I'm glad somebody else has noticed this. Everybody just assumes that USA is slow or incompetent. This is the first time I've seen soembody bring up the point that the United States has a LOT of ground to cover. Most other countries are roughly the size of 1 (one) of our states. Beacuse of this, stupid stereotypes are born. "America's so self centered" "Of course! With a population of 250,000 people, the news channels can get a little crowded!"
Okay okay, I'm done ranting. All the anti-american comments I've read here in the last few weeks have caused me to need to vent.
Getting back on topic: There are a few things to consider:
1.) America's huge, getting broadband to every home is a huge challenge. It'll only happen when there's economic benefit to it. Nobody's going to run cable to my Grandma in Hillbilly Hills Missouriif she's not willing to pay enough to make it profitable to them.
2.) Alot of people have discovered that broadband is a luxury, not a necessity.
3.) The Internet needs to be cheaper, not for the consumer but for the companies providing it. If they're metering people to pinch pennies, then the technology needs to improve so that it's not so costly. Call the Cable/DSL providers selfish if you like, but you CAN get a telephone to every home in America.
4.) Make broadband internet more attractive: Personally, I think ISP's like ATT Broadband should stream some of their cable content to their customers. AT&T has a nice little network there, they could drop on-demand episodes of MST3k or something like that to their customers without having to actually go out to the net itself. (Meaning: it's cheap) I'd be willing to pay extra $$ a month for a service like that if the content's interesting. ISPs do a terrible job of upsells.
Lol I really touched a nerve there. Somebody used up 3 of their mod points to smack me down. Damn me for making an observation about what I see!! Don't provide an alternative point of view or anything, you got those mod points to burn! Use'em like bullets!
This'll get modded down too even though I'm defending my previous post.
"There's a difference between faith and believing what you see in a movie..."
It's pretty clear here that saying you're a Jedi on a census is sarcastic at best. There was no 'opression' going on. Man I wish I knew the emoticon for rolling my eyes.
If they really want to set up 'Jedi' as a religion, then they should go through formal channels to devise a religion SIMILAR to the Jedi. However, calling it 'Jedi' is not going to garner them any respect.
I can understand somebody wanting to study a formal version of Jedi(ism?), and I can respect that. But base it literally off the movies and you're in for non-acceptance.
"As long as this technology is not used against whites, what is the big deal?"
I'm curious how the Gov't is supposed to know what my nationality is. Heh. The best they're going to get out of my/. data is that I'm reptillian. The only terrorist act that a gator's ever commited is the suicide eating of an upper-class golfer.
My boss has a Zaurus with an 802.11 card. After that story the other day about Starbuck's 'interferring' with a free 802.11 provider, I discovered that there are a LOT of Starbuck's around Portland that have the T-Mobile service ready to go. Seriously, I've been to 3 different stores that had it and 1 of them was in the mall. It's a sure bet that the bigger mall will have it soon too. (That Starbuck's is remodelling...)
This isnt' worth the $30 a month they want for it, otherwise this is a seriously cool combination with a Zaurus. I could go to the mall and do my shopping. If I'm concerned about an item costing a little too much, I could run down to the Starbuck's (or just close to it...), fire up the Zaurus, and go check out the price at a place like Newegg.com. Even better, I can find out if a competitor is running a sale! Best Buy's site will let ya order the item from the web and pick it up in the store.
As I said, this isn't worth $30 a month to me, but that's a seriously cool alternative to trying to cover the US with a cellular-like WAP cloud.
"People have been saying "we don't need this much power" since the 486DX 20MHz..."
I always found that type of comment amusing. They don't realize that the extra horsepower goes into making the interface better.
Technically, word processing could easily be done on a >486. However, what the extra mhz gets you today is real time spell checking, graphics, and a buncha extra interface options that just weren't possible on slower machines. You can make today's software work on earlier machines, but the optimization to do that will throw away a lot of the UI stuff we take for granted.
Depends on who you're aiming at. Somebody running on a P4 processor is already going to have a good idea what 2.8 gigs is gonna be like. An AMD user isn't going to make as much sense of it, I agree.
Frankly, I think they should benchmark these systems on time critical processes. I can't outrun Office on my P2 350, I dunno why they think I care about benchmarks involving that. Quake FPS can be improved (to an extent) with a new video card. Us dudes using LW/Maya/Softimage/Max are the ones who REALLY need the speed/performance rating tested. Time = Money. Benchmark on those progs.
You got the reference I was making heh. For the unitiated: WKRP had a competitor's station WPIG. There was an ep where these two stations had their mascots get into a fight in the bathroom. The one from WKRP was wearing a Carp suit and the guy from WPIG was wearing a Pig suit. Heh.
Okay, not really on topic. But seeing KPIG and CARP in the same sentence snapped me into nostaliga land. Heh.
A dude I know was ripping up on Enterprise and how 'polarize the hull plating' doesn't mean anything. He insisted that it's just more 'Star Trek technobabble that doesn't mean anything'. This normally wouldn't be amusing except he thinks he knows everything about quantum physics, physics, and mathematics. I'm lookin forward to bursting his bubble. He takes this stuff seriously enough that you might consider what I'm about to do to him to be cruel. >:)
I wish you luck. I honestly don't know what else to say other than im listening. I haven't been in that position (yet), but I face it. My company may or may not succeed. The worst part is, I know that if I do lose my job it'll be a minimum of 4 months for me to acquire a new one. (and that's being optimistic)
I'm not really sure how to shorten that time other than to try to network with other people in the field. I'm working that direction, but I'm scared.
I really hope the economy boosts itself soon. I think people enjoy spending money.
I have a question: Do you have any advice for me as to how to minimize the impact of unemployment? What can I do now?
Ouch. So does my having a job with.. well.. less experience bother you?
Well, fret not: That's not my primary job there, I just absorbed it. I'm the company's artist/webmaster. I was best capable of filling the previous sysadmin's shoes, but my company couldn't afford to hire a replacement for him.
It's not the type of scenario where I walked in somewhere and said "I wanna job doing sysadmin stuff". Technically I'm a Lightwave animator/compositor. Heh.
The guy that replied to you (Hektor Troy) basically hit the nail on the head. I split the sysdamin job with another person. I'm the guy who can run around and fix MS related problems, and she's the person who set up the background servers. Server related problems went her way, client problesm went my way.
Then she went on vacation. Of course, that meant the mailserver (literally) made a big bright poofy spark and died. I made the decision to build a new mailserver and got it done!
Funny thing is, that machine's still running a year later. Heh. If you saw it, you'd think that was an amazing feat!
Just to be clear, though, I never needed to set up a mailserver before. The one that blew up was running long before I became sysdamin. I got field promoted after our previous sysadmin left. So I'm a newb pretty much.:) (well, was anyway.. now I'm playing with the background servers.)
Slashdot Mirror
I think they're calling it 'root technology' because of the effect it's going to have on its consumers.
"How, exactly, would this law be enforced? "
I'd send a few villagers over to build a couple of SAM sites.
Oh brother.
a.) Canada only has a population of 30 million.
b.) Name two countries as big as USA both in size and in population that have high percentages of broadband.
I'm glad somebody else has noticed this. Everybody just assumes that USA is slow or incompetent. This is the first time I've seen soembody bring up the point that the United States has a LOT of ground to cover. Most other countries are roughly the size of 1 (one) of our states. Beacuse of this, stupid stereotypes are born. "America's so self centered" "Of course! With a population of 250,000 people, the news channels can get a little crowded!"
Okay okay, I'm done ranting. All the anti-american comments I've read here in the last few weeks have caused me to need to vent.
Getting back on topic: There are a few things to consider:
1.) America's huge, getting broadband to every home is a huge challenge. It'll only happen when there's economic benefit to it. Nobody's going to run cable to my Grandma in Hillbilly Hills Missouriif she's not willing to pay enough to make it profitable to them.
2.) Alot of people have discovered that broadband is a luxury, not a necessity.
3.) The Internet needs to be cheaper, not for the consumer but for the companies providing it. If they're metering people to pinch pennies, then the technology needs to improve so that it's not so costly. Call the Cable/DSL providers selfish if you like, but you CAN get a telephone to every home in America.
4.) Make broadband internet more attractive: Personally, I think ISP's like ATT Broadband should stream some of their cable content to their customers. AT&T has a nice little network there, they could drop on-demand episodes of MST3k or something like that to their customers without having to actually go out to the net itself. (Meaning: it's cheap) I'd be willing to pay extra $$ a month for a service like that if the content's interesting. ISPs do a terrible job of upsells.
Whatcha think, sirs?
Lol I really touched a nerve there. Somebody used up 3 of their mod points to smack me down. Damn me for making an observation about what I see!! Don't provide an alternative point of view or anything, you got those mod points to burn! Use'em like bullets!
This'll get modded down too even though I'm defending my previous post.
I love it when MS stories are posted. It's so easy to rack up karma!
MS SUCKS! WOOHOO!! Free mod-points to all!
*wonders if his social satire will be dismissed as sophmoric*
"There's a difference between faith and believing what you see in a movie..."
It's pretty clear here that saying you're a Jedi on a census is sarcastic at best. There was no 'opression' going on. Man I wish I knew the emoticon for rolling my eyes.
If they really want to set up 'Jedi' as a religion, then they should go through formal channels to devise a religion SIMILAR to the Jedi. However, calling it 'Jedi' is not going to garner them any respect.
I can understand somebody wanting to study a formal version of Jedi(ism?), and I can respect that. But base it literally off the movies and you're in for non-acceptance.
"As long as this technology is not used against whites, what is the big deal?"
/. data is that I'm reptillian. The only terrorist act that a gator's ever commited is the suicide eating of an upper-class golfer.
I'm curious how the Gov't is supposed to know what my nationality is. Heh. The best they're going to get out of my
Too bad the rates are metered. But at least you can watch the spinny thing on the side of your house while you're waiting for Snatch to come down.
Airports alone would make that Starbuck's service worthwhile.
Ironic, everybody hates Starbuck's for being everywhere, but they may be our saviors when it comes to getting wireless broadband up.
My boss has a Zaurus with an 802.11 card. After that story the other day about Starbuck's 'interferring' with a free 802.11 provider, I discovered that there are a LOT of Starbuck's around Portland that have the T-Mobile service ready to go. Seriously, I've been to 3 different stores that had it and 1 of them was in the mall. It's a sure bet that the bigger mall will have it soon too. (That Starbuck's is remodelling...)
This isnt' worth the $30 a month they want for it, otherwise this is a seriously cool combination with a Zaurus. I could go to the mall and do my shopping. If I'm concerned about an item costing a little too much, I could run down to the Starbuck's (or just close to it...), fire up the Zaurus, and go check out the price at a place like Newegg.com. Even better, I can find out if a competitor is running a sale! Best Buy's site will let ya order the item from the web and pick it up in the store.
As I said, this isn't worth $30 a month to me, but that's a seriously cool alternative to trying to cover the US with a cellular-like WAP cloud.
3D Rendered Pokemon? I don't have anything '3d rendered' on my webpage. Think you got me confused with somebody else.
"People have been saying "we don't need this much power" since the 486DX 20MHz..."
I always found that type of comment amusing. They don't realize that the extra horsepower goes into making the interface better.
Technically, word processing could easily be done on a >486. However, what the extra mhz gets you today is real time spell checking, graphics, and a buncha extra interface options that just weren't possible on slower machines. You can make today's software work on earlier machines, but the optimization to do that will throw away a lot of the UI stuff we take for granted.
"For what I do, I simply don't need this much power. Do you?
Yes. I do 3D Rendering.
"I'm normally not a spelling Nazi..."
No fluke for you!
Depends on who you're aiming at. Somebody running on a P4 processor is already going to have a good idea what 2.8 gigs is gonna be like. An AMD user isn't going to make as much sense of it, I agree.
Frankly, I think they should benchmark these systems on time critical processes. I can't outrun Office on my P2 350, I dunno why they think I care about benchmarks involving that. Quake FPS can be improved (to an extent) with a new video card. Us dudes using LW/Maya/Softimage/Max are the ones who REALLY need the speed/performance rating tested. Time = Money. Benchmark on those progs.
"Andy Travis."
You got the reference I was making heh. For the unitiated: WKRP had a competitor's station WPIG. There was an ep where these two stations had their mascots get into a fight in the bathroom. The one from WKRP was wearing a Carp suit and the guy from WPIG was wearing a Pig suit. Heh.
Okay, not really on topic. But seeing KPIG and CARP in the same sentence snapped me into nostaliga land. Heh.
KPIG? CARP? Heh. So is Andy Mavis going to be the general manager?
*wonders if anybody'll understand the reference*
Dammit! Dont' take the fun out of deflating this airbag!!
No, I'm not willing to take that chance now. >:I
A dude I know was ripping up on Enterprise and how 'polarize the hull plating' doesn't mean anything. He insisted that it's just more 'Star Trek technobabble that doesn't mean anything'. This normally wouldn't be amusing except he thinks he knows everything about quantum physics, physics, and mathematics. I'm lookin forward to bursting his bubble. He takes this stuff seriously enough that you might consider what I'm about to do to him to be cruel. >:)
*Loves slapping nitpickers around*
Thanks for mentioning the MASH marathon. I've been itching to watch it lately. :)
I appreciate the tips man, thank you. :)
You are definitely right about diverisification. That's how I've been able to survive a few rounds of layoffs.
Cheers dude
I wish you luck. I honestly don't know what else to say other than im listening. I haven't been in that position (yet), but I face it. My company may or may not succeed. The worst part is, I know that if I do lose my job it'll be a minimum of 4 months for me to acquire a new one. (and that's being optimistic)
I'm not really sure how to shorten that time other than to try to network with other people in the field. I'm working that direction, but I'm scared.
I really hope the economy boosts itself soon. I think people enjoy spending money.
I have a question: Do you have any advice for me as to how to minimize the impact of unemployment? What can I do now?
Ouch. So does my having a job with .. well.. less experience bother you?
Well, fret not: That's not my primary job there, I just absorbed it. I'm the company's artist/webmaster. I was best capable of filling the previous sysadmin's shoes, but my company couldn't afford to hire a replacement for him.
It's not the type of scenario where I walked in somewhere and said "I wanna job doing sysadmin stuff". Technically I'm a Lightwave animator/compositor. Heh.
The guy that replied to you (Hektor Troy) basically hit the nail on the head. I split the sysdamin job with another person. I'm the guy who can run around and fix MS related problems, and she's the person who set up the background servers. Server related problems went her way, client problesm went my way.
:) (well, was anyway.. now I'm playing with the background servers.)
Then she went on vacation. Of course, that meant the mailserver (literally) made a big bright poofy spark and died. I made the decision to build a new mailserver and got it done!
Funny thing is, that machine's still running a year later. Heh. If you saw it, you'd think that was an amazing feat!
Just to be clear, though, I never needed to set up a mailserver before. The one that blew up was running long before I became sysdamin. I got field promoted after our previous sysadmin left. So I'm a newb pretty much.