M$ will end up having to do what they always do:
1. Leverage their strangle hold on the desktop. Most people go with the defaults anyway, so this will drive them a lot of traffic.
2. "Integrate" it with a version of Office. This is a "feature" as their new versions of Office are more net aware anyway, this will become a "feature" of Office showing their "innovation".
3. When all else fails, "integrate" it into the core operating system so that you can't remove it. Again, this will be a "feature" showing their "leadership" and "innovation" in making the operating system more net aware.
4. Add.dlls that break compatability with Google during an "upgrade" to one of their other products as well as sneak the dll into all of their future apps. A la their attack on RealPlayer.
5. Leverage their new found power with the current economic/political regime and have everyone working for Google audited by the IRS, then sue them in court for IP violations.
6. Ad nauseum deceitful attacks on every level except product performance and usefulness. Otherwise, they just wouldn't be Micro$oft.
I've been using one of the "poolbots" for years now to vacuum my pool. There is a stable, mature industry that supplies robots to clean your pool. Kreepy Crawly, Polaris 360, Hayward and others will attach to connection points on your pool filtration system to clean your pool for you. And, they do a good job of vacuuming up leaves, dirt and the like while also helping to inhibit build up on the pool sides. These all exist at a price point that is acceptable for the quality of service that they perform.
While several parts of the system are programmable, in that there are adjustments that you can make that affect their actions, it would be difficult to see them as robots. You can program the timer to control when the pump comes on, which powers the poolbot by virtue of moving the water through the robot where various paddles move and power the device through gear drives. Adjustments to jets on the robot help exert pressure in a direction which alters the robots path around the pool. The manipulation of valves on the pool filtering system increases the pressure of the flowing water, and the speed of the robot.
So, you have a system that regularly performs a specific task for you. You have the ability to alter some of the parameters of it's task, but they are essentially single task machines with less processing power than one of todays dishwashers. The issue probably comes from the classic literature that portrays robots as something that mimics an existing, living organism to replicate (to some degree) its functions. I would imagine that the "lobster" type of biomimetic robots would perform the pool cleaning functions much better than the existing poolbots. With those crawling around the pools of America, then we really would have robots closer to the mainstream of American life.
Obviously this will lead to a need for personal protection for the individual in the street. Might I suggest an Open Source designed Kevlar umbrella? Already an accepted accessory common to many, it will not only protect your clothing from common rain, but provide limited protection from less common forms of falling detrious. The perfect gift for that hard-to-shop-for individual in your life.
This is great news! Unfortunately, no good deed goes unpunished and I have no doubt they'll find another way to muzzle their critics and hide their dirty laundry.:(
I concur, their reputation is badly damaged now. Fortunately, I don't have this WAP in my house, nor am I now likely to use their gear in the future. I can't trust them and that lack of trust will be multiplied as I tell the people that come to me for advice not to use NetGear equipment.
From other postings, it appears that until this, technically they appear to produce good equipment. However, undocumented "features";) like this are inexcusable, all the more so when the end user cannot fix it themselves, even if they want to! I'll agree that most people don't read slashdot and so might not know (nor care in many cases), but for those of us that do, it would be nice if we could fix it. If the firmware made it something that the end user could correct, and end users then did not, that would be one thing. But, to use the car scenario again, to unweld the hood, make a change and then weld it shut again is a poor decision.
Those of us that regularly read Slashdot are probably the alpha geeks of our groups. The person that many people come to for informal IT support at home and at work. I am frequently asked my opinion about gear and for recommendations on what gear to buy. These people then tell their friends what they use, why they use it and how satisfied they are. This "viral" type of advertising is the kind that you can't buy when it's good and can't kill when it's not. I will not recommend products by a company that, when caught with it's hand in the cookie jar, merely switches hands. It was bad enough to get caught doing this but to change the password rather than remove the exploit reveals a mindset that I will keep in mind during future work in this field.
Can they recover from this? I would imagine that there are ways to do so aside from the usual corporate tactic of relying on consumer apathy and time. I'll be curious to see if they bother and what they do if they do bother to try.
Not all their beans are burnt, though statistically, there will be burnt bags. As for oily, that's a function of what type you get. Some types are darker and more oily than others. The darker, oilier beans are usually stronger coffees, like Kenyan or French Roast. The lighter, less oily beans are your milder coffees. I normally get French Roast and the beans are so oily that they sometimes clump together. I've tried other brands of French Roast and Columbian Roast but went back to Starbucks as I've found their beans to be better. They have a Morning Blend that you may find more to your liking. Lighter colored beans, less oily, with a milder, smoother flavor that may be more to your liking.
As a coffee cup of mine says, "I like my coffee to sit up and bark!". Having spent time in Europe, I developed a taste for strong coffee that persists. I've already worn out one espresso maker after 20 years and I'm working on my next one. I like and brew my own cappucino at home, though that's an occasional thing rather than the norm. Normally, I just brew my French Roast with a travel cup for on the road and a thermos for the day. I now limit myself to just that with the occasional cappucino, down from my prior 4 pots a day.
Starbucks is known for it's strong coffee. Most of the specialties are based on shots of espresso with various flavorings. My fave, the Mocha (Grande size) has two shots of espresso in it, along with the chocolate syrup (chocolate, more caffeine). What most people don't realize is that you can order a cup of regular coffee rather than the espresso based specialties. I've had coffee in restaurants that is just coffee brewed with Starbucks beans. It was just good coffee with probably lower levels of caffeine than the specialty coffees that they are famous for.
There must be something to this as 7 Eleven and others are offering specialty coffees too. However, Drunkin' Doughnuts seems to be holding it's own as well which shows that the market is working.
I'd drink more Mocha's from Starbucks, but for what they charge for my preferred choice, I make it an occasional treat rather than a steady stream.
I hope that their version of Battle Stations isn't Code Red.;) The constant scanning that Code Red causes will give away their position. Then again, they'll take down all other ships in the area that are using Windows, so it might prove to be a more effective attack platform that we're giving them credit for!;)
I'm always happy to see them eating their own dogfood. Especially after reading an article where the presenter talked Linux but used a Mac with M$ Powerpoint for his presentation. Running Linux and using OpenOffice for their presentation shows that they at least use and know something about the Linux environment. It's kind of hard for me to take you seriously about your commitment to a Linux product line when you're using M$ products. If your company has so few people that are Linux literate that they have to send M$ drones to represent them, how do you expect to produce a native Linux product? I wish them success and hope for the best. But, their failure won't stop me from using my Linux boxen.;)
Hey, how about Speedcheckin for my next flight? I really am who it says I am! You can let me check my bags at the curb, I'll wave my Speedcheck watch at the attendant as I board (you'll have my Happy Meal waiting for my in-fright meal) and I won't let my friends Theodore or Muhammed use my watch! Really!
Con: Admiral Poindexter - Stunning indictment of the system that they would put someone like him in charge of something like this. Israel - Is a lot smaller that the U.S. and we have seen that things don't necessarily scale. What works for them and a small volume is not necessarily going to work for the U.S. due to the volume of travellers. Freedom - With no privacy you have no freedom. Pro: System - Israel's system is reactive, though there is time to remove the passenger before take off. Security - Something has to be done, Americans will have to give up curbside check in. Life or convinience? Freedom - The U.S. is nominally a place where you are innocent until proven guilty. The Israeli system makes you guilty until proven innocent.
We should, and the ACLU and others would reject a system that presumes you are guilty. We are not El Al, though there is much to learn from that system that we could apply.
Something has to be done, though knee-jerk responses (sadly, the norm here) are not the answer. Even the MIT paper admits that some form of CAPPS could work. A couple of issues: - Unlike Open Source Software, the system should have closed criteria. - With a closed criteria needs be a truly responsive and accountable means for redress when the system marks you incorrectly. - The system must be dynamic. As terrorists change their tactics, so should the system. Unfortunately, funding for maintaining the systems will eventually be cut too far and the previous instances of governmental systems implementation (FAA system) have been dismal at best. - Maybe a predictive system to provide some help in identifying possible suspects with some random picks included. The best (or worst) of both systems adds the possibility of the random search that provides some security against the algorythmic counter strategies. Once they enter the system, a system more like the El Al system could take over. - Convenience will have to suffer so that freedom doesn't. - Let me reiterate. Without privacy, you have no freedom. Let us not sacrifice our freedoms for a security that does not exist. There is no guarantee of security no matter how much freedom you cede. I'll err on the side of freedoms. - As the MIT paper points out, nothing can truly replace the trained, professional and experienced person on the ground seeing what programming will miss or cannot address. However, this person won't be working for minimum wage.
The fact that we have not found a working system does not mean that we won't. It's an iterative process that we will get wrong a lot more than we will get right. The point is not to sacrifice what we are protecting during the process.
Hmmm, reasonable terms. Another company looking to get everyone established as a revenue stream for them. One more person in my wallet everytime I turn around. Reasonable until they need to meet the street's expectations, then "reasonable" changes. I know, it's not inherently bad, and it's not. It's just not inherently good either and today's benevolent manager will eventually be replaced by tomorrow's pointy-haired boss who has numbers to meet for the year. I'm not against capitalism, I'm just suspicious that this is another attempt to put an armlock on a popular service and then apply their leverage.
How in the world do you expect the penny ante politicians to get elected with an honest, secure system? More importantly, how is Bu$h supposed to get re-elected with a fair, impartial, secure and verifiable voting system? Fortunately, here in the good ol' US of A, we're free to chose a more politically useful system.;)
Hmmm, where is the Dell, Compaq or HP 64 bit desktop? Oh, that's right, M$ won't be shipping a 64 bit OS until next year. Some call that "freedom to innovate".
Where do I want to go today? 64 bit desktop is where I want to go TODAY. SuSe and Mandrake will let me use my Opteron desktop machine now. I can choose from several open source, new technology solutions now, or wait for "innovation" to catch up when it gets around to it. If that's innovation, guess I'll have to settle for freedom and choice.
Okay!:D
The original article was interesting enough. Protecting your IP in order to make money is okay, protecting your IP not to make money is not. Then you read "What SCO wants, SCO gets" and you see the same theme. It's okay to sue the pants off of someone in the name of greed, or to attack someone for failing to live up to your licensing agreements when it costs you money, but the upholding of the license on legal grounds without greed as the fundamental motive is unAmerican and wrong? WTF?
Either a license is legal and a company has the right to enforce the terms that were entered into, or it's not. Either it's okay to rip off someones IP or it's not. The idea that it's okay to rip off someone elses IP if you're going to make a buck is hollow.
Then again, these guys thought Enron was wonderful. Forbes isn't targeting the type of person that is furthering the world, just themselves. What I find really sad is that the author completely skips over the fact that companies can develop internal applications based on GPLcode then deploy and use them enterprise wide without paying the onerous licensing fees that would normally be required by proprietary software. That would save a lot of businesses a lot of money, improving their margins and boosting profits and bonuses. I don't think that it would really be against Forbes targetted readership to have an article that shows both sides of the issue. If you use it to sell a product based on GPL you have obligations that you don't normally take into account and that you might well decide are too steep for you. That's an informed business decision for you to make. And, that same software deployed internally you can keep to yourself and still save a bundle on licensing costs. Again, another informed business decision.
It's not outside of Forbe's scope to present a balanced article to help its readership make informed decisions. They miss the point that the GPL is about allowing businesses to have more options in the tools that they use to conduct business. It's all about lowering costs, being more efficient and freeing you to spend less money while keeping more of what you make. And that truly is what business is about.
The real reason most of those kids are going to bail is the school itself. Some will self destruct just because some will. Most of the ones that leave will do so out of boredom, driven out by a lame curriculum and lame faculty. Some will be driven out because they're not jocks or cheerleaders. Columbine was a symptom of a greater problem. There are way too many kids being marginalized by the system for not being in the one-size-fits none category. The U.S. school system is less about learning and more about conforming. Don't ask pertinent questions, ask the approved ones; letter in a sport, marry a cheerleader; go to college, major in marketing and succeed! A la Enron or Merrill Lynch.
When the system includes relevant statistics about the teachers, the counselors and the rest of the staff, we'll see some meaningful use of data. Let's look at the staff; are they computer literate? have they taken a course other than those that they have been required to? do they have any other interests other than their work? do they care about anything other than tenure and retirement?
I've had the opportunity to know too many high school teachers that don't want to learn anything about computers at all. They don't care about much other than getting through another year. We voted a bond for all the teachers in the city to be issued laptops before they left for the summer with free internet accounts and training. The majority returned in the fall with the laptops still wrapped or still very low mileage. Yes there are many that do, but they are in the minority.
When as many teachers can discuss online gaming, overclocking systems and hacking the way so many can discuss football, working on cars and philosophy, we'll have a staff that really can relate to the students they teach. Right now there's a huge disconnect between a significant part of the student body and the staff.
This idea completely ignores the other relevant apects of a student dropping out. I really have a problem with a system that only wants to study the students while ignoring the critical role the staff has in the drop out rate. Then again, maybe that's the idea.
As soon as you rock the boat to any effect, your life becomes interesting. As long as you remain "sheeple" and go along with what they say, you are not interesting. In the military, we called that being in name tag defilade, such a low profile that all that was visible of you is your name tag (below notice). But, when you start to disagree with those that know better, or argue that the Bill of Rights should not be arbritrarily suspended for the emergency du jour, they want to know who you are and start collecting against you. They need to know how to handle you and hence, need to collect information against you. After all, if you had nothing to hide, you wouldn't be raising such a stink. You must be one of them or you'd understand that REAL AMERICANS understand the need to make sacrifices.
Tip O'Neal said that all politics are local. So, all it would take to become a threat is to piss off the local town council by opposing any of their pet projects. They call the sheriff or local constabulary who look into you and/or let law enforcement highers know that you exhibit anti-American tendencies and you pop up on the screen for further investigation. In the UK they've already discovered that the people manning the local cameras spend their time following attractive women or "the wrong sort" as they walk the streets. In the U.S., many employees of the IRS were fired after it was finally made public that they were looking at the tax files of celebrities because they were curious about them. None of the cameras in the London financial district have caught any of the terrorists they were placed there to catch. None of the celebrities had any tax problems that would have necessitated the look at their records. In each case, the people with power to snoop abused their power for personal reasons. Let alone Watergate. In an administration where the President's press secretary feels that it's un-American to disagree with the President, what will it take to become interesting enough to be collected against?
Having said all that, we do need to do something to protect ourselves. The issue is to protect ourselves without compromising who we are in the process. Traditionally, insurgents have always had the advantage in this respect. They don't have to balance anything nor respect any rights. By getting the government to repress it's own people, the government will cause support for the insurgents to grow as resentment of it grows. It is an incredibly difficult position for a government to be in and easy for the government to get the responses wrong. I'm sure that the U.S. can protect itself and respect the rights of its citizenry. But we have to stand up for our rights while we do so. If we have no privacy, we have no freedom.
As mentioned previously, it's college, not high school. If they don't want to pay attention, they don't have to as long as they accept responsibility for their actions and aren't interfering with the class. It's on them to pass the class and/or participate as required.
What about the "cattle call" classes that everyone has to take and even the instructor doesn't want to be there? My son's intro to C++ class was like that and he surfed the web while in that class. And did just fine in it. When my daughter had taken the same class the year before, she had made similar comments about the class. The instructor was bored and wanted to be teaching more advanced Unix courses but had to teach the intro course. She was not helpful to the students that tried to get her help. My daughter also did fine in the class, but she, like her brother had already taken an introductory C++ programming course in high school.
One of my instructors teaches his MIS course from Powerpoint slides that he just reads. Although capable of truly inspired teaching when he wanted to, he usually didn't (at least at the undergrad level. Ask me next year when I have to take him again post grad). He made attendance part of his grading above and beyond the university's policy of no more than 4 missed classes. Many times I sat in the back of his class and read my latest copy of Linux Journal or articles on my Palm. All of his class material was available on Blackboard before class. After 20+ years, I think he's bored too. Most of the class seemed to be only interested in achieving the minimum necessary to pass the course. Uninspired teaching, uninspired class, rote reading of slides; as they say, "Where's my motivation"?
The better professors won't have to worry. They'll hold the students attention and not worry about those that insist on not paying attention. Most of those students that don't pay attention are either tourists anyway or being held back by uninspired curriculum or professors. If TAs are teaching and can't hold the class, they shouldn't be teaching. That's not what I've been paying for. From the article it appears to be a number of issues are involved (as usual). WiFi is still new enough on campus that both faculty and students are still working out the roles of themselves and the technology. The implementation of any new technology is a bumpy road. I think that what this article really highlights.
Got the new Sum 41 cd and it plays everywhere but my car cd player (blaupunkt). Got the cd yesterday and it works on my home machine (where I can and will rip it now), works in my son's car stereo and when I drove into work and tried to listen to it, the stereo says "cd error" and goes back to the radio. So, since it works on my machine at home, I'll go home tonight, burn a new one, save the image for future use and start listening to my burned cd tomorrow. Something I wouldn't have had to do if they had left well enough alone. Yeah, whatever they did to the cd sure showed me! Jack and the boys seem intent to force us into copying even at bayonet point! How many more of these victories can they take before they fold?;)
I just had Charter Pipleline service installed and spent the weekend reconfiguring the network and setting up the router. The guy that came out was very cool about it and very knowledgeable. The only thing he needed to do to the machine was reconfigure the network settings so that they would work with the cable modem. Other than doing what he needed to, he didn't try anything funny or out of line. Some cable modems hook directly into the pc and may require a driver for the usb connection. Some providers want to put their browser on and/or reconfigure yours so that their page is your default home page.
Charter, while not everyone's favorite service, has been very cool about helping me reset my hosts file on the cable modem and trying to see my router to help me trouble shoot the system. Their official policy is that they don't support networks which makes you on your own if you have trouble. In practice I've found that if you know what you're doing and the techs aren't swamped at the time, they'll work with you and tell you what they're seeing from their end and give you some pointers. Just don't expect them to walk you through it.
Bottom line is that there really is no need to install anything other than maybe a driver for a usb connection to the cable modem. I'm not impressed that people that don't know any better are being taken advantage of by people like your provider. I can only hope that someone does that to their mom, dad, brother or sister sometime.
If JPL can generate some real income, I don't see the boys in DC letting it go for what it was intended. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to see upper level management at JPL use the extra income to fund pet projects of their own rather that using it as intended. I can only hope that somehow I will be wrong. Be the best mistake of my life!;)
My son goes to UT Dallas and has already adapted to wireless, pervasive computing. He leaves his laptop on while he moves around and has a new message to reflect his status. His new AIM away message is "brb, between buildings".
Hmmm, makes me confident about driving my Volvo with a MS OS in charge. Lemme see, it gets infected and we drive down to the police station?;) Or maybe it replicates itself by ramming other cars?;)
How about cold.vbs? First it checks to see if the outside temp is below 45 F. It causes the radiator fan to slow down and make the car run cold, cracks open the drain plug so that the car's nose drips and adjusts the thermostat so that it runs a little hot.;) Then, it adjusts the flow to the heater core so that the car interior is cold or in cars with power windows rolls the windows down regardless of driver control. Soon, both car and driver have a cold. Randomly give the timing a spin so that it sneezes (backfires).;)
So, do we then need to see Norton for a cold remedy for it? Or just park it in the garage for a few days and give it plenty of antifreeze? Or chicken soup?;)
The fun has just begun!
Yes, I can repair my own car. Yes, I can do most of what's required to build a house, yes I can cook my own food. Yes, I can repair and/or design and build electronic equipment. And I can survive in the wilderness with just a knife and what I'm wearing. My VCR isn't blinking 12:00 AM either.
Most of these people don't want a user manual, they wan't an 800 number. On tech support, I'd get calls on how to drag a file, how to copy a file, how to start a program by clicking on it. All things that were either covered in the manual, the tutorial or both. Most didn't want to do that. They "didn't like looking through the manual" or "didn't have time to go through a tutorial". They paid good money for the computer and that is what the help desk is for.
As for others, they grew up seeing computers as those monsters behind glass walls that only guys with Phd's and white coats can use. Or only young people. Many convinced themselves that they can't learn and become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Some, once they believe that they can learn about them and use them, do. Many people won't spend half an hour with a manual or tutorial, but will gladly watch a 4 hour Friends or Seinfeld marathon. These are irrationally afraid of their computers. Afraid that if they even move an icon the computer "will blow up". I work with several that are apparently intelligent people, who can work wonders with mainframe queries, but are terrified of their PC and just won't accept that they can learn to use them. Irrational is the only term that does them justice.
These same people may have a cell phone. But, they can't do anything more than make a call or answer a call with them. They don't have any numbers stored in them that someone else didn't put in there for them. They frequently can't use the caller id feature if it doesn't pop up for them. And in every case, they can't be bothered to look at the manual. They either "don't have time" or "I can't ever understand those things".
My point with this soliloquy is that they are idiots - by choice. They refuse to even try to learn the basics of almost any of the technologies that they use on a daily basis. Their choice is to find someone to do it for them or do without and go watch Jerry Springer. Willful ignorance is its own reward.
Both the author and Lewis agree on what is arguably the one, main point: there is no substitute for an experienced, knowledgeable programmer to estimate the time required. Beyond that, they appear to come from different camps. The author appears to come from the camp that believes that objective estimation is possible, but isn't there yet. Lewis it appears, is from the camp that believes that coding is art, science and experience and not subject to quantification.
This is the age old programming clash of elegance, skill, hard work and experience (admittedly my persuasion) vs. managed, predictable, code generation by technique, hard work and experience. One camp says it's a learnable skill that can be harnessed, quantified and predicted like any other process of the machine age. The other says that there are intangible qualities that elude the cold, hard science of process efficiency.
In practice, we've used lone programmers that worked alone on our projects. They had various personalities, some flamboyant and extravagant, some quiet and staid. All hard working, all successful and all on time and under budget. In a couple of cases, their efforts were deployed enterprise wide. These programs were translated by people working in teams with processes, milestones, deliverables and other project management buzzwords. All took more time than they said, took over twice as much time to deliver as our single programmers did, cost more, delivered fewer of the original features and were not as responsive or usable as the originals. Most of the users that used both forms of the programs were very unsatisfied with the newer, enterprise-wide implementation and we get constant requests for the old versions to be re-implemented. For political reasons, this is not going to happen. This covers my experience for the last 4 years. Your mileage may vary. We're in the middle of another one of these conversions and it's going just as badly as all the previous ones. With no hope in sight. These projects cover various OS's and languages, so I can't take sides in any of the religious wars about platform or language, only approach. None of ours are even in the ballpark of the FAA system that Lewis refers to in his writings.
Given all this, the author of this article appears to have years of experience and knowledge in this field. Lewis is admittedly new to this field. Refer to my first point.
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M$ will end up having to do what they always do:
.dlls that break compatability with Google during an "upgrade" to one of their other products as well as sneak the dll into all of their future apps. A la their attack on RealPlayer.
1. Leverage their strangle hold on the desktop. Most people go with the defaults anyway, so this will drive them a lot of traffic.
2. "Integrate" it with a version of Office. This is a "feature" as their new versions of Office are more net aware anyway, this will become a "feature" of Office showing their "innovation".
3. When all else fails, "integrate" it into the core operating system so that you can't remove it. Again, this will be a "feature" showing their "leadership" and "innovation" in making the operating system more net aware.
4. Add
5. Leverage their new found power with the current economic/political regime and have everyone working for Google audited by the IRS, then sue them in court for IP violations.
6. Ad nauseum deceitful attacks on every level except product performance and usefulness. Otherwise, they just wouldn't be Micro$oft.
I've been using one of the "poolbots" for years now to vacuum my pool. There is a stable, mature industry that supplies robots to clean your pool. Kreepy Crawly, Polaris 360, Hayward and others will attach to connection points on your pool filtration system to clean your pool for you. And, they do a good job of vacuuming up leaves, dirt and the like while also helping to inhibit build up on the pool sides. These all exist at a price point that is acceptable for the quality of service that they perform.
While several parts of the system are programmable, in that there are adjustments that you can make that affect their actions, it would be difficult to see them as robots. You can program the timer to control when the pump comes on, which powers the poolbot by virtue of moving the water through the robot where various paddles move and power the device through gear drives. Adjustments to jets on the robot help exert pressure in a direction which alters the robots path around the pool. The manipulation of valves on the pool filtering system increases the pressure of the flowing water, and the speed of the robot.
So, you have a system that regularly performs a specific task for you. You have the ability to alter some of the parameters of it's task, but they are essentially single task machines with less processing power than one of todays dishwashers. The issue probably comes from the classic literature that portrays robots as something that mimics an existing, living organism to replicate (to some degree) its functions. I would imagine that the "lobster" type of biomimetic robots would perform the pool cleaning functions much better than the existing poolbots. With those crawling around the pools of America, then we really would have robots closer to the mainstream of American life.
Obviously this will lead to a need for personal protection for the individual in the street. Might I suggest an Open Source designed Kevlar umbrella? Already an accepted accessory common to many, it will not only protect your clothing from common rain, but provide limited protection from less common forms of falling detrious. The perfect gift for that hard-to-shop-for individual in your life.
This is great news! Unfortunately, no good deed goes unpunished and I have no doubt they'll find another way to muzzle their critics and hide their dirty laundry. :(
If we're the message, tell them to check their parity settings and ;)
send the message again as it appears to have been garbled the first time.
I concur, their reputation is badly damaged now. Fortunately, I don't have this WAP in my house, nor am I now likely to use their gear in the future. I can't trust them and that lack of trust will be multiplied as I tell the people that come to me for advice not to use NetGear equipment. ;) like this are inexcusable, all the more so when the end user cannot fix it themselves, even if they want to! I'll agree that most people don't read slashdot and so might not know (nor care in many cases), but for those of us that do, it would be nice if we could fix it. If the firmware made it something that the end user could correct, and end users then did not, that would be one thing. But, to use the car scenario again, to unweld the hood, make a change and then weld it shut again is a poor decision.
From other postings, it appears that until this, technically they appear to produce good equipment. However, undocumented "features"
Those of us that regularly read Slashdot are probably the alpha geeks of our groups. The person that many people come to for informal IT support at home and at work. I am frequently asked my opinion about gear and for recommendations on what gear to buy. These people then tell their friends what they use, why they use it and how satisfied they are. This "viral" type of advertising is the kind that you can't buy when it's good and can't kill when it's not. I will not recommend products by a company that, when caught with it's hand in the cookie jar, merely switches hands. It was bad enough to get caught doing this but to change the password rather than remove the exploit reveals a mindset that I will keep in mind during future work in this field.
Can they recover from this? I would imagine that there are ways to do so aside from the usual corporate tactic of relying on consumer apathy and time. I'll be curious to see if they bother and what they do if they do bother to try.
Not all their beans are burnt, though statistically, there will be burnt bags. As for oily, that's a function of what type you get. Some types are darker and more oily than others. The darker, oilier beans are usually stronger coffees, like Kenyan or French Roast. The lighter, less oily beans are your milder coffees. I normally get French Roast and the beans are so oily that they sometimes clump together. I've tried other brands of French Roast and Columbian Roast but went back to Starbucks as I've found their beans to be better. They have a Morning Blend that you may find more to your liking. Lighter colored beans, less oily, with a milder, smoother flavor that may be more to your liking.
As a coffee cup of mine says, "I like my coffee to sit up and bark!". Having spent time in Europe, I developed a taste for strong coffee that persists. I've already worn out one espresso maker after 20 years and I'm working on my next one. I like and brew my own cappucino at home, though that's an occasional thing rather than the norm. Normally, I just brew my French Roast with a travel cup for on the road and a thermos for the day. I now limit myself to just that with the occasional cappucino, down from my prior 4 pots a day.
Starbucks is known for it's strong coffee. Most of the specialties are based on shots of espresso with various flavorings. My fave, the Mocha (Grande size) has two shots of espresso in it, along with the chocolate syrup (chocolate, more caffeine). What most people don't realize is that you can order a cup of regular coffee rather than the espresso based specialties. I've had coffee in restaurants that is just coffee brewed with Starbucks beans. It was just good coffee with probably lower levels of caffeine than the specialty coffees that they are famous for.
There must be something to this as 7 Eleven and others are offering specialty coffees too. However, Drunkin' Doughnuts seems to be holding it's own as well which shows that the market is working.
I'd drink more Mocha's from Starbucks, but for what they charge for my preferred choice, I make it an occasional treat rather than a steady stream.
I hope that their version of Battle Stations isn't Code Red. ;) The constant scanning that Code Red causes will give away their position. Then again, they'll take down all other ships in the area that are using Windows, so it might prove to be a more effective attack platform that we're giving them credit for! ;)
I'm always happy to see them eating their own dogfood. Especially after reading an article where the presenter talked Linux but used a Mac with M$ Powerpoint for his presentation. Running Linux and using OpenOffice for their presentation shows that they at least use and know something about the Linux environment. It's kind of hard for me to take you seriously about your commitment to a Linux product line when you're using M$ products. If your company has so few people that are Linux literate that they have to send M$ drones to represent them, how do you expect to produce a native Linux product? I wish them success and hope for the best. But, their failure won't stop me from using my Linux boxen. ;)
Hey, how about Speedcheckin for my next flight? I really am who it says I am! You can let me check my bags at the curb, I'll wave my Speedcheck watch at the attendant as I board (you'll have my Happy Meal waiting for my in-fright meal) and I won't let my friends Theodore or Muhammed use my watch! Really!
Con:
Admiral Poindexter - Stunning indictment of the system that they would put someone like him in charge of something like this.
Israel - Is a lot smaller that the U.S. and we have seen that things don't necessarily scale. What works for them and a small volume is not necessarily going to work for the U.S. due to the volume of travellers.
Freedom - With no privacy you have no freedom.
Pro:
System - Israel's system is reactive, though there is time to remove the passenger before take off.
Security - Something has to be done, Americans will have to give up curbside check in. Life or convinience?
Freedom - The U.S. is nominally a place where you are innocent until proven guilty. The Israeli system makes you guilty until proven innocent.
We should, and the ACLU and others would reject a system that presumes you are guilty. We are not El Al, though there is much to learn from that system that we could apply.
Something has to be done, though knee-jerk responses (sadly, the norm here) are not the answer. Even the MIT paper admits that some form of CAPPS could work. A couple of issues:
- Unlike Open Source Software, the system should have closed criteria.
- With a closed criteria needs be a truly responsive and accountable means for redress when the system marks you incorrectly.
- The system must be dynamic. As terrorists change their tactics, so should the system. Unfortunately, funding for maintaining the systems will eventually be cut too far and the previous instances of governmental systems implementation (FAA system) have been dismal at best.
- Maybe a predictive system to provide some help in identifying possible suspects with some random picks included. The best (or worst) of both systems adds the possibility of the random search that provides some security against the algorythmic counter strategies. Once they enter the system, a system more like the El Al system could take over.
- Convenience will have to suffer so that freedom doesn't.
- Let me reiterate. Without privacy, you have no freedom. Let us not sacrifice our freedoms for a security that does not exist. There is no guarantee of security no matter how much freedom you cede. I'll err on the side of freedoms.
- As the MIT paper points out, nothing can truly replace the trained, professional and experienced person on the ground seeing what programming will miss or cannot address. However, this person won't be working for minimum wage.
The fact that we have not found a working system does not mean that we won't. It's an iterative process that we will get wrong a lot more than we will get right. The point is not to sacrifice what we are protecting during the process.
Hmmm, reasonable terms. Another company looking to get everyone established as a revenue stream for them. One more person in my wallet everytime I turn around. Reasonable until they need to meet the street's expectations, then "reasonable" changes. I know, it's not inherently bad, and it's not. It's just not inherently good either and today's benevolent manager will eventually be replaced by tomorrow's pointy-haired boss who has numbers to meet for the year. I'm not against capitalism, I'm just suspicious that this is another attempt to put an armlock on a popular service and then apply their leverage.
How in the world do you expect the penny ante politicians to get elected with an honest, secure system? More importantly, how is Bu$h supposed to get re-elected with a fair, impartial, secure and verifiable voting system? Fortunately, here in the good ol' US of A, we're free to chose a more politically useful system. ;)
Hmmm, where is the Dell, Compaq or HP 64 bit desktop? Oh, that's right, M$ won't be shipping a 64 bit OS until next year. Some call that "freedom to innovate". :D
Where do I want to go today? 64 bit desktop is where I want to go TODAY. SuSe and Mandrake will let me use my Opteron desktop machine now. I can choose from several open source, new technology solutions now, or wait for "innovation" to catch up when it gets around to it. If that's innovation, guess I'll have to settle for freedom and choice.
Okay!
The original article was interesting enough. Protecting your IP in order to make money is okay, protecting your IP not to make money is not. Then you read "What SCO wants, SCO gets" and you see the same theme. It's okay to sue the pants off of someone in the name of greed, or to attack someone for failing to live up to your licensing agreements when it costs you money, but the upholding of the license on legal grounds without greed as the fundamental motive is unAmerican and wrong? WTF?
Either a license is legal and a company has the right to enforce the terms that were entered into, or it's not. Either it's okay to rip off someones IP or it's not. The idea that it's okay to rip off someone elses IP if you're going to make a buck is hollow.
Then again, these guys thought Enron was wonderful. Forbes isn't targeting the type of person that is furthering the world, just themselves. What I find really sad is that the author completely skips over the fact that companies can develop internal applications based on GPLcode then deploy and use them enterprise wide without paying the onerous licensing fees that would normally be required by proprietary software. That would save a lot of businesses a lot of money, improving their margins and boosting profits and bonuses. I don't think that it would really be against Forbes targetted readership to have an article that shows both sides of the issue. If you use it to sell a product based on GPL you have obligations that you don't normally take into account and that you might well decide are too steep for you. That's an informed business decision for you to make. And, that same software deployed internally you can keep to yourself and still save a bundle on licensing costs. Again, another informed business decision.
It's not outside of Forbe's scope to present a balanced article to help its readership make informed decisions. They miss the point that the GPL is about allowing businesses to have more options in the tools that they use to conduct business. It's all about lowering costs, being more efficient and freeing you to spend less money while keeping more of what you make. And that truly is what business is about.
The real reason most of those kids are going to bail is the school itself. Some will self destruct just because some will. Most of the ones that leave will do so out of boredom, driven out by a lame curriculum and lame faculty. Some will be driven out because they're not jocks or cheerleaders. Columbine was a symptom of a greater problem. There are way too many kids being marginalized by the system for not being in the one-size-fits none category. The U.S. school system is less about learning and more about conforming. Don't ask pertinent questions, ask the approved ones; letter in a sport, marry a cheerleader; go to college, major in marketing and succeed! A la Enron or Merrill Lynch.
When the system includes relevant statistics about the teachers, the counselors and the rest of the staff, we'll see some meaningful use of data. Let's look at the staff; are they computer literate? have they taken a course other than those that they have been required to? do they have any other interests other than their work? do they care about anything other than tenure and retirement?
I've had the opportunity to know too many high school teachers that don't want to learn anything about computers at all. They don't care about much other than getting through another year. We voted a bond for all the teachers in the city to be issued laptops before they left for the summer with free internet accounts and training. The majority returned in the fall with the laptops still wrapped or still very low mileage. Yes there are many that do, but they are in the minority.
When as many teachers can discuss online gaming, overclocking systems and hacking the way so many can discuss football, working on cars and philosophy, we'll have a staff that really can relate to the students they teach. Right now there's a huge disconnect between a significant part of the student body and the staff.
This idea completely ignores the other relevant apects of a student dropping out. I really have a problem with a system that only wants to study the students while ignoring the critical role the staff has in the drop out rate. Then again, maybe that's the idea.
As soon as you rock the boat to any effect, your life becomes interesting. As long as you remain "sheeple" and go along with what they say, you are not interesting. In the military, we called that being in name tag defilade, such a low profile that all that was visible of you is your name tag (below notice). But, when you start to disagree with those that know better, or argue that the Bill of Rights should not be arbritrarily suspended for the emergency du jour, they want to know who you are and start collecting against you. They need to know how to handle you and hence, need to collect information against you. After all, if you had nothing to hide, you wouldn't be raising such a stink. You must be one of them or you'd understand that REAL AMERICANS understand the need to make sacrifices.
Tip O'Neal said that all politics are local. So, all it would take to become a threat is to piss off the local town council by opposing any of their pet projects. They call the sheriff or local constabulary who look into you and/or let law enforcement highers know that you exhibit anti-American tendencies and you pop up on the screen for further investigation. In the UK they've already discovered that the people manning the local cameras spend their time following attractive women or "the wrong sort" as they walk the streets. In the U.S., many employees of the IRS were fired after it was finally made public that they were looking at the tax files of celebrities because they were curious about them. None of the cameras in the London financial district have caught any of the terrorists they were placed there to catch. None of the celebrities had any tax problems that would have necessitated the look at their records. In each case, the people with power to snoop abused their power for personal reasons. Let alone Watergate. In an administration where the President's press secretary feels that it's un-American to disagree with the President, what will it take to become interesting enough to be collected against?
Having said all that, we do need to do something to protect ourselves. The issue is to protect ourselves without compromising who we are in the process. Traditionally, insurgents have always had the advantage in this respect. They don't have to balance anything nor respect any rights. By getting the government to repress it's own people, the government will cause support for the insurgents to grow as resentment of it grows. It is an incredibly difficult position for a government to be in and easy for the government to get the responses wrong. I'm sure that the U.S. can protect itself and respect the rights of its citizenry. But we have to stand up for our rights while we do so.
If we have no privacy, we have no freedom.
As mentioned previously, it's college, not high school. If they don't want to pay attention, they don't have to as long as they accept responsibility for their actions and aren't interfering with the class. It's on them to pass the class and/or participate as required.
What about the "cattle call" classes that everyone has to take and even the instructor doesn't want to be there? My son's intro to C++ class was like that and he surfed the web while in that class. And did just fine in it. When my daughter had taken the same class the year before, she had made similar comments about the class. The instructor was bored and wanted to be teaching more advanced Unix courses but had to teach the intro course. She was not helpful to the students that tried to get her help. My daughter also did fine in the class, but she, like her brother had already taken an introductory C++ programming course in high school.
One of my instructors teaches his MIS course from Powerpoint slides that he just reads. Although capable of truly inspired teaching when he wanted to, he usually didn't (at least at the undergrad level. Ask me next year when I have to take him again post grad). He made attendance part of his grading above and beyond the university's policy of no more than 4 missed classes. Many times I sat in the back of his class and read my latest copy of Linux Journal or articles on my Palm. All of his class material was available on Blackboard before class. After 20+ years, I think he's bored too. Most of the class seemed to be only interested in achieving the minimum necessary to pass the course. Uninspired teaching, uninspired class, rote reading of slides; as they say, "Where's my motivation"?
The better professors won't have to worry. They'll hold the students attention and not worry about those that insist on not paying attention. Most of those students that don't pay attention are either tourists anyway or being held back by uninspired curriculum or professors. If TAs are teaching and can't hold the class, they shouldn't be teaching. That's not what I've been paying for. From the article it appears to be a number of issues are involved (as usual). WiFi is still new enough on campus that both faculty and students are still working out the roles of themselves and the technology. The implementation of any new technology is a bumpy road. I think that what this article really highlights.
Got the new Sum 41 cd and it plays everywhere but my car cd player (blaupunkt). Got the cd yesterday and it works on my home machine (where I can and will rip it now), works in my son's car stereo and when I drove into work and tried to listen to it, the stereo says "cd error" and goes back to the radio. So, since it works on my machine at home, I'll go home tonight, burn a new one, save the image for future use and start listening to my burned cd tomorrow. Something I wouldn't have had to do if they had left well enough alone. Yeah, whatever they did to the cd sure showed me! Jack and the boys seem intent to force us into copying even at bayonet point! How many more of these victories can they take before they fold? ;)
I just had Charter Pipleline service installed and spent the weekend reconfiguring the network and setting up the router. The guy that came out was very cool about it and very knowledgeable. The only thing he needed to do to the machine was reconfigure the network settings so that they would work with the cable modem. Other than doing what he needed to, he didn't try anything funny or out of line. Some cable modems hook directly into the pc and may require a driver for the usb connection. Some providers want to put their browser on and/or reconfigure yours so that their page is your default home page.
Charter, while not everyone's favorite service, has been very cool about helping me reset my hosts file on the cable modem and trying to see my router to help me trouble shoot the system. Their official policy is that they don't support networks which makes you on your own if you have trouble. In practice I've found that if you know what you're doing and the techs aren't swamped at the time, they'll work with you and tell you what they're seeing from their end and give you some pointers. Just don't expect them to walk you through it.
Bottom line is that there really is no need to install anything other than maybe a driver for a usb connection to the cable modem. I'm not impressed that people that don't know any better are being taken advantage of by people like your provider. I can only hope that someone does that to their mom, dad, brother or sister sometime.
If JPL can generate some real income, I don't see the boys in DC letting it go for what it was intended. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to see upper level management at JPL use the extra income to fund pet projects of their own rather that using it as intended. I can only hope that somehow I will be wrong. Be the best mistake of my life! ;)
My son goes to UT Dallas and has already adapted to wireless, pervasive computing. He leaves his laptop on while he moves around and has a new message to reflect his status. His new AIM away message is "brb, between buildings".
Hmmm, makes me confident about driving my Volvo with a MS OS in charge. Lemme see, it gets infected and we drive down to the police station? ;) Or maybe it replicates itself by ramming other cars? ;) ;) Then, it adjusts the flow to the heater core so that the car interior is cold or in cars with power windows rolls the windows down regardless of driver control. Soon, both car and driver have a cold. Randomly give the timing a spin so that it sneezes (backfires). ;) ;)
How about cold.vbs? First it checks to see if the outside temp is below 45 F. It causes the radiator fan to slow down and make the car run cold, cracks open the drain plug so that the car's nose drips and adjusts the thermostat so that it runs a little hot.
So, do we then need to see Norton for a cold remedy for it? Or just park it in the garage for a few days and give it plenty of antifreeze? Or chicken soup?
The fun has just begun!
Yes, I can repair my own car. Yes, I can do most of what's required to build a house, yes I can cook my own food. Yes, I can repair and/or design and build electronic equipment. And I can survive in the wilderness with just a knife and what I'm wearing. My VCR isn't blinking 12:00 AM either.
Most of these people don't want a user manual, they wan't an 800 number. On tech support, I'd get calls on how to drag a file, how to copy a file, how to start a program by clicking on it. All things that were either covered in the manual, the tutorial or both. Most didn't want to do that. They "didn't like looking through the manual" or "didn't have time to go through a tutorial". They paid good money for the computer and that is what the help desk is for.
As for others, they grew up seeing computers as those monsters behind glass walls that only guys with Phd's and white coats can use. Or only young people. Many convinced themselves that they can't learn and become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Some, once they believe that they can learn about them and use them, do. Many people won't spend half an hour with a manual or tutorial, but will gladly watch a 4 hour Friends or Seinfeld marathon. These are irrationally afraid of their computers. Afraid that if they even move an icon the computer "will blow up". I work with several that are apparently intelligent people, who can work wonders with mainframe queries, but are terrified of their PC and just won't accept that they can learn to use them. Irrational is the only term that does them justice.
These same people may have a cell phone. But, they can't do anything more than make a call or answer a call with them. They don't have any numbers stored in them that someone else didn't put in there for them. They frequently can't use the caller id feature if it doesn't pop up for them. And in every case, they can't be bothered to look at the manual. They either "don't have time" or "I can't ever understand those things".
My point with this soliloquy is that they are idiots - by choice. They refuse to even try to learn the basics of almost any of the technologies that they use on a daily basis. Their choice is to find someone to do it for them or do without and go watch Jerry Springer. Willful ignorance is its own reward.
Both the author and Lewis agree on what is arguably the one, main point: there is no substitute for an experienced, knowledgeable programmer to estimate the time required. Beyond that, they appear to come from different camps. The author appears to come from the camp that believes that objective estimation is possible, but isn't there yet. Lewis it appears, is from the camp that believes that coding is art, science and experience and not subject to quantification.
This is the age old programming clash of elegance, skill, hard work and experience (admittedly my persuasion) vs. managed, predictable, code generation by technique, hard work and experience. One camp says it's a learnable skill that can be harnessed, quantified and predicted like any other process of the machine age. The other says that there are intangible qualities that elude the cold, hard science of process efficiency.
In practice, we've used lone programmers that worked alone on our projects. They had various personalities, some flamboyant and extravagant, some quiet and staid. All hard working, all successful and all on time and under budget. In a couple of cases, their efforts were deployed enterprise wide. These programs were translated by people working in teams with processes, milestones, deliverables and other project management buzzwords. All took more time than they said, took over twice as much time to deliver as our single programmers did, cost more, delivered fewer of the original features and were not as responsive or usable as the originals. Most of the users that used both forms of the programs were very unsatisfied with the newer, enterprise-wide implementation and we get constant requests for the old versions to be re-implemented. For political reasons, this is not going to happen. This covers my experience for the last 4 years. Your mileage may vary. We're in the middle of another one of these conversions and it's going just as badly as all the previous ones. With no hope in sight. These projects cover various OS's and languages, so I can't take sides in any of the religious wars about platform or language, only approach. None of ours are even in the ballpark of the FAA system that Lewis refers to in his writings.
Given all this, the author of this article appears to have years of experience and knowledge in this field. Lewis is admittedly new to this field. Refer to my first point.