Re:Wishing for SnowCrash before the decade is out
on
Make Way for Fiber
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· Score: 2
Yeah, I feel the same way, because I have the local UUNet fiber line running on poles in front of my house. But, you know what? They aren't going to run fiber into the surrounding homes. The telcos can make a much better profit forcing residential customers to use shitty DSL at $80 a month or more than they can running a direct fiber connection into their homes. It's all a matter of supply and demand. The telcos keep the supply small, bandwidth-wise, and hence can keep the prices high because it's usually the only choice for broadband that people have in a lot of places.
Now, they could be planning to take all the Star Trek porn fanfic that's being posted through their interface and make millions selling it in their own compilation, but I think that's unlikely...
Yeah, that only happens on little pissant sites like Slashdot. *cough*JonKatz*cough*
Well, I can't possibly think of a solution to THIS little dilemma. Perhaps you should just use your ISP's news server instead, hmm? You know, you don't have to use Google for posting any more than you have to use AOL Instant Messanger to chat online. Sheesh people, this is NOT the end of the world.
There is quite a difference between getting the word out about Free Software and getting in a pointless pissing contest with Microsoft or whoever else the instigator might be.
I think that Mundie's speech might even have been aimed at destroying the productivity of the Free Software movement. Think about it this way: while MS allocates a few execs to trash Free Software (and really, what else are execs good for?) about a million coders who work on Free Software each write their own 2000 word point-by-point rebuttal of what was more or less an obvious troll in the first place.
Interestingly enough, I think the Slashdot "community" is a very close metaphor to this situation. There are several rather skilled trolls that frequent this site who write essentially inflammatory or unpopular opinions in their comments for the sole purpose of getting exactly the kind of rebuttals that MS is getting now.
No, but one could argue that coding skill is related to the amount of evangelization that one performs. I mean, when a real coder is given the choice of either going to shoot his mouth off or squashing that particularly devious bug in his code, he goes for fixing his code every time.
Lets say I was at work and I clicked that link and got a screen full of *any* porn and someone walked by, or they checked the proxy logs, I'd be SOL.
Then maybe you shouldn't be so click happy, you stupid fuck. I personally think the parent link is just an enforcer of the process of natural selection.
Who cares what Craig Mundie says? Who cares what RMS says in rebuttal? You all act like there's some sort of competition occuring here.
Seriously, evangelization is just a waste of time and resources. I've said it in the past, and I'll say it again: Free Software is NEVER in a competition to survive. The only reason that people start to get into this competitive mentality is that they work in big corporations for a living and are thus stuck in that mindset. Besides, evangelization makes it easier to tell who the real hackers are. Just make a list of all the people that you think are good coders, and cross off all the ones who'd rather blow hot air about Free Software than code.
Seeing that most of the comments in this story have been very negative towards Earthlink, could this finally be a chance for small mom and pop ISPs to take over some market share? I'm sure that the service of both Earthlink and AOL would be enough to drive a sizable amount of people away from them...
If its a laptop, you should just get one with a touchscreen so that you can write on it and not worry about RSI. It's got to beat a keyboard, both in amount of comfort and the weight and space taken up by a touch screen as opposed to a keyboard.
We all know that no one will be deploying IPv6 until Cisco starts to support it in its router software. Furthermore, it won't be deployed on a near universal basis until Microsoft decides to get off their asses and support it. So don't count on having any of the benefits of IPv6 at your disposal any time soon...
You forget that I was criticizing the statement, not necessarily the story at hand. Hell, you even quoted my post, not even realizing what I was saying! Are you daft?
everybody who is not Intel should be busying aligning with anyone who is also not Intel.
I don't know about you, but from what I've seen in every other instance, Slashdot vehemently opposes industry consolidation and mergers (witness AOL/TW and MS). I guess less competition is only bad when you don't like the company.
Oh well, I guess the enemy of my enemy is my friend. That one always works. Just look how it's helped the U.S. Gov't in the last half a century.
And what if the response back from the company was, "Why? We've acknowledged that it is GPLed and given credit. That should be enough."
And perhaps you wouldn't look like such a jackass on Slashdot in the future if you actually clicked the link that I provided in the parent comment, which is NOT simply giving credit. It is also offering the source of the code in question for download, along with whatever modifications that they made to it.
Sheesh, the posters here are getting dumber every time I come back...
Look at the evidence for yourself right here. Please, I implore the editors to at least check their facts (or perhaps it's their morals) before posting blatant flame bait like this. All you serve to do is ruin an innocent company's reputation.
But I'm not exactly the desktop of corporate America either.
Why do the editors and posters on Slashdot keep insisting that "Corporate America" accept Linux as the best thing since sliced bread and run it on every system in their inventory? Who cares what Corporate America runs on their desktop? There will always be an abundance of software for the Linux desktop regardless of whether there is anyone from a large corporation actually using it. That's because everything that we use on a basic Linux desktop is free software. That's right, free software! It doesn't matter whether company X sees a continued interest in them supporting application Y on the Linux desktop, because the software for Linux is developed free from the constraints of financial expectations.
The only rational reason that I can deduce from this constant evangelizing of Linux by the Slashdot editors would be their own self-interest in seeing their VA Linux stock break above whatever the hell single-digit price it is currently valued at. After all, moron companies that base their business plan on selling something that's available for free are the only ones who stand to profit from large corporations putting Linux on the desktop and demanding large amounts of "accountability" and "support" from these same companies.
Remember, as people under the age of 18, they don't have the same rights that everyone else does. When they go to school, they go there to learn, not to have a good time, or go where ever they want, etc. What worries parents the most these days, AFAIK, is the safety of their child while they are in school, what with all these crazy loner kids going around and shooting their classmates and teachers. So, what do you do if you don't want your kid falling in with the wrong crowd? Simple: You make sure that you know what he's doing while at school, and then nip problems in the bud before they ever develop into larger problems.
IMHO, parents and schools have every right to do this. I wish Slashdot would stop spreading FUD about how "students rights are being taken away" and triggering a flood of flame mail into some poor school administrators Inbox. To tell you the truth, students didn't have these "rights" in the first place.
Umm... considering that even "production" super cars like the McLaren F1 don't even go that fast, I find it hard to believe that a bike, with the additional drag induced by the rider, would be able to top out at 250mph. But, I could be wrong....
Yes, sometimes new technologies replace old technologies. But the airlines became successful by convincing passengers to travel with them, not by swooping down picking up the rail cars and forcing them to fly.
Actually, his point was very valid. IP and P2P is an example of a new distribution technology replacing an old one. To address your second sentence, it IS the consumers that are moving from buying music to using Napster. No one, except maybe the RIAA, is forcing the consumers to do anything. If you look at it the other way around, you could say that airplanes and cheap air travel forced the railroad companies to change their business model from carrying passengers to hauling freight, which is still what they do today.
Also, its not like CDs and tapes are going away anytime soon, so consumers will always have a choice available to them. They just probably won't go for paying for overpriced CDs.
At best it will be a collection of ideas on how P2P could be used
That's an interesting thought, and here's another one: Could it be that this article is just one big troll for some entrepreneurs to draw out some Slashdotters' ideas of what can be done with P2P, so that they can go out and start their own venture based on this idea? It's a conspiracy theory worth considering.
Slashdot Mirror
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Yeah, that only happens on little pissant sites like Slashdot. *cough*JonKatz*cough*
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I think that Mundie's speech might even have been aimed at destroying the productivity of the Free Software movement. Think about it this way: while MS allocates a few execs to trash Free Software (and really, what else are execs good for?) about a million coders who work on Free Software each write their own 2000 word point-by-point rebuttal of what was more or less an obvious troll in the first place.
Interestingly enough, I think the Slashdot "community" is a very close metaphor to this situation. There are several rather skilled trolls that frequent this site who write essentially inflammatory or unpopular opinions in their comments for the sole purpose of getting exactly the kind of rebuttals that MS is getting now.
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Those who can, code. Those who can't, evangelize.
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Then maybe you shouldn't be so click happy, you stupid fuck. I personally think the parent link is just an enforcer of the process of natural selection.
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Seriously, evangelization is just a waste of time and resources. I've said it in the past, and I'll say it again: Free Software is NEVER in a competition to survive. The only reason that people start to get into this competitive mentality is that they work in big corporations for a living and are thus stuck in that mindset. Besides, evangelization makes it easier to tell who the real hackers are. Just make a list of all the people that you think are good coders, and cross off all the ones who'd rather blow hot air about Free Software than code.
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Seeing that most of the comments in this story have been very negative towards Earthlink, could this finally be a chance for small mom and pop ISPs to take over some market share? I'm sure that the service of both Earthlink and AOL would be enough to drive a sizable amount of people away from them...
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We all know that no one will be deploying IPv6 until Cisco starts to support it in its router software. Furthermore, it won't be deployed on a near universal basis until Microsoft decides to get off their asses and support it. So don't count on having any of the benefits of IPv6 at your disposal any time soon...
You forget that I was criticizing the statement, not necessarily the story at hand. Hell, you even quoted my post, not even realizing what I was saying! Are you daft?
I don't know about you, but from what I've seen in every other instance, Slashdot vehemently opposes industry consolidation and mergers (witness AOL/TW and MS). I guess less competition is only bad when you don't like the company.
Oh well, I guess the enemy of my enemy is my friend. That one always works. Just look how it's helped the U.S. Gov't in the last half a century.
Ha! Looks like Geekizoid actually scooped Slashdot on this one.
Oh, you mean like the Internet?
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And perhaps you wouldn't look like such a jackass on Slashdot in the future if you actually clicked the link that I provided in the parent comment, which is NOT simply giving credit. It is also offering the source of the code in question for download, along with whatever modifications that they made to it.
Sheesh, the posters here are getting dumber every time I come back...
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Why do the editors and posters on Slashdot keep insisting that "Corporate America" accept Linux as the best thing since sliced bread and run it on every system in their inventory? Who cares what Corporate America runs on their desktop? There will always be an abundance of software for the Linux desktop regardless of whether there is anyone from a large corporation actually using it. That's because everything that we use on a basic Linux desktop is free software. That's right, free software! It doesn't matter whether company X sees a continued interest in them supporting application Y on the Linux desktop, because the software for Linux is developed free from the constraints of financial expectations.
The only rational reason that I can deduce from this constant evangelizing of Linux by the Slashdot editors would be their own self-interest in seeing their VA Linux stock break above whatever the hell single-digit price it is currently valued at. After all, moron companies that base their business plan on selling something that's available for free are the only ones who stand to profit from large corporations putting Linux on the desktop and demanding large amounts of "accountability" and "support" from these same companies.
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IMHO, parents and schools have every right to do this. I wish Slashdot would stop spreading FUD about how "students rights are being taken away" and triggering a flood of flame mail into some poor school administrators Inbox. To tell you the truth, students didn't have these "rights" in the first place.
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I guess Slashdot doesn't count, then?
Umm... considering that even "production" super cars like the McLaren F1 don't even go that fast, I find it hard to believe that a bike, with the additional drag induced by the rider, would be able to top out at 250mph. But, I could be wrong....
Actually, his point was very valid. IP and P2P is an example of a new distribution technology replacing an old one. To address your second sentence, it IS the consumers that are moving from buying music to using Napster. No one, except maybe the RIAA, is forcing the consumers to do anything. If you look at it the other way around, you could say that airplanes and cheap air travel forced the railroad companies to change their business model from carrying passengers to hauling freight, which is still what they do today.
Also, its not like CDs and tapes are going away anytime soon, so consumers will always have a choice available to them. They just probably won't go for paying for overpriced CDs.
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That's an interesting thought, and here's another one: Could it be that this article is just one big troll for some entrepreneurs to draw out some Slashdotters' ideas of what can be done with P2P, so that they can go out and start their own venture based on this idea? It's a conspiracy theory worth considering.
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