I talked to E*TRADE mid afternoon, and they said the affinity (aka directed offering aka letter holder people) allocation would take place ("be complete", actually) at the end of the day after market close.
I assume SOMEONE here would have spoken up if they'd got shares in the directed offering... and since I can't believe everyone got screwed, maybe we'll still get it...
Re:But you don't understand.
on
Lo-Tech Cinema
·
· Score: 1
Radical new departure for Hollywood?
Hmm.. but it wasn't made in Hollywood, and Cinema Verite has existed as a genre for ages.. What is new about BWP is that it's an indie film that made it out of the arts cinemas without having won any awards, as usually needs to happen (e.g. "Shine").
I do go to the alternate theatres:), so I know why BWP sucked - because it's a god awful movie!!
If you want a good recent no-tech "arts movie", try John Sayles' "Limbo", or if you don't mind subtitles, "Autumn Tale" (french).
I thought this was one of the lamest movies I've ever seen. Was very close to walking out, I was so bored. I saw it in a packed theatre, and I'd have to say from the crowd reaction afterwards that it seems everyone thought the same.
Plus the characters were totally annoying and unengaging.
How many people really think that they're pretty much guaranteed to make (vs lose) money on this?
1.800.flowers.com and three other IPOs recently opened down from the IPO price, and the net stocks are currently cratering. AOL which was 130 a few weeks ago is right now at 76... The market's been looking pretty sick for the last couple of weeks, and may be getting worse rather than better.
I'm a bit surprised that RedHat hasn't (yet) decided to postpone the IPO, and wait for the market to look more inviting.
If it's oversubscribed (as it will be) they'll randomly allocate blocks of 100 shares. I read somewhere that they've got 800,000 shares to allocate and that RedHat sent out about 8000 letters, so there should be a pretty good chance to get your 100 shares. Putting in a larger order isn't going to increase your chances of getting anything, since it's random allocation. I believe that just by good luck someone who put in for 200 could get the lucky die roll twice, while you wanting 100 could miss, but obviously that's just the luck of the draw - it doesn't actually help your chances to put in for more.
All applicants for public offering stock will be required to submit and pass an online eligibility profile at the E*TRADE web site. Public Offerings are considered speculative investments and therefore you will be required to answer a series of questions about your Investment Experience, Goals and your Financial Background.
Perhaps RedHat could have emphasized this more, or pointed out that it's an SEC regulation.
If they're going to screen on these criteria (as they have to), then it should be obvious what sort of answers they're looking for. For example, If you say your investment objectives are income or capital preservation, then you shouldn't be surprised if they think you shouldn't be investing in IPOs. Obviously they have no way of checking your answers anyway, but by asking they've satisfied the SEC and covered their ass in the event that you lose money and feel like trying to blame them...
What I meant was that filling a job with an overqualified candidate isn't cost effective, so as you get older you're going to be competing for the smaller number of jobs that need your level of experience, and are willing to pay for it.
BTW, I built my first computer (a NASCOM-1 with a 1MHz Z80) in 1978....;-)
Not only is an older programmer typically not going to want to work the crazy hours he did when younger, but he's going to want to get paid a lot more too.
Why hire a 15-20yr veteran for $90K, when you can get a 5yr guy for half that?
Of course it's a bargain if you NEED that experience, but there are a lot more coding jock jobs available than ones that really use experience.
I care. I wouldn't buy a Compaq since they sell proprietary crap, and especially after they were stupid enough to stop internet sales of Comnpaq computers to keep the store prices higher. But I don't know anything about eMachines, and have no reason to think they're a bad company...if Compaq wants to self-destruct that's fine, but they're even worse assholes than I thought if they try to drag others down with them.
Sure FPGA's are incredible things - rewire them do be whatever you want. Same thing goes for erector sets. Hell, I'd bet you could build a interstellar rocket out of erector sets if you had enough of them, and knew how to do it....
The main point is - who is using Linux as a client system or home computer or to get work done of any kind ? It seems that Linux is mostly used for servers, so why is all the fuss about distributions and Gnome and Kde when nobody is using these things but a handfull of geeks trying to impress each other with how geeky they are?
Well, with an estimated user base of 12-15 million, I'd have to assume that the bulk of Linux use is in fact desktop rather than server. The server market just isn't that big. A slashdot demographics poll, as well as personal experience, would seem to indicate that a lot of Linux desktop usage is by college students. Students grow up to become project managers and IT professionals, so this would appear to be rather ominous for Microsoft. The reason students use Linux is often for cost - the applications they need to use are free.
Servers don't need desktops, browsers, paint programs and word processors. With only 2% of the desktop units having Linux installed, regardless of the intense hype which has been going on for over a year now in the media and on the internet, why do you think things will change?
First off, it *is* changing, whether you or I think it's going to or not! The Linux growth numbers over the last few years are phenomenal. The reason I see this trend continuing is becuase (as indicated in my initial post) the Linux competition, as well as development model, is causing Linux to evolve and improve *much* faster than enything else.
In my opinion, all these projects to develop consumer and desktop and workstation apps and subsystems for Linux will be abandoned when the developers realize that nobody but a tiny handfull of geeks is using them or even wants to.
The Linux installed base and growth rates speak for themselves. The other fact that points to futher Linux growth and problems for Microsoft are the rapidly decreasing PC prices. A $199 or $395 PC simply cannot include that $80 Windows licence - that means that either it's not going to be Windows based, or that Windows licence prices are going to come way down (which I assume will happen, but am not sure how effective it will be to turn the tide).
There's also simple momentum in Linux's favor. The amount of hype (justified or not) around Linux is huge, as is the army of Linux evangelists. Press anouncments like that of the SuSE 6.3 release are going to catch more people's attention, particularly those looking for a cheaper alternative... Windows developement has essentially stalled. Windows 2000 only a coupld of months ago reached the point where more bugs were being fixed per day than new bugs were being generated - this does not look like a product that will change the Linux vs NT server momentum. Also, Microsoft still doesn't have an SMP capable desktop OS, and the technical hurdles of making anything NT based backwards compatible with Win98 apps seems *very* problematic.
So get RH 6.0 for $1.99 from cheapbytes, and download ViaVoice from IBM for free!
Free for personal use is all I really care about. If I'm going to make money off a product, then I don't mind paying for the professional version or whatever, but while I'm playing at home or dreaming of riches, I like my software to be free!
You might not want to create graphics, build web pages or manipulate photos, but if you do it's not only available (GIMP) but free on Linux. The equivalent Windows tool (Photoshop) is not free.
You might not want to create newsletters or serious documents , but if you do it's not only available (LyX/KLyX) but free on Linux. The equivalent Windows tool (PageMaker) is not free.
Developers may be able to spend a few hundred bucks for tools (I spent $795 for Watcom C, before MS had a 32 bit compiler, plus $795 for Instant C, plus $495 for MS C...). Then there's editors, profilers, debuggers...
If you havn't noticed, people LOVE to customize their PC's. KDE and GNOMEs themes allow this, and they're also sitting on top of the power of X and CORBA. Windows GUI is just a graphical shell.
Voice recognition may not be unique to Linux, but yet again the point is that it's available and free.
You don't think your paying for the $80 Windows licence that comes with your PC? Try looking for a Windows based PC for $199 or $395... They exist with Linux preinstalled. Oh, and remember they guy who got a $100 (?) Windows rebate from Toshiba and started the whole Windows refund day?
I have the Shockwave flash and RealPlayer G2 plugins for Netscape 4.61 for Linux, and they work flawlessly for me. There's also plugger that will turn any helper app. into a plug in (for.wav,.avi,.mpg,.mid etc). Sure there's currently more plugins for Windows browsers, but I can't think of anything I had under Windows that I miss...
If you were aggravated by installing Linux, then try RedHat, SuSE (yast) or Caldera if you want a Windows-like graphical install. All very easy to use.
I think you might be surprised at the breadth of sound card and video card support for Linux (incidently video card suport just got a whole lot easier with XFree 4.0). Plus there's always 4-front sound drivers, or SciTech display drivers. USB support is being added (some video cameras already supported). Hopefully Linux will never support WinModems! Why use a $400 CPU to do the work of a $10 DSP? Makes sense for Microsoft and Intel, of course, but not very consumer friendly...
The real point of my post wasn't to dis Windows, but just to point how much great software is available - for free - for Linux, and how much Linux is benefitting from the competing distributions.
Wow! Voice recognition and Simultaneous Linux/Windows (VMWare), plus an office suite!!
Never mind GIMP, LyX/KLyX, choice of GNOME/KDE...
And all for free!
Now what does Windows come with:
Voice recognition? No VMWare? No Photoshop? No Microsoft Office? No Wordperfect? No PageMaker? No Choice of desktops? No Development tools? No Full source code? No An $80 price tag? Yes
So much for the "no apps for Linux" crap!
It'll be interesting to see how RedHat responds to the SuSe, Mandrake, Caldera etc competition.
One thing is for sure: all this competition is driving Linux forwards at warp speed, and kicking Window's sorry ass!!!
It *could* happen (Mandrake is #2 seller behind RehDat at Linux mall), but much more likely is that RedHat will take note and copy all of Mandrake's improvements...
Actually, what I think will happen before too long is that RedHat will aquire Mandrake as one of the first moves in the inevitable consolidation of the Linux market. Having many competitors is the sign of a young industry.. at this point it's hard to call the eventual winners, although RedHat is about to aquire the financial staying power and muscle to pretty much guarantee they're there (barring a huge fuck up).
I think that's why the RedHat IPO is likely to do well - people are really buying into the future of Linux, not RedHat per se...
There's still two-letter domains available in some of the non-US domains..cx (Christmas Islands) still have a few good ones left, although you need a special reason for them to let you have one. Try http://nic.cx if your interested - they're cheap!
Communicator ran fine for me under 2.0.36, and continues to do so under 2.2.6 - I'm running the latest 4.61 release (4.5 was fine too), with the Shockwave and RealPlayer G2 (alpha) plugins - all fine:) I use it for mail and news also.
Maybe your problems are due to either botching the complicated 2.0 -> 2.2 upgrade, or running one of the more recent flaky 2.2 kernels? It does appear to have stabalized again, although I'm sticking with 2.2.6 for the time being...
Communicator 5.0 (due out in december) is the successor to 4.6, as is being developed internally by Netscape/AOL. Mozilla, the open source project/browser, is a separate deal, and AFAIK doesn't have a target release date yet (although of course the milestone snapshots are already available).
What matters to people is more the amount of effort put into it, and perhaps the increasing *novelty* of getting snail mail.
As far as your examples goes, do you think a parent would be more happy to receive your example note by snail mail, or to receive it plus e-mails from members of their son's platoon telling personal memories and how much they miss him?
Also, which would you prefer to receive from your girlfriend (esp. in a long distance relationship): a) a letter, or b) a video e-mail where you can see her
Technology doen't bring impersonality - it's how you use it.
Yeah, an e-card can't replace a real card, but at least they get there...
A Christmas card I sent to a friend in Florida got incorrectly returned as address unknown, and I know someone whose Christmas cards *just* got delivered a few days ago!:(
It's not the e-mail etc software you use, it's the secure sockets connection that's being used to send the data. As long as you only conduct electrocic business over secure connections, there's really nothing to worry about.
I'd prefer to trust RSA 128 bit encryption with my credit card number than some underpaid restaurant, hotel or gas station employee...
.. receiving/paying bills, magazine subscriptions, and occasionally sending things via [Global] Priority mail - cheaper than FedEx if 2/3/4 days is OK.
Right now the USPO has a regular mail delivery monopoly protected by law!!! Some companies use FedEx to bulk mail stuff between officesm but strictly speaking that's illegal. I guess it is important to guaranteee mail delivery in remote areas where it's a money loser, but I can't see any reason why they can't open it up for competition with a required coverage clause.
This/. stupidity is why the Kernel mailing list often disparages slashdotters.
Since when has turning down money been part of the Linux tradition? Linus is happy to make money from Linux, and so should anyone else with at least half a brain. Hell, even RMS isn't anti-money.
Most slashdotters wouldn't recognise spam if they were served a spam sandwich,
Slashdot Mirror
Doesn't look that way....
5pm EST here, and nothing showing (yet).
I talked to E*TRADE mid afternoon, and they said the affinity (aka directed offering aka letter holder people) allocation would take place ("be complete", actually) at the end of the day after market close.
I assume SOMEONE here would have spoken up if they'd got shares in the directed offering... and since I can't believe everyone got screwed, maybe we'll still get it...
Radical new departure for Hollywood?
:), so I know why BWP sucked - because it's a god awful movie!!
Hmm.. but it wasn't made in Hollywood, and Cinema Verite has existed as a genre for ages.. What is new about BWP is that it's an indie film that made it out of the arts cinemas without having won any awards, as usually needs to happen (e.g. "Shine").
I do go to the alternate theatres
If you want a good recent no-tech "arts movie", try John Sayles' "Limbo", or if you don't mind subtitles, "Autumn Tale" (french).
I thought this was one of the lamest movies I've ever seen. Was very close to walking out, I was so bored. I saw it in a packed theatre, and I'd have to say from the crowd reaction afterwards that it seems everyone thought the same.
Plus the characters were totally annoying and unengaging.
Two thumbs down.
What age women are you talking here?
How many people really think that they're pretty much guaranteed to make (vs lose) money on this?
1.800.flowers.com and three other IPOs recently opened down from the IPO price, and the net stocks are currently cratering. AOL which was 130 a few weeks ago is right now at 76... The market's been looking pretty sick for the last couple of weeks, and may be getting worse rather than better.
I'm a bit surprised that RedHat hasn't (yet) decided to postpone the IPO, and wait for the market to look more inviting.
If it's oversubscribed (as it will be) they'll randomly allocate blocks of 100 shares. I read somewhere that they've got 800,000 shares to allocate and that RedHat sent out about 8000 letters, so there should be a pretty good chance to get your 100 shares. Putting in a larger order isn't going to increase your chances of getting anything, since it's random allocation. I believe that just by good luck someone who put in for 200 could get the lucky die roll twice, while you wanting 100 could miss, but obviously that's just the luck of the draw - it doesn't actually help your chances to put in for more.
From "The Letter":
All applicants for public offering stock will be required to submit and
pass an online eligibility profile at the E*TRADE web site. Public Offerings
are considered speculative investments and therefore you will be required to
answer a series of questions about your Investment Experience, Goals and
your Financial Background.
Perhaps RedHat could have emphasized this more, or pointed out that it's an SEC regulation.
If they're going to screen on these criteria (as they have to), then it should be obvious what sort of answers they're looking for. For example, If you say your investment objectives are income or capital preservation, then you shouldn't be surprised if they think you shouldn't be investing in IPOs. Obviously they have no way of checking your answers anyway, but by asking they've satisfied the SEC and covered their ass in the event that you lose money and feel like trying to blame them...
What I meant was that filling a job with an overqualified candidate isn't cost effective, so as you get older you're going to be competing for the smaller number of jobs that need your level of experience, and are willing to pay for it.
;-)
BTW, I built my first computer (a NASCOM-1 with a 1MHz Z80) in 1978....
Not only is an older programmer typically not going to want to work the crazy hours he did when younger, but he's going to want to get paid a lot more too.
Why hire a 15-20yr veteran for $90K, when you can get a 5yr guy for half that?
Of course it's a bargain if you NEED that experience, but there are a lot more coding jock jobs available than ones that really use experience.
I care. I wouldn't buy a Compaq since they sell proprietary crap, and especially after they were stupid enough to stop internet sales of Comnpaq computers to keep the store prices higher. But I don't know anything about eMachines, and have no reason to think they're a bad company...if Compaq wants to self-destruct that's fine, but they're even worse assholes than I thought if they try to drag others down with them.
Sure FPGA's are incredible things - rewire them do be whatever you want. Same thing goes for erector sets. Hell, I'd bet you could build a interstellar rocket out of erector sets if you had enough of them, and knew how to do it....
The main point is - who is using Linux as a client system or home computer or
to get work done of any kind ? It seems that Linux is mostly used for servers,
so why is all the fuss about distributions and Gnome and Kde when nobody is
using these things but a handfull of geeks trying to impress each other with
how geeky they are?
Well, with an estimated user base of 12-15 million, I'd have to assume that the
bulk of Linux use is in fact desktop rather than server. The server market just
isn't that big. A slashdot demographics poll, as well as personal experience,
would seem to indicate that a lot of Linux desktop usage is by college
students. Students grow up to become project managers and IT professionals, so
this would appear to be rather ominous for Microsoft. The reason students use
Linux is often for cost - the applications they need to use are free.
Servers don't need desktops, browsers, paint programs and word processors.
With only 2% of the desktop units having Linux installed, regardless of the
intense hype which has been going on for over a year now in the media and on the
internet, why do you think things will change?
First off, it *is* changing, whether you or I think it's going to or not! The
Linux growth numbers over the last few years are phenomenal. The reason I see
this trend continuing is becuase (as indicated in my initial post) the Linux
competition, as well as development model, is causing Linux to evolve and
improve *much* faster than enything else.
In my opinion, all these projects to develop consumer and desktop and
workstation apps and subsystems for Linux will be abandoned when the
developers realize that nobody but a tiny handfull of geeks is using them or
even wants to.
The Linux installed base and growth rates speak for themselves. The other fact
that points to futher Linux growth and problems for Microsoft are the rapidly
decreasing PC prices. A $199 or $395 PC simply cannot include that $80 Windows
licence - that means that either it's not going to be Windows based, or that
Windows licence prices are going to come way down (which I assume will happen,
but am not sure how effective it will be to turn the tide).
There's also simple momentum in Linux's favor. The amount of hype (justified or
not) around Linux is huge, as is the army of Linux evangelists. Press
anouncments like that of the SuSE 6.3 release are going to catch more people's
attention, particularly those looking for a cheaper alternative... Windows
developement has essentially stalled. Windows 2000 only a coupld of months ago
reached the point where more bugs were being fixed per day than new bugs were
being generated - this does not look like a product that will change the Linux
vs NT server momentum. Also, Microsoft still doesn't have an SMP capable desktop
OS, and the technical hurdles of making anything NT based backwards compatible
with Win98 apps seems *very* problematic.
So get RH 6.0 for $1.99 from cheapbytes, and download ViaVoice from IBM for free!
Free for personal use is all I really care about. If I'm going to make money off a product, then I don't mind paying for the professional version or whatever, but while I'm playing at home or dreaming of riches, I like my software to be free!
Your missing the point!
.wav, .avi, .mpg, .mid etc). Sure there's
You might not want to create graphics, build web pages or manipulate photos,
but if you do it's not only available (GIMP) but free on Linux. The
equivalent Windows tool (Photoshop) is not free.
You might not want to create newsletters or serious documents , but if you do
it's not only available (LyX/KLyX) but free on Linux. The equivalent Windows
tool (PageMaker) is not free.
Developers may be able to spend a few hundred bucks for tools (I spent $795 for
Watcom C, before MS had a 32 bit compiler, plus $795 for Instant C, plus $495
for MS C...). Then there's editors, profilers, debuggers...
If you havn't noticed, people LOVE to customize their PC's. KDE and GNOMEs
themes allow this, and they're also sitting on top of the power of X and CORBA.
Windows GUI is just a graphical shell.
Voice recognition may not be unique to Linux, but yet again the point is that
it's available and free.
You don't think your paying for the $80 Windows licence that comes with your
PC? Try looking for a Windows based PC for $199 or $395... They exist with
Linux preinstalled. Oh, and remember they guy who got a $100 (?) Windows rebate
from Toshiba and started the whole Windows refund day?
I have the Shockwave flash and RealPlayer G2 plugins for Netscape 4.61 for
Linux, and they work flawlessly for me. There's also plugger that will turn any
helper app. into a plug in (for
currently more plugins for Windows browsers, but I can't think of anything I
had under Windows that I miss...
If you were aggravated by installing Linux, then try RedHat, SuSE (yast) or
Caldera if you want a Windows-like graphical install. All very easy to use.
I think you might be surprised at the breadth of sound card and video card
support for Linux (incidently video card suport just got a whole lot easier
with XFree 4.0). Plus there's always 4-front sound drivers, or SciTech display
drivers. USB support is being added (some video cameras already supported).
Hopefully Linux will never support WinModems! Why use a $400 CPU to do the work
of a $10 DSP? Makes sense for Microsoft and Intel, of course, but not very
consumer friendly...
The real point of my post wasn't to dis Windows, but just to point how much
great software is available - for free - for Linux, and how much Linux is
benefitting from the competing distributions.
Wow! Voice recognition and Simultaneous Linux/Windows (VMWare), plus an office suite!!
:)
Never mind GIMP, LyX/KLyX, choice of GNOME/KDE...
And all for free!
Now what does Windows come with:
Voice recognition? No
VMWare? No
Photoshop? No
Microsoft Office? No
Wordperfect? No
PageMaker? No
Choice of desktops? No
Development tools? No
Full source code? No
An $80 price tag? Yes
So much for the "no apps for Linux" crap!
It'll be interesting to see how RedHat responds to the SuSe, Mandrake, Caldera etc competition.
One thing is for sure: all this competition is driving Linux forwards at warp speed, and kicking Window's sorry ass!!!
I'd better get my RHAT shares!
It *could* happen (Mandrake is #2 seller behind RehDat at Linux mall), but much more likely is that RedHat will take note and copy all of Mandrake's improvements...
.. at this point it's hard to call the eventual winners, although RedHat is about to aquire the financial staying power and muscle to pretty much guarantee they're there (barring a huge fuck up).
Actually, what I think will happen before too long is that RedHat will aquire Mandrake as one of the first moves in the inevitable consolidation of the Linux market. Having many competitors is the sign of a young industry
I think that's why the RedHat IPO is likely to do well - people are really buying into the future of Linux, not RedHat per se...
There's still two-letter domains available in some of the non-US domains. .cx (Christmas Islands) still have a few good ones left, although you need a special reason for them to let you have one. Try http://nic.cx if your interested - they're cheap!
Communicator ran fine for me under 2.0.36, and continues to do so under 2.2.6 - I'm running the latest 4.61 release (4.5 was fine too), with the Shockwave and RealPlayer G2 (alpha) plugins - all fine :) I use it for mail and news also.
Maybe your problems are due to either botching the complicated 2.0 -> 2.2 upgrade, or running one of the more recent flaky 2.2 kernels? It does appear to have stabalized again, although I'm sticking with 2.2.6 for the time being...
Communicator 5.0 (due out in december) is the successor to 4.6, as is being developed internally by Netscape/AOL. Mozilla, the open source project/browser, is a separate deal, and AFAIK doesn't have a target release date yet (although of course the milestone snapshots are already available).
What matters to people is more the amount of effort put into it, and perhaps the increasing *novelty* of getting snail mail.
As far as your examples goes, do you think a parent would be more happy to receive your example note by snail mail, or to receive it plus e-mails from members of their son's platoon telling personal memories and how much they miss him?
Also, which would you prefer to receive from your girlfriend (esp. in a long distance relationship):
a) a letter, or
b) a video e-mail where you can see her
Technology doen't bring impersonality - it's how you use it.
If it's that important to you, you could always back it up, or even print it out...
Yeah, an e-card can't replace a real card, but at least they get there...
:(
A Christmas card I sent to a friend in Florida got incorrectly returned as address unknown, and I know someone whose Christmas cards *just* got delivered a few days ago!
It's not the e-mail etc software you use, it's the secure sockets connection that's being used to send the data. As long as you only conduct electrocic business over secure connections, there's really nothing to worry about.
I'd prefer to trust RSA 128 bit encryption with my credit card number than some underpaid restaurant, hotel or gas station employee...
.. receiving/paying bills, magazine subscriptions, and occasionally sending things via [Global] Priority mail - cheaper than FedEx if 2/3/4 days is OK.
Right now the USPO has a regular mail delivery monopoly protected by law!!! Some companies use FedEx to bulk mail stuff between officesm but strictly speaking that's illegal. I guess it is important to guaranteee mail delivery in remote areas where it's a money loser, but I can't see any reason why they can't open it up for competition with a required coverage clause.
This /. stupidity is why the Kernel mailing list often disparages slashdotters.
Since when has turning down money been part of the Linux tradition? Linus is happy to make money from Linux, and so should anyone else with at least half a brain. Hell, even RMS isn't anti-money.
Most slashdotters wouldn't recognise spam if they were served a spam sandwich,