Friday, March 26, 2010

Times On Line to start charging this summer

ONLINE readers will be charged £2 a week to read The Times and The Sunday Times on the web from June, News International announced today.

That would be the London Times, not the NYT ... just to clarify.

That's disappointing in that much of the stories on
ClimateGate have been in the Times, plus other articles of interest.

So, it would be much appreciated that if you get a paid subscription, and post something you find in the Times, that you would copy/paste the story - or at least the relevant parts - so that those of us who do not have a paid subscription will know what the heck you are talking about.

Kthxbye.


Via doubleplusundead

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

November can't come soon enough!

BHO signed the "Health Care Reform" bill this morning, and that changes everything, and not for the better.

This bill, if allowed to stand by the courts, will mean that:

- the relationship between the American people and the federal government will have forever been changed, as a vast majority of us will end up being dependant upon the government, rather than our own resources, which is never good (look at France and Greece for "good" examples of what happens) ;
- over time, more and more employers will opt out of providing employer-sponsored health care for their employees, which in turn will make people clamor for a "solution to this problem" from the government, which will in turn lead to a single payer system through the government, leading to a vast swathe of the insurance industry going out of business;
- with employers being forced to provide health insurance for every employee (including part-timers) or face a fine for not doing so, many employers will simply let people go in order to lower their costs, and unemployment is too high right now (I should know, as I fall in that category right now);
- with higher unemployment, the bad economy that we are all facing now will only get worse.

To sum up, this bill needs to be repealed as soon as we can possibly do it, if the courts fail to strike it down as unconstitutional. That action won't happen today or tomorrow, and that's why I say that November can't come soon enough!

Thursday, March 04, 2010

Microsoft exec pitches Internet usage tax to pay for cybersecurity

As reported here, [a] top Microsoft executive on Tuesday suggested a broad Internet tax to help defray the costs associated with computer security breaches and vast Internet attacks, according to reports.

Speaking at a security conference in San Francisco, Microsoft Vice President for Trustworthy Computing Scott Charney pitched the Web usage fee as one way to subsidize efforts to combat emerging cyber threats -- a costly venture, he said, but one that had vast community benefits.

"You could say it's a public safety issue and do it with general taxation," Charney noted.


The guy that proposed this little wonder idea probably makes enough money that another little tax wouldn't even be noticed by him (his accountant might, but not him). Hey, Charney! Instead of levying another tax on people who are fed up to here with taxes, why doesn't your company make a product that isn't vulnerable to cyber attack?

Full disclosure here - my computer has Windows XP Pro on it, and of all of the MS operating systems I've used over the years, from the old DOS days to now, this is the best one I've used (will not go near Vista, and haven't had a chance, or the money to try Win 7 yet). But, even though I think it's a really good OS, your company is constantly having to create patches for vulnerabilities. I quit counting after the 40th patch downloaded to my computer.

Here's an idea, one you guys probably have never thought of. Instead of trying to put those hackers that keep finding holes in your products in jail, why don't you hire them to test your product before it gets shipped to market? Have them document every hole they find, so the code writers can eliminate the holes, and when everyone is done, you'll have a fairly secure product.

Oh, wait ... that's too logical for those pie-in-the-sky idiots that work across the lake from me. Never mind.