I have a freeware application which I host on a web server where most of the users are in europe and Asia. I am no slashdot but my site is reporting 47.97% of users hitting the site with IE and 47.23% using Firefox and 3.69% using Opera. This is with 97% of those users on the windows platform.
In Georgia a non-compete has never held up except for executives and people who sold businesses to another business entity. The judge can find one flaw and strike the *whole* contract. The courts look upon these contracts as illegal in 99% of cases because they try to keep ordinary people from working.
First, there are some things you can't agree to by law. Law trumps contacts and it varies from state to state. For example, you can't agree to sell your freedom to an individual. Minors can't enter into contracts. You can't enter a contract if you are drunk, etc. The contract can't be "forever", etc.
I don't know about other states, but in Georgia a judge can find any one thing wrong with an employment contract and strike the whole thing. These contracts are used for intimidation purposes generally. Very, very few non-competes have been enforced in Georgia. A valid non-compete must be written specially for you, which is very expensive and not worth it for a regular employee, and as your job changes the contract needs to be updated. Usually, non-competes that are enforceable are written for executives and prior owners that sold a business. But the clause in question is dealing more with right of ownership. Generally, if you sign one of these things you agree to transfer the right of ownership of all creative works to the employer. That part holds up in court. But if you work on an idea on your own time with your own equipment - that is a gray area. If you are contractor that area becomes much easier to determine. But, after you leave the job what is in your head you can take with you. The company can't claim ownership to your brain although they try through these overreaching contracts. And, my lawyer has agreed with one of the previous posts that a terribly written employment contracts are the best to sign. It gives you ample room to get out of it if necessary.
Isn't this an overall business trend that is going beyond simply hiring engineers and people? Companies want "sure thing" bets because Wall Street demands consistent numbers. It costs money and is too "risky" to take on new talent. It is better to go for the "sure thing" but that costs more money. So, lets get highly educated people with great talent at low prices.
I'm pretty sure a sip of coffee would kill the cockroach.
"Caffeine is found in varying quantities in the beans, leaves, and fruit of over 60 plants, where it acts as a natural pesticide that paralyzes and kills certain insects feeding on the plants. It is most commonly consumed by humans in infusions extracted from the beans of the coffee plant and the leaves of the tea bush, as well as from various foods and drinks containing products derived from the kola nut or from cacao. Other sources include yerba mate, guarana berries, and the Yaupon Holly." -- wikipedia
Some people are arguing that it matters when you opened or used the software and once you do so you are bound by the agreement. It doesn't matter what the agreement says if the language is no enforceable. It could say that "once you open this box you must send your first born to AutoDesk." This would be an illegal contract since it is against the law to enter into a contract where you sell a human. So, just because an agreement makes claims or statements does not mean that the claims will hold up in the court of law. There are laws and judicial rulings concerning "fair use" and transfer of license. Garth Brooks made a similar claim several years ago when he tried to stop second hand stores from re-selling his CDs. Of course his claim did not hold up. Imagine if you bought a car and the software that powers it has a non-transferable license and it was against the law to sell that license to another party. So, we shall see what the ruling is if this case indeed goes to trial and is not settled out of court. My guess is AutoDesk has more to lose than gain by going to jury trial.
The concept of "proper notice" is a matter of state code and prior court rulings. It is not what you as an individual think proper notice should be based on a logic or critical thinking. Logic is not used in the court systems and it gets arm chair lawyers in trouble all the time. For example, in my state if I hand my car over to a valet I get a ticket that says if they damage my car or if my items are stolen out of my car then it is not their fault and I can't sue. Well, if I never bother to read the notice or if someone doesn't show me a large sign that has the notice on it and tell me to read it before I hand my keys over, the notice is not enforceable. Just including a notice with a product or service doesn't suffice in most states. The law is not logical, it is written in code and enforced in the most illogical ways though past court rulings. The court will ask you if the notice was properly displayed and if you read it. If I never flip that valet ticket over and read the notice guess what, it isn't enforceable - in my state. Other states have different laws concerning notices.
The concept of "proper notice" is a matter of state code and prior court rulings. It is not what you as an individual think proper notice should be based on a logical argument. Logic is not used in the court systems and it gets arm chair lawyers in trouble all the time. For example, in my state if I hand my car over to a valet I get a ticket that says if they damage my car or if my items are stolen out of my car then it is not their fault and I can't sue. Well, if I never bother to read the notice or if someone doesn't show me a large sign that has the notice on it and tell me to read it before I hand my keys over, the notice is not enforceable. Just including a notice with a product or service doesn't suffice in most states. The law is not logical, it is written in code and enforced in the most illogical ways though past court rulings. The court will ask you if the notice was properly displayed and if you read it. If I never flip that valet ticket over and read the notice guess what, it isn't enforceable - in my state. Other states have different laws concerning notices.
You can argue all day long as to whether outsourcing or H1-B Visa programs are "good for America" but you might want to ask yourself is it good for you, Joe Programmer / Developer / Scientist. There was a time in our country when people said "What is good for GM is good for America."
There is a shortage of skill IT workers at the moment but there is absolutely no shortage of smart people in the US. Because of the shake down after 2000 and 2001 in the IT industry a lot of folks left the market and a lot of kids stopped enrolling in IT curriculum. Smart people who are looking for a paying profession do not want to spend the energy to get an education in a discipline that has an unknown future due to the threat of foreign labor whether real or simply perceived. If the pay is excellent and the future bright for a discipline then people will make the investment from an academic and work experience set prospective. Some people will always go into a field because they enjoy the work regardless of the pay. But for many other kids who are facing high tuition loans, an extremely over-inflated housing market you have to ask the question. Why should a young, smart person take the chance on IT if he or she perceives their job will job be "outsourced to India?" Bill Gates was asked this exact question when he went around college campuses a few years ago telling people to get an education in Computer Science and IT related fields.
This is simply supply and demand. There is more demand (jobs) than supply (workers) at the moment and companies don't want the wages to go back up to the pre-2001 levels when life was extremely good for an IT worker. So, to hold down your pay companies are supplementing the market with other strategies. It is in their right to do so there are consequences if they choose to outsource projects. There are a lot of hidden costs and many, many risks to outsourcing. But, bringing workers over on a H1-B is low risk because the company manages that individual on site just like any other employee. And there are many levels of middle men making money along the way on this H1-B worker. The other benefit the company gets is an individual who does not participate in free market economics since they can not easily shop around for another H1-B sponsor and demand and receive more money. They are locked into their employer and the employer knows this. This again keeps the supply and the demand low which reduces costs for companies due to reducing in salary as well as reduced turn over.
If you want to change this then people must organize and spend money on lobbyists to protect our interests. The companies are spending millions protecting their interests and Washington sets the policies.
Doesn't it seem that media in generally has aligned themselves with advertisers more than ever before? It this just a symptom of the competitive market place of today's world where you can get information from so many sources? From the 300 plus channels on digital cable to the Internet we are constantly being bombarded with so many messages that people are tuning out 99% of them. Advertising seems to be moving from a distinct service such a paid for ad spot to being interwoven into the content as to reach the maximum number of people as possible in a world of constant and intense media chatter. The future for unbiased reporting does not look good unless people demand it.
I never said you should save up money and pay it later. That was simply an example for my situation where I earned more than the prior year and therefore owed money beyond my estimates without IRS penalty. I never said "you should do x or y." I was only giving examples. In my case it makes no sense to pay early since I pay without penalty.
You pay no penalty is you earned more than your estimates for the previous year cover. Is you earn the same or less you pay a penalty. In my case I earned more, my estimates did not cover the difference but I have no penalty. That is how the tax code system works. Estimates are based on prior year income.
Spoken by someone who fills out a 1040-EZ form with W2 employment. Some of us "dorks" are not getting a "refund" because we multiple sources of income, own businesses, and actually owe money to the government because we made more this year than last year. As long as we don't incur a penalty, paying additional money to the IRS early actually costs us money. Would you make a 10k payment to the IRS in Feb if you could put that money in an interest bearing account and wait until April to pay it without penalty? Other "dorks" have complicated tax filings with rental income from houses, 1099 income, complicated investment income, capital gains, inheritance, major illness and medical expenses, alimony, child payments, and business expenses as well as the fact that tax filings only happen in April so my accountant is bogged down with tons of other people with complicated tax filings. And finally, the true dorks are the ones that really do want until Tuesday night to actually try to file their 1040-EZ returns and instead of printing them out they try to file electronically.
This scam took a statistician to find and prove and that was only because stock option grants to executives are publically published at the end of each fiscal year prior to the SOX law. Now they have to be reported in a matter of just a couple of days which is why all this BS ended in 2003. IMHO, the only way this could be so wide spread and adopted it must have been touted by accounting consultants, financial consultants, and executive placement firms.
What concerns me even more is that this is surely just one of many widely used scams by executive to steal money from the company and shareholders. Obviously this scam had to be replaced with another money maker for executives once the SOX law was passed in 2002. We live in a weird era where executives have complete control over these companies and corporate raiding is the norm.
I could not agree with you more. What kind of opened my eyes was an article in the ACM about why we use software methodologies. The uptake is that most methodologies are not created by developers. They are created by managerial types to control the development process by non-developers. They are control mechanisms to build in accountability and usually they weight down the process. The most problematic issue these methodologies fail to address is that software does not live in our nice, easy to understand and relate to concrete world. Physical controls don't work well with the software development process because the medium that it attemps to control is not concrete. The software program itself is an abstract idea. I think this is why so many non-software types like to spend so much time meeting and discussing the few somewhat tangible aspects of software: colors schemes and UI design.
The other interesting aspect I have observed is that companies, consultant firms, and software companies have been looking for and preaching the 'silver bullet' methodology for years. Of course there is no silver bullet so they just keep coming up with a better looking bullet than the last one. It's like the never ending treadmill. As long as the bullet looks good enough to sell the industry does forward. The interesting aspect of this is that all these methodologies create jobs for companies that sell their services as they go through a life-cycle. These services and products come in the form of methodology training, lectures, books, middleware, software, consulting, code generators, programming languages, you name it. The 'buzz' motivates companies to buy services. It's craziness to those who have seen several of such methodologies rise and fall over the years. It's like pop culture. People forget and can't get enough of the latest song or singer. And each methodology must have one or more celebrities.
Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD). I believe I am only flinging doubt of Microsoft's intent as they market it. Just as I doubt a company like Exxon Mobile is really concerned about the quality of the environment. I am not sure how you would interpret my words as fearful. Do my words cause you fear and anxiety? I could only see this if you believed something that happens to be not true. For example you might believe Microsoft is there to protect you and do the right thing. When someone contradicts your belief then that thought might cause you anxiety and fear. There is nothing I can see that is uncertain in my statement unless you feel I am uncertain in what I am talking about. I respect that. That is your choice. I am not a self proclaimed expect. But I have been in this industry for 20+ years and have a little bit of experience. Everyone makes the best interpretation of events as they can unless you are an insider and have special knowlege. Notice I did not attack you for your opinion. And there are many things in this world I will never have evidence of but I still can make a valid asserting based on reason, logic, and past behavior. For example, I have no direct evidence that OJ is guilty. All I have is circumstantial evidence and testimony given to me mostly by the media.
I doubt, as others do, Microsoft's charity intentions just as I would any large corporation that gives a huge amount of their own product in the name of some kind charity cause and publicizes it. That is why charities get rated every year on how the money is spent by various third party entites that are interested in digging through the marketing and trying to reword the true contributors. Microsoft has never been a big contributor of cash. They prefer to contribute software because it is in their best interest to do so.
The drug companies do this all the time in Africa. Corporations have a duty to their shareholders. That is why the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is free to donate their funds as they see fit. Corporations are self-serving entities. Individuals humans can be compassionate. There is no executive duty to Microsoft's share holders for the Gate Foundation. Gates and his wife (along with various board members) can decide what causes they are interested in such as disease eradication research funding. Such R&D spending is not done by large drug companies because the consumer markets are not there to support blockbuster drug sales of malaria. We have eradicated malaria in most developed countries. But 3rd world counties' general populations have little money - hence little market potential. This is the ugly underbelly of capitalism. Gates would like to change the world by filling in such a gap. One of his goals is to help these underserved people of the world. He can do this via grants from the B&M Gates Foundation. Microsoft can not donate a billion dollars each year to something that isn't going to benefit their shareholders. They must account for ever dollar they give away and how it can help their bottom line. Sure, some money is given no strings attached but as a whole Microsoft has always looked at free software as a way to get them established on Microsoft software. It is good business - many companies do this. Gates is on record saying that if the US govt can't pressure the Chinese govt to stop copying Windows and Office then at least they are using Windows and Office. He hopes to one day get licensing fees from them. All I am saying is wake up and don't think corporation are there to serve the public's interest. They are not. It would be a breach of fiducary duty to do so. They are beholden to the interests of their stockholders. No big deal. Just be aware of it and don't hold your belief in humanity based on the actions of corporations. I would recommed that you lighten up a little. Hostility is not flattering of help you live longer.
What if itunes offered 1 week movie rentals for the iPod for something like $1.99? Apple does not like a time limit licensing model for music. They have said that people want to own their music. But, a time limited licensing for movies may makes more sense. Blockbuster has been worrying for years that they will be irrelevant once sophisticated TV set top boxes were able to download movie rental content. Some areas already have this but you must have a specific service, cable provider, and box. All three together can be expensive. What if the set top box is really just the iPod? Now, I can rent the movie and take it with me for a week.
Microsoft has a long history of donating to charity and then taking a large tax deduction for the full retail price of the product. Since the physical manufacturing costs are so low for software after the initial investment of developing it, free software for education is both a PR win for Microsoft as well as well as a great tax shelter. But more importantly the schools that accept their software will now be future customers. And, the kids that use them will grow up to be consumers. They have been doing this for some time. They even give themselves the full retail sales price deduction for the software which is not customary among corporate donators (or at least it was not in the past).
And don't forget about the anti-trust settlement which allowed them to print money in the form of free software on CDs. Now, that's a sweet deal any company would jump at. Apple's opposed the deal since it hurt them.
Excellent point. I think you are right on. Stallman is not naive to public policy and politics whether local or international. In fact his own concept of how software should be 'free' as Stallman defines it is rooted not in technology but personal belief, philosophy, and politics. Philosophy is enacted or protected by policy (e.g. govt. passing or failing to pass various laws of enforcement.) This effort and the documentation of the effort via a camera to speak with the Prime Minister might seem totally crazy unless you view it as a stunt to promote FSF ideas and bring awareness to the cause. Clearly the message is getting out and Stallman's tactics are working. The roll of paper is also clearly a stunt to demonstrate the magnitude of the side he represents. The scroll works well with the camera by capturing the magnitude of the message. Stallman is a smart cookie. He has an agenda and strong political views whether you agree with them or not.
Correct me if I am wrong but does the EULA for Windows 2003 state that you must get permission from MSFT before publishing any kind of performance data on the operating system? Perhaps that only applied to for true performance benchmarking and uptime is not considered performance benchmarking in this case?
Intel designed the "ultimate" microprocessor - on paper. They might have been successfully in forcing every software company on the x86 instruction set to recompile but AMD saw the weakness in their strategy. Yes, x86 is weird, arcane, backwards, and messy. The instruction set is rooted in late 1960s and early 1970s computing. But, it would cost millions if not billions of dollars for the companies dependent on x86 designs to completely ditch the x86 architecture. AMD exploited this lack of foresight by Intel by offering a competing, well performing, backwards compatible chip to the Itanium.
All this is great news for the consumer except that there is an economic law of 3's. We need a third competitor in the space to truly get good competition. We used to have Cirrus but they died several years ago. A couple of other companies that had a license to the x86 instruction set also did not make the transition. The PowerPC and dead DEC Alpha are not options either. Ideally, if we had a third chip manufacturer I think, based on economic theory, we would see some really interesting and innovate things take place in the chip market - beyond what we currently have. And, it would be much more likely to be sustainable.
Using a backward compatible (and I mean x86 compatible) chip design is an easy decision for most technology companies. Option (a) spend millions migrating off the x86 to an even more proprietary Intel chip set or option (b) use AMD and operate on x86 as usual. Without a monopoly forcing option (a), option (b) was the clear winner. Intel has been forced to refocus their efforts and play "catch up" with AMD's new chip architecture and multi-core strategy. To make Intel's situation worse, AMD did some wonderful innovating on their. This helps no only AMD but all the programmers in the world that rely on the x86 architecture. Industry insiders are predicting the end of Moore's law. If you believe them then the free lunch is over. Chips are not going to operate at faster speeds. So, the only way to get more horsepower out of a machine would be to add more processors. But, most applications are written to run on single processor architecture. Most programmers know next to nothing about concurrent software design, testing, and development. AMDs chip pretends to be a single-processor machine while dividing tasks with multiple cores. Coding to true multi-processor systems is not only difficult but it is also not supported well in any language. For those that think C# and Java is the answer to concurrent programming, you might want to read what Herb Sutter has to say on the issue.
The customers who bought stock prior to the opening bell on the first day did so at a guaranteed price. They purchased the stock not from Vonage but from the underwriters who financed the IPO deal and brought the Vonage stock to the open NASDAQ market. These underwriters are owed the money for the stock purchased. Vonage is indemnifying the underwriters and paying for all the Vonage stock that customers are refusing to send their money for. The underwriters are the ones that are out money - not Vonage. They are the ones harmed by customers refusing to pay for the IPO they ordered. Vonage has a huge public relations problem on their hands. Don't expect any other companies to do this in the future.
Spoken like a true lawyer. Is this why class action cases are all certified in pretty much a single class action friendly state? Yes, lawyers have to put up money to make serious money back. Are they helping society? 90% of the time, no. Do they pretend they do? Yes! I was not harmed by the Sony root kit. I have no bone to pick in this fight other than class action lawsuits do not benefit those harmed. They just don't. Read the agreement. Show me the evidence where those harmed by Sony get a good settlement. You can't because the system is broken. How many people do you think you need for a class action case? In Texas, you one need one. How is that a class/ Am I offened that lawyers took away so much? No. Why? Because I know several class and personal injury attorneys. They make lots of money but they still can't quite come to terms that they really are not the savors they try to convince people they are. It is as simple as that.
Slashdot Mirror
I have a freeware application which I host on a web server where most of the users are in europe and Asia. I am no slashdot but my site is reporting 47.97% of users hitting the site with IE and 47.23% using Firefox and 3.69% using Opera. This is with 97% of those users on the windows platform.
In Georgia a non-compete has never held up except for executives and people who sold businesses to another business entity. The judge can find one flaw and strike the *whole* contract. The courts look upon these contracts as illegal in 99% of cases because they try to keep ordinary people from working.
http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/stories/2005/07/11/story4.html
http://intellectual-property.lawyers.com/ask-a-lawyer/Using-Non-Competes-To-Protect-A-Companys-Investment-6746.html
http://www.icemiller.com/enewsletter/NonCompetesOtherMyths.htm
First, there are some things you can't agree to by law. Law trumps contacts and it varies from state to state. For example, you can't agree to sell your freedom to an individual. Minors can't enter into contracts. You can't enter a contract if you are drunk, etc. The contract can't be "forever", etc. I don't know about other states, but in Georgia a judge can find any one thing wrong with an employment contract and strike the whole thing. These contracts are used for intimidation purposes generally. Very, very few non-competes have been enforced in Georgia. A valid non-compete must be written specially for you, which is very expensive and not worth it for a regular employee, and as your job changes the contract needs to be updated. Usually, non-competes that are enforceable are written for executives and prior owners that sold a business. But the clause in question is dealing more with right of ownership. Generally, if you sign one of these things you agree to transfer the right of ownership of all creative works to the employer. That part holds up in court. But if you work on an idea on your own time with your own equipment - that is a gray area. If you are contractor that area becomes much easier to determine. But, after you leave the job what is in your head you can take with you. The company can't claim ownership to your brain although they try through these overreaching contracts. And, my lawyer has agreed with one of the previous posts that a terribly written employment contracts are the best to sign. It gives you ample room to get out of it if necessary.
Isn't this an overall business trend that is going beyond simply hiring engineers and people? Companies want "sure thing" bets because Wall Street demands consistent numbers. It costs money and is too "risky" to take on new talent. It is better to go for the "sure thing" but that costs more money. So, lets get highly educated people with great talent at low prices.
I'm pretty sure a sip of coffee would kill the cockroach. "Caffeine is found in varying quantities in the beans, leaves, and fruit of over 60 plants, where it acts as a natural pesticide that paralyzes and kills certain insects feeding on the plants. It is most commonly consumed by humans in infusions extracted from the beans of the coffee plant and the leaves of the tea bush, as well as from various foods and drinks containing products derived from the kola nut or from cacao. Other sources include yerba mate, guarana berries, and the Yaupon Holly." -- wikipedia
Some people are arguing that it matters when you opened or used the software and once you do so you are bound by the agreement. It doesn't matter what the agreement says if the language is no enforceable. It could say that "once you open this box you must send your first born to AutoDesk." This would be an illegal contract since it is against the law to enter into a contract where you sell a human. So, just because an agreement makes claims or statements does not mean that the claims will hold up in the court of law. There are laws and judicial rulings concerning "fair use" and transfer of license. Garth Brooks made a similar claim several years ago when he tried to stop second hand stores from re-selling his CDs. Of course his claim did not hold up. Imagine if you bought a car and the software that powers it has a non-transferable license and it was against the law to sell that license to another party. So, we shall see what the ruling is if this case indeed goes to trial and is not settled out of court. My guess is AutoDesk has more to lose than gain by going to jury trial.
The concept of "proper notice" is a matter of state code and prior court rulings. It is not what you as an individual think proper notice should be based on a logic or critical thinking. Logic is not used in the court systems and it gets arm chair lawyers in trouble all the time. For example, in my state if I hand my car over to a valet I get a ticket that says if they damage my car or if my items are stolen out of my car then it is not their fault and I can't sue. Well, if I never bother to read the notice or if someone doesn't show me a large sign that has the notice on it and tell me to read it before I hand my keys over, the notice is not enforceable. Just including a notice with a product or service doesn't suffice in most states. The law is not logical, it is written in code and enforced in the most illogical ways though past court rulings. The court will ask you if the notice was properly displayed and if you read it. If I never flip that valet ticket over and read the notice guess what, it isn't enforceable - in my state. Other states have different laws concerning notices.
The concept of "proper notice" is a matter of state code and prior court rulings. It is not what you as an individual think proper notice should be based on a logical argument. Logic is not used in the court systems and it gets arm chair lawyers in trouble all the time. For example, in my state if I hand my car over to a valet I get a ticket that says if they damage my car or if my items are stolen out of my car then it is not their fault and I can't sue. Well, if I never bother to read the notice or if someone doesn't show me a large sign that has the notice on it and tell me to read it before I hand my keys over, the notice is not enforceable. Just including a notice with a product or service doesn't suffice in most states. The law is not logical, it is written in code and enforced in the most illogical ways though past court rulings. The court will ask you if the notice was properly displayed and if you read it. If I never flip that valet ticket over and read the notice guess what, it isn't enforceable - in my state. Other states have different laws concerning notices.
You can argue all day long as to whether outsourcing or H1-B Visa programs are "good for America" but you might want to ask yourself is it good for you, Joe Programmer / Developer / Scientist. There was a time in our country when people said "What is good for GM is good for America."
There is a shortage of skill IT workers at the moment but there is absolutely no shortage of smart people in the US. Because of the shake down after 2000 and 2001 in the IT industry a lot of folks left the market and a lot of kids stopped enrolling in IT curriculum. Smart people who are looking for a paying profession do not want to spend the energy to get an education in a discipline that has an unknown future due to the threat of foreign labor whether real or simply perceived. If the pay is excellent and the future bright for a discipline then people will make the investment from an academic and work experience set prospective. Some people will always go into a field because they enjoy the work regardless of the pay. But for many other kids who are facing high tuition loans, an extremely over-inflated housing market you have to ask the question. Why should a young, smart person take the chance on IT if he or she perceives their job will job be "outsourced to India?" Bill Gates was asked this exact question when he went around college campuses a few years ago telling people to get an education in Computer Science and IT related fields.
This is simply supply and demand. There is more demand (jobs) than supply (workers) at the moment and companies don't want the wages to go back up to the pre-2001 levels when life was extremely good for an IT worker. So, to hold down your pay companies are supplementing the market with other strategies. It is in their right to do so there are consequences if they choose to outsource projects. There are a lot of hidden costs and many, many risks to outsourcing. But, bringing workers over on a H1-B is low risk because the company manages that individual on site just like any other employee. And there are many levels of middle men making money along the way on this H1-B worker. The other benefit the company gets is an individual who does not participate in free market economics since they can not easily shop around for another H1-B sponsor and demand and receive more money. They are locked into their employer and the employer knows this. This again keeps the supply and the demand low which reduces costs for companies due to reducing in salary as well as reduced turn over.
If you want to change this then people must organize and spend money on lobbyists to protect our interests. The companies are spending millions protecting their interests and Washington sets the policies.
Doesn't it seem that media in generally has aligned themselves with advertisers more than ever before? It this just a symptom of the competitive market place of today's world where you can get information from so many sources? From the 300 plus channels on digital cable to the Internet we are constantly being bombarded with so many messages that people are tuning out 99% of them. Advertising seems to be moving from a distinct service such a paid for ad spot to being interwoven into the content as to reach the maximum number of people as possible in a world of constant and intense media chatter. The future for unbiased reporting does not look good unless people demand it.
I never said you should save up money and pay it later. That was simply an example for my situation where I earned more than the prior year and therefore owed money beyond my estimates without IRS penalty. I never said "you should do x or y." I was only giving examples. In my case it makes no sense to pay early since I pay without penalty.
You pay no penalty is you earned more than your estimates for the previous year cover. Is you earn the same or less you pay a penalty. In my case I earned more, my estimates did not cover the difference but I have no penalty. That is how the tax code system works. Estimates are based on prior year income.
Spoken by someone who fills out a 1040-EZ form with W2 employment. Some of us "dorks" are not getting a "refund" because we multiple sources of income, own businesses, and actually owe money to the government because we made more this year than last year. As long as we don't incur a penalty, paying additional money to the IRS early actually costs us money. Would you make a 10k payment to the IRS in Feb if you could put that money in an interest bearing account and wait until April to pay it without penalty? Other "dorks" have complicated tax filings with rental income from houses, 1099 income, complicated investment income, capital gains, inheritance, major illness and medical expenses, alimony, child payments, and business expenses as well as the fact that tax filings only happen in April so my accountant is bogged down with tons of other people with complicated tax filings. And finally, the true dorks are the ones that really do want until Tuesday night to actually try to file their 1040-EZ returns and instead of printing them out they try to file electronically.
This scam took a statistician to find and prove and that was only because stock option grants to executives are publically published at the end of each fiscal year prior to the SOX law. Now they have to be reported in a matter of just a couple of days which is why all this BS ended in 2003. IMHO, the only way this could be so wide spread and adopted it must have been touted by accounting consultants, financial consultants, and executive placement firms.
What concerns me even more is that this is surely just one of many widely used scams by executive to steal money from the company and shareholders. Obviously this scam had to be replaced with another money maker for executives once the SOX law was passed in 2002. We live in a weird era where executives have complete control over these companies and corporate raiding is the norm.
I could not agree with you more. What kind of opened my eyes was an article in the ACM about why we use software methodologies. The uptake is that most methodologies are not created by developers. They are created by managerial types to control the development process by non-developers. They are control mechanisms to build in accountability and usually they weight down the process. The most problematic issue these methodologies fail to address is that software does not live in our nice, easy to understand and relate to concrete world. Physical controls don't work well with the software development process because the medium that it attemps to control is not concrete. The software program itself is an abstract idea. I think this is why so many non-software types like to spend so much time meeting and discussing the few somewhat tangible aspects of software: colors schemes and UI design.
The other interesting aspect I have observed is that companies, consultant firms, and software companies have been looking for and preaching the 'silver bullet' methodology for years. Of course there is no silver bullet so they just keep coming up with a better looking bullet than the last one. It's like the never ending treadmill. As long as the bullet looks good enough to sell the industry does forward. The interesting aspect of this is that all these methodologies create jobs for companies that sell their services as they go through a life-cycle. These services and products come in the form of methodology training, lectures, books, middleware, software, consulting, code generators, programming languages, you name it. The 'buzz' motivates companies to buy services. It's craziness to those who have seen several of such methodologies rise and fall over the years. It's like pop culture. People forget and can't get enough of the latest song or singer. And each methodology must have one or more celebrities.
Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD). I believe I am only flinging doubt of Microsoft's intent as they market it. Just as I doubt a company like Exxon Mobile is really concerned about the quality of the environment. I am not sure how you would interpret my words as fearful. Do my words cause you fear and anxiety? I could only see this if you believed something that happens to be not true. For example you might believe Microsoft is there to protect you and do the right thing. When someone contradicts your belief then that thought might cause you anxiety and fear. There is nothing I can see that is uncertain in my statement unless you feel I am uncertain in what I am talking about. I respect that. That is your choice. I am not a self proclaimed expect. But I have been in this industry for 20+ years and have a little bit of experience. Everyone makes the best interpretation of events as they can unless you are an insider and have special knowlege. Notice I did not attack you for your opinion. And there are many things in this world I will never have evidence of but I still can make a valid asserting based on reason, logic, and past behavior. For example, I have no direct evidence that OJ is guilty. All I have is circumstantial evidence and testimony given to me mostly by the media.
I doubt, as others do, Microsoft's charity intentions just as I would any large corporation that gives a huge amount of their own product in the name of some kind charity cause and publicizes it. That is why charities get rated every year on how the money is spent by various third party entites that are interested in digging through the marketing and trying to reword the true contributors. Microsoft has never been a big contributor of cash. They prefer to contribute software because it is in their best interest to do so.
The drug companies do this all the time in Africa. Corporations have a duty to their shareholders. That is why the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is free to donate their funds as they see fit. Corporations are self-serving entities. Individuals humans can be compassionate. There is no executive duty to Microsoft's share holders for the Gate Foundation. Gates and his wife (along with various board members) can decide what causes they are interested in such as disease eradication research funding. Such R&D spending is not done by large drug companies because the consumer markets are not there to support blockbuster drug sales of malaria. We have eradicated malaria in most developed countries. But 3rd world counties' general populations have little money - hence little market potential. This is the ugly underbelly of capitalism. Gates would like to change the world by filling in such a gap. One of his goals is to help these underserved people of the world. He can do this via grants from the B&M Gates Foundation. Microsoft can not donate a billion dollars each year to something that isn't going to benefit their shareholders. They must account for ever dollar they give away and how it can help their bottom line. Sure, some money is given no strings attached but as a whole Microsoft has always looked at free software as a way to get them established on Microsoft software. It is good business - many companies do this. Gates is on record saying that if the US govt can't pressure the Chinese govt to stop copying Windows and Office then at least they are using Windows and Office. He hopes to one day get licensing fees from them. All I am saying is wake up and don't think corporation are there to serve the public's interest. They are not. It would be a breach of fiducary duty to do so. They are beholden to the interests of their stockholders. No big deal. Just be aware of it and don't hold your belief in humanity based on the actions of corporations. I would recommed that you lighten up a little. Hostility is not flattering of help you live longer.
What if itunes offered 1 week movie rentals for the iPod for something like $1.99? Apple does not like a time limit licensing model for music. They have said that people want to own their music. But, a time limited licensing for movies may makes more sense. Blockbuster has been worrying for years that they will be irrelevant once sophisticated TV set top boxes were able to download movie rental content. Some areas already have this but you must have a specific service, cable provider, and box. All three together can be expensive. What if the set top box is really just the iPod? Now, I can rent the movie and take it with me for a week.
Microsoft has a long history of donating to charity and then taking a large tax deduction for the full retail price of the product. Since the physical manufacturing costs are so low for software after the initial investment of developing it, free software for education is both a PR win for Microsoft as well as well as a great tax shelter. But more importantly the schools that accept their software will now be future customers. And, the kids that use them will grow up to be consumers. They have been doing this for some time. They even give themselves the full retail sales price deduction for the software which is not customary among corporate donators (or at least it was not in the past).
And don't forget about the anti-trust settlement which allowed them to print money in the form of free software on CDs. Now, that's a sweet deal any company would jump at. Apple's opposed the deal since it hurt them.
Excellent point. I think you are right on. Stallman is not naive to public policy and politics whether local or international. In fact his own concept of how software should be 'free' as Stallman defines it is rooted not in technology but personal belief, philosophy, and politics. Philosophy is enacted or protected by policy (e.g. govt. passing or failing to pass various laws of enforcement.) This effort and the documentation of the effort via a camera to speak with the Prime Minister might seem totally crazy unless you view it as a stunt to promote FSF ideas and bring awareness to the cause. Clearly the message is getting out and Stallman's tactics are working. The roll of paper is also clearly a stunt to demonstrate the magnitude of the side he represents. The scroll works well with the camera by capturing the magnitude of the message. Stallman is a smart cookie. He has an agenda and strong political views whether you agree with them or not.
Correct me if I am wrong but does the EULA for Windows 2003 state that you must get permission from MSFT before publishing any kind of performance data on the operating system? Perhaps that only applied to for true performance benchmarking and uptime is not considered performance benchmarking in this case?
Yes you are right. Thanks for the correction. I was pulling their name from memory. :)
Intel designed the "ultimate" microprocessor - on paper. They might have been successfully in forcing every software company on the x86 instruction set to recompile but AMD saw the weakness in their strategy. Yes, x86 is weird, arcane, backwards, and messy. The instruction set is rooted in late 1960s and early 1970s computing. But, it would cost millions if not billions of dollars for the companies dependent on x86 designs to completely ditch the x86 architecture. AMD exploited this lack of foresight by Intel by offering a competing, well performing, backwards compatible chip to the Itanium.
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All this is great news for the consumer except that there is an economic law of 3's. We need a third competitor in the space to truly get good competition. We used to have Cirrus but they died several years ago. A couple of other companies that had a license to the x86 instruction set also did not make the transition. The PowerPC and dead DEC Alpha are not options either. Ideally, if we had a third chip manufacturer I think, based on economic theory, we would see some really interesting and innovate things take place in the chip market - beyond what we currently have. And, it would be much more likely to be sustainable.
Using a backward compatible (and I mean x86 compatible) chip design is an easy decision for most technology companies. Option (a) spend millions migrating off the x86 to an even more proprietary Intel chip set or option (b) use AMD and operate on x86 as usual. Without a monopoly forcing option (a), option (b) was the clear winner. Intel has been forced to refocus their efforts and play "catch up" with AMD's new chip architecture and multi-core strategy. To make Intel's situation worse, AMD did some wonderful innovating on their. This helps no only AMD but all the programmers in the world that rely on the x86 architecture. Industry insiders are predicting the end of Moore's law. If you believe them then the free lunch is over. Chips are not going to operate at faster speeds. So, the only way to get more horsepower out of a machine would be to add more processors. But, most applications are written to run on single processor architecture. Most programmers know next to nothing about concurrent software design, testing, and development. AMDs chip pretends to be a single-processor machine while dividing tasks with multiple cores. Coding to true multi-processor systems is not only difficult but it is also not supported well in any language. For those that think C# and Java is the answer to concurrent programming, you might want to read what Herb Sutter has to say on the issue.
http://www.gotw.ca/publications/concurrency-ddj.h
Will the Crackberry be renamed the Crackpod allowing you to get your endless supply of Cracktunes from Crackapple??
The customers who bought stock prior to the opening bell on the first day did so at a guaranteed price. They purchased the stock not from Vonage but from the underwriters who financed the IPO deal and brought the Vonage stock to the open NASDAQ market. These underwriters are owed the money for the stock purchased. Vonage is indemnifying the underwriters and paying for all the Vonage stock that customers are refusing to send their money for. The underwriters are the ones that are out money - not Vonage. They are the ones harmed by customers refusing to pay for the IPO they ordered. Vonage has a huge public relations problem on their hands. Don't expect any other companies to do this in the future.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=1106
Spoken like a true lawyer. Is this why class action cases are all certified in pretty much a single class action friendly state? Yes, lawyers have to put up money to make serious money back. Are they helping society? 90% of the time, no. Do they pretend they do? Yes! I was not harmed by the Sony root kit. I have no bone to pick in this fight other than class action lawsuits do not benefit those harmed. They just don't. Read the agreement. Show me the evidence where those harmed by Sony get a good settlement. You can't because the system is broken. How many people do you think you need for a class action case? In Texas, you one need one. How is that a class/ Am I offened that lawyers took away so much? No. Why? Because I know several class and personal injury attorneys. They make lots of money but they still can't quite come to terms that they really are not the savors they try to convince people they are. It is as simple as that.