OT: About my new E–mail address

Finally went high–speed (DSL, cable modem doesn't exist here) so
that's the domain change. You'd think in an area laden with rocket
scientists the cable company would have the sense to deploy cable
modem technology but they leave the high–speed business to SBC.
I've still got to put everything in a more permanent configuration but
that's a future task. I'm going to have a week off, three days, and a
four–day weekend. If I'm invited for Thanksgiving, I just might do it
this year. You never know my teammates. I"ve been invited and accepted
it some years, others I just didn't feel like stuffing myself so I
declined.
And as to the part of the left of the...@" it's parts of the names of
my two favorite sneaker brands!
It should be instructive that I took neither nikbok nor nikdas.
<grin/duck>

Charlie Perrin wrote:
SBC? Hmmm, I'm surprised they didn't give you attglobal or even
attbi...<grin/duck>
It does no good to break up Ma Bell if they're just going to merge
back together again.
But hey, apparently Mediacom got at least some of their backbone and
IP's from ATT Worldnet.
Veronica
––
Makeup, it takes believing in. Like a magic carpet, it's belief that
makes it fly. Otherwise, it's just a rug.
If you believe in it, makeup has a magic all it's own.
Of course, makeup is only dime–store magic. But it works well enough,
when it's used properly.",
the makeup artist, from the book Sooner or Later, based on the 1978 TV
movie of the same name.

On Tue, 15 Nov 2005 03:22:21 GMT, Veronica Moonlit wrote:
Finally went high–speed (DSL, cable modem doesn't exist here) so
that's the domain change. You'd think in an area laden with rocket
scientists the cable company would have the sense to deploy cable
modem technology but they leave the high–speed business to SBC.
I keep wanting to "dial up" the DSL.
The way mine is set up, you log on when you want to use the computer
and log off when you're done and it hands back the IP address.
They're still separate companies.
And, hopefully, they'll grandfather the SBC E–mail addresses.
My classic line about backwards compatibility: "You can still buy
Edsel oil filters."
Even with SBC–AT&T it's going to be in more pieces than it was in
1983.
Local phone service (not a growing business, alas) is a natural
regulated monopoly. Alternatively, but I doubt this would happen, they
could adopt the Texas electric service model for telephone service.
The electric wires to my apartment are handled by a regulated monopoly
that builds and fixes the wires between competing suppliers and the
users on an open–access, non–discriminatory basis. To make sure, wires
companies have to stay out of generation (Houston) or they have to
have a Chinese wall between the two parts of the company like they
(IIRC) do in the Dallas Metroplex. I've got TXU stock. They talk about
generation metrics (KWH sold) and distribution reliability metrics
(average failures per year, length of average outage) on their calls.
What they want is to sell more KWH and have fewer outages.
And as long as no long distance carrier gets more than 35% of the
business, the FTC believes from long experience that that's enough
competition to keep consumers from being hurt.
I've got SBC long distance, but Sprint, MCI, Vonage, cell phones,
etc., would all be happy to have me. Mom thinks cell phone voice
quality stinks, so the only time I call her with it is when I'm out of
the house. I switched to a bigger bucket of prepaid wireline minutes
(they're not THAT expensive any more) to facilitate this.
On the other hand, Wal–Mart is still under 10% of retail and people
call it a stinking monopoly. Those who are worried about the Wal–Mart
monopoly are probably the grandchildren of those who worried about the
Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company monopoly. IMHO, I'd worry more
about Target as people have lots of reasons to ding Wal–Mart compared
to Target.
The only thing consistent about business is its relative impermanence.
Sears was the number #1 retail store, then K–Mart. Now, they merged to
try to save the dinosaurs.
BD was the only major sharps maker to survive the transition to
sterile disposables. OK, BD is the only major sharps maker. When I
found out Tyco made them back when I had their stock, I said "Oh,
Monoject... I've heard of them but you don't see them much!" (Who
wants to look at sharps anyway? I will say after last week that the
technology for fingersticks has improved since the last one I had
before that.)
And if you were going to name the Big Seven automakers worldwide, they
would be:
Toyota
Honda
DaimlerChrysler
Nissan
Volkswagen
Ford
General Motors
Now, see if you can figure out how I ordered them.
*
*
*
SPOILER
*
*
* The sort is on the total value of their outstanding stock if I
remember the order correctly.

Charlie Perrin wrote:
Sounds like PPPoE,annoying. My IP is semi–static, though changing
more often this year.
They probably will, knowing how annoying it is to alert everyone to a
change of e–mail.
I did not know that.
35% is too high.
It is, in certain places. And it feels like more than 10% and again,
probably is in certain locales.
Tarzhay just feels "less evil" than Wal–Mart. Kind of like how Google
feels less Evil than MSN or Yahoo.
So true.
It might work, you never know.
I think Monoject focuses on certain special purpose sharp pointy
thingies. Every lab area I've seen has a few monoject supplies, plus
the hordes of BD. And yes fingerstick tech has improved greatly.
My guess was either Dollar Value of the company or amount of losses
this year from lowest to highest.
Oh.Thanks.
Your Biz posts are always interesting reading.
Veronica
––
Makeup, it takes believing in. Like a magic carpet, it's belief that
makes it fly. Otherwise, it's just a rug.
If you believe in it, makeup has a magic all it's own.
Of course, makeup is only dime–store magic. But it works well enough,
when it's used properly.",
the makeup artist, from the book Sooner or Later, based on the 1978 TV
movie of the same name.

On Tue, 15 Nov 2005 05:00:20 GMT, Veronica Moonlit wrote:
I think it is PPPoE. I have no particular druthers to having a static
address. They'll give me one at extra charge but it's better than
dialup.
Even with SBC–AT&T it's going to be in more pieces than it was in
1983.
Old AT&T is (at least):
Lucent, Avaya (hardware)
AT&T, SBC, BellSouth, Qwest, non–GTE Verizon (phone service).
Eight businesses (soon to be seven) are six more than one.
The downside is the extra seven overpaid CEOs. <grin/duck>
And as long as no long distance carrier gets more than 35% of the
business, the FTC believes from long experience that that's enough
competition to keep consumers from being hurt.
Unless there's some particular factor, it's generally not enough to
have much price–setting capability.
On the other hand, Wal–Mart is still under 10% of retail and people
call it a stinking monopoly.
IIRC, Target is more than 10% of Minnesota retail, but that's their
prime business area.
That's where they started. In fact, Target #1 was recently razed and
replaced with a SuperTarget (IIRC, the same site). Here, they built
greenfield a few blocks down the street and renovated the former
Target into something else.
Wal–Mart aims their store policies so they will feel at home to
customers in the Former Confederacy. They're also obsessive about
moving stuff cheap, to the point where they make the shopping
experience less nice than some of their competitors. Target is a bit
less so.
When AG Edwards did their "buy" on Target, they commented that they
found the nicer shopping experience comes at only a de minimus
difference in price.
The only cropper is that when Wal–Mart does bad results, the market is
stupid enough to take it out on Target. Good grief. Somebody should
tell those New York City traders that Wal–Mart is the American
equivalent of the old Russian GUM and nobody really wants to shop
there. (Target shows better comp–store numbers month after month.)
Sears was the number #1 retail store, then K–Mart. Now, they merged to
try to save the dinosaurs.
So might International Steel Group (a collection of old dinosaur
plants) but I'd put my bets on NUCOR (minimills and other "disruptive
technologies" like Castrip).
FWIW, I like my NUE.
I hadn't had one in probably 20 years.
The only dumb thing was they decided 2 hours later they needed a
venipuncture to do electrolytes.
IMHO, Jim Cramer is to TV as I am to AF.
I find reading about the companies interesting and when I go back to
the Farm on vacation I usually stuff my bags with stacks of annual
reports as reading material. One year, I left BNSF Railway by
accident.
My brother Allen (who lives with Mom: Allen gets a roof, Mom gets
help, it's a great deal for booth) finds annual reports boring. He
also looks askance about reading the news on a cell phone. I do both.
IIRC, the last time I read the news on mine was Friday night at CVS.
Kept me distracted while they went through a number of Rx I brought in
(a couple of new things, a couple of old things in new dosage levels).
Once they decide that's what they want, it's all going mail order
anyway.

begin quotation
from Charlie Perrin <nikve...@sbcglobal.net.BUTNOTWORKS>
in message <36min1d6qs0fq9gj6j4u3kjo7hu5bs3...@4ax.com>
posted at 2005–11–15T04:19
Imposing a dialup protocol on top of DSL defeats most of the advantages
of DSL in my opinion, not to mention it hits your available bandwidth
pretty hard (around 10%).
To make matters worse, the standard contract (1 year? 2 years?) is set
up so that you get stuck with the penalty if you try to break it, yet
the ISP (in this case, SBC) can legally cover their butt and make it
look like any reason they break it is beyond their control.
––
___ _ _____ |*|
/ __| |/ / _ \ |*| Shawn K. Quinn
\__ \ ' < (_) | |*| skqu...@speakeasy.net
|___/_|\_\__\_\ |*| Houston, TX, USA

Hey Charlie, did you see the Wal–Mart documentary last week? I went to
one that was sponsored by a union local. It was nothing new, stuff we
already know, but it was interesting when former WM managers (store
GMs, regional managers, and some higher) were speaking, on the record,
about some of WM's labor practices and things. There was a bit about
environmental issues, too.
Anyhow, if you get a chance, it wasn't too bad.
NM

On Mon, 21 Nov 2005 21:48:39 –0600, "Shawn K. Quinn" wrote:
I keep wanting to "dial up" the DSL.
I think the only dialup protocol is "brain–o." I solved that by
removing the now–useless wimpy modem connection (but the wimpy modem
is still in the machine as a backup, not that I expect to need it that
much).
I pulled a couple of those at work today. Too long since I had to dial
a "9" to get an outside line, although I probly done . <grin/duck>
If that's a 10% hit, I'd hate to see full–speed DSL. I thought I was
running a dialup at times at work today. ("And you can tell when
everybody is on their VOIP phones: net throughput goes to near
nothing.")
Nothing new there... as I said, my options are wimpy dialup and DSL
until Wimax blankets Houston. That'll be long after the contract
period, and (barring really disruptive technology they can't figure
out yet for cell phones) wires beat wireless every time a truck
doesn't hit the pole.
After all, high–power EDAC like Reed–Solomon got its first uses in
flaky–data–prone media like Compact Disc and satellite links.
Not for long.
Little SBC, the runt of the Baby Bells when it was born 21 years ago,
has not only eaten its Mama, but it's Mama's name and its Mama's
single–character ticker symbol.... they're switching from "SBC" to "T"
on the stock market the first of the month.
Talk about cannibalism. <grin/duck>
Tell me who writes contracts differently.
On the other hand, the State of Texas is going after Sony BMG for the
recalled combination audio CD/spyware creation of theirs. I just hope
Greg Abbott hires the work out to the lawyer that did that Angleton
VIOXX case.
Sony (Japanese), BMG (German): technology brought to you by the two of
the three members of WWII's Axis of Evil. But if you threw Italian in
there, the CD probably would probably double as a buzz saw, especially
if they subcontracted the work to Fiat. <grin/duck>