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Mindspring-Earthlink Seek Annulment of Marriage
Lately, I've been introduced to FNWire which has some pretty funny pieces on it. This week they are covering the annulment of Mindspring-Earthlink. One of my favorite lines is: "...saying
its hasty union was a "stupid mistake" done only to 'gain some national attention.'"
-AC and former Netcom user (1990-1999).
The story here on Slashdot is posted in the "It's funny, Laugh." section and he even states "which has some pretty funny pieces on it".
Sorry, you're absolutely right.. it was Prodigy 1991, Mindspring around 95...
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
I agree. I first subscribed to Mindspring when I lived in Atlanta ca. 1991. This was back in the static IP days, when signup took about 3 days. You guys were great! I remember reading a ton of rave reviews from the Atlanta Journal-Constituition about the cool corporate culture that MSpring fostered and I remember thinking "Wow.. when I grow up I want to work at a place like that." The art designer's official title, as in on her placard and on the payroll, was "Creative Goddess." Those things were cool. I hear horror stories about them - not their service, which is still great (99.9999% uptime for web servers in the last two years, that translates to something like 45 minutes of downtime a year), but about a cool corporation gone sour. `Tis a shame. I don't think I want to work there anymore.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
1. I'm not saying dial-up is dead at all... sooner or later, it will be, but not yet, for sure...
2. yes, they hang things on light and utility poles... you are limited, but it's getting better all the time, apparently
3. thy're coming out with 128k service "sometime this summer." I'm waiting for that before getting anything... otherwise it'll be DSL into a gateway machine and a wireless network in the apartment... assuming, however, that I get a nice girl geek as a roomate...
4. it's not really a bulky transmitter... it's a smallish box, and you don't attach it to your car. there seem to be some companies going for PCMCIA sized ones, which would be absolutely ideal.
disclaimer: I don't work for this company, never met anyone who does, etc. I do, however have a laptop that I would really, REALLY like to have mobile access on, at least in the Bay Area. I know one guy with this service, and the modem isn't all that large (think portable floppy drive for a thinkpad), and he seems satisfied with the service and convenience, if not the speed.
Lea
I was sorta under the impression that packet radio didn't involve dialing. I think we have a good chance of ending up on that instead, at least in the short term. Ricochet is coming out with 128k service this summer -- they won't tell me exactly when, or what it will cost, but they seem to be very devoted to having a flat-rate plan... (hopefully it won't be too expensive for this poor student!)
Lea
I really hoped that this was "news". Then I saw the foot. Humor I thought. My hopes were dashed again. I have really been hoping that Mindspring and Earthlink would seperate. I have been a Mindspring customer for three years, and since the merger (especially in the last two weeks), service has gone down the crapper. I miss the old Mindspring.
"God is Dead"
--Nietzsche
Nietzsche is Dead"
"God is Dead"
--Nietzsche
"Nietzsche is Dead"
--God
I agree - they should have mentioned in the /. article that it was fake, but I figured it was even before I clicked over to it, since it was in the humor category, and 'annulment' kinda tips you off, I'd think...
I didn't mean to imply that you don't have a sense of humor, just take into account the context of the story... if it has a big smelly foot, then I wouldn't get too hot and bothered by it 8^)
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
That's why there's a big ol' Monty Python foot as the icon for the story... humor... This was the first time I'd heard of FNwire, so it was certainly worth *my* time. I now have another source of enjoyment. The point of /. is (IMHO) to show relevant (and semi-relevant) news items to the 'geek community' and to provide humor and a discussion forum. You could always filter out humor stories if you really want to...
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
How about some funny REAL news?
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Microsoft spel chekar vor sail, worgs grate !!
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
Well, how many mobile/roaming broadband services do you know of? The day that I can access a 1.5mbps connection from my laptop driving down a deserted mountain road, or maybe just from my hotel room, then I'll say that dial-up is dead. Even still, accessing that connection will be over some method of dialing. Maybe cellular, but dialing nonetheless. Unless you're talking about satellites, or hotels prewired for ethernet. It may have been more correct to say analog is dead, or 56k is dead (which won't really be true for about 2 years).
Long signatures suck.
dialup may be dead to nerds, but i've worked with a lot of people who can't understand why you should pay anything more than ~$20 a month for internet, besides that until there is only 1 standard for DSL/Cable people will still go for the simplicity of dialup.
I work for a company, Knology, who is sister companies with Mindspring (I believe our parent holdings company owns 17% or so of Mindspring). We do, and were the first to do so, Mindspring's Cable Broadband access in two cities that we operate in...meaning we share our network resources, actually providing them with access. I believe this is more widely known as Open Access for you all who keep up with the news. The marriage of the Mindspring/Earthlink for this service has been no trouble at all. The only difference I much noticed in operations was new greetings when on the NOC techs called us or a few new names....but nothing drastic. Our company relationship with them is doing just fine by what I can tell...only few problems ever occur. On a personal note, I only ever had problems with Mindspring when I bought a new Rockwell K56Flex v90 modem and it was not compatible with the x2 v90 technology at the time. I experienced many disconnects an hour (one of the symptoms). They supposedly fixed a bug right at the time my area became serviceable for our cable service, so I never quite saw whether or not the problem was fixed. I have nothing but high notes for Mindspring. Earthlink and Mindspring have not consistently won Best ISP and Best Customer Service/Tech Support for ISPs consistently for the last 5 years for nothing. acid
It isn't just a name change. This is coming from a prior employee that worked in development. It used to be an awesome culture to work in. All kinds of freedom. Slowly the freedoms went away. Things got more corporate. This was the death of the unique culture that was keeping most of us oldtimers there. No one worked at MindSpring for the pay. Most of us were embarrassed to tell friends of ours working for other companies what MindSpring paid us. It was all about being part of this great unstoppable team. Then with the massive increase in size, mid-level managers were put under incredible pressure. Understand that most of these managers had NO prior management experience. These people were support technicians that got rapidly promoted through the ranks. The Earthlink Merger was the nail in the coffin. MindSpring was a wonderful thing. It's something that I will always be proud I was a part of. But it's gone. Earthlink did not carry the same principles through that made MindSpring a success. Now those core values and beliefs function more like a convenient brainwashing tool. And people like myself are so disgusted we are leaving in droves. I know of at least 6 close friends that have left from key developement and engineering positions in the last 3 weeks. The talent is leaving, and the company left in the aftermath of this fiasco is falling apart. Cancer is eating it up from the inside out as it bleeds talent. At first I was very angry that they decided to drop the MindSpring name in favor of the Earthlink moniker. A lot of us were. We felt betrayed. Most of us were used to putting in 12 hours days with no overtime. But in retrospect, I'm glad they went with the name Earthlink because todays Earthlink 2.0 is not a very MindSpringy place. Calling it MindSpring would be sacriledge.
After careful consideration, the Church has decided NOT to grant the annulment. As far as God is considered, this marriage is still valid. We consider that the marriage was hasty and impetuous, and we think that it would be in everyone's best interest if the marriage was worked out, so that both parties can learn a little responsibility. In three years, if both parties still wish to annul, they can approach the vatican again.
thank you,
the Pope
ps, tithes will be considered duely
... and the splash line across the top of the referenced article says (approximately)
...
fast free fast free false
Nevertheless, not explicitly mentioning it in the front-page article is a poor move. The readership is a very diverse group, with non-native speakers of English and people from a wide variety of subcultures even among the native speakers.
Like sarcasm, subtle hints that something is a hoax or a joke (rather than, say, being true but very funny) will not get across to a significant fraction of them. They may believe the posting, be burned by it, and end up distrusting or with enmity toward the poster and the site.
Even those who get that it might be a hoax right away will likely waste time checking - time that might have been spent on subjects they were MUCH more interested in.
I've seen this sort of posting several times on Slashdot, and they have annoyed me every time. But this is the most egregious. I'm a long-time Netcom subscriber, so it affects me enough that when an ambiguous posting about it comes up, no matter how ridiculous it seems, I need to check it out.
Today, between checking this and commenting about it I wasted the rest of the time I could have spent doing what I wanted to to - check the IMPORTANT news. So to me, it's NOT funny.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I don't know, though. This anullment might have to go all the way to the Pope! Somebody get Kurt on the phone!
Brad Johnson
--We are the Music Makers, and we
are the Dreamers of Dreams
Brad Johnson