>The main problem was having to do business with ILECs, which are monopolies that compete against us.
So why is it that other internet companies with about 1/1000th of your revenue are able to stay afloat? Does the wife of the CEO become the personal love slave of RBOC employees?
>A secondary problem was some not-so-bright management decisions
No, that's the primary problem. It all so often is.
>Unfortunately, this was largely due to the large amounts of bandwidth unfairly utilized by the "power users" of the network
Funny, I would have blamed it on the corporate dumb-heads that didn't do a cost ananlysis of the situation.
That's what one normally does. Does one blame Ford or customers for Ford going out of business if they said to everyone "Go ahead and take a Ford, for free, for as long as you need it" and noticed everyone keeping them?
A proper business plan would have included a limit. For example, 10 Gigs for $50.
>"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention."
I agree. I'm outraged at what lengths environmentalists will go to to support their "cause", while infact doing the exact opposite. I'm more outraged than they are. In fact, because I'm so outraged, I make it a point to buy the most environmentally unfriendly products every time I hear about stuff like this simply because I hate the idea of supporting people like these.
Perhaps I pay too much attention, but doesn't their eqipment use LEAD acid batteries? You know, the ones that greenies hate so much they make us pay a premium to dispose of them?
My message to them: Get a fan generator or set of solar cells, and stop using regular consumer electronics. Do you have any clue how much "damage" is done to the environment to make a PCB? Have you ever played with Ferric Chloride or FiberGlass? This stuff isn't exactly nice, and their using it is simply promoting the exact opposite of their cause.
I won't even get into the dioxins they expose everyone to by using cables sheathed with Vynil, of all materials.
If they want to be eco-friendly, they need to build their own circuits, using paper-phenolic, non-copper cladded PCB. And they need to use silver solder. And if they don't want to go to that "effort", why do they seem to have the energy to climb a tree and live there?
If only it were Europe and we had standard DVB stuff, instead of the duopoly in non-standard Satellite TV we currently have. It would make viewing TV on your computer a pleasure, and you could buy any channel you want, not some moronic package that makes you buy a wildlife channel because you want TLC.
>Searching by category. Everyone so often, I like to go look at say, all the movies, coming up & Tivo the ones I've wanted to see.
Again, this is really more the result of the duopolistic control of satellite TV (soon to be monopolostic in America, unfortunately) rather than something that's actually impossible. You can also put some of the blame on Canada for our inane CRTC.
>The interface. Any way you cut it, Tivo did a great job here.
This is true. Although there are Tivo-alike projects out there (running on Linux!), however, the ones with Tivo-style features are for DVB. Some of them approach many Tivo features, I'm told.
Here's one of the projects. Here's some that'll work minus the DVB (I think).
If you want to go ahead and give DVB a try, there's some free programming on Telstar 5, but I doubt it'll be anything like what you get on DirecTV.
This is one of those things that was on my "Never going to happen" list. After that Episode I DVD debacle, I thought George Lucas was as dumb as a bag of bricks (to this day, no one I know owns the Episode I DVD). It turns out I may have been mistaken.
>but raise your hand if you'd like to see a federal judge slap a preliminary injunction on any distribution of the Linux kernel until the mess is sorted out!
Hand raised. If anything, the Linux kernel itself has to be one of the most downloaded open source projects. It will be harder to keep this under wraps than the DMCA. It will put ISPs out of business. It will damage companies. It will raze parts of the government that's attempting to suppress it.
>Applications were tiny - the HTML 3.0 compliant browser came in at under a meg for the whole binary. I never saw an app larger that 5 MB. >A full install came in at about 300 MB (comparable to OpenBSD) IIRC.
Not to disagree with you too much, but windows 95 A was about 40 MB for a regular install, and very few applications (that came with it, at least) were over 5 MB for the EXE size at the time.
And, of course, windows 95 (or Win32S) would be the foundation for what we all current term "windows".
>So far as a plastic coverflap for a shutdown button goes, that is not only unreliable but also violates human engineering guidelines.
The military didn't seem to have any problems with it in their aircraft...
>But no machine should ever allow full shutdown after a single button push if there is any risk of loss/damage.
Agreed. The applications need to "talk" a little more with the OS on this. This way the OS only informs the user "Please close your programs before shutting down". I still think it should ask you if you want to reboot when you hit the power button, and I still think it shouldn't ask if you are sure. It should either do it, or tell you it can't.
Maybe I just want my computer to be as easy to use as my microwave.:-)
>Dude, if you don't work for emusic, you're going to have to present some kind of credentials or something. This is the biggest-- and lamest-- sales pitch I've seen in a Slashdot comment in a long, long time.
Honestly, I don't work there. It's just one of the few services I buy that I am truly satisfied with. It was everything I expected, and in this day and age, that sorta surprised me (in a good way).
Like I say, try it out if you don't believe me.:-) I did on the advice of another random poster on metafilter, and it was well worth it (not many big name bands, though).
>Get some free weights and a curl bar, cut back on the typing for a little while and then give it 6 months of 20 minutes three times a week. You'll look better, be stronger, and I bet your RSI will be better, too.
Or learn to type on a manual typewriter. Well, it might not make you look better or get you very strong, but you didn't hear anything 'bout RSI on those.
Of course, a side effect is the fact that any keyboard that isn't built like a tank will be destroyed in no time. This can be good if you're in a cheap workplace and prefer a clean keyboard.
>People are happy with MP3-quality music, and they want to be able to buy it over the Internet. Current systems for doing that just suck.
Not again. Apple is going to re-package emusic? Seriously, in what way does emusic suck? I get the whole album. It's one click. I get all I can download (well, I hear they cut you off at 100 albums a month). I suppose it might be nice for the client to also download the artwork for free, but feh, who cares that much?
>Micro-payment (well, semi-micro; on the order of a dollar per song) will be handled through the.Mac "one click" system
Oh, I see. Sorry to say, it's dead before it hits the ground then. I hate micropayment BS, and that easily adds up to more than buying the real CD for me. Emusic has the best idea, IMHO.
>The only DRM will be the stuff we've already go built into the iPod that makes it inconvenient, though of course not impossible, to copy music off of it once it's been put on.
So, it's actually _worse_ than emusic, then?:-/
It feels to me like another "let's take an idea, slap a nicer interface on it, and charge ungodly amounts" Apple standard idea then.
Just my two cents.
(For all though that haven't seen it yet, emusic is there. Try it and be amazed. It's totally free, for the first few songs. And, trust me, their 128 kbps is about as good as any 192 kbps I've encoded at home).
>are you seriously suggesting that that's negligable compared to what you paid for the bulb itself?
No, not exactly. I'm saying that there's a balance between how long the bulb should be left on, since the "hours" rating is more of a guess than the rating of how many times the filament can stand to be turned on from a cold start.
For an example, if you plan to leave a room for fifteen minutes, unless the power costs are very high, you should leave the light on (I don't have hard numbers to back this up -- but there *is* a cost savings relationship in there somewhere). However, if you're going to bed, turn the light off. It's that simple.
Okey-dokey?:-)
>Meanwhile, some of your countrymen are concerned that Price Caps on Ontario Electricity Could Mean Replay of California's Electricity Crisis [newswire.ca]. Good luck with that...
We get that. The "problem" was the government choice to privatize the power system (it was always a public service up until this year). Well, they didn't put enough checks and balances into privatizing it, and the companies just ran wild. I think now, though, the government has shown them that they can't just do whatever they like, which is what the california gov't should have done. Cali. always had the power, it's just that the power co's wouldn't turn it on. I think here if that happened the gov't would tell them to start them back up or face some time with bubba.;-)
But that all goes in with the fact that Canada is somewhat more socialist than the USA.
Anyways, we've had prices at the 4-7 cent per kwh mark for the past decade. I'm sure it'll be tight, but I think the power co's can squeeze through the tough times.
>In the 1960s, the rate of improvement hit a wall, and there have only been small incremental improvments since then. (And much of that has been achieved by "cheating": glomming onto Moore's law by cramming electronics into the aircraft.)
That's only if you don't consider rocketry and spaceships a natural extension of the technology.
If people don't follow those as an extension, I can't see it fair to call my PDA a natural extension of computing. It has as much in common with a mainframe as the ISS has in common with the concord.
>Yes, well, in 1977 they didn't have MP3's or massive amounts of on-line porn. Then again, this might've been true, but the scientists were just hoarding it.
Out of all of these, the DEC quote is the most shortsighted. Within 1 year of this quote passing, 0.1% of America had computers (my best guess based on stats that I can remember). Within 5 years of this quote, it was at about 5%.
That's about as shortsighted as my neighbours who claimed in 1998 that they would _never_ own a DVD player because there's no need for it.
>Here's an offer: I will pay for all of your lightbulb needs for the next year if you'll pay my electric bill during the same time.
Sound good to me if you live nearby, and you're just talking about the lighting portion of the bill.
It's no bullshit that our electricity prices are frozen at 4.3 cents CDN per kwh (less than 3 cents US per kwh) for 5 years. There's extra crap they tack on, but hey, that's life, and it _still_ works out cheaper to buy electricity here than to buy bulbs.
I didn't realise the US had it this bad for electricity prices. I'm sure Canada would give you the plans to build yourselves some CANDU reactors if you need them.;-)
>Either you live on a planet with very different prices, or you are very badly misinformed.
Here's the price I pay, legislated by the government. It's back down to 4.3 cents per kwh now after that idiotic gouging (and no one has to pay their power bills until March as punishment to the utilities for their illegal act, and the utilities are no longer allowed to disconnect them). Yes, I am on planet earth. Actually, my government sells you our power, since I'm just slightly north of you. Looks like for some reason you guys pay way too much for it. Maybe it's time to buy yourselves som CANDU reactors?;-)
So here it is cheaper to run incandescent bulbs. It could be for you too!
If you're going to work will caller ID, the most guaranteed way to do that is this:
Upon receiving a call, log the caller ID, and ask the person to enter the number they are calling from. If the numbers don't match, explain (automatically) that if the intent is to market products to you they are to add you to a do not call list and are to hang up immediately. Otherwise, push 1 to be callback verified.
Your computer automatically dials them back (assuming they are within your area code!) while ringing your number and you decide wether or not to whitelist the number.
Very few telemarketing calls actually come from "real" numbers, and no sane telemarketer would have left a real call back number anyways.
You might want to add a message system into all this so that you can still catch people with extensions!:-)
Just a thought inspired from the BBS days (50 karma for CBV! Oh yeah!).
Proof you don't know what you're talking about is that I didn't actually remember about those old Mac keyboards when I stated this (isn't assuming wonderful? not). I was simply going by the difficulty I had in finding a text editor on a fresh G3 Mac running MacOS 9. I never did find it, but fortunately, never cared.
>It's pretty hard to accidentally hit the Power key on the older Mac keyboards.
I didn't find it so, and neither did anyone else in the (very few) Mac classes in school (the only time I had to come in contact with Macs, fortunately). Then again, I usually go through 2 keyboards a year (learning on a manual typewriter does wonders for the wrists!) unless they're Model Ms.
>Aside from that, there are multiple options in the dialog that pops up: Restart, Shut Down, Sleep and of course Cancel. All very useful to have in a one key shortcut.
Perhaps so. Unless the key is labelled power (which, from what the original power was saying, it was). In that case asking the user to restart is silly. It's like asking you if you want to start the car when you push the power button on your car radio with your keys out of the ignition. Different, although slightly related things.
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>The main problem was having to do business with ILECs, which are monopolies that compete against us.
So why is it that other internet companies with about 1/1000th of your revenue are able to stay afloat? Does the wife of the CEO become the personal love slave of RBOC employees?
>A secondary problem was some not-so-bright management decisions
No, that's the primary problem. It all so often is.
>Unfortunately, this was largely due to the large amounts of bandwidth unfairly utilized by the "power users" of the network
Funny, I would have blamed it on the corporate dumb-heads that didn't do a cost ananlysis of the situation.
That's what one normally does. Does one blame Ford or customers for Ford going out of business if they said to everyone "Go ahead and take a Ford, for free, for as long as you need it" and noticed everyone keeping them?
A proper business plan would have included a limit. For example, 10 Gigs for $50.
>"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention."
I agree. I'm outraged at what lengths environmentalists will go to to support their "cause", while infact doing the exact opposite. I'm more outraged than they are. In fact, because I'm so outraged, I make it a point to buy the most environmentally unfriendly products every time I hear about stuff like this simply because I hate the idea of supporting people like these.
Perhaps I pay too much attention, but doesn't their eqipment use LEAD acid batteries? You know, the ones that greenies hate so much they make us pay a premium to dispose of them?
My message to them: Get a fan generator or set of solar cells, and stop using regular consumer electronics. Do you have any clue how much "damage" is done to the environment to make a PCB? Have you ever played with Ferric Chloride or FiberGlass? This stuff isn't exactly nice, and their using it is simply promoting the exact opposite of their cause.
I won't even get into the dioxins they expose everyone to by using cables sheathed with Vynil, of all materials.
If they want to be eco-friendly, they need to build their own circuits, using paper-phenolic, non-copper cladded PCB. And they need to use silver solder. And if they don't want to go to that "effort", why do they seem to have the energy to climb a tree and live there?
Yeesh. How much more hypocritical does one get?
I consider this a detestable use of technology to help keep the world backwards in technology.
If this is perfectly ok, can I board up your house because you work for Microsoft?
>My TV has a better picture because it's friggin bigger than the computer monitor, and no Dscaler will help that.
Then buy a bigger monitor. They do make them in TV sizes. I can't help it if you don't have a big enough monitor for your needs. Sorry.
>So you're saying that DScaler will let me sit 6 to 8 feet away from my 17" montitor and get a better picture than my 32" TV?
No, but if you had a 32" monitor, you'd have the best picture in the world.
(Yes, they make them that size. $1,900 according to The Screen Savers).
So now a super-expensive device can not only do what the old ones did, but also:
- Replicate the basic functionality of a 1992 Kodak PhotoCD player
- Play MP3s like a 3 year old $50 APEX DVD player
All at an additional cost. Hey, who knows, maybe they'll include a Commodore CD-i player for an extra $100 per year?
Wow. Colour me sarcastic^H^H^H^H^H^H impressed. Sorry, wedging in this old tech just isn't going to cut the mustard.
>My TV has a better picture.
Say what now?
>Season Passes.
If only it were Europe and we had standard DVB stuff, instead of the duopoly in non-standard Satellite TV we currently have. It would make viewing TV on your computer a pleasure, and you could buy any channel you want, not some moronic package that makes you buy a wildlife channel because you want TLC.
>Searching by category. Everyone so often, I like to go look at say, all the movies, coming up & Tivo the ones I've wanted to see.
Again, this is really more the result of the duopolistic control of satellite TV (soon to be monopolostic in America, unfortunately) rather than something that's actually impossible. You can also put some of the blame on Canada for our inane CRTC.
>The interface. Any way you cut it, Tivo did a great job here.
This is true. Although there are Tivo-alike projects out there (running on Linux!), however, the ones with Tivo-style features are for DVB. Some of them approach many Tivo features, I'm told.
Here's one of the projects. Here's some that'll work minus the DVB (I think).
If you want to go ahead and give DVB a try, there's some free programming on Telstar 5, but I doubt it'll be anything like what you get on DirecTV.
This is one of those things that was on my "Never going to happen" list. After that Episode I DVD debacle, I thought George Lucas was as dumb as a bag of bricks (to this day, no one I know owns the Episode I DVD). It turns out I may have been mistaken.
>but raise your hand if you'd like to see a federal judge slap a preliminary injunction on any distribution of the Linux kernel until the mess is sorted out!
Hand raised. If anything, the Linux kernel itself has to be one of the most downloaded open source projects. It will be harder to keep this under wraps than the DMCA. It will put ISPs out of business. It will damage companies. It will raze parts of the government that's attempting to suppress it.
Bring it on. The madness ends here.
>Applications were tiny - the HTML 3.0 compliant browser came in at under a meg for the whole binary. I never saw an app larger that 5 MB.
>A full install came in at about 300 MB (comparable to OpenBSD) IIRC.
Not to disagree with you too much, but windows 95 A was about 40 MB for a regular install, and very few applications (that came with it, at least) were over 5 MB for the EXE size at the time.
And, of course, windows 95 (or Win32S) would be the foundation for what we all current term "windows".
>So far as a plastic coverflap for a shutdown button goes, that is not only unreliable but also violates human engineering guidelines.
:-)
The military didn't seem to have any problems with it in their aircraft...
>But no machine should ever allow full shutdown after a single button push if there is any risk of loss/damage.
Agreed. The applications need to "talk" a little more with the OS on this. This way the OS only informs the user "Please close your programs before shutting down". I still think it should ask you if you want to reboot when you hit the power button, and I still think it shouldn't ask if you are sure. It should either do it, or tell you it can't.
Maybe I just want my computer to be as easy to use as my microwave.
>Dude, if you don't work for emusic, you're going to have to present some kind of credentials or something. This is the biggest-- and lamest-- sales pitch I've seen in a Slashdot comment in a long, long time.
:-) I did on the advice of another random poster on metafilter, and it was well worth it (not many big name bands, though).
Honestly, I don't work there. It's just one of the few services I buy that I am truly satisfied with. It was everything I expected, and in this day and age, that sorta surprised me (in a good way).
Like I say, try it out if you don't believe me.
If you've got any questions, fire away.
>Get some free weights and a curl bar, cut back on the typing for a little while and then give it 6 months of 20 minutes three times a week. You'll look better, be stronger, and I bet your RSI will be better, too.
Or learn to type on a manual typewriter. Well, it might not make you look better or get you very strong, but you didn't hear anything 'bout RSI on those.
Of course, a side effect is the fact that any keyboard that isn't built like a tank will be destroyed in no time. This can be good if you're in a cheap workplace and prefer a clean keyboard.
>It makes sense that Netscape 7.01 has the pop-up-disabling feature in it.
Maybe. What doesn't make sense is the fact that there are still popups on netscape's homepage; unless they're trying to make a point.
>People are happy with MP3-quality music, and they want to be able to buy it over the Internet. Current systems for doing that just suck.
.Mac "one click" system
:-/
Not again. Apple is going to re-package emusic? Seriously, in what way does emusic suck? I get the whole album. It's one click. I get all I can download (well, I hear they cut you off at 100 albums a month). I suppose it might be nice for the client to also download the artwork for free, but feh, who cares that much?
>Micro-payment (well, semi-micro; on the order of a dollar per song) will be handled through the
Oh, I see. Sorry to say, it's dead before it hits the ground then. I hate micropayment BS, and that easily adds up to more than buying the real CD for me. Emusic has the best idea, IMHO.
>The only DRM will be the stuff we've already go built into the iPod that makes it inconvenient, though of course not impossible, to copy music off of it once it's been put on.
So, it's actually _worse_ than emusic, then?
It feels to me like another "let's take an idea, slap a nicer interface on it, and charge ungodly amounts" Apple standard idea then.
Just my two cents.
(For all though that haven't seen it yet, emusic is there. Try it and be amazed. It's totally free, for the first few songs. And, trust me, their 128 kbps is about as good as any 192 kbps I've encoded at home).
>Take a chance a brand new dance
NO! Your using the words "take a chance" just evoked an ABBA memory in me. HELP! Get it out!
>are you seriously suggesting that that's negligable compared to what you paid for the bulb itself?
:-)
;-)
No, not exactly. I'm saying that there's a balance between how long the bulb should be left on, since the "hours" rating is more of a guess than the rating of how many times the filament can stand to be turned on from a cold start.
For an example, if you plan to leave a room for fifteen minutes, unless the power costs are very high, you should leave the light on (I don't have hard numbers to back this up -- but there *is* a cost savings relationship in there somewhere). However, if you're going to bed, turn the light off. It's that simple.
Okey-dokey?
>Meanwhile, some of your countrymen are concerned that Price Caps on Ontario Electricity Could Mean Replay of California's Electricity Crisis [newswire.ca]. Good luck with that...
We get that. The "problem" was the government choice to privatize the power system (it was always a public service up until this year). Well, they didn't put enough checks and balances into privatizing it, and the companies just ran wild. I think now, though, the government has shown them that they can't just do whatever they like, which is what the california gov't should have done. Cali. always had the power, it's just that the power co's wouldn't turn it on. I think here if that happened the gov't would tell them to start them back up or face some time with bubba.
But that all goes in with the fact that Canada is somewhat more socialist than the USA.
Anyways, we've had prices at the 4-7 cent per kwh mark for the past decade. I'm sure it'll be tight, but I think the power co's can squeeze through the tough times.
>In the 1960s, the rate of improvement hit a wall, and there have only been small incremental improvments since then. (And much of that has been achieved by "cheating": glomming onto Moore's law by cramming electronics into the aircraft.)
That's only if you don't consider rocketry and spaceships a natural extension of the technology.
If people don't follow those as an extension, I can't see it fair to call my PDA a natural extension of computing. It has as much in common with a mainframe as the ISS has in common with the concord.
>Yes, well, in 1977 they didn't have MP3's or massive amounts of on-line porn. Then again, this might've been true, but the scientists were just hoarding it.
Out of all of these, the DEC quote is the most shortsighted. Within 1 year of this quote passing, 0.1% of America had computers (my best guess based on stats that I can remember). Within 5 years of this quote, it was at about 5%.
That's about as shortsighted as my neighbours who claimed in 1998 that they would _never_ own a DVD player because there's no need for it.
>Here's an offer: I will pay for all of your lightbulb needs for the next year if you'll pay my electric bill during the same time.
;-)
Sound good to me if you live nearby, and you're just talking about the lighting portion of the bill.
It's no bullshit that our electricity prices are frozen at 4.3 cents CDN per kwh (less than 3 cents US per kwh) for 5 years. There's extra crap they tack on, but hey, that's life, and it _still_ works out cheaper to buy electricity here than to buy bulbs.
I didn't realise the US had it this bad for electricity prices. I'm sure Canada would give you the plans to build yourselves some CANDU reactors if you need them.
>Either you live on a planet with very different prices, or you are very badly misinformed.
;-)
Here's the price I pay, legislated by the government. It's back down to 4.3 cents per kwh now after that idiotic gouging (and no one has to pay their power bills until March as punishment to the utilities for their illegal act, and the utilities are no longer allowed to disconnect them). Yes, I am on planet earth. Actually, my government sells you our power, since I'm just slightly north of you. Looks like for some reason you guys pay way too much for it. Maybe it's time to buy yourselves som CANDU reactors?
So here it is cheaper to run incandescent bulbs. It could be for you too!
If you're going to work will caller ID, the most guaranteed way to do that is this:
:-)
Upon receiving a call, log the caller ID, and ask the person to enter the number they are calling from. If the numbers don't match, explain (automatically) that if the intent is to market products to you they are to add you to a do not call list and are to hang up immediately. Otherwise, push 1 to be callback verified.
Your computer automatically dials them back (assuming they are within your area code!) while ringing your number and you decide wether or not to whitelist the number.
Very few telemarketing calls actually come from "real" numbers, and no sane telemarketer would have left a real call back number anyways.
You might want to add a message system into all this so that you can still catch people with extensions!
Just a thought inspired from the BBS days (50 karma for CBV! Oh yeah!).
That doesn't look at all like chkrootkit. It appears to be a competing project. If it's good or not I can't say -- I've never used it.
>Proof you don't know what you're talking about
Proof you don't know what you're talking about is that I didn't actually remember about those old Mac keyboards when I stated this (isn't assuming wonderful? not). I was simply going by the difficulty I had in finding a text editor on a fresh G3 Mac running MacOS 9. I never did find it, but fortunately, never cared.
>It's pretty hard to accidentally hit the Power key on the older Mac keyboards.
I didn't find it so, and neither did anyone else in the (very few) Mac classes in school (the only time I had to come in contact with Macs, fortunately). Then again, I usually go through 2 keyboards a year (learning on a manual typewriter does wonders for the wrists!) unless they're Model Ms.
>Aside from that, there are multiple options in the dialog that pops up: Restart, Shut Down, Sleep and of course Cancel. All very useful to have in a one key shortcut.
Perhaps so. Unless the key is labelled power (which, from what the original power was saying, it was). In that case asking the user to restart is silly. It's like asking you if you want to start the car when you push the power button on your car radio with your keys out of the ignition. Different, although slightly related things.