Don't you think that more happy customers would mean more money to Microsoft's bottom line?
I think you'd have a hard time convincing a company that has $40 billion in cash of that principle. Discount the Zune? Heck, they could just give away the Zune to everyone in America and still have cash left.
So do you agree with them in their belief that their stockholders are more important than their paying customers?
No I don't. I think that's a major flaw with publicly traded companies and is one reason why I never want my own company to go public.
This is also one great thing about OSS, it doesn't have to appease to money for the most part. The other half for open source is probably reputation, but its the status quo to release vulnerabilities so its not as big of a deal.
I mean come on, if they said they had no security holes, nobody would believe them. If they released too many security holes, their stock would go down. So they have to find a happy medium.
CS has always been and will probably ever will be a self sustaining industry, the tools and products evolve, but the work doesn't: we are continously improving things or adding new ones on top of them.
Yes of course but I was commenting on your statement that in ten years everything will have been written. Of course there are programmers that improve software during its lifetime, add new features, make it mature. But it seems like every generation of software that becomes mature, a new medium comes along and people say "Hey, lets start from scratch" and then a new generation of software starts.
You forgot the "Within 10 years, everything would have been programmed and CS will be an extinct profession".
Wrong. If you've been paying attention, the computer industry re-invents itself whenever a new medium comes along and all the software gets written all over again.
1970s - Hey computers, lets make a spreadsheet program.
1980s - Hey personal computers, lets make a spreadsheet program for home use.
1990s - Hey windows, lets make a spreadsheet program that crashes.
2000s - Wow, the internet, let's make a spreadsheet program that works from the browser.
2010s - Whoa, virtual reality, those guys are going to need spreadsheet programs in their virtual offices.
2020s - Hey man, there is a computer in my head, I'm going to need a spreadsheet program.
2030s - Oh no, AI, they are going to need spreadsheet programs too. Oh wait, they wrote it themselves.
2040s - Retire
So people who are in school now, still have some time left.
I'll say it but it isn't going to do any good anyways.
One of the big roadblocks is users not seeing the big picture or not caring. Over the years, I've seen so many programs (especially open source) get off track of their goals because of a large number of vocal users that don't get the point of the program and expect it to do something else.
Or how about the biggest misconception of all time "Computers are going to make your life easier and they are going to be easy to use".
I really think portable is the wrong approach. The advantages that they are seeing are from having a compact modular unit that can be plugged in. So what they need to do is develop a building with slots that these modules can plugin to. Then I think it would be more attractive and the whole weariness about it being in a storage container can go away.
I couldn't imagine any hosting provider touting the fact that they have portable data centers built out of shipping containers.
Low latency? The data center is half a billion dollars. Just buy OC192s to everyone's house while they are at it. I'm joking, but they practically could build a huge data pipe to most of the major regional cities for a fraction of that cost.
I would say moving it a bit further south to Indianapolis would be a much better choice. Power is cheaper and there are quite a few big pipes going through Indy.
instead? If it says NXDOMAIN (no such domain), the domain does not exist.
Well of course I can do that but now even that is in danger of being snooped. But I can't expect a customer to do that every time, but they deserve better treatment than to have their domain snatched before they can even buy it. I think once this whole Verisign thing gets resolved, I'll setup a domain checker on our website so that they have someplace more trustworthy to check.
I have proof of this happening and I'm sure others do too. We have two different customers that looked up domains to see if they were available, asked us to register them and before we could register them, they were already registered by places in China and the Carribian. Both domains where somewhat obscure and I didn't see any reason why they should have normally been bought. In both cases, the domain was released after the 5 day period that ICANN allows (which I think was a mistake on ICANN's part to have that policy). But in some cases it might not be released if it turns out to be popular. As I said about the Verisign thing, this is an invasion of privacy.
One of our customers (who allowed me to mention in this post that his domain in question was psysci.net) that had this happen said that he only used the command line whois and networksolutions.com to lookup the domain, so it might not just be small registrars involved in this scam. But that's a pretty serious accusation to bring against Network Solutions so take that with a grain of salt. THe company that tasted psysci.net had a name of Wan-Fu China, Ltd. The company that tasted the other domain had a name of (MAISON TROPICALE S.A.), which you can find a little more information about here
Yes I agree. This is currently going on right now, but its done through webpages or search bar plugins or something. At least for people who know how to do the direct queries, we can get around this, but if Verisign does this, it will prevent people from checking for domain name availability without the fear of it being taken before they can register it.
I just wrote to Verisign to strongly emphasize that this is wrong. Plus, this would be bad for other registrars because I would think it would cut them out of the loop. If domain tasters kept a domain after 5 days, then now the consumer has to go through another non-registrar party to buy the domain, instead of GoDaddy, eNom or whatnot.
"Your mouse moved, click here to re-register Windows Zenith. Make sure you have your birth certificate and blood sample ready. Or click cancel to go into RTFM"
Hrmmmm.... looking at the "device" from the images on the link makes me think the police overreacted. Come on now.... holding her at gunpoint?
I disagree, I think that even to people involved with electronics it could look like something threatening. I think the police did their job and this Star Simpson person was pretty stupid to try that. Talk about no common sense.
Cool, I'm glad there are some smart people there at Linden Labs. I've been thinking about this for a while now, that there needs to be some group for developing such a protocol. Basically, this standard would encourage people to run their own servers and that's where it would really take off. Give people ownership, and they will run with it. Now all we need are 80 core processors and gigabit wan connections to the house.
I only hope that if they are altruistic enough to see the value in doing this, that they are good enough to make it as open as it should be.
Slashdot Mirror
Just curious, anyone know how much it cost to register a domain back at the beginning?
Don't you think that more happy customers would mean more money to Microsoft's bottom line?
I think you'd have a hard time convincing a company that has $40 billion in cash of that principle. Discount the Zune? Heck, they could just give away the Zune to everyone in America and still have cash left.
So do you agree with them in their belief that their stockholders are more important than their paying customers?
No I don't. I think that's a major flaw with publicly traded companies and is one reason why I never want my own company to go public.
This is also one great thing about OSS, it doesn't have to appease to money for the most part. The other half for open source is probably reputation, but its the status quo to release vulnerabilities so its not as big of a deal.
I mean come on, if they said they had no security holes, nobody would believe them. If they released too many security holes, their stock would go down. So they have to find a happy medium.
Maybe this is what moved them.
CS has always been and will probably ever will be a self sustaining industry, the tools and products evolve, but the work doesn't: we are continously improving things or adding new ones on top of them.
Yes of course but I was commenting on your statement that in ten years everything will have been written. Of course there are programmers that improve software during its lifetime, add new features, make it mature. But it seems like every generation of software that becomes mature, a new medium comes along and people say "Hey, lets start from scratch" and then a new generation of software starts.
Wrong. If you've been paying attention, the computer industry re-invents itself whenever a new medium comes along and all the software gets written all over again.
So people who are in school now, still have some time left.
I'll say it but it isn't going to do any good anyways.
One of the big roadblocks is users not seeing the big picture or not caring. Over the years, I've seen so many programs (especially open source) get off track of their goals because of a large number of vocal users that don't get the point of the program and expect it to do something else.
Or how about the biggest misconception of all time "Computers are going to make your life easier and they are going to be easy to use".
I really think portable is the wrong approach. The advantages that they are seeing are from having a compact modular unit that can be plugged in. So what they need to do is develop a building with slots that these modules can plugin to. Then I think it would be more attractive and the whole weariness about it being in a storage container can go away.
I couldn't imagine any hosting provider touting the fact that they have portable data centers built out of shipping containers.
Somehow I think it odd to have a picture of an open case hard drive to represent open source software.
2007 isn't over yet. :-) Sheesh, you're as bad as retailers mentioning Christmas in August.
Low latency? The data center is half a billion dollars. Just buy OC192s to everyone's house while they are at it. I'm joking, but they practically could build a huge data pipe to most of the major regional cities for a fraction of that cost.
I would say moving it a bit further south to Indianapolis would be a much better choice. Power is cheaper and there are quite a few big pipes going through Indy.
Just make sure you reinforce the concrete walls with titanium. ;-)
Their guards aren't 24/7
Which further proves to me what I suspected of a lot of hosting companies all along. They lie through their teeth.
Sigh.... How can you tell the truth in an industry full of liars and still expect to be competitive.
Have you tried:
host -t NS domain.com
instead? If it says NXDOMAIN (no such domain), the domain does not exist.
Well of course I can do that but now even that is in danger of being snooped. But I can't expect a customer to do that every time, but they deserve better treatment than to have their domain snatched before they can even buy it. I think once this whole Verisign thing gets resolved, I'll setup a domain checker on our website so that they have someplace more trustworthy to check.
I have proof of this happening and I'm sure others do too. We have two different customers that looked up domains to see if they were available, asked us to register them and before we could register them, they were already registered by places in China and the Carribian. Both domains where somewhat obscure and I didn't see any reason why they should have normally been bought. In both cases, the domain was released after the 5 day period that ICANN allows (which I think was a mistake on ICANN's part to have that policy). But in some cases it might not be released if it turns out to be popular. As I said about the Verisign thing, this is an invasion of privacy.
One of our customers (who allowed me to mention in this post that his domain in question was psysci.net) that had this happen said that he only used the command line whois and networksolutions.com to lookup the domain, so it might not just be small registrars involved in this scam. But that's a pretty serious accusation to bring against Network Solutions so take that with a grain of salt. THe company that tasted psysci.net had a name of Wan-Fu China, Ltd. The company that tasted the other domain had a name of (MAISON TROPICALE S.A.), which you can find a little more information about here
Yes I agree. This is currently going on right now, but its done through webpages or search bar plugins or something. At least for people who know how to do the direct queries, we can get around this, but if Verisign does this, it will prevent people from checking for domain name availability without the fear of it being taken before they can register it.
I just wrote to Verisign to strongly emphasize that this is wrong. Plus, this would be bad for other registrars because I would think it would cut them out of the loop. If domain tasters kept a domain after 5 days, then now the consumer has to go through another non-registrar party to buy the domain, instead of GoDaddy, eNom or whatnot.
Wow, imagine the reduction if we got rid of gasoline altogether.
(Note to slashdotters, I'm joking)
"Your mouse moved, click here to re-register Windows Zenith. Make sure you have your birth certificate and blood sample ready. Or click cancel to go into RTFM"
Wow, they are even cheaper than I thought. $15,000? I know there were other benefits, but I would have laughed in their face.
Has the net changed the demand for longer articles
I think that means "Has the net increased the demand for shorter articles".
Praxis?
Hrmmmm.... looking at the "device" from the images on the link makes me think the police overreacted. Come on now.... holding her at gunpoint?
I disagree, I think that even to people involved with electronics it could look like something threatening. I think the police did their job and this Star Simpson person was pretty stupid to try that. Talk about no common sense.
Cool, I'm glad there are some smart people there at Linden Labs. I've been thinking about this for a while now, that there needs to be some group for developing such a protocol. Basically, this standard would encourage people to run their own servers and that's where it would really take off. Give people ownership, and they will run with it. Now all we need are 80 core processors and gigabit wan connections to the house.
I only hope that if they are altruistic enough to see the value in doing this, that they are good enough to make it as open as it should be.
Or else it could end up like this