Doyle, however, points out that the list is purged each month of numbers that have been disconnected and reassigned to new customers. He called the FTC's position on the need for an expiration date "completely bogus."
Ergo, flushing the list == telemarketing lobby paying for it.
Somehow I fail to see how having an unpublished number stops auto-dialers from hitting your number in sequence. Or from someone you deal with legitimately from selling your number to someone else (Don't ever give out your actual phone number for those grocery store discount cards, for example).
I've been on the DNC list since its inception (and put down 555-1212 for things like the aforementioned grocery store cards). THAT works. We receive *zero* telemarketing calls. The only ones we do get are the stupid exceptions (non-profit & political) and after telling them to put us on their own DNC list (Which I believe most states require them to maintain) we stopped getting those as well.
The DNC list is awesome and one of the few things that I happily want my tax dollars spent on. Attempting to get it flushed is obviously being funded by the telemarketing lobby.
I guess you couldn't be bothered to RTFA, so I'll point out the part that makes your post completely moot:
Doyle, however, points out that the list is purged each month of numbers that have been disconnected and reassigned to new customers. He called the FTC's position on the need for an expiration date "completely bogus."
So... they already support "a system that automatically takes a number off the rolls if you cancel your phone service." as you put it.
I asked that telemarketers not call me. I shouldn't have to ask twice, or every X number of years if I still have the same phone number.
I'm still annoyed that non-profit and campaigns can still call me - I don't want them to either, and allowing them to do so isn't doing anything for anyone. The fact of the matter is that if they do call, that organization will never see a dime from me, even if it's something I might support. You want to talk to me and perhaps get some support? Have a web presence I can find on the net when I'm looking for you (or someone like you), advertise in something I read. Don't call me during dinner.
The concept of flushing the list is obviously funded by the telemarketing industry, given that it's already purged monthly as stated above.
There is one main thing that maintains microsoft's illegal monopoly: interoperability.
If the settlement had said "You (M$) must make your file formats and server protocols (exchange) available", there would be a whole lot more folks not needing to buy MS products because there would be other viable* alternatives.
* Yes, I know about (and use) OpenOffice, Evolution, etc... but none of these offer 100% interoperability which is really important when it comes to business. And people use their home computers for work at least on some level. I can't rely on Oo to properly format an important word doc - I always email it to myself, open it at work, and often need to tweak the formatting a bit.
I work at a place that actually understands this, and love it. We do agile dev, and 4 "hours" is the daily level.
I don't think I've ever worked in a better environment, and to be honest, I probably get *more* done in an average day than at any other place I've ever worked.
Obviously this doesn't mean that on some days I don't code for more than 4 hours, or don't work at home sometimes when things need to get done, etc. That just comes with the territory. But it's the environment where I don't have someone standing over me expecting me to be jamming out code for 8 hours a day that really, really makes going to work enjoyable. Basically... if your projects are getting done, they don't really care how you're archiving that.
You see this all the time now with Chinese produced goods. They copy whatever it is they were manufacturing for American company X, then produce it for themselves and ship it into the US. Basically, all they need is someone in the US to handle sales and distribution (Walmart, for example).
Man, i dread the day that they isolate the maybe 10,000 people on the planet who actually respond positively to advertising. What will we do with all the trees and bandwidth then?:-(
I have some bad news for you... AdWords works. Really, really well.
I was running an eCommerce site from 2002 until this spring (Not huge, but in the $350k/yr gross sales area) . Even with decent google indexing (1st and 2nd page placement on most things) you can't beat well-designed AdWords campaigns for results. Froogle (now Google Base) also works exceptionally well.
People (talking about the average consumer here in the US) are just damn lazy - they search, they see what they're looking for in that top or side margin... and they click on it. Even when your normal indexed page is just 2 or 3 listings below and well-formed for the search result listing. Or if you were the only one there (in AdWords) and there were numerous first page results matching their search. People these days just can't be bothered to actually read all those silly search results (I know it's really somewhat of a sad commentary on Americans... but it's also simply the truth).
This is not to say that you automatically convert every sale - obviously there's a lot more that goes into that (price, presentation, etc), but the AdWords advertising works - it gets those eyeballs you need to your site.
No kidding! That's the exact thought I had when I read the headline.
We're not "gotta have" types when it comes to this sort of thing, but my wife and I plan on buying one the first time we're out shopping at Target/Walmart/Best Buy/The mall and there's one available. So far, that hasn't happened. And it's not like we're hermits and never go to the store - I was at both Walmart and Best Buy this weekend... Zippo, nada.
Asheron's Call was an awesome game, very inovative in a lot of ways... until they killed it by catering to only power-gamers. It died soon after. AC2 was a dog. Online AD&D. See: AC2.
Hopefully... they've learned something. But I doubt it.
When you install Solaris 10, you are prompted for how you want remote access to the box initially configured. This is done in phase 1 of the install, running off the install media.
You can either turn on everything (telnetd, ftpd, etc, etc), or only have sshd running when the box comes up for the first time.
So saying that telnetd is on "by default" isn't exactly correct, unless your definition of "by default" is "explicitly enabled".
"Since apparently Sun is negligent enough to have telnet enabled by default, it is an important story."
Sure, as long as you include the part that "by default" means you have to explicitly turn it on during the install.
When you're installing Solaris 10, you're prompted for how you want remote services initially configured.
The wrong way is to enable everything (including telnetd). The right way is to says "yes" which means the box comes up with only sshd running for remote access.
I don't know what the current pricing is on them (You could look at sun.com), but they are now always running some sort of special on various hardware.
From TFA: "Download prices will be $12.88 to $19.88 on the day of the DVD release; older movies will start at $7.50"
I don't get it. I really don't.
Why would I, as a consumer, pay the same amount of money as a real DVD at the store for an inferior product (DRM restrictions, lower resolution, etc)?
I then have to download it (time, bandwidth). Comcast still enforces their 40Gb per month limit... so I also just used up 10% of my monthly internet access to boot! I could drive to walmart (there's one 2 miles from my house, surprise!) and buy the thing in the amount of time it takes to download it.
No thanks, I'll keep renting and buying real DVDs. Maybe once we all have the equiv. of FIOS and they either price the inferior product accordingly or offer the same product I can buy in the store, I'll think about it.
Or... they could move with the market, offer an x86 version of Solaris that is the same as the Sparc version, start selling AMD and Intel server and workstation solutions, and bring themselves back to profitability (something they haven't done in years).
Linux beats it in hardware support, but Sun has the whole overpriced reliability image which some might find attractive. If you're paying the big bucks you can get a good response from Sun, though I'd suspect people working on Linux could make those bucks go further.
Have you actually looked at what Sun is doing these days?
Not only are they offering AMD Opteron (And soon Intel) server and workstation solutions running Solaris 10 x86 (which is damn near feature-for-feature as Solaris 10 on Sparc), their prices have come down.
I'm typing this on an Ultra20 Opteron workstation that I bought last year under one of their offers. 3 year service and support (Hardware and software including the dev tools) for $1k, and they bill my credit card for 3 payments over that time, no interest, no BS.
"Outside of non-professional teenage Slashdot readers who still think the shitty Perl syntax is 'kewl', who the hell cares about the language anymore?"
I usually don't reply to trolls, but...
The answer is hundreds of thousands of people around the world who use the correct tool for a given job, rather then trying to hammer in screws with the "latest and greatest".
PS, if you're not clueless and actually are a professional software developer, you can write code in perl that is every bit as readable as . It even supports comments!
- Roach (Who writes code in perl, as well as a number of other languages depending on the task at hand.)
"Ummm, doesn't that prove the point. We go to the cheapest country to do industry, and eventually the industry in that country changes to the point where workers are receiving higher wages, equipment costs more, and they become more technically accomplished in their own right."
Where along the way did the working conditions improve or conversion to democracy occur? They simply wanted more money for what they were doing, and I doubt it went to the workers.
Last time I looked neither Korea nor Pakistan has a roaring economy, and have in fact lost a great deal of its newfound manufacturing jobs to China. Unless they want to undercut China, they're not getting those jobs back either unless your big wheel makes back around to them again in 30-50 years.
I understand your view, but the distinction you're drawing is a bit gray, IMHO.
Is it not "acting to help with the oppression" by using (and profiting) from sweat-shop labor without any action (or even interest) toward insisting that the conditions be improved? I don't see this as any different from the issue at hand (IT companies operating under local law).
I just don't buy the whole "dump buckets of money on them and suddenly they'll convert to capitalism" theory. I'm more of a realist that thinks the moment that labor/manufacturing costs increase in China, the corps will simply switch to the next super-cheap manufacturing workforce (which is pretty much how it ended up in China - Korea and Pakistan were costing more).
"Only at certain levels are standards connected to human rights, but reality dictates that if a country is only at a certain level of economic development you can only expect a certain standard of work conditions for example. "
If that's the case why isn't the same assumption made regarding rights?
You're saying we assume that a developing nation won't have our standards for work conditions, etc... but they should have our standards when it comes to things like our standards for speech and expression. That doesn't make any rational sense to me.
Ok... someone please elxplain, because I don't get it.
Doing internet business in communist and other countries which have oppressive regimes and following their local laws rather than US law (free speech, censorship, etc) is bad.
Pouring billions of dollars into their economy via manufacturing and giving them "preferred trading status" while following their local laws rather than US law (wage minimums, working conditions, etc) is good (See: China).
Makes perfect sense if you're a politician I suppose.
I run an online and brick-and-mortar retail shop. Starting out on a budget is always a challenge, and for our computing needs I went with eBay (this was 3 years ago):
Sunblade 1000 workstation with 2G ram, 2x700mhz uSparkIII, D1000 raid array: $700 Sun Ray thin clients: $30 a piece 21" monitors: $50 - $100 a piece (Now a days I'd prob go with cheap flat panels) 17" sunray 150 (monitor/thin client combo for the counter) $70 HP Laserjet 4mp+: $50 (And it's still cranking out pages 3 years later)
Done. Everyone has a nice setup on their desk, I have one machine to admin, and life is good. We don't need any MS software, so that wasn't an issue for us (the Sunblade is running Solaris 10)
The sunrays really work great... I bought a couple to use at home as well because they were so cheap on eBay and the sunray server is available for linux (and I think Windows now).
Slashdot Mirror
From TFA:
Doyle, however, points out that the list is purged each month of numbers that have been disconnected and reassigned to new customers. He called the FTC's position on the need for an expiration date "completely bogus."
Ergo, flushing the list == telemarketing lobby paying for it.
- Roach
Somehow I fail to see how having an unpublished number stops auto-dialers from hitting your number in sequence. Or from someone you deal with legitimately from selling your number to someone else (Don't ever give out your actual phone number for those grocery store discount cards, for example).
I've been on the DNC list since its inception (and put down 555-1212 for things like the aforementioned grocery store cards). THAT works. We receive *zero* telemarketing calls. The only ones we do get are the stupid exceptions (non-profit & political) and after telling them to put us on their own DNC list (Which I believe most states require them to maintain) we stopped getting those as well.
The DNC list is awesome and one of the few things that I happily want my tax dollars spent on. Attempting to get it flushed is obviously being funded by the telemarketing lobby.
- Roach
I guess you couldn't be bothered to RTFA, so I'll point out the part that makes your post completely moot:
... they already support "a system that automatically takes a number off the rolls if you cancel your phone service." as you put it.
Doyle, however, points out that the list is purged each month of numbers that have been disconnected and reassigned to new customers. He called the FTC's position on the need for an expiration date "completely bogus."
So
I asked that telemarketers not call me. I shouldn't have to ask twice, or every X number of years if I still have the same phone number.
I'm still annoyed that non-profit and campaigns can still call me - I don't want them to either, and allowing them to do so isn't doing anything for anyone. The fact of the matter is that if they do call, that organization will never see a dime from me, even if it's something I might support. You want to talk to me and perhaps get some support? Have a web presence I can find on the net when I'm looking for you (or someone like you), advertise in something I read. Don't call me during dinner.
The concept of flushing the list is obviously funded by the telemarketing industry, given that it's already purged monthly as stated above.
- Roach
MS Office doesn't offer 100% interoperability. Funnily enough. Similar amounts of tweaking required there between versions.
And you don't think this is by design?
Why else would everyone need the latest version?
- Roach
There is one main thing that maintains microsoft's illegal monopoly: interoperability.
If the settlement had said "You (M$) must make your file formats and server protocols (exchange) available", there would be a whole lot more folks not needing to buy MS products because there would be other viable* alternatives.
* Yes, I know about (and use) OpenOffice, Evolution, etc
- Roach
I work at a place that actually understands this, and love it. We do agile dev, and 4 "hours" is the daily level.
I don't think I've ever worked in a better environment, and to be honest, I probably get *more* done in an average day than at any other place I've ever worked.
Obviously this doesn't mean that on some days I don't code for more than 4 hours, or don't work at home sometimes when things need to get done, etc. That just comes with the territory. But it's the environment where I don't have someone standing over me expecting me to be jamming out code for 8 hours a day that really, really makes going to work enjoyable. Basically
- Roach
You see this all the time now with Chinese produced goods. They copy whatever it is they were manufacturing for American company X, then produce it for themselves and ship it into the US. Basically, all they need is someone in the US to handle sales and distribution (Walmart, for example).
- Roach
Man, i dread the day that they isolate the maybe 10,000 people on the planet who actually respond positively to advertising. What will we do with all the trees and bandwidth then? :-(
... AdWords works. Really, really well.
... and they click on it. Even when your normal indexed page is just 2 or 3 listings below and well-formed for the search result listing. Or if you were the only one there (in AdWords) and there were numerous first page results matching their search. People these days just can't be bothered to actually read all those silly search results (I know it's really somewhat of a sad commentary on Americans ... but it's also simply the truth).
I have some bad news for you
I was running an eCommerce site from 2002 until this spring (Not huge, but in the $350k/yr gross sales area) . Even with decent google indexing (1st and 2nd page placement on most things) you can't beat well-designed AdWords campaigns for results. Froogle (now Google Base) also works exceptionally well.
People (talking about the average consumer here in the US) are just damn lazy - they search, they see what they're looking for in that top or side margin
This is not to say that you automatically convert every sale - obviously there's a lot more that goes into that (price, presentation, etc), but the AdWords advertising works - it gets those eyeballs you need to your site.
- Roach
No kidding! That's the exact thought I had when I read the headline.
We're not "gotta have" types when it comes to this sort of thing, but my wife and I plan on buying one the first time we're out shopping at Target/Walmart/Best Buy/The mall and there's one available. So far, that hasn't happened. And it's not like we're hermits and never go to the store - I was at both Walmart and Best Buy this weekend
- Roach
Asheron's Call was an awesome game, very inovative in a lot of ways
AC2 was a dog.
Online AD&D. See: AC2.
Hopefully
- Roach
Converting your neighbors to Mac or Linux users just became a whole lot more important.
- Roach
When you install Solaris 10, you are prompted for how you want remote access to the box initially configured. This is done in phase 1 of the install, running off the install media.
You can either turn on everything (telnetd, ftpd, etc, etc), or only have sshd running when the box comes up for the first time.
So saying that telnetd is on "by default" isn't exactly correct, unless your definition of "by default" is "explicitly enabled".
- Roach
"Since apparently Sun is negligent enough to have telnet enabled by default, it is an important story."
Sure, as long as you include the part that "by default" means you have to explicitly turn it on during the install.
When you're installing Solaris 10, you're prompted for how you want remote services initially configured.
The wrong way is to enable everything (including telnetd). The right way is to says "yes" which means the box comes up with only sshd running for remote access.
- Roach
To hell with AdSense (seriously).
What more direct way of advertising can I have as a merchant/manufacturer/whatever than picking the exact entries I want my ad displayed in?
I know I'd certainly run some ads there.
- Roach
"You paid for $1k of support for a *workstation*?
Sorry - re-reading my post, it was worded badly.
The $1k included the workstation.
I don't know what the current pricing is on them (You could look at sun.com), but they are now always running some sort of special on various hardware.
- Roach
From TFA: "Download prices will be $12.88 to $19.88 on the day of the DVD release; older movies will start at $7.50"
... so I also just used up 10% of my monthly internet access to boot! I could drive to walmart (there's one 2 miles from my house, surprise!) and buy the thing in the amount of time it takes to download it.
I don't get it. I really don't.
Why would I, as a consumer, pay the same amount of money as a real DVD at the store for an inferior product (DRM restrictions, lower resolution, etc)?
I then have to download it (time, bandwidth). Comcast still enforces their 40Gb per month limit
No thanks, I'll keep renting and buying real DVDs. Maybe once we all have the equiv. of FIOS and they either price the inferior product accordingly or offer the same product I can buy in the store, I'll think about it.
- Roach
Or ... they could move with the market, offer an x86 version of Solaris that is the same as the Sparc version, start selling AMD and Intel server and workstation solutions, and bring themselves back to profitability (something they haven't done in years).
... they did that. Much like TFA states ...
Oh wait
- Roach
Linux beats it in hardware support, but Sun has the whole overpriced reliability image which some might find attractive. If you're paying the big bucks you can get a good response from Sun, though I'd suspect people working on Linux could make those bucks go further.
Have you actually looked at what Sun is doing these days?
Not only are they offering AMD Opteron (And soon Intel) server and workstation solutions running Solaris 10 x86 (which is damn near feature-for-feature as Solaris 10 on Sparc), their prices have come down.
I'm typing this on an Ultra20 Opteron workstation that I bought last year under one of their offers. 3 year service and support (Hardware and software including the dev tools) for $1k, and they bill my credit card for 3 payments over that time, no interest, no BS.
- Roach
"Outside of non-professional teenage Slashdot readers who still think the shitty Perl syntax is 'kewl', who the hell cares about the language anymore?"
...
I usually don't reply to trolls, but
The answer is hundreds of thousands of people around the world who use the correct tool for a given job, rather then trying to hammer in screws with the "latest and greatest".
PS, if you're not clueless and actually are a professional software developer, you can write code in perl that is every bit as readable as . It even supports comments!
- Roach
(Who writes code in perl, as well as a number of other languages depending on the task at hand.)
"Ummm, doesn't that prove the point. We go to the cheapest country to do industry, and eventually the industry in that country changes to the point where workers are receiving higher wages, equipment costs more, and they become more technically accomplished in their own right."
Where along the way did the working conditions improve or conversion to democracy occur? They simply wanted more money for what they were doing, and I doubt it went to the workers.
Last time I looked neither Korea nor Pakistan has a roaring economy, and have in fact lost a great deal of its newfound manufacturing jobs to China. Unless they want to undercut China, they're not getting those jobs back either unless your big wheel makes back around to them again in 30-50 years.
- Roach
I understand your view, but the distinction you're drawing is a bit gray, IMHO.
Is it not "acting to help with the oppression" by using (and profiting) from sweat-shop labor without any action (or even interest) toward insisting that the conditions be improved? I don't see this as any different from the issue at hand (IT companies operating under local law).
I just don't buy the whole "dump buckets of money on them and suddenly they'll convert to capitalism" theory. I'm more of a realist that thinks the moment that labor/manufacturing costs increase in China, the corps will simply switch to the next super-cheap manufacturing workforce (which is pretty much how it ended up in China - Korea and Pakistan were costing more).
- Roach
"Only at certain levels are standards connected to human rights, but reality dictates that if a country is only at a certain level of economic development you can only expect a certain standard of work conditions for example. "
... but they should have our standards when it comes to things like our standards for speech and expression. That doesn't make any rational sense to me.
If that's the case why isn't the same assumption made regarding rights?
You're saying we assume that a developing nation won't have our standards for work conditions, etc
- Roach
Ok
Doing internet business in communist and other countries which have oppressive regimes and following their local laws rather than US law (free speech, censorship, etc) is bad.
Pouring billions of dollars into their economy via manufacturing and giving them "preferred trading status" while following their local laws rather than US law (wage minimums, working conditions, etc) is good (See: China).
Makes perfect sense if you're a politician I suppose.
- Roach
Sun Rays on eBay. I bought a ton of them for about $30 a piece three years ago for my business.
Looking right now, it would appear they've gone up to about $50, but still a fairly cheap solution.
- Roach
I did this for my small business, and it rocks.
... I bought a couple to use at home as well because they were so cheap on eBay and the sunray server is available for linux (and I think Windows now).
I run an online and brick-and-mortar retail shop. Starting out on a budget is always a challenge, and for our computing needs I went with eBay (this was 3 years ago):
Sunblade 1000 workstation with 2G ram, 2x700mhz uSparkIII, D1000 raid array: $700
Sun Ray thin clients: $30 a piece
21" monitors: $50 - $100 a piece (Now a days I'd prob go with cheap flat panels)
17" sunray 150 (monitor/thin client combo for the counter) $70
HP Laserjet 4mp+: $50 (And it's still cranking out pages 3 years later)
Done. Everyone has a nice setup on their desk, I have one machine to admin, and life is good. We don't need any MS software, so that wasn't an issue for us (the Sunblade is running Solaris 10)
The sunrays really work great
- Roach