They could have offered to buy the domain from the current owner for $1000, and saved 20% off the cost of the complaint fee,
and avoided the costs that will be incurred for the legal representation altogether.
Except:
a) Creates a precedent - much better to encourage people to think there's no money in domain squatting against MS
b) $400 is - literally - nothing to a company like this. They would consider the costs to be equivalent, and immaterial, and go for the one which has a better strategic flavour (be it PR, precedent, etc)
Why would someone want to read my email? Neither my job or life is that interesting to anyone other than a very closed group of people...
I encrypt my USB key and portable drive because I have data on that which is sensitive - but not in a profitable way, more in a way that if someone found the data in a lost USB key, it would be embarassing to my company.
The only possible reason I can think of is identity theft, and honestly, I'm not worth that much (do a cost benefit - effort of sorting through my emails to build a profile of my identity, vs how much they could make off me before I/my bank/whoever clued on).
Sure, I'm sure a whole bunch of/.ers are scared that 'the feds' might snoop their email. So what? What could they possibly read in my email that they would care about?
I think a better question to ask - those of you who do encrypt their mail, why do they do it? Is it because they really are emailing information that is valueable enough to incentivise someone to select them - of all the email accounts in the world - to target? Is it because they honestly believe big-brother is out to get them and they have to hide their email to stop them? Is it just a way to prove their technological superiority above the plebs who don't encrypt their email? Or is it just that they are more concerned about the possibility of somoene reading their emails than the likelihood of that actually happening?
Or, am I incredibly niaive in believing that identity theft (or some other way of causing me grief) through email snooping doesn't happen much?
Napoleon Bonaparte: Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence
After careers in IT & management consulting, and lots of volunteering, I cannot begin to express this truth. The number of times I've spoken to people who are convinced that person/supplier/manager XYZ is screwing them, when in fact XYZ is just an incompetent idiot, is uncountable.
Well, it's countable, but it's a big number. Way bigger than 57.
If you're looking for a fully visual web site editor - Dreamweaver is still a great program. There are some shortcomings, but it does a fairly good job of visual website editing, and isn't bad at colouring the html code to make code tinkering better. Using Dreamweaver is how I learnt to use html, as a start.
I use Notepad++ for most of my code tinkering though (html/js/php), so it might be worht having that on the side.
There are also a bunch of online visual web-authoring tools (through a CMS or a stand alone tool) which can be useful, but you are definitley better off with an offline editor I think!
Finally - depending on the content of your site, you can find a bunch of tools which make site design much simpler or unnecessary - e.g. wordpress for a blog, a CMS for a content driven site, Gallery for a photo gallery, etc. And with the number of skins out there, often people won't be able to tell it's not custom designed!
Damn, I wish you'd told me this earlier. Then I went and married a doctor. And somehow ended up with a sister as a doctor.
I wish you'd warned me earlier that my wife became an abusive, neglectful cheapskate whilst I was dating her. I didn't notice myself - must not have your keen observation ability.
Note that monopolies are one antithesis of the "free market". And they're usually government induced as well.
Technically, monopolies do naturally occur, and are definitely NOT government induced. Not sure where you got that pearler from (though the rest of your ocmment is sound).
Monopolies (or oligopolies) are almost always due to one of few reasons in a free market economy:
an industry where economies of scale have such an impact that large corporations can simply do things much more cheaply than small corporations
an industry with such high barriers to entry that there is insufficient demand for multiple players - e.g. microchip fabrication, telecoms, etc
where one player has a massive competitive advantage, due to location or technology
the market isn't big enough to support more than one player (usually due to to a combination of the first two)
Standard economic theory shows that in these situations, a government actually *improves* the efficiency of the market by controlling the monopoly/oligopoly.
Note - it's been 8-10 years since I studied economics, so forgive me if I am a bit rusty.
Actually, I'm fairly sure that to claim the 'fair use' argument, the original article has to be fully attributed. Which is this blogger's gripe in the first place...
Sorry Mr Cynical, read about this this morning (Australia time) on the front page of a 'popular news' site... The Age
But please don't let me get in the way of a good anti-establishment rant...
Unfortunately I agree with you completely in principle, but your arguments aren't really correct...
a) We can do things about water. Such as Federalising Murray Darling water rights so that they aren't overallocated by the states, or stopping Australians farming water-heavy products like Cotton in dry areas.
b) Umm, can't do anything? Well you could adjust the tax differential between owner-occupied land and investment properties so there is lower demand for investment properties?
c)Agree with nuclear - people need to just grow up and accept that it's not like Chernobyl anymore! And nuclear is WAY better for the environment than the coal we currently use!
d)INTERNET IS AWESOME! Yeah, I agree with you in principle but some of your arguments were a bit off.
Finally - your last paragraph. Ironically, the Sydney NBN office is based just over the bridge in North Sydney - point in case?
Well, you're in luck, two fold!
a) I've done the research you couldn't be bothered to (google is so complicated, I know), to find out that there has indeed been an indication of minimum speeds!
a) as pointed out here, satellite and wireless are expected to be 12mbps (at peak usage, so a 'real' 12mbps). I've read a more authoratitive source than that, but I couldn't be bothered doing more research for you. Oh, and finally - I also read somewhere that optical will be cross subsidising satellite and wireless to the extent that Australia wide, you will be paying the same cost for xGB downloads on a 12mbit plan. The only difference between wireless & satellite is that higher bandwidth plans won't be available.
Actually, what's more interesting is the manner in which she was appointed (as opposed to elected). Internal party politics ousted Kevin Rudd, and appointed Gillard in his place - a few months before a likely Federal election.
It's in interesting idea!
I drink a lot of wine, with a wide range of prices, and disagree.
While it certainly isn't a linear relationship to price, or indeed certain, I have had a lot of very expensive wine which I am more than happy to pay for because I can taste the difference.
I can find a $15 I like and drink, a $30 a love and drink a lot, and a $70 I savour and purely enjoy. The >$300 bottles I've had (not paid for by me, I'm a young professional supporting a student wife!), are usually better than the lot - just not (say) 10 times better than the $30 bottle.
To translate into geekspeak: a top of the line i7 processor might cost 10 times what a midrange 775pin would cost, but doesn't perform the same as 10 of the cheaper processor. Indeed, the majority of users (i.e. browsing & word processing) may not notice the difference.
But some people who are into their computers will definitely notice the difference, and will pay the extra.
I know the metaphor isn't perfect, but you get the gist.
All of that being said - aging wine can be a bit of pot luck unless the conditions are perfect.
Were you drunk when he told you?
Because a *lot* of things sound 'reasonable' when you're drunk. Such as stripping naked and burying your sleeping bag (with you in it) in the middle of a sports field right before a big game.
Whilst I agree with your comment that it won't deplete fresh water, your implication that it won't have a significant environmental impact is 'ridiculous, short-sighted, and causes more harm than good'.
Marine ecology is actually highly sensitive to salinity in the water - and this process increases relative salinity in the water. Whilst this won't affect the volume of fresh water available for human use, it will have significant impact on marine life living in the unique ecosystem that exists at a rivers mouth.
Rivers typically also wash a huge amount of nutrients into the ocean (from runoff, natural effluent and the like) - I have no idea how / if these plants will affect these nutrients, but as anyone who has ever fished at a river mouth will know, salt water fish follow that leading edge of 'brown' water to feed off the food washed down by it.
There will be an impact and - similar to Australian plans to pipe fresh water from parts of Australia with plenty to those parts with very little - there seems to have been very little analysis into the impact on marine ecology, and until that has been done, one can't say there won't be any impact. Why do people forget the fishies?!
A statistician friend of mine pointed me to a study (that I have now lost) which showed some very interesting figures.
The premise showed that basically, if you selected 100 investment portfolios at random (possibly with some basic rules, I'm not sure), exactly the same proportion would exceed to the same extent as if you the proportion of stock brokers who beat the market.
The point is, if you missed it, that successful investors are no more than stastical effects:)
Now, in reference to 'plenty of economists & analysts were predicting the impending doom', a lot weren't. Pick ANY situation, and you'll have plenty of analysts predicting both ways - and the ones who turn out to be correct are invariably labelled insightful, when no doubt a lot of them are just lucky.
Completely legal here - in fact, a lot of ISPs use it as a sales tool - they provide cheaper internet if you bundle it with their VoIP service to replace your home phone.
VoIPs becoming fairly widespread these days - many big companies especially are using it, and a growing proportion of home users.
When I was selling vacs (no, not door to door, my uni job was @ an upmarket department store), there were basically three ways of measuring power, in ascending order of relevance, and also the number of people (including sales people) who new about them:
Motor power (watts). Doesn't tell you much at all.
Suction power at motor (watts). Better, but doesn't factor in inefficiencies like bag & hose length
Suction power at nozzle (watts)- best! But then things like nozzle size can obviously affect the actual suction power.
Most people didn't really know the difference, and many companies didn't publicise the last one because (a) people are dumb and might think 200 watt nozzle suction is worse than 1500watt engine power, and (b) because it'd show their machines are crap.
Example - dysons when I was selling them had lower engine power than, say, hoover(1200 vs 2000 watts iirc), but had comparable or higher suction power because the suction didn't need to get through the walls of a bag & a bunch of filters.
An article in an Australian newspaper pointed out that it's costing us more to build a new ticketing system for public transport in Melbourne than it cost to send the Pheonix Lander to mars.
Quite amusing, really!
I'm using the beta of Notes 8 (I work at the big blue), and I can say that it's significantly improved from a UI perspective, and even a bit from a response perspective (which has always been my gripe with Notes)
California... a state with a bit less than 40 million people, many of which probably live inland.
South East Asia, French Polynesia, etc; all over on the other side of the Pacific... multiply that population figure by more than 10, and almost completely all living in coastal areas.
Yes, the only impact of 26,000 Hiroshimas in the pacific ocean will be a few people in the US getting wet.
Not to mention Hiroshima itself...
My number 1 complaint with GIMP is very very simple.
In Photoshop, I can very easily (read: right click and it pops up) change the size and softness of a brush with a few sliders.
In gimp, I can change brushes to a few pre-set ones, but I cannot (I've sunk a couple of hours into this over the last two years) change the settings, without defining a new brush (when I'm changing the size and softness of a brush in context with the size of the image I'm working on - I'm not going to go define a new brush every time I want to do it).
Oh, and the windowed issue REALLY gets to me. Keep the dialogue boxes ONTOP of the image, unless I hide them, dammit! How else can I access the tools?
Slashdot Mirror
They could have offered to buy the domain from the current owner for $1000, and saved 20% off the cost of the complaint fee, and avoided the costs that will be incurred for the legal representation altogether.
Except:
a) Creates a precedent - much better to encourage people to think there's no money in domain squatting against MS
b) $400 is - literally - nothing to a company like this. They would consider the costs to be equivalent, and immaterial, and go for the one which has a better strategic flavour (be it PR, precedent, etc)
Why would someone want to read my email? Neither my job or life is that interesting to anyone other than a very closed group of people...
/.ers are scared that 'the feds' might snoop their email. So what? What could they possibly read in my email that they would care about?
I encrypt my USB key and portable drive because I have data on that which is sensitive - but not in a profitable way, more in a way that if someone found the data in a lost USB key, it would be embarassing to my company.
The only possible reason I can think of is identity theft, and honestly, I'm not worth that much (do a cost benefit - effort of sorting through my emails to build a profile of my identity, vs how much they could make off me before I/my bank/whoever clued on).
Sure, I'm sure a whole bunch of
I think a better question to ask - those of you who do encrypt their mail, why do they do it? Is it because they really are emailing information that is valueable enough to incentivise someone to select them - of all the email accounts in the world - to target? Is it because they honestly believe big-brother is out to get them and they have to hide their email to stop them? Is it just a way to prove their technological superiority above the plebs who don't encrypt their email? Or is it just that they are more concerned about the possibility of somoene reading their emails than the likelihood of that actually happening?
Or, am I incredibly niaive in believing that identity theft (or some other way of causing me grief) through email snooping doesn't happen much?
Napoleon Bonaparte:
Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence
After careers in IT & management consulting, and lots of volunteering, I cannot begin to express this truth. The number of times I've spoken to people who are convinced that person/supplier/manager XYZ is screwing them, when in fact XYZ is just an incompetent idiot, is uncountable.
Well, it's countable, but it's a big number. Way bigger than 57.
If you're looking for a fully visual web site editor - Dreamweaver is still a great program. There are some shortcomings, but it does a fairly good job of visual website editing, and isn't bad at colouring the html code to make code tinkering better. Using Dreamweaver is how I learnt to use html, as a start.
I use Notepad++ for most of my code tinkering though (html/js/php), so it might be worht having that on the side.
There are also a bunch of online visual web-authoring tools (through a CMS or a stand alone tool) which can be useful, but you are definitley better off with an offline editor I think!
Finally - depending on the content of your site, you can find a bunch of tools which make site design much simpler or unnecessary - e.g. wordpress for a blog, a CMS for a content driven site, Gallery for a photo gallery, etc. And with the number of skins out there, often people won't be able to tell it's not custom designed!
Damn, I wish you'd told me this earlier. Then I went and married a doctor. And somehow ended up with a sister as a doctor.
I wish you'd warned me earlier that my wife became an abusive, neglectful cheapskate whilst I was dating her. I didn't notice myself - must not have your keen observation ability.
Note that monopolies are one antithesis of the "free market". And they're usually government induced as well.
Technically, monopolies do naturally occur, and are definitely NOT government induced. Not sure where you got that pearler from (though the rest of your ocmment is sound).
Monopolies (or oligopolies) are almost always due to one of few reasons in a free market economy:
Standard economic theory shows that in these situations, a government actually *improves* the efficiency of the market by controlling the monopoly/oligopoly.
Note - it's been 8-10 years since I studied economics, so forgive me if I am a bit rusty.
Actually, I'm fairly sure that to claim the 'fair use' argument, the original article has to be fully attributed. Which is this blogger's gripe in the first place...
Sorry Mr Cynical, read about this this morning (Australia time) on the front page of a 'popular news' site...
The Age
But please don't let me get in the way of a good anti-establishment rant...
Unfortunately I agree with you completely in principle, but your arguments aren't really correct...
a) We can do things about water. Such as Federalising Murray Darling water rights so that they aren't overallocated by the states, or stopping Australians farming water-heavy products like Cotton in dry areas.
b) Umm, can't do anything? Well you could adjust the tax differential between owner-occupied land and investment properties so there is lower demand for investment properties?
c)Agree with nuclear - people need to just grow up and accept that it's not like Chernobyl anymore! And nuclear is WAY better for the environment than the coal we currently use!
d)INTERNET IS AWESOME! Yeah, I agree with you in principle but some of your arguments were a bit off.
Finally - your last paragraph. Ironically, the Sydney NBN office is based just over the bridge in North Sydney - point in case?
Well, you're in luck, two fold!
a) I've done the research you couldn't be bothered to (google is so complicated, I know), to find out that there has indeed been an indication of minimum speeds!
a) as pointed out here, satellite and wireless are expected to be 12mbps (at peak usage, so a 'real' 12mbps). I've read a more authoratitive source than that, but I couldn't be bothered doing more research for you. Oh, and finally - I also read somewhere that optical will be cross subsidising satellite and wireless to the extent that Australia wide, you will be paying the same cost for xGB downloads on a 12mbit plan. The only difference between wireless & satellite is that higher bandwidth plans won't be available.
Actually, what's more interesting is the manner in which she was appointed (as opposed to elected). Internal party politics ousted Kevin Rudd, and appointed Gillard in his place - a few months before a likely Federal election.
It's in interesting idea!
I drink a lot of wine, with a wide range of prices, and disagree.
While it certainly isn't a linear relationship to price, or indeed certain, I have had a lot of very expensive wine which I am more than happy to pay for because I can taste the difference.
I can find a $15 I like and drink, a $30 a love and drink a lot, and a $70 I savour and purely enjoy. The >$300 bottles I've had (not paid for by me, I'm a young professional supporting a student wife!), are usually better than the lot - just not (say) 10 times better than the $30 bottle.
To translate into geekspeak: a top of the line i7 processor might cost 10 times what a midrange 775pin would cost, but doesn't perform the same as 10 of the cheaper processor. Indeed, the majority of users (i.e. browsing & word processing) may not notice the difference.
But some people who are into their computers will definitely notice the difference, and will pay the extra.
I know the metaphor isn't perfect, but you get the gist.
All of that being said - aging wine can be a bit of pot luck unless the conditions are perfect.
Were you drunk when he told you?
Because a *lot* of things sound 'reasonable' when you're drunk. Such as stripping naked and burying your sleeping bag (with you in it) in the middle of a sports field right before a big game.
So... yeah...
Whilst I agree with your comment that it won't deplete fresh water, your implication that it won't have a significant environmental impact is 'ridiculous, short-sighted, and causes more harm than good'.
Marine ecology is actually highly sensitive to salinity in the water - and this process increases relative salinity in the water. Whilst this won't affect the volume of fresh water available for human use, it will have significant impact on marine life living in the unique ecosystem that exists at a rivers mouth.
Rivers typically also wash a huge amount of nutrients into the ocean (from runoff, natural effluent and the like) - I have no idea how / if these plants will affect these nutrients, but as anyone who has ever fished at a river mouth will know, salt water fish follow that leading edge of 'brown' water to feed off the food washed down by it.
There will be an impact and - similar to Australian plans to pipe fresh water from parts of Australia with plenty to those parts with very little - there seems to have been very little analysis into the impact on marine ecology, and until that has been done, one can't say there won't be any impact. Why do people forget the fishies?!
Ummm you're a bit late... I think your counting should be closer to -32,768
A statistician friend of mine pointed me to a study (that I have now lost) which showed some very interesting figures.
:)
The premise showed that basically, if you selected 100 investment portfolios at random (possibly with some basic rules, I'm not sure), exactly the same proportion would exceed to the same extent as if you the proportion of stock brokers who beat the market.
The point is, if you missed it, that successful investors are no more than stastical effects
Now, in reference to 'plenty of economists & analysts were predicting the impending doom', a lot weren't. Pick ANY situation, and you'll have plenty of analysts predicting both ways - and the ones who turn out to be correct are invariably labelled insightful, when no doubt a lot of them are just lucky.
Completely legal here - in fact, a lot of ISPs use it as a sales tool - they provide cheaper internet if you bundle it with their VoIP service to replace your home phone.
VoIPs becoming fairly widespread these days - many big companies especially are using it, and a growing proportion of home users.
Most people didn't really know the difference, and many companies didn't publicise the last one because (a) people are dumb and might think 200 watt nozzle suction is worse than 1500watt engine power, and (b) because it'd show their machines are crap.
Example - dysons when I was selling them had lower engine power than, say, hoover(1200 vs 2000 watts iirc), but had comparable or higher suction power because the suction didn't need to get through the walls of a bag & a bunch of filters.
End my 2 cents.
An article in an Australian newspaper pointed out that it's costing us more to build a new ticketing system for public transport in Melbourne than it cost to send the Pheonix Lander to mars.
Quite amusing, really!
Given that everything we're looking at is in the past, I think we're better off looking for the Big Bang Burger Bar
I'm using the beta of Notes 8 (I work at the big blue), and I can say that it's significantly improved from a UI perspective, and even a bit from a response perspective (which has always been my gripe with Notes)
You're a self-hating liberal.
Actually, I completely agree with you, so...
I'm a self hating liberal.
California... a state with a bit less than 40 million people, many of which probably live inland.
South East Asia, French Polynesia, etc; all over on the other side of the Pacific... multiply that population figure by more than 10, and almost completely all living in coastal areas.
Yes, the only impact of 26,000 Hiroshimas in the pacific ocean will be a few people in the US getting wet.
Not to mention Hiroshima itself...
You sir, I point to xkcd.
Mmmmm... Zombie Feynman.
Are you a physicist, perchance?
My number 1 complaint with GIMP is very very simple.
In Photoshop, I can very easily (read: right click and it pops up) change the size and softness of a brush with a few sliders.
In gimp, I can change brushes to a few pre-set ones, but I cannot (I've sunk a couple of hours into this over the last two years) change the settings, without defining a new brush (when I'm changing the size and softness of a brush in context with the size of the image I'm working on - I'm not going to go define a new brush every time I want to do it).
Oh, and the windowed issue REALLY gets to me. Keep the dialogue boxes ONTOP of the image, unless I hide them, dammit! How else can I access the tools?