When I was in university doing my business degree, I did a work term at an accounting company and was assigned to a water rate study that a small town was doing. Basically they crunched the numbers and came up with a fee structure to match their cost structure. They did this every few years. Electric utilities do the same thing. Really, these guys should do the same. None of this crap where they try this and then try that, and then send people emails or throttle bandwidth or such stupidity. Crunch the numbers and offer a sensible flat-rate plus usage price. People are used to that for electricity and water and long distance and all that. They "get it" that these things are reasonably cheap, but if they waste them gratuitously, it will cost them more.
10^4Amps?!?! I don't know about you, but I would prefer not to be anywhere near that much current.
Unfortunately, in this case, you aren't any smarter than a rock. The article claims they are steering clear as well. Oh wait... that was the point, wasn't it?
Well, I can't claim to speak for the whole world, but a network guy at my last workplace (who was otherwise quite the conspiracy theorist) offered me this:
-If I can read your emails, can I read the CEO's?
-Is that a corporate security risk?
-Should it be tolerated?
I thought that was useful. The company I was with was fairly open, but would follow-up complaints with a well-audited and logged investigation. Semmed to work well. Others have other policies, I'm sure
jonathanjo wrote: But for people who don't know the difference between an OS and a windowing system, who don't want to learn how to configure a system but rather want to use it right out of the box, who got a computer so they could send e-mail and look at web pages and type business letters and scan pictures of the kids, maybe handle finances, all with as little overhead (of time and brain power) as possible -- these are the bulk of computer users. Can anyone bring me one such person who likes Linux?
I don't know if I qualify, because I know the difference between an OS and a windowing system (i.e. I used Windows 3.1 / DOS once upon a time). However, I had forgotten this difference until I picked up the Mandrake 8.0 distro a month ago, just for the hell of it. It installed right out of the box, and the hardest thing I had to do was look at the front cover of a hardware manual to see what model of Dell monitor I had. KDE is point-and-shoot. It connected to the internet the first try. I won't pretend to be a computer idiot, because most people I know (who are computer idiots!) figure I'm the "computer" guy. That said, I felt somewhat intimidated as I started the install, because I had read somewhere that I was supposed to feel intimidated by linux, because I wasn't a Real Hacker[tm]. Hmm, what a load of gee whiz. Maybe my experience is not typical? I don't know, but it seemed pretty darned easy compared to the popular mythology.
But this is more "linux==better" stuff, so...
Ob-sort-of-on-topic-part: This was a kewl post by Taco. Being rude and mean sucks. Helping people rocks! Maybe someday I'll be able to help people with linux myself.
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When I was in university doing my business degree, I did a work term at an accounting company and was assigned to a water rate study that a small town was doing. Basically they crunched the numbers and came up with a fee structure to match their cost structure. They did this every few years. Electric utilities do the same thing. Really, these guys should do the same. None of this crap where they try this and then try that, and then send people emails or throttle bandwidth or such stupidity. Crunch the numbers and offer a sensible flat-rate plus usage price. People are used to that for electricity and water and long distance and all that. They "get it" that these things are reasonably cheap, but if they waste them gratuitously, it will cost them more.
10^4Amps?!?! I don't know about you, but I would prefer not to be anywhere near that much current.
Unfortunately, in this case, you aren't any smarter than a rock. The article claims they are steering clear as well. Oh wait... that was the point, wasn't it?
Well, I can't claim to speak for the whole world, but a network guy at my last workplace (who was otherwise quite the conspiracy theorist) offered me this:
-If I can read your emails, can I read the CEO's?
-Is that a corporate security risk?
-Should it be tolerated?
I thought that was useful. The company I was with was fairly open, but would follow-up complaints with a well-audited and logged investigation. Semmed to work well. Others have other policies, I'm sure
jonathanjo wrote:
But for people who don't know the difference between an OS and a windowing system, who don't want to learn how to configure a system but rather want to use it right out of the box, who got a computer so they could send e-mail and look at web pages and type business letters and scan pictures of the kids, maybe handle finances, all with as little overhead (of time and brain power) as possible -- these are the bulk of computer users. Can anyone bring me one such person who likes Linux?
I don't know if I qualify, because I know the difference between an OS and a windowing system (i.e. I used Windows 3.1 / DOS once upon a time). However, I had forgotten this difference until I picked up the Mandrake 8.0 distro a month ago, just for the hell of it. It installed right out of the box, and the hardest thing I had to do was look at the front cover of a hardware manual to see what model of Dell monitor I had. KDE is point-and-shoot. It connected to the internet the first try. I won't pretend to be a computer idiot, because most people I know (who are computer idiots!) figure I'm the "computer" guy. That said, I felt somewhat intimidated as I started the install, because I had read somewhere that I was supposed to feel intimidated by linux, because I wasn't a Real Hacker[tm]. Hmm, what a load of gee whiz. Maybe my experience is not typical? I don't know, but it seemed pretty darned easy compared to the popular mythology.
But this is more "linux==better" stuff, so...
Ob-sort-of-on-topic-part: This was a kewl post by Taco. Being rude and mean sucks. Helping people rocks! Maybe someday I'll be able to help people with linux myself.
--WeldonM, unclueful linux newbie