Okay first, about the title: All programmers are developers, but not all developers are programmers. Second, it isn't just developers, it's everybody. Vista exploded on the launch pad. Nobody's upgrading. So for the last several years who's been the only commercial manufacturer to be releasing new spiffy shiny? Apple of course. So, umm, HELLO? Of course people are switching, Apple is the only company offering anything new!
Microsoft wasn't advertising because they had nothing to advertise -- The only major products they've been pushing out are all incremental upgrades for commercial use. Now we see giant billboards about how great Vista is, but please... The media shot and killed that cow, now they're just trying to recoup their investment. As an aside, I've been waiting for this moment since I got into the industry! Now, whatever you want to say about Macintosh as a platform, you can't deny their marketing has been so good it's making history. That, and Apple has at least three batallions of lawyers ready to crush anyone who "Thinks different". And the only personalities Microsoft has is Bill Gates (now retired), and Balmer, better known as the amazing flying monkey boy.
Lastly, if we want to talk about developers, not just programmers -- which would include web and graphic designers, architects, etc., Apple has enjoyed huge market share here for one very simple reason: It's simple and it works. This is an industry where the software on a machine costs several times the cost of a system and people happily pay for it. Apple, and companies who develop for their platform, have made design a priority for years -- usability and simplicity. Everything else has come after that. Well, except for some serious QC issues on their hardware lines lately, for which they have not been publicly flogged enough over. Meanwhile, all the other players in the market are trying to be all things to everyone... Vista's DRM and horrible, horrible driver subsystem comes to mind as an example of "Trying to do it all".
Disclaimer: Not an Apple fangirl (personally, I despise macintoshes), but does work in graphic design and so I deal with it every day.
Absolutely agree with you; Really this boils down to -- the military has a need to rapidly deploy surveillance in a hostile urban area for a short time and have it be cost effective and potentially expendable. Maybe webcam balls with sticky goo to throw on walls, or stair-climbing robots, or mini-UAVs, or combinations thereof. There's a lot of possibilities there, but what it ultimately boils down to is -- can it save lives, does it work, and how much training does it take to make it effective?
I see a lot of urban warfare scenarios becoming a question of how quickly we can establish, gather, and process surveillance, and then how quickly we can get our people to the objective. It's a frenetic environment that requires snap decisions, high mobility, and pin-point accuracy. It also, curiously, requires that we're not leaving the surveillance equipment behind for privacy and security reasons. The idea of portable surveillance itself is a relatively new concept; Dashboard police cameras and GPS tracking wasn't something that really existed 10 years ago, but today it's standard issue. Military leadership needs to move faster than this; In some cases, civilian authorities now are better leveraging technology than our soldiers.
I've never had any problems submitting my code as Bill_Gates55, but RMS1953 can sometimes get me into trouble. Of course, nobody would believe me if I used my real name; Girls don't program.
> I remember back in the day when these cute girls would come to my door and try to sell overpriced cookies.
I remember back in the day selling cookies to fat, middle-aged men who'd answer wearing nothing but boxers and a stained sports t-shirt while my mother waited impatiently in the car. If you ask me, they didn't charge enough.
Not now, maybe. But then again, two years ago laptops weren't cheaper than desktops. Now over half of all new computer sales are laptops. This is a solvable problem. The larger issue is changing the thinking of military leaders, not tech improvements.
And that's rather the problem -- Maybe UAVs need to be simpler and cheaper, and purpose-built for a single type of mission; In this case, advance urban recon for a short time.
> why don't you start up your own company and start selling these cheap UAV's you can make to the military.
Well, because it's already been done.
Mosquito 1, produced by: Israel Aircraft Industries
The miniature saucer shaped plane weighs 250 gram and as a wing span of about 30 cm. The vehicle carries a miniature video camera and already performed several flights with up to 40 minutes endurance each. Mosquito 1.5 micro UAV made by IAIThe Mosquito is launched by hand and lands on its skids at the end of its mission.
Amateur rig, by Pict'Earth
"video showing a guy launching a small unmanned remote control aerial vehicle with a digital camera used to capture images and then show the images in Google Earth."
...
> People don't make UAV drones capable of being flown from the other side of the world...
Sorry, are physics different in Iraq that cause planes that fly over here to not fly over there?
>...for up to 24 hours at a stretch all the time.
The article was about small hand-held webcams being thrown like grenades. Somehow, I don't think a 24 hour flight or use time was a priority for this project.
Ummm... Are you on drugs? This is a discussion about safe and effective ways to do surveillance in an area, not towels, ammo, Dirty Harry, and anti-communist sentiments.
People are charitable in small ways; A few dollars to a beggar. Copies of Windows XP for libraries. Buying a friend who's broke lunch. That kind of thing. But would you, say, pay 20% more at Best Buy to send a second iPod to a poor starving child in Africa? No. You'd go across the street to Super Electrono Mart and buy it there without the "charity tariff", and maybe use the extra money to buy that broke friend of yours some Burger King. You know, if you were feeling charitable. -_-
Charity isn't a selling point. Cost, reliability, performance -- those are selling points. They'll only be in business as long as they can stay ahead of the competition, otherwise the only thing this enterprise will be good for is tax write-offs and guilting government officials. Not to say there isn't money in that too... But it's not a business model that would survive free market forces.
Sounds like a development and production cost problem to me. I don't see why it takes millions of dollars to build an airplane with a webcam on it... People make RF controlled hobby planes with the same all the time, and they do it for less than a grand each. The problem with most military product development is it's made by committee, for one, and for two... Everything made has to be a swiss army knife. It's just not good enough if it doesn't have a kitchen sink in it.
The US government already has flying drones with millimeter radar capable of seeing inside a hardened bunker -- as in, it can see bodies and outlines some several feet through concrete and steel. Why not just use those? If you're close enough to throw a grenade toward the target, they're likely close enough to blow you away too, and if I'm taking a bullet in the butt risk, wouldn't it make sense to throw something that could kill them before they kill me?
"Holy Allah, they're throwing webcams at us! We must flee!"
Oh please. You just released a working binary to the most rabidly well-educated disassemblers, hackers, kernel developers, and programmers in the world. You don't have to. But you'll need to document it after they make it... They HATE documenting their work.
Yes, I got the probe name wrong. Sorry.. So many probes have attacked earth or the enterprise that I can't keep them all straight. And almost all of them have been phallic-shaped. ^_^ If you ask me, Kirk attracts them.
you're right. sorry... got confused. There's so many cylindrical probes that attacked either Earth or the Enterprise that it's hard to keep them all straight.
Two things sugar. First, I am a "chick", and I've been able to get them for awhile. Second, as you said, Spock referred to the Eugenics Wars in Space Seed as "the last of your so-called world wars" -- so what you're going on about is an minor plot inconsistency. zomfg! An inconsistency in Star Trek canon? Like THAT's never happened before. So about my geek card? No, not yours. And just so we're clear... Yes, there are fangirls for TOS. We're all gay though so don't get your hopes up little boy.;) We're also responsible for most of the spock/mccoy slashfic out there.
Well, the Eugenics Wars were supposed to have happened by now, also referred to as the "third world war". Also, we should have launched few more probes by now -- Voyager, which will later gain sentience and attempt to kill everything that isn't perfect, and Nomad, which later returns to blow the hell out the planet because we killed off the whales. Lastly, we've only got four years left to build a self-enclosed and self-sustaining ecosystem in Portage Creek, Indiana.
Of course, now we'll look for the "corral" matrix that surround it instead of the molecule itself. It's certainly interesting, but I don't see a practical application for this just yet. Perhaps an improvement in optics that allows for high energy photons (ie, lasers) to pass through a lens without melting it? Maybe someone who knows more about physics can chime in here?
Okay, I'll make it simpler for you: As long as expectations between men and women are equal, comparisons like this are meaningless. You're just using sexist logic here -- men work, women stay at home, and that's why women make less. Well, men should take as much time off as women do. Women should work outside the home as much as men do. But even when you adjust for this by looking at families where this is true -- women still make less because of those aren't the prevalent attitudes. Women would likely be making the same as men if these attitudes didn't exist.
Of course, you fail to mention that... When it comes to having a family and taking care of others, men are so damned incompetent at it that they aren't expected to do so equally. Were it otherwise, then maybe you'd have something.
> what else were they supposed to do? give in to the extortionists' demands and try to sweep this under the rug?
Well, that's the most popular option for financial firms, because the financial industry the largest confidence game ever created. I'm not saying this sarcastically -- the entire market is based on the trust and confidence between buyers and sellers; There is no truly "safe bet" in the industry. They went public because there was no way they could do damage control on several million accounts and not have their customers break the story. If it were a few hundred, or even a few thousand, they could spin the press around about what the actual numbers were and downplay the risk. Sure, there'd be lawsuits, and people talking, but only the company would know the full scale of the breach. In this case, they know it's too big and so from a risk analysis standpoint... It's better to take the hit to their reputation and consolidate the risk into a few controllable areas -- which is to say, not in a courtroom.
As far as "minimizing the damage"... That's a lot like sweeping the front entryway out after they've bombed the building flat. The damage is already done, at this point, they're just trying to control collateral damage.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay first, about the title: All programmers are developers, but not all developers are programmers. Second, it isn't just developers, it's everybody. Vista exploded on the launch pad. Nobody's upgrading. So for the last several years who's been the only commercial manufacturer to be releasing new spiffy shiny? Apple of course. So, umm, HELLO? Of course people are switching, Apple is the only company offering anything new!
Microsoft wasn't advertising because they had nothing to advertise -- The only major products they've been pushing out are all incremental upgrades for commercial use. Now we see giant billboards about how great Vista is, but please... The media shot and killed that cow, now they're just trying to recoup their investment. As an aside, I've been waiting for this moment since I got into the industry! Now, whatever you want to say about Macintosh as a platform, you can't deny their marketing has been so good it's making history. That, and Apple has at least three batallions of lawyers ready to crush anyone who "Thinks different". And the only personalities Microsoft has is Bill Gates (now retired), and Balmer, better known as the amazing flying monkey boy.
Lastly, if we want to talk about developers, not just programmers -- which would include web and graphic designers, architects, etc., Apple has enjoyed huge market share here for one very simple reason: It's simple and it works. This is an industry where the software on a machine costs several times the cost of a system and people happily pay for it. Apple, and companies who develop for their platform, have made design a priority for years -- usability and simplicity. Everything else has come after that. Well, except for some serious QC issues on their hardware lines lately, for which they have not been publicly flogged enough over. Meanwhile, all the other players in the market are trying to be all things to everyone... Vista's DRM and horrible, horrible driver subsystem comes to mind as an example of "Trying to do it all".
Disclaimer: Not an Apple fangirl (personally, I despise macintoshes), but does work in graphic design and so I deal with it every day.
Absolutely agree with you; Really this boils down to -- the military has a need to rapidly deploy surveillance in a hostile urban area for a short time and have it be cost effective and potentially expendable. Maybe webcam balls with sticky goo to throw on walls, or stair-climbing robots, or mini-UAVs, or combinations thereof. There's a lot of possibilities there, but what it ultimately boils down to is -- can it save lives, does it work, and how much training does it take to make it effective?
I see a lot of urban warfare scenarios becoming a question of how quickly we can establish, gather, and process surveillance, and then how quickly we can get our people to the objective. It's a frenetic environment that requires snap decisions, high mobility, and pin-point accuracy. It also, curiously, requires that we're not leaving the surveillance equipment behind for privacy and security reasons. The idea of portable surveillance itself is a relatively new concept; Dashboard police cameras and GPS tracking wasn't something that really existed 10 years ago, but today it's standard issue. Military leadership needs to move faster than this; In some cases, civilian authorities now are better leveraging technology than our soldiers.
Well, that's easy enough to ignore. ._. It's easier to get people to look at the code if they think you're a guy... They don't patronize then.
I've never had any problems submitting my code as Bill_Gates55, but RMS1953 can sometimes get me into trouble. Of course, nobody would believe me if I used my real name; Girls don't program.
puff puff.
So it will cost $7.5 million, will sometimes fly, and can be used by a marine? Sounds about right.
> I remember back in the day when these cute girls would come to my door and try to sell overpriced cookies.
I remember back in the day selling cookies to fat, middle-aged men who'd answer wearing nothing but boxers and a stained sports t-shirt while my mother waited impatiently in the car. If you ask me, they didn't charge enough.
Not now, maybe. But then again, two years ago laptops weren't cheaper than desktops. Now over half of all new computer sales are laptops. This is a solvable problem. The larger issue is changing the thinking of military leaders, not tech improvements.
And that's rather the problem -- Maybe UAVs need to be simpler and cheaper, and purpose-built for a single type of mission; In this case, advance urban recon for a short time.
> why don't you start up your own company and start selling these cheap UAV's you can make to the military.
...
...for up to 24 hours at a stretch all the time.
Well, because it's already been done.
Mosquito 1, produced by: Israel Aircraft Industries
The miniature saucer shaped plane weighs 250 gram and as a wing span of about 30 cm. The vehicle carries a miniature video camera and already performed several flights with up to 40 minutes endurance each. Mosquito 1.5 micro UAV made by IAIThe Mosquito is launched by hand and lands on its skids at the end of its mission.
Amateur rig, by Pict'Earth
"video showing a guy launching a small unmanned remote control aerial vehicle with a digital camera used to capture images and then show the images in Google Earth."
> People don't make UAV drones capable of being flown from the other side of the world...
Sorry, are physics different in Iraq that cause planes that fly over here to not fly over there?
>
The article was about small hand-held webcams being thrown like grenades. Somehow, I don't think a 24 hour flight or use time was a priority for this project.
Ummm... Are you on drugs? This is a discussion about safe and effective ways to do surveillance in an area, not towels, ammo, Dirty Harry, and anti-communist sentiments.
People are charitable in small ways; A few dollars to a beggar. Copies of Windows XP for libraries. Buying a friend who's broke lunch. That kind of thing. But would you, say, pay 20% more at Best Buy to send a second iPod to a poor starving child in Africa? No. You'd go across the street to Super Electrono Mart and buy it there without the "charity tariff", and maybe use the extra money to buy that broke friend of yours some Burger King. You know, if you were feeling charitable. -_-
Charity isn't a selling point. Cost, reliability, performance -- those are selling points. They'll only be in business as long as they can stay ahead of the competition, otherwise the only thing this enterprise will be good for is tax write-offs and guilting government officials. Not to say there isn't money in that too... But it's not a business model that would survive free market forces.
Well, that's poor planning... Some of these drones can fit in a backpack.
Sounds like a development and production cost problem to me. I don't see why it takes millions of dollars to build an airplane with a webcam on it... People make RF controlled hobby planes with the same all the time, and they do it for less than a grand each. The problem with most military product development is it's made by committee, for one, and for two... Everything made has to be a swiss army knife. It's just not good enough if it doesn't have a kitchen sink in it.
The US government already has flying drones with millimeter radar capable of seeing inside a hardened bunker -- as in, it can see bodies and outlines some several feet through concrete and steel. Why not just use those? If you're close enough to throw a grenade toward the target, they're likely close enough to blow you away too, and if I'm taking a bullet in the butt risk, wouldn't it make sense to throw something that could kill them before they kill me?
"Holy Allah, they're throwing webcams at us! We must flee!"
Puh-leze.
Oh please. You just released a working binary to the most rabidly well-educated disassemblers, hackers, kernel developers, and programmers in the world. You don't have to. But you'll need to document it after they make it... They HATE documenting their work.
Raise your hand if the prospect of an environmentalist dumping plastic into the ocean for research purposes is deeply amusing.
Yes, I got the probe name wrong. Sorry.. So many probes have attacked earth or the enterprise that I can't keep them all straight. And almost all of them have been phallic-shaped. ^_^ If you ask me, Kirk attracts them.
you're right. sorry... got confused. There's so many cylindrical probes that attacked either Earth or the Enterprise that it's hard to keep them all straight.
Two things sugar. First, I am a "chick", and I've been able to get them for awhile. Second, as you said, Spock referred to the Eugenics Wars in Space Seed as "the last of your so-called world wars" -- so what you're going on about is an minor plot inconsistency. zomfg! An inconsistency in Star Trek canon? Like THAT's never happened before. So about my geek card? No, not yours. And just so we're clear... Yes, there are fangirls for TOS. We're all gay though so don't get your hopes up little boy. ;) We're also responsible for most of the spock/mccoy slashfic out there.
Well, the Eugenics Wars were supposed to have happened by now, also referred to as the "third world war". Also, we should have launched few more probes by now -- Voyager, which will later gain sentience and attempt to kill everything that isn't perfect, and Nomad, which later returns to blow the hell out the planet because we killed off the whales. Lastly, we've only got four years left to build a self-enclosed and self-sustaining ecosystem in Portage Creek, Indiana.
P.S. You've been geeked. ^_^
Of course, now we'll look for the "corral" matrix that surround it instead of the molecule itself. It's certainly interesting, but I don't see a practical application for this just yet. Perhaps an improvement in optics that allows for high energy photons (ie, lasers) to pass through a lens without melting it? Maybe someone who knows more about physics can chime in here?
Okay, I'll make it simpler for you: As long as expectations between men and women are equal, comparisons like this are meaningless. You're just using sexist logic here -- men work, women stay at home, and that's why women make less. Well, men should take as much time off as women do. Women should work outside the home as much as men do. But even when you adjust for this by looking at families where this is true -- women still make less because of those aren't the prevalent attitudes. Women would likely be making the same as men if these attitudes didn't exist.
Of course, you fail to mention that... When it comes to having a family and taking care of others, men are so damned incompetent at it that they aren't expected to do so equally. Were it otherwise, then maybe you'd have something.
> what else were they supposed to do? give in to the extortionists' demands and try to sweep this under the rug?
Well, that's the most popular option for financial firms, because the financial industry the largest confidence game ever created. I'm not saying this sarcastically -- the entire market is based on the trust and confidence between buyers and sellers; There is no truly "safe bet" in the industry. They went public because there was no way they could do damage control on several million accounts and not have their customers break the story. If it were a few hundred, or even a few thousand, they could spin the press around about what the actual numbers were and downplay the risk. Sure, there'd be lawsuits, and people talking, but only the company would know the full scale of the breach. In this case, they know it's too big and so from a risk analysis standpoint... It's better to take the hit to their reputation and consolidate the risk into a few controllable areas -- which is to say, not in a courtroom.
As far as "minimizing the damage"... That's a lot like sweeping the front entryway out after they've bombed the building flat. The damage is already done, at this point, they're just trying to control collateral damage.