This is exactly right. Interest deferred until I start earning money. As soon as the first payment is made, interest starts accruing, and regular monthly payments must be made.
And I believe the interest rate is actually even lower than 6%. When it's accruing, that is.
The government has given students an excellent deal to get them through college. I appreciate it and certainly plan to pay the loan off as my part to ensure others get the same opportunities I've had. But I'm still a good 5 years from finishing my PhD, and losing $3k isn't going to make a heck of a lot of impact on my post-graduation finances.
As long as I remain a graduate student, my loans are deferred. That means 5 or so more years, likely. I'm not a deadbeat. I deeply appreciate the loans I was given at generous terms and feel an obligation to repay as my part in ensuring that others have the same chance I did.
Internally, e-trade seems to be using a web-based, instead of character-based, interface. There are all these long quiet periods while they're mousing around or "waiting for the page to come up".
Might I quietly suggest that the old ways are sometime best? The terminal that my bank reps use seems to be a veritable model of efficiency. And those kids can sure *crank* on them keypads. Numlock on, of source.
I'm an affinity member, and no, I haven't gotten shares. I have been told every time I've called that they haven't been allocated yet, but apparently some people are being told they *have*. I only got the one "no shares" message, though.
My impression is that the customer service folks don't know much more than we do. Hang on tight, gripe a lot, just don't move that money until we're more certain what's going on. I don't think it takes much for E*Trade to skip over you for shares.
I think not. I think what happened is that the directed shares people were accidentally included in the "regular" pool in the rush of confirmations this morning; we all got "no shares" allocations because we all either lost the lottery or (more likely) didn't qualify as members of the general etrading public. Then they realized that it was a mistake. But I think the "no shares" messages indicate that we wouldn't have made the cut in the general e*trade pool.
I called the super-secret special directed shares number, punched in my pin, and was informed that the initial "no shares allocated message" *was in error*. They haven't done the directed shares allocations yet. So don't panic just yet!
But it might be just affinity program members who are being called. Or they might still be calling. There's lots of different programs involved here, and not all play by the same rules.
Please *please* phone E*Trade and talk to a broker yourself to confirm. Mention the affinity program. I wouldn't trust email in a volatile and fast-moving situation like this.
You don't. Not until it's been priced. Which it hasn't been yet. The *range* of possible prices has gone up. This means very little about the actual price sometimes: it is not entirely unheard of for a $8-$10 suggested offering to actually be priced at $20. [This is a specific example from last week's IPO offerings, but the actual data has disappeared from this weeks "current offerings" list.]
Of course, in the current market climate Red Hat would seem to be rather foolish to jack the price up substantially. Most IPOs are going out priced under their ranges this week. OTOH, Red Hat seems to be pretty cocky about their chances for success -- they're hot and everyone knows it.
So UCITA, in providing legislative teeth to "shrink wrap" licenses, may ironically make the GPL more enforcable? A poster below commented about copyright-vs-contractual law, but the point is moot post-UCITA, right?
>The SEC, not E*Trade or RedHat, make the rules. >If you don't like them then please write the SEC >and your congressman and complain.
Except in this case the SEC *doesn't* make the rules. It makes *suggestions* and threatens to come after anyone who takes unfair advantage of a customer. This seems like an ideal, to me. I can't object to the say the SEC wrote this.
I *can* object to a silly implementation. C'mon, we know this from coding. Good interface != good implementation. E*Trade's stupid implementation should be fixed.
But that's not the issue anyhow. If Red Hat had warned us up front that this was likely only something that Big Guys could handle, fine. But we got our hopes up, and they were dashed. OK, fine, but now there's a community-weakening precedent. Just like UCITA, FIDNET, Echelon, crypto-export, and all these other things that happen are precedents.
In this case, I want to see that the precedent is reset pro-community, not left con.
"Own" the company in a knowledge-based hacker sense. We understand their code, and if fixes and improvements are to be made, we'll be the ones making them. That's an eglatarian and knowledge-based sense of ownership, not a property-based one. *No one* owns linux in the sense of removing its freedom, or denying Red Hat the ability to distribute it.
I'm sorry that the distinction here between conceptual ownership and property ownership was not more clear.
This was my first article for Salon. It wasn't hard to "get in." I just wrote the editor and made a strong case for why I thought the story was important. He thought a first-person narrative would be most interesting, so he suggested I write it.
I wrote the entire article in emacs, with auto-fill mode on. I was able to go through the entire editing process without stealing a WinXX machine from a friend, although the files from my editor did occasionally come back with microsoft droppings (smart quotes and such).
I checked all my drafts into CVS. I love CVS. It's got its drawbacks, sure, but it's better than *~1~, *~2~, etc (for those who've dealt with that particular incarnation of the emacs backup system).
Many media are shortly to be interested in this story. For author-wannabes out there, find the address of an editor and pitch it hard. This is your chance to be heard.
Well, sure. I've been annoying people for months by pointing out Red Hat boxes (on computer store & bookstore shelves, etc) and telling them proudly, "my name's in that box". But most people don't really get it.
Wouldn't it be great to say, "I own part of that company"? And yes, I suspect many of us will end up buying Red Hat stock whether we get it pre-IPO or not --- if only because we've already got the accounts on etrade. But the investment strikes me, at least, as far riskier if I buy in the first rush than if I pre-own.
But the reason for the finger-pointing isn't about money. I'd still point out the Red Hat stock even if I had to admit I'd lost a couple of thousand dollars on the stock. I'd try to explain how cool it was I managed to acquire stock in the company in the first place -- that I took part in a huge net-wide project to create killer software, and that when Red Hat finally made it big based on that collaborative effort, they made us all part of it. Not because they had to, but because they were participating in a radical new thing, a hacker gift-economy, where money isn't as important as respect and community.
Ah, but open source is not just rejecting the capitalist economy. It is embracing an *alternate* economy (see ESR's work) based on (among other things) respect.`
The Red Hat IPO issue is (just one) place where these two economies come violently into conflict.
Gosh, if you want to start a flame-war, please do it on private email.
Although I rather like the idea of a slashdot poll on your opinions. How 'bout:
POLL: The author of the Salon piece is: [ ] dumb [ ] clueless [ ] a tad clueful [ ] profoundly confused [ ] in touch with the essential zeitgeist of the age [ ] Jar Jar must die!
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, the E*Trade messages got caught by procmail on my setup, too.
This is exactly right. Interest deferred until I start earning money. As soon as the first payment is made, interest starts accruing, and regular monthly payments must be made.
And I believe the interest rate is actually even lower than 6%. When it's accruing, that is.
The government has given students an excellent deal to get them through college. I appreciate it and certainly plan to pay the loan off as my part to ensure others get the same opportunities I've had. But I'm still a good 5 years from finishing my PhD, and losing $3k isn't going to make a heck of a lot of impact on my post-graduation finances.
As long as I remain a graduate student, my loans are deferred. That means 5 or so more years, likely. I'm not a deadbeat. I deeply appreciate the loans I was given at generous terms and feel an obligation to repay as my part in ensuring that others have the same chance I did.
I love you, too. Really. I do.
Thank you. I thought no one would take me up on the poll idea.
Internally, e-trade seems to be using a web-based, instead of character-based, interface. There are all these long quiet periods while they're mousing around or "waiting for the page to come up".
Might I quietly suggest that the old ways are sometime best? The terminal that my bank reps use seems to be a veritable model of efficiency. And those kids can sure *crank* on them keypads. Numlock on, of source.
I'm an affinity member, and no, I haven't gotten shares. I have been told every time I've called that they haven't been allocated yet, but apparently some people are being told they *have*.
I only got the one "no shares" message, though.
My impression is that the customer service folks don't know much more than we do. Hang on tight, gripe a lot, just don't move that money until we're more certain what's going on. I don't think it takes much for E*Trade to skip over you for shares.
I think not. I think what happened is that the directed shares people were accidentally included in the "regular" pool in the rush of confirmations this morning; we all got "no shares" allocations because we all either lost the lottery or (more likely) didn't qualify as members of the general etrading public. Then they realized that it was a mistake. But I think the "no shares" messages indicate that we wouldn't have made the cut in the general e*trade pool.
I called the super-secret special directed shares number, punched in my pin, and was informed that the initial "no shares allocated message" *was in error*. They haven't done the directed shares allocations yet. So don't panic just yet!
Heh. Nice to see you again; haven't seen you much since early dancing-Makefiles alpha on linux-kernel.
It could be that I was getting special treatment, but it was some random chirpy customer rep, not any of my contacts in E*Trade. So I doubt it.
I also didn't get shares. None. At all. So if they were trying to avoid bad press, they stumbled a bit.
Were you affinity or friends&family or other?
(I didn't get any of my shares; i was affinity)
Nope.
I'm not worth a red cent, comparatively.
But it might be just affinity program members who are being called. Or they might still be calling. There's lots of different programs involved here, and not all play by the same rules.
Please *please* phone E*Trade and talk to a broker yourself to confirm. Mention the affinity program. I wouldn't trust email in a volatile and fast-moving situation like this.
I just got a personal phone call. This is a nice gesture, but email would have been nicer.
You don't. Not until it's been priced. Which it hasn't been yet. The *range* of possible prices has gone up. This means very little about the actual price sometimes: it is not entirely unheard of for a $8-$10 suggested offering to actually be priced at $20. [This is a specific example from last week's IPO offerings, but the actual data has disappeared from this weeks "current offerings" list.]
Of course, in the current market climate Red Hat would seem to be rather foolish to jack the price up substantially. Most IPOs are going out priced under their ranges this week. OTOH, Red Hat seems to be pretty cocky about their chances for success -- they're hot and everyone knows it.
But UCITA makes this point moot (by providing legislative teeth to shrink wrap licenses), no?
So UCITA, in providing legislative teeth to "shrink wrap" licenses, may ironically make the GPL more enforcable? A poster below commented about copyright-vs-contractual law, but the point is moot post-UCITA, right?
>The SEC, not E*Trade or RedHat, make the rules.
>If you don't like them then please write the SEC
>and your congressman and complain.
Except in this case the SEC *doesn't* make the rules. It makes *suggestions* and threatens to come after anyone who takes unfair advantage of a customer. This seems like an ideal, to me. I can't object to the say the SEC wrote this.
I *can* object to a silly implementation. C'mon, we know this from coding. Good interface != good implementation. E*Trade's stupid implementation should be fixed.
But that's not the issue anyhow. If Red Hat had warned us up front that this was likely only something that Big Guys could handle, fine. But we got our hopes up, and they were dashed. OK, fine, but now there's a community-weakening precedent. Just like UCITA, FIDNET, Echelon, crypto-export, and all these other things that happen are precedents.
In this case, I want to see that the precedent is reset pro-community, not left con.
Yeah. Bravo. Exactly.
"Own" the company in a knowledge-based hacker sense. We understand their code, and if fixes and improvements are to be made, we'll be the ones making them. That's an eglatarian and knowledge-based sense of ownership, not a property-based one. *No one* owns linux in the sense of removing its freedom, or denying Red Hat the ability to distribute it.
I'm sorry that the distinction here between conceptual ownership and property ownership was not more clear.
Well, sure. I've been annoying people for months by pointing out Red Hat boxes (on computer store & bookstore shelves, etc) and telling them proudly, "my name's in that box". But most people don't really get it.
Wouldn't it be great to say, "I own part of that company"? And yes, I suspect many of us will end up buying Red Hat stock whether we get it pre-IPO or not --- if only because we've already got the accounts on etrade. But the investment strikes me, at least, as far riskier if I buy in the first rush than if I pre-own.
But the reason for the finger-pointing isn't about money. I'd still point out the Red Hat stock even if I had to admit I'd lost a couple of thousand dollars on the stock. I'd try to explain how cool it was I managed to acquire stock in the company in the first place -- that I took part in a huge net-wide project to create killer software, and that when Red Hat finally made it big based on that collaborative effort, they made us all part of it. Not because they had to, but because they were participating in a radical new thing, a hacker gift-economy, where money isn't as important as respect and community.
Ah, but open source is not just rejecting the capitalist economy. It is embracing an *alternate* economy (see ESR's work) based on (among other things) respect.`
The Red Hat IPO issue is (just one) place where these two economies come violently into conflict.
Gosh, if you want to start a flame-war, please do it on private email.
Although I rather like the idea of a slashdot poll on your opinions. How 'bout:
POLL: The author of the Salon piece is:
[ ] dumb
[ ] clueless
[ ] a tad clueful
[ ] profoundly confused
[ ] in touch with the essential zeitgeist of the age
[ ] Jar Jar must die!