find it amusing when IT dorks and Project Managers turn their nose on skilled mechanics and plumbers because they get their hands dirty. Skilled blue-collar workers make big bucks without having to pay for the trappings of success (fancy car, $50 ties, etc.) that schmucks who sit at a desk all day do.
Huh? I find that most really good IT people ARE dorks and do not drive around in fancy cars, $50 ties, etc despite having the money. You are thinking of management or sales or something. Personally, I have always thought of myself as a glorified plumber (I work in IT).
The reason is that ISPs are commercial entities. Shockingly they are in buisness to make money! It's all about supply and demand. There is a limited amount of bandwidth a connection can server and many many more people who want to use it. They couldn't charge users a one-time-fee because then their revenue would slowly die off.
Perhaps this is how it works for a colocated customer. But for most end users (buisiness and residential), the majority of the monthly cost goes to the line charges from the phone company and other infrastructure costs. There isn't really that high of a markup, at least for us, on the cost of, say, a T1. Not once you add in the cost of our DS-3's/OC-3. Then we have to pay for OUR upstream connection.
They couldn't charge users a fixed-flat-monthly fee because then one (or a few) users could take up all the bandwith (terabytes of data) for a flat fee, thus bringing the ISPs servers to a halt.
The pay-per-bandwidth model secures the ISP a fixed amount of revenue as long as it has demand, and it does.
Again, maybe in a colocated situation, but ISPs could NEVER charge a one time fee unless that fee covered the estimated line charges for the length of the contract. Really, "bandwidth" doesn't cost anything. The only real cost is the infraastructure. And then there is a markup (like with any product or service) so that the ISP can make some money. Actual bandwidth used is only factored in to make the people who use the infrastructure more pay more to offset cost of maintaining things. Usually its not factored in at all, at least for us, since the majority of our cost is in delivering the physical connection.
To answer the original question, for us, as a T1 reseller, the majority of the cost is line charges from the phone company. Thats the cost of the loop and a fraction of the cost of our OC-3. Then we markup maybe 30% to pay for our upstream connection (which may be broken down differently) and to pay for administrative costs. We don't make a whole lot of money in the end. Really just enough to stay in business.
Heh, you must be one of those Windows XP users I have been hearing so much about.
-matthew
Ok, I hate SPAM as much as the next guy...
on
ISP Chief on Spam
·
· Score: 1
But this ISP president is overreacting. I work for a small ISP, and blocking the majority of SPAM is rather simple. Especially if you don't care much about a couple false positives. A few references to some free, public RBLs and you can block about 90% of spam. This guy needs to get a grip.
On the other hand, I do agree that SPAM is a growing problem in general. I believe we block over 50% of the email that would potentially go through our servers as SPAM. Thats really sad.
...state that your invention can be something new, a new use, or an improvement on a previous invention or patent. Instant Messaging is certainly an improvement on any messaging system that everyone is bitching about predating IM's.
Sure, but they didn't pattent "Instant Messenger". They patented a general (better?) way of seeing who is online, etc. Point of the the "bitching" is that it's far too broad and vague. If they are going to patent something, they need to be more specific. Like their particular implementation or their protocol. Which would really only affect people making AIM clones... as it should be, IMO. As it is, there is clearly prior art.
Sorry, but the movie studios will NOT allow users to keep a copy of the movies on any kind of storage medium. They don't want you to be able to watch it more than once. They want to get paid for EACH time you view a movie. They dont' even want you to be able to rewind because you could "cheat" and watch a movie from the beginning again while only paying for the stream once.
Its the movie studios that have their collective head up their ass in this case. Not the cable companies. The cable companies don't have absolute control over the content. They can only do what the studios will allow them to do. And letting users pay once and watch many is not one of them.
And give money and support funding to any program that maps the sky for asteroids. Cause if any are on their way (I'd say 30 years or less), well... we're just f*cked.
How about we just ignore the stupid paranoia and give our money to worthy causes that promote world peace, a clean environment, and freedom?
Enough with the ridiculous asteroid paranoia already! I am sick of it. Sure, we notice an asteroid fly by every once in a while, but the chances of a killer asteroid actually hitting Earth in the near (100 years or so) future is pretty damn small. Its like a one in a million shot. Its certainly nothing we need to worry about now. The reality is that we probably don't have the technology to deal with it anyway.
Here's a brilliant idea: Why don't we take the energy spent worrying about asteriods and focus on dealing with real issues like global over-population or pollution?
Then why is it that I am not supposed to eat more than one fish a MONTH from Lake Michigan around Chicago? I'm really not supposed to eat ANY fish from the Mississippi River. Especially if I were pregnant. Have you SEEN the shit we pump into our river's and lakes? Maybe you live in some small country town where the air is fresh, but here in the cities, its a mess.
"We" are not to blame. "We" are just trying to take responsibility.
I don't get this argument. I have never heard of anyone successfully suing Microsoft when Windows (or Exchange) crashes. Microsoft (or any software company) is not liable for their product crashing or otherwise not working and they are under no obligation to MAKE it work for you. I find it hard to believe that the Suits don't know this. Any corporate type worth his weight in gold is going to value a solution that works rather than simply having someone to point the finger at when things don't work. So, lets take "accountablility" out of the argument. Its spurious.
Lack or certifications? Who cares about certs? In this day and age, what company is going to hire just any MCSE off the streets? A stupid one. And I say let the stupid companies be stupid. They don't deserve good software. Last thing we need in the Open Source community is more stupid people making free software look bad.:-P
Yes, hiring a good tech is hard. But this isn't limited to environments with "unfamiliar software." You'd be just as hard pressed to find someone who knows anything beyond the surface of Exchange as you would in finding a person who can figure out your "unfamiliar software." Again, if your just hiring any idiot off the street with a cert, your stupid. And shouldn't even be running the company, much less putting in a new server.
I thought the biggest drawbacks to wireless were that it has a horrible range and is practically limited to line-of-sight. I'd be happy just getting 11Mbit reliably.
Never trust a guy who uses the word "Web" to refer to the Internet in general Is it just me, or does web really just refer to HTTP, as in WWW? From the author:
IRC... one of the oldest chat technologies on the Web.
From Harrington:...often they'll go to a hacker chat room, a place on the Web using an Internet Relay Chat...
I work for a company called onShore. We have wired several buildings in Chicago with ethernet, a server, and a T1 (sometimes multiple). Video on demand is in the near future. We also offer file server services, etc. Unfortunately, there is nothing "techie" about it. The buildings are all high priced, high rise apartments. Nothing a self respecting techie would live in.:-P The customers are usually your average user.
Its really no big deal. There is no immediate advantage to this service other than being able to use a standard ethernet card and not having to purchase a cable modem or DSL router. As a techie, I would be running my own servers and would have no use for the server in the building. And I can't imagine liking my neighbors enough to make use of the 100 Mbit building-wide LAN. The chances of any of my friends living in the same building as me are pretty slim. Although I think the posibilities for video on demand are intriguing...
Did you even read the interview? Do you have any idea how Hurd works? Hurd is based on a microkernel. The Linux kernel is not a microkernel. Its a a monolithic kernel that implements much of what the Hurd is trying to replace/fix. Most importantly, Hurd is not just another Unix or Linux distribution. Its a whole new OS in and of itself. They admitted to using the TCP/IP code from Linux. They use ext2fs. The applications are not much more than ported Debian packages. How much more can they borrow from GNU/Linux without being GNU/Linux?
You see, the net can be hacked, and articles found on the net (unless they are from reliable news sources, a la cnn, ap, reuters) aren't very trusted. TV is still the most reliable and trusted media.
Oh give me a break. TV is a tool of large corporate government agencies. It doesn't NEED to be hacked. It is inherently unreliable.
Trust and reliability issues aside, TV is NOTORIOUSLY full of fluff. On Sept 11 they spent all friekin day showing the same damn imagines OVER and OVER again. Rarely providing new information. The information it does provide is so charged with the overly emotional imagery. its almost useless. TV is NOT a good place to get information. Any written media is much better. Newspapers provide long articles detailing information and data. Not that it is perfect, but I will take written news over TV any day. And the 'net is that much better than newspapers because it is late breaking and interactive.
Would you partner with a company that had
conflicts of interest? Probably not. If Corel decided to drop Linux to make the MS partnership
happen, thats their perogotive. There is nothing
to say that they were forced or bullied into it.
Its only unfortunate that Corel overlooked what happens to companies who "partner" with MS...
I am sorry, but gaming, Napster, IM'ing, and web surfing does not indicate any particular knowledge of technology. No more than a skateboarder knows physics. I can write magnificent documents with a pen without knowing how a pen works. Just because you use something doesn't mean you neccessarily know anything about how it works.
These 15 year olds are standing on the shoulders of giants. People need to realize this. Jon needs to realize this.
I appreciate Jon's attempt at trying to see weaknesses and strengths in different segments of the population, but frainkly, I think he has missed the mark completely.
I think all we can say is that young people have much more potential for learning new things than older people. But is this news? I mean come on... how old is the saying "You can't teach an old dog new tricks?"
I am a skilled IT tech, and I will tell you one thing, I have never had a training class that taught me anything I couldn't figure out on my own using reference material and the internet. It was all just to get silly certifications to satisfy vendors so we can remain resellers for certain hardware/software. Unless we are talking about advanced operating system design or something like that, how hard it is to figure things out? Sure, it takes years to build up good experience, but it seems like I am better trained than ANY person I know with this or that certification. Of course, I have been using computers since I was 11 (26 now).
On the same note, I get tired of people pressuring me to impart my knowledge onto them. It just doesn't work that way. I learned the hard way. They need to as well. Any good tech/programmer I know spends a good portion of his or her free time messing with computers or writting software on the side. Training? Whats that?
To respond to the post, I would like to say that an employer should at least consider reimbursing an employee for their own initiative. But I don't think every little certification should be reimbursed. Employees should be encouraged to get real education. Like a university class in data structures. Far too many people will leech off of a company to get a zillion certifications just to put it on his/her resume for the next job.
The wonderful thing about homeschooling is that you can instill actual values in your children without the state breating down
your neck. By taking advantage of the many Truth-centered learnming materials out there, your child can learn that he was not
just an accident and that he is accountable to a higher authority. Our morally bankrupt culture will improve if we commit
ourselves to these principles. All things are possible.th-centered learnming materials out there, your child can learn that he was not
just an accident and that he is accountable to a higher authority. Our morally bankrupt culture will improve if we commit
ourselves to these principles. All things are possible.
Oh boy... I thought you were onto something until you slipped this little gem in. Can't you people have an opinion without resorting to preaching? Jesus!... errr I mean gosh darn!
Not to get into a religious debate, but isn't it funny how as soon as our current local authority is shown to be corrupt, we automatically look to a higher one? It is my experience that the corruption doesn't stop. Any "authority" is going to be corrupt or otherwise imperfect. Stop looking for authority and accountability, and you will be free. IMO, one is only accountable to him/herself. In the end. The bullies and ignorant school board will get reap what they sew. Regardless of any higher authority.
In this sense, I feel it is important to stay in this "less than ideal" environment until one learns to deal with it productively. Withdrawing is no solution. It doesn't take long to see how the ignorant and violent are only hurting themselves. This was my lesson in school. I was bullied, but I stuck it out. Although, it was nice to have the option to move to a not quite so abusive school...
nor his withdrawing him from society either, I
might add
I don't think Sean was withdrawn from society. He was pretty much forced out. I mean, what was their alternative to public school? A school for learning and behavior problems? This is a smart kid unchallenged by normal school. The alternative in not much of an alternative.
Sounds like they don't want to withdraw him from society. The father is seeking a way to get him back into the mainstream short of moving out of state or something like that.
Although, I must agree that I don't expect much help coming from Slashdot.
Technological advancement is moving faster than ever. I would argue that people are increasingly LESS happy with what we have now. Always seeking more, better, and faster. I dunno, maybe YOU are happy with what we have now, but it would seem that the masses are not. Or, at least, the corporations want them to think they are not.
Typical western thinker. Do you realize that in many cultures science, religion, and philosophy are one and the same? Particularly in Buddhism.
One can apply what one knows about science to religion and vise versa. If you can't, then your religion and science are inadaquate, IMO.
Back to your metaphor. A really good cook must develop the same kind of skill in cooking that a programmer must develop with code. If I can learn to see the programming skills needed to cook and the cooking skills needed to to create great code, I will be that much better at both.
Still, there is no Domino client for linux. There is a 4.x for Solaris, but that is 4.x not 5.x. Unless you convince IBM to invest in a good Domino client for Linux, being able to run the server on Linux is just worthless. I mean, who cares what platform the server is, if you are still restricted to WIndows as a client. I realize that Domino has a web interface and a Mac client, but they are not very good.
Slashdot Mirror
Huh? I find that most really good IT people ARE dorks and do not drive around in fancy cars, $50 ties, etc despite having the money. You are thinking of management or sales or something. Personally, I have always thought of myself as a glorified plumber (I work in IT).
-matthew
Perhaps this is how it works for a colocated customer. But for most end users (buisiness and residential), the majority of the monthly cost goes to the line charges from the phone company and other infrastructure costs. There isn't really that high of a markup, at least for us, on the cost of, say, a T1. Not once you add in the cost of our DS-3's/OC-3. Then we have to pay for OUR upstream connection.
They couldn't charge users a fixed-flat-monthly fee because then one (or a few) users could take up all the bandwith (terabytes of data) for a flat fee, thus bringing the ISPs servers to a halt. The pay-per-bandwidth model secures the ISP a fixed amount of revenue as long as it has demand, and it does.
Again, maybe in a colocated situation, but ISPs could NEVER charge a one time fee unless that fee covered the estimated line charges for the length of the contract. Really, "bandwidth" doesn't cost anything. The only real cost is the infraastructure. And then there is a markup (like with any product or service) so that the ISP can make some money. Actual bandwidth used is only factored in to make the people who use the infrastructure more pay more to offset cost of maintaining things. Usually its not factored in at all, at least for us, since the majority of our cost is in delivering the physical connection.
To answer the original question, for us, as a T1 reseller, the majority of the cost is line charges from the phone company. Thats the cost of the loop and a fraction of the cost of our OC-3. Then we markup maybe 30% to pay for our upstream connection (which may be broken down differently) and to pay for administrative costs. We don't make a whole lot of money in the end. Really just enough to stay in business.
-matthew
-matthew
On the other hand, I do agree that SPAM is a growing problem in general. I believe we block over 50% of the email that would potentially go through our servers as SPAM. Thats really sad.
-matthew
Sure, but they didn't pattent "Instant Messenger". They patented a general (better?) way of seeing who is online, etc. Point of the the "bitching" is that it's far too broad and vague. If they are going to patent something, they need to be more specific. Like their particular implementation or their protocol. Which would really only affect people making AIM clones... as it should be, IMO. As it is, there is clearly prior art.
But IANAL, so...
-matthew .
Its the movie studios that have their collective head up their ass in this case. Not the cable companies. The cable companies don't have absolute control over the content. They can only do what the studios will allow them to do. And letting users pay once and watch many is not one of them.
-matthew
How about we just ignore the stupid paranoia and give our money to worthy causes that promote world peace, a clean environment, and freedom?
-matthew
Here's a brilliant idea: Why don't we take the energy spent worrying about asteriods and focus on dealing with real issues like global over-population or pollution?
-matthew
"We" are not to blame. "We" are just trying to take responsibility.
-matthew
Lack or certifications? Who cares about certs? In this day and age, what company is going to hire just any MCSE off the streets? A stupid one. And I say let the stupid companies be stupid. They don't deserve good software. Last thing we need in the Open Source community is more stupid people making free software look bad. :-P
Yes, hiring a good tech is hard. But this isn't limited to environments with "unfamiliar software." You'd be just as hard pressed to find someone who knows anything beyond the surface of Exchange as you would in finding a person who can figure out your "unfamiliar software." Again, if your just hiring any idiot off the street with a cert, your stupid. And shouldn't even be running the company, much less putting in a new server.
-matthew
-matthew
From Harrington: ...often they'll go to a hacker chat room, a place on the Web using an Internet Relay Chat...
Sounds like my grandpa.
-matthew
Its really no big deal. There is no immediate advantage to this service other than being able to use a standard ethernet card and not having to purchase a cable modem or DSL router. As a techie, I would be running my own servers and would have no use for the server in the building. And I can't imagine liking my neighbors enough to make use of the 100 Mbit building-wide LAN. The chances of any of my friends living in the same building as me are pretty slim. Although I think the posibilities for video on demand are intriguing...
-matthew
-matthew
Oh give me a break. TV is a tool of large corporate government agencies. It doesn't NEED to be hacked. It is inherently unreliable.
Trust and reliability issues aside, TV is NOTORIOUSLY full of fluff. On Sept 11 they spent all friekin day showing the same damn imagines OVER and OVER again. Rarely providing new information. The information it does provide is so charged with the overly emotional imagery. its almost useless. TV is NOT a good place to get information. Any written media is much better. Newspapers provide long articles detailing information and data. Not that it is perfect, but I will take written news over TV any day. And the 'net is that much better than newspapers because it is late breaking and interactive.
-matthew
-matthew
Its only unfortunate that Corel overlooked what happens to companies who "partner" with MS...
-matthew
I appreciate Jon's attempt at trying to see weaknesses and strengths in different segments of the population, but frainkly, I think he has missed the mark completely.
I think all we can say is that young people have much more potential for learning new things than older people. But is this news? I mean come on... how old is the saying "You can't teach an old dog new tricks?"
-matthew
I guess this doesn't solve the problem of server resources getting stolen, but it certain saves me from having to look at the crap.
-matthew
On the same note, I get tired of people pressuring me to impart my knowledge onto them. It just doesn't work that way. I learned the hard way. They need to as well. Any good tech/programmer I know spends a good portion of his or her free time messing with computers or writting software on the side. Training? Whats that?
To respond to the post, I would like to say that an employer should at least consider reimbursing an employee for their own initiative. But I don't think every little certification should be reimbursed. Employees should be encouraged to get real education. Like a university class in data structures. Far too many people will leech off of a company to get a zillion certifications just to put it on his/her resume for the next job.
-matthew
Oh boy... I thought you were onto something until you slipped this little gem in. Can't you people have an opinion without resorting to preaching? Jesus!... errr I mean gosh darn!
Not to get into a religious debate, but isn't it funny how as soon as our current local authority is shown to be corrupt, we automatically look to a higher one? It is my experience that the corruption doesn't stop. Any "authority" is going to be corrupt or otherwise imperfect. Stop looking for authority and accountability, and you will be free. IMO, one is only accountable to him/herself. In the end. The bullies and ignorant school board will get reap what they sew. Regardless of any higher authority.
In this sense, I feel it is important to stay in this "less than ideal" environment until one learns to deal with it productively. Withdrawing is no solution. It doesn't take long to see how the ignorant and violent are only hurting themselves. This was my lesson in school. I was bullied, but I stuck it out. Although, it was nice to have the option to move to a not quite so abusive school...
-matthew
I don't think Sean was withdrawn from society. He was pretty much forced out. I mean, what was their alternative to public school? A school for learning and behavior problems? This is a smart kid unchallenged by normal school. The alternative in not much of an alternative.
Sounds like they don't want to withdraw him from society. The father is seeking a way to get him back into the mainstream short of moving out of state or something like that.
Although, I must agree that I don't expect much help coming from Slashdot.
-matthew
-matthew
Typical western thinker. Do you realize that in many cultures science, religion, and philosophy are one and the same? Particularly in Buddhism.
One can apply what one knows about science to religion and vise versa. If you can't, then your religion and science are inadaquate, IMO.
Back to your metaphor. A really good cook must develop the same kind of skill in cooking that a programmer must develop with code. If I can learn to see the programming skills needed to cook and the cooking skills needed to to create great code, I will be that much better at both.
-matthew
Still, there is no Domino client for linux. There is a 4.x for Solaris, but that is 4.x not 5.x. Unless you convince IBM to invest in a good Domino client for Linux, being able to run the server on Linux is just worthless. I mean, who cares what platform the server is, if you are still restricted to WIndows as a client. I realize that Domino has a web interface and a Mac client, but they are not very good.
-matthew