I've always understood a university to be a school that offers multiple colleges (degree conferring institutions). For instance, the University of Pennsylvania is the oldest university in the U.S., dating from when a liberal arts college was joined with a medical school by Ben Franklin.
As to this "gift", I'd think that this is too burdensome a restriction placed on the school to accept - I'd encourage both parties to sit down and discuss options. Perhaps the gift could go towards establishing a *nix-oriented program, for example...
Dummy - we'd all use debit cards in the future. The bank would store a baloon for you that's filled with your stock of hydrogen, which they'd release or fill up depending on the activity within your account. Haven't you even heard of basic economic terms like inflation and deflation? Jeez...
There's so much that's wrong with that statement I don't know where to start. Shareholders don't have any authority to "cut their losses and pocket the money." All they can do to cut losses is sell their stock - if the company went bankrupt, shareholders are about the last people in line to get cash. Secured creditors like bondholders and investment banks get to pick the meat off the bones.
Even that scenario presumes that "the business model of MS, for some reasons (sic) becomes worthless," which I don't think anybody with any sense anticipates. Windows and Office generate reams of cash on a steady basis, and even if found in violation of antitrust they would just pay a fine or face some other minor financial or operational penalty - hardly a threat to their continued profitability.
Well said - this story sounds similar to the one yesterday about a request for government assistance for independent gaming companies. Computer gaming has gone big-time, so the stakes have gotten higher for all parties involved. What that also means, however, is that the rewards have also grown for those who can achieve success. Compelling games can still make it big from humble beginnings, but they can't expect to compete side-by-side on the shelf at Best Buy with the major titles.
Let's put it this way - RFID is basically equivalent to a barcode, it's just that you don't have to physically scan it, only bring it within 3 feet. You don't get all scared because they don't remove the UPC from items before you leave the store, do you???
I wouldn't cast this as a Republican vs. Democrat thing. After all, at its core this law is a most un-Republican restraint on business, forcing telemarketers to subsidize a government-administered list of numbers that they cannot call.
Surveys are indeed a loophole here. Since Indiana's do-not-call list went into effect (which is a MAJOR success), I have gotten some thinly veiled "research survey" calls, which offer a free sample of a product as the compensation for participating. They're pretty few and far between, though.
I still can't believe that a legislature actually passed a reasonably effective and useful law, despite the opposition of lobbying groups!
All too often our first reaction to something that we don't approve of is to distance ourselves from it, and by doing so we relinquish any opportunity to effect change. In international affairs, consider the differences over the last 10-20 years between the US relationships with Russia and China, and our relationships with Cuba and North Korea. In the former, we've taken steps to open up the lines of commerce and seen those countries change dramatically. In the latter, we've taken a hard-line embargo position, and haven't seen an iota of positive result.
While I respect Kapor's stand, I'd encourage him to stay engaged and voice his opinions.
The gaming business has, over the last several years, graduated (through its own success) to a higher level of competition. The budget to produce a globally-marketed game has gone up precisely because the markets (and the stakes) are larger. The price of this maturation is that small players get squeezed out to some extent - but not necessarily the talent. The talented designers and developers get picked up by the larger firms. This is (overall) a good thing, and plays out similarly to just about any other industry that has grown so dramatically in such a short time. There are some winners and some losers, but overall we have a net gain for society as a whole, particularly the consumers.
Both those links are old, and out-of-date. I particularly like the atimes.com article (from Oct. 2002), which says that:
Later, the Pakistani press carried pictures of a message scrawled in blood on the wall of the flat, proclaiming the Muslim refrain of Kalma, in Arabic: "There is no God except Allah, Mohammed is his messenger"). An official who was present in the flat at the time of the shooting has told Asia Times Online that the message was written by Shaikh Mohammed with his own blood as his life drained from him.
How does someone write that much while still remaining conscious? Hmm... sounds fishy to me!
The problem with email is that people think it's an appropriate way to hand off issues from one person to the next.
PHB: Hey Bob, where's that report? Bob: Didn't Alice send it to you? I emailed to let her know that she needed to do that... PHB: Hmm... Anybody seen Alice?
That happens all too often, in which case Alice is completely justified to take a fresh pot of coffee and pour it down Bob's pants.
I agree, I see this being more of a play for salesmen who are on the road (and increasingly using web-based CRM tools like Salesforce.com) and business travellers who want to check on things quickly while on the road. As a systems analyst who occasionally makes road trips to from Indiana to Wisconsin, I would definitely take advantage of this along the way...
This whole episode has been amusing to watch. Sometimes it seems like Sun, IBM, Microsoft et al conduct themselves with all the decorum of your average third-grade kid. Take Sun's response to the lawsuit, or Dell's new ad with a not-so-subtle dig at Sun. I can just see some of these CEO's running into each other in some fine restaurant and getting down to the "nyah nyah nyah nyah-nyah"s pretty quickly...
This business model just doesn't make sense. HonestThief is going to compensate users with something they could get for free (illegally) anyway and in a way that's much less portable than cash - so where is the user's incentive? On top of that, HonestThief will have to provide the music store and infrastructure to provide that "payment," not just to the users but the musicians as well. Seems like a MAJOR distraction, as opposed to simply cutting checks for the equivalent value to the users.
If they indeed cancelled it because they'd rather do the whole thing later on, and do it better, then you have to give them credit. How pi$$ed would fans be if they came out with the SE, and then another version of the same stuff later on?
Still, rolling out Mystro TV will not be as easy as an engineer pushing a button, mainly because of the elaborate telecommunications capacity required. TiVo and similar other devices store recorded programs in a hard drive on top of the set; the Mystro TV system would store the programming in hubs of cable networks. For the cable company, each additional user would mean squeezing another stream of video content through its cables.
Given the investment that would be required, and the current state of the economy, I can't see this happening. There are only marginal differences between this and a Tivo, hardly enough to justify such a huge undertaking.
And frankly, until there is something that would truly require human study and analysis, we just won't see any strong drive to send a manned mission out of orbit anytime soon. The improved capabilities of orbiting telescopes and robotic exploration have pretty much eliminated the need for manned missions in the short- to medium-term. It's not that we're not exploring, we're just not sticking our (astronaut's) necks out.
While this article presents a nice summary of the browser developers mission, the last few comments seem troubling:
New innovations should be judged on their own merits, on their ability to benefit human beings, and not solely by their effect on the business plans of one or even a few companies.
The comparison here isn't really between two opposites - business plans are driven by the goal of satisfying customer demand, which is the best measure whether something "benefits human beings". All too often techies get wrapped up in what they think is a great innovation, but in reality the broader user base doesn't really care (see the dot-com bust)...
Slashdot Mirror
correction - they actually used stem cells from his blood. So who knows whether this technique might apply to other structures as well?
As to this "gift", I'd think that this is too burdensome a restriction placed on the school to accept - I'd encourage both parties to sit down and discuss options. Perhaps the gift could go towards establishing a *nix-oriented program, for example...
Dummy - we'd all use debit cards in the future. The bank would store a baloon for you that's filled with your stock of hydrogen, which they'd release or fill up depending on the activity within your account. Haven't you even heard of basic economic terms like inflation and deflation? Jeez...
Even that scenario presumes that "the business model of MS, for some reasons (sic) becomes worthless," which I don't think anybody with any sense anticipates. Windows and Office generate reams of cash on a steady basis, and even if found in violation of antitrust they would just pay a fine or face some other minor financial or operational penalty - hardly a threat to their continued profitability.
If you can't filter out these messages using the features that are already there, then you are indeed helpless! (hint, try Custom Filters)
or Slash-doo-doo-dot?
Well said - this story sounds similar to the one yesterday about a request for government assistance for independent gaming companies. Computer gaming has gone big-time, so the stakes have gotten higher for all parties involved. What that also means, however, is that the rewards have also grown for those who can achieve success. Compelling games can still make it big from humble beginnings, but they can't expect to compete side-by-side on the shelf at Best Buy with the major titles.
Let's put it this way - RFID is basically equivalent to a barcode, it's just that you don't have to physically scan it, only bring it within 3 feet. You don't get all scared because they don't remove the UPC from items before you leave the store, do you???
You're absolutely right - it's more like Tempest!
I wouldn't cast this as a Republican vs. Democrat thing. After all, at its core this law is a most un-Republican restraint on business, forcing telemarketers to subsidize a government-administered list of numbers that they cannot call.
Surveys are indeed a loophole here. Since Indiana's do-not-call list went into effect (which is a MAJOR success), I have gotten some thinly veiled "research survey" calls, which offer a free sample of a product as the compensation for participating. They're pretty few and far between, though.
I still can't believe that a legislature actually passed a reasonably effective and useful law, despite the opposition of lobbying groups!
just be sure to pass that stuff around so we can all have a puff...
While I respect Kapor's stand, I'd encourage him to stay engaged and voice his opinions.
The gaming business has, over the last several years, graduated (through its own success) to a higher level of competition. The budget to produce a globally-marketed game has gone up precisely because the markets (and the stakes) are larger. The price of this maturation is that small players get squeezed out to some extent - but not necessarily the talent. The talented designers and developers get picked up by the larger firms. This is (overall) a good thing, and plays out similarly to just about any other industry that has grown so dramatically in such a short time. There are some winners and some losers, but overall we have a net gain for society as a whole, particularly the consumers.
Wow, if you can't tell Saddam Hussein from George Washington I think you need to step outside and get some fresh air...
How does someone write that much while still remaining conscious? Hmm... sounds fishy to me!
PHB: Hey Bob, where's that report?
Bob: Didn't Alice send it to you? I emailed to let her know that she needed to do that...
PHB: Hmm... Anybody seen Alice?
That happens all too often, in which case Alice is completely justified to take a fresh pot of coffee and pour it down Bob's pants.
I agree, I see this being more of a play for salesmen who are on the road (and increasingly using web-based CRM tools like Salesforce.com) and business travellers who want to check on things quickly while on the road. As a systems analyst who occasionally makes road trips to from Indiana to Wisconsin, I would definitely take advantage of this along the way...
This whole episode has been amusing to watch. Sometimes it seems like Sun, IBM, Microsoft et al conduct themselves with all the decorum of your average third-grade kid. Take Sun's response to the lawsuit, or Dell's new ad with a not-so-subtle dig at Sun. I can just see some of these CEO's running into each other in some fine restaurant and getting down to the "nyah nyah nyah nyah-nyah"s pretty quickly...
This business model just doesn't make sense. HonestThief is going to compensate users with something they could get for free (illegally) anyway and in a way that's much less portable than cash - so where is the user's incentive? On top of that, HonestThief will have to provide the music store and infrastructure to provide that "payment," not just to the users but the musicians as well. Seems like a MAJOR distraction, as opposed to simply cutting checks for the equivalent value to the users.
If they indeed cancelled it because they'd rather do the whole thing later on, and do it better, then you have to give them credit. How pi$$ed would fans be if they came out with the SE, and then another version of the same stuff later on?
Given the investment that would be required, and the current state of the economy, I can't see this happening. There are only marginal differences between this and a Tivo, hardly enough to justify such a huge undertaking.
And frankly, until there is something that would truly require human study and analysis, we just won't see any strong drive to send a manned mission out of orbit anytime soon. The improved capabilities of orbiting telescopes and robotic exploration have pretty much eliminated the need for manned missions in the short- to medium-term. It's not that we're not exploring, we're just not sticking our (astronaut's) necks out.
The comparison here isn't really between two opposites - business plans are driven by the goal of satisfying customer demand, which is the best measure whether something "benefits human beings". All too often techies get wrapped up in what they think is a great innovation, but in reality the broader user base doesn't really care (see the dot-com bust)...
Don't fart in a general direction, fart West.