It's not quite the economic revolution once envisioned by brash entrepreneurs, but a handful of Internet businesses are actually making money.

Reality is starting to finally crack the media.

Once-downtrodden dot-coms turning into money makers

From the Captain Obvious Department:

In light of this, it would seem to make sense for managers to keep track of their workers' Web habits. Shouldn't employees conduct personal business on their own time? Think of all the lost productivity!

Not so fast.

Why you shouldn't act like Big Brother

BellSouth will stop offering residential customers its DSL Talking service next week, ending one of the first attempts in the United States to sell phone service over digital subscriber lines.

Sure we're deploying advanced data services in exchange for access to the LD market

From the no shit department:

With DirecTV Broadband poised to dismantle its high-speed Internet service, consumers are losing one of the last alternatives to the increasingly dominant telephone and cable giants.

Wired News: DirecTV DSL's Exit Limits Choices

Stolen from a posting on Slashdot.

1. A tremor in the pants. The last time I felt this was in the presence of my old master.

2. You are unwise to lower your pants.

3. We've got to be able to get some reading on those pants, up or down.

4. She must have hidden the plans in her pants. Send a detachment down to retrieve them. See to it personally Commander.

5. These pants may not look like much, kid, but they've got it where it counts.

6. I find your lack of pants disturbing.

7. These pants contain the ultimate power in the Universe. I suggest we use it.

8. Han will have those pants down. We've got to give him more time!

9. General Veers, prepare your pants for a surface assault.

10. I used to bulls-eye womp-rats in my pants back home.

11. TK-421. . . Why aren't you in your pants?

12. Lock the door. And hope they don't have pants.

13. Governor Tarkin. I recognized your foul pants when I was brought on board.

14. You look strong enough to pull the pants off of a Gundark.

15. Luke. . . Help me take...these pants off.

16. Great, Chewie, great. Always thinking with your pants.

17. That blast came from those pants. That thing's operational!

18. Don't worry. Chewie and I have gotten into a lot of pants more heavily guarded than this.

19. Maybe you'd like it back in your pants, your highness.

20. Your pants betray you. Your feelings for them are strong. Especially for your sister!

21. Jabba doesn't have time for smugglers who drop their pants at the first sign of an Imperial Cruiser.

22. Yeah, well short pants is better than no pants at all, Chewie.

23. Attention. This is Lando Calrissean. The Empire has taken control of my pants, I advise everyone to leave before more troops arrive.

24. I cannot teach him. The boy has no pants.

25. You came in those pants? You're braver than I thought.

"Our concern was that this is unidentified dirt," Maxwell said. "People are going to be breathing this dirt."

dirt

Remember the CLECs? They were the fancy new phone companies that were going to take on the Bell incumbents. New technology, lower prices, better service, and local, long distance and data all on one bill--the Bells didn't stand a chance. The future of telecommunications services for businesses belonged to Allegiance, Time Warner Telecom, WinStar, XO and their CLEC brethren.

This is perhaps the most clued and accurate representation of what happened and what is happening. However, they miss the salient point that telecom services are a rapidly falling commodity still, and it will be difficult to find high margin customers as we move forward.

The changing tide of CLECs

"Wal-Mart's influence on the U.S. economy has reached levels not seen by a single company since the 19th-century rise of Standard Oil, economists and historians say. Even if you don't shop at Wal-Mart, the retail powerhouse increasingly is dictating your product choices -- and what you pay -- as its relentless price cutting helps keep inflation low."

Interesting article on just how huge Wal-Mart has become.

Wal-Mart's influence grows

] When I was a kid adults used to bore me to tears with
] their tedious
] diatribes about how hard things were when they were
] growing up; what
] with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning
] uphill both ways
] through year 'round blizzards carrying their younger
] siblings on their
] backs to their one-room schoolhouse where they maintained
] a straight-A
] average despite their full-time after-school job at the
] local textile
] mill where they worked for 35 cents an hour just to help
] keep their
] family from starving to death!
]
]
] And I remember promising myself that when I grew up there
] was no way in
] hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids
] about how hard
] I had it and how easy they've got it!
]
] But....
]
] Now that I've reached the ripe old age of twenty-nine, I
] can't help but
] look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it
] so fuckin'
] easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a
] goddamned Utopia!

1987 Reprezent!

i am so there!

The State of the Union Drinking Game 2003