Smart has been a massive commercial failure, firstly for VW - who partnered with the Swiss guy who invented Swatch watches, and had the original idea for the Smart, (hence the interchangeable plastic cladding). They realised they would never make any money, so sold the entire shebang to MB, who have since dropped another 5+ Billion US$ down the drain. The Smart roadster (shame, nice little car) and the Smart 4/4 were killed prematurely because they were losing even more money than the 4/2 does...
Having driven in India, I'm damned if I'd buy one there, either. I would not feel safe in anything less than a heavy tank. Rover's 'CityRover', (a re-badged Tata), was a failure in the UK, being panned for virtually everything.
Still, some people in the West have bought the appalling 'Gee Whizz', which lets you have windscreen wipers, or lights, on a rainy night - but not both. It also virtually guarantees that you perish in the inevitable accident. If you want all-electric, get a Tesla, (rather pricy, though)
The Smart car is much safer, but a commercial failure.
BTW, the Beetle was not VW's idea - it was Hitler's. VW was created to produce the Beetle, which was designed by Dr. Porsche, (who also did other fun stuff like Panzers).
Whoa - I'm no Toyota fanboy, but they are the benchmark in many areas, (recently, they(ve slipped in quality). Personally, I'm a BMW and Honda fan...I also work/have worked long and hard with people like GM/Delphi/Ford in trying to improve product & process quality, so I'd be the first to acknowledge the fine efforts of the people on the ground. IMHO it's the leadership team that sucks.
Did not know about the self-parking Buick - thanks for the correction. Wonder why I did not hear about it...maybe because nobody gives a damn about what Buick does, except the over 65s (average age for a Buick buyer in the USA) and in China, (where you could sell virtually any old death-trap as long as it had 4 wheels, as indeed the local producers frequently do).
Selling autos is a war that's waged on many fronts - personally I think that the Prius and the other Toyota hybrids are mainly publicity stunts. (You get better or similar gas mileage in a good diesel). But.. 1. They enable Toyota to test and refine the technology in the real world. How many concepts have come out of Detroit, but never seen the real world? 2. They change the public image of Toyota/Lexus, so they are seen as more 'advanced/green/whatever'.
Let's see some genuinely compelling product coming out of Detroit - I'm sick of the tired excuses of pension fund and organized labor cost penalities. If Porsche, MB, BMW and Audi, (but not VW) can overcome their high-cost manufacturing base, and make shitloads of profit, why can't GM and Ford, (and maybe even Chrysler - OK, maybe not Chrysler...)
Another poster expressed sadness for GM - I agree. They have so many good ideas, and massive resources, but still don't seem to be able to build cars that (enough) people want to buy. Hybrids - the Prius has been out for years. Where's GM's response? Cars that park themselves - Lexus has one now.
Ouch. I think that the better forms of religion are perhaps not striving for truth, but 'perfection' and a sense of altruism that will lead people to behave in a better way to themselves, and others. (And I say this as an agnostic).
They also teach tolerence and charity.
The vast majority of Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and whatever don't go around trying to shove their faiths and ways of life down other people's throats, they are just happy to live within a system of beliefs and associated rules that suit them. A bit like many people like being in the armed forces, (many have problems adapting to the 'real world' when they leave).
Even if science finally does 'explain everything', will it make us and the world a better place?
Indeed. Not sure if it's a fair comparison, though. The lunar rover weighed more than 200Kg, for instance. It's a much bigger deal to get that amount of kit - and people - safely to Mars and back. I'd love to see people walking on Mars, and for sure they would discover many interesting things - but I'm not sure if it will happen in my lifetime.
I still remember when, as a young kid, I was brought into a big classroom with the entire school, to watch the first lunar walk 'live' on b&w TV. I wonder if today's kids would feel the same awe and wonder? Perhaps that's the rationale of these things - to enable people to dream that 'one day I could go up there too...'
That's what I heard too - an eloquant presentation by some Prof. knowledgeable in both chemistry & biology who explained that, since trees were both long-lived & static, they had had to evolve some really quite nasty chemical defenses against bacteria, viruses and even birds and mammals...
Neither troll not flamebait, but I call bullshit on this one. Talk to the people in the medical business - they all know what the causes are:
1. Dirty people with dirty habits, leading to 2. Contaminated interactions, leading to 3. Dirty facilities, where you can catch almost anything.
The only reason MRSA, (or other nasties like 'difficile') get the news is that the usual solution for sloppy practise - an assload of antibiotics - does not work. Mainly due - again - to sloppy practise (over-prescription).
But applying the simple rules of cleanliness and discipline that have existed since Lister and Florence Nightingale is not as exciting as using 'Google-like approaches', I suppose.
Indeed. Slightly offtopic, but the really bad thing is that eBay and Paypal do just this, (popup screens across sites). The first time I was asked to verify my Paypal details when trying to pay for something on eBay, I spent a long time noting the different pieces of info, then backed out and rechecked, before submitting any more sensitive info, (Paypal ID and CC numbers).
Yes, browser faults are serious and should be fixed, but a bigger problem is sloppy coding of sites that get people into bad "submit the damn info already" habits...
Thanks for your reply. Interesting. Agree that taking on 'crazy' guys is a big risk, but then again, in the '80s we took what we could get, (I remember SAP freelancers making 200K$ plus a year - in the 80s and 90s, so in today's $...). You correctly remind me that some of the best technical experts are indeed quiet, even shy. In my experience, they've tended to be outside programming, often in academe. My test, for what is worth, is how well the 'expert' can (a) Produce, (b) Explain. Tends to puncture the 'bullshit and bluster bubble' of most of them.
Anyway, I hope this guy gets the help he needs to get back on track. That may be through therapy, but 'work therapy' can be just as effective, and more acceptable to the less humble.
Neil Rackham, best-known for formalising the 'SPIN' sales technique, used many sources to identify high performers in person to person situations. One example I remember from his highly-readable book, is where he observed customs officers.
Those who were better at spotting offenders commonly said it was 'instinct'. When observing those people at work, Rackham noticed that they in fact picked up verbal and non-verbal clues, (avoiding eye contact...), that could then be codified and tranferred to others via training.
Well, maybe someone who can get the best out of him?
I used to work with an older guy, who supervised a bunch of project managers, analysts and programmers. A very mixed bag with different races, sexes, experiences, attitudes...you name it. Now, he had NO IDEA about the code that was getting written, (it's not important, but for the record he was a CICS/COBOL guy, and we were working on RPG (Ugh)on a S/38).
Anyways, it seemed that the most technically brilliant people were invariably the most abrasive / least emotionally stable. This manager did his job, he MANAGED his people to get the best out of them - I learned a lot from him. It's a vanishing art..
Looks like they're pitching this as an accessory for mobile phones as well as mini stand-alone projos.
A whole new world of mobile phone-related road accidents beckon...
More positively, I've tried some cars with head-up displays, and they really work. Now if you had a GPS-enabled phone that could project driving instructions onto the screen in front of you...now, that would be cool. Trouble is, you'd probably end up being tempted to open another window and 'just try and do a couple of mails' whilst waiting for the green light.
They can see a lot more detail if they're closer, without weather or light pollution geting in the way. They can also use the plane to stay in the best position for viewing.
I'm no expert, but I guess that by observing the entry of these very high spped/energy rocks they can learn all sorts of useful stuff such as their composition, source (direction of origin) and such.
Not PC..that was the original usage. You also forgot the Welsh. Nowadays, of course, even the Australians also use the term 'the old enemy' (incorrectly) to refer to the English.
You're probably right, kids these days are taught badly / learn bad habits since they're spoiled by 'limitless' hardware and flashy coding tools. Then they're surprised when all the memory leaks away. (I guess you're an old fart like me - yeah, IDs can be deceptive, I started on an RM 380Z then an IBM System 3). Sounds a little arrogant telling people that they "have to learn good coding habits" - but I'm sure that's not how you meant it. You can get a huge lot done with Tcl, and I quite like it, but its not for everybody. Very good in scientific environments - I find researchers and engineers 'get it' quite quickly, and find it useful to represent their ideas.
This will be news when Google search no longer returns OO results. Kinda dumb, since online apps are not going to replace offlne ones anytime soon IMHO. Surely much better to encourage their use, (if you're trying to sell such concepts/services) by 1. making better bridges between online & offline docs. 2. building trust by not acting stupidly.
I'm really going to trust my data with asshats like this?
Amid all the ranting and raving...why is MS really pushing this? It's because if we managed to have a genuinely OPEN document, (and hey, why not mail, calendar, contacts...yes I know they exist in the FOSS community, but we're not there yet) INTERNATIONAL STANDARD it will badly hit MS's monopoly foundation - which is that the vast majority of documents are stored and exchanged in their formats. It goes further - lots of software and devices sync with Office and/or Outlook - it's the default. Try getting your flashy new PDA or CRM software to sync with Tbird or Lotus Notes - hardly marginal products, either of them. There's more:
1. Successive updates of MS Office formats add little and break lots. Remember binder? Please... So, they don't play fair = cannot really trust them. (BTW, before you flame, I'm not a rabid anti-MS guy - I use XP and Office as well as Mac & Linux/OO...) 2. Archive formats exist, (PDF), so forget that chestnut - this is about live docs. 3. There are valid concerns, expressed by public and private institutions, about document exchange - not really possible with pdf, since it was never designed to be modified. 4. Let's not forget security concerns, (embedded macros in Word, Excel and s/w not open source) 5. Valid concerns about being able to open old docs (not archived) in new s/w in the future... 6. Crappy support for foreign languages with non-standard code pages and fonts with MS. 7. Ditto document layout and rendering.
But THE biggie is - 597 gazillion metric shitloads of documents are created, modified and exchanged in MS formats every day. If you open them in Open Office etc. you'll have no guarantee that your document will print the same, your presentation will show the same, or your spreadsheet will calc the same. That's one major problem for today's busy users. So - default choice - buy MS.
If MS were forced to provide (note I did not say 'forced to use by default', I am not advocating that), genuine non-crippled (e.g. not like RTF) and open pathways to exchange rich-content 'office-type' files then well, maybe they'd be forced to make their software functionality compelling to get people to buy it...
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Smart has been a massive commercial failure, firstly for VW - who partnered with the Swiss guy who invented Swatch watches, and had the original idea for the Smart, (hence the interchangeable plastic cladding). They realised they would never make any money, so sold the entire shebang to MB, who have since dropped another 5+ Billion US$ down the drain. The Smart roadster (shame, nice little car) and the Smart 4/4 were killed prematurely because they were losing even more money than the 4/2 does...
Having driven in India, I'm damned if I'd buy one there, either. I would not feel safe in anything less than a heavy tank.
Rover's 'CityRover', (a re-badged Tata), was a failure in the UK, being panned for virtually everything.
Still, some people in the West have bought the appalling 'Gee Whizz', which lets you have windscreen wipers, or lights, on a rainy night - but not both. It also virtually guarantees that you perish in the inevitable accident. If you want all-electric, get a Tesla, (rather pricy, though)
The Smart car is much safer, but a commercial failure.
BTW, the Beetle was not VW's idea - it was Hitler's. VW was created to produce the Beetle, which was designed by Dr. Porsche, (who also did other fun stuff like Panzers).
Whoa - I'm no Toyota fanboy, but they are the benchmark in many areas, (recently, they(ve slipped in quality). Personally, I'm a BMW and Honda fan...I also work/have worked long and hard with people like GM/Delphi/Ford in trying to improve product & process quality, so I'd be the first to acknowledge the fine efforts of the people on the ground. IMHO it's the leadership team that sucks.
Did not know about the self-parking Buick - thanks for the correction. Wonder why I did not hear about it...maybe because nobody gives a damn about what Buick does, except the over 65s (average age for a Buick buyer in the USA) and in China, (where you could sell virtually any old death-trap as long as it had 4 wheels, as indeed the local producers frequently do).
Selling autos is a war that's waged on many fronts - personally I think that the Prius and the other Toyota hybrids are mainly publicity stunts. (You get better or similar gas mileage in a good diesel). But..
1. They enable Toyota to test and refine the technology in the real world. How many concepts have come out of Detroit, but never seen the real world?
2. They change the public image of Toyota/Lexus, so they are seen as more 'advanced/green/whatever'.
Let's see some genuinely compelling product coming out of Detroit - I'm sick of the tired excuses of pension fund and organized labor cost penalities. If Porsche, MB, BMW and Audi, (but not VW) can overcome their high-cost manufacturing base, and make shitloads of profit, why can't GM and Ford, (and maybe even Chrysler - OK, maybe not Chrysler...)
Another poster expressed sadness for GM - I agree. They have so many good ideas, and massive resources, but still don't seem to be able to build cars that (enough) people want to buy. Hybrids - the Prius has been out for years. Where's GM's response? Cars that park themselves - Lexus has one now.
Ouch. I think that the better forms of religion are perhaps not striving for truth, but 'perfection' and a sense of altruism that will lead people to behave in a better way to themselves, and others.
(And I say this as an agnostic).
They also teach tolerence and charity.
The vast majority of Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and whatever don't go around trying to shove their faiths and ways of life down other people's throats, they are just happy to live within a system of beliefs and associated rules that suit them. A bit like many people like being in the armed forces, (many have problems adapting to the 'real world' when they leave).
Even if science finally does 'explain everything', will it make us and the world a better place?
Indeed. Not sure if it's a fair comparison, though. The lunar rover weighed more than 200Kg, for instance. It's a much bigger deal to get that amount of kit - and people - safely to Mars and back. I'd love to see people walking on Mars, and for sure they would discover many interesting things - but I'm not sure if it will happen in my lifetime.
I still remember when, as a young kid, I was brought into a big classroom with the entire school, to watch the first lunar walk 'live' on b&w TV. I wonder if today's kids would feel the same awe and wonder? Perhaps that's the rationale of these things - to enable people to dream that 'one day I could go up there too...'
Maybe they're using another unit of measure?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter
That's what I heard too - an eloquant presentation by some Prof. knowledgeable in both chemistry & biology who explained that, since trees were both long-lived & static, they had had to evolve some really quite nasty chemical defenses against bacteria, viruses and even birds and mammals...
Neither troll not flamebait, but I call bullshit on this one.
Talk to the people in the medical business - they all know what the causes are:
1. Dirty people with dirty habits, leading to
2. Contaminated interactions, leading to
3. Dirty facilities, where you can catch almost anything.
The only reason MRSA, (or other nasties like 'difficile') get the news is that the usual solution for sloppy practise - an assload of antibiotics - does not work. Mainly due - again - to sloppy practise (over-prescription).
But applying the simple rules of cleanliness and discipline that have existed since Lister and Florence Nightingale is not as exciting as using 'Google-like approaches', I suppose.
Indeed. Slightly offtopic, but the really bad thing is that eBay and Paypal do just this, (popup screens across sites). The first time I was asked to verify my Paypal details when trying to pay for something on eBay, I spent a long time noting the different pieces of info, then backed out and rechecked, before submitting any more sensitive info, (Paypal ID and CC numbers).
Yes, browser faults are serious and should be fixed, but a bigger problem is sloppy coding of sites that get people into bad "submit the damn info already" habits...
"I don't intend getting into a nitpicking discussion"
But you did!
As a Englishman with many Scots friends I had no problem with your orginal post, which was clearly a 'funny'.
Thanks for your reply. Interesting. Agree that taking on 'crazy' guys is a big risk, but then again, in the '80s we took what we could get, (I remember SAP freelancers making 200K$ plus a year - in the 80s and 90s, so in today's $...). You correctly remind me that some of the best technical experts are indeed quiet, even shy. In my experience, they've tended to be outside programming, often in academe. My test, for what is worth, is how well the 'expert' can (a) Produce, (b) Explain. Tends to puncture the 'bullshit and bluster bubble' of most of them.
Anyway, I hope this guy gets the help he needs to get back on track. That may be through therapy, but 'work therapy' can be just as effective, and more acceptable to the less humble.
Neil Rackham, best-known for formalising the 'SPIN' sales technique, used many sources to identify high performers in person to person situations. One example I remember from his highly-readable book, is where he observed customs officers.
Those who were better at spotting offenders commonly said it was 'instinct'. When observing those people at work, Rackham noticed that they in fact picked up verbal and non-verbal clues, (avoiding eye contact...), that could then be codified and tranferred to others via training.
I tried to answer as to what SETI people might be doing 'up there'?
As for what the SETI people are doing, 'in general', not even God knows that one...
Well, maybe someone who can get the best out of him?
I used to work with an older guy, who supervised a bunch of project managers, analysts and programmers. A very mixed bag with different races, sexes, experiences, attitudes...you name it. Now, he had NO IDEA about the code that was getting written, (it's not important, but for the record he was a CICS/COBOL guy, and we were working on RPG (Ugh)on a S/38).
Anyways, it seemed that the most technically brilliant people were invariably the most abrasive / least emotionally stable. This manager did his job, he MANAGED his people to get the best out of them - I learned a lot from him. It's a vanishing art..
Link to the developer's site: http://www.microvision.com/pico_projector_displays/standalone.html
Looks like they're pitching this as an accessory for mobile phones as well as mini stand-alone projos.
A whole new world of mobile phone-related road accidents beckon...
More positively, I've tried some cars with head-up displays, and they really work. Now if you had a GPS-enabled phone that could project driving instructions onto the screen in front of you...now, that would be cool. Trouble is, you'd probably end up being tempted to open another window and 'just try and do a couple of mails' whilst waiting for the green light.
They can see a lot more detail if they're closer, without weather or light pollution geting in the way. They can also use the plane to stay in the best position for viewing.
I'm no expert, but I guess that by observing the entry of these very high spped/energy rocks they can learn all sorts of useful stuff such as their composition, source (direction of origin) and such.
But a whole new whole of problems open up...like (no) driver support
Not PC..that was the original usage. You also forgot the Welsh. Nowadays, of course, even the Australians also use the term 'the old enemy' (incorrectly) to refer to the English.
As an Englishman, I'll go for funny - far too many troll & flamebait mods here IMHO.
But I'd say that recent rhetoric against France has been far more virulent from across the pond.
BTW, the 'old enemy' was traditionally the Catholic alliance of France AND Scotland. Although Spain and Germany have featured heavily too..
Anyway, we'll see how you gentlemen react when China and/or India builds a bigger one than yours. He who laughs last...
Indeed - good for booting your OS from, then, as another poster has pointed out.
You're probably right, kids these days are taught badly / learn bad habits since they're spoiled by 'limitless' hardware and flashy coding tools. Then they're surprised when all the memory leaks away. (I guess you're an old fart like me - yeah, IDs can be deceptive, I started on an RM 380Z then an IBM System 3). Sounds a little arrogant telling people that they "have to learn good coding habits" - but I'm sure that's not how you meant it. You can get a huge lot done with Tcl, and I quite like it, but its not for everybody. Very good in scientific environments - I find researchers and engineers 'get it' quite quickly, and find it useful to represent their ideas.
This will be news when Google search no longer returns OO results. Kinda dumb, since online apps are not going to replace offlne ones anytime soon IMHO. Surely much better to encourage their use, (if you're trying to sell such concepts/services) by 1. making better bridges between online & offline docs. 2. building trust by not acting stupidly.
I'm really going to trust my data with asshats like this?
Amid all the ranting and raving...why is MS really pushing this? It's because if we managed to have a genuinely OPEN document, (and hey, why not mail, calendar, contacts...yes I know they exist in the FOSS community, but we're not there yet) INTERNATIONAL STANDARD it will badly hit MS's monopoly foundation - which is that the vast majority of documents are stored and exchanged in their formats. It goes further - lots of software and devices sync with Office and/or Outlook - it's the default. Try getting your flashy new PDA or CRM software to sync with Tbird or Lotus Notes - hardly marginal products, either of them. There's more:
1. Successive updates of MS Office formats add little and break lots. Remember binder? Please... So, they don't play fair = cannot really trust them. (BTW, before you flame, I'm not a rabid anti-MS guy - I use XP and Office as well as Mac & Linux/OO...)
2. Archive formats exist, (PDF), so forget that chestnut - this is about live docs.
3. There are valid concerns, expressed by public and private institutions, about document exchange - not really possible with pdf, since it was never designed to be modified.
4. Let's not forget security concerns, (embedded macros in Word, Excel and s/w not open source)
5. Valid concerns about being able to open old docs (not archived) in new s/w in the future...
6. Crappy support for foreign languages with non-standard code pages and fonts with MS.
7. Ditto document layout and rendering.
But THE biggie is - 597 gazillion metric shitloads of documents are created, modified and exchanged in MS formats every day. If you open them in Open Office etc. you'll have no guarantee that your document will print the same, your presentation will show the same, or your spreadsheet will calc the same. That's one major problem for today's busy users. So - default choice - buy MS.
If MS were forced to provide (note I did not say 'forced to use by default', I am not advocating that), genuine non-crippled (e.g. not like RTF) and open pathways to exchange rich-content 'office-type' files then well, maybe they'd be forced to make their software functionality compelling to get people to buy it...
Good advice for anybody accessing anything from anywhere via any browser. When finished, clear cache, delete cookies etc. Just common sense.