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Enron is not gone because the reality that they actually had no money overtook their fiction, Enron is gone because they changed their name to CrossCountry Energy Corp. While most of their business activities stopped they were too well connected to just disappear.

Gene Kimmelman of Consumers Union had another explanation: "They got caught red-handed in a blatant consumer rip-off. Only under the pressure of regulators cracking down on them did they back off from this unwarranted charge."

The FCC last week sent Verizon a "letter of inquiry," the first step in a formal investigation.

[snip]

Verizon said the new surcharge was necessary to cover rising "supplier" costs associated with providing DSL for customers who do not also buy its phone service. Verizon is its own DSL supplier, however, so the new fees would have been going from one company pocket to another.

BellSouth had argued, initially, that it needed its $2.97-per-month fee to cover regulatory costs associated with DSL. The problem with that argument? DSL is an unregulated service.

"Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft... and the only one that can be mass-produced with unskilled labor."

Hey, you're right, and this idea worked so well for the energy industry!

http://www.enron.com/

And all this sort privitization is helping America's poor working class get such great access to health care!

http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nhdr03/nhdrsum03.htm#Ineq uality

Listen: Atlas Shrugged is FICTION.

LOL! Go to http://www.enron.com/ using Firefox or Mozilla and click on "Jobs at Enron".... it won't let you view the page unless you're using IE!

Then I know a few other folks who should be executed aswell...

Corporates are Sociopaths!

If it's the government, you're stuck with it.

I guess you don't vote, do you? If your democracy works, you're not stuck with anything.

If Verizon was your carrier and they were doing it wrong, you could stop supporting them.

Not if they have a monopoly. Well, you can, but it's easier to vote for your gov't to do the same thing. Verizon is supposed to represent its shareholders. Gov't officials are supposed to represent you.

Also, the government should not do it because the government has a tendency to do things wrong.

I don't consider private enterprise to be any better. A lot of them are every bit as crooked as any politician. I find it to be very appropriate for citezens to use its gov't as a weapon against corporate bums as any other kind of bums. It gives us a way of keeping them honest, and gives the corps some honest competition. If we don't use our money to control them, then there's nothing wrong with using our vote. Either way, the choice is ours to make. We have a right to use our gov't any way we wish. If your gov't is doing things wrong, then change your gov't. Most of the world's democracies give you that option. Use it or lose it.

What is our strategy? We do not have a strategy.

Erm.. Yeah, because doing something without a plan is the best way of going about things.

1) No idea how to approach your goal
2) Create problems rather than solving them
3) ???
4) Profit!

At least we know if he decides to open up shop in America, he will be gainfully employed.

Funny how they've got all that money for what they did

Yes, because we all know that having money is the sole determining factor of competancy and honesty.

Ma Bell is now several corporations, which, if combined, would be much larger than their predecessor. What do you call that, parthenogenesis? No, corporations are virtual, totally unlike the very real human.

Enron is in the midst of restructuring various businesses for distribution as ongoing companies to its creditors and liquidating its remaining operations. Ken Lay, after years BBQ'ing and praying in Texas, was just indicted, so he's going to have to work again for awhile. Probably to avoid jail in exchange for not talking too much about that Afghan gas pipeline his buddy Dubya tried, too late, to get from the Taliban. Meanwhile, they continue to operate, though without the market confidence required to make new contracts. But their existing contracts continue to squeeze California, Oregon and Washington dry. That's not much like a person, either. By now, a consumer from the Pacific coast, a pensioner from the Gulf coast, or an investor from the Atlantic coast would have strung up Mr. Enron, or splattered his brains across a boardroom table. Mr. "Brains" Lay will instead be treated with much more luxurious respect and autonomy than would any disembodied organ.

Corporate fines are financed by credit and revenue. Limited liability and "restructuring" are synthetic corporate operations impossible for humans. Corporations can be "put on hold", be in many places (or nowhere) at once, deliberate without cross-examination - all impossible for humans. Otherwise, we never would have invented these monsters to do our bidding - we'd just stick to real people, who don't cost an extra thousand bucks to incorporate.

And our favorite "Kenny Boy" of Enron fame seems to be getting away unharmed.

This reminds me of the good time when Enron was collecting all kind of prizes for being a superb company, extremely innovative, dynamic, the company with the greatest revenue, and so on. Like:

ENRON NAMED #22 OF "100 BEST COMPANIES TO WORK FOR IN AMERICA,
ENRON NAMED MOST INNOVATIVE FOR SIXTH YEAR
also ranked first on management talent and second on employee talent. I expect Darl to collect a bunch of similar prizes anytime soon.

This reminds me of the good time when Enron was collecting all kind of prizes for being a superb company, extremely innovative, dynamic, the company with the greatest revenue, and so on. Like:

ENRON NAMED #22 OF "100 BEST COMPANIES TO WORK FOR IN AMERICA,
ENRON NAMED MOST INNOVATIVE FOR SIXTH YEAR
also ranked first on management talent and second on employee talent. I expect Darl to collect a bunch of similar prizes anytime soon.

It looks like the LAPD is still going after teenagers--this time, 16-year old Megan Dickinson was caught driving 71 miles per-hour in a posted 65 zone. At the maximum statutory damages for felony traffic offenses, this makes Megan's liability at least $825,000, at most a mere $165,000,000. Naturally, the LAPD benevolently offered a $3,500 settlement to avoid these moderate, legally sanctioned damages. As we can hardly forget, the LAPD has already used this technique to settle with a 12 year old. Megan's unsurprising take: 'Yeah, it seems ridiculous.'

It's called "making the punishment fit the crime." Driving drunk and causing a fatal accident is a felony; speeding 6 miles over the limit shouldn't be. Looting people's 401(k)'s is a felony; stealing some clothes from the mall shouldn't be. Oh, and running large scale fraud operations over the internet is a felony; file-sharing shouldn't be.

First off, you started your story thusly:

For our small corporate network, I have determined that it would cost us nearly $40,000 USD (Just for the Software!) to maintain a Primary and Back-up Domain Controller using Microsoft Windows 2000. This includes both the Main Server License costs and the multiple packs of CALs required to allow each user access to the servers.

in which you quote $40,000 in licensing costs for 2 Windows 2000 Servers and a "small corporate network". I then preceded to show that as completely and utterly ridiculous. You then decided that you'd like to change your network to:

To handle 200 users, I would, or should have ONE PDC, at least TWO BDCs and likely one or two fileservers, each of which would need at least 200 CALs. (Unless MS changed the licensing recently, which I doubt.) Let's add this up, shall we? (To make it more 'fair' we will go with 1 file server from the above mix...) 4 Windows 2000 Server w/ 25 CALs $6400 9 - 20 CAL packs per server (4) $24,120 WOW! We are already over $30,000

where you still come up $10,000 short of your original quote, despite transforming from a "small corporate network" with 2 servers, into a 200 user network with 4 servers.

Secondly, you've evidently never heard or bothered to look up per server and per seat licensing modes, despite the quite obvious choice Windows gives you when you add licenses or set up a new server. If you had known this, you could've saved over $20,000 just on the CAL add packs.

But, you decided that it was better to dig to the bottom than jump out now. So, you proceed to demonstrate your complete and total ignorance of MSFT's licensing model when you stated:

each of [the 4 servers] which would need at least 200 CALs...[and]...You know that you need to have CALs for EACH potential user that can access EACH server at any given time?

As a coup de grace, in case anyone doubted your ineptness with MS products, you state that:

we should have two admins, just for monitoring/maintaining the servers as well as to provide tech support assistance.

for 6 servers, 2 of which are BDC's (which, BTW, don't exist in Windows 2000 Server or AD, but I digress), and 1 of which is a simple file server.

After this less than stellar performance, I'd suggest you call someone a bit more familiar with MS products next time, check out one of MS's licensing webinars, avoid doing cost comparisons altogether, or getting a job with Enron's accounting department or the Gartner Group-where your math and research skills will fit right in.

Oh, and BTW, I never stated there was a cost benefit. Obviously, comparing the CAL prices of a free(beer) Linux and SAMBA distro with Windows would never show a cost benefit in MS's direction. I only ask that you if you're going to discuss licensing costs that you know what the hell you're talking about, instead of enveloping the rest of /. with your cloud of FUD and confusion.

The same Libertarian Party that believes that govt is evil and corporations would never choose profits over the public welfare?

You are correct. Stuff from the 50's era was designed by the engineers (overengineered), much like OSS today is designed and made by coders instead of Managers. Consumer products these days are made by Managers that don't care about their products and only care about profits even at the expense of customers' lives. The US economy is about building the cheapest product so that you can compete, regardless of how long it lasts. There are notable exceptions such as Boeing. There's a HUGE body of people fixing up older overengineered cars, which is impossible with newer cars.

Verizon, PECo (now Exelon) all own our politicians lock stock and barrel. It's not right, but that is how it's done in PA.

Exelon?? That is too good to be true... very close to the oil company "with the hope of emerging from bankruptcy".

A taint is the space between your nut sack and asshole.

No, the area between frontal private parts and the anus is the "choad".

An "accoun-taint" is one who "taints" (alters deceptively) the books. See "taint" and the poster child.

one bit isn't good enough
here is my proposal:

+1 cracker bit (use when attempting buffer overflow, backdoor, exploit, etc.)
+2 terrorist bit (need I say what countries to put here?)
+4 deceptive business bit (apply to 192.189.271.221 and others
+8 p0rn bit (apply to 90% of gnutella searches)
+16 spam bit (apply to SMTP transfers from domains including, but not limited to, yahoo.com, hotmail.com, and aol.com.. might as well use it if you're reading mail from any of these too)
+32 annoying bit (IRC scripts should use this)
+64 utterly-insecure bit (IIS, IE, Outlook, and practically all other Microsoft programs should apply this bit)
+128 Pinky and the Brain bit (network traffic used to try to take over the world; apply to sites including, but not limited to, 207.46.249.27, 65.244.101.222, Bill Gates' personal T1)

Salon's workers are anticipating their *own* jobs being cut... forever. However, instead of going oversees, it's more like this.

It sounds like you already know everything you need to know. Now you simply need to summon the courage of your beliefs.

You may be fired because of your beliefs. At that point, you just have to decide which is more valuable: your beliefs or your jobs (hint: your beliefs are). On the other hand, your boss may simply be having a weak moment in his own beliefs. You ought to try to talk to him about this, and not in a self-righteous way. Try to make the case that you can't build a successful company or a successful life without character. Your company and your own bank account might prosper in the short run, but eventually the way the universe works catches up to you...even if it's not before you die.

At any rate, it sounds like you've got the right tickets to begin with. Good luck.

"Wanna know why California had a power crisis?"

I already heard.

You mean survival of the fattest, don't you?

Just look at enron.com.

Next year they'll float a rumor of thinking of acquiring Lockheed Martin, KFC, and Kiwi Shoe polish.

Now there's an idea, perhaps Microsoft should buy up bankrupt airlines, phone companies, or energy traders.

Lord knows they've got the cash and the companies in question could use the help. For a few billion Microsoft could be an airline or telecommunications monopoly as well.

Show them the moon lander through a telescope, they say the telescope has been tampered with.

Thats the whole point of these debunking missions you can't see the lander on the moons surface or the rovers, even with modern telescopes the size relationship between the lander and any earth based telescope is just too small its like looking for a grain of sand from 100,000 miles away.

I believe Japan is launching a mission in 2003 to photograph the moon (called LUNAR-A) from a hi resolution camera on a low orbit satellite , also a californian company is doing the same with a mission called Trailblazer which also should prove/disprove that mankind was indeed on the moon.
In order to see if someone is lying you cannot ask the said lier to show evidence especially if fabrication of evidence was an issue in the first place , that is why its probably a better idea for a independant non connected 3rd party to verify the accused lier's claims.

Of course this still probably wont be enough for the hoax/conspiracy believers as they will say NASA skewed the results or "tainted" the 3rd party.

You must remember, we live in an age of liers and fraudsters and no one is untouchable even a established science agency such as NASA or members of the American goverment, after all no one thought Enron or AC would be one of the biggest frauds in history so it is somewhat understandable that people don't believe everything they see

But for the "ignorant" masses an independant investigation will go a long way to dispell any doubts, especially from one by a country independant from that of the said "fraudsters", plus with any luck they might be able to complete some worthy science along the way.

You're delusional. Fact is that any employer would just take that theoretical difference and pocket it, leaving you with the same salary as before, only without unemployment insurance or workman's comp to cover you when the shit hits the fan. You'd be left buying your own insurance on the same salary, facing the choice between losing a significant chunk of your income or doing without insurance for inevitable hard times. In fact, I could see companies viewing employees who buy workman's comp. or unemployment insurance as disloyal, since they wouldn't trust their employer to take care of them.

The government may be inefficient, and it may be corrupt, but in the end it pays out reliably and consistently. That's more than any for-profit venture would do if given the chance to take over the potential market for either insurance.

Even if you only make $36k a year- the average salary- you're paying half your income in taxes- and that's just direct. The things you buy, would be %30 or more cheaper if there wasn't a federal income tax, etc. (And the value of the services you get from the government? Less than %10 of what you pay in taxes-- thats how much you're being ripped off.)

AS they say, if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.

The outrage one should feel is that while the average American citizen gets only a 10% return on the near 50% of our income we pay into the system, the wealthiest members of our society see massive returns on the relatively tiny share of their money that they pay into the system. Corporate welfare kickbacks, polluter's tax credits, offshore shelters, and all the other tricks in the book used to stimulate the economy through trickle-down voodoo economics mean that those lowest on the social totem pole see the lowest return on their buck, while the CEO's of the world see a heavy return on their taxes.

"A kilowatt is 3,600,000 joules, 10 kilowatts in respect is 36,000,000."

What are you talking about? A kilowatt is a measure of power, and a joule is a measure of energy. The two are not directly comparable without a time factor thrown in. Do you mean a kilowatt hour is 3,600,000 joules?

By your calculation, lightning is 280-2,800 kilowatts (0.3-2.8 megawatts). As we all know, lighting is more in the range of 1.21 gigawatts (humor intended, but general priniciple remains the same). It's not like lightning strikes last for an hour.

------
"To put this in prespective, the adverage person uses 64,800,000 joules a month, or 18 kilowatts... So for every time they fire this baby, they are blowing 50-100 bucks....

They essentially are what cause the blackouts in California."

What the fuck are you talking about? This causes the blackouts in California, not some sergeant flipping the switch on $100 of electricity.

100% Bastard

I figure GWB will blame Saddam Hussein when he can't get to his favorite web sites. Then he can use it as proof they hate us and want to kill us all.

To me, the most critical thing in the Linux market right now is the lack of good software courses, books and software itself. Without good software and an owner who understands programming, a hobby computer is wasted. Will quality software be written for the Linux market?

Almost a year ago, Alan Cox and myself, expecting the linux market to expand, hired Marcelo Tosatti to maintain Linux 2.4. The the initial work took only two months, the three of us have spent most of our lives documenting, improving and adding features to Linux. Now we have reiserfs, ext3, a robust VM, UML, and the 2.5 development tree. The value of the computer time we have used exceeds $40,000,000.

The feedback we have gotten from the thousands of people who say they are using Linux has all been positive. Two surprising things are apparent, however, 1) Most of these "users" never bought Linux (less than 10% of all computer owners have bought Linux), and 2) The amount of royalties we have received from sales to hobbyists makes the time spent on GNU/Linux worth less than $2 an hour.

Why is this? As the majority of users must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid?

Is this fair? One thing you don't do by stealing software is get back at Berkeley for some problem you may have had. Berkeley doesn't make money selling software. The royalty paid to us, the manual, the CD's and the overhead make it a break-even operation. One thing you do do is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 10-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free? The fact is, no one besides us has invested a lot of money in Linux software. We have written 3 stable kernels, and are writing Linux-2.5, but there is very little incentive to make this software available to Linux users. Most directly, the thing you do is theft.

What about the guys who re-sell Linux, such as linuxmall.com, aren't they making money on hobby software? Yes, but those who have been reported to us may lose in the end. They are the ones who give
Linux users a bad name, and should be kicked out of any club meeting they show up at.

I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up, or has a suggestion or comment. Just write to me at:

3940 Freedom Circle
Santa Clara, CA 95054 USA

Nothing would please me more than being able to hire ten programmers and deluge the Linux market with good software.

Linus Torvalds
Transmeta Corporation

>> Theft is not free speech. Theft is not free capitalistic enterprise.

It is now.

BRiX, unlike other modern operating systems, does not use hardware to isolate and protect applications from each other. Instead, it uses a single address space and relies on a safe-language to generate code that will not access memory for which it does not own. This language also handles many checks at compile-time that would be performed at run-time in other operating systems. ... bounds checks can be disabled for stable critical system components. Only untrusted user code is slowed down by the bounds checks.

We've got about 2.5 kw of photovoltaic on our roof, courtesy of a local contractor, Sun Utility Network . The local utility (Los Angeles municipally-owned DWP) directly subsidized about half the install cost. That plus some nice state tax benefits, too (no Federal benefits unless you drill an oilwell in your backyard. Thanks, Dubya).

Our average daily consumption went from 12 KwH/day to 4. Our monthly electric bill is now $30, very cheap for CA. We are of course on-grid. What we generate credits against our bill. DWP won't send you a check if your production exceeds your consumption (darn!)

Plus keep in mind that electricity may eventually go to peak-rate pricing, pay more for a Kw used during peak than off-peak. Figure that peak is the same time slot the solar cells work best, mid-day to late afternoon.

That and the satisfaction of sticking it to certain out-of-state power brokers that have been bleeding California to death.

I myself would just see about buying a used system. Try here or here.

Many Slashdot readers are "liberal" or "left-leaning" and are opposed to the War on Drugs and drug laws in general. If you don't like the government telling you what you can and cannot put in your body, why are you so eager to have the government tell you what it thinks the best and worst products are? Let the private sector handle this.

An excellent point, my "conservative" or "right-leaning" friend!

I, for one, trust the private sector to make important standards decisions in a just and unbiased manner. I know that can count on private enterprise to interact with the public an an open and honest fashion, and think that your average board of directors has a much better handle on what's going on with their company than some hare-brained committee of bureaucrats has over some bloated, complex government scheme.

Besides, I don't want such important things left up to some government agency that could disappear from the face of the planet in an instant--no, thank you, I'll take private enterprise any day. They're really looking out for what's best for me.

...perhaps we should look to Europe for examples of how to do things properly...

Wayner really does end up where a lot of us think databases will be someday, particularly in finance: repositories of data accessible only by digital bearer tokens using various blind signature protocols, neatly, and quite literally, "dis-integrating" the ability of databases to be used against us as a tool of totalitarianism

So let's send a message to the big name companies by KILLING one of them.

This must be the start of a scam to get New York locked into higher water wholesaling prices.

Beware of owning any exciting water wholesaling companies come next fall! :)

Because India has some seriously entrenched corruption problems. VoIP would hurt the phone company, and the phone company bosses wouldn't like that.

Here in the USA of course, we are MUCH more civilized and would NEVER, EVER let a corporations concern over profits dictate our laws and regulations.

Existing corporations and existing power-structures are not allow to fail or be challenged.

This is clearly not true. Let's take a recent example: Enron which lobbied the government for a bail-out and other protections but didn't receive them.

Of course sometimes it does happen, for example Long term capital management whose bailout (IMHO) stunk to high heaven. But clearly there is not some conspiracy to ensure that all failing corporations are protected in the way you seem to be suggesting.

You also say: in the rare cases that a corporation does fail, Congress will hold dozens of hearings to find out why and make sure that it doesn't happen again.. Well given the consequences to the employees of Enron, not to mention the tax payers of California and other states that Enron stiffed, not to mention the shareholders whose millions are now worthless, perhaps it would be a very good thing if Congress ensured that the corporate malpractices that caused Enron to fail were curtailed...

If they are being asked to reveal their source code in an effort to disprove their earlier testimony, can't they plead the 5th to avoid self-incrimination?

Plead the fifth ... all the cool kids are doing it.

Size does matter.

According to Enron's Financial Highlights for 2000 Enron had revenues of $100.789 million, and net income of $1.266 million.

According to Microsoft's Financial Highlights (word document) Microsoft had revenues of $9,050 million and net income of $2,195 million.

To compare these two saying that Microsoft contributed roughly four times as much is kind of moot, considering the financial firepower of Microsoft. $ 6million to them is a deck chair on the Titanic to them and could have contributed a lot more.

The shareholder is always right.

Your sig is just too funny in light of recent events surrounding everyone's favorite favorite corporate bankruptcy. Sorry, just couldn't resist that one. ;-)

This site was created by the SEC, FTC, NASD, with a little help from their friends, the Whitehouse.

The agencies and groups, except one, created the site because of an increase in investment scams. But the Bush Administration has invoked executive privaledge to keep its reasons for helping to create the site secret.

The site shows some of the telltale signs of online investment fraud. Promises of fast and high profits, with little or no risk, are classic red flags of fraud. And one obvious tip off was that they claimed to be a broadband provider who's 'business model is working.'

Information for Former Enron Employees
Downtown Club Membership Offer

You have to love Enron's making sure its former employees stay healthy:

Health Club Membership

Maybe they are getting a kick back from the club if they get people to sign up? :')

Did anyone read the Enron Human Rights Statement? The part concerning "fair compensation" for employees was quite laughable :)

Honorable mentions also go to the clause concerning the conducting of businesses according to given laws, along with the section concerning "Respect".

Enron Investor Relations