gnu@sun.uucp (John Gilmore) (12/13/84)
Go for it, Lauren! Remember Sturgeon's Law: "Ninety percent of everything is crap." In other words, there will always be assholes on Usenet. And if you need some extra money to push it along, just ask. [Unfortunately I have more money than time these days...]
robison@eosp1.UUCP (Tobias D. Robison) (12/14/84)
Lauren, I wish you well, but I doubt that many people
will pay the $500.
- Toby Robison (not Robinson!)
{allegra, decvax!ittvax, fisher, princeton}!eosp1!robisonavolio@grendel.UUCP (Frederick M. Avolio) (12/15/84)
TM WRITES: >First, I'd like to express the gratitude we all owe Lauren for his excellent >and ridiculously fast work on this project to date. > >My question is, assuming that everything goes smoothly up to hardware >manufacture, how will the final system be paid for? ... John Gilmore writes: > And if you need some extra money to push it along, just ask. > [Unfortunately I have more money than time these days...] OK JOHN! What a guy! That was a quick solution... :-) -- Fred Avolio, DEC -- U{LTR,N}IX Support 301/731-4100 x4227 UUCP: {seismo,decvax}!grendel!avolio ARPA: grendel!avolio@seismo.ARPA
jsq@ut-sally.UUCP (John Quarterman) (12/15/84)
> Lauren, I wish you well, but I doubt that many people > will pay the $500. There are many areas which are otherwise far away from most of USENET, so that long-distance telephone bills are high: a full feed for the current bulk of USENET can cost thousands of dollars a year. A one-time fee of $500 for equipment plus a (one would hope) nominal cable charge should be quite attractive in such circumstances. Even where telephone bills are not so high, is $500 really outrageous for a direct feed from a backbone site? -- John Quarterman, CS Dept., University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712 USA jsq@ut-sally.ARPA, jsq@ut-sally.UUCP, {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!jsq
phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) (12/17/84)
> > Lauren, I wish you well, but I doubt that many people > > will pay the $500. > > There are many areas which are otherwise far away from most of USENET, > so that long-distance telephone bills are high: a full feed for the > current bulk of USENET can cost thousands of dollars a year. > A one-time fee of $500 for equipment plus a (one would hope) nominal > cable charge should be quite attractive in such circumstances. > > Even where telephone bills are not so high, is $500 really outrageous > for a direct feed from a backbone site? I have no problem with $500 for a decoder. I pay that much for two MOD-TAP 24 line patch panels. It's cheaper than a modem. What concerns me is the subscription charge required to be able to send a message to stargate for transmission. Maybe I'm confused, but I thought people would have to pay for the ability to send a msg to stargate so it can be broadcast? How much will this cost? At AMD, buying capital equipment is easy (thank Congress for the preferential capital gains tax treatment) but expenses are always very tightly watched. And do I understand that netnews will be effectively flowing into my machine at 1200 baud or more 24 hours a day? This seems a bit inefficient. Is the "decoder" going to perform article rejection for me too? -- This may not even represent my opinion, much less AMD's. Phil Ngai (408) 749-5790 UUCP: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra}!amdcad!phil ARPA: amdcad!phil@decwrl.ARPA
arnold@gatech.UUCP (Arnold Robbins) (12/18/84)
One thing that isn't clear to me, is that it seems that sites receiving
netnews from stargate would be "listen-only". Indeed, the request for
moderators seems to bear this out. Is this so?
I am definitely *not* knocking the idea; I think it would be a wonderful
thing, particularly for people who can't/won't pay the phone bill for a
regular connection. But, one of the nicest things about USENET is that
anyone can post, as well as receive (of course this is also one of the
problems, as just the traffic in this group telling Lauren to ignore the
flames, attests). Will it be possible for people receiving cable netnews to
post back as well? It would be a shame for such a wonderful two-way medium
to be just one-way for such a (hopefully) large group of subscribers.
Keep up the good work, Lauren! Lots of us are interested and hope that
this works out.
--
Arnold Robbins
CSNET: arnold@gatech ARPA: arnold%gatech.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
UUCP: { akgua, allegra, hplabs, ihnp4, seismo, ut-sally, }!gatech!arnold
Help advance the state of Computer Science: Nuke a PR1ME today!ian@utcs.UUCP (Ian F. Darwin) (12/24/84)
Just another vote in favor of Lauren. Please carry on!
--
Ian Darwin, Toronto
{ihnp4|decvax}!utcs!ian