You haven't been paying attention. SCO has spent the past few years jiggering the deadlines and what they file when with regards to them. They aren't the victim here; here too they are the villian and both IBM and the judge are just getting plenty sick and tired of their overt; and abusive, legal gaming.
But the legal process requires that all evidence be "discovered" and then considered in due course. SCO has been trying to get around that with such tactics. Frankly, the judges have handed SCO plenty of rope, but they are playing cat's cradle with it instead of just hanging themselves. Ultimately they will be hoist upon their own petard, it's just a question of when. The one thing they've overlooked is that they are taking on companies with deep pockets, and eventually that will prove the most telling blow, as SCO can't possibly keep the litigation up for much longer.
Not a good sign of independence from special interests for an administration that has yet to even take office.
Then again, getting opinions from all sides of the issue and making decisions based on all the available information is a sign of independence, or at least forethought. Can one IE partisan on a commission of eight really do that much damage?
Hackers are the 21st Century equivalent of the mercenary. Pay them enough money and they will do what you want. As long as someone somewhere feels the need to crack a database or extract sensitive information from some business/person, there will hackers ready to answer the call. Crack down on them, and all you do is reduce their number, weeding out the weak ones, and leaving a highly competitive and lucrative market for the strong ones.
Secretary: Mr. Jobs, there's a call for you from North Korea... a Mr. Kim... says he's having trouble getting an iPod and wants to know if you can help.
Let's suppose you can in fact cram all the audio/video in the world onto an iPod? What then? How could you conceivably use all that information? There aren't enough hours in the day as it is, let alone to work your way through all that.
Personally, I don't see how this could be useful. The rapid expansion of memory capacity coupled with the falling price has led to bloat, whereby content is trying to expand to fill up these enormous memory spaces. To what end? Isn't there some kind of inverse Moore's Law for memory?
Both my posts indicated that while I believe that there may be a causal link between carbon emissions and average global temperature rise, the fact remains that the average person does not see this. The best you can hope for is "it's seems to get hotter every summer." And then of course we have a bitterly cold winter, and people immediately joke "that's global warming for you!"
What you and I consider adequate proof is no such thing to the average American. They have to be led by the nose -- people are not sitting around their dinner tables (if they even do that anymore) and discussing the effect on the planet's greenhouse system by continuing dependence on fossil fuels. They are blithely accepting what is said, or not said, about the subject, and going about driving their SUVs and throwing away their plastic. I put "smoking gun" in quotes, because the average American wouldn't see the smoke even if their clothes were on fire. Americans as a general rule are short-sighted; because global warming is not inconveniencing them now, they don't see what the trouble is.
I hate to say it, but Al Gore has done more for the global warming case that all the climatologists. It's that kind of publicity, coupled with evidence of how this is directly impacting them, that is going to change the minds of Americans. Nothing less will do.
Now, I know people will call this an ad hominem attack, but if it is, it's valid. Just as it was valid to point out that those scientists who denied that smoking was bad for were being funded by tobacco companies.
And sadly, when a doctor claimed smoking was good for them, people believed them. Look, I'm not saying that global average temperature rise is not occurring and more importantly that carbon emissions are not exacerbating the effect of the natural greenhouse system, but I am saying that unless there is a "smoking gun" (no pun intended), the general populace will believe what they are told. If the U.S. Government and the big polluters put their message out there more forcefully, the populace will reassure themselves that everything is fine, no matter how many climatologists are jumping up and down screaming about runaway carbon emissions. It's not about facts anymore -- it's about the message and how it's being put across. Barring evidence for the eyes, people will tend to look to authority figures for answers, and right now the authority figures they are following are the wrong ones.
...that Verizon may also be implicated in any potential copyright infringement litigation over videos on YouTube? Or will the deal be structured so that Google shields Verizon in case that occurs? More importantly, is this a way for Google to ensure it's own little bit of "net neutrality," by making Verizon a partner?
The only way they'll buy it is if the environment is having direct negative impacts on their business.
The whole central problem behind the "carbon" tax is that with the lack of consensus over whether or not fossil fuel emissions are increasing the Greenhouse Effect and producing global average temperature rise -- and frankly, I don't see how it couldn't be having some impact -- there is little or no "tangible" effect that anyone can point to. You can tax alcohol, gasoline, roads, and the like, and people are comfortable with that because they are things they can see. Businesses are not going to hop on the carbon tax bandwagon because most of those who are doing most of the emitting are not convinced it's doing any harm, and those that aren't aren't strong enough to take on the ones who are.
The carbon tax is a good idea; I just don't think there's enough conclusive evidence that is going to make anyone agree to it.
Devices and technologies are only as good as the content they use. As the U.S. Chamber of Commerce noted: "The coalition led by the Consumers Electronics Association is pursuing a self-defeating strategy. Demolishing the rights of creative artists will hurt consumers and technology providers, not help them. Musicians, artists, filmmakers and others won't produce rich, diverse content if they don't believe their creations will be adequately protected from IP theft and other unfair, illegal uses. Without content, the market for technology designed to deliver it will dry up quickly."
Although not in the way he thinks. Yes, the CEA's policy will do some damage, but frankly just enough to perhaps tip the scales away from the major record labels and force them away from this continual creation of musical dreck. Let's face it, a lot what the big labels produce nowadays is regurgitated, repackaged crap. It's the same set of monotonous music, only varying in tempo and voices. Truly fresh artists, when they are allowed to appear at all, are soon chewed up by this system and forced to follow this same formula, or be left out in the cold.
Ultimately, the RIAA is helping itself and the big labels, not the artists. Then they will be forced to discover that, lo and behold, there has been quite a bit of diverse content all along, they've just been too busy stomping it out to notice it.
Well, at first blush, the disparity between cost and damages is enourmous. It doesn't really seem reasonable. But the RIAA bases such things on the premise that if I download a copy of a song, I will only ever have the one copy. Their whole focus is to ensure somehow that I get one copy and only one copy for my money, and that I cannot simply crank out a thousand or more copies for myself, even if my intent is benign. They don't seem to understand that as technology has advanced, their ability to control content has slipped slowly away. DRM is the last shriek of the dying -- trying to control the content even when it is out of their control.
So they see $750 as a justifiable figure, and given their tactics and their attempts to cripple content, it would certainly seem they need that kind of wherewithall to keep doing it. But I think this will revolve more around how fair it is to be doing this in the first place. A new age has dawned and the RIAA is going to have to come to grips with that sooner or later.
Is it really that bad that Microsoft and Novell made this deal?
No, but at the article maintains...
Perception has always mattered more than facts.
And if you are a Linux booster, your first thought is that SUSE/Novell has sold its soul to the devil. But don't kid yourself; all arguments about patents and the GPL aside, the frightening thought is that Microsoft might steal ideas from Linux, wrap them in subtle obfuscations, and try to pass them off as original concepts that were natural outgrowths of Windows development. The thought that Linux and Windows might procreate... well, that's gotta be kinda shocking. But then again, doesn't this potentially lead to the Linux community getting a better look at Windows and perhaps pulling the same in reverse? In the end we end up with something that will probably be stillborn. As to the death of SUSE, I think the threat is greatly exaggerated.
Well, if you look at it from a pure ethical standpoint, no; but then if you look at the "ethics" of some in Congress, perhaps this information could be put to good use, a.k.a. rousting out the bums.
I think I can answer that one for you, though I'm sure the IE team leader won't be so blunt: Microsoft doesn't need to. They're not getting more money and resources than to play catch-up. All they have to do is keep it decent and not be a horrible underperformer. Then a few years down the road, people will have bought new PCs with new Windows and IE editions, use IEx and say "Remember when IE was so bad, you had to install a separate browser?" People quite frankly are fairly lazy, and want things to just work.
Well, Microsoft could follow that tack if they so choose, but then they's be repeating the mistakes of the Big Three in Detroit. Yes, people are fairly lazy, but they are also interested in things that work and do what they ask of them. IE causes its fair share of headaches, no matter how your site is configured. If you ignore what your competitors are doing, one day you may wake up to find them knocking on your door. Its the innovations that Honda and Toyota came up with that allwoed them to make up gorund on the Big Three, while they continued to churn out the same basic types of cars. Just because you have the greater portion of market share does not insulate you from eventual failure.
As a rejoinder, I doubt Opera has anybody associated with IE quaking in their boots. Maybe they should, but that's a separate issue. Firefox is making the major inroads on IE, not Opera.
IE has a dominating command of the market, although Firefox is slowly making inroads, due to innovations such as tabbed browsing that IE has had to incorporate to maintain that command. But where are the IE innovations? Why can't the IE team get ahead of the curve on Firefox? Is there anything you consider an innovation that is unique to IE that would plausibly be something the browser market would have to incorporate to stay competitive?
Slashdot Mirror
...our new anonymous Canadian overlords... or I would... if I knew who they were... never mind.
But the legal process requires that all evidence be "discovered" and then considered in due course. SCO has been trying to get around that with such tactics. Frankly, the judges have handed SCO plenty of rope, but they are playing cat's cradle with it instead of just hanging themselves. Ultimately they will be hoist upon their own petard, it's just a question of when. The one thing they've overlooked is that they are taking on companies with deep pockets, and eventually that will prove the most telling blow, as SCO can't possibly keep the litigation up for much longer.
Larry Ellison assured him there were no flaws in Oracle.
Then again, getting opinions from all sides of the issue and making decisions based on all the available information is a sign of independence, or at least forethought. Can one IE partisan on a commission of eight really do that much damage?
Hackers are the 21st Century equivalent of the mercenary. Pay them enough money and they will do what you want. As long as someone somewhere feels the need to crack a database or extract sensitive information from some business/person, there will hackers ready to answer the call. Crack down on them, and all you do is reduce their number, weeding out the weak ones, and leaving a highly competitive and lucrative market for the strong ones.
At Apple HQ:
Secretary: Mr. Jobs, there's a call for you from North Korea... a Mr. Kim... says he's having trouble getting an iPod and wants to know if you can help.
Perhaps Mr. Gingrich will be the first to volunteer to have his right to freedom of speech revoked.
Let's suppose you can in fact cram all the audio/video in the world onto an iPod? What then? How could you conceivably use all that information? There aren't enough hours in the day as it is, let alone to work your way through all that.
Personally, I don't see how this could be useful. The rapid expansion of memory capacity coupled with the falling price has led to bloat, whereby content is trying to expand to fill up these enormous memory spaces. To what end? Isn't there some kind of inverse Moore's Law for memory?
Both my posts indicated that while I believe that there may be a causal link between carbon emissions and average global temperature rise, the fact remains that the average person does not see this. The best you can hope for is "it's seems to get hotter every summer." And then of course we have a bitterly cold winter, and people immediately joke "that's global warming for you!"
What you and I consider adequate proof is no such thing to the average American. They have to be led by the nose -- people are not sitting around their dinner tables (if they even do that anymore) and discussing the effect on the planet's greenhouse system by continuing dependence on fossil fuels. They are blithely accepting what is said, or not said, about the subject, and going about driving their SUVs and throwing away their plastic. I put "smoking gun" in quotes, because the average American wouldn't see the smoke even if their clothes were on fire. Americans as a general rule are short-sighted; because global warming is not inconveniencing them now, they don't see what the trouble is.
I hate to say it, but Al Gore has done more for the global warming case that all the climatologists. It's that kind of publicity, coupled with evidence of how this is directly impacting them, that is going to change the minds of Americans. Nothing less will do.
Now, I know people will call this an ad hominem attack, but if it is, it's valid. Just as it was valid to point out that those scientists who denied that smoking was bad for were being funded by tobacco companies.
And sadly, when a doctor claimed smoking was good for them, people believed them. Look, I'm not saying that global average temperature rise is not occurring and more importantly that carbon emissions are not exacerbating the effect of the natural greenhouse system, but I am saying that unless there is a "smoking gun" (no pun intended), the general populace will believe what they are told. If the U.S. Government and the big polluters put their message out there more forcefully, the populace will reassure themselves that everything is fine, no matter how many climatologists are jumping up and down screaming about runaway carbon emissions. It's not about facts anymore -- it's about the message and how it's being put across. Barring evidence for the eyes, people will tend to look to authority figures for answers, and right now the authority figures they are following are the wrong ones.
...that Verizon may also be implicated in any potential copyright infringement litigation over videos on YouTube? Or will the deal be structured so that Google shields Verizon in case that occurs? More importantly, is this a way for Google to ensure it's own little bit of "net neutrality," by making Verizon a partner?
The only way they'll buy it is if the environment is having direct negative impacts on their business.
The whole central problem behind the "carbon" tax is that with the lack of consensus over whether or not fossil fuel emissions are increasing the Greenhouse Effect and producing global average temperature rise -- and frankly, I don't see how it couldn't be having some impact -- there is little or no "tangible" effect that anyone can point to. You can tax alcohol, gasoline, roads, and the like, and people are comfortable with that because they are things they can see. Businesses are not going to hop on the carbon tax bandwagon because most of those who are doing most of the emitting are not convinced it's doing any harm, and those that aren't aren't strong enough to take on the ones who are.
The carbon tax is a good idea; I just don't think there's enough conclusive evidence that is going to make anyone agree to it.
Is that all? Musical chairs? Try getting shot over one of these damned machines.
Although not in the way he thinks. Yes, the CEA's policy will do some damage, but frankly just enough to perhaps tip the scales away from the major record labels and force them away from this continual creation of musical dreck. Let's face it, a lot what the big labels produce nowadays is regurgitated, repackaged crap. It's the same set of monotonous music, only varying in tempo and voices. Truly fresh artists, when they are allowed to appear at all, are soon chewed up by this system and forced to follow this same formula, or be left out in the cold.
Ultimately, the RIAA is helping itself and the big labels, not the artists. Then they will be forced to discover that, lo and behold, there has been quite a bit of diverse content all along, they've just been too busy stomping it out to notice it.
Well, at first blush, the disparity between cost and damages is enourmous. It doesn't really seem reasonable. But the RIAA bases such things on the premise that if I download a copy of a song, I will only ever have the one copy. Their whole focus is to ensure somehow that I get one copy and only one copy for my money, and that I cannot simply crank out a thousand or more copies for myself, even if my intent is benign. They don't seem to understand that as technology has advanced, their ability to control content has slipped slowly away. DRM is the last shriek of the dying -- trying to control the content even when it is out of their control.
So they see $750 as a justifiable figure, and given their tactics and their attempts to cripple content, it would certainly seem they need that kind of wherewithall to keep doing it. But I think this will revolve more around how fair it is to be doing this in the first place. A new age has dawned and the RIAA is going to have to come to grips with that sooner or later.
...am aiming for post # 33554432 (2^25)
Is it really that bad that Microsoft and Novell made this deal?
No, but at the article maintains...
And if you are a Linux booster, your first thought is that SUSE/Novell has sold its soul to the devil. But don't kid yourself; all arguments about patents and the GPL aside, the frightening thought is that Microsoft might steal ideas from Linux, wrap them in subtle obfuscations, and try to pass them off as original concepts that were natural outgrowths of Windows development. The thought that Linux and Windows might procreate... well, that's gotta be kinda shocking. But then again, doesn't this potentially lead to the Linux community getting a better look at Windows and perhaps pulling the same in reverse? In the end we end up with something that will probably be stillborn. As to the death of SUSE, I think the threat is greatly exaggerated.
...Romulan, Klingon, and Vulcan?
Well, if you look at it from a pure ethical standpoint, no; but then if you look at the "ethics" of some in Congress, perhaps this information could be put to good use, a.k.a. rousting out the bums.
Well, Microsoft could follow that tack if they so choose, but then they's be repeating the mistakes of the Big Three in Detroit. Yes, people are fairly lazy, but they are also interested in things that work and do what they ask of them. IE causes its fair share of headaches, no matter how your site is configured. If you ignore what your competitors are doing, one day you may wake up to find them knocking on your door. Its the innovations that Honda and Toyota came up with that allwoed them to make up gorund on the Big Three, while they continued to churn out the same basic types of cars. Just because you have the greater portion of market share does not insulate you from eventual failure.
As a rejoinder, I doubt Opera has anybody associated with IE quaking in their boots. Maybe they should, but that's a separate issue. Firefox is making the major inroads on IE, not Opera.
IE has a dominating command of the market, although Firefox is slowly making inroads, due to innovations such as tabbed browsing that IE has had to incorporate to maintain that command. But where are the IE innovations? Why can't the IE team get ahead of the curve on Firefox? Is there anything you consider an innovation that is unique to IE that would plausibly be something the browser market would have to incorporate to stay competitive?
Did somebody at MS hold a gun to your hand and demand that you use PNG?
Now listen, shee... you're gonna use PNG... and you're gonna like it! Or my six-shooter may have to loose some lead on you, shee? Nyah...
Think you're a smart guy, eh? Why I oughtta.... never mind... don't know where you live...