Weeding out
There is a story on the BBC radio talking about these testes they give students in their last years of "high school" in England called A-levels. There is a mandate from government that half of all students should go into higher education (collage) and the result is most people get better grades on their A-levels. The universities are getting together and saying they need to adopt new testes similar to the US ACE or SAT in order to weed out those student's who will not make it through university. All the students notice is a bunch of more tests. People have days of tests that determine where they will be able to go to school. I remember the stress over the SAT. I didn't even care what grade I made on it. I got a 980 by the way. Not bad. That is better than average. It isn't great. I worry that I would get double digits these days. I'm out of test taking practice.

Two Worlds
Microsoft is on my nerves again. There are several articles about Microsoft roaming around that tout how Microsoft is above the law. The fines are not the equivalent of a slap on the wrist. It is like making Microsoft buy a candy bar. Microsoft has control of the market and they like it that way. We were just talking at lunch trying to figure out why people just bend over for Microsoft. People say, "but we want a standard interface for our programs." Ford puts steering wheels and gearshifts in automobiles just like General Motors. There are subtle differences, but they are basically the same design. There is no reason Microsoft, or Xerox should be allowed to patent the GUI interface.
One of Microsoft's big deals is trying to say the media player is part of the operating system. What is to stop them from saying Word or Excel is part of the operating system and basically blowing all potential competitors away? Oh, wait. Microsoft already cornered the market on Office tools. They even took the name Office Tools for their own. Microsoft will only pay lip service to standard document formats. Microsoft's answer to a standard is "use Word, there." The problem is you have to use Windows to use Word. Even Macintosh will not run Microsoft Office for ever.
Now Microsoft is about to make serious moves on the internet search market. That means every time you look for something on the net, Microsoft gets dibs on what you find. In order for software companies to advertise their products, they will have to pay their competition for the privilege. Can you say monopoly?
Yet, the general public just keeps paying Microsoft for the privilege of using software that is solely controlled by one company. What is to stop Microsoft from saying "We want to charge a tax for computers sold without an operating system because we just know they are going to put an illegal copy of Windows on it anyway?" Microsoft already has that law.