But, if Slashdot were to go over to the other side and become one of "Them" (if, for example, Slashdot got taken over by a corporation and Slashdot was run on a profit-making basis) then it would most definitely be wrong for Slashdot to use Doubleclick. um... obviuosly you do not know much about/. Slashdot is a 'for profit' publicly traded corporation owned by Andover.net (lookup ticker symbol ANDN) who recently was aquired by no other than VA Linux (lookup LNUX) systems. Any good business news website will provide you with links and information on the company (its profit/loss statements, etc.). Does this change your view of them? I hope not. There is nothing wrong with making a profit from your efforts, so long as there is the opportunity for fair/friendly competition. In life there is no free lunch. I hope this clarifies things for you...
I am all for companies partnering up and moving forward like this. NASA has a joint venture thing going on with Dreamtime as discussed in last weeks slashback . Why shouldn't corporations do this to? If NASA's ever dwindling federal budget is preventing this type of lunar exploration then they will need to do commercially exploitive things like this as well. RadioShack partnering up with LunaCorp for this type of mission could be a great thing if handled correctly. Every program that NASA has put together has benefited us as a civilization directly and indirectly with new technologies. No need to list them here as most/.er's probably know of atleast 3 (not including TANG) off the top of thier heads. Unfortunately, i fear that this venture will lead to tons on IP trademarks/patents designed to benefit a select few pockets. I am not against making a buck or two but there has to be some benefit to all of US (read civilization as a whole not just the already deep pockets of corporations). I wonder what thier take on the technology involved is. Hopefully, the science aquired on this mission won't go the route of some of the companies involved in the human genome project. Commercial space ventures are an inevitable event that needs some form of government supervision/regulation before it gets out of hand. What bothers me about this venture is that a) LunaCorp is a privately owned corporation b) RadioShack is a publicly owned corporation c) Buzz Aldrin is now a (albeit heroic) civilian d) It would appear that NASA is out of the loop on this deal. I did not see a mention of NASA's involvement in this anywhere on the LunaCorp site even though there are several shameless plugs for Carnegie-Mellon. Rather conspicuous, no? If you are curious go check out The Artemis Project. The Artemis folks have carefully thought out most of the issues and thier plan seems cogent for the most part. IAAMOAC - so are you
IAAMOAC - "I Am A Member Of A Civilization" SciFi author David Brin. His web page is at Kithrup.com. Go checkout his work if you haven't already. He has written plenty of non fiction thesis as well and is a former teacher/scientist. I don't usually quote him in posts like that but for this as a subject it seemed quite appropriate.
I believe that if NASA is to continue on their ever dwindling federal budget (drug enforcement rates higher dollars and votes, even deeper issues that need to be responsibly re-addressed and handled completely differently than presently managed) they need to do many more things like this. I remember reading a few years back in Analog about an idea where Hollywood and NASA should team up. The partnership would benefit both sides mutually. The entertainment industry has very deep pockets and NASA has financial needs that our country for some reason feels needs to be neglected. This is a very sad statement to ponder as many of our modern conveniences like cellular phones, remote control tv/vcr/dvd's, extended life rechargeable batteries and lest we forget Tang all stem from technologies developed during the Gemini and Apollo programs. Our society now depends on may of these technologies to the point where they are all 'must haves' yet we don't want to fork over more funding to continue because most folks don't realize the origins of where these things came from. We could have and should have at this point established a moon base in the 30 years since we have been there. Why haven't we? Mostly because of money.Imagine if Tom Hanks had filmed his from earth to the moon series in a joint effort where NASA could have benefited financially from it. If a portion of ticket sales (lets say $2) from Apollo 13 were going to NASA and the public was made aware of how this kick back was working the public could help fund these programs. If you really like the movie you could go more than once etc. whatever but you see my point. Considering the hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue that motion pictures bring in these days (not to mention residuals and royalty monies) there is a huge potential for this to help the cause. The Artemis Project is based on this type of idea. Look into it if you like. It is totally possible to have missions to space that generate a profit and the Artemis folks have carefully thought out most of the issues. Twelve men have walked on the moon and in the time passed since then a whole generation has grown up. If you were born after 1970 you are truly a child of the space age. Shouldn't you be able to experience and contribute to your part of history? IAAMOAC - so are you
I could have sworn McLeod's sword (the one he picked up when Ramirez lost his head) was a very special Japanese Katana. I am not 100% sure if this is the same sword (movie) as in the series but this type of sword has was very special indeed. As explained to me by an expert in oriental antiques and armor, these swords were forged rather ceremoniously and were made of two types of steel. The 'Shingane' metal of the sword was a very low carbon steel and wasy very soft and provided great flexibilty in the final blade. The 'Kawagane' was the second steel used and was a very high carbon steel and is primarily responsible for the sharpness. A good sword maker typically controlled and increased additional carbon levels in his forge by a special process where the sword would be placed on the top of the hotest coals as new coals were pushed underneath them and allowed to burn. When the coals had burned to the original levels the sword would be taken out and worked while more coals were added. The swords were folded exactly 19 times. I cannot remember why exactly the number 19 but I beleive it was a superstition as the Japanese culture made powerful associations with specific numbers (ie 4 is bad luck ala 13 in the US yet 3 is very lucky ala 7 here). This number of folds has been debated vigorously for a long time. I understood it that 524,288 layers provided an unique combination of strength, flexibilty and the capability to keep an extremely sharp edge. (I have heard many times the number is 20 but the amount of layers created at 20 folds negated the effect and made for a very sharp very brittle sword.) Sword makers would sharpen swords and mark the 'Nakago' (tang) with a body count, the date, and thier signature each time the sword was serviced. The other sword bearing the mark of the Clan McLeod may have been damascus, this may be the sword you are referring to but I am unfamiliar with the particulars of it. Time to look for the tapes... an unfortunate side note: the expert was Dennis Szeszler, among the worlds foremost experts in oriental arts and culture. He passed away last year a few weeks before his 53 birthday of alchoholism. Dennis was my uncle.
I totaly believe that its ones inate right to slef-defense if being attacked. This right though should be limited to self-defense in a physical manner if that is how you are being attacked. Being attacked on the net and fighting back in this manner just doesn't seem like the correct thing to do. As an ISP/IT company Conxion has a responsibility to handle the attack through the appropriate channels. If a US citizen cannot legally do this type of thing then why should the fact that Conxion is a major corporation shouldn't make it acceptable. Especially troubling is this little blurb: "Conxion was so proud of having given the attackers a dose of their own medicine that it issued a press release about the incident." My first thought after reading the press release was DUH! you just comitted a crime and then made a public announcement regarding your actions. This alone should be enough evidence to take some form af action against Conxion based on thier own admission. One should not stoop to an act of terrorism as a form of retaliation. You would think that a company with such strong Microsoft affiliations ought to be weary (after all the DOJ/monopoly actions) of doing such a thing. Two wrongs don't make a right...no matter how good it feels.
Jason, Thanks for sharing your side of the story with us. Always nice to get the story straight from the horses mouth... I was considering buying one of those puppies until I read the first article but opted to continue lugging around my laptop. The PDA market still seems like it has a ways to go. The Palms and visors seem nice and loaded with cool features but they feel slow and sluggish. Hopefully soon company will step up and put beefier processors in them. Maybe Crusoe will be the answer to this as I look forward to playing around with one of those.On the other hand maybe the whole PDA market is about to get a much needed shake up courtesy of Big Blue. Ever since they started airing the commercials last year for thier wearable pc's I really want one of those. Only time will tell.
To be honest I am not a big fan of miami for some of the reasons you mentioned. You could very well justify saying that living in Miami is like living in a big city without the benefits of living in a big city (ie you get the crime, traffic, rudeness etc without the 24hr conveniences and mass transit). ...it's still an area where employers dictate inflexible policies. Why? Because they can get away with it, knowing that there aren't many options down there...If you worked here in the tech industry as long as you say you did and weren't making money I would have to say that its your own fault. Employers can't get away with that type of inflexibility here because there is a huge shortage of qualified tech workers. The very fact that the classified ads for employment here are consistantly filled with several pages of positions open should indicate to you that the market for employment here is hurting and when you interview for positions in south florida companies you are in a position to dictate the terms.I have worked here since 1988 and I am doing very well. I know many people who were relocated here by big companies like motorola and ryder and are making considerable more income than when they were working and living in new york city (not to mention SV). Everything is negotiable, if a company needs you and you have the skills you can get jobs here with nice perks like stock options, disney passes, sporting event tickets, etc. but you have to take the time to negotiate for this stuff. Straight up : always negotiate with your prospective employer regardless of where you are! Housing you are wrong about though. You maybe should look at the fact that this area has experienced explosive growth in housing since the early eighties. Most of the housing here is relatively new, very affordable and in the post-Andrew construction era very durable. What you can buy here for $100,000 is a much nicer home with some property than you will ever see in your lifetime for a frigerator box type studio apt in the valley. As for the strip mall paved tricounty corridor yes you are right, but, you can say that about pretty much any major metropolitan area anywhere in the US.
Hey there follks, I never ever thought I would say this but... maybe these 'poor' techie workers should move here to Miami. We have many of the computing industry big players like Lucent and Hewlet Packard here. Housing here is reasonable you can rent a 3 br apt. from $575 to the several thousands on the ultra trendy south beach area and the utilities are reasonable as well.A quick glance at the newspaper will present you with anywhere from 1 to 3 pages of jobs in the computing sector. Dot.Com mania has hit us here and I think it would be a safe guess that miami is quickly becoming the techie headquarters for Central and South America. There are industrial sections of miami (like the beacon station area) that are full of hardware and software companies designing and building thier products for export to the carribean and the americas. The weather here is pretty consistantly in the low to mid eighties with an afternoon shower(usually around 5:30pm) and the only natural disasters we face regularly are hurricanes (which btw we as a city are totally prepared for) that statistically we shouldn't get nailed with for the next hundred years (read: nailed by a big one like andrew). Finally, we could use every english speaking person we can get so please move here and bring America with you.
just slightly off the topic for a second: Just before Christmas my wife was getting her hair done. The time of her appointment was 11:30 AM. As she sat in the chair and her stylist was hard at work. A man walked in asked for a manicure and was told he needed an appointment (everyone was painfully aware at this point that this guy was very out of place) He said he would go somewhere where he didn't need an appointment and walked out. Moments later (according to my wife the door had barely closed) he ran back in, pulled out a gun and stuck the gun against my wifes head. He then ordered everybody to get down on the floor or he was going to kill her (my wife). In the terror of the next three minutes this guy ordered my wife to collect everyones wallets and jewelry and kindly place them in a purse. In fear for her life and everyone elses (there were 14 ladies and stylists there) she complied. What the guy didn't know was there was a cellphone in the purse. Surprisingly most people are completely unaware that their cellular phone in the purse was trackable. Many law enforcement agencies have these capabilities. The police tried to track him down and within the hour recovered the phone and the empty purse, no bad guy or my wifes wedding ring but... My point being that the capability to hunt you down and follow you is already here and in use and most of us voluntarily carry around the transmitter without thinking about it. ... the wheels of justice are sometimes too slow... they still haven't caught this guy and suspect him in 14 other similar robberies...
I guess this brings new meaning to the term target marketing:) ...imagine the new guerilla marketing tactics that could emerge from this... place your order now, no pressure, we know who you are, we know where your at... take it light
After reading the article I can't help but wonder: does this open up the doors for taxation without representation? Some other things to ponder: When the FCC finally does (and beleive me they will eventually) tax us on internet use what legal grounds will they have? Is this the legislation they will base the capablilty to tax us on? Will big business once again have pushed Uncle Sam into guarding thier interests and not the peoples interests?They won't be able to tax international members of the net and if they do find a way to do so then what kind of impact will this have on US online businesses? Will this mean an eventual surfing tax or Quake tax (JC i gots me adsl when can talk to my teammates?:) beyond a potential IP phone tax? And what about my quickcam video conferencing? After all they are all IP communications no?They don't provide any real service to the net as a whole so I still see no representation for the potential tax. I am probably wrong but I still have to spout about it. /me scratches head... thought the basic tenets of our democracy were a government for the people by the people (as in not by businesses) where citizens could think and speak freely and not be unjustly taxed... BTW. this article shoulda been posted in the main news as I am sure that/.er's woulda hopped on this!
Terrence... you are right. I won't waste the space to give the chronological history of the company but in the end, wether anyone realizes or not, Discreet/Kinetix is still owned by Autodesk and the names are just a game of semantix.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if this made the wake-up call that Kinetix needs to do the same thing? At $3,000+ per seat MAX is awesome and comes with a network render engine but it is winbased and prone to the winworld of problems. I just wish I could afford to build a decent, affordable render farm. A linux based one could be a lot cheaper than an NT farm and oh so much more reliable....
If this is the first step to real online movie selection and viewing more power to 'em! Almost like the perfect choice of films to kick this off too. How many of us grew up watching Samuri Sunday and Kung-Fu Theater?
Soon to follow (crossing fingers here): real interactive movies and television where you could select your own content level (not that any of us would ever watch Jerry...) Click to watch yer favorite.
The only question remaining : when they gonna stike a deal with the folks at Troma?
Thanks for your post. It would seem that whenever I post something it is always labeled as flamebait. I wish that the moderator who labeled this as such would give a reason for it.
It used to be that one could post to a discussion and start a thread where people could actually discus an issue regardless of whether or not everyone agreed with it.
That was in essence what made slashdot unique. Sadly, it no longer is.
While it maybe true that in recent years wars have been fought over politics. I ask you to look back in human history and really think about the underlying causes of most wars and then rethink your ignorant statement.
To say that WWII was purely political would be a shame when the fact that over 6 million jews died for no other reason than the fact that they were jews. Try to tell them that thier deaths were the result of politics. Was it an accident that they were all jews? The recent fighing in Boznia is more or less because of 'ethnic' cleansing practices by Milosevik and his supporters. Simply stated this is a civil war where the underlying cause is once again : RELIGION.
The 'jihad' proclaimed against the USA by Jousef Ben Louden is what? Jihad by definition means Holy War. Acts of terrorism in the name of god where people kill themselves and others in the belife that they are martyrs and will be heroes in heaven doesn't make them religious in nature?
Were the crusades fought over politics? Did the Egyptians and Romans belive thier emporers and pharoh's were gods?
Open a history book. Have a look around and see for yourself.
Welcome to the tabloid age. A time where news is no longer as important as the ratings you get for airing it. I wonder how many people visted old porker Bob's page today. I have to say I am as guilty as most and read it.
Sadly, we are living in a time where just the fact that we were there could have made an impact. Let's say Bob's page gets normally 5 or six hits a day (being generous) and today 100,000 of us payed him a visit. If you were Bob's boss and saw this leap in hits wouldn't you incourage him to keep up the 'good' work? The footer he put at the bottom of his page screams out for this kind of attention:
Technology pundit Bob Metcalfe walks in the valley of death, Open Sourcerers to his left and Microsofties to his right. He needs all the encouragement he can get at...
His article did everything a tabloid article is supposed to do: a) make someone read it b) skirt around any real information that may really point out the truth contrary to what was written c) say something to piss off enough people that there would be a response of some sorts. I feel dumber for having read that article. Where did he get his facts (where ther any real facts in his article other than Linus works at Transmeta and the he started Linux?) Did we ever even think for a moment that someone like Bob Metcalf wouldn't stoop write something like this? I would say that Bob is trying to pull a Lewinsky here and get everyones attention for the sake of ratings. We fell for it too.
The big question he left unresolved: Is Bob Metcalf capable of taking that warped magnifying glass of swinedom and pointing it back at himself? Probably not. Do you think his advertisers appreciated out visit?
Daily News Solaris and Linux Vulnerable To Hack By Sherman Fridman, Newsbytes. February 11, 2000
Due to flagrant inaccuracies this article has been pulled and is being re-written. Occasionally one of these slips through the editorial process. Computer Currents regrets the error. February 11,2000 11:17:00 AM PST
Hold on a sec before you all flame me to death for this and here me out:
While it is a great thing that PDA's are getting a little more balls. What I want out of these leaps and bounds is not only the ability to run apps and surf but to allow my PDA to be an extension of my workstation from my home or office (and be just a replacement for pen and paper). If this could be made to happen as a client device I wouldn't care how much storage the little bugger has because the remote machine would have whatever storage/hardware that's required. The scenario could be more of an internal hypercellular phone (one of those sleek new wideband ones that people keep writing about as 'coming soon') with a full color/high res display and input device. I think this kind of setup would be less expensive and survive a few hardware/os upgrades at the home or office too.
Not until competition forces them to do so. Kind of the way a plethora of festering local ISP's forced AOL to make a flat rate per month instead of raping everyone for thier per minute rates.
Step right up Ladies and Gentlemen! Its new! Its wild! Its radically cheap! Be the first kid in our solar system to go splat against the face of the Earth at unbelievable velocities in the new amazing, phantasmagoric, too incredible to believe hypersonic Badminton shuttle.
Ok folks if this works I will admit that it is one of the coolest inflatable inventions since the real doll, however, lets not rush out and try it with any humans (ok Mr. Gates, go right ahead) just yet !:)
So, hypothetically speaking, if I am an employer who is giving an employee the benefit of being able to work at home saving the employee money in the following categories:
daycare
gas car insurance clothing food
I am now responsible for all this osha stuff.
Well, as far as I (the theoretical employer) am concerned this makes the telecommuting concept a moot point.
The message OSHA has just sent all these employers is this: it will not save you anything for your employees to work at home.If they trip on thier kids toys or scald themselves drinking coffee and they are on the clock, you are now responsible for that.
Bring them back to the office, make sure they look spiffy everyday, spend a few hundred dollars a month from thier paychecks on child care, and be sure you waste resources by heving them drive a car.
I knew it was too good to be true...the office of the future will not be in your home! It will be in some Dilbertarian cube menagerie. Chalk this one up to the lawyers who will ruin society and any kind of step forward that it brings.
I followed the link to that pseudopoll but found that the numbers in your news item and the numbers posted were way different. OS/2warp was last, Linux was at 7th place and windoze nt at 11th... keep clicking:)
Slashdot Mirror
But, if Slashdot were to go over to the other side and become one of "Them" (if, for example, Slashdot got taken over by a corporation and Slashdot was run on a profit-making basis) then it would most definitely be wrong for Slashdot to use Doubleclick. um... obviuosly you do not know much about /. Slashdot is a 'for profit' publicly traded corporation owned by Andover.net (lookup ticker symbol ANDN) who recently was aquired by no other than VA Linux (lookup LNUX) systems. Any good business news website will provide you with links and information on the company (its profit/loss statements, etc.). Does this change your view of them? I hope not. There is nothing wrong with making a profit from your efforts, so long as there is the opportunity for fair/friendly competition. In life there is no free lunch. I hope this clarifies things for you...
I am all for companies partnering up and moving forward like this. NASA has a joint venture thing going on with Dreamtime as discussed in last weeks slashback . Why shouldn't corporations do this to? If NASA's ever dwindling federal budget is preventing this type of lunar exploration then they will need to do commercially exploitive things like this as well. RadioShack partnering up with LunaCorp for this type of mission could be a great thing if handled correctly. Every program that NASA has put together has benefited us as a civilization directly and indirectly with new technologies. No need to list them here as most /.er's probably know of atleast 3 (not including TANG) off the top of thier heads. Unfortunately, i fear that this venture will lead to tons on IP trademarks/patents designed to benefit a select few pockets. I am not against making a buck or two but there has to be some benefit to all of US (read civilization as a whole not just the already deep pockets of corporations). I wonder what thier take on the technology involved is. Hopefully, the science aquired on this mission won't go the route of some of the companies involved in the human genome project. Commercial space ventures are an inevitable event that needs some form of government supervision/regulation before it gets out of hand. What bothers me about this venture is that a) LunaCorp is a privately owned corporation b) RadioShack is a publicly owned corporation c) Buzz Aldrin is now a (albeit heroic) civilian d) It would appear that NASA is out of the loop on this deal. I did not see a mention of NASA's involvement in this anywhere on the LunaCorp site even though there are several shameless plugs for Carnegie-Mellon. Rather conspicuous, no? If you are curious go check out The Artemis Project. The Artemis folks have carefully thought out most of the issues and thier plan seems cogent for the most part. IAAMOAC - so are you
IAAMOAC - "I Am A Member Of A Civilization" SciFi author David Brin. His web page is at Kithrup.com. Go checkout his work if you haven't already. He has written plenty of non fiction thesis as well and is a former teacher/scientist. I don't usually quote him in posts like that but for this as a subject it seemed quite appropriate.
I believe that if NASA is to continue on their ever dwindling federal budget (drug enforcement rates higher dollars and votes, even deeper issues that need to be responsibly re-addressed and handled completely differently than presently managed) they need to do many more things like this. I remember reading a few years back in Analog about an idea where Hollywood and NASA should team up. The partnership would benefit both sides mutually. The entertainment industry has very deep pockets and NASA has financial needs that our country for some reason feels needs to be neglected. This is a very sad statement to ponder as many of our modern conveniences like cellular phones, remote control tv/vcr/dvd's, extended life rechargeable batteries and lest we forget Tang all stem from technologies developed during the Gemini and Apollo programs. Our society now depends on may of these technologies to the point where they are all 'must haves' yet we don't want to fork over more funding to continue because most folks don't realize the origins of where these things came from. We could have and should have at this point established a moon base in the 30 years since we have been there. Why haven't we? Mostly because of money.Imagine if Tom Hanks had filmed his from earth to the moon series in a joint effort where NASA could have benefited financially from it. If a portion of ticket sales (lets say $2) from Apollo 13 were going to NASA and the public was made aware of how this kick back was working the public could help fund these programs. If you really like the movie you could go more than once etc. whatever but you see my point. Considering the hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue that motion pictures bring in these days (not to mention residuals and royalty monies) there is a huge potential for this to help the cause. The Artemis Project is based on this type of idea. Look into it if you like. It is totally possible to have missions to space that generate a profit and the Artemis folks have carefully thought out most of the issues. Twelve men have walked on the moon and in the time passed since then a whole generation has grown up. If you were born after 1970 you are truly a child of the space age. Shouldn't you be able to experience and contribute to your part of history?
IAAMOAC - so are you
I could have sworn McLeod's sword (the one he picked up when Ramirez lost his head) was a very special Japanese Katana. I am not 100% sure if this is the same sword (movie) as in the series but this type of sword has was very special indeed. As explained to me by an expert in oriental antiques and armor, these swords were forged rather ceremoniously and were made of two types of steel. The 'Shingane' metal of the sword was a very low carbon steel and wasy very soft and provided great flexibilty in the final blade. The 'Kawagane' was the second steel used and was a very high carbon steel and is primarily responsible for the sharpness. A good sword maker typically controlled and increased additional carbon levels in his forge by a special process where the sword would be placed on the top of the hotest coals as new coals were pushed underneath them and allowed to burn. When the coals had burned to the original levels the sword would be taken out and worked while more coals were added. The swords were folded exactly 19 times. I cannot remember why exactly the number 19 but I beleive it was a superstition as the Japanese culture made powerful associations with specific numbers (ie 4 is bad luck ala 13 in the US yet 3 is very lucky ala 7 here). This number of folds has been debated vigorously for a long time. I understood it that 524,288 layers provided an unique combination of strength, flexibilty and the capability to keep an extremely sharp edge. (I have heard many times the number is 20 but the amount of layers created at 20 folds negated the effect and made for a very sharp very brittle sword.) Sword makers would sharpen swords and mark the 'Nakago' (tang) with a body count, the date, and thier signature each time the sword was serviced. The other sword bearing the mark of the Clan McLeod may have been damascus, this may be the sword you are referring to but I am unfamiliar with the particulars of it. Time to look for the tapes... an unfortunate side note: the expert was Dennis Szeszler, among the worlds foremost experts in oriental arts and culture. He passed away last year a few weeks before his 53 birthday of alchoholism. Dennis was my uncle.
I totaly believe that its ones inate right to slef-defense if being attacked. This right though should be limited to self-defense in a physical manner if that is how you are being attacked. Being attacked on the net and fighting back in this manner just doesn't seem like the correct thing to do. As an ISP/IT company Conxion has a responsibility to handle the attack through the appropriate channels. If a US citizen cannot legally do this type of thing then why should the fact that Conxion is a major corporation shouldn't make it acceptable. Especially troubling is this little blurb: "Conxion was so proud of having given the attackers a dose of their own medicine that it issued a press release about the incident." My first thought after reading the press release was DUH! you just comitted a crime and then made a public announcement regarding your actions. This alone should be enough evidence to take some form af action against Conxion based on thier own admission. One should not stoop to an act of terrorism as a form of retaliation. You would think that a company with such strong Microsoft affiliations ought to be weary (after all the DOJ/monopoly actions) of doing such a thing. Two wrongs don't make a right...no matter how good it feels.
Jason, Thanks for sharing your side of the story with us. Always nice to get the story straight from the horses mouth... I was considering buying one of those puppies until I read the first article but opted to continue lugging around my laptop. The PDA market still seems like it has a ways to go. The Palms and visors seem nice and loaded with cool features but they feel slow and sluggish. Hopefully soon company will step up and put beefier processors in them. Maybe Crusoe will be the answer to this as I look forward to playing around with one of those.On the other hand maybe the whole PDA market is about to get a much needed shake up courtesy of Big Blue. Ever since they started airing the commercials last year for thier wearable pc's I really want one of those. Only time will tell.
To be honest I am not a big fan of miami for some of the reasons you mentioned. You could very well justify saying that living in Miami is like living in a big city without the benefits of living in a big city (ie you get the crime, traffic, rudeness etc without the 24hr conveniences and mass transit). ...it's still an area where employers dictate inflexible policies. Why? Because they can get away with it, knowing that there aren't many options down there... If you worked here in the tech industry as long as you say you did and weren't making money I would have to say that its your own fault. Employers can't get away with that type of inflexibility here because there is a huge shortage of qualified tech workers. The very fact that the classified ads for employment here are consistantly filled with several pages of positions open should indicate to you that the market for employment here is hurting and when you interview for positions in south florida companies you are in a position to dictate the terms.I have worked here since 1988 and I am doing very well. I know many people who were relocated here by big companies like motorola and ryder and are making considerable more income than when they were working and living in new york city (not to mention SV). Everything is negotiable, if a company needs you and you have the skills you can get jobs here with nice perks like stock options, disney passes, sporting event tickets, etc. but you have to take the time to negotiate for this stuff. Straight up : always negotiate with your prospective employer regardless of where you are! Housing you are wrong about though. You maybe should look at the fact that this area has experienced explosive growth in housing since the early eighties. Most of the housing here is relatively new, very affordable and in the post-Andrew construction era very durable. What you can buy here for $100,000 is a much nicer home with some property than you will ever see in your lifetime for a frigerator box type studio apt in the valley. As for the strip mall paved tricounty corridor yes you are right, but, you can say that about pretty much any major metropolitan area anywhere in the US.
Hey there follks, I never ever thought I would say this but... maybe these 'poor' techie workers should move here to Miami. We have many of the computing industry big players like Lucent and Hewlet Packard here. Housing here is reasonable you can rent a 3 br apt. from $575 to the several thousands on the ultra trendy south beach area and the utilities are reasonable as well.A quick glance at the newspaper will present you with anywhere from 1 to 3 pages of jobs in the computing sector. Dot.Com mania has hit us here and I think it would be a safe guess that miami is quickly becoming the techie headquarters for Central and South America. There are industrial sections of miami (like the beacon station area) that are full of hardware and software companies designing and building thier products for export to the carribean and the americas. The weather here is pretty consistantly in the low to mid eighties with an afternoon shower(usually around 5:30pm) and the only natural disasters we face regularly are hurricanes (which btw we as a city are totally prepared for) that statistically we shouldn't get nailed with for the next hundred years (read: nailed by a big one like andrew). Finally, we could use every english speaking person we can get so please move here and bring America with you.
just slightly off the topic for a second: Just before Christmas my wife was getting her hair done. The time of her appointment was 11:30 AM. As she sat in the chair and her stylist was hard at work. A man walked in asked for a manicure and was told he needed an appointment (everyone was painfully aware at this point that this guy was very out of place) He said he would go somewhere where he didn't need an appointment and walked out. Moments later (according to my wife the door had barely closed) he ran back in, pulled out a gun and stuck the gun against my wifes head. He then ordered everybody to get down on the floor or he was going to kill her (my wife). In the terror of the next three minutes this guy ordered my wife to collect everyones wallets and jewelry and kindly place them in a purse. In fear for her life and everyone elses (there were 14 ladies and stylists there) she complied. What the guy didn't know was there was a cellphone in the purse. Surprisingly most people are completely unaware that their cellular phone in the purse was trackable. Many law enforcement agencies have these capabilities. The police tried to track him down and within the hour recovered the phone and the empty purse, no bad guy or my wifes wedding ring but... My point being that the capability to hunt you down and follow you is already here and in use and most of us voluntarily carry around the transmitter without thinking about it. ... the wheels of justice are sometimes too slow... they still haven't caught this guy and suspect him in 14 other similar robberies...
I guess this brings new meaning to the term target marketing:) ...imagine the new guerilla marketing tactics that could emerge from this... place your order now, no pressure, we know who you are, we know where your at... take it light
After reading the article I can't help but wonder: does this open up the doors for taxation without representation? Some other things to ponder: /me scratches head... thought the basic tenets of our democracy were a government for the people by the people (as in not by businesses) where citizens could think and speak freely and not be unjustly taxed... BTW. this article shoulda been posted in the main news as I am sure that /.er's woulda hopped on this!
When the FCC finally does (and beleive me they will eventually) tax us on internet use what legal grounds will they have? Is this the legislation they will base the capablilty to tax us on? Will big business once again have pushed Uncle Sam into guarding thier interests and not the peoples interests?They won't be able to tax international members of the net and if they do find a way to do so then what kind of impact will this have on US online businesses? Will this mean an eventual surfing tax or Quake tax (JC i gots me adsl when can talk to my teammates?:) beyond a potential IP phone tax? And what about my quickcam video conferencing? After all they are all IP communications no?They don't provide any real service to the net as a whole so I still see no representation for the potential tax. I am probably wrong but I still have to spout about it.
Terrence... you are right.
I won't waste the space to give the chronological history of the company but in the end, wether anyone realizes or not, Discreet/Kinetix is still owned by Autodesk and the names are just a game of semantix.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if this made the wake-up call that Kinetix needs to do the same thing? At $3,000+ per seat MAX is awesome and comes with a network render engine but it is winbased and prone to the winworld of problems. I just wish I could afford to build a decent, affordable render farm. A linux based one could be a lot cheaper than an NT farm and oh so much more reliable....
Soon to follow (crossing fingers here): real interactive movies and television where you could select your own content level (not that any of us would ever watch Jerry...) Click to watch yer favorite.
The only question remaining : when they gonna stike a deal with the folks at Troma?
It used to be that one could post to a discussion and start a thread where people could actually discus an issue regardless of whether or not everyone agreed with it.
That was in essence what made slashdot unique. Sadly, it no longer is.
To say that WWII was purely political would be a shame when the fact that over 6 million jews died for no other reason than the fact that they were jews. Try to tell them that thier deaths were the result of politics. Was it an accident that they were all jews? The recent fighing in Boznia is more or less because of 'ethnic' cleansing practices by Milosevik and his supporters. Simply stated this is a civil war where the underlying cause is once again : RELIGION.
The 'jihad' proclaimed against the USA by Jousef Ben Louden is what? Jihad by definition means Holy War. Acts of terrorism in the name of god where people kill themselves and others in the belife that they are martyrs and will be heroes in heaven doesn't make them religious in nature?
Were the crusades fought over politics? Did the Egyptians and Romans belive thier emporers and pharoh's were gods?
Open a history book. Have a look around and see for yourself.
Sadly, we are living in a time where just the fact that we were there could have made an impact. Let's say Bob's page gets normally 5 or six hits a day (being generous) and today 100,000 of us payed him a visit. If you were Bob's boss and saw this leap in hits wouldn't you incourage him to keep up the 'good' work? The footer he put at the bottom of his page screams out for this kind of attention:
Technology pundit Bob Metcalfe walks in the valley of death, Open Sourcerers to his left and Microsofties to his right. He needs all the encouragement he can get at...
His article did everything a tabloid article is supposed to do: a) make someone read it b) skirt around any real information that may really point out the truth contrary to what was written c) say something to piss off enough people that there would be a response of some sorts. I feel dumber for having read that article. Where did he get his facts (where ther any real facts in his article other than Linus works at Transmeta and the he started Linux?) Did we ever even think for a moment that someone like Bob Metcalf wouldn't stoop write something like this? I would say that Bob is trying to pull a Lewinsky here and get everyones attention for the sake of ratings. We fell for it too.
The big question he left unresolved: Is Bob Metcalf capable of taking that warped magnifying glass of swinedom and pointing it back at himself? Probably not. Do you think his advertisers appreciated out visit?
Daily News
Solaris and Linux Vulnerable To Hack
By Sherman Fridman, Newsbytes.
February 11, 2000
Due to flagrant inaccuracies this article has been pulled and is being re-written.
Occasionally one of these slips through the editorial process. Computer Currents regrets the error.
February 11,2000 11:17:00 AM PST
While it is a great thing that PDA's are getting a little more balls. What I want out of these leaps and bounds is not only the ability to run apps and surf but to allow my PDA to be an extension of my workstation from my home or office (and be just a replacement for pen and paper). If this could be made to happen as a client device I wouldn't care how much storage the little bugger has because the remote machine would have whatever storage/hardware that's required. The scenario could be more of an internal hypercellular phone (one of those sleek new wideband ones that people keep writing about as 'coming soon') with a full color/high res display and input device. I think this kind of setup would be less expensive and survive a few hardware/os upgrades at the home or office too.
Step right up Ladies and Gentlemen! Its new! Its wild! Its radically cheap! Be the first kid in our solar system to go splat against the face of the Earth at unbelievable velocities in the new amazing, phantasmagoric, too incredible to believe hypersonic Badminton shuttle.
Ok folks if this works I will admit that it is one of the coolest inflatable inventions since the real doll, however, lets not rush out and try it with any humans (ok Mr. Gates, go right ahead) just yet !:)
- daycare
I am now responsible for all this osha stuff.gas car insurance
clothing
food
Well, as far as I (the theoretical employer) am concerned this makes the telecommuting concept a moot point.
The message OSHA has just sent all these employers is this: it will not save you anything for your employees to work at home.If they trip on thier kids toys or scald themselves drinking coffee and they are on the clock, you are now responsible for that.
Bring them back to the office, make sure they look spiffy everyday, spend a few hundred dollars a month from thier paychecks on child care, and be sure you waste resources by heving them drive a car.
I knew it was too good to be true...the office of the future will not be in your home! It will be in some Dilbertarian cube menagerie. Chalk this one up to the lawyers who will ruin society and any kind of step forward that it brings.