A friend, long ago, was in a similar situation. One Saturday he took orders for pizza. Told every caller all day that the ovens were broken, would be fixed later, and they'd get free pizza at 8 o'clock because they were such good customers.
He orderred his own pizza, for 7:45, called all his friends, then we sat on the porch eating pizza, drinking beeer, watching 50 people all trying to get their free pizzas, all at once!
I've often bought inexpensive books from the remainder bin before or during a trip. I've lost books that I really want to keep, and generally want something entertaining to offset work, so this works well.
On the way home I usually give the volume away or just leave it. It might be interesting to see who finds the books I just leave, and this'd be a great way to keep in contact with folks -- like the lovely young lady that I shared a seat with recently. A great flight, had a wonderful time, and we traded SF volumes as we got off in Philly.
Japanese providers determine what sort of infrastructure they need to improve their network. They do R&D, they partner with manufacturers & share the costs of more R&D.
They guide the direction of technology to their benefit. They make sure that the latest & greatest technology is going to add capability to and will fit seamlessly into their network.
We got one to share at work, for travel. You ain't SEEN roaming charges until you take one of these things overseas. It's way cheaper to just rent a phone at the airport.
Going the other direction is just a bit better. Our British sales rep came to the states with his cell phone. Outgoing rates are still through the roof. His service did include free incoming calls, even in the US, so he was able to stay connected with his UK number. He used a landline or one of our US-based cell phones for outgoing calls.
Written exams can be very fair and the results an excellent indication of what you know.
The problem is that it is extremely difficult to write such an exam and to grade it ptoperly. At the university level the profs & TAs that are attempting this have NO knowledge of making or grading exams. Their capability, if any, is in the application (e.g. coding). If the university is exceptionally good the profs got a quick intro to teaching, but they still couldn't give a decent exam to save their lives.
I was very fortunate as an undergrad to have had a prof that took teaching seriously. He passed up a PhD in engineering in order to get Masters degrees in teaching and psychology. In Prof Kult's classes you worked harder & learned more, you knew the theory & application, and top grades went to those who knew, not to those who regurgitated material.
He was also one of the most capable engineers I've ever met -- holding basic patents in radar systems, the ECG & other medical devices, digital switching systems, computers... the list goes on & on. However, he never got the recognition he deserved as an acedemic since his goals of teaching well & being a good engineer kept him from getting his PhD!
A few years after graduation I had his boss at the University working for me for the summer. I fired the incompetent after less than a month -- he had conned two recent grads that also worked for me into doing his work and passed it off as his own!
I'd never accept a counteroffer. I've seen too many folks get burned - they're generally kept until the project they're on is complete then either fired or never given a good assignment again. I had a friend do this, then there was a downturn in the industry. He got every crap job that came along, no raises or promotions, and there was nothing he could do about it because nobody was hiring. After the job market picked up it was years before he got another offer because his resume was now a piece of toilet paper!
Also, if you renege word does get around. I will stick with the deal I made on an interview, though I will tell the new company about changes in circumstances.
I once had an interview, liked the job, and we set a tentative price. When I got back to work my boss called me in -- he'd wrangled an early performance raise (3 months early & more than I had expected) plus an additional raise as a retention inducement. I was now making just $1 a year less than what I'd told the new place I'd work for.
At this point I was going to make the move anyway, I had made the deal and intended to stick to it, though I'd certainly tell them what had changed. The new folks called -- they'd verified my credentials, made the offer we agreed on. I told the personel worker bee what had happenned and as I was about to accept she slammed the phone down! I called her boss -- told him what happenned. He asked when I'd start -- I told him that his employee's behavior absolved my concience & I wouldn't want to work for them.
Nearly 10 years later I had a great phone interview with the same company, but in another state. At the end of the interview they all but offerred me the job. I never heard back. It took a couple of phone calls before anybody would talk to me -- I was told that they had a black-list. If you ever turned down an offer you were put on the black-list and nobody, in any division, was allowed to hire you. Employees who quit were also put on the list.
BTW: The company went down the tubes long ago.
Exercise for the student: Why did this company go out of business?
My wife is in a similar situation where she works. Any attempt to automate the process resulted in people finding some way of avoiding backup. Sometimes it was unintentional, other times it was purposeful. It was complicated by many people working on the road via laptop & dial-up connections.
She finally resorted to going in early and manually backing up every machine periodically. She's now started to put automated software back on -- checks every machine and either verifies that the auto backup worked or starts it manually.
I was talking to a professional photogragher many years ago. He had shot a publicity shot for a hotel that was in a magazine I had -- an overhead shot of the pool area with no people at all. He used a high F-stop, slow film, and neutral density filters to achieve a 9 hour exposure. Since people tend not to sit still for that long, their contribution to the image was below the noise level -- all except one woman who ruined his first shot by baking in the sun almost the entire time! The second shot was fine -- perhaps the sun-worshipped was in hospital the second day?
A few shots like this from various angles and you have the data needed for a 3d model (digital or semi-real), then just insert the actor(s) into the model.
I suspect there'll be some tracking circuitry involved. Something like what the newest lasik eye surgery units use. They track the retina and use the results to aim the laser.
There's also laser-based diagnostic equipment that uses lasers to sense the correction needed by your eyeballs. This'd be another cool feature to add. Sense your eyes' focus & aberations then adjust the image to correct.
With these features you could move your eyes and change their focus and still see the display!
The next step is to change the display as you move your eyes or change the focus. Move sideways to view different folders then change focus to see the contents of a selected folder. I can see a series of standard eye gestures similar to those used with a stylus on a touchpad.
IIRC, the Israeli RPVs got their start this way. They were inexpensive & expendable -- looked like they'd been mass-produced in a teen-ager's basement. The Israeli success with these "toys" is what got the US interested.
eBooks and computers have their place. I'll never go back to hard-copy specs or give up my email. I not only use them for work but they allow me to maintain contact with friends & family in other states, other countries.
BUT there are still times that it's more satisfying to rummage through a bookstore, to flip through the pages -- when it's pleasent to write a real letter with the expressive nib of a beautiful fountain pen.
I may have dozens of computers, but I have hundreds of books and pens!
Most of my training was at Wright-Pat -- no real fun. They dumped us in a pond just off the end of the runway. It was full of algae & oil slicks & mud, I stank for days!
I got a Dempsy Dumpster ride at Autek -- on a strange contraption on the end of the docks made of plywood, 2x4s, ropes & pulleys -- this just to ride on a civilian chopper owned & operated by RCA (they managed the range). The challange was to get out & not get splinters.
I spent a former life as a flight test engineer -- TECHEVAL & OPEVAL. My comments are based on the R&D I participated in and the training I got.
The Army, Air Force & Navy all got a crack at me. At least the Navy gave you a chute. The Air Force made me take all of the egress training -- made me jump off of all sorts of contraptions, into sand, into water (but wouldn't let me make a real jump). After all that, they put me on a c141 and didn't give us chutes -- because of which my company didn't give me hazard pay!
The MIPS don't need to fit inside of a cellphone. the cellphone needs to be able to communicate with another computer that has the desired capability, and that computer can be anywhere, anysize. The limiting issue is bandwidth & connectivity.
Yes -- our brains don't rely on any single input. we use many cues, different cues are given greater weight at different times or under different circumstances. These inputs are all used to generate the output -- such as catching a ball. These actions do require anticipation, since we cannot respond instantaneously.
For a parachute landing, it's importent to have some landmarks on the ground in order to judge your height -- it's the same as the ball but now you're in the air. The military used to teach jumpers to drop out of the harness when close to the water so as to not get tangled in the lines. This didn't work. Even experienced jumpers released themselves too high -- from up to 200 feet -- and many perished. The new instructions are "Wait until you feel water -- cold water coming up your legs, not warm water running down your legs."
The sats do not determine your position. They are accurately positioned and have synchronized clocks. Your reciever gets a signal from several satelites. From data in the signals, the reciever knows the satelites' locations & the times that the signals were sent. The reciever does all of the calculations to determine position, the satelites don't know where you are, or even that you have recieved their signal.
Humans' 3d vision is effective over a very short range. the spacing of our eyes is optimized for accurate depth perception at arm length. It is still usable to several feet -- maybe 10s of feet, but with ever reduced accuracy until it fails us entirely.
Beyond this limited range, we rely on a number of other cues -- comparing an object with nearby objects of known size, reduced detail at distance, and observed change of anglular direction to a moving object.
Humans use the latter -- observation of the angle to a moving object, to catch a ball. The effect is easily visible when driving down a road at constant speed. Watch the telephone poles by the side of the road -- they appear to "speed up" as they get closer. It's because they're off to the side, as they get closer even though the car's speed hasn't changed, the rate that the angle to a given pole changes more rapidly until it is exactly opposite you. You could also plot it. If you drive straight at a pole (don't try this at home), this cue doesn't exist, and bifocal vision doesn't help until possibly too late.
We use this to determine a moving ball's distance. Watch a baseball outfielder. if the ball is coming straight overhead, as he runs back to get the ball he'll actually run to the side, then veer back in to meet the ball. I suspect that when you were throwing a ball up & catching it, you were subconsiously learning how long it takes for a ball to come down for a given force of throw. Had you had the ball dropped from straight above, from a random height, you'd still be unable to accuratly time the ball's arrival & miss the catch.
ATT had no reason to "properly manage" UNIX. ATT's forays into areas that the FCC deemed outside of the realm of telecommunications (i.e. computer HW & SW) resulted in a a choice for ATT:
1. retain the telecommunications monopoly but refrain from any money-making ventures outside of the telecom area
2. become a real business, make money on anything you want, and open up competition in telecommunications.
ATT chose choice #1 -- retain the monopoly. This was for them a sure thing. They had always managed to retain the monopoly in the past and it provided a steady source of income. Computers were new, and internally were not percieved as a consumer item.
So at the time Bill was talking about ATT, the UNIX development/administration/lisencing was, by legal necesity, not a money-making area for ATT. UNIX was a tool to develop telecom products, the real business of ATT. Giving the technology away and managing the process "for the public good" was a means to demonstrate that it was not a money-making venture as well as a way to trumpet Bell Labs. It didn't recieve the best support from management, though, as they were focused on the money-making areas of the business.
On the other hand, the statement that ATT didn't know what they had, was that ever true! Once they did figure it out it was too late, they were legally barred from that market untl after deregulation (nothing is forever!) -- too late!
I completely agree -- and then I've had a page full of comments to explain the single contorted, but necessary, line of code on that page. Complete with references!
I've been using the Zaurus with a 1/4 VGA PDA sized screen. Embedded Linux & Trolltech Qt makes for a very readable & usable interface. The same OS & window manager running on this machine would rock -- more pixels to make text readable and graphics detailed.... and who needs explorer when you have Opera?
You say that DVD is inferior -- then why are you using it? To be inferior requires that there be something better, that fact that you still use it means that it is not inferior, at least not in the aggregate benefits to you.
Many people on flashdot owe their livlihood to the intellectual property they produce. I presume that most, like me, work for companies that use legal protections for their IP -- patents, copyrights, trade secrets. Even if you GPL your code, you're taking advantage of this legal system albeit in a scheme that is more informal & somewhat like barter.
At least the sales of real DVD players would fund & encourage Phillips' development of other technologies. So your scheme does what? How does it help anybody except yourself?
No -- I won't. But I also won't throw out the entire patent system because of this one issue! Have these companies benefitted greatly from these particular patents? Yes. Have they benefitted from all of their patents? No. Overall, have their benefits exceeded their expense? I presume so since they are still in business -- it's called capitalism. Overall is the patent system's cost-benefit ratio to the public at large optimal -- I doubt it, so let's work on making it better.
There's a trade-off between benefits to general-public and benefits to the patent-holder. Patents should, like all of our laws, maximize benefit to the general-public. The general-public, more so its technically capable members such as those on these fora, must be aware of what's happenning & assure that the process remains beneficial to all.
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This EE would consider an ice pick.
A friend, long ago, was in a similar situation. One Saturday he took orders for pizza. Told every caller all day that the ovens were broken, would be fixed later, and they'd get free pizza at 8 o'clock because they were such good customers.
He orderred his own pizza, for 7:45, called all his friends, then we sat on the porch eating pizza, drinking beeer, watching 50 people all trying to get their free pizzas, all at once!
As John Gibson once said to a kid who called in to his TV news show:
You're watching this show right now, aren't you? We put on the air what you want to watch.
Different forum, same reasons.
I've often bought inexpensive books from the remainder bin before or during a trip. I've lost books that I really want to keep, and generally want something entertaining to offset work, so this works well.
On the way home I usually give the volume away or just leave it. It might be interesting to see who finds the books I just leave, and this'd be a great way to keep in contact with folks -- like the lovely young lady that I shared a seat with recently. A great flight, had a wonderful time, and we traded SF volumes as we got off in Philly.
Japanese providers determine what sort of infrastructure they need to improve their network. They do R&D, they partner with manufacturers & share the costs of more R&D.
They guide the direction of technology to their benefit. They make sure that the latest & greatest technology is going to add capability to and will fit seamlessly into their network.
Cellular providers in the US buy off the shelf.
We got one to share at work, for travel. You ain't SEEN roaming charges until you take one of these things overseas. It's way cheaper to just rent a phone at the airport.
Going the other direction is just a bit better. Our British sales rep came to the states with his cell phone. Outgoing rates are still through the roof. His service did include free incoming calls, even in the US, so he was able to stay connected with his UK number. He used a landline or one of our US-based cell phones for outgoing calls.
Written exams can be very fair and the results an excellent indication of what you know.
... the list goes on & on. However, he never got the recognition he deserved as an acedemic since his goals of teaching well & being a good engineer kept him from getting his PhD!
The problem is that it is extremely difficult to write such an exam and to grade it ptoperly. At the university level the profs & TAs that are attempting this have NO knowledge of making or grading exams. Their capability, if any, is in the application (e.g. coding). If the university is exceptionally good the profs got a quick intro to teaching, but they still couldn't give a decent exam to save their lives.
I was very fortunate as an undergrad to have had a prof that took teaching seriously. He passed up a PhD in engineering in order to get Masters degrees in teaching and psychology. In Prof Kult's classes you worked harder & learned more, you knew the theory & application, and top grades went to those who knew, not to those who regurgitated material.
He was also one of the most capable engineers I've ever met -- holding basic patents in radar systems, the ECG & other medical devices, digital switching systems, computers
A few years after graduation I had his boss at the University working for me for the summer. I fired the incompetent after less than a month -- he had conned two recent grads that also worked for me into doing his work and passed it off as his own!
I'd never accept a counteroffer. I've seen too many folks get burned - they're generally kept until the project they're on is complete then either fired or never given a good assignment again. I had a friend do this, then there was a downturn in the industry. He got every crap job that came along, no raises or promotions, and there was nothing he could do about it because nobody was hiring. After the job market picked up it was years before he got another offer because his resume was now a piece of toilet paper!
Also, if you renege word does get around. I will stick with the deal I made on an interview, though I will tell the new company about changes in circumstances.
I once had an interview, liked the job, and we set a tentative price. When I got back to work my boss called me in -- he'd wrangled an early performance raise (3 months early & more than I had expected) plus an additional raise as a retention inducement. I was now making just $1 a year less than what I'd told the new place I'd work for.
At this point I was going to make the move anyway, I had made the deal and intended to stick to it, though I'd certainly tell them what had changed. The new folks called -- they'd verified my credentials, made the offer we agreed on. I told the personel worker bee what had happenned and as I was about to accept she slammed the phone down! I called her boss -- told him what happenned. He asked when I'd start -- I told him that his employee's behavior absolved my concience & I wouldn't want to work for them.
Nearly 10 years later I had a great phone interview with the same company, but in another state. At the end of the interview they all but offerred me the job. I never heard back. It took a couple of phone calls before anybody would talk to me -- I was told that they had a black-list. If you ever turned down an offer you were put on the black-list and nobody, in any division, was allowed to hire you. Employees who quit were also put on the list.
BTW: The company went down the tubes long ago.
Exercise for the student: Why did this company go out of business?
My wife is in a similar situation where she works. Any attempt to automate the process resulted in people finding some way of avoiding backup. Sometimes it was unintentional, other times it was purposeful. It was complicated by many people working on the road via laptop & dial-up connections.
She finally resorted to going in early and manually backing up every machine periodically. She's now started to put automated software back on -- checks every machine and either verifies that the auto backup worked or starts it manually.
I was talking to a professional photogragher many years ago. He had shot a publicity shot for a hotel that was in a magazine I had -- an overhead shot of the pool area with no people at all. He used a high F-stop, slow film, and neutral density filters to achieve a 9 hour exposure. Since people tend not to sit still for that long, their contribution to the image was below the noise level -- all except one woman who ruined his first shot by baking in the sun almost the entire time! The second shot was fine -- perhaps the sun-worshipped was in hospital the second day?
A few shots like this from various angles and you have the data needed for a 3d model (digital or semi-real), then just insert the actor(s) into the model.
I suspect there'll be some tracking circuitry involved. Something like what the newest lasik eye surgery units use. They track the retina and use the results to aim the laser.
There's also laser-based diagnostic equipment that uses lasers to sense the correction needed by your eyeballs. This'd be another cool feature to add. Sense your eyes' focus & aberations then adjust the image to correct.
With these features you could move your eyes and change their focus and still see the display!
The next step is to change the display as you move your eyes or change the focus. Move sideways to view different folders then change focus to see the contents of a selected folder. I can see a series of standard eye gestures similar to those used with a stylus on a touchpad.
At least we now have an alternative -- DSL availability is much better in areas served by Comcast. As little as 6 months ago I couldn't get DSL.
Oh yea -- Verizon -- ughh, nevermind!
IIRC, the Israeli RPVs got their start this way. They were inexpensive & expendable -- looked like they'd been mass-produced in a teen-ager's basement. The Israeli success with these "toys" is what got the US interested.
eBooks and computers have their place. I'll never go back to hard-copy specs or give up my email. I not only use them for work but they allow me to maintain contact with friends & family in other states, other countries.
BUT there are still times that it's more satisfying to rummage through a bookstore, to flip through the pages -- when it's pleasent to write a real letter with the expressive nib of a beautiful fountain pen.
I may have dozens of computers, but I have hundreds of books and pens!
Yea -- I've heard about that & I'm jealous!
Most of my training was at Wright-Pat -- no real fun. They dumped us in a pond just off the end of the runway. It was full of algae & oil slicks & mud, I stank for days!
I got a Dempsy Dumpster ride at Autek -- on a strange contraption on the end of the docks made of plywood, 2x4s, ropes & pulleys -- this just to ride on a civilian chopper owned & operated by RCA (they managed the range). The challange was to get out & not get splinters.
I spent a former life as a flight test engineer -- TECHEVAL & OPEVAL. My comments are based on the R&D I participated in and the training I got.
The Army, Air Force & Navy all got a crack at me. At least the Navy gave you a chute. The Air Force made me take all of the egress training -- made me jump off of all sorts of contraptions, into sand, into water (but wouldn't let me make a real jump). After all that, they put me on a c141 and didn't give us chutes -- because of which my company didn't give me hazard pay!
BTW: I didn't forget the Marines -- married one!
The MIPS don't need to fit inside of a cellphone. the cellphone needs to be able to communicate with another computer that has the desired capability, and that computer can be anywhere, anysize. The limiting issue is bandwidth & connectivity.
Yes -- our brains don't rely on any single input. we use many cues, different cues are given greater weight at different times or under different circumstances. These inputs are all used to generate the output -- such as catching a ball. These actions do require anticipation, since we cannot respond instantaneously.
For a parachute landing, it's importent to have some landmarks on the ground in order to judge your height -- it's the same as the ball but now you're in the air. The military used to teach jumpers to drop out of the harness when close to the water so as to not get tangled in the lines. This didn't work. Even experienced jumpers released themselves too high -- from up to 200 feet -- and many perished. The new instructions are "Wait until you feel water -- cold water coming up your legs, not warm water running down your legs."
The sats do not determine your position. They are accurately positioned and have synchronized clocks. Your reciever gets a signal from several satelites. From data in the signals, the reciever knows the satelites' locations & the times that the signals were sent. The reciever does all of the calculations to determine position, the satelites don't know where you are, or even that you have recieved their signal.
This is a different effect.
Humans' 3d vision is effective over a very short range. the spacing of our eyes is optimized for accurate depth perception at arm length. It is still usable to several feet -- maybe 10s of feet, but with ever reduced accuracy until it fails us entirely.
Beyond this limited range, we rely on a number of other cues -- comparing an object with nearby objects of known size, reduced detail at distance, and observed change of anglular direction to a moving object.
Humans use the latter -- observation of the angle to a moving object, to catch a ball. The effect is easily visible when driving down a road at constant speed. Watch the telephone poles by the side of the road -- they appear to "speed up" as they get closer. It's because they're off to the side, as they get closer even though the car's speed hasn't changed, the rate that the angle to a given pole changes more rapidly until it is exactly opposite you. You could also plot it. If you drive straight at a pole (don't try this at home), this cue doesn't exist, and bifocal vision doesn't help until possibly too late.
We use this to determine a moving ball's distance. Watch a baseball outfielder. if the ball is coming straight overhead, as he runs back to get the ball he'll actually run to the side, then veer back in to meet the ball. I suspect that when you were throwing a ball up & catching it, you were subconsiously learning how long it takes for a ball to come down for a given force of throw. Had you had the ball dropped from straight above, from a random height, you'd still be unable to accuratly time the ball's arrival & miss the catch.
ATT had no reason to "properly manage" UNIX. ATT's forays into areas that the FCC deemed outside of the realm of telecommunications (i.e. computer HW & SW) resulted in a a choice for ATT:
1. retain the telecommunications monopoly but refrain from any money-making ventures outside of the telecom area
2. become a real business, make money on anything you want, and open up competition in telecommunications.
ATT chose choice #1 -- retain the monopoly. This was for them a sure thing. They had always managed to retain the monopoly in the past and it provided a steady source of income. Computers were new, and internally were not percieved as a consumer item.
So at the time Bill was talking about ATT, the UNIX development/administration/lisencing was, by legal necesity, not a money-making area for ATT. UNIX was a tool to develop telecom products, the real business of ATT. Giving the technology away and managing the process "for the public good" was a means to demonstrate that it was not a money-making venture as well as a way to trumpet Bell Labs. It didn't recieve the best support from management, though, as they were focused on the money-making areas of the business.
On the other hand, the statement that ATT didn't know what they had, was that ever true! Once they did figure it out it was too late, they were legally barred from that market untl after deregulation (nothing is forever!) -- too late!
I completely agree -- and then I've had a page full of comments to explain the single contorted, but necessary, line of code on that page. Complete with references!
I've been using the Zaurus with a 1/4 VGA PDA sized screen. Embedded Linux & Trolltech Qt makes for a very readable & usable interface. The same OS & window manager running on this machine would rock -- more pixels to make text readable and graphics detailed. ... and who needs explorer when you have Opera?
You say that DVD is inferior -- then why are you using it? To be inferior requires that there be something better, that fact that you still use it means that it is not inferior, at least not in the aggregate benefits to you.
Many people on flashdot owe their livlihood to the intellectual property they produce. I presume that most, like me, work for companies that use legal protections for their IP -- patents, copyrights, trade secrets. Even if you GPL your code, you're taking advantage of this legal system albeit in a scheme that is more informal & somewhat like barter.
At least the sales of real DVD players would fund & encourage Phillips' development of other technologies. So your scheme does what? How does it help anybody except yourself?
No -- I won't. But I also won't throw out the entire patent system because of this one issue! Have these companies benefitted greatly from these particular patents? Yes. Have they benefitted from all of their patents? No. Overall, have their benefits exceeded their expense? I presume so since they are still in business -- it's called capitalism. Overall is the patent system's cost-benefit ratio to the public at large optimal -- I doubt it, so let's work on making it better.
There's a trade-off between benefits to general-public and benefits to the patent-holder. Patents should, like all of our laws, maximize benefit to the general-public. The general-public, more so its technically capable members such as those on these fora, must be aware of what's happenning & assure that the process remains beneficial to all.