Anthro used to have a simpler cheaper line of desks without all the fancy widgets but lacking some of the issues (cost, weight) that others have mentioned. I've owned one of these simpler desks for several years, and it still looks/works great. Don't know if they still have this line, but if so don't assume it's the usual cheapo flimsy laminated-cardboard stuff.
I do not personally recommend the "door across filing cabinets" DIY solution. At my former job we had those kinds of desks for awhile, and had RSI problems. When we switched to adjustable desks, the problems went away. Especially avoid the DIY desk if your chair isn't very adjustable, if you're short (like me -- your feet will never touch the ground, which sucks), or if you're going to be using a laptop part of the time.
I've seen a few such animated re-creations on TV, but apparently defense attorneys fight them tooth and nail, so they rarely are admitted into evidence. Prejudicial to their clients, ya know. Since they're also not yet cheap to produce, I don't know that acceptance will be fast.
What I keep hearing is that wireless is sure to be huge in the USA because it's so big in Japan. However, I've always wondered whether this is based on economic and lifestyle factors that are pretty unique to Japan, such as:
Lack of living space favoring small portable gadgets
Extreme urbanization and population density makes wireless infrastructure very cost effective to deploy
Very high cost of "conventional" internet access
Lots of "hands-free" time (e.g. commuting in trains)
High percentage of pre-existing cellular users
That ain't the situation in the United States. You can't get decent wireless access driving down I-5 from San Francisco to Los Angeles, much less in the thinly populated middle of the country. The popularity of those Blackberry things indicates that there's some market for instant messaging among young people and/or drug dealers -- but will average Americans do much on wireless devices besides AIM and checking the weather?
Hmmmm. Speaking of stereotyping... I'm a software engineer at a Silicon Valley startup, and let me tell you my supergeek colleagues can shotgun a beer with the best of them. They're manly (except the ones who are women) *and* they know Unix -- what a concept, huh?
Your dramatic oratory to the contrary, no one around here is saying society has to be 50/50 in everything. That argument is a straw man. This is about understanding power: who has it, who don't, and why. Who are the subjects of their own destiny, who are the objects of another's. Who makes the big money, who subsists on scraps. If those aren't interesting questions to you, they are to me -- and I'm neither white nor a liberal, if that matters. You can't game a complex system until you understand it.
Looking at it systemically rather than anecdotally, it's clear that the more technological a society becomes, the more power adheres to the technocracy. I'm surprised more Slashdot readers don't mention this -- it's a big theme of SF, of Jon Katz's book, of ESR's writing, etc.. Anyone who won't step up and learn tech is increasingly at the mercy of those who will. That's what a technocracy means, right?: if the geeks walk out, the whole society grinds to a halt. In a sense, everyone else in society functions as support staff to the geeks -- burger flippers to make their food, maids to clean their houses, teachers to educate them, doctors to keep them healthy, IRS agents to redistribute their wealth, wives to raise their kids. This historical progression hasn't happened completely yet, but it's not that far off.
I personally intend to be among the technocrats, not the burger-flippers -- and despite your rhetoric about male nannies, I think you do too. That's why it's an interesting question to me. The social responsibility thing is tangential -- it's your right to say "so what?" to the social status quo if you choose. But to me, this topic is about knowledge == power, not about self-righteous liberalism.
What I'm asking for is that everyone own their own feelings instead of throwing off on third parties. If you want to work towards a more civil Internet, that's a most laudable goal -- but let's all be clear it's what *you* want for your own complex of reasons, not what any woman or minority around here is asking for. If Katz is crying into his herbal tea because some jerk flamed him, I could empathize as a human being -- if he weren't using me as a club to guilt other people out. Do you agree there's a difference between saying, "I, Jon Katz, am pissed off" and "You shouldn't be mean to me because women and minorities might get the wrong message."? Plus, the whole thing smacks too much of "there are ladies present" Victorian patriarchalism, ya know? IMHO, what the world needs is more white males who will just get up and say, "Hey, that's not cool" to their jerky brethren -- speaking *as white males*, not as proxies for the downtrodden.
Plus, can I say I find this whole conversation kind of funny? If I (as a putative injured party) express my very own tiny feelings about a topic I feel affects me -- you come along and tell me that I'm unhelpful and wrongheaded! Do I smell an irony, or did I forget to take out the trash?
The thing that's creepy about Katz is he fetishizes the individualistic nature of the Net, but then turns around and group-herds us into his old-fashioned demographic categories. He trumpets the fact that no one speaks for netizens, then tries to speak for us as a group and even protect us from ourselves.
Even worse, he has an irrepressible urge to speak for subgroups to which he has no possible claim whatsoever: teenagers, techies, women, minorities, people whose minds have been taken over by Disney, the marginally employed, or what have you. Is it just that he thinks we're more interesting/salable than true episodes from the life of a white middle-aged Jewish male writer from the Jersey burbs? Or is it that, deep down, he thinks we exist merely to provide an opportunity for his heroic white northern liberal bleeding heart protection? That makes us merely the objects of his ideas, not the subjects of our own.
Pity is also a way of feeling superior to the person being pitied. Jon Katz, if you're listening: I reject your efforts on my behalf. This particular Asian-American female doesn't need any white male to speak for her or define her or explain her to others or feel sorry for her or protect her. You need to check the construction of your own house before you start throwing bricks at other peoples'.
I'm nominating Sven Guckes of Vim and mutt fame. He's funny (especially for a Sprocket:-)), kind, straightforward, enthusiastic, willing to write documentation, and endlessly patient with newbies. How many OSS project leaders would invite users to "write a book about Vim *together*"? That's just plain endearing!
Plus, he writes better English than most Americans and copes with hundreds of e-mails a day from some piddly German university dialup account which prevents him from getting mail while travelling. No diss to some better-known nominees, but those who now have full-time jobs in the Open Source movement are not what it's all about -- I'd prefer to reward people like Sven who aren't raking in anything but goodwill for their efforts.
After 15 years in Chicago, I think the issue is social or attitudinal rather than truly infrastructure-related. For instance, the universities you name seem to me to be part of the problem rather than the solution. My own dearest alma mater in Hyde Park has a computer science department filled with brilliant mathematicians who (if rumor is to be believed) would not recognize a PC at pointblank range. They tend not to be company-founders, to put it delicately. I could write a whole dissertation on why the U of C sux in comparison to Stanford or MIT in helping their alumni -- but it's nothing to me any more, I'm moving to SV next month.
I think one of the issues with the "Silicon Prairie" is too much space. You and others have mentioned Argonne, Lucent, Motorola -- but tell the truth, how often have you interacted meaningfully with people from those places? Man, I don't go to the 'burbs *ever* -- and most of those people probably drive through my neighborhood just as rarely (with their doors locked). People complain about the cramped quarters in Silicon Valley and Boston, but (as the bishop said to the actress) propinquity so often leads to opportunity -- bumping into people at the coffeeshop and the LUG can lead to company creation or at least a sweet geek job. The guy who in this thread who mentioned development jobs in the 'burbs -- why'd he have to go on Slashdot to look for talent in his own backyard?
The biggest problem of all, I think, is that the Chicago business world still thinks technology is something that supports the main business mission -- one step up from secretarial work. In Silicon Valley, I was amazed to see that the engineers are viewed as central to the process -- and maybe the MBAs are the ones in a supporting role. A techie can mouth off to a marketing guy without having rank pulled and his/her job threatened! That's half the difference right there.
I run a couple of book review and recommendation websites (MysteryGuide.com and ScienceBookGuide.com). We often review out of copyright titles (e.g. GK Chesterton, Charles Darwin, Wilkie Collins). I'll start putting links to PG editions of these books on my review pages as my little contribution to the cause.
IMHO, PG needs to establish relationships with websites that have attractive content. People don't wake up one day and think, "Gee, I have a mad urge to read an e-book" -- they cruise sites like mine to get ideas about what books to read. So you need to capture reader interest near the checkout line, so to speak, when the offer of an instant free copy is maximally attractive. For example, I once needed to refer to Dickens's _A Christmas Carol_ once on short notice to do a parody -- and PG came to the rescue. Or I got an email from a teenager in like Norway who was reading a Conrad novel in the middle of the night, only to find the last chapter was missing. PG texts are lifesavers in situations like those.
I admit to screwing up on the Basic thing, I may be Frickin', but I am certainly not any kind of journalist! I don't program per se (unless you count PHP) but I design and run websites, and act as my own little sysadmin. The ignominy of being compared to Jon Katz...
Slashdot Mirror
Uh, not to nitpick, but wasn't it Jefferson? I believe Franklin was pretty enamored of copyright, being a publisher.
Anthro used to have a simpler cheaper line of desks without all the fancy widgets but lacking some of the issues (cost, weight) that others have mentioned. I've owned one of these simpler desks for several years, and it still looks/works great. Don't know if they still have this line, but if so don't assume it's the usual cheapo flimsy laminated-cardboard stuff.
I do not personally recommend the "door across filing cabinets" DIY solution. At my former job we had those kinds of desks for awhile, and had RSI problems. When we switched to adjustable desks, the problems went away. Especially avoid the DIY desk if your chair isn't very adjustable, if you're short (like me -- your feet will never touch the ground, which sucks), or if you're going to be using a laptop part of the time.
I've seen a few such animated re-creations on TV, but apparently defense attorneys fight them tooth and nail, so they rarely are admitted into evidence. Prejudicial to their clients, ya know. Since they're also not yet cheap to produce, I don't know that acceptance will be fast.
- Lack of living space favoring small portable gadgets
- Extreme urbanization and population density makes wireless infrastructure very cost effective to deploy
- Very high cost of "conventional" internet access
- Lots of "hands-free" time (e.g. commuting in trains)
- High percentage of pre-existing cellular users
That ain't the situation in the United States. You can't get decent wireless access driving down I-5 from San Francisco to Los Angeles, much less in the thinly populated middle of the country. The popularity of those Blackberry things indicates that there's some market for instant messaging among young people and/or drug dealers -- but will average Americans do much on wireless devices besides AIM and checking the weather?Hmmmm. Speaking of stereotyping... I'm a software engineer at a Silicon Valley startup, and let me tell you my supergeek colleagues can shotgun a beer with the best of them. They're manly (except the ones who are women) *and* they know Unix -- what a concept, huh?
Your dramatic oratory to the contrary, no one around here is saying society has to be 50/50 in everything. That argument is a straw man. This is about understanding power: who has it, who don't, and why. Who are the subjects of their own destiny, who are the objects of another's. Who makes the big money, who subsists on scraps. If those aren't interesting questions to you, they are to me -- and I'm neither white nor a liberal, if that matters. You can't game a complex system until you understand it.
Looking at it systemically rather than anecdotally, it's clear that the more technological a society becomes, the more power adheres to the technocracy. I'm surprised more Slashdot readers don't mention this -- it's a big theme of SF, of Jon Katz's book, of ESR's writing, etc.. Anyone who won't step up and learn tech is increasingly at the mercy of those who will. That's what a technocracy means, right?: if the geeks walk out, the whole society grinds to a halt. In a sense, everyone else in society functions as support staff to the geeks -- burger flippers to make their food, maids to clean their houses, teachers to educate them, doctors to keep them healthy, IRS agents to redistribute their wealth, wives to raise their kids. This historical progression hasn't happened completely yet, but it's not that far off.
I personally intend to be among the technocrats, not the burger-flippers -- and despite your rhetoric about male nannies, I think you do too. That's why it's an interesting question to me. The social responsibility thing is tangential -- it's your right to say "so what?" to the social status quo if you choose. But to me, this topic is about knowledge == power, not about self-righteous liberalism.
Plus, can I say I find this whole conversation kind of funny? If I (as a putative injured party) express my very own tiny feelings about a topic I feel affects me -- you come along and tell me that I'm unhelpful and wrongheaded! Do I smell an irony, or did I forget to take out the trash?
Even worse, he has an irrepressible urge to speak for subgroups to which he has no possible claim whatsoever: teenagers, techies, women, minorities, people whose minds have been taken over by Disney, the marginally employed, or what have you. Is it just that he thinks we're more interesting/salable than true episodes from the life of a white middle-aged Jewish male writer from the Jersey burbs? Or is it that, deep down, he thinks we exist merely to provide an opportunity for his heroic white northern liberal bleeding heart protection? That makes us merely the objects of his ideas, not the subjects of our own.
Pity is also a way of feeling superior to the person being pitied. Jon Katz, if you're listening: I reject your efforts on my behalf. This particular Asian-American female doesn't need any white male to speak for her or define her or explain her to others or feel sorry for her or protect her. You need to check the construction of your own house before you start throwing bricks at other peoples'.
Oh, plus the projects he works on are among the first that people need to learn on *nix systems -- so his newbies are newbies indeed.
Plus, he writes better English than most Americans and copes with hundreds of e-mails a day from some piddly German university dialup account which prevents him from getting mail while travelling. No diss to some better-known nominees, but those who now have full-time jobs in the Open Source movement are not what it's all about -- I'd prefer to reward people like Sven who aren't raking in anything but goodwill for their efforts.
I think one of the issues with the "Silicon Prairie" is too much space. You and others have mentioned Argonne, Lucent, Motorola -- but tell the truth, how often have you interacted meaningfully with people from those places? Man, I don't go to the 'burbs *ever* -- and most of those people probably drive through my neighborhood just as rarely (with their doors locked). People complain about the cramped quarters in Silicon Valley and Boston, but (as the bishop said to the actress) propinquity so often leads to opportunity -- bumping into people at the coffeeshop and the LUG can lead to company creation or at least a sweet geek job. The guy who in this thread who mentioned development jobs in the 'burbs -- why'd he have to go on Slashdot to look for talent in his own backyard?
The biggest problem of all, I think, is that the Chicago business world still thinks technology is something that supports the main business mission -- one step up from secretarial work. In Silicon Valley, I was amazed to see that the engineers are viewed as central to the process -- and maybe the MBAs are the ones in a supporting role. A techie can mouth off to a marketing guy without having rank pulled and his/her job threatened! That's half the difference right there.
IMHO, PG needs to establish relationships with websites that have attractive content. People don't wake up one day and think, "Gee, I have a mad urge to read an e-book" -- they cruise sites like mine to get ideas about what books to read. So you need to capture reader interest near the checkout line, so to speak, when the offer of an instant free copy is maximally attractive. For example, I once needed to refer to Dickens's _A Christmas Carol_ once on short notice to do a parody -- and PG came to the rescue. Or I got an email from a teenager in like Norway who was reading a Conrad novel in the middle of the night, only to find the last chapter was missing. PG texts are lifesavers in situations like those.
I admit to screwing up on the Basic thing, I may be Frickin', but I am certainly not any kind of journalist! I don't program per se (unless you count PHP) but I design and run websites, and act as my own little sysadmin. The ignominy of being compared to Jon Katz...