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Huh? How does the ribbon do anything to open source competitors? Believe it or not, I actually find it useful as well! But I guess that's just luck, because somehow their patent is keeping down the poor open source developers.

Wow, two fallacies in as many sentences. First, why can't they fix this issue AND add DRM? Do you think it would result in a fix faster for every developer to focus on ONE problem? I sure as hell don't. More isn't always better. Second, you assume that the people "bribing" ISO members are even coders at all. If that happened, it sure as hell wasn't anyone with talent to fix the bug in the KB article.

It doesn't need money because people give away their time on it for free. Anyone that wants to help can, vs. MS where you actually have to be an employee to contribute. Also, when did Linux become a company? Do you even really know what Linux is? I'm starting to wonder if you're some 12 year old kid spouting from his mom's basement.

Ahh, back to the false dilemma. You can focus 100% on bugs because 1) there are probably always bugs, but they may only affect 0.00001% of cases and 2) you can't possibly know about all bugs just by looking at the code, they have to be discovered. Again, you sound like a 12 year old; at the very least you're not a professional software developer.

For those who are interested, Walmart's business model is based on the fact that consumers are willing to purchase a product of lesser quality, for a lower price. Seriously, Sam Walton discovered that there is more profit to be made, by selling more lower quality products with lower prices, as opposed to selling fewer higher quality products with higher prices. My point: Walmart makes more money by selling more Also, that is why you never catch a "sale" or "blue-light" special at Walmart. Their business model also includes venders stocking their shelves, with a cheap wholesale price. And that whole price typically drops over a n-year period. That is how Walmart is able to "roll back" prices, pass the value on to the customer, and maintain profit. All of that being said, You do get what you pay for. It is a cheap computer, for a customer that is willing to purchase it. PCMag should stop comparing apples to oranges. Source: 1. http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html 2. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=active&q=walmart%2C+you%2C+don't%2C+know&btnG=Search 3. The Walmart Pipeline (intranet) 4. I used to work for Walmart, for many years. I know a few things.

Do you really think there will be much code that is worthy of The Daily WTF? NASA and its contractors go to great lengths to try to produce properly engineered code. Sure, it's still not perfect, but I seriously doubt we'll see the kind of "what were they thinking?!" things that are typically featured on The Daily WTF.

IIRC, wasn't biodiesel just as safe on the environment and lasts longer versus electric? Isn't the problem with electric that the batteries die after a few years whereas a biodiesel will last hundreds of thousands of miles and also have minimal economic impact as well as actually increasing performance? So why do we push these slow ass inefficient as hell golf carts versus biodiesel getting 25MPG in a hummer with twice the horsepower?? It sure seems to look like they want something that will still fall apart after 5 years to keep market prices high, in the same fashion that apple stopped releasing the older models of their IPODs since you would have been able to find one for under 250 dollars if you were willing to settle for a 40 or 80 gig.

Article in Fast Company magazine one year ago this month:
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/110/head-for-detail.html

It's not "bacing up your bran". It's "a near-total digital record" and custom software. It's not memory. It's look-up capabilioty.. and a h*ll of a lot of effort involved.

It isn't a brain backup device, it's a little recorder that you wear around your neck. It takes snapshots throughout the day and records sound. The software on the computer also allows for archival of various documents, etc. Stuff gets associated and it essentially becomes a surrogate memory.

A good, extensive writeup can be found in Fast Company. The original article is over half a year old and this idea from Gordon Bell has been known for years: he started working on this project in 1995.

Bunch of drama queens on slashdot talking about "omgz vaporware" "Microsoft doign what neuroscience cant? omgz" Read the goddamned article, not the FUD summary.

At least one company seems to show an interest in using the patent system to build a niche for itself. And that company seem to produce a lot of innovations that arguably advance the arts and sciences.

Innovating and seeking patent rights may be completely independent. Sure, there are potential strategies that might leverage the patent system. But, like any business strategy, how can anyone be sure success comes from the strategy or from other factors. You never know for sure that success was in spite of, not a result of, engaging a particular strategy.

Because there are so many other factors, it is hard to prove that a strategic tool, such as software patents, have real benefits. But, it is also hard to prove that they do not have real benefits. To accept either position based on little more than appeal to authority and assertion that the issue has been fully-decided is foolhardy, which is why such arguments are not particularly persuasive.

That seems to assume that the rich boys have some empathy for each other.

The fact is, a lot of those who end on top are, simply put, sociopaths. A lot of CEOs for example are, and I'd wager that the percentage is even higher (if that's even possible) among politicians.

We're talking people with no empathy for any other human. They're people who can tell any lie or cause any bad things to happen to others, with a straight face. And not have any bad feelings about it later. Because you don't matter. You're an NPC to them.

Some even find entertainment in seeing how much they can harm someone else, and get away with it. In that you are right that some may even start a war, if it looks like they have anything to gain from it, even some momentary entertainment. At the risk of invoking Goodwin's law, Hitler had been diagnosed a psychopath in the first world war.

A lot reinvent their past to whatever milks the most sympathy. It helps manipulate people.

They also have such useful traits (for politics games) as never feeling responsible for anything they've caused, including to themselves. They're also nearly immune to threats, although the smart ones will be logical enough to avoid exposing themselves to unnecessary dangers and repercussions. (E.g., death treats might still make them wear a kevlar vest.) And unlike the popular novel mis-conception, no amount of reasoning or appealing to their feelings and humanity will change them: any attempt at psychotherapy just makes them better at hiding it.

The dumb ones tend to end up in prison or shot by the SWAT, but the really smart ones end up CEOs and politicians.

To get back to the topic, though, there is no indication that they feel any more empathy for each other. It isn't the-rich-vs-peons, it's really each rich psychopath for himself. They'll try to shaft each other just as well.

And, partially also in response to your "welcome to the future," history is full of kings and nobles doing all sorts of painful things to each other.

The age of chivalry existed just because (A) holding an enemy for ransom was more profitable than skinning them alive, and (B) it made it easier to manipulate the peons and lower knights to fight for you. But even then, the same "noble" knights and ladies that afforded chivalry to an enemy who can be ransomed for a tidy sum, seemed to have no qualms with poisoning each other or their relatives for a quick inheritance buck. Some even did it for sport.

Basically, if you couldn't be ransomed or, worse yet, someone stood to make a profit from your death, the whole chivalry ideals ended right there. Then you could expect something arsenic-based in your wine.

So, to get back on topic, when those good ol' rich boys' clubs meet, it's not as much friends, it's more like a thieves' club trying to look friendly until they can rob each other. They won't think they're brothers, they'll think as lowly of each other as they think of the peons. They'll just be polite and pleasant because it's good for business.

Many discount stores have mastered the practice of selling cheap low quality knock-offs of more expensive higher quality brands.

WalMart has taken this to the next level. They have enough retail clout that they can often drive the manufacturer to make a knock off of their own product for sale at WalMart. Of course, to meet WalMart's pricepoint they have to send their manufacturing overseas and considerably lower thir quality standards.

The man who said no to WalMart was an interesting read.

Why is being rich considered by rich people a license to be evil?

Up to around 1997, companies including Power Computing were given the rights to license Mac technology from Apple. However, when Jobs returned to the company, he attempted at first to renegotiate the licences but eventually opted to cancel them.

Apple has consistently rejected opportunities to adjust its innovation strategy to another model. Licensing its operating system to hardware manufacturers would have been an obvious choice. Yet when Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he terminated the first and last licensing program, championed by former chief executive Gilbert Amelio. Jobs is reported to have told Apple managers that he feared "Mac knockoffs" would dilute the Apple brand.

Further rumors indicate that Jobs is pushing for the end of MacOS cloners altogether. He apparently has called them "leeches", and who can blame him? None of the cloners -- PowerComputing, Motorola, Umax, etc. -- have ligitimately tried to grow the MacOS market. As far as I can tell, they have only advertised in Macintosh publications.

I beg to differ. Ashley Qualls built a multi-million dollar company out of her site, http://whateverlife.com/, from ad revenue. Her site features different layouts for Myspace. When you stop laughing, go read this article http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/118/girl-power.html, which mentions, among other things, that her site gets more hits than oprah.com. What have YOU been doing in your parents' basement?

The boiling frog analogy is terrible. See http://www.fastcompany.com/online/01/frog.html, with a quote from a Harvard biology professor:

"If you put a frog in boiling water, it won't jump out. It will die. If you put it in cold water, it will jump before it gets hot."

...when you put your John Hancock under the QA document you give your word that the system's fault-free to the best of your efforts...

Yep. great story. One for the business schools I expect.

What makes it remarkable is how well the software works. This software never crashes. It never needs to be re-booted. This software is bug-free. It is perfect, as perfect as human beings have achieved. Consider these stats : the last three versions of the program -- each 420,000 lines long-had just one error each. The last 11 versions of this software had a total of 17 errors. Commercial programs of equivalent complexity would have 5,000 errors.

...
To be this good, the on-board shuttle group has to be very different -- the antithesis of the up-all-night, pizza-and-roller-hockey software coders who have captured the public imagination. To be this good, the on-board shuttle group has to be very ordinary -- indistinguishable from any focused, disciplined, and methodically managed creative enterprise.

...
At the on-board shuttle group, about one-third of the process of writing software happens before anyone writes a line of code. NASA and the Lockheed Martin group agree in the most minute detail about everything the new code is supposed to do -- and they commit that understanding to paper, with the kind of specificity and precision usually found in blueprints. Nothing in the specs is changed without agreement and understanding from both sides. And no coder changes a single line of code without specs carefully outlining the change. Take the upgrade of the software to permit the shuttle to navigate with Global Positioning Satellites, a change that involves just 1.5% of the program, or 6,366 lines of code. The specs for that one change run 2,500 pages, a volume thicker than a phone book. The specs for the current program fill 30 volumes and run 40,000 pages.

"Our requirements are almost pseudo-code," says William R. Pruett, who manages the software project for NASA. "They say, you must do exactly this, do it exactly this way, given this condition and this circumstance."

There was a good article not too long ago in Fast Company about the shuttle coding team.

I caught a glimpse of one of the astronauts obviously attempting to retrieve some e-mail from his laptop.. And then complaining over the com that he was getting a "you can only have one instance of Outlook running" - ground control advised for a laptop reboot, but the guy upstairs wasn't too keen on doing that

The personal communication laptops the astronauts have are windows machines. The machines that run both ISS and Shuttle are **not**. They are derivatives of UNIX, and, as grandparent said, have many eyes and many thousands of dollars poured into each line of code. There was a good article not too long ago in Fast Company about the shuttle coding team.

From the article: the last three versions of the program -- each 420,000 lines long-had just one error each. The last 11 versions of this software had a total of 17 errors. Commercial programs of equivalent complexity would have 5,000 errors. That's impressive. The same care went into the ISS computers, at least from the US's side. I can't speak for Russia as I don't have that level of familiarity with them.

Last, everyone is talking about the 'russian' computers.. Well, this guy last night in the press conference did state these were actually "western style" *european* computers !

The Russian computers failed. The US computers have 'taken over' temporarily. Why? Because we have this nice little satellite network called TDRSS (Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System) which lets us relay communications with shuttle over the vast majority of the orbit. Russia does not. They can only communicate over line of sight, which is a few times each day for about 8 or so minutes.

Actually the key here is Dell's deal with Wal-Mart.

From http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.htm l :
"Wal-Mart wields its power for just one purpose: to bring the lowest possible prices to its customers. At Wal-Mart, that goal is never reached. The retailer has a clear policy for suppliers: On basic products that don't change, the price Wal-Mart will pay, and will charge shoppers, must drop year after year. But what almost no one outside the world of Wal-Mart and its 21,000 suppliers knows is the high cost of those low prices. Wal-Mart has the power to squeeze profit-killing concessions from vendors. To survive in the face of its pricing demands, makers of everything from bras to bicycles to blue jeans have had to lay off employees and close U.S. plants in favor of outsourcing products from overseas."

Pre-Surface, but shows some more cool applications for a multi-touch interface.

The difference being that the Walmart version is always inferior at some level.

Some companies have a different opinion

Wal-mart = crap.

It is well known fact that Wal-mart consistently asks manufacturer's to create product lines specifically for Wal-mart. Usually, these lines are of lesser quality (due to price) than the manufacturer's original lines. Think re-badged or OEM product sold primarily on price alone. Over time, the brand dilutes and eventually, many manufacturer's find themselves in a worse position than if they had never done business with Wal-mart in the first place.

Snapper mowers said no. That's just one example of many.

I wonder how bad Wal-mart bent Dell over on this one?

Like almost every other product sold at Wal-Mart, I'm sure the Dell computers sold there will be of a much lower quality than the Dells sold everywhere else.

Just like everything else at Wal-Mart. Yeah, it's sold for less, but it's also a special model sold only at Wal-Mart made with the cheapest possible parts you can buy. So, when people buy your product at Wal-Mart, they are indeed getting an inferior product.

I remember a great story I read about some lawn mower/tractor company that refused to do business with Wal-Mart where a lot of these things were disclosed. Found it: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/102/open_snapp er.html.

Either I'm missing something or this is a short-sighted move.

No offense, but you are missing something quite subtle yet extremely profound. It is no big secret that the prices of computers have plummeted over the last ten years or so. From the consumer's perspective, this is a great thing. However, this has the interesting side effect of making computer repair less economically attractive. In the age of the disposable society, people just dispose of their computer and buy a new one rather than spend money on repair.

This is where Wal-Mart comes in. They have thrived and to some degree promoted (even if unintentionally) the disposable society. Many things are so cheap that people just go buy a new one if their old one breaks. Selling computers at Wal-Mart is a natural fit for this mentality. While you don't want to sell lemons, you don't have to sell the top of the line $5000 desktop there (in fact, you wouldn't want to). Rather, just sell your low end and low margin PCs there and watch as every couple of years, a consumer buys a new one.

It is this kind of approach to selling low cost goods that led Snapper lawn mowers to refuse to do business with Wal-Mart. Quality is one of their core values. Quantity isn't if it affects quality.

Interesting article about Snapper leaving Wal-Mart, because the company saw Wal-Mart pushing them to continually lower prices and supplying Wal-Mart also meant issues with huge inventory. Dell seems to be making a crazy (or desperate) decision here, since one of their strengths was always their low inventory overhead. It's like a complete about-face for the company.

Dell got its name by selling direct. Dell == Direct. After spending 20 years proving to everybody that "direct is better and cheaper", them selling direct thru a major distributor like Wally World is a major, major change in their product placement and emphasis.

They must be REALLY HURTING to go for a deal like this! For premium brands, it seems like selling thru Wal-Mart is the kiss of death. You could almost say it's like a TV show "jumping the shark" - either your company just sells cruddy products thru Wal-Mart or you have a flagging premium brand and you just want to cash in on what's left of your good name.

And, in case you have no idea what I'm talking about, take a look at The Wal-Mart You Don't Know...

I would suggest you read What Should I Do With My Life? by Po Bronson. He also wrote The Nudist on the Late Shift about life in the dot-com era.

Right now I'm on medical leave from my job because I had a nervous breakdown. Right now I avoid going outside because I might have to talk with my neighbours (who are nice, friendly people) and I can't deal with that stress.

After wasting yet another a month of my life dealing with my employer because of HR screw-ups, and knowing that I will not be working for them when I recover, I find myself asking if I should leave the IT profession entirely. While I still love technology and computing, I have never had an IT job that I've been reasonable happy with. Or am I doing something wrong in my job search for the right employer, that I can correct this time around.

I will be looking forward to reading the comments with interest.

Trolling around the "upcoming" section of digg last night I found this:

"Oh this is so funny!!! Google tried to release an April Fool's joke today about Google Paper
- the ability to have your emails printed and sent via snail mail!

The problem they didn't realise is that in the latest issue of Fast Company, this ACTUALLY HAPPENS in India!!!

It's called the ePost service from the Indian post office. Now you have a Billion Indians who are thinking that this is a legitimate alternative to their ePost service - nice try Google, but next time, make sure your PR people read Fast Company!!"

Link to blog: http://www.vinnylingham.com/2007/04/massive-google -blunder-seriously-read-this.html
Link to article: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/113/next-world -class.html

And no this definitely isn't my blog. And wtf, people being modded insightful just for asking? This must be April Fools day.
--
Northern Virginia? Fairfax Underground! Forums, Wiki, and database of arrests and traffic tickets

In India, there are actually services which print out email and deliver it. The infrastructure is a wonderful blend of electrons and meat-based delivery systems. Even the state postal service prints out email and delivers it.

When a society decides that corporations are priviledged citizens, corporations decide that profit and Tax Evasion matter more than Education, how can the country NOT fall behind in technology?

You make a good point but try to see it from the other end. Lets say there is no bottom price, certainly larger shops can come in and offer goods at way below market price which puts all the others out of business. They make a loss on that while still making a profit in other areas. After the competition is mostly killed off they can start to work the prices again.

This already goes on in the USA. Walmart and its famous gallon jar of pickles for example.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.htm l

...Wal*Mart is literally the largest retailer that has ever existed in the known universe, and no longer being able to sell to them is not good for business.

Not always.

I heard Dell stopped burn in testing about 6 or 7 years ago, or at least switched from 3 day burn in tests to ones that last a few hours at best.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/88/dell.html

I bought a system preloaded with eComStation. I paid no Microsoft tax. All you have to do is support THE vendors of good quality products. Like buying high quality Snapper lawn movers instead the disposable Wal-Mart ones. Even quality suppliers can decide that a retailer is dragging them down.
(The Man Who Said No to Wal-Mart http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/102/open_snapp er.html)

You can avoid the Microsoft tax too.

eComStation user group - http://www.os2voice.org/
eComStation - http://www.ecomstation.com/

eComStation preloaded
http://www.curtissystemssoftware.com/preloads.htm

For Christmas I bought a system preloaded with eComStation. I paid no Microsoft tax. All you have to do is support THE vendors of good quality products. Like buying high quality Snapper lawn movers instead the disposable Wal-Mart ones.
(The Man Who Said No to Wal-Mart http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/102/open_snapp er.html)

You can avoid the Microsoft tax too.

eComStation user group - http://www.os2voice.org/
eComStation - http://www.ecomstation.com/

eComStation preloaded
http://www.curtissystemssoftware.com/preloads.htm

Also Linux preloads
SUSE preloaded
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS7778908329.html

Fedora preloaded
http://www.emperorlinux.com/

No, we just see the usual split between engineering ("get it working") and science ("how does it work?").

And to be honest, the engineering aspect has a long way to travel. Software quality is horrible and worse yet: Random. Very few development groups even have a process for the development itself, much less quality control. Writing a spec and starting to code isn't a process. UML isn't a process. Pseudo-code specification isn't a process. Throwing fancy buzzwords around to cover your lack of process isn't, either.

Zero-Defect Software Developmentor NASA's shuttle software group are beginnings. What they do is try to understand and improve the actual development process.

Just because I'm ignorant of this particular subject (...) doesn't make me stupid, or wrong.

Actually, in this case I think it does. This stuff isn't complex. The carbon cycle isn't brain surgery, petroleum use and concepts like "net release" are fairly simple and absolute climatic change versus rate of climatic change is a fairly unsophisticated distinction. If you are unable to grasp even the basics of this subject, then perhaps you should STFU, DIAF or both. Perhaps, if you were to do the latter, the CO2 release would be worth it.

Personally, I think you are not only not versed in this subject, but you're also ignorant of economics. Claiming that the one side is being sensationalist while having an equally uninformed view of the other is pretty stupid. Did you perhaps think that the other side, who have billions to lose, may perhaps be spreading sensationalism to protect their vast personal vested interests? Oh no, that can't be the case, it's only hippies who spread FUD. Corporations never do that. Perhaps you'd be little less protective of big money if you realized that the economic impact of "doing something" won't be hundreds of thousands of lost jobs. Even if it were, do you really think that multi-millionaire CEOs care about you and your friends' jobs? No, they care about their profit margins. News flash: You're more of a mindless sensationalist than the left wing hippies you so loudly criticize, there is no evidence whatsoever that the cost of being environmentally friendly is lost profits. In fact here is an example showing just the opposite, and here's an article written in 1998 so you can see the progress that has been made.

There's an example of "doing something" that's not only good for the environment, but economically great too. Oh, and it's a 13 year old project. Now, what was that about all this environmental stuff being new, misunderstood and economically dubious?

I remember this article the first time around -- when it was in Fast Company. I bet Gordon Bell does, too.

He was the feature in Fast Company a few issues ago. It was a really good read.

here it is although there are a lot of pictures and sidebars that are missing from the original print article.

You're asking us about wal-mart and pickles ? In that case, I'd feel zero remorse for anything Wal-Mart manages to misprice.

A little O.T., but saying "For decades" is stretching it a bit. Through the seventies, eighties and even in to the early nineties Wal-Mart was indeed, for some, a good company to work for. They also _did_ support American businesses and manufacturers and under Sam Waltons leadership created a campaign to push "Made in the USA" products. Sadly, after Sam's death in 1992 things went downhill quickly. As the operations side of the business got handed down to more and more folks tring to make a name for themselves, they quickly adopted the crappy business pratices of today...only getting worse. It's only in the last 10 years or so that it has gotten unbearable, the "BIG FREAKIN JAR OF PICKLES" as a timeline landmark. http://www.fastcompany.com/online/77/walmart.html is an artcile that is a few years old, but can really open some eyes. I live in Arkansas and work for a company that did _alot_ of business with Wal-Mart until the late 90's. Because of experiences from both a consumer's standpoint and a businessman's standpoint, I haven't shopped in a WM store for 5+years. I have no intention of shopping there anytime soon and I certainly won't be downloading from their site. I run Linux on all of my pc's and laptops so wouldn't be able to play the content anyway. No big loss for me, but a truly crappy decision in my opinion...whether Wal-Marts fault or the developers fault.

You are 100% correct. Just ask this guy:
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/102/open_snapp er.html

Well, the InfoGear iPhone was a $299 phone that could web-surf using a dial-up ISP. Maybe you'd like a page that has a picture of the device: 7.4" black and white touchscreen with a pull-out QWERTY keyboard. Oh, and it cost $4.95 a month to use with your own ISP, or $24.95 per month with a provided ISP. Search Google for "InfoGear iPhone" for even more. This was the device for which InfoGear registered the iPhone trademark. Cisco's re-use of that trademark for such a wildly different product (a Skype phone) is desperation: trying to capitalize on the buzz around the name "iPhone" which was generated through rumors about an Apple product, not the original InfoGear iPhone. Apple simply didn't have a choice to trademark iPhone ahead of time, because (AFAIK) you must use a mark in trade (i.e., offer a product for sale) before you can file for a trademark.

This is the article that supports what the parent says. It's old, but still a good read. http://www.fastcompany.com/online/06/writestuff.ht ml

I posted this problem yesterday here.

Apparently Apple didn't meet Cisco's terms.

Now, Apple is in a terrible position. They either meet Cisco's terms, or change the name. Cisco could have Apple products seized and forfeited at Customs for trademark infringement.

Cisco has been selling and servicing products under the iPhone name for years. Here's the original InfoGear iPhone product announcement from 1999. "With just a few simple points of the stylus, you can make phone calls, check email, or search the Web." It was even on Slashdot.

This is basically the same news item originally covered in the September 2006 issue of FastCompany Magazine and reported to Slashdot in late August.