The telcos have been too busy lobbying Congress and suing State/Local government to prevent "competition" from municipalities that they don't want to service anyway!
Hmmm...let's see...under what conditions does an under-serviced market exist...
Wow. I'm not sure that I would actually go as far as he has with trying to spin Vista. He is still a very wealthy man, and making obviously delusional statements such as these in public could be grounds for having him declared mentally incompetent. I wonder if Melinda put him up to it?
Note: meta-moderation is not for modding down stuff you dont' agree with.
So it looks like there are doctors who read Slashdot! All I can say is, it doesn't really surprise me that one would take the time to mod me down (even though my post only had the score it started with). A great many doctors are arrogant assholes - and they particularly hate it when people point out that they don't know everything.
Let me put it this way: if you wanted to work on things that don't have opinions of their own, you had a wide selection of careers to choose from (auto mechanic, computer technician, etc.). You decided to become a doctor and work on human beings. It's my body, my health, and I have a mind of my own. If you can't look me in the eye and discuss it with me (without being condescending!), then fuck you. I'm the one paying, I'm the one who has to live with whatever decision is made. If you don't like it, then you're in the WRONG PROFESSION.
I suppose that all IT departments at companies that run Windows are just sitting on their thumbs, doing nothing, then?!
There is no silver bullet. Running a Microsoft OS (or even an Apple OS) doesn't magically make everything work. There will still be things that don't work right - it'll just be different things.
Your computer is a tool. If it doesn't do what you need, then fine; get a different tool. But for many businesses, the appropriate tool *is* linux, and it does the job well. Please don't presume to be the voice of everyman.
Yes - proper diagnosis and selection of appropriate treatment is best left to doctors. In an ideal world, this would be a flawless and quick process. But doctors are human too. You only get one life, one body - it's best to be an informed and an active participant in your own health care.
Doctors hate self-diagnosers (sometimes with good reason). However, for every 10 patients who insist that they have a certain condition and that they absolutely need Brand Name Drug X, there is a bad doctor who doesn't listen to what his patients tell him and prescribes the latest drug-du-jour that is being pushed by his sexy pharmaseutical rep.
We've all heard stories or had family members who've been to a doctor with a particular complaint and have been given the run-around for months: "Try this pill." "Ok, that didn't work, try this ointment." "I don't care what you read, you don't have [medical condition]." When they finally reach the end of their rope, they go find another doctor who actually listens to all the complaints, runs the appropriate tests, takes time to correctly diagnose the issue, and then treats the root cause - and (will wonders never cease!) the issue goes away.
So even though the doctor is the "expert", in the end it is your body and your health. Find a good doctor that will listen to you and don't be afraid to do research on your own. If your doctor can't handle you taking an active role in your own health care and can't or won't take the time to discuss the hows/whys with you, then FIND ONE WHO CAN AND WILL.
What country do you live in? When was the last time you heard of Wall Street being bullish on a stock because the company was a champion of human rights?
In the USA, officers of a company have a legal obligation to not intentionally harm the company's stock value through policy decisions. It's entirely possible that if the company leadership "grew a pair" and the result was being kicked out of China, the stockholders would file suit.
Capitalism doesn't work the way you suggest. Unless you want to re-write the ground rules to introduce factors other than "what will make us the most money" into the equation, then you're stuck with the current greedy, take-no-prisoners, CYA corporate status quo.
Clue for the humor-impaired: I was kidding
But, you know...I'm pretty sure that for most of the sub-atmoic particles and all of quantum mechanics, there were mathematical models that predicted them well before there were any experiments that yielded results to support them.
In what other endeavor can you persuade people to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build complicated machinery and pay you a salary based on the following (roughly paraphrased) prospectus:
"You see, what we'll do is accelerate some shit up to within a hairs-breadth of the speed of light then smash it into some other shit and see what happens."
... because I've re-defined "genuine" to mean that I got paid for it. All your money are belong to me.
Seriously - this is as meaningless as it gets. It's like the *IAA numbers on piracy. Why all the pretense? Let's just *ask* them "how much money do you want?" At least then we can just tell them "No."
All this polite fiction does is allow politicians to bloviate, legislators to introduce yet more legislation decreeing what our corporate overlords are entitled to, regulators to ignore ever more egregious behavior, etc.
Oh, wait...I think I answered my own question. Nevermind.
I should have pointed out that my evidence is mostly anecdotal. I've read of several instances of cherry-picking by communications companies after reading this Slashdot article.
It's also particular worrying that this happened not too long after.
A quick Google found this site. It appears that many others are concerned about this as well.
Personally, I think that what they're all really worried about is that the data will show that the communications companies have been very selective in rolling out broadband.
They have cherry-picked specific, high-income areas in which to roll out. It's very likely that many areas will *never* get broadband service, if these companies get their way. And they're currenly involved in heavy lobbying and lawsuits to prevent other means of servicing the areas that they're not willing to service.
I don't know what the ultimate solution should be, but broadband Internet access is vitally important to me (I work as a software engineer) and I hate that these companies and their services have such an impact on where I choose to live!
Except that HAL was paranoid. That the astronauts had a conversation they tried to hide from HAL was more than enough. The actual content of the conversation was immaterial.
That's a non-sequitur. Since when does altruism = not doing what you want? If you *want* to help people without any expectation of personal gain, does that mean you're not being altruistic?
You might be suggesting that people who want to help others receive pleasure from doing so, and in that sense they are really motivated by the expectation of satifaction. But then you'd have to explain *why* helping others produces pleasure... which brings us back to the point of identifying the area of the brain involved.
I see a lot of posts scoffing at this because of the high cost. Let me propose that reducing our reliance on non-renewable resources is about more than economic efficiency.
Consider that in Asia and the Indian sub-continent that there are roughly 2.5 Billion people, an increasing number of which are gaining in wealth. In 20 years, these coutries will have by far outsripped the U.S. in the demand for energy and building materials.
I submit that it is in everybody's interest to head off the imminent clash of interests between the ultra-consumers in the U.S. and up-and-coming consumers in the rest of the developing world. If we insist that it is our right to continue our disproportionate consumption of resources, then we will have to fight for it (a prospect that I find frightening at best).
How unreasonable can you people be? I mean, after all, the companies are *entitled* to your money. You should just be lucky that they give you anything in return. Ungrateful, good-for-nothing consumers. Hmph!
If YouTube, et al have done anything, it's show that a different business model can work: the value is not in production of the material, it's in delivering it.
Previously, if I had wanted lame videos of punk skateboarders doing tricks, angsty teenagers venting their mixed-up feelings, middle-age housewives boody-popping, etc. I would have had to spend countless hours trolling the murky depths and dark recesses of the Internet to find them. Thanks to YouTube, I have a single, convenient place to satisfy my disgusting and perverse needs.
Seriously though, can we please stop trying to create artificial scarcity? We don't really need it; TV shows, movies, and music worth paying for are already scarce enough.
Balmer doesn't sound impressed? What a surprise!
on
iPhone Roundup
·
· Score: 4, Funny
WTF do you expect him to do, fake an orgasm at the mention of a competitor's product?
Apple could develop a cure for cancer, and Steve Ballmer would say "Meh, we've got an offering in the works that will do everything Apple's cure will do, but at a lower price point. And our solution leverages our synergy with our business parterns to enable innovation by developers, developers, developers! in this new market. It'll be brown and you can squirt it to all of your friends!"
You don't want to become a victim of printer hacking. A malicious printer hacker could print out sheet music of copyrighted songs, stills from copyrighted movies, or child pornograhpy - leaving you a target of litigaton from the *AA or worse. Not to mention all the juvenile pranks like printing all your valuable company memos in l33t speak.
Protect your printers today!
I wonder when Symantec will release their first security software suite for printers...
Wow, what a lot of arrogant presumption in a single post! I never said anything about humans being special, my particular view of human consciousness, etc.
I will kindly ask you to leave emotional knee-jerk reactions out of a perfectly reasonable discussion. Thank you.
Slashdot Mirror
To: Steve Ballmer
Dear sir,
Either file suit against the parties infringing on your precious IP, or SHUT THE FUCK UP.
Sincerely,
Everyone
P.S. - Vista blows donkey balls.
...go over to http://openxmldeveloper.org/default.aspx and fill up their forums with lots of direct questions about how to implement the OpenXML "standard"?
Tell them you're developing a cross-platform application with Linux and OS X versions, I'm sure they'll love that.
The telcos have been too busy lobbying Congress and suing State/Local government to prevent "competition" from municipalities that they don't want to service anyway!
Hmmm...let's see...under what conditions does an under-serviced market exist...
Clue: it isn't in a capitalist free market.
I just tried to use it, and here's what I got:
This is not a winning document. Better luck next time.
Wow. I'm not sure that I would actually go as far as he has with trying to spin Vista. He is still a very wealthy man, and making obviously delusional statements such as these in public could be grounds for having him declared mentally incompetent. I wonder if Melinda put him up to it?
Note: meta-moderation is not for modding down stuff you dont' agree with.
So it looks like there are doctors who read Slashdot! All I can say is, it doesn't really surprise me that one would take the time to mod me down (even though my post only had the score it started with). A great many doctors are arrogant assholes - and they particularly hate it when people point out that they don't know everything.
Let me put it this way: if you wanted to work on things that don't have opinions of their own, you had a wide selection of careers to choose from (auto mechanic, computer technician, etc.). You decided to become a doctor and work on human beings. It's my body, my health, and I have a mind of my own. If you can't look me in the eye and discuss it with me (without being condescending!), then fuck you. I'm the one paying, I'm the one who has to live with whatever decision is made. If you don't like it, then you're in the WRONG PROFESSION.
I suppose that all IT departments at companies that run Windows are just sitting on their thumbs, doing nothing, then?!
There is no silver bullet. Running a Microsoft OS (or even an Apple OS) doesn't magically make everything work. There will still be things that don't work right - it'll just be different things.
Your computer is a tool. If it doesn't do what you need, then fine; get a different tool. But for many businesses, the appropriate tool *is* linux, and it does the job well. Please don't presume to be the voice of everyman.
Yes - proper diagnosis and selection of appropriate treatment is best left to doctors. In an ideal world, this would be a flawless and quick process. But doctors are human too. You only get one life, one body - it's best to be an informed and an active participant in your own health care.
Doctors hate self-diagnosers (sometimes with good reason). However, for every 10 patients who insist that they have a certain condition and that they absolutely need Brand Name Drug X, there is a bad doctor who doesn't listen to what his patients tell him and prescribes the latest drug-du-jour that is being pushed by his sexy pharmaseutical rep.
We've all heard stories or had family members who've been to a doctor with a particular complaint and have been given the run-around for months: "Try this pill." "Ok, that didn't work, try this ointment." "I don't care what you read, you don't have [medical condition]." When they finally reach the end of their rope, they go find another doctor who actually listens to all the complaints, runs the appropriate tests, takes time to correctly diagnose the issue, and then treats the root cause - and (will wonders never cease!) the issue goes away.
So even though the doctor is the "expert", in the end it is your body and your health. Find a good doctor that will listen to you and don't be afraid to do research on your own. If your doctor can't handle you taking an active role in your own health care and can't or won't take the time to discuss the hows/whys with you, then FIND ONE WHO CAN AND WILL.
What country do you live in? When was the last time you heard of Wall Street being bullish on a stock because the company was a champion of human rights?
In the USA, officers of a company have a legal obligation to not intentionally harm the company's stock value through policy decisions. It's entirely possible that if the company leadership "grew a pair" and the result was being kicked out of China, the stockholders would file suit.
Capitalism doesn't work the way you suggest. Unless you want to re-write the ground rules to introduce factors other than "what will make us the most money" into the equation, then you're stuck with the current greedy, take-no-prisoners, CYA corporate status quo.
Clue for the humor-impaired: I was kidding
But, you know...I'm pretty sure that for most of the sub-atmoic particles and all of quantum mechanics, there were mathematical models that predicted them well before there were any experiments that yielded results to support them.
In what other endeavor can you persuade people to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build complicated machinery and pay you a salary based on the following (roughly paraphrased) prospectus:
;-)
"You see, what we'll do is accelerate some shit up to within a hairs-breadth of the speed of light then smash it into some other shit and see what happens."
Gotta love those wacky physicists!
I've now found a great metaphor for all this "Web 2.0" nonsense: urine.
Web 2.0 is people pissing on the Internet!
... because I've re-defined "genuine" to mean that I got paid for it. All your money are belong to me.
Seriously - this is as meaningless as it gets. It's like the *IAA numbers on piracy. Why all the pretense? Let's just *ask* them "how much money do you want?" At least then we can just tell them "No."
All this polite fiction does is allow politicians to bloviate, legislators to introduce yet more legislation decreeing what our corporate overlords are entitled to, regulators to ignore ever more egregious behavior, etc.
Oh, wait...I think I answered my own question. Nevermind.
I should have pointed out that my evidence is mostly anecdotal. I've read of several instances of cherry-picking by communications companies after reading this Slashdot article.
It's also particular worrying that this happened not too long after.
A quick Google found this site. It appears that many others are concerned about this as well.
Personally, I think that what they're all really worried about is that the data will show that the communications companies have been very selective in rolling out broadband.
They have cherry-picked specific, high-income areas in which to roll out. It's very likely that many areas will *never* get broadband service, if these companies get their way. And they're currenly involved in heavy lobbying and lawsuits to prevent other means of servicing the areas that they're not willing to service.
I don't know what the ultimate solution should be, but broadband Internet access is vitally important to me (I work as a software engineer) and I hate that these companies and their services have such an impact on where I choose to live!
Except that HAL was paranoid. That the astronauts had a conversation they tried to hide from HAL was more than enough. The actual content of the conversation was immaterial.
That's a non-sequitur. Since when does altruism = not doing what you want? If you *want* to help people without any expectation of personal gain, does that mean you're not being altruistic?
You might be suggesting that people who want to help others receive pleasure from doing so, and in that sense they are really motivated by the expectation of satifaction. But then you'd have to explain *why* helping others produces pleasure... which brings us back to the point of identifying the area of the brain involved.
I see a lot of posts scoffing at this because of the high cost. Let me propose that reducing our reliance on non-renewable resources is about more than economic efficiency.
Consider that in Asia and the Indian sub-continent that there are roughly 2.5 Billion people, an increasing number of which are gaining in wealth. In 20 years, these coutries will have by far outsripped the U.S. in the demand for energy and building materials.
I submit that it is in everybody's interest to head off the imminent clash of interests between the ultra-consumers in the U.S. and up-and-coming consumers in the rest of the developing world. If we insist that it is our right to continue our disproportionate consumption of resources, then we will have to fight for it (a prospect that I find frightening at best).
Learn to live better, not cheaper.
I need to introduce this guy to my next-door neighbor...
How unreasonable can you people be? I mean, after all, the companies are *entitled* to your money. You should just be lucky that they give you anything in return. Ungrateful, good-for-nothing consumers. Hmph!
If YouTube, et al have done anything, it's show that a different business model can work: the value is not in production of the material, it's in delivering it.
Previously, if I had wanted lame videos of punk skateboarders doing tricks, angsty teenagers venting their mixed-up feelings, middle-age housewives boody-popping, etc. I would have had to spend countless hours trolling the murky depths and dark recesses of the Internet to find them. Thanks to YouTube, I have a single, convenient place to satisfy my disgusting and perverse needs.
Seriously though, can we please stop trying to create artificial scarcity? We don't really need it; TV shows, movies, and music worth paying for are already scarce enough.
WTF do you expect him to do, fake an orgasm at the mention of a competitor's product?
Apple could develop a cure for cancer, and Steve Ballmer would say "Meh, we've got an offering in the works that will do everything Apple's cure will do, but at a lower price point. And our solution leverages our synergy with our business parterns to enable innovation by developers, developers, developers! in this new market. It'll be brown and you can squirt it to all of your friends!"
You don't want to become a victim of printer hacking. A malicious printer hacker could print out sheet music of copyrighted songs, stills from copyrighted movies, or child pornograhpy - leaving you a target of litigaton from the *AA or worse. Not to mention all the juvenile pranks like printing all your valuable company memos in l33t speak.
Protect your printers today!
I wonder when Symantec will release their first security software suite for printers...
So, do the electrical power requirements for this mean that the Navy will once again be building nuclear-powered ships?
Wow, what a lot of arrogant presumption in a single post! I never said anything about humans being special, my particular view of human consciousness, etc.
:-)
I will kindly ask you to leave emotional knee-jerk reactions out of a perfectly reasonable discussion. Thank you.
Have a pleasant day.