It wasn't Cobol that was the problem but human limitations.
More likely it was the project itself, that is, replacing a pointlessly complicated system with an updated version of the same. If they sat down and looked at the real core requirements, instead of recoding a monster, they could have designed a simpler and better system for a fraction of the cost. I bet there were huge teams of designers and project managers who got rich off of each of those attempts.
I don't know the details of the current bridge plans, but when I worked out there, it was patently obvious the bridge needed expansion.
And when the bridge expands more people will move to the other side of the bridge thereby making it just as congested as before. When will people learn that increasing highways just makes people move that much further away from their work place.
And depression is provably related to imbalances in norepinephrine, serotonin and dopamine. I'd love to get a real biologist's take on this research.
Most people, even those of the enlightened slashdot community, do not understand the biochemistry of depression. It took 5 years of therapy and experimenting with several different anti-anxiety/depression drugs get me out of my 35 years of depression. During that time I gained a significant understanding of all 3 chemicals, and how they affect your thought processes. Long term chronic depression is a physical ailment more than a mental one, and it can be treated.
Most people only know what goes on in their own minds, and assume that it is just the way life is, the way that a moody geek is supposed to think. They have never experienced the other side, life without all the angst, obsessive-compulsion, anger, feelings of shame and inadequacy. Life is much better on the other side, and I did not lose any geek productivity. The drugs are not without their side effects, however, and the trick is to find the right combination with the minimal side effects that do not affect your chosen lifestyle too badly.
Let me give a concrete example that people here can relate to. I had to cut up my Civilization III and IV disks after I could not stop playing. Just one more turn would turn into just one more hour, just two more hours, etc., and another day without much sleep. My knees would shake when I thought about playing the game. After remembering my experiences with III, buying IV was like a heroin addict relapse. This time I'll be able to handle it, I thought. I couldn't. Now, with proper meds and understanding of my own mind, I can safely play freeciv for a couple of hours a week, and put it down when I want. And enjoy it a lot more.
I did see rumors of Civ V, and I felt a little of the old shakes thinking about it. I think I'll get it whenever it comes out, but I'll tell my wife to keep the scissors handy, just in case.
There is a difference between being geek friendly and being antigeek.
The author is not complaining that the iPad is not geek friendly, but overtly anti geek.
Do you have an open API for your HD television? Your bank ATM? Your ADT home security system? Please give it a rest. Apple is not locking down OSX with the announcement of the iPad. It's not a computer, and it's not meant to be a computer. It's an appliance.
How do this get modded up? It seems like the only kind of people that you can stereotype and prejudice safely are the rich. "Most" people that I know who own expensive cars or boats are amongst the nicest and most moral people I know. Not everything is like television or the movies.
I am not saying that you are incorrect, by your definitions of moral and good and nice. But I would like to hear what your workers think of you. Their needs and concerns are probably quite different from yours, and you may not even realize it.
And yet for every down on his luck guy that turns to crime there is a down on his luck guy that stays honest. Dealing with these people as anything other than criminals basically punishes the person who is honest while rewarding the person who isn't.
I don't know what the solution is, other than continuing to support anti-corruption movements within countries and provide any support to help governments clean up their acts. When the governments become less corrupt, everybody in the country wins.
Your middle class American morality is not universal. When you are poor, your definitions of honesty and crime are very different. How is taking a few dollars from someone who is wealthy beyond your dreams (the perception of Americans) who got that way exploiting the rest of the world (cheap labor, resources, bolstering corrupt governments, starting wars) bad? You know those movies where the good guys con or rob other criminals, you root for them. When you see America as no better than any other organized crime group, then you have no problem ripping them off.
After reading the comments here and on Engadget, it just confirms that your average techie doesn't know a great new product when he sees it. So many people seem to be complaining that it doesn't have some certain deal-breaking hardware feature, yet they haven't even noticed the most important innovation: The software. The greatest part of this device simply flies over the head of so many people here because they have no understanding about what makes a computer great to use.
Exactly. Within minutes of the announcement people here at work were already talking about it. Besides, the original iPod didn't play games or movies, only music. This is just the first iteration of the product, and I'm sure that Apple has a roadmap of potential future functionality and features.
Notice that they spent about three times as much convincing you to buy stuff as they did designing it...
Worthless statistic. A device only has to be designed once. If you sell millions of them in a hundred different countries over several years of course your marketing is going to grow large.
When the progressives nationalized healthcare system started going up in smoke I assumed eugenics wouldn't stand a chance of coming back, because if you can't force "healthcare" on people then what good is sorting them out by appearance. I'm not sure where this is going unless they truly feel they can get the socialized healthcare (circa germany turn of the century) fully implemented.
Appearance for political stance Head bumps for intelligence eyebrows for demeanor nose shape for whether you should be humanely euthanized.
We've seen this movie before.
Completely wrong conclusion. This study would be an indicator of facial expression, tension, stress level, and other subtle cues. My guess from experience is that the Reps were more likely to have tension/anger lines, and the Dems were more likely to have silly smiles.
For the record, they sell access to the web site for $5 per week, while they sell the paper for $4.50 including access to the web site. Basically those 35 subscribers are paying 50 cents per day to not get the paper delivered. They also give free access to all people who subscribe to the local cable provider -- which is a lot of people for the local paper.
Plus it's Newsday.....
Which lends credence to the idea that the subscribers are just rival newspapers, not real customers.
And don't think that this technology would ever replace the mouse.
You never played Doom did you? I believe the quote was that no one would use a mouse because using the keyboard is so much better. Games adapt to the input devices available to them, and the mouse, at some point will be history. Don't say never. It's never true.:-)
"640k should be enough for anyone" - Bill Gates, 1981
Easily found: From Computerworld: “I’ve said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time,” he told Bloomberg Business News in 1996. “I keep bumping into that silly quotation attributed to me that says 640K of memory is enough. There’s never a citation; the quotation just floats like a rumor, repeated again and again. Do you realize the pain the industry went through while the IBM PC was limited to 640K? The machine was going to be 512K at one point, and we kept pushing it up. I never said that statement, I said the opposite of that.”
To be clear: I'm not opposed to the former DHS secretary taking a post-politics job in the security industry. I'm not even against him appearing on my teevee to flog his products. What stinks, though, is when he doesn't make it clear that his words amount to an advertisement rather than news.
What's worse is that the supposed "news" show doesn't mention it either. I guess he wouldn't appear if the show was known to tell the truth about their guests, and there go the ratings.
or phone?! Seriously? Do you carry around one of those magnifying screens from "Brazil"?
Box meet the outside. The text can be any size. There is no reason that the iPod screen has to display a whole "page" as we know it in print with a tiny font. About a paragraph at a time would be about right with nice big letters, easy to read.
Actually, a very large number of us. Since the entity now called AT&T acquired Pacific Bell, extension of broadband to rural areas has ground to a halt,...
I have no problem with that. People seem to still think they are entitled to the same services no matter how far in the boonies they live. It's time to give some of the land back to nature, and bring the rural folks back to civilization.
Litigation is a poor substitute for competition. Nokia's grasping at straws here, because they know that when the iPhone gets down around the $50 price point, they're toast.
-jcr
Absurd. Apple has always catered to the higher end market, and has never brought any product down to the low end. When phones similar to the iPhone are selling for $50, then Apple will already be on the next next generation at about the same price point.
Cameron knows better than most what's wrong with our technology and the way we use it.
Because he's a terrible film director? I'm sorry, I'll listen to anyone in the tech or science fields before I listen to what James Cameron has to say about technology.
"So two theories remain: either the gas is created as a by-product of reactions between volcanic rock and water, or it is a by-product of a lifeform's metabolism."
Or C: There is some, as of yet, unidentified method of methane production.
This only applies to things filed before October 1st, 2009. RTFA.
Doesn't matter. If you filed one good patent, you are screwed. You cannot get special treatment. If you filed 100 bad patents, then you now have 50 with special status that will have to get processed before the poor guy that filed his one good one.
Slashdot Mirror
It wasn't Cobol that was the problem but human limitations.
More likely it was the project itself, that is, replacing a pointlessly complicated system with an updated version of the same. If they sat down and looked at the real core requirements, instead of recoding a monster, they could have designed a simpler and better system for a fraction of the cost. I bet there were huge teams of designers and project managers who got rich off of each of those attempts.
I don't know the details of the current bridge plans, but when I worked out there, it was patently obvious the bridge needed expansion.
And when the bridge expands more people will move to the other side of the bridge thereby making it just as congested as before. When will people learn that increasing highways just makes people move that much further away from their work place.
Get a strand of cat5. Tie it to one end of the coax. Go to the other room. Pull the coax until you see the cat5. Crimp ends. Repeat.
And depression is provably related to imbalances in norepinephrine, serotonin and dopamine. I'd love to get a real biologist's take on this research.
Most people, even those of the enlightened slashdot community, do not understand the biochemistry of depression. It took 5 years of therapy and experimenting with several different anti-anxiety/depression drugs get me out of my 35 years of depression. During that time I gained a significant understanding of all 3 chemicals, and how they affect your thought processes. Long term chronic depression is a physical ailment more than a mental one, and it can be treated.
Most people only know what goes on in their own minds, and assume that it is just the way life is, the way that a moody geek is supposed to think. They have never experienced the other side, life without all the angst, obsessive-compulsion, anger, feelings of shame and inadequacy. Life is much better on the other side, and I did not lose any geek productivity. The drugs are not without their side effects, however, and the trick is to find the right combination with the minimal side effects that do not affect your chosen lifestyle too badly.
Let me give a concrete example that people here can relate to. I had to cut up my Civilization III and IV disks after I could not stop playing. Just one more turn would turn into just one more hour, just two more hours, etc., and another day without much sleep. My knees would shake when I thought about playing the game. After remembering my experiences with III, buying IV was like a heroin addict relapse. This time I'll be able to handle it, I thought. I couldn't. Now, with proper meds and understanding of my own mind, I can safely play freeciv for a couple of hours a week, and put it down when I want. And enjoy it a lot more.
I did see rumors of Civ V, and I felt a little of the old shakes thinking about it. I think I'll get it whenever it comes out, but I'll tell my wife to keep the scissors handy, just in case.
And whose standards are we talking about here? MLA style? Chicago?
Sadly too few people even know that these style guides exist, much less have the ability to intelligently discuss the point.
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html
There is a difference between being geek friendly and being antigeek.
The author is not complaining that the iPad is not geek friendly, but overtly anti geek.
Do you have an open API for your HD television? Your bank ATM? Your ADT home security system? Please give it a rest. Apple is not locking down OSX with the announcement of the iPad. It's not a computer, and it's not meant to be a computer. It's an appliance.
Wow, seriously?
How do this get modded up? It seems like the only kind of people that you can stereotype and prejudice safely are the rich. "Most" people that I know who own expensive cars or boats are amongst the nicest and most moral people I know. Not everything is like television or the movies.
I am not saying that you are incorrect, by your definitions of moral and good and nice. But I would like to hear what your workers think of you. Their needs and concerns are probably quite different from yours, and you may not even realize it.
And yet for every down on his luck guy that turns to crime there is a down on his luck guy that stays honest. Dealing with these people as anything other than criminals basically punishes the person who is honest while rewarding the person who isn't.
I don't know what the solution is, other than continuing to support anti-corruption movements within countries and provide any support to help governments clean up their acts. When the governments become less corrupt, everybody in the country wins.
Your middle class American morality is not universal. When you are poor, your definitions of honesty and crime are very different. How is taking a few dollars from someone who is wealthy beyond your dreams (the perception of Americans) who got that way exploiting the rest of the world (cheap labor, resources, bolstering corrupt governments, starting wars) bad? You know those movies where the good guys con or rob other criminals, you root for them. When you see America as no better than any other organized crime group, then you have no problem ripping them off.
After reading the comments here and on Engadget, it just confirms that your average techie doesn't know a great new product when he sees it. So many people seem to be complaining that it doesn't have some certain deal-breaking hardware feature, yet they haven't even noticed the most important innovation: The software. The greatest part of this device simply flies over the head of so many people here because they have no understanding about what makes a computer great to use.
Exactly. Within minutes of the announcement people here at work were already talking about it. Besides, the original iPod didn't play games or movies, only music. This is just the first iteration of the product, and I'm sure that Apple has a roadmap of potential future functionality and features.
Notice that they spent about three times as much convincing you to buy stuff as they did designing it...
Worthless statistic. A device only has to be designed once. If you sell millions of them in a hundred different countries over several years of course your marketing is going to grow large.
When the progressives nationalized healthcare system started going up in smoke I assumed eugenics wouldn't stand a chance of coming back, because if you can't force "healthcare" on people then what good is sorting them out by appearance. I'm not sure where this is going unless they truly feel they can get the socialized healthcare (circa germany turn of the century) fully implemented.
Appearance for political stance
Head bumps for intelligence
eyebrows for demeanor
nose shape for whether you should be humanely euthanized.
We've seen this movie before.
Completely wrong conclusion. This study would be an indicator of facial expression, tension, stress level, and other subtle cues. My guess from experience is that the Reps were more likely to have tension/anger lines, and the Dems were more likely to have silly smiles.
For the record, they sell access to the web site for $5 per week, while they sell the paper for $4.50 including access to the web site. Basically those 35 subscribers are paying 50 cents per day to not get the paper delivered. They also give free access to all people who subscribe to the local cable provider -- which is a lot of people for the local paper.
Plus it's Newsday.....
Which lends credence to the idea that the subscribers are just rival newspapers, not real customers.
And don't think that this technology would ever replace the mouse.
You never played Doom did you? I believe the quote was that no one would use a mouse because using the keyboard is so much better. Games adapt to the input devices available to them, and the mouse, at some point will be history. Don't say never. It's never true. :-)
Is Teller God? Should I worship him?
Why don't you ask him yourself?
Because he wouldn't answer you.
Actually he will. My wife and I talked to him after their show in Vegas last year. Real nice guy.
"640k should be enough for anyone" - Bill Gates, 1981
Easily found:
From Computerworld: “I’ve said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time,” he told Bloomberg Business News in 1996. “I keep bumping into that silly quotation attributed to me that says 640K of memory is enough. There’s never a citation; the quotation just floats like a rumor, repeated again and again. Do you realize the pain the industry went through while the IBM PC was limited to 640K? The machine was going to be 512K at one point, and we kept pushing it up. I never said that statement, I said the opposite of that.”
To be clear: I'm not opposed to the former DHS secretary taking a post-politics job in the security industry. I'm not even against him appearing on my teevee to flog his products. What stinks, though, is when he doesn't make it clear that his words amount to an advertisement rather than news.
What's worse is that the supposed "news" show doesn't mention it either. I guess he wouldn't appear if the show was known to tell the truth about their guests, and there go the ratings.
or phone?! Seriously? Do you carry around one of those magnifying screens from "Brazil"?
Box meet the outside. The text can be any size. There is no reason that the iPod screen has to display a whole "page" as we know it in print with a tiny font. About a paragraph at a time would be about right with nice big letters, easy to read.
Actually, a very large number of us. Since the entity now called AT&T acquired Pacific Bell, extension of broadband to rural areas has ground to a halt, ...
I have no problem with that. People seem to still think they are entitled to the same services no matter how far in the boonies they live. It's time to give some of the land back to nature, and bring the rural folks back to civilization.
Litigation is a poor substitute for competition. Nokia's grasping at straws here, because they know that when the iPhone gets down around the $50 price point, they're toast.
-jcr
Absurd. Apple has always catered to the higher end market, and has never brought any product down to the low end. When phones similar to the iPhone are selling for $50, then Apple will already be on the next next generation at about the same price point.
Laws like this only fuel racism, if we are all equal, then why the fuck do we have different laws for different races?
Sorry, we'll just give them back their land. You have to give up your home and move back to Europe now.
Cameron knows better than most what's wrong with our technology and the way we use it.
Because he's a terrible film director? I'm sorry, I'll listen to anyone in the tech or science fields before I listen to what James Cameron has to say about technology.
Obligatory Onion article.
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/apple_unveils_new_product
"So two theories remain: either the gas is created as a by-product of reactions between volcanic rock and water, or it is a by-product of a lifeform's metabolism."
Or C: There is some, as of yet, unidentified method of methane production.
That's not a theory, it's a catch all.
This only applies to things filed before October 1st, 2009. RTFA.
Doesn't matter. If you filed one good patent, you are screwed. You cannot get special treatment. If you filed 100 bad patents, then you now have 50 with special status that will have to get processed before the poor guy that filed his one good one.
Note that the perjorative use has been deprecated.
And the jargon file represents, what, less than 5% of the English speaking world? The rest use the word hacker. Sorry, the battle is already lost.