Does anyone know if companies are allowed to buy put options on their own stock? Because if they expected the stock to crash and burn, that would be a neat way to profit twice on the same stock, assuming it's legal....
Sure. Companies can bet against their own stock. It would be extremely bad PR if they did so (with some clear exceptions, see below). They would, most likely, be required to issue some sort of 'news', or factual material, that supported their own 'opinion'. [as expressed by their obvious negative outlook on their own stock]
But with an IPO, and the subject of puts and calls, you have to remember that the rules governing 'bets' for and against a stock can only be made when the last transaction in the stock, itself, has gone 'against' the profitable outlook for the stock as expressed in the put or call contract.
In other words, if I want to bet against Apple, using puts or calls, I have to do my deal when Apple stock is on an 'uptick.' And vice versa for a pro-Apple 'bet'...i.e., the stock needs to be on a downtick before I can bet on it in that put/call market. Otherwise you'd have tons of folks, observing a rise in a stock's price, let's say, and they'd pile in saying, "I bet the stock is going to rise." Puts and calls are created as insurance (risk management), not mirrors of already-established activity.
There are cases where a company might want to insure its own stock, using puts. Example:
Company A is being bought by Company B for X-number of Company B shares. In that case Company A would buy the puts on Company B stock, not their own. Why? Because the time between the acceptance of the deal, and the consumation of the stock transaction, means that the 'currency' (Company B's stock) is at market risk, and if its shares drop in price, then the deal, for X-number of shares is worth less when the shares change hands, than it was when the deal was accepted. The ONLY time Company A would do a similar put trade on their own stock would be if the terms of the deal were based on, say, a percentage (like 120%) of Company A's market value (numShares x sharesOutstanding). That would be a rare deal, that I haven't seen.
To sum up:
Vonage couldn't buy puts on an IPO of their own stock, because there's no previous up, or down, 'tick.' But a company might hold many shares of its own stock, and a series of puts on the stock would be justified. Why? Because if their holdings dropped, the loss is on paper, and would be made up for by the profit on the puts. Still, it would look crappy, in terms of PR, but could be explained. The simplest explanation being: "If we were negative on our shares, long term, we'd sell, but we aren't negative, so we are holding the shares, long term, and protecting equity, by managing the risk inherent in being exposed to market forces." The company's holdings of their own stock is a de facto liquid part of company equity, and is part of the intrinsic value of their shareholders stock. So they're protecting ALL shareholders, not just the compan, or insiders. Very simple, very straightforward.
And, no, I don't even have a driver's license.:=)
As a matter of fact, I have a friend whose business partner sold a software company (division) some years ago. At the time of the deal's acceptance it was worth around $550 million. There was a 6-month 'gap' before consumation. I told my friend, "Tell your buddy to buy puts on the other company's shares, on the next uptick, just enough contracts to cover the current value of the deal."
There's a lot of leverage in puts and calls, so, for about 30 grand the guy could have bought puts going out 6 months to insure the deal at around $550 million.
Unfortunately:
I had no 'certification', no series anything, I didn't 'count', and he ignored the advice. I still have no license, and the 'other guy' lost somewhere between $175-215 million bucks (I forget the exact amount) when the 'other' company's shares dropped in the 6-month interim. He would have still 'lost' the 'value', in terms of the stock, itself, but would have profited an equal amount in the increased value of the put contracts. Tough luck for him. C'est la vie, pal.
Properly setup, it does (although it still can't escape the inherent security hole presented by a superuser account).
Not sure what you by "properly setup", but 'tedious'?
I set my defaults for the timestamp [sudo, or any root escalation] to 'zero'. Took about 3 seconds on the CLI [OS X]. End of problem. No lifetime, at all, to a privilege escalation.
And, as an aside, anyone who has a 'root' account even enabled, gets what they deserve.
I haven't been asked for an "admin password" for ages, and I install tons of stuff. Running as a non-Admin User makes all the difference. And the 'timestamp' thing allows malware to 'wait' for a sudo, or admin pass, login, all it wants, but there is zero possibility of piggy-backing on the login.
I tried to cancel service once in order to take advantage of a huge discount on a new ADA converter, since mine was going intermittent on me. [Vonage had switched from NetGear to a Cisco subsidiary or something, and I wanted a NetGear box]
The guy at the store says, the discount was for 'new' subscribers, only, hence my idea to disconnect service and start fresh. So, I called Vonage CS at about 9:30pm EST. I got a guy a guy in India, who said yeah we can do that, but let me transfer you to someone who can make sure you get your same number on the new line. A girl comes on the line and says how I've been a customer for a long time, and they want to work this out without inconveniencing me. I'm in, so I listen.
Here was the 'pitch': They email me a pdf for me to print, that is a transit sticker thing, so I can send the old, way out of warranty, box back to them at no charge to myself. In addition, they will send me a new NetGear box, on the house. I'm fine with that, and when I hang up, there's the 'sticker' thing in my Vonage mailbox in Eudora. So far so good. As for the 'bitch' about shipping: The next morning I arrived at my office at 8am, and the box had already arrived and been signed-for...sitting on my desk, waiting for me. Not too shabby.
Shipping, customer service, and quality of treatment/service issues are ALL subject to GIGO...you know...garbage in, garbage out...as ye sow, so shall ye reap. Want better results? Try a different approach.
I've used Vonage for over 2 years (signed up in Feb 2004), and never had a single dropped call, never had any quality issues. I'm surprised to hear of people having these problems, to be honest.
Same here. Over 4 years in, only problem was being in NY I set up a virtual number in MN for a pending move. Then moved, then put in an order to 'swap' my old primary num (NY) and my old 'virtual' num (MN). Then all hell broke loose. Wasn't funny. I was always connected, but went through a boatload of outgoing nums from my new MN home.
Their position, besides tossing me three free months of service, was that they were just expanding their user-base much faster than anticipated. Perhaps due to the spamming my InBox (something I haven't seen on ten diffeent mail servers) which that other whiner [I call bullshit, by the way] was pretending to gripe about.
Although I understand how the 'advanced' adolescent craves that feeling of "I'm so special" for being clued-in to some obscure thing/fad/group/whatever, Vonage isn't in a position, given the enormous heft of the monopolistic entities who are sworn to kill them, to depend on word-of-mouth and software-groovy-flavor-of-the-week that appeals to the retarded consumer-type. Tough shit, stay with BellSouth, and get a 9 yr old girl to manage your friggin' InBox if it's too much for ya.
I just noticed they are also offering free calls to a few European nations to their unlimited users. I'm only on the 14.99 400min plan so I'm not sure if that applies to me as well.
No, that free calls to Ireland, the UK, Spain, Italy, and France deal is for the unlimited accounts [$24.95/mon +tax?].
Not a bad deal, really. You can also get a localised 'virtual' number in some of those countries for the same $4.99/month as the North American numbers go for.
The free calls to the 5 countries does not include calls to European cellular phones, though.
Usually it's pretty bad for share holders, which means their equality will probably be wiped out.
Equality? Ah yes, equity. The funny thing about your really minor equality/equity 'slip-up' is that there is, in fact, no 'equality' between bond holders and shareholders, in this case. (not unusual as bonds vs. stocks go) And that means that, yes, the shareholders of common stock lose everything, with no 'probably' about it. Some of the bond holders will get new stock equity in the company.
I'm not sure of the ins-and-outs in SGI's situation, but someone, who wanted to make a 'play' on SGI's re-emergence from bankruptcy protection, might be able to buy senior bonds [in effect, loaning the company money] and then get voting and/or common stock in the 'new' SGI.
But, that depends on whether the current bondholders are into a little dilution of their bond swap for equity [probably not], and whether the company officers are confident enough in the restructuring that they don't mind diluting the eventual equity, which will be represented by shares outstanding after re-emergence [also not terribly likely].
Sometimes companies go into reorganization with the common shares still in existence, but seriously close to worthless, and upon emerging from reorganization those shares rocket somewhat in terms of percentage to the upside.
It would be a sad loss of a very cool tech company. Anyone who ever saw one of their 'smaller' quad processor boxes rip through a huge render (using 200-266mHz CPUs), or had a doc tell them, "that's not a tumor it's a calcium deposit", while looking at the standard SGI monitor/MRI frontend, knows how great their stuff is and was.
Back in the day [not all that long ago], when I was working steadily, I would drop by the SGI site and have a look at their 'bargain basement' section, with the 256-proc monsters and the old $10k monitors, and just wish i had hit a small lottery. [actually, a big lottery, in the case of the mega-CPU boxes]. I hope they survive, if for no other reason than the love of good, high-tech principles.
"Acceptable" is a very loose term. Some people can't tell the difference between $50 cheap speakers and $4000 studio monitors..
I see variations on this statement all the time, and you know what? That is unsupported myth. Period. I had a 40 thousand dollar stereo at home, back when I was doing honest, pro recording work, and in studios, at the time, even the most hammered artists easily knew the difference between reference monitors and the heavy artillery.
The only human ears that would fail to hear the huge differences in articulation [meaning, in this sense, that two similar frequencies aren't 'merged' by crappiness into occupying the same sonic space] would belong to a head that heard "BOOM", and 'pssst' as the same thing. Not likely, pal.
The iPod, by the way, as cheap as its components must be, has a pretty nice amp staging situation that allows a pure 10k signal in to be scoped as a pure 10k signal out. [no 'jitter', or 'wow and flutter' to the turntable crew]. That just slaughters most turntables and consumer-level CD playback setups. But hey, keep swallowing the myths, and eventually, who knows, maybe they'll come true. Don't hold yer breath, though.
If it wasn't for the Extensions I'd give latest Firefox the heave-ho. It just simply is not a Mac-compatible app, no way. If Camino could run all the extensions and search things, I'd go with it, instead. It pays attention to APIs and doesn't screw up CSS like FF.
FF is great as a "better than IE" browser on a WinTel box, but who cares? It's hard to find a browser in Windows that isn't better, so what.
As the old saying goes, the opposite of progress is Congress.
Actually that is a common misconception due to the traditional perceived notions of "Pro" meaning for, and "Con" meaning against in debating. The opposite of progress is actually regress, meaning to move backward.
Thanks for that Einstein. How many of us out here, do you figure, ONE, already knew that and Two, have a sense of humor that you are apparently in sad lack of?
Get back with your mathematical answer, and remember, "LOW BATT" doesn't count.
Oh, and since you're such a fucking english genius, Latin should also be right up your "dark" alley, so for bonus points:
Actually, yes, I can. I went into a Walmart back in Syracuse two years ago, looking for blank DVDs, in a crisis. It was the first time I'd ever been in one, and at the time I had no particular moral/political feeling about Walmart. That was then, and things have changed as far as my attitude towards the business.
And what's funny is that 83 or '84 is about the last time I bought LPs. I used to shop the big jobbers, more than retail stores, and was getting huge discounts. I was a record collector, of the dead-serious variety, for several decades, so they had me...then. I can chill with the best of them, the original post struck me as funny, in a way, that's all. I'm far from 'perfect', so...carry on.
I don't shop Wal-Mart ordinarily (for oh, so many reasons) but this brought me in.
So, what is that: 'disposable' principles, or your own brand of 'wallet-centric' relativist ethics? I know there's that saying, "Every man has his price"...but, the $5 bin at Walmart's? jeeze, come on...
Whatever, Hollywood makes their money on DVD and after-market stuff. The Box Office, as 'reported', is mainly part of the hype to get folks to rent/buy.
I buy movies because I usually watch just a few minutes of them a day.
Watching some pretty compelling stuff, are we? Heheh.
I had a small ladies clothing boutique, once, and I knew this guy, Teddy, who had, shall we say, 'questionable', taste. So, every once in a while, when the racks looked a little crowded, I'd ask him to have a look through the racks, and let me know what he thought of the selection...
He'd walk through, and say stuff like, "Wow, I like this!", or, "Oh man, this is awful, nobody's gonna buy this." And sure enough, the stuff he hated: sold immediately, and the stuff he liked...?...Well, I held on to a few of those things, for a while, until I saw the reverse wisdom of his taste, and after that, stuff he 'liked' got trashed, as soon as he left the shop.
So, in view of your viewing habits, and the 'implications', I gotta ask..."Teddy, is that you?"
How about that y2k bug? That took some work, I mean, getting all those MS engineers in the 90s to never look at a fucking calendar. Boy, did Apple ever screw that opportunity.
I meant XML was more advanced in syntax from GML, not that is a type of SGML
Yes, and I agree with you there. I wasn't really feeling argumentative, and I am no 'authority' on "who did what first", and stuff like that. But I have a soft spot [hopefully not in my brain] where XML is concerned.
My biggest gripe regarding markup, these days, is the big move at Apple and Microsoft to force binary XML on users. It's a somewhat invisible part of the struggle to wrest control/access of the computer from the buyers/users. Anybody who looks into this, and feels motivated, can send an email to Sir Tim B-L, and the w3c folks, and urge them to refuse to ratify any amended 'version' of XML that alters the plain text nature of the markup.
XML is a more advanced form of GML, which HTML is also based on
How do figure? XML is a small subset of SGML, which, itself, was derived from GML, which was around in the 60s.
HTML was derived by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, from SGML syntax. He also created the first browser on a NeXT Cube [I think it was Cube, it was a NeXTSTEP-running box, for sure], and only because the text editor on the NeXT boxes [which is almost identical to the Apple standard port, TexTEdit] was ideally suited for the job, ansd wouldn't introduce crazy-assed control characters and whatnot into the task at hand.
HTML is a trivial, totally limited subset of a subset of a subset. What are there...60-some 'tags'?
I used an XML DTD with 400 tags, and there is no theoretical limit to the number of tags, and no limit [as long as text, rather than binary, is used] to the types of platforms or apps that can parse the XML and derive the same content. HTML is okay, but not for much. [It's for style, and not even very good at that]
I love XML, but to call it an 'advanced' version of SGML is just all the way wrong. I think GML was getting twisted around, maybe, by different implementations. I'm not sure, due to age, and no encyclopedia here. But the "S" in SGML, as far as I know, was for 'Standardized' [sound right?] and therefore, makes SGML the Big B'wana out there, as far as markup languages go.
P.S. Konfabulator and the Apple widgets are a huge pain in the ass; I don't care who 'ripped-off' whom. I'm on a laptop, and my message to developers is simple: Stay the fuck off the screen real estate, unless it's 'Mission Critical'. Thank you.
Reading through this guy's site, he comes off as extremely cocky, like a djb without the talent. I'll stick to developers that want to make my life easier.
Yeah, that's smart, judge an app by the 'writing style' of an intro blurb, and your warped interpretation of the developer's ability, based on it. Brilliant. You obviously never used the app, and your opinion is therefore less than worthless [irrelevant minus waste of space= less than zero worth]. Nice going. ha ha. Go back to OS 9.
Yeah, but I've got a powerbook, so that would be Ctrl+fn+uparrow, just too many keys
I don't get anything using Ctl+fn=PageUp or Down
On a powerbook and the only function I have on arrow keys is Cmd+Up and Cmd+Down for top of page, end of page. How can you use the keyboard to scroll one screen at a time? Cmd+Leftaarrow or RightArrow switches to back and forth in history, and that's it over here. Any help, greatly appreciated.
What about when you're streaming music, is that a good reason?
I use an app on the Mac [Little Snitch] that will toss up a dialog as soon as any app tries to 'dial out.' So, I have a choice.
If I set a rule to 'deny' any connection on any protocol, to any server, that has nothing to do with server calls that I initiate in the same sandboxed app. Why? Because I'm doing the call thru the app, by clicking a 'submit' or hitting 'Enter' after an address is typed, and so on.
But if I load the app, and the app's script includes a 'phone home', it queries the OS to ascertain whether or not there's an internet connection. If my 'rule' says 'No', well, that's that, and if I then turn around and tell the app to connect to this or that, it's my command that overrides the rule. It's like CSS, in a funny way. Very handy. Never failed, and I know there are similar apps on the Windows platform.
Think about all the businesses that are using internal nets that have no connection to the outside world. Do you really think any developer is going to break all their apps because there's no I/O to the WWW? Come on...
Hi. What you are saying is true. No argument there at all, as I can read also. But, what exactly does it all mean? I ran it on one box for a couple years with the nag screen, and it was fully-functional. There never was a 'Lite' version that I was aware of. [notice 'modifier': "that I was...etc"].
I finally bought my own license for a company box, because I am in the habit of paying for apps that I use to make money. [So was the company, but i had a choice: keep using the ancient box I was used to, with no 'seat', or move to a new setup, 'with' a seat, and I chose 'stay'].
Have they changed the situation at Helios? Is it more than a 'nag' at the "Save" dialog, now?
TextPad - No kidding. I use the Mac and Linux a lot, but had a job for a couple years where I was turning old miltary manuals into electronic interactive stuff. Pretty hush-hush project; SGML, 400 tags, countless attributes. made my head hurt; hearing voices by late afternoons, etc.
But we used some proprietary stuff of our own [as well as the CECOM schema/guidelines which we'd also contributed serious parts of] a java.jar CLI parser, even IE for quick 'unofficial' visual XML 'parsing' of deeply-nested stuff, and TextPad.
We probably added a plugin, or two, of our own design, but, regardless, when I'm on Windows and need a text editor, TextPad is it, always. I was running it on a 6-yr old Compaq with NT 4.0 in an office with new boxes and XP, Win2k, 98, and whatever, and TextPad just rocked on the old gear. My favorite Windows app.
On the Mac it's BBEdit, as a rule, but I'll fire up jEdit (which I also used at the SGML gig until I used TextPad for 10 minutes), TextMate, the 'other' JEdit, whatever. But back in Wintel land it's no contest.
yeah yeah... I know... shameless plug... Offtopic, etc.
Re:It'd be cool to have his influence
on
I, Woz
·
· Score: 1
It'd be cool to drop some hints like "I'm not too fond of Finder..."
Funny you should mention the finder. I was on a LISTSERV thing a couple years back, and was in a discussion (very heated) between fanboys [Jonathan Frakes, another guy with an Apple radio show, etc], on the hyper-defenmsive pro-Apple side, and me and one other fellow on the emperor-has-no-clothes side.
So, i posit that the Finder should taken behind a corrugated tin shed and shot. All the aging fanboys wanted my arse in a sling. it got real testy. The other Apple-isn't-infallible guy entered the fray on my side, and while they just bullied his ass into the RFC ground, I bailed.
Five minutes later there's an email from Woz in my Eudora Inbox. "I'm with you ~flipper, I'm afraid to even ask the Finder to do two things at the same time."
It was off-the-record, but so what? What a gas. The whole deal reminded me of that scene in an old Woody Allen movie where Woody and Diane Keaton are in line to see a movie, and Woody says his piece about Marshall McLuhan's "message, or point", and some intellectual cuts him to 'shreds', whereupon Marshall McLuhan steps out from behind a movie ad 'standup' and says, "actually, Woody's point is valid."
Heheh, okay, you had to be there. Woz, regardless of who he worked for, is just one of the Good Guys. You know? He teaches kids, he got stock options for under-appreciated Apple engineers, and he sends little emails that make people think, "OK, I'm not crazy."<laughs>
Answer: NO, asswipe, somebody actually read Marx, rather than take his cues from some dolt pushing uneducated morons' emotional buttons on the Fox network...Next.
By the way, there are conservatives who see disturbing parallels between the horrors that Marx wrote about, and the course of events in our society. Advice: turn off the tube, read a few books, shut the fuck up in the meantime...actually, in your case, I'd make that: 'read a shitload of books.'
Can you name an initiative of his that Marx wouldn't approve of?
Uh no..but we'll return to your, (for lack of a better word) question, later.
I do know something about the entire method of republican government that marx would have predicted...oops, I mean did predict: That capitalism would turn into a situation where only the wealthiest would wield power, despite votes, or parliaments, or so-called democracy, and that workers would lose their jobs as the capitalists turned to ever-richer sources of people willing to work at slave labor 'wages.' He 'nailed' Globalization, in other words.
But who cares about unemployed dads in America? I mean, if they'd rather elect guys who'll give their jobs to Chinese children/slaves, as long as fags can't get married, well then fuck them, they deserve what they get.
Back to your question: It is just as intelligent and meritorious as the old, "so how long has it been since you stopped molesting your kids?" In other words, as far as meaningful discussion or debate is concerned, you are, in scientific terms, a fucking retard.
When the zipperheads in Ho Chi Minh City get your job, stick your head out the window...that'll be me, off in the distance, going "har har har."
Slashdot Mirror
Sure. Companies can bet against their own stock. It would be extremely bad PR if they did so (with some clear exceptions, see below). They would, most likely, be required to issue some sort of 'news', or factual material, that supported their own 'opinion'. [as expressed by their obvious negative outlook on their own stock]
But with an IPO, and the subject of puts and calls, you have to remember that the rules governing 'bets' for and against a stock can only be made when the last transaction in the stock, itself, has gone 'against' the profitable outlook for the stock as expressed in the put or call contract.
In other words, if I want to bet against Apple, using puts or calls, I have to do my deal when Apple stock is on an 'uptick.' And vice versa for a pro-Apple 'bet'...i.e., the stock needs to be on a downtick before I can bet on it in that put/call market. Otherwise you'd have tons of folks, observing a rise in a stock's price, let's say, and they'd pile in saying, "I bet the stock is going to rise." Puts and calls are created as insurance (risk management), not mirrors of already-established activity.
There are cases where a company might want to insure its own stock, using puts. Example:
Company A is being bought by Company B for X-number of Company B shares. In that case Company A would buy the puts on Company B stock, not their own. Why? Because the time between the acceptance of the deal, and the consumation of the stock transaction, means that the 'currency' (Company B's stock) is at market risk, and if its shares drop in price, then the deal, for X-number of shares is worth less when the shares change hands, than it was when the deal was accepted. The ONLY time Company A would do a similar put trade on their own stock would be if the terms of the deal were based on, say, a percentage (like 120%) of Company A's market value (numShares x sharesOutstanding). That would be a rare deal, that I haven't seen.
To sum up:
Vonage couldn't buy puts on an IPO of their own stock, because there's no previous up, or down, 'tick.' But a company might hold many shares of its own stock, and a series of puts on the stock would be justified. Why? Because if their holdings dropped, the loss is on paper, and would be made up for by the profit on the puts. Still, it would look crappy, in terms of PR, but could be explained. The simplest explanation being: "If we were negative on our shares, long term, we'd sell, but we aren't negative, so we are holding the shares, long term, and protecting equity, by managing the risk inherent in being exposed to market forces." The company's holdings of their own stock is a de facto liquid part of company equity, and is part of the intrinsic value of their shareholders stock. So they're protecting ALL shareholders, not just the compan, or insiders. Very simple, very straightforward.
And, no, I don't even have a driver's license. :=)
As a matter of fact, I have a friend whose business partner sold a software company (division) some years ago. At the time of the deal's acceptance it was worth around $550 million. There was a 6-month 'gap' before consumation. I told my friend, "Tell your buddy to buy puts on the other company's shares, on the next uptick, just enough contracts to cover the current value of the deal."
There's a lot of leverage in puts and calls, so, for about 30 grand the guy could have bought puts going out 6 months to insure the deal at around $550 million.
Unfortunately:
I had no 'certification', no series anything, I didn't 'count', and he ignored the advice. I still have no license, and the 'other guy' lost somewhere between $175-215 million bucks (I forget the exact amount) when the 'other' company's shares dropped in the 6-month interim. He would have still 'lost' the 'value', in terms of the stock, itself, but would have profited an equal amount in the increased value of the put contracts. Tough luck for him. C'est la vie, pal.
Not sure what you by "properly setup", but 'tedious'?
I set my defaults for the timestamp [sudo, or any root escalation] to 'zero'. Took about 3 seconds on the CLI [OS X]. End of problem. No lifetime, at all, to a privilege escalation.
And, as an aside, anyone who has a 'root' account even enabled, gets what they deserve.
I haven't been asked for an "admin password" for ages, and I install tons of stuff. Running as a non-Admin User makes all the difference. And the 'timestamp' thing allows malware to 'wait' for a sudo, or admin pass, login, all it wants, but there is zero possibility of piggy-backing on the login.
I tried to cancel service once in order to take advantage of a huge discount on a new ADA converter, since mine was going intermittent on me. [Vonage had switched from NetGear to a Cisco subsidiary or something, and I wanted a NetGear box]
The guy at the store says, the discount was for 'new' subscribers, only, hence my idea to disconnect service and start fresh. So, I called Vonage CS at about 9:30pm EST. I got a guy a guy in India, who said yeah we can do that, but let me transfer you to someone who can make sure you get your same number on the new line. A girl comes on the line and says how I've been a customer for a long time, and they want to work this out without inconveniencing me. I'm in, so I listen.
Here was the 'pitch': They email me a pdf for me to print, that is a transit sticker thing, so I can send the old, way out of warranty, box back to them at no charge to myself. In addition, they will send me a new NetGear box, on the house. I'm fine with that, and when I hang up, there's the 'sticker' thing in my Vonage mailbox in Eudora. So far so good. As for the 'bitch' about shipping: The next morning I arrived at my office at 8am, and the box had already arrived and been signed-for...sitting on my desk, waiting for me. Not too shabby.
Shipping, customer service, and quality of treatment/service issues are ALL subject to GIGO...you know...garbage in, garbage out...as ye sow, so shall ye reap. Want better results? Try a different approach.
Same here. Over 4 years in, only problem was being in NY I set up a virtual number in MN for a pending move. Then moved, then put in an order to 'swap' my old primary num (NY) and my old 'virtual' num (MN). Then all hell broke loose. Wasn't funny. I was always connected, but went through a boatload of outgoing nums from my new MN home.
Their position, besides tossing me three free months of service, was that they were just expanding their user-base much faster than anticipated. Perhaps due to the spamming my InBox (something I haven't seen on ten diffeent mail servers) which that other whiner [I call bullshit, by the way] was pretending to gripe about.
Although I understand how the 'advanced' adolescent craves that feeling of "I'm so special" for being clued-in to some obscure thing/fad/group/whatever, Vonage isn't in a position, given the enormous heft of the monopolistic entities who are sworn to kill them, to depend on word-of-mouth and software-groovy-flavor-of-the-week that appeals to the retarded consumer-type. Tough shit, stay with BellSouth, and get a 9 yr old girl to manage your friggin' InBox if it's too much for ya.
No, that free calls to Ireland, the UK, Spain, Italy, and France deal is for the unlimited accounts [$24.95/mon +tax?].
Not a bad deal, really. You can also get a localised 'virtual' number in some of those countries for the same $4.99/month as the North American numbers go for.
The free calls to the 5 countries does not include calls to European cellular phones, though.
I'm not sure of the ins-and-outs in SGI's situation, but someone, who wanted to make a 'play' on SGI's re-emergence from bankruptcy protection, might be able to buy senior bonds [in effect, loaning the company money] and then get voting and/or common stock in the 'new' SGI.
But, that depends on whether the current bondholders are into a little dilution of their bond swap for equity [probably not], and whether the company officers are confident enough in the restructuring that they don't mind diluting the eventual equity, which will be represented by shares outstanding after re-emergence [also not terribly likely].
Sometimes companies go into reorganization with the common shares still in existence, but seriously close to worthless, and upon emerging from reorganization those shares rocket somewhat in terms of percentage to the upside.
It would be a sad loss of a very cool tech company. Anyone who ever saw one of their 'smaller' quad processor boxes rip through a huge render (using 200-266mHz CPUs), or had a doc tell them, "that's not a tumor it's a calcium deposit", while looking at the standard SGI monitor/MRI frontend, knows how great their stuff is and was.
Back in the day [not all that long ago], when I was working steadily, I would drop by the SGI site and have a look at their 'bargain basement' section, with the 256-proc monsters and the old $10k monitors, and just wish i had hit a small lottery. [actually, a big lottery, in the case of the mega-CPU boxes]. I hope they survive, if for no other reason than the love of good, high-tech principles.
I see variations on this statement all the time, and you know what? That is unsupported myth. Period. I had a 40 thousand dollar stereo at home, back when I was doing honest, pro recording work, and in studios, at the time, even the most hammered artists easily knew the difference between reference monitors and the heavy artillery.
The only human ears that would fail to hear the huge differences in articulation [meaning, in this sense, that two similar frequencies aren't 'merged' by crappiness into occupying the same sonic space] would belong to a head that heard "BOOM", and 'pssst' as the same thing. Not likely, pal.
The iPod, by the way, as cheap as its components must be, has a pretty nice amp staging situation that allows a pure 10k signal in to be scoped as a pure 10k signal out. [no 'jitter', or 'wow and flutter' to the turntable crew]. That just slaughters most turntables and consumer-level CD playback setups. But hey, keep swallowing the myths, and eventually, who knows, maybe they'll come true. Don't hold yer breath, though.
If it wasn't for the Extensions I'd give latest Firefox the heave-ho. It just simply is not a Mac-compatible app, no way. If Camino could run all the extensions and search things, I'd go with it, instead. It pays attention to APIs and doesn't screw up CSS like FF.
FF is great as a "better than IE" browser on a WinTel box, but who cares? It's hard to find a browser in Windows that isn't better, so what.
Thanks for that Einstein. How many of us out here, do you figure, ONE, already knew that and Two, have a sense of humor that you are apparently in sad lack of?
Get back with your mathematical answer, and remember, "LOW BATT" doesn't count.
Oh, and since you're such a fucking english genius, Latin should also be right up your "dark" alley, so for bonus points:
Checkout tonight's Famous Latin Saying:
Semper ubi sub ubi
Hint: It is very 'literal', if not literary.
Ha ha ha, and here I am with no mod points, wouldn't you know. Apparently the topic is too serious for the sense-of-humor squad.
Actually, yes, I can. I went into a Walmart back in Syracuse two years ago, looking for blank DVDs, in a crisis. It was the first time I'd ever been in one, and at the time I had no particular moral/political feeling about Walmart. That was then, and things have changed as far as my attitude towards the business.
And what's funny is that 83 or '84 is about the last time I bought LPs. I used to shop the big jobbers, more than retail stores, and was getting huge discounts. I was a record collector, of the dead-serious variety, for several decades, so they had me...then. I can chill with the best of them, the original post struck me as funny, in a way, that's all. I'm far from 'perfect', so...carry on.
So, what is that: 'disposable' principles, or your own brand of 'wallet-centric' relativist ethics? I know there's that saying, "Every man has his price"...but, the $5 bin at Walmart's? jeeze, come on...
Whatever, Hollywood makes their money on DVD and after-market stuff. The Box Office, as 'reported', is mainly part of the hype to get folks to rent/buy.
Watching some pretty compelling stuff, are we? Heheh.
I had a small ladies clothing boutique, once, and I knew this guy, Teddy, who had, shall we say, 'questionable', taste. So, every once in a while, when the racks looked a little crowded, I'd ask him to have a look through the racks, and let me know what he thought of the selection...
He'd walk through, and say stuff like, "Wow, I like this!", or, "Oh man, this is awful, nobody's gonna buy this." And sure enough, the stuff he hated: sold immediately, and the stuff he liked...?...Well, I held on to a few of those things, for a while, until I saw the reverse wisdom of his taste, and after that, stuff he 'liked' got trashed, as soon as he left the shop.
So, in view of your viewing habits, and the 'implications', I gotta ask..."Teddy, is that you?"
How about that y2k bug? That took some work, I mean, getting all those MS engineers in the 90s to never look at a fucking calendar. Boy, did Apple ever screw that opportunity.
Yes, and I agree with you there. I wasn't really feeling argumentative, and I am no 'authority' on "who did what first", and stuff like that. But I have a soft spot [hopefully not in my brain] where XML is concerned.
My biggest gripe regarding markup, these days, is the big move at Apple and Microsoft to force binary XML on users. It's a somewhat invisible part of the struggle to wrest control/access of the computer from the buyers/users. Anybody who looks into this, and feels motivated, can send an email to Sir Tim B-L, and the w3c folks, and urge them to refuse to ratify any amended 'version' of XML that alters the plain text nature of the markup.
How do figure? XML is a small subset of SGML, which, itself, was derived from GML, which was around in the 60s.
HTML was derived by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, from SGML syntax. He also created the first browser on a NeXT Cube [I think it was Cube, it was a NeXTSTEP-running box, for sure], and only because the text editor on the NeXT boxes [which is almost identical to the Apple standard port, TexTEdit] was ideally suited for the job, ansd wouldn't introduce crazy-assed control characters and whatnot into the task at hand.
HTML is a trivial, totally limited subset of a subset of a subset. What are there...60-some 'tags'?
I used an XML DTD with 400 tags, and there is no theoretical limit to the number of tags, and no limit [as long as text, rather than binary, is used] to the types of platforms or apps that can parse the XML and derive the same content. HTML is okay, but not for much. [It's for style, and not even very good at that]
I love XML, but to call it an 'advanced' version of SGML is just all the way wrong. I think GML was getting twisted around, maybe, by different implementations. I'm not sure, due to age, and no encyclopedia here. But the "S" in SGML, as far as I know, was for 'Standardized' [sound right?] and therefore, makes SGML the Big B'wana out there, as far as markup languages go.
P.S. Konfabulator and the Apple widgets are a huge pain in the ass; I don't care who 'ripped-off' whom. I'm on a laptop, and my message to developers is simple: Stay the fuck off the screen real estate, unless it's 'Mission Critical'. Thank you.
Yeah, that's smart, judge an app by the 'writing style' of an intro blurb, and your warped interpretation of the developer's ability, based on it. Brilliant. You obviously never used the app, and your opinion is therefore less than worthless [irrelevant minus waste of space= less than zero worth]. Nice going. ha ha. Go back to OS 9.
One word: Xfile
http://rixstep.com/4/0/xfile/
I don't get anything using Ctl+fn=PageUp or Down
On a powerbook and the only function I have on arrow keys is Cmd+Up and Cmd+Down for top of page, end of page. How can you use the keyboard to scroll one screen at a time? Cmd+Leftaarrow or RightArrow switches to back and forth in history, and that's it over here. Any help, greatly appreciated.
I use an app on the Mac [Little Snitch] that will toss up a dialog as soon as any app tries to 'dial out.' So, I have a choice.
If I set a rule to 'deny' any connection on any protocol, to any server, that has nothing to do with server calls that I initiate in the same sandboxed app. Why? Because I'm doing the call thru the app, by clicking a 'submit' or hitting 'Enter' after an address is typed, and so on.
But if I load the app, and the app's script includes a 'phone home', it queries the OS to ascertain whether or not there's an internet connection. If my 'rule' says 'No', well, that's that, and if I then turn around and tell the app to connect to this or that, it's my command that overrides the rule. It's like CSS, in a funny way. Very handy. Never failed, and I know there are similar apps on the Windows platform.
Think about all the businesses that are using internal nets that have no connection to the outside world. Do you really think any developer is going to break all their apps because there's no I/O to the WWW? Come on...
Hi. What you are saying is true. No argument there at all, as I can read also. But, what exactly does it all mean? I ran it on one box for a couple years with the nag screen, and it was fully-functional. There never was a 'Lite' version that I was aware of. [notice 'modifier': "that I was...etc"].
I finally bought my own license for a company box, because I am in the habit of paying for apps that I use to make money. [So was the company, but i had a choice: keep using the ancient box I was used to, with no 'seat', or move to a new setup, 'with' a seat, and I chose 'stay'].
Have they changed the situation at Helios? Is it more than a 'nag' at the "Save" dialog, now?
But we used some proprietary stuff of our own [as well as the CECOM schema/guidelines which we'd also contributed serious parts of] a java.jar CLI parser, even IE for quick 'unofficial' visual XML 'parsing' of deeply-nested stuff, and TextPad.
We probably added a plugin, or two, of our own design, but, regardless, when I'm on Windows and need a text editor, TextPad is it, always. I was running it on a 6-yr old Compaq with NT 4.0 in an office with new boxes and XP, Win2k, 98, and whatever, and TextPad just rocked on the old gear. My favorite Windows app.
On the Mac it's BBEdit, as a rule, but I'll fire up jEdit (which I also used at the SGML gig until I used TextPad for 10 minutes), TextMate, the 'other' JEdit, whatever. But back in Wintel land it's no contest.
yeah yeah ... I know ... shameless plug ... Offtopic, etc.
Funny you should mention the finder. I was on a LISTSERV thing a couple years back, and was in a discussion (very heated) between fanboys [Jonathan Frakes, another guy with an Apple radio show, etc], on the hyper-defenmsive pro-Apple side, and me and one other fellow on the emperor-has-no-clothes side.
So, i posit that the Finder should taken behind a corrugated tin shed and shot. All the aging fanboys wanted my arse in a sling. it got real testy. The other Apple-isn't-infallible guy entered the fray on my side, and while they just bullied his ass into the RFC ground, I bailed.
Five minutes later there's an email from Woz in my Eudora Inbox. "I'm with you ~flipper, I'm afraid to even ask the Finder to do two things at the same time."
It was off-the-record, but so what? What a gas. The whole deal reminded me of that scene in an old Woody Allen movie where Woody and Diane Keaton are in line to see a movie, and Woody says his piece about Marshall McLuhan's "message, or point", and some intellectual cuts him to 'shreds', whereupon Marshall McLuhan steps out from behind a movie ad 'standup' and says, "actually, Woody's point is valid."
Answer: NO, asswipe, somebody actually read Marx, rather than take his cues from some dolt pushing uneducated morons' emotional buttons on the Fox network...Next.
By the way, there are conservatives who see disturbing parallels between the horrors that Marx wrote about, and the course of events in our society. Advice: turn off the tube, read a few books, shut the fuck up in the meantime...actually, in your case, I'd make that: 'read a shitload of books.'
Uh no..but we'll return to your, (for lack of a better word) question, later.
I do know something about the entire method of republican government that marx would have predicted...oops, I mean did predict: That capitalism would turn into a situation where only the wealthiest would wield power, despite votes, or parliaments, or so-called democracy, and that workers would lose their jobs as the capitalists turned to ever-richer sources of people willing to work at slave labor 'wages.' He 'nailed' Globalization, in other words.
But who cares about unemployed dads in America? I mean, if they'd rather elect guys who'll give their jobs to Chinese children/slaves, as long as fags can't get married, well then fuck them, they deserve what they get.
Back to your question: It is just as intelligent and meritorious as the old, "so how long has it been since you stopped molesting your kids?" In other words, as far as meaningful discussion or debate is concerned, you are, in scientific terms, a fucking retard.
When the zipperheads in Ho Chi Minh City get your job, stick your head out the window...that'll be me, off in the distance, going "har har har."