When I was in 8th grade, my school had an IMSAI 8080 http://oldcomputers.net/imsai8080.html that had 8K of RAM, ran BASIC, and had 2 TTY's with paper tape punch/readers. When it crashed, the teacher had to reload the OS with a paper tape that took about 30-45 mins to load.
Then, in high school, we had an Interdata something or other. It had 36K, 2 8.5 inch floppy drives, 7 TTY's and 3 CRTs, ran BASIC and had a Centronix dot matrix printer, and man, that printer was fast. The TTY's had paper tape punch/readers, so you could punch your program and take it home with you! To boot the Interdata, you had to enter a series of codes into an octal keypad on the front panel, the last of which caused the read/write head to move into position on the floppy drive, with a loud clunk. I always that that was really cool!
The first computer I actually owned was an ATARI 800XL that when you entered "print SQRT(4)," it said 1.9. I don't recall the exact details, but it was some goofy bug in the built-in BASIC. In those days, there were magazines that had programs in them that you entered into your computer by keying thousands of (decimal) machine codes into some little BASIC program. I keyed in a word processing program that worked pretty darn well--it got me through my first college career--for the cost of a $2.00 magazine.
This article and many of the replies seem to confuse residential vs. business phone service. When one makes the statement "traditional phones never go out when the power goes out," what they really mean is that residential phones don't go out because they're powered by the central office and business phones don't go out because the company's PBX is on a UPS/backup generator. The article seems to address business uses of VOIP, describing routers & switches that are POE enabled (provided by a UPS in the event of a power failure.) But what about home use? A major issue regarding VOIP is 911 service during power failures. Just where is the power going to come from for POE in the home? The cable modem? The home router? Magic? This bring us back to having to have a UPS to keep the equipment up during a power failure? So what's the point?
In an article in today's Atlanta-Journal Constitution, "Execs Defend Selling Stock" , we learn that "Thirteen days after the arrest of a suspect in the ChoicePoint identity theft case -- and more than three months before the problem surfaced publicly -- the company's top two executives began selling their stock."
"Since the sales began in November, ChoicePoint CEO Derek Smith and President Douglas Curling have sold 472,000 ChoicePoint shares worth nearly $21 million, according to the executives' Securities and Exchange Commission filings."
"In an interview with Journal-Constitution reporters Thursday, Smith said he first found out about the identity theft problem in late December or January, which would be about two months after the company notified California law enforcement officials.
Smith said his stock sales aren't inappropriate."
"Rule 10b5-1 plans are relatively new. 'The main limitation on the ability to use a Rule 10b5-1 plan is that it must be adopted while the executive does not possess material nonpublic information,' [Jacob S.]Frenkel [Chairman of chairman of the securities enforcement and white-collar practice at the Shulman, Rogers, Gandal, Pordy & Ecker law firm in Rockville, Md.] said. 'If he does, the plan is not valid.'"
"Smith said he did not learn of the breach of confidentiality of consumer information until just before mentioning it in a January meeting of the audit committee of ChoicePoint's board."
"'The mere fact that they make that statement begs this question: If a CEO did not know some significant information about the company, why did he not know?' Frenkel said."
In the mid- to late-90's, Bellsouth tried an over-the-air subscription TV service. It used microwave technology which required a line-of-site location (which was a big problem for lots of folks). There were (and still are, I think) lots of shiny little antennae at the top of trees around Atlanta. People who had the service loved it. But, it wasn't profitable and Bellsouth pulled the plug. The costs of entering the TV distribution market are so high. Since MS has a 10-year commtment, perhaps they and SBC can make a go of it.
You want to protect your kids? Sit down and talk with them once in a while. Find out where they go rather than right clicking on a toolbar icon to see where they are.
You mean that parents should actually excercise the responsiblity they accepted when they had kids?!? Nah, that's too inconvenient! It's so much easier to let everyone else (the government, schools, the neighbors, etc) take care of the kids, then you can just ignore them! These obliviates are the parents who wonder why their darlings turn into monsters!
if outsourcing IT work is bad, why is outsourcing say banana production good?
Uh, maybe bananas require specific environmental conditions that mostly exist in other countries (e.g. the Central American ones) whereas IT only requires technology infrastructure that can be built pretty much anywhere.
Our tax system neds more than reforation or simplification.... It needs to be tossed out completely and replaced by the Fair Tax (Americans for Fair Taxation). The fair tax would eliminate all payroll taxes and replace them with a national retail sales tax (a.k.a. a consumption tax). Advocates say that with the Fair Tax, companies will move jobs and manufacturing back to the US. I like the idea of taxing the vast underground economy which would occur every time a participant makes a purchase.
And could it simply be that people in Florida might be accustomed to warmer temperatures and might prefer 77F/25C? Try that in Montreal/London/Copenhagen/Anchorage and see what happens!
AT&T is a huge behemoth of a company, that isn't going anywhere.
I wouldn't be so sure. AT&T is a mere shadow of what it used to be (after the divestiture) thanks to horrible management and really, really bad marketing decisions. I think AT&T sees VoIP as it's last chance for survival since it insists on staying in the telephone business, an industry where there's lots of competition and not much money to be made.
I have both Dish Network (for most of my TV viewing) and Comcast (local channels & cable modem-I save $15 on the cable modem in exchange for paying $13.99 for local channels).
Dish Network has been great. I do lose the signal during very heavy rain, and that is only briefly. One disadvantage to the satellite companies: after you've had them for awhile, your equipment becomes obsolete in the sense that it doesn't have all the latest features. For example, my Dish Network receiver is 4 or so years old--it takes forever to obtain information about a show via the online guide whereas the new receivers have enough memory (I assume) that the result is instant. The only way I can get new equipment with out paying $$$ for it is to switch to DirectTV. The satellite companies do nothing for loyal customers.
As far as Comcast goes, it has been surprisingly reliable, both the TV and the cable modem. The picture quality on the cable is not as good as the picture quality on the dish. One big advantage of cable is that if you're a Weather Channel junkie, you get the local weather information & warnings that are not available on the Satellite TWC feed. The newer sat receivers may have an alternative to this.
So, while I've been very happy with Dish Network, I will probably switch to DirectTV just to get new equipment when I move.
The price of Satellite as far as # of channels for your buck is much better than with cable.
The Comcast commercials bashing "the dish", while being somewhat humorous, are pretty much hyperbole at best, and lies at worst. Anyone who would be supid enough to put their dish in a tree deserves to lose their signal when the wind blows!
Slashdot Mirror
Xfinity.
ECKS-finity
ZIN-inity
CROSS-finity
OOOOPS-finity
Hugs-n-kisses-finity
?
When I was in 8th grade, my school had an IMSAI 8080 http://oldcomputers.net/imsai8080.html that had 8K of RAM, ran BASIC, and had 2 TTY's with paper tape punch/readers. When it crashed, the teacher had to reload the OS with a paper tape that took about 30-45 mins to load.
Then, in high school, we had an Interdata something or other. It had 36K, 2 8.5 inch floppy drives, 7 TTY's and 3 CRTs, ran BASIC and had a Centronix dot matrix printer, and man, that printer was fast. The TTY's had paper tape punch/readers, so you could punch your program and take it home with you! To boot the Interdata, you had to enter a series of codes into an octal keypad on the front panel, the last of which caused the read/write head to move into position on the floppy drive, with a loud clunk. I always that that was really cool!
The first computer I actually owned was an ATARI 800XL that when you entered "print SQRT(4)," it said 1.9. I don't recall the exact details, but it was some goofy bug in the built-in BASIC. In those days, there were magazines that had programs in them that you entered into your computer by keying thousands of (decimal) machine codes into some little BASIC program. I keyed in a word processing program that worked pretty darn well--it got me through my first college career--for the cost of a $2.00 magazine.
This article and many of the replies seem to confuse residential vs. business phone service. When one makes the statement "traditional phones never go out when the power goes out," what they really mean is that residential phones don't go out because they're powered by the central office and business phones don't go out because the company's PBX is on a UPS/backup generator. The article seems to address business uses of VOIP, describing routers & switches that are POE enabled (provided by a UPS in the event of a power failure.) But what about home use? A major issue regarding VOIP is 911 service during power failures. Just where is the power going to come from for POE in the home? The cable modem? The home router? Magic? This bring us back to having to have a UPS to keep the equipment up during a power failure? So what's the point?
"Since the sales began in November, ChoicePoint CEO Derek Smith and President Douglas Curling have sold 472,000 ChoicePoint shares worth nearly $21 million, according to the executives' Securities and Exchange Commission filings."
"In an interview with Journal-Constitution reporters Thursday, Smith said he first found out about the identity theft problem in late December or January, which would be about two months after the company notified California law enforcement officials.
Smith said his stock sales aren't inappropriate."
"Rule 10b5-1 plans are relatively new. 'The main limitation on the ability to use a Rule 10b5-1 plan is that it must be adopted while the executive does not possess material nonpublic information,' [Jacob S.]Frenkel [Chairman of chairman of the securities enforcement and white-collar practice at the Shulman, Rogers, Gandal, Pordy & Ecker law firm in Rockville, Md.] said. 'If he does, the plan is not valid.'"
"Smith said he did not learn of the breach of confidentiality of consumer information until just before mentioning it in a January meeting of the audit committee of ChoicePoint's board."
"'The mere fact that they make that statement begs this question: If a CEO did not know some significant information about the company, why did he not know?' Frenkel said."
Anyone else smell a rat?
In another story, Georgia's insurance commissioner says ChoicePoint has 90 days to "show us that they have their act together" or be barred from doing business with insurance companies in the state..
"ChoicePoint CEO Derek Smith said his company was a victim of criminals and that critics are being unfair. "
"It hurts," he said. "It's difficult because no one is giving us credit. It's been awful for my family. It's been awful for our employees."
Wah, wah, wa-a-a-ah!
"A NASA probe to tighten a moon of Saturn"
Doh!
In the mid- to late-90's, Bellsouth tried an over-the-air subscription TV service. It used microwave technology which required a line-of-site location (which was a big problem for lots of folks). There were (and still are, I think) lots of shiny little antennae at the top of trees around Atlanta. People who had the service loved it. But, it wasn't profitable and Bellsouth pulled the plug. The costs of entering the TV distribution market are so high. Since MS has a 10-year commtment, perhaps they and SBC can make a go of it.
You want to protect your kids? Sit down and talk with them once in a while. Find out where they go rather than right clicking on a toolbar icon to see where they are.
You mean that parents should actually excercise the responsiblity they accepted when they had kids?!? Nah, that's too inconvenient! It's so much easier to let everyone else (the government, schools, the neighbors, etc) take care of the kids, then you can just ignore them! These obliviates are the parents who wonder why their darlings turn into monsters!
if outsourcing IT work is bad, why is outsourcing say banana production good?
Uh, maybe bananas require specific environmental conditions that mostly exist in other countries (e.g. the Central American ones) whereas IT only requires technology infrastructure that can be built pretty much anywhere.
Our tax system neds more than reforation or simplification.... It needs to be tossed out completely and replaced by the Fair Tax (Americans for Fair Taxation). The fair tax would eliminate all payroll taxes and replace them with a national retail sales tax (a.k.a. a consumption tax). Advocates say that with the Fair Tax, companies will move jobs and manufacturing back to the US. I like the idea of taxing the vast underground economy which would occur every time a participant makes a purchase.
And could it simply be that people in Florida might be accustomed to warmer temperatures and might prefer 77F/25C? Try that in Montreal/London/Copenhagen/Anchorage and see what happens!
Not to mention that you have the pleasure of paying rent for each box. If you're going to do that, you might as well go with satellite.
AT&T is a huge behemoth of a company, that isn't going anywhere.
I wouldn't be so sure. AT&T is a mere shadow of what it used to be (after the divestiture) thanks to horrible management and really, really bad marketing decisions. I think AT&T sees VoIP as it's last chance for survival since it insists on staying in the telephone business, an industry where there's lots of competition and not much money to be made.
I have both Dish Network (for most of my TV viewing) and Comcast (local channels & cable modem-I save $15 on the cable modem in exchange for paying $13.99 for local channels).
Dish Network has been great. I do lose the signal during very heavy rain, and that is only briefly. One disadvantage to the satellite companies: after you've had them for awhile, your equipment becomes obsolete in the sense that it doesn't have all the latest features. For example, my Dish Network receiver is 4 or so years old--it takes forever to obtain information about a show via the online guide whereas the new receivers have enough memory (I assume) that the result is instant. The only way I can get new equipment with out paying $$$ for it is to switch to DirectTV. The satellite companies do nothing for loyal customers.
As far as Comcast goes, it has been surprisingly reliable, both the TV and the cable modem. The picture quality on the cable is not as good as the picture quality on the dish. One big advantage of cable is that if you're a Weather Channel junkie, you get the local weather information & warnings that are not available on the Satellite TWC feed. The newer sat receivers may have an alternative to this.
So, while I've been very happy with Dish Network, I will probably switch to DirectTV just to get new equipment when I move.
The price of Satellite as far as # of channels for your buck is much better than with cable.
The Comcast commercials bashing "the dish", while being somewhat humorous, are pretty much hyperbole at best, and lies at worst. Anyone who would be supid enough to put their dish in a tree deserves to lose their signal when the wind blows!
I've heard electronic organs referred to by professional organists as "Toasters".