I suppose it depends entirely on what the individual considers to be important functionality. If you're talking of items normally found on the browser window which have been removed, well how many times did you click on that Shopping button?
Here's a screenshot(bitmap) of Netscape 6 for windows. You will notice that besides being jam packed with options everywhere for every bit of frivolousness AOL can throw at you several key browser features are gone or in hiding. E.g. the home button is reduced to a line of text in the midst of other lines of text, there's no print button, it jars with the rest of the OS by looking like a glorified Java app, and no visual indicator to show if a site is secure or not. These are things I spotted after using the browser for an hour or so. After a while it got so irritating I switched back to Netscape 4.72 & IE 5.5.
My point is and has been that the user interface is badly designed and instead of focusing on skins and themes and whatnot, the Netscape team is should be redesigning the user interface to make it as usable as possible. Change is good but if it comes at the price of sacrificing a usable piece of software then one must wonder if it is worth it.
The Netscape UI is a step backwards. It is a poor user interface with important and commonly used functionality hidden away or difficult to access as well as a lot of clunk tagged onto the browser. My post was not criticizing the change but the poor User Interface design and the fact that more emphasis is being placed on skins and themes (eye candy) instead of on creating a usable piece of software.
Netscape 6 doesn't need skins, it needs to totally redesign the default interface. The UI has so many problems it is unbelievable. The most irritating of which are Home button reduced to 1 line of text and overabundance of links, sponsors, etc. that make it seem like on is browsing and carrying all of AOL with it from site to site.
What bothers me is that I have heard so much talk about how Netscape/Mozilla is working on this skin engine but almost nothing on UI design. The sad thing is that UI design is a whole lot more important than eye candy. Unfortunately, most hackers seem to be really comfortable with skins & themes while lacking in the fundamentals of how to design good user interfaces. Mark my words, Netscape 6's most difficult battle will not be with the entrenched IE market but with users who cannot aclimatize(sp?) to the different (from previous browsers) and unintuitive user interface.
It's not even the amount of power it has. Whether a company is good or bad depends on what it DOES with that size and power.
Agreed. All does who doubt this need not look further than Cisco. It is the most valuable company in the US and it's equipment runs most of the Internet and yet everyone has nothing but good things to say about the company. That said I doubt that AOL/Time Warner will be as ethical as Cisco but condemning them out of hand simply for being a large company is illogical.
*sigh* They already do that with the.com domain names that they have now. Why should the movie/television/music industry suddenly decide that even though.com names are now ubiqitous (remember the superbowl?) and they already have.com websites that perform these services, that they should suddenly give up on years and million$ of dollars on marketing just to support one companies lame brained scheme.
That's like thinking that because people can now browse the net on their phones then domain names hosted at.pho.ne will overtake.com's, yeah right.
He is right about the employers being more of aproblem than big brother governments (at least in the U.S. and Europe). As at now even though stupid laws are either being passed or considered by government, the amount of cases of digital invasion of privacy pale in comparison to the routine rape of employee rights that the average employee now accepts as fact.
Monitoring of voice mail, email, and websites browsed is commonplace in many corporations today. DNA results are used in making hiring/promotion decisions. Non compete, non disclosure and Ip clauses abound in contracts everywhere.
It is rather interesting that we can get so riled up on the one hand by what we perceive as invasion of privacy by the government on one hand then close our eyes to the same actions by corporations.
For the past couple of weeks I have considered contributing to an open source project and have hesitated due to the fact that even though I am competent in C and C++ my area of core competence is Java. Imagine my surprise when today while hunting around I found NOT one but TWO sizeable open source projects that primarily use Java; Apache's Tomcat server and now FreeNet. Now on to my questions.
a.) Besides source code is there an object model or UML diagrams available for potential contributors to Freenet to view?
b.) Do you know of any other sizeable open source projects that use java primarily?
c.) Are you worried about Freenet becoming a haven for pirates and W4R3Z d00ds and if so are any steps being taken to combat this?
Yes, this is a VERY good thing.
on
Microsoft Loses
·
· Score: 2
Then I think the computing world would be a much better place. However this has to happen voluntarily or it won't work old loyalties will die hard and bitterness will be pervasive. No this is a change MS has to go through on it's own, before they fall down too far. Just remember folks once upon a time IBM was the Big Evil Corporation (tm) that was choking the life out of the computer industry, today we sing their praises as cool and hip for understanding and embracing our beloved Linux better and faster than any other established company. Remember things change, and usually for the better if those involved are left to sort them out on their own.
Didn't this occur because of the extreme degree of regulation that IBM faced from the government in the 80's which included such tactics as having IBM tell competitors what they were working on at any given time? One could say that the reason IBM is so well behaved now is because they do not want the level of involvement by the government ever again.
PS: Moderators R U on crack? Someone suggests that maybe we should let MSFT go on its merry way and maybe it'll split on its own instead of maintaining a stranglehold on the software industry that has created the world's richest individual and ruined/defeated countless competing companies (Netscape, Caldera, Corel, Borland,etc.) using mafiaesque tactics. I suggest rereading the Halloween Documents to clear up your misconceptions of the worlds second most valuable company.
So I'd like to lead the charge for sane investment here - IF THE COMPANY DOESN'T HAVE PROFITS, IT'S NOT WORTH MONEY.
And to prove this point one of the top 10 ecommerce websites that received over 5 million visits in the month of February is not worth the the money in my savings account. Don't take my word for it look at their share price (CDNW) and listen to what financial auditors have said here and here. A choice quote from an analyst from one of the articles is "I could buy CDNow with what I've got in my wallet right now,'' Sinnreich said. ``The question right now is -- is it worth the expense? Not just the dollar value, but the expense of integrating CDNow into an existing property." Other dot comms that are now officially on their last legs despite well received IPOs are Dr. Koop(KOOP), the online grocer Peabod(PPOD) as well as Value America (VSUA). Considering that 3 of the above companies had business plans that involved being loss leaders ("Sell lots of stuff at a loss until no more competition then jack up prices") while the fourth (Dr. Koop) never had a business model, it makes one wonder about the sanity of investors and CEOs alike. It looks like the bottom has begun to drop out of the dot comm industry. Hopefully in a few years this embarrassing era will be viewed for what it truly is...a time of insanity. I wonder if Netpliance as well as other Loss Leaders are paying attention to this fundamental rule of business in effect.
PS:Guess the only thing of value CDNow has left? That's right, their vast database of user information, addresses and buying habits. It's going to be like the collapse of the USSR and all those missing nukes all over again. PPS: Even with all this news some cretin still plans to buy the domain name cool.com for $38 million.
They had better one's last year...
on
Hoax-a-go-go!
·
· Score: 1
The current list isn't as good as C|net's top 10 list from 1999 which contains a 1993 USENET hoax by Joe Skaggs (sp? Is it a word?). Joe Skaggs has been hoaxing the mainstream media for years and is one of NYCs most loved and hated citizens. Here's a retrospective of some of his hoaxes going as far back as the sixties. My favorites are dog meat soup, the geraldo hoax and coma cocoon
The article is not about professional engineers using Lego to construct prototypes but instead about Silicon Valley software engineers playing with Lego Mindstorms to relieve stress. There's also some MIT professor who uses it in his media lab but it sounds like he's more a software engineer than real engineer from the article.
PS: I'll soon be a software engineer so no offense intended to all those who think I'm belittling software engineering.
>Hello, Lego is a kids toy, not some kind of magic prototyping tool for professional engineers.
From the article:"As a grown man, this is good stress relief and it keeps my imagination going," said Stangl, a 34-year-old technical support engineer for Sun-Netscape Alliance and one of thousands of techies taken with this children's toy.
This goes out to you and all the other's posting without reading the article. It says NOTHING about Legos being used as some sort of prototyping tool by engineers. It is an article about how Silicon Valley geeks enjoy playing with Lego. That's it, no more, no less.
In today's market Microsoft stock is severely undervalued. In a situation where other companies like Yahoo(194) and eBay(243) that have a higher debt load, substantially less income and yet have higher share prices is unfathomable. Fortune had a cover issue where they examined the rivalry between AOL and MSFT they broke but companies down this way. MSFT: Revenues $ 21 billion, net income $8.7 billion, cash & cash equivalents $13.3 billion and no long term debts. AOL: Revenues $32.8 billion, net income $2.4 billion, $3.7 billion and a long term debt load of $19.8 billion.
The point of the above comparisons is to show that, with regards to most other tech companies Microsoft is extremely undervalued and brings immense return to investors. There is a dark cloud of uncertainty over the company especially with the DOJ verdict expected sometime this week but once this is over, expect Microsoft's market value to reflect it's worth as a company. Either way after the company is split up into mini-Bills or they are forced to release source code or divest IE from Windows the company the company's market value will rise. For those who think this news spells the end of MSFT need to look at the big picture and remember that few tech companies, if any are making as much profit or have as much cash as MSFT.
PS: I am surprised by the amount of ignorance about the Tech Industry (CSCO's IOS is a Linux competitor?!? that most slashdotters are showing from their posts. It seems that if it isn't Linux or MSFT related some of us truly have our heads in the sand. This is a very sad and dangerous practice...
I paid $14.95 for unlimited nights and weekends and used up approximately 2000 minutes of offpeak minutes. This is way cheaper than $10.00 for a 200 minute block.
I'm afraid that this has lost me a little-- I'm failing to see how disliking how a community member chooses to spend his/her money is any different than who a comm. member chooses to associate with, or how he/she chooses to worship or whatever trite comparission you care to walk around the block.
You miss the point...it isn't about how some snot nosed programmers and geeks are lavishly spending their money . This is about people and organizations who have lived in San Francisco for years and perhaps even generations that are being forced out of their homes simply because they are not as well to do as the snot nosed geeks who showed up in the city less than five years ago. I'll give you 2 true life examples that show exactly how different the San Francisco situation is from the racist scenario you liken it to.
Recently in the city of Atlanta (which has the second largest gay population in the U.S.) members of the gay community decided to start moving into low cost inner city housing which until then had predominantly occupied by blacks. This had the effect of driving up property values since most of the homosexuals were yuppie white people with good income. Very soon some of the inhabitants of the neighborhood, some of which had lived there for decades, started a campaign against the newcomers because they were forcing them out of their homes. Of course, the media picked this up and it became a blacks vs. gays issue as opposed to an issue with economic undertones. This is similar to what's happening to native SFer's and the geek newcomers.
Atlanta is described as "The white donut". This is because the city is predominantly black but completely surrounded on all sides by predominantly white suburbs consisting primarily of gated communities. Since most of the suburbanites work in the city, there is a considerable amount of rush hour traffic on a daily basis. Yet efforts to extend subway service into the suburbs have been consistently blocked by the suburbanites because they don't want to give easy access to the city people (blacks) to their neighborhoods so they don't reduce their property values, rob & steal, bring the inner city bums with them, etc. This is an example of racial seclusionary behavior
I hope you can see how different the situation in San Francisco is from that of old white suburbanites who don't want black folk reducing property values. Personally it is my opinion that San Francisco is probably the most tolerant city in the country especially when juxtaposed with southern cities.
PS: Full disclosure. I am a black, snot nosed punk programmer who hopes to launch a startup.:-)
It's more important to find a review of cell phone services or at least get a good opinion of the service providers in your area before getting a phone. For instance, my girlfriend got one of those cool Sprint PCS phones with internet browsing capability and I was smitten and decided to go get myself one. On arriving at Best Buy the Sprint attendant informed me that they had no unlimited nights & weekends plan which my current provider Bellsouth provides. Considering that I average about 3000 minutes a month on my current Nokia 5100 phone (which was cool 1 year ago but seems so clunky and sucky now) it would have been a financial nightmare for me to switch to a cooler phone with Sprint without my unlimited nights and weekend plan as a financial cushion. Secondly I also didn't go with Sprint after fining out that complaints about it's service had a category in Yahoo!
At first I thought that these flyers may have been the result of regular people who had become tired of E-this and E-that everywhere and.com's everywhere you look especially in San Francisco. But after rereading the article I begin to suspect that this campaign may be the product of embittered tech folk who are in the land of IPO plenty and yet feel they are going hungry (by Silicon Valley standards). I also suspect they are either owners of a failed startup, wannabe CEOs who didn't obtain venture capital, and recently fired valleyites. The domain names picked although funny are also very revealing about them e.g. ShredsOfSomeonesSoulForAuction.com, FuckYouAndTheStartupYouRodeInOn.com. After all in Silicon valley everyone feels they should be a millionairre and since does not hold true it seems the losers (again by Silicon valley standards) have decided that if they can't have it no one else will. I wonder how native SFer's feel about these ads and all the wealth being thrown around by snot-nosed geeks with more money than they know what to do with.
PS: I submitted this last night and it got declined. Go figure.
what percentage do the artist actually make per cd. Not much but it'll be much less once high bandwidth is ubiqituos and everyone can download an MP3 from Napster in 3 to 5 minutes.
I think there needs to be a way to say pay 2 bucks to download the mp3's and burn them yourself on a cd and save so much money in production costs. Why would anyone want to pay 2 bucks for something they can do for free via Napster?
What is the problem with that? The customers like it, the artist like it(give them like 75% of the sales), but the the money grubber record companies hate. we are taking away what they hold dear, their power over the artist and consumer You have completely missed the point. This argument may have held water when MP3s were still new and the process of downloading one was a hit-or-miss affair via MP3 search sites but now with a free and easy way to get music the paradigm has shifted. It doesn't matter how cheap you make the music as long as people can get it for free on Napster they'll get it on Napster. The only thing stopping this is the availability of high bandwidth. Everyone I know with a high speed connection has reduced the amount of music they buy because of Napster. The way I see it in 10 or 20 years people will wonder why and how artistes got to be millionairres and look back it this time with awe.
Slashdot Mirror
I suppose it depends entirely on what the individual considers to be important functionality. If you're talking of items normally found on the browser window which have been removed, well how many times did you click on that Shopping button?
Here's a screenshot(bitmap) of Netscape 6 for windows. You will notice that besides being jam packed with options everywhere for every bit of frivolousness AOL can throw at you several key browser features are gone or in hiding. E.g. the home button is reduced to a line of text in the midst of other lines of text, there's no print button, it jars with the rest of the OS by looking like a glorified Java app, and no visual indicator to show if a site is secure or not. These are things I spotted after using the browser for an hour or so. After a while it got so irritating I switched back to Netscape 4.72 & IE 5.5.
My point is and has been that the user interface is badly designed and instead of focusing on skins and themes and whatnot, the Netscape team is should be redesigning the user interface to make it as usable as possible. Change is good but if it comes at the price of sacrificing a usable piece of software then one must wonder if it is worth it.
The Netscape UI is a step backwards. It is a poor user interface with important and commonly used functionality hidden away or difficult to access as well as a lot of clunk tagged onto the browser.
My post was not criticizing the change but the poor User Interface design and the fact that more emphasis is being placed on skins and themes (eye candy) instead of on creating a usable piece of software.
Netscape 6 doesn't need skins, it needs to totally redesign the default interface. The UI has so many problems it is unbelievable. The most irritating of which are Home button reduced to 1 line of text and overabundance of links, sponsors, etc. that make it seem like on is browsing and carrying all of AOL with it from site to site.
What bothers me is that I have heard so much talk about how Netscape/Mozilla is working on this skin engine but almost nothing on UI design. The sad thing is that UI design is a whole lot more important than eye candy. Unfortunately, most hackers seem to be really comfortable with skins & themes while lacking in the fundamentals of how to design good user interfaces. Mark my words, Netscape 6's most difficult battle will not be with the entrenched IE market but with users who cannot aclimatize(sp?) to the different (from previous browsers) and unintuitive user interface.
It's not even the amount of power it has. Whether a company is good or bad depends on what it DOES with that size and power.
Agreed. All does who doubt this need not look further than Cisco. It is the most valuable company in the US and it's equipment runs most of the Internet and yet everyone has nothing but good things to say about the company.
That said I doubt that AOL/Time Warner will be as ethical as Cisco but condemning them out of hand simply for being a large company is illogical.
*sigh* .com domain names that they have now. Why should the movie/television/music industry suddenly decide that even though .com names are now ubiqitous (remember the superbowl?) and they already have .com websites that perform these services, that they should suddenly give up on years and million$ of dollars on marketing just to support one companies lame brained scheme.
.pho.ne will overtake .com's, yeah right.
They already do that with the
That's like thinking that because people can now browse the net on their phones then domain names hosted at
Terratec CD/MP3 Player
Mambox portable MP3/CD Player
Pine Technology (MP3 Audio): D'music SM-200C Portable MP3/Audio CD Player
netDrives CD/MP3 player Brujo
He is right about the employers being more of aproblem than big brother governments (at least in the U.S. and Europe). As at now even though stupid laws are either being passed or considered by government, the amount of cases of digital invasion of privacy pale in comparison to the routine rape of employee rights that the average employee now accepts as fact.
Monitoring of voice mail, email, and websites browsed is commonplace in many corporations today. DNA results are used in making hiring/promotion decisions. Non compete, non disclosure and Ip clauses abound in contracts everywhere.
It is rather interesting that we can get so riled up on the one hand by what we perceive as invasion of privacy by the government on one hand then close our eyes to the same actions by corporations.
The original poster may be talking about the fact that on the public enemy site there are songs for download in mp4 format.
For the past couple of weeks I have considered contributing to an open source project and have hesitated due to the fact that even though I am competent in C and C++ my area of core competence is Java. Imagine my surprise when today while hunting around I found NOT one but TWO sizeable open source projects that primarily use Java; Apache's Tomcat server and now FreeNet.
Now on to my questions.
a.) Besides source code is there an object model or UML diagrams available for potential contributors to Freenet to view?
b.) Do you know of any other sizeable open source projects that use java primarily?
c.) Are you worried about Freenet becoming a haven for pirates and W4R3Z d00ds and if so are any steps being taken to combat this?
Then I think the computing world would be a much better place. However this has to happen voluntarily or it won't work old loyalties will die hard and bitterness will be pervasive. No this is a change MS has to go through on it's own, before they fall down too far. Just remember folks once upon a time IBM was the Big Evil Corporation (tm) that was choking the life out of the computer industry, today we sing their praises as cool and hip for understanding and embracing our beloved Linux better and faster than any other established company. Remember things change, and usually for the better if those involved are left to sort them out on their own.
Didn't this occur because of the extreme degree of regulation that IBM faced from the government in the 80's which included such tactics as having IBM tell competitors what they were working on at any given time? One could say that the reason IBM is so well behaved now is because they do not want the level of involvement by the government ever again.
PS: Moderators R U on crack? Someone suggests that maybe we should let MSFT go on its merry way and maybe it'll split on its own instead of maintaining a stranglehold on the software industry that has created the world's richest individual and ruined/defeated countless competing companies (Netscape, Caldera, Corel, Borland,etc.) using mafiaesque tactics. I suggest rereading the Halloween Documents to clear up your misconceptions of the worlds second most valuable company.
The thread it links to is very informative.
It does look really funny. I was couldn't stop laughing when I saw it.
Too bad the article didn't include any links to the Hacks page or any pictures.
So I'd like to lead the charge for sane investment here - IF THE COMPANY DOESN'T HAVE PROFITS, IT'S NOT WORTH MONEY.
And to prove this point one of the top 10 ecommerce websites that received over 5 million visits in the month of February is not worth the the money in my savings account. Don't take my word for it look at their share price (CDNW) and listen to what financial auditors have said here and here.
A choice quote from an analyst from one of the articles is "I could buy CDNow with what I've got in my wallet right now,'' Sinnreich said. ``The question right now is -- is it worth the expense? Not just the dollar value, but the expense of integrating CDNow into an existing property."
Other dot comms that are now officially on their last legs despite well received IPOs are Dr. Koop(KOOP), the online grocer Peabod(PPOD) as well as Value America (VSUA).
Considering that 3 of the above companies had business plans that involved being loss leaders ("Sell lots of stuff at a loss until no more competition then jack up prices") while the fourth (Dr. Koop) never had a business model, it makes one wonder about the sanity of investors and CEOs alike. It looks like the bottom has begun to drop out of the dot comm industry. Hopefully in a few years this embarrassing era will be viewed for what it truly is...a time of insanity. I wonder if Netpliance as well as other Loss Leaders are paying attention to this fundamental rule of business in effect.
PS:Guess the only thing of value CDNow has left? That's right, their vast database of user information, addresses and buying habits. It's going to be like the collapse of the USSR and all those missing nukes all over again.
PPS: Even with all this news some cretin still plans to buy the domain name cool.com for $38 million.
The current list isn't as good as C|net's top 10 list from 1999 which contains a 1993 USENET hoax by Joe Skaggs (sp? Is it a word?).
Joe Skaggs has been hoaxing the mainstream media for years and is one of NYCs most loved and hated citizens. Here's a retrospective of some of his hoaxes going as far back as the sixties. My favorites are dog meat soup, the geraldo hoax and coma cocoon
Very intresting situation because the contract IS AND IS NOT valid at the same time,
;-)
Kind of makes it a Quantum program, huh?
Hacker 18, cracks details of Bill Gates's credit card
The article is not about professional engineers using Lego to construct prototypes but instead about Silicon Valley software engineers playing with Lego Mindstorms to relieve stress.
There's also some MIT professor who uses it in his media lab but it sounds like he's more a software engineer than real engineer from the article.
PS: I'll soon be a software engineer so no offense intended to all those who think I'm belittling software engineering.
>Hello, Lego is a kids toy, not some kind of magic prototyping tool for professional engineers.
From the article: "As a grown man, this is good stress relief and it keeps my imagination going," said Stangl, a 34-year-old technical support engineer for Sun-Netscape Alliance and one of thousands of techies taken with this children's toy.
This goes out to you and all the other's posting without reading the article. It says NOTHING about Legos being used as some sort of prototyping tool by engineers. It is an article about how Silicon Valley geeks enjoy playing with Lego. That's it, no more, no less.
In today's market Microsoft stock is severely undervalued. In a situation where other companies like Yahoo(194) and eBay(243) that have a higher debt load, substantially less income and yet have higher share prices is unfathomable. Fortune had a cover issue where they examined the rivalry between AOL and MSFT they broke but companies down this way.
MSFT: Revenues $ 21 billion, net income $8.7 billion, cash & cash equivalents $13.3 billion and no long term debts.
AOL: Revenues $32.8 billion, net income $2.4 billion, $3.7 billion and a long term debt load of $19.8 billion.
The point of the above comparisons is to show that, with regards to most other tech companies Microsoft is extremely undervalued and brings immense return to investors. There is a dark cloud of uncertainty over the company especially with the DOJ verdict expected sometime this week but once this is over, expect Microsoft's market value to reflect it's worth as a company. Either way after the company is split up into mini-Bills or they are forced to release source code or divest IE from Windows the company the company's market value will rise. For those who think this news spells the end of MSFT need to look at the big picture and remember that few tech companies, if any are making as much profit or have as much cash as MSFT.
PS: I am surprised by the amount of ignorance about the Tech Industry (CSCO's IOS is a Linux competitor?!? that most slashdotters are showing from their posts. It seems that if it isn't Linux or MSFT related some of us truly have our heads in the sand. This is a very sad and dangerous practice...
I paid $14.95 for unlimited nights and weekends and used up approximately 2000 minutes of offpeak minutes. This is way cheaper than $10.00 for a 200 minute block.
You miss the point...it isn't about how some snot nosed programmers and geeks are lavishly spending their money . This is about people and organizations who have lived in San Francisco for years and perhaps even generations that are being forced out of their homes simply because they are not as well to do as the snot nosed geeks who showed up in the city less than five years ago. I'll give you 2 true life examples that show exactly how different the San Francisco situation is from the racist scenario you liken it to.
- Recently in the city of Atlanta (which has the second largest gay population in the U.S.) members of the gay community decided to start moving into low cost inner city housing which until then had predominantly occupied by blacks. This had the effect of driving up property values since most of the homosexuals were yuppie white people with good income. Very soon some of the inhabitants of the neighborhood, some of which had lived there for decades, started a campaign against the newcomers because they were forcing them out of their homes. Of course, the media picked this up and it became a blacks vs. gays issue as opposed to an issue with economic undertones. This is similar to what's happening to native SFer's and the geek newcomers.
- Atlanta is described as "The white donut". This is because the city is predominantly black but completely surrounded on all sides by predominantly white suburbs consisting primarily of gated communities. Since most of the suburbanites work in the city, there is a considerable amount of rush hour traffic on a daily basis. Yet efforts to extend subway service into the suburbs have been consistently blocked by the suburbanites because they don't want to give easy access to the city people (blacks) to their neighborhoods so they don't reduce their property values, rob & steal, bring the inner city bums with them, etc. This is an example of racial seclusionary behavior
I hope you can see how different the situation in San Francisco is from that of old white suburbanites who don't want black folk reducing property values. Personally it is my opinion that San Francisco is probably the most tolerant city in the country especially when juxtaposed with southern cities.PS: Full disclosure. I am a black, snot nosed punk programmer who hopes to launch a startup.
It's more important to find a review of cell phone services or at least get a good opinion of the service providers in your area before getting a phone. For instance, my girlfriend got one of those cool Sprint PCS phones with internet browsing capability and I was smitten and decided to go get myself one. On arriving at Best Buy the Sprint attendant informed me that they had no unlimited nights & weekends plan which my current provider Bellsouth provides. Considering that I average about 3000 minutes a month on my current Nokia 5100 phone (which was cool 1 year ago but seems so clunky and sucky now) it would have been a financial nightmare for me to switch to a cooler phone with Sprint without my unlimited nights and weekend plan as a financial cushion. Secondly I also didn't go with Sprint after fining out that complaints about it's service had a category in Yahoo!
PS: Try Phone Choice or Mobile World for phone reviews.
At first I thought that these flyers may have been the result of regular people who had become tired of E-this and E-that everywhere and .com's everywhere you look especially in San Francisco. But after rereading the article I begin to suspect that this campaign may be the product of embittered tech folk who are in the land of IPO plenty and yet feel they are going hungry (by Silicon Valley standards). I also suspect they are either owners of a failed startup, wannabe CEOs who didn't obtain venture capital, and recently fired valleyites.
The domain names picked although funny are also very revealing about them e.g. ShredsOfSomeonesSoulForAuction.com, FuckYouAndTheStartupYouRodeInOn.com. After all in Silicon valley everyone feels they should be a millionairre and since does not hold true it seems the losers (again by Silicon valley standards) have decided that if they can't have it no one else will. I wonder how native SFer's feel about these ads and all the wealth being thrown around by snot-nosed geeks with more money than they know what to do with.
PS: I submitted this last night and it got declined. Go figure.
what percentage do the artist actually make per cd.
Not much but it'll be much less once high bandwidth is ubiqituos and everyone can download an MP3 from Napster in 3 to 5 minutes.
I think there needs to be a way to say pay 2 bucks to download the mp3's and burn them yourself on a cd and save so much money in production costs.
Why would anyone want to pay 2 bucks for something they can do for free via Napster?
What is the problem with that? The customers like it, the artist like it(give them like 75% of the sales), but the the money grubber record companies hate. we are taking away what they hold dear, their power over the artist and consumer
You have completely missed the point. This argument may have held water when MP3s were still new and the process of downloading one was a hit-or-miss affair via MP3 search sites but now with a free and easy way to get music the paradigm has shifted. It doesn't matter how cheap you make the music as long as people can get it for free on Napster they'll get it on Napster. The only thing stopping this is the availability of high bandwidth. Everyone I know with a high speed connection has reduced the amount of music they buy because of Napster. The way I see it in 10 or 20 years people will wonder why and how artistes got to be millionairres and look back it this time with awe.