This is the 21st century. I can understand defaulting to 4 digit pin, but why can't I choose a longer pin? My gf's Blackberry allows you to enter a much longer string. I have over a 6 digit pin for my ATM card. Why exactly does Apple force people to only have a 4 digit pin for the phone?
Back in the early 90s, there was this one classmate who was a brilliant programmer. He wrote a pascal program that somehow continuously downloaded porn from newsgroups, ie. alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.*. This was in the days of the 9600 baud modems, and before the Internet was even a household word. I didn't understand at the time what he was doing, or how he was doing it, but enjoyed the fruits of his labor. This was even before video on computers was prevalent, so it was all just images. Actually I remember downloading one "video" that was really just an ascii-fied version of a pr0no. sigh.. the good ol' days.
Wow... it's incredible how smug and self-righteous you are. Why don't you worry about you playing the guitar and let the people who want to play Guitar Hero have fun. Never the twain shall meet.
Sorry it was a typo, I meant to say it will probably take another 5 years before it is as popular as XP is now. In terms of popularity, I also meant "widespread" as opposed to "well liked".
What Microsoft feared most about Google has become true now: The application stack has shifted up, and now the web browser has become the new OS. No one cares about Vista because no one needs a new OS anymore. All they care about is getting their news and email, IM'ing and watching youtube. Flash and AJAX have completely supplanted the OS.
The only reason why you need a new OS is for new features, but frankly, no one needs them. The only reason why people use an OS these days is to interact with local files, but the vast majority of people only care about 2 types of files: MP3s and digital photos. Even Word documents are becoming marginalized now. So what's the point of a desktop search for newer kids these days, when they stick everything online now?
Because of the lack of importance of new OS features, that's why other OSes like Mac OS are gaining steam, because Windows isn't as essential as it was 10 years ago. It's a perfect storm of good for Apple, they are becoming ever-increasingly "cooler", and the need for Windows is diminishing, so people can still get their email and watch youtube and still get the same experience. This is also why everyone is still using XP, a 7 year old OS, without any complaints. No one cares, and it scares Microsoft to death.
They shit the bed in their attempt to make Vista relevant and they lost their one-and-only chance. I'm sure Vista will be adopted eventually, but it will probably take another 5 years because it is as popular as XP is now.
It should be open source vs. Microsoft. Meanwhile idiotic religious zealots have now fragmented the open source community and they are now fighting amongst themselves. Perfect, exactly what Microsoft wants.
What is with all this religious nonsense over BSD vs GPL? If someone wrote code under the BSD license YOU SHOULD RESPECT IT. What's the point in trying to convert it into a GPL license, besides pissing that person off and essentially wasting a whole shitload of everyone's time. Some people have philisophical disagreements over it, fine, but starting to make enemies against people who are only a hair's difference apart, when the real enemy is in the back laughing is so retarded.
I know this from a co-worker from Canada who, during the dot-com days, had to struggle with the TN visa, a visa available to high-skilled Canadians. The TN visa was applicable for Software Engineer, which was considered to be a highly technical position, where you "engineered" software. It required an engineering degree.
A programmer, in the view of the US govt, was someone who took direction from someone else, and coded them. They view a programmer as a step above key puncher. So, this is probably the reason why those figures are different. Programmer do not require a specialized degree, and anyone can be considered a programmer.
To people in the business, they mean the same thing, but to the government, I guess this is how they distinguish it. Whether or not this definition makes sense is another thing altogether.
Have you not seen how strong a cell phone's wireless signal is? I've had my cell phone near speakers that have been turned off and you can still hear a "click-click-click" sound on the speakers. Think about that for a second... how strong must the EM signal be to drive a current through speaker wires that have been turned off? I would say those are incredibly strong signals. It's not as easy as it seems to deal with something that emits such a strong signal at close proximity.
They must be worried about the iPhone in order to do something as crazy as that. Dropping the price of the phone 2 months after it's released by 33%? It's bad for several reasons but mainly because it pisses off the early adopters big time as evidenced by the emails/rebate. The $100 will appease them, however, they will be extremely gunshy to jump on the boat again, that's for sure. One of my friends who bought the iPhone said exactly that, he will wait a few months now and won't be fooled by Apple a second time.
And they know all this because they are savvy business people at Apple. Compare the iPhone to the PS3. More people bought the iPhone than did PS3 at the same price, yet it took Sony 1 year to get a $100 price drop as opposed to Apple's price drop.
So the only reason to me is that it's desperation. I'm guessing that report about how only 136k people actually signed up must have them pretty worried and they need to reach a critical level sooner.
Me personally, I smell blood in the water. I'm waiting for the price to drop even further before I begin to consider buying it. It would be interesting to see how many people feel the same way and if that will actually curtail pickup of the iPhone until closer to Christmas.
I saw Rage against the Machine, and Zack De La Rocha spent time lecturing the audience about how this is our time, we have power, we need to protest against the government and use our freedom of speech and our vote to act.
When are we as a group going to do something about this?
I mean, I am not a communist or left-wing person at all. But seriously, where are the protests? Where are the protests against the Iraq war, in the style of the 1960s? Where are the protests against the DMCA? Are we as a generation ever going to do anything about this?
Rage has this one song "Wake Up" where he spends the last minute or two screaming "WAKE UP! WAKE UP!" He's talking to us. When are we going to DO SOMETHING about this?
(Don't look at me for the answer, I'll be sitting here surfing the web until someone comes up with a good one.)
What about someone who deeply believes in God? There is nothing scientific about religion whatsoever, do you believe they are unfit to lead a technological, industrial society? Wouldn't you agree that a deeply religious president is incapable of critical analysis, inflexible, and stubborn to new ideas?
>> Expect a creationist candidate to also do what he can to steamroll gay rights, Roe v Wade, and be instilled with all the other crackpot "values" of fundie nutjobs.
That is nonsense. You need to find out first and foremost what their positions on all of the above topics are first, don't just assume. I don't believe in abortion at all, but I wouldn't necessarily believe it is my duty to go about changing Roe vs Wade (it's probably impossible anyway). I consider myself more right wing than left, however, I believe fully in gay marriage, not just a "civil union" that almost every single candidate (including Democrats) is pushing. My whole point is that just because someone believe in creationism doesn't mean he will shove it down people's throats or that it is part of their agenda. You need to find out everything about the candidate as a whole, don't boil them down to one single issue. You are dumbing yourself down just like electoral strategist expects you to.
Do you think Obama will be pushing a "black" agenda, maybe even slave reparations? Taking a candidate on one single issue and painting all their issues the same way is just as void of critical analysis, flexibility and is as stubborn as what you are suggesting they are.
Quit focussing on one issue, and especially a less valuable issue such as evolution, and focus on more important things, like social security, medicare, deficit spending, the US's lack of proper foreign policy, etc.
Stop diverting attention on topics that are really trite and have little bearing to reality. So what, they don't believe in evolution. They're dumb, and I can accept that there are a lot of dumb people in this world. I really don't hold politicians to be the most intelligent people in this world anyway.
But really, does it really matter? Do you really expect them to push their agenda? That's like thinking a gay person automatically has an agenda of pushing gay issues, even when maybe they don't. Maybe they happen to be gay, but they wanted to be treated like a regular politican, just like everyone else, without the gay stigma. Just because someone believes something doesn't mean they will use their opportunity to push their agenda all the time.
Yes, Slashdot has publicized some instances where anti-evolution agenda was pushed, but really how many was that like, maybe 3 or 4 cases across the entire US? Come on, it's like accusing all of India of being guilty of "honor killings" when really it's only done in the most rural, primitive parts of India. In the same vein, yes, some politicians probably don't believe in evolution, but do you really think they care enough to push their agenda across all the school boards? My bet is that probably only an infinitesimal percentage would.
And plus, how much really is someone who doesn't believe in evolution more guilty that someone who is religious? Can you really stand their and feel contempt for someone who doesn't believe in evolution, yet thinks its okay if they are religious? It's probably equally as unscientific.
The real crime is focussing the talk about politics onto stupid, stupid issues like evolution, or flag burning. HOW ABOUT TALKING ABOUT SOMETHING CONCRETE? What about federal regulation into hedge funds?? What about making sure we have enough social security? What about things that actually AFFECT our lives?
THIS is what is exactly wrong with North America. Why the fuck should education be entertaining? It certainly is a bonus if what you're learning is interesting, but for 95% of everything that you NEED to know, it's boring. SUCK IT UP. Do you think learning about how to fill out an income tax return is entertaining? No, but you need to hunker down and just fucking do it without complaining. So many North Americans don't have what it takes to do the downright dirty work that is both unappealing and boring because "it's not fun, boo hoo!"
The reality is that you need to learn to get ahead, under any circumstances. You need to work your ass off. If you don't, you will work at McDonald's or maybe a comic book store, because hey, that's fun and entertaining, right?
Since when is learning about Fast Fourier Transforms or the internals of Mergesort entertaining? It's not, and the expectation that education should be fun is what is killing kids. Educational video games? Talk about unrealistic expectations that you as parents put into your kids' heads. You need to say, "Yes, I know it's boring, but you need to learn this, so go learn your timestables."
Hey, I did better than I thought, my memory isn't quite as bad as I feared! Thanks for posting that.
Where exactly did I misquote Gates? I think I pretty much got the gist of what he said dead on. And as to Mundie's answer, I don't find it interesting at all. He is just being an apologist of the government's actions, and dodges any questions as to what he actually thinks about the situation.
I read a very interesting article on Microsoft's policies in China in the latest Fortune magazine. They were talking about how for years Microsoft would try to battle piracy in China, and realized it was a losing battle, so they gave up. Instead, they opened up research institutes and kissed the ass of the government. This made the government more apt to enforce IP policy, and MSFT had a big hand in dictating it.
I remember reading that Windows + Office was about $3 US to students. In fact, in China, pirated Windows is often less expensive than Linux because Linux has more cds, which increases the cost dramatically.
Also interesting was when the interviewer asked Gates about China's policy on suppressing free speech, and Bill Gates had an internal BSOD and basically froze. After an uncomfortable period of time, the interviewer said "That's quite a pregnant pause" and Gates said "I don't think I want to answer that question."
The great thing about capitalism is that CEOs like Bill Gates who wants to make hand-over-fist in terms of money, doesn't have to give a rat's ass about basic human rights, he can choose to hide behind his business like a coward. Craig Mundie's answer was "I don't think that is my area of expertise." Cowards.
Anyone remember that one? It was such a pain in the ass at the time, but it didn't go around and delete files, etc. And we got it from pirating program after program. Solution? Install a pirated version of the first anti-virus programs. I'm so old that I can't remember what exactly it was... It might actually have been Norton.
It's completely wrong. At the very least, would I want my company run by a CEO that is so immature, so stupid that he think going on Yahoo message boards actually does anything?
At the worst, it really sounds like fraudulent behavior, trying to decrease the stock price before he begins purchasing it. His judgement is obviously faulty, he's willing to cross the line to get what he wants.... I really hope he suffers for this ridiculous behavior.
Most sysadmins are jack-of-all-trades, so really your skills aren't out of the ordinary at all. In fact, they seem a bit lacking. I am a programmer by trade, however, I am also a hardcore networking enthusiast (should have gone for my CCIE when I had the chance) as well as Windows/UNIX sysadmin (for a few years of my career I was a NT admin).
If you really want to fatten your resume, you should beef up your networking expertise because that seems to be your weak point. No one cares about video conferencing specialist. Get your CCIE (probably the only cert that has any meaning whatsoever).
As to career path, depending on how young you are, take a crappy low-level job at a big company like a bank where you can get exposure to a lot of different technologies, but specialize in networking. Networking will always be crucial. If you want maybe sysadmin stuff, however, sysadmin work might just be relegated to India going forward.
I got a Sony CD player when CDs first came out, in the early 80s. The thing that held up the CD in the CD tray was actually 3 little columns that held the cd basically in the middle of the data area, instead of how it is today where its a thin ridge that holds it by the very outside edge.
Needless to say it after a bunch of listens (I only had about 3 cds for several years because each cd was about $25, which in those days translates to about $50 in today's money) there were scratches on the cds right where those columns held the cd. Brilliant!
Is there a way to spam these data collection services so that you send it false data, making it harder for these data collectors to sift through and find valid data? It seems like a real case of where security through obscurity would actually work.
For example, if you could blast these Microsoft services with false information, how could they reliably use the data at all? At some point, with enough bad data, they would just have to turn off the services altogether. That seems to be the most effective way of getting rid of all these data collection/spyware services.
This approach would work with almost all data collection services... if these collectors can't prove to their investors that the data is valuable, they will stop being funded, and then the services will be shut down. Simple capitalism at work.
Will this Kenyan network be on the same corporate network as the rest of the Google offices? If I were a corporate spy and wanted to infiltrate Google this would probably be my point of choice. It's far away from the main headquarters, the society isn't as developed or rich, so if you bribe employees with $10-20k, they would probably let you do whatever you wanted and give you whatever access you wanted.
It's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy though, because if you don't treat the Kenyan employees like full-fledged employees with full privileges, it will probably cause resentment and make them even more likely to take bribes, etc.
I don't recall seeing any ads on Youtube, so how can they share revenues that they seemingly don't have?
As well, I fully expect them NOT to have ads, at least not in the near future. Once Youtube actually starts making money, it will make them even more vulnerable to lawsuits from copyright holders when users upload infringing material. The fact that Youtube could generate revenue from copyright-infringing material will make the case stronger that they are encouraging users to flaunt copyright rules, and make them more vulnerable to lawsuits. I think that's the only reason why Google hasn't posted ads there, because they are trying to figure out how to protect themselves from getting their asses sued.
Oh yeah, that's what it was. I forgot his last name but I refused to Google it just out of principle. I find myself relying on the Internet far too much these days for remembering basic facts so I'm just going to admit I don't know something instead of googling it to avoid making me look dumb.
You know, just because something is patented doesn't mean you aren't allowed to use it. If you can't work around a patent, you can always license it. Most patent-owners will not impose ridiculous terms since it means the patent won't generate money. So you can probably license the technology and use it to create your so-called "perfect" invention.
Jerry Yang is not a visionary. He is no Steve Jobs, he's not even a Bill Gates or a Sergei Whatever or Larry Page. He was a Ph.D student who got really, really, really lucky and became a billionaire. His idea was just a bunch of cool sites to go visit, there wasn't even an algorithm behind it.
Yahoo and the internet is a very complex business and requires business savvy. Yang should just spend his money, date model and movie stars and leave it at that. Taking the reins of Yahoo and trying to manage their entire portfolio of businesses is far too complex for someone who doesn't have decades of experience that someone like Semel had. Think about things like branding, partnerships, etc. How do you expect Yang to handle complex business decisions like that?? The short answer is that he can't and won't.
No, Semel did no succeed against Google, however, he had a good idea. Treat Yahoo like a media company, which it is. Google went a different way, and it paid off better. But as a company, Yahoo did not do poorly. It's just that the competition did way better.
Slashdot Mirror
This is the 21st century. I can understand defaulting to 4 digit pin, but why can't I choose a longer pin? My gf's Blackberry allows you to enter a much longer string. I have over a 6 digit pin for my ATM card. Why exactly does Apple force people to only have a 4 digit pin for the phone?
Back in the early 90s, there was this one classmate who was a brilliant programmer. He wrote a pascal program that somehow continuously downloaded porn from newsgroups, ie. alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.*. This was in the days of the 9600 baud modems, and before the Internet was even a household word. I didn't understand at the time what he was doing, or how he was doing it, but enjoyed the fruits of his labor. This was even before video on computers was prevalent, so it was all just images. Actually I remember downloading one "video" that was really just an ascii-fied version of a pr0no. sigh.. the good ol' days.
Wow... it's incredible how smug and self-righteous you are. Why don't you worry about you playing the guitar and let the people who want to play Guitar Hero have fun. Never the twain shall meet.
Sorry it was a typo, I meant to say it will probably take another 5 years before it is as popular as XP is now. In terms of popularity, I also meant "widespread" as opposed to "well liked".
What Microsoft feared most about Google has become true now: The application stack has shifted up, and now the web browser has become the new OS. No one cares about Vista because no one needs a new OS anymore. All they care about is getting their news and email, IM'ing and watching youtube. Flash and AJAX have completely supplanted the OS.
The only reason why you need a new OS is for new features, but frankly, no one needs them. The only reason why people use an OS these days is to interact with local files, but the vast majority of people only care about 2 types of files: MP3s and digital photos. Even Word documents are becoming marginalized now. So what's the point of a desktop search for newer kids these days, when they stick everything online now?
Because of the lack of importance of new OS features, that's why other OSes like Mac OS are gaining steam, because Windows isn't as essential as it was 10 years ago. It's a perfect storm of good for Apple, they are becoming ever-increasingly "cooler", and the need for Windows is diminishing, so people can still get their email and watch youtube and still get the same experience. This is also why everyone is still using XP, a 7 year old OS, without any complaints. No one cares, and it scares Microsoft to death.
They shit the bed in their attempt to make Vista relevant and they lost their one-and-only chance. I'm sure Vista will be adopted eventually, but it will probably take another 5 years because it is as popular as XP is now.
It should be open source vs. Microsoft. Meanwhile idiotic religious zealots have now fragmented the open source community and they are now fighting amongst themselves. Perfect, exactly what Microsoft wants.
What is with all this religious nonsense over BSD vs GPL? If someone wrote code under the BSD license YOU SHOULD RESPECT IT. What's the point in trying to convert it into a GPL license, besides pissing that person off and essentially wasting a whole shitload of everyone's time. Some people have philisophical disagreements over it, fine, but starting to make enemies against people who are only a hair's difference apart, when the real enemy is in the back laughing is so retarded.
You fucking idiot.s
I know this from a co-worker from Canada who, during the dot-com days, had to struggle with the TN visa, a visa available to high-skilled Canadians. The TN visa was applicable for Software Engineer, which was considered to be a highly technical position, where you "engineered" software. It required an engineering degree.
A programmer, in the view of the US govt, was someone who took direction from someone else, and coded them. They view a programmer as a step above key puncher. So, this is probably the reason why those figures are different. Programmer do not require a specialized degree, and anyone can be considered a programmer.
To people in the business, they mean the same thing, but to the government, I guess this is how they distinguish it. Whether or not this definition makes sense is another thing altogether.
Have you not seen how strong a cell phone's wireless signal is? I've had my cell phone near speakers that have been turned off and you can still hear a "click-click-click" sound on the speakers. Think about that for a second... how strong must the EM signal be to drive a current through speaker wires that have been turned off? I would say those are incredibly strong signals. It's not as easy as it seems to deal with something that emits such a strong signal at close proximity.
They must be worried about the iPhone in order to do something as crazy as that. Dropping the price of the phone 2 months after it's released by 33%? It's bad for several reasons but mainly because it pisses off the early adopters big time as evidenced by the emails/rebate. The $100 will appease them, however, they will be extremely gunshy to jump on the boat again, that's for sure. One of my friends who bought the iPhone said exactly that, he will wait a few months now and won't be fooled by Apple a second time.
And they know all this because they are savvy business people at Apple. Compare the iPhone to the PS3. More people bought the iPhone than did PS3 at the same price, yet it took Sony 1 year to get a $100 price drop as opposed to Apple's price drop.
So the only reason to me is that it's desperation. I'm guessing that report about how only 136k people actually signed up must have them pretty worried and they need to reach a critical level sooner.
Me personally, I smell blood in the water. I'm waiting for the price to drop even further before I begin to consider buying it. It would be interesting to see how many people feel the same way and if that will actually curtail pickup of the iPhone until closer to Christmas.
I saw Rage against the Machine, and Zack De La Rocha spent time lecturing the audience about how this is our time, we have power, we need to protest against the government and use our freedom of speech and our vote to act.
When are we as a group going to do something about this?
I mean, I am not a communist or left-wing person at all. But seriously, where are the protests? Where are the protests against the Iraq war, in the style of the 1960s? Where are the protests against the DMCA? Are we as a generation ever going to do anything about this?
Rage has this one song "Wake Up" where he spends the last minute or two screaming "WAKE UP! WAKE UP!" He's talking to us. When are we going to DO SOMETHING about this?
(Don't look at me for the answer, I'll be sitting here surfing the web until someone comes up with a good one.)
What about someone who deeply believes in God? There is nothing scientific about religion whatsoever, do you believe they are unfit to lead a technological, industrial society? Wouldn't you agree that a deeply religious president is incapable of critical analysis, inflexible, and stubborn to new ideas?
>> Expect a creationist candidate to also do what he can to steamroll gay rights, Roe v Wade, and be instilled with all the other crackpot "values" of fundie nutjobs.
That is nonsense. You need to find out first and foremost what their positions on all of the above topics are first, don't just assume. I don't believe in abortion at all, but I wouldn't necessarily believe it is my duty to go about changing Roe vs Wade (it's probably impossible anyway). I consider myself more right wing than left, however, I believe fully in gay marriage, not just a "civil union" that almost every single candidate (including Democrats) is pushing. My whole point is that just because someone believe in creationism doesn't mean he will shove it down people's throats or that it is part of their agenda. You need to find out everything about the candidate as a whole, don't boil them down to one single issue. You are dumbing yourself down just like electoral strategist expects you to.
Do you think Obama will be pushing a "black" agenda, maybe even slave reparations? Taking a candidate on one single issue and painting all their issues the same way is just as void of critical analysis, flexibility and is as stubborn as what you are suggesting they are.
Quit focussing on one issue, and especially a less valuable issue such as evolution, and focus on more important things, like social security, medicare, deficit spending, the US's lack of proper foreign policy, etc.
Stop diverting attention on topics that are really trite and have little bearing to reality. So what, they don't believe in evolution. They're dumb, and I can accept that there are a lot of dumb people in this world. I really don't hold politicians to be the most intelligent people in this world anyway.
But really, does it really matter? Do you really expect them to push their agenda? That's like thinking a gay person automatically has an agenda of pushing gay issues, even when maybe they don't. Maybe they happen to be gay, but they wanted to be treated like a regular politican, just like everyone else, without the gay stigma. Just because someone believes something doesn't mean they will use their opportunity to push their agenda all the time.
Yes, Slashdot has publicized some instances where anti-evolution agenda was pushed, but really how many was that like, maybe 3 or 4 cases across the entire US? Come on, it's like accusing all of India of being guilty of "honor killings" when really it's only done in the most rural, primitive parts of India. In the same vein, yes, some politicians probably don't believe in evolution, but do you really think they care enough to push their agenda across all the school boards? My bet is that probably only an infinitesimal percentage would.
And plus, how much really is someone who doesn't believe in evolution more guilty that someone who is religious? Can you really stand their and feel contempt for someone who doesn't believe in evolution, yet thinks its okay if they are religious? It's probably equally as unscientific.
The real crime is focussing the talk about politics onto stupid, stupid issues like evolution, or flag burning. HOW ABOUT TALKING ABOUT SOMETHING CONCRETE? What about federal regulation into hedge funds?? What about making sure we have enough social security? What about things that actually AFFECT our lives?
THIS is what is exactly wrong with North America. Why the fuck should education be entertaining? It certainly is a bonus if what you're learning is interesting, but for 95% of everything that you NEED to know, it's boring. SUCK IT UP. Do you think learning about how to fill out an income tax return is entertaining? No, but you need to hunker down and just fucking do it without complaining. So many North Americans don't have what it takes to do the downright dirty work that is both unappealing and boring because "it's not fun, boo hoo!"
The reality is that you need to learn to get ahead, under any circumstances. You need to work your ass off. If you don't, you will work at McDonald's or maybe a comic book store, because hey, that's fun and entertaining, right?
Since when is learning about Fast Fourier Transforms or the internals of Mergesort entertaining? It's not, and the expectation that education should be fun is what is killing kids. Educational video games? Talk about unrealistic expectations that you as parents put into your kids' heads. You need to say, "Yes, I know it's boring, but you need to learn this, so go learn your timestables."
Now get off my lawn you pesky kids!
Hey, I did better than I thought, my memory isn't quite as bad as I feared! Thanks for posting that.
Where exactly did I misquote Gates? I think I pretty much got the gist of what he said dead on. And as to Mundie's answer, I don't find it interesting at all. He is just being an apologist of the government's actions, and dodges any questions as to what he actually thinks about the situation.
I read a very interesting article on Microsoft's policies in China in the latest Fortune magazine. They were talking about how for years Microsoft would try to battle piracy in China, and realized it was a losing battle, so they gave up. Instead, they opened up research institutes and kissed the ass of the government. This made the government more apt to enforce IP policy, and MSFT had a big hand in dictating it.
I remember reading that Windows + Office was about $3 US to students. In fact, in China, pirated Windows is often less expensive than Linux because Linux has more cds, which increases the cost dramatically.
Also interesting was when the interviewer asked Gates about China's policy on suppressing free speech, and Bill Gates had an internal BSOD and basically froze. After an uncomfortable period of time, the interviewer said "That's quite a pregnant pause" and Gates said "I don't think I want to answer that question."
The great thing about capitalism is that CEOs like Bill Gates who wants to make hand-over-fist in terms of money, doesn't have to give a rat's ass about basic human rights, he can choose to hide behind his business like a coward. Craig Mundie's answer was "I don't think that is my area of expertise." Cowards.
Anyone remember that one? It was such a pain in the ass at the time, but it didn't go around and delete files, etc. And we got it from pirating program after program. Solution? Install a pirated version of the first anti-virus programs. I'm so old that I can't remember what exactly it was... It might actually have been Norton.
It's completely wrong. At the very least, would I want my company run by a CEO that is so immature, so stupid that he think going on Yahoo message boards actually does anything?
At the worst, it really sounds like fraudulent behavior, trying to decrease the stock price before he begins purchasing it. His judgement is obviously faulty, he's willing to cross the line to get what he wants.... I really hope he suffers for this ridiculous behavior.
Most sysadmins are jack-of-all-trades, so really your skills aren't out of the ordinary at all. In fact, they seem a bit lacking. I am a programmer by trade, however, I am also a hardcore networking enthusiast (should have gone for my CCIE when I had the chance) as well as Windows/UNIX sysadmin (for a few years of my career I was a NT admin).
If you really want to fatten your resume, you should beef up your networking expertise because that seems to be your weak point. No one cares about video conferencing specialist. Get your CCIE (probably the only cert that has any meaning whatsoever).
As to career path, depending on how young you are, take a crappy low-level job at a big company like a bank where you can get exposure to a lot of different technologies, but specialize in networking. Networking will always be crucial. If you want maybe sysadmin stuff, however, sysadmin work might just be relegated to India going forward.
I got a Sony CD player when CDs first came out, in the early 80s. The thing that held up the CD in the CD tray was actually 3 little columns that held the cd basically in the middle of the data area, instead of how it is today where its a thin ridge that holds it by the very outside edge.
Needless to say it after a bunch of listens (I only had about 3 cds for several years because each cd was about $25, which in those days translates to about $50 in today's money) there were scratches on the cds right where those columns held the cd. Brilliant!
Is there a way to spam these data collection services so that you send it false data, making it harder for these data collectors to sift through and find valid data? It seems like a real case of where security through obscurity would actually work.
For example, if you could blast these Microsoft services with false information, how could they reliably use the data at all? At some point, with enough bad data, they would just have to turn off the services altogether. That seems to be the most effective way of getting rid of all these data collection/spyware services.
This approach would work with almost all data collection services... if these collectors can't prove to their investors that the data is valuable, they will stop being funded, and then the services will be shut down. Simple capitalism at work.
Will this Kenyan network be on the same corporate network as the rest of the Google offices? If I were a corporate spy and wanted to infiltrate Google this would probably be my point of choice. It's far away from the main headquarters, the society isn't as developed or rich, so if you bribe employees with $10-20k, they would probably let you do whatever you wanted and give you whatever access you wanted.
It's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy though, because if you don't treat the Kenyan employees like full-fledged employees with full privileges, it will probably cause resentment and make them even more likely to take bribes, etc.
I wonder if this is a consideration for them.
I don't recall seeing any ads on Youtube, so how can they share revenues that they seemingly don't have?
As well, I fully expect them NOT to have ads, at least not in the near future. Once Youtube actually starts making money, it will make them even more vulnerable to lawsuits from copyright holders when users upload infringing material. The fact that Youtube could generate revenue from copyright-infringing material will make the case stronger that they are encouraging users to flaunt copyright rules, and make them more vulnerable to lawsuits. I think that's the only reason why Google hasn't posted ads there, because they are trying to figure out how to protect themselves from getting their asses sued.
Oh yeah, that's what it was. I forgot his last name but I refused to Google it just out of principle. I find myself relying on the Internet far too much these days for remembering basic facts so I'm just going to admit I don't know something instead of googling it to avoid making me look dumb.
You know, just because something is patented doesn't mean you aren't allowed to use it. If you can't work around a patent, you can always license it. Most patent-owners will not impose ridiculous terms since it means the patent won't generate money. So you can probably license the technology and use it to create your so-called "perfect" invention.
Jerry Yang is not a visionary. He is no Steve Jobs, he's not even a Bill Gates or a Sergei Whatever or Larry Page. He was a Ph.D student who got really, really, really lucky and became a billionaire. His idea was just a bunch of cool sites to go visit, there wasn't even an algorithm behind it.
Yahoo and the internet is a very complex business and requires business savvy. Yang should just spend his money, date model and movie stars and leave it at that. Taking the reins of Yahoo and trying to manage their entire portfolio of businesses is far too complex for someone who doesn't have decades of experience that someone like Semel had. Think about things like branding, partnerships, etc. How do you expect Yang to handle complex business decisions like that?? The short answer is that he can't and won't.
No, Semel did no succeed against Google, however, he had a good idea. Treat Yahoo like a media company, which it is. Google went a different way, and it paid off better. But as a company, Yahoo did not do poorly. It's just that the competition did way better.