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AOL Ends Open Access Push
Elwood Blues writes "The Washington Post is reporting here that AOL has ended its push for access to cable systems, pulling out lobbyists across the country. Kind of sad. Instead of fighting the companies, they just bought one. " Just as pundits predicted. Steve Case, Jan. 11, 2000: "AOL Time Warner will remain committed to open access." Steve Case, today: "Suckers! I can't believe they actually bought it!"
You know, the term "Open Access", in this context is such a misnomer on so many levels, it's frightening.
AOL loved to throw around this term, "Open Access", around in its quest to grab some cable bandwith to fill with its garbage content.
"Open Access".
Open. Is AOL open in ANY respect? No. Is the AOL source open? No. Is their infrastructure open? No. Hell, is their "forums" and "online communities" open? Not even close.
Access. Well, obvious jokes aside, access to AOL is pretty pitiful any way you look at it.
Yet, AOL comes up with this sick phrase and to think that ANYONE let them get away with it in the first place is what amazes me.
How about "open access" to the smaller ISP's who want to offer TCP/IP over the cable infrastructure? That's a hell of a lot closer to open access. Just my 2 cents.
Please, please visit my web site. I never get much traffic on weekends.
This isn't a problem with the merger, it makes sense. Now that AOL has what they wanted--open access to a cable company--their problems are solved.
What scares me more is that without AOL's support, the representatives don't care about the issue. Do we need someone to push a bill nowadays, or do politicians still have their own opinions?
I didn't think it had gotten this bad. Feel free to wail about how evil AOL is, but first wail about how evil lobbyists are, and wail more that politicians these days think they need them. I don't want the lobbyists telling the politicians what to think, I want the *people* telling them what to think. Are those days over?
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Since when does a company advocating openness only when they stand to gain == antitrust violations.
AOL itself said that the lack of openness was an anti-trust issue. It is ALWAYS fair to apply a person's arguments to their own behaviour. The real test is to see if Time-Warner customers can request a new ISP now or if they remain stuck with what they've got. Perhaps AOL's aquisition of TW should be made contingent on opening access.
Can someone explain to me why stuff like this shouldn't be clear evidence to the FCC or trust-busters that there's a problem with this merger? This is the kind of behavior that should trigger an immediate response.
What's the point if it doesn't?
sigs are a waste of space
Was anyone _really_ surprised by this?
Now, if the FCC wanted to give Case the royal screwover, make equal access to cable channels the law. All those billions down the drain, when all he really wanted was exclusive access to all those cable modems.
The 5.0 codebase was killed six months after its release as open source. The current Mozilla codebase is what originally was going to be Netscape 6.0. So, it isn't completely marketing to call this Netscape 6.0.
Steven E. Ehrbar
What the hell are they doing, stealing the work of open source developers?... I get angry at the thought of AOL getting a browser for free
Er, well, you see, a significant majority of the Mozilla code was written by Netscape employees as their full-time job. And Netscape is owned by AOL. So most of Mozilla was written and paid for by -- AOL.
So they didn't steal anything, and they didn't get it for free.
Steven E. Ehrbar
. If they're going to produce by spring, the "new" product will basically be Netscape 4.71 with AIM and ICQ integrated
Huh? M13, already out, is Alpha Mozilla, M14 is intended to be Beta Mozilla. Spring is a three-month season that begins on March 21 and doesn't end until June 21. Are you actually going to say that Mozilla can't move from near-beta to usable code (by Windows standards) by June 1 (i.e., in 120 days)?
Steven E. Ehrbar
> Since when does a company advocating openness only when they stand to gain == antitrust violations.
When AOL was advocating openness, they were warning that the the cable operators were going to have a monopoly. Now that they're a cable company, they've decided that maybe monopolies aren't so bad after all.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
The storm clouds had been building around our bedroom for a while now, But I hadn't attempted to scatter them in fear that they would burst into rain instead. But the situation had progressed to the point that it could not be denied any longer.
Something was seriously wrong with our sex life.
My ably shaped wife lay on the bed next to me. I had only brought her to one, halting, orgasm tonight, or this week. She used to flood me with six or seven boundful orgasms a few years ago, but something had changed in the last few months, and not for the better. I gazed in her eyes and saw the trouble in them and knew she was thinking about the same thing. It had come time to broach the subject with her.
"Katie?" I cleared my throat, "What's happened over these last few months? It used to be that I could make you cum over and over again by licking you, and I know that my technique hasn't changed. Has something...affected the way you see me?"
And at that, she burst into tears, the first drops of water dropping to the sheets where she had laid gasping just minutes ago. I drew her to me and felt her warmth against me, her heart beating fast and her arms around me.
"I'm so sorry!" She sobbed..."It's not you...I swear...well, maybe in the strict emperical sense it is..but it isn't your fault!" She buried her head into my shoulder and I felt the warmth of her tears against my skin. "What is it then?" I probed. "You don't have to be afraid to tell me.."
"It's just.." She faltered, and looked down.
"Just.." I prompted
"Just....that we've run out of nasty things for you to call me while we're having sex." She started to sob again.
I sighed. "Why didn't you tell me earlier? It's nothing that a good thesarus and dictionary wouldn't solve. I know that Bitch and Whore and Cocksucker, and Dirty little slut now seem tame and dated and used up, but how about some of the more recent names that used to turn you on?"
"They don't work either." she sobbed louder. Her tears were falling freely now, the salt making my skin tingle.
"So skanky bitch eating all her shit doesn't work anymore?"
"No." She continued to sob.
"Charles Manson urine drinking crackwhore shitting all over the salad bar at wendys while getting fucked with a 10 inch fetus doesn't do a thing for you either?"
"Not a thing now." She buried herself deeper into my shoulder, her voice muffled by my skin.
"How about Sadam Hussain Cock-sucking whore and personal assasin who spent the last week fucking the unearthed skull of Mother Teresa while.."
"No! No! No! NONE of them work anymore!!" she wailed before collapsing into deep convulsing sobs, your hot tears rolling down my back. I sighed as I held her close to me, softly caressing up and down her back, trying to comfort her. Maybe this was going to be difficult to solve after all. The Mother Teresa Skull Fucker fantasy had been one of her favorites, almost certain to soak her panties right through no matter what mood she had been in before.
She came up for air, her eyes red from the effort of expending her tears. "Remember that fantasy about me being the one who gathered up all the monks and threw them into the gas chambers while saluting Adolf Hitler while sucking him off?" I nodded, softly caressing her hair. "And then I would jump into the chambers after they were all dead and I would roll around in their shit, and then sit on one of the dead monks with his cock in me, and break off another man's cock and fuck myself up the ass with it?" I nodded again and handed her a tissue to blow her nose.
"Remember how I came 10 times the first night that we talked about it? Just a few months ago?" I softly ran my fingers down her back again and said "Yes, I remember that. That's the night that you were so exhausted after you came that you fell asleep completely wrapped in all of the bed chains and wouldn't wake up no matter what I did. Took me hours to get you out of all of those chains without you helping me. But I assumed you didn't want to wake up that way in the morning."
"And I miss those nights so much!" She cried loudly. "I was having that same fantasy when you were licking me today. Searching through the fantasy to make myself even more of a dirty rotten evil little slut! And I could only come once! I'm doomed! I'm going to become a frigid little asexual bitch and it's all my fault!"
"And even that thought doesn't turn you on?" I asked. She thought for a moment and then cried "No! Not even THAT!!" and burst into tears again.
I shivered as I held her close. We were definately in big trouble. I looked around the room as I held her close to me, my gaze sweeping over her clothes thrown across the floor, the assortment of whips and chains and leather that she had special ordered which used to work magic on her, and her backpack which she took to her sysadmin job every day, full of source code and Dr Dobbs. Looking at the last item, an idea suddenly hit me.
"Katie, you know those big Linux and BSD servers at work?" I whispered. "Yes?" She murmered back, still softly sobbing. "Well, I know what an idiotic and evil slut like you is going to do tomorrow when you get to work." I said, adapting the tone of voice she liked me to have in these situations. I felt her body flush slightly with heat. "Hmmm...what?" You said with your own tone, looking up in my eyes. I continued, speaking very deliberately now, "You're going to go to every one of those perfectly optimized servers, and you're going to install WINDOWS on every one of them!"
Her entire body shivered deliciously as her eyes hazed over. "Hmmmmm" she purred, her hardening nipples starting to press against me, inviting my fingers to reach down and pinch them sharply. She drew in her breath swiftly as I continued. "And you're not going to give anyone any advanced warning. You're going to flip the power on each server without any advanced warning! You're not going to init 0! You're not even going to unmount the file systems! You're going to corrupt everyone's work, and you're going to LOVE doing it, because you're a completely idiotic evil slut! Isn't that right?"
"Oooohh...yess!" she moaned, her breathing growing fast now. She leaned back on the bed, her legs starting to shift uncomfortably as her wetness grew inside her. I felt my own hardness growing again as I kept talking to her, building the fantasy. "Think about the hundreds of thousands of dollars you're going to cost your company for a new architectural setup that's not even going to work! Think about all the engineers sitting in the office for hours, not getting any work done, all because of you! And you're going to love it because it's so deliciously evil!"
"Aaahhhhh...yyyeess..I'll fuck up everything for them! OOohh" you moaned as your fingers reached down to touch the wetness that was just beginning to appear between your lips. "Oohhh...I can see that large blue setup screen now..on that huge monitor on my desk! Ohhh!" Your fingers dipped deep into the wetness and your body arched off the bed as your fingers found your clit.
"Yes...that setup screen will be nice and blue, and the setup process will screw up your entire computer and you'll have to reinstall two more times to even get it to boot up! And then do you know what you'll be, you fucking cocksucking slut? You know what you'll be?" "Tell me...Ooohh..Tell me." She whispered, biting her beautiful lipstick red lips while her clit and fingers glistened with wetness and she parted her labia further. "You'll be a WINDOWS USER!" I yelled "Just another fucking idiotic WINDOWS USER!"
Her eyes dripped with arousal as she moaned "MMMmmmmAhhhhhh....Ooohh..yess...I'll be just anoother fucking idiot". Her fingers started rapidly rubbing her clit, the wetness making a lovely sound as it covered her clit. My penis was now rock hard from the smell of her arousal filling the room, and she licked her lips at the sight of it.
"On your front, you fucking WINDOWS USER slut!" I commanded as she rolled over and lifted up enough for her hands to reach under her body and continue rubbing her clit, while her buttocks wiggled high in the air. "You know you're a naughty Windows user, you slut! You know what happens to naughty people who decide to use windows?" I growled playfully. "Oooohh..tell..me" she moaned loudly, her fingers finding that rhythm on her clit again.
My hand hit her buttocks hard in response. She moaned loudly in pleasure and rubbed even faster. "THIS is what happens to naughty idiots who become WINDOWS USERS! They must be PUNISHED! They must be reformed so they don't keep their users in complete misery!" I spanked her again and again, her breathing becoming faster as she thrusted against her fingers. I could sense that her orgasm was already starting to rise inside her. "Oooohhh...I'll have to be reformed...I'll have to discover the power of debian once again!"
I sighed as I stopped spanking her briefly. I knew I was going to sound like an idiot for this, but I had to make sure. "Are you sure that you wanted to use the word debian?" I asked in my regular tone. "Huh?" She looked back at me, rather confused. "Debian is our safe-word, remember?" I reminded her. "D'OH! I had forgotten that..well, I just won't use it in this fantasy then." she sheepishly replied.
"Good!" I growled, back in my demeaning tone, "Cause idiots like you don't DESERVE to use good distros." and I started spanking again. She moaned and resumed her rubbing. After a few more contacts with my hands, her buttocks were bright red and her lips were becoming that way as well. "And windows is all closed source, you slut! You know what happens when you use closed source?"
"OooohhAhhh..The same evil bugs stay in it?" she gasped back, her orgasm quickly approaching. "More then that, there are huge security holes that stay in there for YEARS..and then somebody finds one of those holes, and they fuck you! Just like this!" I plunged two fingers deep inside her soaking hole and felt her moan and grip me tightly. "But you know that you raped this way, and you LIKE it. Because you know that you DESERVE IT! Because you're a FUCKING IDIOTIC SLUT!"
"YES!!! Ooohhh Yesss Ahhhhh I DO!" she almost screamed as she thrust back hard against my fingers deep inside her and began to pulse. Her orgasm was only seconds away as her wetness flooded around me and her fingers became a blur on her clit. Her breathing becamer uncontrolled as her body flushed and she spasmed hard against my thrusting fingers. Then she clenched down on my fingers even harder as she gave the moans announcing her orgasm, and then her body contracted hard around my fingers again and again before finally returning to pulsing.
Her head turned as she came down from her orgasm and she saw my hard coch, ready to burst from the sight of her orgasm. She moaned loudly "I must be cured of my ignorance and stupidity. I must be filled with the power of open source! I must be filled with it fast and hard! Fill me!" I didn't need any more encouragement. "Yes, I'll fill you with open source, you dirty little slut!" I yelled and smacked her buttocks one more time before entering her from behind.
I could already feel her body building up to another orgasm as I entered her doggie style and started thrusting fast and hard into her, and that was good for me because I knew I couldn't last much longer myself. My fingers reached down to thake the place of hers on her clit as she reached up and tweaked and pulled on her nipples as each thrust into her caused her breasts to jiggle and shake. The air filled with our moans and groans and her moaning "MMmmmmm..that feels so Fucking GOOD! AHhhhh!" and I knew that I didn't have to say anything more until I came..that she had a good picture of the fantasy in her own mind.
I felt her expert muscles caressing and milking me with every thrust, and I just couldn't hold back any longer, and neither could she. I felt my muscles tighten and my penis throbbing. "I'm going to fill you with the source now! You ready now, slut?" I whispered into her ears. "Oooohhh...godddd..yeesss....fill me!" she moaned loudly as I felt the first explosions hit me. "MMmmmMmmmmmmMMMAAAHHHH!" She moaned as she felt my penis pulse inside her with every explosion and she felt her own orgasm hit, even harder then the first orgasm..leaving her shivering in rapture even when she returned to pulsing. Then we both collapsed to the sheets once again.
She turned over to face me and whispered "Debian". I took her back into my arms to cuddle her tenderly, and this time happily. She looked up into my eyes, her face filling my entire view at such short distance, her mouth so close that I could feel her breath on me. "I love you." It whispered softly. "I love you too" I whispered back before leaning down and softly kissing her lips. She sighed in contentment as I cradled her in my arms and she drifted off to sleep. I lay there feeling content and greatly relieved. After all, there were almost infinate ways to alter this fantasy, so it should work for her for years to come. I smiled as I drifted off to sleep as well.
(end)
RMS: Source code should be available to everyone.
:-)
Translation: Source code should be available to everyone.
RMS himself would tell you that the source code is not enough. He would say "freedom" implying an absence of restrictions on people's freedom to modify the source as they see fit.
Of course, that doesn't change the point you were making - RMS has stuck to that point longer than I have been alive
--
grappler
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Bill Gates: Microsoft should be allowed to innovate
Translation: Microsoft should be allowed to take over the world.
Microsoft: Where do you want to go today?
Translation: How would you like us to fsck you up the ass today?
Linus Torvalds: I was bit by a penguin.
Translation: I was tripping on LSD at the time.
:)
My journal has hot
"Big corporations also mean less and less innovation, less creativity. Bad. Very, very bad."
:-)
Then that leaves more room for everyone else to be innovative and creative
Where do you think Linux came from? At a time when the 386 was utterly dominated by Microsoft along came Linus Torvalds and thousands of other little guys all across the internet doing creative and innovative work. Ditto for BSD and GNU who made quality software a standard. Ditto for the KDE and Gnome teams making usable desktops and office suites. Ditto for the guys merely using Linux who are making hardware manufacturers open up their specs. Thanks to them, Microsoft once more has to compete on the basis of its products and not on its size.
If you stop reading the economic textbooks where it talks about monopolies taking over a market, and think that's all there is, you fail to learn that they inevitably implode through their sheer size. No monopoly can ever make the bold and and sometimes rash decisions that startups make every day. When you're a megamultinational corporation, there's no way you're going to risk the wrath of 500 billion dollars worth of shareholders cashing out because you took a market gamble.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
The day Netscape opensourced the Mozilla code, They annouced that the next Netscape browser would be based on Mozilla. Netscape 6.0 will be a branded version of Mozilla, Not a replacement for the Mozilla browser. There will other branded versions, even MrEd 1.0 if you feel like downloading the code, and creating your own branded verision.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
I put a copy of atlas shrugged by the toilet.
I read it on the toilet every day.
I tore off each page as I read it.
I wiped my butt with the torn pages.
Here is my review of the book for you all.
It was rough and scratchy.
War is necrophilia.
Anyone else notice that AOL is buying Time Warner who are one of the people pushing the MPAA down our throats .....
This whole push for open access seems like a waste of time. The bottom line is that 90% of one's cable bill pays for the physical lines, the backend hardware, and the bandwidth to the rest of the Internet. If my cable company was forced to participate in open access and my bill suddenly said that I owed my monthly cable modem fee to AOL, AOL would in return have to pay the cable company, whomever controls the hardware at the backend, and then pay the company that supplies the bandwidth to the cable system.
Roadrunner and @Home basically rents the physical lines from the cable company and provides billing and the backend hardware. If AOL wanted to be involved with this aspect of the service, it would require a significant investment that wouldn't seem practical. The service AOL could directly provide is the small portion of your bill that pays for mail and news service.
Sig goes here
Since when does a company advocating openness only when they stand to gain == antitrust violations. Everyone has been hypocritical on the open standards issue for years now and nobody can seriously claim that Sun or HP has a monopoly of anything. Name me one major player in the computer industry (other than the FSF) that hasn't constantly shifted its position on open standards and free competition. Let me provide a translator for you:
Scott McNeally: We need an open and competitive marketplace.
Translation: I want to be Bill Gates.
Larry Ellison: It's wrong for a company to monopolze standards and leverage its marketshare.
Translation: It's wrong for Microsoft to leverage its market share, but when we do it, it's OK.
Steve Case: What we need is an environment where no company has an unfair advantage.
Translation: What we need is an environment where only AOL has an unfair advantage.
RMS: Source code should be available to everyone.
Translation: Source code should be available to everyone.
I hope that clears things up for you.
--Shoeboy