I'm currently using at&t@home service in the Denver Metro area with several Linux servers running on extra IP's I've leased from them; was no hassle whatsoever. You can either use dhcpcd or just get the static info, plug into linux, and you're good to go.
As far as the server bit goes; they only seem to care about servers that serve a fairly large amount of traffic; you know, the sort of stuff they'd rather you pay for an @work connection to host. But, if you're going to host some netgames, or run a private server for few people, they don't much care.
Red flags only go up when your bandwidth hits a certain mark; muds and other vid games don't seem to even get close;).
Re:Come on people, its not that hard.
on
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· Score: 1
Absolutely.
I have to agree, I don't understand how so many people receive so much spam. I've had the same primary email address for over 3 years; it has never received unsolicited email; the closest thing to spam I get is when I forget to uncheck "send me further info" boxes when registering on various webpages, but every single one of those I've received has had a way to unsubscribe.
I do receive a little bit of spam on my secondary (rarely checked) accounts; all via @home. I assume I get those because I forgot to remove myself from some @home mail directory. But even those emails are few and far between, and are easily filtered.
The rules outlined in the parent message are a good rule of thumb, folks; spammers didn't get your email address by pulling it out of thin air, or by bribing your friends. They get it because it was posted somewhere public. Don't post it public, don't get spam. Easy as that.
If there were a clear correlation between school suspensions and suicide, I get the feeling there'd be a lot more dead students on our hands. But there isn't, which leads us to wonder "Why now? Why did this student kill himself when so many others don't?".
Perhaps this was simply the straw that broke the camels back; that does not make this incident the sole reason.
Personally, 1) A student broke the rules, 2) the student was suspended by the school. School did nothing wrong. 3) Student kills himself. Many will call this a tragedy, but the school is hardly to blame.
If I had to guess, I'd say this boy was raised with in a strong, ethical environment. Good, a lot more folks could use this sort of upbringing. It was strong enough that the thought of suicide was obviously sweeter than the thought of the dissapointment he had caused his family. Perhaps the environment is responsible for his death, in this case, but it is not to blame. The blame lies with the student who broke the rules.
Without the suicide, this would be a non-story. With the suicide, well..lets wait until we get all the facts, eh?
The article states you will not be able to use the *built in Microsoft Utility* to record higher than 56k. When was the last time you used any of MS's built in utilities past dialup connection and solitaire?
They mention many third party apps don't seem to work properly on the current betas/RC's. Again, I expect this to be remedied once XP hits the shelves and a little bit of time passes.
I think the article is right in that many mainstream users *don't* care which format or utility they use, but I don't think its mainstream users who are going to be ripping/encoding CD's.
So, basically this article says Microsoft will, in their own applications, favor their own format over a third party format. Wow, I know that surprises the hell out of *me*.
If you're obligated, you're obligated; not much you can do except learn from the experience.
There was probably a point in time during the execution of this project in which this outcome became the probable outcome. That would have been the time to remove yourself from the project, and not put yourself in this spot. Choosing to remain a part of the team and complete the project, this is the logical outcome.
This really isn't meant as a flame, but in just about every project I've been involved with at work, there has been a point at which I have to evaulate "Do I want my name on this?". I can't believe things are terribly different elsewhere.
Anyways, my $.02. Learn from the experience, and move on.
I'd say I don't see what the fuss is about, but that's not true; I can certainly see why folks are concerned about this. However, I don't share said concern (and not just because I never registered with Toysmart;).
Anybody who entered into an agreement did so with Toysmart, not the folks who run and/or own toysmart. Toysmart is an entity in and of itself; regardless of who has controlling interest of Toysmart, Toysmart remains a seperate entity and must continue to abide by the agreement. Of course, with this limitation, I question why any other company would want Toysmart, unless they thought it would be a sound business investment and weren't interested in integrating Toysmarts customer info into the parent companies.
Look at it this way. Nullsoft and ICQ did not cease to exist when they were acquired by AOL; any licensing agreements made between a user and Nullsoft/ICQ pre-acquisition did not transfer directly to AOL post-acquisition. They persist as agreements between you (the user) and Nullsoft/ICQ (the company, subsidiary of AOL).
As I said in a previous thread; nobody is trying to sell the Toysmart data; they're trying to sell Toysmart. Anybody who acquires Toysmart will not be able to distribute the Toysmart data to its other interests or else it will have hell to pay. Which brings us back to Why anybody would want Toysmart with these limitations.
The article didn't make it very clear as to whether they want to sell the database of customer info, or if the database will change hands along with the rest of the company.
The former seems to be a bad idea; as stated previously, even if the FTC didn't step up to the plate, they'd be facing a pretty lengthy civil fight (probably class action) against everybody who registered with them.
The latter seems much more reasonable, and is what appears to be actually happening. This is certainly acceptable, I'd think. A corporation is an entity unto itself, and would retain ownership of the database regardless of who was pulling the strings behind the scene.
But, if the latter is really going on, why was it reported in such a provocative way (i.e., "This company is going to sell your information even though it promised not to!") instead of a more direct manner ("This company is going to change hands."). Seems like rabble rousing to me.
The technology behind this is certainly interesting, and I agree some of the implications are a little scary, but I can see where this might have its place.
As somebody stated above (No, I'm not being redundant, I'm just expounding:P), the most important step is to prevent cross-referencing of our Genetic material; a random sampling of a crowd in which they can determine if any members of the crowd are armed, carrying drugs, or are in violation of any other law is a far cry from a random sampling where they can gather that information *AND* the identities of everybody in the crowd, their credit ratings, their age, sex, height, weight, etc.
Personally, as a law-abiding citizen who spends a lot of time in airports, I'm all for the former; it's the latter that could be a problem, I think.
The problem becomes, how can we prevent the government from crossreferencing the information, even privately? After all, it's not as if they couldn't get a sample if they really wanted to (and assuming they don't already have one;). Legislation passed would probably, at best, keep our info out of the hands of business/other citizens. I can already hear the Gov't making a case for keeping our info for their records, only.
Seems our "right to privacy" only applies to other citizens, not the Gov't, sometimes.:)
Lets over-simplify for a moment and divide the US population into 3 groups:
-The tech-aware folks who support MS -The tech-aware folks who don't support MS -The tech-unaware folks (I think this includes most US Gov't officials).
I have to think that this campaign is aimed primarily at the third group; these are the ones who are most likely to turn to MS, not because they understand the issues, but because it sounds good; say what you will about Microsofts product, but I'm of the opinion they have a pretty good marketing department/spin control.
So what we need to think about is, what will happen if enough of the tech-unaware put their names on lists that will be presented, eventually, to the legislature. I think there is a very real danger that these gov't folks (who might not have any better grasp on the issues as those folks who sign up for this program) might "go with the flow" (easy) instead of grappling with the issues and making informed decisions (hard).
What next? Prepaid, preprinted postcards that we can send directly to our duly elected representatives, ala' those infamous NRA campaigns?;).
It's a shame that a system as hyped as the PSX2 fell flat on it's face, IMHO, but I can't see it really hurting the platform too much. The die-hard fans will stick it out, and the folks who were expecting it to fail probably would have found something even if Sony hadn't so willingly Obliged them:).
This sort of public "testing" of the machine makes sense, in a way; an in-house QA team cannot anticipate every possible circumstance that might occur when the system is delivered to thousands of users. This is simply the "Worst Case Scenario", IMHO; that is, a large-scale test of the software/hardware not only revealed subtle problems, but a wide variety of glaring troubles that could have/should have been caught internally.
Problems with "new" technology as it hits the shelves is hardly surprising; but how did these issues make it through Sony QA? As hard as it is to believe that they didn't see these problems internally, it's a little more believable than Sony releasing a product with such a wide variety of known issues. That's not necessarily true, though: All you Big Corporate types, what's better? Releasing a buggy product on the expected date, or delaying release until the product is *reasonably* issue free?
I doubt we'll ever know the truth re: PSX2; I expect any and all official Sony releases will focus more on what they're doing about the problem rather than how the problem occured in the first place.
Well, this certainly poses an interesting problem. Suppose a new TLD,.foo, is formed. On one hand, in a perfect world, companies would not have to worry about cybersquatters and/or other companies with similiar names. Each company would have a robust, intuitive domain name that would allow interested parties to find them with litle problem. On the other hand, in the real world, competition for domain names is fierce, and will remain such regardless of however many TLDs are created. It is certainly justifiable, under these circumstances, for companies to want some sort of assurances that they will not have to deal with squatters whom have no real legitimate claim to a domain name.
But what other ways can this be resolved? Well, there is the current Anti Cybersquatting legislation. I am not familiar enough with it for an in-depth dissection, but from what I've seen it is a rather clumsy, heavy-handed approach that may harm legitimate, private users.
Until we have an easy, universal set of criteria to aid in determining whether a domain claim is legitimate, we are going to see this problem, and variations thereof.
Perhaps what we need is a "Meta" TLD that would allow multiple companies/individuals with legitimate claims on a domain to register it. Example: I, proprieter of ford computers, wish to register ford.com, a domain to which I have an arguable claim to. However, it's already been claimed by Ford, a popular auto maker. So, with the meta TLD, any queries to www.ford.com would pull up a page that would present choices to the user: (i.e., "Are you looking for Ford auto? Click here." "Are you looking for Ford computers? Click here."). I imagine it would ultimately end up similiar to some of the redirect pages (openssh.org) we see posted voluntarily.
Not a perfect solution, granted, but I think it may go a long ways towards solving some of the current issues.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm currently using at&t@home service in the Denver Metro area with several Linux servers running on extra IP's I've leased from them; was no hassle whatsoever. You can either use dhcpcd or just get the static info, plug into linux, and you're good to go.
;).
As far as the server bit goes; they only seem to care about servers that serve a fairly large amount of traffic; you know, the sort of stuff they'd rather you pay for an @work connection to host. But, if you're going to host some netgames, or run a private server for few people, they don't much care.
Red flags only go up when your bandwidth hits a certain mark; muds and other vid games don't seem to even get close
Absolutely.
I have to agree, I don't understand how so many people receive so much spam. I've had the same primary email address for over 3 years; it has never received unsolicited email; the closest thing to spam I get is when I forget to uncheck "send me further info" boxes when registering on various webpages, but every single one of those I've received has had a way to unsubscribe.
I do receive a little bit of spam on my secondary (rarely checked) accounts; all via @home. I assume I get those because I forgot to remove myself from some @home mail directory. But even those emails are few and far between, and are easily filtered.
The rules outlined in the parent message are a good rule of thumb, folks; spammers didn't get your email address by pulling it out of thin air, or by bribing your friends. They get it because it was posted somewhere public. Don't post it public, don't get spam. Easy as that.
-GT
If there were a clear correlation between school suspensions and suicide, I get the feeling there'd be a lot more dead students on our hands. But there isn't, which leads us to wonder "Why now? Why did this student kill himself when so many others don't?".
Perhaps this was simply the straw that broke the camels back; that does not make this incident the sole reason.
Personally, 1) A student broke the rules, 2) the student was suspended by the school. School did nothing wrong. 3) Student kills himself. Many will call this a tragedy, but the school is hardly to blame.
If I had to guess, I'd say this boy was raised with in a strong, ethical environment. Good, a lot more folks could use this sort of upbringing. It was strong enough that the thought of suicide was obviously sweeter than the thought of the dissapointment he had caused his family. Perhaps the environment is responsible for his death, in this case, but it is not to blame. The blame lies with the student who broke the rules.
Without the suicide, this would be a non-story. With the suicide, well..lets wait until we get all the facts, eh?
The article states you will not be able to use the *built in Microsoft Utility* to record higher than 56k. When was the last time you used any of MS's built in utilities past dialup connection and solitaire?
They mention many third party apps don't seem to work properly on the current betas/RC's. Again, I expect this to be remedied once XP hits the shelves and a little bit of time passes.
I think the article is right in that many mainstream users *don't* care which format or utility they use, but I don't think its mainstream users who are going to be ripping/encoding CD's.
So, basically this article says Microsoft will, in their own applications, favor their own format over a third party format. Wow, I know that surprises the hell out of *me*.
If you're obligated, you're obligated; not much you can do except learn from the experience.
There was probably a point in time during the execution of this project in which this outcome became the probable outcome. That would have been the time to remove yourself from the project, and not put yourself in this spot. Choosing to remain a part of the team and complete the project, this is the logical outcome.
This really isn't meant as a flame, but in just about every project I've been involved with at work, there has been a point at which I have to evaulate "Do I want my name on this?". I can't believe things are terribly different elsewhere.
Anyways, my $.02. Learn from the experience, and move on.
I'd say I don't see what the fuss is about, but that's not true; I can certainly see why folks are concerned about this. However, I don't share said concern (and not just because I never registered with Toysmart ;).
Anybody who entered into an agreement did so with Toysmart, not the folks who run and/or own toysmart. Toysmart is an entity in and of itself; regardless of who has controlling interest of Toysmart, Toysmart remains a seperate entity and must continue to abide by the agreement. Of course, with this limitation, I question why any other company would want Toysmart, unless they thought it would be a sound business investment and weren't interested in integrating Toysmarts customer info into the parent companies.
Look at it this way. Nullsoft and ICQ did not cease to exist when they were acquired by AOL; any licensing agreements made between a user and Nullsoft/ICQ pre-acquisition did not transfer directly to AOL post-acquisition. They persist as agreements between you (the user) and Nullsoft/ICQ (the company, subsidiary of AOL).
As I said in a previous thread; nobody is trying to sell the Toysmart data; they're trying to sell Toysmart. Anybody who acquires Toysmart will not be able to distribute the Toysmart data to its other interests or else it will have hell to pay.
Which brings us back to Why anybody would want Toysmart with these limitations.
Interesting Idea.
:).
On the mud I run, I have added code to simulate lag, packet loss, and to make it appear they are the only ones online.
Telling somebody they can't do something makes it a challenge for them. It's simply better to just make it not worth their while.
The article didn't make it very clear as to whether they want to sell the database of customer info, or if the database will change hands along with the rest of the company.
;).
The former seems to be a bad idea; as stated previously, even if the FTC didn't step up to the plate, they'd be facing a pretty lengthy civil fight (probably class action) against everybody who registered with them.
The latter seems much more reasonable, and is what appears to be actually happening. This is certainly acceptable, I'd think. A corporation is an entity unto itself, and would retain ownership of the database regardless of who was pulling the strings behind the scene.
But, if the latter is really going on, why was it reported in such a provocative way (i.e., "This company is going to sell your information even though it promised not to!") instead of a more direct manner ("This company is going to change hands."). Seems like rabble rousing to me.
But, what do I know?
The technology behind this is certainly interesting, and I agree some of the implications are a little scary, but I can see where this might have its place.
:P), the most important step is to prevent cross-referencing of our Genetic material; a random sampling of a crowd in which they can determine if any members of the crowd are armed, carrying drugs, or are in violation of any other law is a far cry from a random sampling where they can gather that information *AND* the identities of everybody in the crowd, their credit ratings, their age, sex, height, weight, etc.
;). Legislation passed would probably, at best, keep our info out of the hands of business/other citizens. I can already hear the Gov't making a case for keeping our info for their records, only.
:)
As somebody stated above (No, I'm not being redundant, I'm just expounding
Personally, as a law-abiding citizen who spends a lot of time in airports, I'm all for the former; it's the latter that could be a problem, I think.
The problem becomes, how can we prevent the government from crossreferencing the information, even privately? After all, it's not as if they couldn't get a sample if they really wanted to (and assuming they don't already have one
Seems our "right to privacy" only applies to other citizens, not the Gov't, sometimes.
But hey, what do I know; just my opinions.
Now this could be interesting.
;).
Lets over-simplify for a moment and divide the US population into 3 groups:
-The tech-aware folks who support MS
-The tech-aware folks who don't support MS
-The tech-unaware folks (I think this includes most US Gov't officials).
I have to think that this campaign is aimed primarily at the third group; these are the ones who are most likely to turn to MS, not because they understand the issues, but because it sounds good; say what you will about Microsofts product, but I'm of the opinion they have a pretty good marketing department/spin control.
So what we need to think about is, what will happen if enough of the tech-unaware put their names on lists that will be presented, eventually, to the legislature. I think there is a very real danger that these gov't folks (who might not have any better grasp on the issues as those folks who sign up for this program) might "go with the flow" (easy) instead of grappling with the issues and making informed decisions (hard).
What next? Prepaid, preprinted postcards that we can send directly to our duly elected representatives, ala' those infamous NRA campaigns?
Anyways, just my thoughts.
It's a shame that a system as hyped as the PSX2 fell flat on it's face, IMHO, but I can't see it really hurting the platform too much. The die-hard fans will stick it out, and the folks who were expecting it to fail probably would have found something even if Sony hadn't so willingly Obliged them :).
This sort of public "testing" of the machine makes sense, in a way; an in-house QA team cannot anticipate every possible circumstance that might occur when the system is delivered to thousands of users. This is simply the "Worst Case Scenario", IMHO; that is, a large-scale test of the software/hardware not only revealed subtle problems, but a wide variety of glaring troubles that could have/should have been caught internally.
Problems with "new" technology as it hits the shelves is hardly surprising; but how did these issues make it through Sony QA? As hard as it is to believe that they didn't see these problems internally, it's a little more believable than Sony releasing a product with such a wide variety of known issues. That's not necessarily true, though: All you Big Corporate types, what's better? Releasing a buggy product on the expected date, or delaying release until the product is *reasonably* issue free?
I doubt we'll ever know the truth re: PSX2; I expect any and all official Sony releases will focus more on what they're doing about the problem rather than how the problem occured in the first place.
Well, this certainly poses an interesting problem. Suppose a new TLD, .foo, is formed. On one hand, in a perfect world, companies would not have to worry about cybersquatters and/or other companies with similiar names. Each company would have a robust, intuitive domain name that would allow interested parties to find them with litle problem. On the other hand, in the real world, competition for domain names is fierce, and will remain such regardless of however many TLDs are created. It is certainly justifiable, under these circumstances, for companies to want some sort of assurances that they will not have to deal with squatters whom have no real legitimate claim to a domain name.
But what other ways can this be resolved? Well, there is the current Anti Cybersquatting legislation. I am not familiar enough with it for an in-depth dissection, but from what I've seen it is a rather clumsy, heavy-handed approach
that may harm legitimate, private users.
Until we have an easy, universal set of criteria to aid in determining whether a domain claim is legitimate, we are going to see this problem, and variations thereof.
Perhaps what we need is a "Meta" TLD that would allow multiple companies/individuals with legitimate claims on a domain to register it. Example: I, proprieter of ford computers, wish to register ford.com, a domain to which I have an arguable claim to. However, it's already been claimed by Ford, a popular auto maker. So, with the meta TLD, any queries to www.ford.com would pull up a page that would present choices to the user: (i.e., "Are you looking for Ford auto? Click here." "Are you looking for Ford computers? Click here."). I imagine it would ultimately end up similiar to some of the redirect pages (openssh.org) we see posted voluntarily.
Not a perfect solution, granted, but I think it may go a long ways towards solving some of the current issues.