I'm pretty confident that AT&T looked at their cancellation rate as Google Fiber deployed in the Kansas City neighborhoods and saw their subscription base drop by a large enough margin to be a problem. Their response to the Kansas City market appears to be "Send more junk mail!" but nothing else. No announcements of competing service, no advertised price cuts, or increases in bandwidth. I don't know what exec was asleep during the Google build out but, Google publishes the percentage of pre-subscribed households per neighborhood and AT&T's sound indifference did nothing to dampen that.
Google is only in a few locations - but the locations they announce they follow through on in a reasonably transparent fashion. They announced KC, then the neighborhoods, then the signups, and now they're connected and committed. They've also expanded into surrounding municipalities not initially included in the announcement. Google may not seriously expand into the ISP business but from where I sit in a connected home it's tough to call it a demo location. Basically, I trust Google's proven history and measured, careful announcements over AT&T's regular press releases stating that they might do something.
I really enjoyed calling up to cancel after Google connected our house.
"Why are you cancelling?" "I found a better service." "Can I ask what?" "Sure, I found 1,0000 Mbps for $70/mo" "Well. I can offer you 14Mbps for $40/mo"
They followed up with a letter just yesterday saying how they were surprised I canceled since they have such a great service and offering a $300 gift card for re-upping. As far as I can tell they have no strategy for dealing with competing fiber rollouts and Austin doesn't sound like one either.
I found it odd that the fine print just says iPhone 3G upgrades are spendy and I took a look at ATT's upgrade page for my account. Right now I'm being offered an upgrade to the existing 16G 3G iphone for $299. It's not cheap, but it's not as expensive as the fine print reads either. FWIW I've got one of the first gen Edge iphones, so perhaps that clause doesn't apply to me!
I just want to point out, that they are BROADCASTING it on the RADIO. They are 'making available' as the phrase goes. In the US I'd be tempted to call it an attractive nuisance except I think that applies to things that cause injuries, but hey, I'm not a lawyer. Still counts as distribution though.
Godaddy was the worst for us. They blocked the C class that we happen to share with about, oh 20 other customers and refused to block just the specific IP addresses. I tried very, very hard to reason with them, but they were convinced that it was a dynamic pool and that any address there could be the spammy address. I wish I knew what the eventual solution was, but I kept reporting the offender to our ISP and kept un-blocking our class C and it seems to have straightened up.
Well, the entire OS is designed for kids to be able to learn and explore on, so it shouldn't be hard for any geek to find something to have fun with on it.
As far as the security, please please break it and tell them what's up. I went to a talk by the project lead recently, and the impression I got is that they could really use more eyes on the project, especially on security. Once you distribute millions of an identical OS to people with low computer literacy in an environment where they may not have access to the latest patches the potential for mischief goes through the roof, so it's very important that everyone goes over the security BEFORE it goes into production. break it!
Last I checked, it required a python script to be installed as a service to really get advanced monitoring going, but yes it does do SNMP, and windows can do SNMP, so you don't HAVE to install things, but it'll all play nicer if you do.
No kidding! I still remember the time I shield bashed my drink right off the table. That friends is immersion, but having to pause the game and clean up that waste of gin kind of took me out of it. Still good fun though.
No, really. Pay the $5, $25, $50 whatever on your ipod. Then, DOWNLOAD EVERYTHING and put it all on there. If anyone tries to sue you, tell them to STFU because you've paid for it.
I'm not 100% sure what you're looking for (regular base, or candelabra base?), but I've found some decorative bulbs to put in our (admittedly not frou frou) chandelier and they've got no warm up and no hum to them, and they've also got comprable color to our old bulbs. I got mine from 1000bulbs.com - but it looks like the search phrase you're looking for is decorative torpedo cfl. They're not cheap and the lifespan is lower than other CFLs, but they've been working great for me so far.
CFLs are nice, and regular incandescent bulbs are on their way out for a number of reasons, but CFLs are far from perfect. Try finding a CFL replacement for a 40 watt chandelier bulb which offers good light without a ballast hum or warm up period for example. I've replaced most of my bulbs with CFLs now, but finding a good replacement for a 40 watt incandescent chandelier type bulb is damn near impossible.
I'm glad to see that you disapprove of the idea, but your 'for really people' argument seems a bit off. I mean, if I seriously need privacy then yes I will use alternate methods to communicate, but I also have a fundamental right to privacy. There are situations where that can be stripped but those situations require the approval of a judge, notification, transparency and oversight. I should not have to protect myself from my government.
I work at a non-profit, but not the do-goody tipe. Whenever someone asks where they can get donated software I usually hear a reference to http://www.techsoup.org/ - so I'd check there first.
My recent favorite is Comcast. I got a bill stating that as of Sep 25th my account was overdue and would I please pay for two months? After checking around my accounts I found that yes in fact, I had paid them and they cashed the check on the 10th or so. After calling the customer service rep I determined that the billing department must be getting their data in advance, and that little 'as of the ________' line just sounded good. No real meaning.
Gawd please let fluffy the bear carry this election in a landslide, because nothing would get the system snapped into state like having CLEAR evidence of the vote being hacked.
Consider this a call to throw the election. Make everyone vote the Jedi ticket. Cmdr Taco carries the house and the senate. Whatever it takes, just make sure that it is so flipping obvious that it has to be fixed.
I'm playing my vinyl on entry level turntables... Granted, Sony and the other stereo manufacturers aren't making much for vinyl, and you won't find it at best buy, but a lot of DJ outfits do make entry level turntables for around $100.
When I'm on the go I've got several various mp3 players to pick from, but sitting at home there's little better for making the music seem real than some nice vinyl. Yes it sounds better, but the opportunity for bands to express themselves is so much greater too. Hidden tracks, inside tracks, playbooks, inserts, all sorts of things that you just can't get in any other medium.
My favorte by far was Godspeed You Black Emperor's F# A# album. It comes with a photograph glued to the front cover, and inside is a manilla envelope containing blueprints, inserts, and one railroaded penny. The sense of the band reaching out and interacting with me, putting real craft into the entire thing is just way too worth it. The entire medium of a large, flat vinyl sleeve offers much more room to experiment and express than tapes, cds, or mp3 downloads.
Actually, I don't believe that we're going to need all that many $60 controllers. If you look at the videos all of the great party games work just fine with the standard wiimote - the nunchuk attachment is only used for the serious long format games, like Zelda and Metroid. I'd be surprised if I ended up with any more than 2 nunchuk attachments. So then, with the XBox 360 wireless controller at $50, $40 for the nintendo controller looks like a steal.
It all depends on the college folks. I went to a liberal arts college for my CS degree and made a point of taking electronics. From that I've worked in various languages, covered Church and Turings work, assembeled electronics, programmed them in assembly, controlled them via serial port, written a compiler, and done all the other great stuff that puts the science in computer science. Just pay attention to what college the whippersnappers go to and what their program offers and you'll be fine.
It seems to be a fairly common sentiment here that people really really hate that verizon and other telcos like tacking on five $2 charges to each bill, bumping the final cost above the advertized cost. Nobody likes it, and it sounds like public opinion of verizon is in the gutter. People still use verizon though.
Now pay attention here...
If the telcos suddenly started blocking sites or intentionally slowing down competitors, what would you do?
Local competition is negligable. If people had a viable alternative to being harassed and bent over the barrel I think they'd be gone by now. There are very few industries where such a crappy product can survive for so long, but that's the limited monopoly granted by the government, which is why letting the free market sort things out isn't going to work for everything.
I recently replaced several of my bulbs with CFLs, and it came out better than I had hoped. I ordered them online, and since they were for an exposed chandelier I paid extra to get them in the 'decorative torpedo' form factor. Furthermore, the place I got them from even had multiple color temperature choices, so they came out being even more warm in color than the old bulbs. Overall, a good experience, and I plan on phasing in the rest of my bulbs with CFLs, they've really come a long way.
If you shop around you can get the simple replacements for quite cheap, about $3 per bulb.
Yeah, we still have IE installed, but scripting is disabled by default via group policy, unless someone adds the page to their trusted sites. We keep it on hand, but in a default crippled state. I actually think that was the best way to get adoption up, because when all your favorite sites stop working in IE, and since there's this OTHER browser sitting there everyone took it for a spin and stuck to it.
Here at my office, Firefox is the default encouraged officially sanctioned browser of choice. After all those javascript/buffer overflow/remote code execution errors we gave the heave ho to IE and made sure that everyone had a copy of FF installed. So, put me down for 0.000000000000001% of those users!
Something easier!? Liberal arts?? I've got a B.A. in Computer Science, and after reading the posts on here about how computer science == code monkey and what really gets you ahead is the ability to think and problem solve I feel pretty good about that. There's a guy a few comments back who said that he'd take the British Lit grad who programs as a hobby over a CS grad, and I'll tell you I'm not too far off. Okay, more like Roman studies, but ease up on the liberal arts kiddos, just because it says art doesn't mean its easy.
I only wish I could have been the first to say: 'HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA'
The pendulum is not swinging their direction. If you ask me, people are more interested in simple, well made devices that do one thing well, and in that light no one device is going to 'kill' all of the bits they claim they're taking on.
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I'm pretty confident that AT&T looked at their cancellation rate as Google Fiber deployed in the Kansas City neighborhoods and saw their subscription base drop by a large enough margin to be a problem. Their response to the Kansas City market appears to be "Send more junk mail!" but nothing else. No announcements of competing service, no advertised price cuts, or increases in bandwidth. I don't know what exec was asleep during the Google build out but, Google publishes the percentage of pre-subscribed households per neighborhood and AT&T's sound indifference did nothing to dampen that.
Google is only in a few locations - but the locations they announce they follow through on in a reasonably transparent fashion. They announced KC, then the neighborhoods, then the signups, and now they're connected and committed. They've also expanded into surrounding municipalities not initially included in the announcement. Google may not seriously expand into the ISP business but from where I sit in a connected home it's tough to call it a demo location. Basically, I trust Google's proven history and measured, careful announcements over AT&T's regular press releases stating that they might do something.
I really enjoyed calling up to cancel after Google connected our house.
"Why are you cancelling?"
"I found a better service."
"Can I ask what?"
"Sure, I found 1,0000 Mbps for $70/mo"
"Well. I can offer you 14Mbps for $40/mo"
They followed up with a letter just yesterday saying how they were surprised I canceled since they have such a great service and offering a $300 gift card for re-upping. As far as I can tell they have no strategy for dealing with competing fiber rollouts and Austin doesn't sound like one either.
I found it odd that the fine print just says iPhone 3G upgrades are spendy and I took a look at ATT's upgrade page for my account. Right now I'm being offered an upgrade to the existing 16G 3G iphone for $299. It's not cheap, but it's not as expensive as the fine print reads either. FWIW I've got one of the first gen Edge iphones, so perhaps that clause doesn't apply to me!
I just want to point out, that they are BROADCASTING it on the RADIO. They are 'making available' as the phrase goes. In the US I'd be tempted to call it an attractive nuisance except I think that applies to things that cause injuries, but hey, I'm not a lawyer. Still counts as distribution though.
Godaddy was the worst for us. They blocked the C class that we happen to share with about, oh 20 other customers and refused to block just the specific IP addresses. I tried very, very hard to reason with them, but they were convinced that it was a dynamic pool and that any address there could be the spammy address. I wish I knew what the eventual solution was, but I kept reporting the offender to our ISP and kept un-blocking our class C and it seems to have straightened up.
Well, the entire OS is designed for kids to be able to learn and explore on, so it shouldn't be hard for any geek to find something to have fun with on it.
As far as the security, please please break it and tell them what's up. I went to a talk by the project lead recently, and the impression I got is that they could really use more eyes on the project, especially on security. Once you distribute millions of an identical OS to people with low computer literacy in an environment where they may not have access to the latest patches the potential for mischief goes through the roof, so it's very important that everyone goes over the security BEFORE it goes into production. break it!
Last I checked, it required a python script to be installed as a service to really get advanced monitoring going, but yes it does do SNMP, and windows can do SNMP, so you don't HAVE to install things, but it'll all play nicer if you do.
No kidding! I still remember the time I shield bashed my drink right off the table. That friends is immersion, but having to pause the game and clean up that waste of gin kind of took me out of it. Still good fun though.
No, really. Pay the $5, $25, $50 whatever on your ipod. Then, DOWNLOAD EVERYTHING and put it all on there. If anyone tries to sue you, tell them to STFU because you've paid for it.
I'm glad to see that you disapprove of the idea, but your 'for really people' argument seems a bit off. I mean, if I seriously need privacy then yes I will use alternate methods to communicate, but I also have a fundamental right to privacy. There are situations where that can be stripped but those situations require the approval of a judge, notification, transparency and oversight. I should not have to protect myself from my government.
I work at a non-profit, but not the do-goody tipe. Whenever someone asks where they can get donated software I usually hear a reference to http://www.techsoup.org/ - so I'd check there first.
My recent favorite is Comcast. I got a bill stating that as of Sep 25th my account was overdue and would I please pay for two months? After checking around my accounts I found that yes in fact, I had paid them and they cashed the check on the 10th or so. After calling the customer service rep I determined that the billing department must be getting their data in advance, and that little 'as of the ________' line just sounded good. No real meaning.
YES!
Gawd please let fluffy the bear carry this election in a landslide, because nothing would get the system snapped into state like having CLEAR evidence of the vote being hacked.
Consider this a call to throw the election. Make everyone vote the Jedi ticket. Cmdr Taco carries the house and the senate. Whatever it takes, just make sure that it is so flipping obvious that it has to be fixed.
I'm playing my vinyl on entry level turntables... Granted, Sony and the other stereo manufacturers aren't making much for vinyl, and you won't find it at best buy, but a lot of DJ outfits do make entry level turntables for around $100.
Plus, there's always ebay and garage sales.
When I'm on the go I've got several various mp3 players to pick from, but sitting at home there's little better for making the music seem real than some nice vinyl. Yes it sounds better, but the opportunity for bands to express themselves is so much greater too. Hidden tracks, inside tracks, playbooks, inserts, all sorts of things that you just can't get in any other medium.
My favorte by far was Godspeed You Black Emperor's F# A# album. It comes with a photograph glued to the front cover, and inside is a manilla envelope containing blueprints, inserts, and one railroaded penny. The sense of the band reaching out and interacting with me, putting real craft into the entire thing is just way too worth it. The entire medium of a large, flat vinyl sleeve offers much more room to experiment and express than tapes, cds, or mp3 downloads.
Actually, I don't believe that we're going to need all that many $60 controllers. If you look at the videos all of the great party games work just fine with the standard wiimote - the nunchuk attachment is only used for the serious long format games, like Zelda and Metroid. I'd be surprised if I ended up with any more than 2 nunchuk attachments. So then, with the XBox 360 wireless controller at $50, $40 for the nintendo controller looks like a steal.
It all depends on the college folks. I went to a liberal arts college for my CS degree and made a point of taking electronics. From that I've worked in various languages, covered Church and Turings work, assembeled electronics, programmed them in assembly, controlled them via serial port, written a compiler, and done all the other great stuff that puts the science in computer science. Just pay attention to what college the whippersnappers go to and what their program offers and you'll be fine.
It seems to be a fairly common sentiment here that people really really hate that verizon and other telcos like tacking on five $2 charges to each bill, bumping the final cost above the advertized cost. Nobody likes it, and it sounds like public opinion of verizon is in the gutter. People still use verizon though.
Now pay attention here...
If the telcos suddenly started blocking sites or intentionally slowing down competitors, what would you do?
Local competition is negligable. If people had a viable alternative to being harassed and bent over the barrel I think they'd be gone by now. There are very few industries where such a crappy product can survive for so long, but that's the limited monopoly granted by the government, which is why letting the free market sort things out isn't going to work for everything.
I recently replaced several of my bulbs with CFLs, and it came out better than I had hoped. I ordered them online, and since they were for an exposed chandelier I paid extra to get them in the 'decorative torpedo' form factor. Furthermore, the place I got them from even had multiple color temperature choices, so they came out being even more warm in color than the old bulbs. Overall, a good experience, and I plan on phasing in the rest of my bulbs with CFLs, they've really come a long way.
If you shop around you can get the simple replacements for quite cheap, about $3 per bulb.
Yeah, we still have IE installed, but scripting is disabled by default via group policy, unless someone adds the page to their trusted sites. We keep it on hand, but in a default crippled state. I actually think that was the best way to get adoption up, because when all your favorite sites stop working in IE, and since there's this OTHER browser sitting there everyone took it for a spin and stuck to it.
Here at my office, Firefox is the default encouraged officially sanctioned browser of choice. After all those javascript/buffer overflow/remote code execution errors we gave the heave ho to IE and made sure that everyone had a copy of FF installed. So, put me down for 0.000000000000001% of those users!
Something easier!? Liberal arts?? I've got a B.A. in Computer Science, and after reading the posts on here about how computer science == code monkey and what really gets you ahead is the ability to think and problem solve I feel pretty good about that. There's a guy a few comments back who said that he'd take the British Lit grad who programs as a hobby over a CS grad, and I'll tell you I'm not too far off. Okay, more like Roman studies, but ease up on the liberal arts kiddos, just because it says art doesn't mean its easy.
I only wish I could have been the first to say: 'HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA'
The pendulum is not swinging their direction. If you ask me, people are more interested in simple, well made devices that do one thing well, and in that light no one device is going to 'kill' all of the bits they claim they're taking on.