Oh the FCC wants to deregulate DSL. Considering my experience over the last few weeks of trying to find a provider that offers a static IP address, it doesn't even matter if they even change the rules.
Keep in mind that I've been a DSL customer since 2001 with Verizon providing the copper, and using my university as the ISP (and who was kind enough to provide a static IP). Things for the most part were good with the exception of the previous year, and running into poor line speed due to living the maximal distance from the CO, and also experiencing the DSLAM fingerpointing. Recently, however, I moved to a new place where the cable option was an internal provider whose idea of static IP was opening up ports on their NAT box, and since this was internal competition is out of the question. Then there's DSL. I originally tried to go the speakeasy route to find out that my line isn't available for leasing to them. The end result is going in with a business DSL service (and paying over $120 / mo.) just for a single static IP address and a one year lock!
And for those naysayers who are wondering why I just don't go back to the unviersity, the reason being that I also do some consulting that doesn't constitue university business, and is somewhat frowned upon. Also, there's their IP (intellectual property) agreement such that anything developed using university resources (including the ISP) belongs to them.
Okay, so this is more typical than what you would have thought. Personally, I'm not surprised due to the ways of capitalism and the fact that it took M$ this long to realize the benefits. Remember how Apple gave the primary and secondary schools Macintoshes for their computer labs before the Internet became popular.
Now what happened over at my university (Purdue to be exact), the Dean of CS signed an agreement with Microsoft, and then left just before I started in 2000, which at that time, was running Solaris. It's somewhat ironic that the M% software we got would no longer be supported due to the Java lawsuit.
Yeah, I'm not too sure which school in the US has open book/note exams, but so far, my undergrad CS exams have all been closed book, closed notes, closed PDA exams. However, most of the problem solving skills have been developed through the Math department with the 5 semesters of calculus and 1 semester of linear algebra required and those were also closed book/notes/calculator/PDA. (I'm still surprised that they don't require discreet math, but that's just me). And this is at a place that was the first to offer the CS degree.
I'm still looking for a program or a business that is looking for someone who knows where to look instead of having all the answers. As much as I'd love to say that I'm the all knowing person, I know my limits.
Yes, there is a required class for CS majors that teaches C/C++ from the Learn [C/C++] in 24 hours, and luckily it was instituted after I started my program.
Wow cool, I'm impressed. Nowadays, I don't even get that. As soon as I walk up to a corporate booth (whether it be their day on campus or the campus jobfair), all I get is, "we won't be looking at these, but if you submit your resume online..." </SARCASM>
Interesting observation, but I believe that kuro5hin mentioned it best when Rusty posted his public plea and gave the general rundown of the media industry and what it would take for one to survive (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/6/17/23933/583 1). The basic rundown is that it costs money to publish, whether that be online, or in print. Now if you are wealthy to begin with, then you can say what you want all day long, but if you are live everyone else, you have to raise funds somehow to keep the word going: ads, commercials, sponsorships, etc. whom are the real editors. Since they are the ones who control the money, you don't want to upset them, and as a result, you cater the news to their tastes, or their demographic so they can sell more ads. The end result is stories that target a specific demographic so the advertisers have somplace to target their warez.
My second point, which is based on the first, is the realization that there are no more 'real' investigative journalists who go out into the field to find the story. News today is nothing more that regurgatations of press releases made by various agencies, and an interview with the involved, and both are treated as gold, with no commentary from the other side. An example story, which the BBC covered as a documentry about this time last year, on possible campaign fraud in Florida during the last presidential election. CBS was given a tip of the possible fraud and decided to follow up on it by calling Gov. Bush's PR representative to confirm, and when they denied it, they dropped the story. Gone are the days of Watergate where reporters would take chances to get at the story because nobody wants to risk a lawsuit or any other sanctions. All of what's left are a bunch of talking heads going into commentary about something that is safe and known to the point where nothing new is generated.
Thanks for the link to the file room. It is nice to know that there are some things being archived as censored which my at a later date be freed to somewhat more open minds.
However, the article is misleading in that you are attempting to prove that censorship is decreasing because a site such as this exists. What makes you think that the next version of censorware won't block it? Regretfully the net has/is becomming more commercialized each day from companies moving more of their daily operations online to the small family at home that got their first computer for Chrismas and signed online for the first time to aol/msn, and each group wants a certain point of control to help manage the flood of information, and this can only come in the form of censorship thus forming my first point.
My second point is that the Internet exists with computers, and running a server costs money not just in electricity, but also the bandwith, staff to keep the content up to date and maintain it from parts going bad to fixing hacks made by crackers thinking that it would be fun to take over a site. These things are not cheep. Slashdot and salon are several of numerous sites that had to go the way of banner ads and sponsorship to help remain afloat, and these things will also take a chunk out of liberty because we don't want to bite the hand that feeds us. Now salon and kuro5hin has gone to a membership fee thing for some of their better articles, but as of right now, these methods have had little affect against the massive infrastructure bills.
Lastly, like it or not, we (in the United States that is), live in a brain dead society where the thinking process of most people is the extent of what's on TV, and care about nothing else. Now I'm not too sure about the rest of you, but I'm pretty scared that there is one company that owns a lot of power in the media from movies and tv (roughly 10 stations where I live) to even the world's largest isp, and yet most citizens here not only see a problem with this, but think it's a great idea. Also, these same couch potatoes who have also started into the brave new world of dvds don't even realize the encryption technology embedded into the dvds and how some dvds won't play on specific players (not just dvds on Linux, but also on the hardware players) because one company has a grudge against another company.
So while our society has opened up with regards to what we consider acceptable within not just the past 10 years, but the past century, we are still undergoing and will always endure some kind of censorship regardless of how big and small
"He notes that the courts are required to avoid Constitutional questions if at all possible."
Okay, I know this is a paraphrase, but correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the courts supposed to interpret the law to make sure that it holds to the constitution, thus provoking constitutional questions?
Last time I checked, the Hague is still having problems enforcing their laws that are already on the books (one of which pertains to war crimes and the other on human rights). If they cannot show the strength to enfore what they already have, then what's the point of them attempting to enter into a realm that has yet to be tamed, even by the United States government w.r.t. the failed piece of legislation called the CDA of 1996?
Jon, I believe that you forgot a key factor that not only deals with the workings of the online world, but also the rest of society. This factor can best be described by Robert Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress with TANSTAAFL or there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. In order to survive online, the bills must be paid somehow, and drastic times call for drastic measures sometimes. Just look at this site, which started out as an independent work, but had to merge with Andover.net in order to not just survive, but also grow.
The only way I can see us, as a society, move away from this factor and into something where we only rely on the ideas of others is to do away with greed by taking Rodenberry's approach and remove money altogether. Another side affect is that this would do away with the giant coglomerate corporations that serve little, if any, purpose now.
1. When the people of Microsoft claimed that the GPL prevented innovation, what did they mean? Since everything is required by the GPL to be open and available for public scrutny to make a product better, then where is the stifling?
Because the Americans can't elect a suitable president, how about the title going to the eldest senator. Strom Thurmond for president. And you thought Cheney and Lieberman were old.
Hey, what do ya know. Something I've done at my high school, but since they locked up netscape on the Macs, I had to use the pc's running the internet exploder. Somebody in the upper ranks either forgot, or didn't know how to block out the "connection properties" box. Mediorcaty is the last thing needed in school besides censorware.
My high school has the privlige of using it for its "net filtering" capabilities, but what really distresses me is that it also blocked the fish. My school had it rigged onto the primary router, and I was able to get around it by incrementing the fourth zone ip number (0.0.0.x) by one and setting the poxy port to 80 to allow for unfiltered internet bandwith. It killed any other useful program, such as ftp, but at least I was able to read my email.:)
Poll rigging, eh? So the music polls last July really did reflected The Who. Wow, hey cool. See mom, I told you I was right, Windows (tm), is the best.
Three things: This past week has prompted me to think about what life would be like in a nation that was run by a corporation such as that of the Ferangi or the Star Wars Corporate Sector versus that of the present day United States. Some would say that the United States is already there, but I beg to differ. When I mean a corporate nation, I am talking about a country where everything is under private control including all hospitals, law enforcement, and education. In the United States, the government still has control over education and law enforcement. The government does not control the hospitals, but it does control medicare and medicade for whom are elderly or cannot afford to cover regular insurance. In the insurance area, the reason why none of the insurance companies have many problems with the way they conduct business is because no person of any importance has been told that they could not receive care because their insurance is not supported. Until that happens, the insurance companies will continue to do what they do. The evolution of the United States has reached the point where it will have to face what its doing first hand, and the results will not be pretty. One of the issues behind the Civil War, which latter became one of the main ones, was slavery. The next war will also be based on the minor issue of slavery, except the society will be enslaved to technology ment to free it, and the war will be between the American society and the corporation
The patent office has been patenting ideas like these for more than a decade, and you would think that they would learn by now, but they don't. The worst part is that distributed computing has been the thing over the past several years with SETI@Home, distributed.net, and the like. Even though Intel patented a specific form distributed computing, what does that say for the other forms? Does that mean Microsoft will patent distributed computing between office workstations and the corporate server?
I am currently working on a research project dealing with distributed computing with the idea remotely similar to what Intel patented. Does this mean I will have to stop research in order to keep the attorney away, or what? Gotta love corporate america.
On a personal note, my research project will be submitted to a science fair that is coincidentally sponsored by Intel. Weird.
It is nice to see that Micro$oft is able to povide ample evidence as to how much better Windows NT is. They have the first myth covered with three reputable sources. I have problems with the magazine's bias, but before you guys decide to shoot me down, I would like to know where the results are for another magazine such as Infoworld, or Byte Online where they focus on the business aspect of computing. Other then that Microsoft used reliable sources to explain their results, but my question is where are these sources? The few links that are provided are from customers of Microsoft and Microsoft's own web sites. Besides, it is always nice to see that in Microsoft's rants and raves, they neglected to mention the numerous bugs in Win NT in fact, there is a feature article in last week's Infoworld about the security flaws in NT. Another item of interest is an old Slashdot article about the Army swithching over to Macs because of NT's security. Oops. I guess in the end, this was just yet another PR stunt to justify NT's existance.
I am not sure if it is just me, but why aren't these things marked? I still remember a few months ago when slashdot was shut down for several hours because of the friendly construction worker deciding to have a little too much fun with the tractor. If it isn't power, it the phone line. One solution can be found in the summer issue of 2600. The article is on ground based networks and it does make for interesting reading.
I recall a BBC article on this that was posted on Slashdot around May. The article was kind of vague and just said that Hilton was looking at the possibility, but there was an endorsement by Arthur C. Clarke. My question is, what happened to the endorsement?
It is great that the online version is just as cool as the printed version, but the printed version usually comes out almost 2-3 weeks before the online archives are updated. You do not know how frustrating it is to have read it, and not being able to reference an online version.
Whatever happend to calling before breaking ground. I know with GTE they preach that you should call them before cutting. Whoever thought that they would not heed their own advice from the propaganda machine.
I have to agree with most people when it comes to the fact that Wing Commander stunk, and that the only thing going for it was its special effects. The unfortionate thing is that I was one of the few unluckey people in that the theater I went to did not bother to show the trailer to Episode I.
Slashdot Mirror
While I have no faith in the promises of giants doing the purchasing, at least now you don't need to jailbreak an iPhone/iPad to get it on t-mobile.
Oh the FCC wants to deregulate DSL. Considering my experience over the last few weeks of trying to find a provider that offers a static IP address, it doesn't even matter if they even change the rules.
Keep in mind that I've been a DSL customer since 2001 with Verizon providing the copper, and using my university as the ISP (and who was kind enough to provide a static IP). Things for the most part were good with the exception of the previous year, and running into poor line speed due to living the maximal distance from the CO, and also experiencing the DSLAM fingerpointing. Recently, however, I moved to a new place where the cable option was an internal provider whose idea of static IP was opening up ports on their NAT box, and since this was internal competition is out of the question. Then there's DSL. I originally tried to go the speakeasy route to find out that my line isn't available for leasing to them. The end result is going in with a business DSL service (and paying over $120 / mo.) just for a single static IP address and a one year lock!
And for those naysayers who are wondering why I just don't go back to the unviersity, the reason being that I also do some consulting that doesn't constitue university business, and is somewhat frowned upon. Also, there's their IP (intellectual property) agreement such that anything developed using university resources (including the ISP) belongs to them.
Okay, so this is more typical than what you would have thought. Personally, I'm not surprised due to the ways of capitalism and the fact that it took M$ this long to realize the benefits. Remember how Apple gave the primary and secondary schools Macintoshes for their computer labs before the Internet became popular.
Now what happened over at my university (Purdue to be exact), the Dean of CS signed an agreement with Microsoft, and then left just before I started in 2000, which at that time, was running Solaris. It's somewhat ironic that the M% software we got would no longer be supported due to the Java lawsuit.
Yeah, I'm not too sure which school in the US has open book/note exams, but so far, my undergrad CS exams have all been closed book, closed notes, closed PDA exams. However, most of the problem solving skills have been developed through the Math department with the 5 semesters of calculus and 1 semester of linear algebra required and those were also closed book/notes/calculator/PDA. (I'm still surprised that they don't require discreet math, but that's just me). And this is at a place that was the first to offer the CS degree.
I'm still looking for a program or a business that is looking for someone who knows where to look instead of having all the answers. As much as I'd love to say that I'm the all knowing person, I know my limits.
Yes, there is a required class for CS majors that teaches C/C++ from the Learn [C/C++] in 24 hours, and luckily it was instituted after I started my program.
Wow cool, I'm impressed. Nowadays, I don't even get that. As soon as I walk up to a corporate booth (whether it be their day on campus or the campus jobfair), all I get is, "we won't be looking at these, but if you submit your resume online..."
</SARCASM>
Interesting observation, but I believe that kuro5hin mentioned it best when Rusty posted his public plea and gave the general rundown of the media industry and what it would take for one to survive (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/6/17/23933/583 1). The basic rundown is that it costs money to publish, whether that be online, or in print. Now if you are wealthy to begin with, then you can say what you want all day long, but if you are live everyone else, you have to raise funds somehow to keep the word going: ads, commercials, sponsorships, etc. whom are the real editors. Since they are the ones who control the money, you don't want to upset them, and as a result, you cater the news to their tastes, or their demographic so they can sell more ads. The end result is stories that target a specific demographic so the advertisers have somplace to target their warez.
My second point, which is based on the first, is the realization that there are no more 'real' investigative journalists who go out into the field to find the story. News today is nothing more that regurgatations of press releases made by various agencies, and an interview with the involved, and both are treated as gold, with no commentary from the other side. An example story, which the BBC covered as a documentry about this time last year, on possible campaign fraud in Florida during the last presidential election. CBS was given a tip of the possible fraud and decided to follow up on it by calling Gov. Bush's PR representative to confirm, and when they denied it, they dropped the story. Gone are the days of Watergate where reporters would take chances to get at the story because nobody wants to risk a lawsuit or any other sanctions. All of what's left are a bunch of talking heads going into commentary about something that is safe and known to the point where nothing new is generated.
Thanks for the link to the file room. It is nice to know that there are some things being archived as censored which my at a later date be freed to somewhat more open minds.
However, the article is misleading in that you are attempting to prove that censorship is decreasing because a site such as this exists. What makes you think that the next version of censorware won't block it? Regretfully the net has/is becomming more commercialized each day from companies moving more of their daily operations online to the small family at home that got their first computer for Chrismas and signed online for the first time to aol/msn, and each group wants a certain point of control to help manage the flood of information, and this can only come in the form of censorship thus forming my first point.
My second point is that the Internet exists with computers, and running a server costs money not just in electricity, but also the bandwith, staff to keep the content up to date and maintain it from parts going bad to fixing hacks made by crackers thinking that it would be fun to take over a site. These things are not cheep. Slashdot and salon are several of numerous sites that had to go the way of banner ads and sponsorship to help remain afloat, and these things will also take a chunk out of liberty because we don't want to bite the hand that feeds us. Now salon and kuro5hin has gone to a membership fee thing for some of their better articles, but as of right now, these methods have had little affect against the massive infrastructure bills.
Lastly, like it or not, we (in the United States that is), live in a brain dead society where the thinking process of most people is the extent of what's on TV, and care about nothing else. Now I'm not too sure about the rest of you, but I'm pretty scared that there is one company that owns a lot of power in the media from movies and tv (roughly 10 stations where I live) to even the world's largest isp, and yet most citizens here not only see a problem with this, but think it's a great idea. Also, these same couch potatoes who have also started into the brave new world of dvds don't even realize the encryption technology embedded into the dvds and how some dvds won't play on specific players (not just dvds on Linux, but also on the hardware players) because one company has a grudge against another company.
So while our society has opened up with regards to what we consider acceptable within not just the past 10 years, but the past century, we are still undergoing and will always endure some kind of censorship regardless of how big and small
"He notes that the courts are required to avoid Constitutional questions if at all possible."
Okay, I know this is a paraphrase, but correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the courts supposed to interpret the law to make sure that it holds to the constitution, thus provoking constitutional questions?
Last time I checked, the Hague is still having problems enforcing their laws that are already on the books (one of which pertains to war crimes and the other on human rights). If they cannot show the strength to enfore what they already have, then what's the point of them attempting to enter into a realm that has yet to be tamed, even by the United States government w.r.t. the failed piece of legislation called the CDA of 1996?
Jon, I believe that you forgot a key factor that not only deals with the workings of the online world, but also the rest of society. This factor can best be described by Robert Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress with TANSTAAFL or there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. In order to survive online, the bills must be paid somehow, and drastic times call for drastic measures sometimes. Just look at this site, which started out as an independent work, but had to merge with Andover.net in order to not just survive, but also grow.
The only way I can see us, as a society, move away from this factor and into something where we only rely on the ideas of others is to do away with greed by taking Rodenberry's approach and remove money altogether. Another side affect is that this would do away with the giant coglomerate corporations that serve little, if any, purpose now.
1. When the people of Microsoft claimed that the GPL prevented innovation, what did they mean? Since everything is required by the GPL to be open and available for public scrutny to make a product better, then where is the stifling?
2. How does Microsoft foster innovation?
Thanks, and cheers
I have this wierd feeling that this will be the joke of the year. :)
Because the Americans can't elect a suitable president, how about the title going to the eldest senator. Strom Thurmond for president. And you thought Cheney and Lieberman were old.
Hey, what do ya know. Something I've done at my high school, but since they locked up netscape on the Macs, I had to use the pc's running the internet exploder. Somebody in the upper ranks either forgot, or didn't know how to block out the "connection properties" box. Mediorcaty is the last thing needed in school besides censorware.
My high school has the privlige of using it for its "net filtering" capabilities, but what really distresses me is that it also blocked the fish. My school had it rigged onto the primary router, and I was able to get around it by incrementing the fourth zone ip number (0.0.0.x) by one and setting the poxy port to 80 to allow for unfiltered internet bandwith. It killed any other useful program, such as ftp, but at least I was able to read my email. :)
Poll rigging, eh? So the music polls last July really did reflected The Who. Wow, hey cool. See mom, I told you I was right, Windows (tm), is the best.
Three things: This past week has prompted me to think about what life would be like in a nation that was run by a corporation such as that of the Ferangi or the Star Wars Corporate Sector versus that of the present day United States. Some would say that the United States is already there, but I beg to differ. When I mean a corporate nation, I am talking about a country where everything is under private control including all hospitals, law enforcement, and education. In the United States, the government still has control over education and law enforcement. The government does not control the hospitals, but it does control medicare and medicade for whom are elderly or cannot afford to cover regular insurance. In the insurance area, the reason why none of the insurance companies have many problems with the way they conduct business is because no person of any importance has been told that they could not receive care because their insurance is not supported. Until that happens, the insurance companies will continue to do what they do. The evolution of the United States has reached the point where it will have to face what its doing first hand, and the results will not be pretty. One of the issues behind the Civil War, which latter became one of the main ones, was slavery. The next war will also be based on the minor issue of slavery, except the society will be enslaved to technology ment to free it, and the war will be between the American society and the corporation
The patent office has been patenting ideas like these for more than a decade, and you would think that they would learn by now, but they don't. The worst part is that distributed computing has been the thing over the past several years with SETI@Home, distributed.net, and the like. Even though Intel patented a specific form distributed computing, what does that say for the other forms? Does that mean Microsoft will patent distributed computing between office workstations and the corporate server?
I am currently working on a research project dealing with distributed computing with the idea remotely similar to what Intel patented. Does this mean I will have to stop research in order to keep the attorney away, or what? Gotta love corporate america.
On a personal note, my research project will be submitted to a science fair that is coincidentally sponsored by Intel. Weird.
It is nice to see that Micro$oft is able to povide ample evidence as to how much better Windows NT is. They have the first myth covered with three reputable sources. I have problems with the magazine's bias, but before you guys decide to shoot me down, I would like to know where the results are for another magazine such as Infoworld, or Byte Online where they focus on the business aspect of computing. Other then that Microsoft used reliable sources to explain their results, but my question is where are these sources? The few links that are provided are from customers of Microsoft and Microsoft's own web sites. Besides, it is always nice to see that in Microsoft's rants and raves, they neglected to mention the numerous bugs in Win NT in fact, there is a feature article in last week's Infoworld about the security flaws in NT. Another item of interest is an old Slashdot article about the Army swithching over to Macs because of NT's security. Oops. I guess in the end, this was just yet another PR stunt to justify NT's existance.
I am not sure if it is just me, but why aren't these things marked? I still remember a few months ago when slashdot was shut down for several hours because of the friendly construction worker deciding to have a little too much fun with the tractor. If it isn't power, it the phone line. One solution can be found in the summer issue of 2600. The article is on ground based networks and it does make for interesting reading.
I recall a BBC article on this that was posted on Slashdot around May. The article was kind of vague and just said that Hilton was looking at the possibility, but there was an endorsement by Arthur C. Clarke. My question is, what happened to the endorsement?
It is great that the online version is just as cool as the printed version, but the printed version usually comes out almost 2-3 weeks before the online archives are updated. You do not know how frustrating it is to have read it, and not being able to reference an online version.
But then again, maybe its just me.
Whatever happend to calling before breaking ground. I know with GTE they preach that you should call them before cutting. Whoever thought that they would not heed their own advice from the propaganda machine.
I have to agree with most people when it comes to the fact that Wing Commander stunk, and that the only thing going for it was its special effects. The unfortionate thing is that I was one of the few unluckey people in that the theater I went to did not bother to show the trailer to Episode I.