The owner is an old crusty guy that lives in NYC - not that there is anything wrong with that, but he's an old school guy and, well, what you see is what you get.
This post clearly shows that Slashdot is doomed. My Karma be damned for posting this. Someone had to say it, and if it results in a down vote (or whatever it is here) then, well so be it.
I feel sorry for the poor fish in the barrel that gets shot on this one.
Unwittingly, right now, some guy/gal is sitting in their cubical and is on the cusp of getting the phone call that thrusts them into the international spotlight when the tape of the winning team's efforts is played. They might even lose their job for doing nothing more than, well, doing their job, or answering a harmless set of questions.
The relief wells are being drilled so they can pump concrete into the well to plug it. "Relief" doesn't refer to "reducing the well pressure" - it means to relieve the existing well from it's duties.
The two "relief" wells are targeted to terminate an existing well.
preferred customer status is bullshit... everyone should be paying the same price for the same product (at the same time)....
Right, just like when you buy a car?
There is a reason why software companies employ armies of salesmen - their principle job to sell their widget for as much money as they can get for it. A salesman does not transact a product - he sells it just like a stock is traded on an exchange. Supply, demand, emotion all apply for sales transactions. You might find a better price elsewhere. You might find a better "stock" elsewhere. But most likely you've already got your product in mind. That leads me to this comment...
treat it like the equity markets handle things.
Ahh.. that's how software sales works. Supply, Demand, Emotion, and finally, negotiation. I guarantee that if you walk up to an Oracle salesman and demand to have his product, you will pay full price, plus 10%. That is why most large software purchases go through a huge dance of evaluations, bake-offs, and other meaningless activities. For the most part, the technical decisions were made long ago - it's the leverage building for the buyer that is needed for these transactions.
I'd be willing bet big money that Oracle isn't the first. Being a former sales engineer in the enterprise software space, there are some big discounts that can be implemented for certain deals that can make or break a quarter.
Interesting how an Oracle employee is a whistleblower in this case.
's also worth noting that the IRS is prohibited by law from sharing information with other government departments,
Really? That is interesting... because the FBI needed to get ahold of me about an issue with my business, and they contacted my [b]accountant[/b] first.... presumably through my corporate tax returns. Why/how else would they have contacted my accountant?
You need to find a skilled mergers and acquisition attorney. There are a number of tasks in the selling process, including valuation (what are you really worth) all the way up to the final negotiation - which covers everything from earn-out to pay-out to final disbursements of assets and funds. You need to at least start and find out what your company might be worth.
If your company is worth good money, you need good advisers to facilitate this process. We're back full circle.
Summary: find a good M&A attorney. and be willing to pay good money to get good results. If you aren't willing to do that, you're not ready to sell.
If I sold something that knowingly was designed to kill solders, than yes. Selling something to the military with degraded quality and attempting to defraud someone?... uh... I don't think so.
Seriously, there are numerous military contractors out there that are "gaming the system" to provide to our troops overseas. We could start with Haliburt.... oh nevermind.
So, who is going to review the code in this closed process? The judge?:) Hehehe... I can see him now powering up is new Mac Book pro, reviewing the source code and exclaiming "There it is... the smoking gun!"
In all seriousness, how would they manage this process? Would the plaintiff and defendant hire expert programmers to comb through the code looking for evidence? Would it then be presented to the judge and he would decide? Would he even know how to decide?
I can see it now - "Your honor, you can clearly see here where Apple overloaded the xxYY class with functions that are clearly..... " Watching the judge's eyes glass over, you would have to wonder how something like this would actually come to a "successful" conclusion for either side.
Frankly, if data centers are going to proclaim their redundancy, they should test by power failing the entire data center once every two weeks at a minimum. A data center that goes down twice in a month would get ahead of any issue pretty fast. Lessons learned from the staff and the management are very valuable.
The marketing messaging:
"We power fail our data center every two weeks to ensure our backups work..."
Sound scary? Just think about the data center that has never been through this process. at that point, the wet paper bag you tried to market your way out of dried rather quickly and you are now faced with the prospect of slapping around inside of a zip-lock.
It sounds to me like a cry for help directed to the public sector, from the US Government.
Imagine a subscription/license service for a geo-location broadcast platform from space that is unrestricted to users and as accurate as science knows how to make such things "accurate." How much do you think that license would be worth?
Scary? Absolutely.
Possible? More Absolutely!
There is serious money in geo-location today. Not just to target nuclear warhead.. if you call that a business.
300 MHz is right smack-dab in the middle of a US Military "owned" spectrum space (225-400Mhz).
Furthermore, the most valuable spectrum in the United States starts at around 50MHz and goes upwards from there. Why would we not include that spectrum?
I've spent a tremendous amount of time listening to these bootleggers on the FLTSATCOM satellites. It is rather easy for them (the Brazilians and others) to modify a amateur radio or other transmitters to use these satellites.
Basically, these satellites work by listening on one frequency (an uplink), and rebroadcasting what they hear over a specified frequency bandwidth to listeners (a downlink). The uplink and downlink frequencies are well known and published across many mediums - including Mil-Std documents which specify how terminals should interact with these satellites.
I published a spectrum analysis article on this very topic here (shameless plus):
This method of communication is actually very secure for the US Military - since they rarely use clear voice on these transponders - meaning, they encrypt all transmissions to and from.
Now, an open repeater, in Geospacial orbit, provides a set of repeaters for anyone to use... either the US military (which they still actively use) - or others who have equipment that can transmit to, and reiceve from.
For those that are dismayed by this approach, understand that when this technology was developed, security by obscurity was a common approach even for military agencies. It wasn't feasible even 10 years ago to "authenticate" use access to open satellite transponders.
In speakers, these things are all happening because the membranes react to EM fields.
The membranes??? In actuality Neutron, what you are hearing is the wires connecting to the speaker are receiving harmonics being broadcast from the phone, not membranes reacting to EM fields.
Again, if the pilots saw avionics problems, they certainly aren't going to self-diagnose the problem and take off with a potential problem just waiting to happen.
On aircraft, there are transmitters that broadcast everything from Mode-S transmissions (1090 MHz @ 125-500 Watts) as well as VHF/UHF transmitters and on long range overseas aircraft HF Radio Transmissions that are in the hundreds of Watts category.
Someone sitting on the aircraft with a transmitter that *might* peak power output at 1 watt isn't going to cause these problems. Furthermore, we have airlines in production today with Wifi solutions (American Airlines etc) that currently allows production consumer equipment to be used.
I'm amazed at how often people mistake their ignorance for knowledge.
And here I was told my cell phone is reacting with the membranes on my speakphone. Sheesh.
Are you a pilot? Have you flown both recreational and commercial aircraft? Have you mucked around to see the effects of cellphones on flight instruments?
I am not a pilot, but I have extensive experience in the radio communications field, interference, and wireless devices. So, I know a bit about what we are talking about here.
I would also argue that most of the engineers that design and build aircraft, avionics, and the electrical systems of aircraft aren't pilots either. Same goes for the Q&A and test folks that put aircraft and avionics through extensive testing.
I'm going to tell you right now that your story is highly suspect. If the pilots experienced avionics problems before takeoff, such as instruments going "loopy" and things "flickering" - they would have taken that aircraft back to the gate faster than they could say the phrase "WTF!" They wouldn not have sat there and chided the passengers for a potential rouge "still-on" cell phone.
Don't take this the wrong way, but your story just isn't true. It's not. I flew over 150,000 miles on over 120+ segments last year on airlines, commuters, big jets, little jets, props, puddle jumpers , etc, and I like to claim I've seen it all on an aircraft. Fights, medical problems, idiotic passengers, and even people yapping on their cell phone on approach for landing. This was certainly never something even remotely close that I've seen on an aircraft.
The copilot pulled out his cellphone and turned it on. After a few seconds, several of the displays on the instrument panel started to twitch and do loopy things. The copilot switched the phone back off and everything went back to normal.
Right there... when I read that I knew for sure this was unadulterated BS. Turning on a cell phone MIGHT cause a navigation aid to not receive a beacon, or register incorrectly, but a cell phone on in the aircraft isn't going to cause things to "twitch" and do "loopy" things.
I am amazed at some of the crap people post there days.
If your goals are simple, especially if one of them is to spend as little time learning as possible, then discoverability is usability to you. And that makes sense.
If your goals are more ambitious -- say you want to enter a photography contest.
Go back and review this article, the purpose of this entire discussion in the first place is about the masses of people that struggle to adopt Mobile telephone platforms, not specialized tasks or hobbies. Someone entering into a photography contest or learning how to program in PHP are embarking upon specialized tasks that absolutely require specialized skills, training, and yes having to read the freaking manual.
The difference here in my argument is manufacturers are developing products for the general public, the masses, everyone from a 12yr kid to a 65yr retired person - all in one single product(s). Mobile phones are not designed with the primary purpose of allowing specialized tasks to occur, they are designed to allow people to communicate and collaborate with each other. If the mobile phone industry cannot make the usability of those platforms easier, then people will not adopt them.
Slashdot Mirror
The owner is an old crusty guy that lives in NYC - not that there is anything wrong with that, but he's an old school guy and, well, what you see is what you get.
This post clearly shows that Slashdot is doomed. My Karma be damned for posting this. Someone had to say it, and if it results in a down vote (or whatever it is here) then, well so be it.
I feel sorry for the poor fish in the barrel that gets shot on this one.
Unwittingly, right now, some guy/gal is sitting in their cubical and is on the cusp of getting the phone call that thrusts them into the international spotlight when the tape of the winning team's efforts is played. They might even lose their job for doing nothing more than, well, doing their job, or answering a harmless set of questions.
The relief wells are being drilled so they can pump concrete into the well to plug it. "Relief" doesn't refer to "reducing the well pressure" - it means to relieve the existing well from it's duties.
The two "relief" wells are targeted to terminate an existing well.
preferred customer status is bullshit... everyone should be paying the same price for the same product (at the same time)....
Right, just like when you buy a car?
There is a reason why software companies employ armies of salesmen - their principle job to sell their widget for as much money as they can get for it. A salesman does not transact a product - he sells it just like a stock is traded on an exchange. Supply, demand, emotion all apply for sales transactions. You might find a better price elsewhere. You might find a better "stock" elsewhere. But most likely you've already got your product in mind. That leads me to this comment...
treat it like the equity markets handle things.
Ahh.. that's how software sales works. Supply, Demand, Emotion, and finally, negotiation. I guarantee that if you walk up to an Oracle salesman and demand to have his product, you will pay full price, plus 10%. That is why most large software purchases go through a huge dance of evaluations, bake-offs, and other meaningless activities. For the most part, the technical decisions were made long ago - it's the leverage building for the buyer that is needed for these transactions.
I'd be willing bet big money that Oracle isn't the first. Being a former sales engineer in the enterprise software space, there are some big discounts that can be implemented for certain deals that can make or break a quarter.
Interesting how an Oracle employee is a whistleblower in this case.
's also worth noting that the IRS is prohibited by law from sharing information with other government departments,
Really? That is interesting... because the FBI needed to get ahold of me about an issue with my business, and they contacted my [b]accountant[/b] first.... presumably through my corporate tax returns. Why/how else would they have contacted my accountant?
3) The defendant's attorney doesn't like what their client has done and is in fact helping me out.
When I read this, my only thoughts were... Hook, Line, and Sinker.
Looks like I'm going to need to purchase a 50 pack of diskettes today
You need to find a skilled mergers and acquisition attorney. There are a number of tasks in the selling process, including valuation (what are you really worth) all the way up to the final negotiation - which covers everything from earn-out to pay-out to final disbursements of assets and funds. You need to at least start and find out what your company might be worth.
If your company is worth good money, you need good advisers to facilitate this process. We're back full circle.
Summary: find a good M&A attorney. and be willing to pay good money to get good results. If you aren't willing to do that, you're not ready to sell.
Bullshit.
If I sold something that knowingly was designed to kill solders, than yes. Selling something to the military with degraded quality and attempting to defraud someone?. .. uh... I don't think so.
Seriously, there are numerous military contractors out there that are "gaming the system" to provide to our troops overseas. We could start with Haliburt.... oh nevermind.
Assholes? Yes! Illegal.. Yes!
Treasonous? Sorry, I don't think so.
That.... was AWESOME. Not awesome, but AWESOME.
So, who is going to review the code in this closed process? The judge? :) Hehehe... I can see him now powering up is new Mac Book pro, reviewing the source code and exclaiming "There it is... the smoking gun!"
In all seriousness, how would they manage this process? Would the plaintiff and defendant hire expert programmers to comb through the code looking for evidence? Would it then be presented to the judge and he would decide? Would he even know how to decide?
I can see it now - "Your honor, you can clearly see here where Apple overloaded the xxYY class with functions that are clearly..... " Watching the judge's eyes glass over, you would have to wonder how something like this would actually come to a "successful" conclusion for either side.
Frankly, if data centers are going to proclaim their redundancy, they should test by power failing the entire data center once every two weeks at a minimum. A data center that goes down twice in a month would get ahead of any issue pretty fast. Lessons learned from the staff and the management are very valuable.
The marketing messaging:
"We power fail our data center every two weeks to ensure our backups work..."
Sound scary? Just think about the data center that has never been through this process. at that point, the wet paper bag you tried to market your way out of dried rather quickly and you are now faced with the prospect of slapping around inside of a zip-lock.
It sounds to me like a cry for help directed to the public sector, from the US Government.
Imagine a subscription/license service for a geo-location broadcast platform from space that is unrestricted to users and as accurate as science knows how to make such things "accurate." How much do you think that license would be worth?
Scary? Absolutely.
Possible? More Absolutely!
There is serious money in geo-location today. Not just to target nuclear warhead.. if you call that a business.
Why is the lower limit of this proposal 300 MHz?
300 MHz is right smack-dab in the middle of a US Military "owned" spectrum space (225-400Mhz).
Furthermore, the most valuable spectrum in the United States starts at around 50MHz and goes upwards from there. Why would we not include that spectrum?
the story or the explosion? Please clarify.
Come on folks, this is a serious news article :-)
I've spent a tremendous amount of time listening to these bootleggers on the FLTSATCOM satellites. It is rather easy for them (the Brazilians and others) to modify a amateur radio or other transmitters to use these satellites.
Basically, these satellites work by listening on one frequency (an uplink), and rebroadcasting what they hear over a specified frequency bandwidth to listeners (a downlink). The uplink and downlink frequencies are well known and published across many mediums - including Mil-Std documents which specify how terminals should interact with these satellites.
I published a spectrum analysis article on this very topic here (shameless plus):
http://radioreference.blogspot.com/2008/10/vhfuhf-spectrum-analysis-using-rf-space.html
This method of communication is actually very secure for the US Military - since they rarely use clear voice on these transponders - meaning, they encrypt all transmissions to and from.
Now, an open repeater, in Geospacial orbit, provides a set of repeaters for anyone to use... either the US military (which they still actively use) - or others who have equipment that can transmit to, and reiceve from.
For those that are dismayed by this approach, understand that when this technology was developed, security by obscurity was a common approach even for military agencies. It wasn't feasible even 10 years ago to "authenticate" use access to open satellite transponders.
..then you are bound to hit your finger.
What about wiping?!?
Hell, who gives a crap how you pull the sheet of paper off the roll, how do you use it?
Fantastic!
Now that you guys have found my balls.... through their signature fingerprint(s), you can, well, ummmm....
First, I get this comment:
The membranes??? In actuality Neutron, what you are hearing is the wires connecting to the speaker are receiving harmonics being broadcast from the phone, not membranes reacting to EM fields.
Again, if the pilots saw avionics problems, they certainly aren't going to self-diagnose the problem and take off with a potential problem just waiting to happen.
On aircraft, there are transmitters that broadcast everything from Mode-S transmissions (1090 MHz @ 125-500 Watts) as well as VHF/UHF transmitters and on long range overseas aircraft HF Radio Transmissions that are in the hundreds of Watts category.
Someone sitting on the aircraft with a transmitter that *might* peak power output at 1 watt isn't going to cause these problems. Furthermore, we have airlines in production today with Wifi solutions (American Airlines etc) that currently allows production consumer equipment to be used.
And here I was told my cell phone is reacting with the membranes on my speakphone. Sheesh.
I am not a pilot, but I have extensive experience in the radio communications field, interference, and wireless devices. So, I know a bit about what we are talking about here.
I would also argue that most of the engineers that design and build aircraft, avionics, and the electrical systems of aircraft aren't pilots either. Same goes for the Q&A and test folks that put aircraft and avionics through extensive testing.
I'm going to tell you right now that your story is highly suspect. If the pilots experienced avionics problems before takeoff, such as instruments going "loopy" and things "flickering" - they would have taken that aircraft back to the gate faster than they could say the phrase "WTF!" They wouldn not have sat there and chided the passengers for a potential rouge "still-on" cell phone.
Don't take this the wrong way, but your story just isn't true. It's not. I flew over 150,000 miles on over 120+ segments last year on airlines, commuters, big jets, little jets, props, puddle jumpers , etc, and I like to claim I've seen it all on an aircraft. Fights, medical problems, idiotic passengers, and even people yapping on their cell phone on approach for landing. This was certainly never something even remotely close that I've seen on an aircraft.
Right there... when I read that I knew for sure this was unadulterated BS. Turning on a cell phone MIGHT cause a navigation aid to not receive a beacon, or register incorrectly, but a cell phone on in the aircraft isn't going to cause things to "twitch" and do "loopy" things.
I am amazed at some of the crap people post there days.
Go back and review this article, the purpose of this entire discussion in the first place is about the masses of people that struggle to adopt Mobile telephone platforms, not specialized tasks or hobbies. Someone entering into a photography contest or learning how to program in PHP are embarking upon specialized tasks that absolutely require specialized skills, training, and yes having to read the freaking manual.
The difference here in my argument is manufacturers are developing products for the general public, the masses, everyone from a 12yr kid to a 65yr retired person - all in one single product(s). Mobile phones are not designed with the primary purpose of allowing specialized tasks to occur, they are designed to allow people to communicate and collaborate with each other. If the mobile phone industry cannot make the usability of those platforms easier, then people will not adopt them.