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As a prior victim of Exchange, I feel your pain.

There can be, however, a bright side. Please name your company so that we can short it. :-)

There are two distinct (for me, anyway) topics: stocks and jobs. Since I don't depend on the stock market for my income (and yes, I do realize that I'm different than some IT folk in that regard) what the stock market does has little impact on my quality of life.

That said, there are still some great tech stocks out there, maybe not all on the Nasdaq, but good all the same. Even at today's low-end pricing, my holdings in JNPR would have to halve before I'd see a loss, and the upside potential is still great despite the market burp. AAPL was and is a great buy, rarely do we get the opportunity to buy what was an $80 stock a few months ago for 1/4 of that price. 'Course, that assumes that it'll someday become an $80 stock again -- a leap of faith I'm willing to take given the miniscule downside risk. On the NYSE, my TWX and VZ aren't superstars, but they're up from where I bought them -- not bad, given the bleed-out of late.

There are good technology companies out there, but investors who have never evaluated stocks based on quality, value, and business acumen have no idea how to find them. Having invested since '82 and lived through '87, I'm having a field day on the buy side. Cheap, cheap, cheap!

On the topic of work, while my technology employer has had some troubles this year, they have not been laying off the way that their peers have. My options are worthless right now, but I'm still at work, still making decent money.

Let's put this into perspective. The labor (and I think Commerce) department(s) keeps track of the "IT Sector"'s shorthandedness fairly closely. The last number I heard was that the U.S. would continue to fall short of supply (e.g. workers) for new IT jobs at a 25,000 per year clip. Per year! I went through all the articles I could find on Yahoo and Fucked Company and added up the losses -- about 5000, maybe 8K. 10 at best, given that I probably didn't find them all. So, a little more than 1/3 of our job surplus for one year has been eaten up by tech layoffs. And, consolidation will soon enough kick in and the tide will slow.

I realize my advice isn't much solace to the folks at Britannia.com who just lost their jobs. But, for quality workers (or contractors) who know what they're doing, there is more work out there than workers. I think that at best a tightening of the market will help sort out the wheat from the chaff, and allow employers to be more selective than "do you have a pulse?" That will make the sector even more efficient and competitive, and we'll all benefit from that. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that there'll be another boom in the IT sector, just as soon as this consolidation completes it's cycle.

Go to fuckedcompany and count the number of tech's that have been put out of work; then tell me why that sector of the economy is not relevant to slashdot.

-- Greg

Consider for a moment the record companies' dilemma.

On the one hand, they have their existing business model which, though not merely morally questionable but actually despicable, they are in full control of it, and they are using it to make money hand over fist.

On the other hand, there is the Internet. They don't have control of it. They don't know how to make money off of it. They certainly don't know how to make the kind of money off the Internet that they're making now.

And if they see what we see in the business dailies, I can't blame them. Companies putting off IPOs. Venture capital drying up. Replacing hundreds of dedicated technicians and staff with two web designers and a rhesus monkey. These are documented and documented in a variety of sources.

These days, people reread business models containing the word 'internet' twice, because there is not yet a set formula for success online.

This is why they're not switching; they'd have to be fools to switch away from the model they have now, which is extremely profitable. Even if it is despicable.

The only way they'll even consider changing given the above is to untrench them -- use legal means to make their current way of doing business so unprofitable that they'll grab for another way. The first (and least practical) way that comes to mind is rehabilitating a nation of music junkies. That, or popularize a new form of music that the Old Guard doesn't have any control of. (I hear there aren't many commercial techno mixes. Perhaps something could be done there?)
---

Gee, that sounds an aweful lot like Backflip, who, by the way, are Fucked.

With all the companies going bankrupt, does it seem that great domain aren't as hot anymore (See fuckedcompany.com). I found this article which list the Top Ten Most Expensive name purchases. Besides altavista.com which sold for $3.35 million, I haven't been nor need to visit any of the other sites like wallstreet.com (a gambling site nothing about stocks or trading is mentioned there) or drugs.com (there isn't even any information about drugs on the site just click through links to generate money).

I don't believe you need to have "standardize" name as your domain to be sucessful at all. Google.com and C|Net.com are doing pretty good with their branding AND w/o spending $X mil for their domain.

I use to work for a company who bought a "high profile" domain name and it hasn't been as successful as they thought and the company laid off some people, including a good friend. So any company tempting you with their advantage of having a high profile domain instead of their product or whatever...beware.

This looks like a perfect candidate for F*'d Company. I didn't see this incident posted yet....

Dont sell Novell's NDS technology short. It is years ahead of M$'s active directory technology. Their sales might be weak, but enough to keep them alive long enough to win in the directory market.

I've been in the tech industry for more than a couple of decades now. I've heard at least 10 times of the immiment death of Apple. 4 or 5 times the imminent death of Novell. More times than I can count "imminent death of the internet". IBM, micro~1.oft, and many others have their death predicted on a regular basis. Ignore these death notices, instead go play on fuckedcompany.com and pick off a few feeble dotcoms. You have a good chance of being right.

the AC

I collect cars. Work on 'em, fix 'em, break 'em, and fix 'em again. I know the internal combustion engine all too well.

How does this car sound? Well hot DAMN, somebody FINALLY figured out something other than (gasoline, alcohol, nitromethane) to inject. Basically, this is a very interesting system that works. How well does it work? Time will tell.

But you could probably modify any engine in the world to do this.

Instead of creating compression through combustion, it's direct injection of compression, forcing the piston down, thusly turning the engine. The horsepower potenetial is nil, but it's an excellent economy design. And the kicker is that, despite what others have said, unless there is a genuine combustion cycle, there is no emissions outside of what you put in. If you put in clean air, clean air will come out, in this setup. The engine will probably be low maintenance as well - you don't have to worry as much about rings failing from carbon buildup, or piston failure from using too low an octane rating. Although I wonder if using pure O2 instead of air could cause detonation, heehee. ;)

Sounds like the best idea I've seen in a good long while. Now all they have to do is figure out how to do it in a better looking car that's smaller, and I'll buy one! :)

=RISCy Business
your company here.

Yes.
--
Obfuscated e-mail addresses won't stop sadistic 12-year-old ACs.

With all the money techs are getting paid, after 10+ years you are supposed to be with us having a piña colada here in Hawaii, or maybe loosing all your money in a Fucked Company.

So let them come to do the work we did.

---

Weird.

Applied for by Hemos, et al.

Wherein this patent is applied for, herein defining a method of determining the relative coolness of a person using a system hereafter referred to as karma.

The mechanism uses a community made up mostly of clueless Linux zealots and anti-everything "rebels" to assign points to comments made by users, thereby raising or lowering their karma.

Next week: Sig11 applies for a patent on karma whoring and an AC sues, claiming it a violation of the karma limit patent!

=RISCy Business
your company here.

Heck, it's about time such an easy pick for FuckedCompany came up. Anyone who's a regular /. reader NOT got :D:C:::::: (or whatever) on their hit list?

If the challenge to Amazon's patent is successful, what has Apple lost?

True. Anyone offended by frivolous, immoral legal action is already boycotting Apple over their harassment of others over:

design (eMachines),
look and feel (M$),
reporting of news (news sites and its own employees),
and a theme site (themes.org) over an Enlightenment Aqua theme.

May they and Amazon suffer a quick decline at the hands of open standards and be featured f-d companies (also a target of frivolous legal action by corporate jackbooted thugs).

sulli

Yes they HAVE!!!! :D Go check there and search for "CueCat" (if it's not on their front page anymore)

Look for DC coming to a FuckedCompany website near you!

_______

DC seems to have realized the potential liability you just implied, and has sent email to every registered luser offering them a $10 RadioShack gift certificate to make it up to them. Probably, most of their normal users will take the offer.

What's their cost per user now? How many clickthroughs (scanthroughs?) do they need before it starts to pay back? Their financial statement for FY 2000 is looking redder and redder. Digital Convergence, meet fuckedcompany.com!

"Took the auction off of Ebay -- interested parties, contact me and tell me who you are. Click here for more information"
-----

3) eBay, as it always mentioned in it's policies, has the right to refuse to actually auction anything it doesn't want to. Normally, there is a list of things that don't stand a chance (human body parts, guns, etc.), but they still reserve the right to refuse service. Whether or not this is the actual case or not doesn't matter. I didn't expect the auction to last that long anyways.

It wasn't pulled by eBay - it was pulled by the seller, which is totally OK. And if you go to the site, you'll see they're still accepting legitimate offers by e-mail.

The asterisk is really pointless, since you linked to the site. After all, the courts have determined that linking to a site is much, much worse than listing the URL.


My mom is not a Karma whore!

The company known as Ibiblio, formerly known as Metalab, formerly known as SunSITE, has now issued a press release stating that their new name will be F**kedCompany, as soon as they complete the purchase of the domain FuckedCompany.com

http://www.fuckedcompany. com//ubb/Forum1/HTML/000403.html

It's not totally about me (I'm just the "burgerflipper" mentioned about halfway down), but about a VC project that I do some consulting for. Anyway, three cheers for the "real" FC!

Yeah, he might break even.

Since very few people who are posting seem to realize this, fuckedcompany.com is a full website, not just a domain. This isn't YADS (Yet Another Domain Sale).
--

OK, let's see here:

• So many CAPITAL LETTERS whenever he's REALLY CONCERNED that you DON'T GET HIS POINT. The guy reads like Robert McElwaine. You know, "UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED."

• Abysmal English skills. This guy's a CEO?
  • "reversed engineered"?
  • "intellectually property"?
  • "we loose any remedies"?
  • "the Linux Community could of inadvertently" Could OF?
  This in just two paragraphs. Jesus H. Christ, I've seen kids in grade school with better English skills. Call FuckedCompany now!

• "if we don't PROTECT our IP, we loose any remedies under law to PROTECT our IP"

  No, you dipsticks, that's trademark law. If I create something called the CueCat (without the dippy colon in front of the "C"), and it's a plastic cat-shaped barcode thingy, and he doesn't sue me, he stands to lose the right to use the word ":CueCat" to describe his plastic cat-shaped barcode thingy.

Netpliance (with the I-Opener and the resulting arms race of BIOS upgrades and anti-hack measures they wasted time with) missed the clue train, but at least can claim they faced a genuine threat. And even they didn't try to sue anyone.

But these guys, good Lord, they haven't just missed the Cluetrain, they aren't even at the friggin' station!

In closing, I'm pretty sure think there's more than one reason the "threatening letter" was merely a vaguely-threatening letter and not a real cease-and-desist.

1) As flamed ad infinitum on /. last week, any case against the developers of :CueCat(tm)-related hacks is likely to be extremely weak.

2) If Digital Convergence doesn't even have proofreaders, what the fuck are they using for corporate counsel?

3) And on that corporate counsel, if they do have corporate counsel, could one of them kindly bitchslap their management team and explain the difference between trademark law and "whatever the ring-tailed rambling fuck" (that's waht I'm calling it, because they've utterly failed to explain it - again) they're trying to use as grounds to sue an open-source developer with a funny domain name?

One could have raked in some serious points over at fuckedcompany for these guys as they got fucked twice in slightly over a month. More details are at http://www.fuc kedcompany.com/archives/search.cfm?search=contentv ille

The ever-popular Fucked Company awarded viewers 189 points for picking this company -- turns out that they have been accused previously of selling content they don't own. What a way to make a business: take stolen content and slap a horrible interface on it. Then bring on the venture capital.

The ever-popular Fucked Company awarded viewers 189 points for picking this company -- turns out that they have been accused previously of selling content they don't own. What a way to make a business: take stolen content and slap a horrible interface on it. Then bring on the venture capital.

This is the approach that was take for a University hall of residence.

Firstly, squid was used to do some IP address filtering. The suspect domains were obtained by greping the .com, .uk, .nl [0] and possable a few other zone files against a list of 'bad' words, that imply pornographic content. The IP addresses were then redirected to a local page that said the page possably had illegal content. Any question, email the admin for a review.

The next thing was to put posters up, explaining what was done, stressing the blocked sites were selected by an automatic method, and that porn (and others - warez etc) was banned.

The next step was to ensure that all the monitors could be seen anyone (ie no terms tucked in a corner).

After that, anyone caught, the site was baned, and so were they [1].

The bandwidth each user utilised was also examined (automatically). If it was found that a person downloaded more than a limit [2] of data from one site, in one day, the site was flagged for checking to the admin. This was desiged to catch warez sites, and similar. IIRC, the only think it caught was uk.kernel.org :).

This approach yeilded one complaint about an incorrectly blocked site (It was along the lines of fuckedcompany, although I forget the exact one, and one person caught for looking at porn.

The reason for the porn ban is that porn is just about the only clearly recognisable objectionable item, at a distance (ie for someone at the next term). There were other banned catagories, but they were unlikely to cause problems. Porn is also a bandwith killer.

Today, we'd probably be looking at throttling Napster, or possably blocking it [3].

Whilst this is possably slightly more than you want to block, it's justifyable on most fronts.

[0] In the UK, the netherlands is infamous (rightly or wrongly) as a source of, uh, XXX porn.

[1] This, of course requires user authentication, which I assume you are doing.

[2] Something insane, like 400 Mb (we were on the back of 155Mb/s ATM link).

[3] The Net was explicitly for 'academic purposes only'. One guy we found downloading porn claimed it was for his course :). We asked for a signed note from his proffessor, explaing why, and authorising that use. This, surprisingly, never appeared.

hey..suck always had a weird layout...generates more ad revenue in this cutthroat software industry. of course ads can be blocked..and it does make suck easier to read.
you might want to look at fuckedcompany.com for a more ....entertaining look at the industry.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to ICANN's proposed TLD expansion for the following reasons:

1. "Limited domain choice" is a LIE - To suggest that there are no or few domains left to choose from is denial or ignorance at best and "lyin' thru the teeth" at worst. Sure, most good or great names are already taken, but a great many of those are not being used at all (or used in a worthwhile manner) by their owners! Call them squatters, but I dare say that most of these domain owners would part with their property for a paltry sum. Further, there's a great [inevitable] churning going on in the dot-com marketplace, whereas many of the dot-com's in business today won't be around in a couple years (see f**kedcompany.com). So if you want a specific dot-com for your business, and it's already taken, patience and/or a good cash offer are your friends.
2. Domain "land" values will become depressed - Isn't this obvious? Triple the availability of beachfront property, and the value of the original properties' owners will plummet. Why shouldn't a clever domain namer reap the reward from their own creativity?
3. Domain marketing effectiveness will become diluted - For those fledgling companies that cannot easily afford purchasing their domain name in all the new TLDs, how do they deal with the dilution that will rip their marketing efforts to shreds? The answer is: They're dead meat.
4. The biggest benefactors are the domain registration companies - Who makes the real money from this TLD expansion? Again, obvious.
5. A trademark-related litigation feeding frenzy will ensue - Many big corporations will certainly be able to grab all the new TLDs for their company, but what about the companies who are unable to do this before someone else squats on them, and what about the smaller/medium companies who cannot afford to handle this? So, you either have voluminous litigation arising out of trademark disputes, or trademark violation that goes uncontested, thereby hurting fledgling businesses. It's going to be a g-d mess!
6. A big land grab will negate the expansion - After all is said and done, won't we have the same "problem" we started with? At some point will arise again the perception that there aren't enough good/great domain names to choose from, which will again be a LIE.

TLD expansion is a shitty solution chasing after a near-nonexistent problem.

Steve Magruder, Technopolist

They are a fuckedcompany.

At least I have a new pick for this next week...

After viewing the Fucked Company website, it looks like a lot of companies will trying to do the same as Toysmart. Personal Information in the gold of the internet. Since most business plans for Internet Companies look like they were written by four-year-olds high on sugar about the only thing left after they die are the records of the fools that bought from them.

A good example of Personal Information mining are AOL owned web sites. Just take a peak at any AOL owned website and notice how many cookies are sent from AOL on a single page load (at least four) from their ads server. Why do they need 4 cookies to track one user? Plus every cookie is unique so if you say no to the cookie, it pops up again and again wanting to tag your browser. I have almost given up using their web sites because I get tired of saying no to their cookies.

I wonder exactly how well this is going to translate into future earnings potential?

This little publicity stunt (which seemingly has little to do with their focus .. maybe I'm wrong) is a good garnerer of attention in that tight marketplace of Silicon Valley.

Perhaps in a short while when their VC funding dries up we will all be reporting them to fsckedcompany.com instead of /.

No kidding, following this story I found a very funny/interesting site describing itself as "the dot-com deadpool" at FuckedCompany.com.

They have literally almost 300 *recent* stories about various dot-coms and how they fucked up in some way either screwing over their customers, employees, etc. or all of the above. The antics include Hollywood Video execs emailing their subsidiary Reel.com's CEO to fire all or most of the employees and the CEO simply forwards the e-mail to all in the company, Kozmo.com requiring almost every employee to submit to a detailed background check (and 50+ employees quitting or being fired), & copies of bad customer service feedbacks to Kozmo.com.

GEE, I'm glad I stayed with my solid "old economy", more traditional Silicon Valley electronics employer -- we've been among the fastest growing companies in the USA for several years (we're an ancient 9 years old), we're merging, acquiring, going IPO, making stock option money for employees and no B.S. even close to this stuff! I guess the dot-coms are finally realizing that even "new economy" companies need some kind of business-running know-how! It's a humbling time for all of us...

No kidding, following this story I found a very funny/interesting site describing itself as "the dot-com deadpool" at FuckedCompany.com.

They have literally almost 300 *recent* stories about various dot-coms and how they fucked up in some way either screwing over their customers, employees, etc. or all of the above. The antics include Hollywood Video execs emailing their subsidiary Reel.com's CEO to fire all or most of the employees and the CEO simply forwards the e-mail to all in the company, Kozmo.com requiring almost every employee to submit to a detailed background check (and 50+ employees quitting or being fired), & copies of bad customer service feedbacks to Kozmo.com.

GEE, I'm glad I stayed with my solid "old economy", more traditional Silicon Valley electronics employer -- we've been among the fastest growing companies in the USA for several years (we're an ancient 9 years old), we're merging, acquiring, going IPO, making stock option money for employees and no B.S. even close to this stuff! I guess the dot-coms are finally realizing that even "new economy" companies need some kind of business-running know-how! It's a humbling time for all of us...

Some companies are going down all the time too - check out this entertaining site: FuckedCompany .

Score points for predicting the death of dotcoms... Kinda like e-Trade with a cooler URL, eh?

;)

was bankrupt.