Lets start a real bounty to hack any of Sanyo's Sprint phones to work on Verizon's network. (If you ever had a Sanyo phone, you know what I'm talking about.)
[quote] - there's a hostile cell phone company - you continue to use them - you complain when they suck - you stick with them, despite their ignorance, but you then post "rewards" to fix their problems [/quote]
The primary function of a cell phone is...a phone! Verizon's service works pretty much everywhere with signal penetration inside buildings that other carriers can not provide. Least dropped calls...etc. As a final note, they pick up the phone on one ring when you call customer service.
If you want a Cell Phone for Business, go with Verizon. If you want a Walkie Talkie, go with Nextel. Cingular has good rates for families.
As far as "Toy" phones: Sprint, then AT&T. Pray you don't have a billing error and don't have to get anyone on the phone. Lets not even mention T-Horrible.
It's much easier to pay someone to replace the radio in the Cadillac with a CD player then trading it in for a Yugo with a CD Player.
MS does innovate...but they have to buy time and a base product to do it. MS identifies a space which it has no market and sizes it up. It will then buy a struggling competitor with marginal share in that space and release that product as MS product. MS marketing then goes into hyperdrive to push that product everywhere. MS adds something to these products, but it takes the third or fourth version for them to be better than or comparable to other products in the same space. By this time they usually have lead market share or a significant portion.
MS, "The Great Marketer..." (to pointy haired types.)
Why would anyone want a handtop as opposed to a Treo, Palm or 12 inch screen plus fullsize keys laptop? Maybe if these things could play gameboy cartridges...?
Who has a handtop? And what do you use it for? Curious...
Microsoft strategy is just to drag out court proceedings until a regime change in whatever entity is suing them. Pump money into the opposing campaign and -poof!- suddenly lawsuits lose their teeth and disappear.
Someone also needs to remind legislators that the US != Internet. Instant Induce act makes law, all the US based P2P companies move to Togo, Nigeria, Trinadad... (and the spyware with it)
Nothing will change except a bunch of Americans losing even more rights.
I have no sympathy for companies that are "P2P" but connect back to a single ad server. I also claim bull shit that these companies have no clue as to what is going on on their networks. All you need is to run one Supernode in debug mode and due a traffic/search analysis. "Britney, MP3, metallica...etc"
Sure, **AA is evil. But don't get your hand caught in their pocket stealing their money.
It's real easy to run the data against a universal name and address database to get the people who put in real info. Heck, I think the government even sells it as census data. If not, It's the state DMV.
I'd love to talk with a sysadmin to find the amount of fakes though. I bet it's less than 25% real info.
As annoying as that was, it was a critical part of Radio Shack's business. Giving a correct name and address would just get you a flyer every month. About 20% of the months business would be people coming in grasping that flyer looking for stuff.
Radio Shack employees are/were commissioned sales people. The address thing was used to build your business. The idea is you don't goto the Shack, you go see Jason, Bob, Steve...whoever @ the Shack. When people balked at giving name and addresses over purchases, you told em what was being done with them: Company mailing list for a flyer.
Enter the computer. RS employees are tracked on dolalr per ticket and were tracked on name and address percentage. The computer didn't care if the purchase was $1.00 or $1,000 dollars. If you fell below 90% Names and addresses, you were in trouble.
The point is, as annoying as that policy was - it brought back many customers. Then Radio Shack started policies that created higher turns on employees and then they had to can the policy...but thats a different story. The registration emails are supposed to generate more subscribers for these papers and we have to see from the financials at the papers if the strategy is working. (I doubt it.)
Nah! Tinkering with production code is done by many major coding shops...
Chicago Tribune: Link Additional: Hasn't missed a paper since the Chicago Fire...All I received Monday was the Business section. Didn't bring the company down...but hurt big!
Sprint: Link Additional: Sprint had to outsource it because if you own a sprint phone and ever called customer service, half the time they couldn't help you because the computers were down! Almost brought the company down.
A&TT Wireless: Link Additional: DID bring the company down.
Microsoft: Link Additional: Brought MANY companies down...
I'm sure I can name more production bungles...Slashdot 503 for an hour isn't a company crasher though.
1) Congress can override SCOTUS decisions. It takes a Constitutional amendment to do so (making the law constitutional by changing the Constitution to suit), and so it is very difficult, but it can be done.
Partially true. If SCOTUS interprets something as unconstitutional, Congress and the states must past a constitutional amendment. If the law is unclear and SCOTUS makes a ruling, all Congress needs to do is pass new legislation. There is nothing to prevent Congress from repassing the same legislation either(see the flag burning issue.)
2) The executive branch appoints justices. It's a little-known fact that even SCOTUS justices can be impeached and removed from office, even though they otherwise hold life terms; this has never been done, but it is possible.
Bull shit. Gerald Ford (as house minority leader) tried to impeach Justice William O. Douglas. http://www.ford.utexas.edu/library/speeches/700415 a.htm Douglas was a champion of civil rights issues and one of the longest serving members of the court. He was tilted to the left, which should please the/. crowd.
3) The SCOTUS cannot act of its own volition; it must be called upon before it can do anything. The Executive and legislative branches have limited power, but they can use (most of) those powers at will; the SCOTUS is powerless unless actually called on by one of the other branches, or by the people.
Furthermore, Congress has the power to organize the judicial system. This determines which cases the SCOTUS can hear.
Also, this brings up point four, which I'll add:
4) Congress sets the size and make up of SCOTUS and judiciary.
When Roosevelt needed to pass the New Deal to get the American economy started again SCOTUS started declaring many parts of the New Deal as unconstitutional (which they were:). Justice Roberts switched his vote as the "switch in time that saved nine." Imagine a court packed with 15 justices...Reference Skip half way down the page for the meat.
The Supreme Court is actually the weakest of the three branches since it's powers are not defined in the constitution. It is a timebomb that went off with FDR. The court can be directly influenced by the other branches. Perhaps if the supreme court's powers were defined better in the constitution we wouldn't have the super large government we have today.
-Electrawn
I spent 5 years hating Pokemon. It ensured that kids and 32 year old virgins would be forever stupid. I was very worried about how this country could possible survive the shock and awe of Pokemon.
Actually, while the country survived pokemon...Wizards of the Coast retail stores didn't. http://www.gamingreport.com/article.php?thold=-1&m ode=flat&order=0&sid=11286
Billions and Billions to suddenly long term leases and big stores with no one coming in. RUH ROW!
Step 6: When their new software crashes from the translucent fade of the start menu... offer to sell the large number of businesses old, stable reliable hardware running stable OSS software you dumpster dived.
Why? No seriously, I wouldn't support a project once I encounter this kind of attitude. People often go "Well, it's their project so they have the final say about it.", which is bullshit. If you're going to start your own OS project and be a complete jackass to people who use it, ( In short, your developers, bugtesters, QA people, support staff AND users all in one. ) then DO NOT START A DAMNED OS PROJECT. Look what's happening to Xfree86 for example; they went anal about licensing and voila, the OS community gave them the collective middle finger and it's highly likely that in a few years time Xfree86 wil be nothing more then an interesting little footnote in computing history. Remember people, don't just open your source, alos open your mind. And for the love of Eris, get rid of that crap "No matter how fucked up/lacking things are, my will be done. Infidel." attitude.
OSS Developers have one big tool in their arsenal on this matter that you don't get with commercial code: The Free Fork. If you think the developer is a twit, fork! Best example is php-nuke to post-nuke. There becomes a certain point in an OSS project where suddenly its gone from your little side thing to a Corporate ready Mission Critical machine. Mosy folks don't have the business sense to coordinate at that level.
It basically comes down to a business/OSS project ignoring the needs of Customers/Users. Customers/Users will look for alternatives and if no better ones are found, they will stick with the crap they have.
On a slightly different note, doesn't this whole idea about SF, one of the flagships of the OS community, is actually closed source and used to promote offshore outsourcing seem painfully ironic? Especially when one considers Slashdot is actually part of VA Software? Don't you subscribers love to know that your hard-earned money might one day be used to A) buy these people a penis extension on four wheels with an engine and B) fire this guy and replace him with Deeptendu Chakrapani from Bangladesh? At least the spelling will improve, though...
As much as despise outsourcing, offshoring or whatever crap word it is today, I don't think the villan here is VA Software. For some markets, outsourcing is a good thing. Google for example is opening new think tanks in Switzerland and India. Those new tanks will help Google increase international business, add some new features that will trickle back to US Google and won't cost American jobs.
The real demons are the companies who provide services/products in America that are gutting American jobs in favor of Indians, Pakistanis and whatever. If everyone does it, suddenly there is no one left who can afford your product! OOPS!
If considered entering the market as a retailer touting american loyalty and preference. Choice: A) Store where the prices were slightly higher but had a decent staff and corporate ethics. B) Wallymart the model of corporate efficency.
(A is socialist, B is capitalist). Capitalist will win in America because socialism isn't rampant in corporate society. (Needs to be.)
VA software provides a product that lets people from anywhere and everywhere communicate to develop software. Yes they are promoting it to companies as such but they weren't the first and won't be the last. Bankrupting/Boycotting VA will cause more harm then good in the long term because of what SF provides.
The solution is political efforts need to be made to stop outsourcing at the Federal level. This will require a swing to the left towards socialist views in government.
Wouldn't be to MySQL per-se, would be more porting to an abstraction layer like PEAR or ADODB (ADODB fan myself for speed).
The ability to support MySQL or Sqllite or whatever would just be an side benefit of the abstraction layer, the real benefit is now you can hook into oracle or IBM dbs.
Sourceforge, also code named Alexandria. Original concept of a public development and collaboration for Open Source Projects. Last code base available was about 2000 before VA took the project Closed source for commercial purposes.
Savannah: Fork of Alexandria code for GNU projects. I evaluated it but it was too kludgy to understand.
GForge: Fork of Alexandria code by former Sourceforge developer. Rips out foundries and is for optimized PHP and Postgresql and Apache. Patches for Oracle in beta, refuses mysql patches.
Novell Forge: Fork of XoopsForge that uses LDAP and Novell directory server. Needs Xoops 2.0 to run.
XoopsForge: Fork of Alexandria that runs as a module in Xoops. Not much Dev activity, most dev in Novell Forge.
MyXoopsForge: Fork of XoopsForge that has some active development. Used for forge.xoops.org
The only thing that may compete in the same space that is somewhat similar is PHPGroupWare.
I don't think Subversion has taking the beating CVS has at Sourceforge and Savanah. If they offered CVS and Subversion concurrently, that would be great, but with the penetration of subversion clients in IDEs and the like, I'd like to see CVS stick around a bit.
Sourceforge is now a commercial product with commercial bugs. A perfect case study of what not to do with OSS code. No significant alternatives have appeared to challenge SourceForge other than Savannah. Considering the bandwidth costs I doubt any others will step up.
Slashdot Mirror
...and Verizon Wireless is 50% Verizon and 50% Vodafone (European cell carrier).
-Electrawn
Agreed.
Lets start a real bounty to hack any of Sanyo's Sprint phones to work on Verizon's network. (If you ever had a Sanyo phone, you know what I'm talking about.)
-Electrawn
[quote]
- there's a hostile cell phone company
- you continue to use them
- you complain when they suck
- you stick with them, despite their ignorance, but you then post "rewards" to fix their problems
[/quote]
The primary function of a cell phone is...a phone! Verizon's service works pretty much everywhere with signal penetration inside buildings that other carriers can not provide. Least dropped calls...etc. As a final note, they pick up the phone on one ring when you call customer service.
If you want a Cell Phone for Business, go with Verizon. If you want a Walkie Talkie, go with Nextel. Cingular has good rates for families.
As far as "Toy" phones: Sprint, then AT&T. Pray you don't have a billing error and don't have to get anyone on the phone. Lets not even mention T-Horrible.
It's much easier to pay someone to replace the radio in the Cadillac with a CD player then trading it in for a Yugo with a CD Player.
Former Cell Salesman.
-Electrawn
Right, which makes the first practical application for it military. Submarines, detroyers, etc. A time desync of .00001 can put you miles off course.
-Electrawn
You forgot MS Windows->IBM.
MS does innovate...but they have to buy time and a base product to do it. MS identifies a space which it has no market and sizes it up. It will then buy a struggling competitor with marginal share in that space and release that product as MS product. MS marketing then goes into hyperdrive to push that product everywhere.
MS adds something to these products, but it takes the third or fourth version for them to be better than or comparable to other products in the same space. By this time they usually have lead market share or a significant portion.
MS, "The Great Marketer..." (to pointy haired types.)
-Electrawn
I remember Radioshack selling something similar a few years ago..."Indestructable!"
p roduct_code=309746&pfp=BROWSE
This was easy to find with a little googlin:
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?
-Electrawn
Why would anyone want a handtop as opposed to a Treo, Palm or 12 inch screen plus fullsize keys laptop? Maybe if these things could play gameboy cartridges...?
Who has a handtop? And what do you use it for? Curious...
-Electrawn
Microsoft strategy is just to drag out court proceedings until a regime change in whatever entity is suing them. Pump money into the opposing campaign and -poof!- suddenly lawsuits lose their teeth and disappear.
-Electrawn
Someone also needs to remind legislators that the US != Internet. Instant Induce act makes law, all the US based P2P companies move to Togo, Nigeria, Trinadad... (and the spyware with it)
Nothing will change except a bunch of Americans losing even more rights.
-Electrawn
Grokster is more like a speakeasy owner of the 20s than some Sony vs Universal and Walt Disney et all in the betamax case.
Fair use is about making backup copies to preserve works. Fair use isn't about giving bits and pieces of things to 100 of your "friends."
-Electrawn
I have no sympathy for companies that are "P2P" but connect back to a single ad server. I also claim bull shit that these companies have no clue as to what is going on on their networks. All you need is to run one Supernode in debug mode and due a traffic/search analysis. "Britney, MP3, metallica...etc"
Sure, **AA is evil. But don't get your hand caught in their pocket stealing their money.
-Electrawn
What are you supposed to do when Slashdot links your smalltime site...you get a ton of hits and suddenly have a huge bill for gigs of transfer...
Meanwhile, the guys at OSDN made $400 or more serving ads on the comment links while your server is a smoldering ruin?
Is it fair for one commercial site to link to another sites content - producing a leech effect - and not compensating the other site for linking?
-Electrawn
Google...our friend and enemy: http://www.softguide.de/prog_f/pf_1005.htm
Funny its a German company...but there are others.
-Electrawn
It's real easy to run the data against a universal name and address database to get the people who put in real info. Heck, I think the government even sells it as census data. If not, It's the state DMV.
I'd love to talk with a sysadmin to find the amount of fakes though. I bet it's less than 25% real info.
-Electrawn
From a former employee:
As annoying as that was, it was a critical part of Radio Shack's business. Giving a correct name and address would just get you a flyer every month. About 20% of the months business would be people coming in grasping that flyer looking for stuff.
Radio Shack employees are/were commissioned sales people. The address thing was used to build your business. The idea is you don't goto the Shack, you go see Jason, Bob, Steve...whoever @ the Shack. When people balked at giving name and addresses over purchases, you told em what was being done with them: Company mailing list for a flyer.
Enter the computer. RS employees are tracked on dolalr per ticket and were tracked on name and address percentage. The computer didn't care if the purchase was $1.00 or $1,000 dollars. If you fell below 90% Names and addresses, you were in trouble.
The point is, as annoying as that policy was - it brought back many customers. Then Radio Shack started policies that created higher turns on employees and then they had to can the policy...but thats a different story. The registration emails are supposed to generate more subscribers for these papers and we have to see from the financials at the papers if the strategy is working. (I doubt it.)
-Electrawn
Nah! Tinkering with production code is done by many major coding shops...
Chicago Tribune: Link
Additional: Hasn't missed a paper since the Chicago Fire...All I received Monday was the Business section. Didn't bring the company down...but hurt big!
Sprint: Link
Additional: Sprint had to outsource it because if you own a sprint phone and ever called customer service, half the time they couldn't help you because the computers were down! Almost brought the company down.
A&TT Wireless: Link
Additional: DID bring the company down.
Microsoft: Link
Additional: Brought MANY companies down...
I'm sure I can name more production bungles...Slashdot 503 for an hour isn't a company crasher though.
-Electrawn
And usually I'm pretty good with them...
Partially true. If SCOTUS interprets something as unconstitutional, Congress and the states must past a constitutional amendment. If the law is unclear and SCOTUS makes a ruling, all Congress needs to do is pass new legislation. There is nothing to prevent Congress from repassing the same legislation either(see the flag burning issue.)
Bull shit. Gerald Ford (as house minority leader) tried to impeach Justice William O. Douglas.
http://www.ford.utexas.edu/library/speeches/70041
Douglas was a champion of civil rights issues and one of the longest serving members of the court. He was tilted to the left, which should please the
Furthermore, Congress has the power to organize the judicial system. This determines which cases the SCOTUS can hear.
Also, this brings up point four, which I'll add:
4) Congress sets the size and make up of SCOTUS and judiciary.
When Roosevelt needed to pass the New Deal to get the American economy started again SCOTUS started declaring many parts of the New Deal as unconstitutional (which they were
The Supreme Court is actually the weakest of the three branches since it's powers are not defined in the constitution. It is a timebomb that went off with FDR. The court can be directly influenced by the other branches. Perhaps if the supreme court's powers were defined better in the constitution we wouldn't have the super large government we have today.
-Electrawn
Step 6: When their new software crashes from the translucent fade of the start menu... offer to sell the large number of businesses old, stable reliable hardware running stable OSS software you dumpster dived.
-Electrawn
Why? No seriously, I wouldn't support a project once I encounter this kind of attitude. People often go "Well, it's their project so they have the final say about it.", which is bullshit. If you're going to start your own OS project and be a complete jackass to people who use it, ( In short, your developers, bugtesters, QA people, support staff AND users all in one. ) then DO NOT START A DAMNED OS PROJECT. Look what's happening to Xfree86 for example; they went anal about licensing and voila, the OS community gave them the collective middle finger and it's highly likely that in a few years time Xfree86 wil be nothing more then an interesting little footnote in computing history. Remember people, don't just open your source, alos open your mind. And for the love of Eris, get rid of that crap "No matter how fucked up/lacking things are, my will be done. Infidel." attitude.
/ popups/exporting.america/content.html
OSS Developers have one big tool in their arsenal on this matter that you don't get with commercial code: The Free Fork. If you think the developer is a twit, fork! Best example is php-nuke to post-nuke. There becomes a certain point in an OSS project where suddenly its gone from your little side thing to a Corporate ready Mission Critical machine. Mosy folks don't have the business sense to coordinate at that level.
It basically comes down to a business/OSS project ignoring the needs of Customers/Users. Customers/Users will look for alternatives and if no better ones are found, they will stick with the crap they have.
On a slightly different note, doesn't this whole idea about SF, one of the flagships of the OS community, is actually closed source and used to promote offshore outsourcing seem painfully ironic? Especially when one considers Slashdot is actually part of VA Software? Don't you subscribers love to know that your hard-earned money might one day be used to A) buy these people a penis extension on four wheels with an engine and B) fire this guy and replace him with Deeptendu Chakrapani from Bangladesh? At least the spelling will improve, though...
As much as despise outsourcing, offshoring or whatever crap word it is today, I don't think the villan here is VA Software. For some markets, outsourcing is a good thing. Google for example is opening new think tanks in Switzerland and India. Those new tanks will help Google increase international business, add some new features that will trickle back to US Google and won't cost American jobs.
The real demons are the companies who provide services/products in America that are gutting American jobs in favor of Indians, Pakistanis and whatever. If everyone does it, suddenly there is no one left who can afford your product! OOPS!
If considered entering the market as a retailer touting american loyalty and preference. Choice: A) Store where the prices were slightly higher but had a decent staff and corporate ethics.
B) Wallymart the model of corporate efficency.
(A is socialist, B is capitalist). Capitalist will win in America because socialism isn't rampant in corporate society. (Needs to be.)
VA software provides a product that lets people from anywhere and everywhere communicate to develop software. Yes they are promoting it to companies as such but they weren't the first and won't be the last. Bankrupting/Boycotting VA will cause more harm then good in the long term because of what SF provides.
The solution is political efforts need to be made to stop outsourcing at the Federal level. This will require a swing to the left towards socialist views in government.
Demon companies by Lou Dobbs of CNN Moneyline: http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/lou.dobbs.tonight
Not surprisingly though, VA software is on that list.
Since this is a long, important post, I'll release this under Creative Commons license.
Wouldn't be to MySQL per-se, would be more porting to an abstraction layer like PEAR or ADODB (ADODB fan myself for speed).
The ability to support MySQL or Sqllite or whatever would just be an side benefit of the abstraction layer, the real benefit is now you can hook into oracle or IBM dbs.
Just have to give up those in the DB functions.
-Electrawn
I could be, but who uses slashcode? If you want blogging software you can use Moveabletype or livejournal.com / greatestjournal.com .
Oh? Slashdot a news site? Sorry. Xoops for Mission Critical stuff, Php-nuke, Post Nuke and any derivatives, tikiwiki or some other CMS derivative.
No one cares about Slashcode because no one uses it other than Slashdot.
-Electrawn
Sourceforge, also code named Alexandria. Original concept of a public development and collaboration for Open Source Projects. Last code base available was about 2000 before VA took the project Closed source for commercial purposes.
Savannah: Fork of Alexandria code for GNU projects. I evaluated it but it was too kludgy to understand.
GForge: Fork of Alexandria code by former Sourceforge developer. Rips out foundries and is for optimized PHP and Postgresql and Apache. Patches for Oracle in beta, refuses mysql patches.
Novell Forge: Fork of XoopsForge that uses LDAP and Novell directory server. Needs Xoops 2.0 to run.
XoopsForge: Fork of Alexandria that runs as a module in Xoops. Not much Dev activity, most dev in Novell Forge.
MyXoopsForge: Fork of XoopsForge that has some active development. Used for forge.xoops.org
The only thing that may compete in the same space that is somewhat similar is PHPGroupWare.
-Electrawn
I don't think Subversion has taking the beating CVS has at Sourceforge and Savanah. If they offered CVS and Subversion concurrently, that would be great, but with the penetration of subversion clients in IDEs and the like, I'd like to see CVS stick around a bit.
Sourceforge is now a commercial product with commercial bugs. A perfect case study of what not to do with OSS code. No significant alternatives have appeared to challenge SourceForge other than Savannah. Considering the bandwidth costs I doubt any others will step up.
-Electrawn
-Electrawn