Can anyone please give advice on how to overcome this problem, be it a little trick, medication, or anything else?
Having been a similar kind of student in college, but have gone to a successful career, I don't think you're going to find medication or tricks or anything to 'overcome' your nature. The key to success is recognizing that the world's got people like you for a reason.
"ADHD" classifications, IMHO, are usually a label placed on the hunters by the gathers (to horribly oversimplify things). Do some research on hunter/gatherer models of learning and motivation and you'll get some good insight here.
Approaching this all from a "learning system culture" sort of macro operating system for humans, Gatherers are well suited to working together in cooperative teams, they learn via second-hand sources well, and fundamentally seek and accept extrinsic direction. They are motivated by these outside sources which they trust implicitely. They make good committee people, good followers, etc. Society needs people like this to follow rules in conducting their work. Understand that post-secondary education is the pinnacle of their system, and you'll see why you may be having problems.
I'd strongly suspect from your description that you're of the hunter ethic. Are you self-taught? Motivated by doing things you want to do (instead of what society/teachers/parents/friends tell you to do)? This model is also needed by society in conquering new things and treading outside the predictable, safe areas where gatherers like to reside. Understand that society needs both of these. If you're in the latter category, quit dwelling on the fact that you may fail miserably in the gatherer's universe (they didn't intend it for you anyways) and focus on doing what hunters do better.
Find out what topics self-motivate you. Design your own education program (and understand that you need to present third-party credentials to the gatherers you deal with - absent college degrees, get yourself certified in the various areas, e.g. CCIE, CISSP, Security+, A+, and various other certifications for your area). Make it a golden rule that you never burn bridges - your reputation is the only thing you have to offer.
And don't forget that the early years are the hardest for the hunters because we don't have a formal educational system that's designed for our success (the existing one is actually designed to classify us as a disorder and medicate us!).
Nearly every CEO and business leader I work with is of this hunter ethic (in fact, a savvy investor may wish to avoid gatherer-run companies, like Lucent, that lack any tolerance for risk and vision). Just hang in there, make yourself an expert at something, make certain that you protect your integrity in everything you do as this is critical, and success will find you.
Even that is a stretch. Having dealt with various Worldcom entities for more than a decade as a carrier customer, I'd argue that it's hard to claim that there was any organized administration.
Ebbers was a rabid M&A man, and he did an exceptional job in keeping the acquirees off balance; e.g. MFS Datanet acquisition (Crowe and other MFS executives got to play "co-CEO for a day" and experienced all the usual Ebbers tricks).
Unfortunately, the consequence of this structural imbalance was a balkenized company. I've been on conference calls where MFS people accused MCI folks who were accusing LDDS folks who were blaming Worldcom folks, and so on (all in front of the customer). One unified company? Not.
In fact, things were so bad in 1998-2000 that circuits would routinely be lost or even killed by incompatible systems. We had DS3s from Washington to NYC which were originating and terminating feature group D circuits (for local phone calls from Bell Atlantic to the carrier I worked for) that one Worldcom system would label incorrectly (putting a code on the circuits that indicated it was temporary), and another started killing off when so many months passed without a change in the code to a permanent status.
Amazingly, Worldcom couldn't restore the circuits. They claimed that once a circuit was killed, the only solution was to create a new circuit. This took weeks (with disrupted traffic), only to go through the same problems three months later when the new circuits would get knocked down. Suffer a half-year of this abuse and you'll see all of your local long distance customers disappear as this carrier did.
I always suspected anticompetitive practices behind the activities, and surprisingly it's not difficult to construct. Looking at the practices as a business "denial-of-service attack", minor decisions (like not funding and fixing compatibility problems between systems that only affects carrier customers) end up having strategic value. Combine that with a "we're too large to respond, investigate or care" attitude, e.g. Worldcom billing's inability to figure out how to properly credit, and you've got a pretty effective strategy (Qwest is another notorious "goof and refuse credit" player - if you've got the attorneys and the size, I guess they feel the need to use them to stall customer refunds). This was one literally hundreds of experiences of this nature with Worldcom.
It'll be interesting to see of the Feds look into Worldcom's "leaky PBX" operations, where they routinely dumped international calls into foreign telephone networks without paying settlement. By obtaining local phone lines to a office PBX, and back-ending the PBX with international circuits (often satellite links on the office building), Worldcom would sneak traffic in and dump it without paying any per-minute rate - much similar to some of the local termination abuse claims being investigated now.
In Worldcom's defense, many carriers also employed leaky PBX.
Per Gates' claim: There's no question that in cloning activities, IP from many, many companies, including Microsoft, is being used in open-source software.
It's interesting how quickly he's forgotten the 1988 Apple lawsuit, and in fact, done a near180 in his position on look and feel, and cloning of functionalities/interfaces. Obviously, his position shifts to reflect the competitor Microsoft perceives to be the greatest threat, and given the perceived insignificance of Apple, demise of Be, and continued lack of mass-market competition from Sun, open source is the only realistic threat.
Uh oh... we just got this in the mail, apparently from SCO. Anyone else receive one of these?
FROM: CHRIS SONTAG
Do not be surprised at receiving this important mail. An influential top government functionaire gave me your name and assured me of your transparancy. The trama, humiliation and deprivation which I and my family have suffered since the death of Novell has kept me in focus on searching out the possibilities of safe guarding the colosal sums of money Ray Noorda left behind.
Presently my elder business partner Darl McBride cannot be reached because he is under the detention by the ruthless Secret Order of the Penguin, a devious band of open source terrorists. At the moment, I have thirty three million US dollars ($33,000,000) currently deposited in a friendly Utah Senator's personal account. I will be sending somebody there for both of you to work together in due course. With the present disposition of this Senator, all monies kept by Mr. Noorda are attempted to be recovered by the current administration. On this note I desire your urgent attention to assist me secure the aformentioned sum in any bank account you may furnish me with.
We would avail ourselves of a total loss of the whole sum depending upon the promptness to furnish me with this required information which will permit me to facilitate instructions and signal the Senator for expedient transfer of this funds for your account.
For you providing me with this account and well partaking in this transaction I will oblige you what ever SCO UNIX license ever you desire on request or to be more specific I will oblige you unlimited personal license and one compiler license for server edition.
The urgency of this matter desires shall be treated with all promptness as any day that passes poses a bigger threat. You must understeand that this transaction should be treated with all secrecy. Under no means should you use a Linux computer to communicate with me as the Penguin Order is watching vigilently. Please contact me through email csontag@sco.com as soon as you receive this letter on your preparedness to assist me.
Oh come on now, they must have Leather Strip and Front Line Assembly and Fear Factory and Velvet Acid Christ?
You're kidding, right? I did find a Front 242 CD once at Best Buy. It was rather old and, er, nothing like what Front 242 does today. Pretty disappointed - I didn't recognize it and snapped it up.
hmmm... wonder if this has anything to do with things:
Microsoft intruduces powerful-new military battle interface "GI Bob" software to unify army command and control systems
REDMOND, Wash., May 23, 2003 -- American combat military personnel may get upgraded this year following Microsoft's release of a new battle user interface. The new product, Microsoft GI Bob for Windows, is based on the innovative user interface system initially released by Microsoft in 1993 to consumer sectors.
Featuring a powerful new intuition engine and updated interface, GI Bob represents common combat tasks in a easy-to-navigate windowpane, complete with the a refreshing new theme called QuansitHut(TM). Designed to simplify all aspects of military combat, experts acclaim GI Bob as an interface that "even a private from Arkansas could master," yielding strategic benefits to training and combat readiness requirements.
Within GI Bob, soldiers can access battlefield data by selecting convenient icons like Sgt. Carter's desk (for current tasks), file cabinet (for archived materials), a desktop radio (for communications) and other readily-identifiable items. With the updated VirtualPyle assistant, GI Bob's audiovisual experience is complete with voiceovers and animated interactions with the on-screen helper.
Microsoft GI Bob is available to authorized military purchasers and retails for $999. Contact your authorized Microsoft partner for details.
They went out and picketed with them. They posed for pictures. They came out and `shared laughs'.
it's called 'coopting' and it's right out of Microsoft's manual.
pretty interesting in all. it seems that SCO's got some rather competent handlers... that and the "steal free music" attempted reference in SCO's signs is a rather fascinating insight to how their PR folks are going to shape this battle in the press.
This phone has moved to the upper region of my DO NOT BUY list.
Yea, have you noticed that cellphones have already slid into the uncool category for the star-bellied sneaches? Maybe it's the fact that every shopper at ALDI (is yacking away on a phone nowdays, or that they've become so ubiquitous.
Certainly, the next level of cool will be how one manages life without a phone. Now, a phone that stays at home and gets me out of boring meetings... that's cool.
Let's also not forget another big problem with these stores: some of them tend to sell a wide variety of music.
Wide, but very shallow.
My own CD buying has increased (thanks to greater discretionary income than college years), but I almost never step into one of the CD stores. Shopping there is like expecting to buy designer clothing from Kmart - it ain't gonna happen. If it's general pop or orchestral music I'm looking, it's amazon.com's former cdnow that I shop. Usually, though, it's direct from the label - Metropolis Records for instance for 90% of what I listen to.
Funny thing, I've only found maybe one or two Metropolis artists in BestBuy - Apoptygma and Funker Vogt. Lesson of the day? If you won't sell it to me, don't complain that I'm not buying!
*scoove* (and don't try to pass that nasty michael jackson my way! even FBI agents now know that only losers listen to that.)
Then, the US organizations will be placed in much less secure conditions and it will be harmful for their bisiness.
You're absolutely right. Legislation to take away reasonable protections of a commercial enterprise - e.g. encryption, open source software free of vendor & government security backdoors, etc. - are increasingly removed (usually per political favor to lobbyists) and the US business is crippled competitively.
It's just like taking guns from private citizens so they can't "be a threat", only to end up seeing violent crimes ala hot breakins skyrocket when the criminals no longer have a deterrance. Oh wait, that sounds just like Canada...
And even more to the point -- how would anyone prove you didn't already own the material?
Exactly - this seems to be the elephant in the living room problem that's being ignored (probably not quite ignored as I'd expect RIAA wants to make all non-authorized digital copies illegal).
I've got an 80GB removable drive with most of my entire collection. Save for probably two dozen or so tracks that are bootleg mixes and not available anywhere commercially, the other 99.99% of the material was ripped by me from the CDs I purchased. Many are hard to get - rare Depeche Mode mixes, for example - and after having lost a few to CD rot and not wanting scratches over time, I ripped the entire library.
I've paid more than $10K over the years to buy this collection piece by piece. I still haven't received my recording industry price fixing class action settlement check of $15 (yea, as if that makes up for the overcharges on my collection). I've also paid a fee on every blank CD-R that went to these guys, even though I don't write my MP3s to CD-R.
I hate to say it, but if they're close to joining major league baseball in destroying the popularity of the entertainment form. Jack it up any more, or damage the functionality and convenience we have, and we'll let those artists languish in inattention, even though it's not directly their fault (although they did choose the label).
Then, if (hypothetically) Senator's method works (which cannot occur) it will be a HUGE hit to Microsoft's credibility as a secure OS
Which is why it'll have to become law that your operating system and hardware must permit self-destruction codes and remote surveillance capabilities (can anyone say Fritz "White Pride!" Hollings? CBDTPA).
the rural special interest has used every trick in the book.
Actually, that's about as accurate as saying the homeless lobby is one of the most powerful in DC. Both (homeless & rural interest) are more appropriately considered as sympathetic targets rather than actual interests.
Posting from flyover country as I speak (80 miles from civilization), there are very few "interests" that embrace folks around here. More accurately, you've got powerful corporate and political entities that use rural as their rallying cry for increased subsidies, income redistribution and other thievery.
RBOCs use it all the time. Large chemical producers (e.g. Monsanto) play their rural pitch (wanna bet the Monsanto CEO doesn't live in a trailer down by the river?). Just like helping the homeless, it's a convenient rallying cry for funds taken from others via taxation.
Really, the only "rural interest" around here is getting the government out of things. Isn't it amusing that we have no shortage of folks who want to help us to our money?
Or, like you said, are only "incumbent" telcos allowed to sit at the trough?
It's sort of a public relations vs. reality issue. The fuzzy program materials sound great. In fact, programs such as the farm bill and RUS grant/low-interest loan provisions have gotten so many folks excited about easy money that I've had 3-4 calls a week from startups, angels, small communities, etc. that want me as a partner to obtain some of this money for their project. (One two weeks ago had already started hiring technicians to get going, you know - step 1. fill out RUS low-interest loan app, step 2. ???, step 3. make billions!).
The reality is much different and clearly benefits the incumbants. RUS, for instance, specifies capital reserves and other operational details that are structured towards a certain kind of operator (hint: incumbant).
We monitored the farm bill/broadband process very closely. Without giving my location away, I'll say that several board members have good contact with a key driver of the farm bill. Always, the devil's in the details and when the rules were finally published, the details were written to benefit incumbants. (Not that I would defend this particular Senator, but he didn't write the rules that gave away the store to the incumbants).
While I can understand the argument that "incumbant = low risk" and better track record for integrity (like Qwest?:-) aww... restating revenues is something everyone does!), the problem is that this avoids reality. In the upper midwest, we've had incumbants actually threatened with license recovation because they refused to deliver a single T1 to a commercial entity in an underserved/ignored market. In Qwest's defense, they have so many major fires, that a little town of 2,000 people is something it just something it doesn't have time to worry about. "Ignore them and they'll go away" is the new operating statement.
The smaller incumbants have another equally troubling issue. While they're more engaged with their community and usually do care about the local people, they're terribly incompetent. They have an aging engineering staff that's eyeing retirement, have avoided infrastructure reinvestment for 20+ years, and quite simply do not understand wide area carrier networks. To them, a AT&T Internet T1 + DSLM = broadband for thousands. In their defense, a one to a dozen market incumbant is a post-regulatory oddity that survived in spite of evolution. You can't expect to be competitive on this tiny scale. A Cisco CCIE should be handling a region as large as a state (and needs the portion of revenues from that area to be cost-effective). So they don't have CCIEs. They've got guys who used to repair tractors working as router "experts." Seriously... one competitor's top engineer also maintains the fleet vehicles and is the groundskeeper as well. Need I say "DHCP enabled on a wireless AP serving a community on an omni antenna"? Ugh!
Please understand I'm not whining about the Federal loans/grants - I don't take any of it because I know better than to ask for it. It's not intended for me, as I don't pay an attorney in DC thru the various ILEC/RBOC lobbying firms. I don't aspire to receive this money either, as the price I have to pay for it (regulation, political donations) is not acceptable.
But to tax my small town customers and punish my business under the guise of "helping incumbants find a way to provide broadband to small towns" is criminal and is a very good way to turn red fly-over country blue (god forbid). If they really wanted to figure it out, they'd sell the house in Vail, drop the country club membership for upper management, and tell the five engineers that serve one small town that they need to produce or get the boot.
And the FCC had better remember that right now is a really bad time to put a tax on these small town folk. They don't have the dollars to give, and you can expect I'll let them know who added the tax.
Well, I can't really say that this surprises me and as much as it may suck that my cable bill would go up, at least the money is going to some somewhat good causes.
Actually not.
My company serves rural midwestern markets (largest town is 8,000) exclusively. We receive no federal subsidy (why? we're not a incumbant local telco, or rural utility service, which most of the rules are structured to and were designed to keep younger companies absent subsidy). We do serve 1/6th of one state and should cover 1/3 in the next year. We're privately funded, profitable, and provide a service that nobody else can match in our markets (for a good price).
While the incumbant aka lethargic independent telcos and Qwest ignore these markets, we're there providing this important service. Their product? 128 Kbps DSL, fed by a single T1 for an entire community resulting in un-broadband (sub-200 Kbps). Ours is SLA'ed, 256 to 6 Mbps customer links standard in the product line. Private backbone, and 100 Mbps upstream. As usual, this private business has had the incentive to provide a better product at a lower price than the "fat, dumb and happy" incumbants. And no, we don't have a $5 million vacation house in Vail or a Gulfstream as part of our expense structure.
So what does the FCC propose? Tax us and our customers to put money in the pockets of the RBOCs and ILECs. To buy more Gulfstreams and vacation homes for the FDH. Oh, and to ensure greater political contributions from the incumbants (the real story here).
Exactly. Rack it up to the new techno-liberalism of the west coast. Obsfuciate things enough so that the average taxpayer will be too confused to notice how much money they're being robbed of (like the telcom tax scheme).
I'm all for user fees paying for government - it's one of the best ways to hold the government accountable and pay for services appropriately. Toll roads, license plates and permits for commercial vehicles all make sense, and work fine in many other states. So why doesn't that Oregon license plate work?
Or did all the former dot-com techies with solutions chasing an application find new jobs in state government?
What is amazing about the Dot Com mentality...is this concept of a business with mega profits that doesnt come with mega expenses.
Actually, it's more like a business with mega expenses without any profits. P2P and unlimited 1Mbps+ broadband service is a prescription for certain failure.
Consider this: Call up Sprint, AT&T, MCI, etc. and ask them what their price is for a DS3, including loops. You'll probably end up with something around $500/month. per Mbps. Negotiate a bit and you might get below that a bit - maybe even down around $200/mo. per Mbps if you buy enough capacity. Now, turn around and sell that same sustained Mbps/month for $35-$40 to a cable modem user.
Good business? Don't forget, you've got local transmission, switching/routing, customer support, billing, fixed costs/backoffice, equipment capital & depreciation, etc. So, for $500/mo/Mbps or so, you're making big profits on that $35/mo. customer?
Now, excuse me, but shouldn't providing BANDWIDTH be a primary focus of an ISP.
Actually, you're in the minority of broadband customers. More than 80% want fast web pages and quick email. That's not directly corrolated to bandwidth (caching servers, for instance, and high performance local network, can provide for those).
Since you're obviously not paying true bandwidth costs, and aren't in the majority, expect to pay your fair share or be pushed off of your provider's network.
(Like, you can buy this nice car, but dont drive it more than 2 miles a day!)
Actually this is a good analogy. You're not buying, but renting a car. You want the $22 discount rate, but want to put 1,000 miles a day on it and drive it 90 MPH with a load of bricks in the trunk. Try doing that at National or Budget. You'll get the same answer as your broadband provider.
There is something inherently criminal in this DOT COM men tality, where you are supposed to make money without hard work and the providing of a real, tangible service.
The only thing criminal (not quite... incompetent is a better word) is providers that advertise unlimited service but don't provide it.
easyCinema is being given the bird by Hollywood who will not allow it to show it's high cost movies for a low price for fear that it will create a domino effect in the future
Who in Hollywood will not allow it? Certainly this isn't a coordinated effort, as that would be collusion and that'd be illegal per US antitrust.
Theres about 2500 miles of space between those 2 coasts that's for the most part uninhabited.
Thanks for the stereotypical perspective on fly-over-country (where I live). Sorry to cause you an extra few hours of flight time between the coasts.
Actually, it's been done before - many times over. There are numerous transcontinental microwave networks. Many are now dormant or retired - such as the AT&T Long Lines and its radio relay routes.
By talking 802.11b, this simply is going to be ugly. 600 router hops from coast-to-coast? No central design/administration? Trans-continental networks aren't like open source software projects.
*scoove*
You could do something like in a limited fashion on the east coast, but not across the country.
Don't worry about that, I'm sure the RIAA have lobbyists standing by at the ready to amend that situation.
Yes, but they're just about to step on someone with bigger, tougher lobbyists -- and that someone is rather pissed off and defensive right now from crummy earnings, layoffs and overwork: the telcom industry.
Implementing DoS as a means of targeting abusers is comperable to bulldozing an electric company's transmission lines as a way of getting back at an individual who's done something wrong. It's another illegal act and definitely constitutes theft and abuse of nearly every telco or major ISP's policies. I'm sure some of those recent terrorism acts passed which we all have harped about have some interesting things to say about coordinated, widespread infrastructure denial-of-service = terrorism. Even the announcement of the intent to damage American telecommunications infrastructure should put RIAA execs in the holding tank with the shoe bomber.
We've notified our upstreams that should any RIAA DoS services originate on their networks, we will hold themn legally and financially responsible for the impact to our network. Likewise, we will block (via BGP) any external networks and blackhole them that originate RIAA DoS, and expect our upstreams to do so as well.
You may see some Internet fragmentation, but I'd suggest people identify which providers permit and encourage DoS abuse, and which oppose it (and vote with your wallets). Just as you probably wouldn't want service from AT&T if they crammed hundreds of spam messages at you daily, will you want them if they burn all your bandwidth due to illegal RIAA hacking? And how will this set with customers who have burstable service? Will you permit your service provider to engage in a racket that intentionally fills up your circuit, allowing them to overbill you?
Sounds like the RIAA's walking into a nice RICO trap and potentially some interesting domestic terrorism issues, and any tier one network provider that permits this may also be implicated. My attorneys are ready, are yours?
I thought the antennas on the cell towers had gain in the horizontal plane.
Actually, cell sector antennas are vertically polarized have a very wide vertical profile (up/down). If they were horizontally polarized, there'd be a theoretical 16-20dB loss between their antenna and your omnidirectional, vertically polarized cell phone antenna.
Airlines are not afraid of cellphones -- the FCC is.
Now that makes a lot more sense than the airline fear explanation. I've flown in a few private jets and twin-engine craft and the pilots were completely comfortable with cell and PC operation. In fact, I've had no problems operating on ham frequencies as well (at hundreds to thousands more time the TX power).
I've had a few airline folks explain that the/real/ reason they don't want all the devices running - cells, PCs, etc. - is that they want your attention during takeoff/landing and don't want you distracted. No cell phones due to the annoyance of having a loud cell talker sitting next to you jabbering away during the flight as well.
Unfortunately, it sounds like some of the airline rent-a-cops are taking their official excuse by heart (forgetting the real reason for the policy) and are going nutso. Just like the gas station clerk who freaked when I had my cell phone active while fueling at the diesel pump (diesel doesn't work that way).
Who knows - maybe this is the beginning of the 21st century luddite revolt...
Houses built today are not designed to last more than 30 years.
I just sold a 1941 brick house in a midwestern city. The house was originally overbuilt (brick exterior around entire house, asbestos roof, etc.) and my improvements were made to reflect the over-engineering of the original builder.
We sold it for $95K... yet in the yuppy neighborhood my folks live in, they've got a neighbor with a 3-year-old $380K house that's already falling apart. Lap siding that's pulling apart, windows that don't fit, settling from hell, etc.
So be wary of that "location location location" real estate buzzphrase. Yea, location is nice. But if the house on top of it is crap, you're still in trouble!
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Can anyone please give advice on how to overcome this problem, be it a little trick, medication, or anything else?
Having been a similar kind of student in college, but have gone to a successful career, I don't think you're going to find medication or tricks or anything to 'overcome' your nature. The key to success is recognizing that the world's got people like you for a reason.
"ADHD" classifications, IMHO, are usually a label placed on the hunters by the gathers (to horribly oversimplify things). Do some research on hunter/gatherer models of learning and motivation and you'll get some good insight here.
Approaching this all from a "learning system culture" sort of macro operating system for humans, Gatherers are well suited to working together in cooperative teams, they learn via second-hand sources well, and fundamentally seek and accept extrinsic direction. They are motivated by these outside sources which they trust implicitely. They make good committee people, good followers, etc. Society needs people like this to follow rules in conducting their work. Understand that post-secondary education is the pinnacle of their system, and you'll see why you may be having problems.
I'd strongly suspect from your description that you're of the hunter ethic. Are you self-taught? Motivated by doing things you want to do (instead of what society/teachers/parents/friends tell you to do)? This model is also needed by society in conquering new things and treading outside the predictable, safe areas where gatherers like to reside. Understand that society needs both of these. If you're in the latter category, quit dwelling on the fact that you may fail miserably in the gatherer's universe (they didn't intend it for you anyways) and focus on doing what hunters do better.
Find out what topics self-motivate you. Design your own education program (and understand that you need to present third-party credentials to the gatherers you deal with - absent college degrees, get yourself certified in the various areas, e.g. CCIE, CISSP, Security+, A+, and various other certifications for your area). Make it a golden rule that you never burn bridges - your reputation is the only thing you have to offer.
And don't forget that the early years are the hardest for the hunters because we don't have a formal educational system that's designed for our success (the existing one is actually designed to classify us as a disorder and medicate us!).
Nearly every CEO and business leader I work with is of this hunter ethic (in fact, a savvy investor may wish to avoid gatherer-run companies, like Lucent, that lack any tolerance for risk and vision). Just hang in there, make yourself an expert at something, make certain that you protect your integrity in everything you do as this is critical, and success will find you.
*scoove*
all they know about is "administration"
Even that is a stretch. Having dealt with various Worldcom entities for more than a decade as a carrier customer, I'd argue that it's hard to claim that there was any organized administration.
Ebbers was a rabid M&A man, and he did an exceptional job in keeping the acquirees off balance; e.g. MFS Datanet acquisition (Crowe and other MFS executives got to play "co-CEO for a day" and experienced all the usual Ebbers tricks).
Unfortunately, the consequence of this structural imbalance was a balkenized company. I've been on conference calls where MFS people accused MCI folks who were accusing LDDS folks who were blaming Worldcom folks, and so on (all in front of the customer). One unified company? Not.
In fact, things were so bad in 1998-2000 that circuits would routinely be lost or even killed by incompatible systems. We had DS3s from Washington to NYC which were originating and terminating feature group D circuits (for local phone calls from Bell Atlantic to the carrier I worked for) that one Worldcom system would label incorrectly (putting a code on the circuits that indicated it was temporary), and another started killing off when so many months passed without a change in the code to a permanent status.
Amazingly, Worldcom couldn't restore the circuits. They claimed that once a circuit was killed, the only solution was to create a new circuit. This took weeks (with disrupted traffic), only to go through the same problems three months later when the new circuits would get knocked down. Suffer a half-year of this abuse and you'll see all of your local long distance customers disappear as this carrier did.
I always suspected anticompetitive practices behind the activities, and surprisingly it's not difficult to construct. Looking at the practices as a business "denial-of-service attack", minor decisions (like not funding and fixing compatibility problems between systems that only affects carrier customers) end up having strategic value. Combine that with a "we're too large to respond, investigate or care" attitude, e.g. Worldcom billing's inability to figure out how to properly credit, and you've got a pretty effective strategy (Qwest is another notorious "goof and refuse credit" player - if you've got the attorneys and the size, I guess they feel the need to use them to stall customer refunds). This was one literally hundreds of experiences of this nature with Worldcom.
It'll be interesting to see of the Feds look into Worldcom's "leaky PBX" operations, where they routinely dumped international calls into foreign telephone networks without paying settlement. By obtaining local phone lines to a office PBX, and back-ending the PBX with international circuits (often satellite links on the office building), Worldcom would sneak traffic in and dump it without paying any per-minute rate - much similar to some of the local termination abuse claims being investigated now.
In Worldcom's defense, many carriers also employed leaky PBX.
*scoove*
Per Gates' claim:
There's no question that in cloning activities, IP from many, many companies, including Microsoft, is being used in open-source software.
It's interesting how quickly he's forgotten the 1988 Apple lawsuit, and in fact, done a near180 in his position on look and feel, and cloning of functionalities/interfaces. Obviously, his position shifts to reflect the competitor Microsoft perceives to be the greatest threat, and given the perceived insignificance of Apple, demise of Be, and continued lack of mass-market competition from Sun, open source is the only realistic threat.
*scoove*
Uh oh... we just got this in the mail, apparently from SCO. Anyone else receive one of these?
FROM: CHRIS SONTAG
Do not be surprised at receiving this important mail. An influential top government functionaire gave me your name and assured me of your transparancy. The trama, humiliation and deprivation which I and my family have suffered since the death of Novell has kept me in focus on searching out the possibilities of safe guarding the colosal sums of money Ray Noorda left behind.
Presently my elder business partner Darl McBride cannot be reached because he is under the detention by the ruthless Secret Order of the Penguin, a devious band of open source terrorists. At the moment, I have thirty three million US dollars ($33,000,000) currently deposited in a friendly Utah Senator's personal account. I will be sending somebody there for both of you to work together in due course. With the present disposition of this Senator, all monies kept by Mr. Noorda are attempted to be recovered by the current administration. On this note I desire your urgent attention to assist me secure the aformentioned sum in any bank account you may furnish me with.
We would avail ourselves of a total loss of the whole sum depending upon the promptness to furnish me with this required information which will permit me to facilitate instructions and signal the Senator for expedient transfer of this funds for your account.
For you providing me with this account and well partaking in this transaction I will oblige you what ever SCO UNIX license ever you desire on request or to be more specific I will oblige you unlimited personal license and one compiler license for server edition.
The urgency of this matter desires shall be treated with all promptness as any day that passes poses a bigger threat. You must understeand that this transaction should be treated with all secrecy. Under no means should you use a Linux computer to communicate with me as the Penguin Order is watching vigilently. Please contact me through email csontag@sco.com as soon as you receive this letter on your preparedness to assist me.
Regards,
C. Sontag
Oh come on now, they must have Leather Strip and Front Line Assembly and Fear Factory and Velvet Acid Christ?
You're kidding, right? I did find a Front 242 CD once at Best Buy. It was rather old and, er, nothing like what Front 242 does today. Pretty disappointed - I didn't recognize it and snapped it up.
*scoove*
494,000 sets of software licences
hmmm... wonder if this has anything to do with things:
Microsoft intruduces powerful-new military battle interface
"GI Bob" software to unify army command and control systems
REDMOND, Wash., May 23, 2003 -- American combat military personnel may get upgraded this year following Microsoft's release of a new battle user interface. The new product, Microsoft GI Bob for Windows, is based on the innovative user interface system initially released by Microsoft in 1993 to consumer sectors.
Featuring a powerful new intuition engine and updated interface, GI Bob represents common combat tasks in a easy-to-navigate windowpane, complete with the a refreshing new theme called QuansitHut(TM). Designed to simplify all aspects of military combat, experts acclaim GI Bob as an interface that "even a private from Arkansas could master," yielding strategic benefits to training and combat readiness requirements.
Within GI Bob, soldiers can access battlefield data by selecting convenient icons like Sgt. Carter's desk (for current tasks), file cabinet (for archived materials), a desktop radio (for communications) and other readily-identifiable items. With the updated VirtualPyle assistant, GI Bob's audiovisual experience is complete with voiceovers and animated interactions with the on-screen helper.
Microsoft GI Bob is available to authorized military purchasers and retails for $999. Contact your authorized Microsoft partner for details.
They went out and picketed with them. They posed for pictures. They came out and `shared laughs'.
it's called 'coopting' and it's right out of Microsoft's manual.
pretty interesting in all. it seems that SCO's got some rather competent handlers... that and the "steal free music" attempted reference in SCO's signs is a rather fascinating insight to how their PR folks are going to shape this battle in the press.
I smell a Hatch...
*scoove*
This phone has moved to the upper region of my DO NOT BUY list.
Yea, have you noticed that cellphones have already slid into the uncool category for the star-bellied sneaches? Maybe it's the fact that every shopper at ALDI (is yacking away on a phone nowdays, or that they've become so ubiquitous.
Certainly, the next level of cool will be how one manages life without a phone. Now, a phone that stays at home and gets me out of boring meetings... that's cool.
*scoove*
Let's also not forget another big problem with these stores: some of them tend to sell a wide variety of music.
Wide, but very shallow.
My own CD buying has increased (thanks to greater discretionary income than college years), but I almost never step into one of the CD stores. Shopping there is like expecting to buy designer clothing from Kmart - it ain't gonna happen. If it's general pop or orchestral music I'm looking, it's amazon.com's former cdnow that I shop. Usually, though, it's direct from the label - Metropolis Records for instance for 90% of what I listen to.
Funny thing, I've only found maybe one or two Metropolis artists in BestBuy - Apoptygma and Funker Vogt. Lesson of the day? If you won't sell it to me, don't complain that I'm not buying!
*scoove*
(and don't try to pass that nasty michael jackson my way! even FBI agents now know that only losers listen to that.)
Then, the US organizations will be placed in much less secure conditions and it will be harmful for their bisiness.
You're absolutely right. Legislation to take away reasonable protections of a commercial enterprise - e.g. encryption, open source software free of vendor & government security backdoors, etc. - are increasingly removed (usually per political favor to lobbyists) and the US business is crippled competitively.
It's just like taking guns from private citizens so they can't "be a threat", only to end up seeing violent crimes ala hot breakins skyrocket when the criminals no longer have a deterrance. Oh wait, that sounds just like Canada...
*scoove*
And even more to the point -- how would anyone prove you didn't already own the material?
Exactly - this seems to be the elephant in the living room problem that's being ignored (probably not quite ignored as I'd expect RIAA wants to make all non-authorized digital copies illegal).
I've got an 80GB removable drive with most of my entire collection. Save for probably two dozen or so tracks that are bootleg mixes and not available anywhere commercially, the other 99.99% of the material was ripped by me from the CDs I purchased. Many are hard to get - rare Depeche Mode mixes, for example - and after having lost a few to CD rot and not wanting scratches over time, I ripped the entire library.
I've paid more than $10K over the years to buy this collection piece by piece. I still haven't received my recording industry price fixing class action settlement check of $15 (yea, as if that makes up for the overcharges on my collection). I've also paid a fee on every blank CD-R that went to these guys, even though I don't write my MP3s to CD-R.
I hate to say it, but if they're close to joining major league baseball in destroying the popularity of the entertainment form. Jack it up any more, or damage the functionality and convenience we have, and we'll let those artists languish in inattention, even though it's not directly their fault (although they did choose the label).
*scoove*
Then, if (hypothetically) Senator's method works (which cannot occur) it will be a HUGE hit to Microsoft's credibility as a secure OS
Which is why it'll have to become law that your operating system and hardware must permit self-destruction codes and remote surveillance capabilities (can anyone say Fritz "White Pride!" Hollings? CBDTPA).
Open source will have to be terminated.
*scoove*
Your ideals sounds good for now. They'll never hold up if your company ever goes public.
You're very right...
*scoove*
the rural special interest has used every trick in the book.
Actually, that's about as accurate as saying the homeless lobby is one of the most powerful in DC. Both (homeless & rural interest) are more appropriately considered as sympathetic targets rather than actual interests.
Posting from flyover country as I speak (80 miles from civilization), there are very few "interests" that embrace folks around here. More accurately, you've got powerful corporate and political entities that use rural as their rallying cry for increased subsidies, income redistribution and other thievery.
RBOCs use it all the time. Large chemical producers (e.g. Monsanto) play their rural pitch (wanna bet the Monsanto CEO doesn't live in a trailer down by the river?). Just like helping the homeless, it's a convenient rallying cry for funds taken from others via taxation.
Really, the only "rural interest" around here is getting the government out of things. Isn't it amusing that we have no shortage of folks who want to help us to our money?
*scoove*
Or, like you said, are only "incumbent" telcos allowed to sit at the trough?
:-) aww... restating revenues is something everyone does!), the problem is that this avoids reality. In the upper midwest, we've had incumbants actually threatened with license recovation because they refused to deliver a single T1 to a commercial entity in an underserved/ignored market. In Qwest's defense, they have so many major fires, that a little town of 2,000 people is something it just something it doesn't have time to worry about. "Ignore them and they'll go away" is the new operating statement.
It's sort of a public relations vs. reality issue. The fuzzy program materials sound great. In fact, programs such as the farm bill and RUS grant/low-interest loan provisions have gotten so many folks excited about easy money that I've had 3-4 calls a week from startups, angels, small communities, etc. that want me as a partner to obtain some of this money for their project. (One two weeks ago had already started hiring technicians to get going, you know - step 1. fill out RUS low-interest loan app, step 2. ???, step 3. make billions!).
The reality is much different and clearly benefits the incumbants. RUS, for instance, specifies capital reserves and other operational details that are structured towards a certain kind of operator (hint: incumbant).
We monitored the farm bill/broadband process very closely. Without giving my location away, I'll say that several board members have good contact with a key driver of the farm bill. Always, the devil's in the details and when the rules were finally published, the details were written to benefit incumbants. (Not that I would defend this particular Senator, but he didn't write the rules that gave away the store to the incumbants).
While I can understand the argument that "incumbant = low risk" and better track record for integrity (like Qwest?
The smaller incumbants have another equally troubling issue. While they're more engaged with their community and usually do care about the local people, they're terribly incompetent. They have an aging engineering staff that's eyeing retirement, have avoided infrastructure reinvestment for 20+ years, and quite simply do not understand wide area carrier networks. To them, a AT&T Internet T1 + DSLM = broadband for thousands. In their defense, a one to a dozen market incumbant is a post-regulatory oddity that survived in spite of evolution. You can't expect to be competitive on this tiny scale. A Cisco CCIE should be handling a region as large as a state (and needs the portion of revenues from that area to be cost-effective). So they don't have CCIEs. They've got guys who used to repair tractors working as router "experts." Seriously... one competitor's top engineer also maintains the fleet vehicles and is the groundskeeper as well. Need I say "DHCP enabled on a wireless AP serving a community on an omni antenna"? Ugh!
Please understand I'm not whining about the Federal loans/grants - I don't take any of it because I know better than to ask for it. It's not intended for me, as I don't pay an attorney in DC thru the various ILEC/RBOC lobbying firms. I don't aspire to receive this money either, as the price I have to pay for it (regulation, political donations) is not acceptable.
But to tax my small town customers and punish my business under the guise of "helping incumbants find a way to provide broadband to small towns" is criminal and is a very good way to turn red fly-over country blue (god forbid). If they really wanted to figure it out, they'd sell the house in Vail, drop the country club membership for upper management, and tell the five engineers that serve one small town that they need to produce or get the boot.
And the FCC had better remember that right now is a really bad time to put a tax on these small town folk. They don't have the dollars to give, and you can expect I'll let them know who added the tax.
*scoove*
Well, I can't really say that this surprises me and as much as it may suck that my cable bill would go up, at least the money is going to some somewhat good causes.
Actually not.
My company serves rural midwestern markets (largest town is 8,000) exclusively. We receive no federal subsidy (why? we're not a incumbant local telco, or rural utility service, which most of the rules are structured to and were designed to keep younger companies absent subsidy). We do serve 1/6th of one state and should cover 1/3 in the next year. We're privately funded, profitable, and provide a service that nobody else can match in our markets (for a good price).
While the incumbant aka lethargic independent telcos and Qwest ignore these markets, we're there providing this important service. Their product? 128 Kbps DSL, fed by a single T1 for an entire community resulting in un-broadband (sub-200 Kbps). Ours is SLA'ed, 256 to 6 Mbps customer links standard in the product line. Private backbone, and 100 Mbps upstream. As usual, this private business has had the incentive to provide a better product at a lower price than the "fat, dumb and happy" incumbants. And no, we don't have a $5 million vacation house in Vail or a Gulfstream as part of our expense structure.
So what does the FCC propose? Tax us and our customers to put money in the pockets of the RBOCs and ILECs. To buy more Gulfstreams and vacation homes for the FDH. Oh, and to ensure greater political contributions from the incumbants (the real story here).
Just like a chapter out of Atlas Shrugged...
*scoove*
The whole thing sound ludicrous to me.
Exactly. Rack it up to the new techno-liberalism of the west coast. Obsfuciate things enough so that the average taxpayer will be too confused to notice how much money they're being robbed of (like the telcom tax scheme).
I'm all for user fees paying for government - it's one of the best ways to hold the government accountable and pay for services appropriately. Toll roads, license plates and permits for commercial vehicles all make sense, and work fine in many other states. So why doesn't that Oregon license plate work?
Or did all the former dot-com techies with solutions chasing an application find new jobs in state government?
*scoove*
What is amazing about the Dot Com mentality ...is this concept of a business with mega profits that doesnt come with mega expenses.
Actually, it's more like a business with mega expenses without any profits. P2P and unlimited 1Mbps+ broadband service is a prescription for certain failure.
Consider this: Call up Sprint, AT&T, MCI, etc. and ask them what their price is for a DS3, including loops. You'll probably end up with something around $500/month. per Mbps. Negotiate a bit and you might get below that a bit - maybe even down around $200/mo. per Mbps if you buy enough capacity. Now, turn around and sell that same sustained Mbps/month for $35-$40 to a cable modem user.
Good business? Don't forget, you've got local transmission, switching/routing, customer support, billing, fixed costs/backoffice, equipment capital & depreciation, etc. So, for $500/mo/Mbps or so, you're making big profits on that $35/mo. customer?
Now, excuse me, but shouldn't providing BANDWIDTH be a primary focus of an ISP.
Actually, you're in the minority of broadband customers. More than 80% want fast web pages and quick email. That's not directly corrolated to bandwidth (caching servers, for instance, and high performance local network, can provide for those).
Since you're obviously not paying true bandwidth costs, and aren't in the majority, expect to pay your fair share or be pushed off of your provider's network.
(Like, you can buy this nice car, but dont drive it more than 2 miles a day!)
Actually this is a good analogy. You're not buying, but renting a car. You want the $22 discount rate, but want to put 1,000 miles a day on it and drive it 90 MPH with a load of bricks in the trunk. Try doing that at National or Budget. You'll get the same answer as your broadband provider.
There is something inherently criminal in this DOT COM men tality, where you are supposed to make money without hard work and the providing of a real, tangible service.
The only thing criminal (not quite... incompetent is a better word) is providers that advertise unlimited service but don't provide it.
*scoove*
easyCinema is being given the bird by Hollywood who will not allow it to show it's high cost movies for a low price for fear that it will create a domino effect in the future
Who in Hollywood will not allow it? Certainly this isn't a coordinated effort, as that would be collusion and that'd be illegal per US antitrust.
Even sending little "smoke signals" can get one in trouble, such as investigations kicked off by the recent $10 airline rate increase which has attracted DoJ interest again.
If this is indeed true, it would sound as if Hillary Rosen might have a cellmate to keep her company.
*scoove*
Theres about 2500 miles of space between those 2 coasts that's for the most part uninhabited.
.
Thanks for the stereotypical perspective on fly-over-country (where I live). Sorry to cause you an extra few hours of flight time between the coasts.
Actually, it's been done before - many times over. There are numerous transcontinental microwave networks. Many are now dormant or retired - such as the AT&T Long Lines and its radio relay routes.
By talking 802.11b, this simply is going to be ugly. 600 router hops from coast-to-coast? No central design/administration? Trans-continental networks aren't like open source software projects
*scoove*
You could do something like in a limited fashion on the east coast, but not across the country.
Don't worry about that, I'm sure the RIAA have lobbyists standing by at the ready to amend that situation.
Yes, but they're just about to step on someone with bigger, tougher lobbyists -- and that someone is rather pissed off and defensive right now from crummy earnings, layoffs and overwork: the telcom industry.
Implementing DoS as a means of targeting abusers is comperable to bulldozing an electric company's transmission lines as a way of getting back at an individual who's done something wrong. It's another illegal act and definitely constitutes theft and abuse of nearly every telco or major ISP's policies. I'm sure some of those recent terrorism acts passed which we all have harped about have some interesting things to say about coordinated, widespread infrastructure denial-of-service = terrorism. Even the announcement of the intent to damage American telecommunications infrastructure should put RIAA execs in the holding tank with the shoe bomber.
We've notified our upstreams that should any RIAA DoS services originate on their networks, we will hold themn legally and financially responsible for the impact to our network. Likewise, we will block (via BGP) any external networks and blackhole them that originate RIAA DoS, and expect our upstreams to do so as well.
You may see some Internet fragmentation, but I'd suggest people identify which providers permit and encourage DoS abuse, and which oppose it (and vote with your wallets). Just as you probably wouldn't want service from AT&T if they crammed hundreds of spam messages at you daily, will you want them if they burn all your bandwidth due to illegal RIAA hacking? And how will this set with customers who have burstable service? Will you permit your service provider to engage in a racket that intentionally fills up your circuit, allowing them to overbill you?
Sounds like the RIAA's walking into a nice RICO trap and potentially some interesting domestic terrorism issues, and any tier one network provider that permits this may also be implicated. My attorneys are ready, are yours?
*scoove*
I thought the antennas on the cell towers had gain in the horizontal plane.
Actually, cell sector antennas are vertically polarized have a very wide vertical profile (up/down). If they were horizontally polarized, there'd be a theoretical 16-20dB loss between their antenna and your omnidirectional, vertically polarized cell phone antenna.
*scoove*
Airlines are not afraid of cellphones -- the FCC is.
/real/ reason they don't want all the devices running - cells, PCs, etc. - is that they want your attention during takeoff/landing and don't want you distracted. No cell phones due to the annoyance of having a loud cell talker sitting next to you jabbering away during the flight as well.
Now that makes a lot more sense than the airline fear explanation. I've flown in a few private jets and twin-engine craft and the pilots were completely comfortable with cell and PC operation. In fact, I've had no problems operating on ham frequencies as well (at hundreds to thousands more time the TX power).
I've had a few airline folks explain that the
Unfortunately, it sounds like some of the airline rent-a-cops are taking their official excuse by heart (forgetting the real reason for the policy) and are going nutso. Just like the gas station clerk who freaked when I had my cell phone active while fueling at the diesel pump (diesel doesn't work that way).
Who knows - maybe this is the beginning of the 21st century luddite revolt...
*scoove*
All I want is to be ruled by my peers.
Like they say about the definition of democracy: Two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner.
*scoove*
Houses built today are not designed to last more than 30 years.
I just sold a 1941 brick house in a midwestern city. The house was originally overbuilt (brick exterior around entire house, asbestos roof, etc.) and my improvements were made to reflect the over-engineering of the original builder.
We sold it for $95K... yet in the yuppy neighborhood my folks live in, they've got a neighbor with a 3-year-old $380K house that's already falling apart. Lap siding that's pulling apart, windows that don't fit, settling from hell, etc.
So be wary of that "location location location" real estate buzzphrase. Yea, location is nice. But if the house on top of it is crap, you're still in trouble!
*scoove*