Month: May 2000

Firewalls FAQ

Firewall Issues An experiment in focused discussion.
Lots of good stuff about firewalls in the discussion over at Scripting News.
So engel so you remember the firewall discussion from way back?

The logical Fallacies

A 4-Way Split Is a Better Way to Go

“Microsoft’s after-tax return on invested capital, the best measure of a firm’s profitability, was a stunning 88% last year. This means Microsoft was 13 times more profitable than other major U.S. corporations.

That’s the headline from a ‘friend of the court’ brief just filed by four top economists, led by Robert Litan of the Brookings Institution. The report adds, ‘This is the most impressive . . . demonstration of the economic returns to monopoly that we have
ever seen.'”

Sun chief’s top ten tips for spotting dodgy dotcoms

“10 – They have an e or an i or a dotcom as part of their name.
9 – Employees’ pagers can only receive stock prices.
8 – The initial vesting period closed yesterday, and today the office is empty.
7 – There are more dogs and cats in their offices than employees.
6 – Employees are heard saying, ‘Profits are so yesterday.’
5 – The accounts receivable sign hangs over a toilet.
4 – The value of cars in the parking lot exceed the company’s revenue by a factor of
four.
3 – The investor relations department reports to marketing.
2 – Zero revenues but enough cash to purchase Iceland.
1 – Employees ask, ‘Hey dude, what does the P in P&L stand for?'”

MS Breakup not nearly enough

“Dissolve this company. Jail these criminals. Confiscate their ill-gotten gains. And compensate their victims.”

How To Save Civilization and Make A Little Money

“Heinlein�s D. D. Harriman used his own major fortune and every possible confidence trick to fund the three-stage spacecraft needed to set a human being (a midget: much cheaper) on the moon. Heinlein showed the way, and the res of us began to see the problems.”

Stanford Project to Test Method for Preserving Digital Journals
Even the academics want their own version of Napster.

The Officer Is A Gentleman: LadyJane’s second installment is up.

“Lifting my hair, I fanned cool air onto the back of my neck. My eyes glanced repeatedly into the rear view mirror, watching the policeman approach my car. His accoutrements on his belt swung to the rhythm of his march.” Read More…

A list of her storis is up in LadyJane Stories.

Voices From a Slashmouth

“K: Oh come on, you can’t convince me that all those geeks care about a question of morals.
D: That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you. They do care, many of them. Go read the posts. They care about whether it’s right for some big corporation to take away baby Veronica’s web site. They care about whether it’s right for the MPAA to quash the DeCSS software. They care about whether it’s right for the NSA to eavesdrop on their e-mail.”