or (fairly obvious) reasons I won't be naming any names.
Why is this guy so afraid of going public? Why does he have to remain anonymous?
He has tenure. He's concerned about the well-being of his institution. Wouldn't going public have little risk, and potentially greatly improve the quality of education at his and other institutions?
Sadly, the board cannot be trusted with the task of cleaning it's own house, given the events that have transpired. Who knows what was said, and when? Clearly some board members are covering their tracks. This board is further damaging the HP brand. We need some serious house cleaning.
So it's time for the shareholders to do something that the board cannot do: clean itself out. Here's an idea: I say we hire a subcontractor to obtain all the phone records of all the board members and their families and friends. When we find dirt, we can wave it in front of the board members so that they will resign on their own. Otherwise we'll have to trust the board. And as you know, that's a lost cause.
AOL Chief Technical Officer Maureen Govern has resigned from the company. Is this an appropriate penalty for releasing 20 million keyword search results, or is it too harsh, or not harsh enough? What do the slashdot readers think is the appropriate outcome of this fiasco?
Assuming she honestly resigned, big kudos to her for taking the responsibility and the heat, and not passing the buck down to the people who need the paycheck. It's not often that a person in power will take the fall - most often, 100% of the blame gets placed on lower-level people who were just doing what they were told.
I'm sure she didn't make the decision or understand the ramifications - after all, she is a CTO. And hopefully there are some people at AOL who would have known that this was a bad idea. But in the end, it was up to her to prevent this from happening.... or the CEO.
Software problem reports, or SPRs, numbered in the hundreds,
If this software system runs under Windows, they started with a Problem Report baseline in the thousands. If they got it down into the hundreds, Kudos!
At one time I kept my linux-based PC powered on 365 days a year. I had a little web server on there, email server, network backup service, etc. It was just a commodity Athlon-based computer running at 1.4 GHz or so.
But then I noticed that my home power bill was growing. I used a watt-meter - a "kill-o-watt" - and saw that the PC alone was consuming over 125 watts of power at idle - and even more when the CPU was pegged and the disks were cranking. And remember, this doesn't include the monitor - just the PC itself.
In all, the 365 day-a-year, 24 hour-per-day operation of this PC alone was costing me about $160 (at $0.15 per KWh). I have a little computer energy consumption comparison here.
My servers at work cost even more - with all their redundant fans, power supplies, quad CPUs and so on,... well, it adds up quickly. Beyond that, high density computing can easily exceed 6 KW per RACK! And that makes a lot of heat, and so you have to cool the data center 365 days a year - and that's even MORE power consumption. A $1 million dollar electricity bill per year for a data center ain't out of line. And remember, commercial energy costs are less than residential.
So what if someone patented ideas revolving around this? There needs to be some very innovative design and engineering going on in order to easily, safely, and efficiently use an unmasted sail to move such a large ship.
It would be shocking if the USTPO awarded a patent revolving around the basic idea of moving a ship via a wind sail. But it wouldn't be surprising if many patents were awarded for the specific construction, deployment, recovery, and anchoring mechanisms.
There are many aspects of this that may be new, innovative, and non-obvious.
Please consider giving engineers some credit for innovative work. This is not patenting the FAT file system directory structure - it's a bit harder than that.
The obvious solution is to charge content providers for bandwidth utilization.
So, for example, a streaming content company can pay ISPs for their high-bandwidth utilization. Those that refuse to pay this nominal fee can still stream their content, but at perhaps a more reasonable 56 kbit/sec using a sanctioned proprietary protocol.
This way access can remain open to all, but the truly awesome Verizon-quality HD video will be available to all for just a small additional monthly fee!
Purpose? Easy... he makes money by promoting himself.
If you check out his web site, it seems that he's trying to maximize advertising revenue. Not only does he have many ads, he also has many Amazon referal links. In addition, he is directly selling advertising:
From his website: Want to advertise on the Security-Protocols website?
A visit to the McAfee threat center is very informative.
Here's what I found:
13: McAfee Threat Center search results matching "OS X"
4730: McAfee Threat Center search results matching "Windows XP"
Now that being said, I strongly agree with the premise that 13 is too high. Let's hope that Apple and other software vendors step up to the plate to prevent this number from growing any further. Let's hope that McAfee is honest and avoids inflating their Threat Center reports.
Why we exclusively develop for IE
on
Explorer Destroyer
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Those who only develop for IE are almost always working under contract.
Imagine, for example, that you're a retailer called "The Void". Your internal IT department can't do much, as you decided long ago that it is best to outsource all development. You approach your IT services vendor and say:
"I want a retail website where I can sell my goods".
Your vendor says:
"Great! That'll cost you $8 million, and we'll give you a pretty site"
The vendor writes up a contract, you sign, and you get a web site.
Then, once you go live, you get all these complaints from customers. WHAT is going on? You hire an expert to find out. It turns out that no one at "The Void" was smart enough to actually understand the ramifications of the contract. The site, as built, only works with IE.
You open a discussion with the firm you contracted with:
You: "Oh, you guys screwed up. Fix it." Them: "No, you signed off already. You even paid us. Sorry." You: "Fix it" Them: "It'll take another $1 million" You: "No budget." Them: "Bye!"
It is easy and inexpensive to design and build for all modern browsers. It's just that many IT contractors like to milk money out of their customers. Building for IE alone is an easy way to milk money.
Jonathan Schwartz argues that Scott McNealy is single-handedly responsible for making network computing a reality.
Where in reality, the Schwartz article clearly states:
he talked about network computing in a very strange way - he just assumed the future, he'd already moved his entire mindset, and his lifestyle, to the network.
There is nothing in there about McNealy being the only guy able to bring the network computing vision into reality. But he have the vision early on - us old timers clearly remember Sun at that time, and their vision that was very clearly stated.
Is the posting a little sappy? It's very sappy. But it never says or suggests that McNealy single handedly did anything.
Global NAPs and Verizon agree that the end user's call to the ISP's server is toll-free [to the end user] whether or not the ISP's server is located in the same local exchange area in which the end-user originates the call.
What this means is that Verizon was transporting Global NAPs customer's telephone call to a non-local destination at Global NAP. Verizon was moving the phone call over Verizon phone lines to a distant destination - and to me, it seems reasonable given US telephone rules that Verizon shouldn't have to foot that bill - that's a basic principle of US local telephone service.
Global was merely mis-using its ability to make its phone numbers appear to be local. But Global was really located far away, and Global expected Verizon to bill them nothing, even though Verizon was doing all the long distance bit-hauling.
ISPs that perform this type of telco switch trickery will find that their business model ain't so cool any more. Too bad for them.
This ruling won't cover you even if you do live in new york. This ruling will only cover you if (1) you're employed under the same contract as the other person, and (2) you were doing the same thing this other guy was doing.
It's fair to say that 99.99% of the people out there don't conform to #(1), let alone #(2).
Admittedly, I was never much into the arts as a kid. But last week I noticed the Google logo and was interested in what or who Google was celebrating.
I clicked on the link and learned all about Joan Miro and his art. After that initial click I become more interested and did some additional research above and beyond what Google offered.
If Google lifted actual elements of Miro's work, then yeah, I'd say it could be a copyright problem. But it's likely a problem that could be easily solved completely in private and without public beratement.
I'd be surprised if the recognition of Miro on Google doesn't result in substaintial financial gains for Miro's license holders, and I'd be shocked if the Miro family approved the public berating of Google by what appears to be a politically inept ARS president, Theodore Feder.
I noticed that starting about a year ago I started to get junk faxes on my fax machine... and now it has grown to 30 to 40 per day... and none of the faxers have ever had ANY business relationship with me. If I ask to take myself off a list, a new one appears the very next day!
Before that time, I used to receive a total of 3 or 4 faxes a week total (from my clients, and none from scam-marketers)
Virtually all of these faxes are of the nature of "HR is sponsoring a company trip to Aruba for $300", "June, I thought you'd be interested in this special weight loss pill, it worked for me!", and "refinance your house".
I'm not sure how congress or the FCC let this scum go nuts, but it's obvious that they have, costing ME lots in paper, toner, and consumption of my otherwise important business FAX line.
It is truly scary that government officials believe that they are above the law. Laws are passed for a reason - for good or for bad, and we have to accept the law as it is, or collectively agree to change the law.
Sadly, in this day and age, many laws are being passed that are just plain stupid. However, even stupid laws are laws, and it takes a majority of supporters to repeal them.
Instead, it has been acceptable for a minority to willingly break the law, despite the fact that the laws are not going to be repealed. This happens over and over again, and sadly, government procecutors ignore their oaths and duties and allow this criminal activity to continue. Shame on them for their absolute incompetence and failure.
I like the idea of letting New Orleans keep their WIFI. I'm in no position to say that it's a bad thing. But evidently a majority of those in honestly elected office think it is a bad thing and passed a law to prevent it, and so being in a democracy, I have to accept that. That's the deal.
I also think the telecoms are fucked in the head. But that doesn't change the law.
If Microsoft provided me with all new servers and gave me a bunch of support and management people for 5 years, I'd seriously consider migrating to Microsoft's platform too.
But if not, well, I'll stay with my functional, stable, inexpensive, fast, secure, scalable, reliable Linux based systems.
But that's just me. Call me a risk-adverse cheapskate - I can take it.
I'm sure Verizon would be very interested in cell phone virus software if it can help them continue to prevent customers from using software other than Verizon's own software.
But I doubt that such software would be used to improve service or reliability from the customer's point of view.
a research report issued by Merrill Lynch suggests that the Sony PlayStation 3's American release may be postponed until 2007 [...] The official report (pdf) would also seem to indicate that the console will be somewhere in the neighborhood of $900
Is this the same Merrill Lynch that was accused of lying about the health of corporations such as Worldcom and Enron? The same Merrill Lynch that agreed to pay $100 million in fines? The same Merrill Lynch that may owe several billions of dollars to institutional shareholders and others for gross deception?
Remind me why I, you, or any news outlet for that matter, should have any faith in their statements?
The idea that Microsoft would ditch its own OS for Mac OS X came to me from Michael Desmond of PCWorld.com, whose writings convinced me that the process had already begun.
I was amused, but after mulling over various coincidences, I'm convinced he may be right. This would be the most phenomenal turnabout in the history of desktop computing.
Desmond made 10 observations: Microsoft's Vista is all about Mac OS X: Security, a Modern Browser, Eye Candy, Desktop Search, Better Updates, More Media, Parental Controls, Backup, Collaboration, and More.
Though these points aren't a slam-dunk for Desmond's thesis, other observations fully support it. The theory explains several odd occurrences, including Ballmer's freak-out and an insane defense over monopolistic practices. Like, who cares?
Other experiences include Apple Genius Bar staff fixing laptops for free just the after warranty period ended, using their discretion to help customers whose problems had begun during the warranty period. (This is sheer luck and sometimes frowned upon, so we recommend that if you have any problems during your warranty period, contact Apple and document it as quickly as possible. Genuis Bar staff want to help, but their authority is limited, and like all support professionals, they are under some pressure to keep costs down.)
First of all, few vendors want to piss off their customers, and few vendors want to be screwed by an unreasonable (or even criminal) customer.
Also note that in many places you have legal rights above and beyond those stated in the warranty. When a logic board fails 7 days after the warranty expires while under normal use, you'd often have legal recourse to get your unit repaired for free.
Call your state's consumer protection office if you feel you're being screwed... they might be able to help. But don't expect any sympathy if your old HDD burns out, or if your misused laptop stops working.
Slashdot Mirror
or (fairly obvious) reasons I won't be naming any names.
Why is this guy so afraid of going public? Why does he have to remain anonymous?
He has tenure. He's concerned about the well-being of his institution. Wouldn't going public have little risk, and potentially greatly improve the quality of education at his and other institutions?
This smells like a fake.
Fellow shareholders,
Sadly, the board cannot be trusted with the task of cleaning it's own house, given the events that have transpired. Who knows what was said, and when? Clearly some board members are covering their tracks. This board is further damaging the HP brand. We need some serious house cleaning.
So it's time for the shareholders to do something that the board cannot do: clean itself out. Here's an idea: I say we hire a subcontractor to obtain all the phone records of all the board members and their families and friends. When we find dirt, we can wave it in front of the board members so that they will resign on their own. Otherwise we'll have to trust the board. And as you know, that's a lost cause.
AOL Chief Technical Officer Maureen Govern has resigned from the company. Is this an appropriate penalty for releasing 20 million keyword search results, or is it too harsh, or not harsh enough? What do the slashdot readers think is the appropriate outcome of this fiasco?
... or the CEO.
Assuming she honestly resigned, big kudos to her for taking the responsibility and the heat, and not passing the buck down to the people who need the paycheck. It's not often that a person in power will take the fall - most often, 100% of the blame gets placed on lower-level people who were just doing what they were told.
I'm sure she didn't make the decision or understand the ramifications - after all, she is a CTO. And hopefully there are some people at AOL who would have known that this was a bad idea. But in the end, it was up to her to prevent this from happening.
Software problem reports, or SPRs, numbered in the hundreds,
If this software system runs under Windows, they started with a Problem Report baseline in the thousands. If they got it down into the hundreds, Kudos!
At one time I kept my linux-based PC powered on 365 days a year. I had a little web server on there, email server, network backup service, etc. It was just a commodity Athlon-based computer running at 1.4 GHz or so.
... well, it adds up quickly. Beyond that, high density computing can easily exceed 6 KW per RACK! And that makes a lot of heat, and so you have to cool the data center 365 days a year - and that's even MORE power consumption. A $1 million dollar electricity bill per year for a data center ain't out of line. And remember, commercial energy costs are less than residential.
But then I noticed that my home power bill was growing. I used a watt-meter - a "kill-o-watt" - and saw that the PC alone was consuming over 125 watts of power at idle - and even more when the CPU was pegged and the disks were cranking. And remember, this doesn't include the monitor - just the PC itself.
In all, the 365 day-a-year, 24 hour-per-day operation of this PC alone was costing me about $160 (at $0.15 per KWh). I have a little computer energy consumption comparison here.
My servers at work cost even more - with all their redundant fans, power supplies, quad CPUs and so on,
So what if someone patented ideas revolving around this? There needs to be some very innovative design and engineering going on in order to easily, safely, and efficiently use an unmasted sail to move such a large ship.
It would be shocking if the USTPO awarded a patent revolving around the basic idea of moving a ship via a wind sail. But it wouldn't be surprising if many patents were awarded for the specific construction, deployment, recovery, and anchoring mechanisms.
There are many aspects of this that may be new, innovative, and non-obvious.
Please consider giving engineers some credit for innovative work. This is not patenting the FAT file system directory structure - it's a bit harder than that.
I posted energy consumption data for PCs and Macs: http://lancej.blogspot.com/
The difference: many leave our PCs on 24 hours a day... leading to significant costs.
The obvious solution is to charge content providers for bandwidth utilization.
So, for example, a streaming content company can pay ISPs for their high-bandwidth utilization. Those that refuse to pay this nominal fee can still stream their content, but at perhaps a more reasonable 56 kbit/sec using a sanctioned proprietary protocol.
This way access can remain open to all, but the truly awesome Verizon-quality HD video will be available to all for just a small additional monthly fee!
[/sarcasm]
Purpose? Easy... he makes money by promoting himself.
If you check out his web site, it seems that he's trying to maximize advertising revenue. Not only does he have many ads, he also has many Amazon referal links. In addition, he is directly selling advertising:
From his website:
Want to advertise on the Security-Protocols website?
Below are our rates:
Banner Advertising:
10,000 impressions = $75
20,000 impressions = $135
30,000 impressions = $180
... and I was pretty fearful that Yoko Ono was gonna own me!
That'd really suck!
A visit to the McAfee threat center is very informative.
Here's what I found:
13: McAfee Threat Center search results matching "OS X"
4730: McAfee Threat Center search results matching "Windows XP"
Now that being said, I strongly agree with the premise that 13 is too high. Let's hope that Apple and other software vendors step up to the plate to prevent this number from growing any further. Let's hope that McAfee is honest and avoids inflating their Threat Center reports.
Those who only develop for IE are almost always working under contract.
Imagine, for example, that you're a retailer called "The Void". Your internal IT department can't do much, as you decided long ago that it is best to outsource all development. You approach your IT services vendor and say:
"I want a retail website where I can sell my goods".
Your vendor says:
"Great! That'll cost you $8 million, and we'll give you a pretty site"
The vendor writes up a contract, you sign, and you get a web site.
Then, once you go live, you get all these complaints from customers. WHAT is going on? You hire an expert to find out. It turns out that no one at "The Void" was smart enough to actually understand the ramifications of the contract. The site, as built, only works with IE.
You open a discussion with the firm you contracted with:
You: "Oh, you guys screwed up. Fix it."
Them: "No, you signed off already. You even paid us. Sorry."
You: "Fix it"
Them: "It'll take another $1 million"
You: "No budget."
Them: "Bye!"
It is easy and inexpensive to design and build for all modern browsers. It's just that many IT contractors like to milk money out of their customers. Building for IE alone is an easy way to milk money.
Major error in the summary:
Jonathan Schwartz argues that Scott McNealy is single-handedly responsible for making network computing a reality.
Where in reality, the Schwartz article clearly states:
he talked about network computing in a very strange way - he just assumed the future, he'd already moved his entire mindset, and his lifestyle, to the network.
There is nothing in there about McNealy being the only guy able to bring the network computing vision into reality. But he have the vision early on - us old timers clearly remember Sun at that time, and their vision that was very clearly stated.
Is the posting a little sappy? It's very sappy. But it never says or suggests that McNealy single handedly did anything.
The basic deal is this:
Global NAPs and Verizon agree that the end user's call to the ISP's server is toll-free [to the end user] whether or not the ISP's server is located in the same local exchange area in which the end-user originates the call.
What this means is that Verizon was transporting Global NAPs customer's telephone call to a non-local destination at Global NAP. Verizon was moving the phone call over Verizon phone lines to a distant destination - and to me, it seems reasonable given US telephone rules that Verizon shouldn't have to foot that bill - that's a basic principle of US local telephone service.
Global was merely mis-using its ability to make its phone numbers appear to be local. But Global was really located far away, and Global expected Verizon to bill them nothing, even though Verizon was doing all the long distance bit-hauling.
ISPs that perform this type of telco switch trickery will find that their business model ain't so cool any more. Too bad for them.
This ruling won't cover you even if you do live in new york. This ruling will only cover you if (1) you're employed under the same contract as the other person, and (2) you were doing the same thing this other guy was doing.
It's fair to say that 99.99% of the people out there don't conform to #(1), let alone #(2).
This ruling does not apply to you unless you are employed under the same contract and the same situation as that other dude.
Admittedly, I was never much into the arts as a kid. But last week I noticed the Google logo and was interested in what or who Google was celebrating.
I clicked on the link and learned all about Joan Miro and his art. After that initial click I become more interested and did some additional research above and beyond what Google offered.
If Google lifted actual elements of Miro's work, then yeah, I'd say it could be a copyright problem. But it's likely a problem that could be easily solved completely in private and without public beratement.
I'd be surprised if the recognition of Miro on Google doesn't result in substaintial financial gains for Miro's license holders, and I'd be shocked if the Miro family approved the public berating of Google by what appears to be a politically inept ARS president, Theodore Feder.
I noticed that starting about a year ago I started to get junk faxes on my fax machine... and now it has grown to 30 to 40 per day... and none of the faxers have ever had ANY business relationship with me. If I ask to take myself off a list, a new one appears the very next day!
Before that time, I used to receive a total of 3 or 4 faxes a week total (from my clients, and none from scam-marketers)
Virtually all of these faxes are of the nature of "HR is sponsoring a company trip to Aruba for $300", "June, I thought you'd be interested in this special weight loss pill, it worked for me!", and "refinance your house".
I'm not sure how congress or the FCC let this scum go nuts, but it's obvious that they have, costing ME lots in paper, toner, and consumption of my otherwise important business FAX line.
It is truly scary that government officials believe that they are above the law. Laws are passed for a reason - for good or for bad, and we have to accept the law as it is, or collectively agree to change the law.
Sadly, in this day and age, many laws are being passed that are just plain stupid. However, even stupid laws are laws, and it takes a majority of supporters to repeal them.
Instead, it has been acceptable for a minority to willingly break the law, despite the fact that the laws are not going to be repealed. This happens over and over again, and sadly, government procecutors ignore their oaths and duties and allow this criminal activity to continue. Shame on them for their absolute incompetence and failure.
I like the idea of letting New Orleans keep their WIFI. I'm in no position to say that it's a bad thing. But evidently a majority of those in honestly elected office think it is a bad thing and passed a law to prevent it, and so being in a democracy, I have to accept that. That's the deal.
I also think the telecoms are fucked in the head. But that doesn't change the law.
If Microsoft provided me with all new servers and gave me a bunch of support and management people for 5 years, I'd seriously consider migrating to Microsoft's platform too.
But if not, well, I'll stay with my functional, stable, inexpensive, fast, secure, scalable, reliable Linux based systems.
But that's just me. Call me a risk-adverse cheapskate - I can take it.
Good deal! There are thousands and thousands of software products that are only available on Windows, and now I can run them on my Mac!
For instance, Norton AntiVirus for Windows, Adware Destroyer Plus, and so many other titles only work well under Windows.
I'm sure Verizon would be very interested in cell phone virus software if it can help them continue to prevent customers from using software other than Verizon's own software.
But I doubt that such software would be used to improve service or reliability from the customer's point of view.
a research report issued by Merrill Lynch suggests that the Sony PlayStation 3's American release may be postponed until 2007 [...] The official report (pdf) would also seem to indicate that the console will be somewhere in the neighborhood of $900
Is this the same Merrill Lynch that was accused of lying about the health of corporations such as Worldcom and Enron? The same Merrill Lynch that agreed to pay $100 million in fines? The same Merrill Lynch that may owe several billions of dollars to institutional shareholders and others for gross deception?
Remind me why I, you, or any news outlet for that matter, should have any faith in their statements?
The idea that Microsoft would ditch its own OS for Mac OS X came to me from Michael Desmond of PCWorld.com, whose writings convinced me that the process had already begun.
I was amused, but after mulling over various coincidences, I'm convinced he may be right. This would be the most phenomenal turnabout in the history of desktop computing.
Desmond made 10 observations: Microsoft's Vista is all about Mac OS X: Security, a Modern Browser, Eye Candy, Desktop Search, Better Updates, More Media, Parental Controls, Backup, Collaboration, and More.
Though these points aren't a slam-dunk for Desmond's thesis, other observations fully support it. The theory explains several odd occurrences, including Ballmer's freak-out and an insane defense over monopolistic practices. Like, who cares?
Other experiences include Apple Genius Bar staff fixing laptops for free just the after warranty period ended, using their discretion to help customers whose problems had begun during the warranty period. (This is sheer luck and sometimes frowned upon, so we recommend that if you have any problems during your warranty period, contact Apple and document it as quickly as possible. Genuis Bar staff want to help, but their authority is limited, and like all support professionals, they are under some pressure to keep costs down.)
First of all, few vendors want to piss off their customers, and few vendors want to be screwed by an unreasonable (or even criminal) customer.
Also note that in many places you have legal rights above and beyond those stated in the warranty. When a logic board fails 7 days after the warranty expires while under normal use, you'd often have legal recourse to get your unit repaired for free.
Call your state's consumer protection office if you feel you're being screwed... they might be able to help. But don't expect any sympathy if your old HDD burns out, or if your misused laptop stops working.