OK, we have Bernie Ebbers cooking the books. We have Sidgemore lying about "Internet traffic doubles every 90 days" and now we have MCI (pre-WorldCom) engaging in organized theft.
If any company ever deserved the death penalty, it's this gang of thieves. Do NOT let WorldCom/MCI/UUNet emerge from bankruptcy. Liquidate the company instead.
No, you don't understand. V wasn't "Germans as aliens." It was a full-length miniseries about the German invasion of Austria. Completely written, final draft, pitched to the networks. They turned it down, so the writer (guy whose name I forgot AGAIN) tweaked the script, changing the settings and some characters' names and adding a scene here and there. "V" was never conceived as an allegory, or a retelling. It was conceived as a historical drama. The setting and some plot details were changed at the very last minute before production started.
Very interesting. I have never heard that before. You wouldn't have a source for this, would you? I mean, that's a FAIRLY MAJOR change and I would submit that more than a few scenes would need to be rewritten. I'd put it more at 90%.
By the way, the writer was Kenneth Johnson. Additionally, B5's JMS wrote a treatment for an attempted resurrection of the TV series some years ago.
Is what will be the marketplace response? If 90%+ of the audience is reached by cable or sat, then the broadcasters investment in transmitters (which are VERY expensive to run) could become, if not superfluous, then less important. It may become the case that the only reason for a transmitter is to guarantee a slot on a cable or sat system.
You might even see a situation where a broadcaster might make a deal to retain their cable and sat dial placement and then convert their channel (which remember, will eventually become a DIGITAL channel) to other uses.
This will make a change, but I'll bet the market will do it before the government dictates anything.
They bought MCI's original network after MCI had to sell it when they acquired UUNet. They didn't realize they were doing business with thieves. MCI/Worldcom promptly violated their no-compete, no-poach agreement by bidding to replace C&W (i.e., Old MCI) pipes with UUNet pipes within months of the deal. There were also all sorts of problems with shared MCI/C&W facilities.
Yet another reason that it should have been Bernie Ebbers and John "The Internet Doubles Every 90 Days" Sidgemore in handcuffs yesterday, not Martha Stewart.
See, they could get the radius server logs from UUNet and then check the time of the call and compare it with logs received at that time and look for the secret code embedded in the logs [they deny it but I know it's there] and then compare it to the wiretaps from Echelon and then run the whole thing through the NSA supercomputer and then they'll know that I watched the Brady Bunch and then my boss will know [because he gets a secret report on me from the NSA] and then I'll be passed over for promotion because he is a Partridge Family fan and then I'll be a target for the next layoff and then I'll be laid off and then I'll lose my house and then my wife will leave me and then I'll get beat up at the rescue mission over a bottle of MD20-20 and then they'll put impants in my brain at the emergency room and then the CIA will transmit orders to me through PBS and then I'll have to wear aluminum foil on my head all the time and then that won't matter because while I am laying in the gutter on skid row George W. Bush and Dick Cheney will send a UFO to abduct me and then I'll get probed (ouch) and then the aliens will clone me and then the clone will take over my old life and then I'll be a slave in the methane mines on Altair IV and then I'll get spaced by a slorg monster and then I'll die. All because of Tivo.
(I posted this to Usenet a while back, but since the privacy hysteria is starting again, I thought I would outline the threat as seen by some.)
Many of the common Tivo hacks (hard drive expansion, ethernet connections and web interface) are NOT opposed by Tivo. In fact, Tivo even includes support for ethernet connections in Series 1 machines, which do not have Tivo provided ethernet capability. (Series 2 machines have USB ports and can use USB ethernet adapters). To say that "something the company doesn't intend them to do and is adamantly against." is just flat out wrong and indicates that the writer is not at all familiar with Tivo.
There is a problem with video extraction in that it represents another battlefield in Big Media's attempt to turn back the clock to the days before Betamax. I wish Tivo would fight them on this but (1) Big Media owns pieces of Tivo and (2) we all can see what fighting Big Media did to Replay. I can hardly criticize Tivo for not wanting to commit suicide.
With multiple commercial carriers, all operating their own backbones from multiple POPs the likelihood of the destruction of a building, or for that matter, an entire city having an impact on Internet connectivity overall is nonsense. The largest backbone providers, AT&T, UUNet, Sprint, Qwest, Level 3 all operate with SONET rings at the physical layer plus BGP4 routing. And all of them operate from separate physical facilities (UUNet and Sprint don't normally share a building, for example). Further, since the MAEs, the NAPs and other public peering points are, for the most part, irrelevant to the major backbones (their private peering arrangements are separate from these places), their connectivity to each other would survive. Sure, it might need to be shifted from SF to, say, Chicago, in the case of an emergency, but that could be done in a day or so, if not in hours. If anyone of them lost a major node, they continue to operate. The only effected connections would be those directly connected to that disable node.
This is far better than the pre-1993 days when there was a single backbone, operating on non-redundant private lines.
I guess this guy wanted some publicity. He got it.
Mine is good too (AT&T Wireless). However doesn't anyone else see a problem with these two statements:
These companies continue to add more subscribers, overloading their networks to the breaking point.
They hold you hostage by not allowing you to switch providers
Uhhh... maybe the problem is that one provider has good service, people move to it, service declines, the other (bad) provider miraculously gets better when the load lightens and the cycle starts again.
And, oh, by the way, give me a zillion free minutes, and only charge me $1 a year for service.
When I married my wonderful wife, she was a divorced mom with two boys. We could have done the traditional ring. But she needed a new washer and dryer. She was dragging everything to the laundromat. It was an easy choice. I took her to Montgomery-Ward and we picked out a washer and dryer and had it installed in a couple of days. She still tells the story, happily.
The key about the XM vs Sirius decision (and for that matter the Sat Radio vs MP3 CDs decision) is what content you value. XM has a few things that I preferred over Sirius, particularly in the talk Radio genre. Both have some pretty good news options. Sirius has some interesting exclusives in the talk area (NPR, SCI-FI Channel) but so does XM (Art Bell, Bruce Williams, NASCAR). It's all a matter of taste and everyone is different. I have heard complaints that XM isn't as good at heavvy metal music as Sirius is, but since I don't care for that, it doesn't matter to me.
Also, I have found that, depending on the area of the country you live in, you may find that internal mounting of antennas (under rear windows, for example) is quite feasible. I have a Terk antenna mounted on the back shelf of my car and it works fine in Arizona. Some people in areas with more trees do complain about drop outs due to heavy foliage, etc. So be aware of your surroundings...
Buying a Dish PVR is like buying a Yugo. Hell, *DISH* is suing over how crappy they are. And guess who they are suing????? The evildoers from Redmond!!
Buy a DirecTV Tivo and you'll be happy. Buy this DISH POS and you will regret it. DirecTivos are available for $99 at various online outlets.
Of course, one hopes you have enough common sense to not buy DishPlayer V2.0, otherwise known as Ultimate TV. It shares some bugs with Dish.
The RBOCs, all of them, are supporting the Tauzin-Dingell Bill which will allow them into the high-speed, long distance data market without opening up their local markets to competition. This way they can be the only national backbone providers and still use the local monopoly to stop local competition.
In five years time, the RBOCs will have succeeded in either bankrupting or buying AT&T, WorldComm/UUNet and Sprint. I suspect Level 3, XO and some of the other small players will just be bankrupted. XO is close to that now.
There is a name that is now an "expired" registration at NSI that I want. How long will I be blocked from registering it? (I can't register it now, I've tried.) Right now it has been about 2 months.
The reason that DSL and now @Home are having problems is a basic flaw in the way the business arrangements are handled. You simply can't provide ~1 Mbps IP service for ~$40-$50 *AND* split the profits with partners.
That's what was wrong with DSL. A retail DSL provider (like Flashcomm, Zyan, etc. to name some dead ones) bought service from a wholesaler (Covad, Northpoint, Rhythms) who bought co-location and access to local loops from the Bells. That's three hands in the pie. Just too many people sharing too little money in the first place. After all, most folks are only paying 2X of the average dial up account for high speed access. That's way too low. If prices were closer to, say, $75-$100 per month, these outfits might stand a chance at sucess.
The cable modem picture isn't much better, just two hands in the money pot, not three.
That's why all of this silly "choice" debate in the cable world is a non-starter. A monopoly is the only way for this to work and to be economically stable, at least at the price points people are willing to pay. People here won't like that, but that's the way the ledger balances.
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For a DDOS attack, this is it.
I wish. I still get "your official long distance notification" calls at least once a month in Arizona. I believe that's pushing mortgages.
Gee, $30 a month? AT&T sells unlimited long distance for $20 a month. Looks like your little company would have gone belly-up fast.
If any company ever deserved the death penalty, it's this gang of thieves. Do NOT let WorldCom/MCI/UUNet emerge from bankruptcy. Liquidate the company instead.
Well, obviously some MBA's (at MCI) knew enough about how things worked in order to set this scam up.
It's spelled feldergarb and that means "shit" as in excrement.
There are some other stories on this press conference like this one.
Try being 51
Very interesting. I have never heard that before. You wouldn't have a source for this, would you? I mean, that's a FAIRLY MAJOR change and I would submit that more than a few scenes would need to be rewritten. I'd put it more at 90%.
By the way, the writer was Kenneth Johnson. Additionally, B5's JMS wrote a treatment for an attempted resurrection of the TV series some years ago.
You might even see a situation where a broadcaster might make a deal to retain their cable and sat dial placement and then convert their channel (which remember, will eventually become a DIGITAL channel) to other uses.
This will make a change, but I'll bet the market will do it before the government dictates anything.
Yet another reason that it should have been Bernie Ebbers and John "The Internet Doubles Every 90 Days" Sidgemore in handcuffs yesterday, not Martha Stewart.
Partridge Family fan and then I'll be a target for the next layoff and then I'll be laid off and then I'll lose my house and then my wife will leave me and then I'll get beat up at the rescue mission over a bottle of MD20-20 and then they'll put impants in my brain at the emergency room and then the CIA will transmit orders to me through PBS and then I'll have to wear aluminum foil on my head all the time and then that won't matter because while I am laying in the gutter on skid row George W. Bush and Dick Cheney will send a UFO to abduct me and then I'll get probed (ouch) and then the aliens will clone me and then the clone will take over my old life and then I'll be a slave in the methane mines on Altair IV and then I'll get spaced by a slorg monster and then I'll die. All because of Tivo.
(I posted this to Usenet a while back, but since the privacy hysteria is starting again, I thought I would outline the threat as seen by some.)
There is a problem with video extraction in that it represents another battlefield in Big Media's attempt to turn back the clock to the days before Betamax. I wish Tivo would fight them on this but (1) Big Media owns pieces of Tivo and (2) we all can see what fighting Big Media did to Replay. I can hardly criticize Tivo for not wanting to commit suicide.
This is far better than the pre-1993 days when there was a single backbone, operating on non-redundant private lines.
I guess this guy wanted some publicity. He got it.
Mine is good too (AT&T Wireless). However doesn't anyone else see a problem with these two statements:
These companies continue to add more subscribers, overloading their networks to the breaking point.
They hold you hostage by not allowing you to switch providers
Uhhh... maybe the problem is that one provider has good service, people move to it, service declines, the other (bad) provider miraculously gets better when the load lightens and the cycle starts again.
And, oh, by the way, give me a zillion free minutes, and only charge me $1 a year for service.
When they pry it from my cold, dead fingers. (Actually, they'll have to pry *4* Tivos from my cold, dead fingers).
When I married my wonderful wife, she was a divorced mom with two boys. We could have done the traditional ring. But she needed a new washer and dryer. She was dragging everything to the laundromat. It was an easy choice. I took her to Montgomery-Ward and we picked out a washer and dryer and had it installed in a couple of days. She still tells the story, happily.
Also, I have found that, depending on the area of the country you live in, you may find that internal mounting of antennas (under rear windows, for example) is quite feasible. I have a Terk antenna mounted on the back shelf of my car and it works fine in Arizona. Some people in areas with more trees do complain about drop outs due to heavy foliage, etc. So be aware of your surroundings...
More than once, I've said "Here you are, you get an entire Class A because we think you are so great. Your adresses are 10.x.x.x"
You forget to include the vilest -ism of all, now dead for the most parts: communism.
Buy a DirecTV Tivo and you'll be happy. Buy this DISH POS and you will regret it. DirecTivos are available for $99 at various online outlets.
Of course, one hopes you have enough common sense to not buy DishPlayer V2.0, otherwise known as Ultimate TV. It shares some bugs with Dish.
In five years time, the RBOCs will have succeeded in either bankrupting or buying AT&T, WorldComm/UUNet and Sprint. I suspect Level 3, XO and some of the other small players will just be bankrupted. XO is close to that now.
There is a name that is now an "expired" registration at NSI that I want. How long will I be blocked from registering it? (I can't register it now, I've tried.) Right now it has been about 2 months.
Any ideas? I suspect 90 days.
The reason that DSL and now @Home are having problems is a basic flaw in the way the business arrangements are handled. You simply can't provide ~1 Mbps IP service for ~$40-$50 *AND* split the profits with partners.
That's what was wrong with DSL. A retail DSL provider (like Flashcomm, Zyan, etc. to name some dead ones) bought service from a wholesaler (Covad, Northpoint, Rhythms) who bought co-location and access to local loops from the Bells. That's three hands in the pie. Just too many people sharing too little money in the first place. After all, most folks are only paying 2X of the average dial up account for high speed access. That's way too low. If prices were closer to, say, $75-$100 per month, these outfits might stand a chance at sucess.
The cable modem picture isn't much better, just two hands in the money pot, not three.
That's why all of this silly "choice" debate in the cable world is a non-starter. A monopoly is the only way for this to work and to be economically stable, at least at the price points people are willing to pay. People here won't like that, but that's the way the ledger balances.
Yeah, right *THIS MORNING* and no other media is reporting it 12 hours later.