I'm still trying to figure out a valid reason for direct marketers to oppose an opt in do not call list.
Presumably anyone who opts onto the list is highly unlikely to listen to the sales blurb and bite on the deal. Therefore a 160,000 strong opt in list is 160,000 calls they do not have to make and therefore save on.
Having started and run an ISP in the mid nineties, there is a simple equation. In Australia, bandwith costs money and is considerably more expensive than in the US (because of the poor deal Australia gets on bandwith to/from the US).
Asking Australian service providers, no matter how large to foot the bill for file sharing networks, movie downloads etc. is a non starter as an idea. Would you like Optus to go the way of One.Tel? No bandwith is considerably worse than limited bandwith.
As far as file sharing goes, why not start building networks using wireless links etc. in urban areas (I realise this is a non starter in rural areas), or perhaps start an ISP who's emphasis is on file sharing (connections provided via wireless or ADSL (I have a feeling such an ISP would quickly attract the attention of the Australian equivalent of the RIAA)).
As far as distributing Linux ISOs via CD/DVD is a far more efficient method while bandwith is still limited. Perhaps talk to Optus about putting certain large files like this online for download at reduced bandwith cost (i.e. the bandwith used is say 10% when downloaded from their "mirror"). This could be a different way for Optus to distinguish their service from Telstra's (perhaps some sort of voting system could be implemented to request files)
The solution doesn't seem on the face of it to be that bright an idea. Firstly fossil fuels are still a FINITE resource (however much there is it still has to be finite). Continuing to remove these resources from the environment is presumably going to end up with more remote and currently protected places being tapped for their fossil fuel wealth.
It also requires energy to convert the Limestone into quicklime (which produces CO2) the produced CO2 is then pumped into the ground! How long before the site is saturated with CO2? The other option mentioned is reacting it with minerals to lock up the CO2. Minerals that presumably have to be mined and moved to the site in question (using more energy) and are a FINITE resource.
Who pays for this. If these plants are government funded, they effectively amount to a subsidy to the oil industry. If they are funded by a tax on fuel, then perhaps a positive side effect would be making alternative (and renewable) forms of energy more competitive with non renewable forms of energy.
Just a few thoughts.
Will Make For Some Pretty Cool Effects
on
Video with Depth
·
· Score: 1
Sounds like an interesting technology that'll make for some pretty cool effects/uses.
Apart from the obvious use getting virtual objects to pass correctly between/around objects in the real scene, or vice versa you've freed up the colour channel info being used as a depth key for other things.
Imagine keying an actors and his or her clothing in blue and using the depth keying to to replace the blue with a projected texture or somesuch using the depth information to do the texture calculations, or keying sports equipment in sports broadcasts.
Or if the technology eventually scales down to an affordable level it might make an interesting input device for playing video games.
I've had experience with Crystal Reports 6 and Crystal Reports 8 to do print quality web reporting for an application.
When it all works, it produces very nice looking reports, just don't expect it to scale (real problems handling more than one user printing a report at the same time, 8 was supposed to fix it, but I never saw evidence of the fix actually working).
Expect to spend time supporting your users and don't expect any useful support from Crystal.
Also if you need to use version control on your work, rememember the all important report files are BINARY.
I got so pissed off with Crystal in the end that I started creating my own solution using Java 1.1 to produce formatted PDF files from an XML document (with correct pixel perfect font alignment thanks to reading the metrics of the True Type fonts involved). Got to the proof of concept stage (i.e. printed a report from an XML file).
I've been thinking of setting up some kind of open source project with the existing code to finish this thing and actually get some kind of viable open source platform independant reporting tool out there.
Anybody interested can contact me at:
taliesan@bytebarista.com
Those Annoying Tunes That Stay in Your Head
on
Ring-Tone Royalties
·
· Score: 2
Now if only I could charge the record and advertising companies for storing those annoying tunes in my head. Illegal use of neurons or something.
Nah, some record company executive will read the above and get the idea that they can charge me for act of remembering it.
SDNI.. Secure Digital Neural Interface... Just to make sure I don't hum the tune to anyone else.
Seeing that a good deal of the threads on this topic are of the flavour "Telstra Sucks", here's my 2 cents worth.
Having lived in Australia for the last oh, 17 years, but currently working in the UK, there are a few things to point out about the supposed poor quality of service in Australia provided by Telstra and that provided here by BT and the other telephone service companies.
After spending the last 7 months or so in Australia, I have to chuckle at people having a go at Telstra (I used to run an ISP, so I have had my fair share of dealings with them in the past). The service I used to get from them far exceeds the level of service I can get here for anything like the same money.
Here in the UK, you pay 3p per minute for a local call at peak times, in Australia the rate was 25c (I think it might have gone down since) for an untimed local call (go figure that's 10p or about what you pay for a 3 minute call in the UK) try. I used to use Telstra's Big Pond service (their 150 hour service) when I was in Australia $44/month for 150 hours. Never (repeat after me, never) had a problem dialing in, getting frequent engaged signals etc. That's a better experience than I've had with any other ISP I've found (though yes it is more expensive), but again adding the monthly cost and the call cost and the line cost my total Internet usage bill was SIGNIFICANTLY smaller in Australia than it is in the UK. I wont even mention the experience I've had so far with the free Internet access/phone line from my UK cable company, suffice to say that I've given up.
As ar as broadband goes, comparing the cost of an 512Kbps ADSL connection in Australia to those in the UK. For a HOME user installation runs at $110 (or about £45) and monthly rental runs at $89(or about £35). There are no bandwith costs, but things are subject to a fair use policy (fair enough). From what I can gather, the same service here costs about £275 to install and about £99 in monthly rental.
So far in a comparison between services available here and those in Australia, no contest. Those available in Australia win hands down, even taking into account income differences and especially when you consider Australia's large size and low population density.
BTW as a footnote, to those people who consider bandwith costs to be a bad thing (having run an ISP), figure it out. Your ISP is paying for bandwith in one way or another. Bandwith is a LIMITED resource, just like any other (electricity for example). Laying fibre/cable installing hubs, routers etc. and maintaining networks to a high standard all costs money. All the more when you consider the current rate at which equipment becomes obselete. Companies need to recoup their costs.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm still trying to figure out a valid reason for direct marketers to oppose an opt in do not call list.
Presumably anyone who opts onto the list is highly unlikely to listen to the sales blurb and bite on the deal. Therefore a 160,000 strong opt in list is 160,000 calls they do not have to make and therefore save on.
The reasons for the limit sound fair and hey if you don't like it, hey, you don't have to play.
Having started and run an ISP in the mid nineties, there is a simple equation. In Australia, bandwith costs money and is considerably more expensive than in the US (because of the poor deal Australia gets on bandwith to/from the US).
Asking Australian service providers, no matter how large to foot the bill for file sharing networks, movie downloads etc. is a non starter as an idea. Would you like Optus to go the way of One.Tel? No bandwith is considerably worse than limited bandwith.
As far as file sharing goes, why not start building networks using wireless links etc. in urban areas (I realise this is a non starter in rural areas), or perhaps start an ISP who's emphasis is on file sharing (connections provided via wireless or ADSL (I have a feeling such an ISP would quickly attract the attention of the Australian equivalent of the RIAA)).
As far as distributing Linux ISOs via CD/DVD is a far more efficient method while bandwith is still limited. Perhaps talk to Optus about putting certain large files like this online for download at reduced bandwith cost (i.e. the bandwith used is say 10% when downloaded from their "mirror"). This could be a different way for Optus to distinguish their service from Telstra's (perhaps some sort of voting system could be implemented to request files)
Damn, there goes my patent on hopelessly late April Fools jokes :)
The solution doesn't seem on the face of it to be that bright an idea. Firstly fossil fuels are still a FINITE resource (however much there is it still has to be finite). Continuing to remove these resources from the environment is presumably going to end up with more remote and currently protected places being tapped for their fossil fuel wealth.
It also requires energy to convert the Limestone into quicklime (which produces CO2) the produced CO2 is then pumped into the ground! How long before the site is saturated with CO2? The other option mentioned is reacting it with minerals to lock up the CO2. Minerals that presumably have to be mined and moved to the site in question (using more energy) and are a FINITE resource.
Who pays for this. If these plants are government funded, they effectively amount to a subsidy to the oil industry. If they are funded by a tax on fuel, then perhaps a positive side effect would be making alternative (and renewable) forms of energy more competitive with non renewable forms of energy.
Just a few thoughts.
Sounds like an interesting technology that'll make for some pretty cool effects/uses.
Apart from the obvious use getting virtual objects to pass correctly between/around objects in the real scene, or vice versa you've freed up the colour channel info being used as a depth key for other things.
Imagine keying an actors and his or her clothing in blue and using the depth keying to to replace the blue with a projected texture or somesuch using the depth information to do the texture calculations, or keying sports equipment in sports broadcasts.
Or if the technology eventually scales down to an affordable level it might make an interesting input device for playing video games.
I've had experience with Crystal Reports 6 and Crystal Reports 8 to do print quality web reporting for an application.
When it all works, it produces very nice looking reports, just don't expect it to scale (real problems handling more than one user printing a report at the same time, 8 was supposed to fix it, but I never saw evidence of the fix actually working).
Expect to spend time supporting your users and don't expect any useful support from Crystal.
Also if you need to use version control on your work, rememember the all important report files are BINARY.
I got so pissed off with Crystal in the end that I started creating my own solution using Java 1.1 to produce formatted PDF files from an XML document (with correct pixel perfect font alignment thanks to reading the metrics of the True Type fonts involved). Got to the proof of concept stage (i.e. printed a report from an XML file).
I've been thinking of setting up some kind of open source project with the existing code to finish this thing and actually get some kind of viable open source platform independant reporting tool out there.
Anybody interested can contact me at: taliesan@bytebarista.com
Now if only I could charge the record and advertising companies for storing those annoying tunes in my head. Illegal use of neurons or something. Nah, some record company executive will read the above and get the idea that they can charge me for act of remembering it. SDNI.. Secure Digital Neural Interface... Just to make sure I don't hum the tune to anyone else.
Seeing that a good deal of the threads on this topic are of the flavour "Telstra Sucks", here's my 2 cents worth.
Having lived in Australia for the last oh, 17 years, but currently working in the UK, there are a few things to point out about the supposed poor quality of service in Australia provided by Telstra and that provided here by BT and the other telephone service companies.
After spending the last 7 months or so in Australia, I have to chuckle at people having a go at Telstra (I used to run an ISP, so I have had my fair share of dealings with them in the past). The service I used to get from them far exceeds the level of service I can get here for anything like the same money.
Here in the UK, you pay 3p per minute for a local call at peak times, in Australia the rate was 25c (I think it might have gone down since) for an untimed local call (go figure that's 10p or about what you pay for a 3 minute call in the UK) try. I used to use Telstra's Big Pond service (their 150 hour service) when I was in Australia $44/month for 150 hours. Never (repeat after me, never) had a problem dialing in, getting frequent engaged signals etc. That's a better experience than I've had with any other ISP I've found (though yes it is more expensive), but again adding the monthly cost and the call cost and the line cost my total Internet usage bill was SIGNIFICANTLY smaller in Australia than it is in the UK. I wont even mention the experience I've had so far with the free Internet access/phone line from my UK cable company, suffice to say that I've given up.
As ar as broadband goes, comparing the cost of an 512Kbps ADSL connection in Australia to those in the UK. For a HOME user installation runs at $110 (or about £45) and monthly rental runs at $89(or about £35). There are no bandwith costs, but things are subject to a fair use policy (fair enough). From what I can gather, the same service here costs about £275 to install and about £99 in monthly rental.
So far in a comparison between services available here and those in Australia, no contest. Those available in Australia win hands down, even taking into account income differences and especially when you consider Australia's large size and low population density.
BTW as a footnote, to those people who consider bandwith costs to be a bad thing (having run an ISP), figure it out. Your ISP is paying for bandwith in one way or another. Bandwith is a LIMITED resource, just like any other (electricity for example). Laying fibre/cable installing hubs, routers etc. and maintaining networks to a high standard all costs money. All the more when you consider the current rate at which equipment becomes obselete. Companies need to recoup their costs.
<tagline></tagline>