In a flash of wisdom CmdrTaco wrote:
I'm glad to see a decision for freedome can still happen in this country.
Amen to that, brother! For far too long we noble citizens have been paying way to much for our domes. It's high time we made them free! Dome lovers of the world, Unite(d Center)!
So we've got a guy leaving a fairly warm valley in some haste but well prepared (had eaten, brought no food, but had an ax, a bow, and 14 arrows), getting assaulted about 8 hours later, shot from behind and below (someone chasing him?), and left there with all his stuff.
If the facts of what you described are true, from the description it sounds a whole lot like a tribal banishment, with the "banishee" being hunted and killed shortly after being banished.
(For a movie that illustrates this but is so horrible that it's funny, see The Naked Prey.)
I'm not sure which Enter key you're talking about. We were talking about the main enter key on a keyboard, where there are two main styles: the small rectangular type and the large, "reverse L" type.
If you tried to hit Shift + Delete and hit Shift + Enter instead then that's a pretty bad miss--work on your aim. If you meant the Delete key on the keypad, well, that Enter key isn't the one we were talking about.
Well, we have a solution. The K-12LTSP v.1.0 project
When I first read that name I thought you were joking. No wonder why so many Linux companies are failing: lack of connection between the products and their potential customers. Here you go through the entire schpiel of a car salesman, and when it comes to the point of naming the car you blurt out some cryptic code that no one who isn't a car technician would understand. Detroit doesn't name their cars the GMC 225HP-WB-180/25-14. No one would buy such a hideously named monstrosity. And if they did, the owners would decide on a pronouncable name and call it that.
Without simplicity, products are destined for failure. Great concepts are often complex concepts packaged in simple packaging. Why would a teacher unfamiliar with your product choose "K-12LTSP v.1.0" over "Microsoft Windows"? If you don't choose a name that you can build recognition with your products will be simply unrecognizeable (and thus unsold).
I can't see why you like the big Enter key, unless you've never tried typing with a small one. Having a big Enter key means that your keyboard doesn't have a big backspace key, which in my opinion is much, much more important.
Re:This has been mentioned before, but...
on
Why not Ruby?
·
· Score: 2
The idea that "the only things that I can think about are the things that my language has words for" is better known as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, and for reasons why many people consider it to be wrong, look through the links of this Google search.
Yes, Capsela was great. I remember a day back in 1981 or so (wow I'm old!) when my Dad brought me to work for Bring-Your-Son-To-Work Day but I spent the first half of the morning in the car, building a motorized, mechanized, floating Capselized boat. Wow! I couldn't wait to rush into a bathroom, flood a bathroom sink with water and watch it propel itself a full 4" from side to side.
The problem with Capsela, which is why I guess they went out of business or stopped production, is that the pieces were too specialized. So it was great for building individual models out of the manual, but too difficult for me as a 7 year old kid to envision my own designs. Legos--oops, "Lego Building Blocks(tm)"--on the other hand, didn't build quite as wonderful motorized models, but they did give you smaller building blocks that allowed for a variety of models and let my imagination run wild. I suppose that's why I have no idea where that Capsela set is, while my cherished Lego sets remain built and stored to this day.
Last week when we submitted questions to Mr. Kusnetzky I also wrote a comment pointing to a Google search with his name spelled correctly. A few days later I got an email from him jokingly listing the various spelling variations he sees on his name in the press.
So I was pretty surprised to read his interview. After thinking we were going to get some "real" answers, it was disheartening to read his corporate, fluffy answers to the questions. My question (question #9) was glossed over with a "that's not in my group" answer, so the question of who keep the analysts honest is still a very open one. Someobody other than yourself has to keep you honest. Accountants have audits, programmers have code reviews and people in construction have inspectors. Reviewing your own data from last year isn't good enough without either a) an oversight organization to make sure that your mistakes won't happen again or b) a watchdog agency to make sure that your mistakes won't happen again. Apparently, IDC has neither.
It was announced this week that iPAQ will overtake the Palm very shortly (assuming you could Palm, inc seperate from Handspring, etc). Maybe she was right all along? Or did her predictions have some influence?
Well, I posted the above question you replied to, so I guess I'll take a crack at your reply. First let me say that I think you're taking the story you're quoting (available here) out of context. The report states that Compaq may soon start shipping more iPaqs than Palm does Palm devices, not taking into account that Palm already has a lot of devices on the shelves, the closer-to-reality average device cost numbers of Palm, return rates of CE devices, etc. And that doesn't mean that Palm's install base of 10,000,000+ devices is going to evaporate if more iPaqs are sold, a la IE vs. Netscape.
Secondly, I don't think that she was right all along, although if Palm doesn't solve some short-term problems they will have made her right through no insight of her own. I do think that her predictions had some influence on the people that had buying power and very little technical knowledge.
When she first started posting pro-CE reports, anyone worth their salt would have laughed out loud. In 98 or 99, CE was absolutely horrible and Palm was nothing short of golden. Palm devices actually synced better with Windows than Pocket PC devices (back then they were called Palm-size PC's) did at the time. So we--some of the old school Palm developers--read her forecasts and had a good chuckle.
So to bring this post back around on-topic, now the situation is one where the IDC analyst may end up becoming right, even though for the wrong reasons. She'll probably proclaim, "I was right all along!" but there is no way she could have known that Palm would make several key missteps, more CE device makers would not jump ship (as they were when she was predicting) and that the corporate world would blindly buy inferior devices on the whim of an uninformed purchaser. Which brings this question around full-cirle: there doesn't seem to be a mechanism for analysts to be shown wrong, or say "oops, I screwed up--sorry" or be held accountable for poor predictions. And until there are, it's not prudent to make important decisions based on their reports.
We got ten questions to ask this guy and only one (question 5) is really about his methodology?
I disagree. My question (question #9) was also about analyst methodologies in general, from the viewpoint of who holds them accountable when their predictions are proved to be false. Unfortunately, Mr. Kusnetzky glossed over that one...
Proudly Serving My Corporate Masters: What I Learned in Ten Years as a Microsoft Programmer Barr worked as a low-level developer at Microsoft and [...]
I'd rather not sound so suspicious without knowing more about the book, but if he worked for ten years as a low-level developer he must not be a very exceptional person. And if that's true, then that brings the whole reasoning behind this book into question. I mean, anyone who works for 10 years without getting a promotion can't have that much insight into their industry, can they?
...but I've found Domania.com to be an excellent resource when it comes to finding information about pricing for homes. I can look up the prices for a house or even all the houses on a street. Their coverage is pretty good for where I live (Chicago SW suburbs), and I think they cover a lot of areas in the US, except for Texas because it's a non-disclosure state. Anyway, my wife and I have used it a lot out of curiosity, and since we expect to be buying a house within the next few years I'm sure we'll use it for real.
I have a question on the area of predictions in general. For example, fellow IDC analyst Jill House has been severaly negative on Palm over the years, with regard to the Win CE operating system and devices. A sample quote from her in Feb. 2000 read, "If I was Palm, I would be beside myself with panic."
The issue is, that over the last 3 - 4 years she's been predicting the demise of Palm and the rise of Win CE, a claim that has never materialized. Who verifies the reliability of these predictions and keeps the analysts accountable. With the frequent sound bytes and one-liners that they give to the press, these analysts have significant influence over public perception of the issues. But how is policing done when the analysts don't analyze very well?
Imagine being in IRC and explaining to your friends that these are your last moments. Kinda freaky. You could start spouting your passwords, or leave a love note. Think of the things people wished they could say on the way down.
Your concept of reality and humanity is so undernourished that in your dying moments you think you would tell some anonymous people on IRC that you think you might die. Big deal. Tell someone who cares, like your mom and dad.
And speaking of caring, in a crash your instincts would be to save yourself and then to save the people around you. No one in their right mind is going to take the opportunity to escape an aircraft that might blow up any minute and instead sit down at a terminal to write some buddies about the experience.
If you are worried about this sort of thing, don't use a hand-held phone: use a car phone, [...] and you will still be able to make calls (please, just don't do so while driving.)
That has got to be one of the dumbest pieces of advice I've seen on/. lately. "Use a car phone, but don't use it while driving." Let's see:
Cars are made for driving
Cell phones are made for talking
You advise people to use a car phone
You advise people not to talk on that car phone while driving
My advice to you is to take these sleeping pills I have. Just don't use them while sleeping.
[...] by using one of its sensor technologies in conjunction with mobile phone basestation networks, stealthy aircraft will be rendered useless.
It would seem to me that stealthy aircraft could still approach their targets from unpopulated areas where cell phone coverage is bare or non-existant. Too bad for the UK that you can approach by water on all sides, so for them their own invention is useless.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm glad to see a decision for freedome can still happen in this country.
Amen to that, brother! For far too long we noble citizens have been paying way to much for our domes. It's high time we made them free! Dome lovers of the world, Unite(d Center)!
function nthDigitOfPi(long n) {
return rnd(10);
}
If the facts of what you described are true, from the description it sounds a whole lot like a tribal banishment, with the "banishee" being hunted and killed shortly after being banished.
(For a movie that illustrates this but is so horrible that it's funny, see The Naked Prey.)
For anyone interested in seeing the xray of the wound, you can see it at http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/p/ap/20010725/wl/ital y_mystery_iceman_rom104.html.
Or when you're writing book-length comments on Slashdot...
I wonder if it's symbolic that the everything2 link to "mono" only talks about a really bad disease...
What about a Beowulf cluster of ... er, nevermind. Sorry.
If you tried to hit Shift + Delete and hit Shift + Enter instead then that's a pretty bad miss--work on your aim. If you meant the Delete key on the keypad, well, that Enter key isn't the one we were talking about.
Slashdot broke the link you supplied (note space in the middle). The correct link is/ 1999/nrwl9046.html.
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Wireless/News_Releases
When I first read that name I thought you were joking. No wonder why so many Linux companies are failing: lack of connection between the products and their potential customers. Here you go through the entire schpiel of a car salesman, and when it comes to the point of naming the car you blurt out some cryptic code that no one who isn't a car technician would understand. Detroit doesn't name their cars the GMC 225HP-WB-180/25-14. No one would buy such a hideously named monstrosity. And if they did, the owners would decide on a pronouncable name and call it that.
Without simplicity, products are destined for failure. Great concepts are often complex concepts packaged in simple packaging. Why would a teacher unfamiliar with your product choose "K-12LTSP v.1.0" over "Microsoft Windows"? If you don't choose a name that you can build recognition with your products will be simply unrecognizeable (and thus unsold).
I can't see why you like the big Enter key, unless you've never tried typing with a small one. Having a big Enter key means that your keyboard doesn't have a big backspace key, which in my opinion is much, much more important.
The idea that "the only things that I can think about are the things that my language has words for" is better known as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, and for reasons why many people consider it to be wrong, look through the links of this Google search.
The problem with Capsela, which is why I guess they went out of business or stopped production, is that the pieces were too specialized. So it was great for building individual models out of the manual, but too difficult for me as a 7 year old kid to envision my own designs. Legos--oops, "Lego Building Blocks(tm)"--on the other hand, didn't build quite as wonderful motorized models, but they did give you smaller building blocks that allowed for a variety of models and let my imagination run wild. I suppose that's why I have no idea where that Capsela set is, while my cherished Lego sets remain built and stored to this day.
PROMPT $P$G
--Thanks very much for the clarification.
So I was pretty surprised to read his interview. After thinking we were going to get some "real" answers, it was disheartening to read his corporate, fluffy answers to the questions. My question (question #9) was glossed over with a "that's not in my group" answer, so the question of who keep the analysts honest is still a very open one. Someobody other than yourself has to keep you honest. Accountants have audits, programmers have code reviews and people in construction have inspectors. Reviewing your own data from last year isn't good enough without either a) an oversight organization to make sure that your mistakes won't happen again or b) a watchdog agency to make sure that your mistakes won't happen again. Apparently, IDC has neither.
Well, I posted the above question you replied to, so I guess I'll take a crack at your reply. First let me say that I think you're taking the story you're quoting (available here) out of context. The report states that Compaq may soon start shipping more iPaqs than Palm does Palm devices, not taking into account that Palm already has a lot of devices on the shelves, the closer-to-reality average device cost numbers of Palm, return rates of CE devices, etc. And that doesn't mean that Palm's install base of 10,000,000+ devices is going to evaporate if more iPaqs are sold, a la IE vs. Netscape.
Secondly, I don't think that she was right all along, although if Palm doesn't solve some short-term problems they will have made her right through no insight of her own. I do think that her predictions had some influence on the people that had buying power and very little technical knowledge.
When she first started posting pro-CE reports, anyone worth their salt would have laughed out loud. In 98 or 99, CE was absolutely horrible and Palm was nothing short of golden. Palm devices actually synced better with Windows than Pocket PC devices (back then they were called Palm-size PC's) did at the time. So we--some of the old school Palm developers--read her forecasts and had a good chuckle.
So to bring this post back around on-topic, now the situation is one where the IDC analyst may end up becoming right, even though for the wrong reasons. She'll probably proclaim, "I was right all along!" but there is no way she could have known that Palm would make several key missteps, more CE device makers would not jump ship (as they were when she was predicting) and that the corporate world would blindly buy inferior devices on the whim of an uninformed purchaser. Which brings this question around full-cirle: there doesn't seem to be a mechanism for analysts to be shown wrong, or say "oops, I screwed up--sorry" or be held accountable for poor predictions. And until there are, it's not prudent to make important decisions based on their reports.
I disagree. My question (question #9) was also about analyst methodologies in general, from the viewpoint of who holds them accountable when their predictions are proved to be false. Unfortunately, Mr. Kusnetzky glossed over that one...
Barr worked as a low-level developer at Microsoft and [...]
I'd rather not sound so suspicious without knowing more about the book, but if he worked for ten years as a low-level developer he must not be a very exceptional person. And if that's true, then that brings the whole reasoning behind this book into question. I mean, anyone who works for 10 years without getting a promotion can't have that much insight into their industry, can they?
If you really want to check all of his quotes, try the same Google search with his name spelled correctly.
...but I've found Domania.com to be an excellent resource when it comes to finding information about pricing for homes. I can look up the prices for a house or even all the houses on a street. Their coverage is pretty good for where I live (Chicago SW suburbs), and I think they cover a lot of areas in the US, except for Texas because it's a non-disclosure state. Anyway, my wife and I have used it a lot out of curiosity, and since we expect to be buying a house within the next few years I'm sure we'll use it for real.
I have a question on the area of predictions in general. For example, fellow IDC analyst Jill House has been severaly negative on Palm over the years, with regard to the Win CE operating system and devices. A sample quote from her in Feb. 2000 read, "If I was Palm, I would be beside myself with panic."
The issue is, that over the last 3 - 4 years she's been predicting the demise of Palm and the rise of Win CE, a claim that has never materialized. Who verifies the reliability of these predictions and keeps the analysts accountable. With the frequent sound bytes and one-liners that they give to the press, these analysts have significant influence over public perception of the issues. But how is policing done when the analysts don't analyze very well?
Sincerely,
Daniel McCarty
Palm OS Developer
Your concept of reality and humanity is so undernourished that in your dying moments you think you would tell some anonymous people on IRC that you think you might die. Big deal. Tell someone who cares, like your mom and dad.
And speaking of caring, in a crash your instincts would be to save yourself and then to save the people around you. No one in their right mind is going to take the opportunity to escape an aircraft that might blow up any minute and instead sit down at a terminal to write some buddies about the experience.
That has got to be one of the dumbest pieces of advice I've seen on /. lately. "Use a car phone, but don't use it while driving." Let's see:
- Cars are made for driving
- Cell phones are made for talking
- You advise people to use a car phone
- You advise people not to talk on that car phone while driving
My advice to you is to take these sleeping pills I have. Just don't use them while sleeping.It would seem to me that stealthy aircraft could still approach their targets from unpopulated areas where cell phone coverage is bare or non-existant. Too bad for the UK that you can approach by water on all sides, so for them their own invention is useless.