I'm not sure it is wholly satirical, in fact it appears to be a clever piece of marketing on the part of Microsoft, there are certainly satirical elements (the America's talking thing for one and the author is also a fake) but the various adverts seem to be fairly legitimate and link to the relevant Microsoft pages are real. The Microsoft page linked in turn has references to the marketing/satirical site in question.
Oh and in case you are interested, the Windows logo'd second page of the 'book' reads;
Just so that you know, Tom O'Connor does not actually have a Ph.D. He is also not actually a person. ant the entire premise of this book is fictional. But on the bright side, a Windows Home Server is a real product. Perhaps you'd like to buy one.
You can find out more about Windows Home Server at www.microsoft.com/windowshomeserver and at www.stayathomeserver.com As for technical information about the site that may give a clue, the (partial) whois data is;
Registrant
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
(***) ***-**** Phone*
(***) ***-**** Fax*
DomainsByProxy.com
XXXXX X XXXXXX XX XXX XXX XXX XXX*
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
Domains By Proxy, Inc is just what it claims to be, one of those (in my opinion) rather dispicable organisations that allows people to hide behind a third party when registering domains.
*I've removed the phone numbers and half the address, if anyone wants that info they can do their own whis lookup, not sure why, just felt better after doing it.
As for the server itself, its an IIS box (as expected) version 6, so all that tells us is that its Windows 2K or better, (although not a pre-release of 2008 Server), and the ASP version looks about right to be current;
I utterly agree. On the value part of the equation I think one of the problems is a kind of 'Intellectual Property' inflation, it is fairly simple for a professional photographer to put a value on an image before it is purchased and to a certain degree use that to determine the price of an *accidentally* misused image. For a non professional there seems to be a feeling that a photo is worth far more than it is, not because that's what its worth to them, or because they have suffered damage to that value, but because that's what they feel they can recover by taking legal action. the music and film industry also massively inflate the value of their 'intellectual property', it presumably ensures future funding and investment.
There need to be changes in legislation relating to copyright (and patents) to take into account the pace of development (and arguably of life in general) and the value that certain protections provide to society, copyright and patent law is not supposed to be purely a cash cow for rights owners nor is something that needs to exist. 'Intellectual property' may underpin small yet vocal parts of various western economies, but a little sanity being introduced into law is not going to kill the industry dead, it may even spur a little innovation in the creative arts (As opposed to stronger, harder, better (but still utterly breakable) DRM)
How a large media organisation that happens to receive a large income based on the 'intellectual property' it owns, that shows warnings on its television broadcasts pertaining to copyright and presumably has a legal department and employs well educated staff can do something like this is unbelievable.
Clearly it is easy to make a mistake, even easier if there is some ambiguity in what you are doing, but in this case surely it would be relatively simple to ensure you know who owns what before using it. Whilst this violation is fairly innocuous and doesn't cause any harm (In a real sense as opposed to a legal one) it is the kind of thing that media companies would prosecute if it were carried out by a normal person (assuming they became aware of it) simply to ensure their 'property' isn't harmed in some way by unauthorised use.
It is interesting that recently (the last 2 years or so) the number of reported copyright violations carried out by businesses against individuals seems to have increased, especially given the amount of publicity given to 'piracy' of all types (well apart from the one that takes place on the high seas) has jumped significantly. I half expected there to be calls by businesses (apart from media organisations obviously) for reform of copyright law, primarily because looser copyright laws would potentially benefit normal businesses or in the least mitigate some of the potential legal damage caused by an accidental lapse.
Well I guess the moral of the story (assuming FOX are punished in some way, - I would be happy with an apology an that the image not be used if I were in the owners shoes) is simple, if you don't have express permission to use something, don't use it, seek consent, if you are planning to make use of material on the basis of fair use the make sure you check how to do that in an acceptable way. Personally I think society is losing out massively by having so much culturally valuable materiel locked away for so long for the benefit of the creators and their heirs, I think we are probably scaring people away from building on existing material and to a point scaring people from drawing influences from existing work, but then I haven't got the cash or influence to lobby government for a change in legislation.
At that point it wouldn't be about identifying encrypted traffic and blocking it, it would be about listing legitimate traffic and allowing it, so for example instead of having a full internet service from your ISP you would end up getting a http/https service where the nodes accessable are those that the ISP has allowed (no tunnelling encrypted non http traffic to X node on the network because you are not a legitimate http server and the recipient probably isn't authorised either...).
What the media companies would like to see (and to a certain extent I think ISP's would too) is an internet that is not a global network with many different uses but a media delivery system (effectively two way cable). That way they can monetize everything, it would be as simple as providing only resources from partners and selected third parties, (maybe a bit of exclusivity too, you can only get CNN on Comcast, or you can only get access to Slashdot on AOL etc..). It would allow the ISP's to differentiate themselves from each other, 80% of web users wouldn't notice and in a generation no one will remember what the web of the 90's and early-mid 2000's was like and wont know any better. Not only that but they could charge not only the end user, but also the content provider for access (one would pay for access to the network, the other for access to the potential customers), with a little skill and cunning, they could also provide more general access (call it business class, where a normal but still defective connection to what's left of the internet is possible) and charge even more for it.
All of that is technically possible, in fact its probably quite easy, it is also clear that it would increase the per user profit margin (especially if content providers have to pay additional fee's to be included (note this would be in addition to the usual domain registration, hosting etc.. fees)) so they could afford to lose some customers, most likely they would just end up with higher profits and without the need to increase (and therefore pay for) their own infrastructure upgrades.
Right up until encrypted traffic is also throttled. Given the current state of fear in society in general (whether it be of terrorists, Iranians, paedophiles, youths etc..) I am sure legislation can be passed to limit the use of encryption to prevent the kind of 'abuse' you are suggesting.
OK, obviously you are right, it is *perceived* as being anonymous and is less easy to track than say a direct FTP server connection (both for the distributor and the recipient). Not to mention that users feel part of a crowd and unlikely to be targeted... not anonymous but less than completely onymous.
I agree that if you are hosting anything you really need to be using a 'business class connection', if you are using a connection for work or for anything critical you need a 'business class connection', not for the transfer rates (it seems the lowest tiers at the business level are no different from ADSL/DSL connections) but for the SLA that (should) accompany such a connection*.
In return however the ISP should provide the service being paid for. If you are paying £X for X 'Speed' with 'unlimited downloads', then that should be what you get, whether by simply browsing the web, watching on-line video, listening to on-line radio or seeding the latest Debian ISO's as a torrent (I'm seeding the whole lot at the moment because I feel I should use the bandwidth I have...).
Peer-to-peer traffic is not client-server traffic, and it is normally non commercial, and as to whether it is legitimate content being passed is not a concern of the ISP anyway (do they block spam, viral or malicious code, libellous comments? No. If there are terms and conditions attached to a service those should be clear (that way a customer can make an informed choice), there is nothing wrong with an ISP preventing end users from running a given type of server or use the connection in a certain way, but it must be clear when the user signs up.
Lastly, it is up to the Linux distributions how they distribute their ISO's, Bittorrent is perfect for this even if other methods are available and have been (and are) used, so your comment relating to how Linux should b distributed is slightly valid, but unfair and short sighted, especially given that those organisations providing Linux distributions are not all corporations so splitting the load is sensible. Bittorrent *is* used by people who wish to transfer material in breach of copyright because it is fast, practical and can be fairly anonymous but that is not its sole purpose and it is just as easy to use other methods to distribute that material as it would be to use alternate methods to distribute Linux.
People who distribute material in breach of copyright law should be punished to the full extent of the law (even if the law in question is at this point fairly insane), they are aware of the penalty's and still take the risk of doing it, but there is no good reason to ban a whole slew of technologies because they can be used to facilitate distribution. By that logic any uncontrolled storage medium that allows itself to be written to, and any uncontrolled method of data transmission should be banned, we would end up with computers that have similar multimedia capabilities as TV's (without PVR's/DVD players etc..) and radios (without a tape/MD deck), with the added benefit of having to pay for everything on a PAYG basis.
*Any Slasdhotters that have ever worked in technical support for an ISP will be familiar with calls from customers on the cheapest residential deals demanding their connection be fixed because their business relies on it, whilst simultaneously threatening lawsuits...
PS, not sure if the parent was intended as flamebait so I assumed not, and sorry for losing the plot halfway through.
I don't think that this is related to the company being Japanese, regardless of how Japanese business culture is perceived. It is simply what large companies do, mainly because they seem to think that it is more profitable (they are probably right in certain areas too). If I think about the large organisations that I deal with and compare them to small local organisations I tend to find that the small ones will be much more flexible, far more open and generally far easier to deal with, the problem is that they don't have the infrastructure and cash behind them to give the same levels of support, reliability and consistency that I can get from the large corporates*.
The only reason large organisations like Sony, Time Warner, Microsoft, IBM, Apple, Ford, Mercedes, Intel, Capgemini, PWC, BP, Shell etc.. become more open (however that is defined within their industries) or change for what is percieved as 'the better' is if *they* decide that it benefits *them* significantly more than doing nothing, either in terms of their immediate bottom line or their long term profitability, hence the marketing campaigns proclaiming Microsoft's commitments to being open, BP's commitment to the environment etc..). There is a serious amount of inertia, it is always easier to do nothing (and keep raking in profits, dwindling or otherwise) than to make a change that whilst popular, may cause serious long term damage to the organisation involved.
Small organisations on the other hand tend to want to keep customers and gain additional customers, competition is fierce and changes are generally cheap and fast to implement (and consequently reverse) and are almost always worth the limited risks that they may pose. Funnily enough, this flexibility is often crushed when small company's become successful, at that point small company's seem to feel the need to imitate their larger brethren.
Anyway, IMHO, this is not something unique to the Japanese but rather something that afflicts most large organisations.
* I do try and use local company's wherever possible though.
what you are describing is evolution (not in the Darwinian sense, but close enough) . Software evolves, things change in small ways (and sometimes bigger ways) when there is a perceived need, usually when an existing system isn't up to doing all that someone requires of it. This doesn't seem like innovation (each individual change is potentially an innovation), but on its own only a small change from the norm - potentially an easily predictable one (usually in hindsight).
What people seem to expect is that a novel *and* useful idea arrives and is turned into a working piece of software which in turn totally revolutionises whatever field it is aimed at. This happens rarely and for a good reason, it is almost impossible to create a fully formed, highly complex, useful piece of software and have it be totally novel, I would be intrigued to see a realistic list of software that meets these terms, whether open or closed (not to mention it would be highly subjective in any case).
Something being new doesn't infer innovative. Something taking a totally different approach to a problem may be, but to survive it must also be useful, that kind of potential innovation either costs a lot of money in terms of R&D for a company or a lot of dedication and skill by an individual, in either case it includes a lot of risk.
Open source software, like closed source software is generally created to address a problem the degree of novelty involved will not depend on whether something is created in the open but the level of commitment and resources available as well as the nature of the problem at hand.
Presumably if they tried forcing retailers to sell at a price below their own production costs in order to kill the competition that could be true. Although it would appear that Nintendo are simply having difficulty meeting demand whilst simultaneously trying not to do anything to screw their customers or reduce demand too excessively.
In answer to you question, no legally they can't, the US is a signatory to a treaty (well a number of treaties) which prevents them acting in this manner, that's kind of the whole point of this story. It does not apply to all similar situations, as I understand it it would not apply if the US were objecting to something on moral grounds, as some other nations may have done.IIRC nor would it apply if there were some sort of legal sanctions (i.e. not some unilateral US trade sanctions imposed without agreement from some suitable international body).
At the end of the day however, the US benefits from these treaties, they should at least try to abide by them rather than crying foul whenever something doesn't go their way.
You are right, a well managed Windows environment can be perfectly stable for long periods (assuming you carry out the usual maintenance tasks as required). The problem is that well managed generally means that you are not installing little bits of software whenever the need strikes you, you don't grab a copy of Windows Weekly with £500 worth of free ware, trial ware and demo's every other week and install them all and then remove most of them again. Most people (tm) do, and as such most windows installs degrade over time, and therefore for most people it *is* inevitable, but a consequence of usage not the OS itself*.
*Saying that I don't think I have ever seen a Linux box suffer in this way even after it has had X thousands of applications installed and removed, I have no clue about how OSX or Apple OS's fare but I havent heard any complaints...
I would assume since the EU is aiming to make it possible for third parties to interoperate with Microsoft products (IIRC this is intended to mitigate the negative effects of Microsoft's monopoly whilst providing an opportunity for competition) that Microsoft 'letting'
a third party have all of the knowledge required to produce an Active Directory domain. isn't really an issue, the intent is to try to make it possible and in doing so make it possible for anyone interested to produce a node (for want of a better word) that can provide an/or utilise services made available within a domain.
Microsoft may not want others to be able to be able to provide services that work well with and/or provide similar or better functionality than their own, but that is what they have been told not to hinder by hiding their specs.
I think you have (inadvertently) hit the nail on the head. I wouldn't buy an e-book reader that was, well an e-book reader.
I prefer a device with a decent screen (a nice 4" Transflective VGA screen works well) that I can use for a multitude of things, listening to music (or in my case BBC Podcasts), browsing the web, reading my email, reading documents (normal office documents and PDF's), watching a film, displaying the photo's on my camera etc... On top of that I would like it to be a diary, calender, address book and note taker.
That basically describes a decent PDA. The killer is the display if you can get a PDA with a decent display you are on to a winner. For me it is about having something that is useful on a day to day basis (i.e. the scheduling and communications element) as well as having general entertainment value (listening to Music / podcasts etc.. say in the car or at lunch). As well as also being there if I am travelling, commuting or decide I want to read something whilst I am out.
I prefer my phone to be a separate entity, simply due to the fact that battery technology wont give me 10 hours of mp3s + reading a book whilst leaving me a decent standby and talk time at the end of it, but then that is a personal choice, plus there is nothing to stop you carrying a spare battery.
The ability to carry multiple Gb worth of data (my PDA has both CF and SD slots so I use my SD slot as removable media) that are accesable on both the PDA and other computing devices is also a killer feature, so are charging from USB and wifi.
I would never shell out a large amount of cash on a single purpose device, simply because I would mean another gadget to carry around, charge and maintain.
Problem is that that is often hard to spot in advance, plus fanatics != terrorists. Not to mention that its such a broad definition that you would be including a good proportion of the population (lost of people are fanatical about something).
What it comes down to is that anyone with a strong (well fanatical) belief in a given cause, be it religious, political or a combination is potentially a threat.
The problem is its hard to find a unique brand (for want of a better word) that can be used to lump them all together, a brand that is both visible without having to strike up a conversation with a member of a group and also significantly different from the societal norm. Domestic terrorists generally don't have this common brand (their main common trait is the commission of violent acts). They have many aims, some of which may be supported in some way by sections of society (anti-abortionist groups for example) and are of varying backgrounds, hold different religions and political beliefs and can be of any race or ethnicity, worst of all some of them are contradictory. So domestic terrorists are hard to label and hold up as a single unified evil.
Islamic/International terror groups however are significantly different from normal American citizens, they hold views that are not shared by any significant portion of US society (although I'm sure that in general some (or even many) Americans would agree with some of their aims if they were sufficiently aware of them, and if their methods were not violent). They can be linked together and can be pointed at as a cohesive group (Al-Qa'ida, Al-Qa'ida sympathisers, a branch of Al-Qa'ida, Al-Qa'ida affiliated etc..) even if they are not. It is much easier to sell a threat if it comes from a world wide, well organised, well funded, shadowy group with a single name and generally a single ethnicity.
So if you accept that, it is possible to write off domestic acts of terror as criminal whilst Islamic/International terrorism can be portrayed as warfare and as such Islamic terror can be fought and defeated by war (The War Against Terror). In reality steps should be taken to mitigate both, as both potentially pose a threat although those steps should be proportional and balanced so that you are not stripping the rights and privileges of citizens in the name of protecting them.
In short, its easier to get people worried about potential attacks by Islamic/International terrorists and get their support for counter terror legislation that is beneficial to the state, but detrimental to the populace. It is also easier to show that the policies in place are a success and so justify continued measures, after all there have been no attacks since 11 September 2001. It is much harder to prevent domestic terror attacks (which is probably impossible in the US given the diversity of the US population and level of access to firearms and ) and have to explain why attacks are still occurring.
I am not saying that Islamic/International terrorists are not a threat, or that domestic terrorism is a massive threat, but I would suggest that there are more effective methods of dealing with both than declaring war on one but not the other.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh and in case you are interested, the Windows logo'd second page of the 'book' reads; Just so that you know, Tom O'Connor does not actually have a Ph.D. He is also not
actually a person. ant the entire premise of this book is fictional. But on the bright
side, a Windows Home Server is a real product. Perhaps you'd like to buy one.
You can find out more about Windows Home Server at
www.microsoft.com/windowshomeserver and at www.stayathomeserver.com As for technical information about the site that may give a clue, the (partial) whois data is;
Registrant
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
(***) ***-**** Phone*
(***) ***-**** Fax*
DomainsByProxy.com
XXXXX X XXXXXX XX XXX XXX XXX XXX*
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
Domains By Proxy, Inc is just what it claims to be, one of those (in my opinion) rather dispicable organisations that allows people to hide behind a third party when registering domains.
*I've removed the phone numbers and half the address, if anyone wants that info they can do their own whis lookup, not sure why, just felt better after doing it.
As for the server itself, its an IIS box (as expected) version 6, so all that tells us is that its Windows 2K or better, (although not a pre-release of 2008 Server), and the ASP version looks about right to be current;
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
X-AspNet-Version: 2.0.50727
Cache-Control: private
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 6827
Two potentially interesting things to note in the source are;
1) A comment attached to some js
-- Microsoft Internal Tracking Tool
2) The apparent use of Google Analytics
-- Google Analytics
So there you go. Is it Microsoft Marketing at work? Probably, is that provable, Probably not.
As at 0455GMT he has been moderated +3 insightful, that's close enough to justified for me.
I utterly agree. On the value part of the equation I think one of the problems is a kind of 'Intellectual Property' inflation, it is fairly simple for a professional photographer to put a value on an image before it is purchased and to a certain degree use that to determine the price of an *accidentally* misused image. For a non professional there seems to be a feeling that a photo is worth far more than it is, not because that's what its worth to them, or because they have suffered damage to that value, but because that's what they feel they can recover by taking legal action. the music and film industry also massively inflate the value of their 'intellectual property', it presumably ensures future funding and investment.
There need to be changes in legislation relating to copyright (and patents) to take into account the pace of development (and arguably of life in general) and the value that certain protections provide to society, copyright and patent law is not supposed to be purely a cash cow for rights owners nor is something that needs to exist. 'Intellectual property' may underpin small yet vocal parts of various western economies, but a little sanity being introduced into law is not going to kill the industry dead, it may even spur a little innovation in the creative arts (As opposed to stronger, harder, better (but still utterly breakable) DRM)
How a large media organisation that happens to receive a large income based on the 'intellectual property' it owns, that shows warnings on its television broadcasts pertaining to copyright and presumably has a legal department and employs well educated staff can do something like this is unbelievable.
Clearly it is easy to make a mistake, even easier if there is some ambiguity in what you are doing, but in this case surely it would be relatively simple to ensure you know who owns what before using it. Whilst this violation is fairly innocuous and doesn't cause any harm (In a real sense as opposed to a legal one) it is the kind of thing that media companies would prosecute if it were carried out by a normal person (assuming they became aware of it) simply to ensure their 'property' isn't harmed in some way by unauthorised use.
It is interesting that recently (the last 2 years or so) the number of reported copyright violations carried out by businesses against individuals seems to have increased, especially given the amount of publicity given to 'piracy' of all types (well apart from the one that takes place on the high seas) has jumped significantly. I half expected there to be calls by businesses (apart from media organisations obviously) for reform of copyright law, primarily because looser copyright laws would potentially benefit normal businesses or in the least mitigate some of the potential legal damage caused by an accidental lapse.
Well I guess the moral of the story (assuming FOX are punished in some way, - I would be happy with an apology an that the image not be used if I were in the owners shoes) is simple, if you don't have express permission to use something, don't use it, seek consent, if you are planning to make use of material on the basis of fair use the make sure you check how to do that in an acceptable way. Personally I think society is losing out massively by having so much culturally valuable materiel locked away for so long for the benefit of the creators and their heirs, I think we are probably scaring people away from building on existing material and to a point scaring people from drawing influences from existing work, but then I haven't got the cash or influence to lobby government for a change in legislation.
At that point it wouldn't be about identifying encrypted traffic and blocking it, it would be about listing legitimate traffic and allowing it, so for example instead of having a full internet service from your ISP you would end up getting a http/https service where the nodes accessable are those that the ISP has allowed (no tunnelling encrypted non http traffic to X node on the network because you are not a legitimate http server and the recipient probably isn't authorised either...).
What the media companies would like to see (and to a certain extent I think ISP's would too) is an internet that is not a global network with many different uses but a media delivery system (effectively two way cable). That way they can monetize everything, it would be as simple as providing only resources from partners and selected third parties, (maybe a bit of exclusivity too, you can only get CNN on Comcast, or you can only get access to Slashdot on AOL etc..). It would allow the ISP's to differentiate themselves from each other, 80% of web users wouldn't notice and in a generation no one will remember what the web of the 90's and early-mid 2000's was like and wont know any better. Not only that but they could charge not only the end user, but also the content provider for access (one would pay for access to the network, the other for access to the potential customers), with a little skill and cunning, they could also provide more general access (call it business class, where a normal but still defective connection to what's left of the internet is possible) and charge even more for it.
All of that is technically possible, in fact its probably quite easy, it is also clear that it would increase the per user profit margin (especially if content providers have to pay additional fee's to be included (note this would be in addition to the usual domain registration, hosting etc.. fees)) so they could afford to lose some customers, most likely they would just end up with higher profits and without the need to increase (and therefore pay for) their own infrastructure upgrades.
OK so its not likely, but it isn't impossible.
Right up until encrypted traffic is also throttled. Given the current state of fear in society in general (whether it be of terrorists, Iranians, paedophiles, youths etc..) I am sure legislation can be passed to limit the use of encryption to prevent the kind of 'abuse' you are suggesting.
OK, obviously you are right, it is *perceived* as being anonymous and is less easy to track than say a direct FTP server connection (both for the distributor and the recipient). Not to mention that users feel part of a crowd and unlikely to be targeted... not anonymous but less than completely onymous.
I agree that if you are hosting anything you really need to be using a 'business class connection', if you are using a connection for work or for anything critical you need a 'business class connection', not for the transfer rates (it seems the lowest tiers at the business level are no different from ADSL/DSL connections) but for the SLA that (should) accompany such a connection*.
In return however the ISP should provide the service being paid for. If you are paying £X for X 'Speed' with 'unlimited downloads', then that should be what you get, whether by simply browsing the web, watching on-line video, listening to on-line radio or seeding the latest Debian ISO's as a torrent (I'm seeding the whole lot at the moment because I feel I should use the bandwidth I have...).
Peer-to-peer traffic is not client-server traffic, and it is normally non commercial, and as to whether it is legitimate content being passed is not a concern of the ISP anyway (do they block spam, viral or malicious code, libellous comments? No. If there are terms and conditions attached to a service those should be clear (that way a customer can make an informed choice), there is nothing wrong with an ISP preventing end users from running a given type of server or use the connection in a certain way, but it must be clear when the user signs up.
Lastly, it is up to the Linux distributions how they distribute their ISO's, Bittorrent is perfect for this even if other methods are available and have been (and are) used, so your comment relating to how Linux should b distributed is slightly valid, but unfair and short sighted, especially given that those organisations providing Linux distributions are not all corporations so splitting the load is sensible. Bittorrent *is* used by people who wish to transfer material in breach of copyright because it is fast, practical and can be fairly anonymous but that is not its sole purpose and it is just as easy to use other methods to distribute that material as it would be to use alternate methods to distribute Linux.
People who distribute material in breach of copyright law should be punished to the full extent of the law (even if the law in question is at this point fairly insane), they are aware of the penalty's and still take the risk of doing it, but there is no good reason to ban a whole slew of technologies because they can be used to facilitate distribution. By that logic any uncontrolled storage medium that allows itself to be written to, and any uncontrolled method of data transmission should be banned, we would end up with computers that have similar multimedia capabilities as TV's (without PVR's/DVD players etc..) and radios (without a tape/MD deck), with the added benefit of having to pay for everything on a PAYG basis.
*Any Slasdhotters that have ever worked in technical support for an ISP will be familiar with calls from customers on the cheapest residential deals demanding their connection be fixed because their business relies on it, whilst simultaneously threatening lawsuits...
PS, not sure if the parent was intended as flamebait so I assumed not, and sorry for losing the plot halfway through.
I don't think that this is related to the company being Japanese, regardless of how Japanese business culture is perceived. It is simply what large companies do, mainly because they seem to think that it is more profitable (they are probably right in certain areas too). If I think about the large organisations that I deal with and compare them to small local organisations I tend to find that the small ones will be much more flexible, far more open and generally far easier to deal with, the problem is that they don't have the infrastructure and cash behind them to give the same levels of support, reliability and consistency that I can get from the large corporates*.
The only reason large organisations like Sony, Time Warner, Microsoft, IBM, Apple, Ford, Mercedes, Intel, Capgemini, PWC, BP, Shell etc.. become more open (however that is defined within their industries) or change for what is percieved as 'the better' is if *they* decide that it benefits *them* significantly more than doing nothing, either in terms of their immediate bottom line or their long term profitability, hence the marketing campaigns proclaiming Microsoft's commitments to being open, BP's commitment to the environment etc..). There is a serious amount of inertia, it is always easier to do nothing (and keep raking in profits, dwindling or otherwise) than to make a change that whilst popular, may cause serious long term damage to the organisation involved.
Small organisations on the other hand tend to want to keep customers and gain additional customers, competition is fierce and changes are generally cheap and fast to implement (and consequently reverse) and are almost always worth the limited risks that they may pose. Funnily enough, this flexibility is often crushed when small company's become successful, at that point small company's seem to feel the need to imitate their larger brethren.
Anyway, IMHO, this is not something unique to the Japanese but rather something that afflicts most large organisations.
* I do try and use local company's wherever possible though.
I'll second the kittens, even though its clearly not there.. which either means that great minds think alike, or we are both dyslexic.
what you are describing is evolution (not in the Darwinian sense, but close enough) . Software evolves, things change in small ways (and sometimes bigger ways) when there is a perceived need, usually when an existing system isn't up to doing all that someone requires of it. This doesn't seem like innovation (each individual change is potentially an innovation), but on its own only a small change from the norm - potentially an easily predictable one (usually in hindsight).
What people seem to expect is that a novel *and* useful idea arrives and is turned into a working piece of software which in turn totally revolutionises whatever field it is aimed at. This happens rarely and for a good reason, it is almost impossible to create a fully formed, highly complex, useful piece of software and have it be totally novel, I would be intrigued to see a realistic list of software that meets these terms, whether open or closed (not to mention it would be highly subjective in any case).
Something being new doesn't infer innovative. Something taking a totally different approach to a problem may be, but to survive it must also be useful, that kind of potential innovation either costs a lot of money in terms of R&D for a company or a lot of dedication and skill by an individual, in either case it includes a lot of risk.
Open source software, like closed source software is generally created to address a problem the degree of novelty involved will not depend on whether something is created in the open but the level of commitment and resources available as well as the nature of the problem at hand.
Presumably if they tried forcing retailers to sell at a price below their own production costs in order to kill the competition that could be true. Although it would appear that Nintendo are simply having difficulty meeting demand whilst simultaneously trying not to do anything to screw their customers or reduce demand too excessively.
In answer to you question, no legally they can't, the US is a signatory to a treaty (well a number of treaties) which prevents them acting in this manner, that's kind of the whole point of this story. It does not apply to all similar situations, as I understand it it would not apply if the US were objecting to something on moral grounds, as some other nations may have done.IIRC nor would it apply if there were some sort of legal sanctions (i.e. not some unilateral US trade sanctions imposed without agreement from some suitable international body).
At the end of the day however, the US benefits from these treaties, they should at least try to abide by them rather than crying foul whenever something doesn't go their way.
The aqueduct?
You are right, a well managed Windows environment can be perfectly stable for long periods (assuming you carry out the usual maintenance tasks as required). The problem is that well managed generally means that you are not installing little bits of software whenever the need strikes you, you don't grab a copy of Windows Weekly with £500 worth of free ware, trial ware and demo's every other week and install them all and then remove most of them again. Most people (tm) do, and as such most windows installs degrade over time, and therefore for most people it *is* inevitable, but a consequence of usage not the OS itself*.
*Saying that I don't think I have ever seen a Linux box suffer in this way even after it has had X thousands of applications installed and removed, I have no clue about how OSX or Apple OS's fare but I havent heard any complaints...
So all we have to look forward to is Death and Gravity?
Star Destroyer?
Microsoft may not want others to be able to be able to provide services that work well with and/or provide similar or better functionality than their own, but that is what they have been told not to hinder by hiding their specs.
I think you have (inadvertently) hit the nail on the head. I wouldn't buy an e-book reader that was, well an e-book reader.
I prefer a device with a decent screen (a nice 4" Transflective VGA screen works well) that I can use for a multitude of things, listening to music (or in my case BBC Podcasts), browsing the web, reading my email, reading documents (normal office documents and PDF's), watching a film, displaying the photo's on my camera etc... On top of that I would like it to be a diary, calender, address book and note taker.
That basically describes a decent PDA. The killer is the display if you can get a PDA with a decent display you are on to a winner. For me it is about having something that is useful on a day to day basis (i.e. the scheduling and communications element) as well as having general entertainment value (listening to Music / podcasts etc.. say in the car or at lunch). As well as also being there if I am travelling, commuting or decide I want to read something whilst I am out.
I prefer my phone to be a separate entity, simply due to the fact that battery technology wont give me 10 hours of mp3s + reading a book whilst leaving me a decent standby and talk time at the end of it, but then that is a personal choice, plus there is nothing to stop you carrying a spare battery.
The ability to carry multiple Gb worth of data (my PDA has both CF and SD slots so I use my SD slot as removable media) that are accesable on both the PDA and other computing devices is also a killer feature, so are charging from USB and wifi.
I would never shell out a large amount of cash on a single purpose device, simply because I would mean another gadget to carry around, charge and maintain.
You are making the assumption that the hardware is even capable of being upgraded to 1Gb RAM...
Bravo sir!
Problem is that that is often hard to spot in advance, plus fanatics != terrorists. Not to mention that its such a broad definition that you would be including a good proportion of the population (lost of people are fanatical about something).
What it comes down to is that anyone with a strong (well fanatical) belief in a given cause, be it religious, political or a combination is potentially a threat.
The problem is its hard to find a unique brand (for want of a better word) that can be used to lump them all together, a brand that is both visible without having to strike up a conversation with a member of a group and also significantly different from the societal norm. Domestic terrorists generally don't have this common brand (their main common trait is the commission of violent acts). They have many aims, some of which may be supported in some way by sections of society (anti-abortionist groups for example) and are of varying backgrounds, hold different religions and political beliefs and can be of any race or ethnicity, worst of all some of them are contradictory. So domestic terrorists are hard to label and hold up as a single unified evil.
Islamic/International terror groups however are significantly different from normal American citizens, they hold views that are not shared by any significant portion of US society (although I'm sure that in general some (or even many) Americans would agree with some of their aims if they were sufficiently aware of them, and if their methods were not violent). They can be linked together and can be pointed at as a cohesive group (Al-Qa'ida, Al-Qa'ida sympathisers, a branch of Al-Qa'ida, Al-Qa'ida affiliated etc..) even if they are not. It is much easier to sell a threat if it comes from a world wide, well organised, well funded, shadowy group with a single name and generally a single ethnicity.
So if you accept that, it is possible to write off domestic acts of terror as criminal whilst Islamic/International terrorism can be portrayed as warfare and as such Islamic terror can be fought and defeated by war (The War Against Terror). In reality steps should be taken to mitigate both, as both potentially pose a threat although those steps should be proportional and balanced so that you are not stripping the rights and privileges of citizens in the name of protecting them.
In short, its easier to get people worried about potential attacks by Islamic/International terrorists and get their support for counter terror legislation that is beneficial to the state, but detrimental to the populace. It is also easier to show that the policies in place are a success and so justify continued measures, after all there have been no attacks since 11 September 2001. It is much harder to prevent domestic terror attacks (which is probably impossible in the US given the diversity of the US population and level of access to firearms and ) and have to explain why attacks are still occurring.
I am not saying that Islamic/International terrorists are not a threat, or that domestic terrorism is a massive threat, but I would suggest that there are more effective methods of dealing with both than declaring war on one but not the other.
The 'neo' part of 'neocon' (or neonazi, neoclassical etc...) means 'new', as in 'new conservatives'.