Sorry, still second place in my mind to Mattel's purchase of the Learning Company for around $2B, 2 years later 'sold' to gores for nothing. Here's a tip, HP/Verifone fans, any time you hear of something sold to Platinum Equity or Gores - they don't actually pay anything. They 'buy' the business by giving back equity or notes and basically do the hard work the company was afraid to do, ie, be a**holes and fire everyone and milk it for cashflow.
> slashdot, talking on the phone, dates....You've got 90 minutes each day. 35 minute commute? Too bad.
> You left out eating! And using the restroom. Or perhaps those two cancel each other out...and if you happen to be a Sim, those are each 90 minutes right there.
I've been on the more pleasant side (if there is one) of SEC investigations, and one thing they do which is kind of cool is investigate everyone around the person first - particularly in insider trading.....then when they've compiled the data, they contact the potential guilty party - for example, I work in Mergers & Acquisitions and we represented a public company in a sale. SEC investigated some trades right around the announcement - and first asked for a list of people at my company that knew about the deal...they then sent us lists of people - ie, do you know any of these people...without any other info.
So maybe this guy will still get it. These guys piss me off - primarily because they are capitalizing on ignornace - it's no different then a cheap con.
>> AAARGHHH! This would further proliferate the cellphones. As if we don't already have enough supremely annoying and arrogant yuppies
Can you imagine anyone wanting a portable communication device? Nuts.
Seriously though, an asshole is an asshole with or without a cellphone, it seems you are more against the proliferation of assholes than cellphones, and amen, brother, I am with you.
Good book for the common man!
on
Starcraft
·
· Score: 1
"Der Voron is nevertheless highly readable and extremely illuminating for the common reader with no prior knowledge of extraterrestrial existence"
That's, what, the whole planet?
Some how, there's something very darwinian about reading the stories of deaths from people falling out of trees where they were living/sitting in protest. Makes you feel like humanity is taking a step in the right direction..
Truth is I support some of their argument, but this is not how to do it....plus the laptop up there is throwing doubt on my joy of eliminating the dead weight!
I couldn't believe this...but I recently wrote an exec sum on a company who's primary technology was best used in conjunction with dial-up access -
94% of worldwide internet access subscribers are via dialup - and it'll still be well in the majority by 2003 or so. Amazing when in the 'dork bubble' here in the valley eveyone I know is on broadband. That statistic is from Gartner, but alot of houses publish similar stuff.
...and you wonder why e-commerce failed. Who would shop on amazon when it takes forver to load and times out..
There are killer apps for 3G, you just aren't thinking of them. Sure, browsing the web with your startac is lame - but have you seen the CURRENT state of japanese phones? They pay monthly service fees, alowing the handset manufacturers to subsidize the cost - the result - thin, small phones, high resolution full color screens, java clients, long battery life. Now having a schedule, e-mail, and web in a navigable high resolution screen (you'd be suprised that a small screen is that useful when you see these)..given a few more years of development becomes an attractive st of features.
Now, talk about some killer apps. I personally think it will be location services. ie, I opt in to be notified when a good friend of mine happens to be 2 blocks away - and he has opted in also. A map comes up, with a local coffee place - and we meet there after trading a few instant messages. Obviously all the auto features are useful as well in terms of mapping, directions to food, atms, etc. Maybe United will even subsidize your long distance calls while you are sitting in their terminal because they delayed your flight.
In any event these ideas are all in vc stages right now, and there are some that make compelling use of the additional bandwidth.
I work in tech M&A...and can tell you that DRM iniatives will manifest themselves whether you like it or not. I can also tell you that the market for video content though is viewed as pretty distant still. ie, commerce in viedo content over broadband - excepting porn of course which is and will remain ubiquitous.
As far as DRM goes - I do view it a little like software proection. There's always someone on the outside who is a better coder than the group on the inside and can break it.
Did we not learn anything from the crash? Free software is not better. Is it better now? Sure. Is it sustainable? No. A company like Sun can support a free product for awhile, but will eventually need to cut it, or find a revenue model once they gain traction.
The most ironic part about the tech boom over the last 2-3 years were linux developers in full support of open source and free licenses demanding stock options and high salaries from the companies they worked for....where's the money coming from?
The markets do. AOL & AT&T will get together and the telecom lines of AT&T will have nothing to do with the Time investigative reports going on - because abstract synnergies of building content and owning the publishing network and hardware underneath are too distant. The company will start to suck, become inefficient, and lost value (share price)..a buyout fund will come along, see a valuable piece buried, buy it and break it up. For Reference See: The 80s (conglomerates a-plenty were broken up)
I'm actually in technology investment banking - the problem here (that some/.'rs have alluded to) is really the basics of risk & return. Software development is risky - there is no certainty a future income will develop - that is not the profile of any kind of bond or debt instrument. To accept that level of risk, an investor will demand better return - ie, if it does succeed, I own a portion of everything created - because most likely it'll bust, and I'll get nothing. This is why software startups are always equity deals...and where VCs come in.
You'll never see debt on early stage software code of any kind - and if you do it'll be converts/warrants and be equity for all purposes.
Slashdot Mirror
here's one that still works -
"OMGZERGRUSH"
It's great that you decided to post an Ad for facetime, but seriously.... there are probably 20 small companies with IM's that are secure and log.
Actually call centers use VoIP technology to place calls from overseas without incurring those kind of charges...
Sorry, still second place in my mind to Mattel's purchase of the Learning Company for around $2B, 2 years later 'sold' to gores for nothing. Here's a tip, HP/Verifone fans, any time you hear of something sold to Platinum Equity or Gores - they don't actually pay anything. They 'buy' the business by giving back equity or notes and basically do the hard work the company was afraid to do, ie, be a**holes and fire everyone and milk it for cashflow.
...It's like a beowulf cluster of porn per second!
> slashdot, talking on the phone, dates....You've got 90 minutes each day. 35 minute commute? Too bad.
...and if you happen to be a Sim, those are each 90 minutes right there.
> You left out eating! And using the restroom. Or perhaps those two cancel each other out
Hey, great to meet you buddy. I live far away.
um.. what kind of wacky vacations are you going on??
I've been on the more pleasant side (if there is one) of SEC investigations, and one thing they do which is kind of cool is investigate everyone around the person first - particularly in insider trading.....then when they've compiled the data, they contact the potential guilty party - for example, I work in Mergers & Acquisitions and we represented a public company in a sale. SEC investigated some trades right around the announcement - and first asked for a list of people at my company that knew about the deal...they then sent us lists of people - ie, do you know any of these people...without any other info.
So maybe this guy will still get it. These guys piss me off - primarily because they are capitalizing on ignornace - it's no different then a cheap con.
>> AAARGHHH! This would further proliferate the cellphones. As if we don't already have enough supremely annoying and arrogant yuppies Can you imagine anyone wanting a portable communication device? Nuts. Seriously though, an asshole is an asshole with or without a cellphone, it seems you are more against the proliferation of assholes than cellphones, and amen, brother, I am with you.
"Der Voron is nevertheless highly readable and extremely illuminating for the common reader with no prior knowledge of extraterrestrial existence" That's, what, the whole planet?
Some how, there's something very darwinian about reading the stories of deaths from people falling out of trees where they were living/sitting in protest. Makes you feel like humanity is taking a step in the right direction..
Truth is I support some of their argument, but this is not how to do it....plus the laptop up there is throwing doubt on my joy of eliminating the dead weight!
I couldn't believe this ...but I recently wrote an exec sum on a company who's primary technology was best used in conjunction with dial-up access -
94% of worldwide internet access subscribers are via dialup - and it'll still be well in the majority by 2003 or so. Amazing when in the 'dork bubble' here in the valley eveyone I know is on broadband. That statistic is from Gartner, but alot of houses publish similar stuff.
...and you wonder why e-commerce failed. Who would shop on amazon when it takes forver to load and times out..
There are killer apps for 3G, you just aren't thinking of them. Sure, browsing the web with your startac is lame - but have you seen the CURRENT state of japanese phones? They pay monthly service fees, alowing the handset manufacturers to subsidize the cost - the result - thin, small phones, high resolution full color screens, java clients, long battery life. Now having a schedule, e-mail, and web in a navigable high resolution screen (you'd be suprised that a small screen is that useful when you see these)..given a few more years of development becomes an attractive st of features.
Now, talk about some killer apps. I personally think it will be location services. ie, I opt in to be notified when a good friend of mine happens to be 2 blocks away - and he has opted in also. A map comes up, with a local coffee place - and we meet there after trading a few instant messages. Obviously all the auto features are useful as well in terms of mapping, directions to food, atms, etc. Maybe United will even subsidize your long distance calls while you are sitting in their terminal because they delayed your flight.
In any event these ideas are all in vc stages right now, and there are some that make compelling use of the additional bandwidth.
I work in tech M&A...and can tell you that DRM iniatives will manifest themselves whether you like it or not. I can also tell you that the market for video content though is viewed as pretty distant still. ie, commerce in viedo content over broadband - excepting porn of course which is and will remain ubiquitous.
As far as DRM goes - I do view it a little like software proection. There's always someone on the outside who is a better coder than the group on the inside and can break it.
Did we not learn anything from the crash? Free software is not better. Is it better now? Sure. Is it sustainable? No. A company like Sun can support a free product for awhile, but will eventually need to cut it, or find a revenue model once they gain traction.
...where's the money coming from?
The most ironic part about the tech boom over the last 2-3 years were linux developers in full support of open source and free licenses demanding stock options and high salaries from the companies they worked for.
Max Payne
I think the A string is a little flat. Perhaps it is just auto-adjusted for correct tone when twanging fear through the hills of West Virginia.
The markets do. AOL & AT&T will get together and the telecom lines of AT&T will have nothing to do with the Time investigative reports going on - because abstract synnergies of building content and owning the publishing network and hardware underneath are too distant. The company will start to suck, become inefficient, and lost value (share price) ..a buyout fund will come along, see a valuable piece buried, buy it and break it up. For Reference See: The 80s (conglomerates a-plenty were broken up)
I'm actually in technology investment banking - the problem here (that some /.'rs have alluded to) is really the basics of risk & return. Software development is risky - there is no certainty a future income will develop - that is not the profile of any kind of bond or debt instrument. To accept that level of risk, an investor will demand better return - ie, if it does succeed, I own a portion of everything created - because most likely it'll bust, and I'll get nothing. This is why software startups are always equity deals...and where VCs come in.
You'll never see debt on early stage software code of any kind - and if you do it'll be converts/warrants and be equity for all purposes.