And clusters of community intranets could peer with each other.:^)... Who needs the internet? I can build my own internet. with blackjack, and hookers! and... in fact, forget the internet!
Fair enough. I'm not a sysadmin though I played one on TV once.
And I think there's another 0.5% who would have already read the spec for rendezvouz, thought about it for a few minutes and said, "doh, it's gotta be the MTU".
"On the other hand, as a consumer of technical services (e.g. my DSL line at home) I find that dealing with tech support is uniformly frustrating for the advanced user because the providers are so focused on the clueless."
Oh man does that ever remind of what happened about a month ago. Here I am calling Bell Sympatico (the big DSL in canada) because I can't send emails with attachments, in fact most emails wont go out, they sit around for a few hours and then finally get accepted by the SMTP server. And so I talk to this guy for like half an hour, going back and forth trying stuff, "proving" that it doesn't work by saying "OK I'll try to send it again... nope, it didn't go" and then finally he finds out I'm using a Yahoo account. So he says, no, we don't support Yahoo accounts on our SMTP server, it's their fault, you have to call them.
OK fine I'm sick of talking to him anyway. So I hang up. Obviously he's wrong, their SMTP server is the ONE server in the world that SHOULD be taking all my email. But no.
So I flip around idly for a while and find that Yahoo's help has a page that specifically contradicts this guy. Oh, goody, an authoritative answer! So I call back, and get some different guy (and this time I get his name). Me and him talk argue for a while about whether or not they're supposed to support Yahoo and finally I ask for the supervisor.
First I tell him that his support person lied to me about Yahoo, he agrees, whoops, Sorry. He says he'll talk to them about that. OK, so what do they support? Outlook. OK, how about Entourage (the OS X version of outlook) -- he's never heard of that, no go. Alright, I say, you wait on the line and I'll download Outlook for Classic. Finally I get that loaded, and... it works!
Damn.
Oh yeah... in all this, I claim my computer's directly attached to the internet because they don't support home networks.
OK, so after an hour on the phone with sympatico chasing ghosts, I go on the Apple support boards. There's a tip there that says that I need to change the MTU (whatever that is) on my linksys router because of an incompatibility with rendezvous zeroconfig. OK, so I change the MTU to 1049 or seomthing like that and *poof* everything starts to work.
Moral of the story? Go online to the support boards and don't bother with the tech support droids.
First of all you need a *headset* not a handset. Who the heck is going to carry around a handset when they already have a cell phone inside the W? That doesn't make sense.
Secondly, they're just showing that no one gets the form factor yet. I don't want to have a headset sticking in my ear all the time, but I don't want to hold a big-ass product like the Treo up to my head either (talk about dorky-looking). The new RIM blackberry has a better idea... just hold the thing to your head without any flip up plastic crap.
They still miss the mark though. I'm going to get my cheekmarks all over the screen and that's no good.
I don't know what the right formfactor is, but I haven't seen it yet. Maybe some kind of clamshell design where the keyboard's on the bottom and the screen's on the top. IT'll open 75% in phone mode, like a startac or whatever, or it'll open 100% in palm mode.
Well there's always the little hints that give these smart and attractive people away. Try asking them a technical question that's tangentially related to what they oh so intelligently presented.
Once at University of Waterloo we had a pretty impressive MS presentation that included Microsoft Money. I went for the food. Anyway, after there was a group huddled around the main presenter and he went off saying why money is so good. He says: "It's got 25 million lines of code! More than windows!" I walked away at that point.
I want to know what slashdotters think about this. Personally, it definitely has. I like to be able to try out bands online and then if I like their stuff, I go and buy it. Not only does it ease my conscience, but also I can get nice clean copies of an entire album. And it helps me pick out the albums that I want too.
So far I bought a bunch of Orbital and Orb, and a Dire Straits album (good old stuff) because of that, and avoided needlessly contributing and funds to the pockets of Fleetwood Mac;-)
Well, as far as meta-questions go, it's best to ask a question, to which you already know the answer, and you know they're not going to want to answer it. Then they'll dance and hedge and you might learn something new in the moments of weakness.
It's especially good if you ask a question where they know the answer, the whole audience knows (or thinks they know) the answer, and it's not pretty. And ask it very innocently, so they can't brush you off as a trouble-maker:-)
Your question is pretty good but it's even better to ask a single question. With multiple questions they can act confused, or choose just the easiest one.
> Well, the obvious choises are.. XP 2 or 2003, Mandrake/Redhat Z > (where Z>7), OS X.A (Where A>1).
Microsoft releases another operating system. So does Apple. Swing 2 means that people can now write "real" apps in Java.
One form or another of WiFi 802.11x is going to break out big time. Whatever it is, it's going to have some way of keeping it secure better than WAP. If anyone can get mesh networks to work properly, we're going to start seeing the spread of community wireless networks (CWNs) where people join up to share bandwidth for less money, and more free wireless clouds like the one NYCWireless has set up in Bryant Park. Free and pay-to-play will have to coexist because no-one's going to be able to sort out all the inter-network roaming business deals in 2003.
The PDA and phone have fundamentally different form factor requirements. No one wants to squeeze their cheek against the screen of the poor palm pilot. The only way that cell phones and PDAs are going to converge is if people are really going to get into headsets. I don't think that's going to happen: because of social pressure not to look like a total weirdo, walking down the street and talking (or worse, laughing maniacally) to yourself.
MP3s or the Ogg Vorbis format are going to continue to dominate because the compression is good enough, the sound is good enough, and it's an open, free standard.
We're going to see the final emergence of Bluetooth for personal-area networks. Early adopters are going to start having Bluetooth capable headphones, iPods, PDAs, and so on so that all the cords disappear.
Location-aware services are going to start to emerge, but not with GPS or any other location scheme imposed from above. Instead, people will use bluetooth "location beacons" that can provide location information to people who are close by. WiFi will also start to broadcast location information. We'll see different levels of location sensitivity from different devices, but it will often be good enough to know that we're inside the right room, or within a few dozen meters of a certain street corner. Whatever location-granting services float to the top, they will grant location info to users who walk into range, and then the user will connect to the web with that info informing any location-aware web sites (...services...applications...whatever).
Software "engineering" will continue to not exist. Writing code is still a talent and a craft, not an engineering discipline..NET isn't really going to go anywhere, because the billions of MCSE VB hackers aren't going to cut it in the real programming arena. And because everyone's paranoid of Microsoft now thank god;-)
Copyright law is going to go flying into the air like popcorn on a hot plate. Eldred vs. Ashcroft is just the beginning. Copyright needs an overhaul and this is the year where the general public is going to realize that.
Patent law might, just might, start to come under the microscope, but it's too soon for any real changes there.
Voice over IP is going to threaten the normal telecom companies in a major way. The old telecom paradigms are on their last legs in 2003. The internet changes everything. The business environment will continue to thrash to the old dinosaur players. We'll see lots of startups and lots of failures... hopefully some big successes too.
P2P will continue to do just fine because the technology is inherentantly impossible to stop. The only way to kill P2P is to fundamentally change the way the internet works, and that's not going to happen. If the current P2P model gets killed, people are going to move to P2P systems where everything's encrypted and broken up into bits, no one knows what's on their own hard drive, and no-one's responsible for anything.
People will continue to pay to see movies in theatres because it's a big screen and big speakers.
The transition to a new model for music distribution will not happen this year. The old model has too much momentum to fall in a year.
I will continue to think blogs aren't as big a deal as some people seem to think;-)
What a coincidence. I sent an entry on this very topic into the last Viridian design contest, but it vanished into a black hole in Bruce Sterling's email box. He later said:
My proposal is to create a PIBank (Personal Information Bank) that's going to store all of your personal information and dole it to local systems at your command.
I secured it using one-time-password, two-factor authentication with RSA SecurID cards. The cool thing is that you can also have the PIBank generate one-time credit card numbers and so on to prevent fraud.
Someone mentioned profit? Well, it's just like a regular bank. Their number-one product is trust. Of course they'll charge a monthly fee and use your data in aggregate form;-)
It seems that the president of UW didn't actually sign anything, despite all appearances to the contrary. viz:
"In retrospect, it was a mistake to announce agreement in principle with respect to the curriculum initiatives, a mistake for which I take the responsibility." (my emphasis)
You might call it "good news" although I think at best it's a Pyrrhic victory. The damage done to UW's reputation -- unnecessarily as it turns out -- is going to take more fixing than just another slashdot article. We got stomped on, and justifiably.
Fortunately the forum was streamed and recorded by the student government, the Feds, and you can listen to it by downloading the mp3 (29 MB). Although we might take down UW's internet connection;-)
I'm hosting a group project to transcribe the recording. Please help! It contains the president's apology but also some interesting information about C# as well.
Our server's been slashdotted.. we're working on it, meanwhile here's the story and top level comments.
Breaking News: UW receives first $2.3M from Microsoft alliance
By Ryan Chen-Wing on Wednesday, August 14, 2002 at 12:33 p.m.
At 10:00 today Microsoft Canada Co. President Frank Clegg announced $2.3 million funding that will facilitate three projects in the areas of academic research, education solutions, and curriculum integration. UW President David Johnston, UW's Director of ICR Vic DiCiccio, and MS Canada's Director of Education Sector George Kyriakis spoke as part of the announcement.
The aim of the research project is to develop equation recognition for new Tablet PCs that, in addition to having the functionality of laptops, have a screen which is touch sensitive to styli.
Clegg said that Tablet PCs are set to be released 7 November this year. He said he couldn't say for sure what the retail price will, "It would be great if we could get it down to the price of of a regular laptop."
The education solutions project will allow students to access lab equipment and simulators. A press release says that 8,000 course students in E&CE will benefit from this.
Under curriculum integration, first-choice applicants to UW's E&CE program will be allowed to take a new pre-university programming course in C#, E&CE 050. Completion of this course will be mandatory for students entering the E&CE program. C# is a new programming language developed by Microsoft.
The existing course E&CE 150, an introductory course to programming, will change from using C++ to C#.
DiCiccio commented on changing curriculum under the agreement, "E&CE weighed all the aspects of it and was comfortable with the change...UW is really sensitive to curriculum decisions it makes." He also joked, "$2.3 million isn't enough to sacrifice curriculum."
At the end of the press conference, Clegg and President Johnston signed the agreement using an Acer Tablet PC. The announcement was made at UW in the Davis Centre's ICR Corporate Partner Lounge, which is also known as the fishbowl or the wine-and-cheese lounge. About 100 people attended.
The funding is part of the Microsoft Canada Academic Innovation Alliance, a $10 million dollar fund administered over five years that will accept proposals from acredited universities. A press release describes the four categories of the fund, academic research, education solutions, curriculum integration and industry outreach.
Kyriakis said, "We believe we should create ties between the business community and the academic community to ensure that innovation happens into the future." He added, "What we're doing at Waterloo is just fantastic."
All projects under the alliance will incorporate Microsoft technology. Clegg said, "We think that is the value that we provide."
Microsoft Canada President Frank Clegg has agreed to answer the 10 best questions posed by uws readers about the Microsoft Canada Academic Innovation Alliance, and its impact at UW. So, post your questions. uws editors will select the 10 best and send them to Mr. Clegg, then post his responses.
Presentation Slides Eligibility Requirements Submission Process Academic Research Curriculum Integration
Reply
Feds strategic plan: Di Lullo seeks to diversify
previous story
Comments Concerns
By Rob Ewaschuk on Wednesday, August 14, 2002 at 12:51 p.m.
Mr Clegg, This agreement includes teaching C# to high school students applying to UW. C# is a nascent language. It is younger and less mature than Java was when the Computer Science department accepted it as a tool for teaching first year students. I do not believe that C# is a better teaching language than Java, but more importantly, I don't believe that it has time to show whether or not it a better teaching tool. Since it is not more mature, it is not a better teaching language, and it is not (as far as I know, inflated figured from both sides being rather untrustworthy) a more popular "real-world" language than Java, it seems to me that Microsoft has convinced the University to sacrifice using the right tool for the (academic!) job. Clearly this curriculum change would not have happened without this donation. My reaction to this is that the University curriculum has been bought, despite DiCiccio's comments. I'm sure you find this notion as offensive as I do. Could you allay my fears? Agreements like the one announced today often stimulate fears that alternatives to (in this case) Microsoft will be stifled, either as part of the agreement, or as an implied threat. Can you assure us that no projects that work against Microsofts (real or perceived) interests, such as work on Linux, releasing publicly funded research as GPLed code, teaching of Java, use of Solaris in much of our infrastructure, etc., have no more to fear today than they did yesterday, and that it is very clear that Microsoft will not move (explicitly or implicitly) to stifle this diversity in our systems, tools and culture? Thank you for your time, Rob Ewaschuk
Reply * Clarification by Rob Ewaschuk * A second clarification by Rob Ewaschuk C#?!
By colin on Wednesday, August 14, 2002 at 1:57 p.m.
I think this C# choice is going to cause an uproar!
By Mark Schaan on Wednesday, August 14, 2002 at 2:00 p.m.
I am disgusted by the university's decision to accept this donation and believe that it violates the principles of academic freedom on our campus.
Curriculum development is a product of the faculty and should be preserved as such. Changing curriculum to satisfy corporate desires crosses the line from private-sector funding of university priorities to private sector determination of university priorities. I heard of no desire to make such a curriculum change until news of this donation came about. I believe this fundamentally violates the separation of academic freedom and corporate giving in the university setting, something that was subtedly encroaching on our campus previous but is now out in full view.
In addition, I stand against the university's decision to offer "special" classes to a select group of students. This is a stunt to try and win the battle for top-quality students and it creates a two-tier system within the university system. The university should be caring about quality across the board and should not be subjecting average students to large classes while it rewards a few hand-picked students with a better quality education. If we all pay the same price, we should all have equal access to what the university has to offer.
I am saddened that the sea change in administration has seen fit to compromise the hard work done by previous administrators (Jim Kalbfleisch especially) to protect academics from corporate interference.
Reply * Encouraged by Aaron Lee-Wudrick * Let's not make darkness the new standard by simon * I'm partly joking, Simon by Aaron Lee-Wudrick * Selling out Smartly by simon * That's pretty much it by Aaron Lee-Wudrick * E&CE 050 allowed to applicants, required for students by Ryan Chen-Wing * Further Clarification by Aaron Lee-Wudrick * E&CE 050 clarifications by Ryan * That would be bad. by Josh * For scholarships... by Giant Space Hamster
* would UW touch C#? by simon
* Oh yeah, and by simon
* Partners? by Josh * So why would the university do it then? by Aaron Lee-Wudrick * Reputation by P. Quealey * Whose reputation? by Aaron Lee-Wudrick * Reputation by Anonymous Coward * exactly by P. Quealey * But what do potential students look at? by Aaron Lee-Wudrick
* Not Open To The Market- Just One Corporation by Mark Schaan * Is Monopoly Really What You Are Worried About? by Aaron Lee-Wudrick * mmmm by P. Quealey * You didn't answer my question by Aaron Lee-Wudrick * Below by P. Quealey * I choose no money by Jesse Helmer * Isn't it a dilemma? by Aaron Lee-Wudrick * 1 day = 24 hours by Josh * Once you've learned it.. by Aaron Lee-Wudrick
* Research chairs are not unheard of... by Ryan Bayne * Direction of Bending by Anonymous Coward
* dillemma? by simon
* Which drives which? by Ryan Bayne * I agree by Aaron Lee-Wudrick * Doubtful by Josh * Probably...but.... by Jeff
* special classes? by simon * Two-tier? Umm.... by Jeff Henry * Thanks for the Clarification by Mark Schaan
WTF???
By Three-Legged Hamster on Wednesday, August 14, 2002 at 2:16 p.m.
Here's the PR http://www.microsoft.com/canada/press/releases/08_ 15_2002_fund.asp
So let me get this straight... they give us a few million... so that we can:
- build a math-symbol text recognition program for THEIR stupid computer; - teach our first year students THEIR stupid language; - train our students to build circuits for THEIR stupid ASP initiative.
Is there anything GOOD that we get as a part of this package? Or are we just going to rename ourselves University of Waterloo (A Division of Microsoft Research)?
Reply Discouraging this Alumni
By P. Quealey on Wednesday, August 14, 2002 at 3:42 p.m.
This Microsoft deal bothers me for three reasons.
1. It is showing that the University admin will do just about anything for money. They will change the curriculum, the will place whatever pressure is necessary on students and they will sacrifice the University's role as an institution of knowledge.
2. It seems as though the only financial deals the university is interested in making are with companies who will benefit the engineering and/or computer science departments. This school, believe it or not has many other faculties that do very very good work. In fact that work could be made better if Johnston put effort into partnering with other organizations willing to invest research money in faculties and projects across the board. My own former faculty of environmental studies has numerous innovative and revolutionary (in the good sense)projects that stall due to lack of funding.
3. Given the Universities deal with Microsoft and other winning initiatives like Quest, UW may well soon prove to be one of the wealthiest schools in the country, but something tells me they will not remain best in class. If we're partnering with Microsoft, Johnston is obviously taking UW down the quantity, not quality road.
Since Mark's comments (despite our personal and public disagreements) fairly sum up how I feel, and are laid out about as well as I could, I'll just say this:
This university is run by a bunch of money grubbing idiots who care more about appeasing political and corporate masters than providing quality academics; for shame (I acknowledge that this might not be as eloquent as I normally write but this really pissed me off).
Due to the policies of the current administration I will donate not 1 cent to the school. I cannot support a University that is actively trying to shed its academic integrity and honour. I will also make a point to discourage as many people as possible from attending this 'school' in future.
Reply * One question by Aaron Lee-Wudrick * Aaron by P. Quealey * It's not a trap, its a fact! by Aaron Lee-Wudrick * In tech feilds perhaps by P. Quealey * Can, but won't by Aaron Lee-Wudrick
* Independence and quality aren't inversely proportional by Steve * Independence and quality aren't inversely proportional by Steve
In addition to commenting please ask questions
By Ryan on Wednesday, August 14, 2002 at 4:02 p.m.
Microsoft Canada President Frank Clegg has agreed to answer the 10 best questions posed by uws readers about the Microsoft Canada Academic Innovation Alliance, and its impact at UW. So, post your questions. uws editors will select the 10 best and send them to Mr. Clegg, then post his responses.
And we're supposed to let this company run the internet with.NET? I don't think so.
You know, the cracks are beginning to show. Microsoft used to *never* make mistakes, but ever since good old Bill stepped down from the CEO position, they've been screwing up left and right.
Here's what you need: a WiFi device; a public node; a CueCat or any other barcode scanner. If you're all geared up, then you can jump the gun on ubiquitous computing. You might use sem@code, a barcode that encodes a URL. With a wireless or mobile internet device, you just scan the barcode into your URL field, and voila! you load the website it links to.
Sem@codes are public tags for URLs. This is not pie-in-the-sky stuff: for example, over three million CueCat scanners were distributed (you can get one on eBay). With that or any other barcode scanner attached to your laptop, you can read semacodes. In addition, your or anyone else can generate sem@codes with open-source software online.
There's a better way. Run the demo-collecting software on the client. The user enters their info, the client randomizes it and sends it on.
Similarly for customized ads. Your client (open source of course) knows your demographics. But it also has 5 other (fake) profiles. It sends them all to the server, the server sends back 5 customized ads, one for each profile. The client picks the right one and shows you.
no software will ever be released bug free that does much more than print "Hello World!" to the console.
hypothesis - every line of code contains at least one bug induction - you can remove the bug by removing the line of code conclusion - bug-free code must have 0 lines
This is just ridiculous. Software "enginering" doesn't exist... it's just an idea in people's heads. Software right now is a craft. You have a bunch of skilled artisans (programmers) writing code, but the whole program is in their head, the people represent the software, and the quality of the code is directly a result of the quality of the programmer, and the managements ability to understand this process and keep the programmers going in the right direction and talking to each other.
Only in the most ridiculous cases do people practise "software engineering" (like at NASA) because it's too hard the way they do it now (mathematical proofs).
And I speak as a software program manager and I have a good degree... and I think my degree is good because I was exposed to some of the best software craftspersons. There's no rules and definitely no big black book of programming.
The low level of this debate is amazing to me. I've got my cut-off up to 3 and still almost everything is flamebait. Let's be a little more rational people.
First of all, as a Canadian I am vividly aware of the lack of corporate press in America. For example, how many of you American readers are aware of or have ever heard of the MAI (now dead) which would have destroyed investment barriers between nations. Canadians (and others) shot it down but *activists* I know in the states hadn't even heard of it.
My point is that awareness of corporate control is at a stunningly low ebb, no matter whether you support or hate it, in the US.
Jon Katz's predictions of a dire future remind me of Wired's future scenarios a few years back. They gave three possibilities, dominated to various degrees by dictator-like corporations.
Here's a bit of media education for those who didn't get it in school (and I bet that's most of us): The larger the corporation the more profitable it can be. But there's a severe downside when media companies join with others. It's a fact that they can't cover their own dealings with impartiality. Do expect MSNBC to cover the Microsoft trial impartially? They will either cover their own news with a biased slant or not cover it at all (almost as bad). And the more one company owns the less you're going to hear about.
Here's a page with information on which media companies own what as well as some good analysis.
What Wired didn't see at the time was the power of open-source. I think it's a powerful weapon against corporate control because we can use big business' best weapon, the law, against their domination of our culture. Let's face it, that's how open-source got started, against Microsoft and other software corporation monopolies that were putting out crappy software.
Well, now we've pissed off the big boys and we have to learn to play as dirty as they do.
That means learning how to use lawyers and money and learning how the media game works.
Slashdot Mirror
And clusters of community intranets could peer with each other. :^) ... Who needs the internet? I can build my own internet. with blackjack, and hookers! and ... in fact, forget the internet!
---
ohh, I'm such a karma whore.
"Seems like technology in general is trending towards more regulation as the industry is seen as staid as railroads, coal, or shipping."
... railroads circa 1900 that is ...
Sure, with the microsoft judgement technology is looking more like railroads every day
I don't get it. How do we have a trend towards regulation from a government trending away from antitrust? That doesn't make sense.
Give us total control of your country, and we will give you some fluff we found in our pockets. No? OK, well try this one then ...
Fair enough. I'm not a sysadmin though I played one on TV once.
And I think there's another 0.5% who would have already read the spec for rendezvouz, thought about it for a few minutes and said, "doh, it's gotta be the MTU".
"On the other hand, as a consumer of technical services (e.g. my DSL line at home) I find that dealing with tech support is uniformly frustrating for the advanced user because the providers are so focused on the clueless."
... nope, it didn't go" and then finally he finds out I'm using a Yahoo account. So he says, no, we don't support Yahoo accounts on our SMTP server, it's their fault, you have to call them.
... it works!
... in all this, I claim my computer's directly attached to the internet because they don't support home networks.
Oh man does that ever remind of what happened about a month ago. Here I am calling Bell Sympatico (the big DSL in canada) because I can't send emails with attachments, in fact most emails wont go out, they sit around for a few hours and then finally get accepted by the SMTP server. And so I talk to this guy for like half an hour, going back and forth trying stuff, "proving" that it doesn't work by saying "OK I'll try to send it again
OK fine I'm sick of talking to him anyway. So I hang up. Obviously he's wrong, their SMTP server is the ONE server in the world that SHOULD be taking all my email. But no.
So I flip around idly for a while and find that Yahoo's help has a page that specifically contradicts this guy. Oh, goody, an authoritative answer! So I call back, and get some different guy (and this time I get his name). Me and him talk argue for a while about whether or not they're supposed to support Yahoo and finally I ask for the supervisor.
First I tell him that his support person lied to me about Yahoo, he agrees, whoops, Sorry. He says he'll talk to them about that. OK, so what do they support? Outlook. OK, how about Entourage (the OS X version of outlook) -- he's never heard of that, no go. Alright, I say, you wait on the line and I'll download Outlook for Classic. Finally I get that loaded, and
Damn.
Oh yeah
OK, so after an hour on the phone with sympatico chasing ghosts, I go on the Apple support boards. There's a tip there that says that I need to change the MTU (whatever that is) on my linksys router because of an incompatibility with rendezvous zeroconfig. OK, so I change the MTU to 1049 or seomthing like that and *poof* everything starts to work.
Moral of the story? Go online to the support boards and don't bother with the tech support droids.
First of all you need a *headset* not a handset. Who the heck is going to carry around a handset when they already have a cell phone inside the W? That doesn't make sense.
... just hold the thing to your head without any flip up plastic crap.
Secondly, they're just showing that no one gets the form factor yet. I don't want to have a headset sticking in my ear all the time, but I don't want to hold a big-ass product like the Treo up to my head either (talk about dorky-looking). The new RIM blackberry has a better idea
They still miss the mark though. I'm going to get my cheekmarks all over the screen and that's no good.
I don't know what the right formfactor is, but I haven't seen it yet. Maybe some kind of clamshell design where the keyboard's on the bottom and the screen's on the top. IT'll open 75% in phone mode, like a startac or whatever, or it'll open 100% in palm mode.
Well there's always the little hints that give these smart and attractive people away. Try asking them a technical question that's tangentially related to what they oh so intelligently presented.
Once at University of Waterloo we had a pretty impressive MS presentation that included Microsoft Money. I went for the food. Anyway, after there was a group huddled around the main presenter and he went off saying why money is so good. He says: "It's got 25 million lines of code! More than windows!" I walked away at that point.
simon
I want to know what slashdotters think about this. Personally, it definitely has. I like to be able to try out bands online and then if I like their stuff, I go and buy it. Not only does it ease my conscience, but also I can get nice clean copies of an entire album. And it helps me pick out the albums that I want too.
;-)
So far I bought a bunch of Orbital and Orb, and a Dire Straits album (good old stuff) because of that, and avoided needlessly contributing and funds to the pockets of Fleetwood Mac
simon
Well, as far as meta-questions go, it's best to ask a question, to which you already know the answer, and you know they're not going to want to answer it. Then they'll dance and hedge and you might learn something new in the moments of weakness.
:-)
It's especially good if you ask a question where they know the answer, the whole audience knows (or thinks they know) the answer, and it's not pretty. And ask it very innocently, so they can't brush you off as a trouble-maker
Your question is pretty good but it's even better to ask a single question. With multiple questions they can act confused, or choose just the easiest one.
Simon
Hmm... No, after a few experiments I think that Chimera is adding this when I download it.
Sooo... Here is a woman who has supposedly "switched" to PC, but she still is using her Mac?
... yet another evidence this file was indeed created on a Macintosh.
Another thing: my copy has creator/type code of MSWD/WDBN
talk about hypocrisy.
simon
> Well, the obvious choises are .. XP 2 or 2003, Mandrake/Redhat Z
...applications ...whatever).
.NET isn't really going to go anywhere, because the billions of MCSE VB hackers aren't going to cut it in the real programming arena. And because everyone's paranoid of Microsoft now thank god ;-)
... hopefully some big successes too.
;-)
;-)
> (where Z>7), OS X.A (Where A>1).
Microsoft releases another operating system. So does Apple. Swing 2 means that people can now write "real" apps in Java.
One form or another of WiFi 802.11x is going to break out big time. Whatever it is, it's going to have some way of keeping it secure better than WAP. If anyone can get mesh networks to work properly, we're going to start seeing the spread of community wireless networks (CWNs) where people join up to share bandwidth for less money, and more free wireless clouds like the one NYCWireless has set up in Bryant Park. Free and pay-to-play will have to coexist because no-one's going to be able to sort out all the inter-network roaming business deals in 2003.
The PDA and phone have fundamentally different form factor requirements. No one wants to squeeze their cheek against the screen of the poor palm pilot. The only way that cell phones and PDAs are going to converge is if people are really going to get into headsets. I don't think that's going to happen: because of social pressure not to look like a total weirdo, walking down the street and talking (or worse, laughing maniacally) to yourself.
MP3s or the Ogg Vorbis format are going to continue to dominate because the compression is good enough, the sound is good enough, and it's an open, free standard.
We're going to see the final emergence of Bluetooth for personal-area networks. Early adopters are going to start having Bluetooth capable headphones, iPods, PDAs, and so on so that all the cords disappear.
Location-aware services are going to start to emerge, but not with GPS or any other location scheme imposed from above. Instead, people will use bluetooth "location beacons" that can provide location information to people who are close by. WiFi will also start to broadcast location information. We'll see different levels of location sensitivity from different devices, but it will often be good enough to know that we're inside the right room, or within a few dozen meters of a certain street corner. Whatever location-granting services float to the top, they will grant location info to users who walk into range, and then the user will connect to the web with that info informing any location-aware web sites (...services
Software "engineering" will continue to not exist. Writing code is still a talent and a craft, not an engineering discipline.
Copyright law is going to go flying into the air like popcorn on a hot plate. Eldred vs. Ashcroft is just the beginning. Copyright needs an overhaul and this is the year where the general public is going to realize that.
Patent law might, just might, start to come under the microscope, but it's too soon for any real changes there.
Voice over IP is going to threaten the normal telecom companies in a major way. The old telecom paradigms are on their last legs in 2003. The internet changes everything. The business environment will continue to thrash to the old dinosaur players. We'll see lots of startups and lots of failures
P2P will continue to do just fine because the technology is inherentantly impossible to stop. The only way to kill P2P is to fundamentally change the way the internet works, and that's not going to happen. If the current P2P model gets killed, people are going to move to P2P systems where everything's encrypted and broken up into bits, no one knows what's on their own hard drive, and no-one's responsible for anything.
People will continue to pay to see movies in theatres because it's a big screen and big speakers.
The transition to a new model for music distribution will not happen this year. The old model has too much momentum to fall in a year.
I will continue to think blogs aren't as big a deal as some people seem to think
P.S. One word: Mozilla
P.P.S. Three words: The Mozilla Wordprocessor
What a coincidence. I sent an entry on this very topic into the last Viridian design contest, but it vanished into a black hole in Bruce Sterling's email box. He later said:
;-)
"Sorry Simon, but your interesting Civil Society entry never showed up in my mailbox."
Oh well.
My proposal is to create a PIBank (Personal Information Bank) that's going to store all of your personal information and dole it to local systems at your command.
I secured it using one-time-password, two-factor authentication with RSA SecurID cards. The cool thing is that you can also have the PIBank generate one-time credit card numbers and so on to prevent fraud.
Someone mentioned profit? Well, it's just like a regular bank. Their number-one product is trust. Of course they'll charge a monthly fee and use your data in aggregate form
Go on, check it out.
"So when did the paper itself become self aware?"
Well, they became citizens back at the turn of the 20th century (when corporations were invented...)
I guess that self-awareness happened back in 2020 when the groupware/blogging software started to think for itself..
www.simonwoodside.com
Read the whole transcript before you judge.
Check out the comments of Dean Chaudhuri. I don't doubt that this decision will get the fifth degree.
Simon
It seems that the president of UW didn't actually sign anything, despite all appearances to the contrary. viz:
;-)
"In retrospect, it was a mistake to announce agreement in principle with respect to the curriculum initiatives, a mistake for which I take the responsibility." (my emphasis)
You might call it "good news" although I think at best it's a Pyrrhic victory. The damage done to UW's reputation -- unnecessarily as it turns out -- is going to take more fixing than just another slashdot article. We got stomped on, and justifiably.
Fortunately the forum was streamed and recorded by the student government, the Feds, and you can listen to it by downloading the mp3 (29 MB). Although we might take down UW's internet connection
I'm hosting a group project to transcribe the recording. Please help! It contains the president's apology but also some interesting information about C# as well.
simon
UW CS Alum
simonwoodside.com
PS. The School of Computer Science rejected the deal before the original announcement. This is all concerned with Computer Engineering, not CS.
CmdrTaco
ignoring his own challenge,
says Mark Cantrell writes:
a story is on
story dot yahoo dot com
'Haiku To Stop Spam'
like the August heat
he gives a challenge to us:
comment in haiku
Like the August rain
we must ask for haiku from
CmdrTaco
Our server's been slashdotted.. we're working on it, meanwhile here's the story and top level comments.
n t/ RTGAM/20020814/gtwat/Front/homeBN/breakingnews
n t/ RTGAM/20020814/gtwat/Front/homeBN/breakingnews
_ 15_2002_fund.asp
... they give us a few million... so that we can:
Breaking News: UW receives first $2.3M from Microsoft alliance
By Ryan Chen-Wing on Wednesday, August 14, 2002 at 12:33 p.m.
At 10:00 today Microsoft Canada Co. President Frank Clegg announced $2.3 million funding that will facilitate three projects in the areas of academic research, education solutions, and curriculum integration. UW President David Johnston, UW's Director of ICR Vic DiCiccio, and MS Canada's Director of Education Sector George Kyriakis spoke as part of the announcement.
The aim of the research project is to develop equation recognition for new Tablet PCs that, in addition to having the functionality of laptops, have a screen which is touch sensitive to styli.
Clegg said that Tablet PCs are set to be released 7 November this year. He said he couldn't say for sure what the retail price will, "It would be great if we could get it down to the price of of a regular laptop."
The education solutions project will allow students to access lab equipment and simulators. A press release says that 8,000 course students in E&CE will benefit from this.
Under curriculum integration, first-choice applicants to UW's E&CE program will be allowed to take a new pre-university programming course in C#, E&CE 050. Completion of this course will be mandatory for students entering the E&CE program. C# is a new programming language developed by Microsoft.
The existing course E&CE 150, an introductory course to programming, will change from using C++ to C#.
DiCiccio commented on changing curriculum under the agreement, "E&CE weighed all the aspects of it and was comfortable with the change...UW is really sensitive to curriculum decisions it makes." He also joked, "$2.3 million isn't enough to sacrifice curriculum."
At the end of the press conference, Clegg and President Johnston signed the agreement using an Acer Tablet PC. The announcement was made at UW in the Davis Centre's ICR Corporate Partner Lounge, which is also known as the fishbowl or the wine-and-cheese lounge. About 100 people attended.
The funding is part of the Microsoft Canada Academic Innovation Alliance, a $10 million dollar fund administered over five years that will accept proposals from acredited universities. A press release describes the four categories of the fund, academic research, education solutions, curriculum integration and industry outreach.
Kyriakis said, "We believe we should create ties between the business community and the academic community to ensure that innovation happens into the future." He added, "What we're doing at Waterloo is just fantastic."
All projects under the alliance will incorporate Microsoft technology. Clegg said, "We think that is the value that we provide."
Microsoft Canada President Frank Clegg has agreed to answer the 10 best questions posed by uws readers about the Microsoft Canada Academic Innovation Alliance, and its impact at UW. So, post your questions. uws editors will select the 10 best and send them to Mr. Clegg, then post his responses.
Presentation Slides
Eligibility Requirements
Submission Process
Academic Research
Curriculum Integration
Reply
Feds strategic plan: Di Lullo seeks to diversify
previous story
Comments
Concerns
By Rob Ewaschuk on Wednesday, August 14, 2002 at 12:51 p.m.
Mr Clegg,
This agreement includes teaching C# to high school students applying to UW. C# is a nascent language. It is younger and less mature than Java was when the Computer Science department accepted it as a tool for teaching first year students. I do not believe that C# is a better teaching language than Java, but more importantly, I don't believe that it has time to show whether or not it a better teaching tool. Since it is not more mature, it is not a better teaching language, and it is not (as far as I know, inflated figured from both sides being rather untrustworthy) a more popular "real-world" language than Java, it seems to me that Microsoft has convinced the University to sacrifice using the right tool for the (academic!) job. Clearly this curriculum change would not have happened without this donation. My reaction to this is that the University curriculum has been bought, despite DiCiccio's comments. I'm sure you find this notion as offensive as I do. Could you allay my fears?
Agreements like the one announced today often stimulate fears that alternatives to (in this case) Microsoft will be stifled, either as part of the agreement, or as an implied threat. Can you assure us that no projects that work against Microsofts (real or perceived) interests, such as work on Linux, releasing publicly funded research as GPLed code, teaching of Java, use of Solaris in much of our infrastructure, etc., have no more to fear today than they did yesterday, and that it is very clear that Microsoft will not move (explicitly or implicitly) to stifle this diversity in our systems, tools and culture?
Thank you for your time,
Rob Ewaschuk
Reply
* Clarification by Rob Ewaschuk
* A second clarification by Rob Ewaschuk
C#?!
By colin on Wednesday, August 14, 2002 at 1:57 p.m.
I think this C# choice is going to cause an uproar!
here the globe&mail blurb on the alliance:
http://globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/fro
Reply
C#?!
By colin on Wednesday, August 14, 2002 at 1:57 p.m.
I think this C# choice is going to cause an uproar!
here the globe&mail blurb on the alliance:
http://globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/fro
Reply
Disgust
By Mark Schaan on Wednesday, August 14, 2002 at 2:00 p.m.
I am disgusted by the university's decision to accept this donation and believe that it violates the principles of academic freedom on our campus.
Curriculum development is a product of the faculty and should be preserved as such. Changing curriculum to satisfy corporate desires crosses the line from private-sector funding of university priorities to private sector determination of university priorities. I heard of no desire to make such a curriculum change until news of this donation came about. I believe this fundamentally violates the separation of academic freedom and corporate giving in the university setting, something that was subtedly encroaching on our campus previous but is now out in full view.
In addition, I stand against the university's decision to offer "special" classes to a select group of students. This is a stunt to try and win the battle for top-quality students and it creates a two-tier system within the university system. The university should be caring about quality across the board and should not be subjecting average students to large classes while it rewards a few hand-picked students with a better quality education. If we all pay the same price, we should all have equal access to what the university has to offer.
I am saddened that the sea change in administration has seen fit to compromise the hard work done by previous administrators (Jim Kalbfleisch especially) to protect academics from corporate interference.
Reply
* Encouraged by Aaron Lee-Wudrick
* Let's not make darkness the new standard by simon
* I'm partly joking, Simon by Aaron Lee-Wudrick
* Selling out Smartly by simon
* That's pretty much it by Aaron Lee-Wudrick
* E&CE 050 allowed to applicants, required for students by Ryan Chen-Wing
* Further Clarification by Aaron Lee-Wudrick
* E&CE 050 clarifications by Ryan
* That would be bad. by Josh
* For scholarships... by Giant Space Hamster
* would UW touch C#? by simon
* Oh yeah, and by simon
* Partners? by Josh
* So why would the university do it then? by Aaron Lee-Wudrick
* Reputation by P. Quealey
* Whose reputation? by Aaron Lee-Wudrick
* Reputation by Anonymous Coward
* exactly by P. Quealey
* But what do potential students look at? by Aaron Lee-Wudrick
* Not Open To The Market- Just One Corporation by Mark Schaan
* Is Monopoly Really What You Are Worried About? by Aaron Lee-Wudrick
* mmmm by P. Quealey
* You didn't answer my question by Aaron Lee-Wudrick
* Below by P. Quealey
* I choose no money by Jesse Helmer
* Isn't it a dilemma? by Aaron Lee-Wudrick
* 1 day = 24 hours by Josh
* Once you've learned it.. by Aaron Lee-Wudrick
* Research chairs are not unheard of... by Ryan Bayne
* Direction of Bending by Anonymous Coward
* dillemma? by simon
* Which drives which? by Ryan Bayne
* I agree by Aaron Lee-Wudrick
* Doubtful by Josh
* Probably...but.... by Jeff
* special classes? by simon
* Two-tier? Umm.... by Jeff Henry
* Thanks for the Clarification by Mark Schaan
WTF???
By Three-Legged Hamster on Wednesday, August 14, 2002 at 2:16 p.m.
Here's the PR http://www.microsoft.com/canada/press/releases/08
So let me get this straight
- build a math-symbol text recognition program for THEIR stupid computer;
- teach our first year students THEIR stupid language;
- train our students to build circuits for THEIR stupid ASP initiative.
Is there anything GOOD that we get as a part of this package? Or are we just going to rename ourselves University of Waterloo (A Division of Microsoft Research)?
Reply
Discouraging this Alumni
By P. Quealey on Wednesday, August 14, 2002 at 3:42 p.m.
This Microsoft deal bothers me for three reasons.
1. It is showing that the University admin will do just about anything for money. They will change the curriculum, the will place whatever pressure is necessary on students and they will sacrifice the University's role as an institution of knowledge.
2. It seems as though the only financial deals the university is interested in making are with companies who will benefit the engineering and/or computer science departments. This school, believe it or not has many other faculties that do very very good work. In fact that work could be made better if Johnston put effort into partnering with other organizations willing to invest research money in faculties and projects across the board. My own former faculty of environmental studies has numerous innovative and revolutionary (in the good sense)projects that stall due to lack of funding.
3. Given the Universities deal with Microsoft and other winning initiatives like Quest, UW may well soon prove to be one of the wealthiest schools in the country, but something tells me they will not remain best in class.
If we're partnering with Microsoft, Johnston is obviously taking UW down the quantity, not quality road.
Since Mark's comments (despite our personal and public disagreements) fairly sum up how I feel, and are laid out about as well as I could, I'll just say this:
This university is run by a bunch of money grubbing idiots who care more about appeasing political and corporate masters than providing quality academics; for shame (I acknowledge that this might not be as eloquent as I normally write but this really pissed me off).
Due to the policies of the current administration I will donate not 1 cent to the school. I cannot support a University that is actively trying to shed its academic integrity and honour. I will also make a point to discourage as many people as possible from attending this 'school' in future.
Reply
* One question by Aaron Lee-Wudrick
* Aaron by P. Quealey
* It's not a trap, its a fact! by Aaron Lee-Wudrick
* In tech feilds perhaps by P. Quealey
* Can, but won't by Aaron Lee-Wudrick
* Independence and quality aren't inversely proportional by Steve
* Independence and quality aren't inversely proportional by Steve
In addition to commenting please ask questions
By Ryan on Wednesday, August 14, 2002 at 4:02 p.m.
Microsoft Canada President Frank Clegg has agreed to answer the 10 best questions posed by uws readers about the Microsoft Canada Academic Innovation Alliance, and its impact at UW. So, post your questions. uws editors will select the 10 best and send them to Mr. Clegg, then post his responses.
If you have questions, please post them here.
Reply
And we're supposed to let this company run the internet with .NET? I don't think so.
You know, the cracks are beginning to show. Microsoft used to *never* make mistakes, but ever since good old Bill stepped down from the CEO position, they've been screwing up left and right.
Witness Hailstorm and Windows XP.
To quote myself:
Here's what you need: a WiFi device; a public node; a CueCat or any other barcode scanner. If you're all geared up, then you can jump the gun on ubiquitous computing. You might use sem@code, a barcode that encodes a URL. With a wireless or mobile internet device, you just scan the barcode into your URL field, and voila! you load the website it links to.
Sem@codes are public tags for URLs. This is not pie-in-the-sky stuff: for example, over three million CueCat scanners were distributed (you can get one on eBay). With that or any other barcode scanner attached to your laptop, you can read semacodes. In addition, your or anyone else can generate sem@codes with open-source software online.
Simon
... which is of course the whole point of the MCSE program.
http://www.simonwoodside.com/
There's a better way. Run the demo-collecting software on the client. The user enters their info, the client randomizes it and sends it on.
Similarly for customized ads. Your client (open source of course) knows your demographics. But it also has 5 other (fake) profiles. It sends them all to the server, the server sends back 5 customized ads, one for each profile. The client picks the right one and shows you.
Everyone wins!
Ciao for now,
Simon Woodside
http://www.simonwoodside.com/
PS. Please, check out http://www.semacode.org/ and give me some feedback !
no software will ever be released bug free that does much more than print "Hello World!" to the console.
hypothesis - every line of code contains at least one bug
induction - you can remove the bug by removing the line of code
conclusion - bug-free code must have 0 lines
This is just ridiculous. Software "enginering" doesn't exist ... it's just an idea in people's heads. Software right now is a craft. You have a bunch of skilled artisans (programmers) writing code, but the whole program is in their head, the people represent the software, and the quality of the code is directly a result of the quality of the programmer, and the managements ability to understand this process and keep the programmers going in the right direction and talking to each other.
... and I think my degree is good because I was exposed to some of the best software craftspersons. There's no rules and definitely no big black book of programming.
Only in the most ridiculous cases do people practise "software engineering" (like at NASA) because it's too hard the way they do it now (mathematical proofs).
And I speak as a software program manager and I have a good degree
Simon
First of all, as a Canadian I am vividly aware of the lack of corporate press in America. For example, how many of you American readers are aware of or have ever heard of the MAI (now dead) which would have destroyed investment barriers between nations. Canadians (and others) shot it down but *activists* I know in the states hadn't even heard of it.
My point is that awareness of corporate control is at a stunningly low ebb, no matter whether you support or hate it, in the US.
Jon Katz's predictions of a dire future remind me of Wired's future scenarios a few years back. They gave three possibilities, dominated to various degrees by dictator-like corporations.
Here's a bit of media education for those who didn't get it in school (and I bet that's most of us): The larger the corporation the more profitable it can be. But there's a severe downside when media companies join with others. It's a fact that they can't cover their own dealings with impartiality. Do expect MSNBC to cover the Microsoft trial impartially? They will either cover their own news with a biased slant or not cover it at all (almost as bad). And the more one company owns the less you're going to hear about.
Here's a page with information on which media companies own what as well as some good analysis.
What Wired didn't see at the time was the power of open-source. I think it's a powerful weapon against corporate control because we can use big business' best weapon, the law, against their domination of our culture. Let's face it, that's how open-source got started, against Microsoft and other software corporation monopolies that were putting out crappy software.
Well, now we've pissed off the big boys and we have to learn to play as dirty as they do.
That means learning how to use lawyers and money and learning how the media game works.