That's the great thing about people:
The most complex machine you can come up with can be divided into a set of simple components and thus understood - people cannot be understood by analysing each part individualy (plus dividing people into individual components is against the law and considered bad manners).
I love machines, and i can figure out really fast how to work most of them, but the REALLY BIG CHALLENGE is to figure out people and The bigger the challenge the bigger the pleasure of success
The "download, try and buy-if-you-use-it" approach is even good for a country's economy. Follow me on this one:
If people can properly evaluate the software before they buy it, beter-quality/more-adequate software will be chosen
If the software is beter, this means that time lost in crashes, lost work, going around the software's limitations decreases - this implies a productivity growth ( spending your time solving software problems is not a productive activity )
At the same time, the number of software packages bought doesn't decrease - people buy software because they need it (keep in mind this is the ones that use the "download, try and buy-if-you-use-it" approach), so if they couldn't try it before buying it they would either risky it with something or maybe think beter about it and not buy anything
Since the same ammount of software is sold and the average productivity of the users will increase, this means that the average productivity across the country will increase - this means less $$$ spent for each $$$ made
As i see it, the same ammount of software is still sold, it's just that it's selected more on qualitiy and less on hype.
Given the current quality of most software out there, any behaviour that promotes the "natural selection" of quality software over crap software is ethical and positive.
... that explains it - i've spilled cofee on my shirt
Re:Real advance is...Streaming Video ALL OVER
on
Electronic Paper
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Imagine the Gibsonian uses for this stuff...
1. Advertisings displays out of BRunner and Neuromancer, entire urban Downtowns morphed into 24/7 streaming video walls
This will definitly come to be - specially if producing large surfaces of e-paper is cheap enough. Then again, having moving images all around you might be a bit of a sensory overload...
2. Guess, Gap, Gucci, Hillfiger, Lauren, et al incorporating streaming logo displays in clothing
Transparent clothing with smoothly moving semi-transparent areas....
3. Functional PDA's that are wearable and shapeable to specialized applications
The problem here is how to input data and give commands to the PDA. An actual flexible screen is probably a no-no for most applications (imagine reading your newspaper with no hands - not very practical)
4. Rooms that can be turned in SensorySurround MM experiences with 5.1 or DTS or DolbyPro, throw in a DVD or IMAX experience, talk about "Immersive"!!
If the wide e-paper surfaces are made cheaply maybe. The problem here is either big pixels (small number of pixels - big surface) or lack of storage and bandwidth (lots of pixels, lots of data - to keep the same pixel-size, the number of pixels increases roughly with the square of the diagonal, and so does the ammount of data)
5. Genuine combat gear (ala "Predator") that can mimic the surrounding environment..the ultimate "Ghillie Suit" for snipers and SpecOps
If you can get good enough sensors to feed the screens plus color screens, then yes, this is a very realistic possibility.
6. Completely accurate training environments for many, many "environmentally difficult" training situations from fire/rescue, law enforcement, combat, flight, driving, to Wall Street Trading Floor Simulations...WHOO DOGGIE!
Preparing for high-stress situations wich happen in non-controled environments (an airplane cockpit is a controled environment) requires not only quality imaging but also other inputs such as sound, smell, temperature - imagine training fireman - some of the most inportant inputs for an experienced fireman come from the senses of smell (smoke), sound (a wooden beam starting to break) and touch (feeling burning hot air coming from a certain direction).
Manager 1: So, you finally fired the guy?
Manager 2: Yes, we finally did. We gave him a company car when he demanded one. We gave him a boat when he demanded one. We gave him each and every salary raise he asked for... except this last one...
Manager 1: What happend with the last one?
Manager 2: He would've costed us more than hiring 4 guys to take his place, so he became redundant...
The current system actually DECREASES THE INCENTIVE for drug companies to develop drugs to CURE AIDS.
As things currently stand, a drug company will make more money developing drugs that stop AIDS from killing a person while NOT curing AIDS. This way they can keep on selling the drug (at a huge profit) for as long as their Patent lasts. A drug that actually cured AIDS would only make a limited amount of money per-patient (because an AIDS infected patient would only take the drug until he/she whould be cured).
Even more, since in practice drug companies can Patent an approach to curing AIDS, they can avoid that other companies explore that approach to develop a cure (eg "sure, we'll license you to produce that chemical which is essencial for your drug - it will cost you a million per miligram produced").
I'm not French neither do i live in France, but i'm curious:
- Have you visited France only or have you also lived in France?
The thing is, simply visiting a place is not enough to make an informed opinion about it's inhabitants.
Putting things in a different way:
- I would be the jerk if i said that all Americans are jerks just because i happened to had a bad experience with a taxi driver when i visited New York.
Oh by the way, i hope you are aware that:
- People behave differently as turists in a foreign land than they do in their own country.
- Turists are very easily detectable (and as such make visible targets for crooks) and especially so for a lot of american turists (many of them dress and act differently from everyone else, including turists from other nationalities)
- Other people's behaviour will be influenced by your own behaviour (i would expect French people to be very unpolite to me if for example i went around the Louvre commenting loudly to my wife that it was all a pile of crap)
I was actually thinking of people which come to you with incomplete problems which they are perfectly capable of investigating further before coming to me with it, or even sort it out themselves.
A common example:
The administrator of an application that you developed has a problem and immediatly comes to you (the programmer) saying something like "Your application is not working!".
My sort of reply to this would be:
- Have you checked the logs?
Now, in my case, if this is a first time offender he will say "No", after which i'll explain him were the logs are and how to read them (this is the part about "education"), after which i'll send that person back to check those logs.
If that same person tends to repeat the act ("Your application is not working!" - "Have you checked the logs!" - "No"), i will become progressively more difficult to reach (as in longer delays to respond to that person), while insisting that the person should check the logs first (i will still try to teach and help a person that i believe actually has dificulty in learning how to check the logs).
At the same time, the ones that do come to me after digging up more information are actually "rewarded" by getting higher priority from me plus getting their problems solved much faster.
So, what's the end result of this after a couple of iteractions?
People will start sorting out some of their problems ("This is not working" - "Let me check the logs" - "This directory is missing" - "I'll create the directory" - "It's working ok now")
The ones that investigated further but still could not solve the problem will come to me and i will get their problems solved much faster (since i have to solve less problems plus i start with more information, i can solve problems faster)
The lazy ones that will not make any effort to investigate their problems will be pushed back to the lowest priority. This will reflect on their image because their systems are the ones with more issues and longer downtimes, while everybody else's system are running perfectly. The pattern that the outside world sees in this is not that what i program has a lot of problems (since i solve the problems of everybody else's systems) but instead it looks like the systems used/administered by certain persons have more problems than everybody else's.
What do i gain from this?
Less workload because i have less problems to solve and i start with much more information whenever i do have to solve a problem
I get to solve REAL problems instead of having to spend half my time "changing diapers"
I get a beter track record - my systems have lower downtimes due to problems, because any problem that arises is swiftly solved
As i see it most programmers tend to be better at "programming" than at "doing business".
I've seen it time and time again:
Some guy is the best coder in the whole company yet still he will accept totally unrealistic deadlines and work late hours to try and finish it on time. Worse, if he does suceed, he's reward will be even more unrealistic deadlines for the next project.
Very competent people keep working on the same job for years on end, earning pennies, while the guy next door is total crap and makes twice as much
Some people are constantly interrupted by costumers or collegues with the sort of stupid questions that they could've easily figured out themselfs, if they weren't so lazy. (I call this one the Good Guy Sindrome)
What's wrong in all these cases?
Lack of negociating skills. For example:
The ability of tell your manager "I will not accept that deadline. If your keep with it, when it does get overrunned i will tell "that you ignored my advice" to whoever wants to know why is it late.
The ability to now who to talk to (and how), to get yourself a raise or find yourself a beter paid job
The ability to say to people that come to you with stupid questions that they should investigate it further before coming to you. And the ability to keep doing so until they get the message.
... now if i could just convince my manager that the average time between sunrises is 24 hours she might stop allocating me for 28 hours days (12 hours/day working time)
At any point in time the ground your skyscraper stands on can crumble into nothingness. [Operating System bugs]
Your skyscraper can be required to stand on slightly different types of ground. [Operating System types and versions]
Also the steel, glass and cement you are using have wildly varieing properties. They also might have been imposed by an outside entity (read Company Standarts). [Third Party Components]
Plus the elevators that you get always do less than their specifications (for example they don't stop on the 5th floor). The next version of the elevator will actually do that but on the other hand it doesn't fit on the elevator shaft.[Third Party Components and Applications]
Also half-way through building the skyscraper you find out that the plant has been changed and it's now supposed to have a Shopping Mall on the ground floor.[Creeping Requirements]
I come here to the altar of Slashdot to confess it:
I too have an Hotmail account!!!
Come to think of it, i have at least 5 of them, all with funny names.
Judging from the options Hotmail returns to me when i try to register a funny name and it's already take (it sugests things like funnyname54@hotmail.com), i would say i'm note the only one...
A meteorite impact is like an explosion. A big enough one is like a nuclear explosion (think Hiroshima but 100 times worse).
A vulcano eruption like the one in Pompeii is more like an ashes rain and a blazing-hot wind (and i mean blazing-hot literally).
There have been huge explosions cause by volcanos (Krakatoa island), but nothing comparable in scale to a rock the size of a football field hitting the earth at 16 km/s (about Mach 50)
There are more that enough problems out there that will never spawn an Open Source projects to solve it. A big number of situations falls into the "Company A (and only company A) needs X done".
There is also a need to integrate systems (even if they are made solely with open source components)
Plus there is a need for customizing software for a specific use.
Plus complex systems have to be designed, assembled, installed, tested and maintained.
So there is more than enough paid work out there (most of it boring), and even if in the future all Closed Source Software is substituited by Open Source Software, very specific needs will still employ most if not all of IT developers.
Slashdot Mirror
That's the great thing about people: The most complex machine you can come up with can be divided into a set of simple components and thus understood - people cannot be understood by analysing each part individualy (plus dividing people into individual components is against the law and considered bad manners).
I love machines, and i can figure out really fast how to work most of them, but the REALLY BIG CHALLENGE is to figure out people and The bigger the challenge the bigger the pleasure of success
The licences/laws/formal-rules are not the core here, it's all a question of what's ethical to do and what's not:
Is it unethical - NO! (in my opinion)
The "download, try and buy-if-you-use-it" approach is even good for a country's economy. Follow me on this one:
- If people can properly evaluate the software before they buy it, beter-quality/more-adequate software will be chosen
- If the software is beter, this means that time lost in crashes, lost work, going around the software's limitations decreases - this implies a productivity growth ( spending your time solving software problems is not a productive activity )
- At the same time, the number of software packages bought doesn't decrease - people buy software because they need it (keep in mind this is the ones that use the "download, try and buy-if-you-use-it" approach), so if they couldn't try it before buying it they would either risky it with something or maybe think beter about it and not buy anything
- Since the same ammount of software is sold and the average productivity of the users will increase, this means that the average productivity across the country will increase - this means less $$$ spent for each $$$ made
As i see it, the same ammount of software is still sold, it's just that it's selected more on qualitiy and less on hype.Given the current quality of most software out there, any behaviour that promotes the "natural selection" of quality software over crap software is ethical and positive.
Oh
... that explains it - i've spilled cofee on my shirt
Imagine the Gibsonian uses for this stuff...
1. Advertisings displays out of BRunner and Neuromancer, entire urban Downtowns morphed into 24/7 streaming video walls
This will definitly come to be - specially if producing large surfaces of e-paper is cheap enough. Then again, having moving images all around you might be a bit of a sensory overload
2. Guess, Gap, Gucci, Hillfiger, Lauren, et al incorporating streaming logo displays in clothing
Transparent clothing with smoothly moving semi-transparent areas
3. Functional PDA's that are wearable and shapeable to specialized applications
The problem here is how to input data and give commands to the PDA. An actual flexible screen is probably a no-no for most applications (imagine reading your newspaper with no hands - not very practical)
4. Rooms that can be turned in SensorySurround MM experiences with 5.1 or DTS or DolbyPro, throw in a DVD or IMAX experience, talk about "Immersive"!!
If the wide e-paper surfaces are made cheaply maybe. The problem here is either big pixels (small number of pixels - big surface) or lack of storage and bandwidth (lots of pixels, lots of data - to keep the same pixel-size, the number of pixels increases roughly with the square of the diagonal, and so does the ammount of data)
5. Genuine combat gear (ala "Predator") that can mimic the surrounding environment..the ultimate "Ghillie Suit" for snipers and SpecOps
If you can get good enough sensors to feed the screens plus color screens, then yes, this is a very realistic possibility.
6. Completely accurate training environments for many, many "environmentally difficult" training situations from fire/rescue, law enforcement, combat, flight, driving, to Wall Street Trading Floor Simulations...WHOO DOGGIE!
Preparing for high-stress situations wich happen in non-controled environments (an airplane cockpit is a controled environment) requires not only quality imaging but also other inputs such as sound, smell, temperature - imagine training fireman - some of the most inportant inputs for an experienced fireman come from the senses of smell (smoke), sound (a wooden beam starting to break) and touch (feeling burning hot air coming from a certain direction).
I tought that the number of possible states in a quantum computer is something around 2 to the power of X, where X is the number of qbits.
Does the computing power not increase in a similar way?
If it does, then to brute force a bigger key one just has to use more qbits!!!
Can anyone who really knows about this confirm or deny it????
Actually seing the zits on the warrior would probably spoil the whole ambiance...
...
Unless you were playing Hercules The Teenage Years or something
I can just see the talk:
... except this last one ...
Manager 1: So, you finally fired the guy?
Manager 2: Yes, we finally did. We gave him a company car when he demanded one. We gave him a boat when he demanded one. We gave him each and every salary raise he asked for
Manager 1: What happend with the last one?
Manager 2: He would've costed us more than hiring 4 guys to take his place, so he became redundant...
Just read a couple of White Papers from software vendors - next version is always announced as supporting "Read My Mind Computing"
I would say +1 "Inocent bright eyed youngster"
Then again the Unless they're complete hypocrits deserves a +1 "Funny"
The current system actually DECREASES THE INCENTIVE for drug companies to develop drugs to CURE AIDS.
As things currently stand, a drug company will make more money developing drugs that stop AIDS from killing a person while NOT curing AIDS. This way they can keep on selling the drug (at a huge profit) for as long as their Patent lasts. A drug that actually cured AIDS would only make a limited amount of money per-patient (because an AIDS infected patient would only take the drug until he/she whould be cured).
Even more, since in practice drug companies can Patent an approach to curing AIDS, they can avoid that other companies explore that approach to develop a cure (eg "sure, we'll license you to produce that chemical which is essencial for your drug - it will cost you a million per miligram produced").
I'm not French neither do i live in France, but i'm curious:
- Have you visited France only or have you also lived in France?
The thing is, simply visiting a place is not enough to make an informed opinion about it's inhabitants.
Putting things in a different way:
- I would be the jerk if i said that all Americans are jerks just because i happened to had a bad experience with a taxi driver when i visited New York.
Oh by the way, i hope you are aware that:
- People behave differently as turists in a foreign land than they do in their own country.
- Turists are very easily detectable (and as such make visible targets for crooks) and especially so for a lot of american turists (many of them dress and act differently from everyone else, including turists from other nationalities)
- Other people's behaviour will be influenced by your own behaviour (i would expect French people to be very unpolite to me if for example i went around the Louvre commenting loudly to my wife that it was all a pile of crap)
A common example:
The administrator of an application that you developed has a problem and immediatly comes to you (the programmer) saying something like "Your application is not working!".
My sort of reply to this would be:
- Have you checked the logs?
Now, in my case, if this is a first time offender he will say "No", after which i'll explain him were the logs are and how to read them (this is the part about "education"), after which i'll send that person back to check those logs.
If that same person tends to repeat the act ("Your application is not working!" - "Have you checked the logs!" - "No"), i will become progressively more difficult to reach (as in longer delays to respond to that person), while insisting that the person should check the logs first (i will still try to teach and help a person that i believe actually has dificulty in learning how to check the logs).
At the same time, the ones that do come to me after digging up more information are actually "rewarded" by getting higher priority from me plus getting their problems solved much faster.
So, what's the end result of this after a couple of iteractions?
- People will start sorting out some of their problems ("This is not working" - "Let me check the logs" - "This directory is missing" - "I'll create the directory" - "It's working ok now")
- The ones that investigated further but still could not solve the problem will come to me and i will get their problems solved much faster (since i have to solve less problems plus i start with more information, i can solve problems faster)
- The lazy ones that will not make any effort to investigate their problems will be pushed back to the lowest priority. This will reflect on their image because their systems are the ones with more issues and longer downtimes, while everybody else's system are running perfectly. The pattern that the outside world sees in this is not that what i program has a lot of problems (since i solve the problems of everybody else's systems) but instead it looks like the systems used/administered by certain persons have more problems than everybody else's.
What do i gain from this?I've seen it time and time again:
- Some guy is the best coder in the whole company yet still he will accept totally unrealistic deadlines and work late hours to try and finish it on time. Worse, if he does suceed, he's reward will be even more unrealistic deadlines for the next project.
- Very competent people keep working on the same job for years on end, earning pennies, while the guy next door is total crap and makes twice as much
- Some people are constantly interrupted by costumers or collegues with the sort of stupid questions that they could've easily figured out themselfs, if they weren't so lazy. (I call this one the Good Guy Sindrome)
What's wrong in all these cases?Lack of negociating skills. For example:
... now if i could just convince my manager that the average time between sunrises is 24 hours she might stop allocating me for 28 hours days (12 hours/day working time)
We're all just normal geeks ...
No need to worry about those sirenes ...
It must be for your next door neighbour ...
Just stay where you are ...
There's nothing to worry about ...
Manager:How long will it take you two change the position of that button in the Frontend?
Me:152 years, worst case scenario.
Nobody ever lives long enough to prove me wrong!!!
My point is, that compared to a Planet Killer kind of meteor this things are like fire-crakers
Now if we only had a movie of the Yukatan hit
I too have an Hotmail account!!!
Come to think of it, i have at least 5 of them, all with funny names.
Judging from the options Hotmail returns to me when i try to register a funny name and it's already take (it sugests things like funnyname54@hotmail.com), i would say i'm note the only one...
A meteorite impact is like an explosion. A big enough one is like a nuclear explosion (think Hiroshima but 100 times worse).
A vulcano eruption like the one in Pompeii is more like an ashes rain and a blazing-hot wind (and i mean blazing-hot literally).
There have been huge explosions cause by volcanos (Krakatoa island), but nothing comparable in scale to a rock the size of a football field hitting the earth at 16 km/s (about Mach 50)
What's the sound of claping with one hand? (While you use the other one to fight the saber-tooth tiger)
This reminds me of an old argument:
Are carrots good for your eyes?
Of course they are - have you ever seen a rabbit wearing glasses?
PS: I don't discuss the validity of the whole post. Just the validity of the "trilobites argument"
- There are more that enough problems out there that will never spawn an Open Source projects to solve it. A big number of situations falls into the "Company A (and only company A) needs X done".
- There is also a need to integrate systems (even if they are made solely with open source components)
- Plus there is a need for customizing software for a specific use.
- Plus complex systems have to be designed, assembled, installed, tested and maintained.
So there is more than enough paid work out there (most of it boring), and even if in the future all Closed Source Software is substituited by Open Source Software, very specific needs will still employ most if not all of IT developers.I'll grab my old "Neural Network That Recognizes Digits" university project ...
This way i will create a robot that reads digits and then draws them by running a path in the shape of that digit (i only have to program 10 paths).
Next i'll post in Slashdot (naturally such post will be accepted) ...
From that to World Domination it will be just a small step!!!