I never said I thought their offer was generous at all.
But I still say 1) They aren't required to give anything. and now 2) They aren't required to show them respect!
I detest Microsoft just as much as the next Slashdotter, but I really think this is just an attempt to make them look like the villian because the non-profit isn't getting what it wants.
Look at it from this perspective:
The have a working solution using Linux. They need additional hardware to complete the project. They want Windows and all the apps they can get.
So whats wrong with the Linux solution??? Everybody is in such an uproar about why Microsoft won't give the poor bastards what they want, that nobody stops to think that why can't they use what they have, and just try to get hardware donated.
Not directly, anyway. You make them look bad, and hope they cave in to the bad publicity.
It isn't really the ethical thing to do. Just because Bill Gates is the richest man in the world, doesn't mean he is obligated to donate his money to whoever comes up and demands it. Despite what you think of Microsoft, "SchoolNet" sounds like a whiny non-profit who expects handouts spec'd to what THEY want, not to what the company doing the handing out is offering.
This is like a bum coming up to you on the street and asking for some spare change to buy food. So you throw him a buck. Well, a buck doesn't buy a meal. Most bums wouldn't throw the money back at you yelling its not enough! Why these people think they deserve more is beyond me.
If my history books and gathered information is correct, that was a business model used in early computers. A company would lease CPU time to users, generally because the end users couldn't afford the massive costs involved to purchasing and maintaining them.
Now, I'm relatively young (mid 20's), but I recall people not even a half generation older than I telling stories about getting in trouble for running up large bills on their school's timeshare account.
I could see where this might be useful, but only for a small handful of customers. There are not very many users of supercomputer's out there right now. I can't see that number increasing much just by servicing new customers who could benefit from a supercomputer but couldn't otherwise justify it for a short term project.
If they are dumping 10 billion dollars into this, they must think they are going to get at least that much out of it. I seriously doubt that they could do so, not without ridicously overpricing their service. For small time users who don't need supercomputer levels, there are much cheaper ways to go. (Buy your own gear, lease your gear, etc)
I work for a specialized outsourcing outfit that manages storage for large customers (internet datacenters primarily). I know how much of a pain in the ass it is to accomplish what we do now. I could just see the mess people would get into by getting into a timeshare system like this.
When merger/acquisitions take place, the cost of the physical machines and softare is taken into account.
My best guess is that they will continue to happen, but its going to devalue deal for those who are selling off a business unit. For a company buying another, they factor in the assumed debt and cost of the acquisition, and they will look at it as an assumed debt.
Libertarianism is simply going back to what our country was founded on.
I don't believe that means letting corporations run the country. The reasons why so many companies are able to get away with what they are is because of government involvement.
As a kid, I used to take a ham radio (I forget what wavelengh, its been a while) and tune it to odd frequencies that produced weird rythmic pulses. It was probably just interference from nearby electronics, but it was fun to listen to.
Those sound bites remind me of what I used to listen to as a kid. Music to my ears!
Yeah, I thought this was supposed to be a review of some sort. I hope that this article was by a newbie author, because maybe they will get a clue on how to showcase and review products.
Way back in the day, I worked for a small upstart consulting company. We had a support contract for an accounting firm, who tended to buy useless crap that cost too much, and skimp on the useful things.
The owner/lead CPA at the firm was EXTREMELY FAT. Much grief was spent dealing with this "special needs". He wouldn't get off his fat ass to walk about 5 feet to the shared network printer, so we had to rig another one that sat on his desk. Then, one day he decides that he doesn't want to lift his fat arm enough to use the mouse. So we found him a "3D pointer mouse", which had 3 sensors that attached to the monitor and a little mouse/pointer that sat on the end of your pointer finger like a thimble. You would point on the screen where you wanted the cursor to go.
It worked well when I set it up, but he decided after using it for a week that it took "too much effort" to lift his finger, and we then had to scrap the mouse altogether and provide 24/7 tech support for him so we could walk him through the keyboard shortcuts.
The worst thing about this guy was that since he was so fat to lift a finger, he also apparently didn't bother trying to get up if he had to take a shit. His Mega-Fat-Ass Chair(TM), which I could comfortable sit in one side of the cheeks if I had dared, had multiple shit stains on it. I would hate to have to be one of the employees there, because it was one of those open office designs where there was no privacy.
Nothing like spending your lunch break watching your boss shit himself.
Look at how fast technology changes. Keeping an inventory of parts for replacment/repair can get rather expensive if you have a new model coming out every year.
Even with PC's, say I want to upgrade my CPU that I purchased a year or two ago. I'd have to upgrade the motherboard to be compatible with the new CPU, and then find out that my old memory doesn't work in hte new motherboard.
Way back when I started building and upgrading my own PC's, it was common to upgrade single components at a time. These days, its easier, and often CHEAPER, to just go and build a new system, and roll the older one down to someone else in the family. Today "used systems" are still more than useful to the next person in line.
Generally speaking, anybody who has any data of value on their computer can afford to follow basic backup procedures.
For the home user, burning to CD or copying over to a floppy is easy to do. For the business user, tape backup is already a fact of life (or at least should be if they plan on staying in business.)
With a little bit of preventative procedures in place, a defective harddrive can only be a nuisance, instead of life or death failure.
The US certainly doesn't want third world countries copying all of our things. Then we can't sell them anything, and they can actually start to COMPETE with us.
Back in the day, it was common for high end customers to make small modifications to their systems. I've heard of customers "relocating" switches and display panels to make them look better or more functional.. these aren't PC systems I'm talking about.. they were mainframes and large StorageTek DASDI units.
You can't draw the line on something like that. There are things that are wrong but legal, things that are right but illegal, and there are things that are wrong and illegal but is done for the good outcome.
Say a company spends a billion dollars on research. Then you steal the cure they develop and give it away for free. They just LOST a billion dollars, essentially.
Sure you cured countless people who would otherwise not be able to afford it, but now you've caused the company to go belly up, and most their employees are now unemployed. They become a "burden of the state" collecting unemployment and other government assistance, and with all the other recently cured poor people, the government assistance programs run out of money because there are just too many people in the system.
At this point, the government either heftily raises taxes and/or cuts major spending in other areas (usually the more critical ones, like education, national defense, or safety), causing more economic downturn and even more poor people.
You see... you can not give everything away for free without having some sort of compensation. Unemployed programmers living in homeless shelters can not write free software. Economic systems based on bartering or cash will crumble if it were all a one way proposition. A gainfully employed gas attendant who moonlights as an Open Source programmer in his or her free time DOES have the ability to benefit some company out there that ends up saving money, giving a better bonus to your mom, who in turn buys you a computer for Xmas, allowing you to become a "productive" member of Slashdot.
First..sending email to 700+ people would constitute "bulk" mailing. Second.. why are you sending it? For commercial purposes? If so, then yeah, your spamming.
Slashdot Mirror
I never said I thought their offer was generous at all.
But I still say 1) They aren't required to give anything. and now 2) They aren't required to show them respect!
I detest Microsoft just as much as the next Slashdotter, but I really think this is just an attempt to make them look like the villian because the non-profit isn't getting what it wants.
Look at it from this perspective:
The have a working solution using Linux.
They need additional hardware to complete the project.
They want Windows and all the apps they can get.
So whats wrong with the Linux solution??? Everybody is in such an uproar about why Microsoft won't give the poor bastards what they want, that nobody stops to think that why can't they use what they have, and just try to get hardware donated.
Ok, so how or why is BK obligated to give them anything??? Please elaborate, I don't follow how forced socialism works...
Damn, I think we slashdotted Google. Google is being bitch slow to come up!
Not directly, anyway. You make them look bad, and hope they cave in to the bad publicity.
It isn't really the ethical thing to do. Just because Bill Gates is the richest man in the world, doesn't mean he is obligated to donate his money to whoever comes up and demands it. Despite what you think of Microsoft, "SchoolNet" sounds like a whiny non-profit who expects handouts spec'd to what THEY want, not to what the company doing the handing out is offering.
This is like a bum coming up to you on the street and asking for some spare change to buy food. So you throw him a buck. Well, a buck doesn't buy a meal. Most bums wouldn't throw the money back at you yelling its not enough! Why these people think they deserve more is beyond me.
Good point, on the financials.
I still don't see a big market for them, at least not anything like the hype the article eluded to.
If my history books and gathered information is correct, that was a business model used in early computers. A company would lease CPU time to users, generally because the end users couldn't afford the massive costs involved to purchasing and maintaining them.
Now, I'm relatively young (mid 20's), but I recall people not even a half generation older than I telling stories about getting in trouble for running up large bills on their school's timeshare account.
I could see where this might be useful, but only for a small handful of customers. There are not very many users of supercomputer's out there right now. I can't see that number increasing much just by servicing new customers who could benefit from a supercomputer but couldn't otherwise justify it for a short term project.
If they are dumping 10 billion dollars into this, they must think they are going to get at least that much out of it. I seriously doubt that they could do so, not without ridicously overpricing their service. For small time users who don't need supercomputer levels, there are much cheaper ways to go. (Buy your own gear, lease your gear, etc)
I work for a specialized outsourcing outfit that manages storage for large customers (internet datacenters primarily). I know how much of a pain in the ass it is to accomplish what we do now. I could just see the mess people would get into by getting into a timeshare system like this.
When merger/acquisitions take place, the cost of the physical machines and softare is taken into account.
My best guess is that they will continue to happen, but its going to devalue deal for those who are selling off a business unit. For a company buying another, they factor in the assumed debt and cost of the acquisition, and they will look at it as an assumed debt.
Libertarianism is simply going back to what our country was founded on.
I don't believe that means letting corporations run the country. The reasons why so many companies are able to get away with what they are is because of government involvement.
Yeah, that would certainly apply too.
Hey, he's new here, OBVIOUSLY. :)
As a kid, I used to take a ham radio (I forget what wavelengh, its been a while) and tune it to odd frequencies that produced weird rythmic pulses. It was probably just interference from nearby electronics, but it was fun to listen to.
Those sound bites remind me of what I used to listen to as a kid. Music to my ears!
Yeah, I thought this was supposed to be a review of some sort. I hope that this article was by a newbie author, because maybe they will get a clue on how to showcase and review products.
My half asleep brain managed to come up with what sounded quite logical...
"Tiny Brain in Microsoft Office"
Of course it is!
They are nothing but a bunch of lieing, cheating, bunch of bastards.
Scientology.. the official religion of the MPAA and RIAA.
Way back in the day, I worked for a small upstart consulting company. We had a support contract for an accounting firm, who tended to buy useless crap that cost too much, and skimp on the useful things.
The owner/lead CPA at the firm was EXTREMELY FAT. Much grief was spent dealing with this "special needs". He wouldn't get off his fat ass to walk about 5 feet to the shared network printer, so we had to rig another one that sat on his desk. Then, one day he decides that he doesn't want to lift his fat arm enough to use the mouse. So we found him a "3D pointer mouse", which had 3 sensors that attached to the monitor and a little mouse/pointer that sat on the end of your pointer finger like a thimble. You would point on the screen where you wanted the cursor to go.
It worked well when I set it up, but he decided after using it for a week that it took "too much effort" to lift his finger, and we then had to scrap the mouse altogether and provide 24/7 tech support for him so we could walk him through the keyboard shortcuts.
The worst thing about this guy was that since he was so fat to lift a finger, he also apparently didn't bother trying to get up if he had to take a shit. His Mega-Fat-Ass Chair(TM), which I could comfortable sit in one side of the cheeks if I had dared, had multiple shit stains on it. I would hate to have to be one of the employees there, because it was one of those open office designs where there was no privacy.
Nothing like spending your lunch break watching your boss shit himself.
Of course, it goes beyond that too.
Look at how fast technology changes. Keeping an inventory of parts for replacment/repair can get rather expensive if you have a new model coming out every year.
Even with PC's, say I want to upgrade my CPU that I purchased a year or two ago. I'd have to upgrade the motherboard to be compatible with the new CPU, and then find out that my old memory doesn't work in hte new motherboard.
Way back when I started building and upgrading my own PC's, it was common to upgrade single components at a time. These days, its easier, and often CHEAPER, to just go and build a new system, and roll the older one down to someone else in the family. Today "used systems" are still more than useful to the next person in line.
Generally speaking, anybody who has any data of value on their computer can afford to follow basic backup procedures.
For the home user, burning to CD or copying over to a floppy is easy to do. For the business user, tape backup is already a fact of life (or at least should be if they plan on staying in business.)
With a little bit of preventative procedures in place, a defective harddrive can only be a nuisance, instead of life or death failure.
The US certainly doesn't want third world countries copying all of our things. Then we can't sell them anything, and they can actually start to COMPETE with us.
To stay rich, you have to keep 'em poor.
Back in the day, it was common for high end customers to make small modifications to their systems. I've heard of customers "relocating" switches and display panels to make them look better or more functional.. these aren't PC systems I'm talking about.. they were mainframes and large StorageTek DASDI units.
You can't draw the line on something like that. There are things that are wrong but legal, things that are right but illegal, and there are things that are wrong and illegal but is done for the good outcome.
Say a company spends a billion dollars on research. Then you steal the cure they develop and give it away for free. They just LOST a billion dollars, essentially.
Sure you cured countless people who would otherwise not be able to afford it, but now you've caused the company to go belly up, and most their employees are now unemployed. They become a "burden of the state" collecting unemployment and other government assistance, and with all the other recently cured poor people, the government assistance programs run out of money because there are just too many people in the system.
At this point, the government either heftily raises taxes and/or cuts major spending in other areas (usually the more critical ones, like education, national defense, or safety), causing more economic downturn and even more poor people.
You see... you can not give everything away for free without having some sort of compensation. Unemployed programmers living in homeless shelters can not write free software. Economic systems based on bartering or cash will crumble if it were all a one way proposition. A gainfully employed gas attendant who moonlights as an Open Source programmer in his or her free time DOES have the ability to benefit some company out there that ends up saving money, giving a better bonus to your mom, who in turn buys you a computer for Xmas, allowing you to become a "productive" member of Slashdot.
You know.. they could always charge more for the system and not have to make it up in games
Its not my fault they sell the things at a loss. Why should I be forced to be their perfect consumer?
So why don't you take the first step and vote with your dollars? Buy the nice stuff instead of bitching after buying from the crappy ones.
"If I don't see it, it's not real, its not my problem"
Ok, what the heck does "Jump the shark" mean?
First..sending email to 700+ people would constitute "bulk" mailing. Second.. why are you sending it? For commercial purposes? If so, then yeah, your spamming.