Yes, Usenet shaped many people's idea of what the internet should be (insert obligatory Usenet=!internet here).
It was, in many ways a small community, especial since many people had to search out a way to gain admission (no free AOL disks every other day). It was a place where reputation mattered, and despite the wonders of electronic communications, people still valued face2face activities. My favorite corner was alt.folklore.urban, where the old hats welcomed newcomers, and we actually got togther for parties from time to time.
There was also a spirit of helpfulness - no one cared if you new a k3wl way to munge a return address - what mattered was did you teach others so they could avoid spam? And people trusted each other- no bidpay, no paypal, just for sale posts and mailed checks - and, maybe I was lucky, but I never got ripped off.
And, perpetual september could be a fun thing only matched by the star-trek and star wars groups.
So, while it's been fun to grow into a full fledged globale village, we've added all the problems associated with rapid, unchecked growth.
Daeth of Usenet predicted - Film at 11. RIP
CA forced the utilities to seperate generation from transmission and sell on or the other. Somebody had to buy them.
In the old days, utilities got cost plus rates - the recovered their capital costs plus a fixed return. As long as you could capitalize an expenduture, and the PUC didn't dissallow it, you made money on it. Cross subsidies and other sleights of hands kept rates at levels that avoided too much outrage. Politicians forgot that prices, in a free market, rise and fall based on supply and demand - an dthat they could no longer order someone to build a plant. Now, if the return looks poor, it won't get built, despite peopels "demand" for lower prices.
It's alot like the airlines - befroe dereg, a lot of 2cd and 3rd tier cities got great jet service - because, even thought they were unprofitable, the airlines flew there as part oif their tariff agreemnets with the gov't - and made enough money elsewhere to make up for it. Come derg, and its bye bye jet, hello turbo-prop or bye - bye altogether.
Now, with individual power plants having to make money on their own, the whole power supply picture is changing similarly.
1. They forced suppliers to buy on the daily market, instead of allowing them to lock in long term contracts at fixed prices. That put them at the mercy of plant outages, supply/transmission shortfalls, and made them compete with every other buyer in the market.
2. They mandated rate freezes or cuts, while forcing the suppliers (PGE, SoCAlEd et.al) to meet demand no matter what their cost for power was. As a result, even when prices shot up their was no reason for users to lower their usage since they didn't pay any more for their power. A few places, that got out from under the freeze/reductions early on, didn't get driven into bankruptcy.
3. CA has historically made it difficult to build new plants or power lines (such as an interconnection between NoCa and SoCA). CA is like an island when it comes to power - you can't transmit unlimited amounts in. As a result, there was little margin for increased demand, and when it hit, prices shot up.
In the end, economics worked - instead of price keeping supply in line with demand, shortages replaced the pricing function, once companies couldn't keep buying despite the price. Politicians, when faced with the economic realities of trying to artifically control prices, ran as fast as possible from the problem. Notice how the rep who proudly wore the mantel of "Father of Deregulation" was demanding a paternity test to prove it wasn't his baby?
As the article pointed out, teh technology is not all that new. Utilities have played with sending phone servcie over their wires for awhile. AIR, the signal is sent at a much higher frequency, so the power line appears black to the phone signal, with no cross talk from the power.
I doubt US utilities will do much in this area for a while, at least, becasue:
1. Deregulation has brought its own set of problems, and many Transmission and Distribution (the guys who own the wires - T&D vs generation who makes power) companies are still dealing with divestment of asset and merger/acquisition questions.
2. As regulated entities, they run the risk of spending money to develop a capability and then being forced to open it up to any and all comers, limiting their potential return.
3. Since they probably can't use money from the regulated side to start a new busienss, they'd have to either pony it up themselves or go to the market. Given the failure of a number of high speed access providers recently, that market probably doesn't look like a good place to spend money.
4. There are far more T&D companies than most people realize, especially with all the Electric Coops, which means that coverage will vary widely and many areas that might be a good market may not be open to large playes, for example, a lot of the areas north of Atlanta are serviced by EMCs (coops) not the Southern Company (although Southern generates the power). Small players generally don't have the money to roll out a new technology and debug it, and if they wanted to roll out high speed internet they would probably go with fiber since it i a proven tech that they already deal with. Some coops have done that already.
But the biggest obstacle was that it [Open Source technology] had not been security tested... However, this was possible down the line, as the National Security Agency was engaged on this issue and was using Linux at the research and development level.
The GPL needs a slight modification:
"You may view, copy or distribute the source code to NSALinux, provided you agree to be killed afterword."
the wrong way. Like it or not, they are a company whose ultimate goal is to be profitable (Just like Red Hat, VA Linux, etc.) Unfortunately, charging for a product that has not been successful when it was available for free won't work.
Caldera believes its proprietary code is what is valuable because it offers benefits not available with free equivalents. If that's the case, who stands to gain the most by using those tools?
The people who aren't using Caldera's distribution. They, since they aren't using Caldera's products, aren't getting the benefits (whatever they may be). But, how is Linux "sold" today? Unlike MS, Linux companies can't send droves of salesdroids to impress PHBs. Instead each distro has its own proponents, some of whom are in a position to push Linux in their organizations. For Caldera to get pushed, they need to convince those folks, and creating a separate distro with a per-seat license isn't the way to do it. They need to build upon the existing support for non-Caldera distros. So, instead of going it alone, they should work with the vendors of the most popular distros to make sure their products work with them. Notice I said work, not integrate. What's the difference? Now, companies such as Red Hat have a set of tools they can use as part of their service offering. The benefit to a customer is they get better performance or more features as a result of buying a service contract, the service provider makes money from the service contract, and Caldera makes money licensing their stuff to the service provider.
The danger is that we will see a stratification of the Linux community. Companies can release true OS versions with less functionality than a version that has proprietary code (sort of a lite version), or simply chose to produce proprietary code from the start. Of course, the risk is that someone will develop a separate OS version that does the same thing - getting rid of the advantages of proprietary code (insert obligatory MS-bash and comment on why Linux originally was developed here).
Of course, Caldera may find out that their proprietary code has little value, and no matter what they do it won't sell.
Given the margins in the service business, I'm not surprised Compaq is trying to grow that part of their business. An added benefit is the service side can pull through hardware sales - something has to run that new piece of software. It opens a whole new way to sell - bundling high dollar "consulting" with discounted hardware, and once your in, you have plenty of opportunities to sell follow-on work.
The key is, how? One way is to grow your own - slow, expensive, and time consuming.
My bet would be on buying a firm outright - such as PricewaterhouseCoopers (the consulting side only). Why PwC - they have done the pricing work from the failed HP buyout, times are tough right now for the Big 5, and the partners would probably welcome a new offer that makes them rich. Compaq gets the consulting expertise it needs, and a way to fight the HP-Accenture linkup. Downside - mixing Compaq and PwC culture will be tough - and since PwC's main assets (besides its outsourcing work) are the consultants - and they can walk at anytime.
to apply for a trademark when you name your project. While that won't stop some company from suing, at least it can strengthen your position. (assuming you have some original name, not some lame rip-off).
Of course, you have to protect it as well.
,,,laying fiber. Electric utilities and pipeline companies have been doing it for years as well. Wnat started as a way to monitor vast stretches of delivery infrastructure and an alternative to paying telcos for between site calls became another potential source of revenue. Many of them hoped to cash in on the demand (which hasn't quite materialized). One company, Williams, sold the fiber it laid next to its pipeline, and if I recall correctly, is at work laying more.
"Survival of the fittest" is actually very appropriate, since it means "best adapted to the environemnt in which it exists." Animals adapt differently to their surroundings (even within the same species) in order to be "best", and moving one adapted to place A to place B may make it go from "best" to "worse." Sounds alot like computers - get what does what you need best, and don't sweat someone else's choice.
Even better - one of the macs (A Performa perhaps - I forget) had its power button right below the disk slot. I guess it was intuative, in a bizzare Zen o'Mac way - you hit the button, the Mac powered down, and your disk ejected.
Actually, it shuoldn't be that hard to find soemone to go after - the sight has a URL, which has a registration... Since they either sent or paid soemone to send it, I'd go after them. If tehy didn't send it, they'll probably finger the spammer real quick like.
Now, if they are not in the US, then you may have problems collecting, even if you win.
Becaise goin open source would add to the headaches of maintaining the code. Now, instead of a stable code base that they can manage and understand, they have one that anyone can change. Now, when a customer has a problem with program X, they have a new set of potential problems - i.e. did something somebody do in the code cause the problems, or is it soemthing else.
companies need a stable OS on which to build their applications, one that they can ship knowing problems ought to be replicatable in their test rigs, or that at least outside hacks are not introducing new, unforseen bugs. I would guess most OS/2 apps are specific to particular customers (i.e. POS terminals, reservations systems, etc.) where the of the OS is a small part of teh TCO, so any savings from open source is insignificant compared to the potential headaches. Customers don't want to here that a problem is casued by Joe/Julie in Somewhere, Idaho and go talk to him/her about the issue - they'll simply buy someone else's product.
While TVa may seem draconian, as a government agency, they're bound by a whole lot of rules and laws, as well as negotiated labor contracts. If they let people install some unapproved programs, they'll have a lot harder time dealing with someone who really screws up. Yes, you can argue that SETI is low risk, but the point is either they enforce their rules or lose the ability to enforce them.
It may not be what/.'s want, but then that's the government for you.
That's fine, but don't complain when IT reimages your disk to fix a problem. They're paid to fix problems with their installed programs, and if the bets way to do that is to restore a standard configuration.
Course, if they lose some of your data in the process, then, hey, you're paid to keep backups.
As others have pointed out, it depends what you want to do post-MBA.
An MBA is a signal to the marketplace - it tells employeers you are smart and trainable (just as a BA/BS does when compared to a HS diploma. Employeers let schools do the first cut at weeding out potential hires.
That said, unless you go to a top tier school,seriously look at part time programs. A top school gives you name recognition, and as the economy slows, the network you get will be much more valuable than the degree. Need to do an IPO - call a classmate at Goldman. Need strategic advice for your company- call one at McKinsey. Starting a company - call one of your professors who is a VC. Looking for a big-ticket job - you get the idea.
Most schools can offer a fine grounding in business fundementals, such as accounting, finance and strategy. Where schools start to differ is in the more advanced topics - at Chicago and Wharton you learn from the folks that created the ideas, not from a profesor who has studied them. Kellogg offers the same for marketing. HBS is well, HBS - its alumni machine is well worth the price of admission.
An MBA also mkes it easier to move from tech work to consulting/banking etc. It's not that you couldn't do as good a job without the degree, but it gives employers a warm fuzzy when you've got that ticket punched.
We need a system based, not on labor, but on everybody being guaranteed an inheritance in the earth, a piece of the pie, an estate if you will. What we do with our piece is up to us. Such a system would ensure a totally free market the way it was supposed to be. No more slavery, no more sucking up to those who exploit us. Real freedom.
Yes. One that gives to each according to their nneds, and in which each contributes according to their abilities. Why no one has thought of that and tried it, I can't understand
Unfortunately, most people confuse radiation with RADIATION!!!! Alpha emitters are only dangerous if ingested, and trying to transmute elements, while interesting is not backyard stuff (even with the philosopher's stone). After reading the article, I'd file it under Legend, Urban. (See alt,folklore.urban, AKA AFU).
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, Usenet shaped many people's idea of what the internet should be (insert obligatory Usenet=!internet here). It was, in many ways a small community, especial since many people had to search out a way to gain admission (no free AOL disks every other day). It was a place where reputation mattered, and despite the wonders of electronic communications, people still valued face2face activities. My favorite corner was alt.folklore.urban, where the old hats welcomed newcomers, and we actually got togther for parties from time to time. There was also a spirit of helpfulness - no one cared if you new a k3wl way to munge a return address - what mattered was did you teach others so they could avoid spam? And people trusted each other- no bidpay, no paypal, just for sale posts and mailed checks - and, maybe I was lucky, but I never got ripped off. And, perpetual september could be a fun thing only matched by the star-trek and star wars groups. So, while it's been fun to grow into a full fledged globale village, we've added all the problems associated with rapid, unchecked growth. Daeth of Usenet predicted - Film at 11. RIP
CA forced the utilities to seperate generation from transmission and sell on or the other. Somebody had to buy them.
In the old days, utilities got cost plus rates - the recovered their capital costs plus a fixed return. As long as you could capitalize an expenduture, and the PUC didn't dissallow it, you made money on it. Cross subsidies and other sleights of hands kept rates at levels that avoided too much outrage. Politicians forgot that prices, in a free market, rise and fall based on supply and demand - an dthat they could no longer order someone to build a plant. Now, if the return looks poor, it won't get built, despite peopels "demand" for lower prices.
It's alot like the airlines - befroe dereg, a lot of 2cd and 3rd tier cities got great jet service - because, even thought they were unprofitable, the airlines flew there as part oif their tariff agreemnets with the gov't - and made enough money elsewhere to make up for it. Come derg, and its bye bye jet, hello turbo-prop or bye - bye altogether.
Now, with individual power plants having to make money on their own, the whole power supply picture is changing similarly.
CA did it to themselves:
1. They forced suppliers to buy on the daily market, instead of allowing them to lock in long term contracts at fixed prices. That put them at the mercy of plant outages, supply/transmission shortfalls, and made them compete with every other buyer in the market.
2. They mandated rate freezes or cuts, while forcing the suppliers (PGE, SoCAlEd et.al) to meet demand no matter what their cost for power was. As a result, even when prices shot up their was no reason for users to lower their usage since they didn't pay any more for their power. A few places, that got out from under the freeze/reductions early on, didn't get driven into bankruptcy.
3. CA has historically made it difficult to build new plants or power lines (such as an interconnection between NoCa and SoCA). CA is like an island when it comes to power - you can't transmit unlimited amounts in. As a result, there was little margin for increased demand, and when it hit, prices shot up.
In the end, economics worked - instead of price keeping supply in line with demand, shortages replaced the pricing function, once companies couldn't keep buying despite the price. Politicians, when faced with the economic realities of trying to artifically control prices, ran as fast as possible from the problem. Notice how the rep who proudly wore the mantel of "Father of Deregulation" was demanding a paternity test to prove it wasn't his baby?
There also was a mod that had abrney roaming the halls. He shot fireballs from his belly while laughing.
For you PoketPC owners, there is a version of the original Wolfenstein for it - Escape from Nazi Mountain
As the article pointed out, teh technology is not all that new. Utilities have played with sending phone servcie over their wires for awhile. AIR, the signal is sent at a much higher frequency, so the power line appears black to the phone signal, with no cross talk from the power. I doubt US utilities will do much in this area for a while, at least, becasue: 1. Deregulation has brought its own set of problems, and many Transmission and Distribution (the guys who own the wires - T&D vs generation who makes power) companies are still dealing with divestment of asset and merger/acquisition questions. 2. As regulated entities, they run the risk of spending money to develop a capability and then being forced to open it up to any and all comers, limiting their potential return. 3. Since they probably can't use money from the regulated side to start a new busienss, they'd have to either pony it up themselves or go to the market. Given the failure of a number of high speed access providers recently, that market probably doesn't look like a good place to spend money. 4. There are far more T&D companies than most people realize, especially with all the Electric Coops, which means that coverage will vary widely and many areas that might be a good market may not be open to large playes, for example, a lot of the areas north of Atlanta are serviced by EMCs (coops) not the Southern Company (although Southern generates the power). Small players generally don't have the money to roll out a new technology and debug it, and if they wanted to roll out high speed internet they would probably go with fiber since it i a proven tech that they already deal with. Some coops have done that already.
Of more interest is the statement:
... However, this was possible down the line, as the National Security Agency was engaged on this issue and was using Linux at the research and development level.
But the biggest obstacle was that it [Open Source technology] had not been security tested
The GPL needs a slight modification:
"You may view, copy or distribute the source code to NSALinux, provided you agree to be killed afterword."
the wrong way. Like it or not, they are a company whose ultimate goal is to be profitable (Just like Red Hat, VA Linux, etc.) Unfortunately, charging for a product that has not been successful when it was available for free won't work. Caldera believes its proprietary code is what is valuable because it offers benefits not available with free equivalents. If that's the case, who stands to gain the most by using those tools? The people who aren't using Caldera's distribution. They, since they aren't using Caldera's products, aren't getting the benefits (whatever they may be). But, how is Linux "sold" today? Unlike MS, Linux companies can't send droves of salesdroids to impress PHBs. Instead each distro has its own proponents, some of whom are in a position to push Linux in their organizations. For Caldera to get pushed, they need to convince those folks, and creating a separate distro with a per-seat license isn't the way to do it. They need to build upon the existing support for non-Caldera distros. So, instead of going it alone, they should work with the vendors of the most popular distros to make sure their products work with them. Notice I said work, not integrate. What's the difference? Now, companies such as Red Hat have a set of tools they can use as part of their service offering. The benefit to a customer is they get better performance or more features as a result of buying a service contract, the service provider makes money from the service contract, and Caldera makes money licensing their stuff to the service provider. The danger is that we will see a stratification of the Linux community. Companies can release true OS versions with less functionality than a version that has proprietary code (sort of a lite version), or simply chose to produce proprietary code from the start. Of course, the risk is that someone will develop a separate OS version that does the same thing - getting rid of the advantages of proprietary code (insert obligatory MS-bash and comment on why Linux originally was developed here). Of course, Caldera may find out that their proprietary code has little value, and no matter what they do it won't sell.
Given the margins in the service business, I'm not surprised Compaq is trying to grow that part of their business. An added benefit is the service side can pull through hardware sales - something has to run that new piece of software. It opens a whole new way to sell - bundling high dollar "consulting" with discounted hardware, and once your in, you have plenty of opportunities to sell follow-on work. The key is, how? One way is to grow your own - slow, expensive, and time consuming. My bet would be on buying a firm outright - such as PricewaterhouseCoopers (the consulting side only). Why PwC - they have done the pricing work from the failed HP buyout, times are tough right now for the Big 5, and the partners would probably welcome a new offer that makes them rich. Compaq gets the consulting expertise it needs, and a way to fight the HP-Accenture linkup. Downside - mixing Compaq and PwC culture will be tough - and since PwC's main assets (besides its outsourcing work) are the consultants - and they can walk at anytime.
to apply for a trademark when you name your project. While that won't stop some company from suing, at least it can strengthen your position. (assuming you have some original name, not some lame rip-off). Of course, you have to protect it as well.
,,,laying fiber. Electric utilities and pipeline companies have been doing it for years as well. Wnat started as a way to monitor vast stretches of delivery infrastructure and an alternative to paying telcos for between site calls became another potential source of revenue. Many of them hoped to cash in on the demand (which hasn't quite materialized). One company, Williams, sold the fiber it laid next to its pipeline, and if I recall correctly, is at work laying more.
"Survival of the fittest" is actually very appropriate, since it means "best adapted to the environemnt in which it exists." Animals adapt differently to their surroundings (even within the same species) in order to be "best", and moving one adapted to place A to place B may make it go from "best" to "worse." Sounds alot like computers - get what does what you need best, and don't sweat someone else's choice.
Even better - one of the macs (A Performa perhaps - I forget) had its power button right below the disk slot. I guess it was intuative, in a bizzare Zen o'Mac way - you hit the button, the Mac powered down, and your disk ejected.
Which also means a spammer has the Constitutionaly protected right to spam you anonymously.
Actually, it shuoldn't be that hard to find soemone to go after - the sight has a URL, which has a registration... Since they either sent or paid soemone to send it, I'd go after them. If tehy didn't send it, they'll probably finger the spammer real quick like. Now, if they are not in the US, then you may have problems collecting, even if you win.
I'm betting on AIM - wouldn't want Messenger to miss.
Becaise goin open source would add to the headaches of maintaining the code. Now, instead of a stable code base that they can manage and understand, they have one that anyone can change. Now, when a customer has a problem with program X, they have a new set of potential problems - i.e. did something somebody do in the code cause the problems, or is it soemthing else. companies need a stable OS on which to build their applications, one that they can ship knowing problems ought to be replicatable in their test rigs, or that at least outside hacks are not introducing new, unforseen bugs. I would guess most OS/2 apps are specific to particular customers (i.e. POS terminals, reservations systems, etc.) where the of the OS is a small part of teh TCO, so any savings from open source is insignificant compared to the potential headaches. Customers don't want to here that a problem is casued by Joe/Julie in Somewhere, Idaho and go talk to him/her about the issue - they'll simply buy someone else's product.
While TVa may seem draconian, as a government agency, they're bound by a whole lot of rules and laws, as well as negotiated labor contracts. If they let people install some unapproved programs, they'll have a lot harder time dealing with someone who really screws up. Yes, you can argue that SETI is low risk, but the point is either they enforce their rules or lose the ability to enforce them. It may not be what /.'s want, but then that's the government for you.
That's fine, but don't complain when IT reimages your disk to fix a problem. They're paid to fix problems with their installed programs, and if the bets way to do that is to restore a standard configuration. Course, if they lose some of your data in the process, then, hey, you're paid to keep backups.
Pong? Remember Space War?
As others have pointed out, it depends what you want to do post-MBA. An MBA is a signal to the marketplace - it tells employeers you are smart and trainable (just as a BA/BS does when compared to a HS diploma. Employeers let schools do the first cut at weeding out potential hires. That said, unless you go to a top tier school ,seriously look at part time programs. A top school gives you name recognition, and as the economy slows, the network you get will be much more valuable than the degree. Need to do an IPO - call a classmate at Goldman. Need strategic advice for your company- call one at McKinsey. Starting a company - call one of your professors who is a VC. Looking for a big-ticket job - you get the idea.
Most schools can offer a fine grounding in business fundementals, such as accounting, finance and strategy. Where schools start to differ is in the more advanced topics - at Chicago and Wharton you learn from the folks that created the ideas, not from a profesor who has studied them. Kellogg offers the same for marketing. HBS is well, HBS - its alumni machine is well worth the price of admission.
An MBA also mkes it easier to move from tech work to consulting/banking etc. It's not that you couldn't do as good a job without the degree, but it gives employers a warm fuzzy when you've got that ticket punched.
We need a system based, not on labor, but on everybody being guaranteed an inheritance in the earth, a piece of the pie, an estate if you will. What we do with our piece is up to us. Such a system would ensure a totally free market the way it was supposed to be. No more slavery, no more sucking up to those who exploit us. Real freedom. Yes. One that gives to each according to their nneds, and in which each contributes according to their abilities. Why no one has thought of that and tried it, I can't understand
Unfortunately, most people confuse radiation with RADIATION!!!! Alpha emitters are only dangerous if ingested, and trying to transmute elements, while interesting is not backyard stuff (even with the philosopher's stone). After reading the article, I'd file it under Legend, Urban. (See alt,folklore.urban, AKA AFU).
If Sony indeed is porting Linux, it seems that they would have to make the source available, and not limit it to 1000 copies, as noted in the article.
That makes teh line in MD's state song: "The despotes heel is on thy shore..." more appropriate today. -jlc, from north of Bal'imore, MD