Wow, I never said that downloading was ok, I just wanted to make a point about the entire music experience compared to the sonic one and how that could impact how people behave. Right or wrong never entered my post because I did not state my position on it.
Have I downloaded? Sure. Do I purchase music? Yes, but now am very happy with *each* purchase. Is it right? Likely not, but neither is the current price and distribution structure. Wrong or right, peer to peer technologies are forcing a long overdue market change. I consider this Karma for the Recording companies. Thrash your customer base and source talent pool long enough and something will come along to fill the gap. I do not treat most things this way, but there is just something just slimey enough about the media distribution companies that makes me want to. Sure it's wrong, but that's the way it is and I am not the only one. To me this indicates a problem on their end that will continue to fester in one form or another until it is fixed.
Stripping basic rights is not the right way to acheive this BTW because this prevents people who own their content from using the system for their own good, ON THEIR OWN. It also does nothing to prevent us from being exploited again in the future with little or no recourse. There is no perfect system that will also be humane. Things are too complex for that to work. So there will be losses. Building that in to how you do business will mean success. Ignoring it, or worse trying to change it will mean failure. Is it right or fair? Not really, but it is the truth.
The author is totally correct in his statement. He is publishing content (good content BTW) in a way he believes will make him some money. Given the nature of his project, I am inclined to believe him. He has a right to do this because the content is his. So go grab his book and take a look. If you plan to do any of these things, you will likely want a paper copy. Nothing wrong in that.
Not all content will work this way, but his does. Maybe others interested in doing the same things will see his effort and try as well. This only benefits us in the long run. It will also benefit the smarter ones if they are able to capture user feedback and input because the audience will literally be able to tell the producer what will be of value before it is written. Pretty decent way to go really.
You know I was on/. 4 years ago and clearly remember the many ad discussions. We have learned a little since then. I do believe ads can be sold on the web to pay for content, but those ads and their delivery system must add some value to the process or it will fail.
Banners can be sold on a per click basis, not impression. Ad people will pay for results, but you have to be able to show it to them. Those who sell the ad space need to do some work to make sure those ads get seen when it makes some sense, not at random. Google was the first to really figure this out. Pay per click works and works well. My parents tried other schemes for their web business, but felt the money was wasted because they could not see any results. Using the google system worked in a clear way which let them see it's worth.
Content can be presented a couple different ways. Look at Ars Technica. They wanted to make money yet also understood that nobody would come to understand what they were about without free content to do the selling. Their solution? Present items for free, but add value to the subscribers. If you subscribe you can get nicely produced PDF files of their content. That content is also nicely indexed so it is easy to find and refer to. Given the technical nature of their productions, this ongoing growing library has worth that grows as you pay. They still use banners in reasonable ways as well. They are making it easy for those who could pay to do so while realizing that many people will not pay.
Look at pr0n. There is *lots* of it avaliable for free. Why then do people pay? And they do pay, mind you. They pay because those pimping the pr0n understand how to add value to the experience.
Lwn delays their content for non subscribers. This works to their advantage as well. Timely news is worth paying for, particularly when it is news with informed commentary added. Paying for that means you get the scoop early. They have not closed yet, though they were going to. Maybe they are learning now where their value is and how to make it worth purchasing.
The nature of your content has a lot to do with the audience you attract. For each audience, there will be ways to add value to both your potential subscribers and advertisers, but the work must be done in an honest clear way in order to get anything out of it. This also means not over-producing your content. For a lot of people, well formatted pages with text and a picture or two gets things done. Excessive bandwidth costs will kill a site even if they are getting ad revenue. So will excessive staff costs.
Forced ads have the opposite effect. Forcing people to see the ad, allows one to show impressions to the ad people, but at what cost? Are they good impressions or bad? Are they even targeted correctly?
Hell, if they want some revenue from ads, they could ask! "You have visited us a lot recently. Please take a moment to view this which we feel may be of interest based on your travels here." This could be anonymous and could be well targeted making both sides happy.
There are many other solutions not yet explored, but people need to work at it and understand what they are doing. The problem is both technical and social.
So you can't just throw up a banner with no targeting no value no nothing and expect someone to pay for that. Why would they? So a lot of web content funded through ad revenue schemes are failing right now because those working on them are not doing their job, not because it won't work.
I am not sure this is the entire story. Music is better on CD. In some cases, quite a bit better. So the experience is similar, but not quite the same. This difference can be enough to warrant a purchase.
There is more to the experience though. The packaging of the CD, cover art, liner notes and little freebies seem to make quite a difference to a lot of people many of whom also would not care about the sonic quality differences between CD and mp3 / ogg.
There is also the purchase process. Going somewhere or doing something to get a copy of a recording adds something to the value of that recording. --A tangible thing. You get something real to represent your investment in the music. You also get some sense of support for the artist in question. Yeah, the current system is broken, but it does not have to be.
Maybe you go with friends and have a coffee or catch a movie or some live music. You also get a memory that would not come from a download.
Live music is also quite a different experience. You could easily consider recorded music a promo for the real thing. Live performances have lots of energy. Many people are there sharing their reaction to the performance. You gain an understanding of the group that can add a lot to your perception of the music.
Downloads do not tell the whole story just as e-books don't.
Rip and encode CD's with Grip. Burn CD's with Gcombust! Default file format is ogg.
Edit web graphics and pictures I am sent with Gimp.
Open Office handles any basic data processing tasks I need. Documents, spreadsheets and other related things are handled just fine. Once in a while a document comes in a little mangled, but I can always read them. I make sure and let others know how they can send documents without worrying about translation issues. When they realize not everyone uses Microsoft Word, they wonder why. When they understand the cost of Open Office, they will begin to ask how. I am not ashamed to say I want to cut down on my basic computing costs in these down times.
Evolution for mail. I actually prefer this to almost any other GUI mail client. Evolution competes easily with the best of the win32 mail clients.
Ogle is a great DVD player. Simple keystroke commands let you forget you are using a computer to watch the movie once you are in full screen mode. Bonus feature is that you can basically play anything and skip the annoyances. Win32 players need to play catch-up here actually. I have shown this to people who ask if they can run it under windows!
Gaming is a little weak, but reasonable right now. The kind of games I like to play on computers are avaliable for the most part. Not all titles, but enough that I can find something to play. For the rest, there is always PS2!
I do remote support for both win32 and UNIX systems. SSH and VNC perform very nicely here.
For all of those complaining about X --get over it. X rules if you get hardware that is well supported. This is not much different from the win32 world actually. Consider I have a Matrox G400 in the machine right now. Under win32 this card is a dog. Guess what? Linux and X bring out all the performance this card can offer. Nice deal! The best part is this will only continue to get better.
Mozilla and crossover to handle internet content.
Xmms for music.
My family makes use of this machine and does not always treat it well. So, XFS journaling filesystem handles this. There are others, but I know SGI and XFS, so that was my choice. 4 kids and a wife that will all switch it off once in a while without me looking and I have had zero problems.
Acrobat reader for pdf.
Programming works just fine using gcc and OpenGL. If you consider all that one can do right now for nothing, this is really hard to beat. Anyone getting into programming as a hobby or perhaps career change is a fool not to explore this.
Learning how to compile software is one of the smartest things I have ever done. It is not hard generally and the benefits are huge.
I have two areas that are not very well addressed in terms of how I work. Authoring HTML content can be done easily enough, but I want to use Dreamweaver. So that happens under Wine. I also work with MCAD products. Some of those run on another UNIX, so that can happen on my desktop because of X. Others are win32 only so there are times I need to use another machine. (I hate dual booting. --Easier to just use another box and run VNC, or use VMware.)
I do run Maya for some parts of my MCAD work and it works just fine under Linux. This is another interesting case with regard to X window support. Under win32, that older Matrox will not run Maya well at all. Under Linux that card works very well considering its limitations. Hmmm...
Sure I am a technical guy, so I took the time to learn how things get done. If you are willing to work the way Linux does, there is a lot there for the taking. Before you all say that it's too hard for the masses, consider this:
You know about 10 years ago, I distinctly remember dealing with win95 and DOS program installation and configuration issues. I was paid many times to 'just fix it'. Hardware problems, driver problems, and other problems made things very hard for the new user. Things are a little different today, but not too different. Installing windows on a new machine can be quite the chore. Updating it and hardening it for the connected home user of today takes time as well. Is this really any different than what we expect people to do with Linux?
Linux can compete today. It competes on cost, flexibility and stability and capability. It does not do everything well, but it does many things well enough that a growing number of users can make use of it with a little help. Guess what? That is exactly how Win95 got started too. Took quite a few years of thrashing by everyone to get it all done.
The sad part? Most of us here bitching on/. helped get it there. Why not do the same with Linux? I am because I like it. Thrashing on Linux is fun. Doing the same under win32 is annoying.
Lots of people want a computer that just works. They want to write stuff, read e-mail and use the Internet. Some of them want to enjoy DVD and CD media as well.
For many of these people, a well configured Linux install will do the task with little or no hassle. All they need is someone to set one up for them. Same as they do using a win32 varient now.
All this really means is we are a hell of a lot closer than we were just two years ago.
Going forward is simple. The community will continue to provide creative options which the distributions will eventually figure out how to best package. The big commercial applications are starting to show. (PTC, Alias WaveFront, MSC Analysis and others) Cost will remain low for good systems.
What do we need to do?
Simple, just know what Linux can do today and make sure you can make it perform. Show others what you are doing and let them know why.
Every day, another class of user will be able to realistically make use of Linux if they are willing to make some choices. New operating systems are hard, but that does not mean they are not worth learning --even for fairly average users. After all many of them went through this with win95.
We need to eat our own dog food with regard to Linux. Two years ago, I saw strong potential, but was not ready to use it full-time myself. Today that has changed. Now I can actually begin doing the real learning and from that teaching --same as it was with win95...
It is only a matter of time at this point --or lawyers.
turnpikes drain my pocket change. They waste alot of everyones time. Why use the fast road only to have to count change and wait (sometimes I admit!) at the toll gate.
Having lived where we don't have these things, I am not interested in seeing them.
Not that it does not work though, I just would not like it at all.
I would have to agree with this. I had a chance to try this out with the mech game.
Things were very smooth. Using the console online is very easy. Overall the gaming experience was decent. The voice option is downright funny. Here you are listening to a bunch of kids arguing about how to get the game moving.
"Push the green one"
"The green one?"
"Yeah"
"No!, Not twice just one more time"
"Push it again"
"Don't listen to him, you have already pressed it!"
"Keep pressing it until you see the check next to your name"
"But don't hold it down"
"Which one is me?"
"The one with no check, no wait yours is checked, now it's not, now it is"
"Oh I see it, Now I'm ready!"
"Lets go ok?"
"Push it again"
"Is dave on this one --is he playing this time?"
"Ok I'm ready"
"Wait! How do I know which mech I have? I wanna play with the big mech --you know Atlas!"
"Press the yellow one"
After a little of this, I chose to just wait on the voice until the game actually started...
I did a similar thing to change career paths a while back. One of the best employment experiences I have ever had. The people I worked for began to pay me without asking, then when an opening came, I was in, if I wanted. You know I was actually very qualified to perform the job they were asking me to fill, but would have never known otherwise. Also, it was not really the job I was looking for either. Learning both of these things was well worth my time.
One difference though, I was also working at the time. Not sure how this affects your law argument.
In my case, no harm was done either way. If I slowly learned things were not for me, I could easily walk. They got some services for cheap, and I got some new experiences to consider as I move forward in life.
People compete every day for many things. Not willing to undercut free? Tough, others might be. There is potential for abuse on this, which is where your law argument comes in. Truth is, there is potential for abuse in the current labor law too.
The best jobs I have had are those where I could actually work with the people to find out if I really had value. I hate to say it, but this rarely happens in the standard interview process. Person to Person networking is how this sort of thing gets done and doing a little sample work is an excellent way to further that goal.
Maybe if the guy actually was pulling a full workload I could see your point, but what about other levels of involvement that can be useful to both parties? Getting a real-time education about something new combined with the chance to really network is no small payment when you don't have a job. If companies started to encourage this sort of thing, then maybe we have a problem, but for now...
Employee agreement or not, this is good advice and should be taken if the situation is right.
Early memories for me were firsts of things. Like the first time, I saw or heard or understood something. Sort of like the camera freak. Oooh this is new! Better take a shot of that for later. Goofy, but that seems to be how it worked for me back then.
Most of these are snapshots of a sort. There is a visual image combined with a rough time of day, and some direction. Very little sound, unless it was a key part of the memory.
All of them are short like movie clips. Could be my attention span at the time, or maybe just somehow only the relevant things were stored. Who knows? I was pretty damn young!
So I remember walking past a guy (who I could describe fairly well) who happened to be cutting some pipe with a saw. To me this was very interesting because the cutting of things happened with metal. What then cuts metal? This was in the summer about mid afternoon. His house was three up from ours on the same side of the street. The door was a dark color, he wore coveralls with no shirt underneath. (Ewww.) I was walking my bike up hill because I could get a nice ride... His house and ours faced east.
Another was a group of kids all riding bikes down the hill we lived on. They were jumping at the end. One kid in particular had an odd sized sprocket for his bike. He pedaled really fast. I don't have a thought for that one other than hmmm... Oh, and they called him 'little kid' only he was the same size they were. Later on I remember seeing sprockets on smaller bikes and thought they were referring to that with the name. Have always wanted to ask... which is likely the reason why I still remember.
Earliest one is in front of the first house I remember living in. I can remember the shape and color and one of the rooms. (The one where I got busted for turning on the TV for the first time... Hehe. Got started bright and early I did!) It faced north, though I did not know that until later, but managed to remember enough to know. Some people across the street did strange things. I remember their basement and some other things that led me to realize (when I was 16!?!) that they were fencing stolen goods for some thieves. (Don't ask, it just popped in there and my parents verified it.)
Just goes to show you never can tell what the little ones might remember. My parents were surprised that I knew. They moved because of it.
Language seems to play a part though. I can verbalize thoughts I had then. I am not sure if the verbal thoughts were constructed later or not. I suspect almost all of them were.
You know that would be a nice feature. When I write short things, I find myself checking the wc often. Makes for a better piece the first pass through.
I have never used an editor that did this (that I know of). Best I have seen is a stats line with number of lines and bytes used. Useless for this sort of thing.
An interface should be designed around the task. The nature of the task will dictate the various priorities inherent in a good interface for that particular task.
Interfaces do not replace education or training for the most part. Maybe some 'new user' features can help get one started, or perhaps remember what is almost forgotten, but that is it. Any continuing reliance on these features will cripple the interface for those who simply want to complete the task, and know how.
Most of the opinion I read has a lot to do with specific interface attributes and how well they address a particular task. Maybe the information content is good, or it does not take many keystrokes compared to another interface, or perhaps it might be easier to use or more intuitive than another interface.
The big question is about the value the interface brings in terms of workflow. Is there real value? Are choices clearly presented? Do those choices make sense? Is there any busy work? eg. "Operation successful, press ok to continue..."
Each of us have developed our own interface needs that are a direct function of the work we do. Since we are more different than we realize, a good interface will allow for this. A great one will encourage this while continuing to perform its basic function which is again, performing the task at hand in the most effective manner.
Because of these things, ease of use has little to do with the quality of the interface. In fact, ease of use will often simply mean not powerful or maybe limiting to those who clearly understand the task at hand and are simply interested in performing it.
This is not about the fewest mouse clicks or the least button presses or any other simple metric. It is about understanding the nature of the task being designed for and presenting viable choices to those performing the task in a way that adds value to the execution of the task.
That's really it. Everything else is just fluff once you get past new user issues.
Coupla examples:
The seemingly simple task of editing text.
I have used vi, emacs (a little), joe, edlin, notepad, textpad, nedit and many others on different platforms. Each of these applications have their own different interface. Does that mean we simply don't yet know how to best edit text, or is it that we know all about editing text, but prefer to do it in specific ways depending on the overall goal of the text editing session.
I suspect the former will never happen and the latter does because...
On slow text only connections, vi is fantastic. You can clearly delinate between command and data. Given latency issues and large text datasets, this seperation allows one to make best use of the connection they have. You can do powerful things with a few keystrokes. To someone on a lan who does not understand vi very well at all, this is cryptic for no reason. For someone on a slow connecion it is golden --and worth learning if you value your time.
Casual writing is best done in something like Open Office, or something similar. This type of interface scales to a degree also. Want to step up from a simple essay? There are features present that do not get in the way until you start looking for them. Got a slow connection? Forget it.
I happen to enjoy editing code in nedit or text pad. I am also not an expert coder. If that changes for me, I understand I will likely outgrow these two because they do not address more advanced coding tasks as well as some other programs do.
Since the various tasks surrounding the editing of text are very different, the best interfaces are going to be different even though all we are really doing is editing text.
This means there is never ever going to be the one best text editor. (Sorry vi -vs- emacs folks!)
What does this mean for those of us who want to edit some text?
It means that people who are serious about editing text are best served by learning about the different interfaces and how they relate to the task at hand if they want to make the best use of their time.
Casual text editor or writer? Great! Get one of the bloated hold your hand programs and make good use of it. That is what it is there for.
What does this mean for those who produce text editing tools?
It means there is a clear tradeoff between the number of tasks you address well and the value your interface provides to those who are interested in performing those tasks. Try and do too much? You get Word, or Open Office. Do too little and you get Notepad or Joe. Nail one task perfectly and you get Textpad or vi or emacs.
This also means that in order to create a good interface for a given task, you better damn well understand that particular task inside and out. If you don't, then you cannot add any value and your interface will suffer like it or not.
Are any of these editors really better than the others?
It depends on the nature of the task you use them for. The only one out of the bunch I could never understand is edlin. It does not do anything well at all. Mistake, glad to be rid of it. The other ones though all have their merits depending on what one is doing --more importantly why.
Dumbing down a program to attract new users because it is easier to use is simply trading one thing for another. In the end, what could make your program great is lost.
This is just as bad as an interface that assumes too much because it makes those that use it work harder than the need to in order to get the task done. Spartan is ok --given the task at hand would benefit from that.
People who design interfaces need to pay particular attention to their users and the nature of the task they are performing. It is about focus. Too narrow or too broad, or just right for what people really are going to be doing.
Spending time with the kids and family. Trying like hell not to spend any significant time on/. but not doing well at the moment.
Hope all of you find yourselves well and with family having good times.
OT: (Sort of)
Ever wonder about the subtle change in language happening to discussion about these times? I noticed that the headline for this thread has the word Christmas in it. Usually Christmas is associated with a Christmas tree. Most of the media has been referring to this as a 'Holiday Tree' (probably because they are afraid of offending someone.)
To me this is wrong, and should get a little more discussion than it has currently.
I hear you loud and clear. I think about the cost of cars often. I have a family of 6! (My god, what *was* I thinking?)
We have one car. I have cut the cost by not buying new cars. Just the depreciation alone pays for my cars. It is fuel efficient and is a manual so I can get the most for the buck.
The kids use the bus often. I get them passes so it makes sense there. I will use it on occasion when I don't need to drive while at work.
My wife and I share the other car for work and such so that works pretty well.
For me, I would love to be using a bike --they are still as fun as they were when I was a kid. However, my work requirements keep me off the busses for now.
Portland is a city trying to push these values pretty hard. They have bike only lanes in many places, a lot of mass transit (though the cost on that is pretty high from a tax point of view), and many options for skating and such in the downtown area.
For me, the car is something I need, but won't spend any more on than I have to.
So you are right about cost. I just don't have the options I would like to have.
You are dead on about people wanting change, but not being willing to actually do anything to make it happen.
You know, you can get LOTR used, or steep discount new on DVD and loan it to friends.
Make your own damn Latte.
Sort of stuck with the gas station, but there is always www.gasbuddy.com for the lowest price.
Don't pay HBO, get the Soparanos used or steep discount on DVD as well.
I do this often. For me, it happened when the family got active. We decided to cut our entertainment budget in favor of school sports, outdoor activities and other things.
The first year is hard because you can't get anything new. After that it is a lot easier.
So we are a little behind. You know what? It really does not matter as much as people would think. The hard part is that making choices is harder than just going with the flow --until you actually start making them.
Re:And another thing...
on
DSL Rising
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· Score: 1
1. Don't care, have little to hide. You?
2. So, run DNS and mail, or use a service.
You have #3 twice so... in order:
3. Yes, why bother?
3. We just don't agree.
4. It is totally fair use! And private and ethical. Compared to kazaa? Cmon! If this is all people were doing, we would here exactly zero about it today. Kazaa is for people who want something for nothing. Using SSH as I described is one person sharing something interesting with another. The first is likely harmful in some way, the second harmless.
5. Weak, you can easily do better.
So, what? My original point still remains. If it does not matter to anyone, then you have some measure of privacy, but if it does, you are as tagged as any of us are.
So, get over it.
Normally, I would not give an AC comment such as this the time of day. Knew better then, but thought better of it.
That's funny about the garbage truck. I'll bet there are a coupla contractors that just love that!
I dumped cable for a SAT a while back, then dumped that too.
The amount of extra time I gained was well worth it. Some things I miss, like live sports events and such, but others I can get other ways. (Like SG1 on DVD!)
Interestingly, things like live sports become a little more social now because I simply go where it is showing and talk with friends while I am at it.
The cost of the SAT pays for the DSL, so things like news can be googled quick and easy any time I want.
I have learned a little about the nature of TV, for me at least, since this decision. If you have 150 of "Americas Best Programming" channels avaliable, there is a perception that there is always something on an that you might miss it. At the least, you spend some time watching because you should at least get something for the money. Heck, given the slow channel change rate, you can spend a good 20 minutes narrowing down the choices.
Having switched to an antenna, I find the same problem only scaled down to about 12 channels or so. The rest can be purchased for viewing at any time. Also a good surf only takes about a minute or two. Quick and easy.
Sorry to trash on your SAT choice. They work very well and the picture is great. Just thought you might be interested in another perspective...
I have wondered a lot about dedicated speed. For the most part, I get it. Is it because there are fewer DSL users, or because the tech actually works better in that regard?
1. dns stuff is username.dsl.somethingelse.spiretech.com
2. You cannot really make use of the net without becoming part of the net.
#1 is me being anal because I wrote it wrong the first time.
#2 is a double edged sword. Having a dynamic IP, maybe a proxy or something combined with your favorite browser (It had better not be IE!) means that you can enjoy some limited privacy, but not any real privacy. So if some webmaster wants to know who looks at www.sickpics.com they get a number. Since they have to take steps to resolve that number into a name, it is likely they won't bother. So you get some privacy via laziness, but not any real privacy because *the record is still there*.
On the other hand, if someone wants to know who surfs www.childporncentral.com, they are going to know dynamic IP or not because the law makes this easy. (And I think it probably should be.) Again, the record is still there.
So if it does not matter you get some privacy, but if it does, you don't.
So in trade for some small degree of pseudo-privacy, you trade the ability to really make use of the Internet. You could run mail, serve your own files from your own website, have remote VNC or SSH to your machine (damn handy), and do other things that people actually connected to the Internet get to do.
For me the trade is not worth it. A lot of the interesting stuff about the internet has to do with the activity between users of the Internet. Every person who makes that simple trade not only limits what they can do, they devalue the choice for others.
If more people actually used the Internet, we would have fewer large companies trying to force those of us who actually understand what the Internet is and where it's value is, into limited consume only services.
Ever wonder why most service providers make your connection lopsided? (1mbps down 64kbps up) They all assume that you won't actually be making use of the internet. Serving your family photos, running a game server for friends, or writing interesting network applications are all things that have a lot of value yet are ignored by people like you who think they are getting something, but really are not.
Another point here. Ever hear of P2P and all the hassle it is causing? Well the solution is clean and simple. If you want to trade files with friends, do it on your machine on your terms. Got an interesting track for a friend, SSH to their box and drop it there followed by an e-mail. Simple, legal and private as well.
Think about it for a while. You may not want to be doing those things today, but what about tomarrow? Want any say over what your machine can and can't do? Good then it is time you participate with the rest of us so when the time comes you will actually know enough to make a decision that matters. While you are at it, tell your friends.
That is why I chose DSL over cable. Most of the cable companies don't get it. They see interactive television. Click and drool at its finest. At least DSL provides some choice because the ISP can be decoupled from the data transport service in most areas.
You probably won't bother reading this, but what the hell. Start by getting an account here, stop hiding behind your insecure nature and actually participate in this thing we call the Internet before you can't. It is likely that there are people worse than you on the net, once you see that you can't be at the top and understand it's hard to really be at the bottom actually using the Internet is fun and you will get something out of it.
Until, then don't bother trying because it is a waste of our time.
I have heard others say similar good things about pacifier. Nice to know there are at least a couple of ISP's that get it.
I have the Cisco also. Fine little machine. One tip for you though. If their box on the other end needs a reset, you can do that by powering yours down for 12 hours or so. Most of the time that does the trick without a phone call. (Qwest Tech told me.)
I had Qwest before they were Qwest. Signed up with US West. At the time, they provided a fine service. I had zero problems. When I signed up, they asked me about my OS. Told them Linux and IRIX. Did not even pause when they let me know the little external Cisco and a hub was what I needed. Service came with a little booklet explaining about home networks and how to start one.
Basically, I *hate* Qwest for everything but pure DSL. They do get that right. Hmmm.
When Qwest took over, service dropped followed by the damn MSN thing. That's when I chose spire. That is also my main reason for avoiding cable. Being able to make that choice really matters in my case.
You know I thought about that and the truth is --I really don't care. If I really want an anonymous connection, I can use a proxy, or the work connection, or pay for a service. Even then, someone could keep logs, so what's the point?
*nobody* is anonymous using just their ISP and a web browser.
I really have little to hide on the net. For me that is the way to go. Keep it simple and clean.
I chose DSL because...
on
DSL Rising
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· Score: 5, Informative
Cable was too restrictive. Sure, the speed is better in my neck of the woods, but choice matters more to me.
With DSL, in Portland, OR at least, I get to choose from a number of different speeds and ISP's.
For me this is the difference between a *real* connection to the Internet, and a download only one.
(Shameless plug --If you do not live here, skip!) www.spiretech.com
- Shell account on server via SSH or (gasp!) telnet. - Some level of free web site hosting. - Good connectivity - Only real user restriction is that you do not abuse the connection. So running a commercial site is out, but all the hobby level stuff is ok. - IP address by username in dns. Not static, but very useful. eg: user_name@dsl.spiretech.com
These things matter a lot to me. I use my home connection for many different activities. Many are related to my job, but some are just for learning.
So, you basically trade choice and connectivity for speed. For me that's fine. Maybe others see the same?
Noticed your typo above and it made me think "So Long.com". Thanks for the tip, but really there is other content that I don't have to fight for and that is what will get my attention.
I hate delayed content even more. Some hoser posted a good point followed by a lame link, so this reply really can't be under their thread.
They mentioned the salon system where you are basically forced to look at an ad for a time before getting the content.
The way I see it, broadband of any kind is a premium service. Why pay for it if the crap from the marketing folks reduces the quality of the experience to that of dialup? Think about it for a moment, if you use free Juno or something, what do you get? Ads --too many of them to make it worthwhile, so you upgrade service, but why? For a better experience of course! So, if the actions of the marketing people degrade this, does this not devalue the very service you pay extra for? Duh!
Personally, I like the ads that are intermixed in with the content. Most of the benefit of broadband is preserved, and the ads get eyeballs.
I can somewhat agree that browsing with popup support disabled somehow can be thought of as stealing, but what about malicious pages and such? How are users supposed to secure their machines without the freedom to reasonably define what their machine will and won't do for them?
Battling the customer for their attention is never going to work. It costs more money and generates more bad PR than good impressions, so why do it? You would think these types of all people would know this cold.
This sort of thing just limits the usefulness of the Internet just a little more for nothing but the profit of the losers selling this service.
Salon is going the wrong direction by holding content until the ad is viewed. These folks are just as bad. How are the people who place ads in a reasonable way doing? For that matter, how about the/. ad system? Google? Are these working? I do not mind either one bit because I get to choose the nature of the experience. Seems to me the most valuable impressions are those where a user CHOSE, not was tricked or forced, to follow through that particular ad. In that small moment, you have the holy grail, you have a potential buyer actually interested in your product seeking more information.
To everyone considering foolish schemes like this:
How the hell are you going to get this by forcing the issue? Really, tell me how, I want to know!
Know also, I don't have to get the content.
This means more than you would think. We are all being attacked more and more in this new age of information. This will backfire and when it does, where will you be then? Consider your answer again after you remember also that everyone gets to talk about it --a lot and for a long time.
Right now, there is more content presented than I can reasonably view. When I seek to meter my Internet time, guess who won't get the attention?
Remember that when your stats go down as interested visitors don't come back after being treated like criminals. Our time is valuable too, why not create an experience that rewards participation rather than the opposite? It can be done though it takes work. Isn't that what we are supposed to be doing to make money. Isn't money made by adding value where you realistically can?
Maybe there is some hope left though. If we feedback (which is what they really want anyway) our negative experiences, marketing people will begin to seek those who are actually working at providing an experience that people will come back for.
Tell 'em what you think people, it is the only thing that actually matters in the end.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, I never said that downloading was ok, I just wanted to make a point about the entire music experience compared to the sonic one and how that could impact how people behave. Right or wrong never entered my post because I did not state my position on it.
/. 4 years ago and clearly remember the many ad discussions. We have learned a little since then. I do believe ads can be sold on the web to pay for content, but those ads and their delivery system must add some value to the process or it will fail.
Have I downloaded? Sure. Do I purchase music? Yes, but now am very happy with *each* purchase. Is it right? Likely not, but neither is the current price and distribution structure. Wrong or right, peer to peer technologies are forcing a long overdue market change. I consider this Karma for the Recording companies. Thrash your customer base and source talent pool long enough and something will come along to fill the gap. I do not treat most things this way, but there is just something just slimey enough about the media distribution companies that makes me want to. Sure it's wrong, but that's the way it is and I am not the only one. To me this indicates a problem on their end that will continue to fester in one form or another until it is fixed.
Stripping basic rights is not the right way to acheive this BTW because this prevents people who own their content from using the system for their own good, ON THEIR OWN. It also does nothing to prevent us from being exploited again in the future with little or no recourse. There is no perfect system that will also be humane. Things are too complex for that to work. So there will be losses. Building that in to how you do business will mean success. Ignoring it, or worse trying to change it will mean failure. Is it right or fair? Not really, but it is the truth.
The author is totally correct in his statement. He is publishing content (good content BTW) in a way he believes will make him some money. Given the nature of his project, I am inclined to believe him. He has a right to do this because the content is his. So go grab his book and take a look. If you plan to do any of these things, you will likely want a paper copy. Nothing wrong in that.
Not all content will work this way, but his does. Maybe others interested in doing the same things will see his effort and try as well. This only benefits us in the long run. It will also benefit the smarter ones if they are able to capture user feedback and input because the audience will literally be able to tell the producer what will be of value before it is written. Pretty decent way to go really.
You know I was on
Banners can be sold on a per click basis, not impression. Ad people will pay for results, but you have to be able to show it to them. Those who sell the ad space need to do some work to make sure those ads get seen when it makes some sense, not at random. Google was the first to really figure this out. Pay per click works and works well. My parents tried other schemes for their web business, but felt the money was wasted because they could not see any results. Using the google system worked in a clear way which let them see it's worth.
Content can be presented a couple different ways. Look at Ars Technica. They wanted to make money yet also understood that nobody would come to understand what they were about without free content to do the selling. Their solution? Present items for free, but add value to the subscribers. If you subscribe you can get nicely produced PDF files of their content. That content is also nicely indexed so it is easy to find and refer to. Given the technical nature of their productions, this ongoing growing library has worth that grows as you pay. They still use banners in reasonable ways as well. They are making it easy for those who could pay to do so while realizing that many people will not pay.
Look at pr0n. There is *lots* of it avaliable for free. Why then do people pay? And they do pay, mind you. They pay because those pimping the pr0n understand how to add value to the experience.
Lwn delays their content for non subscribers. This works to their advantage as well. Timely news is worth paying for, particularly when it is news with informed commentary added. Paying for that means you get the scoop early. They have not closed yet, though they were going to. Maybe they are learning now where their value is and how to make it worth purchasing.
The nature of your content has a lot to do with the audience you attract. For each audience, there will be ways to add value to both your potential subscribers and advertisers, but the work must be done in an honest clear way in order to get anything out of it. This also means not over-producing your content. For a lot of people, well formatted pages with text and a picture or two gets things done. Excessive bandwidth costs will kill a site even if they are getting ad revenue. So will excessive staff costs.
Forced ads have the opposite effect. Forcing people to see the ad, allows one to show impressions to the ad people, but at what cost? Are they good impressions or bad? Are they even targeted correctly?
Hell, if they want some revenue from ads, they could ask! "You have visited us a lot recently. Please take a moment to view this which we feel may be of interest based on your travels here." This could be anonymous and could be well targeted making both sides happy.
There are many other solutions not yet explored, but people need to work at it and understand what they are doing. The problem is both technical and social.
So you can't just throw up a banner with no targeting no value no nothing and expect someone to pay for that. Why would they? So a lot of web content funded through ad revenue schemes are failing right now because those working on them are not doing their job, not because it won't work.
I am not sure this is the entire story. Music is better on CD. In some cases, quite a bit better. So the experience is similar, but not quite the same. This difference can be enough to warrant a purchase.
There is more to the experience though. The packaging of the CD, cover art, liner notes and little freebies seem to make quite a difference to a lot of people many of whom also would not care about the sonic quality differences between CD and mp3 / ogg.
There is also the purchase process. Going somewhere or doing something to get a copy of a recording adds something to the value of that recording. --A tangible thing. You get something real to represent your investment in the music. You also get some sense of support for the artist in question. Yeah, the current system is broken, but it does not have to be.
Maybe you go with friends and have a coffee or catch a movie or some live music. You also get a memory that would not come from a download.
Live music is also quite a different experience. You could easily consider recorded music a promo for the real thing. Live performances have lots of energy. Many people are there sharing their reaction to the performance. You gain an understanding of the group that can add a lot to your perception of the music.
Downloads do not tell the whole story just as e-books don't.
Man, that was a great chip! Quite possibly the very best 8bit CPU ever made. Still have the big grey Motorola databook just for the memories.
6502 and Z80 junkies have no idea what they are missing...
What I do today with no complaints.
/. helped get it there. Why not do the same with Linux? I am because I like it. Thrashing on Linux is fun. Doing the same under win32 is annoying.
Rip and encode CD's with Grip. Burn CD's with Gcombust! Default file format is ogg.
Edit web graphics and pictures I am sent with Gimp.
Open Office handles any basic data processing tasks I need. Documents, spreadsheets and other related things are handled just fine. Once in a while a document comes in a little mangled, but I can always read them. I make sure and let others know how they can send documents without worrying about translation issues. When they realize not everyone uses Microsoft Word, they wonder why. When they understand the cost of Open Office, they will begin to ask how. I am not ashamed to say I want to cut down on my basic computing costs in these down times.
Evolution for mail. I actually prefer this to almost any other GUI mail client. Evolution competes easily with the best of the win32 mail clients.
Ogle is a great DVD player. Simple keystroke commands let you forget you are using a computer to watch the movie once you are in full screen mode. Bonus feature is that you can basically play anything and skip the annoyances. Win32 players need to play catch-up here actually. I have shown this to people who ask if they can run it under windows!
Gaming is a little weak, but reasonable right now. The kind of games I like to play on computers are avaliable for the most part. Not all titles, but enough that I can find something to play. For the rest, there is always PS2!
I do remote support for both win32 and UNIX systems. SSH and VNC perform very nicely here.
For all of those complaining about X --get over it. X rules if you get hardware that is well supported. This is not much different from the win32 world actually. Consider I have a Matrox G400 in the machine right now. Under win32 this card is a dog. Guess what? Linux and X bring out all the performance this card can offer. Nice deal! The best part is this will only continue to get better.
Mozilla and crossover to handle internet content.
Xmms for music.
My family makes use of this machine and does not always treat it well. So, XFS journaling filesystem handles this. There are others, but I know SGI and XFS, so that was my choice. 4 kids and a wife that will all switch it off once in a while without me looking and I have had zero problems.
Acrobat reader for pdf.
Programming works just fine using gcc and OpenGL. If you consider all that one can do right now for nothing, this is really hard to beat. Anyone getting into programming as a hobby or perhaps career change is a fool not to explore this.
Learning how to compile software is one of the smartest things I have ever done. It is not hard generally and the benefits are huge.
I have two areas that are not very well addressed in terms of how I work. Authoring HTML content can be done easily enough, but I want to use Dreamweaver. So that happens under Wine. I also work with MCAD products. Some of those run on another UNIX, so that can happen on my desktop because of X. Others are win32 only so there are times I need to use another machine. (I hate dual booting. --Easier to just use another box and run VNC, or use VMware.)
I do run Maya for some parts of my MCAD work and it works just fine under Linux. This is another interesting case with regard to X window support. Under win32, that older Matrox will not run Maya well at all. Under Linux that card works very well considering its limitations. Hmmm...
Sure I am a technical guy, so I took the time to learn how things get done. If you are willing to work the way Linux does, there is a lot there for the taking. Before you all say that it's too hard for the masses, consider this:
You know about 10 years ago, I distinctly remember dealing with win95 and DOS program installation and configuration issues. I was paid many times to 'just fix it'. Hardware problems, driver problems, and other problems made things very hard for the new user. Things are a little different today, but not too different. Installing windows on a new machine can be quite the chore. Updating it and hardening it for the connected home user of today takes time as well. Is this really any different than what we expect people to do with Linux?
Linux can compete today. It competes on cost, flexibility and stability and capability. It does not do everything well, but it does many things well enough that a growing number of users can make use of it with a little help. Guess what? That is exactly how Win95 got started too. Took quite a few years of thrashing by everyone to get it all done.
The sad part? Most of us here bitching on
Lots of people want a computer that just works. They want to write stuff, read e-mail and use the Internet. Some of them want to enjoy DVD and CD media as well.
For many of these people, a well configured Linux install will do the task with little or no hassle. All they need is someone to set one up for them. Same as they do using a win32 varient now.
All this really means is we are a hell of a lot closer than we were just two years ago.
Going forward is simple. The community will continue to provide creative options which the distributions will eventually figure out how to best package. The big commercial applications are starting to show. (PTC, Alias WaveFront, MSC Analysis and others) Cost will remain low for good systems.
What do we need to do?
Simple, just know what Linux can do today and make sure you can make it perform. Show others what you are doing and let them know why.
Every day, another class of user will be able to realistically make use of Linux if they are willing to make some choices. New operating systems are hard, but that does not mean they are not worth learning --even for fairly average users. After all many of them went through this with win95.
We need to eat our own dog food with regard to Linux. Two years ago, I saw strong potential, but was not ready to use it full-time myself. Today that has changed. Now I can actually begin doing the real learning and from that teaching --same as it was with win95...
It is only a matter of time at this point --or lawyers.
turnpikes drain my pocket change. They waste alot of everyones time. Why use the fast road only to have to count change and wait (sometimes I admit!) at the toll gate.
Having lived where we don't have these things, I am not interested in seeing them.
Not that it does not work though, I just would not like it at all.
about recycling being 'stolen' Apparently people were going through the bins taking what they thought was valuable and recycling it themselves.
Not sure how it ended up, but it was the same issue.
I would have to agree with this. I had a chance to try this out with the mech game.
Things were very smooth. Using the console online is very easy. Overall the gaming experience was decent. The voice option is downright funny. Here you are listening to a bunch of kids arguing about how to get the game moving.
"Push the green one"
"The green one?"
"Yeah"
"No!, Not twice just one more time"
"Push it again"
"Don't listen to him, you have already pressed it!"
"Keep pressing it until you see the check next to your name"
"But don't hold it down"
"Which one is me?"
"The one with no check, no wait yours is checked, now it's not, now it is"
"Oh I see it, Now I'm ready!"
"Lets go ok?"
"Push it again"
"Is dave on this one --is he playing this time?"
"Ok I'm ready"
"Wait! How do I know which mech I have? I wanna play with the big mech --you know Atlas!"
"Press the yellow one"
After a little of this, I chose to just wait on the voice until the game actually started...
I did a similar thing to change career paths a while back. One of the best employment experiences I have ever had. The people I worked for began to pay me without asking, then when an opening came, I was in, if I wanted. You know I was actually very qualified to perform the job they were asking me to fill, but would have never known otherwise. Also, it was not really the job I was looking for either. Learning both of these things was well worth my time.
One difference though, I was also working at the time. Not sure how this affects your law argument.
In my case, no harm was done either way. If I slowly learned things were not for me, I could easily walk. They got some services for cheap, and I got some new experiences to consider as I move forward in life.
People compete every day for many things. Not willing to undercut free? Tough, others might be. There is potential for abuse on this, which is where your law argument comes in. Truth is, there is potential for abuse in the current labor law too.
The best jobs I have had are those where I could actually work with the people to find out if I really had value. I hate to say it, but this rarely happens in the standard interview process. Person to Person networking is how this sort of thing gets done and doing a little sample work is an excellent way to further that goal.
Maybe if the guy actually was pulling a full workload I could see your point, but what about other levels of involvement that can be useful to both parties? Getting a real-time education about something new combined with the chance to really network is no small payment when you don't have a job. If companies started to encourage this sort of thing, then maybe we have a problem, but for now...
Employee agreement or not, this is good advice and should be taken if the situation is right.
Early memories for me were firsts of things. Like the first time, I saw or heard or understood something. Sort of like the camera freak. Oooh this is new! Better take a shot of that for later. Goofy, but that seems to be how it worked for me back then.
Most of these are snapshots of a sort. There is a visual image combined with a rough time of day, and some direction. Very little sound, unless it was a key part of the memory.
All of them are short like movie clips. Could be my attention span at the time, or maybe just somehow only the relevant things were stored. Who knows? I was pretty damn young!
So I remember walking past a guy (who I could describe fairly well) who happened to be cutting some pipe with a saw. To me this was very interesting because the cutting of things happened with metal. What then cuts metal? This was in the summer about mid afternoon. His house was three up from ours on the same side of the street. The door was a dark color, he wore coveralls with no shirt underneath. (Ewww.) I was walking my bike up hill because I could get a nice ride... His house and ours faced east.
Another was a group of kids all riding bikes down the hill we lived on. They were jumping at the end. One kid in particular had an odd sized sprocket for his bike. He pedaled really fast. I don't have a thought for that one other than hmmm... Oh, and they called him 'little kid' only he was the same size they were. Later on I remember seeing sprockets on smaller bikes and thought they were referring to that with the name. Have always wanted to ask... which is likely the reason why I still remember.
Earliest one is in front of the first house I remember living in. I can remember the shape and color and one of the rooms. (The one where I got busted for turning on the TV for the first time... Hehe. Got started bright and early I did!) It faced north, though I did not know that until later, but managed to remember enough to know. Some people across the street did strange things. I remember their basement and some other things that led me to realize (when I was 16!?!) that they were fencing stolen goods for some thieves. (Don't ask, it just popped in there and my parents verified it.)
Just goes to show you never can tell what the little ones might remember. My parents were surprised that I knew. They moved because of it.
Language seems to play a part though. I can verbalize thoughts I had then. I am not sure if the verbal thoughts were constructed later or not. I suspect almost all of them were.
You know that would be a nice feature. When I write short things, I find myself checking the wc often. Makes for a better piece the first pass through.
I have never used an editor that did this (that I know of). Best I have seen is a stats line with number of lines and bytes used. Useless for this sort of thing.
Here is my rant (diatribe?) about the subject.
An interface should be designed around the task. The nature of the task will dictate the various priorities inherent in a good interface for that particular task.
Interfaces do not replace education or training for the most part. Maybe some 'new user' features can help get one started, or perhaps remember what is almost forgotten, but that is it. Any continuing reliance on these features will cripple the interface for those who simply want to complete the task, and know how.
Most of the opinion I read has a lot to do with specific interface attributes and how well they address a particular task. Maybe the information content is good, or it does not take many keystrokes compared to another interface, or perhaps it might be easier to use or more intuitive than another interface.
The big question is about the value the interface brings in terms of workflow. Is there real value? Are choices clearly presented? Do those choices make sense? Is there any busy work? eg. "Operation successful, press ok to continue..."
Each of us have developed our own interface needs that are a direct function of the work we do. Since we are more different than we realize, a good interface will allow for this. A great one will encourage this while continuing to perform its basic function which is again, performing the task at hand in the most effective manner.
Because of these things, ease of use has little to do with the quality of the interface. In fact, ease of use will often simply mean not powerful or maybe limiting to those who clearly understand the task at hand and are simply interested in performing it.
This is not about the fewest mouse clicks or the least button presses or any other simple metric. It is about understanding the nature of the task being designed for and presenting viable choices to those performing the task in a way that adds value to the execution of the task.
That's really it. Everything else is just fluff once you get past new user issues.
Coupla examples:
The seemingly simple task of editing text.
I have used vi, emacs (a little), joe, edlin, notepad, textpad, nedit and many others on different platforms. Each of these applications have their own different interface. Does that mean we simply don't yet know how to best edit text, or is it that we know all about editing text, but prefer to do it in specific ways depending on the overall goal of the text editing session.
I suspect the former will never happen and the latter does because...
On slow text only connections, vi is fantastic. You can clearly delinate between command and data. Given latency issues and large text datasets, this seperation allows one to make best use of the connection they have. You can do powerful things with a few keystrokes. To someone on a lan who does not understand vi very well at all, this is cryptic for no reason. For someone on a slow connecion it is golden --and worth learning if you value your time.
Casual writing is best done in something like Open Office, or something similar. This type of interface scales to a degree also. Want to step up from a simple essay? There are features present that do not get in the way until you start looking for them. Got a slow connection? Forget it.
I happen to enjoy editing code in nedit or text pad. I am also not an expert coder. If that changes for me, I understand I will likely outgrow these two because they do not address more advanced coding tasks as well as some other programs do.
Since the various tasks surrounding the editing of text are very different, the best interfaces are going to be different even though all we are really doing is editing text.
This means there is never ever going to be the one best text editor. (Sorry vi -vs- emacs folks!)
What does this mean for those of us who want to edit some text?
It means that people who are serious about editing text are best served by learning about the different interfaces and how they relate to the task at hand if they want to make the best use of their time.
Casual text editor or writer? Great! Get one of the bloated hold your hand programs and make good use of it. That is what it is there for.
What does this mean for those who produce text editing tools?
It means there is a clear tradeoff between the number of tasks you address well and the value your interface provides to those who are interested in performing those tasks. Try and do too much? You get Word, or Open Office. Do too little and you get Notepad or Joe. Nail one task perfectly and you get Textpad or vi or emacs.
This also means that in order to create a good interface for a given task, you better damn well understand that particular task inside and out. If you don't, then you cannot add any value and your interface will suffer like it or not.
Are any of these editors really better than the others?
It depends on the nature of the task you use them for. The only one out of the bunch I could never understand is edlin. It does not do anything well at all. Mistake, glad to be rid of it. The other ones though all have their merits depending on what one is doing --more importantly why.
Dumbing down a program to attract new users because it is easier to use is simply trading one thing for another. In the end, what could make your program great is lost.
This is just as bad as an interface that assumes too much because it makes those that use it work harder than the need to in order to get the task done. Spartan is ok --given the task at hand would benefit from that.
People who design interfaces need to pay particular attention to their users and the nature of the task they are performing. It is about focus. Too narrow or too broad, or just right for what people really are going to be doing.
Anything else is a waste of time.
Fucking Morons
Spending time with the kids and family. Trying like hell not to spend any significant time on /. but not doing well at the moment.
Hope all of you find yourselves well and with family having good times.
OT: (Sort of)
Ever wonder about the subtle change in language happening to discussion about these times? I noticed that the headline for this thread has the word Christmas in it. Usually Christmas is associated with a Christmas tree. Most of the media has been referring to this as a 'Holiday Tree' (probably because they are afraid of offending someone.)
To me this is wrong, and should get a little more discussion than it has currently.
Anyone out there seeing the same sort of thing?
I hear you loud and clear. I think about the cost of cars often. I have a family of 6! (My god, what *was* I thinking?)
We have one car. I have cut the cost by not buying new cars. Just the depreciation alone pays for my cars. It is fuel efficient and is a manual so I can get the most for the buck.
The kids use the bus often. I get them passes so it makes sense there. I will use it on occasion when I don't need to drive while at work.
My wife and I share the other car for work and such so that works pretty well.
For me, I would love to be using a bike --they are still as fun as they were when I was a kid. However, my work requirements keep me off the busses for now.
Portland is a city trying to push these values pretty hard. They have bike only lanes in many places, a lot of mass transit (though the cost on that is pretty high from a tax point of view), and many options for skating and such in the downtown area.
For me, the car is something I need, but won't spend any more on than I have to.
So you are right about cost. I just don't have the options I would like to have.
You are dead on about people wanting change, but not being willing to actually do anything to make it happen.
You know, you can get LOTR used, or steep discount new on DVD and loan it to friends.
Make your own damn Latte.
Sort of stuck with the gas station, but there is always www.gasbuddy.com for the lowest price.
Don't pay HBO, get the Soparanos used or steep discount on DVD as well.
I do this often. For me, it happened when the family got active. We decided to cut our entertainment budget in favor of school sports, outdoor activities and other things.
The first year is hard because you can't get anything new. After that it is a lot easier.
So we are a little behind. You know what? It really does not matter as much as people would think. The hard part is that making choices is harder than just going with the flow --until you actually start making them.
1. Don't care, have little to hide. You?
2. So, run DNS and mail, or use a service.
You have #3 twice so... in order:
3. Yes, why bother?
3. We just don't agree.
4. It is totally fair use! And private and ethical. Compared to kazaa? Cmon! If this is all people were doing, we would here exactly zero about it today. Kazaa is for people who want something for nothing. Using SSH as I described is one person sharing something interesting with another. The first is likely harmful in some way, the second harmless.
5. Weak, you can easily do better.
So, what? My original point still remains. If it does not matter to anyone, then you have some measure of privacy, but if it does, you are as tagged as any of us are.
So, get over it.
Normally, I would not give an AC comment such as this the time of day. Knew better then, but thought better of it.
I am damn sure now.
(Live and learn)
That's funny about the garbage truck. I'll bet there are a coupla contractors that just love that!
I dumped cable for a SAT a while back, then dumped that too.
The amount of extra time I gained was well worth it. Some things I miss, like live sports events and such, but others I can get other ways. (Like SG1 on DVD!)
Interestingly, things like live sports become a little more social now because I simply go where it is showing and talk with friends while I am at it.
The cost of the SAT pays for the DSL, so things like news can be googled quick and easy any time I want.
I have learned a little about the nature of TV, for me at least, since this decision. If you have 150 of "Americas Best Programming" channels avaliable, there is a perception that there is always something on an that you might miss it. At the least, you spend some time watching because you should at least get something for the money. Heck, given the slow channel change rate, you can spend a good 20 minutes narrowing down the choices.
Having switched to an antenna, I find the same problem only scaled down to about 12 channels or so. The rest can be purchased for viewing at any time. Also a good surf only takes about a minute or two. Quick and easy.
Sorry to trash on your SAT choice. They work very well and the picture is great. Just thought you might be interested in another perspective...
I have wondered a lot about dedicated speed. For the most part, I get it. Is it because there are fewer DSL users, or because the tech actually works better in that regard?
Don't ask why, I was just in a mood
1. dns stuff is username.dsl.somethingelse.spiretech.com
2. You cannot really make use of the net without becoming part of the net.
#1 is me being anal because I wrote it wrong the first time.
#2 is a double edged sword. Having a dynamic IP, maybe a proxy or something combined with your favorite browser (It had better not be IE!) means that you can enjoy some limited privacy, but not any real privacy. So if some webmaster wants to know who looks at www.sickpics.com they get a number. Since they have to take steps to resolve that number into a name, it is likely they won't bother. So you get some privacy via laziness, but not any real privacy because *the record is still there*.
On the other hand, if someone wants to know who surfs www.childporncentral.com, they are going to know dynamic IP or not because the law makes this easy. (And I think it probably should be.) Again, the record is still there.
So if it does not matter you get some privacy, but if it does, you don't.
So in trade for some small degree of pseudo-privacy, you trade the ability to really make use of the Internet. You could run mail, serve your own files from your own website, have remote VNC or SSH to your machine (damn handy), and do other things that people actually connected to the Internet get to do.
For me the trade is not worth it. A lot of the interesting stuff about the internet has to do with the activity between users of the Internet. Every person who makes that simple trade not only limits what they can do, they devalue the choice for others.
If more people actually used the Internet, we would have fewer large companies trying to force those of us who actually understand what the Internet is and where it's value is, into limited consume only services.
Ever wonder why most service providers make your connection lopsided? (1mbps down 64kbps up) They all assume that you won't actually be making use of the internet. Serving your family photos, running a game server for friends, or writing interesting network applications are all things that have a lot of value yet are ignored by people like you who think they are getting something, but really are not.
Another point here. Ever hear of P2P and all the hassle it is causing? Well the solution is clean and simple. If you want to trade files with friends, do it on your machine on your terms. Got an interesting track for a friend, SSH to their box and drop it there followed by an e-mail. Simple, legal and private as well.
Think about it for a while. You may not want to be doing those things today, but what about tomarrow? Want any say over what your machine can and can't do? Good then it is time you participate with the rest of us so when the time comes you will actually know enough to make a decision that matters. While you are at it, tell your friends.
That is why I chose DSL over cable. Most of the cable companies don't get it. They see interactive television. Click and drool at its finest. At least DSL provides some choice because the ISP can be decoupled from the data transport service in most areas.
You probably won't bother reading this, but what the hell. Start by getting an account here, stop hiding behind your insecure nature and actually participate in this thing we call the Internet before you can't. It is likely that there are people worse than you on the net, once you see that you can't be at the top and understand it's hard to really be at the bottom actually using the Internet is fun and you will get something out of it.
Until, then don't bother trying because it is a waste of our time.
I have heard others say similar good things about pacifier. Nice to know there are at least a couple of ISP's that get it.
I have the Cisco also. Fine little machine. One tip for you though. If their box on the other end needs a reset, you can do that by powering yours down for 12 hours or so. Most of the time that does the trick without a phone call. (Qwest Tech told me.)
I had Qwest before they were Qwest. Signed up with US West. At the time, they provided a fine service. I had zero problems. When I signed up, they asked me about my OS. Told them Linux and IRIX. Did not even pause when they let me know the little external Cisco and a hub was what I needed. Service came with a little booklet explaining about home networks and how to start one.
Basically, I *hate* Qwest for everything but pure DSL. They do get that right. Hmmm.
When Qwest took over, service dropped followed by the damn MSN thing. That's when I chose spire. That is also my main reason for avoiding cable. Being able to make that choice really matters in my case.
You know I thought about that and the truth is --I really don't care. If I really want an anonymous connection, I can use a proxy, or the work connection, or pay for a service. Even then, someone could keep logs, so what's the point?
*nobody* is anonymous using just their ISP and a web browser.
I really have little to hide on the net. For me that is the way to go. Keep it simple and clean.
Cable was too restrictive. Sure, the speed is better in my neck of the woods, but choice matters more to me.
With DSL, in Portland, OR at least, I get to choose from a number of different speeds and ISP's.
For me this is the difference between a *real* connection to the Internet, and a download only one.
(Shameless plug --If you do not live here, skip!)
www.spiretech.com
- Shell account on server via SSH or (gasp!) telnet.
- Some level of free web site hosting.
- Good connectivity
- Only real user restriction is that you do not abuse the connection. So running a commercial site is out, but all the hobby level stuff is ok.
- IP address by username in dns. Not static, but very useful. eg: user_name@dsl.spiretech.com
These things matter a lot to me. I use my home connection for many different activities. Many are related to my job, but some are just for learning.
So, you basically trade choice and connectivity for speed. For me that's fine. Maybe others see the same?
I am not sure I can agree. You say it took you 100 hours. How many of those hours were spent getting Linux to work the way you want?
Consider the time savings if you decided to work more like Linux does...
Noticed your typo above and it made me think "So Long.com". Thanks for the tip, but really there is other content that I don't have to fight for and that is what will get my attention.
Damn straight, now we know who is in charge now don't we?
I went ahead and sent this to their sales support and general questions departments. They might just find it as funny as I did.
Bravo!
I hate delayed content even more. Some hoser posted a good point followed by a lame link, so this reply really can't be under their thread.
/. ad system? Google? Are these working? I do not mind either one bit because I get to choose the nature of the experience. Seems to me the most valuable impressions are those where a user CHOSE, not was tricked or forced, to follow through that particular ad. In that small moment, you have the holy grail, you have a potential buyer actually interested in your product seeking more information.
They mentioned the salon system where you are basically forced to look at an ad for a time before getting the content.
The way I see it, broadband of any kind is a premium service. Why pay for it if the crap from the marketing folks reduces the quality of the experience to that of dialup? Think about it for a moment, if you use free Juno or something, what do you get? Ads --too many of them to make it worthwhile, so you upgrade service, but why? For a better experience of course! So, if the actions of the marketing people degrade this, does this not devalue the very service you pay extra for? Duh!
Personally, I like the ads that are intermixed in with the content. Most of the benefit of broadband is preserved, and the ads get eyeballs.
I can somewhat agree that browsing with popup support disabled somehow can be thought of as stealing, but what about malicious pages and such? How are users supposed to secure their machines without the freedom to reasonably define what their machine will and won't do for them?
Battling the customer for their attention is never going to work. It costs more money and generates more bad PR than good impressions, so why do it? You would think these types of all people would know this cold.
This sort of thing just limits the usefulness of the Internet just a little more for nothing but the profit of the losers selling this service.
Salon is going the wrong direction by holding content until the ad is viewed. These folks are just as bad. How are the people who place ads in a reasonable way doing? For that matter, how about the
To everyone considering foolish schemes like this:
How the hell are you going to get this by forcing the issue? Really, tell me how, I want to know!
Know also, I don't have to get the content.
This means more than you would think. We are all being attacked more and more in this new age of information. This will backfire and when it does, where will you be then? Consider your answer again after you remember also that everyone gets to talk about it --a lot and for a long time.
Right now, there is more content presented than I can reasonably view. When I seek to meter my Internet time, guess who won't get the attention?
Remember that when your stats go down as interested visitors don't come back after being treated like criminals. Our time is valuable too, why not create an experience that rewards participation rather than the opposite? It can be done though it takes work. Isn't that what we are supposed to be doing to make money. Isn't money made by adding value where you realistically can?
Maybe there is some hope left though. If we feedback (which is what they really want anyway) our negative experiences, marketing people will begin to seek those who are actually working at providing an experience that people will come back for.
Tell 'em what you think people, it is the only thing that actually matters in the end.