Great, not only is he an authority on what other people should do with their time and money, now he is going to police the way they speak.
I could give a shit what you do with your time and money. Just don't tell me how "right" you are to ignore laws because you don't believe they're valid. And if you speak in a public forum, you should probably use words you know, or you'll sound like a dumbass.
Did you shoot many of those insolent subhumans who fail to obey your commands in the back of their heads, Herr SS-Sturmmann?
From IP law to Godwin's Law in so few steps. That's impressive. Irrational, but impressive.
Unless you come up with fair ways of restoring the balance of power between consumers and corporate game makers, you might as well give up for all the succes you are going to have.
Boy are you in luck! I do indeed have a way to restore the balance.
How about: You *don't* give corporations you believe are "wrong" any money, and in balance they *don't* give you any product? Seems fair. Seems balanced.
thus infuriorated me to the point of actually turning from a paying customer into a "pirate"
You've sure got a nifty home-cooked recipe of justification brewing don't you?
Mix one part "Robin Hood Complex" with two parts "Blame the Victim" and sprinkle liberally with "It's okay to break laws if they suck." Nice.
You do know that your undies are all tied up over a video game, don't you? Valve is a video game company. You are a person who likes HL2. The rest of the world seems to get along okay without getting this worked up. Why can't you?
You do know that you don't have to play the game, right? It's not manditory and no one will arrest you for *not playing*.
Look, playing the game is not your given right. It's something that, like it or not, is not free for your taking, legally speaking.
Valve has set the conditions of playing the game, and has done so legally. If you don't like those conditions, you are quite welcome to not buy it, and not play it.
You are not welcome to break laws you don't think are right. And no reasonable person buys your rationale either. So if you're going to pirate a game because you don't want to pay for it, then go ahead, but don't try to convince us you're right to do it. You're not.
Nothing, that's what. The whole premise has holes you could drive a truck through.
Sheer unmitigated ignorance. I guess we can add "statistics & probability" to the list of subjects on which we're failing to educate you dumbasses these days.
Statistical analysis of surveyed data is a mathematical endeavor. Repeated analysis of any singular data set, using the same analytical methodology, will provide the same results every time. Statistical analysis is math, and that's how math works. It's what we literate people call "consistent".
Guess what else? Since math is consistent like that, you can use statistical models to predict how populations (such as voters) will behave.
Sure, you will always have a margin of error, but guess what again, it's always quantifiable, and analysts "account for" that.
If statistics are so good at measuring voter sentiment, then why do we bother having elections?
Ugh. Please turn down the stupid.
You're confusing "statistics" with "surveys". See, a statistic is just a number, while a survey is one or more questions posed to a sample population that usually represents some larger population.
The way it works is the surveyor asks some people some questions, then the statistician looks at the answers and says:
"53% answered this question this way, and 47% answered the same question that way. Based on the size and selection of the sample population who responded, we can say that these results represent how the general population would respond, give or take 4% margin of error."
All a statistician can do is report specific results based on specific data. The surveyor is responsible for selecting a representative sample of the general population.
No wait! There's more. Surveyors document and account for their selection criteria, so we an know what the "general" population really is. For example, if the surveyor limits their sampling to, "registered Republican voters between 18 and 19 years old on November 2nd, 2004," then the statisticians results *only* apply to the larger population of, "all registered Republican voters between 18 and 19 years old on November 2nd, 2004."
Because that's statistics, and statistics is just math.
You may be saying, "But the questions are BIASED, because blah, blah, liberals suck, blah, blah, blah..." Doesn't matter. Statistical analysts don't care about the questions. The only things that matter for accurate statistics are if the sample size and sample criteria are large enough and similar enough to the larger population you're analyzing.
BUT bias can, and often does, affect interpretation of the analysis. This is *THE REASON* for the cliche, "I can quote a statistic to prove any point." It's true. Ask a question to suit your need, and you get the answer that suits your need.
It's a bunch of partisan bullshit from one of the most left-wing schools in the country.
And you're clearly familiar with partisan bullshit.
I hope they like being marginalized, because that is what is about to happen.
Okay, could you explain how this will happen? I'm sure you don't mean that the 47% of the country who disagreed with you in November will join you on this, do you? Especially since we were (statistically) the smartest 47% (by measured IQ) and we *like* universities?
i'll be happy to win another election or three on the back of this idiocy.
You're right. Idiocy clearly won this election. I'm surprised anyone would be happy about that though...
It occurs to me as I start writing that even if you read this, I'm probably wasting effort. If your listening comprehension is so bad, why should I assume your reading comprehension is better?
Stewart's point, obviously lost on dumbasses everywhere, was that mainstream political reporting and commentary is doing all of us a grave disservice by not examining the truth behind partisan spin machines on both sides of an issue.
Right now even the "legitimate" press is mired in muck by partisan hackery that just serve to focus and amplify the often empty, dishonest arguments made by their respective "sides". These hacks are so plentiful that politicians can cherrypick interviews with sympathetic hosts and push their self-serving crap to a wide and sympathetic audience.
Nowhere in, "blue said, red said" pseudo-debate TV is there room for factual analysis. You couldn't hear it over smirks, the zingers, and the general din on those shows anyway.
Intellectually honest, well-defended arguments just don't make for good ratings, even on news networks. In the ratings game, flashy soundbites beat buttoned-up substance *every* *single* time.
And it does hurt us. It makes us dumber, as you exemplify, and it turns the "watchdog" press into the lapdog press.
Plainly, Stewart's point to the Crossfire gang was, "You're not helping, but you could and you should."
Yes. Spam sucks. Yes. Spammers *really* suck. Yes. They deserve prison time. Maybe. Nine years could be appropriate. No. Comparing spam to pollution is not intelligent, nor reasonable.
The cumulative time to cleanse many asundry, and large, mail spools of a single spammers efforts has never approached, by many orders of magnitude, the cumulative time to cleanse, say, the Exxon-Valdez contamination from Alaska's beaches. And crude oil doesn't have the half-life of many other forms of toxic pollution.
But thanks for illustrating the "proportionality" point again.
In addition to competing commodities outside music, music is just competing with own ever-growing and ever-aging library.
Some else already mentioned that most people have now fully converted their pre-CD era music collections to CDs, so that market verticle is subsisting on folks taking an occasional nostolgia stroll to grab that G'N'R CD that their college roommate stole back in the '90s.
So now, new music doesn't just compete with other current "hits", it competes with the entirety of recorded music. Regardless of genre or quality, this is increasingly difficult-despite the high velocity marketing spin some new artists get.
I have a VCR. I want to record a show. It starts in 5 minutes. I have a blank tape somewhere in this stack of 15. Is this it? No. Is this it? No. Is this it? No.... Is this it? No. SHIT! The show's half over. I'll have to go to Joe's. He's Tivo'd it.
Blah, blah, blah, windows sucks, blah, blah, blah, linux is wine and roses, blah, blah...
Doesn't this EVER get old?!
1) You know you're talking out your ass, your company will never switch--unless you're in charge. And maybe not then.
2) You're preaching to a choir. A cynical, jaded choir.
YES. I love my OS X. YES. I love my Linux box. YES. I really dislike my XP-laden work laptop.
And, YES. If I read one more of these whiny-ass, "That's it, now my boss will have to listen to me about Windows," posts, I'm going to rip out my nose hairs, use them to fashion a rope ladder, shimmy down eight stories to the parking lot, and drive my car into a tree.
If you are too close they look grainy. My friend had one. It is really cool, but you have to sit so far away for it not to look pixelated.
All projectors are not created equal. A lot of LCD projectors (and LCD TVs) share that "through a screen-door" grain at close range. But not all.
DLP technology TVs and projectors don't look grainy at all, and they are the roughly the same price.
Plus can you get an HDTV projector?
Of course. Most projectors aimed at the home theater/TV market will display analog, SD (480i), ED (480p), and HD (720p/1080i) source material.
One cavaet is that many require external anolog or digital tuners, so you either need to purchase a terrestrial HD tuner (~$300), or get HD service from your cable/sat provider for a monthly premium.
Another cavaet is that true HD resolution projectors capable of native 1080i or 720p are still pricey, and the cheaper "HD" projectors down-convert HD images to something less. Joe Consumer would not notice a difference in most cases, but...
Also, then you have to deal with hanging it or mounting it soemwhere. It looks tacky
If you're planning a dedicated room, you can completely integrate the projector mount into the room architecture. Even If you're only updating a living room TV, it could be done in a non-tacky manner by any good AV installer.
Actually, I'd just like to see a computer in a movie that is what it is, and not some bastardization of Windows and Mac and usually some concocted audio/animated GUI nonsense where the "envelope" for an email folds up and disappears into a fake screen horizon upon "send".
Watching a movie and seeing a C:\ prompt on a monitor emblazoned with the Apple logo just bothers me.
One round knob with a red dash and some numbers. One tempurature reading. The house was always comfortable.
Now my manual _says_ I can program my new thermostat to kick the AC on only every third Sunday at 4:02 AM GMT, skipping years containing a solar eclipse, unless it's Mother's Day, Flag Day, while constantly adjusting for barometric pressure, the stock market and the dew point.
I've always been a Mac person, so I'm used to the Mac'ness of my life.
And I simply don't have the time or energy to devote to being a skilled and attentive admin for Windows or any *nix box right now. Windows especially takes too much effort to load, secure, network, patch, secure, and patch and secure and patch.
My Mac OS X (yes, I know it's also a *nix) box has far more secure defaults than Windows, and less setup complexity than other *nix distros.
That and the relative obscurity of any non-Windows OS helps keep malicious code and kiddies at bay.
1. Ghosting drives and locking down user accounts are okay ideas.
2. Only providing net access is a much, much better idea. People who want a computer at the lake will probably have their own machine, and will just want access.
Provide cable/DSL and wireless or wall jacks, and instructions for configuring a PC/Mac to use the network. Physically lock the network equipment (router/switch/firewall) up.
3. Have the owner include a lease clause about network access rules and responsibilities. You're in essense becoming a small ISP for the renter, and should enact an AUP (in the lease terms).
4. Eat the cost (or cover it with rent) of a business class Internet account. IANAL, but I'm guessing that it would be easier to prove in court that a business account is an internet service provided to renters with full contractual (lease) terms covering civil and criminal liability--and your lack thereof--regarding its use.
From a purely technical perspective, a business account would also ease remote access problems caused by dynamic addresses.
5. Firewall this network. Get a Fortigate 50. It does IDS, AV, stateful firewalling, and even web content-filtering, in hardware at wirespeed, for $300 bucks. I love mine. This, and your lease terms, will prevent the, "I hooked up my computer and picked up 2 virii, 3 bots, other spyware and now it bluescreens every time I try to boot," lawsuits.
6. Screw the net access. Buy a widescreen TV and a home-theater-in-a-box, some cheap DVDs, and, "Presto!" ultra-cool rainy-day entertainment you don't have to worry about. You can get this combo for under $2K too.
When you say 'people', you mean 'Americans', right?
My college buddy from Argentina would cringe at your cultural insensitivity. He's "American" you know. But if by 'Americans', you mean 'U.S. residents', then I probably did.
Generally on/., there's a certain transitivity between 'people', 'U.S. residents', and 'the vast majority or readers'. Specifically though, the article only mentioned U.S.-based companies and phone services, so I believe the context was set before I arrived on the scene, no?
Right now, the only way people in most villages are going to get voice and data service of any kind... is by rolling their own. Cringely's dead right about how we're going to do it.
And I think that's great. Many rural LECs where I live are generations old family-owned businesses that started in homes, maybe the "roll their owns" will follow similar paths. Anyway, it's a win regardless.
I appreciate that you probably don't get out much. But please, the next time you start assuming that America is more than a tiny fraction of the world, think again.
I don't understand your vitriol. My perspective is discussed in the FAQ. Cultural sensitivity is something we should all strive for, but just because/. is reachable from where you live doesn't mean everyone has to accommodate your circumstance in every post.
Far from a "tiny fraction", my comment addressed the majority of readers, so I'm comfortable. Thanks.
Seriously man, have you used a cell phone in the last 5 years?
Sure...
They're still crap and more expensive, but they're vastly more useful to consumers and businesses to the point where no one cares about all the crap parts.
Absolutely true, no argument. The same is basically true for the VoIP services we sell. But I want better quality at home when I talk to my friends and family, so I keep a landline.
Mobility and convienience look like they're more important than the quality and reliability of MaBell.
I'll agree that technology is changing the consumer. Folks growing up in the cell age relate much less to the "pin drop" SPRINT commercials of my youth. I'm under 35 though, so I think the landline is still here for some time.
The entrenched telcos seem far more like the RIAA/MPAA to me; they have this new fangled competitor looming on the horizon and instead of pouring money into R&D are pouring it into the legal department and campaign contributions instead.
The company I work for is a "traditional" regional IXC/CLEC. We've poured mucho dinero into R&D on packetizing and "converging" our network. After much blood, sweat, and tears, we've been able to provide a converged IP service that really doesn't suck. But, packets and Wi-Fi are not the magic bullets that some would believe.
Sure, anyone with a strong Wi-Fi antenna and a few IADs strewn about can make real-time interactive audio work. That's not the challenge. The challenge really lies in providing carrier-class services over IP. People expect phones to work, 100% of the time, between any two handsets worldwide. And they want audio quality and precision clarity.
In that regard solutions are still expensive to provide, and expensive to purchase. IP savvy switches are still buggy, feature-sparse, and prone to audio quality issues. Your average DMS and 5ESS may use Model T technology and take up a whole lot of bays, but for making plain old phone calls, it'll outperform the Ferrari's of the IP world.
Add up consumer broadband transport, untamed Internet ebbs and flows, Wi-Fi frequencies that compete moment-to-moment with cordless phones and microwaves, and you've got a lot of unsatisfied neighbors dropping your shiny new home telco for an old princess phone and an RBOC.
I know the pain of senseless assignment requirements. One time I arrived 10 minutes late to a Csci class (after sitting in traffic behind a rush hour fender-bender for 20 minutes) and handed in my typed assignment. Typed. "Assignments are due at the begining of the class-0 [zero]" was the grade written on the front page when I got it back. I had A's on every other test and assignment, but this still dropped me to a B overall.
Curse the rabid bitterness of Ph.D's who've just suffered through their dissertations! Ugly people, the lot.
HOWEVER, you should pay close attention to the Anonymous Coward who also replied to your post. I couldn't say it better, other than to add a bit.
Recursion is a vital algorithm, with applications in numerical computing and rendering that iterative algorithms couldn't even address. A good programmer is conversant in both styles.
A young relative of my wife won a state high school science fair by showing you can 1) create nanowires fairly easily; that 2) can then be absorbed by heart cells; and 3) that these cells can be precisely rearranged using simple magnets.
High school projects have changed since I built that 25Kg-supporting toothpick bridge...
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Great, not only is he an authority on what other people should do with their time and money, now he is going to police the way they speak.
I could give a shit what you do with your time and money. Just don't tell me how "right" you are to ignore laws because you don't believe they're valid. And if you speak in a public forum, you should probably use words you know, or you'll sound like a dumbass.
Did you shoot many of those insolent subhumans who fail to obey your commands in the back of their heads, Herr SS-Sturmmann?
From IP law to Godwin's Law in so few steps. That's impressive. Irrational, but impressive.
Unless you come up with fair ways of restoring the balance of power between consumers and corporate game makers, you might as well give up for all the succes you are going to have.
Boy are you in luck! I do indeed have a way to restore the balance.
How about: You *don't* give corporations you believe are "wrong" any money, and in balance they *don't* give you any product? Seems fair. Seems balanced.
Your sense of entitlement is almost overwhelming.
It's "moot" Dumbass. M-o-o-t. It means irrelevant. Like your feelings on IP.
"Mute" means silent. Like you oughta be.
thus infuriorated me to the point of actually turning from a paying customer into a "pirate"
You've sure got a nifty home-cooked recipe of justification brewing don't you?
Mix one part "Robin Hood Complex" with two parts "Blame the Victim" and sprinkle liberally with "It's okay to break laws if they suck." Nice.
You do know that your undies are all tied up over a video game, don't you? Valve is a video game company. You are a person who likes HL2. The rest of the world seems to get along okay without getting this worked up. Why can't you?
You do know that you don't have to play the game, right? It's not manditory and no one will arrest you for *not playing*.
Look, playing the game is not your given right. It's something that, like it or not, is not free for your taking, legally speaking.
Valve has set the conditions of playing the game, and has done so legally. If you don't like those conditions, you are quite welcome to not buy it, and not play it.
You are not welcome to break laws you don't think are right. And no reasonable person buys your rationale either. So if you're going to pirate a game because you don't want to pay for it, then go ahead, but don't try to convince us you're right to do it. You're not.
Dumbass.
Nothing, that's what. The whole premise has holes you could drive a truck through.
Sheer unmitigated ignorance. I guess we can add "statistics & probability" to the list of subjects on which we're failing to educate you dumbasses these days.
Statistical analysis of surveyed data is a mathematical endeavor. Repeated analysis of any singular data set, using the same analytical methodology, will provide the same results every time. Statistical analysis is math, and that's how math works. It's what we literate people call "consistent".
Guess what else? Since math is consistent like that, you can use statistical models to predict how populations (such as voters) will behave.
Sure, you will always have a margin of error, but guess what again, it's always quantifiable, and analysts "account for" that.
If statistics are so good at measuring voter sentiment, then why do we bother having elections?
Ugh. Please turn down the stupid.
You're confusing "statistics" with "surveys". See, a statistic is just a number, while a survey is one or more questions posed to a sample population that usually represents some larger population.
The way it works is the surveyor asks some people some questions, then the statistician looks at the answers and says:
"53% answered this question this way, and 47% answered the same question that way. Based on the size and selection of the sample population who responded, we can say that these results represent how the general population would respond, give or take 4% margin of error."
All a statistician can do is report specific results based on specific data. The surveyor is responsible for selecting a representative sample of the general population.
No wait! There's more. Surveyors document and account for their selection criteria, so we an know what the "general" population really is. For example, if the surveyor limits their sampling to, "registered Republican voters between 18 and 19 years old on November 2nd, 2004," then the statisticians results *only* apply to the larger population of, "all registered Republican voters between 18 and 19 years old on November 2nd, 2004."
Because that's statistics, and statistics is just math.
You may be saying, "But the questions are BIASED, because blah, blah, liberals suck, blah, blah, blah..." Doesn't matter. Statistical analysts don't care about the questions. The only things that matter for accurate statistics are if the sample size and sample criteria are large enough and similar enough to the larger population you're analyzing.
BUT bias can, and often does, affect interpretation of the analysis. This is *THE REASON* for the cliche, "I can quote a statistic to prove any point." It's true. Ask a question to suit your need, and you get the answer that suits your need.
It's a bunch of partisan bullshit from one of the most left-wing schools in the country.
And you're clearly familiar with partisan bullshit.
I hope they like being marginalized, because that is what is about to happen.
Okay, could you explain how this will happen? I'm sure you don't mean that the 47% of the country who disagreed with you in November will join you on this, do you? Especially since we were (statistically) the smartest 47% (by measured IQ) and we *like* universities?
i'll be happy to win another election or three on the back of this idiocy.
You're right. Idiocy clearly won this election. I'm surprised anyone would be happy about that though...
It occurs to me as I start writing that even if you read this, I'm probably wasting effort. If your listening comprehension is so bad, why should I assume your reading comprehension is better?
Stewart's point, obviously lost on dumbasses everywhere, was that mainstream political reporting and commentary is doing all of us a grave disservice by not examining the truth behind partisan spin machines on both sides of an issue.
Right now even the "legitimate" press is mired in muck by partisan hackery that just serve to focus and amplify the often empty, dishonest arguments made by their respective "sides". These hacks are so plentiful that politicians can cherrypick interviews with sympathetic hosts and push their self-serving crap to a wide and sympathetic audience.
Nowhere in, "blue said, red said" pseudo-debate TV is there room for factual analysis. You couldn't hear it over smirks, the zingers, and the general din on those shows anyway.
Intellectually honest, well-defended arguments just don't make for good ratings, even on news networks. In the ratings game, flashy soundbites beat buttoned-up substance *every* *single* time.
And it does hurt us. It makes us dumber, as you exemplify, and it turns the "watchdog" press into the lapdog press.
Plainly, Stewart's point to the Crossfire gang was, "You're not helping, but you could and you should."
He's right, I'm right and you're a moron.
no. No. NO! What an emptyheaded analogy.
Yes. Spam sucks.
Yes. Spammers *really* suck.
Yes. They deserve prison time.
Maybe. Nine years could be appropriate.
No. Comparing spam to pollution is not intelligent, nor reasonable.
The cumulative time to cleanse many asundry, and large, mail spools of a single spammers efforts has never approached, by many orders of magnitude, the cumulative time to cleanse, say, the Exxon-Valdez contamination from Alaska's beaches. And crude oil doesn't have the half-life of many other forms of toxic pollution.
But thanks for illustrating the "proportionality" point again.
In addition to competing commodities outside music, music is just competing with own ever-growing and ever-aging library.
Some else already mentioned that most people have now fully converted their pre-CD era music collections to CDs, so that market verticle is subsisting on folks taking an occasional nostolgia stroll to grab that G'N'R CD that their college roommate stole back in the '90s.
So now, new music doesn't just compete with other current "hits", it competes with the entirety of recorded music. Regardless of genre or quality, this is increasingly difficult-despite the high velocity marketing spin some new artists get.
I have a VCR. ...
I want to record a show.
It starts in 5 minutes.
I have a blank tape somewhere in this stack of 15.
Is this it?
No.
Is this it?
No.
Is this it?
No.
Is this it?
No.
SHIT! The show's half over.
I'll have to go to Joe's. He's Tivo'd it.
Blah, blah, blah, windows sucks, blah, blah, blah, linux is wine and roses, blah, blah...
Doesn't this EVER get old?!
1) You know you're talking out your ass, your company will never switch--unless you're in charge. And maybe not then.
2) You're preaching to a choir. A cynical, jaded choir.
YES. I love my OS X.
YES. I love my Linux box.
YES. I really dislike my XP-laden work laptop.
And, YES. If I read one more of these whiny-ass, "That's it, now my boss will have to listen to me about Windows," posts, I'm going to rip out my nose hairs, use them to fashion a rope ladder, shimmy down eight stories to the parking lot, and drive my car into a tree.
If you are too close they look grainy. My friend had one. It is really cool, but you have to sit so far away for it not to look pixelated.
All projectors are not created equal. A lot of LCD projectors (and LCD TVs) share that "through a screen-door" grain at close range. But not all.
DLP technology TVs and projectors don't look grainy at all, and they are the roughly the same price.
Plus can you get an HDTV projector?
Of course. Most projectors aimed at the home theater/TV market will display analog, SD (480i), ED (480p), and HD (720p/1080i) source material.
One cavaet is that many require external anolog or digital tuners, so you either need to purchase a terrestrial HD tuner (~$300), or get HD service from your cable/sat provider for a monthly premium.
Another cavaet is that true HD resolution projectors capable of native 1080i or 720p are still pricey, and the cheaper "HD" projectors down-convert HD images to something less. Joe Consumer would not notice a difference in most cases, but...
Also, then you have to deal with hanging it or mounting it soemwhere. It looks tacky
If you're planning a dedicated room, you can completely integrate the projector mount into the room architecture. Even If you're only updating a living room TV, it could be done in a non-tacky manner by any good AV installer.
NPR? Well they're probably just saying that because, in their experience, no one is listening. :^)
What's the advantage of a landspeeder over a car? Less tire wear?
One real advantage of workaday air travel with actual vertical movement would be stackable air "lanes" to alleviate daily commute congestion.
Damn! One article mentions people adding a third axis to daily transportation and all we see is fear packaged in jaded cynicism. That's /. for you.
"The air is so high!! What about crashes?!"
"What about bad drivers?!"
"Whaddabout drunk drivers?!"
And, of course now we also have the, "Omigod, think of the terrorism!!" chorus.
We're supposed to be the ones who dig big changes, especially technological. Stop whining and control your fear.
Otherwise, do us a favor and just move to some shack in the woods and start writing your "manifesto".
Actually, I'd just like to see a computer in a movie that is what it is, and not some bastardization of Windows and Mac and usually some concocted audio/animated GUI nonsense where the "envelope" for an email folds up and disappears into a fake screen horizon upon "send".
Watching a movie and seeing a C:\ prompt on a monitor emblazoned with the Apple logo just bothers me.
I Fetched and anarchied my first browsers. But I'm old.
One round knob with a red dash and some numbers. One tempurature reading. The house was always comfortable.
Now my manual _says_ I can program my new thermostat to kick the AC on only every third Sunday at 4:02 AM GMT, skipping years containing a solar eclipse, unless it's Mother's Day, Flag Day, while constantly adjusting for barometric pressure, the stock market and the dew point.
I just want it to be 69 degrees in the den.
Now.
Thanks.
I've always been a Mac person, so I'm used to the Mac'ness of my life.
And I simply don't have the time or energy to devote to being a skilled and attentive admin for Windows or any *nix box right now. Windows especially takes too much effort to load, secure, network, patch, secure, and patch and secure and patch.
My Mac OS X (yes, I know it's also a *nix) box has far more secure defaults than Windows, and less setup complexity than other *nix distros.
That and the relative obscurity of any non-Windows OS helps keep malicious code and kiddies at bay.
1. Ghosting drives and locking down user accounts are okay ideas.
2. Only providing net access is a much, much better idea. People who want a computer at the lake will probably have their own machine, and will just want access.
Provide cable/DSL and wireless or wall jacks, and instructions for configuring a PC/Mac to use the network. Physically lock the network equipment (router/switch/firewall) up.
3. Have the owner include a lease clause about network access rules and responsibilities. You're in essense becoming a small ISP for the renter, and should enact an AUP (in the lease terms).
4. Eat the cost (or cover it with rent) of a business class Internet account. IANAL, but I'm guessing that it would be easier to prove in court that a business account is an internet service provided to renters with full contractual (lease) terms covering civil and criminal liability--and your lack thereof--regarding its use.
From a purely technical perspective, a business account would also ease remote access problems caused by dynamic addresses.
5. Firewall this network. Get a Fortigate 50. It does IDS, AV, stateful firewalling, and even web content-filtering, in hardware at wirespeed, for $300 bucks. I love mine. This, and your lease terms, will prevent the, "I hooked up my computer and picked up 2 virii, 3 bots, other spyware and now it bluescreens every time I try to boot," lawsuits.
6. Screw the net access. Buy a widescreen TV and a home-theater-in-a-box, some cheap DVDs, and, "Presto!" ultra-cool rainy-day entertainment you don't have to worry about. You can get this combo for under $2K too.
When you say 'people', you mean 'Americans', right?
/., there's a certain transitivity between 'people', 'U.S. residents', and 'the vast majority or readers'. Specifically though, the article only mentioned U.S.-based companies and phone services, so I believe the context was set before I arrived on the scene, no?
/. is reachable from where you live doesn't mean everyone has to accommodate your circumstance in every post.
My college buddy from Argentina would cringe at your cultural insensitivity. He's "American" you know. But if by 'Americans', you mean 'U.S. residents', then I probably did.
Generally on
Right now, the only way people in most villages are going to get voice and data service of any kind... is by rolling their own. Cringely's dead right about how we're going to do it.
And I think that's great. Many rural LECs where I live are generations old family-owned businesses that started in homes, maybe the "roll their owns" will follow similar paths. Anyway, it's a win regardless.
I appreciate that you probably don't get out much. But please, the next time you start assuming that America is more than a tiny fraction of the world, think again.
I don't understand your vitriol. My perspective is discussed in the FAQ. Cultural sensitivity is something we should all strive for, but just because
Far from a "tiny fraction", my comment addressed the majority of readers, so I'm comfortable. Thanks.
Seriously man, have you used a cell phone in the last 5 years?
Sure...
They're still crap and more expensive, but they're vastly more useful to consumers and businesses to the point where no one cares about all the crap parts.
Absolutely true, no argument. The same is basically true for the VoIP services we sell. But I want better quality at home when I talk to my friends and family, so I keep a landline.
Mobility and convienience look like they're more important than the quality and reliability of MaBell.
I'll agree that technology is changing the consumer. Folks growing up in the cell age relate much less to the "pin drop" SPRINT commercials of my youth. I'm under 35 though, so I think the landline is still here for some time.
The entrenched telcos seem far more like the RIAA/MPAA to me; they have this new fangled competitor looming on the horizon and instead of pouring money into R&D are pouring it into the legal department and campaign contributions instead.
The company I work for is a "traditional" regional IXC/CLEC. We've poured mucho dinero into R&D on packetizing and "converging" our network. After much blood, sweat, and tears, we've been able to provide a converged IP service that really doesn't suck. But, packets and Wi-Fi are not the magic bullets that some would believe.
Sure, anyone with a strong Wi-Fi antenna and a few IADs strewn about can make real-time interactive audio work. That's not the challenge. The challenge really lies in providing carrier-class services over IP. People expect phones to work, 100% of the time, between any two handsets worldwide. And they want audio quality and precision clarity.
In that regard solutions are still expensive to provide, and expensive to purchase. IP savvy switches are still buggy, feature-sparse, and prone to audio quality issues. Your average DMS and 5ESS may use Model T technology and take up a whole lot of bays, but for making plain old phone calls, it'll outperform the Ferrari's of the IP world.
Add up consumer broadband transport, untamed Internet ebbs and flows, Wi-Fi frequencies that compete moment-to-moment with cordless phones and microwaves, and you've got a lot of unsatisfied neighbors dropping your shiny new home telco for an old princess phone and an RBOC.
Several comments:
I know the pain of senseless assignment requirements. One time I arrived 10 minutes late to a Csci class (after sitting in traffic behind a rush hour fender-bender for 20 minutes) and handed in my typed assignment. Typed. "Assignments are due at the begining of the class-0 [zero]" was the grade written on the front page when I got it back. I had A's on every other test and assignment, but this still dropped me to a B overall.
Curse the rabid bitterness of Ph.D's who've just suffered through their dissertations! Ugly people, the lot.
HOWEVER, you should pay close attention to the Anonymous Coward who also replied to your post. I couldn't say it better, other than to add a bit.
Recursion is a vital algorithm, with applications in numerical computing and rendering that iterative algorithms couldn't even address. A good programmer is conversant in both styles.
A young relative of my wife won a state high school science fair by showing you can 1) create nanowires fairly easily; that 2) can then be absorbed by heart cells; and 3) that these cells can be precisely rearranged using simple magnets.
High school projects have changed since I built that 25Kg-supporting toothpick bridge...
Why are you looking for other people to make your "real life" not suck? No one else gives a crap about your happieness, so you deal with it.
FYI, that's what everyone else does.