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User: Eravau

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Comments · 197

  1. Re:opinion of SBC from a retiree on SBC CWA Strike Imminent · · Score: 2, Informative

    The retiree benefits and the outsourcing/contracting issues are some of the major things this strike is about.

    SBC is talking about raising the copays on insurance to double our triple what they are now. It's also talking about cutting phone concessions (discounts) all together for retirees..and possibly current employees. That's a lot of extra cost to add to anybody's monthly bills...but moreso to a retired person who isn't getting any raises anytime soon.

    The other half is the outsourcing of new jobs. New technology areas such as DSL and WiFi aren't being opened to the current technical and phone support staff. They're all being outsourced to contractors...and for phone support...India. So the CWA is pushing to open those areas...and reduce the cutting of current employees.

    You can see more details at CWA's web site.

  2. Timetable Correction on SBC CWA Strike Imminent · · Score: 1

    The strike starts on Friday morning (12:01 a.m.) and goes until Tuesday starts (12:01 a.m. again).

    See the official CWA announcement.

  3. Wow...How Speedy on Build From Source vs. Packages? · · Score: 1

    I can't imagine how wonderful it would be to admin a slew of boxes on which every update had to go through this process. That's 5 hours, 12 minutes...just for KDE...just for one machine. No thanks. If it was my own machine...maybe. If it was for work where downtime means down profits...no way. That's a lot of wasted time when you can throw a few bucks at the problem (or in some cases just keep your money) and have pre-compiled, ready-to-install packages that will install in a handful of minutes.

  4. Re:Good news on Supreme Court Rules Against Community Telcos · · Score: 1

    So instead the government should:

    1. tax their citizens to raise money
    2. use that tax money to compete with the companies run and owned by those same citizens
    I don't like that at all.
  5. Re:Oh, come on! on Crack the Pepsi iTunes Promo Code · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Any idea how much the wholesale cost is to your regional grocery or convenience store chain that buys them by the thousands? (Having never worked in such a capacity I haven't the faintest). Just wondering how much margin Pepsi has in the long run.

  6. Re:American Programmers on Ask Indian Techies About 'Onshore Insourcing' · · Score: 1

    For future reference, where's the quickest place to find the GDP for X country?

  7. Re:Numbers and figures. on Ask Indian Techies About 'Onshore Insourcing' · · Score: 1

    Thanks for catching that. I worked that all out and had mis-read the original post. It is indeed around $8,000 USD.

  8. Re:Numbers and figures. on Ask Indian Techies About 'Onshore Insourcing' · · Score: 1

    Does that $40,000 have insurance, any 401K matching, other retirement plans, social security/medicare tax, etc. added on top of it? Probably not.

    Does the $35,000 have all that and more added on top of it? Of course.

    In the grand scheme of things, the $40,000 probably come out less.

  9. Re:American Programmers on Ask Indian Techies About 'Onshore Insourcing' · · Score: 1

    And how many dozens of times higher is the cost of living in the U.S. than in India?

  10. Re:Numbers and figures. on Ask Indian Techies About 'Onshore Insourcing' · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's around $155 per day...or $40,300 per year (based on a 5-day work week)...according to Xe.Com.

  11. Re:Better would be: on L.A. County Bans Use Of "Master/Slave" Term · · Score: 1

    they do not be swayed

    Might I suggest:
    not to to be swayed

  12. Re:If they rule for some kind of control over VoIP on FCC To Hold First VoIP Hearings; Rules in 2004 · · Score: 1

    So does that mean that you're all for removing the regulations on the non-VoIP telcos? After all, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

  13. Re:Adding a spike to the top... on Taipei 101 Now World's Tallest Building · · Score: 1

    Nonsense! I don't think the toothpick's ever had a better time.

  14. Re:BWAHAHAHAH! on RIAA Sues the Wrong Person · · Score: 1
    Hmmm, I wonder how much damage to the RIAA could be made by scrambling IP adresses in ISP logs...

    None...it would just be less damage to others.

  15. Re:How is this illegal? on SBC Hit with Antitrust Lawsuit · · Score: 1

    At which point they would stop deploying DSL capabilities in their switches that don't have it since they wouldn't be making money on it. Their prices on sales to their competition are mandated by the government and don't provide any real profit...and sometimes provide a loss. And since the competition doesn't want to spend the money on the equipment, but let somebody else pay for it and then take a cheap government-priced ride...DSL would never get any further than it already has.

  16. Re:How is this illegal? on SBC Hit with Antitrust Lawsuit · · Score: 1
    Bell didn't pony up all of the original expense. So anyone trying to run competing lines would have to bear the entire expense of doing so, which is more than Bell had to do (in some cases), which also makes it prohibitively expensive.
    Kind of like the cable companies. They run their subsidised monopolies.
    So in order to break the monopoly, you have to force Bell to let others sell service over their lines.
    ...which the cable companies don't have to do. Is something a little lopsided here? And people wonder why the ILECs are pushing for new legislation.

    They have to sell their lines to competitors for cheap (government set price limits). Their CLECs can steal their customers by selling their lines cheaper than they can themselves...because the competition doesn't have to pay the techs that maintain/troubleshoot the lines, don't have the costs of the infrastructure maintenance, and don't have government-imposed pricing.

    To make matters worse, some CLECs can run up millions or billions of dollars in bills owed to the ILECs and then claim bankruptcy...and not pay a cent of it. But government regulations forbid the ILEC from cutting them off. They are required to sell (read "give") them the lines whether they'll ever pay or not.

    Do you wonder why you can get cable 'net access at many places you can't get DSL access? It's because the ILECs would have to invest in the equipment to extend DSL service out to Podunk County. And after they did so, their competition would come along and buy the lines off of them cheap, steal their customers, and the ILEC would have low ROI. Companies (being in the business of making money) aren't going to invest in what is an obvious black hole for their funds.

    On the other hand, the cable companies build-out with no fear. They can invest in the lines and the equipment to get digital cable and all it's glorious 'net access even out to the suburbs of Podunk County because they know that they're the only ones that can sell the access on those lines. Their prices aren't set by the government, their lines aren't regulated, and they are the only ones with permission to install there.

    I like your idea of government-owned lines (to some extent)...but it's probably too late for that to happen now. Whatever happens, things need to be evened out for everyone.

  17. Re:What right to privacy do you think you have on Southeast To Start Video Monitoring Flights · · Score: 1

    Buy your own plane, drive, sail, or deal with it.

  18. Re:Enough with the flames already on State of the Onion 7 · · Score: 1
    You mean no verb conjugations like:
    • I am
    • You are
    • She is
    • We are
    • They are
    That's just for present tense. Then there are other tenses...
    • I am
    • I was
    • I have been
    • I will be
    • I will have been
    • I am being
    And somehow, all of this came from "to be"? Good thing there's no verb conjugation in English.
  19. Re:Be Judicious on Public Confused by Tech Lingo · · Score: 1
    Either should be acceptable. According to Dictionary.com, the first definition of concision is:
    The state or quality of being concise

  20. Re:I see Windows as a challenge... on Special Ops · · Score: 1

    Except that, as stated in the summary paragraph at the top, this is mostly focused on security inside your netowrk. Unless you have enough budget to buy a u*nix box to place in front of every Windows box on your network, this won't go very far. But who doesn't want to spend twice as much money for hardware?

  21. Re:Being 13 Years Old.... on Amazon Calls Children's Privacy Complaint Groundless · · Score: 1
    I don't know if it's presently assigned to anyone, but it could be a valid Social Security number. According to this page, it would belong to someone who originally obtained their SSN while having a California mailing address. The only numbers that seem guaranteed to never be SSNs are any number beginning with "000".

    You can find out a little more information about Social Security numbers on this page on HowStuffWorks.

  22. Re:Good Thing on Microsoft Wants to Take on Google · · Score: 1

    Yes, but are you one of the much larger percentage of people who use Windows and the built-in browser, IE? You know...the majority of people who will suddenly stop using google because their browser has a search function built-in to the nav bar...that goes to MS Search. I don't think Microsoft is going to miss the small percentage of users that aren't running their browser.

  23. Re:Fine... Let 'em try! on Microsoft Wants to Take on Google · · Score: 1

    Î think your version of requirements only applies to non-Windows users (which aren't a whole lot of people percentage-wide). They don't have to have any of those things if they just add a little Microsoft Search box to the nav bar of IE for Windows. Suddenly every Windows user has MS Search at their fingertips and won't bother typing in a URL to go to google...no matter how good it is. That's just the way it works.

  24. License Irrelevant on Apple Terminates Safari Seed Program · · Score: 5, Informative

    Part of the core rendering is based on Konqueror and is open source (and they do release the enhancements they make to that part back to the community). Everything else that is wrapped around it is not open source. So they have no requirement to let everybody see every little change they make there...and won't.

  25. Re:Does it really matter? on First Test of Utah Anti-Spam Law Dismissed · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's a good thing all the spammers are here in the U.S. where they can be stopped by a U.S. law like this.