Since I've had fantasies about living on a cruising yacht, where exactly this kind of highly portable, global service would make a lot of sense, I was intrigued by Iridium and did some careful checking.
(1) It's useless for data. I believe the top transmission speed is something like 2400 baud.
(2) It's horrendously expensive. The older Inmarsat technology can deliver a similar service using a suitcase-sized phone for about $ 1.50 a minute. This is less than half the cost of Iridium, and the phones cost about the same. Reports I've read about Iridium say that Inmarsat service actually works, with far superior service quality.
(3) Service quality is terrible. It must be used outdoors, line of site with the satellites. Again, the old technology works a lot better.
I read a news.com article (linked to the original story) which said that Iridium is failing because of marketing deficiencies. This is not true at all; I think Iridium's ads were pretty cool. The problem is the product and the pricing, both of which are terrible. As a cruising wannabe, I can only hope things get better.
I hope GlobalStar realizes that unless they give much better service than Iridium, they will go down the same path. Lower per-minute rates are a good start, but they'll need to supply decent service, too. And that's going to be tough.
It probably got moderated up to three, and the last person who saw called it a troll, causing it to slip back to 2.
I can certainly see how that would happen - it was written intelligently, but was certainly provocative. The moderation system worked - it's still on the first page of results, and I think it deserved to be there.
We dumped billions of dollars into Africa for years and years on basically charitable impulses, and I can't say it's done anything to get Africa out of poverty. I'm skeptical about pretty much all charity.
Depends on your area. In Detroit, Michigan, you could buy a decent house for around $ 50k. Here in Los Angeles, California, that same house (in a good area) would cost in the $ 500,000 range. And if you want to feel rich, you're probably talking about spending at least $ 1 million for a home.
Still, I could probably retire comfortably on $2 million and have enough money for a creative project or two to keep me amused, simply because I'm not keen on having kids. Kids really kill off money fast. Budget is $ 500,000 for a house, $ 250,000 for assorted extravagences, and the rest in an investment fund.
Aren't you worried that Barnes & Noble or amazon.com would eat your lunch?
If I had a lot of money, I'd move to Newport Beach or Malibu, get a T1 line straight to my home, and try and figure out some inspiring Internet-based project, maybe some variant on the free web page community theme. I'd also buy a nice boat and do some sailing.
I could do the Internet part now, if I had the time to really think. The problem for me is really time and energy (and the cost of time), not raw dollars.
Isn't Kodak hurting, though? I thought digital photography was all but killing their core business. I know I haven't bought film in over a year because of my digital still/video camera lets me take all the pictures I want without the bother and expense of film + developing.
I suppose donating to charity is like motherhood and apple pie and all that sort of thing, but personally, I'd rather just see a half-decent operating system out of Redmond. That would help a lot more people than any charity.
Oh, come on, surely you have a better memory than that. Before Windows 2000 came even close to seeing the light of day, it was hyped as the ultimate replacement for any operating system that ever existed, and I include VM/CMS, VMS, RSTS, etc:-).
I don't see anything wrong with the same happening for Linux. Rampant speculation is just a part of being popular. Think of it as comparable to the Star Wars hype.
Incidentally, I had to buy a car and wound up talking to a Realtor(R) car owner. When she learned that I was a computer guy, she vented her spleen about the new Windows-based computer systems in her office freezing up all the time. It was interesting because she'd already absorbed the anti-Windows perspective from the media, and was ready to suggest that MLS switch back to their old system or put together something, anything, else.
I think the public may be wising up. Frankly, I never thought they would, but to see this happen is refreshing to say the least.
Well, for real-time systems like the railroads, I would think that by far the safest solution would be to simply set the date back. What does switching equipment care, whether it's 2000 or 1973? (If my memory serves, 1973 was the year which had the same day of week configuration as 2000 - if I'm off by a year or two, don't worry).
Fortunately for the IRS, the systems actually used to collect most taxes are run by private industry, not the IRS. Employers collect the withholding taxes and send them to the government. I have no doubt they will continue to do so, since the penalties for not doing so are draconian. The IRS's own systems are another matter, of course.
Unfortunately, putting a contract out on 150 people would cost substantially more than a T1 connection. Worse, people would then buy the homes owned by the 150 expired folks, and then you'd have to start all over again. I recommend you just ring up your local bandwidth reseller and get your own T1 line; it's a lot cheaper and 100% foolproof to boot.
Of course there are always a few other suggestions:
- Find 150 gorgeous blondes and have them seduce the householders when you want to surf the net.
- Convince all the householders that the net is a horrible, dangerous swamp filled with pornography and bomb-making information. Unfortunately, that would probably backfire in a big way, as your neighbors would promptly go on the net and look for that stuff.
- Convince the television networks to hold the Super Bowl 365 days a year.
On the whole, though, if you want $ 1,500 a month worth of access, the bottom line is you have to pay for it:-(.
I've noticed quite a few of them on eBay, and they're pretty cheap, so there seems to be no reason not to get the original.
Or you could just wait. MacOS X, supposedly out late this year, has the authentic NeXT genetic code, and I suspect a NeXT-like development environment would be available. You could also buy NeXTStep for the PC, although I believe it's a bit pricey.
I haven't actually used a real NeXT, so I can't really comment on how good the various Linux-based imitations are.
D
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Re:Yeah, but $8000 for an entry-level box???
on
SGI's Linux Server
·
· Score: 2
Actually, they don't seem much different in price from the Origin 200 servers running Irix. Why buy Intel when you can get purebred SGI?
Like CmdrTaco, I wrote a BBS in Turbo Pascal years ago. It was quite successful, too. My newer BBS projects were in C on a ghastly version of Unix. I spent some of the most fun years of my life running that thing.
Not 10% certainly. This is the most recent data we have, and it places his wealth at 191m. So selling 78m is a pretty substantial vote.
Considering that he's left Microsoft, I assume he has good reason to (i) diversify his portfolio, and (ii) move away from a company he may have lost confidence in.
Every day I hear about "harmful" material, about how damaging it is to our kids' tender psyches to see porn. It seems like people take this for granted; I've seen almost nobody question the proposition that porn is bad for kids.
I don't think there's anything that annoys me more than a proposition people take for granted, asserted in a million different ways but proved in none. This is especially true when I see the undeniably bad effects trying to get rid of the stuff has on people.
Let's suppose a kid wants to learn about digital video. There are quite a few sites on the net about it. What are the odds that the administrators of those sites would know about my new filtering service? Probably pretty low. So what you wind up doing is enormously limiting the possible inquiries your kid could make.
That seems bad to me. Kids have an unlimited amount of curiosity about the world. I think this should be encouraged, and it can only be encouraged by unlimited or nearly unlimited access to information. If a kid hits a brick wall every time he wants to do something, he's going to get discouraged and watch TV.
If Instant Messenger is supported by advertising, and not displaying those ads is theft of service, then why would they want to allow the open source Unix clients?
I would assume that the Unix clients are every bit as guilty as the MS clients when it comes to not displaying AOL's ads.
I assume the real problem is volume - there aren't too many Unix users out there, so the lost revenue doesn't make much difference. Obviously if MS is hijacking both their users and ads, this is pretty crummy for AOL. At the same time, if Linux grows to the extent that there is a significant number of desktop users (from AOL's point of view), I wonder what would happen.
I think AOL should have licensed the protocol on the condition that the ads be displayed by any client that was written. Then they wouldn't be in this fix, and the result would have been fair for all.
I'm not inclined to take Microsoft's side on this one, though. AOL did the open source community a favour by releasing the protocol, and got burned by our pals at MS. ESR or no ESR, I can't say that's a Good Thing.
I'm going to show symbolic support to IM by downloading a Unix client for it today.
One of the most common real-world consulting assignments is to take existing tools and put them together to make a system work. Whether they are free or not matters little - in fact, you can charge a higher fee if your client doesn't have to pay $ 5,000 for the basic system.
Remember, most software is written as a VAR/consultant for clients, not as packaged stuff.
I'll bet mySQL would come down on its $200 license fee if it could get a nice cut of this package's sales.
If I were them, I'd cut a deal, because this product is bound to sell. Yes, it's an agglomoration of things you could get for free -- but if you've bought a Linux distribution, you've already bought a similar product.
Now, I will admit that I have not seen it, nor have I seen the TV series, but it was my impression that the show lampoons the often-vicious culture of childhood.
Porn, in both my opinion and that of the law, is defined as material that has a sexually arousing effect on the reader or viewer. As far as I know, South Park is in no way sexually exciting.
If you work for an Internet company in the Marina, you probably work in this building complex - the same one I do. Periodic blackouts/brownouts, erratic elevators, no air conditioning on weekends, etc. Click the link for my gripe page.:-(
However, it should be noted that South Park's folks don't work here - I'm about an inch from the beach (but on the other side, so no ocean view:-( ).
Slashdot Mirror
Since I've had fantasies about living on a cruising yacht, where exactly this kind of highly portable, global service would make a lot of sense, I was intrigued by Iridium and did some careful checking.
(1) It's useless for data. I believe the top transmission speed is something like 2400 baud.
(2) It's horrendously expensive. The older Inmarsat technology can deliver a similar service using a suitcase-sized phone for about $ 1.50 a minute. This is less than half the cost of Iridium, and the phones cost about the same. Reports I've read about Iridium say that Inmarsat service actually works, with far superior service quality.
(3) Service quality is terrible. It must be used outdoors, line of site with the satellites. Again, the old technology works a lot better.
I read a news.com article (linked to the original story) which said that Iridium is failing because of marketing deficiencies. This is not true at all; I think Iridium's ads were pretty cool. The problem is the product and the pricing, both of which are terrible. As a cruising wannabe, I can only hope things get better.
I hope GlobalStar realizes that unless they give much better service than Iridium, they will go down the same path. Lower per-minute rates are a good start, but they'll need to supply decent service, too. And that's going to be tough.
D
----
It probably got moderated up to three, and the last person who saw called it a troll, causing it to slip back to 2.
I can certainly see how that would happen - it was written intelligently, but was certainly provocative. The moderation system worked - it's still on the first page of results, and I think it deserved to be there.
D
----
Could it do anything but crash?
:-(
I don't think so.
D
----
We dumped billions of dollars into Africa for years and years on basically charitable impulses, and I can't say it's done anything to get Africa out of poverty. I'm skeptical about pretty much all charity.
D
----
Depends on your area. In Detroit, Michigan, you could buy a decent house for around $ 50k. Here in Los Angeles, California, that same house (in a good area) would cost in the $ 500,000 range. And if you want to feel rich, you're probably talking about spending at least $ 1 million for a home.
Still, I could probably retire comfortably on $2 million and have enough money for a creative project or two to keep me amused, simply because I'm not keen on having kids. Kids really kill off money fast. Budget is $ 500,000 for a house, $ 250,000 for assorted extravagences, and the rest in an investment fund.
D
----
Aren't you worried that Barnes & Noble or amazon.com would eat your lunch?
If I had a lot of money, I'd move to Newport Beach or Malibu, get a T1 line straight to my home, and try and figure out some inspiring Internet-based project, maybe some variant on the free web page community theme. I'd also buy a nice boat and do some sailing.
I could do the Internet part now, if I had the time to really think. The problem for me is really time and energy (and the cost of time), not raw dollars.
D
----
Isn't Kodak hurting, though? I thought digital photography was all but killing their core business. I know I haven't bought film in over a year because of my digital still/video camera lets me take all the pictures I want without the bother and expense of film + developing.
D
----
I suppose donating to charity is like motherhood and apple pie and all that sort of thing, but personally, I'd rather just see a half-decent operating system out of Redmond. That would help a lot more people than any charity.
D
----
Oh, come on, surely you have a better memory than that. Before Windows 2000 came even close to seeing the light of day, it was hyped as the ultimate replacement for any operating system that ever existed, and I include VM/CMS, VMS, RSTS, etc :-).
I don't see anything wrong with the same happening for Linux. Rampant speculation is just a part of being popular. Think of it as comparable to the Star Wars hype.
Incidentally, I had to buy a car and wound up talking to a Realtor(R) car owner. When she learned that I was a computer guy, she vented her spleen about the new Windows-based computer systems in her office freezing up all the time. It was interesting because she'd already absorbed the anti-Windows perspective from the media, and was ready to suggest that MLS switch back to their old system or put together something, anything, else.
I think the public may be wising up. Frankly, I never thought they would, but to see this happen is refreshing to say the least.
D
----
Well, for real-time systems like the railroads, I would think that by far the safest solution would be to simply set the date back. What does switching equipment care, whether it's 2000 or 1973? (If my memory serves, 1973 was the year which had the same day of week configuration as 2000 - if I'm off by a year or two, don't worry).
Fortunately for the IRS, the systems actually used to collect most taxes are run by private industry, not the IRS. Employers collect the withholding taxes and send them to the government. I have no doubt they will continue to do so, since the penalties for not doing so are draconian. The IRS's own systems are another matter, of course.
D
----
Unfortunately, putting a contract out on 150 people would cost substantially more than a T1 connection. Worse, people would then buy the homes owned by the 150 expired folks, and then you'd have to start all over again. I recommend you just ring up your local bandwidth reseller and get your own T1 line; it's a lot cheaper and 100% foolproof to boot.
:-(.
Of course there are always a few other suggestions:
- Find 150 gorgeous blondes and have them seduce the householders when you want to surf the net.
- Convince all the householders that the net is a horrible, dangerous swamp filled with pornography and bomb-making information. Unfortunately, that would probably backfire in a big way, as your neighbors would promptly go on the net and look for that stuff.
- Convince the television networks to hold the Super Bowl 365 days a year.
On the whole, though, if you want $ 1,500 a month worth of access, the bottom line is you have to pay for it
D
----
Okay, I'll bite.
What would you use?
I use Traceroute myself and certainly wouldn't mind hearing about better tools.
D
----
I've noticed quite a few of them on eBay, and they're pretty cheap, so there seems to be no reason not to get the original.
Or you could just wait. MacOS X, supposedly out late this year, has the authentic NeXT genetic code, and I suspect a NeXT-like development environment would be available. You could also buy NeXTStep for the PC, although I believe it's a bit pricey.
I haven't actually used a real NeXT, so I can't really comment on how good the various Linux-based imitations are.
D
----
Actually, they don't seem much different in price from the Origin 200 servers running Irix. Why buy Intel when you can get purebred SGI?
D
----
Control-K Q I believe.
Like CmdrTaco, I wrote a BBS in Turbo Pascal years ago. It was quite successful, too. My newer BBS projects were in C on a ghastly version of Unix. I spent some of the most fun years of my life running that thing.
D
----
Not 10% certainly. This is the most recent data we have, and it places his wealth at 191m. So selling 78m is a pretty substantial vote.
Considering that he's left Microsoft, I assume he has good reason to (i) diversify his portfolio, and (ii) move away from a company he may have lost confidence in.
http://www.forbes.com/asap/tech100/98/49.htm
D
----
Every day I hear about "harmful" material, about how damaging it is to our kids' tender psyches to see porn. It seems like people take this for granted; I've seen almost nobody question the proposition that porn is bad for kids.
I don't think there's anything that annoys me more than a proposition people take for granted, asserted in a million different ways but proved in none. This is especially true when I see the undeniably bad effects trying to get rid of the stuff has on people.
Thoughts?
D
----
Let's suppose a kid wants to learn about digital video. There are quite a few sites on the net about it. What are the odds that the administrators of those sites would know about my new filtering service? Probably pretty low. So what you wind up doing is enormously limiting the possible inquiries your kid could make.
That seems bad to me. Kids have an unlimited amount of curiosity about the world. I think this should be encouraged, and it can only be encouraged by unlimited or nearly unlimited access to information. If a kid hits a brick wall every time he wants to do something, he's going to get discouraged and watch TV.
I really don't think we want that to happen.
D
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Humph. Windows?
... well, pretty dangerous, actually.
Is there a Linux version?
I'll bet a Beowulf cluster of those would be
D
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In all honesty, I think they would be upset about kids pirating the movie. It is their money, after all.
But as for sneaking into see it after buying Mary Poppins tickets, I'm sure you're right.
D
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If Instant Messenger is supported by advertising, and not displaying those ads is theft of service, then why would they want to allow the open source Unix clients?
I would assume that the Unix clients are every bit as guilty as the MS clients when it comes to not displaying AOL's ads.
I assume the real problem is volume - there aren't too many Unix users out there, so the lost revenue doesn't make much difference. Obviously if MS is hijacking both their users and ads, this is pretty crummy for AOL. At the same time, if Linux grows to the extent that there is a significant number of desktop users (from AOL's point of view), I wonder what would happen.
I think AOL should have licensed the protocol on the condition that the ads be displayed by any client that was written. Then they wouldn't be in this fix, and the result would have been fair for all.
I'm not inclined to take Microsoft's side on this one, though. AOL did the open source community a favour by releasing the protocol, and got burned by our pals at MS. ESR or no ESR, I can't say that's a Good Thing.
I'm going to show symbolic support to IM by downloading a Unix client for it today.
D
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Actually, I would bet that it does.
One of the most common real-world consulting assignments is to take existing tools and put them together to make a system work. Whether they are free or not matters little - in fact, you can charge a higher fee if your client doesn't have to pay $ 5,000 for the basic system.
Remember, most software is written as a VAR/consultant for clients, not as packaged stuff.
D
----
I'll bet mySQL would come down on its $200 license fee if it could get a nice cut of this package's sales.
If I were them, I'd cut a deal, because this product is bound to sell. Yes, it's an agglomoration of things you could get for free -- but if you've bought a Linux distribution, you've already bought a similar product.
D
----
Now, I will admit that I have not seen it, nor have I seen the TV series, but it was my impression that the show lampoons the often-vicious culture of childhood.
Porn, in both my opinion and that of the law, is defined as material that has a sexually arousing effect on the reader or viewer. As far as I know, South Park is in no way sexually exciting.
So why is it porn?
Just asking.
D
----
If you work for an Internet company in the Marina, you probably work in this building complex - the same one I do. Periodic blackouts/brownouts, erratic elevators, no air conditioning on weekends, etc. Click the link for my gripe page. :-(
:-( ).
However, it should be noted that South Park's folks don't work here - I'm about an inch from the beach (but on the other side, so no ocean view
D
----