I don't care to keep in touch with everyone I've ever met in my life.
I do, however, have contact information on everyone I choose to keep in touch with.
It's an amazingly simple process.....but I'm sure some PHP/Ruby/MySQL jockey will tell me there is a better way. All I have to do is sign-up, pay some money, and endure some flash ads.
If you need a website to keep in touch with your "friends" you may need to seriously re-evaluate your friendships.
Nothing can replace real-life dating or drinking a beer and watching a game with your friends. It's also nice to get your kids and your friend's kids playing together in real life.
Myspace, facebook, classmates, twitter - they are all crap and can not replace face to face interactions with humans.
And to those that say "but, but, but....they are great for keeping in touch with distant friends" - ever heard of email? And while you are at it - try meeting some new friends close to you - it isn't hard.
The web is making all of us lazy when it comes to personal relationships. I don't care if you are the CEO of a multinational firm or a mother of 10; make time - it's worth it.
Microsoft needs to be worried about it's own quality control issues first.
Network copies were REALLY broken when Vista was released. Copying files to and from a network was excruciatingly slow - how did that get past Microsoft's QA?
Explorer still occasionally shits the bed for no apparent reason. Why is explorer still the shell of the operating system? Someone should tell Microsoft that Netscape is no longer a threat to them.
There are a ton of BONE-HEADED design decisions in Vista (try selecting a wireless network with less than 5 or 6 clicks).
The ugly truth is that hardware manufacturers are not the cause of Vista's "perception problem". Vista is the cause of Vista's perception problems.
$200-$300 to buy the phone and $70-$130/month for service is freakin' expensive.
Our household income is 3x the national average, but I live in the North East, where a townhouse will set you back $300,000 - even in this market...so we don't really feel well off.
I have an iPhone but only because work supplies it for free. My wife has a phone that we pay for. I bought her phone outright and put it on a pre-paid plan. We have stellar credit, and we were eligible for a traditional phone plan, but we did the math and paying $40/month didn't make sense for her amount of usage.
I'm amazed at the amount of people that have an iPhone. I guess the economy really isn't that bad yet.
The amount of leased BMWs on the road also amazes me....bling, bling, pinky ring...
The whole point of the civil process is to quantify the damage and calculate an appropriate settlement based on that damage.
The whole thing goes out the window when you cannot reliably figure out how much damage was caused.
It is the court's duty to establish reasonable punishment/compensation within the bounds of the law. If we couldn't quantify damages for other cases people might spend a lifetime in prison for speeding or shoplifting.
Quantifying damages or wrongdoing is essential to the legal process - and it can't be reliably or uniformly done with non-commercial file sharing.
I see too many comments here equating the damages to the number of times the song was shared. This equation is flawed at best.
How many people would have bought the item if they did not download it? The number is somewhere between none and all, but where exactly is it?
If an item is shared 10,000 times, are there really 10,000 instances of "damage" - or lost revenue? Worse yet for this argument; if a file-sharer is exposed to something new and then decides to purchase the song, or attend a concert, the activity has a beneficial result.
The entire problem with the RIAA and the law is that there is no reasonable way to estimate damages when NON-COMMERCIAL copyright infringement exists.
It is now possible to buy a DVDR/VHS combo unit with HDMI output and upconversion/scaling capability for $89.00 - and the video output looks pretty damn good.
Sure, it doesn't look as good as my friend's PS3 on his 50" Pioneer Kuro - but those very same DVDs play in my car, on my portable unit, and can easily be extracted and put on my AppleTVs.
Why would I spend much more for a format that has a bit better picture quality, but a lot LESS functionality?
This is like the "most improved player" trophy that little leagues award to kids that used to stink, but now don't create too much trouble for their teams.
Many areas of the US can not get broadband. (ISDN and T1 are not broadband - it's not 1993 anymore). I live in a fairly middle-class neighborhood in the North East, and I have a choice of ONE broadband provider. That's right, my local cable co.
DSL - too far away. FIOS - it's always 6 months away. Satellite ok, I can get that, but $50 a month for 512k down and 128k up sucks. I don't consider that broadband.
Broadband in MOST of the US is still pathetic - slow and expensive.
I receive instant messages in the blink of an eye; today I downloaded a movie in less time than it would have taken me to drive ONE WAY to the store to buy it; I created a VPN tunnel in to work and completed my tasks in less time than it would have taken me to drive there.
Finally, I sent a bunch of email, and it was delivered WAY faster than any postal employee could have delivered those messages.
Judging by the amount of stuff I got done today - I'd say the internet is plenty fast.
The download cap is a poorly disguised attempt to head-off video downloads via the internet.
And I'm referring to the legal ones - like iTunes+Apple TV and Netflix's Roku player.
You can get video and voice from many other companies. These services require bandwidth. Buy these services from companies other than your cable company, and you will find yourself potentially hitting the cap. Buy these services from the cable company (delivered digitally) and the caps disappear.
My parent's generation defined retirement as the time where you are able to stop working.
My generation seems to be defining retirement as transitioning from "having to work" to "wanting to work".
I have an uncle who could stop working, if he wanted to. He actually tried - he sold his business and took a year off, vacationed a bunch, spent some money..etc. He was so bored at the end of the year, that he bought another business and continued to work.
As long as you have time for a bit of vacation and leisure activities, why not continue to work if you are able?
Computers seem to be bought for two reasons - work and play.
When a computer is bought for work - technical necessity dictates what you buy. If your livelihood depends on that machine, you are going to buy only what works - no more, no less.
When a computer is bought for play - word of mouth is the primary motivator. Your friend loves his/her new Mac and all the cool things it can do - you see it, you like it, you buy it.
Neither of these situations are heavily influenced by marketing. You'd think the brains in Redmond would realize this.
A friend of mine is looking for a Network Admin for his company (he's having a hard time finding a candidate - even with a decent salary offering). He is their current Network Admin, and desktop support guy - but these are not his primary responsibilities. He is supposed to be on the road setting up equipment for clients - not managing servers and workstations.
He's been doing two jobs for years because he could do them, and the company didn't want to hire "another guy".
My friend finally had enough - he told top management to either double his salary, or hire another guy. They are finally looking for a network admin, but they also need the guy to be able to setup audio/video/computer gear for their large rental clients.
They want a guy with a wide skill set, not just a "server guy" that will lock himself in a server room and never participate in other parts of the business. I was actually offered the job, but I'm already in a good spot.
I see this a lot. Companies want technical people with more than one or two skills - and that is hard to find. Pure "IT" jobs are going away - they are being replaced with IT jobs that also include other tasks and responsibilities.
The RIAA and the courts will eventually figure out that any computer forensic logs can be faked, and will not be a reliable means of identifying computer users.
Trying to pin criminal or civil liability on someone based on DHCP logs or ARP tables is sheer stupidity. These records could easily identify multiple users - we aren't talking about DNA evidence here.
The justice system is slow - intentionally. It will take a while before judges get the technical details of this and realize that these identification methods are unreliable.
What worries me is that the RIAA/MPAA will buy enough of congress to legislate unique tokens for computer users and mandatory log retention. It is possible that congress will make all of us (network admins) do the dirty work for private industry. It happened in banking, and it will probably happen again.
I think I need to make another donation to the EFF and to the ACLU. Those organizations might be our only hope.
Here in the US, Federal, State, and Local governments either directly build roads, or hire private companies to build and maintain the roads.
Why can't the US do this with fiber? Competing ISPs, could provide service over the fiber to end users, and tax dollars would pay to maintain the fiber "roads". Your monthly ISP bill would cover the services provided over the fiber (data, voice, video...etc).
I'm sure many will argue that they don't want their tax dollars paying for someone to download music and porn, but your tax dollars already pay for roads, even if you don't drive.
A reliable, public, fiber infrastructure will be as important to the US in the future as telephones and electricity are now. We need leaders that are smart enough to see that.
To those that think that vouchers are the answer for failing schools:
Take a look at your ENTIRE tax bill. My municipal tax bill is about $5000/year and about 3/4 of it goes to the local Board of Education.
Let's assume that I get a voucher for my ENTIRE tax bill - (an unrealistic assumption since trash collectors, road crews, police, and fire departments all need to be paid) - where can I get an education for my child for $5000 per year?
I don't know of a single private school that is that cheap. I work in a school for disabled kids and our tuition is almost $40,000 per year, per student. Small class sizes, special facilities, and instruction aren't cheap.
Most of the "regular" private schools in my area hover around $20,000 per year. Is Uncle Sam going to give me a voucher to cover that tuition bill?
The bottom line is public education, generally, is a moderate quality, low cost education. Most public school systems turn out both well-educated, college-bound students, and dumb, unmotivated, sloths. The most important variables seem to be, not the school system, but the home life surrounding the student and the involvement of the parents.
Cablevision in NJ dropped a few analog channels and moved them to their digital tier. Cablevision did not offer to lower my bill, or comp me a couple of digital cable boxes for a limited time...so I responded by canceling my voice and TV service and moving to Broadvoice and Dish Network.
I downgraded my cable modem service to the lowest possible tier. When I did that, the "retention rep" asked why. I told him I was unhappy with their analog conversion policy, and the only reason I was keeping cable modem service was that FIOS and DSL are not available in my area.
I've seen the amount of satellite dishes in my area almost double since Cablevision implemented this bone-headed policy. I understand digital cable is the future, but there is no reason to piss off your customers during the conversion.
I had the joy of running IT shops in regulated industries (banking and REITs). Our federal and private auditors made damn sure that we had plenty of logging AND alerting in place. If administrative passwords were changed, or "non-admin" access elevated to "admin" access no fewer than 5 other (high-ranking) people were alerted to the fact via email and text message.
These types of log monitoring and alerting tools are now off the shelf commodities and they work with just about anything that spits out a log of some sort.
The problem with most companies is not too much access - the problem is a lack of checks and balances on that access.
While I do not have a solar array on my roof, I do have a tankless water heater. I replaced my traditional 40-gallon gas heater last year, and so far I've been pretty happy. My gas bill went down about $20/month at that savings rate, it will take me 125 months to recover the purchase and installation costs.
Needless to say, I did not switch to tankless for cost reasons. Unlimited hot water, and more free space in my basement were the primary concerns. The "green" part is also nice.
Similar reasons may justify the purchase of a solar array - finances are not one of them (yet).
Slashdot Mirror
I'm 33 years old. I've had an email address since I can remember.
Even my Mother and all her living friends have email addresses.
-ted
I don't care to keep in touch with everyone I've ever met in my life.
I do, however, have contact information on everyone I choose to keep in touch with.
It's an amazingly simple process.....but I'm sure some PHP/Ruby/MySQL jockey will tell me there is a better way. All I have to do is sign-up, pay some money, and endure some flash ads.
No thanks.
-ted
If you need a website to keep in touch with your "friends" you may need to seriously re-evaluate your friendships.
Nothing can replace real-life dating or drinking a beer and watching a game with your friends. It's also nice to get your kids and your friend's kids playing together in real life.
Myspace, facebook, classmates, twitter - they are all crap and can not replace face to face interactions with humans.
And to those that say "but, but, but....they are great for keeping in touch with distant friends" - ever heard of email? And while you are at it - try meeting some new friends close to you - it isn't hard.
The web is making all of us lazy when it comes to personal relationships. I don't care if you are the CEO of a multinational firm or a mother of 10; make time - it's worth it.
-ted
Microsoft needs to be worried about it's own quality control issues first.
Network copies were REALLY broken when Vista was released. Copying files to and from a network was excruciatingly slow - how did that get past Microsoft's QA?
Explorer still occasionally shits the bed for no apparent reason. Why is explorer still the shell of the operating system? Someone should tell Microsoft that Netscape is no longer a threat to them.
There are a ton of BONE-HEADED design decisions in Vista (try selecting a wireless network with less than 5 or 6 clicks).
The ugly truth is that hardware manufacturers are not the cause of Vista's "perception problem". Vista is the cause of Vista's perception problems.
-ted
$200-$300 to buy the phone and $70-$130/month for service is freakin' expensive.
Our household income is 3x the national average, but I live in the North East, where a townhouse will set you back $300,000 - even in this market...so we don't really feel well off.
I have an iPhone but only because work supplies it for free. My wife has a phone that we pay for. I bought her phone outright and put it on a pre-paid plan. We have stellar credit, and we were eligible for a traditional phone plan, but we did the math and paying $40/month didn't make sense for her amount of usage.
I'm amazed at the amount of people that have an iPhone. I guess the economy really isn't that bad yet.
The amount of leased BMWs on the road also amazes me....bling, bling, pinky ring...
-ted
The whole point of the civil process is to quantify the damage and calculate an appropriate settlement based on that damage.
The whole thing goes out the window when you cannot reliably figure out how much damage was caused.
It is the court's duty to establish reasonable punishment/compensation within the bounds of the law. If we couldn't quantify damages for other cases people might spend a lifetime in prison for speeding or shoplifting.
Quantifying damages or wrongdoing is essential to the legal process - and it can't be reliably or uniformly done with non-commercial file sharing.
-ted
I see too many comments here equating the damages to the number of times the song was shared. This equation is flawed at best.
How many people would have bought the item if they did not download it? The number is somewhere between none and all, but where exactly is it?
If an item is shared 10,000 times, are there really 10,000 instances of "damage" - or lost revenue? Worse yet for this argument; if a file-sharer is exposed to something new and then decides to purchase the song, or attend a concert, the activity has a beneficial result.
The entire problem with the RIAA and the law is that there is no reasonable way to estimate damages when NON-COMMERCIAL copyright infringement exists.
-ted
It is now possible to buy a DVDR/VHS combo unit with HDMI output and upconversion/scaling capability for $89.00 - and the video output looks pretty damn good.
Sure, it doesn't look as good as my friend's PS3 on his 50" Pioneer Kuro - but those very same DVDs play in my car, on my portable unit, and can easily be extracted and put on my AppleTVs.
Why would I spend much more for a format that has a bit better picture quality, but a lot LESS functionality?
-ted
This is like the "most improved player" trophy that little leagues award to kids that used to stink, but now don't create too much trouble for their teams.
Many areas of the US can not get broadband. (ISDN and T1 are not broadband - it's not 1993 anymore). I live in a fairly middle-class neighborhood in the North East, and I have a choice of ONE broadband provider. That's right, my local cable co.
DSL - too far away. FIOS - it's always 6 months away. Satellite ok, I can get that, but $50 a month for 512k down and 128k up sucks. I don't consider that broadband.
Broadband in MOST of the US is still pathetic - slow and expensive.
-ted
Block all that nonsense and watch your web browsing experience speed up greatly.
You can be damn sure that if ISPs start rationing bandwidth, EVERYONE will be blocking ads.
-ted
I receive instant messages in the blink of an eye; today I downloaded a movie in less time than it would have taken me to drive ONE WAY to the store to buy it; I created a VPN tunnel in to work and completed my tasks in less time than it would have taken me to drive there.
Finally, I sent a bunch of email, and it was delivered WAY faster than any postal employee could have delivered those messages.
Judging by the amount of stuff I got done today - I'd say the internet is plenty fast.
-ted
The download cap is a poorly disguised attempt to head-off video downloads via the internet.
And I'm referring to the legal ones - like iTunes+Apple TV and Netflix's Roku player.
You can get video and voice from many other companies. These services require bandwidth. Buy these services from companies other than your cable company, and you will find yourself potentially hitting the cap. Buy these services from the cable company (delivered digitally) and the caps disappear.
This is a classic case of monopoly abuse.
-ted
My parent's generation defined retirement as the time where you are able to stop working.
My generation seems to be defining retirement as transitioning from "having to work" to "wanting to work".
I have an uncle who could stop working, if he wanted to. He actually tried - he sold his business and took a year off, vacationed a bunch, spent some money..etc. He was so bored at the end of the year, that he bought another business and continued to work.
As long as you have time for a bit of vacation and leisure activities, why not continue to work if you are able?
-ted
1st wife: nag, nag...
2nd wife: nag, nag, nag, nag, nag...
3rd wife: nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag...
nth wife: nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag....
See the problem here?
-ted
in the computer business.
Computers seem to be bought for two reasons - work and play.
When a computer is bought for work - technical necessity dictates what you buy. If your livelihood depends on that machine, you are going to buy only what works - no more, no less.
When a computer is bought for play - word of mouth is the primary motivator. Your friend loves his/her new Mac and all the cool things it can do - you see it, you like it, you buy it.
Neither of these situations are heavily influenced by marketing. You'd think the brains in Redmond would realize this.
-ted
A friend of mine is looking for a Network Admin for his company (he's having a hard time finding a candidate - even with a decent salary offering). He is their current Network Admin, and desktop support guy - but these are not his primary responsibilities. He is supposed to be on the road setting up equipment for clients - not managing servers and workstations.
He's been doing two jobs for years because he could do them, and the company didn't want to hire "another guy".
My friend finally had enough - he told top management to either double his salary, or hire another guy. They are finally looking for a network admin, but they also need the guy to be able to setup audio/video/computer gear for their large rental clients.
They want a guy with a wide skill set, not just a "server guy" that will lock himself in a server room and never participate in other parts of the business. I was actually offered the job, but I'm already in a good spot.
I see this a lot. Companies want technical people with more than one or two skills - and that is hard to find. Pure "IT" jobs are going away - they are being replaced with IT jobs that also include other tasks and responsibilities.
-ted
put my menial, insignificant, network admin job into perspective. Dr. Malcolm Coulthard is a brilliant man, and he is saving lives.
We should all try to be like this man.
-ted
The RIAA and the courts will eventually figure out that any computer forensic logs can be faked, and will not be a reliable means of identifying computer users.
Trying to pin criminal or civil liability on someone based on DHCP logs or ARP tables is sheer stupidity. These records could easily identify multiple users - we aren't talking about DNA evidence here.
The justice system is slow - intentionally. It will take a while before judges get the technical details of this and realize that these identification methods are unreliable.
What worries me is that the RIAA/MPAA will buy enough of congress to legislate unique tokens for computer users and mandatory log retention. It is possible that congress will make all of us (network admins) do the dirty work for private industry. It happened in banking, and it will probably happen again.
I think I need to make another donation to the EFF and to the ACLU. Those organizations might be our only hope.
-ted
Here in the US, Federal, State, and Local governments either directly build roads, or hire private companies to build and maintain the roads.
Why can't the US do this with fiber? Competing ISPs, could provide service over the fiber to end users, and tax dollars would pay to maintain the fiber "roads". Your monthly ISP bill would cover the services provided over the fiber (data, voice, video...etc).
I'm sure many will argue that they don't want their tax dollars paying for someone to download music and porn, but your tax dollars already pay for roads, even if you don't drive.
A reliable, public, fiber infrastructure will be as important to the US in the future as telephones and electricity are now. We need leaders that are smart enough to see that.
-ted
To those that think that vouchers are the answer for failing schools:
Take a look at your ENTIRE tax bill. My municipal tax bill is about $5000/year and about 3/4 of it goes to the local Board of Education.
Let's assume that I get a voucher for my ENTIRE tax bill - (an unrealistic assumption since trash collectors, road crews, police, and fire departments all need to be paid) - where can I get an education for my child for $5000 per year?
I don't know of a single private school that is that cheap. I work in a school for disabled kids and our tuition is almost $40,000 per year, per student. Small class sizes, special facilities, and instruction aren't cheap.
Most of the "regular" private schools in my area hover around $20,000 per year. Is Uncle Sam going to give me a voucher to cover that tuition bill?
The bottom line is public education, generally, is a moderate quality, low cost education. Most public school systems turn out both well-educated, college-bound students, and dumb, unmotivated, sloths. The most important variables seem to be, not the school system, but the home life surrounding the student and the involvement of the parents.
Fix the parents, and you'll fix the schools.
-ted
Cablevision in NJ dropped a few analog channels and moved them to their digital tier. Cablevision did not offer to lower my bill, or comp me a couple of digital cable boxes for a limited time...so I responded by canceling my voice and TV service and moving to Broadvoice and Dish Network.
I downgraded my cable modem service to the lowest possible tier. When I did that, the "retention rep" asked why. I told him I was unhappy with their analog conversion policy, and the only reason I was keeping cable modem service was that FIOS and DSL are not available in my area.
I've seen the amount of satellite dishes in my area almost double since Cablevision implemented this bone-headed policy. I understand digital cable is the future, but there is no reason to piss off your customers during the conversion.
-ted
Since no one I know thinks it is worth buying.
-ted
I had the joy of running IT shops in regulated industries (banking and REITs). Our federal and private auditors made damn sure that we had plenty of logging AND alerting in place. If administrative passwords were changed, or "non-admin" access elevated to "admin" access no fewer than 5 other (high-ranking) people were alerted to the fact via email and text message.
These types of log monitoring and alerting tools are now off the shelf commodities and they work with just about anything that spits out a log of some sort.
The problem with most companies is not too much access - the problem is a lack of checks and balances on that access.
-ted
While I do not have a solar array on my roof, I do have a tankless water heater. I replaced my traditional 40-gallon gas heater last year, and so far I've been pretty happy. My gas bill went down about $20/month at that savings rate, it will take me 125 months to recover the purchase and installation costs.
Needless to say, I did not switch to tankless for cost reasons. Unlimited hot water, and more free space in my basement were the primary concerns. The "green" part is also nice.
Similar reasons may justify the purchase of a solar array - finances are not one of them (yet).
-ted
and put a rogue DHCP server on some poor bastard's network.
-ted