As a company that puts $7bn a year into R&D, we have a fiduciary responsibility to our shareholders

said Sam Ramji, Microsoft's directory of Open platform solutions (what platforms again? oh the irony). $7bn on R&D, out of $12bn (net income). Not bad as a percentage, but what on earth do they do with all that money? It's no secret that most of the things that come out of Microsoft, despite the funds and manpower available to it, are, well, crap. By comparison, the total net income of Apple Inc. for last year was around $2bn and I guess very little of that went into R&D (Of course Apple is not doing any research that matters). Google, the new kid on the block, has a net income of $3bn, but it is also cultivating a research-focused working environment so it's hard to estimate how much really goes to research. Now, IBM, the worlds largest IT company has a net income of $9bn and let's not forget that IBM has very extensive research activities, but I'm certain diverts less than Microsoft to them. So, really, what does Microsoft do with all that money, given their poor record in both research and commercial software output?

The Secret Government

It's fascinating to see how public tolerance of government abuses and downright violation of the law and constitution has increased over the years. Follow the link for the 90 minute PBS documentary from 1987 that deals with how the U.S. sold weapons to Iran, despite its embargo and used the funds to support the 'contras' in Nicaragua (the Iran-Contra Affair) before going over the history of U.S. government abuses and illegal clandestine operations in the name of national security post WWII. Now, compare this to the relatively low public reaction to legislation such as the PATRIOT law (and its equivalents in Europe), the reaction to the Iraq war and the minimal buzz in the European press on the matter of the alleged CIA flights transporting illegally detained muslims post the 11th of September of 2001 from Europe to places where they could be interrogated and indeed tortured. No matter what you think of Moyers and PBS, Reagan and US policy in the 1980s and the 2003 Iraq war one thing is clear: people today seem much more apathetic to the abuses by the 'secret' governments in both the United States and Europe, even when these affect their own rights, privacy and freedoms, not 'just' the fate of some other country or people.

Η Dell στην Ελλάδα

Κάντε μια επίσκεψη στον δικτυακό τόπο της Dell για την Ελλάδα. Δεν είμαι πελάτης της Dell όμως η εν λόγω εταιρία έχει κατα καιρούς παρουσιάσει ιδιαίτερα ελκυστικά προϊόντα (π.χ. οθόνες, PDAs, rackmounted servers) σε πολύ καλές τιμές και κατα συνέπεια τόσο για προσωπικούς όσο και για επαγγελματικούς λόγους έχω ασχοληθεί με κάποια από αυτά. Ο δικτυακός της τόπος της Dell για την Ελλάδα είναι πενιχρός. Μια κάκιστη μεταφορά του αμερικάνικου, με ένα μικρό μέρος του περιεχομένου στα Ελληνικά και το υπόλοιπο στα Αγγλικά, με σαφείς ελλείψεις ολόκληρων σειρών προϊόντων από τον κατάλογο (τα οποία όμως μπορεις να βρείς μέσω της αναζήτησης) και προβληματικούς συνδέσμους. Για παράδειγμα, παλαιότερα -- όπως συμβαίνει ακόμη και σήμερα με τα sites της εταιρίας άλλων χωρών -- υπήρχαν τρείς βασικές επιλογές για κάθε κατηγορία προϊόντων: 'ιδιώτες', 'μικρές και μεσαίες επιχειρήσεις' και 'μεγάλες επιχειρήσεις και δημόσιοι οργανισμοί'. Η πρώτη κατηγορία έχει εξαφανίστεί από ένα μεγάλο μέρος του τόπου, ενώ υπάρχουν ακόμη κάποια μέρη αυτού που τη συμπεριλαμβάνουν. Dell ή Hell; Ας σημειωθεί πως η Dell φημίζεται διεθνώς ως μια από τις πρωτοπόρους στην άμεση πώληση προϊόντων και υπηρεσιών αρχικά μέσω mail-order και μετέπειτα του διαδικτύου. Το Ars Technica πρόσφατα δημοσίευσε ένα άρθρο όπου ο Μichael Dell, ιδρυτής και CEO της εταιρίας δηλώνει πως θα είναι πλέον 'επιθετικοί' και στο λιανικό εμπόριο (μέσω μεταπωλητών). Καλή τους τύχη.

HVD Fonts: F*ck Comic Sans :)

A few nice free title fonts by HVD Fonts (Germany). Their HVD Comic Serif is quite nice (and its accompanying PDF -- excerpt below -- hilarious). I, obviously, share the sentiments. :)
Fuck Comic Sans!
Image © hvdfonts.de

Full RSS feeds reduce activity on a blog?

Interesting question. I dislike the provision of full posts in RSS. It's not about ad revenue (I don't make money from my blog) or anything else except for my belief that the web is perfectly adequate and --- indeed --- superior to RSS feeds for human communication; RSS feeds on the other hand are excellent for notifications of new content (the pseudo-push aspect previously missing from the Web) and automatic dissemination of content to multiple sites/aggregators (even though I have my qualms about this too; there should be a better standard for this). Yet, CogDaily's experiment is flawed. The time-series is too short, the information does not cover all aspects of 'activity' of a blog and -- by their own admission -- the samples are not representative (there was reduced content publication). While I (intuitively) agree with the statement the data provided by CogDaily do not seem to support it.

String-by-String

Gibson has been more or less synonymous with the electric guitar and along with Fender one of the two major historic manufacturers of the instrument. The introduction of digital technology in what was generally considered acoustic or electric territory was gradual and troublesome. There are lots of people that scoff when faced with computers, modelling […]