Let's return to the way the Internet used to be: a collection of peers. Let me post my site without having to piss off Comcast. Let Rob post Slashdot with impunity. If there is content on the web that is worth money, chances are it is because someone, somewhere cannot host it by hanging it off their cable modem.
Let everyone be a publisher. Clearly, TCP/IP is set up for it. The nebulous 'they' have brute forced a client-server mindset on what is the original peer-to-peer network mechanism. I'd pay an extra $10/month or whatever the costs are for my bandwidth to publish what I want, how I want, where I want.
Such heretical statements from a person with an MBA you may be wondering? Yup. But I'm the same guy with an MBA who wondered how all these Internet startups got so much VC funding for having business plans that made the Underpants Gnomes look like Warren Buffet.
There's not much money in selling services. Yes, the US economy is mostly a service based economy. But how long will that last when, for example, customer service is being outsourced to companies in India?
The term 'profit' to an economist means money over and above what a fair market would provide. That's not to say there is no financial profit. Financial profit lets the entrepreneur eat and have a house. Economic profit lets you hire Emeril LeGasse as your personal chef and live in a house built by Bob Vila. What prevents economic profit? Information about the buyer and seller. Low transaction costs. That's why small sites can get by. The owners can eat and provide bandwidth. But they aren't going to be Bill Gates. That's fine. They aren't supposed to be (neither is Bill Gates, but that's another story:)
But as others have pointed out in this thread, my fellow MBA's are looking to become overnight millionaires. Until they give up that tact, it won't happen.
I didn't think that was to be released for another two weeks or so on the PC. If you are referring to the demo, hardly long enough to be indicative of anything. If you are referring to a warez release.... I'll take your word for it:)
I did your math, and quickly came up with about $12,000 collection in just CD's and DVD's. And that's a very rough ballpark. Your last paragraph, however, is dead on. There's plenty of movies I didn't buy when I got my first DVD player. But when I saw those movies for $6-$10 you better believe I bought them. Just last night, I watched 'Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure'. I think that was $9.99. The other day, I watched some of the old Superman cartoons (Max Fleischer) that I picked up for $7 for the DVD of 10.
Why else do you think macrovision disabled region free DVD players out sell normal players?
Sadly, I don't think this is the case. The reason that Apex and the gang sell so many players is that they are cheap, cheap, cheap. OTOH, I bought my APEX 600 for ~$150US after the first Slashdot story:)
I actually won't go to Geico under any circumstances. I disagree with their policy of arming the local constabulary with radar and lidar guns. In any event, I went with Progressive, who has, so far, been a dream to deal with.
Something odd is going on with State Farm. My father has been a State Farm customer for 43 years. If he adds another vehicle to his stable (unlikely), they have already said they flat out will not write a policy. He is allowed to trade in or replace stuff he already has, but they will not write the policy. They've also tried to get him to switch homeowner's insurance (never made a claim, BTW). So... Screw 'em.
The only reason I wanted State Farm is I had a 6 or 10 year good driver discount and various and sundry other things that gave me incredible rates. I don't pay a huge amount now, but it's not as cheap as State Farm was. I also liked the idea of having a mutual insurance company. From what I've heard, State Farm wants to get out of that form of business, and switch to a typical for profit organization.
I think the same people who develop these plans are the people who develop the actuarial tables for selling insurance. The difference is, most of us don't consult the actual actuarial table for insurance purchases. But damned if they don't want to know everything from my driver's license number, to the weight of my dog when determining the rate for my car insurance.
BTW, they still fuck up. Even though I've had only two claims in 14 years with State Farm, they won't write me a new policy. And no matter what plan anyone gets with a cell phone, they still pay more than the advertised rate. Yup, I think they're done by the same people.
I'm not sure what's the best (have Sprint VCS voice and vision myself) but do me a favor, click on my URL, click on 'cell phones', and see if you can buy there. At the very least, I make a few bucks. FWIW, you enter some info on when/where you plan to use the phone, and it makes a recommendation for what plan/provider is best for you. The hardest part of buying a phone is that you are talking about a multivariable equation. I have providers with different coverage and features, phones with different features, then each company breaks out minutes, long distance minutes, network minutes, off network minutes, cell to cell minutes, off peak minutes, etc, etc.
For that matter, there is no 'one size fits all' best plan. I use mine for two reasons. First is for emergencies on the road. Second is in case work needs to get in touch with me. So the cheapest crap is the one I got.
Don't forget the goofy little add ons. I have roadside assistance for only $2 per month, and the product protection plan can be a lifesaver if you dump a soda on your phone (hint for the future: if you carry a soda and a cell phone in the same saddlebag on the motorcycle, put one or both of them in a plastic bag.)
Heck, if you are *really* only using it for emergencies, a prepaid phone may be your best bet.
Busch? What kind of trust fund baby are you? Milwaukee's Best, Schaeffer, and things that I have thankfully blocked from my mind are what the rest of us drank.
Does anyone have a mirror? Can you shoot it to me via email? (address is good).
Why? My wife. You can buy books printed on Braille. For comparison, each title in LOTR costs about $100 US. Or, I can get her a reader which gets files off your PC. Problem? Not many titles available. But these files are just text. Now, there's many more eTitles available (sadly:) than Braille titles. But in the bastard format. I think this software will help get my wife more stuff to read.
Anyway, anyone with a mirror, please send me a link, or, preferably, the file.
You seem to think that people living in 2002 are capable of doing this. Haven't you noticed revisionist history and moral relativism run rampant? What about the innocent civilians of Nan King province? I never hear any tears shed for them by the Japanese apologists.
Screw 'em all. My grandfather was in the South Pacific and was but one of many pawns in that 'island hopping' game. There's a damned good chance that his would have been one of the millions of extra US lives lost in the war against Japanese pride. Bomb dropped, he lived, I'm born. Good enough for me.
Oh, goody, more reasons to be dependent on oil. What, you thought those plastic resins came from the plastic resin fairy? Nope. AFAIK (and I could be very wrong) those resins come out of the ground in the form of crude oil.
HIPAA rules are just now taking effect. Even a single infraction is worth $10,000. Expect to see some large fines by the end of 2003. I'm not sure why this group was so stupid, as most companies in the healthcare industry I've seen are quite concerned about it.
AFAIK, there are no laws for banks not to be morons, so comparing the two isn't really useful.
Actually, BSA audits are a concern. I've heard of companies (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) who have some manner of MS license for every machine in the company save two. Those two machines have Linux on them. So do several other machines that previously had Windows OSes. Problem is, when various bits of hardware crapped out, some drives were Ghosted onto new drives. In effect, two licenses numbers are simultaneously in use. But this is against the rules! Even though one license is no longer used, it doesn't matter. That's problem one (and the company isn't big enough to waste time/money with a site license).
Problem two is that the records are... less than perfect. The company that my friend works for (wink, wink) has ~50 machines, so it's trivial to know who does what to which ones. It's trivial to know that all of the Windows machines have legit licenses. But in the 'guilty until proven innocent' eyes of the BSA, this is not sufficient. No, they'd probably have to come up with some probable cause to suspect this in court, but what about a 'confidential report'? Even if it turns out to be nothing, the staff time wasted in addressing a BSA audit is not insignificant. Nor is the probable attorney's fees.
I've heard of companies where the official, unwritten policy is "stonewall BSA. We know we're in compliance, but the cost of proving it would kill us. When they show up at the door with warrants and the sherrif, call and arrange for a bankruptcy filing".
How about have all characters age a certain amount per hour played? So the occasional player has a character that can 'live' for up to 12 months, but the addict's character will be used so much that it 'dies' in a couple of weeks?
If Free Software matters, tell 'em to go screw themselves. Start posting loudly and vocally on their boards, grab some code, put it on Sourceforge, and compete.
If it doesn't matter to you, shut up and pay the money.
Other than finding something else, those are your choices. It is their software, they can do with it what they please. They have chosen not to GPL their stuff. That is their choice. IMHO, it's probably a wrong choice, but it is their choice, nonetheless.
I see what you are saying wrt running the voice and the dsl over the same pair of copper. My beef is that Verizon is using two pairs of copper. One has voice, and one has DSL. IOW, they aren't piggybacking the DSL signal over the voice line.
Re:Lack of Scientific Background and Hubris
on
Complications
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· Score: 1
That's a common generalization that I don't believe is very accurate. Tenured academics at a research institutite must produce a large number of publications based on their research, independent of their teaching.
I'm not sure I understand what you are getting at in the second sentence. Publications and research are fine for what they are, but it hardly teaches diagnostic skills, bedside manner, etc. (I don't think that's what you're getting at, but a little elucidation would help me.)
This is more field dependent then academic dependent though. It may be the case with medical school. Also possible with stuff like Computer Science and Business. However, for stuff that is considered more scientific (Physics, Sociology, History, Political Science, Biology, etc) there isn't a private sector to support it.
Ironically, medicine, business, and comp sci are the fields with which I have the most experience, so it's possible I'm a bit colored in my thinking:) But getting to medicine specifically, there is certainly a private sector to support medical education. It just doesn't happen.
In fact, most students of research institutions are concerned with the fact that their professors have little to no interest in teaching at all. Professors spend far more time in the doing of their field, in doing research, then in teaching. But that is just one aspect of it.
Medical schools used to be populated with retired physicians, not necessarily those still in practice. Today, students are taught by someone who has never seen a patient outside of a university clinic.
There are also those who are really good in their field, but really don't like doing it in the private sector.
And in medicine, those people transfer their thoughts and attitudes to the students, who in turn make less than quality physicians. At a minimum, the first five years out of residency, we practically have to reteach a physician. They barely know how to make a few diagnoses. They have no idea how to talk to a patient, or a patient's family. They have no idea how to deal with death. They have no idea how to deal with a spurious malpractice claim. They have no idea how to diagnose a problem without thousands of dollars worth of tests. They really have no idea how to fill out a billing ticket.
The top ranked medical schools likely wouldn't have a staff of people who would make crappy doctors. Now, crappy medical schools might.
I've been more impressed with 'offshore' doctors than Hopkins grads in general. Hopkins may be the bastion of turning out doctors who need to relearn a great deal. They are the bastion of doctors who must unlearn their pride and deification. At this point, I have to point to my experience in the field. Not only do I see these folks as a patient (which, in lieu of evidence to the contrary, I'll assume that is the bulk of your experience with doctors) but I've dined with them, played with their kids, and generally seen them behind closed doors. A Hopkins grad does not a wonderful doctor make. A Grenada grad does not a leech user make.
I'll close with an anecdote. My wife wears a cochlear implant. It must be reprogrammed periodically. She had been going to some place in Ohio. She moved to Maryland. Well, we could go to Hopkins or University of Maryland. For whatever reason, we went to Hopkins first. The folks were a bit cold, through out all of the information from her doctor in Ohio, and did a rather crappy job. We returned to get them to try again. Same story. My wife shipped her processor back to Ohio to put on the old program. Following year, we switched to Maryland. They worked from the old map, included me in the sessions, and did a wonderful job. They called me at home about 10 days later, because they weren't happy with the work they did. Guess which place we're making an appointment with this year?
Slashdot Mirror
Let's return to the way the Internet used to be: a collection of peers. Let me post my site without having to piss off Comcast. Let Rob post Slashdot with impunity. If there is content on the web that is worth money, chances are it is because someone, somewhere cannot host it by hanging it off their cable modem.
Let everyone be a publisher. Clearly, TCP/IP is set up for it. The nebulous 'they' have brute forced a client-server mindset on what is the original peer-to-peer network mechanism. I'd pay an extra $10/month or whatever the costs are for my bandwidth to publish what I want, how I want, where I want.
Such heretical statements from a person with an MBA you may be wondering? Yup. But I'm the same guy with an MBA who wondered how all these Internet startups got so much VC funding for having business plans that made the Underpants Gnomes look like Warren Buffet.
There's not much money in selling services. Yes, the US economy is mostly a service based economy. But how long will that last when, for example, customer service is being outsourced to companies in India?
The term 'profit' to an economist means money over and above what a fair market would provide. That's not to say there is no financial profit. Financial profit lets the entrepreneur eat and have a house. Economic profit lets you hire Emeril LeGasse as your personal chef and live in a house built by Bob Vila. What prevents economic profit? Information about the buyer and seller. Low transaction costs. That's why small sites can get by. The owners can eat and provide bandwidth. But they aren't going to be Bill Gates. That's fine. They aren't supposed to be (neither is Bill Gates, but that's another story:)
But as others have pointed out in this thread, my fellow MBA's are looking to become overnight millionaires. Until they give up that tact, it won't happen.
I dare you to mod up this garbled mess.
I didn't think that was to be released for another two weeks or so on the PC. If you are referring to the demo, hardly long enough to be indicative of anything. If you are referring to a warez release.... I'll take your word for it:)
I did your math, and quickly came up with about $12,000 collection in just CD's and DVD's. And that's a very rough ballpark. Your last paragraph, however, is dead on. There's plenty of movies I didn't buy when I got my first DVD player. But when I saw those movies for $6-$10 you better believe I bought them. Just last night, I watched 'Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure'. I think that was $9.99. The other day, I watched some of the old Superman cartoons (Max Fleischer) that I picked up for $7 for the DVD of 10.
Why else do you think macrovision disabled region free DVD players out sell normal players?
Sadly, I don't think this is the case. The reason that Apex and the gang sell so many players is that they are cheap, cheap, cheap. OTOH, I bought my APEX 600 for ~$150US after the first Slashdot story:)
I actually won't go to Geico under any circumstances. I disagree with their policy of arming the local constabulary with radar and lidar guns. In any event, I went with Progressive, who has, so far, been a dream to deal with.
Something odd is going on with State Farm. My father has been a State Farm customer for 43 years. If he adds another vehicle to his stable (unlikely), they have already said they flat out will not write a policy. He is allowed to trade in or replace stuff he already has, but they will not write the policy. They've also tried to get him to switch homeowner's insurance (never made a claim, BTW). So... Screw 'em.
The only reason I wanted State Farm is I had a 6 or 10 year good driver discount and various and sundry other things that gave me incredible rates. I don't pay a huge amount now, but it's not as cheap as State Farm was. I also liked the idea of having a mutual insurance company. From what I've heard, State Farm wants to get out of that form of business, and switch to a typical for profit organization.
Personally, I liked slide 223:
"The GPL is fine for the individual to choose, but bad for the industry."
So, IOW, Microsoft admits that the GPL is good for everyone but Microsoft. Imagine that.
Is the Cobalt Qube dead?
Why not roll your own? If you are going to remote admin it, certainly you can set it up on your own.
I think the same people who develop these plans are the people who develop the actuarial tables for selling insurance. The difference is, most of us don't consult the actual actuarial table for insurance purchases. But damned if they don't want to know everything from my driver's license number, to the weight of my dog when determining the rate for my car insurance.
BTW, they still fuck up. Even though I've had only two claims in 14 years with State Farm, they won't write me a new policy. And no matter what plan anyone gets with a cell phone, they still pay more than the advertised rate. Yup, I think they're done by the same people.
I'm not sure what's the best (have Sprint VCS voice and vision myself) but do me a favor, click on my URL, click on 'cell phones', and see if you can buy there. At the very least, I make a few bucks. FWIW, you enter some info on when/where you plan to use the phone, and it makes a recommendation for what plan/provider is best for you. The hardest part of buying a phone is that you are talking about a multivariable equation. I have providers with different coverage and features, phones with different features, then each company breaks out minutes, long distance minutes, network minutes, off network minutes, cell to cell minutes, off peak minutes, etc, etc.
For that matter, there is no 'one size fits all' best plan. I use mine for two reasons. First is for emergencies on the road. Second is in case work needs to get in touch with me. So the cheapest crap is the one I got.
Don't forget the goofy little add ons. I have roadside assistance for only $2 per month, and the product protection plan can be a lifesaver if you dump a soda on your phone (hint for the future: if you carry a soda and a cell phone in the same saddlebag on the motorcycle, put one or both of them in a plastic bag.)
Heck, if you are *really* only using it for emergencies, a prepaid phone may be your best bet.
Or maybe a CB. 10-4 Good Buddy!
Busch? What kind of trust fund baby are you? Milwaukee's Best, Schaeffer, and things that I have thankfully blocked from my mind are what the rest of us drank.
Never mind. Got the file.
Does anyone have a mirror? Can you shoot it to me via email? (address is good).
Why? My wife. You can buy books printed on Braille. For comparison, each title in LOTR costs about $100 US. Or, I can get her a reader which gets files off your PC. Problem? Not many titles available. But these files are just text. Now, there's many more eTitles available (sadly:) than Braille titles. But in the bastard format. I think this software will help get my wife more stuff to read.
Anyway, anyone with a mirror, please send me a link, or, preferably, the file.
I used to think this, but whenever I take a trip, especially on motorcycle, I carry a cell. I recently got one for full time usage.
You have to put this in a historical context.
You seem to think that people living in 2002 are capable of doing this. Haven't you noticed revisionist history and moral relativism run rampant? What about the innocent civilians of Nan King province? I never hear any tears shed for them by the Japanese apologists.
Screw 'em all. My grandfather was in the South Pacific and was but one of many pawns in that 'island hopping' game. There's a damned good chance that his would have been one of the millions of extra US lives lost in the war against Japanese pride. Bomb dropped, he lived, I'm born. Good enough for me.
Oh, goody, more reasons to be dependent on oil. What, you thought those plastic resins came from the plastic resin fairy? Nope. AFAIK (and I could be very wrong) those resins come out of the ground in the form of crude oil.
HIPAA rules are just now taking effect. Even a single infraction is worth $10,000. Expect to see some large fines by the end of 2003. I'm not sure why this group was so stupid, as most companies in the healthcare industry I've seen are quite concerned about it.
AFAIK, there are no laws for banks not to be morons, so comparing the two isn't really useful.
There is a federal US law. It has already started to take effect. Do a little research next time. Hint one: hipaa. Hint two: medical records law.
Actually, BSA audits are a concern. I've heard of companies (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) who have some manner of MS license for every machine in the company save two. Those two machines have Linux on them. So do several other machines that previously had Windows OSes. Problem is, when various bits of hardware crapped out, some drives were Ghosted onto new drives. In effect, two licenses numbers are simultaneously in use. But this is against the rules! Even though one license is no longer used, it doesn't matter. That's problem one (and the company isn't big enough to waste time/money with a site license).
Problem two is that the records are... less than perfect. The company that my friend works for (wink, wink) has ~50 machines, so it's trivial to know who does what to which ones. It's trivial to know that all of the Windows machines have legit licenses. But in the 'guilty until proven innocent' eyes of the BSA, this is not sufficient. No, they'd probably have to come up with some probable cause to suspect this in court, but what about a 'confidential report'? Even if it turns out to be nothing, the staff time wasted in addressing a BSA audit is not insignificant. Nor is the probable attorney's fees.
I've heard of companies where the official, unwritten policy is "stonewall BSA. We know we're in compliance, but the cost of proving it would kill us. When they show up at the door with warrants and the sherrif, call and arrange for a bankruptcy filing".
As long as they didn't look at the paid help, they should be clean.
Then I'm a bit lost. What's the problem? Grab the code, toss it on Sourceforge, and have at it.
Nothing to add, but that link in your sig is pretty cool.
How about have all characters age a certain amount per hour played? So the occasional player has a character that can 'live' for up to 12 months, but the addict's character will be used so much that it 'dies' in a couple of weeks?
If Free Software matters, tell 'em to go screw themselves. Start posting loudly and vocally on their boards, grab some code, put it on Sourceforge, and compete.
If it doesn't matter to you, shut up and pay the money.
Other than finding something else, those are your choices. It is their software, they can do with it what they please. They have chosen not to GPL their stuff. That is their choice. IMHO, it's probably a wrong choice, but it is their choice, nonetheless.
I see what you are saying wrt running the voice and the dsl over the same pair of copper. My beef is that Verizon is using two pairs of copper. One has voice, and one has DSL. IOW, they aren't piggybacking the DSL signal over the voice line.
That's a common generalization that I don't believe is very accurate. Tenured academics at a research institutite must produce a large number of publications based on their research, independent of their teaching.
I'm not sure I understand what you are getting at in the second sentence. Publications and research are fine for what they are, but it hardly teaches diagnostic skills, bedside manner, etc. (I don't think that's what you're getting at, but a little elucidation would help me.)
This is more field dependent then academic dependent though. It may be the case with medical school. Also possible with stuff like Computer Science and Business. However, for stuff that is considered more scientific (Physics, Sociology, History, Political Science, Biology, etc) there isn't a private sector to support it.
Ironically, medicine, business, and comp sci are the fields with which I have the most experience, so it's possible I'm a bit colored in my thinking:) But getting to medicine specifically, there is certainly a private sector to support medical education. It just doesn't happen.
In fact, most students of research institutions are concerned with the fact that their professors have little to no interest in teaching at all. Professors spend far more time in the doing of their field, in doing research, then in teaching. But that is just one aspect of it.
Medical schools used to be populated with retired physicians, not necessarily those still in practice. Today, students are taught by someone who has never seen a patient outside of a university clinic.
There are also those who are really good in their field, but really don't like doing it in the private sector.
And in medicine, those people transfer their thoughts and attitudes to the students, who in turn make less than quality physicians. At a minimum, the first five years out of residency, we practically have to reteach a physician. They barely know how to make a few diagnoses. They have no idea how to talk to a patient, or a patient's family. They have no idea how to deal with death. They have no idea how to deal with a spurious malpractice claim. They have no idea how to diagnose a problem without thousands of dollars worth of tests. They really have no idea how to fill out a billing ticket.
The top ranked medical schools likely wouldn't have a staff of people who would make crappy doctors. Now, crappy medical schools might.
I've been more impressed with 'offshore' doctors than Hopkins grads in general. Hopkins may be the bastion of turning out doctors who need to relearn a great deal. They are the bastion of doctors who must unlearn their pride and deification. At this point, I have to point to my experience in the field. Not only do I see these folks as a patient (which, in lieu of evidence to the contrary, I'll assume that is the bulk of your experience with doctors) but I've dined with them, played with their kids, and generally seen them behind closed doors. A Hopkins grad does not a wonderful doctor make. A Grenada grad does not a leech user make.
I'll close with an anecdote. My wife wears a cochlear implant. It must be reprogrammed periodically. She had been going to some place in Ohio. She moved to Maryland. Well, we could go to Hopkins or University of Maryland. For whatever reason, we went to Hopkins first. The folks were a bit cold, through out all of the information from her doctor in Ohio, and did a rather crappy job. We returned to get them to try again. Same story. My wife shipped her processor back to Ohio to put on the old program. Following year, we switched to Maryland. They worked from the old map, included me in the sessions, and did a wonderful job. They called me at home about 10 days later, because they weren't happy with the work they did. Guess which place we're making an appointment with this year?