but it's not like you are *FORCED* to even look at the ad's
When are you EVER forced to look at ads? You're not forced to look at the ads when you watch TV, but that doesn't mean companies stop advertising. You're not forced to look at banner ads on webpages, but companies still pay for them. However, if AOL says "we have 10 million AIM users" and a company says, "ok we'll give you $xxx so 10 million users have the chance to see our ad" and then find out that 1 million of those users have a client that doesn't even display their ads, will they keep paying? Hell no.
But if it's such a big loss for them, why are there all of these free IM implementations with servers set up? How come they don't get all upset over the costs?
And how many users do these other IM implementations have? I would bet many of those servers could be run off of a cable modem. Do you remember when you could run an IRC server with an ISDN connection? DALnet now requires its servers to have >=2 >=T1 connections, multihomed. They explicitly state "The management of the server must commit to allowing DALnet to use at least 1.5 Mbps of their available outbound bandwidth." And a quick/lusers shows 100,000 users on 27 servers on DALnet now. 27 servers, each having at least 2 T1's, adds up to a fair chunk of change (yes I know the servers' hosts pay this, not DALnet). And I would be willing to bet large sums of money that at any given time, there are far more than 100,000 people simultaneously connected to AIM (not AOL mind you, just AIM). What these free IM implementations are paying in terms of bandwidth is pocket change compared to a network with millions of users.
and their public opinion isn't good among technical types
Who the hell cares? I would be willing to bet that of AOL's paying customers, nearly 100% would not be categorized as "technical types." AOL has never appealed to techies and never will, so why should they care if the slashdot crowd doesn't like them? Like you said, their network is huge and their marketshare is monopolistic, so it clearly isn't cutting into their revenue.
The competition, however, isn't stupid and will trample AOL if AOL doesn't find a better strategy with thier network.
AOL obviously isn't stupid either. Do you remember Prodigy and CompuServe (key word: remember)? When is this "trampling" going to occur?
It may take 4 minutes to suffocate if you're not doing anything (such as struggling) but if these guys were screaming I would imagine they would use up their available oxygen much more quickly than that.
This part is just speculation, since I'm not a doctor: Asphyxiation is different than suffocation. To suffocate is to be deprived of oxygen, asphyxiation generally implies the presence of some other gas or substance that impairs respiration (carbon monoxide for instance). Once these guys got a few good whiffs of CO, any remaining oxygen in their lungs would not be able to be absorbed into their bloodstream, thus causing them to die much faster than if they were still able to use any oxygen in their lungs (and, again going back to the screaming bit, they clearly weren't calmly holding their breath trying to escape (not that I would have been either in that situation of course)).
Pressure at the summit of Mt. Everest is ~.25atm = 4.12psi (here). I have NEVER heard of anyone complaining that this is uncomfortable from the standpoint of wanting a pressurized suit to keep their body from exploding (it is, of course, uncomfortable since the partial pressure of oxygen at that elevation is less than 1psi [the percentage of oxygen in the air is the same at 29,028ft as at 0ft]. An unacclimatized individual would die in minutes).
And before anyone says something stupid like "acclimatize? don't you mean acclimate?", go here.
You're right, cabin pressure was supposed to be 5psi in space. But 5psi of oxygen in a 5psi environment behaves little or no differently than 5psi of oxygen in a 14.7psi environment. Of course the partial pressure of oxygen in air at 1atm is slightly less than 5psi, so the fire danger in the cabin at 5psi would be greater than in normal air. But it would still be FAR LESS than a pure oxygen environment at 16.7psi.
Re:electrocution? I don't think so.
on
A Beautiful Mind
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· Score: 1
1. The victim would have to touch a "hot" potion of the fixture, or be connected to a hot portion of the fixture via moisture that had acquired enough contaminants to be conductive (pure water doesn't conduct electricity very well)
Just a nit, but I doubt he used "pure" water in his practical joke. He probably got it from a tap, and tapwater often contains enough ions to conduct electricity just fine. In fact I remember a demonstration from high school chemistry where water straight from the tap conducted enough electricity to light a light bulb.
What, we can't use another compiler (which may or may not be better than gcc) and possibly an IDE?
Us: "We need more companies to release products for Linux!"
Borland: "OK, we'll release our C++ development environment!"
Us: "No, not you, we don't need your product, we've already got that."
Even if you never use it, it helps raise the visibility of the Linux platform when big-name companies like Borland are releasing Linux products.
Re:Delay between Windows and Linux port did them i
on
Loki Games Closing?
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· Score: 1
Anyone who is "Dual-Booting" is the problem, and not the solution.
Then the set of Linux users comprising the solution is incredibly small. And until some of the latest (useful) whiz-bang features of Windows are available for Linux, the majority of Linux users will remain part of the problem. I'm not even talking about an office suite here, I'm talking about simple things like web browsing. Netscape sucks. Mozilla is better, but still doesn't rival IE and Windows in terms of multimedia support. So Apple doesn't have a Linux version of QuickTime, they're just a shitty corporation that isn't supporting open standards so we should avoid.mov files. That's fine for you and me, but the average user doesn't give a shit about the philosophical arguments. If the average Linux user wants to jerk off over Natalie Portman in the latest Star Wars trailer, he'll just boot into Windows. (If there's a decent non-Apple Linux quicktime player available now, I apologize -- last time I looked all that was out there was xanim, and that was nearly worthless. You get my point). It's not the people that are dual-booting that are the problem, it's the fact that these people need to dual-boot that's the problem.
Disclaimer: I haven't had any Microsoft product installed on my computer for over 3 years now.
Re:X-Box, X-Files style -- paranoia.
on
Loki Games Closing?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
You know, Microsoft really isn't above sponsoring this kind of behavior
Can't we just acknowledge that some problem might possibly exist in the Linux community, and attempt to fix it? Do we really need to invent a Microsoft conspiracy to make ourselves feel better about Loki closing?? You honestly believe that out of however many Linux users there are in the world, that there aren't at least a few obnoxious ones out there that would demand making a binary freely available? Besides, at first glance, it seems natural: "I already paid for this game, why should I have to pay for it again?" At least until one actually sits down and thinks about the economic and business factors involved (see other posts in this thread). Loki could have changed that model, by showing game manufacturers that Linux is an economically viable gaming platform. Unfortunately, it didn't work out. Don't blame that on Microsoft.
All the code is is the index of the letters of the alphabet in base 4. There's a URL underlined in there that makes it really obvious what the "encryption" technique being used is.
Why should they not be tax exempt? The school is a not-for-profit institution. They take the money they make from patent licensing and subsidize tuition, or fund more research. And does the government not receiving tax dollars amount to the taxpayer funding the college? Finally, I would contend your statement about "If the taxpayers fund part of it, they are helping to fund all of it." I have no idea of the laws involved, but I imagine there are strict regulations as to what the university can use that money for.
steal, v intr. to take or appropriate without right... and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully.
Whether it's tangible or not, taking something that's not yours is still stealing. And you're right, software companies aren't losing money from lost property. They ARE losing money because that person that obtained the software by pirating it is one less person willing to pay for it.
And as for your 13-year old scenario, the article says that the biggest problem is businesses, not teenagers with cable modems.
If 24% of the automobiles on the road in America were stolen from dealers' lots, would anyone feel that the auto industry had no right to "whine"? Why should it be any different with software?
The game just fealt, and feels, like I've always imagined the ETO in WW2 was.
Just without the bullets, mortar fire, tanks, and disease. And with the ability to pause the game whenever you need a can of coke or a piss break. Oh yeah and you can turn it off whenever you get sick of being "shot at". There were 209,672 Allied casualties in the 75 days of fighting starting June 6, 1944. Somehow I think your chances of survival sitting in front of your computer screen in your climate-controlled home are much better than those that were actually in ETO.
First of all, I didn't see that what he wrote constituted an attack on Alan. He merely acknowledged that Alan, as a major kernel developer, would know what he was talking about when he says that money is influencing kernel development more and more.
Second, what do you mean, What did you do for Linux today? I'm sorry, but not everyone in the Linux community is a programmer. Obviously they're not capable of helping the community in the way that you require. Is it not good enough for these people to help spread awareness and use of the operating system? I have several images at the bottom of my webpage [www.adirondack-park.net] that tell visitors that my site is running Linux and Apache. Who knows, maybe a few people have clicked the links and have themselves gone on to install Linux. Everyone on my floor at college knows about the "guy down the hall with the 100-day uptime." And a lot of people, after rebooting their Windows 9x machines several times a day, install Linux just for the stability. Does this count to you as helping the community? I hope so. So before you go flaming somebody just because they're not a programmer, remember, everyone has their role.
Slashdot Mirror
but it's not like you are *FORCED* to even look at the ad's
When are you EVER forced to look at ads? You're not forced to look at the ads when you watch TV, but that doesn't mean companies stop advertising. You're not forced to look at banner ads on webpages, but companies still pay for them. However, if AOL says "we have 10 million AIM users" and a company says, "ok we'll give you $xxx so 10 million users have the chance to see our ad" and then find out that 1 million of those users have a client that doesn't even display their ads, will they keep paying? Hell no.
But if it's such a big loss for them, why are there all of these free IM implementations with servers set up? How come they don't get all upset over the costs?
/lusers shows 100,000 users on 27 servers on DALnet now. 27 servers, each having at least 2 T1's, adds up to a fair chunk of change (yes I know the servers' hosts pay this, not DALnet). And I would be willing to bet large sums of money that at any given time, there are far more than 100,000 people simultaneously connected to AIM (not AOL mind you, just AIM). What these free IM implementations are paying in terms of bandwidth is pocket change compared to a network with millions of users.
And how many users do these other IM implementations have? I would bet many of those servers could be run off of a cable modem. Do you remember when you could run an IRC server with an ISDN connection? DALnet now requires its servers to have >=2 >=T1 connections, multihomed. They explicitly state "The management of the server must commit to allowing DALnet to use at least 1.5 Mbps of their available outbound bandwidth." And a quick
and their public opinion isn't good among technical types
Who the hell cares? I would be willing to bet that of AOL's paying customers, nearly 100% would not be categorized as "technical types." AOL has never appealed to techies and never will, so why should they care if the slashdot crowd doesn't like them? Like you said, their network is huge and their marketshare is monopolistic, so it clearly isn't cutting into their revenue.
The competition, however, isn't stupid and will trample AOL if AOL doesn't find a better strategy with thier network.
AOL obviously isn't stupid either. Do you remember Prodigy and CompuServe (key word: remember)? When is this "trampling" going to occur?
It may take 4 minutes to suffocate if you're not doing anything (such as struggling) but if these guys were screaming I would imagine they would use up their available oxygen much more quickly than that.
This part is just speculation, since I'm not a doctor: Asphyxiation is different than suffocation. To suffocate is to be deprived of oxygen, asphyxiation generally implies the presence of some other gas or substance that impairs respiration (carbon monoxide for instance). Once these guys got a few good whiffs of CO, any remaining oxygen in their lungs would not be able to be absorbed into their bloodstream, thus causing them to die much faster than if they were still able to use any oxygen in their lungs (and, again going back to the screaming bit, they clearly weren't calmly holding their breath trying to escape (not that I would have been either in that situation of course)).
Pressure at the summit of Mt. Everest is ~.25atm = 4.12psi (here). I have NEVER heard of anyone complaining that this is uncomfortable from the standpoint of wanting a pressurized suit to keep their body from exploding (it is, of course, uncomfortable since the partial pressure of oxygen at that elevation is less than 1psi [the percentage of oxygen in the air is the same at 29,028ft as at 0ft]. An unacclimatized individual would die in minutes).
And before anyone says something stupid like "acclimatize? don't you mean acclimate?", go here.
You're right, cabin pressure was supposed to be 5psi in space. But 5psi of oxygen in a 5psi environment behaves little or no differently than 5psi of oxygen in a 14.7psi environment. Of course the partial pressure of oxygen in air at 1atm is slightly less than 5psi, so the fire danger in the cabin at 5psi would be greater than in normal air. But it would still be FAR LESS than a pure oxygen environment at 16.7psi.
1. The victim would have to touch a "hot" potion of the fixture, or be connected to a hot portion of the fixture via moisture that had acquired enough contaminants to be conductive (pure water doesn't conduct electricity very well)
Just a nit, but I doubt he used "pure" water in his practical joke. He probably got it from a tap, and tapwater often contains enough ions to conduct electricity just fine. In fact I remember a demonstration from high school chemistry where water straight from the tap conducted enough electricity to light a light bulb.
What, we can't use another compiler (which may or may not be better than gcc) and possibly an IDE?
Us: "We need more companies to release products for Linux!"
Borland: "OK, we'll release our C++ development environment!"
Us: "No, not you, we don't need your product, we've already got that."
Even if you never use it, it helps raise the visibility of the Linux platform when big-name companies like Borland are releasing Linux products.
Anyone who is "Dual-Booting" is the problem, and not the solution.
.mov files. That's fine for you and me, but the average user doesn't give a shit about the philosophical arguments. If the average Linux user wants to jerk off over Natalie Portman in the latest Star Wars trailer, he'll just boot into Windows. (If there's a decent non-Apple Linux quicktime player available now, I apologize -- last time I looked all that was out there was xanim, and that was nearly worthless. You get my point). It's not the people that are dual-booting that are the problem, it's the fact that these people need to dual-boot that's the problem.
Then the set of Linux users comprising the solution is incredibly small. And until some of the latest (useful) whiz-bang features of Windows are available for Linux, the majority of Linux users will remain part of the problem. I'm not even talking about an office suite here, I'm talking about simple things like web browsing. Netscape sucks. Mozilla is better, but still doesn't rival IE and Windows in terms of multimedia support. So Apple doesn't have a Linux version of QuickTime, they're just a shitty corporation that isn't supporting open standards so we should avoid
Disclaimer: I haven't had any Microsoft product installed on my computer for over 3 years now.
You know, Microsoft really isn't above sponsoring this kind of behavior
Can't we just acknowledge that some problem might possibly exist in the Linux community, and attempt to fix it? Do we really need to invent a Microsoft conspiracy to make ourselves feel better about Loki closing?? You honestly believe that out of however many Linux users there are in the world, that there aren't at least a few obnoxious ones out there that would demand making a binary freely available? Besides, at first glance, it seems natural: "I already paid for this game, why should I have to pay for it again?" At least until one actually sits down and thinks about the economic and business factors involved (see other posts in this thread). Loki could have changed that model, by showing game manufacturers that Linux is an economically viable gaming platform. Unfortunately, it didn't work out. Don't blame that on Microsoft.
All the code is is the index of the letters of the alphabet in base 4. There's a URL underlined in there that makes it really obvious what the "encryption" technique being used is.
Why should they not be tax exempt? The school is a not-for-profit institution. They take the money they make from patent licensing and subsidize tuition, or fund more research. And does the government not receiving tax dollars amount to the taxpayer funding the college? Finally, I would contend your statement about "If the taxpayers fund part of it, they are helping to fund all of it." I have no idea of the laws involved, but I imagine there are strict regulations as to what the university can use that money for.
Go look up appropriate in the dictionary.
From merriamwebster.com: "to take or make use of without authority or right"
steal, v intr. to take or appropriate without right ... and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully.
Whether it's tangible or not, taking something that's not yours is still stealing. And you're right, software companies aren't losing money from lost property. They ARE losing money because that person that obtained the software by pirating it is one less person willing to pay for it.
And as for your 13-year old scenario, the article says that the biggest problem is businesses, not teenagers with cable modems.
If 24% of the automobiles on the road in America were stolen from dealers' lots, would anyone feel that the auto industry had no right to "whine"? Why should it be any different with software?
The game just fealt, and feels, like I've always imagined the ETO in WW2 was.
Just without the bullets, mortar fire, tanks, and disease. And with the ability to pause the game whenever you need a can of coke or a piss break. Oh yeah and you can turn it off whenever you get sick of being "shot at". There were 209,672 Allied casualties in the 75 days of fighting starting June 6, 1944. Somehow I think your chances of survival sitting in front of your computer screen in your climate-controlled home are much better than those that were actually in ETO.
First of all, I didn't see that what he wrote constituted an attack on Alan. He merely acknowledged that Alan, as a major kernel developer, would know what he was talking about when he says that money is influencing kernel development more and more.
Second, what do you mean, What did you do for Linux today? I'm sorry, but not everyone in the Linux community is a programmer. Obviously they're not capable of helping the community in the way that you require. Is it not good enough for these people to help spread awareness and use of the operating system? I have several images at the bottom of my webpage [www.adirondack-park.net] that tell visitors that my site is running Linux and Apache. Who knows, maybe a few people have clicked the links and have themselves gone on to install Linux. Everyone on my floor at college knows about the "guy down the hall with the 100-day uptime." And a lot of people, after rebooting their Windows 9x machines several times a day, install Linux just for the stability. Does this count to you as helping the community? I hope so. So before you go flaming somebody just because they're not a programmer, remember, everyone has their role.
---
Greg Smith
ipfwadm@adirondack-park.net
http://www.adirondack-park.net/
Here's another mirror:
http://lonewolf.rh.rit.edu/prequel
---
Greg Smith
ipfwadm@adirondack-park.net
http://www.adirondack-park.net