And the real beauty of it -- to what tremendous research project did the Big Mac contribute in VT's pursuit of top 30 greatness? The answer: none. Not a single piece of meaningful output (unless benchmarking results count). AFAIK, it never once got used, *except* to generate the aforementioned PR and grant dollars. (For those who have never worked on an academic grant, note that the university routinely takes 25-30% of the grant money off the top. Do the math, and you'll see why the university loves this project.) The Big Mac is, frankly, a farce. A profitable farce, to be sure, but if I thought I could get a grant to hire those history professors back -- I live downstairs from you in the philosophy department, and nobody's throwing cash at us, either:) -- I would tell the Big Mac to hit the road.
Of course, new history and philosophy professors don't come with shiny chrome cases that look good on television.
Telemarketing does nothing for me. Maybe if when they called I got 50 cents off my my phone bill each month I wouldn't get so ticked.
Actually, I'm not so sure that this doesn't happen, although it probably takes the roundabout way. Consider the U.S. Postal Service: Why can you mail a letter for 32 cents, when it costs the postal service much more than 32 cents to get your letter from point A to point B? The answer, of course, is that they make the majority of their revenue from bulk mail permits. All of that junk mail ultimately contributes to allowing you to get a couple of pieces of paper from your home to some other place 2,000 miles away for the low cost of one quarter, one nickel, and two pennies.
Does your telephone bill work similarly? I have no idea. But it may. Telemarketers don't get to make those calls or lease those 800 numbers for free. I don't know what percentage of the average telco's revenue comes from telemarketing, but I would be very interested to find out. So far, the DNC registry issue has been portrayed as one of consumers vs. telemarketers, but let's not forget that the telco makes a killing off of those calls, and then makes a killing again by selling the consumer tools to block those calls. I would be very surprised if they didn't have a strong lobbying interest in this whole deal...
If you were going to change the DNS standard, then I wouldn't suppose that altering the stated purpose of the MX record would be the best way to do it. Keep your incoming and outgoing MTA's seperate, and create a new record type that supplies the *outgoing* MTA's for a domain, such that I can do a SET TYPE=MX to get a list of your incoming mail hosts, or a SET TYPE=MDA (or something along those lines) to get a list of your outgoing mail delivery agents. As admin of a site with a sizable outgoing SMTP farm, the thought of adding those machines to my MX list (even with a very low priority) makes me cringe.
It's pretty much exactly the same sort of deal the the US Postal Service has cut with bulk mailers. It also happens to be the single most (and perhaps only) profitable segment of the USPS. The only reason that you can still mail a letter for a mere 32 cents is that they make all of their real money stuffing your mailbox with credit card offers and Wal-Mart circulars. Seems like ISP's will inevitably move in the same direction.
Difference, of course, is that you can still choose your ISP in the US, so free market economics should sort the issue out in the end. Doesn't seem likely that you'll get your choice of postal carriers any time soon...
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> Popper's ideas about the nature of scientific inquiry have been proven incorrect...
Please tell me that you intended this statement to be ironic.
Popperian falsification has been falsified? I can't tell you relieved I am...
And the real beauty of it -- to what tremendous research project did the Big Mac contribute in VT's pursuit of top 30 greatness? The answer: none. Not a single piece of meaningful output (unless benchmarking results count). AFAIK, it never once got used, *except* to generate the aforementioned PR and grant dollars. (For those who have never worked on an academic grant, note that the university routinely takes 25-30% of the grant money off the top. Do the math, and you'll see why the university loves this project.) The Big Mac is, frankly, a farce. A profitable farce, to be sure, but if I thought I could get a grant to hire those history professors back -- I live downstairs from you in the philosophy department, and nobody's throwing cash at us, either :) -- I would tell the Big Mac to hit the road.
Of course, new history and philosophy professors don't come with shiny chrome cases that look good on television.
Telemarketing does nothing for me. Maybe if when they called I got 50 cents off my my phone bill each month I wouldn't get so ticked.
Actually, I'm not so sure that this doesn't happen, although it probably takes the roundabout way. Consider the U.S. Postal Service: Why can you mail a letter for 32 cents, when it costs the postal service much more than 32 cents to get your letter from point A to point B? The answer, of course, is that they make the majority of their revenue from bulk mail permits. All of that junk mail ultimately contributes to allowing you to get a couple of pieces of paper from your home to some other place 2,000 miles away for the low cost of one quarter, one nickel, and two pennies.
Does your telephone bill work similarly? I have no idea. But it may. Telemarketers don't get to make those calls or lease those 800 numbers for free. I don't know what percentage of the average telco's revenue comes from telemarketing, but I would be very interested to find out. So far, the DNC registry issue has been portrayed as one of consumers vs. telemarketers, but let's not forget that the telco makes a killing off of those calls, and then makes a killing again by selling the consumer tools to block those calls. I would be very surprised if they didn't have a strong lobbying interest in this whole deal...
You may be thinking of the VAX emulator for x86:
http://www.softresint.com/charon-vax/index.htm
As for an actual port, nope. VMS will exist for Itanium, though (at least until Hewlett-DECpaq sacrifices that, as well...)
So did CmdrTaco social engineer this Anonymous Coward into posting this proprietary company bulletin on Slashdot? The mind boggles!
/me dons trenchcoat and fedora:
"Tag 'em and bag 'em, Vinny -- this stiff's been slashdotted."
If you were going to change the DNS standard, then I wouldn't suppose that altering the stated purpose of the MX record would be the best way to do it. Keep your incoming and outgoing MTA's seperate, and create a new record type that supplies the *outgoing* MTA's for a domain, such that I can do a SET TYPE=MX to get a list of your incoming mail hosts, or a SET TYPE=MDA (or something along those lines) to get a list of your outgoing mail delivery agents. As admin of a site with a sizable outgoing SMTP farm, the thought of adding those machines to my MX list (even with a very low priority) makes me cringe.
It's pretty much exactly the same sort of deal the the US Postal Service has cut with bulk mailers. It also happens to be the single most (and perhaps only) profitable segment of the USPS. The only reason that you can still mail a letter for a mere 32 cents is that they make all of their real money stuffing your mailbox with credit card offers and Wal-Mart circulars. Seems like ISP's will inevitably move in the same direction.
Difference, of course, is that you can still choose your ISP in the US, so free market economics should sort the issue out in the end. Doesn't seem likely that you'll get your choice of postal carriers any time soon...