$20 per home passed indeed. It doesn't cost much per home to pass an apartment building with hundreds of homes and declare it eligible. Verizon is only building to single family homes right now; the cost per structure is lower than J:Com but the cost per home is higher.
On the other hand, the $716 per home hooked up is Verizon's own fault. They never have processed the old AT&T lesson that it ain't cool to require the customer to lease the CPE.
You've never worked at a large company. Creativity and initiative are in short supply. When a large company wants your idea, it's vastly cheaper and easier for them to buy it from you. As an entrepreneur, bringing about that purchase is the sensible goal.
bullshit, I've seen inspired people with ideas hook up with the people with know-how and build amazing businesses.
As have I. But they weren't wild-eyed quote entrepreneurs endquote. They were smart, creative individuals who shared hundreds of clever ideas before running in to someone who, upon hearing the latest idea, said "That's brilliant. What if we did that here, here and here? We could make a business out of it."
The guy with the one idea, so brilliant he can't tell you about it lest someone steal it, doesn't have have what it takes.
Get over it. The whole secretiveness about our product thing is a fast track to failure in a startup company.
You need customers, first adopters, partners and venture capitalists. Until you're ready to talk freely, they won't even return your phone call. Worry about the patents when you actually have a revenue stream.
Seriously. How many hardware geeks here on slashdot who might have been interested in your project chose not to contact you because it isn't worth their time to chase a secret of dubious quality?
akin to 'changing the tires on a car while you're going at 60 down the freeway,'
This is not so hard. Just design the car with 4 axles instead of 2 and lift one off the road at a time. Helps if it can swivel for easy access to the lugnuts.
That's only if you re-use deleted blocks before the meta-data deleting them has been committed. That's also an error, but it isn't circular: Writing the data before writing the metadata is not mutually exclusive with writing the metadata before reusing deleted blocks.
After a truncf(), you lock the deleted blocks against a write until after you've written the updated metadata for the file. Until then, anything you write to the file will have to be allocated elsewhere on the disk. But then that's part of what the reserve slack is for: to increase the probability that there is somewhere else on the disk that you can write it.
Here's what Linus had to say, and I think he hit the nail on the head:
The point is, if you write your metadata earlier (say, every 5 sec) and the real data later (say, every 30 sec), you're actually MORE LIKELY to see corrupt files than if you try to write them together.
And if you write your data _first_, you're never going to see corruption at all.
This is why I absolutely _detest_ the idiotic ext3 writeback behavior. It literally does everything the wrong way around - writing data later than the metadata that points to it. Whoever came up with that solution was a moron. No ifs, buts, or maybes about it.
In the sense that it does not appear to apply technological inhibitions against otherwise lawful behavior.
DRM's meaning has become overloaded to the point where it usually refers to technological restrictions which -exceed- the legal restrictions on a copy's use.
This attitute could cost you boatloads of cash should the BSA audit.
That threat only really works against large companies and government agencies operating on a large-scale licensing agreement. In a small company, you basically tell the BSA that you respectfully decline their invitation to audit your systems. If they ever try to, which they don't.
Of course, if you're dumb enough to invite the BSA to audit your systems then you get what you deserve.
First off, let the higher-ups know what's going on and that it's neither a joke nor a hassle but a serious issue of stolen property about which they have now been unambiguously advised.
Second, try to handle this in a "moving forward" manner. You'll find no support for suddenly spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on software. If you push it, you'll probably be fired for not being a "team player." Instead, make sure that any new systems you set up run correctly licensed software. You'll replace all the computers over the course of the next several years anyway, so this will get you where you need to be while spreading the cost out into something manageable.
Third, get together with the company accountant and and scrutinize the purchase receipts for the last 3 years. You probably have more licenses than you think, but they were purchased ad-hoc with poor recordkeeping.
Fourth, don't be too literal with the license details. If you have three VMs running XP on a XP host and you try to call that four licenses you'll get skewered by your boss, just as you should. Practices like refusing to let employees install Office on their home PCs because the company hasn't paid for an extra license will earn you a rep for having a stick up your tail. Get exactly one Office license for each employee and no more. And as long as you have a license for each copy of Windows, don't worry about whether the individual installations were done with a crack.
Fifth, recall that individuals often install useful software on their individual machines. This is a good thing. You think you only have two solutions: the company licenses the software or you remove the software. In fact, you have a third: the individual to which the computer is assigned can take direct responsibility for the software, and sign a form to the effect that, "The following software on my computer is provided by the company. I, the undersigned, take responsibility for the legality of any other computer software found on my machine."
Finally, do the obvious stuff... Replace Norton Antivirus with AVG Free, Secure Shell Client with Putty, etc. MS Office with OpenOffice if you dare.
Now, obviously this is not legal advice. If you want legal advice, the answer is: "Open your wallet and close your eyes 'cause if you see this it'll just make you cry." This is social advice. It'll get your company to a point where it's operating ethically without unduly annoying your boss or colleagues.
You would say a sentence in whatever form you wanted, it would determine your intentions, then perform them.
My intentions are easy to determine: I intend to go on a web page and use my mouse and keyboard to requisition precisely what I want with as little interpretation required as possible.
It's when you thwart my intentions by injecting an intelligence into the process, especially a subhuman one, then we have trouble seeing eye to eye.
I think voice recognition is more the future of how we control our devices.
Please leave me out of your future. Few things make me more angry than calling a support number and getting a menu where I'm required to speak to the computer.
If I have to deal with a computer, at least give me the choices and let me press a damn button. Don't make me guess the right keyword, especially not in earshot of my officemates.
all guarantees are void in undefined situations like crashes
If I wanted a 100% guarantee that what I'd just written makes it to the disk, I'd fsync.
That isn't what I want.
What I want is to get it done more quickly than stop-and-sync would allow with a minimum of fuss inside my program while offering a high probability that if any of it made it to the disk then all of it made it to the disk. That's why I wrote/renamed instead of truncate/wrote.
Ext3 did it reasonably. Ext2 did too. Ufs on my old Sparcstation worked fine. Ext4 failed to meet expectations.
No, hundredths of a second. The rename and file write are synced to the disk *at the same time*, which comes no more than 5 seconds after the app finishes writing.
If power is lost at the right time, the same results would happen.
The right time being the hundredths of a second between the commit of the file data and the commit of the directory data, not 60 seconds.
If I fsync after every write, I can get reliability in ext2. I put up with the performance hit from ext3 and ext4 because I want the reliability in the filesystem instead of having to build it into every part of every application.
Ext4 developer Ted Ts'o stresses in his answer to the bug report that Ext4 behaves precisely as demanded by the POSIX standard for file operations.
I couldn't disagree more:
When applications want to overwrite an existing file with new or changed data [...] they first create a temporary file for the new data and then rename it with the system call - rename(). [...] Delayed block allocation allows the filing system to optimise its write processes, but at the price that the metadata of a newly created file will display a size of 0 bytes and occupy no data blocks until [up to 60 seconds later].
Application developers reasonably expect that writes to the disk which happen far apart in time will happen in order. If I write to a file and then rename the file, I expect that the rename will not complete significantly before the write. Certainly not 60 seconds before the write. It seems dead obvious, at least to me, that the update of the directory entry should be deferred until after ext4 flushes that part of the file written prior to the change in the directory entry.
So, us fahrenheit-feet thinking people find it inconvenient to think in terms of decimal points. Measuring 7.9 cm is no easier than measuring 3 1/8th inches. I care about the difference between 72 and 73 degrees Fahrenheit. It's more of a pain to deal with the difference between 22.0 and 22.5 degrees Celsius.
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It's a shame the prosecution botched this case
My conspiracy theory is that the Bush Justice Department picked a prosecuter they were pretty sure would botch the case.
A CEO's quote upon firing one of the salesmen:
"It takes no particular talent to sell a dollar for fifty cents."
When craigslist starts charging for all of its ads, not just a handful, then its high rankings will impress me.
$20 per home passed indeed. It doesn't cost much per home to pass an apartment building with hundreds of homes and declare it eligible. Verizon is only building to single family homes right now; the cost per structure is lower than J:Com but the cost per home is higher.
On the other hand, the $716 per home hooked up is Verizon's own fault. They never have processed the old AT&T lesson that it ain't cool to require the customer to lease the CPE.
It would be a great laugh when someone stops by to borrow one of my other books.
large companies [...] working product in seconds.
You've never worked at a large company. Creativity and initiative are in short supply. When a large company wants your idea, it's vastly cheaper and easier for them to buy it from you. As an entrepreneur, bringing about that purchase is the sensible goal.
bullshit, I've seen inspired people with ideas hook up with the people with know-how and build amazing businesses.
As have I. But they weren't wild-eyed quote entrepreneurs endquote. They were smart, creative individuals who shared hundreds of clever ideas before running in to someone who, upon hearing the latest idea, said "That's brilliant. What if we did that here, here and here? We could make a business out of it."
The guy with the one idea, so brilliant he can't tell you about it lest someone steal it, doesn't have have what it takes.
I can't give details
Get over it. The whole secretiveness about our product thing is a fast track to failure in a startup company.
You need customers, first adopters, partners and venture capitalists. Until you're ready to talk freely, they won't even return your phone call. Worry about the patents when you actually have a revenue stream.
Seriously. How many hardware geeks here on slashdot who might have been interested in your project chose not to contact you because it isn't worth their time to chase a secret of dubious quality?
akin to 'changing the tires on a car while you're going at 60 down the freeway,'
This is not so hard. Just design the car with 4 axles instead of 2 and lift one off the road at a time. Helps if it can swivel for easy access to the lugnuts.
That's only if you re-use deleted blocks before the meta-data deleting them has been committed. That's also an error, but it isn't circular: Writing the data before writing the metadata is not mutually exclusive with writing the metadata before reusing deleted blocks.
Ext4 is more like {2,3},1
It's also an easily solved problem:
After a truncf(), you lock the deleted blocks against a write until after you've written the updated metadata for the file. Until then, anything you write to the file will have to be allocated elsewhere on the disk. But then that's part of what the reserve slack is for: to increase the probability that there is somewhere else on the disk that you can write it.
Here's what Linus had to say, and I think he hit the nail on the head:
The point is, if you write your metadata earlier (say, every 5 sec) and
the real data later (say, every 30 sec), you're actually MORE LIKELY to
see corrupt files than if you try to write them together.
And if you write your data _first_, you're never going to see corruption
at all.
This is why I absolutely _detest_ the idiotic ext3 writeback behavior. It
literally does everything the wrong way around - writing data later than
the metadata that points to it. Whoever came up with that solution was a
moron. No ifs, buts, or maybes about it.
Got an actual example of that ever happening?
In what sense is this not DRM?
In the sense that it does not appear to apply technological inhibitions against otherwise lawful behavior.
DRM's meaning has become overloaded to the point where it usually refers to technological restrictions which -exceed- the legal restrictions on a copy's use.
This attitute could cost you boatloads of cash should the BSA audit.
That threat only really works against large companies and government agencies operating on a large-scale licensing agreement. In a small company, you basically tell the BSA that you respectfully decline their invitation to audit your systems. If they ever try to, which they don't.
Of course, if you're dumb enough to invite the BSA to audit your systems then you get what you deserve.
First off, let the higher-ups know what's going on and that it's neither a joke nor a hassle but a serious issue of stolen property about which they have now been unambiguously advised.
Second, try to handle this in a "moving forward" manner. You'll find no support for suddenly spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on software. If you push it, you'll probably be fired for not being a "team player." Instead, make sure that any new systems you set up run correctly licensed software. You'll replace all the computers over the course of the next several years anyway, so this will get you where you need to be while spreading the cost out into something manageable.
Third, get together with the company accountant and and scrutinize the purchase receipts for the last 3 years. You probably have more licenses than you think, but they were purchased ad-hoc with poor recordkeeping.
Fourth, don't be too literal with the license details. If you have three VMs running XP on a XP host and you try to call that four licenses you'll get skewered by your boss, just as you should. Practices like refusing to let employees install Office on their home PCs because the company hasn't paid for an extra license will earn you a rep for having a stick up your tail. Get exactly one Office license for each employee and no more. And as long as you have a license for each copy of Windows, don't worry about whether the individual installations were done with a crack.
Fifth, recall that individuals often install useful software on their individual machines. This is a good thing. You think you only have two solutions: the company licenses the software or you remove the software. In fact, you have a third: the individual to which the computer is assigned can take direct responsibility for the software, and sign a form to the effect that, "The following software on my computer is provided by the company. I, the undersigned, take responsibility for the legality of any other computer software found on my machine."
Finally, do the obvious stuff... Replace Norton Antivirus with AVG Free, Secure Shell Client with Putty, etc. MS Office with OpenOffice if you dare.
Now, obviously this is not legal advice. If you want legal advice, the answer is: "Open your wallet and close your eyes 'cause if you see this it'll just make you cry." This is social advice. It'll get your company to a point where it's operating ethically without unduly annoying your boss or colleagues.
You would say a sentence in whatever form you wanted, it would determine your intentions, then perform them.
My intentions are easy to determine: I intend to go on a web page and use my mouse and keyboard to requisition precisely what I want with as little interpretation required as possible.
It's when you thwart my intentions by injecting an intelligence into the process, especially a subhuman one, then we have trouble seeing eye to eye.
I think voice recognition is more the future of how we control our devices.
Please leave me out of your future. Few things make me more angry than calling a support number and getting a menu where I'm required to speak to the computer.
If I have to deal with a computer, at least give me the choices and let me press a damn button. Don't make me guess the right keyword, especially not in earshot of my officemates.
Removing the electronic ignition module on my Ford Taurus required an extra-deep 5.5 mm socket. They did it on purpose.
all guarantees are void in undefined situations like crashes
If I wanted a 100% guarantee that what I'd just written makes it to the disk, I'd fsync.
That isn't what I want.
What I want is to get it done more quickly than stop-and-sync would allow with a minimum of fuss inside my program while offering a high probability that if any of it made it to the disk then all of it made it to the disk. That's why I wrote/renamed instead of truncate/wrote.
Ext3 did it reasonably. Ext2 did too. Ufs on my old Sparcstation worked fine. Ext4 failed to meet expectations.
Try coding to the spec rather than what you imagine the spec to be.
If I coded to spec instead of coding to what my customers wanted, I wouldn't have my very well paying job.
No, hundredths of a second. The rename and file write are synced to the disk *at the same time*, which comes no more than 5 seconds after the app finishes writing.
If power is lost at the right time, the same results would happen.
The right time being the hundredths of a second between the commit of the file data and the commit of the directory data, not 60 seconds.
If I fsync after every write, I can get reliability in ext2. I put up with the performance hit from ext3 and ext4 because I want the reliability in the filesystem instead of having to build it into every part of every application.
Ext4 developer Ted Ts'o stresses in his answer to the bug report that Ext4 behaves precisely as demanded by the POSIX standard for file operations.
I couldn't disagree more:
When applications want to overwrite an existing file with new or changed data [...] they first create a temporary file for the new data and then rename it with the system call - rename(). [...] Delayed block allocation allows the filing system to optimise its write processes, but at the price that the metadata of a newly created file will display a size of 0 bytes and occupy no data blocks until [up to 60 seconds later].
Application developers reasonably expect that writes to the disk which happen far apart in time will happen in order. If I write to a file and then rename the file, I expect that the rename will not complete significantly before the write. Certainly not 60 seconds before the write. It seems dead obvious, at least to me, that the update of the directory entry should be deferred until after ext4 flushes that part of the file written prior to the change in the directory entry.
So, us fahrenheit-feet thinking people find it inconvenient to think in terms of decimal points. Measuring 7.9 cm is no easier than measuring 3 1/8th inches. I care about the difference between 72 and 73 degrees Fahrenheit. It's more of a pain to deal with the difference between 22.0 and 22.5 degrees Celsius.