Clearly AMD can't support the load of having customers therefore we regret to inform you that we will not offer AMD products... um...
Self-fulfilling prophecy if you ask me.
If you want real choice just find your local vendors and get them to order what you want. You support local business, you get what you want and often you don't pay more [or much more] than the monopoly controlled "wonder box" you get from Dell [et al.]
Um... you need to learn some geography... Newfoundland is a province, Toronto is in Ontario and Montreal is in Quebec.
Those are three different PROVINCES not counties. The PROVINCIAL taxes are different in different PROVINCES. [GST is not though].
As for how is this better? Well the money is spent where the people live. You can choose where you live but not what you pay in tax [well unless you swap provinces cuz then your PST and income tax change]. So if you don't like living in the sticks and paying for inter-city roads... then move to the city and benefit from it.
Put it another way... by your logic everyone should spread out as much as possible and then be excused from paying taxes right? Except who's gonna build and maintain that road that goes to your place? Feel like a 50km trek through the woods?
I used to live in Ohio, where they have 88 counties and potentially 88 different tax rates.
Man the US is fucked up. I live in Ontario. The sales tax is 15% [PST=7%, GST=8%, total of 15%]. If I go to Toronto it's 15%. If I go to Ottawa it's 15%. If I go to up north somewhere remote... it's 15%
So what? Because you want to drive up the use of a network *I* have to pay for it?
First off, cell towers are rarely full in most areas outside of perhaps airports. So you're not going to get bumped unless a lot of people are trying to make a call on the particular tower you're on.
Second, you're sharing it already. It is possible that you pick up your cell phone, try to dial and you get rejected. That's entirely possible [goes hand in hand with the first].
Third, it's possible I stay on the phone long enough to piss you off anyways. With my scheme you'll have a chance to bounce me.
So what it boils down to you either think cell towers are always busy or you want to be able to take time away from me to access the network. In short, you're self-important.
It isn't a free service. You still pay for the network. Just instead of paying 40, 50, $100 a month for a useful service you pay a FLAT fee of $20 [including the service charges, fees, etc, cuz a lot of $20 plans end up costing $40 when all is said and done].
The simple fact of the matter is you already do share the network. Except now it's mostly a first come first serve basis. And don't even bother with "I don't care because my company pays for it" because that cuts into your bottom line [e.g. layoffs, salary caps or decreases, etc].
It's the same thing with your ISP. Your ISP gives you a 5Mbit pipe but their pipe(s) outwards has limits. You're sharing it first serve first come with everyone else. When you're not first you bitch right? Stupid net, it's slow again! right?
You have an equal chance of booting someone off. So here's the thing, if you're a talking whore you can always get a landline.
The bandwidth is a finite resource. So why should I be left off because you're talking on the phone? Or put it in your terms. What if I got on the phone first. Why should YOU be left off because I simply must talk to the ever important client every waking moment of my life...
I mean I fly internationally doing business and I wait to get to the clients to talk with them. I don't see why others think themselves soo important that they can't wait 30 minutes to get to the hotel to check their email, they must call, and use a blackberry, etc...
Since we're already sharing the damn bandwidth why not share the cost too?
If you're in a NAT with [say] your neighbour. You both can't use 100% of the bandwidth at once, but you both pay 50% of the cost. So you have to either deal with always getting 50% or you have to share [e.g. tell your neighbour you need to download an ISO]. Why is that such a bad idea? For basically 99% of the time you get a speedy service [I shared my cable modem between 5 people and still managed 100% bandwidth most of the time] and you don't pay through the nose.
How is this any different than a co-operative cell network?
No, you don't automatically get kicked. You get kicked when other people want to use it.
THATS HOW IT WORKS NOW ANYWAYS.
There are finite number of slots. Ever get kicked off at busy airport? That's because when 1000 people all of a sudden try to call and there are only slots for 100 people you're not getting far.
With this idea you share the network [omg he said share, teh ghey!] with others. So that if you're a not stop talking drama queen bitch, you'll get silenced once in a while as others want to use it.
IN RETURN:
You pay 20$ a month for ANY TIME, ANY WHERE, ANY LENGTH calls.
Worse than that, where do you go to buy a phone outright without strings? Sure off the net maybe... I made the mistake of buying a phone from a RADIO SHACK which was locked to Rogers... I bought the phone for $300 [e.g. no service plan] then I put a friends sim in and boom no work. Cell phones are scam for that reason and also the concept of "airtime" which isn't required either.
This is how you get rid of airtime.
1. Give everyone total random access to the network 2. Prioritize callers based on the time they used that day. 3. Bounce calls off when slots are not available to give priority to those who haven't used the line as much.
That way no one set of users can lock others off, you can talk as much as you want [can] and when you've been using it more than others you get lower priority [obviously put things like 911 as a special case].
But of course nobody will ever do that because they can't fucking rape you seven ways from sunday if they're not using archaic billing models.
Except Redhat is a pain in the ass to deal with. It's binary only packages are routinely out of date and horribly configured for anything but the most casual desktop user.
Screw redhat, go Gentoo.
Let the holy-distro wars begin!
[I'm serious, I hate RedHat. It's just as bad as Microsoft, perhaps worse because it scores huge amount of possible converts from Windows].
This is like going to blockbuster and being forced to give other customers a ride home.
Though you may argue that some people would be willing to do what usually is "free" to get cheaper downloads. e.g. download the movie for $5.99 now or $2.99 through BT if you stay connected for an additional 30 mins after the download. Personally I'd just go rent the movie for $5 and be done with. but... that's because I live near a blockbuster.
Same goes for games and music. If I could download UT2k5 linux ISOes from BT and save [say] 20% off the retail price then it would be worth it. Cuz a few CDs costs like a buck and 20% of a $60 game is $12. [though CDRs last shorter than a pressed CD... hmmm...].
How is that remotely the same? There is no cost for Linux in terms of $$$ so there is nothing to "cut".
And I didn't say "if something costs less it must be inferior". I said if you cut corners. E.g. a quality case+PSU costs roughly $130 CAD. Deal with it. If you spend $30 on the bundle then you're cutting corners because the only way to get cost down like that is to cut quality.
Now, if a company comes out and finds a way to make quality bundles at $30 then you're not cutting corners are you? You're paying what would be normal.
I mean there is no comparison. An Antec Sonata vs. the $30 Chinese Special is no question. The average $30 case is more maleable than a coke can, has a power supply engineers of the 30s would call dirty and fans with a mean time to failure measured in weeks. A Sonata case on the other hand is sturdy, doesn't bend when you pick it up, has a power supply designed for strict tolerances and has case fans that run smoothly for as long as I have had them [start of the year].
If Antec started pushing 30$ case+psu combos that were effective then yea, I'd pay 30$ for a case and not think I'm cutting corners.
I'm sure the 130$ Antec Case+PSU I can get locally doesn't cost Antec 130$ to produce. It probably costs them on the order of 65-90$ at most and the rest is profit+delivery+retail markup.
if you arn't listening to the same music as your friends then you don't have as much to chat about and you lose out.
Funny, I think the exact opposite. My friends and I have some similar interests [e.g. PS2/XBOX gaming, computer science, loud techno] but also a variety of different tastes [e.g. one of my friends is a WoW addict, another is a CS addict, I'm into cryptography, etc].
It's precisely because we're not always doing the same thing that when we get together we have things to talk about.
[paraphrasing=on] Diversity my friend is the spice of life.
Relating to "other people" is exactly this. If you expect anyone you'd want to associate with to have the same thoughts as you you'll get wildly disappointed in the real world when you try to socialize and network at conferences and other public gatherings.
Aside from the betamax case [which they lost] they have not really challenged private viewings of lawfully obtained media.
So no, if you watch a show, tape it and show it to your friends that's ok. When you make a copy of the tape to give out you're not breaking the law. You can lend the tape to your friend [like you can lend a CD or DVD] perfectly legally.
I think people like you have to stop trying to invent imaginary lines in the sand. They're clearly going after the people on P2P networks who are making it possible to obtain their product without having paid for it. You can demonize them all you want but at the end of the day that's what they're doing.
like all things in life, if you cut corners [price wise] you'll get burnt...
Though to be honest I've always gone with Antec cases [Sonata series for instance] and never once had a problem with the case or PSU [specially on things like dual-core AMD and Intel processors with multiple drives and PCI-X cards].
If you paid 30$ for your 400W supply and it doesn't work... don't act very surprised.
Should BT exist: yes. Your China argument seems to suggest I think otherwise.
Do the corps really fuck around with media and "history" in general: yes.
Is P2P'ing a MPAA or otherwise copyrighted title competition: no.
That's like saying you better sell your soap at what I think are reasonable prices or we'll just steal it.
If you don't like what corps are doing with media and what not STOP GIVING THEM YOUR MINDSPACE. Seek out alternatives, specially to watching TV which is just retarded nowadays anyways. Even when you P2P an MPAA title they still win because they still have your mind. Ever take the bus and not see an advert every 10 inches? Ever walk through an aiport without JCDecaux posters? etc, etc, etc...
If you're so opposed to what the corps are doing you'd just ignore them outright.
I'll never get this "MPAA is evil, but I so must see that vin diesel flick!" attitude that many people have as they blindly support P2P usage.
The problem is it isn't your choice to make. The actors in those shows you watch expect royalties when the networks broadcast the shows. When you download them without having your TV provider show them they're not getting royalties.
Don't like this model?
THEN STOP SUBSCRIBING TO TV!!!
If say the population of New Jersey all of a sudden ditched cable... they may notice.
You obviously have not tried to download [say] source tarballs off a college backbone.
Literally I could track the population of the school from early in the morning to mid morning just by seeing my download go from 1MiB/sec down to ~50KiB/sec and lower. When you look over some of the screens in the labs you'll see the whole spectrum of P2P apps running [usually on laptops] as well as 3d shooters and what not.
And also keep in mind that your "sleep time" and mine may vary, say, for example, if we're not on the same continent?
This is 2005 [almost 2006!] not 1991. If you're forced to use software from 1991 it's because you're an idiot and didn't demand your vendor document their data structures and file formats.
I dunno about you guys but when I write crypto software that is "closed source" I document [usually by using ASN.1] my data types so that others can interoperate. Sure that gives competitors and "in" but it also gives my customers something to work with, specially if I move on and decide to not support the software anymore.
What entitles you to the entire x-men cartoon series?
Now I don't want to equate piracy with theft, I know they're different, however. Lots of things are expensive. Computers, cars, homes, textbooks, etc. They're all made under the "I produce it, they either buy it and use it or not at all."
But your logic escapes the flow of things. If you're such an oddity and rare then you wouldn't see the traffic on BT you do. Clearly there are millions of people like you. In such case the demand for a product should be sufficient to get the companies interested in providing it. Granted I too think the MPAA/RIAA have their heads up their arses but just because the LOTK box set is "too expensive" doesn't mean I'll spend 9 hours downloading DivX rips off the web. I'm mature enough to just get over it.
"Stop being a fucking wanna-be johny-come-too-late asshat destroying a time honoured joke with your lame ass inability to correctly identify the entire thing."
At the point where it's acceptable for people to just misremember things and patently just regurgitate the same one line [*] over and over... well that's when the world goes to hell. Could you imagine walking up to slashdot folk like this in the real world? Man that would be assinine.
You: Hey, check out my new desktop. Them: Does it run a beowolf of linux in soviet russia? You: *KAPOW*, no, but your head doesn't stop my.45 either, imagine that! witness: -1, flamebait
I mean seriously, if you're trying to be funny by using a "big boy" joke why not actually say it correctly.
[*] Because the omitting the "in america, BLAH" bit first destroys the joke. The joke is based on the strong contrast between the American and Soviet societies. When you omit the first part you're just showing you don't actually get the joke, never looked up where it comes from, etc...
I'm all for indy and other public domain work showing up on BT.
I just think if you want to see the latest vin diesel movie [or whatever his fucking name is] you should pay for it. They paid to make it, you want to see it, you pay to see it.
If you want to get a freely available indy movie then go for it.
But you know and I know that 99.999% of the BT traffic [outside of linux ISOs] is movies, tv shows and music that IS NOT free to be distributed in such said manner.
Slashdot Mirror
Clearly AMD can't support the load of having customers therefore we regret to inform you that we will not offer AMD products ... um...
Self-fulfilling prophecy if you ask me.
If you want real choice just find your local vendors and get them to order what you want. You support local business, you get what you want and often you don't pay more [or much more] than the monopoly controlled "wonder box" you get from Dell [et al.]
Tom
Um ... you need to learn some geography... Newfoundland is a province, Toronto is in Ontario and Montreal is in Quebec.
... then move to the city and benefit from it.
Those are three different PROVINCES not counties. The PROVINCIAL taxes are different in different PROVINCES. [GST is not though].
As for how is this better? Well the money is spent where the people live. You can choose where you live but not what you pay in tax [well unless you swap provinces cuz then your PST and income tax change]. So if you don't like living in the sticks and paying for inter-city roads
Put it another way... by your logic everyone should spread out as much as possible and then be excused from paying taxes right? Except who's gonna build and maintain that road that goes to your place? Feel like a 50km trek through the woods?
Tom
I used to live in Ohio, where they have 88 counties and potentially 88 different tax rates.
... it's 15%
Man the US is fucked up. I live in Ontario. The sales tax is 15% [PST=7%, GST=8%, total of 15%]. If I go to Toronto it's 15%. If I go to Ottawa it's 15%. If I go to up north somewhere remote
Tom
So what? Because you want to drive up the use of a network *I* have to pay for it?
First off, cell towers are rarely full in most areas outside of perhaps airports. So you're not going to get bumped unless a lot of people are trying to make a call on the particular tower you're on.
Second, you're sharing it already. It is possible that you pick up your cell phone, try to dial and you get rejected. That's entirely possible [goes hand in hand with the first].
Third, it's possible I stay on the phone long enough to piss you off anyways. With my scheme you'll have a chance to bounce me.
So what it boils down to you either think cell towers are always busy or you want to be able to take time away from me to access the network. In short, you're self-important.
Tom
It isn't a free service. You still pay for the network. Just instead of paying 40, 50, $100 a month for a useful service you pay a FLAT fee of $20 [including the service charges, fees, etc, cuz a lot of $20 plans end up costing $40 when all is said and done].
The simple fact of the matter is you already do share the network. Except now it's mostly a first come first serve basis. And don't even bother with "I don't care because my company pays for it" because that cuts into your bottom line [e.g. layoffs, salary caps or decreases, etc].
It's the same thing with your ISP. Your ISP gives you a 5Mbit pipe but their pipe(s) outwards has limits. You're sharing it first serve first come with everyone else. When you're not first you bitch right? Stupid net, it's slow again! right?
Or do you like getting "peak hour slow downs"?
Tom
You have an equal chance of booting someone off. So here's the thing, if you're a talking whore you can always get a landline.
The bandwidth is a finite resource. So why should I be left off because you're talking on the phone? Or put it in your terms. What if I got on the phone first. Why should YOU be left off because I simply must talk to the ever important client every waking moment of my life...
I mean I fly internationally doing business and I wait to get to the clients to talk with them. I don't see why others think themselves soo important that they can't wait 30 minutes to get to the hotel to check their email, they must call, and use a blackberry, etc...
Since we're already sharing the damn bandwidth why not share the cost too?
If you're in a NAT with [say] your neighbour. You both can't use 100% of the bandwidth at once, but you both pay 50% of the cost. So you have to either deal with always getting 50% or you have to share [e.g. tell your neighbour you need to download an ISO]. Why is that such a bad idea? For basically 99% of the time you get a speedy service [I shared my cable modem between 5 people and still managed 100% bandwidth most of the time] and you don't pay through the nose.
How is this any different than a co-operative cell network?
Tom
No, you don't automatically get kicked. You get kicked when other people want to use it.
THATS HOW IT WORKS NOW ANYWAYS.
There are finite number of slots. Ever get kicked off at busy airport? That's because when 1000 people all of a sudden try to call and there are only slots for 100 people you're not getting far.
With this idea you share the network [omg he said share, teh ghey!] with others. So that if you're a not stop talking drama queen bitch, you'll get silenced once in a while as others want to use it.
IN RETURN:
You pay 20$ a month for ANY TIME, ANY WHERE, ANY LENGTH calls.
Wow, that's hard.
Tom
Worse than that, where do you go to buy a phone outright without strings? Sure off the net maybe... I made the mistake of buying a phone from a RADIO SHACK which was locked to Rogers... I bought the phone for $300 [e.g. no service plan] then I put a friends sim in and boom no work. Cell phones are scam for that reason and also the concept of "airtime" which isn't required either.
This is how you get rid of airtime.
1. Give everyone total random access to the network
2. Prioritize callers based on the time they used that day.
3. Bounce calls off when slots are not available to give priority to those who haven't used the line as much.
That way no one set of users can lock others off, you can talk as much as you want [can] and when you've been using it more than others you get lower priority [obviously put things like 911 as a special case].
But of course nobody will ever do that because they can't fucking rape you seven ways from sunday if they're not using archaic billing models.
Tom
Except Redhat is a pain in the ass to deal with. It's binary only packages are routinely out of date and horribly configured for anything but the most casual desktop user.
Screw redhat, go Gentoo.
Let the holy-distro wars begin!
[I'm serious, I hate RedHat. It's just as bad as Microsoft, perhaps worse because it scores huge amount of possible converts from Windows].
Tom
This is like going to blockbuster and being forced to give other customers a ride home.
... hmmm...].
Though you may argue that some people would be willing to do what usually is "free" to get cheaper downloads. e.g. download the movie for $5.99 now or $2.99 through BT if you stay connected for an additional 30 mins after the download. Personally I'd just go rent the movie for $5 and be done with. but... that's because I live near a blockbuster.
Same goes for games and music. If I could download UT2k5 linux ISOes from BT and save [say] 20% off the retail price then it would be worth it. Cuz a few CDs costs like a buck and 20% of a $60 game is $12. [though CDRs last shorter than a pressed CD
Tom
* You are allowed to copy MySQL binaries and source code, but when you do so, the copies will fall under the GPL license.
Loophole. So take their code, release it under GPL. Boom instant open source project.
Tom
How is that remotely the same? There is no cost for Linux in terms of $$$ so there is nothing to "cut".
And I didn't say "if something costs less it must be inferior". I said if you cut corners. E.g. a quality case+PSU costs roughly $130 CAD. Deal with it. If you spend $30 on the bundle then you're cutting corners because the only way to get cost down like that is to cut quality.
Now, if a company comes out and finds a way to make quality bundles at $30 then you're not cutting corners are you? You're paying what would be normal.
I mean there is no comparison. An Antec Sonata vs. the $30 Chinese Special is no question. The average $30 case is more maleable than a coke can, has a power supply engineers of the 30s would call dirty and fans with a mean time to failure measured in weeks. A Sonata case on the other hand is sturdy, doesn't bend when you pick it up, has a power supply designed for strict tolerances and has case fans that run smoothly for as long as I have had them [start of the year].
If Antec started pushing 30$ case+psu combos that were effective then yea, I'd pay 30$ for a case and not think I'm cutting corners.
Tom
and selling $30 PSU's at $100.
That's capitalism.
I'm sure the 130$ Antec Case+PSU I can get locally doesn't cost Antec 130$ to produce. It probably costs them on the order of 65-90$ at most and the rest is profit+delivery+retail markup.
Tom
You should.
However, if it's too good to be true...
if you arn't listening to the same music as your friends then you don't have as much to chat about and you lose out.
Funny, I think the exact opposite. My friends and I have some similar interests [e.g. PS2/XBOX gaming, computer science, loud techno] but also a variety of different tastes [e.g. one of my friends is a WoW addict, another is a CS addict, I'm into cryptography, etc].
It's precisely because we're not always doing the same thing that when we get together we have things to talk about.
[paraphrasing=on] Diversity my friend is the spice of life.
Relating to "other people" is exactly this. If you expect anyone you'd want to associate with to have the same thoughts as you you'll get wildly disappointed in the real world when you try to socialize and network at conferences and other public gatherings.
Tom
Aside from the betamax case [which they lost] they have not really challenged private viewings of lawfully obtained media.
So no, if you watch a show, tape it and show it to your friends that's ok. When you make a copy of the tape to give out you're not breaking the law. You can lend the tape to your friend [like you can lend a CD or DVD] perfectly legally.
I think people like you have to stop trying to invent imaginary lines in the sand. They're clearly going after the people on P2P networks who are making it possible to obtain their product without having paid for it. You can demonize them all you want but at the end of the day that's what they're doing.
Tom
like all things in life, if you cut corners [price wise] you'll get burnt...
... don't act very surprised.
Though to be honest I've always gone with Antec cases [Sonata series for instance] and never once had a problem with the case or PSU [specially on things like dual-core AMD and Intel processors with multiple drives and PCI-X cards].
If you paid 30$ for your 400W supply and it doesn't work
Tom
You're bluring lines.
Should BT exist: yes. Your China argument seems to suggest I think otherwise.
Do the corps really fuck around with media and "history" in general: yes.
Is P2P'ing a MPAA or otherwise copyrighted title competition: no.
That's like saying you better sell your soap at what I think are reasonable prices or we'll just steal it.
If you don't like what corps are doing with media and what not STOP GIVING THEM YOUR MINDSPACE. Seek out alternatives, specially to watching TV which is just retarded nowadays anyways. Even when you P2P an MPAA title they still win because they still have your mind. Ever take the bus and not see an advert every 10 inches? Ever walk through an aiport without JCDecaux posters? etc, etc, etc...
If you're so opposed to what the corps are doing you'd just ignore them outright.
I'll never get this "MPAA is evil, but I so must see that vin diesel flick!" attitude that many people have as they blindly support P2P usage.
Tom
The problem is it isn't your choice to make. The actors in those shows you watch expect royalties when the networks broadcast the shows. When you download them without having your TV provider show them they're not getting royalties.
... they may notice.
Don't like this model?
THEN STOP SUBSCRIBING TO TV!!!
If say the population of New Jersey all of a sudden ditched cable
Tom
You obviously have not tried to download [say] source tarballs off a college backbone.
Literally I could track the population of the school from early in the morning to mid morning just by seeing my download go from 1MiB/sec down to ~50KiB/sec and lower. When you look over some of the screens in the labs you'll see the whole spectrum of P2P apps running [usually on laptops] as well as 3d shooters and what not.
And also keep in mind that your "sleep time" and mine may vary, say, for example, if we're not on the same continent?
Tom
I hate these lines of thinking.
This is 2005 [almost 2006!] not 1991. If you're forced to use software from 1991 it's because you're an idiot and didn't demand your vendor document their data structures and file formats.
I dunno about you guys but when I write crypto software that is "closed source" I document [usually by using ASN.1] my data types so that others can interoperate. Sure that gives competitors and "in" but it also gives my customers something to work with, specially if I move on and decide to not support the software anymore.
That, my friends, is called responsibility.
Tom
And?
What entitles you to the entire x-men cartoon series?
Now I don't want to equate piracy with theft, I know they're different, however. Lots of things are expensive. Computers, cars, homes, textbooks, etc. They're all made under the "I produce it, they either buy it and use it or not at all."
But your logic escapes the flow of things. If you're such an oddity and rare then you wouldn't see the traffic on BT you do. Clearly there are millions of people like you. In such case the demand for a product should be sufficient to get the companies interested in providing it. Granted I too think the MPAA/RIAA have their heads up their arses but just because the LOTK box set is "too expensive" doesn't mean I'll spend 9 hours downloading DivX rips off the web. I'm mature enough to just get over it.
Tom
I was trying to find a polite way of saying
... well that's when the world goes to hell. Could you imagine walking up to slashdot folk like this in the real world? Man that would be assinine.
.45 either, imagine that!
"Stop being a fucking wanna-be johny-come-too-late asshat destroying a time honoured joke with your lame ass inability to correctly identify the entire thing."
At the point where it's acceptable for people to just misremember things and patently just regurgitate the same one line [*] over and over
You: Hey, check out my new desktop.
Them: Does it run a beowolf of linux in soviet russia?
You: *KAPOW*, no, but your head doesn't stop my
witness: -1, flamebait
I mean seriously, if you're trying to be funny by using a "big boy" joke why not actually say it correctly.
[*] Because the omitting the "in america, BLAH" bit first destroys the joke. The joke is based on the strong contrast between the American and Soviet societies. When you omit the first part you're just showing you don't actually get the joke, never looked up where it comes from, etc...
Tom
I'm all for indy and other public domain work showing up on BT.
I just think if you want to see the latest vin diesel movie [or whatever his fucking name is] you should pay for it. They paid to make it, you want to see it, you pay to see it.
If you want to get a freely available indy movie then go for it.
But you know and I know that 99.999% of the BT traffic [outside of linux ISOs] is movies, tv shows and music that IS NOT free to be distributed in such said manner.
Tom
Get a roommate to split rent/food costs with. Should be fine after that.
;-)
And/or go to school, put your energy into something useful [not school but something extra curricular] get noticed and get a decent paying job
Tom