Slightly OT, but one thing really has me bothered...
Why didn't Apple use a wireless keyboard and mouse on its new iMacs? It seems to me that the entire beauty of the machine is completely ruined by having to look at these cables.
I strongly recommend that people read Nick Economides' comment in support of the settlement here
Before reading his brief, I was against the proposed settlement, but now I must reconsider my position. Professor Economides is one of the preeminent economists in the area of network externalities, and I have read several of his papers in my graduate economics courses.
I must admit, when I first saw the picture of him with a big, bushy beird and dark glasses I thought this would be just another open-source zealot spreading the Gospel according to RMS.
In fact, I think that AC provided a fair and balanced overview of the state of Linux and open-source software.
And this "growing literature" you speak of is called basic economic theory
I was referring to the large number of articles appearing in the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, and other leading finance journals as well as the plethora of papers being presented at conferences throughout the country. Although superficially it seems like "basic economic theory," the precise modelling of these strategies is rather daunting, as is the estimation of these models. Trust me, two more months and I'll have my PhD in Economics (with a chapter of my thesis on IPO pricing!).
Re:Pegging currency to the dollar can cause proble
on
PayPal Goes Public
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· Score: 1
It's hard to short companies right after they IPO because they're "hard to borrow". Basically, it's not possible to short until brokerage firms are convinced they've got some people planning on holding the stock or can borrow the stock from somewhere else.
Note that although they only sold 5.4 million shares in the IPO, there are 59.8 million shares outstanding. Hence, there is a large overhang of stock which may be sold after the lockup expires.
In fact, there is a growing literature which suggests companies purposely limit the number of shares issued in the IPO. This low supply of shares causes the stock to rise in the ensuing days and months as additional investors purchase the stock and analysts begin issuing recommendations. After the lockup, insiders then begin to sell shares in earnest at these high prices which are at least in part due to the manipulative effects of a small number of shares offerred at the IPO. In short, while there may be short-term gains to be made in the stock, be cautious after the lock-up expires.
Also note that in the past two years the company has managed to lose 1/4 of a billion bucks and is not sure when it will be profitable. That's not exactly the kind of words that bring confidence in this market environment.
Although the market for IPO's was much smaller in 2001 than in years past, those companies that did come public tended to be more profitable and had better business models and a proven record of success; and they performed relatively well. I don't think PYPL fits this mold, however, so LOOK OUT BELOW! (after a short run upwards).
I'd seriously just try and put the cable modem right after the first splitter. Apparently the signal used to carry net traffic is not terribly strong; when I had mine installed, the cable guy replaced my RG-59U cable with something a bit thicker and said it has lower loss.
AFAIK there's not a whole lot you can do. If it would be in an inconvenient place, I suppose you could use a wireless hub from Linksys or someone.
I use Comcast for my internet access; and I live near Detroit, one of the cities mentioned where Comcast admitted to using their sniffing programs.
For the last several weeks I have been using the speed test on dslreports.com to monitor my cable modem because it had seemed very sluggish. My download speed was not over 400Kbps in the past two weeks.
I just checked my speed, and at 4:00 in the afternoon, I recorded a speed of 963Kbps, which I deem acceptable for this time of day based on past experience.
A sudden 140% increase in speed for no reason at all? I think not!
3,000,000 is Near
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Dot.Con
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· Score: -1, Offtopic
Who's going to get the 3,000,000th post? Is it me?
I live in Ann Arbor, too, and Comcast has totalled screwed us over. Before the transition I was easily getting speeds close to 1500/384 except at peak times, when they were slightly lower but nevertheless perfectly acceptable.
I've been monitoring my speeds closely for the past month and a half. I have never gotten better than 400 download, and usually it's in the 250kbps range.
Maybe in fact you don't even use the cable modem all that much and rely on a machine at umich.edu to do all of your browsing. Let me tell you, this service has really started to suck terribly.
You wrote:Lets get some REAL evidence of what's going on
Ask your neighbors about their broadband "experience" in the past couple of months. I can see a few days or a week of slow service during the transition, but either they are completely in competent high school dropouts or they are up to something else.
Even if BT can lay claim to having invented the hyperlink, I don't see how any court would award any type of damages to BT.
First, notice they are going after Prodigy for using this technology in the early 1980's; that's nearly 20 years ago. For all intents and purposes, BT waived any realistic chance of winning a case given that they've waited this long.
Second, even if a court did uphold BT's claim that they invented the hyperlink, BT would get nothing. Since apparently the technology has been around for decades and is now so pervasive that literally 100's of millions of people use it, a hyperlink is rightfully considered "public knowledge." There would be no way to award damages or collect royalties.
In short, while BT may have a rightful claim to developing the hyperlink, as a practical matter itt means nothing except a note in the history books.
...we'll evaluate the pros and cons of the "other" 64-bit processors used in workstations and servers, such as SPARC, Power, MIPS, and Alpha.
What is so special about the Itanium other than the fact that it's from Intel? We've had 64-bit processors for years now. Moreover, it's not like everyone is going to ditch the IA32 architecture overnight and go to Itanium. It seems to me that anyone who needs/wants 64-bit computing already has it.
Having read the press release, here's what I get out of it:
1. The x86 architecture with Linux will only be used in their Cobalt and other small file/print server solutions.
2. They are not releasing any new workstations based on x86 processors.
3. They plan on working with others to support Linux on the Sparc architecture.
4. They offer products which allow Linux programs to run under Solaris.
Now for the interesting questions:
1. Is their work in Linux part of a long-range strategy to phase out Solaris? After all, they make money selling hardware. If a free UNIX is available, why waste money developing Solaris.
2. Are they taking a play out of IBM's Linux-everywhere strategy? How soon before we see E10k's and E15k's shipping with virtual machine software able to support 1000's of Linux images?
That's fine if you push over 2Gb per day. My only point is don't subscribe to a cable modem service for $39.95 per month and expect to be able to do that.
54% of Americans are now online, and that's certainly a Good Thing(tm).
A non-trivial proportion of those people get their internet access via 56k dial-up modems, and certainly their surfing experience would be vastly better with a broadband connection. In addition, 46% of Americans do not yet have access to the internet. While with most forms of technology, not everyone wants to get online, I'd wager that a fair portion of that 46% would like to learn how.
I think there are several things that we as the richest nation on Earth should focus on going forward:
1. Making internet access available to those in the remaining 46% who cannot afford but wish to have access. Perhaps a large campaign to recycle used computers and 56k modems and then donate them along with free monthly access to poor people would be a good start.
2. Improve the broadband experience for those who have gone through it thus far. By this I mean a concerted effort to reduce the delays in getting DSL service and the fiascos related to the @home collapse.
3. Make broadband live up to its claims. Currently, many if not most cable modem users suffer from network congestion and slower-than-advertised download speeds. For me personally, while still much faster than a modem, the frustration I have in the evening when things seem to move at a snail's pace make me yearn for a modem; at least then I can't complain about the service. Probably the best solution is a two-tiered pricing scheme in which light users pay a lower monthly fee but are guaranteed a speed of, say, 768kbps down and in which heavy users (say, over 2 gigs a month) pay a much higher fee. There is little doubt that a small proportion of broadband users slow down cable networks for everyone; and they should have to pay for their heavy usage.
4. Do everything possible to support open standards on the internet. In other words, make web pages browser-agnostic. Avoid using proprietary services such as Microsoft's.NET offerings until the protocols are publicly known and other software vendors (or open source providers) have had a chance to develop products with a compatible feature set.
5. Do not use Microsoft.doc and.xls formats as the basis for document interchange. Not everyone uses Microsoft products, and because of their proprietary nature other software packages cannot offer 100% portability. If a document does not need to be modified, use a PDF file; if it does, use RTF or some other standards-based document type that can be processed by other software. For spreadsheets, use a basic CSV format if it is sufficient or use WK1, which all spreadsheet packages can handle.
Heathkit used to make a weather station in the late 1980's and early 1990's before their demise. IIRC, it had a cable that could be connected to a serial port on a computer.
I'd suggest searching on Ebay for one. Hopefully, it will come with the manual, which will have the specifics of how to talk to its serial port.
Making a expensive luxury car in the $50 000 range costs about $3 000 - $4 000. A $25 000 car costs about two grand to make. The usual costs for making a car is a bit below 10% of the sale price.
You are full of shit. Where did you get these numbers? Out of your arse?
Since he registered this domain way back in 1990, I don't see how this California company has any claim to it. Notice that the company became interested in acquiring the domain around 1998, about the time every company on the planet decided to get online. Seeing that an individual owned the name they wanted, they figured they could throw a few lawyers at the problem and scare the person into giving it up. They thought wrongly.
Sure, cybersquatting just to extort money out of a company or to otherwise do harm to a company is wrong; in these situations I think companies have legitimate beef with cybersquatters. However, let's not ignore that fact that this guy registered the domain in 1990!
Have you thought about forming a limited liability corporation (LLC)? They are used by many professionals such as doctors, dentists, and lawyers.
Basically, an LLC gives you the liability advantages of a corporation, but they have the much simpler tax ramifications of a partnership. Moreover, they are mcuh simpler to create than a (properly constructed) corporation.
Slashdot Mirror
Why didn't Apple use a wireless keyboard and mouse on its new iMacs? It seems to me that the entire beauty of the machine is completely ruined by having to look at these cables.
Before reading his brief, I was against the proposed settlement, but now I must reconsider my position. Professor Economides is one of the preeminent economists in the area of network externalities, and I have read several of his papers in my graduate economics courses.
In fact, I think that AC provided a fair and balanced overview of the state of Linux and open-source software.
I was referring to the large number of articles appearing in the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, and other leading finance journals as well as the plethora of papers being presented at conferences throughout the country. Although superficially it seems like "basic economic theory," the precise modelling of these strategies is rather daunting, as is the estimation of these models. Trust me, two more months and I'll have my PhD in Economics (with a chapter of my thesis on IPO pricing!).
It's hard to short companies right after they IPO because they're "hard to borrow". Basically, it's not possible to short until brokerage firms are convinced they've got some people planning on holding the stock or can borrow the stock from somewhere else.
In fact, there is a growing literature which suggests companies purposely limit the number of shares issued in the IPO. This low supply of shares causes the stock to rise in the ensuing days and months as additional investors purchase the stock and analysts begin issuing recommendations. After the lockup, insiders then begin to sell shares in earnest at these high prices which are at least in part due to the manipulative effects of a small number of shares offerred at the IPO. In short, while there may be short-term gains to be made in the stock, be cautious after the lock-up expires.
Also note that in the past two years the company has managed to lose 1/4 of a billion bucks and is not sure when it will be profitable. That's not exactly the kind of words that bring confidence in this market environment.
Although the market for IPO's was much smaller in 2001 than in years past, those companies that did come public tended to be more profitable and had better business models and a proven record of success; and they performed relatively well. I don't think PYPL fits this mold, however, so LOOK OUT BELOW! (after a short run upwards).
I'd seriously just try and put the cable modem right after the first splitter. Apparently the signal used to carry net traffic is not terribly strong; when I had mine installed, the cable guy replaced my RG-59U cable with something a bit thicker and said it has lower loss.
AFAIK there's not a whole lot you can do. If it would be in an inconvenient place, I suppose you could use a wireless hub from Linksys or someone.
For the last several weeks I have been using the speed test on dslreports.com to monitor my cable modem because it had seemed very sluggish. My download speed was not over 400Kbps in the past two weeks.
I just checked my speed, and at 4:00 in the afternoon, I recorded a speed of 963Kbps, which I deem acceptable for this time of day based on past experience.
A sudden 140% increase in speed for no reason at all? I think not!
Who's going to get the 3,000,000th post? Is it me?
I live in Ann Arbor, too, and Comcast has totalled screwed us over. Before the transition I was easily getting speeds close to 1500/384 except at peak times, when they were slightly lower but nevertheless perfectly acceptable.
I've been monitoring my speeds closely for the past month and a half. I have never gotten better than 400 download, and usually it's in the 250kbps range.
Maybe in fact you don't even use the cable modem all that much and rely on a machine at umich.edu to do all of your browsing. Let me tell you, this service has really started to suck terribly.
You wrote:Lets get some REAL evidence of what's going on
Ask your neighbors about their broadband "experience" in the past couple of months. I can see a few days or a week of slow service during the transition, but either they are completely in competent high school dropouts or they are up to something else.
First, notice they are going after Prodigy for using this technology in the early 1980's; that's nearly 20 years ago. For all intents and purposes, BT waived any realistic chance of winning a case given that they've waited this long.
Second, even if a court did uphold BT's claim that they invented the hyperlink, BT would get nothing. Since apparently the technology has been around for decades and is now so pervasive that literally 100's of millions of people use it, a hyperlink is rightfully considered "public knowledge." There would be no way to award damages or collect royalties.
In short, while BT may have a rightful claim to developing the hyperlink, as a practical matter itt means nothing except a note in the history books.
Actually, I've seen interviews in some business magazines with their CEO. In fact, they are slightly profitable and have been for a few years.
still works for me whenever I do it, though I didn't try this particular article.
What is so special about the Itanium other than the fact that it's from Intel? We've had 64-bit processors for years now. Moreover, it's not like everyone is going to ditch the IA32 architecture overnight and go to Itanium. It seems to me that anyone who needs/wants 64-bit computing already has it.
George W. Bush won the election fairly and squarely. Get over it already.
1. The x86 architecture with Linux will only be used in their Cobalt and other small file/print server solutions.
2. They are not releasing any new workstations based on x86 processors.
3. They plan on working with others to support Linux on the Sparc architecture.
4. They offer products which allow Linux programs to run under Solaris.
Now for the interesting questions:
1. Is their work in Linux part of a long-range strategy to phase out Solaris? After all, they make money selling hardware. If a free UNIX is available, why waste money developing Solaris.
2. Are they taking a play out of IBM's Linux-everywhere strategy? How soon before we see E10k's and E15k's shipping with virtual machine software able to support 1000's of Linux images?
Just my take on the article.
Moderators: That is a joke.
That's fine if you push over 2Gb per day. My only point is don't subscribe to a cable modem service for $39.95 per month and expect to be able to do that.
A non-trivial proportion of those people get their internet access via 56k dial-up modems, and certainly their surfing experience would be vastly better with a broadband connection. In addition, 46% of Americans do not yet have access to the internet. While with most forms of technology, not everyone wants to get online, I'd wager that a fair portion of that 46% would like to learn how.
I think there are several things that we as the richest nation on Earth should focus on going forward:
1. Making internet access available to those in the remaining 46% who cannot afford but wish to have access. Perhaps a large campaign to recycle used computers and 56k modems and then donate them along with free monthly access to poor people would be a good start.
2. Improve the broadband experience for those who have gone through it thus far. By this I mean a concerted effort to reduce the delays in getting DSL service and the fiascos related to the @home collapse.
3. Make broadband live up to its claims. Currently, many if not most cable modem users suffer from network congestion and slower-than-advertised download speeds. For me personally, while still much faster than a modem, the frustration I have in the evening when things seem to move at a snail's pace make me yearn for a modem; at least then I can't complain about the service. Probably the best solution is a two-tiered pricing scheme in which light users pay a lower monthly fee but are guaranteed a speed of, say, 768kbps down and in which heavy users (say, over 2 gigs a month) pay a much higher fee. There is little doubt that a small proportion of broadband users slow down cable networks for everyone; and they should have to pay for their heavy usage.
4. Do everything possible to support open standards on the internet. In other words, make web pages browser-agnostic. Avoid using proprietary services such as Microsoft's .NET offerings until the protocols are publicly known and other software vendors (or open source providers) have had a chance to develop products with a compatible feature set.
5. Do not use Microsoft .doc and .xls formats as the basis for document interchange. Not everyone uses Microsoft products, and because of their proprietary nature other software packages cannot offer 100% portability. If a document does not need to be modified, use a PDF file; if it does, use RTF or some other standards-based document type that can be processed by other software. For spreadsheets, use a basic CSV format if it is sufficient or use WK1, which all spreadsheet packages can handle.
Enough rambling. Time for breakfast.
I'd suggest searching on Ebay for one. Hopefully, it will come with the manual, which will have the specifics of how to talk to its serial port.
You are full of shit. Where did you get these numbers? Out of your arse?
Sure, cybersquatting just to extort money out of a company or to otherwise do harm to a company is wrong; in these situations I think companies have legitimate beef with cybersquatters. However, let's not ignore that fact that this guy registered the domain in 1990!
Xboing. Without a doubt. I can't count the number of hours I've wasted away playing that fricking game.
Look at the post about a dozen spaces above yours. Since I'm such a nice guy, just click here instead: What is the point of this?
Basically, an LLC gives you the liability advantages of a corporation, but they have the much simpler tax ramifications of a partnership. Moreover, they are mcuh simpler to create than a (properly constructed) corporation.