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| 2008/12/15-29 [Recreation/Computer/Games, Computer/HW/Laptop] UID:52248 Activity:nil |
12/15 Anyone have opinions on media streamers that connect to your tv and
let you play all those bittorrented movies? I'm getting sick of
my xbox refusing to play every other video.
\_ My current solution is an old pc with a cheap video card, using
Synergy on my laptop. This plus every episode of MST3K has provided
much entertainment.
\_ the leet hacker types use mythtv. http://www.mythtv.org
\_ The goal is to have a dedicated box. A full computer is such
a waste of electricy, and if I want it to be quiet it costs far
too much. |
| 2008/12/15-28 [Politics/Domestic/President/Clinton] UID:52249 Activity:nil |
12/15 You've got to be kidding me.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D953B0C00
\_ She's "an attorney, editor, writer and member of the New York
and Washington, D.C. bar associations" according to wikipedia.
How is she any less qualified than anyone else? |
| 2008/12/15-28 [Computer/SW/Languages/Web] UID:52250 Activity:nil |
12/15 who really is entropy.ch?
\_ "This is the homepage of Marc Liyanage."
\_ isn't that the php maintainer?
\_ known terrorist
\_ just compile your php already, paolo |
| 2008/12/15 [Computer/Companies/Ebay] UID:52251 Activity:moderate |
12/14 Got really screwed by this eBay buyer (says he'll pay, then
waits, then says he'll pay by check, then makes up a story,
then at the end says you're rude and doesn't want to pay
anymore). eBay refuses to do anything about it. WTF? What
is the best way to get back at this guy?
\_ That's hardly "really screwed." You still have the item, right.
Fucking suck it up and sell it to someone else.
\_ Hack into the EBay computers to get his IP address, then impersonate
a police officer to get his ISP to give up his home address. Then
go to his house and fill a paper bag full of dog poop, put it on
his doorstep, light it on fire and ring the doorbell. This is
hilarious, as he will come out and try and stomp out the fire.
\_ That IS pretty funny. So what do I need to do as step 1
e.g. how do I hack into eBay?
\_ You expect me to explain everything to you???
\_ ebay won't do anything? What do you expect them to do? When this
happened to me ebay refunded me the listing fee and the guy got
bad feedback.
\_ Starting September 2008 sellers can no longer leave bad
feedbacks to buyers. Presumably, there are a LOT more
bad sellers than bad buyers.
\_ oh noes, bad feedback! Whatever will he do?!!
\_ Again, what are you expecting ebay to do? Charge the guy
with fraud? Castrate him? What? |
| 2008/12/15-28 [Finance/Investment] UID:52252 Activity:nil |
12/14 Short-term pop possibility: FDRY is being bought by Brocade.
Deal is priced at $16.50 (cash, not tied to BRCD's stock price).
FDRY is currently trading at $15.70; shareholder vote is on
Wednesday 12/17. FDRY shareholders will gladly take the deal;
the only risk is that financing for the deal falls through,
but it looks solid to me. Quick 5%. -tom
\_ Will look into it, but there's not much room for arbitrage
at this point. When would the deal close?
\_ Supposed to close by 12/31. There will also be a special
dividend to shareholders from sale of auctionable securities.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/081208/aqm044.html?.v=61
($50 million is about 30 cents/share).
Looks like pretty easy money to me. -tom
\_ Update: Auction rate securities sold, proceeds 24.9 cents
per share to be paid as dividends on the sale. -tom
\_ this doesn't sound like tom. -tom #1 fan
\_ Why not? I am on record as holding FDRY. -tom
\_ I didn't think of you as someone who believed that
individual investors can effectively act as arbitrageurs.
\_ As a general rule, that's true, but I think this market
is pretty broken, which leaves some opportunities out
there. If the deal fails, FDRY will tank, so you're taking
on some risk. If the deal succeeds, the math is pretty
obvious. -tom
P.S.: Just bought some at 15.50 in my play account.
\_ Update: Merger approved, deal expected to close
tomorrow, stock at 16.66. Too late to get in now.
Brocade might be interesting as a long-term play,
if you think adding Foundry improves their business.
-tom
\_ Good trade. Congrats! That's almost 10% if you
include the dividend. You selling now?
\_ I'll just wait for the deal to close, they'll
be paying out cash. -tom |
| 2008/12/15-28 [Uncategorized] UID:52253 Activity:nil |
12/15 Fitch says Alt-A RMBS losses far exceed estimates for "moderate
stress" scenario from earlier this year -- rapid increase in 60+-day
delinquencies despite delays in foreclosures (I would think delaying
foreclosures would eventually ramp 60+-day delinquencies to a series of
steady states) |
| 2008/12/15-29 [Computer/Networking] UID:52254 Activity:kinda low |
12/15 ausman, maybe this can help form your views on net neutrality:
http://lessig.org/blog/2008/12/the_madeup_dramas_of_the_wall.html
if you're bored, skip down to the iFilm example.
\_ jim: consider the case of a private electrical utility:
do you believe in "current neurality"? i agree if say GOOG
were to put in a giant server complex creating a sudden local
demand shock the utility could not have planned on, perhaps
they should talk and work something out ... it's unfair to
make the rest of the area pay the consequences of the shortfall
or to obligate the utility to give google whatever they demand.
but that's a different case than saying we're going to turn the
power on and off a couple of times a day to google's data center
unless they sign up for out "premium current delivery service".
i personally think this is a case of alllowing price discrimination
and a shakedown and not a case of an unfair damand shock which comes
and a shakedown and not a case of an unfair demand shock which comes
out of nowhere. as i said before in the motd [that comment may have
been deleted], classical supply side price discrimination allows
the producer to suck up consumer surplus and convert it into
revenue.
\_ Yeah, like I have said, I haven't entirely worked out all the
issues, which are actually pretty complicated. I wonder if most
NN supporters are mostly just ignorant about how the Internet
NN supporters are just ignorant about how the Internet
works and have therefore decided to take a simplistic "every
packet is sacred" approach. There is already quite a bit of
pricing discrimination going on in the Net, try connecting from
an Internet cafe in Cairo if you don't believe me. Why is it
okay to drop packets because of a congested router (often a
deliberately congested router, so as to reduce bandwidth costs)
deliberately congested router, so as to limit bandwidth costs)
but not okay to do traffic shaping? And do they really think that
it is immoral to blackhole known spammers and botnets? Maybe
we just need to switch from a 95% of peak load model of charging
for net bandwidth, to a total bits delivered charge. If you want
to talk about "unfair" is it fair to make the majority of
Internet users have to pay to build out the infrastructure for
the small minority that runs bittorrent?
\- if bittorrent were the problem they were trying to solve, te
solution wouldnt be shakedown the people with deep pockets.
\_ This is true, the "right" solution from my perspective,
is to charge people for the bits they use, instead of
trying to strongarm the service providers.
\_ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122929270127905065.html
Even Google wants its own pipes now.
\_ That article is shit. Google wants caching servers like
Akamai. -tom
\_ That article is being strongly disputed by most of the
people it talks about.
\_ So it is okay for GOOG to build out a private, proprietary
network from their content distribution location to a Tier
One NAP and then sign an agreement for them to get dedicated
network connectivity there, which speeds up their content
delivery to end users, but it is *not* okay for them to
pay for a Tier One ISP to just carry the bits faster from
end to end? Is that what you are suggesting?
\_ You're begging the question. -tom
\_ What do you think that "caching servers like Akamai"
entails? How would you describe their CDN network?
\_ I certainly wouldn't describe it as having its
own pipes. -tom
\_ Certainly some of the CDNs do. Limelight does.
Maybe Akamai does not.
\_ How about if GOOG then expanded that network all the
way to your house and offered you 100% free GOOGnet
connectivity, but only with their content on it? Should
that be legal?
\_ What if you could use Monopoly money to pay for it,
wouldn't that be cool? -tom
\_ And then if after you started using your GOOGnet
connection, paid for by monopoly money, what if
GOOG started carrying other traffic on it, for
free, but not as fast as the GOOG stuff. Would
it still be cool? Just questions...
\_ If anyone who wanted to could install last
mile cable that would be fine, however
in the real world that's just not feasable,
and that's why like net neutrality is so
important.
\_ Perhaps you didn't know about GOOG's offer
to provide municipal free wireless to the
entire City of San Francisco.
\_ "Anyone who wanted" is key. Wireless
bandwidth is very limited.
\_ And the offer wasn't fulfilled --oj
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/31/BUT6RSDTU.DTL
\_ Yes, I am aware of this, but it shows that the idea is more than just
a hypothetical. It is possible that this will happen sooner or later.
\_ Not all hypotheticals are worth considering.
\_ Yes, but what if they were? |
| 2008/12/15-28 [Uncategorized] UID:52255 Activity:nil |
12/15 "U.S. anti-kidnap expert kidnapped in Mexico"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081215/us_nm/us_mexico_kidnap
What an insult to the US. |
| 2008/12/15-28 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers] UID:52256 Activity:nil |
12/15 "Serious flaw in Internet Explorer not fixed yet (AP)"
http://www.csua.org/u/n3z (tech.yahoo.com) |