I think you misunderstood my claim, perhaps because you didn't read the Wired article I was attacking. (Given the source and quality, I can't really blame you.)
I was not arguing that any one particular pronounciation of router was the sole correct one, but that saying "rooter" was perfectly acceptable. The article attempted to lampoon Gore for saying "rooter", and I think that shows Wired's (perhaps willful) ignorance.
Given this much-easier-to-support point, I think I provided sufficient evidence to prove my point beyond a reasonable doubt. (I'm not a lawyer, but I did sit a Jury Pool for many boring hours yesterday. That should count for something!)
Of course Gore was very helpful in obtaining government funding during the crucial transition from ARPA to the current net. He didn't "invent" the internet, but he didn't claim he did.
And the embarassing ignorance shown by Declan McCullagh and Wired in trying to ridicule Gore for his pronounciation of "router"! Yes, the correct prounciation is "raut-er" if you're talking about a wood-working tool! But cisco makes machines which selects routes (a new meaning, not in standard dictionaries), so surely the pronounciation he used is completely valid. (I've heard many versions of the American classic "Route 66" and all pronounced it "root 66." Now where are the songs about routers?)
You're obviously not familiar with Cringely. He's been a computer-industry columnist practically forever - that was just his weekly column. If you read the title, you'll see he has two mostly-unrelated subjects for the column, which is why he switches topics (to the AOL deal) midway through.
As a columnist, he tries to mix a distinctive style or voice into his essays: the kryptonite thing was part of that. He wasn't trying to prove that Pirates was inaccurate; to see all the inaccuracies, you could read his book, or read Fire In The Valley, or see his documentary. He was just letting you know how he felt about it, in case you were curious (as I was).
Try reading some of the his other columns there, like his explanation of the Ponzi Scheme of ISP funding (the first one about Cisco, about a month back. I'd give the URL, but pbs.org appears to be semi-down.)
(BTW, his former employer, Infoworld, fought with him over his name, with the result that there are multiple Cringelys out there. The real/original one can be identified by the middle initial, "X".)
Re:Does Non-Profit Corporation == No IPO ?
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Apache Incorporates
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· Score: 1
Right, Non-Profit == No Owners / No Stock == No IPO. Where normal corporations are controlled by a board elected by stockholders, non-profit boards are usually either elected by the organization's members or by themselves.
It's called "Commercial Advance(tm)" -- get it.
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Digital VCRs
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· Score: 1
I have two VCRs with this feature (by ProScan, about US$400 each) and it works very well. I've been using them for several years, averaging watching maybe 5 hours of recorded TV a week. The one show they have problems with is Babylon 5, probably because of all the pure-black space shots.
The manual says the technology is patented, and licensed for use by many different manufacturers. it says the algorithm uses many different factors and does sometimes make mistakes (which are not a big problem; you just use the remote control to over-ride it).
I don't think advertizers/networks are particularly threatened by this, actually, because if you happen to be the (rare) kind of person who records-then-watches most of your TV, then you're going to fast-forward through at least the annoying commercials anyway. This just makes it a lot easier.
By my rough calculations, their net connection should be costing them about $750,000/yr at their average rate of 800GB/day. (I looked at their ISP's pricing, which is about the best I've seen.) They must sell a lot of CD-ROMs to be able to write that off as advertising and/or good-will expenses.
Actually, their whole architecture seems strange. This seems like something much better handled by multiple machines with connections to different ISPs. Oh, but they're colocated in their ISP's machine room....
I'd love to see this kind of information (bandwidth, machine, OS) and more (time-of-day loading curve,...) for all the big data providers, whoever they are... (download.com? yahoo? aol? conxion?...) They don't seem to brag about it much. If they have little info pages like cdrom.com's, I haven't been able to find them.
I don't know why, but this kind of stuff just grabs me. Lifestyles of the bandwidth-rich and cache-famous? Packed-Tranfer Pr0n?
The CD recorders I've worked with (mostly HP-4020i and Yamaha CDR400) have at times written disks with the wrong data or with "soft" data, which reads differently each time. This is with various different software, and no errors reported during writing.
The errors are noticable in music as little pops and clicks (which I can only hear on a good stereo), but are of course as plain as day to/usr/bin/diff.
Switching from cheap blanks to name-brand ones solved the problem for me. Your mileage may vary.
And yes, CD/CD-Rs are nothing like floppy disks or other digital media you are probably used to....
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I was not arguing that any one particular pronounciation of router was the sole correct one, but that saying "rooter" was perfectly acceptable. The article attempted to lampoon Gore for saying "rooter", and I think that shows Wired's (perhaps willful) ignorance.
Given this much-easier-to-support point, I think I provided sufficient evidence to prove my point beyond a reasonable doubt. (I'm not a lawyer, but I did sit a Jury Pool for many boring hours yesterday. That should count for something!)
And the embarassing ignorance shown by Declan McCullagh and Wired in trying to ridicule Gore for his pronounciation of "router"! Yes, the correct prounciation is "raut-er" if you're talking about a wood-working tool! But cisco makes machines which selects routes (a new meaning, not in standard dictionaries), so surely the pronounciation he used is completely valid. (I've heard many versions of the American classic "Route 66" and all pronounced it "root 66." Now where are the songs about routers?)
As a columnist, he tries to mix a distinctive style or voice into his essays: the kryptonite thing was part of that. He wasn't trying to prove that Pirates was inaccurate; to see all the inaccuracies, you could read his book, or read Fire In The Valley, or see his documentary. He was just letting you know how he felt about it, in case you were curious (as I was).
Try reading some of the his other columns there, like his explanation of the Ponzi Scheme of ISP funding (the first one about Cisco, about a month back. I'd give the URL, but pbs.org appears to be semi-down.)
(BTW, his former employer, Infoworld, fought with him over his name, with the result that there are multiple Cringelys out there. The real/original one can be identified by the middle initial, "X".)
Right, Non-Profit == No Owners / No Stock == No IPO. Where normal corporations are controlled by a board elected by stockholders, non-profit boards are usually either elected by the organization's members or by themselves.
The manual says the technology is patented, and licensed for use by many different manufacturers. it says the algorithm uses many different factors and does sometimes make mistakes (which are not a big problem; you just use the remote control to over-ride it).
I don't think advertizers/networks are particularly threatened by this, actually, because if you happen to be the (rare) kind of person who records-then-watches most of your TV, then you're going to fast-forward through at least the annoying commercials anyway. This just makes it a lot easier.
Actually, their whole architecture seems strange. This seems like something much better handled by multiple machines with connections to different ISPs. Oh, but they're colocated in their ISP's machine room....
I'd love to see this kind of information (bandwidth, machine, OS) and more (time-of-day loading curve, ...) for all the big data providers, whoever they are... (download.com? yahoo? aol? conxion? ...) They don't seem to brag about it much. If they have little info pages like cdrom.com's, I haven't been able to find them.
I don't know why, but this kind of stuff just grabs me. Lifestyles of the bandwidth-rich and cache-famous? Packed-Tranfer Pr0n?
The errors are noticable in music as little pops and clicks (which I can only hear on a good stereo), but are of course as plain as day to /usr/bin/diff.
Switching from cheap blanks to name-brand ones solved the problem for me. Your mileage may vary.
And yes, CD/CD-Rs are nothing like floppy disks or other digital media you are probably used to....