Naw, traffic is managed through QOS, most likely using ONAdvantage. Therefore one user can't use all the traffic on a segment himself -- unless of course, no one else is trying to do anything.
Most rogers users (his MSO) have lancity modems and they have a fixed uplink of around 47KB/s (well, backbone and local problems aside).
Since he's on rogers, his uplink is more or less fixed.. Doesn't matter anyway though, far more traffic goes by which could be classified under quake/half-life/whatever servers and warez..:)
Naw not really. It's illegal to run loss leaders (where you sell at below cost) to drive out competition. Walmart often does this -- and has been found guilty of doing so in Arkansas and Alabama. And of course, once competition is driven out, they have no reason to keep those previously very low prices.
I do agree with you, that it is 'legal' to compete fairly (when they do). Countries like Peurto Rico have rejected the Wal-Mart altogether because of the strain on local businesses -- and the fact that local businesses would create more jobs, and more community wealth -- instead of funneling profits to big business shareholders.
Exploitation in the name of efficiency is still exploitation. But hey, Massah, I can feel good laying in my sweat shop hole at night knowing you're producing those nice products for people all around the world for 13 cents less.
I was only using walmart as an example (as it's seems to be the one the most complained about with unfair business practices and loss leaders and other questionable practices). Anyway, true, they would be using domestic resources for many of their stores stock product. However, they also have centralized warehouse systems and cheap labour. Those don't particularly bode well for the domestic economy as well.
Some quotes from an article written by Kai Mander: former director of communications for the institute of culture and trade policy (so you don't think they are my own). Wal-Mart: Global Retailer -- Kai Mander and Alex Boston
Mr. Sam Walton by the time of his death had amassed a fortune of over 23.5 billion.
"When it seeks the necessary permits to establish a new store, Wal-Mart portrays itself as a friendly addition to a local community. It contends a new giant superstore will provide good jobs and sorely needed income to a regional community and that local retailers will benifit from Wal-Marts lower prices. But study after studt confirms what hundreds of americans learn the hard way: Wal-Mart leads to a net loss of jobs, decreased income for the community..."
"Typically, wal-mart locates at the outskirts of town and sets prices below cost to draw a customer away from the commercial center. It offers 2 for 1 deals, loss leaders, category killers, anything that will attract customers. From automotive supplies to clothing and pharmaceuticals to kitchenware,... Big enough to sustain losses for a long time..." Well you know what happens next.
"According to an Iowa state University Study quoted in Wal-Mart Watch (December 1994), five years after an opening of a new Wal-Mart, stores within a 20-mile-radius suffer an average of 19% loss in retail sales."
"Journalist Maria Gilardin reports that in Anamosa, Iowa, a JC Penny, two men's clothing stores, a shoe store, and a dime store closed shortly after a Wal-Mart opened."
"Wal-Mart Officials contend that when a new Wal-Mart opens, sales of nearby business increases. The Iowa State study confiremed the spillover traffic resulting from new Wal-Mart stores did increase the sales of adjacent businesses selling goods and services that were not available at Wal-Mart. However, many of these owners now fear for their livelihoods as Wal-Mart stores expand goods and services offered.
"Wal-Mart employs more than the big 3 auto makers combined. Company spokespeople proudly claim that in some parts of the United States a Wal-Mart exists for every thirty five thousand people, providing needed jobs to local economies. Contrary to company statements, however, the entry of Wal-Mart does not provide a net increase in a region's jobs. In fact, some studies have shown that for every job created by Wal-Mart, as many as 1.5 jobs are lost."
"The jobs Wal-Mart does provide are at the bottom end of the economic scale. Notorious for wringing the most work out of its employees for the least pay, Wal-Mart rarely pays its workers more than minimum wage. The average income for a full time worker at Wal-Mart in the United States, even with a well-publicized profit-sharing plan, hovers around $12,000 -- well below the poverty line." Blah blah, basically what mcdonalds does only hiring part-timers... and some particularly humorous stuff about their employee dating policies to their company cheer...
"In a recent [1997] purchase of Canada's Woolco retail chain, its refusal to buy seven Woolcos that were unionized put one thousand Canadians out of work. Many of the remaining Woolco staff were forced to accept lower wages or lose their jobs. Wal-Mart converted Woolco auto-repair shops to more profitable oil and lube operations and cut mechanics' wages in half. IT fired 500 well-paid Woolco warehouse workers then charitibly offered to rehire them at minimum wage. Wal-Mart told 750 former Woolco supervisors they could keep their $28,000-per-year salaries only if they worked an extra 12 hours per week in addition to their regular 40.
Some more stuff -- interesting stuff like, all their mexican stores were supplied by a Laredo, Texas warehouse..
LOLOL. I didnt remember reading this, seriously -- but
"The telivision program Dateline NBC ran an expose on garment sweatshops of bangladesh, where nine-to-twelve year old boys and girls worked long into the night and were paid as litle as five cents an hour." Includes quotes about china and some other third world countries..
"NBC found that most of these garments in bins sporting glossy, bold "Made-In-America" sings.
should I go on? I have about 30 more pages in this article, as well as 5 reports on this topic -- as well as a book or two on similar companies. I think the WTO and GATT were talked about at least 30 times in this article. I'd be happy to provide whomever wants with more info.
Money doesn't magically appear out of the air for them to invest. With wages so low, especially in certain third world countries, particular american based countries -- who if public have their stockholders to answer to above all else -- aren't going to be looking to create higher wages. Joe Blow doesn't have the money to buy stock in useful quantities to actually make a profit. Even a local storekeeper with slightly higher prices could never compete. But guess what? That local storekeeper would put far more money into the local economy because he would be spending his profits within the country/locale (which would then be partially respent again and again with part saved) instead of having them siphoned off to a foreign country. Not very good for the domestic economy at all. Buying stock in a company when I a) don't have the money to, especially with the low wages most working at walmart get; and b) the fact that I can go and invest my money into any large comglomerate.. but really, most people are more concerned with having enough money to pay rent or eat next week.
True, though for every country they are investing and distributing real profit, there are many others where they are exploiting for far less than minimum wage.
Oh, and last time I checked, the majority of wal-mart employees didn't get stock options, or even decent wages -- so I doubt they will be profitting much from it. Even if public (which I realized and corrected in a comment right below mine), it is very likely that money isn't going directly back into the economy.
Like it or not, the earth has limited resources, humans should have some fundamental rights everywhere, and economic gain is not the only measure of worth we should use in this world.
Free trade isn't a cure-all and never will be. In some countries, free trade would stand to destroy local economies because of technological disadvantage, limited human and land resources, et al. Walmart in bangladesh, (if it) stands to make profit may be siphoning a very large portion of that money to a US walmart headquarters, and largely to a few people, taking that money out of their economy, and into the hands of likely a few people who's propensity to save is a lot higher than say, has a billion dollars in the bank. This is even before considering human rights violations in the name of the all mighty dollar.
Regulation is definitely a major issue, and protests are a way to gain support for a group of particular causes. If you think what they did was futile, then why did Clinton say that he was willing to set it up so some of the pleas of protesters were heard at this and future WTO meetings? Scream enough, and eventually someone in power will hear and possibly care.
The day I lost my religion, was the day I lost the ability to magically conjure up hope through gods love.
I do sometimes admire religion, as it offers the follower the ability to believe whatever they want through faith.
I do value what religion has given me and do not question its importance -- but I have recovered and outgrown the damage done and the crutch that was needed as a result.
Instead, I have chosen to build on the fundamental value system presented to me in my childhood. No cloudyness; No lost thoughts. No vulnerability through the inability to formulate skepticism in faith. Just a sense of my worth in this world, and a moral system based on fairness and real world actions and consequences.
Religious indifference to me is a breath of fresh air. Then again, I do envy the effect faith and the denial of this reality created. God did exist. But now he's dead and I'm not prepared to make the sacrifices to bring him back. But that was then, and this is now. I think I kind of prefer science. I base decisions on rationale through experience and harder facts instead of... well, my intention is not to criticize -- but to present my reality. In my plane of consciousness, the existence of god is irrelevant.
Do I have a point? No. If i could prove there isn't a god, would I? Nope. Religion doesn't hurt anyone. Opression, hate, self-righteousness, stupidity, and lies, among other things hurt people.
When I see GPL software taking over traditional software such as quicken, notes, photoshop, anything with a limited market and high profit margins and/or very complex software, any number of productivity business solutions, industry specific software such as 3d studio max, lightwave, and softimage, I might believe you. Until then, no way. Things like games, of course, will likely always remain closed.
Visiting freshmeat, there aren't many particularly innovative products. You can find anything there, and 100x better in the commerical software world. This may just be because this way of doing things is in its infancy, but I wouldn't hold my breath. There are only so many things that can be done in this recipricol or symbiotic manner. This becomes particularly apparent when making typical easy to use end-user software.
I agree. Each to his or her preferred license. I'll say outright that I prefer the BSD license and dislike the GPL definition of free -- but I am very willing and happy to reinvent the wheel if I do not agree with the license put forth.
I think Brett's problem is that he views the GPL as an evil disease that will eventually take over the software industry if not combatted by his presentation of logic. Truthfully though, when push comes to shove, if livelihood is damaged, then people will stop using a particular license.
There is also no risk of widespread GPL "infection". Really, the GPL, BSD, and some other licenses aren't particularly compatible with many types of software. Really.
What I don't like, is the license zealots trying to force others into their license preference. If sun were to GPL all their software (their OS in particular) -- as some would have it -- then there is nothing stopping people from integrating that code into linux (or whatever), partly eliminating their hardware advantage, as we could then probably easily scale x86 smp, and whatever else to competitive levels.
Israelis also live in a world of reciprocating hate. Believe me, it's not pretty. I lived in both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The guns and conscription are there for simple survival.
Also, if you think the amount of 'crazies in the US is disturbing, try israel, iran, iraq, turkey, greece et al. The difference is that in a lot of these countries, leaders have done a good job of propogating hate and denial and target particular groups.
What I do not condone, is the use of a violent means to promote self-righteous behavior while masking it as a means to promote freedom and liberty. Unfortunately the world isn't so perfect. I do, however, find it refreshing that there are some societies in the world where paranoia is generally unfounded and we can more or less live in peace.
really, just to put this in perspective. This is the equivalent of breaking into a store with a scrolling electronic sign and changing it to say ---> get your gay sex toys in here -----. It says he can be facing up to 15 months in jail as well as the extremely large fine. People who get charged with assault with a deadly weapon or attempted murder get similar sentences.
Granted crimes like fraud carry stiff penalties as well. This is different in that they weren't dealing with material that had any much value. Seriously, it was the whitehouse web site -- not some mission critical army operations system.
It's not likely that this kid will serve that much time, but I'm still furius that they can take attempt to take 1.5 years away from someones life for manipulating a web page. If it was ebay where they would be losing thousands a second, maybe. The whitehouse web page? I seriously doubt it. ----------
They modified a web page which wasn't on any government controlled network. They broke into what was most likely only the userland -- which means they could only modify web pages. This is hardly worth 3 years of punishment. I blame this mostly on paranoia on the part of the prosecuters involved and the ignorance of the judges who upheld this standard. I'm willing to bet that they also did not delete any files on the system which means that they are not guilty of file tampering or intellectual property damage.
The only charge which I can see as verifiably true is:
"All told, the attacks cost the government and businesses more than $40,000, prosecutors said"
Why? Because they wasted their time tracking this child down when the provider could have easily restored the page. Making examples of people, especially when the penalty it doesn't fit the crime, is wrong. ----------
That just comes with becoming confortable with instantaneous thought to speech. Don't try to be so sophisticated in speech. After you become comfortable speaking with people in general, you will find that thoughts will come to you impromptu. Just don't be to hard on yourself. Written and spoken language are completely different. You just have to get used to the different nuances in spoken language that allow you to articulate better.
Often, after long working binges, especially after writing a lot of e-mails or documentation, I sometimes temporarily studder or stop in mid sentence to gather my thoughts. This is because in those other forms of communication, I have the ability to gather a large amount of information, think about how I'm going to present it, change my words around many times, and then finally write them down.
Like others have said, It will come to you naturally with practice. ----------
No, the fact that one has nothing to do with the other. Being able to understand language and following up on human impulses are not similar at all. ----------
Know your audience. What is a forum for detailed analysis and peer review for one, may be a group to inflict particularly annoying quips on for others.
I engage in various types of written communication in e-mail, and I can tell you the most important lesson I have learned is discretion. I previously wrote long detailed analysis, or provided more or less a snapshot of what was going through my mind at a certain moment, and eventually found out how much of a waste of time it was. It's very important to recognize that there is nothing wrong with short spelling error ridden text. Things like, "hey, how's it going"; "I'm going to blah next weekend, want to come?", are perfectly normal things to say in maintaining a relationship with the least amount of effort. When I want to provide a detailed, well written opinion or thought, I will. This is similar to 2 paragraph, generally off-the-cuff, replies that I post on slashdot. I'm sorry, I don't have the time or inclination to make the effort to write properly thought out flowing works of posting art. On average, I'm probably doing about 13 other things while reading slashdot, so efficient and poetic language usually isn't an option. If I'm trying to write a persuasive or argumentative essay, maybe. On slashdot, no way. ----------
Well I don't know about that. After getting to know a few people online -- who seemed to have very elegant prose -- they seemed like complete nimwits with nothing intelligent to say in person.
I'm not saying that there's something wrong with having time to compose yourself -- but it allows some people to present themselves as things they are not by just doing a couple of quick web searches. You can't exactly put someone on the spot when e-mailing can you?:)
It's agreed that grammar and diction is important -- but really, I prefer to change my written and spoken flow of words completely depending on the situation and audience. The real importance is in getting your point across, after all. On slashdot, for instance, I like a using a lot of line breaks and normalized language for that "conversational feel".
Anyway, what I was really trying to get to, is that in e-mail (or forums like this), people will tweak their messages to a point where they hide their faults and certain unknowns; whereas in normal conversation, it's more or less, question, answer, thought from me, thought from her/him and I can analyze what they are *really* thinking; not what they want to present.
E-mail is of course, good for many things such as long boring explanations or arguments such as this -- but anything that requires social interaction, coercion, and 'reading of thoughts', I'd prefer leaving to real time audio and visual realms (notice I left room for future technologies..:) ----------
Even still, the system shuts down and the transaction will likely not finish. Granted, it's better having a dedicated 32 - 64+ meg cache, but how often is this going to be a case of a single built up transaction *already* completely in i/o cache. It's also likely that the computer will fail during such a transfer.
imo, the hardware solution is better, but the software solution can still be viable. Hardware and software solutions aside, you should already be running multiple redundant and identical databases (as well as weekly and monthly backups [daily if possible]). ----------
Its definitely not the banwidth. I have some corporate dedicated servers serving image/video/audio assets here at dn and they are always incredibly fast. I even get ~20ms from home (due to their uunet oc3 +1 t3). Check out their connectivity. I only ever ever go through their teleglobe, qwest and uunet connections as dictated by bgp routing tables, so I can't be absolutely sure though.
Slashdot seems fast enough for me. 100+ comment pages load in less than 5 seconds (remember they do extensive database queries). There are some days when the site seems to be down for 5-10 minutes. Actually, I've tracerouted on occasion and found that the box was up but the httpd wasn't responding for some reason.
As for server hosting centers though, I haven't found anyone better than dn when it comes to multiple connections to just about every major bandwidth provider in north america. MAE's and notoriously oversold sprint-naps and other public exchanges are completely avoided 98% of the time.
You can't go wrong when they're likely to be directly the same backbone used by you and your clients isp's.
I wonder if employees get extensive free services. Drool. ----------
Yow. It's true that access to your data is important, but one of the main fallacies of ASP's is that they are slow. You want the customers to have an as fast as possible experience. Providers such as exodus and level3 offer very good data center services including backups, closeness to the end user since they can set you up with round robin dns using more than one data center, their expertise in dealing with 100's if not 1000's of companies (who likely need similar solutions), redundancy and reliability (can't stress that enough for the ASP market). You seem to get it with "Maximum bandwidth decides you maximum audience."; so I guess you're just trying to tailor your post to the person who asked slashdot (though I doubt it had anything to do with ASP's:).
Instead get a t1 (or other decent dsl/wireless/whatever) connection so that you can update your data/files/databases/assets faster. You don't have to be in physical control of the hard drives to have actual control over the servers. Just make sure the data center is close by -- otherwise you'll be paying huge service fees to these companies.
"develop a minimal rock solid product"
And how will that help you differentiate your product from the other 3000 so called revolutionary ASP hopefuls? There is so much room for improvement in the ASP market, it's scary.
"leveredege existing binary products"
This is the main problem faced. The web browser is often terrible and slow and doesn't exactly enable this server side computing paradigm. There are a limited number of products at this time that you can pattern yourself after. It's better to look at the needs of a certain industry or the similarities between a group of geographically separated company/companies. Take into account the current technologies they are using and integrate them. Don't try and emulate them unless you can do it just as well or better. Example: It's better to just send word or pdf files than to concoct some online format. Just include features that will bring them closer such as comment and message board systems for revision and peer review.
Some open industries for such include:
a) general family and friends networks. This includes file sharing, message boards, photo galleries, electronic greetings, possible calendaring with events/birthdays/special occasions and possible e-commerce tie-ins. News headlines are usually included as an extra spice. Examples: familypoint and visto
b) distribution networks
communication is key here, as is numbers, schedules, private and secure messages, and strategy planning.
c) geographically separated offices
Just about every local communication plus to touch base, actually feel like a community (often not possible over phone and e-mail). This is treading into lotus territory but these kind of applications can be easily modified to suit a particular business model (instead of the company modifying practices to effectively use notes). Contract or remote developer to developer groups or developer to q&a relationships (bug tracking, design issues, ui, specifications, dates, etc etc)....
c) I'm bored, won't finish.
Specialization is especially needed. Law, accounting, investment and banks, retail sales and advertising firms serve as some examples.
If you're an up and coming ASP, then make sure to try and circumvent the obvious failings of centralized, typically slow services. You may be in the wrong market altogether. Solutions with hardware tie ins may be many times more appealing to medium to large sized companies.
"Fund initial expansion without going into debt"
Easy to say, hard to do. Without a tremendous idea or a reputation to get funding, there are some major barriers to entry (bandwidth, support, contracts, research).
"try to use a higher level dev languge"
Agreed. Optimize for speed as per forecasted need. Embed c in perl or create ISAPI or apache c modules. Be sure to optimize database transactions and often used dynamic content includes.
"complete the data loop"
Oh my god, someone who understands. User input and needs are very important. This is especially true for established businesses. If you're not willing to meld your process to meet their needs they are just going to go elsewhere.
xml; Is interesting, though similar things can be done with server side interpreters such as perl, php, python/zope and/or corba, whatever.
Of course, all these statements are incredibly obvious and equally brain dead easy for any knowledgeable developer to pull off. The hard parts are in the market research, establishing industry relationships and input to meet their needs, funding, pr/hype, and luck.
It would be smarter for the company to sit down first and discuss possibilities. Market research is very useful. Your problem doesn't lie in the fact that "engineers" supposedly know all and marketing doesn't know the web from their ass -- it's that politics and lack of trust are getting in the way of useful group input. A lot of expert opinion definitely lies outside the domain of the programmer/sysadmin/html design artist (have no idea why you claim these people are engineers).
"RAIL..."
I don't see your point. Any respectable web provider will have a number of redundant links. Providers such as exodus have the ability to re-route traffic within minutes (even seconds) of reported problems. They are much better equipped to deal with such things than you. Note that most DSL providers won't let you have AS authority over a group of ip addresses, so redundant connections are completely worthless because you can't re-route traffic when one link goes down. If the company absolutely needs their bandwidth in house at inception, then they should get a t1 with a shadow t1 connection from another provider for redundancy.
"Hacking um, you WILL be 'hacked'."
Oh give me a break. Just delete all default cgi and test scripts and make sure you're programming securely. When and if you get hacked, just restore from backup.
384 sdsl line is NOT capable of handling this many hits. Traffic spikes will come, especially if you are linked or were recently visited by a search engine spider (and have certain popular key words on your page).
As for simplicity, I completely agree.
Content on the other hand. Yes, content is central to a sites success. Bad site design will prevent that content from being seen or turn users away. It is a very important element to take into consideration. While I agree that resources and time are limited, there are many established sites that you can use to get inspired.
to the person who 'asked slashdot':
A much cheaper solution is to start your site out on any number of shared hosting providers such as pair networks who are very cheap and support mysql, php, cgi etc. There you can get 12gb transfer a month for only 27 bucks (or 6 gb transfer for 15) with php, mysql, cgi and a telnet login to one of their hundreds of freebsd boxes. I went from 12 to 50 to 100 gb a month. I'm sure there are hundreds of other similar providers. It's smarter to do this first than to make a very big investment and get a dedicated connection and whatever servers. Let others provide these services for you while you build a customer/client base and eventually you will outgrow the price curves of companies such as these. Remember, if your site has any downloads, you'll definitely need available burst speeds that these providers have. Slower static links just won't cut it (well unless you can compromise and put every large file on medium quality xoom.com or whatever links).
If your idea is really that good, then I suggest you scout out possible competitors and siphon whatever useful data you can. First identify your target market and the viability of your business model. Are you going to try and sell something online or rely on advertisements? Is this market already clogged with other hopefuls and/or will they soon join in on your good idea? How will you differentiate? If your site will be complex, are you standardizing the design and implementation to prevent many wasted hours? Are you establishing relationships with people in that particular industry? How will you promote the site during and soon after your go live date?
For one, it's very important to standardize your design and try to modularize your code. You don't want to know how many companies I've consulted for and who decide to change their entire flawed backend model after building months of content. It's not fun.
Remember, competition will come if your idea is potentially profitable. You want to build up a good repeat client base before others do. ----------
Re:Does anybody care anymore that this is Illegal?
on
Easy MP3 Distribution
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· Score: 2
"You have a good point, and the reason I like mp3's is because I have found some of my favorite bands through this medium."
Exactly. I've bought many, many cd's because I've run into a site with some stuff in a genre I like that I haven't heard before. The only thing comparable that I use as well is CDNow (I get the majority of my cd's from them as well). Anyway, CDNow has medium quality pretty long clips of songs. They only put online clips for every song in a cd if it is popular though... which leads me to mp3. ----------
Re:It takes SIX MONTHS to find a particular MP3?!
on
Easy MP3 Distribution
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· Score: 2
should == shouldn't. Also note that I greatly enjoy trading songs of local bands from all around the world who want to get known. It's a great way for them to become popular.
I'm sorry, I'm evil. I can't help it. At least I'm not selling CD's:). ----------
Slashdot Mirror
Naw, traffic is managed through QOS, most likely using ONAdvantage. Therefore one user can't use all the traffic on a segment himself -- unless of course, no one else is trying to do anything.
Most rogers users (his MSO) have lancity modems and they have a fixed uplink of around 47KB/s (well, backbone and local problems aside).
Since he's on rogers, his uplink is more or less fixed.. Doesn't matter anyway though, far more traffic goes by which could be classified under quake/half-life/whatever servers and warez.. :)
He's on rogers, the have static ip's more or less. His uplink is also likely 47KB/s.
Naw not really. It's illegal to run loss leaders (where you sell at below cost) to drive out competition. Walmart often does this -- and has been found guilty of doing so in Arkansas and Alabama. And of course, once competition is driven out, they have no reason to keep those previously very low prices.
I do agree with you, that it is 'legal' to compete fairly (when they do). Countries like Peurto Rico have rejected the Wal-Mart altogether because of the strain on local businesses -- and the fact that local businesses would create more jobs, and more community wealth -- instead of funneling profits to big business shareholders.
Exploitation in the name of efficiency is still exploitation. But hey, Massah, I can feel good laying in my sweat shop hole at night knowing you're producing those nice products for people all around the world for 13 cents less.
I was only using walmart as an example (as it's seems to be the one the most complained about with unfair business practices and loss leaders and other questionable practices). Anyway, true, they would be using domestic resources for many of their stores stock product. However, they also have centralized warehouse systems and cheap labour. Those don't particularly bode well for the domestic economy as well.
..."
... Big enough to sustain losses for a long time ..." Well you know what happens next.
... and some particularly humorous stuff about their employee dating policies to their company cheer...
Some quotes from an article written by Kai Mander: former director of communications for the institute of culture and trade policy (so you don't think they are my own).
Wal-Mart: Global Retailer -- Kai Mander and Alex Boston
Mr. Sam Walton by the time of his death had amassed a fortune of over 23.5 billion.
"When it seeks the necessary permits to establish a new store, Wal-Mart portrays itself as a friendly addition to a local community. It contends a new giant superstore will provide good jobs and sorely needed income to a regional community and that local retailers will benifit from Wal-Marts lower prices. But study after studt confirms what hundreds of americans learn the hard way: Wal-Mart leads to a net loss of jobs, decreased income for the community
"Typically, wal-mart locates at the outskirts of town and sets prices below cost to draw a customer away from the commercial center. It offers 2 for 1 deals, loss leaders, category killers, anything that will attract customers. From automotive supplies to clothing and pharmaceuticals to kitchenware,
"According to an Iowa state University Study quoted in Wal-Mart Watch (December 1994), five years after an opening of a new Wal-Mart, stores within a 20-mile-radius suffer an average of 19% loss in retail sales."
"Journalist Maria Gilardin reports that in Anamosa, Iowa, a JC Penny, two men's clothing stores, a shoe store, and a dime store closed shortly after a Wal-Mart opened."
"Wal-Mart Officials contend that when a new Wal-Mart opens, sales of nearby business increases. The Iowa State study confiremed the spillover traffic resulting from new Wal-Mart stores did increase the sales of adjacent businesses selling goods and services that were not available at Wal-Mart. However, many of these owners now fear for their livelihoods as Wal-Mart stores expand goods and services offered.
"Wal-Mart employs more than the big 3 auto makers combined. Company spokespeople proudly claim that in some parts of the United States a Wal-Mart exists for every thirty five thousand people, providing needed jobs to local economies. Contrary to company statements, however, the entry of Wal-Mart does not provide a net increase in a region's jobs. In fact, some studies have shown that for every job created by Wal-Mart, as many as 1.5 jobs are lost."
"The jobs Wal-Mart does provide are at the bottom end of the economic scale. Notorious for wringing the most work out of its employees for the least pay, Wal-Mart rarely pays its workers more than minimum wage. The average income for a full time worker at Wal-Mart in the United States, even with a well-publicized profit-sharing plan, hovers around $12,000 -- well below the poverty line." Blah blah, basically what mcdonalds does only hiring part-timers
"In a recent [1997] purchase of Canada's Woolco retail chain, its refusal to buy seven Woolcos that were unionized put one thousand Canadians out of work. Many of the remaining Woolco staff were forced to accept lower wages or lose their jobs. Wal-Mart converted Woolco auto-repair shops to more profitable oil and lube operations and cut mechanics' wages in half. IT fired 500 well-paid Woolco warehouse workers then charitibly offered to rehire them at minimum wage. Wal-Mart told 750 former Woolco supervisors they could keep their $28,000-per-year salaries only if they worked an extra 12 hours per week in addition to their regular 40.
Some more stuff -- interesting stuff like, all their mexican stores were supplied by a Laredo, Texas warehouse..
LOLOL. I didnt remember reading this, seriously -- but
"The telivision program Dateline NBC ran an expose on garment sweatshops of bangladesh, where nine-to-twelve year old boys and girls worked long into the night and were paid as litle as five cents an hour." Includes quotes about china and some other third world countries..
"NBC found that most of these garments in bins sporting glossy, bold "Made-In-America" sings.
should I go on? I have about 30 more pages in this article, as well as 5 reports on this topic -- as well as a book or two on similar companies. I think the WTO and GATT were talked about at least 30 times in this article. I'd be happy to provide whomever wants with more info.
Money doesn't magically appear out of the air for them to invest. With wages so low, especially in certain third world countries, particular american based countries -- who if public have their stockholders to answer to above all else -- aren't going to be looking to create higher wages. Joe Blow doesn't have the money to buy stock in useful quantities to actually make a profit. Even a local storekeeper with slightly higher prices could never compete. But guess what? That local storekeeper would put far more money into the local economy because he would be spending his profits within the country/locale (which would then be partially respent again and again with part saved) instead of having them siphoned off to a foreign country. Not very good for the domestic economy at all. Buying stock in a company when I a) don't have the money to, especially with the low wages most working at walmart get; and b) the fact that I can go and invest my money into any large comglomerate.. but really, most people are more concerned with having enough money to pay rent or eat next week.
True, though for every country they are investing and distributing real profit, there are many others where they are exploiting for far less than minimum wage.
Oh, and last time I checked, the majority of wal-mart employees didn't get stock options, or even decent wages -- so I doubt they will be profitting much from it. Even if public (which I realized and corrected in a comment right below mine), it is very likely that money isn't going directly back into the economy.
Like it or not, the earth has limited resources, humans should have some fundamental rights everywhere, and economic gain is not the only measure of worth we should use in this world.
Free trade isn't a cure-all and never will be. In some countries, free trade would stand to destroy local economies because of technological disadvantage, limited human and land resources, et al. Walmart in bangladesh, (if it) stands to make profit may be siphoning a very large portion of that money to a US walmart headquarters, and largely to a few people, taking that money out of their economy, and into the hands of likely a few people who's propensity to save is a lot higher than say, has a billion dollars in the bank. This is even before considering human rights violations in the name of the all mighty dollar.
Regulation is definitely a major issue, and protests are a way to gain support for a group of particular causes. If you think what they did was futile, then why did Clinton say that he was willing to set it up so some of the pleas of protesters were heard at this and future WTO meetings? Scream enough, and eventually someone in power will hear and possibly care.
*cough*
... well, my intention is not to criticize -- but to present my reality. In my plane of consciousness, the existence of god is irrelevant.
You could call me an athiest.
The day I lost my religion, was the day I lost the ability to magically conjure up hope through gods love.
I do sometimes admire religion, as it offers the follower the ability to believe whatever they want through faith.
I do value what religion has given me and do not question its importance -- but I have recovered and outgrown the damage done and the crutch that was needed as a result.
Instead, I have chosen to build on the fundamental value system presented to me in my childhood. No cloudyness; No lost thoughts. No vulnerability through the inability to formulate skepticism in faith. Just a sense of my worth in this world, and a moral system based on fairness and real world actions and consequences.
Religious indifference to me is a breath of fresh air. Then again, I do envy the effect faith and the denial of this reality created. God did exist. But now he's dead and I'm not prepared to make the sacrifices to bring him back. But that was then, and this is now. I think I kind of prefer science. I base decisions on rationale through experience and harder facts instead of
Do I have a point? No. If i could prove there isn't a god, would I? Nope. Religion doesn't hurt anyone. Opression, hate, self-righteousness, stupidity, and lies, among other things hurt people.
When I see GPL software taking over traditional software such as quicken, notes, photoshop, anything with a limited market and high profit margins and/or very complex software, any number of productivity business solutions, industry specific software such as 3d studio max, lightwave, and softimage, I might believe you. Until then, no way. Things like games, of course, will likely always remain closed.
Visiting freshmeat, there aren't many particularly innovative products. You can find anything there, and 100x better in the commerical software world. This may just be because this way of doing things is in its infancy, but I wouldn't hold my breath. There are only so many things that can be done in this recipricol or symbiotic manner. This becomes particularly apparent when making typical easy to use end-user software.
I agree. Each to his or her preferred license. I'll say outright that I prefer the BSD license and dislike the GPL definition of free -- but I am very willing and happy to reinvent the wheel if I do not agree with the license put forth.
I think Brett's problem is that he views the GPL as an evil disease that will eventually take over the software industry if not combatted by his presentation of logic. Truthfully though, when push comes to shove, if livelihood is damaged, then people will stop using a particular license.
There is also no risk of widespread GPL "infection". Really, the GPL, BSD, and some other licenses aren't particularly compatible with many types of software. Really.
What I don't like, is the license zealots trying to force others into their license preference. If sun were to GPL all their software (their OS in particular) -- as some would have it -- then there is nothing stopping people from integrating that code into linux (or whatever), partly eliminating their hardware advantage, as we could then probably easily scale x86 smp, and whatever else to competitive levels.
Israelis also live in a world of reciprocating hate. Believe me, it's not pretty. I lived in both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The guns and conscription are there for simple survival.
Also, if you think the amount of 'crazies in the US is disturbing, try israel, iran, iraq, turkey, greece et al. The difference is that in a lot of these countries, leaders have done a good job of propogating hate and denial and target particular groups.
What I do not condone, is the use of a violent means to promote self-righteous behavior while masking it as a means to promote freedom and liberty. Unfortunately the world isn't so perfect. I do, however, find it refreshing that there are some societies in the world where paranoia is generally unfounded and we can more or less live in peace.
really, just to put this in perspective. This is the equivalent of breaking into a store with a scrolling electronic sign and changing it to say ---> get your gay sex toys in here -----. It says he can be facing up to 15 months in jail as well as the extremely large fine. People who get charged with assault with a deadly weapon or attempted murder get similar sentences.
Granted crimes like fraud carry stiff penalties as well. This is different in that they weren't dealing with material that had any much value. Seriously, it was the whitehouse web site -- not some mission critical army operations system.
It's not likely that this kid will serve that much time, but I'm still furius that they can take attempt to take 1.5 years away from someones life for manipulating a web page. If it was ebay where they would be losing thousands a second, maybe. The whitehouse web page? I seriously doubt it.
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They modified a web page which wasn't on any government controlled network. They broke into what was most likely only the userland -- which means they could only modify web pages. This is hardly worth 3 years of punishment. I blame this mostly on paranoia on the part of the prosecuters involved and the ignorance of the judges who upheld this standard. I'm willing to bet that they also did not delete any files on the system which means that they are not guilty of file tampering or intellectual property damage.
The only charge which I can see as verifiably true is:
"All told, the attacks cost the government and businesses more than $40,000, prosecutors said"
Why? Because they wasted their time tracking this child down when the provider could have easily restored the page. Making examples of people, especially when the penalty it doesn't fit the crime, is wrong.
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That just comes with becoming confortable with instantaneous thought to speech. Don't try to be so sophisticated in speech. After you become comfortable speaking with people in general, you will find that thoughts will come to you impromptu. Just don't be to hard on yourself. Written and spoken language are completely different. You just have to get used to the different nuances in spoken language that allow you to articulate better.
Often, after long working binges, especially after writing a lot of e-mails or documentation, I sometimes temporarily studder or stop in mid sentence to gather my thoughts. This is because in those other forms of communication, I have the ability to gather a large amount of information, think about how I'm going to present it, change my words around many times, and then finally write them down.
Like others have said, It will come to you naturally with practice.
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No, the fact that one has nothing to do with the other. Being able to understand language and following up on human impulses are not similar at all.
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Know your audience. What is a forum for detailed analysis and peer review for one, may be a group to inflict particularly annoying quips on for others.
I engage in various types of written communication in e-mail, and I can tell you the most important lesson I have learned is discretion. I previously wrote long detailed analysis, or provided more or less a snapshot of what was going through my mind at a certain moment, and eventually found out how much of a waste of time it was. It's very important to recognize that there is nothing wrong with short spelling error ridden text. Things like, "hey, how's it going"; "I'm going to blah next weekend, want to come?", are perfectly normal things to say in maintaining a relationship with the least amount of effort. When I want to provide a detailed, well written opinion or thought, I will. This is similar to 2 paragraph, generally off-the-cuff, replies that I post on slashdot. I'm sorry, I don't have the time or inclination to make the effort to write properly thought out flowing works of posting art. On average, I'm probably doing about 13 other things while reading slashdot, so efficient and poetic language usually isn't an option. If I'm trying to write a persuasive or argumentative essay, maybe. On slashdot, no way.
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Well I don't know about that. After getting to know a few people online -- who seemed to have very elegant prose -- they seemed like complete nimwits with nothing intelligent to say in person.
:)
:)
I'm not saying that there's something wrong with having time to compose yourself -- but it allows some people to present themselves as things they are not by just doing a couple of quick web searches. You can't exactly put someone on the spot when e-mailing can you?
It's agreed that grammar and diction is important -- but really, I prefer to change my written and spoken flow of words completely depending on the situation and audience. The real importance is in getting your point across, after all. On slashdot, for instance, I like a using a lot of line breaks and normalized language for that "conversational feel".
Anyway, what I was really trying to get to, is that in e-mail (or forums like this), people will tweak their messages to a point where they hide their faults and certain unknowns; whereas in normal conversation, it's more or less, question, answer, thought from me, thought from her/him and I can analyze what they are *really* thinking; not what they want to present.
E-mail is of course, good for many things such as long boring explanations or arguments such as this -- but anything that requires social interaction, coercion, and 'reading of thoughts', I'd prefer leaving to real time audio and visual realms (notice I left room for future technologies..
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Even still, the system shuts down and the transaction will likely not finish. Granted, it's better having a dedicated 32 - 64+ meg cache, but how often is this going to be a case of a single built up transaction *already* completely in i/o cache. It's also likely that the computer will fail during such a transfer.
imo, the hardware solution is better, but the software solution can still be viable. Hardware and software solutions aside, you should already be running multiple redundant and identical databases (as well as weekly and monthly backups [daily if possible]).
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Its definitely not the banwidth. I have some corporate dedicated servers serving image/video/audio assets here at dn and they are always incredibly fast. I even get ~20ms from home (due to their uunet oc3 +1 t3). Check out their connectivity. I only ever ever go through their teleglobe, qwest and uunet connections as dictated by bgp routing tables, so I can't be absolutely sure though.
Slashdot seems fast enough for me. 100+ comment pages load in less than 5 seconds (remember they do extensive database queries). There are some days when the site seems to be down for 5-10 minutes. Actually, I've tracerouted on occasion and found that the box was up but the httpd wasn't responding for some reason.
As for server hosting centers though, I haven't found anyone better than dn when it comes to multiple connections to just about every major bandwidth provider in north america. MAE's and notoriously oversold sprint-naps and other public exchanges are completely avoided 98% of the time.
You can't go wrong when they're likely to be directly the same backbone used by you and your clients isp's.
I wonder if employees get extensive free services. Drool.
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"Become your own ISP"
:).
Yow. It's true that access to your data is important, but one of the main fallacies of ASP's is that they are slow. You want the customers to have an as fast as possible experience. Providers such as exodus and level3 offer very good data center services including backups, closeness to the end user since they can set you up with round robin dns using more than one data center, their expertise in dealing with 100's if not 1000's of companies (who likely need similar solutions), redundancy and reliability (can't stress that enough for the ASP market). You seem to get it with "Maximum bandwidth decides you maximum audience."; so I guess you're just trying to tailor your post to the person who asked slashdot (though I doubt it had anything to do with ASP's
Instead get a t1 (or other decent dsl/wireless/whatever) connection so that you can update your data/files/databases/assets faster. You don't have to be in physical control of the hard drives to have actual control over the servers. Just make sure the data center is close by -- otherwise you'll be paying huge service fees to these companies.
"develop a minimal rock solid product"
And how will that help you differentiate your product from the other 3000 so called revolutionary ASP hopefuls? There is so much room for improvement in the ASP market, it's scary.
"leveredege existing binary products"
This is the main problem faced. The web browser is often terrible and slow and doesn't exactly enable this server side computing paradigm. There are a limited number of products at this time that you can pattern yourself after. It's better to look at the needs of a certain industry or the similarities between a group of geographically separated company/companies. Take into account the current technologies they are using and integrate them. Don't try and emulate them unless you can do it just as well or better. Example: It's better to just send word or pdf files than to concoct some online format. Just include features that will bring them closer such as comment and message board systems for revision and peer review.
Some open industries for such include:
a) general family and friends networks. This includes file sharing, message boards, photo galleries, electronic greetings, possible calendaring with events/birthdays/special occasions and possible e-commerce tie-ins. News headlines are usually included as an extra spice. Examples: familypoint and visto
b) distribution networks
communication is key here, as is numbers, schedules, private and secure messages, and strategy planning.
c) geographically separated offices
Just about every local communication plus to touch base, actually feel like a community (often not possible over phone and e-mail). This is treading into lotus territory but these kind of applications can be easily modified to suit a particular business model (instead of the company modifying practices to effectively use notes). Contract or remote developer to developer groups or developer to q&a relationships (bug tracking, design issues, ui, specifications, dates, etc etc)....
c) I'm bored, won't finish.
Specialization is especially needed. Law, accounting, investment and banks, retail sales and advertising firms serve as some examples.
If you're an up and coming ASP, then make sure to try and circumvent the obvious failings of centralized, typically slow services. You may be in the wrong market altogether. Solutions with hardware tie ins may be many times more appealing to medium to large sized companies.
"Fund initial expansion without going into debt"
Easy to say, hard to do. Without a tremendous idea or a reputation to get funding, there are some major barriers to entry (bandwidth, support, contracts, research).
"try to use a higher level dev languge"
Agreed. Optimize for speed as per forecasted need. Embed c in perl or create ISAPI or apache c modules. Be sure to optimize database transactions and often used dynamic content includes.
"complete the data loop"
Oh my god, someone who understands. User input and needs are very important. This is especially true for established businesses. If you're not willing to meld your process to meet their needs they are just going to go elsewhere.
xml; Is interesting, though similar things can be done with server side interpreters such as perl, php, python/zope and/or corba, whatever.
Of course, all these statements are incredibly obvious and equally brain dead easy for any knowledgeable developer to pull off. The hard parts are in the market research, establishing industry relationships and input to meet their needs, funding, pr/hype, and luck.
Don't worry, I'll slap myself silly for ranting.
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"Focus! ..."
..."
It would be smarter for the company to sit down first and discuss possibilities. Market research is very useful. Your problem doesn't lie in the fact that "engineers" supposedly know all and marketing doesn't know the web from their ass -- it's that politics and lack of trust are getting in the way of useful group input. A lot of expert opinion definitely lies outside the domain of the programmer/sysadmin/html design artist (have no idea why you claim these people are engineers).
"RAIL
I don't see your point. Any respectable web provider will have a number of redundant links. Providers such as exodus have the ability to re-route traffic within minutes (even seconds) of reported problems. They are much better equipped to deal with such things than you. Note that most DSL providers won't let you have AS authority over a group of ip addresses, so redundant connections are completely worthless because you can't re-route traffic when one link goes down. If the company absolutely needs their bandwidth in house at inception, then they should get a t1 with a shadow t1 connection from another provider for redundancy.
"Hacking um, you WILL be 'hacked'."
Oh give me a break. Just delete all default cgi and test scripts and make sure you're programming securely. When and if you get hacked, just restore from backup.
384 sdsl line is NOT capable of handling this many hits. Traffic spikes will come, especially if you are linked or were recently visited by a search engine spider (and have certain popular key words on your page).
As for simplicity, I completely agree.
Content on the other hand. Yes, content is central to a sites success. Bad site design will prevent that content from being seen or turn users away. It is a very important element to take into consideration. While I agree that resources and time are limited, there are many established sites that you can use to get inspired.
to the person who 'asked slashdot':
A much cheaper solution is to start your site out on any number of shared hosting providers such as pair networks who are very cheap and support mysql, php, cgi etc. There you can get 12gb transfer a month for only 27 bucks (or 6 gb transfer for 15) with php, mysql, cgi and a telnet login to one of their hundreds of freebsd boxes. I went from 12 to 50 to 100 gb a month. I'm sure there are hundreds of other similar providers. It's smarter to do this first than to make a very big investment and get a dedicated connection and whatever servers. Let others provide these services for you while you build a customer/client base and eventually you will outgrow the price curves of companies such as these. Remember, if your site has any downloads, you'll definitely need available burst speeds that these providers have. Slower static links just won't cut it (well unless you can compromise and put every large file on medium quality xoom.com or whatever links).
If your idea is really that good, then I suggest you scout out possible competitors and siphon whatever useful data you can. First identify your target market and the viability of your business model. Are you going to try and sell something online or rely on advertisements? Is this market already clogged with other hopefuls and/or will they soon join in on your good idea? How will you differentiate? If your site will be complex, are you standardizing the design and implementation to prevent many wasted hours? Are you establishing relationships with people in that particular industry? How will you promote the site during and soon after your go live date?
For one, it's very important to standardize your design and try to modularize your code. You don't want to know how many companies I've consulted for and who decide to change their entire flawed backend model after building months of content. It's not fun.
Remember, competition will come if your idea is potentially profitable. You want to build up a good repeat client base before others do.
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"You have a good point, and the reason I like mp3's is because I have found some of my favorite bands through this medium."
... which leads me to mp3.
Exactly. I've bought many, many cd's because I've run into a site with some stuff in a genre I like that I haven't heard before. The only thing comparable that I use as well is CDNow (I get the majority of my cd's from them as well). Anyway, CDNow has medium quality pretty long clips of songs. They only put online clips for every song in a cd if it is popular though
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should == shouldn't. Also note that I greatly enjoy trading songs of local bands from all around the world who want to get known. It's a great way for them to become popular.
:).
I'm sorry, I'm evil. I can't help it. At least I'm not selling CD's
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