Yeah doesn't sound like an incredibly hard problem to solve. 1) Don't key off the damn show name. An int(11) series_id combined with a "series not found, please check for spelling errors" return when the network tries to submit a rating seems like something even a CS grad could make happen. 2) Adjust their algorithm to account for competing shows.
Isn't it a larger problem that the networks are submitting their own ratings? Who the hell thought this was a good idea? "No, trust us, that show did GREAT. It was HUGE." WTF.
Last random thought... This whole thing smells like a phone book company in an Internet world...
I never claimed that Internet providers were honest or implied they weren't happily bending us over at every opportunity. Was merely pointing out to AC that there are per-unit costs for delivering Internet. I do find your $9/month claim to be a bit dubious, care to provide a source?
For example, will it cost Cox more if I download 10 Tb in a month than 1 Tb?
Yes. Similar to an airplane full of mail, there is a finite amount of stuff you can put on a fiber line or an airplane. If they have to add more routes (a new fiber line, or another cargo plane) to accommodate the traffic, there is real cost there. Now, I know that the typical bitch in articles like this is "They sold me an unlimited plan, therefore I should get unlimited data", but that's not what you were asking.
As someone who has had to try and match up user's real name with their user name as part of a system migration, I care. When "Johnson, Robert Francis" turns into frank.johson@whatever.com it makes things a significant pain in the ass. I hate that my IT department allows nicknames on user names.
Allowing Da5id because it's "cool" or "edgy" (is it really though) is just dumb. One could also argue that having to resort to david1 through 4 is also dumb, if I have to e-mail Dave Johnson, is he David1, David2, David3, David4, ore Da5id?
Outside of a work environment, I'm 99% on board. Could care less if someone goes by David5554882, DavidJonson, NoReply, or Da5id,
I'd be willing to bet that eastlink as a "we can terminate your e-mail for any reason at any time" clause in it. But you have an interesting point. Normally I would take the "you get what you pay for" stance, for companies like Google, Yahoo, etc. where you get "free" e-mail, and would have less sympathy when they booted him. But being that he IS paying for his e-mail as part of his Internet service, that makes it potentially a little more interesting.
Hey, not trying to attack you personally. But I do have first hand experience on the subject, I was a Project Manager for a contractor that did maintenance and capital projects at a coal to liquids plant, Lignite burning power plants, and a refinery. Granted, the gas plant I worked at used the Lurgi process and this one uses a different one, I can't imagine they are THAT different in the overall scope of equipment requirements. The processes obviously are not 1:1 between a refinery and a gassification plant, but the complexity and resemblance of the processes is striking. I hold that the comparison on construction cost would be reasonable. Looking at the size of the one in question it would definitely fall on the small side for refineries.
As far as the Lignite itself, you are right is is not actually dirt, and I didn't intend to imply that it is literally dirt. But go ask anybody that has dealt with it and they will tell you it's like trying to burn dirt. The water content alone makes it a giant pain in the ass, and efficiently drying it to anywhere near the moisture content of high grade coal is no trivial task.
Claiming it's essentially a refinery and then googling oil refinery costs is stupid and irrelevant.
Comparing it to the cost of a Mars rover is any more relevant?
Have to correct my comment above... I used a Coal Based IGCC as my power plant example, costing 2.6B. A Gas Fired CC would be 1/2 to 1/4 of the 2.6B I suggested. My stance remains unchanged, $7B still isn't out-of-line with the cost to build a refinery and power plant.
You can't comprehend how building something that can turn what is essentially dirt into pure synthetic natural gas could cost even a billion dollars? I'd be surprised if you had any experience in the industry.
A coal to gas plant is essentially a refinery. Refineries aren't cheap, a quick google search would seem to indicate $5-15B is a good ball park for construction cost, depending on size. Most refineries (or gassification plants) have on-board heat and power generation designed to meet the needs of the refinery, this one has a 580MW combined cycle unit. (The IGCC of that size cost about $2.6B alone to build (source)
Is there someone making a pile of money off this? Absolutely. Is a $7b cost wildly out of sync with reality? Not really. Your rover example isn't a fair comparison. The cost of material and equipment alone for a project of this magnitude would cost more than $300M.
Coal gasification has been tried many times but it cannot pay for itself.
There have been successful examples. It just comes from being innovative with your processes and monetizing the "byproducts" of the syngas process. I haven't been there in a couple of years, so I don't know the current situation, but last I had heard there was more money being made on the "byproducts" than there was on the syngas. Dakota Gasification in ND is a decent example.
Around 2003-ish I worked at a pretty small business, it was a combination of retail, service, and a call center. My first "IT Job". We had a small intranet built by the in-house IT guy, most everything ran on Linux servers that needed a Windows box as an authentication bridge between the Linux and Windows systems. (I don't remember all the details of the authentication scheme, I just know the clients devices were all MS, and the server goodies were Linux.) Being they scrimped on every penny, the just used a client's box to run the Windows side of the bridge. The client upgraded it from XP SP1 to SP2, without telling the IT guy. SP2 was the first version to have Windows Firewall turned on by default. It took down our intranet and the call center once the cached credentials expired on the Linux side. Good times. Good times.
That, and "other people" aren't the president of the US. I would expect that the presidents' words will always continue to be heavily dissected and scrutinized, as they should be.
Agreed. Eye for an Eye may be appropriate in some cases, but this certainly isn't it. I think losing a cushy Government job, with a "got caught stealing" on their permanent record is probably punishment enough. With theft on their record they likely couldn't get a cashier job at WalMart, much less any high security job, for a long time.
A supermarket left open but unstaffed all day with no security would suffer amazing amounts of loss. But whose fault would this be?
[emphasis mine]
The people who stole the stuff. It's ALWAYS the fault of the person who stole the stuff. 100% of the time. If I don't lock my door and people clean out my house that makes me an idiot, but the person that cleaned it out is still the guilty party. (The insurance company may exercise their "idiot clause" and not reimburse me for my stuff because of my negligence. But that's not relevant to the conversation, the thief is still a thief, and should get the appropriate punishment if caught.)
So why reward the incompetent by expecting an unrequired level of honesty from users?
I agree, this is terrible programming. There are definitely ways around spotty connectivity, and FreedomPay has most definitely let their customer down by not adequately protecting their interest. I'm sure you wouldn't have to hunt around too long for a civil lawyer that would be willing to sue FreedomPay for their negligence, but that doesn't excuse the workers who exploited that negligence.
I would have preferred that it read like an actual "review" instead of a "rant".
As someone who is known to have an oft-used four letter vocabulary, I find it very unprofessional in journalism. Oh god, I just went an clicked the link to the "article". It's a god damned Twitter rant. What the fuck Slashdot? If I wanted to read a stupid drivel on Twitter I would have went to Twitter.
I did a quick search for work published by someone named "Anonymous Coward", but came up empty. The search just came back with a mountain of useless Slashdot comments.
Probably a dumb question, but per the second (twitter link):
..defendant...remotely accessed a TGB...and and changed the password to "fuckyou."
Wouldn't that imply that the passwords on these internet connected devices are being stored in plaintext somewhere? I'm no security expert, but that seems like it's a bad idea.
Slashdot Mirror
Hand the closest intern a pair of scissors and a hole punch, tell him to go sit on a bucket next to the fax machine. Then go have a coffee.
Hard to do with a fax machine...
Yeah doesn't sound like an incredibly hard problem to solve. 1) Don't key off the damn show name. An int(11) series_id combined with a "series not found, please check for spelling errors" return when the network tries to submit a rating seems like something even a CS grad could make happen. 2) Adjust their algorithm to account for competing shows.
Isn't it a larger problem that the networks are submitting their own ratings? Who the hell thought this was a good idea? "No, trust us, that show did GREAT. It was HUGE." WTF.
Last random thought... This whole thing smells like a phone book company in an Internet world...
Can't tell if elegant trolling or truly can't look far enough ahead to know what's coming. I will assume it's the former, and say "nice work"
Sounds like "rich daddy syndrome" to me. You don't "bum around Europe", go backpacking, and volunteer for a year for free. Neither is Yale.
I never claimed that Internet providers were honest or implied they weren't happily bending us over at every opportunity. Was merely pointing out to AC that there are per-unit costs for delivering Internet. I do find your $9/month claim to be a bit dubious, care to provide a source?
For example, will it cost Cox more if I download 10 Tb in a month than 1 Tb?
Yes. Similar to an airplane full of mail, there is a finite amount of stuff you can put on a fiber line or an airplane. If they have to add more routes (a new fiber line, or another cargo plane) to accommodate the traffic, there is real cost there. Now, I know that the typical bitch in articles like this is "They sold me an unlimited plan, therefore I should get unlimited data", but that's not what you were asking.
Who cares what someone else's user name is
As someone who has had to try and match up user's real name with their user name as part of a system migration, I care. When "Johnson, Robert Francis" turns into frank.johson@whatever.com it makes things a significant pain in the ass. I hate that my IT department allows nicknames on user names.
Allowing Da5id because it's "cool" or "edgy" (is it really though) is just dumb. One could also argue that having to resort to david1 through 4 is also dumb, if I have to e-mail Dave Johnson, is he David1, David2, David3, David4, ore Da5id?
Outside of a work environment, I'm 99% on board. Could care less if someone goes by David5554882, DavidJonson, NoReply, or Da5id,
I bet some lawyer could make a go at this.
I'd be willing to bet that eastlink as a "we can terminate your e-mail for any reason at any time" clause in it. But you have an interesting point. Normally I would take the "you get what you pay for" stance, for companies like Google, Yahoo, etc. where you get "free" e-mail, and would have less sympathy when they booted him. But being that he IS paying for his e-mail as part of his Internet service, that makes it potentially a little more interesting.
Hey, not trying to attack you personally. But I do have first hand experience on the subject, I was a Project Manager for a contractor that did maintenance and capital projects at a coal to liquids plant, Lignite burning power plants, and a refinery. Granted, the gas plant I worked at used the Lurgi process and this one uses a different one, I can't imagine they are THAT different in the overall scope of equipment requirements. The processes obviously are not 1:1 between a refinery and a gassification plant, but the complexity and resemblance of the processes is striking. I hold that the comparison on construction cost would be reasonable. Looking at the size of the one in question it would definitely fall on the small side for refineries.
As far as the Lignite itself, you are right is is not actually dirt, and I didn't intend to imply that it is literally dirt. But go ask anybody that has dealt with it and they will tell you it's like trying to burn dirt. The water content alone makes it a giant pain in the ass, and efficiently drying it to anywhere near the moisture content of high grade coal is no trivial task.
Claiming it's essentially a refinery and then googling oil refinery costs is stupid and irrelevant.
Comparing it to the cost of a Mars rover is any more relevant?
Have to correct my comment above... I used a Coal Based IGCC as my power plant example, costing 2.6B. A Gas Fired CC would be 1/2 to 1/4 of the 2.6B I suggested. My stance remains unchanged, $7B still isn't out-of-line with the cost to build a refinery and power plant.
You can't comprehend how building something that can turn what is essentially dirt into pure synthetic natural gas could cost even a billion dollars? I'd be surprised if you had any experience in the industry.
A coal to gas plant is essentially a refinery. Refineries aren't cheap, a quick google search would seem to indicate $5-15B is a good ball park for construction cost, depending on size. Most refineries (or gassification plants) have on-board heat and power generation designed to meet the needs of the refinery, this one has a 580MW combined cycle unit. (The IGCC of that size cost about $2.6B alone to build (source)
Is there someone making a pile of money off this? Absolutely. Is a $7b cost wildly out of sync with reality? Not really. Your rover example isn't a fair comparison. The cost of material and equipment alone for a project of this magnitude would cost more than $300M.
Coal gasification has been tried many times but it cannot pay for itself.
There have been successful examples. It just comes from being innovative with your processes and monetizing the "byproducts" of the syngas process. I haven't been there in a couple of years, so I don't know the current situation, but last I had heard there was more money being made on the "byproducts" than there was on the syngas. Dakota Gasification in ND is a decent example.
Has anyone ever had a positive opinion on change? It's human nature to not like change... It doesn't matter who it is or what the change is...
Around 2003-ish I worked at a pretty small business, it was a combination of retail, service, and a call center. My first "IT Job". We had a small intranet built by the in-house IT guy, most everything ran on Linux servers that needed a Windows box as an authentication bridge between the Linux and Windows systems. (I don't remember all the details of the authentication scheme, I just know the clients devices were all MS, and the server goodies were Linux.) Being they scrimped on every penny, the just used a client's box to run the Windows side of the bridge. The client upgraded it from XP SP1 to SP2, without telling the IT guy. SP2 was the first version to have Windows Firewall turned on by default. It took down our intranet and the call center once the cached credentials expired on the Linux side. Good times. Good times.
That, and "other people" aren't the president of the US. I would expect that the presidents' words will always continue to be heavily dissected and scrutinized, as they should be.
Agreed. Eye for an Eye may be appropriate in some cases, but this certainly isn't it. I think losing a cushy Government job, with a "got caught stealing" on their permanent record is probably punishment enough. With theft on their record they likely couldn't get a cashier job at WalMart, much less any high security job, for a long time.
A supermarket left open but unstaffed all day with no security would suffer amazing amounts of loss. But whose fault would this be?
[emphasis mine]
The people who stole the stuff. It's ALWAYS the fault of the person who stole the stuff. 100% of the time. If I don't lock my door and people clean out my house that makes me an idiot, but the person that cleaned it out is still the guilty party. (The insurance company may exercise their "idiot clause" and not reimburse me for my stuff because of my negligence. But that's not relevant to the conversation, the thief is still a thief, and should get the appropriate punishment if caught.)
So why reward the incompetent by expecting an unrequired level of honesty from users?
I agree, this is terrible programming. There are definitely ways around spotty connectivity, and FreedomPay has most definitely let their customer down by not adequately protecting their interest. I'm sure you wouldn't have to hunt around too long for a civil lawyer that would be willing to sue FreedomPay for their negligence, but that doesn't excuse the workers who exploited that negligence.
Sounds vaguely familiar.
...makes as much sense as studying hammers rather than learning carpentry.
Hit the nail on the head with that comment.
I would have preferred that it read like an actual "review" instead of a "rant".
As someone who is known to have an oft-used four letter vocabulary, I find it very unprofessional in journalism. Oh god, I just went an clicked the link to the "article". It's a god damned Twitter rant. What the fuck Slashdot? If I wanted to read a stupid drivel on Twitter I would have went to Twitter.
As an _actual_ oceanographer
[Citation needed]
I did a quick search for work published by someone named "Anonymous Coward", but came up empty. The search just came back with a mountain of useless Slashdot comments.
..defendant...remotely accessed a TGB...and and changed the password to "fuckyou."
Wouldn't that imply that the passwords on these internet connected devices are being stored in plaintext somewhere? I'm no security expert, but that seems like it's a bad idea.
How do we know you weren't paid to tell us this?
To quote a famous scholarly owl, "the world may never know."
7. Don't listen to anybody that has been paid by someone else to get you to do/eat/take something.