Should we not KILLfile this MS guy?

[Tony Hill]

Such a thing will never happen, of course.

I'm sure not holding my breath for it. However this is exactly what
the computer could use to help jump-start things if you ask me. Mind
you, the people making such decisions just never ask me :>

Not so sure I agree with you on that one. There are too many people
who want a piece of the action and too many ways to get it. IBM is
using its own Linux on desktops internally right now, and IBM isn't
chopped liver. I think Oracle might have some ideas, too. Sun has
all kinds of neat ideas, of course, but I don't know how seriously to
take the ambitions of a company whose bonds are rated as junk. As for
the home market, it will be a triumph for Microsoft if there continues
to be a home market for Microsoft to dominate.

I don't see the home market disappearing just yet. People have been
predicting the demise of the home computer market for a good 20 years
now, but it just keeps ticking alone. Sure, it changes its form a
bit, and it will continue to change somewhat, but I don't see it
disappearing this decade at the very least. Next decade? Well that's
a long ways away in the computer world.

Right. Asia has *two* free operating systems, and Microsoft is still
worried. I'm sure that China and Intel really like the deal they've
got going, but when it comes to closed source American software that
doesn't create jobs, what's in it for them, other than the likelihood
that it's riddled with backdoors, intentional and otherwise?

Well, that's the key. It's really tough to convince someone to pay
for something if they know a way to get the exact same thing for free.
There's nothing MS can do from an improved-functionality standpoint to
combat this, hence a large part of the reason why they've got some
rather cumbersome anti-piracy measures in their software these days.

Don't know how to evaluate that. Maybe I put too much weight on how
I'd feel about relying on a company that does what it damn well
pleases headquartered in a country that does what it damn well
pleases.

How is that different from any company in any country?

Don't know how to evaluate that, either. The latest additions to the
EU put its total market size at over 400 million people, and Europe
doesn't seem to be awash in good feelings about the US. Certainly you
see decisive governmental actions favoring open source that just
wouldn't happen in the US, and I can't help imagining there is a bit
of European chavinism working against Bill's dreams of world
domination.

Sure, there's lots of that, but it only takes you so far. When you
get right down to it, the EU is a much bigger bureaucracy than even a
North American government, so things tend not to happen with any sort
of speed. By the time the EU can figure out what they want to do with
their government software the rules will have all changed. Germany
seems to be the only country seriously pushing for the actual use of
open-source software in government. Most everyone else are just
talking up the popular cause de jour.

In short, I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Tony Hill]

Kind-of related to this, this past weekend, I watched a report on
Bush's re-election campaign.

Apparently, Bush has been testing out using Pop-Up ads. Initially
they were worried that people's hatred of Pop-Up ads would negatively
affect Bush. However, Bush's people are now claiming that after their
initial test, not one single person complained to them about the Pop-Ups.
So, now they are chalking up people's hatred of Pop-Up ads as being
simply "urban legion" or myth.

Pop-up ads? I don't hate them one bit! In fact, I'm rather fond of
them since I never have to see them! I've had pop-up ads blocked for
years now.

Based on this, the Bush's campaign plans to go full bore, and saturate
the internet with Bush re-election Pop-Up ads. The report mentioned
that the Bush campaign certainly has the funds to do it.

I'd much rather he did that than have annoying blinky-picture ads. Of
course, I block Flash as well, so those would be fine. Basically as
long as he sticks to the really pain-in-the-ass methods of advertising
on the internet he will manage to completely ignore most of the
tech-aware population.

Of course, I'm not sure that the tech-aware population has ever been
Bush's base of support anyway.

 

[Robert Myers]

On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 23:42:08 -0500, Tony Hill

How is that different from any company in any country?
</cynic> :>

Well, we Americans (citizens of the USA, that is) periodically get to
vote on who runs the charade. If we can't get our act together and
get the country to run the way we want it to, we at least have no one
to blame but ourselves.

It's a hopeless enterprise, really. I have Windows, I use Windows. I
have Linux, I use Linux. I've fought the interoperability battle and
won it as well as I need to.

I really can't put myself in the shoes of anyone who needs a real
operating system and imagine them settling for Windows, so the whole
thing is a mystery to me, and I might as well admit it. .

RM

 

[George Macdonald]

Anyone with an IQ > hat-size probably has pop-ups (all types) blocked,
so didn't see them. Those that didn't manage that are probably not smart
enough to know how to complain.

There's more than one way to do a pop-up ad - some you can block easily,
some are not so obvious. It also depends on what Bush's guys think
"pop-up" means - separate pane, window or just a Flash thingy like Yahoo is
polluted with now. So far I haven't bothered to block Flash because I
often want it for those Flash-infested Web sites I may want to visit.

BTW your posts are misthreading - been like that for a while.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

Bitstring <[email protected]>, from the
wonderful person George Macdonald <fammacd=!SPAM^[email protected]>
said

BTW your posts are misthreading - been like that for a while.

? Threading fine this end, in both Turnpike, and Outhouse Express .. I
can only assume that Forte have managed to break something for you.

 

[The little lost angel]

Bitstring <[email protected]>, from the
wonderful person George Macdonald <fammacd=!SPAM^[email protected]>
said


? Threading fine this end, in both Turnpike, and Outhouse Express .. I
can only assume that Forte have managed to break something for you.

If it helps, threading fine on my Forte. So I can only guess his ISP
is somehow messing up the headers info he receives that are used for
threading?
--
L.Angel: I'm looking for web design work.
If you need basic to med complexity webpages at affordable rates, email me
Standard HTML, SHTML, MySQL + PHP or ASP, Javascript.
If you really want, FrontPage & DreamWeaver too.
But keep in mind you pay extra bandwidth for their bloated code

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

Bitstring <[email protected]>, from the wonderful

If it helps, threading fine on my Forte. So I can only guess his ISP
is somehow messing up the headers info he receives that are used for
threading?

Thanks for that .. I was a little surprised, since Agent (even the free
version) generally manages to stick tot he RFCs much closer than OE ever
did.

 

[Grumble]

So, now they are chalking up people's hatred of Pop-Up ads
as being simply "urban legion" or myth.

"urban legion"?

 

[Tony Hill]

"urban legion"?

Politically correct term for street gangs? :>

 

[George Macdonald]

If it helps, threading fine on my Forte. So I can only guess his ISP
is somehow messing up the headers info he receives that are used for
threading?

We have different versions of Agent - I had to upgrade because of a
bug/conflict in 1.21 with Netscape/Mozilla. Can't see anything obvious in
the headers which would cause misthreading but GSV's posts are the only
ones which misthread for me. My ISP is actually Giganews routed thru my
real ISP.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[KR Williams]

We have different versions of Agent - I had to upgrade because of a
bug/conflict in 1.21 with Netscape/Mozilla. Can't see anything obvious in
the headers which would cause misthreading but GSV's posts are the only
ones which misthread for me. My ISP is actually Giganews routed thru my
real ISP.

They're fine in Gravity too. I think I did have some similar
problems when I was using NewsGuy (dumped them because of cost).

 

[ihoc-a-attbi-d-com]

Oh, baby! Split that infinitive!

 

[Dave]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/03/26/seach.microsoft.ap/index.html

Steve Balmer says (among other things):

At the conference Thursday, Microsoft also unveiled a study on the
effectiveness of online advertising. The company is using the study as the
basis for an argument that companies spending around 1 percent on online
advertising should consider increasing that percentage to 4 percent or 5
percent because people are spending more time online.

Ballmer said Microsoft spends about 12 percent of its media budget on online
advertising, and that he orders his staff to "saturate" that market first
and foremost.

"I want to make sure [a user] can't get through ... an online experience
without hitting a Microsoft ad," he said.

end quote
So now my PC has to be littered with MS adds!
600 million fine was not enough it seems.

Let's raise it to 6 billion.

Very proud to be an American,

Go over to Iraq and say that. Just take one good look at what our current
administration has done to their civil infrastructure in the name of "Iraqi
Freedom" (ATTENTION! THIS IS THE U.S. MILITARY! WE ARE HERE TO ENFORCE
DEMOCRACY! ANYONE NOT IN SUPPORT OF OUR MISSION WILL BE BOMBED WITH WAY TOO
MUCH COLLATERAL DAMAGE!). The DU dumped into their water. The lack of
supplies in their hospitals. THINGS FOR THE IRAQI CITIZEN ARE FAR WORSE NOW
THAN WHEN SADDAM WAS THERE! In the name of "democracy" eh? What about all
the people here WHO ARE SACRIFICING THEIR SOCIAL SECURITY TO PAY FOR THIS
DEBACLE? Screw your American Pride. Put it in your crack-pipe and smoke it
down next time you are stopped and searched at a checkpoint because some
administration thinks it's a good idea to cut down on the "terrorism" they
once sponsored, financed, and ALLOWED INTO OUR COUNTRY IN THE FIRST PLACE.

but I'm not proud of Microsoft and I'm

not proud of the way our legal system dealt with Microsoft's
monopolistic behavior. Proud to be from Massachusetts, the only
government entity not to sell out its citizens.

You're kidding me, right? Please tell me! Several things pop up in mind:

1) Jane Swift
2) Big Dig
3) Outfall Pipe
4) State toll collections: what do they REALLY finance?
5) State-run vehicle inspection and insurance
6) Cleanup at Otis? Where the people get to pay for weapons manufacture,
waste management strategies are an afterthought, the milk-i-tary sells dated
hardware to third-world countries at zero return to the taxpayer who paid
for it in the first place, and then we get to pay for the mess to be cleaned
up, too? Groundwater contamination from military swept under rug? HIGHEST
CANCER STATISTICS ON THE EAST COAST? Naah...just kidding...

I live on the Cape. It is becoming one large retirement community where
people go to be gouged until they are sucked dry and expire in debt.
Property values are skyrocketing and the cost of goods and services is
following closely. And we won't start on the plummeting quality of public
education. Or the defunding thereof, and of other civil safety nets.
Massachusetts sold out on its citizens LONG AGO. It is becoming a republic.
A police state. One big "good ol' boys club" with the rest of 'em. Not
nearly as bad as California YET. And I do mean "YET"...

Maybe the EU can do

better.

With any luck, Gates & Co. will wind up wishing the settlement in US
courts had looked fair enough that the rest of the world, the EU in
particular, would have seen fit to let the American legal system take
the lead.

As it is, I think Microsoft has overplayed its hand badly. They may
have won a battle, and they may win one or two more, but they are
going to lose the war.

Not here. They have it worked out with our government that snooping is more
easily facilitated. And there's a glimmer on the horizon about M$McSodomWare
powering automotive navigation/tollpaying/monitoring systems nationwide.
It's not like they can't get the satellite time to put it all into practice.
They're practically untouchable here now. Microsoft is all about the removal
of choice these days, and locking their consumer base into a cycle of
dependency in order to sustain their inflow and profitability. Like with
many corporations, there is an extreme DISRESPECT for the end-user. But this
will get worse before it gets better. We are about to see exactly what that
means...

RM

Pride goeth before a WHAT, folks???

Hubris, pure and simple.

 

[Robert Myers]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/03/26/seach.microsoft.ap/index.html

Steve Balmer says (among other things):

At the conference Thursday, Microsoft also unveiled a study on the
effectiveness of online advertising. The company is using the study as the
basis for an argument that companies spending around 1 percent on online
advertising should consider increasing that percentage to 4 percent or 5
percent because people are spending more time online.

Ballmer said Microsoft spends about 12 percent of its media budget on online
advertising, and that he orders his staff to "saturate" that market first
and foremost.

"I want to make sure [a user] can't get through ... an online experience
without hitting a Microsoft ad," he said.

end quote
So now my PC has to be littered with MS adds!
600 million fine was not enough it seems.

Let's raise it to 6 billion.

Very proud to be an American,

Go over to Iraq and say that.

<snip>

I prefaced what I had to say, which was critical of the way that the
Justice Department settled the Microsoft Anti-trust statement, with an
acknowledgement that I am an American and proud to be so, so that no
one would see my post as an invitation to America-bashing. You seem
to want to America-bash, anyway. That's your right, but if I wanted
to be a part of politicial discussions that have nothing to do with
PC's, I'd be doing it elsewhere, and I wish you would, too.

but I'm not proud of Microsoft and I'm

You're kidding me, right?

<snip>

Fortune magazine just ranked Massachusetts as the state best
positioned for high technology. That's in no small reason because of
the enormous concentration of intellectual capital that the state
possesses.

There are things about Massachusetts politics that seem pretty strange
to me, but I don't know what they have to do with csiphc and this
certainly is not the place to discuss them.

Maybe the EU can do

Not here. They have it worked out with our government that snooping is more
easily facilitated. And there's a glimmer on the horizon about M$McSodomWare
powering automotive navigation/tollpaying/monitoring systems nationwide.
It's not like they can't get the satellite time to put it all into practice.
They're practically untouchable here now. Microsoft is all about the removal
of choice these days, and locking their consumer base into a cycle of
dependency in order to sustain their inflow and profitability. Like with
many corporations, there is an extreme DISRESPECT for the end-user. But this
will get worse before it gets better. We are about to see exactly what that
means...

I _am_ plainly embarrassed that Microsoft has broken the law, abused
the marketplace and its customers, and that the U.S. Justice
Department settled with a slap on the wrist.

Pride goeth before a WHAT, folks???

Hubris, pure and simple.

Just as a matter of style, if you want to talk about humility, you
might try some on for size before stepping up to the podium,
loudspeaker in hand.

RM

 

[Roger Hunt]

(big snip)
Microsoft is all about the removal
of choice these days, and locking their consumer base into a cycle of
dependency in order to sustain their inflow and profitability.

Quite - Power without responsibility.
Dangerous.