Something with a decent HID will always be around. It might be a tablet with a keyboard and mouse but it will always be around. The platform to consume content will relentlessly evolve but content creation has a pretty standard set of requirements for those humans that do it. This paradigm will drive the PC market to the niche where it might belong. Stuff that is truly creative and commercially viable generally isn't produced on an ipad and uploaded to youtube for your 31337 friends to fawn over. Yes, the bar to create this kind of stuff has been lowered but it still requires actual talent to do it.
This is always a tough debate. We've (well, the US) spent the past 60 years dismantling infrastructure in our cities and urban corridors that we're now rebuilding at tremendous cost. "Superior" technology replaced trains and street cars and half a century later we're busy trying to get that infrastructure back b/c cars are hugely inefficient at transporting large numbers of people,. Well, at least how they're used these days...maybe we shouldn't actively trash the POTS system...
Don't get me wrong, money is important but the environment is just as important. You have to allow leeway both in terms of environment and opportunity. I run a consulting biz and you have to allow room for the younger guys to experiment with new stuff. If you don't, they get bored no matter how much you pay them or what sort of office they have.
The real key though is to migrate the desire of the younger guys from tearing apart every new technology to the skillset of an established professional. It might be somewhat less exciting but in the end it is what customers want and what pays the bills. As your guys/gals get older and move along in life a polished skillset pays the best.
Oh, and if you're really smart, you'll achieve those long view items w/o crushing that natural curiosity out of your folks. That is, after all, what makes all of this exciting.
I've done it with my business (computer consulting) in the past and it can work. Of course, it can also go horribly wrong - it depends entirely on the person and the situation. You can't parachute someone with no skills at all into an intense consulting situation but I've hired people with some minimal IT experience and it has made my business better because of it. Even if they do not immediately contribute to the bottom line they can make the business stronger.
In my case, hiring the best "generalist" IT consultants has consistently led me towards a company full of gifted but undisciplined (including me) staff. I have hired a couple of very disciplined but marginal IT people in the recent past as their adherence to ordering and overall work flow have made the company stronger. In such a situation you usually have to give them a lot of support and keep the other staff from grousing too loudly about it but it can work.
that I started reading/. around 2000. I was working at a web startup then and it was about the only thing that kept me sane. That does sound like a strange thing to say....
The passing the laws part is easy. The Feds will do what they always do: "Participation is optional but if you don't participate you don't get your (insert program name here) grant." I think the 55mph law was passed in this fashion.
As to the cost, that's a laugh. There might be a block grant available but it won't cover the costs of complying with Uncle Sam's demands. The Feds do this act all the time. Take a look at ESL, no child left behind,etc,etc, etc.
People may or may not trust the gov't but one thing is for sure: they don't vote. If more people were informed and actually bothered to participate, things would work better.
How about you lazy fuckers go and vote? The reason the system is so broken is that people don't participate. People in Washington know that there is next to no accountabillity so they do whatever the hell they want!
Flaky. (Hope that's spelled right) None of this technology has ever worked right. I used to be an X-10 addict. Wait! If I order 3 eagle eye I/R detectors I can get an ultra-remote too! Hell, sign me up! The idea that you could control all of that stuff was cool but it never worked quite right. I had motion detectors tied into lights, lights on schedules and even the A/C on a schedule. It worked ok but never 100%. Closer to 50%. I'd be watching TV on a hot summer night and the AC would shut off. Lights would go on and back off. I struggled to get it working but the nail in the coffin was when I put the upstairs light outside the bedroom on a remote control. two nights in a row the damn thing turned on in the middle of the night, waking me up. There just wasn't any reason to it. The third day all that shit went into a box for sale on ebay.
As for internet on refrigerators and stoves, I just don't get it. Not sure what the point is. I suppose if you can afford the $4k stove that will refrigerate until it's time to cook it might be worthwhile but other than that it just isn't there. I expect it would be a huge pain in the ass. We should probably start with something very simple like appliances that can set their own time. If we can get that right, then move on to something really groundbreaking like a stove that is actually 350 deg when you set it to 350. How about an affordable dishwasher that doesn't sound like a plane taking off?
In general I agree with most of your comment. Our government has made some pretty whacked out moves and seems intent on steam-rolling the rest of the world for a buck. Interestingly, China is probably doing a better job right now of enforcing all-out capitalism than we are.
The only part that I disagree with is the part about hating the US. The terrorists are happy to hate whomever is in their way: Russians, Americans, Turks, etc. This isn't anything but a naked power grab on their part. They want an islamic state to live in and they aren't very particular about who they have to kill to get it.
It's interesting that you make the comment about who votes. I'm running for City Council in my city and you're not far off. It's kind of wierd being 39 years old and building my base of voters amongst 50-70 year olds. Nobody else gives a shit.
No. You're wrong. How would we know who he was if we didn't check his ID? Honestly, this appears to be one of the most widely ignored facts in the entire sad saga.
is what will happen to those gamers that cut their teeth on the early Microprose games? Microprose made great games with fabulous manuals. Even the boxes for their games kicked ass. In large part, the counter-strike type games with a bazillion keys to control everything are directly descended from these games with a large dose of Doom-style w-a-s-d keys thrown in. Back then, there wasn't any consideration given to crossing a game title over (for obvious reasons) to a console with a limited number of buttons available. This now appears to be the norm.
I don't know that games designed for this cross-over have been dumbed-down or whatever one cares to call it but they do "feel" different to me. They aren't as sophisticated and, beyond simply killing things, don't seem to be as challenging. I'm in my late 30's now and started gaming by playing "silent service" which was rapidly followed by just about every title Microprose put out. These games had so many key combo's that they had keyboard overlays. Perhaps all of those controls weren't strictly necessary but there was something satisfying in the ability to control and do just about everything. It seemed to allow for more flexibility that just isn't present with consoles.
Our city has BPL and I can tell you what the solution looks like. It's a box/clip thing that looks like it is screwed/fastened onto the primary wire. From there it has a little cable that goes down "around" the transformer to another box. The city is literaly festooned with these fucking things. I mean, the power poles look bad enough and we have to add more shit to them.
You are precisely correct. I was in this guy's shoes about 5 years ago. I don't blame management for not making changes; they had me working 70 hours a week for about $35k/year. That's too good to be true. I asked my boss for a raise and he gave me a $500 bonus. I left about 5 weeks later and they had to pay the next guy twice what I was making.
It's the same for you too eh? That pisses me off to no end. The leather (?) holster is a pain in the ass so I bought one of the "clip" holders. The secret is that it doesn't clip at all. At least mine doesn't. It won't come out of the clip unless you pull it straight up which sounded like a good idea until I ran accross a parking lot.
Any vertical motion (jump up and down) and the damn blackberry comes right up out of the thing. My results are the same: the battery cover pops off and the plastic gets beat to hell. I'm actually surprised at how soft the plastic seems to be. Mine has a pretty good case of road rash and I haven't dropped it that much. It doesn't seem to be painted though. I've recently started looking for plausable ways to destroy the fsking thing as I'm growing sick of it.
I don't know that it will "never ever" work but I think the points about bandwidth are good ones. That and the licensing scheme has to be worked out to the point that no net connection is required for reasonably long periods of time. We have laptops that fly around on our planes and passengers use them all the time while flying. Many of them haven't been on a network since we first set them up....~6-8 months ago.
A customer of ours has an older cell phone. He likes it and deosn't see the need to upgrade. He's firmly in the "a phone is a phone" crowd. His contract came up for renewal this month and the sales rep told him that there were new Homeland security rules in place and, since his phone didn't have GPS, they could not renew his contract. Has anyone else heard of this? It sounds like bunk but....
Slashdot Mirror
Something with a decent HID will always be around. It might be a tablet with a keyboard and mouse but it will always be around. The platform to consume content will relentlessly evolve but content creation has a pretty standard set of requirements for those humans that do it. This paradigm will drive the PC market to the niche where it might belong. Stuff that is truly creative and commercially viable generally isn't produced on an ipad and uploaded to youtube for your 31337 friends to fawn over. Yes, the bar to create this kind of stuff has been lowered but it still requires actual talent to do it.
Tons of outsourced helpdesk available these days. We use it to provide 24x7 to our customers that need it.
This is always a tough debate. We've (well, the US) spent the past 60 years dismantling infrastructure in our cities and urban corridors that we're now rebuilding at tremendous cost. "Superior" technology replaced trains and street cars and half a century later we're busy trying to get that infrastructure back b/c cars are hugely inefficient at transporting large numbers of people,. Well, at least how they're used these days...maybe we shouldn't actively trash the POTS system...
I don't know how well Dell is doing at the service biz.
What is this "science" you speak of? Does it have something to do with making nucyalar bombs?
Don't get me wrong, money is important but the environment is just as important. You have to allow leeway both in terms of environment and opportunity. I run a consulting biz and you have to allow room for the younger guys to experiment with new stuff. If you don't, they get bored no matter how much you pay them or what sort of office they have.
The real key though is to migrate the desire of the younger guys from tearing apart every new technology to the skillset of an established professional. It might be somewhat less exciting but in the end it is what customers want and what pays the bills. As your guys/gals get older and move along in life a polished skillset pays the best.
Oh, and if you're really smart, you'll achieve those long view items w/o crushing that natural curiosity out of your folks. That is, after all, what makes all of this exciting.
I've done it with my business (computer consulting) in the past and it can work. Of course, it can also go horribly wrong - it depends entirely on the person and the situation. You can't parachute someone with no skills at all into an intense consulting situation but I've hired people with some minimal IT experience and it has made my business better because of it. Even if they do not immediately contribute to the bottom line they can make the business stronger.
In my case, hiring the best "generalist" IT consultants has consistently led me towards a company full of gifted but undisciplined (including me) staff. I have hired a couple of very disciplined but marginal IT people in the recent past as their adherence to ordering and overall work flow have made the company stronger. In such a situation you usually have to give them a lot of support and keep the other staff from grousing too loudly about it but it can work.
I expect it is a pretty old trick really.
that I started reading /. around 2000. I was working at a web startup then and it was about the only thing that kept me sane. That does sound like a strange thing to say....
sounds familiar. Is he kin to "Phil McCracken"?
The passing the laws part is easy. The Feds will do what they always do: "Participation is optional but if you don't participate you don't get your (insert program name here) grant." I think the 55mph law was passed in this fashion.
,etc, etc.
As to the cost, that's a laugh. There might be a block grant available but it won't cover the costs of complying with Uncle Sam's demands. The Feds do this act all the time. Take a look at ESL, no child left behind,etc
People may or may not trust the gov't but one thing is for sure: they don't vote. If more people were informed and actually bothered to participate, things would work better.
How about you lazy fuckers go and vote? The reason the system is so broken is that people don't participate. People in Washington know that there is next to no accountabillity so they do whatever the hell they want!
Flaky. (Hope that's spelled right) None of this technology has ever worked right. I used to be an X-10 addict. Wait! If I order 3 eagle eye I/R detectors I can get an ultra-remote too! Hell, sign me up! The idea that you could control all of that stuff was cool but it never worked quite right. I had motion detectors tied into lights, lights on schedules and even the A/C on a schedule. It worked ok but never 100%. Closer to 50%. I'd be watching TV on a hot summer night and the AC would shut off. Lights would go on and back off. I struggled to get it working but the nail in the coffin was when I put the upstairs light outside the bedroom on a remote control. two nights in a row the damn thing turned on in the middle of the night, waking me up. There just wasn't any reason to it. The third day all that shit went into a box for sale on ebay.
As for internet on refrigerators and stoves, I just don't get it. Not sure what the point is. I suppose if you can afford the $4k stove that will refrigerate until it's time to cook it might be worthwhile but other than that it just isn't there. I expect it would be a huge pain in the ass. We should probably start with something very simple like appliances that can set their own time. If we can get that right, then move on to something really groundbreaking like a stove that is actually 350 deg when you set it to 350. How about an affordable dishwasher that doesn't sound like a plane taking off?
is clearly loaded and has no business posting more stories. Go sleep it off dude before my eyes explode.
In general I agree with most of your comment. Our government has made some pretty whacked out moves and seems intent on steam-rolling the rest of the world for a buck. Interestingly, China is probably doing a better job right now of enforcing all-out capitalism than we are.
The only part that I disagree with is the part about hating the US. The terrorists are happy to hate whomever is in their way: Russians, Americans, Turks, etc. This isn't anything but a naked power grab on their part. They want an islamic state to live in and they aren't very particular about who they have to kill to get it.
It's interesting that you make the comment about who votes. I'm running for City Council in my city and you're not far off. It's kind of wierd being 39 years old and building my base of voters amongst 50-70 year olds. Nobody else gives a shit.
No. You're wrong. How would we know who he was if we didn't check his ID? Honestly, this appears to be one of the most widely ignored facts in the entire sad saga.
I don't know that I disagree with you but your comment seems to indicate that you are for illegal immigration?
is what will happen to those gamers that cut their teeth on the early Microprose games? Microprose made great games with fabulous manuals. Even the boxes for their games kicked ass. In large part, the counter-strike type games with a bazillion keys to control everything are directly descended from these games with a large dose of Doom-style w-a-s-d keys thrown in. Back then, there wasn't any consideration given to crossing a game title over (for obvious reasons) to a console with a limited number of buttons available. This now appears to be the norm.
I don't know that games designed for this cross-over have been dumbed-down or whatever one cares to call it but they do "feel" different to me. They aren't as sophisticated and, beyond simply killing things, don't seem to be as challenging. I'm in my late 30's now and started gaming by playing "silent service" which was rapidly followed by just about every title Microprose put out. These games had so many key combo's that they had keyboard overlays. Perhaps all of those controls weren't strictly necessary but there was something satisfying in the ability to control and do just about everything. It seemed to allow for more flexibility that just isn't present with consoles.
I'm really drunk. Who cares about this open source crap. Fellate me you open source bastards. I could care less. MS forever!!! W00t!!
Our city has BPL and I can tell you what the solution looks like. It's a box/clip thing that looks like it is screwed/fastened onto the primary wire. From there it has a little cable that goes down "around" the transformer to another box. The city is literaly festooned with these fucking things. I mean, the power poles look bad enough and we have to add more shit to them.
You are precisely correct. I was in this guy's shoes about 5 years ago. I don't blame management for not making changes; they had me working 70 hours a week for about $35k/year. That's too good to be true. I asked my boss for a raise and he gave me a $500 bonus. I left about 5 weeks later and they had to pay the next guy twice what I was making.
It's the same for you too eh? That pisses me off to no end. The leather (?) holster is a pain in the ass so I bought one of the "clip" holders. The secret is that it doesn't clip at all. At least mine doesn't. It won't come out of the clip unless you pull it straight up which sounded like a good idea until I ran accross a parking lot.
Any vertical motion (jump up and down) and the damn blackberry comes right up out of the thing. My results are the same: the battery cover pops off and the plastic gets beat to hell. I'm actually surprised at how soft the plastic seems to be. Mine has a pretty good case of road rash and I haven't dropped it that much. It doesn't seem to be painted though. I've recently started looking for plausable ways to destroy the fsking thing as I'm growing sick of it.
I don't know that it will "never ever" work but I think the points about bandwidth are good ones. That and the licensing scheme has to be worked out to the point that no net connection is required for reasonably long periods of time. We have laptops that fly around on our planes and passengers use them all the time while flying. Many of them haven't been on a network since we first set them up....~6-8 months ago.
A customer of ours has an older cell phone. He likes it and deosn't see the need to upgrade. He's firmly in the "a phone is a phone" crowd. His contract came up for renewal this month and the sales rep told him that there were new Homeland security rules in place and, since his phone didn't have GPS, they could not renew his contract. Has anyone else heard of this? It sounds like bunk but....