When I got my current job (as a contracting programmer) last August, I got a 6-years-old Pentium-100 computer w/64 megs of RAM! My boss tells me now that I might get something new in August...
You might think what company it is that can't give a contractor who costs it between 13 and 15K/month?
I have tried to repair in the repair shop my grandma's new VCR that has just got out of luck and 90-days warranty. The cost of repair was 99$ (pretty much labor alone) with the purchase price of $160.
And it was not just me screwed, it was the idea that a lot of goods nowadays are wearables that are cheaper to replace than to repair. It's easy to see that most of the gadgets satisfy this rule.
Think about typical PC owner. If his 2-yr old computer breaks down (or needs upgrade), the cost of diagnosing it will be at least an hour of labor, and the price of the parts for an old computer might be higher than the price of similar parts for the new one (surprise, surprise! If you don't believe me, check the price of EDO or even 66-mhz SD RAM at Fry's). The reason is that as soon as some component ceases to be a mainstream, the volume goes down and it becomes expensive. It is much easier just to add a three to four hundreds and buy a brand new PC.
So, for the majority of the owners PC is already a consumer electronics; the only things they can easily replace are external devices like monitor, mouse or speakers.
Similar trends happen in the automotive industry. Every Haynes manual tells how to rebuild an alternator, but how many owners does that if the rebuild one is so cheap? Also, the amount of repairs that can be made without any special (and superexpensive) tools is decreasing rapidly.
A very clever columnist for the Automobile mag named Robert Cumberford wrote a couple of years ago that no modern car will become classic because the cost of keeping one on the road is outrageous. As an example, 10 years old cars had a 5$ headlight bulbs whether the new ones have a $500 HID lamps. The same applies to the other parts. Everyone could disassemble the engine 30 years ago, only some shops who specialize in it can do it now.
First of all, they are moving towards UltraSparc 3. This computer uses US 2 that will be built at the equipment that is already amortized and becomes available at no extra cost. The processor is built for the embedded systems, so it must be relatively cheap.
Second, they use all the standard components like off the shelf PC-133 memory, drives and their workhorse graphic card. All the extension slots and connectivity are also standard ones like PCi, USB and FireWire. It reduces their engineering and build expenses significantly.
Third, they are limiting the distribution losses by either building them to order for selling through the website or selling in a large quantities through the distributers; no depreciating PCs in Circuit City (which incur losses for IBM, HP & Compaq) here.
Fourth, they don't pay M$ tax, allowing part of profit to go and amortize the cost of Solaris development.
All of the above results in getting some profit to continue leading the UNIX pack;-)
So, if some programmers use LSD, why should we condemn Mormons who use the LDS drug?;-)
Speaking seriously, there are a lot of different esoteric traditions on the Earth, and some of them require drugs to enter the "Altered state" (like some shamanic ones, and Castanedian toltecs). Others don't and even contradict using it (I study chi-kung (aka qi-gong), and my Teacher told us right away that as we progress and gain clarity and awareness of our bodies, we will become less tolerant to alcohol, drugs and smoking; these things will affect us much stronger. but I'm OK with that, because I think that the goal is worth it.). And pretty much every church/sect uses one of the technics.
My boss is a Mormon (BTW, I have never had a better boss), and he listens to religious music while working all the time. He is always cheerful and corteous; I'd call him a "positive man" in a second. So, should I care about him not drinking?;-)
Come on, they have recently remodelled their own Webmail, and it sucks big time.
I can send cyrillic mail when using IE, but can't do it with Netscape (either 4.76 and Mozilla 0.7). Writing them about the problem has changed nothing.
It looks like their web development team is ignoring their own browser...:-(
And being wiccan (read:not part of the mainstream) she has much more chances to learn something clever versus regular church-going redneck Joe Sixpack.
UK has become a testing grounds for nonsense, that is later propagated through the world:-(
It might be one of the reasons why they don't join the European Union because they'll definitely lose the ability to push ridiculous freedom-restricting laws.
What America needs to own up to (especially it's courts) is that sometimes bad things happen, and there's nobody to blame. In others, the person to blame dies or has no money. Neither of these conditions make it acceptable to use a lawyer like a shotgun to try collecting money from everyone within a 100 mile radius. Sometimes when someone does something,bad things happen, and nobody could have reasonably predicted the bad outcome.
Lawyers that rule America have pretty much transformed the term "Act of God" into the "Gross negligence on the God's part". Everything that happens, be it spilled coffee in McDonalds or a child who falls of a window becomes a reason to enrich one of these vultures.
Another thing that happens is a constant responsibility shift. Our state prepares a bill that will oblige landlords to put special window bars to prevent children from falling out of windows for every teenant with children. 5 other states already have similar laws.
I'd say that the responsibility lies not with the landlords, schools, corporations or so, but with parents, students and people in general.
America became a paradize for stupid people. It is not the only country in the world where you can make your money by a hard work, dedication and talent, but it is the only country where you can make a big bucks by suing someone else because of something stupid you've done yourself.
Science fiction, by Poul Andersson, called "Kings for sacrifice", when nations agreed to battle in space instead of scorching Earth.
Or "Fury" by Henry Kuttner, when battles were performed outside of the living space not to damage it.
I know, it's too early for that kind of technological advances for all warryng states, but it's nevertheless an option for the future, unless humankind will learn how to control its aggression (let only ones who never flipped off a sucker who cuts you off or blocks the left lane throw a stone at me;-)))
In what specialists describe as a surprizing twist, Napster has settled the suit Universal Music has brought against the upstart company. Analyst who has asked not to disclose his name told that the settlement was prodded by the Universal's parent, beverage company Seagram. "They have seen the opportunity in distributing alcoholic beverages a new way", he said.
In a short while a new site, www.schnappster.com, will be opened using Napster technology and Seagram beverages. Users will be able to download any beverages initially through the DSL (Distiller Subscriber Line) only with other types of Internet access to follow.
In what someone could interpret as a slap in his face, Shannon Fanning, 20 was not allowed into the press conference because he is not 21 yet. SlashDot's Jon Katz was able to interview him in the dark corridor of the Seagram headquarters where the announcement took place. "I am not offended", said Fanning, sipping gin from a prototype device, connected to his Transmeta laptop, "This will become (hic), a new world of (hic) beer-to-peer networking, and no Feds will be able to do anything free (hic) enterprise!", he added with a blissful smile on his face.
"Geeks rule!", concluded Jon.
What About Other Countries?
on
The Challenger
·
· Score: 1
What is the difference between these 7 people who died for the USA and people who died, for example, in the Soviet space program?
Much more/.-ers (and people in general) will gloat over a catastrophie happening abroad comparing to the one in their country.
I don't think such people are dying to make a country great, they just live to the best of their abilities for the progress of the whole humankind.
A little background. I live in Portland, OR that has switched to 10-digit a couple of month ago (they had first announced it in 1997 with planned date of switch in 1998, but it apparently had slipped).
The uniqueness of the situation here is that OUR TWO CODES ARE NOT TERRITORIAL! In most cities like Chicago or LA you can approximately tell where the number is located by the code.
IIRC, here it will be different way with the numbers in different code zones interspersed on the same territory.
In the last few months from the change to the mandatory 10-digit dialing I've had my share of errors, trying to enter 7-digit one just to hear "please, dial 10 digits" or something similar.
In order to install this notification, the phone company have had to catch all number dialed that do not start from 0, 1, our old code 503 or the new code 971. It means that all people whose phones used to start from 503 or 971 had to be changed to something else, and we have had only one code area. Now imagine this thing done at the North American wide scale (YES, it affects Canada as well). Installing such a warning will require shutting the phones with prefixes matching exchange numbers in ALL areas! They just won't be able to do it.
ERRORS WILL HAPPEN not because everyone is stupid, but because some transitional period is necessary. Think about how often you dial a number automatically, without thinking. I can bet that you'll dial 7-digit one until your mind finally switches. It will take you a couple of months. But you'll be in limbo during that time without any pre-recorded message that will tell you about your error.
Slashdot Mirror
Come on, man!
:-(
When I got my current job (as a contracting programmer) last August, I got a 6-years-old Pentium-100 computer w/64 megs of RAM! My boss tells me now that I might get something new in August...
You might think what company it is that can't give a contractor who costs it between 13 and 15K/month?
I'll answer: What is Hewlett-Packard?
About the same thing that happened to the other .com shareholders ;-)
Have you repaired you TV or VCR lately?
I have tried to repair in the repair shop my grandma's new VCR that has just got out of luck and 90-days warranty. The cost of repair was 99$ (pretty much labor alone) with the purchase price of $160.
And it was not just me screwed, it was the idea that a lot of goods nowadays are wearables that are cheaper to replace than to repair. It's easy to see that most of the gadgets satisfy this rule.
Think about typical PC owner. If his 2-yr old computer breaks down (or needs upgrade), the cost of diagnosing it will be at least an hour of labor, and the price of the parts for an old computer might be higher than the price of similar parts for the new one (surprise, surprise! If you don't believe me, check the price of EDO or even 66-mhz SD RAM at Fry's). The reason is that as soon as some component ceases to be a mainstream, the volume goes down and it becomes expensive. It is much easier just to add a three to four hundreds and buy a brand new PC.
So, for the majority of the owners PC is already a consumer electronics; the only things they can easily replace are external devices like monitor, mouse or speakers.
Similar trends happen in the automotive industry. Every Haynes manual tells how to rebuild an alternator, but how many owners does that if the rebuild one is so cheap? Also, the amount of repairs that can be made without any special (and superexpensive) tools is decreasing rapidly.
A very clever columnist for the Automobile mag named Robert Cumberford wrote a couple of years ago that no modern car will become classic because the cost of keeping one on the road is outrageous. As an example, 10 years old cars had a 5$ headlight bulbs whether the new ones have a $500 HID lamps. The same applies to the other parts. Everyone could disassemble the engine 30 years ago, only some shops who specialize in it can do it now.
First of all, they are moving towards UltraSparc 3. This computer uses US 2 that will be built at the equipment that is already amortized and becomes available at no extra cost. The processor is built for the embedded systems, so it must be relatively cheap.
;-)
Second, they use all the standard components like off the shelf PC-133 memory, drives and their workhorse graphic card. All the extension slots and connectivity are also standard ones like PCi, USB and FireWire. It reduces their engineering and build expenses significantly.
Third, they are limiting the distribution losses by either building them to order for selling through the website or selling in a large quantities through the distributers; no depreciating PCs in Circuit City (which incur losses for IBM, HP & Compaq) here.
Fourth, they don't pay M$ tax, allowing part of profit to go and amortize the cost of Solaris development.
All of the above results in getting some profit to continue leading the UNIX pack
Here is the link:
http://www.sun.com/desktop/sunblade100/
So, if some programmers use LSD, why should we condemn Mormons who use the LDS drug? ;-)
;-)
Speaking seriously, there are a lot of different esoteric traditions on the Earth, and some of them require drugs to enter the "Altered state" (like some shamanic ones, and Castanedian toltecs). Others don't and even contradict using it (I study chi-kung (aka qi-gong), and my Teacher told us right away that as we progress and gain clarity and awareness of our bodies, we will become less tolerant to alcohol, drugs and smoking; these things will affect us much stronger. but I'm OK with that, because I think that the goal is worth it.). And pretty much every church/sect uses one of the technics.
My boss is a Mormon (BTW, I have never had a better boss), and he listens to religious music while working all the time. He is always cheerful and corteous; I'd call him a "positive man" in a second. So, should I care about him not drinking?
Does Nevada have anything besides the casinos, guns, Lake Tahoe, nuclear test bed and some nature?
Or you need to be telecommuting? How good are the schools? How high are the taxes?
I do occasionally find my karma jumping down sometimes too :-(
Jon Katz is fine with me, there are many journalists that are much worse. At least, he is passionate and professional at the same time.
/. crowd. Can you imagine interview with:
;-)
;-)
/. what it is today.
We can interview some other people to entertain the
1. Signal 11
2. Owner of the goatse.cx site
3. Natalie Portman
All of them played a significant role in making
Come on, they have recently remodelled their own Webmail, and it sucks big time.
... :-(
I can send cyrillic mail when using IE, but can't do it with Netscape (either 4.76 and Mozilla 0.7). Writing them about the problem has changed nothing.
It looks like their web development team is ignoring their own browser
Come on, man, have mercy! ;-)
She is just 19!
And being wiccan (read:not part of the mainstream) she has much more chances to learn something clever versus regular church-going redneck Joe Sixpack.
What has wicca to do with that?
Lack of responsibility for yourself is a desease not confined to wiccans only (I'm not one of them, BTW).
UK has become a testing grounds for nonsense, that is later propagated through the world :-(
It might be one of the reasons why they don't join the European Union because they'll definitely lose the ability to push ridiculous freedom-restricting laws.
What America needs to own up to (especially it's courts) is that sometimes bad things happen, and there's nobody to blame. In others, the person to blame dies or has no money. Neither of these conditions make it acceptable to use a lawyer like a shotgun to try collecting money from everyone within a 100 mile radius. Sometimes when someone does something,bad things happen, and nobody could have reasonably predicted the bad outcome.
Lawyers that rule America have pretty much transformed the term "Act of God" into the "Gross negligence on the God's part". Everything that happens, be it spilled coffee in McDonalds or a child who falls of a window becomes a reason to enrich one of these vultures.
Another thing that happens is a constant responsibility shift. Our state prepares a bill that will oblige landlords to put special window bars to prevent children from falling out of windows for every teenant with children. 5 other states already have similar laws.
I'd say that the responsibility lies not with the landlords, schools, corporations or so, but with parents, students and people in general.
America became a paradize for stupid people. It is not the only country in the world where you can make your money by a hard work, dedication and talent, but it is the only country where you can make a big bucks by suing someone else because of something stupid you've done yourself.
... they could have named the new system "Jar Jar" ;-)
... was journalistics. So, speaking in your terms, we get true definition for the PC press such as ZD Net et al ;-)
Vot my vchera hohlov dushili-dushili ;-)))
You're not Russian, man!
;-))))
You don't use transliteraion correctly
Is it a citation?
Actually, Soviet Union did it in thew Second World War.
Sometimes you need to kill/render incapable to fight as many soldiers as possible to make enemy reluctant/incapable to attack you in future.
It happens in case when technical level of the armies is about equal (Iran/Iraq), but the manpower is high.
Science fiction, by Poul Andersson, called "Kings for sacrifice", when nations agreed to battle in space instead of scorching Earth.
;-)))
Or "Fury" by Henry Kuttner, when battles were performed outside of the living space not to damage it.
I know, it's too early for that kind of technological advances for all warryng states, but it's nevertheless an option for the future, unless humankind will learn how to control its aggression (let only ones who never flipped off a sucker who cuts you off or blocks the left lane throw a stone at me
In what specialists describe as a surprizing twist, Napster has settled the suit Universal Music has brought against the upstart company. Analyst who has asked not to disclose his name told that the settlement was prodded by the Universal's parent, beverage company Seagram. "They have seen the opportunity in distributing alcoholic beverages a new way", he said.
In a short while a new site, www.schnappster.com, will be opened using Napster technology and Seagram beverages. Users will be able to download any beverages initially through the DSL (Distiller Subscriber Line) only with other types of Internet access to follow.
In what someone could interpret as a slap in his face, Shannon Fanning, 20 was not allowed into the press conference because he is not 21 yet. SlashDot's Jon Katz was able to interview him in the dark corridor of the Seagram headquarters where the announcement took place. "I am not offended", said Fanning, sipping gin from a prototype device, connected to his Transmeta laptop, "This will become (hic), a new world of (hic) beer-to-peer networking, and no Feds will be able to do anything free (hic) enterprise!", he added with a blissful smile on his face.
"Geeks rule!", concluded Jon.
What is the difference between these 7 people who died for the USA and people who died, for example, in the Soviet space program?
/.-ers (and people in general) will gloat over a catastrophie happening abroad comparing to the one in their country.
Much more
I don't think such people are dying to make a country great, they just live to the best of their abilities for the progress of the whole humankind.
My bills for the electricity grew up to 30% when I started running SETI@HOME on my 3 computers.
The real problem is TRANSITION in people's minds.
A little background. I live in Portland, OR that has switched to 10-digit a couple of month ago (they had first announced it in 1997 with planned date of switch in 1998, but it apparently had slipped).
The uniqueness of the situation here is that OUR TWO CODES ARE NOT TERRITORIAL! In most cities like Chicago or LA you can approximately tell where the number is located by the code.
IIRC, here it will be different way with the numbers in different code zones interspersed on the same territory.
In the last few months from the change to the mandatory 10-digit dialing I've had my share of errors, trying to enter 7-digit one just to hear "please, dial 10 digits" or something similar.
In order to install this notification, the phone company have had to catch all number dialed that do not start from 0, 1, our old code 503 or the new code 971. It means that all people whose phones used to start from 503 or 971 had to be changed to something else, and we have had only one code area. Now imagine this thing done at the North American wide scale (YES, it affects Canada as well). Installing such a warning will require shutting the phones with prefixes matching exchange numbers in ALL areas! They just won't be able to do it.
ERRORS WILL HAPPEN not because everyone is stupid, but because some transitional period is necessary. Think about how often you dial a number automatically, without thinking. I can bet that you'll dial 7-digit one until your mind finally switches. It will take you a couple of months. But you'll be in limbo during that time without any pre-recorded message that will tell you about your error.
For further reading:
http://www.uswest.com/areaCodes/