Some government jobs are great problem is a lot require Top Secret clearance which can be extremely difficult to obtain.
Dated stuff
on
Revolution OS
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I was able to see this thing on Sundance. It was rather dry and dated info. Currently GPL and GNU has taken a different form that what these people had originally intended and become more legalesse than necessary.
The movie was made around the tech boom and days that VALinux was worth the price of a PC per share. Although Stallman was true to form an Open source advocate, you could see others in the film (Bruce Perens, Michael Tiemann, Eric Raymond,...) get that greedy glimmer that Gates always has in their eyes.
It also ends slightly before the bust and if compared to current day their comments seem naive.
Microsoft continually loses focus and gets into financial embarrasments. Didnt they learn from Microsoft cordless phones, car stereos, MSN, remote controls, speakers, etc... They need to just stick to their core money makers, Office and a mediocre OS that costs consumers every year or 2. Telcos should be a sign that Monopoly doesnt necessarily mean you cannabilize yourself.
IBM has been pumping out good stuff, Thinkpads, Servers etc... at a premium. But with hard drives, 60GXP, they provided a good product at a good price. Its the best HD I have owned. Fast, quiet, and no slightest form of failure yet. I even have one that has been taxed hard for the last year, year and a half and it runs like new. I heard the 75GXP had their problems but the 60 series run rock solid. As far as I know the current leader is the Maxtor series but I wouldnt know because I havent had to change HD's yet.
Also I dont work for IBM just a happy consumer of their HD's.
Good marketing
on
Byte Wars
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I remember back in college that was what marketing instructors would say religiously. To sell you have two fundamental resources to use: - utility or - emotion (fear and safety being the 2 best).
If you use any of the above 2 you will see all advertisements and call to actions are based on it. In this instance fear.
Couple years back I knew of three women that were receptionists that left their job for a telemarketing.com was what they called it. What it was it had them go on IM, message boards, or newsgroups and try to convince people of various boards to try a product or go to competing product boards to act as a regular person and tell others what a great new product the competitors had.
When I heard of it I thought it was rather sleazy and got a little angry, but then again spam and phone telemarketing is probably a lot more sleazy IMO.
Funny thing is Apple, of all companies, are always ahead of their time. They come out with a great idea but too radical for most people to accept. After about 1/2 a decade later its is mimicked and is wildly successful.
One thing I am glad never took off was that whole translucent thing, I think I was the only one that thought it was annoyingly ugly.
There has always been AmWays, Avon, and a plethora of MLM schemes out here in So. Cal. But the latest seem to be 2By2.net. You see them plastered all over cars and essentially is a new MLM marketing scheme that has attracted thousands of 18-25 year old high school educated people. From what I can gather one pays for an ISP service with a exorbitant up front intiation fee. Similar to the HerbaLife and every other MLM scheme. Initially the people involved wore those car stickers like badges of honor, now its more a symbol of a dunce hat.
Interstellar trash can?
on
Space Wars
·
· Score: 1
How many satellites are probing around up there. A colleague that was once a government aerospace engineer had commented that with all the government and private business interests up there he thought if one could fly up it would look more like a trash can then the serene pictures we are all used to seeing.
Unfortunately for anyone that hasnt worked for an ISP, telco, or cable company they dont realize what they are posting and that these businesses (ISP's and broadband) are goldmines, scratch that you make less money mining for gold.
The scary thing about all this is if telephone companies adopt this model. They have no problems squeezing every last dollar out of their customers.
Exactly and to add to that comment, LEC's got greedy and started competiting and violating agreement with smaller ISP's or their own resellers essentially canabilizing themselves.
Thought they were all gone by now
on
Lineo near Death
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Didnt know there were still companies around that dont have a clear plan a lots of money to throw around. I thought 2001 was the year that all bad and some good companies went down for the count.
Nothing too surprising or new to read here, just another technology company that was riding the tech boom and investor ignorance.
It matters when you compile a new kernel and find that the drivers Nvidia has doesnt work right and since it isnt open people cant patch it as quickly and everyone waits for Nvidia. Although so far Nvidia has been pretty fast.
One of the touted benefits of Linux is that it runs nicely on an old machine so that the machine doesnt need to see a landfill. Well in the Mac side of things Linux only seems to run on the latest and greatest. I have several PPC 601, 603e machines that Linux just will not run on, or at least a decent disto. MkLinux doesnt count. With YellowDog and LinuxPPC I just dont see the point if one needs a G3 or better. If I had a Ibook, G4 Powerbook, etc... I think OS X would be a lot better than these RedHat ported to PPC *nixes.
Adelphia is the worst. I live in a neighborhood that almost all cable customers want cable data access and have let Adelphia know. Adelphia's response is we are not sure when we will be offering data access in your area.
Yet my grandpa 25 miles away has cable access with Adelphia in his house at 350KB/sec, yet all he does is check email once a day and only got it on my advice but could care less. Irony of it all.
Well in this instance the two competitors (Verizon & PacBell) have slowly squeezed everyone out the market and hold control of a market that they are slow to move on. Smaller companies that ultimately go to telcos again deal with the same issues leading to running around in circles for everyone.
Hopefully the regulation will not only help pricing but get the telcos to be able to deliver DSL in a reasonable time frame. I know of many people that waited 6-months to indefinitely for DSL that they are being charged for yet dont see. Or telcos changing contracts with ISP at will and ultimately winning because small ISP's dont have the resources to fight a telco.
Although I dont know that CA state government in this case will be much better.
The theme of the article is the only reason they are doing it is because they can no longer cut costs anymore and need to save as much as possible.
So ideally what they are trying to do is get a stable system or network going so that it doesnt require constant reboots and just works, since the OS is free along with its most important parts they save a bundle on licensing. Then once everything is squared away they can cut their IT staff to minimal proportions due to obsolescence, like the Maytag guy commercials.
They have the info but dont know what to do with it. Im sure eventually a smart company will come as the sheepherder and point them in the right direction.
Telemarketers, TV / Radio advertisers took some time to learn too but eventually got it down to a science. Im sure these online advertisers will too, its only a matter of time.
I never understood this? You need a device, similar to or equal to a computer which costs way more than a small radio, and more importantly bandwidth, monthly fee in one location, to be able to listen to something that typically requires a $2.25 device and a AA battery.
Kinda like this new satellite radio, waiting for them to go away soon.
And how is this relevant considering that Russia which was part of the former Soviet Union is no more and we are still here? Apples and Oranges, and AFAIK the US has devastated all taliban there and have them cornered in the eastern most sector.
Hopefully this will get America's NASA more funding to be competitive. NASA has become a bloated and dying entity. Not the same agency it was in the 60-70's.
Slashdot Mirror
Some government jobs are great problem is a lot require Top Secret clearance which can be extremely difficult to obtain.
I was able to see this thing on Sundance. It was rather dry and dated info. Currently GPL and GNU has taken a different form that what these people had originally intended and become more legalesse than necessary.
The movie was made around the tech boom and days that VALinux was worth the price of a PC per share. Although Stallman was true to form an Open source advocate, you could see others in the film (Bruce Perens, Michael Tiemann, Eric Raymond,...) get that greedy glimmer that Gates always has in their eyes.
It also ends slightly before the bust and if compared to current day their comments seem naive.
Microsoft continually loses focus and gets into financial embarrasments. Didnt they learn from Microsoft cordless phones, car stereos, MSN, remote controls, speakers, etc...
They need to just stick to their core money makers, Office and a mediocre OS that costs consumers every year or 2.
Telcos should be a sign that Monopoly doesnt necessarily mean you cannabilize yourself.
Makes sense, they are so big it takes a while for them to switch gears. Where in the meantime every minute they dont they probably lose millions.
Big Blue is still the company people ridicule as well as admire.
IBM has been pumping out good stuff, Thinkpads, Servers etc... at a premium. But with hard drives, 60GXP, they provided a good product at a good price. Its the best HD I have owned. Fast, quiet, and no slightest form of failure yet. I even have one that has been taxed hard for the last year, year and a half and it runs like new.
I heard the 75GXP had their problems but the 60 series run rock solid. As far as I know the current leader is the Maxtor series but I wouldnt know because I havent had to change HD's yet.
Also I dont work for IBM just a happy consumer of their HD's.
I remember back in college that was what marketing instructors would say religiously.
To sell you have two fundamental resources to use:
- utility
or
- emotion (fear and safety being the 2 best).
If you use any of the above 2 you will see all advertisements and call to actions are based on it.
In this instance fear.
Couple years back I knew of three women that were receptionists that left their job for a telemarketing .com was what they called it.
What it was it had them go on IM, message boards, or newsgroups and try to convince people of various boards to try a product or go to competing product boards to act as a regular person and tell others what a great new product the competitors had.
When I heard of it I thought it was rather sleazy and got a little angry, but then again spam and phone telemarketing is probably a lot more sleazy IMO.
Funny thing is Apple, of all companies, are always ahead of their time. They come out with a great idea but too radical for most people to accept. After about 1/2 a decade later its is mimicked and is wildly successful.
One thing I am glad never took off was that whole translucent thing, I think I was the only one that thought it was annoyingly ugly.
There has always been AmWays, Avon, and a plethora of MLM schemes out here in So. Cal. But the latest seem to be 2By2.net. You see them plastered all over cars and essentially is a new MLM marketing scheme that has attracted thousands of 18-25 year old high school educated people. From what I can gather one pays for an ISP service with a exorbitant up front intiation fee. Similar to the HerbaLife and every other MLM scheme.
Initially the people involved wore those car stickers like badges of honor, now its more a symbol of a dunce hat.
How many satellites are probing around up there. A colleague that was once a government aerospace engineer had commented that with all the government and private business interests up there he thought if one could fly up it would look more like a trash can then the serene pictures we are all used to seeing.
Unfortunately for anyone that hasnt worked for an ISP, telco, or cable company they dont realize what they are posting and that these businesses (ISP's and broadband) are goldmines, scratch that you make less money mining for gold.
The scary thing about all this is if telephone companies adopt this model. They have no problems squeezing every last dollar out of their customers.
Exactly and to add to that comment, LEC's got greedy and started competiting and violating agreement with smaller ISP's or their own resellers essentially canabilizing themselves.
Didnt know there were still companies around that dont have a clear plan a lots of money to throw around. I thought 2001 was the year that all bad and some good companies went down for the count.
Nothing too surprising or new to read here, just another technology company that was riding the tech boom and investor ignorance.
It matters when you compile a new kernel and find that the drivers Nvidia has doesnt work right and since it isnt open people cant patch it as quickly and everyone waits for Nvidia.
Although so far Nvidia has been pretty fast.
One of the touted benefits of Linux is that it runs nicely on an old machine so that the machine doesnt need to see a landfill.
Well in the Mac side of things Linux only seems to run on the latest and greatest. I have several PPC 601, 603e machines that Linux just will not run on, or at least a decent disto. MkLinux doesnt count. With YellowDog and LinuxPPC I just dont see the point if one needs a G3 or better.
If I had a Ibook, G4 Powerbook, etc... I think OS X would be a lot better than these RedHat ported to PPC *nixes.
Adelphia is the worst. I live in a neighborhood that almost all cable customers want cable data access and have let Adelphia know. Adelphia's response is we are not sure when we will be offering data access in your area.
Yet my grandpa 25 miles away has cable access with Adelphia in his house at 350KB/sec, yet all he does is check email once a day and only got it on my advice but could care less. Irony of it all.
Unfortunately in some place cable companies have no intention of offering data but only TV and people are stuck with DSL.
Other places only cable and no DSL.
IF you ask me they are colluding on this whole broadband thing.
Well in this instance the two competitors (Verizon & PacBell) have slowly squeezed everyone out the market and hold control of a market that they are slow to move on. Smaller companies that ultimately go to telcos again deal with the same issues leading to running around in circles for everyone.
Hopefully the regulation will not only help pricing but get the telcos to be able to deliver DSL in a reasonable time frame. I know of many people that waited 6-months to indefinitely for DSL that they are being charged for yet dont see. Or telcos changing contracts with ISP at will and ultimately winning because small ISP's dont have the resources to fight a telco.
Although I dont know that CA state government in this case will be much better.
The theme of the article is the only reason they are doing it is because they can no longer cut costs anymore and need to save as much as possible.
So ideally what they are trying to do is get a stable system or network going so that it doesnt require constant reboots and just works, since the OS is free along with its most important parts they save a bundle on licensing. Then once everything is squared away they can cut their IT staff to minimal proportions due to obsolescence, like the Maytag guy commercials.
They have the info but dont know what to do with it. Im sure eventually a smart company will come as the sheepherder and point them in the right direction.
Telemarketers, TV / Radio advertisers took some time to learn too but eventually got it down to a science. Im sure these online advertisers will too, its only a matter of time.
I never understood this? You need a device, similar to or equal to a computer which costs way more than a small radio, and more importantly bandwidth, monthly fee in one location, to be able to listen to something that typically requires a $2.25 device and a AA battery.
Kinda like this new satellite radio, waiting for them to go away soon.
And how is this relevant considering that Russia which was part of the former Soviet Union is no more and we are still here?
Apples and Oranges, and AFAIK the US has devastated all taliban there and have them cornered in the eastern most sector.
Hopefully this will get America's NASA more funding to be competitive. NASA has become a bloated and dying entity. Not the same agency it was in the 60-70's.
I didnt think it was that long ago that Space Quest or LSL was out, but I suppose it has been, damn Im getting old.
Sounds like the making of a Microsoft already. Special deals and incentives to draw people away from their money.
And they said that RedHat was the Microsoft of Linux, HA!