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  1. Re:Monopoly on Doctorow: Rivalry Keeps Google From Doing Evil · · Score: 1

    Now, maybe in parts of the country where there's FiOS service or uncapped connections capable of more than 5mbps that's not the case.

    5mbps is qite enough to run many small servers. In our datacenter, for example, we average approximately 1.2 mbps per server, when we measure across all systems in a given cabinet. 95th percentile billing (look it up).

  2. It's not a problem... it's an opportunity on 45% of U.S. Jobs Vulnerable To Automation · · Score: 1

    I've been hearing about this since the 50s (yes I'm old). It used to be considered a good thing, because we'd have more leisure time. The problem isn't the lack of available work; it's the distribution of wealth.

    What we need to do is accept the inevitability of automation, and figure out how to either redistribute wealth or make it irrelevant. This isn't a trivial task, but either we're going to do it, or we're going to fail as a society (or worse yet, become entirely irrelevant).

  3. Re:Good on Michael Dell To Buy Dell Inc. · · Score: 1

    Obligatory disclaimer: I used to work for the company, and while I wouldn't say he's a friend, I've met him several times.

    Then you know he's a driven man. Better for the stockholders that he attempt a buyout at any price than that he sell all his shares cheap, thus lowering the company's street value, and then use his money (he must have a lot of it, to be able to make the offer) to build a new tech startup using his name (there are at least some states and countries where he could do that with at least one non-confusing descriptive word added; Belize, nemesis of John McAfee, comes to mind as a possible location). What he's doing is good for him (or he wouldn't be doing it), probably at least partially driven by ego, and as good for the stockholders as they're going to get.

  4. Don't sign a petition you don't understand on Linus Responds To RdRand Petition With Scorn · · Score: 1

    California (and probably many other states as well) allow the [i]public[/i] to create and present to the voters, laws which the legislature never considers. Many such laws have been passed. The end result is a few good laws get passed, tens of millions of dollars get spent on elections, and many laws get passed, overturned by courts, and otherwise just don't work.

    While Linus may or may not be arbitrary, may or may not be obnoxious, may or may not be overbearing, he almost certainly knows more about the subject and it's viability than people who come across and sign a petition on change.org withoout taking the time to fully understand it.

  5. Wooly Mammoths, Methane, and Global Warmig on Study Suggests Weather and Not Hunting Killed Off Wooly Mammoths · · Score: 1

    If those wooly mammoths' digestive systems didn't create so much methane perhaps they wouldn't have caused so much global warming.

  6. Re:Do you think this will stop NSAGul Black Riders on Time For X-No-Wiretap HTTP Header? · · Score: 1

    How do we know they're violating the law? We have no dea what the secret security courts may have given them permission to do.

    If I were running NSA the first people I'd look at would be the ones including the header.

  7. by hand... on Ask Slashdot: Linux Security, In Light of NSA Crypto-Subverting Attacks? · · Score: 1

    The good old days, when we hand-compiled our own cmpilers.

  8. Re:Sigh on California Legislature Approves Trial Program For Electronic Plates · · Score: 1

    In order to communicate with these plates, you need to know where the plate is, so your car is tracked in near-realtime.

    Not really. Though they'll probably implement it to track location, it doesn't need to be done that way. For example, Sirius-XM can one-way communicate to individual radios via satellite-broadcast. Just sayin'.

  9. Re:10 GB/mo ro less on Ask Slashdot: How Do You Fight Usage Caps? · · Score: 1

    As mentioned, the ISDN is/was a guaranteed bandwidth service (really a partial T1 line)

    No, ISDN is actually a dialup service, though digital from end to end and not analog. 64 kbps per channel, two channels available per twisted pair. I used dual-channel ISDN to provision my first hosting company. From a single twisted-pair connection. I ran it from an apartment with two twisted pairs available, and used one for a fax line (and occasionally a modem for testing). The other twisted pair was for a dual-channel ISDN line, which switched automatically from 128 kbps down to 64 kbps whenever a phone call came in.

    My upstream provider also worked from home; he had a partial T-1 (he never told me how big a part) and I paid for the ISDN at my apartment and at his home.

    This worked because in Florida (where I lived at the time) the local tariffs were for flat rate for residential ISDN. If we worked from offices we couldn't have afforded the per-minute rate. The relatively slow speed and capacity worked in those days (circa 1995-1996 iirc) because the local university only had 56kbps for the entire campus.

    Years later running an ISP I had a 25-pair cable, which we used for twenty five incoming phone lines to 25 separate 48-baud modems, and offered dialup service. We didn't pay incoming at all, so the charge was under $500/month for incoming data. Outgoing to the 'net was 384kbps sDSL at a few hundred dollars per month (one twisted pair).

    That model stopped working when 56K modems came out; they would only work at 56K downstream, not upstream, so they wouldn't help us provide 56K service. So we dropped our physical plant and began reselling a wholesale ISP who'd invested in the newer equipment.

    That turned out to be a good plan; a few years later when everyone was switching to DSL (before the days when you could get Internet from your cable provider) we sold off our clients at a profit, didn't have a great loss from equipment fast becoming obsolete, and moved on to a hosting-only model. Our one competition in town, the local daily newspaper, lost a fortune; they had to write off a much larger infrastructure.

    Those were the days.

  10. Re:Start your own provider? on Ask Slashdot: How Do You Fight Usage Caps? · · Score: 1

    What would you do if all of the ISPs had 14.4k lines and you just bought that awesome 28.8k modem? They are running a business and have decided to put a cap on your rate. If other providers around you are doing the same thing, suck it up, lobby for a new uncapped plan (good luck), or start your own provider without a cap.

    suck it up, lobby for a new uncapped plan (good luck)

    I found an uncapped plan easily, switching from a capped 30mbps home plan (which averages just under 20mbps) at us$50/month, to an uncapped businessplan (same speed) at us$75/month. Well worth it in my opinion (and it comes with static IP, which may be a plus or a minus in your circumstances).

    Personally I consider it a good deal; in my datacenter we buy unlimited data at up to 1 gbps (all of it available), usage measured at 95 percentile billing (look it up if you need an explanation) at us$60 per mbps per month.

    Which means if I fill the (average) 20mbps pipe (which I don't, and frankly really can't unless I throw away all the stuff I download in realtime) I pay us$75/month, and if I move data at the same 20mbps rate at the datacenter for a month I pay us$1200. So I consider my local home provider a bargain.

    I didn't switch to business service to get the cap lifted; watching movies and downloading software ISOs I've never approached it. I witched to get static-IP (it improves security as I can allow certain logins to my datacenter only from my static IP), and to get port 25 opened so I can run my own mailserver at home.

    If you need your cap lifted you should enquire with your provider about business service.

  11. Like Nokia, Like Apple on Nokia Insider On Why It Failed and Why Apple Could Be Next · · Score: 1

    He now sees the same warning signs emerging at Apple.

    Does that mean a Microsoft buyout in Apple's future as well? Do. tell.

  12. Re:Good to know on Parallels Update Installs Unrelated Daemon Without Permission · · Score: 1

    without your Mac's ability to run Windows applications seamlessly with Parallels, it's nothing more than an overpriced toy.

    You mean like Windows 8?

  13. Re:Who leaves money in a paypal account. on PayPal Freezes MailPile's Account · · Score: 1

    The poster didn't just post a link to Dwolla; he posted a referral link, which likely placed a cookie on your computer so he'll make money if you sign up.

  14. Re:Hmmm ... on Prankster Calls NSA To Restore Deleted E-mail · · Score: 1

    It depends on the jurisdiction of the guy doing the recording. In the US it's on a state-by-state level and some states allow recording phone conversations if only one of the callers knows about it. If you had listened to the recording you'd know the gent was calling from Amsterdam, so in this case it depends on Dutch law.

    That said, yanking the NSA's chains may not be a good idea, especially if he ever wants to fly to, in or over the United States.

    And I've probably been put on the no-fly list just for pointing this out.

    (Not posting anonymously because they're the NSA; they can figure out who I am anyway.)

  15. Re:Sand Carriers on Google Play Services Supplants Android As Google's "Platform" · · Score: 1

    OEM sand carriers

    And thus /. hath bestowed upon us a new name for companies peddling crappy hardware.

    Did you not see the movie Dune?

  16. Re: Doesn't make sense on Red Hat CEO: Bring On the Clones · · Score: 1

    Redhat Support buys you direct access to not only kernel programmers but the distribution people

    We happily use CentOS and do our own support. Several years ago we looked into buying RedHat Enterprise Linux and their included support. I nexed the idea when I was told that Red Hat supported only the software installed from RPMs from their own repositories. In otherwords, a stock Red Hat environment.

    Since we needed customization of our hosting stack, that wouldn't work for us. So we continue using CentOS.

    I suppose there are a lot of stock Red Hat installations out there.

  17. Re: They didn't know he also... on Yahoo Deletes Journalist's Pre-Paid Legacy Site After Suicide · · Score: 1

    The content does, but the publishing contract ends.

    It likely doesn't end. If it did, then other contracts would end too, such as the one that gives Michael Jackson's estate the right to the music he's bought over the years.

    I'm not an attorney, but I recently did some future-proofing for my business, and I discovered that (at least in the US) while a proprietorship effectively ceases to exist upon a proprietor's death, his estate continues to be responsible for his contracts.

    But really, the important issue to his legacy and his thoughts and beliefs isn't whether or not Yahoo did right or wrong, but rather whether or not there are copies. If there are, I'm sure someone could be found to to publish the information.

  18. Re:Surprise surprise.. on Texas School District Drops Embattled RFID Student IDs; Opts For Cameras · · Score: 1

    Years ago, in Garland Texas, my then fourteen-year-old, came back from school with a note asking me to choose between paddling and detention (he had been caught smokijng). I figured that paddling might make him think twice more than would detention, so I gave permission for the corporal punishment.

    He came back bruised enough (with broken skin) to warrant a visit to our MD, who educated me as to why corporal punishment might not be as good a punishment choice as I had thought.

    My boy and I both survived.

  19. Re:Better plots? on Hollywood's Love of Analytics Couldn't Prevent Six Massive Blockbuster Flops · · Score: 1

    My opinion is that it's the quantity of such expensive movies causing the problem. How many movies, at $12 to $15 per ticket each, do you really expect my family to be able to afford in one month?

    It seems there's no shortage of money to make them, and we all love good escape movies (big explosions and the quality of acting you get from big-buck stars), but therek's a limit to how many movies we can afford to see before they inevitably come out on PPV, NetFlix, Amazon, etc.

    In my case, as a child of the fifities, I decided my best option for last weekend's unusual summer rain (here in So. Calif.) was Man of Steel (a sort of prequel, if you will, to the 50s television series which introduced us to the Superman genre) but by then it was totally unavailable in 3D or Imax, those venues being taken by Pacific Rim, totally not on my list.

  20. Re:Depends on the energy source duh! on Electric Vehicles Might Not Benefit the Environment After All · · Score: 1

    Purchasing offsets does not change the equation. The same amount of power is still being generated by the same sources.

  21. Illegal? on Employers Switching From Payroll Checks To Prepaid Cards With Fees · · Score: 1

    The last time i paid employees (admittedly years ago) it was illegal in California to pay by any means except cash unless you offered your employees a way to to get cash at no cost, on company time.

    We were in the garment manufacturing business (yeah, I know), and we paid a check cashing truck to come and park by our back dock area and cash checks for our employees.

  22. Re:I would use Gnome 3 instead on Android On the Desktop · · Score: 1

    To whomever moderated this as Troll:

    Whoosh.

  23. The chicken and the egg... on One Year After World IPv6 Launch — Are We There Yet? · · Score: 1

    Web hosts and websites can't switch to IPv6 until all possible site visitors are on it, because simply you can't address an IPv6 website from an IPv4 address.

    So neither hosts nor sites will switch until all the users are on IPv6.

    Which won't happen because until all the sites/hosts ae on IPv6 there's no reason to spend the money.

  24. Re:Ask any McDonald about mcdonalds.com domain on Microsoft Files Dispute Against Current Owner of XboxOne.com · · Score: 1

    Anyway, it's a proof that "XboxOne" was already used by someone else in the context of computer games related stuff even since the year 2002 and IMHO should have not been awarded as a registered trademark to MS...

    I'm not commenting on whether or not Microsoft should have any rights to the domain name, but the obvious points to consider are:

    The current owner has been sitting on it for almost a year and a half, and to a reasonable person that may look like he's squatting on it.

    If Microsoft didn't have any name registration for any form of XBox One when the current registrant registered it (and they likely didn't, becuse you can't have a trademark in the US before you're actually selling something), then they don't have a dispute based on their ownership of the trademark.

  25. Re:Sounds good. on John McCain Working On Legislation For 'a La Carte' TV Channel Packages · · Score: 1

    OK, fine. Have it your way. I am hereby Catholic!

    So can I now go take Communion in a Catholic Church? No? Why not?

    Have you tried? While I'm not a Catholic I have attended Catholic Mass. And I have seen lots of people take Communion without having to show any kind of identity card. Sure it might be hard in a small local church, but in a large church in a resort town, or even a small chapel in a town with a large transient tourist population, I don't see how you could be easily stopped.