to work as a monitoring display. Plus, we can't really turn them off because if someone needs to look at it, you apparently can't just turn them back on until the cooldown cycle has finished.
What's the solution here? Is there any way possible to use standard (read low cost) lighting in a projection system? I think these bulbs must be so costly and delicate because they have to fit in a tiny projection unit. If size/portability isn't an issue...what other options are there?
Could I get a couple of 150watt incandenscent bulbs, throw them through a polarizing filter and shine them through, say a gutted laptop display? I seem to remember that back in the beginning of time (the early 90s) the only way to do LCD projection was to lay some kind of LCD panel over an existing off-the-shelf overhead projector. Do they still make these things? Can they be modified to work with other light sources (given that overhead projector bulbs are no bargain either)
This also has to do with the home theater question, because if you watch a lot of movies or TV shows, you're going to find youself using a bulb or two each year and that's not cheap.
- JoeShmoe
.
Remember those? Only instead of working with electrical energy, it was all about working with mechanical energy. Some of the capsules were differentials, some where gear reducers, and some interacted with the outside world, with lights or vacuums or propellors.
Other than the fact that they were bulky as hell, it was one of my favorite toys. Ah fond bathtub memories of running the vacuum in reverse and making a squirt powered pontoon boat.
- JoeShmoe
.
I can't find the article, but Family Guy's greatest opponent was Catholic advocacy groups. Family Guy was 100 times harder on Catholism than Judism or the handicapped. Practically every episode had some dig, from...
Peter: "We need a book to potty train our son."
Clerk: "This is the most popular book 'Everybody Poops'. It has won many awards"
Peter: "Ah, we're Catholic"
Clerk: "Oh in that case you'll want "You're a Very Bad Boy and That's Concentrated Evil Coming Out of You'"
to the numerous episode where the Pope get placed in undignified positions or hob-nobs with the Griffin family members with-a da cheezy-a Italiana accento. Not to mention Peter's stereotypical Irish Catholic father role...and his overly-stereotypical Irish Catholic father.
Anyway, Catholics are a rather large group, and I think enough letters were written to get FOX nervous. Supposedly, outrage from Catholic groups over the first pope episode was the reason it was put on hiatus the first time, only it won an Emmy that year so FOX decided it was worth the risk...but when ratings failed to materialize from the award (thanks to timeslot shuffle) the continued pressure from Catholic groups finally made FOX buckle.
This was like five years ago, so I have no clue where to look for the article, but it made sense to me.
- JoeShmoe
.
Unfortunately, it's not a thought crime once you start talking. There's tons of examples where talking can get you into trouble...performing a public broadcast of a copyrighted work would be one of them.
Even without any encryption you could technically get in trouble for giving public readings of a copyrighted book. Not to mention, it seems a little silly to engage in the mental exercise of decoding a book when that's what your eyes are already doing when they stare at printed words. There's no crime in decoding anything in your head, text, DVDs, government databases. The crime is sharing that information by speaking, uploading, posting, etc.
Thought crimes are appaling, but only because it implies someone has the ability to get inside my head. That's a long ways off. Everything else is just speech or action crime.
Nice try tho.
- JoeShmoe
.
That's what legal defense funds, and perhaps the EFF, are for. I think the big problem is that people don't really know which way the wind is blowing with regard to digital civil disobedience. Would anyone want to end up being scapegoated like Kevin Mitnick? Of course not, but he did what he did at a time that public opinion wasn't all too clear on the subject, so no one backed him up. He also ran, which didn't help matters. If you are going to challenge something in the court system, you unforunately have to pay attention to the subject. Even thought 2600 had a perfectly valid points, they were tainted by the media painting 2600 as a "hacker" magazine.
What we need is a civil disobedience pact. Someone creates a website. The website contains a contract that you download, sign, and fax/mail back to the group running the website. The contract basically states that should the number of people who sign this contract reach X, you will commit this act of civil disobedience and then turn yourself into the authorities and demand a trial by jury. If you welch, you agree to be liable for a sum of money that would then go to pay for the legal costs incured by the others who did go through with it.
Think about what it would mean if a million people did that. On a given day, they all run DVDXCopy to make a backup of a DVD they own, then march down to the FBI office and demand they be booked, processed, and given a court date. It would literally be a human DDoS attack against the enforcement agencies that would require immediate action by the government. Now put yourself in the shoes of congress. If a million people feel strongly enough about something to risk jail or fine, would you want to find yourself on the other side of the issue?
Napster had 60 million members...what if every single one turned themselves in for violating that proposed law that makes sharing files a crime? No one wants to be the scapegoat, but I think everyone would join in with a large crowd for the same reason that people continue to download music...there are so many people doing it the odds of you actually getting singled out are slim to none.
So, would I be the first one to step onto the battlefield and get shot? No...but would I take a step alongside a million other people and take that 1/1000000 chance of getting shot? Absolutely.
Now, ironically, all we need is one person to start the movement by making the website/contract...
- JoeShmoe
.
Of course, I'd dearly like to know what exactly this broadcast flag is supposed to be...but I'm willing to bet that this broadcast flag is going to essentially come down to a small sequence of bits (like the "second generation" marker that is used to prevent you from dubbing one MiniDisc digitally to another) or a signal overlay (like Macrovision that causes severe degredation if you copy the content). I don't think there's ever been a time that all the various hardware and content groups have been able to agree on a standard.
...simple to remove. Sure, the majority of the audience will be stymied, seeing the error message on their VCR/PVR/DVR and giving up, but there will also be a large percentage...the same people who go out and purchase "video enhancers" to remove Macrovision...that find ways to defeat it. That works for me. Sure, we are breaking the law, but it's civil disobedience, just like making backups of your DVDs and, just like the original Betamax case, time shifting your viewing material.
So, here's how I think it will shake out. There will be a small bit sequence in a digital broadcast that says "do not copy". It will be trivial to add that support to hardware, and simple to include that in broadcasts.
AND
Maybe, eventually, some company somewhere will sue people who bypass this signal, or a company who makes a signal filter. When that happens, hopefully they will have the balls to take it through the court system to try and positively affirm the public's rights the way previous cases have.
- JoeShmoe
.
No, actually warez of this era used 1.4MB floppy-sized pieces. AOL'ers would repack multiple pieces into AOL-sized 15MB attachements. It was a tad sloppy, since the original releases were often ZIP files that had been RAR'd, so you would sometimes need to unarchive three or four levels just to get the original release.
Group releases were divided into 1.4MB floppy sized pieces probably because every archival program could make floppy-sized pieces. It was a convenient way to disassemble a large program and then reassemble it on the other end. Also, if there was a bad bit, you only had to download one small piece not the whole program.
As things grew, some groups moved to 2.88MB sized pieces, I suppose in honor of the IBM format nobody used...but with CD-ROM game images (not just rips) and movies becoming popular, it became clear this wasn't enough of a bump. So 15MB became the standard. An now, we enter the DVD era and so we move to 50MB pieces. These sizes are small enough that it's not an enormous burden to redownload one, but large enough that the total number of pieces is under 100.
Incidentally, they aren't really 15MB or 50MB...it's 15000000 or 50000000 bytes...which is actually 14.3MB or 47MB...but well...no one wants to have to remember the actual number when they are typing it into RAR.
-JoeShmoe
.
Yes, obviously forwarding didn't necessitate extra copies, but it still was 40GB of information that had been uploaded and stored somewhere. Forwarding kept those files alive while uploading continued. For a brief time AOL groups were keeping track of files in their group inboxes and the arguments were about TB.
See AOL had broadband connectivity right around the same time as all this was going on so people could connect from college networks and do most of the uploading on those speedy T3's.
In fact, a lot of people were using AOL accounts to backup their home systems. This was back when hard drives were 2-4GB so it wasn't unthinkable that someone on a fast connection could back up their entire system segmented into their AOL mailbox.
Despite the fact that this "feature" had absolutely no legitamate business use (in fact, your AOL webspace was around 10MB total)...AOL continued to invest what must have been millions of dollars on this mail attachment system. It wasn't until they became the largest ISP in America that the gravy trade ended. Coincidence? Nah.
-JoeShmoe
.
That's right AOL. Don't believe me? Here's how it worked. Anyone who grew up on AOL knows what I'm talking about.
Each AOL account could have up to five screen names. Each screen name could have up to 550 e-mails* in their Inbox. Each e-mail could have a maximum file attachment of 15MB.
So...15MB times 550 is 8GB times 5 is about 40GB. That's per account, and thanks to the various account generation/phishing tricks, it wasn't uncommon to have several AOL accounts at any one time.
What did this mean? Well, it meant that AOL became one of the biggest warez havens in the blossoming Internet. And all with point and click easy, none of the file decoding nonsense of USENET.
How did AOL do this? I have no idea...but there were entire groups of people uploading warez non-stop so they could forward the mails around. At some point AOL cracked wise and started nuking attachments that had been downloaded X times. But for many years, it was glorious. Imagine sending several GB of software to someone with a single click of a button.
* actually you could have 550 in both Inbox, Outbox, and Read mail and various AOL tools helped you do this, bringing your capacity to a whopping 120GB.
- JoeShmoe
.
You know, I can do exactly what this guy is doing, only I don't need a backpack full of batteries and equipment. All I need is a sign that reads:
"Ad-Hoc Wireless Network here. Use SSID "TempNet" and 192.168.1.x addressing"
For bonus points maybe even one of the Ad-Hoc users could be running DHCP or something to keep people from all picking 192.168.1.69 etc.
Seriously, I'm under the impression that wireless devices can already talk to each other, and that Windows at least already has a button to check to make it work. Maybe the IP issues need to be resolved, but hauling around a hikers pack of gonad frying gear seems like the dumb way to do it.
-JoeShmoe
.
No no no...you've got it all wrong. You can just click the close button or disable popups or disable Java. Imagine if only brick and mortar was as easy...
You walking onto car lot.
Salesguy runs up going "Hey how are you find folks this day can I interest you in a test drive you know we have zero interest financing..."
You calmly poke the salesguy in his right shoulder.
Salesguy vanishes into thin air.
You walk into the computer store.
You see a herd of clueless blue shirts galloping your way.
You calming pull out your indestructable wall and place it between you and the sales people.
You go about your business as the sales people furiously wail and beat at the wall.
-JoeShmoe
.
I feel like I'm talking to someone who can't even comprehend his own writing:
Many companies disallow their employees from accepting gifts over a certain amount
Okay, so what word that would describe knowingly giving a gift to an employee whose value was over this certain amount?
How about the word BRIBE.
Or do you tink Army or any business would be okay with employee gifts valued at $500? Of course not. And that's why it's a bribe. Microsoft knows the retail price of their software, and is knowingly sending a free copies to employees of potential clients. They think they can get away with it because the media that Office comes on is essentially worthless (maybe a few cents to press a CD and print a label). But the license (if they are truly giving away full retail copies and not some stripped down evaluation) is worth $500. Buying a copy of Office is not just buying a copy of a CD. It's getting the damn license. If I get one on a card at work, guess what, that saved me from paying $500 at CompUSA.
A bribe by any other name, does it not stink the same?
- JoeShmoe
.
You didn't refer to a dictionary did you?
I referred to your definition. If I end up looking like an idiot, consider the source of the definition.
It would be perfectly legal for GM to hand out keys to their SUVs
No, it would not be legal for GM to hand out keys to an SUV, period. Had you ever worked in a corporate environment for five minutes, you would know that employees are specifically prohibited from accepting anything from a vendor or potential vendor. There are even companies that prevent employees from accepting promotional items like notepads/pens with a vendor name, even though that have virtually no retail value.
There is no justification for gifts in the name of "familiarization". There are more than enough legitamate methods for vendors to demonstrate features that don't involve transferring wealth. Vendors need a level playing field so that products stand or fall on their own merits, not because one vendor is rich/unethical enough to use payola.
You operate under the misguided assumption that you can give something to a decision maker and call it ethical because you can't 100% prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the gift led directly to a "quid pro quo". In real life, you aren't allowed to give something because it is impossible to prove that the gift didn't lead to "quid pro quo". It's called "conflict of interest". Look that up.
"If you were able to make the connection between free versions of Office and a quid pro quo"
Yeah, and I suppose there is no connection between Microsoft giving away Internet Explorer for free and Internet Explorer becoming the number one browser. Oh wait, US courts have ruled that it happened precisely because Microsoft was able to give it away for free. How about that.
Let me give you an example so perhaps you can understand how absurd your logic is. You are the director of an art institute. On your own, you decide to purchase Adobe Photoshop because that's what companies want when they hire graphic artists. The next day, in the mail you receive a CD from Adobe that says "Here is a completely free retail copy of Photoshop for you to install on your personal computer. Familiarize yourself with our product! We look forward to working with you in the future. " Okay, now what do you do:
A) Keep the free copy of Photoshop. Continue with your decision to purchase Photoshop for all the computers in the school. Get fired for "quid pro quo" since Adobe gave you $1200 in software and you gave them back thousands in sales.
B) Keep the free copy of Photoshop. Realize that to continue with your Photoshop decision will be viewed as quid pro quo, so you change your mind and standardize on an inferior competitor's product. Get fired because you didn't make the best decision for your school since students don't sign up once they realize they won't be learning Photoshop.
C) Return the free copy to Adobe. Continue with your original decision to purchase Photoshop for the school computers. Keep your job and have your students become successful graphic designers.
Figure out your answer and then figure out why it would be unethical for Microsoft to do the same thing as Adobe did in this situation, then figure out why the Department of Defense asking Microsoft to stop. Hint. They are able to make the connection between free versions of Office and quid pro quo, as am I.
-JoeShmoe
.
Yes but some user-installed applications (especially spyware) is never going to have the popularity of an Internet Explorer solution. Back when all these alternate DNS registries were trying to get a piece of the online pie, this quickly became obvious. Now, if Microsoft had been smart, they would have redone the 404 page in Internet Explorer to lookup the registry that "owns" that particular TLD and give a standard download prompt for the particular DNS update to access it. If Microsoft had been really clever they would have had their own DNS registry. Of course, that would have been one more nail in the antitrust arguments about Microsoft embracing-and-extending Internet standards but I still think it would be worth it.
I'd rather be beholden to Microsoft who at least is profit-driven and would probably saturate us with too many TLDs instead of ICANN who is moron-driven and hasn't made one right decision in five years.
Messing with DNS could be as simple to understand as "messing" with a user's homepage. A simple configuration dialog with a list of DNS servers in priority order. Start with the root servers at the top of the list, then new.net then alternet or whoever. Let users make the decision who to trust for domain resolution. Sure there will be conflicts, but as long as there is one DNS group controlled by responsible people, people can always fall back to that.
- JoeShmoe
.
You need to learn how to read your own writing:
"A personal benefit"
- An employee of the US Army now has a full version of Office 2003 to keep/take home/install on their laptop, home PC, child's PC...that's a personal benefit
"Offered to an employee"
- These free versions (prefaced with postcard) were sent directly to employees within the Department of Defense, not from some employee discount program or sold in the cafeteria...that's offered to an employee
"with expectation that a favor will be granted in return"
- And why the bloody hell do you think Microsoft does anything? Humanitarian aid? Support our troops? No. Obviously if you send thousands of free copies of Office to an entity, odds are that you are bound to put one in front of people who are in charge of software purchasing. Thus they are now more likely to plunk down someone else's (taxpayer) money for Office than perform due diligence and find more cost efficient options...that's expecting a favor.
"They are offering a useable version" just like GM could offer a useable version of its SUV instead of a pamphlet and a test drive at a dealership. All Microsoft eval version are fully function with time limits (even XP retail is technically eval for 30 days if it's not activated). There is no reason to give full versions other than one has long term value as a personal possession and the other has only short term value as evaluation material which is supposedly the purpose of this software.
GM would hand out keys to SUVs in a heartbeat to anyone who worked in Army aquisitions. "Gee, we need some vehicles for MP's to tool around the base, do we get 1 Humvee for $256000 or 5 Yukons for the same price?" What stops them is that people can more clearly see the connection between giving away free cars to decision makers. While the cost difference between a $50000 truck and a $500 software package may seem big, I'd be willing to bet that the Army buys a LOT more software than civilian vehicles (after all, every employee "needs" Outlook for e-mail, but few needs official transportation) so who is to say the profits are stake aren't just as high?
The Air Force is currently getting a congressional spanking because the person in charge of deciding who would get to fill an air tanker contract (Boeing) ended up being hired for a cushy VP position at the same company (Boeing). Hrrrrm. I guarantee that Congress is looking into this as a bribe and not merely an "unethical" mistake.
- JoeShmoe
.
As I pointed out when I submitted the story, Microsoft already makes copies of Office that time out after 90-days or let you register via CC during the trial period. You can get them at most Kinko's and so on, and certainly somewhere on Microsoft's website.
So if Microsoft true intention was to familiarize large customers with new features, wouldn't it make a lot more sense to send them:
a) a self-running slideshow/video showing demonstrations of the new features (a la Video Professor, autoplay and go)
b) the aformentioned 90-day trial edition so they could install and see how well it works and then turn around and requisition it if they find a reason to keep it
c) MSDN or other licensed version that has no restrictions but the EULA clearly states the copy is not legit and cannot be used for actual business (development and testing only)
Somehow I don't think that's what Microsoft is doing. What they are doing is handing out free license keys to what retails for $499+. That means whoever happend to open the colonel's mail could just slip the key in his or her pocket and take it home with them, register it on their home system and enjoy a free copy of an outragously priced package. I mean, if everyone gets a free copy for personal use, stands to reason when requisition time comes around, people will suggest Office 2003 like they have at home.
This is bribery. Just because they call it marketting doesn't make it any less unethical. Otherwise, why can't GM just hand over the keys to their new SUV so that people can become "more familiar with our new features"? A legit Microsoft license (the actual hologrammed piece of paper with the key on it) is just as tangible and valuable as any other real-world freebie.
-JoeShmoe
.
ICANN charges a non-refundable $45,000 for an application, and the total cost of developing a proper bid is reckoned to run into millions
.mobile, guess what, they can add it to Internet Explorer and the new TLD will exist literally overnight. I'd actually be in favor of this horrible break of standards because it would teach everyone a valuable lesson that these precious root servers are modern feudalism and we serfs should wise up and go form our own government and let the 14 non-elected lords go out and dig up their own turnips.
What better way to foster innovation and good ideas than to make sure the barrier to entry is so unbelievably high that even three of the largest corporations on the planet --combined-- are thought to have "barely" a chance at floating a few new letters through cyberspace?
There's articifical scarcity, then there is intellegence scarcity. Five years after ICANN's creation, we still have (for all intents and purposes) no new TLDs. How many meetings in Hawaii and Barbados has that taken?
If Microsoft wants
-JoeShmoe
.