It may be partly true that microwave, or near microwave, emissions from cellphone transmitters can be a contributor to things like eye cancer, etc, but there is one other device that many people spend a considerable amout of time using, perhaps more than cellular phones. Monitors. When they did this study, did they find a group of people that have never used a computer monitor and always sit a minimum of 15 feet from the TV? Use of computers has increased on an almost parallel level as use of cellular phones. Use of other modern devices, I'm sure, have to play a factor. I would believe that, as the story said, microwave radiation is absorbed by certian cells in the eye, but who is to say that a device that most people use less than 20 minutes a day is the largest contributor? Why is it that cellular phones are always under attack anyway? Are they truely dangerous unto themselves, or is it more to do with the general attitude of public use, ie: driving, resturant, etc, that somebody is always quick to bash them?
If I ever devised such a means of mass destruction, either intentionally or unintentionally, I would destroy it, dispose of it, keep my mouth shut, and hope nobody else ever figures it out. I am all for open source and open science, but how many govt's are out looking for just a little more info on this now to reverse engineer it?
1) ALL cable companies have protected terratories, no other company can attempt to compete in an existing service area with the existing cable co.
2) Almost all cable internet service is actually RoadRunner or AT&T, and they sell internet access to the cable co's, and maintain the networks as well. The cable co's do little else than put their name on it and advertise it.
So yes, Comcast may very well be a monopoly, but they are protected. This was done originally to protect the investment of the cable co's many years ago when they were running all the wire, etc. That was the only way that (they claim) they could insure a return on their investment. Wish I had that insurance for any business I start, but I digress...
DSL, as you however, can go two different ways. I currently have Verizon (JUNK!) but I have only one other ISP offering DSL in my area. The other ISP, however, only resells Verizon service. Some DSL providers have co-located servers at the telco and do not depend on the local telco's network. This is probably the better situation, especially if your local telco is Verizon. Unlike the telco, they most likely won't also be a monopoly so good service is the only thing that will keep their customers. I will probably get a cable modem when it becomes available in my area, but either way, you are getting Time Warner or AT&T in the end. Ever wonder why the cable co so reluctant to offer service or tech support? It's pretty much a loss leader for them to keep people off of satelite, they make very little money at all on cable internet service.
If you want an accurate benchmark, you have to test under the OS you are going to use. As much as I would like to see some good, honest Linux benchmarks, how a chip will run in the environment it will be used in is what really matters.
"It's time to give the internet a rest and optimize the whole www so that
it will load faster:)"
You mean getting rid of stupid MIDI files and 3.5MB jpeg's that come right out of the scanner and never get reduced before getting published on cheesey AOL and Geocities personal web pages?
Perhaps if we solved this whole Spam problem we could free up a couple of extra hundred million Gigabits of bandwidth every day.
Really though, I have to agree. The internet is huge, it's everywhere, and it is going to be here a while. It's time to clean it up a little. Standardize on HTML, browser colors, JavaScript, XML, DHTML, and all the other stupid things that the browser companies cannot agree on. Perhaps forming the FWYTYBFBCTIHFETEAYAFITUBUCAOS (that would be the Fuck What You Think You Big Fucking Browser Companies The Internet is Here For Everybody To Enjoy And You Are Fucking It Up Because You Can't Agree On Shit) committee to standardize all of this, and get rid of the damn "Best viewed with.." crap, so everyone can enjoy the same content.
I think, in many ways, the internet "explosion" has peaked, but like all things that change as fast as the internet, details often get overlooked in the process. It's time to pay attention to these details, standardize, expand broadband service, then we can begin to explore the real potential of the internet.
I think you might have missed what I was saying a little with the "Sign Police" analogy. Yes, storefront busineses are required to pay the town and federal govt for taxes, licences, and other costs. The situation I was trying to describe is the town would take a successful businesss, and say
"Hey, that sign you have outside and that phone number that everybody knows gets a lot of response, we are going to charge you 5 times as much this year to keep that telephone number and keep that business name. If you do not pay us more, we will take over your telephone number and name, and use that to make money because even though we didn't come up with the name we controll it and can charge you as much as we want to use it every year."
And it is the same with the telephone company. They charge you every year for advertising, but do they charge you MORE if they detect that you got a lot of telephone calls last year? No, they don't. I am not saying that the NSI does not have the right to charge yearly for re-registration, or inital registration, only that if they ask $25, any available name should also be $25. They didn't come up with the name, they should have no control over it's sale price. That creates an unfair advantage over smaller business or companies that may have interest in a name, whether it is an expired name, new name, or renewed name they already own. First come, first serve. The only time I can justify the sale of a domain name for a high cost is if the business is going with it, ie: if Taco sold Slashdot... oh wait he did.. eh... well you know what I mean. But in that case it's the business as a whole that is selling for a premium, the domain is only a part of that business.
One other thing to clarify here; I realize that this article deals with expired domain sales, I am talking a little more in the unexpired sense, but this really scares me. If the NSI wins here, that might mean (or make them think it means) that they have 100% control over what happens with all domain names, and that when a contract for a domain expires that they have the option to charge higher premium to renew that name. It's not that inconcievable to see them not renew unless you pay their premium for your own domain name, using the excuse that because the contract expired (they could force this, I'm sure) that they now own it and can charge a premium. As this could affect every internet business (and nonprofit) site out there, I feel this deserves mentioning.
So no, I am not saying that the NSI does not have the right to charge for a service, only that the service they provide should be limited to selling a blank space between the "//" and the "."
What is between the// and the . should not matter.
Thank you for clarifying that. Also, I just went to Register.com and looked up "microsoft", and it no longer states that it is a trademarked domain. Sorry for the misinformation, the last time I checked it had legal mumbo-jumbo from MS lawyers about how it was trademarked and Microsoft couldn't even be a part of the domain name, blah blah.
The computer "shouldn't" have to be quite so rugged. Provided you do not require a lot of disk swapping, etc, it can be put into a standard industrial enclosure. The mouse, OTOH, must always be acceptable. As for where you can find an actual computer similarly ruggedized, look on a CNC machine someday. These computers are designed to resist vibration, heat, cold, oil, water, smoke, and all the other hazards of industrial environments. I can't tell you where to find a desktop in similar trim, however, there are companies specializing in industrial controlls like Fanuc and Hitachi who might be able to put some kind of solution together for you, depending on what your situation is.
This all really goes back to the debate about whether domain names are property, and if one can "own" the rights to a domain name. In the case of a trademark, such as Microsoft, try that one at Register.com and see what it says. It will tell you that Microsoft is a Trademarked name and cannot be registered etc etc. Why should this be different for any other for-profit website? Even if it is only profit from banners, it is a business, and many online business have their domains as their (trademarked) business name. Is there a minimum profit or sales that the site or company has to maintain to have a name "trademarked" like MS does? It seems rather unfair that some companies have total control over their domains and other, smaller ones have to pay the piper for the rights to their own business.
Think, there are perhaps hundreds of millions of small business on the web. If these were storefront businesses, could the Sign Police come around once every 2 years and tell them that because they have a really cool sign and buisness name, that it will cost them $xxxxx.xx dollars to keep their mom and pop store open for another two years? I seriously doubt it. I hope the courts rule in favor of eyeondomain.com and everyone else involved in the Class Action Suite. The Intellectual Property that represents a domain, particularly one that is registered to a for-profit site, is the sole creation of the registrant. NSI had nothing to do with thinking of a name, creating a business model, designing the site, etc. They are there only to provide a service, and nothing more. The Internet Chamber of Commerce if you will.
Good luck to everyone at eyeondomain.com and company.
Hmm.... search for "slashdot" yeilded 17 results.. not a single one of them leading to anything on Slashdot's servers. Glad author was nice enough to submit the story here to get hits.
"It would be simple to come up with a
sleeker design that was just a glove that strapped onto your hand and could be used anywhere."
I've had that idea for a while now. Pizo sensors on the fingertips to detect a keystroke, and some type of positioning sensor in the fingers of the glove, to determine finger position (so the glove would know what key you are typing). Does anybody have an info or links on something like this? Think of what a compact, affordable set of keyboard gloves could do for the PDA market. As PDA's quickly become faster and more powerful, data input is becoming the real limiting factor to their versatility. Keyboards, even folding ones, aren't always practical to carry, nor are they particularly durable.
You seem to be missing something here though. Commercial customers, particularly ones that *depend* on internet access, can, will, and do hold ISP's liable for expenses associated with blackouts. This is a huge liability for an ISP, and one that comes with a price. Also, the ISP can anticipate higher traffic on a business account. High bandwidth "consumer" accounts were intended for speed more than filling hard drives, although many people do use it for MP3's, warez, etc as you mentioned. This is also why consumer broadband is often asymetrical, that is most users download far more than upload.
And yes, bandwidth really does cost ISP's real money. As much as I would hate to be a business paying 300+ a month, I would hate even more not having a choice than to pay 150 a month for my DSL connection just so everyone had the same privleges, and not having the option for a lower level, consumer account.
If big companies didn't spend big money on making bands popular, you wouldn't be buying their t-shirts, and if it weren't for that big company, spending big money making them popular, who would see them in concert either? Who would fund the concert to begin with?
I'm not siding with the RIAA or the MPAA, I think they are both overly greedy, but how do we usually become familliar with a band? Radio, MTV, etc. Do you really think that studio time, advertising, music videos, and touring are cheap? One hand does wash the other, record companies spend big $$$ promoting bands, bands get big $$$ from promotions, (concerts, tshirts, hats, etc.), and the record companies make their money back, and profit, from CD sales. Too much profit, I agree, but that is how it works.
Ask any band who is trying to make it "big". They're all begging for a record contract. It would be nice to say that we could do away with greedy record companies, but the investment required to make a return is too great. Any artist can make music free, but music, as an industry, will always need some type of investor assistance.
So, in response to the previous posters comment "Burning their music hurts the/industry/ more than the artists themselves.", he/she is probably right, for the most part. But don't overlook all aspects of the record companies involvement. It does, in the end, hurt the artist as well.
Freeing ourselves from record companies will have to begin with the artists themselves, taking huge leaps of faith, and huge chances, promoting themselves on the internet. Huge, because the amount of propaganda and mass media control (radio, TV) will always belong to the deep pockets of large corporations.
""America Online Inc. is
negotiating a deal to give its long-standing nemesis Microsoft Corp. access to Time Warner Inc.'s
cable-television lines...."
Nemesis? Netscape owner AOL has been using a special version of Internet Explorer software since day one, and still continue to do so. The full Internet Explorer 4.0, 5.0, and 5.5 browser is also bundled onto many of the AOL CD's distributed in the last few years. So what is this "nemesis"? AOL and MS have been allies from day one.
Amway is the biggist religous cult in the world. They trick average, generally good people into worshiping Pyramid (schemes) and other evil things. And they keep it shrouded in secrecy because you can only sell to other Amway "followers", wich encourages them to go seek out more followers for their evil cult. If Scientoligy is no more a religion than Amway is, I'm getting pretty scared of Scientoligy.
Actually, the story said it might be an Apollo rocket booster that has been floating around for a while, and has colleced some debris. I suspect they are talking about dust, small meteroites, ice, etc. The story also explained that if it was in fact a rocket booster, it would not be a problem, and I'm assuming the reason for that is it's enormous size would be mostly comprised of loosly bonded matter, with low density. If it actually did turn out to be an asteroid, it's density and solidity would be of greater threat, as it would not vaporize upon re-entry.
Slashdot Mirror
With a name like "Coward" what makes you think you were even included in the human race?
It's the "...we know..." that gets me every time. Oh yeah, sure, of course I did.
...is in Natalie Portmans room!!!
The defense industry, the original unstable carreer.
DSL, as you however, can go two different ways. I currently have Verizon (JUNK!) but I have only one other ISP offering DSL in my area. The other ISP, however, only resells Verizon service. Some DSL providers have co-located servers at the telco and do not depend on the local telco's network. This is probably the better situation, especially if your local telco is Verizon. Unlike the telco, they most likely won't also be a monopoly so good service is the only thing that will keep their customers. I will probably get a cable modem when it becomes available in my area, but either way, you are getting Time Warner or AT&T in the end. Ever wonder why the cable co so reluctant to offer service or tech support? It's pretty much a loss leader for them to keep people off of satelite, they make very little money at all on cable internet service.
Then what the hell are you doing on Slashdot then???
You mean getting rid of stupid MIDI files and 3.5MB jpeg's that come right out of the scanner and never get reduced before getting published on cheesey AOL and Geocities personal web pages?
Perhaps if we solved this whole Spam problem we could free up a couple of extra hundred million Gigabits of bandwidth every day.
Really though, I have to agree. The internet is huge, it's everywhere, and it is going to be here a while. It's time to clean it up a little. Standardize on HTML, browser colors, JavaScript, XML, DHTML, and all the other stupid things that the browser companies cannot agree on. Perhaps forming the FWYTYBFBCTIHFETEAYAFITUBUCAOS (that would be the Fuck What You Think You Big Fucking Browser Companies The Internet is Here For Everybody To Enjoy And You Are Fucking It Up Because You Can't Agree On Shit) committee to standardize all of this, and get rid of the damn "Best viewed with.." crap, so everyone can enjoy the same content.
I think, in many ways, the internet "explosion" has peaked, but like all things that change as fast as the internet, details often get overlooked in the process. It's time to pay attention to these details, standardize, expand broadband service, then we can begin to explore the real potential of the internet.
And it is the same with the telephone company. They charge you every year for advertising, but do they charge you MORE if they detect that you got a lot of telephone calls last year? No, they don't. I am not saying that the NSI does not have the right to charge yearly for re-registration, or inital registration, only that if they ask $25, any available name should also be $25. They didn't come up with the name, they should have no control over it's sale price. That creates an unfair advantage over smaller business or companies that may have interest in a name, whether it is an expired name, new name, or renewed name they already own. First come, first serve. The only time I can justify the sale of a domain name for a high cost is if the business is going with it, ie: if Taco sold Slashdot... oh wait he did.. eh... well you know what I mean. But in that case it's the business as a whole that is selling for a premium, the domain is only a part of that business.
One other thing to clarify here; I realize that this article deals with expired domain sales, I am talking a little more in the unexpired sense, but this really scares me. If the NSI wins here, that might mean (or make them think it means) that they have 100% control over what happens with all domain names, and that when a contract for a domain expires that they have the option to charge higher premium to renew that name. It's not that inconcievable to see them not renew unless you pay their premium for your own domain name, using the excuse that because the contract expired (they could force this, I'm sure) that they now own it and can charge a premium. As this could affect every internet business (and nonprofit) site out there, I feel this deserves mentioning.
So no, I am not saying that the NSI does not have the right to charge for a service, only that the service they provide should be limited to selling a blank space between the "//" and the "."
What is between the // and the . should not matter.
Think, there are perhaps hundreds of millions of small business on the web. If these were storefront businesses, could the Sign Police come around once every 2 years and tell them that because they have a really cool sign and buisness name, that it will cost them $xxxxx.xx dollars to keep their mom and pop store open for another two years? I seriously doubt it. I hope the courts rule in favor of eyeondomain.com and everyone else involved in the Class Action Suite. The Intellectual Property that represents a domain, particularly one that is registered to a for-profit site, is the sole creation of the registrant. NSI had nothing to do with thinking of a name, creating a business model, designing the site, etc. They are there only to provide a service, and nothing more. The Internet Chamber of Commerce if you will.
Good luck to everyone at eyeondomain.com and company.
I've had that idea for a while now. Pizo sensors on the fingertips to detect a keystroke, and some type of positioning sensor in the fingers of the glove, to determine finger position (so the glove would know what key you are typing). Does anybody have an info or links on something like this? Think of what a compact, affordable set of keyboard gloves could do for the PDA market. As PDA's quickly become faster and more powerful, data input is becoming the real limiting factor to their versatility. Keyboards, even folding ones, aren't always practical to carry, nor are they particularly durable.
And yes, bandwidth really does cost ISP's real money. As much as I would hate to be a business paying 300+ a month, I would hate even more not having a choice than to pay 150 a month for my DSL connection just so everyone had the same privleges, and not having the option for a lower level, consumer account.
I'm not siding with the RIAA or the MPAA, I think they are both overly greedy, but how do we usually become familliar with a band? Radio, MTV, etc. Do you really think that studio time, advertising, music videos, and touring are cheap? One hand does wash the other, record companies spend big $$$ promoting bands, bands get big $$$ from promotions, (concerts, tshirts, hats, etc.), and the record companies make their money back, and profit, from CD sales. Too much profit, I agree, but that is how it works.
Ask any band who is trying to make it "big". They're all begging for a record contract. It would be nice to say that we could do away with greedy record companies, but the investment required to make a return is too great. Any artist can make music free, but music, as an industry, will always need some type of investor assistance.
So, in response to the previous posters comment "Burning their music hurts the /industry/ more than the artists themselves.", he/she is probably right, for the most part. But don't overlook all aspects of the record companies involvement. It does, in the end, hurt the artist as well.
Freeing ourselves from record companies will have to begin with the artists themselves, taking huge leaps of faith, and huge chances, promoting themselves on the internet. Huge, because the amount of propaganda and mass media control (radio, TV) will always belong to the deep pockets of large corporations.
I don't have time to look, but you might want to check out Belkin, they have just about every cable and accessory known to man.
Good luck
Nemesis? Netscape owner AOL has been using a special version of Internet Explorer software since day one, and still continue to do so. The full Internet Explorer 4.0, 5.0, and 5.5 browser is also bundled onto many of the AOL CD's distributed in the last few years. So what is this "nemesis"? AOL and MS have been allies from day one.
Amway is the biggist religous cult in the world. They trick average, generally good people into worshiping Pyramid (schemes) and other evil things. And they keep it shrouded in secrecy because you can only sell to other Amway "followers", wich encourages them to go seek out more followers for their evil cult. If Scientoligy is no more a religion than Amway is, I'm getting pretty scared of Scientoligy.
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