Literally. I've seen it. I had a contract there. Racks and racks and racks of 2U dual processor boxes from Rackable Systems, as opposed to the countless HP boxes & Sun boxes. (Yes, Microsoft has a LOT of Sun hardware in production!)
I don't know if they run Linux, because we (the data center peeps) didn't have access to any of them, only the Rackable Systems people did.
Tried making a Skype call to another user on the same LAN. There was nothing but static.
On the bright side, the static sounded almost exactly like a nice, calming, flowing river. We can toss those little "zen waterfall" things in our cubes and just leave Skype running. Pretty much the same sound.
There are many on here that are saying "Spam was already increasing, CAN-SPAM didn't cause more spam."
I think that's incorrect. I worked for a company that decided to pump out millions *more* emails *because* of CAN-SPAM. That stupid law really has helped "targeted email marketers" (notice how they change the term to avoid the word "spammer?") They said "Hey, it's legal, as long as we follow the guidelines in the CAN-SPAM act.." and increased the volume of email.
CAN-SPAM really has caused more spam. It's empowered spammers. It's a green light to bombard users with unsolicited email because CAN-SPAM has stupidly easy to follow guidelines.
I wish it wasn't true, but I've seen it with my own two eyes.
I worked with idiots before that were all about "enterprise level Linux" and saying that "Gentoo will never be a REAL distro" (stupid assholes)... and then they went and started putting friggin White Box Linux on servers. So, a distro that's funded by a Library somewhere in the south is somehow more "enterprise level" than Gentoo? I just don't get it.
Also, White Box Linux has apparantly been obsoleted anyway...
Did everyone see the massive amounts of SPAM for "freeipod.com" and "freemacmini.com?"
Gratis should be cancelling the accounts (and referral credits) for ANYONE posting that shit like that in blogs/forums/Slashdot - anywhere. He has HUNDREDS of comments like that now!
His blog isn't the only one I've seen that has now been cluttered to hell with idiots posting that freemacmini.com crap.
Gratis are irresponsible fuckers if they continue to do nothing about it. I have yet to see anywhere where you can report spammers.
Oh, very true. I've found that the new Battlestar Galactica series is even better without the ads. I like the show quite a bit, but as with any show, constant advert interruptions really do break up the show too much. The intensity of situations can wear off during an ad break. Know what I mean? Instead of "Oh, snap! What happens next?!" you yell "WTF? I don't want to see this stupid Jamster ad! AUGH!"
Caltrain already adjusted fares recently, but due to the new "Baby Bullet" trains (which are pretty nice... San Jose to downtown SF in about an hour) they've also experienced an influx of riders.
BART also raised fares, but I'm surprised that they haven't also gone with the "train wrap" ads if in fact it's that lucrative of a market. They wrapped a few cars to promote the "Spare the Air" program already.
MUNI wants to raise fares yet again. Another $0.25. They went up by $0.25 about a year ago.
But yeah, if you ask people "Ads on trains or higher fares?" then they'll generally say "ads on the trains." In this case, they seem to have gotten both.
Ads on VOD shows? That's precisely what I was concerned about. I think that sucks.
What happens when they invent the "no fast forward" bit and no longer allow you to fast forward through the ads? How long are the TV shows retained? I know a few folks that like downloading *old* cartoons from their childhood, like the original Transformer cartoons and other stuff like Voltron. In 10 years, will VOD setups retain those old shows, or will we just wind up downloading them from the internet anyway?
When I lived in Japan, I seem to recall a lot of the TV shows not being interrupted by ads, but the ads were in blocks at the beginning and the ends of the shows.
"Mr. Poltrack of CBS said that according to his network's research, a large number of viewers would welcome the chance to pay $1 to watch each television show, if they could do it on their own schedule and with the ability to skip commercials. With commercials, they'd be willing to pay 50 cents. And because the average viewer sees only half of a show's episodes, he said, this on-demand viewing won't hurt the regular showing."
Pretty much sums it up right there. Viewers want to watch it when THEY have time, and WITHOUT advertising. People are SICK TO DEATH of advertising. Anyone seen the Caltrain cars on the SF peninsula that are "wrapped" with a Target Stores advertisement? They make Caltrain $25,000/month. Riders *HATE* them. The recent Caltrain newsletter actually has comments from riders saying that they hate them, but Caltrain goes with them because of the cash flow. Corporations love ads. People hate them. Corporations have more money than people. People want less ads on TV, corporations want more. People try to skip ads with ReplayTV, corporations bitch to the courts. I hate how it all works.
"It could endanger sales of television shows to international markets and into syndication."
Region encoding sucks. Downloaded shows don't suffer from stupid region encoding. I see syndicated shows that also have DVD box sets, so where's the issue there? The DVDs still sell.
"from video-on-demand offerings that could let viewers order up an episode of "CSI" any time they like to a device that allows viewers who tune into the middle of a live TV broadcast to restart the program instantly"
Comcast has ads for that all over this area but I don't know of one single person that actually has the VOD feature available to them, and isn't it more costly as well? You have to have digital cable (iirc) which can run your cable bill well over $100/mo (more if you have a cable modem too) - that's a lot of dough. Are the VOD shows commercial free, too? That would be nice to know..
Of course they're going to blame the PVR as well. There are a few things that media execs seem to overlook: * People are SICK AND TIRED of advertising. * People have busy schedules and would LIKE to watch TV shows, but cannot always watch them right when they're aired. Hence, the popularity of DVR units. (I'm not even going to get into the "but you don't have a right to steal the content" crap, because I sure as hell don't think that downloading a TV show is "stealing content" when my Tivo does the exact same thing.)
And last but not least, the "Broadcast Flag" is going to be a total and complete failure.. just like the "V-Chip."
"Just find an open WAP" is most definately NOT always an option. That said, how much do the Hotspot providers make? I rarely see coffee shops with free wifi anymore. They've all settled on some for-profit wifi service, like jwire or the t-mobile hotspot setups.
Did I mention that I'm now in the Silicon Valley? Definately not BFE. I have an account with T-Mobile because I know that I'm very likely to find a hotspot when I need one. If there were more free hotspots, I might not really need such a service. Sadly, that's not really the case.
(I submitted this yesterday, but it was rejected and instead dupes and other schlop were posted)
The Copyright Office is inviting comments on the current situation with copyrights and "orphaned works" (ie, abandonware, etc) - they have realized that copyrights are holding back innovation, especially when the copyright holders cannot be located.
I think that this is a really major thing. The article is mirrored in its entirety here
.. they put up dupe stories, but rejected one that was submitted about the US Copyright Office actually requesting comments from the public about what to do with stuff like abandonware. With all of the copyright talk that goes on around here, one would think that an article about possible HUGE copyright change would get posted. But no, the article about the history of the space suit and then this dupe beat it out.
4 weeks later, I finally got my new ATM/Check Card. With no photo on it. Man, I was bummed.:( it was the first time I didn't look like a crazed serial killer in a polaroid shot, too.
More often than not, I just see bloggers linking to the same news articles instead of mirroring them, which is annoying because online news articles do change, and they do suffer from link rot.
Which is one of the main reasons that I think blogs suck and why bloggers aren't journalists. Too much unchecked/unverified information. Yeah, that happens in the real news world, but nowhere as common as the 'blogosphere.'
I'm not wrong at all. I've had jobs where the management didn't understand the job that I was doing, and as a result they would do things like place impossible deadlines on projects and question every how/when/why that went on. This happened because they had no idea what the job really required.
I'd say that the first duty is to get the others to do the work *the right way* - not just get it done. That's just my experience.
I don't know any that get OFF the onramp - they just stay within the little AOL world, and have no desire to learn about anything else. They get their email, they have their chat rooms, and the cute little AIM icons.
Slashdot Mirror
Literally. I've seen it. I had a contract there. Racks and racks and racks of 2U dual processor boxes from Rackable Systems, as opposed to the countless HP boxes & Sun boxes. (Yes, Microsoft has a LOT of Sun hardware in production!)
:-)
I don't know if they run Linux, because we (the data center peeps) didn't have access to any of them, only the Rackable Systems people did.
They sure did have a lot of blinking lights.
Tried making a Skype call to another user on the same LAN. There was nothing but static.
On the bright side, the static sounded almost exactly like a nice, calming, flowing river. We can toss those little "zen waterfall" things in our cubes and just leave Skype running. Pretty much the same sound.
There are many on here that are saying "Spam was already increasing, CAN-SPAM didn't cause more spam."
I think that's incorrect. I worked for a company that decided to pump out millions *more* emails *because* of CAN-SPAM. That stupid law really has helped "targeted email marketers" (notice how they change the term to avoid the word "spammer?")
They said "Hey, it's legal, as long as we follow the guidelines in the CAN-SPAM act.." and increased the volume of email.
CAN-SPAM really has caused more spam. It's empowered spammers. It's a green light to bombard users with unsolicited email because CAN-SPAM has stupidly easy to follow guidelines.
I wish it wasn't true, but I've seen it with my own two eyes.
I worked with idiots before that were all about "enterprise level Linux" and saying that "Gentoo will never be a REAL distro" (stupid assholes) ... and then they went and started putting friggin White Box Linux on servers. So, a distro that's funded by a Library somewhere in the south is somehow more "enterprise level" than Gentoo? I just don't get it.
Also, White Box Linux has apparantly been obsoleted anyway...
Did everyone see the massive amounts of SPAM for "freeipod.com" and "freemacmini.com?"
Gratis should be cancelling the accounts (and referral credits) for ANYONE posting that shit like that in blogs/forums/Slashdot - anywhere. He has HUNDREDS of comments like that now!
His blog isn't the only one I've seen that has now been cluttered to hell with idiots posting that freemacmini.com crap.
Gratis are irresponsible fuckers if they continue to do nothing about it. I have yet to see anywhere where you can report spammers.
Oh, so the selection is kind of limited, but there's no ads.. well, that is good to hear. thanks. :)
Oh, very true. I've found that the new Battlestar Galactica series is even better without the ads. I like the show quite a bit, but as with any show, constant advert interruptions really do break up the show too much. The intensity of situations can wear off during an ad break. Know what I mean? Instead of "Oh, snap! What happens next?!" you yell "WTF? I don't want to see this stupid Jamster ad! AUGH!"
:)
Yeah, that's what I mean.
Caltrain already adjusted fares recently, but due to the new "Baby Bullet" trains (which are pretty nice... San Jose to downtown SF in about an hour) they've also experienced an influx of riders.
BART also raised fares, but I'm surprised that they haven't also gone with the "train wrap" ads if in fact it's that lucrative of a market. They wrapped a few cars to promote the "Spare the Air" program already.
MUNI wants to raise fares yet again. Another $0.25. They went up by $0.25 about a year ago.
But yeah, if you ask people "Ads on trains or higher fares?" then they'll generally say "ads on the trains." In this case, they seem to have gotten both.
Ads on VOD shows? That's precisely what I was concerned about. I think that sucks.
What happens when they invent the "no fast forward" bit and no longer allow you to fast forward through the ads?
How long are the TV shows retained? I know a few folks that like downloading *old* cartoons from their childhood, like the original Transformer cartoons and other stuff like Voltron. In 10 years, will VOD setups retain those old shows, or will we just wind up downloading them from the internet anyway?
When I lived in Japan, I seem to recall a lot of the TV shows not being interrupted by ads, but the ads were in blocks at the beginning and the ends of the shows.
That might be acceptable as well...
"Mr. Poltrack of CBS said that according to his network's research, a large number of viewers would welcome the chance to pay $1 to watch each television show, if they could do it on their own schedule and with the ability to skip commercials. With commercials, they'd be willing to pay 50 cents. And because the average viewer sees only half of a show's episodes, he said, this on-demand viewing won't hurt the regular showing."
Pretty much sums it up right there. Viewers want to watch it when THEY have time, and WITHOUT advertising.
People are SICK TO DEATH of advertising. Anyone seen the Caltrain cars on the SF peninsula that are "wrapped" with a Target Stores advertisement? They make Caltrain $25,000/month. Riders *HATE* them. The recent Caltrain newsletter actually has comments from riders saying that they hate them, but Caltrain goes with them because of the cash flow.
Corporations love ads. People hate them. Corporations have more money than people. People want less ads on TV, corporations want more. People try to skip ads with ReplayTV, corporations bitch to the courts. I hate how it all works.
"It could endanger sales of television shows to international markets and into syndication."
Region encoding sucks. Downloaded shows don't suffer from stupid region encoding. I see syndicated shows that also have DVD box sets, so where's the issue there? The DVDs still sell.
"from video-on-demand offerings that could let viewers order up an episode of "CSI" any time they like to a device that allows viewers who tune into the middle of a live TV broadcast to restart the program instantly"
Comcast has ads for that all over this area but I don't know of one single person that actually has the VOD feature available to them, and isn't it more costly as well? You have to have digital cable (iirc) which can run your cable bill well over $100/mo (more if you have a cable modem too) - that's a lot of dough.
Are the VOD shows commercial free, too? That would be nice to know..
Of course they're going to blame the PVR as well. There are a few things that media execs seem to overlook:
* People are SICK AND TIRED of advertising.
* People have busy schedules and would LIKE to watch TV shows, but cannot always watch them right when they're aired. Hence, the popularity of DVR units.
(I'm not even going to get into the "but you don't have a right to steal the content" crap, because I sure as hell don't think that downloading a TV show is "stealing content" when my Tivo does the exact same thing.)
And last but not least, the "Broadcast Flag" is going to be a total and complete failure.. just like the "V-Chip."
Where's this? I don't see any around here. :(
DSL & WAP = "hey, we can't make money for charging for this"
Sadly they don't realise that offering up free wifi *does* bring in customers.
GREAT GOOGLYMOOGLY that was ugly. I swear, it wasn't that ugly when I first put it up there.
:)
My bad.
It's much prettier now, and a lot easier to read...
thanks for pointing that out.
"Just find an open WAP" is most definately NOT always an option. That said, how much do the Hotspot providers make? I rarely see coffee shops with free wifi anymore. They've all settled on some for-profit wifi service, like jwire or the t-mobile hotspot setups.
Did I mention that I'm now in the Silicon Valley? Definately not BFE. I have an account with T-Mobile because I know that I'm very likely to find a hotspot when I need one. If there were more free hotspots, I might not really need such a service. Sadly, that's not really the case.
(I submitted this yesterday, but it was rejected and instead dupes and other schlop were posted)
The Copyright Office is inviting comments on the current situation with copyrights and "orphaned works" (ie, abandonware, etc) - they have realized that copyrights are holding back innovation, especially when the copyright holders cannot be located.
I think that this is a really major thing. The article is mirrored in its entirety here
.. they put up dupe stories, but rejected one that was submitted about the US Copyright Office actually requesting comments from the public about what to do with stuff like abandonware. With all of the copyright talk that goes on around here, one would think that an article about possible HUGE copyright change would get posted. But no, the article about the history of the space suit and then this dupe beat it out.
Article was mirrored in its entirety here
Bank of America took my photo. TWICE.
:( it was the first time I didn't look like a crazed serial killer in a polaroid shot, too.
4 weeks later, I finally got my new ATM/Check Card. With no photo on it. Man, I was bummed.
Or, deploy Windows Software Update Services (SUS) in your organization.
:)
SUS is pretty neat.
More often than not, I just see bloggers linking to the same news articles instead of mirroring them, which is annoying because online news articles do change, and they do suffer from link rot.
Which is one of the main reasons that I think blogs suck and why bloggers aren't journalists. Too much unchecked/unverified information.
Yeah, that happens in the real news world, but nowhere as common as the 'blogosphere.'
I'm not wrong at all. I've had jobs where the management didn't understand the job that I was doing, and as a result they would do things like place impossible deadlines on projects and question every how/when/why that went on. This happened because they had no idea what the job really required.
I'd say that the first duty is to get the others to do the work *the right way* - not just get it done. That's just my experience.
I don't know any that get OFF the onramp - they just stay within the little AOL world, and have no desire to learn about anything else. They get their email, they have their chat rooms, and the cute little AIM icons.
They stay *right there* and never learn anything.
It *is* Burger King, after all. Adding an AOL CD to a Whopper might make the thing taste better.
It didn't load yesterday either, well before this article was posted. A link to it came out in the Gentoo Newsletter.