Right, they're not that expensive compared to other high speed devices.
But, imagine that these companies are expecting DSL to become mass-consumer access technology to replace dial-up modems and when you reach that type of market volume, you start looking at ways to shave off as much cost as you can to maximize your operating margin. If these devices are going to be consumer-installable where a premises service truck roll isn't needed, they will be all the more attractive.
No, local phone companies don't love telemarketers for the revenue they generate directly. Does the phone company get any money from you for incoming calls? No. Do telemarketers tie up capacity? Yes.
Your local phone company gets only an interconenction charge for calls that come in from outside its area. Phone companies in Utah and Nebraska love telemarketing companies. They have little revenue from residential customers so they love to hook up call centers with 30,000 or so seats.
I work at a company that has a teleservices division (Inbound customer care for the most part, some outbound direct marketing) and they have >100% turnover. People don't go into telemarketing for the money, they don't stay long. A lot of recently divorced mothers with children to feed and no job skills and deadbeat dads not paying child support seems to be more the norm.
>Just make sure that isn't enough for them to keep their job
It is the companies that hire the telemarketing companies that you should direct your spite against, not the poor slobs that work there.
Yeah, Americtech in Chicago offers "Privacy Manager". The way I understand this is it works with caller ID, intercepts all calls with no CallerID (read: telemarketers), prompts them to enter a phone number before they will even ring your phone. Since most telemarketing predictive dialers have no way of responding with a touch-tone phone number, the call never goes through. It's more like $40, not $5 though.
It looks like it was just sloppiness. Over on technocrat there is a post that supposedly quotes Be's Allan Anderson.
You know, it's ironic...because we don't actually use the specific Electric Fence stuff anywhere in our code. We had been looking at making it work with some MALLOC_DEBUG levels, but it never worked right. So, tho it is in libroot.so, it never gets used. We just never got around to cleaning it out. We'll fix it. Too bad we won't fix it before the Pro CDs go out...
So it got into a lib during development, never actually got incorporated and was not removed. I guess I can buy this considering the number of members that are in a library like that. Bruce's point is still valid. When you start thinking about integrating GPL code, you have to be pretty rigorous about keeping track of it. This isn't even something that they need in there and look at the hassle it will cause. What is the solution? Keep all the GPL code in a separate lib so it doesn't get forgotten?
I had a friend who went by the name 'mobius' when he played online and he told me when he started playing EQ they changed his name to 'modius' to make it fit more with the genre. I can't figure that one out. Is it because it's a historical figure? Seems like it sounds D&D-ish enough?
At 10:28 AM 4/14/2000, you wrote: >I have to tell you, I quite a bit dissapointed by this >commentary: > >There are scary implications here. When you cannot >trust software made by one of the world's largest >software companies, what do you do when if comes to >all the little homebrew progams that are available? > >I don't know if you were expecting to get flames on >this or not, but... > >Indeed there are scary implications, of relying on >closed-source proprietary software for >mission-critical applications like web serving, not in >comparing the relative trustworthiness of the "world's >largest software companies" to "little homebrew >programs". Maybe I'm taking this the wrong way, but I >take offense at this as it seems to imply that some >betrayal of trust by Microsoft makes software created >by private individuals even less trustworthy. > >Shame on you.
This was not actually the intent of that remark at all, but I can definitely see the concern. considering that, along with the fact that we generally don't make such comments, I removed the remark.
Thanks for bringing your concerns to my attention, my apologies for any offense taken. -- Stephen Heaslip (Blue) http://www.bluesnews.com/ All the carnage, no messy cleanup...
>This is a quote from the leading online gaming source, Blue's News. <p> Looks like he's taken that editorial bit off of his site. I went to post a comment on his <a href="http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/blammo.pl?m ode=mboard&action=viewboard&id=12236&for mat=main"> discussion board </a>about it and looks like he got a couple comments about it. No doubt a few prople mailed him about it as well. <p> Heaslip seems to be a pretty good guy about stuff like this. I expect to see a blurb about it in his "out of the Blue" ramble tomorrow. He generally owns up to mis-statements or foibles like this.
Yeah, but that's more of a peer-to-peer connection that is negotiated on the fly, isn't it? I would think a server is a service that listens to a known port and allows anonymous connections from clients and sends requested data. I know there may be problems with this 'definition' but it makes sense in my mind.
servers:
http - listens on 80 and responds to requests for html pages and related content ftp - listens on 21 and responds for requests for files quake dedicated - listens on port 27960 and permits connections for multiplayer games hosted on a dedicated server.
clients:
navigator - connets to http servers CuteFTP - connects to ftp servers quake game - connects to dedicated game servers ICQ - connects to other ICQ clients for direct communication
and then which is napster? It listens to a known port and responds to client requests for.mp3, right? I have MediaoneExpress and I'm subject to the server ban. I've never been hassled about http, ftp or quake services I've run over my connection. I don't have gigs of pr0n, warez or.mp3 that I'm making available, but I have a 10 Mb limit on my personal web space, so I use http and ftp to supplement when I have video clips or other non-sense that I want to link from my pages at prople.ce.mediaone.net I fire up a dedicated Q3A server once in a while when the regulars I play with can't find a decent server on the net. We play on my box for a while than I shut it off (yes, I have a tremendous advantage so I play with machinegun only and drop to 25% handicap).
I've never heard a peep out of Mediaone about this. We don't have a upstream cap, either. M1 seems to have adequately planned for bandwidth. The server clause in the subscription agreement seems to be there to fall back on if someone really creates a problem.
OT - worst gaming experience of my life was when I was halfway through Doom2 and got stuck, someone gave me noclip and godmode cheats so I could get through it. Ended up playing through the rest of the came with cheats everytime I got stuck. Finished the game but did not have the same feeling of enjoyment that I had in finishing Wolf3d and Doom. Ever since, I have avoided cheatcodes like the plague.
You know, I've always wondered the same thing. That makes sense, but why do they leave the "cheat-code" logic in the game and why do the codes always get discovered and made public?
looks like you were replying to me but I merely quoted the 'lame analogy' and the proceeded to attempt to discredit it. Kind of the whole point of my postage, the incorrect arguments don't sway me.
Gee, I can't imagine how the sun can keep burning for what seems like eternity without any air out there in space to feed the fire, so it must not be possible either!/sarcasm
But, arguments that guns aren't manufactured and sold to be used to shoot at living things and thus somehow this invalidates attempts to control access are nonsense.
>By attacking the imagined intention of a gun, you seem to think that the manufacturer attaches some sort of "psychic aura" to a firearm that can be blamed for the criminal acts committed by it.
I'm sorry, I don't see where I said anything of the sort. My attack was on the statement that guns are designed solely to propel metal. That is a factual statement about the mechanical functioning of a firearm, but no one buys a gun to see how fast they can make lead travel. They buy it for legitimate purposes - self defense, hunting, sport shooting, etc. Also, criminals get them for illegal purposes of holding up banks and shooting rival gang members. Intent does not change the basic fact that guns would not exist were they not extraordinarily effective in causing bodily harm to those on the wrong end.
>Nuclear fission was researched solely for the purpose of making a destructive device on the scale no man had ever seen.
Nuclear powerplants and ICBM's are two different products of a single technology. One is meant to power a city, the other to level one. Just like a starter's pistol and a.38 special. The first is to start a man running, the other is to stop one.
>If the first automobile had been created to run down children in the street, what difference would that make to us today? Who would give a damn?
No one would have bought from Henry Ford because there are much more efficient and cost-effective ways of disposing of children in the street. This point makes no sense either.
To sum up. I don't advocate gun control, but not because of any flimsy arguments that are put forth about how guns are not manufactured and sold for the purpose of producing deadly force. I think 'mericans should keep the right to posess the means to blast the crap out of each other at the spurr of the moment to their heart's content.
Emmerson Winchester*: "I think I'll invent a device that rapidly propels a lead slug down a rifled bore just for the hell of it. And I'll put sights on top of the barrel just for good looks."
No, it is obvious to anyone that the intent of a gun is to blow holes in things, usually living things. An alternate use of a gun is to put little holes in pieces of paper with either little red circles on them or a black and white outline of a man. Yet another use is to carry one around to inflate one's sense of manhood.
A lead pipe is manufactured and sold for the primary purpose of routing wather around in a building. An alternate use is to bludgeon people over the head who attempt to argue that guns are not manufactured for the purpose of shooting people.
(*note: this post is heavily laden with sarcasm. Please don't respond only to point out that Winchester didn't invent the gun or had some other first name. I don't care)
That's what I was thingkin, also. But I think it was Pinkerton that initiated this, not Jon.
The problem is the demand for this type of service, not the supplier. It's the legislature and schools who need to hear what Jon tried to convine Pinkerton of.
>They think that what they're doing is morally correct and is in the best interests of all.
I don't agree, I think you miss the point. It's not at all about their sense of "morally correct" or "best interests of all", it is totally about profit motive. Unless what they are doing is outright illegal, there is little chance they even worry about if it is moral, ethical or in anyone's interest other than their equity stakeholders. If it happens that they can defend it under arguments of morals, ethics or public interest, that is merely PR.
The only way a company like this abandons a program is when it can be proven that it will not make money or land someone in jail. There's lots of money to be made. Parents are demanding that schools do something to protect their kids from the next Columbine and administrators will be only too happy to go before the board and get whatever funding is needed to put a turn-key solution in place that will releive them of their obligation to respond to the demands for some kind of program or somesuch.
Pinkerton will have done a business case. It will cost x to develop this program, y to run it each year and we will have z revenues per year based on our projections of the market and our likely penetration in years 1 thru 5. If the business case creates a 15% or better return, it gets approved, money is budgeted, resources are earmarked and a project commences. No where in that equation is there a valuation of "is this right?". That information may emerge in the form of a press kit.
The only thing that could derail this and obviously got their attention is negative publicity. It seems obvious to me that the only goal in their meeting with Jon was damage control (well, they attempted to let him contribute in an obvious attempt to buy his approval, but that just seems a token gesture).
Corporations are not evil, being either good or evil requires a soul. Corporations have nice mission statements that make it look like they have a soul and a conscience. Some individuals that work high-up in the corporation may be concientious and well-meaning. They may even have deluded themselves into beleiving that these qualities play into their decisions about how to run the company. In the end though, corporations exist to generate a return for equity stakeholders without incurring undue risk or breaking the law. I would imagine that morality, ethics and the common good rarely make more than a token appearance at board meetings.
>but IIRC, RH 6.2 is compiled and optimized for a i386, not the i686 class processor that they benchmarked on
I know this was true for 5.2 - the first thing you did after installation was re-build the kernel with i686 optimizations turned on. But I thought that with 6.1 and after, the installer was able to detect your processor and install an appropriate kernel automagically. When I installed 6.2 on a newly-built smp box, I was surprised and impressed that two different kernels had been installed and lilo had been set up with both an smp and uni processor kernel, the default being smp. When I went to re-build the kernel, the i686 box was checked by default and the new kernel I built didn't seem really faster at all.
I've had voodoo2, tnt2 and now matrox g400 boards in my machines and I've been most impressed by the matrox performance under linux for q3a.
Ok, I guess when I said 'sdk' I meant something that has a complete set of documentation for all the OS API calls. I was not aware that you could download that for free. I know there's a sdk for DirectX that can be downloaded for free. My assumption was that Microsoft, if it makes it available at all, licenses information on how to code apps on Windows in a fairly restrictive way. (this seems obvious, what I mean is you sign away any rights you have and Microsoft owes you no promise that they have given you complete information or that they won't change it without notice).
What I think I meant was that if you had $$$, with no other strings, you could purchase everything you need to develop apps that run on windows without being gouged, or without Microsoft playing games.
Slashdot Mirror
Right, they're not that expensive compared to other high speed devices.
But, imagine that these companies are expecting DSL to become mass-consumer access technology to replace dial-up modems and when you reach that type of market volume, you start looking at ways to shave off as much cost as you can to maximize your operating margin. If these devices are going to be consumer-installable where a premises service truck roll isn't needed, they will be all the more attractive.
No, local phone companies don't love telemarketers for the revenue they generate directly. Does the phone company get any money from you for incoming calls? No. Do telemarketers tie up capacity? Yes.
Your local phone company gets only an interconenction charge for calls that come in from outside its area. Phone companies in Utah and Nebraska love telemarketing companies. They have little revenue from residential customers so they love to hook up call centers with 30,000 or so seats.
I work at a company that has a teleservices division (Inbound customer care for the most part, some outbound direct marketing) and they have >100% turnover. People don't go into telemarketing for the money, they don't stay long. A lot of recently divorced mothers with children to feed and no job skills and deadbeat dads not paying child support seems to be more the norm.
>Just make sure that isn't enough for them to keep their job
It is the companies that hire the telemarketing companies that you should direct your spite against, not the poor slobs that work there.
Yeah, Americtech in Chicago offers "Privacy Manager". The way I understand this is it works with caller ID, intercepts all calls with no CallerID (read: telemarketers), prompts them to enter a phone number before they will even ring your phone. Since most telemarketing predictive dialers have no way of responding with a touch-tone phone number, the call never goes through. It's more like $40, not $5 though.
then I wish I was an idiot.
It looks like it was just sloppiness. Over on technocrat there is a post that supposedly quotes Be's Allan Anderson.
You know, it's ironic...because we don't actually use the specific Electric Fence
stuff anywhere in our code. We had been looking at making it work with some
MALLOC_DEBUG levels, but it never worked right. So, tho it is in libroot.so, it never
gets used. We just never got around to cleaning it out.
We'll fix it. Too bad we won't fix it before the Pro CDs go out...
So it got into a lib during development, never actually got incorporated and was not removed. I guess I can buy this considering the number of members that are in a library like that. Bruce's point is still valid. When you start thinking about integrating GPL code, you have to be pretty rigorous about keeping track of it. This isn't even something that they need in there and look at the hassle it will cause. What is the solution? Keep all the GPL code in a separate lib so it doesn't get forgotten?
Well, of course you are right. Thank you for being such a jerk about it.
laptop in the rain sounds like code for something naughty
I had a friend who went by the name 'mobius' when he played online and he told me when he started playing EQ they changed his name to 'modius' to make it fit more with the genre. I can't figure that one out. Is it because it's a historical figure? Seems like it sounds D&D-ish enough?
He took it down.
here's the e-mail I exchanged with him...
At 10:28 AM 4/14/2000, you wrote:
>I have to tell you, I quite a bit dissapointed by this
>commentary:
>
>There are scary implications here. When you cannot
>trust software made by one of the world's largest
>software companies, what do you do when if comes to
>all the little homebrew progams that are available?
>
>I don't know if you were expecting to get flames on
>this or not, but...
>
>Indeed there are scary implications, of relying on
>closed-source proprietary software for
>mission-critical applications like web serving, not in
>comparing the relative trustworthiness of the "world's
>largest software companies" to "little homebrew
>programs". Maybe I'm taking this the wrong way, but I
>take offense at this as it seems to imply that some
>betrayal of trust by Microsoft makes software created
>by private individuals even less trustworthy.
>
>Shame on you.
This was not actually the intent of that remark at all, but I can
definitely see the concern. considering that, along with the fact that
we
generally don't make such comments, I removed the remark.
Thanks for bringing your concerns to my attention, my apologies for any
offense taken.
--
Stephen Heaslip (Blue)
http://www.bluesnews.com/
All the carnage, no messy cleanup...
>This is a quote from the leading online gaming source, Blue's News.m ode=mboard&action=viewboard&id=12236&for mat=main"> discussion board </a>about it and looks like he got a couple comments about it. No doubt a few prople mailed him about it as well.
<p>
Looks like he's taken that editorial bit off of his site. I went to post a comment on his <a href="http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/blammo.pl?
<p>
Heaslip seems to be a pretty good guy about stuff like this. I expect to see a blurb about it in his "out of the Blue" ramble tomorrow. He generally owns up to mis-statements or foibles like this.
Yeah, but that's more of a peer-to-peer connection that is negotiated on the fly, isn't it? I would think a server is a service that listens to a known port and allows anonymous connections from clients and sends requested data. I know there may be problems with this 'definition' but it makes sense in my mind.
.mp3, right? I have MediaoneExpress and I'm subject to the server ban. I've never been hassled about http, ftp or quake services I've run over my connection. I don't have gigs of pr0n, warez or .mp3 that I'm making available, but I have a 10 Mb limit on my personal web space, so I use http and ftp to supplement when I have video clips or other non-sense that I want to link from my pages at prople.ce.mediaone.net I fire up a dedicated Q3A server once in a while when the regulars I play with can't find a decent server on the net. We play on my box for a while than I shut it off (yes, I have a tremendous advantage so I play with machinegun only and drop to 25% handicap).
servers:
http - listens on 80 and responds to requests for html pages and related content
ftp - listens on 21 and responds for requests for files
quake dedicated - listens on port 27960 and permits connections for multiplayer games hosted on a dedicated server.
clients:
navigator - connets to http servers
CuteFTP - connects to ftp servers
quake game - connects to dedicated game servers
ICQ - connects to other ICQ clients for direct communication
and then which is napster? It listens to a known port and responds to client requests for
I've never heard a peep out of Mediaone about this. We don't have a upstream cap, either. M1 seems to have adequately planned for bandwidth. The server clause in the subscription agreement seems to be there to fall back on if someone really creates a problem.
I can see that.
OT - worst gaming experience of my life was when I was halfway through Doom2 and got stuck, someone gave me noclip and godmode cheats so I could get through it. Ended up playing through the rest of the came with cheats everytime I got stuck. Finished the game but did not have the same feeling of enjoyment that I had in finishing Wolf3d and Doom. Ever since, I have avoided cheatcodes like the plague.
You know, I've always wondered the same thing. That makes sense, but why do they leave the "cheat-code" logic in the game and why do the codes always get discovered and made public?
>!pu dekcuf sreenigne tfosorciM
.sig - wish I thought of it first!
cool
!skcits-kcuf tnagorra era sreenigne tfosorciM
looks like you were replying to me but I merely quoted the 'lame analogy' and the proceeded to attempt to discredit it. Kind of the whole point of my postage, the incorrect arguments don't sway me.
Really. Since when is Ask Slashdot "Ask Slashdot to do my homework!!??"
Gee, I can't imagine how the sun can keep burning for what seems like eternity without any air out there in space to feed the fire, so it must not be possible either! /sarcasm
For the record, I'm not anti-gun.
.38 special. The first is to start a man running, the other is to stop one.
But, arguments that guns aren't manufactured and sold to be used to shoot at living things and thus somehow this invalidates attempts to control access are nonsense.
>By attacking the imagined intention of a gun, you seem to think that the manufacturer attaches some sort of "psychic aura" to a firearm that can be blamed for the criminal acts committed by it.
I'm sorry, I don't see where I said anything of the sort. My attack was on the statement that guns are designed solely to propel metal. That is a factual statement about the mechanical functioning of a firearm, but no one buys a gun to see how fast they can make lead travel. They buy it for legitimate purposes - self defense, hunting, sport shooting, etc. Also, criminals get them for illegal purposes of holding up banks and shooting rival gang members. Intent does not change the basic fact that guns would not exist were they not extraordinarily effective in causing bodily harm to those on the wrong end.
>Nuclear fission was researched solely for the purpose of making a destructive device on the scale no man had ever seen.
Nuclear powerplants and ICBM's are two different products of a single technology. One is meant to power a city, the other to level one. Just like a starter's pistol and a
>If the first automobile had been created to run down children in the street, what difference would that make to us today? Who would give a damn?
No one would have bought from Henry Ford because there are much more efficient and cost-effective ways of disposing of children in the street. This point makes no sense either.
To sum up. I don't advocate gun control, but not because of any flimsy arguments that are put forth about how guns are not manufactured and sold for the purpose of producing deadly force. I think 'mericans should keep the right to posess the means to blast the crap out of each other at the spurr of the moment to their heart's content.
You're splitting hairs here.
Emmerson Winchester*: "I think I'll invent a device that rapidly propels a lead slug down a rifled bore just for the hell of it. And I'll put sights on top of the barrel just for good looks."
No, it is obvious to anyone that the intent of a gun is to blow holes in things, usually living things. An alternate use of a gun is to put little holes in pieces of paper with either little red circles on them or a black and white outline of a man. Yet another use is to carry one around to inflate one's sense of manhood.
A lead pipe is manufactured and sold for the primary purpose of routing wather around in a building. An alternate use is to bludgeon people over the head who attempt to argue that guns are not manufactured for the purpose of shooting people.
(*note: this post is heavily laden with sarcasm. Please don't respond only to point out that Winchester didn't invent the gun or had some other first name. I don't care)
That's what I was thingkin, also. But I think it was Pinkerton that initiated this, not Jon.
The problem is the demand for this type of service, not the supplier. It's the legislature and schools who need to hear what Jon tried to convine Pinkerton of.
>They think that what they're doing is morally correct and is in the best interests of all.
I don't agree, I think you miss the point. It's not at all about their sense of "morally correct" or "best interests of all", it is totally about profit motive. Unless what they are doing is outright illegal, there is little chance they even worry about if it is moral, ethical or in anyone's interest other than their equity stakeholders. If it happens that they can defend it under arguments of morals, ethics or public interest, that is merely PR.
The only way a company like this abandons a program is when it can be proven that it will not make money or land someone in jail. There's lots of money to be made. Parents are demanding that schools do something to protect their kids from the next Columbine and administrators will be only too happy to go before the board and get whatever funding is needed to put a turn-key solution in place that will releive them of their obligation to respond to the demands for some kind of program or somesuch.
Pinkerton will have done a business case. It will cost x to develop this program, y to run it each year and we will have z revenues per year based on our projections of the market and our likely penetration in years 1 thru 5. If the business case creates a 15% or better return, it gets approved, money is budgeted, resources are earmarked and a project commences. No where in that equation is there a valuation of "is this right?". That information may emerge in the form of a press kit.
The only thing that could derail this and obviously got their attention is negative publicity. It seems obvious to me that the only goal in their meeting with Jon was damage control (well, they attempted to let him contribute in an obvious attempt to buy his approval, but that just seems a token gesture).
Corporations are not evil, being either good or evil requires a soul. Corporations have nice mission statements that make it look like they have a soul and a conscience. Some individuals that work high-up in the corporation may be concientious and well-meaning. They may even have deluded themselves into beleiving that these qualities play into their decisions about how to run the company. In the end though, corporations exist to generate a return for equity stakeholders without incurring undue risk or breaking the law. I would imagine that morality, ethics and the common good rarely make more than a token appearance at board meetings.
>but IIRC, RH 6.2 is compiled and optimized for a i386, not the i686 class processor that they benchmarked on
I know this was true for 5.2 - the first thing you did after installation was re-build the kernel with i686 optimizations turned on. But I thought that with 6.1 and after, the installer was able to detect your processor and install an appropriate kernel automagically. When I installed 6.2 on a newly-built smp box, I was surprised and impressed that two different kernels had been installed and lilo had been set up with both an smp and uni processor kernel, the default being smp. When I went to re-build the kernel, the i686 box was checked by default and the new kernel I built didn't seem really faster at all.
I've had voodoo2, tnt2 and now matrox g400 boards in my machines and I've been most impressed by the matrox performance under linux for q3a.
And a good SciFi novel here and there as well. FM Busby's Demu Trilogy comes to mind. Good read.
Ok, I guess when I said 'sdk' I meant something that has a complete set of documentation for all the OS API calls. I was not aware that you could download that for free. I know there's a sdk for DirectX that can be downloaded for free. My assumption was that Microsoft, if it makes it available at all, licenses information on how to code apps on Windows in a fairly restrictive way. (this seems obvious, what I mean is you sign away any rights you have and Microsoft owes you no promise that they have given you complete information or that they won't change it without notice).
What I think I meant was that if you had $$$, with no other strings, you could purchase everything you need to develop apps that run on windows without being gouged, or without Microsoft playing games.