Amway, Melaluccia, Mary Kay cosmetics, Tupperware, etc., etc. You make money off your friends by providing them with "useful stuff", in this case targeted ads. Yes, I realize, it's different, since you have to buy washing powder anyway, why not buy it from your neighbor, and no one "needs" these ads, but the ads wouldn't be there in the first place if they didn't pique people's interest.
I think this could go a long way, although I sure hope my friends don't get into it.
Over the years, instrument makers have spent considerable time trying to "recreate" the wood that Stradivarius used, to the point of immersing the wood in water with the same mineral composition that the river water had that the logs travelled which probably made their way to Cremona back then. And of course finding wooden items from the same period, and cannibalizing them for their wood to try to make a violin. Obviously, nothing has worked.
I'm a woodworker and some of my friends have tried to make violins. They all looked good and sounded terrible. It's definitely a tough business.
Chevron can buy Texaco, Mercedes can buy Chrysler, the Baby Bells buying each other and ATT, Steel companies, and so many other examples. "isn't entirely intuitive" is putting it mildly, but it boils down to whether the Justice Department wants to enforce the law at a given point in time.
I can't believe this won't happen in some form, even if they have to make some cosmetic changes to make it look better.
The article begins by saying that a CIO doesn't want to be labeled as clueless by his or her subordinates, but I think some of them may wear it as a badge of honor. They don't want to be labeled as clueless by their superiors, but I think they want to identify themselves as executives, rather than nerds.
Also, point 4 in the article is going to be interpreted by any CIOs who do care as "be sure to stay current with all the hot buzzwords". Developers will see through most attempts at this instantly.
The article mentioned that far the majority of spam, even to countries where the official language is not English, was in English.
There are lots of ways to interpret this, including that English speakers are idiots, but whatever else the spammers aren't being politically correct. They're using English because that is the way to reach people, and for the most part it doesn't pay to translate the same message into another language, even though that can't be very expensive.
Everything oboeaaron says is true, but it's more extensive than that. I manage the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, and we have had to put a low priority on sheet music. The only way to be really safe is to go to wherever the original or another uncopyrighted copy is located (in our case usually either the British Museum, the Yale Rare Books Library, or the Morgan Library in NYC), and copy it yourself. This is tedious, and even if a publisher hasn't really added anything substantial to their own copy, they will claim copyright.
Providing parts and scores would be a useful service for our site to provide, but it's going to remain on the back burner for a while. Along the lines of another thread, it would be great if there were a standard, open format for sheet music. That would provide much more of an incentive for me to pack up my laptop and get some of those parts copied and available.
The problem is one of prerequisites. If your book aims too low, it will bore people, and if it aims too high, you lose people. It's much easier to write for a special market segment, but then you lose the mass appeal necessary to achieve superstar status.
Also, a lot of people don't want their fantasies dashed. It's not just the ones who don't want to hear about evolution, many people think they understand all sorts of scientific theories and don't want to hear that they are wrong.
More specifically, having been beat up in the playground by the same people who went on to become the authorities.
There is something about geeks that leads them to be more suspicious of authority. Perhaps it is being ostracized at a young age or the fact that there are simply a lot of really dumb people out there who have somehow manage to get a little power.
We've seen this before, haven't we? here are many examples, but calculators went from being high-margin, high tech items that were very expensive. It wasn't long before they became commodity items that earned razor thin margins for a few low cost producers, and then a high-end developed for calculators that looked a little like computers.
Companies that can get a really good manufacturing and distribution process in place will make a lot of these things, others will wash out, and others may follow the model described in the article.
This is the sort of thing for which DARPA built arpanet in the first place. They're probably pretty miffed that they can't use their own testbed because it proved so useful after the fact
This would be a good question for the candidates (I apologize for my US-centric point of view, but the idea applies everywhere), and not just the presidential ones.
Can we gather a list like this and ask candidates to comment on it, like the groups interested in abortion or taxes or the environment do? Or is that outside the scope of/.?
No, it will not help. Not in the US anyway, where the government at first argues that torture means pain at least as bad as losing a limb or vital organ, and then defines it as some undetermined subset of those things which we do not do. That kind of thinking certainly lets you justify modifying people's behavior.
Some of the people who are in charge of the "War on Terror" in the US would not care, and the rest would convince themselves that any changes it might bring were a good thing anyway.
Rereading the longer post I had, it looks like I am doing the same thing, justifying posting this, even though it may be flamebait. So I'll post this abbreviated version and hope for the best.
Yes, it's stupid, worthless FUD as all of you have said, but Kenneth brown has parleyed even more ridiculous drivel than this into a meal ticket through his Alexis de Tocqueville Institution for more than a decade, outlasting many other fraudulent think tanks like the American Center for Voter Rights
With respect, may I propose a whack-a-mole category and icon for stories like this? I predict we will be seeing more and more of these as software firms try to use lawyers more and more to make money, and lawyers like this one write articles like this one to troll for that business.
Everyone can try this for themselves. Get some quotes at 4:01 EDT, and then do it again a few minutes later. Since the exchange closes at 4:00, if anything changes, it is not real time. If several active stocks don't change at all, you can probably conclude that it is real time.
Usually there is a tension between security and convenience/ease of use. Convenience is going to be paramount for most users of mobile phones, PDAs, etc. So security will typically take a hit.
Remember, people want to use these things while they are driving a car, eating fast food, and listening to a book-on-tape. They don't want no stinkin' security features.
Maybe the plan is to make this the built-in shell on a thin web interface. We've had lots of discussions about this on/. - There are a lot of people who don't want much more than a browser, email client, and a word processor/spreadsheet. This might be the first pass at a shell for this market - they'll probably just use the standard browser, but if there has to be a shell in there somewhere, this might make more sense than bash.
Presumably it could read a microchip that we had implanted inside of us, which some people believe we all have. It does conjure up images of the Planet of the Apes, doesn't it? or the Manchurian Candidate? It should make grist for some excellent fiction, and at least some of that fiction will invariably presage fact.
The Bush administration is in court on a lot of controversial issues right now, and at this point, most of them, including this one, will not be resolved when the Bush administration leaves office.
Some of those things, like most or all of the claims of executive privilege, will probably be dropped by a new Democratic administration, and some may even be dropped by a new Republican administration. It seems to me that it's a reasonable question for candidates as to what they would do with a case like this. But I haven't seen much discussion of these sorts of things.
Practically, it's all in the hands of the next administration. It's something to ask about if we get the chance.
They say they are targeting the education market, "every child should have a laptop", which is great, but isn't there a big market just as a thin interface/word processor? I can think of lots of people who don't play games, and wouldn't need any more than this to satisfy their computing needs, maybe with a bigger monitor at home, maybe not.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the years. It used to be that people who didn't like computers, but had to use them for a few things, avoided Linux like the plague. It may be that these very people are about to embrace it, if it gives them all they want.
The article was so vague that it may not be that vital power systems are on the internet - I hope we get some comments from people who know about such things, especially people who work in power company IT departments.
I remember years ago I was consultant for the NSA, and on one occasion I entered a computer room at the Friendship Annex ("why is that red light flashing?" "Because you're in here"). I saw the low security machine that I would use to communicate with my contracting officers, and right next to it was a high-security machine, not on arpanet (this was a real long time ago), but connected to the low security machine. People do strange things sometimes.
Yes... I'm sure he has nothing nefarious in mind, but if he did and you signed up and gave him access to your machine, you would only have yourself to blame.
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I think this could go a long way, although I sure hope my friends don't get into it.
I'm a woodworker and some of my friends have tried to make violins. They all looked good and sounded terrible. It's definitely a tough business.
Shutters beat curtains because most windows are glass, which blocks UV, which is where the energy is.
I can't believe this won't happen in some form, even if they have to make some cosmetic changes to make it look better.
Interesting that /. doesn't have an icon for this one. How about a picture of Cowboy Neal?
Also, point 4 in the article is going to be interpreted by any CIOs who do care as "be sure to stay current with all the hot buzzwords". Developers will see through most attempts at this instantly.
There are lots of ways to interpret this, including that English speakers are idiots, but whatever else the spammers aren't being politically correct. They're using English because that is the way to reach people, and for the most part it doesn't pay to translate the same message into another language, even though that can't be very expensive.
Providing parts and scores would be a useful service for our site to provide, but it's going to remain on the back burner for a while. Along the lines of another thread, it would be great if there were a standard, open format for sheet music. That would provide much more of an incentive for me to pack up my laptop and get some of those parts copied and available.
Also, a lot of people don't want their fantasies dashed. It's not just the ones who don't want to hear about evolution, many people think they understand all sorts of scientific theories and don't want to hear that they are wrong.
There is something about geeks that leads them to be more suspicious of authority. Perhaps it is being ostracized at a young age or the fact that there are simply a lot of really dumb people out there who have somehow manage to get a little power.Companies that can get a really good manufacturing and distribution process in place will make a lot of these things, others will wash out, and others may follow the model described in the article.
I'm sorry, my post was vague. They built it as a testbed to experiment with wide-area networking generally, including discovering vulnerabilities.
This is the sort of thing for which DARPA built arpanet in the first place. They're probably pretty miffed that they can't use their own testbed because it proved so useful after the fact
Can we gather a list like this and ask candidates to comment on it, like the groups interested in abortion or taxes or the environment do? Or is that outside the scope of
No, it will not help. Not in the US anyway, where the government at first argues that torture means pain at least as bad as losing a limb or vital organ, and then defines it as some undetermined subset of those things which we do not do. That kind of thinking certainly lets you justify modifying people's behavior.
Some of the people who are in charge of the "War on Terror" in the US would not care, and the rest would convince themselves that any changes it might bring were a good thing anyway.
Rereading the longer post I had, it looks like I am doing the same thing, justifying posting this, even though it may be flamebait. So I'll post this abbreviated version and hope for the best.
With respect, may I propose a whack-a-mole category and icon for stories like this? I predict we will be seeing more and more of these as software firms try to use lawyers more and more to make money, and lawyers like this one write articles like this one to troll for that business.
Everyone can try this for themselves. Get some quotes at 4:01 EDT, and then do it again a few minutes later. Since the exchange closes at 4:00, if anything changes, it is not real time. If several active stocks don't change at all, you can probably conclude that it is real time.
Remember, people want to use these things while they are driving a car, eating fast food, and listening to a book-on-tape. They don't want no stinkin' security features.
Maybe the plan is to make this the built-in shell on a thin web interface. We've had lots of discussions about this on /. - There are a lot of people who don't want much more than a browser, email client, and a word processor/spreadsheet. This might be the first pass at a shell for this market - they'll probably just use the standard browser, but if there has to be a shell in there somewhere, this might make more sense than bash.
Presumably it could read a microchip that we had implanted inside of us, which some people believe we all have. It does conjure up images of the Planet of the Apes, doesn't it? or the Manchurian Candidate? It should make grist for some excellent fiction, and at least some of that fiction will invariably presage fact.
Some of those things, like most or all of the claims of executive privilege, will probably be dropped by a new Democratic administration, and some may even be dropped by a new Republican administration. It seems to me that it's a reasonable question for candidates as to what they would do with a case like this. But I haven't seen much discussion of these sorts of things.
Practically, it's all in the hands of the next administration. It's something to ask about if we get the chance.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the years. It used to be that people who didn't like computers, but had to use them for a few things, avoided Linux like the plague. It may be that these very people are about to embrace it, if it gives them all they want.
for any political campaign would be pretty hard to keep track of. Subversion, anybody?
I remember years ago I was consultant for the NSA, and on one occasion I entered a computer room at the Friendship Annex ("why is that red light flashing?" "Because you're in here"). I saw the low security machine that I would use to communicate with my contracting officers, and right next to it was a high-security machine, not on arpanet (this was a real long time ago), but connected to the low security machine. People do strange things sometimes.
Yes... I'm sure he has nothing nefarious in mind, but if he did and you signed up and gave him access to your machine, you would only have yourself to blame.