I am going to run my own broadband service. That's right, I think I can make money where other companies failed. Why? Because these startups were idiots!
...said the CEO of every startup. "Heck, we don't need to budget for tech support, this is reliable technology. Just get us some minimum wage phone drones straight from MoobyBurger, and we'll blame it all on the Bell, or sunspots or such."
I am a residential customer of Bellsouth Fastaccess DSL [blah blah blah]
OK, I'll bite on this one, but this goes out to everybody else who's posting "I've got a great cheap service"
Hey! Hey! Guess what? If your service is good and cheap, and you're not paying your ISP extra for content or services, that means they're making a loss.
Now, a loss is when you spend more than you make. This is bad. Companies don't do this for long.
Get this: every post that says "I've got a good, cheap broadband service" just re-enforces Cringley's point. All of your providers are losing money. The more people that post this, the more you demonstrate how much money is being lost.
Cringley is right. The times are about to change, and not for the better.
simply because there's no pay-for-play content for broadband on the Internet anymore, broadband is dead. This is, of course, bullshit
You've really thought this through, haven't you?
The reason why this is bad news is that broadband providers were relying on selling services and content on top of the connection. But nobody's paying for it, so they'll have to charge sustainable prices for the connection itself.
In the UK, the incumbent telco is wailing that it can't even support its DSL at £40 = $60 a month. Not if people are rude enough to actually use it, anyway, which is why it's been throttling all traffic to common P2P application ports. It's now planning on introducing a more expensive service that doesn't throttle.
Broadband isn't dying per se, but it's going to get expensive. Very expensive.
Cringley falls into the same trap as everyone else when talking about what broadband is used for. It's not about speed. Nobody cares about "multimedia",
Uh, we must be reading different articles, because I'm reading one that says exactly that. Further, it says that this is why broadband providers are getting reamed, because they believed (bwah ahahaha) that they could sell content that we know damn well that we can get for nothing.
I agree with your points, but I think so does Cringley.
Why am i being charged more for not "consuming" what verizon shoves down my throat?
Verizon are charging you more because it costs them more.
You don't like it? Find another provider.
You can't find another provider? Guess why. Newsflash: this article is correct. Broadband is a loss maker. Providers are waking up from their crazy dream of selling content, and realising that they have to actually charge sustainable amounts for the access that they provide, plus they have to make back their investment.
Verizon is killing themselves, you say? No, they're trying to save themselves.
and cable offerings (from BT and NTL respectively) are around 0.5Mbps for £25 ($40)/month
Bollocks, mate. ADSL is £40 ($60) + £10 line rental, and BT Openworld has been throttling the bandwidth on common P2P ports for weeks or months (they're not at the time of writing, but this is an actute PR requirement, and they're planning to start throttling again when they bring in a more expensive service aimed at P2P). Also, there are still problems with the BT Ignite backbone, and god help you if you get a dodgy connection, as the easiest way to get it fixed is to cancel it and start over again.
BT have also just announced that they're giving up network expansion until the demand picks up. How they expect demand to pick up when they're crippling the primary reason to get the service is beyond my comprehension.
Still, it could be worse. Kingston has already bandwidth capped their ADSL offering in Hull, and aren't backing down at all. That's effectively running up the white flag and saying "get off our MAN"
You're right that cable is £25, and I'm delighted (eventually) with my Telewest connection, but we've already seen NTL try to sneak through harsh restrictions on running servers (including P2P apps) and back down, but they've made it clear that it's on the cards. It's a hopeful sign that Telewest and NTL have teamed up to push cable though.
But on balance, I have to agree with the tone of the article: telcos and cablecos have realised (or will very soon have to realise) that broadband isn't a cash cow (we're not going to pay them for content that we can get free elsewhere), and there's really very little that they can do to recoup their investment. Without goverment investment or tax breaks to make it ubiquitous, it's in real trouble, as it's only attracting heavy users and isn't sustainable at current prices.
Hmm, fair point. You can be a Java developer using Visual J++, as long as you're careful (or turn off extensions, and point it at an up to date JDK). I know that the core of the case was the Microsoft Virtual Machine (nee Microsoft Java Virtual Machine), but I just couldn't resist making the point that Microsoft were found guilty of being BAD PEOPLE over J++.;-)
If you're going to be doing this kind o stuff, whats the point in using Java /.Net AT ALL?? If you're going to have to re-compile for seperate platforms, Java has lost its prime benefit
For me the prime benefit is write once, run anywhere. I really don't mind building twice; that's just computer time, and computer time is cheap.
Personally, if I'm going to be re-building anyway, I'm going to use a faster solution, like C or C++.
Which is my point! If J# will compile my Java to a native executable which runs faster, and my extra cost is hitting one button (and making myself a cup of coffee while I wait) then it's a positive benefit, especially as my target market is mostly Joe Windoze anyway. Hurrah for Microsoft (sort of).
If I have to re-train, or it requires extra development time or managing multiple source then you're right, I might as well go back to conditional compilation hell.;-)
The.NET Framework Base Class APIs available through J# are not based on the J2SE APIs
Ouch. I was hoping that it would be like Visual J++ where a simple registry tweak lets you use whatever JDK API's you want. Are you sure I still can't do this with J#?
I know, I should really go and check this for myself.;-)
You seem to be a little confused about a few points sheldon.
Internet Explorer is a lot more than "HTML and such". It's Microsoft's own stated position that IE is a "platform", not a "product". It's the add-ons in IE that allow it to compete with the Java Virtual Machine
Note that I said Java Virtual Machine, rather than Microsoft Virtual Machine, which is what I believe you're talking about. In case you missed it, Microsoft is no longer allowed to call their VM "Java", because it's not an implementation of the Sun Java standards. The Microsoft Virtual Machine is in fact competing with Microsoft Internet Explorer, so it's a perfectly sensible decision to stop shipping it. However, that removes even the semblance of Java support from Windows, and further strengthens the IE platform and marginalises the Java Virtual Machine platform, something that Judge Jackson picked up on in his verdict that Microsoft are running an illegal monopoly.
Is that the point that you're missing? You're quite right that there's no reason why Microsoft should distribute a VM or JVM, but by not doing so, they put a strangehold on another competitor, and when you have a monopoly position you are (all together now) not allowed to do that.
Perhaps you could do some more research and then get back to us, and we can have a productive discussion.
For completeness, I'll just point out that I said that it "concerns" me, not that I'm judging it. I like Java, but my target audience is Joe Windoze running Internet Exploder, and anything that makes it even marginally harder for me to get my creations running on screen is a bind.
YES, I know it's an automatic one-step, and that it's only 10Mb, but that's one step and 10Mb more than I'd like. While I enjoy griping about the impatience or laziness of end users, I also have to cater for it. And I can't see it getting any easier in future, which is why I can see myself using J# and (ouch) contributing to the stifling of Java on Microsoft platforms.
So basically what you're saying is that there's no way in hell you're going to use J#?
Not necessarily. Microsoft Visual J++ can be set up to disable Microsoft extensions and to use the latest JDK. It's perfectly capable of turning well formed Java into well formed bytecode. There's no point to using it, other than for the swooshy IDE, but it's usable for actual Java development.
So if J# compiles well formed Java into a fast executable, I'll consider using it. I won't like it, but I write games software, and my biggest market is Windoze. If J# gives me even a 10% speed boost at the cost of having two compiles/downloads (bytecode and.NET executable) from a single source then it might be worth my while.
Actually, the is an other. They are only referring to the java language, not the java platform
Microsoft Visual J++ is not Java. Admittedly, the main focus on the Sun court case was about the Microsoft JVM (now just the Virtual Machine), but Visual J++ was also panned as being a deliberate attempt to hijack Java by adding extensions.
Sure, Visual J++ does compile Java source to perfectly valid bytecode, and if J# compiles Java source to a decent executable, I'll use that. But if it extends the language, or is less than 100% capable of compiling well formed Java, then I won't call it a a Java compiler, any more than I call Visual J++ a Java compiler, or Microsoft Visual C++ a C++ compiler.
So, they want to set up an intranet for the government. Why is this a bad thing?
It continues the tendency of government to view itself as separate from the people.
Look at gated government communities, high security mansions, government hospitals, politicians who push anti-gun agendas while being protected by armed security, career politicians, heck hereditary politican dynasties.
Government is becoming an observer of the nation, not a participant. This is another step down that road.
I'm not saying that all of these steps aren't pragmatic or justifiable, just that it's hypocritical and unhelpful to apply them only to government. How can governemnt (and why would they want to) solve problems that they aren't experiencing?
Specifically on this issue though, AFAIK the biggest threat to national security comes from corrupt insiders armed with a bunch of floppies, not evil shadowy crackers roaming the internet looking for.mils to ream. The money might be better spend hiring more watchmen watchers or even (gasp!) letting us oversee them.
Microsoft are still strongly implying (at least) that Visual J++ is Java. Uh, wait, didn't a court tell you to stop doing that?
"Visual J#.NET enables Microsoft Visual J++ customers and other Java-language programmers"
Tsk, tsk, Bill. There's no "other" in that sentence.
The focus seems to be on J++ developers, not Java developers. But personally, I will use J# iff:
It compiles Java completely and correctly.
It compiles to a native.NET executable that gives a significant speed advantage over VM bytecode on a.NET platform.
I have to make exactly zero changes to my Java to have it compile to both VM bytecodes and to a.NET executable.
Basically, I can live with loading J# and hitting compile once for each of my Java projects. If it's any more hassle than that, I agree, it's not worth my while.
However, I'm keeping an open mind. Microsoft's decision to not include a JVM in WinXP concerns me, as does the increasing size of the Sun VM. I love Java and want to keep using it purely, but I'm not going to cut off my nose to spite my face. If Microsoft and Sun collude to make it hard to use Java and easy to use J#, I could be swayed. I hope not though.
it's probably a good idea that lying on the census (about significant things, like how many people there are in your household) should be illegal and punishable by fine
Why? It's clearly explained that statistical information is collected to facilitate planning public services. I accept and agree with that, and am happy to volunteer this information and anything else that helps to make everyone's life easier. Heck, I don't even really object to giving detailed information and identifying myself.
What I specifically object to is being lied to about it. The census clearly states that it collects only statistics, but then it obliges me to provide identifiable information, and personally to certify that this information correct, under penalty of law.
By threatening and quantifying punishment for providing misinformation, the message is clear: we can check this information. Probably it never will be checked, but it's the threat of action that gives the lie to the claim of statistical use only. That's quite apart from the distasteful presumption of guilt, and the strange consequence that if this information can be checked, then the census form is extraneous and needn't be completed!
A census absolutely relies on the goodwill of the people. You can threaten dire consequences all you want, but you'll just encourage people to question your motives, and to provide the answers that they think you want to see.
We might have a 'no copy-protection circumvention devices' rule, but it's never enforced
Whoa there! Bad laws shouldn't be excused just because they lie around unused for a while. This law can be viewed as benign only in the past tense, after it's been removed from the books. Until then, it's just another folly weakening our legal system.
point is that a lot of people are putting down Jedi for their religion because they want to mess with the British government. I can't believe this got posted on slashdot.
It's highly relevant under YRO (as this data is held on puters and used by a whole raft of government and quasi-government bodies). Britain leads the US in invasions of privacy and fucked up tech laws (we've had a DMCA since 1988). Anything that happens regarding privacy/censorship/state control in the UK is a good indicator of future behaviour in the US.
Sure, this time around the religion question is voluntary. But by not answering it, all you demonstrate is apathy. By giving a bullshit answer, you send a clear signal that you actively object to it.
The UK census start with the bold statement that (approximate quote) "This data is anonymous, will be used for statistical purposes only, and will not be used to identify you." Then the first question demands to know your name. Do they need to know the statistic of how many people have my name? I don't think so. The presumption is that I will lie on the census, and they need to know who I am so that they can prove this and punish me.
Go ahead and trot out the usual response of "it won't be used against you, stop bitching". If it's not going to be used, then why demand to know it? What purpose does knowing my name serve, other than to identify and punish? I'm not saying that it will be used, but if that's the case, then don't ask.
Similarly, I had to disclose who I work for and where I work. Exactly, not approximately. If this is being used only for traffic planning, why demand to know exactly this? Again, it's probably benign, but it's more information than is needed for the stated purposes.
For these reasons and more, I thoroughly enjoyed fucking with my census. The questions asked do not tally with the reasons given for asking them. I don't enjoy being fed bullshit or treated like an idiot, and so will take every possible opportunity to protest these censii by whatever means I have available. (Yes, I write to my representative regularly, politely and constructively, and just as regularly fail to get any response).
Atheist: You take a definite position that there is no God (which ironically is actually a position of faith, but that's another debate).
You're inflating the importance of "god" with respect to any other proposition. Let's generalise atheist without taking the god squad line that debates about god are somehow special:
Scientist: You take a definite position that there exists nothing but that which you can observe.
Using Win2k as we speak, right clicking on any file and going to "Open with" seems easy enough
Er, yes, as Scott goes on to say at the end of his article (having had it "pointed out" to him, he claims). I wonder how many posters here actually read the article to the end?
But either Scott didn't know this, or he chose to "forget" it, and as he still claims that this is too complicated for Joe Sixpack, we can write his article off as flamebait.
Slashdot Mirror
...said the CEO of every startup. "Heck, we don't need to budget for tech support, this is reliable technology. Just get us some minimum wage phone drones straight from MoobyBurger, and we'll blame it all on the Bell, or sunspots or such."
OK, I'll bite on this one, but this goes out to everybody else who's posting "I've got a great cheap service"
Hey! Hey! Guess what? If your service is good and cheap, and you're not paying your ISP extra for content or services, that means they're making a loss.
Now, a loss is when you spend more than you make. This is bad. Companies don't do this for long.
Get this: every post that says "I've got a good, cheap broadband service" just re-enforces Cringley's point. All of your providers are losing money. The more people that post this, the more you demonstrate how much money is being lost.
Cringley is right. The times are about to change, and not for the better.
You've really thought this through, haven't you?
The reason why this is bad news is that broadband providers were relying on selling services and content on top of the connection. But nobody's paying for it, so they'll have to charge sustainable prices for the connection itself.
In the UK, the incumbent telco is wailing that it can't even support its DSL at £40 = $60 a month. Not if people are rude enough to actually use it, anyway, which is why it's been throttling all traffic to common P2P application ports. It's now planning on introducing a more expensive service that doesn't throttle.
Broadband isn't dying per se, but it's going to get expensive. Very expensive.
Uh, we must be reading different articles, because I'm reading one that says exactly that. Further, it says that this is why broadband providers are getting reamed, because they believed (bwah ahahaha) that they could sell content that we know damn well that we can get for nothing.
I agree with your points, but I think so does Cringley.
Verizon are charging you more because it costs them more.
You don't like it? Find another provider.
You can't find another provider? Guess why. Newsflash: this article is correct. Broadband is a loss maker. Providers are waking up from their crazy dream of selling content, and realising that they have to actually charge sustainable amounts for the access that they provide, plus they have to make back their investment.
Verizon is killing themselves, you say? No, they're trying to save themselves.
Mmm, and hindsighted criticism is so much easier than actually making predictions.
Care to actually contribute to the debate?
Bollocks, mate. ADSL is £40 ($60) + £10 line rental, and BT Openworld has been throttling the bandwidth on common P2P ports for weeks or months (they're not at the time of writing, but this is an actute PR requirement, and they're planning to start throttling again when they bring in a more expensive service aimed at P2P). Also, there are still problems with the BT Ignite backbone, and god help you if you get a dodgy connection, as the easiest way to get it fixed is to cancel it and start over again.
BT have also just announced that they're giving up network expansion until the demand picks up. How they expect demand to pick up when they're crippling the primary reason to get the service is beyond my comprehension.
Still, it could be worse. Kingston has already bandwidth capped their ADSL offering in Hull, and aren't backing down at all. That's effectively running up the white flag and saying "get off our MAN"
You're right that cable is £25, and I'm delighted (eventually) with my Telewest connection, but we've already seen NTL try to sneak through harsh restrictions on running servers (including P2P apps) and back down, but they've made it clear that it's on the cards. It's a hopeful sign that Telewest and NTL have teamed up to push cable though.
But on balance, I have to agree with the tone of the article: telcos and cablecos have realised (or will very soon have to realise) that broadband isn't a cash cow (we're not going to pay them for content that we can get free elsewhere), and there's really very little that they can do to recoup their investment. Without goverment investment or tax breaks to make it ubiquitous, it's in real trouble, as it's only attracting heavy users and isn't sustainable at current prices.
Tsk tsk, we fund freedom fighters. They only become terrorists after they fall under the Shadow of Osauron bin Laden.
Hmm, fair point. You can be a Java developer using Visual J++, as long as you're careful (or turn off extensions, and point it at an up to date JDK). I know that the core of the case was the Microsoft Virtual Machine (nee Microsoft Java Virtual Machine), but I just couldn't resist making the point that Microsoft were found guilty of being BAD PEOPLE over J++. ;-)
For me the prime benefit is write once, run anywhere. I really don't mind building twice; that's just computer time, and computer time is cheap.
Which is my point! If J# will compile my Java to a native executable which runs faster, and my extra cost is hitting one button (and making myself a cup of coffee while I wait) then it's a positive benefit, especially as my target market is mostly Joe Windoze anyway. Hurrah for Microsoft (sort of).
If I have to re-train, or it requires extra development time or managing multiple source then you're right, I might as well go back to conditional compilation hell. ;-)
Ouch. I was hoping that it would be like Visual J++ where a simple registry tweak lets you use whatever JDK API's you want. Are you sure I still can't do this with J#?
I know, I should really go and check this for myself. ;-)
You seem to be a little confused about a few points sheldon.
Internet Explorer is a lot more than "HTML and such". It's Microsoft's own stated position that IE is a "platform", not a "product". It's the add-ons in IE that allow it to compete with the Java Virtual Machine
Note that I said Java Virtual Machine, rather than Microsoft Virtual Machine, which is what I believe you're talking about. In case you missed it, Microsoft is no longer allowed to call their VM "Java", because it's not an implementation of the Sun Java standards. The Microsoft Virtual Machine is in fact competing with Microsoft Internet Explorer, so it's a perfectly sensible decision to stop shipping it. However, that removes even the semblance of Java support from Windows, and further strengthens the IE platform and marginalises the Java Virtual Machine platform, something that Judge Jackson picked up on in his verdict that Microsoft are running an illegal monopoly.
Is that the point that you're missing? You're quite right that there's no reason why Microsoft should distribute a VM or JVM, but by not doing so, they put a strangehold on another competitor, and when you have a monopoly position you are (all together now) not allowed to do that.
Perhaps you could do some more research and then get back to us, and we can have a productive discussion.
For completeness, I'll just point out that I said that it "concerns" me, not that I'm judging it. I like Java, but my target audience is Joe Windoze running Internet Exploder, and anything that makes it even marginally harder for me to get my creations running on screen is a bind.
YES, I know it's an automatic one-step, and that it's only 10Mb, but that's one step and 10Mb more than I'd like. While I enjoy griping about the impatience or laziness of end users, I also have to cater for it. And I can't see it getting any easier in future, which is why I can see myself using J# and (ouch) contributing to the stifling of Java on Microsoft platforms.
Not necessarily. Microsoft Visual J++ can be set up to disable Microsoft extensions and to use the latest JDK. It's perfectly capable of turning well formed Java into well formed bytecode. There's no point to using it, other than for the swooshy IDE, but it's usable for actual Java development.
So if J# compiles well formed Java into a fast executable, I'll consider using it. I won't like it, but I write games software, and my biggest market is Windoze. If J# gives me even a 10% speed boost at the cost of having two compiles/downloads (bytecode and .NET executable) from a single source then it might be worth my while.
Microsoft Visual J++ is not Java. Admittedly, the main focus on the Sun court case was about the Microsoft JVM (now just the Virtual Machine), but Visual J++ was also panned as being a deliberate attempt to hijack Java by adding extensions.
Sure, Visual J++ does compile Java source to perfectly valid bytecode, and if J# compiles Java source to a decent executable, I'll use that. But if it extends the language, or is less than 100% capable of compiling well formed Java, then I won't call it a a Java compiler, any more than I call Visual J++ a Java compiler, or Microsoft Visual C++ a C++ compiler.
It continues the tendency of government to view itself as separate from the people.
Look at gated government communities, high security mansions, government hospitals, politicians who push anti-gun agendas while being protected by armed security, career politicians, heck hereditary politican dynasties.
Government is becoming an observer of the nation, not a participant. This is another step down that road.
I'm not saying that all of these steps aren't pragmatic or justifiable, just that it's hypocritical and unhelpful to apply them only to government. How can governemnt (and why would they want to) solve problems that they aren't experiencing?
Specifically on this issue though, AFAIK the biggest threat to national security comes from corrupt insiders armed with a bunch of floppies, not evil shadowy crackers roaming the internet looking for .mils to ream. The money might be better spend hiring more watchmen watchers or even (gasp!) letting us oversee them.
Microsoft are still strongly implying (at least) that Visual J++ is Java. Uh, wait, didn't a court tell you to stop doing that?
Tsk, tsk, Bill. There's no "other" in that sentence.
The focus seems to be on J++ developers, not Java developers. But personally, I will use J# iff:
Basically, I can live with loading J# and hitting compile once for each of my Java projects. If it's any more hassle than that, I agree, it's not worth my while.
However, I'm keeping an open mind. Microsoft's decision to not include a JVM in WinXP concerns me, as does the increasing size of the Sun VM. I love Java and want to keep using it purely, but I'm not going to cut off my nose to spite my face. If Microsoft and Sun collude to make it hard to use Java and easy to use J#, I could be swayed. I hope not though.
Apparently so. One of us has a fault in our humour modules.
Why? It's clearly explained that statistical information is collected to facilitate planning public services. I accept and agree with that, and am happy to volunteer this information and anything else that helps to make everyone's life easier. Heck, I don't even really object to giving detailed information and identifying myself.
What I specifically object to is being lied to about it. The census clearly states that it collects only statistics, but then it obliges me to provide identifiable information, and personally to certify that this information correct, under penalty of law.
By threatening and quantifying punishment for providing misinformation, the message is clear: we can check this information. Probably it never will be checked, but it's the threat of action that gives the lie to the claim of statistical use only. That's quite apart from the distasteful presumption of guilt, and the strange consequence that if this information can be checked, then the census form is extraneous and needn't be completed!
A census absolutely relies on the goodwill of the people. You can threaten dire consequences all you want, but you'll just encourage people to question your motives, and to provide the answers that they think you want to see.
Whoa there! Bad laws shouldn't be excused just because they lie around unused for a while. This law can be viewed as benign only in the past tense, after it's been removed from the books. Until then, it's just another folly weakening our legal system.
Prove that anybody who puts down Buddhist has been reencarnated.
Prove that anyone who puts down Catholic suffers the consequences of original sin.
Kind of missing the point of belief, aren't you?
It's highly relevant under YRO (as this data is held on puters and used by a whole raft of government and quasi-government bodies). Britain leads the US in invasions of privacy and fucked up tech laws (we've had a DMCA since 1988). Anything that happens regarding privacy/censorship/state control in the UK is a good indicator of future behaviour in the US.
Sure, this time around the religion question is voluntary. But by not answering it, all you demonstrate is apathy. By giving a bullshit answer, you send a clear signal that you actively object to it.
The UK census start with the bold statement that (approximate quote) "This data is anonymous, will be used for statistical purposes only, and will not be used to identify you." Then the first question demands to know your name. Do they need to know the statistic of how many people have my name? I don't think so. The presumption is that I will lie on the census, and they need to know who I am so that they can prove this and punish me.
Go ahead and trot out the usual response of "it won't be used against you, stop bitching". If it's not going to be used, then why demand to know it? What purpose does knowing my name serve, other than to identify and punish? I'm not saying that it will be used, but if that's the case, then don't ask.
Similarly, I had to disclose who I work for and where I work. Exactly, not approximately. If this is being used only for traffic planning, why demand to know exactly this? Again, it's probably benign, but it's more information than is needed for the stated purposes.
For these reasons and more, I thoroughly enjoyed fucking with my census. The questions asked do not tally with the reasons given for asking them. I don't enjoy being fed bullshit or treated like an idiot, and so will take every possible opportunity to protest these censii by whatever means I have available. (Yes, I write to my representative regularly, politely and constructively, and just as regularly fail to get any response).
You're inflating the importance of "god" with respect to any other proposition. Let's generalise atheist without taking the god squad line that debates about god are somehow special:
Scientist: You take a definite position that there exists nothing but that which you can observe.
OK, fair point. However, let's not think about that too much. It's scary. ;-)
Er, yes, as Scott goes on to say at the end of his article (having had it "pointed out" to him, he claims). I wonder how many posters here actually read the article to the end?
But either Scott didn't know this, or he chose to "forget" it, and as he still claims that this is too complicated for Joe Sixpack, we can write his article off as flamebait.