CSS is a complex resource-intensive standard that no browser developer has yet to implement correctly.
A proper CSS implementation in a mobile phone with a 160x120 display and a few megs of memory? Yeah right!
There's also the fact that CSS inherently operates by telling the device what to remove once it has received the full page, as opposed to not sending the device the information in the first place. Not everyone lives in a UMTS or EV-DO coverage area, you know... Even if it formats well for display on my device (an above average 240x320 Windows Mobile 5 PDA phone), a "non-mobile-optimized" site often is 100-200 kilobytes, while a mobile-optimized one is 10-20 kilobytes. (Simpler HTML, no images or only very small ones, etc.) CSS won't help here because it fundamentally means "send everything and let the client sort it out".
Even with CSS, the differences between mobile and desktop versions of a site are more than just formatting. Try going to Google with a mobile device - You'll see that the differences in the site are far more than just formatting.
I sort of recall hearing sometime down the line that some of the 3D specs were released, but critical stuff needed for acceptable performance or modern effects was missing.
"When ATI were making their first murmurings of releasing specs a few weeks ago, I have to say I wasn't convinced - I've been burned by ATI's shoddy Linux support in the past, and it was going to take alot of convincing that AMD (traditionally very friendly to FOSS) was trying to steer the ship in a different direction."
Just like I was burned by Matrox's promises to release 3D specs shortly after they released 2D specs for the G200 nearly a decade ago. They never delivered the documentation that was promised.
"And now they've released scads of docs - kudos." No they haven't. Note quite a few posters have indicated that the currently released docs don't even allow driver authors to implement 2D acceleration - they allow you to set up the card as a framebuffer and not much else apparently.
Even Matrox did better with their first release in 1998.
Matrox promised full specifications including 3D capability for the G200 series cards back in 1998. Being an idealistic sucker, I bought a G200 based on those promises.
Those specifications, promised nearly ten years ago, never arrived to my knowledge. If they ever did, it happened long after the G200 was obsolete.
About six months after wasting money on that G200, I bought a Riva TNT2 and have been an NVidia customer since then. They don't make empty promises that we MIGHT be able to write a decent working driver some time after the card has been obsolete for over a year and fail to deliver on those promises, they deliver a working driver that gives the customer 3D capability *NOW*.
Simply put, if you want working 3D support under Linux, NVidia is still your only option, and probably will be that way for a long time. The current ATI "news" so far sounds to me exactly like the Matrox "non-news" nearly a decade in the past.
Your own area code - Whether you get charged and how much depended on the exchange. (i.e. the next three digits after your area code). Your telephone directory would list the exchanges that were local for you. Other area codes - Long-distance call (800) - Free, other 800-series "free" numbers were later added (900) - The only case where a landline user could get charged extra for making a call, allowable because it was quite clear that (900) was an exception, but there aren't enough numbers in the (900) range to put every mobile user...
There also seems to be a significant cost for the carriers when entering/leaving their network in general, reflected in the user prices by the fact that nowadays basically every U.S. carrier allows unlimited in-network voice calls and often unlimited in-network SMS.
In some ways it is silly, but I think it rose from pricing structures and regulations regarding landline phones, i.e. a mobile carrier could not force a landline provider to charge the landline user for calls to that mobile carrier's network. There are (or at least were) pretty clear rules regarding what numbers cost money and what don't for landlines, and mobile pricing schemes evolved around those.
Most of the PAYG plans I've seen have a rather short expiration time so if you spend less than $15-20/month your balance starts expiring.
In the case of Verizon, their PAYG plan comes out to a minimum of $30/month, and a contract plan is only $40! I think my current provider (Just started an AT&T contract) is a bit better with PAYG but not that much from what I saw.
Nah, the article is just plain wrong and uses differing meanings for "server".
SL - "Server" appears to mean a single CPU or box EVE - "Server" is used to describe the entirety of the Tranquility cluster, which has at least 150-200+ dual or quad-core blades that handle the solar systems, plus some serious database servers.
EVE can achieve around 150-200 on a single machine before things start getting laggy, things get massively painful in the 500-700 range, and much above that and nodes start dropping. EVE has an architecture limitation in that processing for a given solar system cannot be spread across multiple CPUs, so if a single solar system in EVE has 200+ players, they're all on the same CPU. Meanwhile, 10 systems with 5 users each will likely share a CPU, and 50 systems with zero users probably also share.
I find it hard to believe that SL doesn't allow more than 160 concurrent users to log in simultaneously. 160 users per CPU or per chassis blade, maybe, but 160 total all at once or even 160 per shard?
EVE does not have 34,000 people on one server. One shard which people call a "server", but the Tranquility cluster is some SERIOUS hardware. I think they're up to something like 160-200 dual or quad-core blades, at least.
You must be either on a lowend pay-as-you-go plan or on a VERY old plan and are avoiding contract renewal.
Unlimited M2M within your carrier has basically been standard in the U.S. for a few years. (Note to Europeans: ONLY applies to mobile-to-mobile on the same carrier, not to others in the U.S.)
In general, US and European providers have VERY different pricing structures, and so you will not likely ever see parity in plans available.
Among other things, as I understand it: European wireless customers never pay for incoming calls. Calls are charged to the caller, whether the caller is a landline or mobile. U.S. wireless customers pay for all incoming and outgoing calls (well, the calls are deducted from their monthly airtime allowance...), subject to exceptions (mobile-to-mobile on the same carrier, off-peak times) European wireless customers only pay for outgoing SMS, not incoming. U.S. customers pay for both, with the above voice exceptions often applying to SMS. Few European wireless carriers offer flat-rate data plans, although their pay-per-kilobyte prices are typically far cheaper than U.S. pay-per-KB prices. U.S. carriers offer exorbitant pay-per-KB prices so that anything but a minimal amount of usage proves to be more expensive than the flat-rate monthly plans. This is the big problem with the iPhone in Europe - as a few other articles have indicated, it was basically designed around an unlimited-data plan and in fact AT&T won't sell you the unit unless you get unlimited data service. In general, Europeans jumped straight from GPRS to UMTS, skipping EDGE deployment. Bad for iPhone, no UMTS capability.
To make a long story short - comparing pricing between a U.S. carrier and a European carrier is like comparing apples to oranges. It's much easier to compare pricing schemes between U.S. carriers, which all operate on similar principles. (One exception - I get the impression European plans are a much closer match to U.S. prepaid/pay-as-you-go plans, except they are far more reasonably priced. U.S. PAYG plans are massive ripoffs.)
"I hope Boeing have learned from these accidents."
To my knowledge, they haven't because they didn't make those design decisions in the first place, knowing that there was a risk to them and deciding to avoid them in advance rather than risk learning from a bad decision the hard way.
Boeing engineers are incredibly conservative. Airbus is a bit more aggressive - brought to you by most of the same companies that brought you Ariane 5...
As an example: Different design teams made both the hardware and software for each of the triple redundant flight computers on a 777. The teams were not allowed to have any contact whatsoever, even personal contact outside of work. Meanwhile, the first Ariane 5 went BOOM because all three (identical) flight computers crashed in sequence due to the same software bug.
I've flown a lot, and am in general not afraid of flying, except when I step onto an Airbus. Then I get a bit nervous...
They provide controlled on-demand-when-you-need-it sharing of locally stored documents.
Google provides central storage of documents that are inaccessible without a network connection. The central storage alone is a major dealbreaker for most of WebEx's customers (who are looking for a reasonably secured on-demand-only collaboration system that works even from behind firewalls).
It's sad to say, but with respect to "openness" to developers, Windows Mobile is actually in the lead right now. (Except for possibly Symbian which I have ZERO experience with, but other posts indicate it is less free.)
iPhone - well, that is clearly a closed system. Any "openness" is a lucky hack.
BREW - ugh...
Linux-on-phone - You would expect it to be free, but with the exception of OpenMoko, it seems like Linux-on-phone tends to be "Tivoized". The quotes in the article summary imply that manufacturers love it because it makes it easier for them to lock down the phone. Their definition of "secure" is not the same as ours, theirs is in terms of DRM and locking down what the owner is allowed to do.
PalmOS is pretty open to developers but is basically dead at this point. (I'm a former Treo owner, now I have a WM5-based AT&T 8525 aka HTC Hermes/TyTn and love it)
You can't play DRMed HD over a "vanilla" DVI port. This is a known fact. Unless the port supports HDCP (not part of the official DVI standard, and known for LOTS of interoperability problems - see Westinghouse TVs vs. PS3 for example), you're screwed.
Also, the article summary attacks Guttman for claiming that HD can't be played over an analog port. Both are wrong here. DRMed HD can currently be played over an analog port because few discs enable the ICT (Image Constraint Token), but it's just a matter of time before the ICT starts getting flipped on and analog outputs start going to half resolution. I've heard rumors that some cable systems enable ICT for all cable content already.
Note: When I say "DRMed HD" I am referring primarily to the most well-known sources of DRMed high def content, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. Both have these limitations among others.
2GB expansion on a 60GB iPod = tiny drop in the bucket.
As an additional disclaimer in addition to the fact that my purchase decision was made over a year ago, I was looking in the "large hard-drive based" not "small solid-state" category. Sandisk does not appear to compete in this segment, or at least they did not back when I was looking at portable players.
It has a more polished user interface and more third-party accessory support than any other player.
When shopping for an MP3 player, I considered alternatives (and in fact looked at alternatives first), and in the end went with iPod because: 1) Most of the alternatives I looked at weren't any cheaper than the iPod 2) Most of them got slammed in reviews for bad user interfaces 3) Most of them were not available in B&M stores allowing me to return it easily if I hated the UI.
In short, in the end the iPod wound up being the "safe bet", and unlike most Apple products, wasn't grossly overpriced compared to the competition. (Disclaimer: This was over a year ago, things may have changed since then.)
"Until nVidia follows suit there should be no real reason to buy nVidia cards."
Yes there is still real reason to buy NVidia cards. They have working functionality, ATI has only promised (but not yet delivered) 3D documentation. The last company to do that (Matrox back in 1998) never delivered. I'll believe it when I see it.
"Expect more documentation (and 3D specifications) to arrive shortly."
In short, we have 2D documentation but no 3D documentation. It's been this way for years, nothing is different.
The last time someone (Matrox) said "3D specifications to arrive shortly", a whole bunch of suckers (including myself) bought cards and got shafted because the promised specifications were never released. My G200 was replaced by a Riva TNT2 within six months and I haven't left NVidia since then.
Others promise open specifications and fail to release them fully, resulting in cards that are paperweights.
NVidia doesn't promise open specifications, but at least they deliver solid drivers that work (and work well).
More likely $24 for the first 20MB and a much higher per-KB cost after that (just like the non-unlimited domestic plans), not $24 per 20MB for each 20 MB chunk.
That's even if he had the $24 plan in the first place, if he didn't the first 20MB was probably VERY expensive.
I think AT&T's international data roaming is something like either 1.9 cents or 19 cents per kilobyte.
While I'm happy with AT&T as a new customer (about 2 weeks so far and I'm so happy I've ditched Verizon Wirele$$), I'm glad I don't have an iPhone. Unlike the iPhone, my 8525 (HTC TyTn) can be unlocked and if I want to use it out of the country I can throw in a prepaid SIM at my destination country. Yes, the iPhone can also be unlocked but many of its features will break on a non-AT&T network. I also have full control over when my 8525 fetches email or uses data...
Such capability is in theory included in ATSC (over the air) and QAM (cable digital) streams, but in reality, it's broken 95% of the time in the United States on the broadcaster's end.
"EVE has really hit the spot for folks that like PvP, but to me the learning curve and the need for a good friend-base is a real limiting factor. Unless I knew a group of folks that played and were looking for me to join, I wouldn't go there. It's not for soloing or cutting your teeth without friends. It just sounds too daunting to take on by yourself without knowing folks. Unless you want to join BoB, that is."
Well, to go join BoB you're going to need to know a lot of people.
That said - I started playing EVE with a bunch of buddies from a web-based strategy game (Planetarion). I got burned out after a year, partly because I wasn't nearly as hardcore as the rest of Xanadu, and went back to DAoC.
I returned to EVE a year ago, mainly due to many other ex-Xans I was friends with forming a much more relaxed corp, and to be honest the only thing keeping me in the game is the fact that it's what most of my gaming buddies are also playing. I really don't like supporting CCP's ethics violations. I don't think CCP realizes that they are in the exact same situation that DAoC was when WoW was released - A jaded playerbase just waiting for any acceptable alternative. CCP is lucky that right now they're the only MMO in the space-based genre.
Slashdot Mirror
Because stylesheets don't stop data from being sent to the device in the first place.
It's not just about display, it's about connectivity.
Even relatively "clean" pages like Slashdot's main non-mobile site are too bloated to be easily usable over a GPRS connection.
CSS? Mobile Phone? What???
CSS is a complex resource-intensive standard that no browser developer has yet to implement correctly.
A proper CSS implementation in a mobile phone with a 160x120 display and a few megs of memory? Yeah right!
There's also the fact that CSS inherently operates by telling the device what to remove once it has received the full page, as opposed to not sending the device the information in the first place. Not everyone lives in a UMTS or EV-DO coverage area, you know... Even if it formats well for display on my device (an above average 240x320 Windows Mobile 5 PDA phone), a "non-mobile-optimized" site often is 100-200 kilobytes, while a mobile-optimized one is 10-20 kilobytes. (Simpler HTML, no images or only very small ones, etc.) CSS won't help here because it fundamentally means "send everything and let the client sort it out".
Even with CSS, the differences between mobile and desktop versions of a site are more than just formatting. Try going to Google with a mobile device - You'll see that the differences in the site are far more than just formatting.
I sort of recall hearing sometime down the line that some of the 3D specs were released, but critical stuff needed for acceptable performance or modern effects was missing.
"When ATI were making their first murmurings of releasing specs a few weeks ago, I have to say I wasn't convinced - I've been burned by ATI's shoddy Linux support in the past, and it was going to take alot of convincing that AMD (traditionally very friendly to FOSS) was trying to steer the ship in a different direction."
Just like I was burned by Matrox's promises to release 3D specs shortly after they released 2D specs for the G200 nearly a decade ago. They never delivered the documentation that was promised.
"And now they've released scads of docs - kudos."
No they haven't. Note quite a few posters have indicated that the currently released docs don't even allow driver authors to implement 2D acceleration - they allow you to set up the card as a framebuffer and not much else apparently.
Even Matrox did better with their first release in 1998.
Matrox promised full specifications including 3D capability for the G200 series cards back in 1998. Being an idealistic sucker, I bought a G200 based on those promises.
Those specifications, promised nearly ten years ago, never arrived to my knowledge. If they ever did, it happened long after the G200 was obsolete.
About six months after wasting money on that G200, I bought a Riva TNT2 and have been an NVidia customer since then. They don't make empty promises that we MIGHT be able to write a decent working driver some time after the card has been obsolete for over a year and fail to deliver on those promises, they deliver a working driver that gives the customer 3D capability *NOW*.
Simply put, if you want working 3D support under Linux, NVidia is still your only option, and probably will be that way for a long time. The current ATI "news" so far sounds to me exactly like the Matrox "non-news" nearly a decade in the past.
In the U.S., it is something like:
Your own area code - Whether you get charged and how much depended on the exchange. (i.e. the next three digits after your area code). Your telephone directory would list the exchanges that were local for you.
Other area codes - Long-distance call
(800) - Free, other 800-series "free" numbers were later added
(900) - The only case where a landline user could get charged extra for making a call, allowable because it was quite clear that (900) was an exception, but there aren't enough numbers in the (900) range to put every mobile user...
There also seems to be a significant cost for the carriers when entering/leaving their network in general, reflected in the user prices by the fact that nowadays basically every U.S. carrier allows unlimited in-network voice calls and often unlimited in-network SMS.
In some ways it is silly, but I think it rose from pricing structures and regulations regarding landline phones, i.e. a mobile carrier could not force a landline provider to charge the landline user for calls to that mobile carrier's network. There are (or at least were) pretty clear rules regarding what numbers cost money and what don't for landlines, and mobile pricing schemes evolved around those.
Most of the PAYG plans I've seen have a rather short expiration time so if you spend less than $15-20/month your balance starts expiring.
In the case of Verizon, their PAYG plan comes out to a minimum of $30/month, and a contract plan is only $40! I think my current provider (Just started an AT&T contract) is a bit better with PAYG but not that much from what I saw.
Maybe you've found an exception...
Nah, the article is just plain wrong and uses differing meanings for "server".
SL - "Server" appears to mean a single CPU or box
EVE - "Server" is used to describe the entirety of the Tranquility cluster, which has at least 150-200+ dual or quad-core blades that handle the solar systems, plus some serious database servers.
EVE can achieve around 150-200 on a single machine before things start getting laggy, things get massively painful in the 500-700 range, and much above that and nodes start dropping. EVE has an architecture limitation in that processing for a given solar system cannot be spread across multiple CPUs, so if a single solar system in EVE has 200+ players, they're all on the same CPU. Meanwhile, 10 systems with 5 users each will likely share a CPU, and 50 systems with zero users probably also share.
I find it hard to believe that SL doesn't allow more than 160 concurrent users to log in simultaneously. 160 users per CPU or per chassis blade, maybe, but 160 total all at once or even 160 per shard?
EVE does not have 34,000 people on one server. One shard which people call a "server", but the Tranquility cluster is some SERIOUS hardware. I think they're up to something like 160-200 dual or quad-core blades, at least.
You must be either on a lowend pay-as-you-go plan or on a VERY old plan and are avoiding contract renewal.
Unlimited M2M within your carrier has basically been standard in the U.S. for a few years. (Note to Europeans: ONLY applies to mobile-to-mobile on the same carrier, not to others in the U.S.)
In general, US and European providers have VERY different pricing structures, and so you will not likely ever see parity in plans available.
Among other things, as I understand it:
European wireless customers never pay for incoming calls. Calls are charged to the caller, whether the caller is a landline or mobile. U.S. wireless customers pay for all incoming and outgoing calls (well, the calls are deducted from their monthly airtime allowance...), subject to exceptions (mobile-to-mobile on the same carrier, off-peak times)
European wireless customers only pay for outgoing SMS, not incoming. U.S. customers pay for both, with the above voice exceptions often applying to SMS.
Few European wireless carriers offer flat-rate data plans, although their pay-per-kilobyte prices are typically far cheaper than U.S. pay-per-KB prices. U.S. carriers offer exorbitant pay-per-KB prices so that anything but a minimal amount of usage proves to be more expensive than the flat-rate monthly plans. This is the big problem with the iPhone in Europe - as a few other articles have indicated, it was basically designed around an unlimited-data plan and in fact AT&T won't sell you the unit unless you get unlimited data service.
In general, Europeans jumped straight from GPRS to UMTS, skipping EDGE deployment. Bad for iPhone, no UMTS capability.
To make a long story short - comparing pricing between a U.S. carrier and a European carrier is like comparing apples to oranges. It's much easier to compare pricing schemes between U.S. carriers, which all operate on similar principles. (One exception - I get the impression European plans are a much closer match to U.S. prepaid/pay-as-you-go plans, except they are far more reasonably priced. U.S. PAYG plans are massive ripoffs.)
"I hope Boeing have learned from these accidents."
To my knowledge, they haven't because they didn't make those design decisions in the first place, knowing that there was a risk to them and deciding to avoid them in advance rather than risk learning from a bad decision the hard way.
Boeing engineers are incredibly conservative. Airbus is a bit more aggressive - brought to you by most of the same companies that brought you Ariane 5...
As an example: Different design teams made both the hardware and software for each of the triple redundant flight computers on a 777. The teams were not allowed to have any contact whatsoever, even personal contact outside of work. Meanwhile, the first Ariane 5 went BOOM because all three (identical) flight computers crashed in sequence due to the same software bug.
I've flown a lot, and am in general not afraid of flying, except when I step onto an Airbus. Then I get a bit nervous...
Nah, WebEx is likely not afraid at all.
They provide controlled on-demand-when-you-need-it sharing of locally stored documents.
Google provides central storage of documents that are inaccessible without a network connection. The central storage alone is a major dealbreaker for most of WebEx's customers (who are looking for a reasonably secured on-demand-only collaboration system that works even from behind firewalls).
It's sad to say, but with respect to "openness" to developers, Windows Mobile is actually in the lead right now. (Except for possibly Symbian which I have ZERO experience with, but other posts indicate it is less free.)
iPhone - well, that is clearly a closed system. Any "openness" is a lucky hack.
BREW - ugh...
Linux-on-phone - You would expect it to be free, but with the exception of OpenMoko, it seems like Linux-on-phone tends to be "Tivoized". The quotes in the article summary imply that manufacturers love it because it makes it easier for them to lock down the phone. Their definition of "secure" is not the same as ours, theirs is in terms of DRM and locking down what the owner is allowed to do.
PalmOS is pretty open to developers but is basically dead at this point. (I'm a former Treo owner, now I have a WM5-based AT&T 8525 aka HTC Hermes/TyTn and love it)
You can't play DRMed HD over a "vanilla" DVI port. This is a known fact. Unless the port supports HDCP (not part of the official DVI standard, and known for LOTS of interoperability problems - see Westinghouse TVs vs. PS3 for example), you're screwed.
Also, the article summary attacks Guttman for claiming that HD can't be played over an analog port. Both are wrong here. DRMed HD can currently be played over an analog port because few discs enable the ICT (Image Constraint Token), but it's just a matter of time before the ICT starts getting flipped on and analog outputs start going to half resolution. I've heard rumors that some cable systems enable ICT for all cable content already.
Note: When I say "DRMed HD" I am referring primarily to the most well-known sources of DRMed high def content, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. Both have these limitations among others.
Clearly not MP3s. Almost surely they are DRMed WMA files.
Result: SpiralFrog will still fail despite being free.
2GB expansion on a 60GB iPod = tiny drop in the bucket.
As an additional disclaimer in addition to the fact that my purchase decision was made over a year ago, I was looking in the "large hard-drive based" not "small solid-state" category. Sandisk does not appear to compete in this segment, or at least they did not back when I was looking at portable players.
It has a more polished user interface and more third-party accessory support than any other player.
When shopping for an MP3 player, I considered alternatives (and in fact looked at alternatives first), and in the end went with iPod because:
1) Most of the alternatives I looked at weren't any cheaper than the iPod
2) Most of them got slammed in reviews for bad user interfaces
3) Most of them were not available in B&M stores allowing me to return it easily if I hated the UI.
In short, in the end the iPod wound up being the "safe bet", and unlike most Apple products, wasn't grossly overpriced compared to the competition. (Disclaimer: This was over a year ago, things may have changed since then.)
From TFA:
NASA also gets free flights to put instrumentation on, for which aircraft maintenance and fuel are paid for by someone else (Google).
Part of the agreement is that NASA is allowed to put scientific instruments on Google's aircraft for data collection.
"Until nVidia follows suit there should be no real reason to buy nVidia cards."
Yes there is still real reason to buy NVidia cards. They have working functionality, ATI has only promised (but not yet delivered) 3D documentation. The last company to do that (Matrox back in 1998) never delivered. I'll believe it when I see it.
"Expect more documentation (and 3D specifications) to arrive shortly."
In short, we have 2D documentation but no 3D documentation. It's been this way for years, nothing is different.
The last time someone (Matrox) said "3D specifications to arrive shortly", a whole bunch of suckers (including myself) bought cards and got shafted because the promised specifications were never released. My G200 was replaced by a Riva TNT2 within six months and I haven't left NVidia since then.
Others promise open specifications and fail to release them fully, resulting in cards that are paperweights.
NVidia doesn't promise open specifications, but at least they deliver solid drivers that work (and work well).
More likely $24 for the first 20MB and a much higher per-KB cost after that (just like the non-unlimited domestic plans), not $24 per 20MB for each 20 MB chunk.
That's even if he had the $24 plan in the first place, if he didn't the first 20MB was probably VERY expensive.
I think AT&T's international data roaming is something like either 1.9 cents or 19 cents per kilobyte.
While I'm happy with AT&T as a new customer (about 2 weeks so far and I'm so happy I've ditched Verizon Wirele$$), I'm glad I don't have an iPhone. Unlike the iPhone, my 8525 (HTC TyTn) can be unlocked and if I want to use it out of the country I can throw in a prepaid SIM at my destination country. Yes, the iPhone can also be unlocked but many of its features will break on a non-AT&T network. I also have full control over when my 8525 fetches email or uses data...
Such capability is in theory included in ATSC (over the air) and QAM (cable digital) streams, but in reality, it's broken 95% of the time in the United States on the broadcaster's end.
"EVE has really hit the spot for folks that like PvP, but to me the learning curve and the need for a good friend-base is a real limiting factor. Unless I knew a group of folks that played and were looking for me to join, I wouldn't go there. It's not for soloing or cutting your teeth without friends. It just sounds too daunting to take on by yourself without knowing folks. Unless you want to join BoB, that is."
Well, to go join BoB you're going to need to know a lot of people.
That said - I started playing EVE with a bunch of buddies from a web-based strategy game (Planetarion). I got burned out after a year, partly because I wasn't nearly as hardcore as the rest of Xanadu, and went back to DAoC.
I returned to EVE a year ago, mainly due to many other ex-Xans I was friends with forming a much more relaxed corp, and to be honest the only thing keeping me in the game is the fact that it's what most of my gaming buddies are also playing. I really don't like supporting CCP's ethics violations. I don't think CCP realizes that they are in the exact same situation that DAoC was when WoW was released - A jaded playerbase just waiting for any acceptable alternative. CCP is lucky that right now they're the only MMO in the space-based genre.