_ _ _____ _ __ <*the* weekly high-tech sarcastic update for the uk>
| \ | |_ _| |/ / _ __ __2000-06-23_ o join! mail an empty message to
| \| | | | | ' / | '_ \ / _ \ \ /\ / / o ntknow-subscribe at lists.ntk.net
| |\ | | | | . \ | | | | (_) \ v v / o website (+ archive) lives at:
|_| \_| |_| |_|\_\|_| |_|\___/ \_/\_/ o http://www.ntk.net/
>> HARD NEWS <
lost ma trews
Well, it looks like Marc Andreessen couldn't make it to give
his backing to DOT NET, Microsoft's new direction, as
originally planned. Apparently he was caught trying to climb
out the toilet window just before the demo, and had to be
beaten to death. Still, Gates and Ballmer did okay on their
own, explaining how their renamed NGWS, as well as being an
engine of an instant lawsuit with Future Publishing, was the
embodiment of Gate's new Net-as-OS plans. Terrifyingly, it
also seems to show that Redmond really does believe its own
publicity. Not only are they attempting to introduce a whole
raft of new pseudo-standards (note to editors: supporting
XML as a transport is as much following industry standards
as supporting eight bit binary), but they're also planning
to redo the desktop, re-route around the browser, and - once
again, introduce another definitely-not-a-Java-killer, a
proprietary language called C#. The ambition, as ever, is
breathtaking: if this all works as planned, Gates
indicated, MS will be in a monopoly position at almost every
level of Net business. And wouldn't that be cool, he
grinned - as though everyone, including the Supreme Court
would grin back. Meanwhile, in Australia, we have MS
claiming that the new National Privacy Principles "may
unnecessarily restrict our ability to investigate and
enforce our intellectual property rights". Ah, hell,
let's give them their own courts and a police force
and have done with it.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/topics/f2k/whitepaper/default.asp
- fortunately, what they don't know is they can't innovate for shit http://www.australianit.com.au/common/storyPage/0,3811,829441%255E1286,00.html
- tick yes if you would like to receive future prison sentences
A defender for RIP! John Carr has been quick to come to the
defence of the new bill, telling the OBSERVER newspaper that
"Children, consumers, trading companies and financial
institutions have all been targeted and harmed, some very
seriously" by the evil cyberterrorists that the bill will
thwart. He does this, of course, in his role as
outspokensman for NCH Action for Children - and certainly
not as the husband of Baroness Thornton, the peer most keen
in the house get the industry to pay for RIP. The government
may want to cast an eye over Carr's other suggestions,
however. An enthusiastic advocate of censorware (and
advocate of a 5p tax on every Net user to fund his
obligatory Web ratings system), he was less than happy when
Burger King gave out free copies of the Net Nanny filtering
prog this month. It turned out that those innocent children
were grabbing the free CDs to get hold of the list of banned
pr0n sites that Nanny displays during the install. "A
complete mess", he sighed. Which is what happens when
you act without thinking these things through, John.
http://www.observer.co.uk/politics/0,6903,333563,00.html
- "doing nothing is not an option" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000112801049925&pg=/et/00/6/22/ecnburg22.html
- when we can do far worse