It sends email from anybody to anybody for 1 ($0.01) each. You open an account with them, drop in say $10 and you've bought the rights to send 1,000 emails.
Even though a penny an email sounds innocuous, this just won't fly. For one thing, the infrastructure you'd need to track the financial side of things would probably prevent the figure from being that low. Plus there's the whole loss-of-anonymity that goes along with paying for email rights. The biggest problem is that while this service might appeal to those on the receiving end of email, I can't see a wide market wanting to sign up as senders...
That's a great point - keyboards have gotten cheaper and cheaper, when in reality it wouldn't take very much in material cost to add some heft that would make one model distinct in the marketplace...
Quite the contrary - the manufacturing workers were wrong (in terms of the overall economy). Lowered trade barriers have greatly boosted international trade and economic growth over the last two decades.
If you'd listened to the likes of Ross Perot back in 1992, however, you'd think that by now unemployment would be 20% or something after NAFTA. As it turns out, they were flat-out wrong.
In the big picture, however, it is only a small fraction of the workforce that is losing their jobs, while better pricing and competition benefit consumers as a whole. That's the same tired line that manufacturing workers have rolled out for decades, yet the US economy is still the strongest in the world...
True, the barrier is more psychological than anything, but knocking it down will still make the cell phone business that much more competitive, which will be a good thing for consumers.
I suspect that the people most likely to take advantage of this are 1) casual users with a wide number of friends and family for whom changing numbers can be a hassle, and 2) small-business or self-employed users who may have significant stocks of business cards and stationary that they'd have to change otherwise.
Visa runs the credit card network, the individual cards and accounts are issued by banks (or other companies like big retailers), so there's nothing deceiptful going on. I would have thought the lawyers advice could be much shorter and simpler:
1) Sue everybody that you can identify along the chain: the person who took the application, the bank that issued the card, Visa, any spammers you can identify, etc.
2) The most readily identifiable, and juiciest targets are of course the issuing bank and Visa. With the work of a good attorney, they should be willing to settle for an amount that will make everyone happy.
In my experience, Quicktime under Windows sucks eggs. I've plenty of power (1 GB RAM, 3 Ghz Pentium 4) and Quicktime always seems to chug along, while other players work perfectly...
While market capitalization is indeed price-per-share times outstanding shares, there are price floors that are worth noting. Most mutual funds, for example, have strict limits against investing in any stock under $5, and NASDAQ requires that shares remain above $1 to remain on the main board (as opposed to the small cap NASDAQ). I can't recall what the NYSE's requirement is.
The important aspect here is having a reasonable trading range for a stock - when you get down to the pennies, small variations in supply and demand can yield wild swings in price. On the opposite end, most firms split their shares (reducing the price and doubling the quantity) when the price gets too high, in order to keep it within the range of the general investor. The great exception to this is Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway, which trades for something like $80,000 a share!
One such example is MultiDesk from ATI. Anybody know if this will work for a laptop hooked up to a docking station? I've got an ATI Radeon Mobility here at work, and have a regular CRT hooked up to my docking station. It would be nifty if I could run the laptop display and the CRT as separate monitors and have the desktop span both...
And this has been a very welcome trend - about 10 years ago when I was at Michigan they started a pilot program for using debit cards with selected local merchants. For me at that time, there were two great benefits:
1) Didn't need to run to the ATM for cash (and get charged fees), and
2) Didn't have to carry cash, thus making it easier to turn down the bums(*) outside the party store asking for change.
* - yes, I know that's horribly politically uncorrect, save your flames.
I highly recommend following the DOJ links to the indictment. This guy hacked into other computers to send out tens of thousands of bogus emails that caused massive boucebacks to the victims. Sure, the "maximum" sentences look absurd, but that's where the interesting part of this case will come in. The guy clearly needs to have the book thrown at him, and spend some time in "federal, pound-me-in-the-ass prison." Just how much remains to be seen...
Just remember, though, that when you were a teenager you knew what you were doing was against the rules - and at a bare minimum, it's a parent's responsibility to communicate those rules. You are a much different person (presumably) than you were then, so it's hardly hypocricy to try and steer your kids away from those things.
With 3 toddlers of my own, I wonder what life will be like in 10-15 years. My plan so far is to use Chef's line from South Park: "Children - there's a time and a place for everything, and it's called college."
Actually, Microsoft is well respected in financial circles for "quality of earnings." That's Wall Street jargon for "we actually understand how and where you make your money," as opposed to the Enrons of the world who were basically playing a massive shell game.
While $520 million might be a drop in Microsoft's $40 billion bucket, it's still a big enough factor to warrent a change in practices. Too bad the anti-trust efforts didn't enjoy this level of success...
Slashdot Mirror
Heck, this was dead even before you could fp! I tried checking it from The Mysterious Future, but it was already DOA.
It sends email from anybody to anybody for 1 ($0.01) each. You open an account with them, drop in say $10 and you've bought the rights to send 1,000 emails.
Even though a penny an email sounds innocuous, this just won't fly. For one thing, the infrastructure you'd need to track the financial side of things would probably prevent the figure from being that low. Plus there's the whole loss-of-anonymity that goes along with paying for email rights. The biggest problem is that while this service might appeal to those on the receiving end of email, I can't see a wide market wanting to sign up as senders...
These days you don't need a maintenance service to keep your Wang up and running...
That's a great point - keyboards have gotten cheaper and cheaper, when in reality it wouldn't take very much in material cost to add some heft that would make one model distinct in the marketplace...
Personally, I can't believe a community such as Slashdot could get so excited over such old news.
Sincerely,
Johnny Sokko
Slashdot implements editorial standards
1st Death Penalty handed down for spamming
RFID tags implemented for tin foil, for ease in tracking hat-wearers
Quite the contrary - the manufacturing workers were wrong (in terms of the overall economy). Lowered trade barriers have greatly boosted international trade and economic growth over the last two decades.
If you'd listened to the likes of Ross Perot back in 1992, however, you'd think that by now unemployment would be 20% or something after NAFTA. As it turns out, they were flat-out wrong.
Sometimes, though, the Mysterious Future is a couple days away...
Sounds like this guy just hangs out on indmedia and kuro5hin too much. time for him to get out of his parents' basement and smell the fresh air.
Huh??? I thought those are qualifications, at least for ripping off stuff, dude!
And most importantly, it's the groups behind the web sites that are the true targets here. /. paranoia runs high on the weekends, too!
In the big picture, however, it is only a small fraction of the workforce that is losing their jobs, while better pricing and competition benefit consumers as a whole. That's the same tired line that manufacturing workers have rolled out for decades, yet the US economy is still the strongest in the world...
True, the barrier is more psychological than anything, but knocking it down will still make the cell phone business that much more competitive, which will be a good thing for consumers.
I suspect that the people most likely to take advantage of this are 1) casual users with a wide number of friends and family for whom changing numbers can be a hassle, and 2) small-business or self-employed users who may have significant stocks of business cards and stationary that they'd have to change otherwise.
Visa runs the credit card network, the individual cards and accounts are issued by banks (or other companies like big retailers), so there's nothing deceiptful going on. I would have thought the lawyers advice could be much shorter and simpler:
1) Sue everybody that you can identify along the chain: the person who took the application, the bank that issued the card, Visa, any spammers you can identify, etc.
2) The most readily identifiable, and juiciest targets are of course the issuing bank and Visa. With the work of a good attorney, they should be willing to settle for an amount that will make everyone happy.
In my experience, Quicktime under Windows sucks eggs. I've plenty of power (1 GB RAM, 3 Ghz Pentium 4) and Quicktime always seems to chug along, while other players work perfectly...
While market capitalization is indeed price-per-share times outstanding shares, there are price floors that are worth noting. Most mutual funds, for example, have strict limits against investing in any stock under $5, and NASDAQ requires that shares remain above $1 to remain on the main board (as opposed to the small cap NASDAQ). I can't recall what the NYSE's requirement is.
The important aspect here is having a reasonable trading range for a stock - when you get down to the pennies, small variations in supply and demand can yield wild swings in price. On the opposite end, most firms split their shares (reducing the price and doubling the quantity) when the price gets too high, in order to keep it within the range of the general investor. The great exception to this is Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway, which trades for something like $80,000 a share!
absolutely! yeesh...
One such example is MultiDesk from ATI. Anybody know if this will work for a laptop hooked up to a docking station? I've got an ATI Radeon Mobility here at work, and have a regular CRT hooked up to my docking station. It would be nifty if I could run the laptop display and the CRT as separate monitors and have the desktop span both...
And this has been a very welcome trend - about 10 years ago when I was at Michigan they started a pilot program for using debit cards with selected local merchants. For me at that time, there were two great benefits:
1) Didn't need to run to the ATM for cash (and get charged fees), and
2) Didn't have to carry cash, thus making it easier to turn down the bums(*) outside the party store asking for change.
* - yes, I know that's horribly politically uncorrect, save your flames.
Oh come on, next you're going to tell me that vendor-sponsored research from firms like Gartner and Forrester is suspect!
I highly recommend following the DOJ links to the indictment. This guy hacked into other computers to send out tens of thousands of bogus emails that caused massive boucebacks to the victims. Sure, the "maximum" sentences look absurd, but that's where the interesting part of this case will come in. The guy clearly needs to have the book thrown at him, and spend some time in "federal, pound-me-in-the-ass prison." Just how much remains to be seen...
Don't forget, you get pinball and Minesweeper too - that makes it only $100 each!
Just remember, though, that when you were a teenager you knew what you were doing was against the rules - and at a bare minimum, it's a parent's responsibility to communicate those rules. You are a much different person (presumably) than you were then, so it's hardly hypocricy to try and steer your kids away from those things.
With 3 toddlers of my own, I wonder what life will be like in 10-15 years. My plan so far is to use Chef's line from South Park: "Children - there's a time and a place for everything, and it's called college."
bah - I'll just wait for the book to come out...
Actually, Microsoft is well respected in financial circles for "quality of earnings." That's Wall Street jargon for "we actually understand how and where you make your money," as opposed to the Enrons of the world who were basically playing a massive shell game.
While $520 million might be a drop in Microsoft's $40 billion bucket, it's still a big enough factor to warrent a change in practices. Too bad the anti-trust efforts didn't enjoy this level of success...