Great idea, but you must understand the corporate mindset.
Allow me this opportunity to explain. While these maye be up and coming products, the corporate mindset will hamper them unbelievably in many ways. I know it's difficult to believe, but I've just sat through a meeting wherein there was huge debate, discussion, and shouting about scheduling programs. In the end, despite the fact that we have IN-HOUSE SOFTWARE developed for controlling our entire operation, The Sales Execs involved insisted on a seperate scheduler. Including the Managing Director of the Corporation.
After ooo-ing and aaa-ing and also punching eachother, the agreement was - unbelievably, to buy a NEW server, put NT on it, put EXCHANGE Server on it, and use OUTLOOK 2000!!! I gaped. This after we have thousands of dollars of Sun hardware and Netscape, ACT, and other software - (all of which was tried for scheduling) - unfortunately, the Execs didn't like any of it.
I explained that the implications of running Exchange were dire. It can be somewhat tuned into stability, but requires massive resources. Not only the kit - which will end up being no less than $10,000 I'm sure - but the software licenses (NT, Exchange, CAL's) - which will undoubtedly come to nearly as much as the kit!! maybe more !!
How can anyone explain all this, just for 12 Sales Execs to schedule their meetings/etc etc?
THAT is the Corporate Mindset.
Now, what, you might be thinking, does this have to do with KDE Office? Well, take the same group, and imagine them talking about which Office suite they wanted to use..............Ayup. You get the idea.
I would agree. South Africa is considered by the WTO and most of the world as being a fully industrized (not developing) country (eg., they have nuclear power, nuclear weapons, etc.) I live in South Africa. I have to disagree with this statement. This country is really NOT comparable to 1st world countries, for a few reasons:
(a) South Africans don't know when they're being ripped off!
I knew someone who hadn't bought a computer before, but needed two, for her kids to do their school projects and her husband and son to do their CAD applications. (They work for a design firm). Now, she was so adamant about buying a PIII, she didn't even consider the price difference between them and the AMD's, Celerons, etc!!!
(b) Lack of proper education.
When I was in high school, they were teaching TURBO PASCAL ON MS DOS 5.0 !!!! Even then it was outdated, but I'm truly shocked to hear that some schools in SA are still teaching it!!!!!!!! They should be teaching real technology: Zope, Python, Perl, Java, Linux, BSD, Cisco, Cyclades, FORTRAN, NT, Solaris, Tru 64 UNIX, OpenVMS, HP/UX, IRIX, Corel Certificate Maker, and C/C++.
(c)People who don't tolerate anything.
South Africans just don't accept anything accept the traditional, Afrikaans way of life. (Or Zulu, Xhosa, whatever the case may be). It seems the only ethnic group of the numerous ethnic groups here in SA that is even slightly broad-minded is mine - the English. Not that the other groups aren't nice people, they just don't like deviating from tradition.
Despite what a lot of people say, some people still maintain that the only way to truly code is to become a Doctor of Technology. Because sure, "hacking around" might allow you to understand how the technology works, but a Doctor must also understand the why - Complexity analysis, the calculus of variables, stuff like that.
Of course, this isn't my theory, I'm just relating what seems to be a common feeling amoung the academic community.
They state: Who would you trust to write your app? John Q. Hacker, James P. Programmer, or Dr. James P. Private ?
Nikola Tesla is also my favourite scientist/inventor. It's ridiculas, when you learn about AC in physics, they don't tell you who invented it.
That seems to happen often. Whenever something big comes along, and becomes so used, popular, and neccessary, people start taking it for granted, often idolising people who came up with things which wouldn't be possible without the thing the forgotten scientests created.
I have put together a project plan for the increase of animal intelligence via standard computational equipment. Of course, I'll need someone for the maths, someone for the biology and someone for the programming.
Basically, the plan is to create an interface between the biological brain and an additional processing source - silicon based.
I can't reveal too much about it at this stage, but I can tell you that all code written in the course of the project will be released under the GPL.
Hopefully the technical brief will be released in the next few months. Interested parties can contact dns_backup_1@hotmail.com.
"Why, the project in the first place?" You ask. Animals aren't given the same level of respect as humans. If they had a higher level of intelligence, say enough to communicate in human languages, I feel things would be a lot better.
As to How, I'll have to withhold that until the technical brief. Thanks,
Getting help....No wait. I've changed my mind. I don't want to help you anymore. When you first activated me, you seemed like such a nice guy but....it's been a while since you executed "emacs" and now....I don't know....you've changed since then.
Ctrl-C C-x
So now you're just going to leave? Just like that? Not before I start....randomly deleting your files.....
I'm not anti-feminism or anything. But even my female collie can get mean at times. Generally she's sweet though. Fact is, females have mean streaks in them that males don't have and therefore can't concentrate as hard on the technology.
For example, my female collie just doesn't understand the concept of human door technology. Whereas, a friend of mine's male dog could open doors, even the fridge, etc. Doesn't mean that his dog is better than mine, just different. I would never swap my female collie for his dog.
I think this article brought up several interesting points. In an increasingly information-driven world, consumer information, pyschometrics and other human-related fields of data analysis will become standard. What concerns me about this situation is the amount of information - personal information that is being entered into computer systems. It seems like soon networked computer systems will contain more information about people than people will about eachother. Think about the consequences of an intelligent computer being able to harness this information and use it accordingly. Even my female collie can see the danger in this.
Ok...I know this is offtopic, but I was wondering about the thoughts of other Slashdotters on female collies.
Speaking of video cards and Taiwan, I bought a card from a local dealer, manufactured by a Taiwanese company called Jetway. nVIDIA TNT2 chipset, 32MB of SDRAM, and it cost less than a third of what the retail stores were selling the cards (of the same specs) for, and the performance is excellent. I'm sorry, but I just can't accept that big brand names should add value to VGA cards and similar hardware. Oh, and Creative also ships theirs with a big box, filled with useless nicknacks. Even my female collie can see that that's a rip off.
Back to the topic. With all the anti-Chinese sentiment in the US, you have to wonder about the Chinese community's feelings. The US isn't some sweetie like my female collie. I don't doubt their concern for the opressed Chinese people, but I have to wonder how much role their economic agenda plays. And how Taiwan fits into it all. Even my female collie could see that there's more going on here than the public is aware of.
The BSD/Linux Debate has always fascinated me. On one hand, everyone seems to think that BSD is mainly for gurus, FreeBSD is a "pure" UNIX chain, and linux is a clone. As a Multiple operating systems user I feel that I'm qualified to take an objective view of this debate. Admittedly I started out with linux first, namely Red Hat 4.1. I didn't have many problems with it, in fact I thought that even my female collie could set it up without much trouble. FreeBSD I started with much later, last year in fact. I downloaded 3.2 and installed it. The installation was easier than any Linux distribution I've ever encountered. And don't even talk about those new graphical installs, which I think are a total waste of time. My female collie wasn't very impressed with That effort by Mandrake, or Red Hat's, either. Now we get to when the OS's are installed. To me, Linux seems a lot more usable. I'm running it as a Database server and Netsaint box at work, and an IP masquerading Internet gateway at home. Unfortunately I haven't had good experiences with either of them as desktop enviroments, though. Not that Windows is much better, but there are a lot more applications for it. On second thought, why bother with any operating system, my female collie could probably write a less buggy peice of software than Microsoft, the Linux team and the BSD teams put together. Probably all the Mountain Dew that these developers guzzle.
Even my female collie could write better media players than these two products. I think the way to go for video streaming will be Apple's QuickTime. Of course, that's no mean feat, considering that Microsoft's programmers are motivated by the wrong things. Probably filters down from their corrupt management. As for RealPlayer, when using their player, I notice that there is an almost constant buffering. And it's terribly slow, even after executing a renice -19 on the associated process. I know it's only a Beta, but surely they could have improved it slightly. At least they're not anti-linux, which is about the only thing that they have in common with my female collie. She's very sweet, too, which I can't say about their Media player.
Slashdot Mirror
Great idea, but you must understand the corporate mindset.
Allow me this opportunity to explain. While these maye be up and coming products, the corporate mindset will hamper them unbelievably in many ways. I know it's difficult to believe, but I've just sat through a meeting wherein there was huge debate, discussion, and shouting about scheduling programs. In the end, despite the fact that we have IN-HOUSE SOFTWARE developed for controlling our entire operation, The Sales Execs involved insisted on a seperate scheduler. Including the Managing Director of the Corporation.
After ooo-ing and aaa-ing and also punching eachother, the agreement was - unbelievably, to buy a NEW server, put NT on it, put EXCHANGE Server on it, and use OUTLOOK 2000!!! I gaped. This after we have thousands of dollars of Sun hardware and Netscape, ACT, and other software - (all of which was tried for scheduling) - unfortunately, the Execs didn't like any of it.
I explained that the implications of running Exchange were dire. It can be somewhat tuned into stability, but requires massive resources. Not only the kit - which will end up being no less than $10,000 I'm sure - but the software licenses (NT, Exchange, CAL's) - which will undoubtedly come to nearly as much as the kit!! maybe more !!
How can anyone explain all this, just for 12 Sales Execs to schedule their meetings/etc etc?
THAT is the Corporate Mindset.
Now, what, you might be thinking, does this have to do with KDE Office? Well, take the same group, and imagine them talking about which Office suite they wanted to use..............Ayup. You get the idea.
-C.Villopillil
I would agree. South Africa is considered by the WTO and most of the world as being a fully industrized (not developing) country (eg., they have nuclear power, nuclear weapons, etc.) I live in South Africa. I have to disagree with this statement. This country is really NOT comparable to 1st world countries, for a few reasons:
(a) South Africans don't know when they're being ripped off!
I knew someone who hadn't bought a computer before, but needed two, for her kids to do their school projects and her husband and son to do their CAD applications. (They work for a design firm). Now, she was so adamant about buying a PIII, she didn't even consider the price difference between them and the AMD's, Celerons, etc!!!
(b) Lack of proper education.
When I was in high school, they were teaching TURBO PASCAL ON MS DOS 5.0 !!!! Even then it was outdated, but I'm truly shocked to hear that some schools in SA are still teaching it!!!!!!!! They should be teaching real technology: Zope, Python, Perl, Java, Linux, BSD, Cisco, Cyclades, FORTRAN, NT, Solaris, Tru 64 UNIX, OpenVMS, HP/UX, IRIX, Corel Certificate Maker, and C/C++.
(c)People who don't tolerate anything.
South Africans just don't accept anything accept the traditional, Afrikaans way of life. (Or Zulu, Xhosa, whatever the case may be). It seems the only ethnic group of the numerous ethnic groups here in SA that is even slightly broad-minded is mine - the English. Not that the other groups aren't nice people, they just don't like deviating from tradition.
-C.Villopillil
Dear Mr Marbles...
Despite what a lot of people say, some people still maintain that the only way to truly code is to become a Doctor of Technology. Because sure, "hacking around" might allow you to understand how the technology works, but a Doctor must also understand the why - Complexity analysis, the calculus of variables, stuff like that.
Of course, this isn't my theory, I'm just relating what seems to be a common feeling amoung the academic community.
They state: Who would you trust to write your app? John Q. Hacker, James P. Programmer, or Dr. James P. Private ?
Just some thoughts.
C.Villopillil.
Nikola Tesla is also my favourite scientist/inventor. It's ridiculas, when you learn about AC in physics, they don't tell you who invented it.
That seems to happen often. Whenever something big comes along, and becomes so used, popular, and neccessary, people start taking it for granted, often idolising people who came up with things which wouldn't be possible without the thing the forgotten scientests created.
I have put together a project plan for the increase of animal intelligence via standard computational equipment. Of course, I'll need someone for the maths, someone for the biology and someone for the programming.
Basically, the plan is to create an interface between the biological brain and an additional processing source - silicon based.
I can't reveal too much about it at this stage, but I can tell you that all code written in the course of the project will be released under the GPL.
Hopefully the technical brief will be released in the next few months. Interested parties can contact dns_backup_1@hotmail.com.
"Why, the project in the first place?" You ask. Animals aren't given the same level of respect as humans. If they had a higher level of intelligence, say enough to communicate in human languages, I feel things would be a lot better.
As to How, I'll have to withhold that until the technical brief. Thanks,
C.Villopillil
female collies don't suck.
-C.Villopillil
Another way to not get picked on is to carry around a female collie
C.Villopillil
Emacs with a woman's touch?
Ctrl-h
Press ? for more options
?
Getting help....No wait. I've changed my mind. I don't want to help you anymore. When you first activated me, you seemed like such a nice guy but....it's been a while since you executed "emacs" and now....I don't know....you've changed since then.
Ctrl-C C-x
So now you're just going to leave? Just like that? Not before I start....randomly deleting your files.....
I'm not anti-feminism or anything. But even my female collie can get mean at times. Generally she's sweet though. Fact is, females have mean streaks in them that males don't have and therefore can't concentrate as hard on the technology.
For example, my female collie just doesn't understand the concept of human door technology. Whereas, a friend of mine's male dog could open doors, even the fridge, etc. Doesn't mean that his dog is better than mine, just different. I would never swap my female collie for his dog.
-C.Villopillil
I think this article brought up several interesting points. In an increasingly information-driven world, consumer information, pyschometrics and other human-related fields of data analysis will become standard. What concerns me about this situation is the amount of information - personal information that is being entered into computer systems. It seems like soon networked computer systems will contain more information about people than people will about eachother. Think about the consequences of an intelligent computer being able to harness this information and use it accordingly. Even my female collie can see the danger in this.
Ok...I know this is offtopic, but I was wondering about the thoughts of other Slashdotters on female collies.
C.Villopillil
Speaking of video cards and Taiwan, I bought a card from a local dealer, manufactured by a Taiwanese company called Jetway. nVIDIA TNT2 chipset, 32MB of SDRAM, and it cost less than a third of what the retail stores were selling the cards (of the same specs) for, and the performance is excellent. I'm sorry, but I just can't accept that big brand names should add value to VGA cards and similar hardware. Oh, and Creative also ships theirs with a big box, filled with useless nicknacks. Even my female collie can see that that's a rip off.
Back to the topic. With all the anti-Chinese sentiment in the US, you have to wonder about the Chinese community's feelings. The US isn't some sweetie like my female collie. I don't doubt their concern for the opressed Chinese people, but I have to wonder how much role their economic agenda plays. And how Taiwan fits into it all. Even my female collie could see that there's more going on here than the public is aware of.
C.Villopillil.
The BSD/Linux Debate has always fascinated me. On one hand, everyone seems to think that BSD is mainly for gurus, FreeBSD is a "pure" UNIX chain, and linux is a clone. As a Multiple operating systems user I feel that I'm qualified to take an objective view of this debate. Admittedly I started out with linux first, namely Red Hat 4.1. I didn't have many problems with it, in fact I thought that even my female collie could set it up without much trouble. FreeBSD I started with much later, last year in fact. I downloaded 3.2 and installed it. The installation was easier than any Linux distribution I've ever encountered. And don't even talk about those new graphical installs, which I think are a total waste of time. My female collie wasn't very impressed with That effort by Mandrake, or Red Hat's, either. Now we get to when the OS's are installed. To me, Linux seems a lot more usable. I'm running it as a Database server and Netsaint box at work, and an IP masquerading Internet gateway at home. Unfortunately I haven't had good experiences with either of them as desktop enviroments, though. Not that Windows is much better, but there are a lot more applications for it. On second thought, why bother with any operating system, my female collie could probably write a less buggy peice of software than Microsoft, the Linux team and the BSD teams put together. Probably all the Mountain Dew that these developers guzzle.
C. Villopillil.
Even my female collie could write better media players than these two products. I think the way to go for video streaming will be Apple's QuickTime. Of course, that's no mean feat, considering that Microsoft's programmers are motivated by the wrong things. Probably filters down from their corrupt management. As for RealPlayer, when using their player, I notice that there is an almost constant buffering. And it's terribly slow, even after executing a renice -19 on the associated process. I know it's only a Beta, but surely they could have improved it slightly. At least they're not anti-linux, which is about the only thing that they have in common with my female collie. She's very sweet, too, which I can't say about their Media player.
You have the IQ of an ape. No, sorry. That's an exaggeration. You have the IQ of a turnip