Often, there is additional expense to manufacture in the US. However, my experience working at a now-defunct US contract manufacturer points to other factors than labor costs. First, any new project required "lawyering up" when a newer technology was involved. The patent maze is a very costly to pass through in the US, and that cost cannot be blamed on higher labor costs. Also, I take issue with the idea that "Made in the USA" means lower quality. Again, in my experience, companies would bring their new products ideas to us. We would develop then business and manufacturing processes necessary to produce a reliable and high quality product. Then, those companies (our customers) would take that process either South of the Border or to SE Asia and start churning out product, but make no change or improvements to the initial process... so over time, QA would suffer. The fall-off rate (that is bad items vs good items) would be very small when manufactured here in the US, but inevitably, it would increase dramatically once moved out of the country. Again, that cannot be blamed on the US workforce.
I've found Microsoft's Live Mesh to be an idea in search of an application... whereas Google's product seems more the reverse, an application in search of an idea. I prefer the later. But also, I have no idea what Live Mesh is for. I don't know what the thing is supposed to do.
You said: "Family guy has no geek crediential." I disagree. The entire Blue Harvest episode is an hour's worth of "greek credential." They riff on Star Trek often. There's been TRON, Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, and Poltergeist segments that were not only hilarious but also very true to the originals. I've not counted, but it seems like a quarter of the jokes are references to science fiction TV shows or movies. MacFarlane comes across in many interviews as a geek. Sure, he has his political points to make, and his jokes are often no more than riffs on popular culture. But Star Wars, Star Trek, et. al. are points where geek culture intersects with pop culture.
You must consider, though, that at many schools, the CS department would not repsond to a request from the IT department for any sort of consultation. I am certainly not painting all faculty with the same brush; however, many of them hold tighter to their "job descriptions" than those parodies of union workers on Futurama. They teach, and they publish. Don't ask them to participate in anything outside of those two primary activities. Granted, there are many college IT shops who would never make the call to the CS department, but in fairness to those who have, often that call is never returned.
I think we are seeing what happens when products try to be all things to all people. The muddled information about the PS3's launch is understandable because everything else about the system is so muddled. How much will it cost? Will it be backwards-compatible? I've not seen answers to those are very simple questions yet.
And I think the reason we don't know the answers to the simple questions is because Sony hasn't yet answered all the hard questions internally. It just doesn't seem like there is a solid plan or a road map for the PS3 other than being "faster." Why are they using blu-ray? What is the H-D plan for the PS3? Why are they using bluetooth? What are their online plans? I should not have to dig through countless gaming sites to find out these details.
I think Sony has taken a lot of things for granted with the PS3. It could be that the installed base of the PS2 has clouded their thinking. But Sega proved that a next-gen machine had to have more than just technical superiority to succeed (and they were first to market with the Dreamcast!)
Sony needs to get the public informed about the PS3, and they need to do it soon. Else, the XBOX 360 may do to the PS3 what the PS2 did to the Dreamcast.
I agree that he probably has no plans to bring it back. If he did, then he really hurt his chances by messing with the cast chemistry by killing off characters in this movie. If there were plans to take it to Sci-Fi or even back to Fox or another network, I doubt Joss would have (or been allowed to) killed those characters. I have to say I was terribly dissapointed in the movie. It seems like Joss just killed them because he could. What a sad end for characters I'd grown to like... just because he could.
I'd read quite a bit about the movie before seeing it, and I think that needs mentioning because I might have been much less receptive to the changes from the books if I hadn't known about them before-hand. Still, I give the movie 3.5 out of 5 stars. There was a lot to like about the movie, even for the hardcore fans. And I could see Adams' hands on the movie in a number of places -- and that really helped calm down the parts of me that cringed at the changes and additions.
When things started *really* diverging from the book, I almost got upset. "This isn't like the TV Show at all! None of this was in it!" Yes. True, that. BUT then I thought, "Well, watch the TV Show again, if that is what you want. Or re-read the books!" Movies naturally divurge at points from their source material. And some of that divergence was inspired.
At the top of the list is Sam Rockwell's choice to put a healthy serving as George W. Bush in his portrayal of Zaphod. It just worked. It made the movie feel contemporay, somehow. The TV and radio series poked fun at digital watches -- a fad among many at the time -- and the movie cleverly poked fun at W, another fad among many today. Rockwell was just dead-on.
And hearing the theme music from the TV Series and seeing the original Marvin in the queue on the Volgon planet were nice tributes to the shows that I just love dearly.
And the Volgon character design made me think especially of Douglas Adams. Why? Because they looked like hideous distorted charcicatures of the British upperclass. The leader reminded me so much of John Houseman that I had "Paper Chase" flashbacks in between bites of popcorn.
And I quite enjoyed Mos Def as Ford. I had reservations at first, but Mos Def really made the character his own. I was afraid he'd try to play Ford the same as in the TV series and that would have been disastrous.
Yes, there were many things I liked. But some I didn't. For me, the Guide voice-overs would have worked better had they been illustrated. And the scene with the warhead-turned-whale wasn't given enough time to build. That was true of many of the Guide scenes: they just felt rushed to me.
And Bill Nighy just did not have enough screentime.
But overall, the movie worked for me. I probably will never have the same fondness for it as I do the TV Series, but that's probably more a time-of-life thing. I saw the TV show when I was in high school, and those times are always more fondly remembered than things that happened last night.
The article states that this could become a situation where one monopoly supplants another; however, I don't see Google ever getting into a monopoly situation as long as Microsoft exists, because all they have to do is break JavaScript in IE, and Google's AJAX framework becomes unusable.
You say people would just use Firefox, and that is true to a point, but I think MS would take steps to disable AJAX working in IE before Firefox/Google usage ever reaches the critical mass it would need to displace them as numero uno.
Just look at what MS did when Java was a perceived threat. They'll discover a way to dismiss the AJAX/Google threat before it ever begins to threaten their home/desktop dominance.
MS may have lost the search engine race, but they'll do what it takes to hold onto the desktop. That's been proven.
The advance press for the mini-series really made me worry, so much so that I almost decided I would not watch. Hearing that Starbuck would be a woman struck me as modern-day Hollywood political correctness with a very heavy hand. Learning that the Cylons would indistinguishable from humans just seemed like a way to save money, since there would be no costumes.
But I did watch, and I am glad I did. I think it did a very admirable job of respecting the first series while taking the basic premise and making it edgier and somewhat thought-provoking. The dialogue was far better than I expected; in fact, there were only a handful of "cheese" moments in the four-hours series. But even those potentially dreadful moments were rescued by very solid performances from the actors.
I have to say that Sci-Fi did a very admirable job converting my skepticism into anticipation. I would like to see more.
Fearfully, I know that the side which is right and just is not always the side which wins, especially in the legal system. So I wonder, what next? What happens if SCO's FUD campaign convinces a jury that the GPL is invalid?
Does Linus start over? Or in understood frustration, does he wash his hands of the whole thing and just code for himself?! Without the GPL, is it even possible to start over again?!
I am at a loss here. I fear that many on Slashdot is underestimating the shear ignornace of the legal system and the ineptitude of its judges. I think we need to have a plan just in case the worst happens.
The target of these lawsuits isn't really the defendants, it's the US Congress.
First, the purpose of these lawsuits is to scare all of those who do not receive a subpeona. The RIAA has hinted that they are first targetting those who share files, but in reality, they really want to scare away the sporatic downloaders. These are the people, who in the RIAA's estimation, are turning to P2P for songs they would otherwise be purchasing. P2P users who share files already have the songs, so it's too late to do anything about those assumed lost sales except sue. The important ones to scare away from P2P are the ones who have recently heard a new song that they like, but who have not yet downloaded it. That's the RIAA's bread and butter and they are going to be relentless in getting these people off P2P and back in the stores.
The assumption that the RIAA is trying to force the hand of Congress is very interesting, from a purely political standpoint. The record industry, much like the movie industry, has a solid history of supporting the Democratic party more than the Republicans. So, there is basis for your assumption that the RIAA is trying to get something from Congress. It's a Republican controlled Congress, and it's close to a presidential election year, where a popular Republican president will be running for re-election. I have to think that if the RIAA gets its way, it could be a very troublesome topic for the Republicans in power as the election draws closer. Could the RIAA's actions have the tacit approval of House and Senate Democrats? Could they see this as an issue that could get them back into the White House?
They also have something else that really counts with the paying public, which is a terrific track record. If a PIXAR movie and a TDRL movie were released on the same weekend, which one would you choose? 99% would go with the sure bet, and that's PIXAR.
TDRL/IBM would be better served going after the Dreamworks market. Other than Shrek, Dreamworks last couple of animated films were box-office disappointments. Sinbad, in particular, has been a collossal bomb for them. But that just proves my point, Sinbad was released so close to Finding Nemo that the audience for animated features choose the one they knew would not disappoint.
The dynamics of what makes PIXAR the undisputed king of computer animated movies has very little to do with technology and everything to do with satisfying audience expectations.
Investment and reinvestment. Those two words are the root cause of the decline and the ultimate collapse of the IT industry. Read the article. Then read other articles about US companies outsourcing development to foreign countries and off-shore locations. In every one of them, the word investment is frequently used. In this case, it is the Carribean countries who may be able to invest the savings realized from moving off MS Office to OpenOffice.org in development of an IT infratructure and education.
But the problem is not these foreign nationalities investing and reinvesting in themselves and their citizens. That's how it should be. The problem is the substantial investment that US companies and even the US government are making in other countries. IBM's investment in India tops a billion dollars. General Motors investment in India matches that, and GM has said they'll probably begin moving their R&D operations to India. And worse, US politicians, for some reason I still cannot fathom, are urging companies to follow IBM and GM's example. New York senator Hillary Clinton is one such proponent, and she sees it as a popular stand to take on the issue!
This investment by US companies, cheered on by US politicians, in just a few years time, maybe even less, will hit a critical mass from which there will be no coming back. There's no other way to say it... to save a few bucks now, US companies are virtually guaranteeing that in a few years time, there will be limited to no opportunity for US citizens in the IT industry.
is that "our kids are bad, and something is to blame." Violent video games are just the something du jour. It boils down to the fact that parents, legislators and teachers are trying to deny the fact that they are clueless when it comes to the rash of violent incidents involving teenagers. They must rally to some cause, else they would be forced to look to themselves for answers and solutions. Introspection and awareness are anathema for most politicians and many teachers and parents. It is so much easier to find something to blame. Better even when they find something to blame, like the video game industry, which doesn't have a well-established lobbying effort in Congress and the state legislatures. This bill, or one akin to it, will eventually be passed. First, in a state legislature, and then, when the shootings and spree killings continue, by Congress. There's too much momemtum to it from those in power. The intriguing (and possibly scary) question is this: when this bill is made law, and the killings don't stop, what are these cowards going to blame next?
I think O'Reilly is right, but it points to a very disturbing trend, especially if you are someone who makes a living writing code.
What he is saying is that business solutions in the immediate future are no longer going to be development and integrated applications (basically, code), but ideas. Why is this disturbing? Because it removes the an entire industry from the equation, or at least, it shifts the software industry down in terms of relevance and importance.
He is saying that innovation will no longer come from companies like IBM or Oracle, but from the development of new business processes.
In fact, if you replace the word commodity with the word marginalization in his interview, you'll better see my point. And as software becomes more and more marginalized, the value of the software as well as those of us who write the software drops.
Frankly, it scares me to think that the skills I've worked so hard and spend so much to develop (and continue to develop) have nothing but marginal value.
I don't think eCash or iCash (which term is prefered?) can work globally, across the internet on an anonymous or even a somewhat anonymous basis, the way regular currency does. Here's my thinking...
To be accepted, whole and undisputed, currency needs to be backed by someone or something that we trust. That's why a $5.00 bill is accepted as being worth $5.00 by Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Joe Schmoe. The US Government backs the bill. The reason eCash won't work is because it's not backed by the government, but by corporations. And corportate eCash simply doesn't instill the same sense of trust that government-backed currency does.
I see no future for concepts such as eCash without the backing of the government.
The biggest argument made against Lindows was that people who bought the system would be turned off once they got it home and realized it wouldn't let them do what they expected. In this case, running MS Office, games, etc. As a result, Lindows has since abandoned much of their early claims about MS-compatibility.
What happens when a someone gets one of these new Trusted systems home and realizes that they can't use it as expected? What happens when it doesn't let them them burn audio CD's or play previous burned songs on CD-R/W's? What happens when they have trouble just opening word processing or spreadsheet files, because they are not considered "trusted"? Even email could become a problem.
I see this whole "Trusted" initiative by Microsoft as a potential boon to open source software developers and even "white box" computer manufacturers.
Word will get out: "Don't buy any of the new Hewlett-Packards with that new Windows. They just don't work!" Microsoft has already turned many corporations against them with the new License 6.0 scheme. "Trusted" computing could turn many home users against Microsoft and all of the hardware manufacturers who have thrown their lot in with them.
The users in our company are heavily dependent upon Public Folders and the Calendar in Outlook. Yet, we were being eaten up by Spam and the odd virus that would get through our filtering on the Exchange server. It got to the point where we had daily downtime and two scheduled daily reboots of the Exchange server.
Our solution was to remove the load of incoming email from the Exchange server, moving over to a FreeBSD/SendMail/SpamAssassin POP server. Internally, the Exchange server is still available for Public Folder, Calendars and in-house email, but all outgoing and incoming email never hits the Exchange server.
We didn't remove Exchange from our organization, but we did remove it's biggest liability: MS-specific virii and Spam.
I keep seeing posts on Slashdot that say the RIAA is crazy. That sueing their customers is crazy. That this will kill them. It won't for two reasons. They have money, and they are an established business. Or more precisely put, they are viewed by *Congress* as an established business. Congress is where this will be decided. Not in the myth of the free market. True free markets don't exist in America any more. Farm subsidies, tariffs, taxes, all of those and similar government intervention make the economy more state-driven than the average American knows. Congress is going to rule in favor of the RIAA, of the MPAA, and any other well-established organization with deep pockets. If Slashdot readers ran things, it might be different. But we don't. They do. And they always win.
Re:If MS were to use such strategies, would anyone
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Wal-Mart destroyed the competition. And, yes, some say Wal-Mart is evil. But all they did is healthy, normal competition, no?
You cannot use the words healthy and normal to describe Wal-Mart's competitive practices. Those words do not fit. Here is one that does: destroy.
Wal-Mart is the destroyer of the supply chain. When they move into a community, it's over for most of the small businesses still surviving on Main Street. It's seems innocuous at first. In fact, most of the community flock to Wally World because the prices are low. But as more and more of the small businesses fail, Wal-Mart becomes the only choice. That's how they destroy the top of the supply chain, by driving under all of the small businesses in the community which sell the same products they do: lawn and garden stores, small electronic stores, jewelry stores, small automotive and tire stores.
Then, they work their way back down the supply chain. Because of the dwindling number of viable small businesses, suppliers have fewer and fewer customers to sell their wares to, and because of this, they lose the ability to set their own price for their goods. In essence, Wal-Mart is in a position to set the price for both the customer and the supplier.
It gets nasty when Wal-Mart demands a price that the supplier simply cannot meet. Then, Wal-Mart sometimes absorbs the supplier into their "Sam's Choice" brand. And that's the best case scenario.
What usually happens, is that the supplier goes under, and Wal-Mart moves on to another supplier, and the process starts again until that supplier is either gone or absorbed.
The history of the textile industry, I think, gives a pretty clear indication where the future of IT is headed, particularly due to the big trend of American corporations to outsource to India over the past few years.
The textile industry, at least what I consider the modern, industrialized version of it, began in and generated considerable wealth for England. Then, with the promise of cheaper labor, the bulk of textile manufacturing moved to the Americas, specifically the Carolinas, Georgia and a few New England states. The total generated wealth of the industry started to decline at this point, and another disturbing trend started as well. The distribution of the wealth began moving to a smaller percentage of people, namely the factory owners. Again, the prospect of cheaper labor induced the factory owners to move the bulk of textile manufacturing first to Mexico from the United States, then to the Far East from Mexico.
The important things to remember is that the total wealth generated by the textile industry declined with each geographic hop around the globe, and that fewer and fewer people got a larger and larger percentage of the total wealth of the textile industry.
How does this relate to IT? Well, considering that in the late 1990's we saw a mass movement of IT jobs for the US to India, and the associated wealth generated by the IT industry decline, I think the example of the textile industry is playing out again. Soon, the Indians who offered such low labor rates to win contracts and jobs away from American workers will be on the other side of the equation.
Russia, Eastern Europe and probably some African countries will do to India what they have done to America. The sad thing is that while India has been "carpet-bombing" the IT industry in the United States over the past few years with cheap labor and low costs, ultimately they've been laying the ground work for their own, future demise.
If all you offer is low costs and a cheaper price, then there is nothing to keep customers loyal. As soon as someone else comes along with a cheaper price, your customers will move to them. All because of the trend you started!
Although I try to get outside of the sci-fi/fantasy genre, I find that I often don't make it very far. This summer will probably be no exception, because there are two very good fantasy books on the horizon.
Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth saga continues in Naked Empire. If you are not familiar with series, pick up Wizard's First Rule. Give it a few pages because it starts kind of slow, but it's definitely worth it.
The book I am most eagerly awaiting is A Feast For Crows, which is the fourth book in George R.R. Martin's spectacularly dismal A Song of Fire and Ice series. The series is a fantastic read, without the maudlin smoltz and pedantic melodrama often associated with epic fantasy. People die. Life is harsh. And the characters act, speak and behave with gritty realism. Pick up the first book,A Game of Thrones, and you'll see for yourself.
Outside of the strict confines of sci-fi and fantasy, Anne Rice has another book out in the Vampire Chronicles series. Blackwood Farm is not the best book in the series, but it is certainly a step above her last couple of books in the series.
Also, Larry McMurty has a new book coming out soon. The Wandering Hill continues The Berrybender Narrative begun in Sin Killer. Not familar with McMurtry? Read Lonesome Dove and then The Last Picture Show. You'll be hooked. This guy is one of the greatest American novelists of the last half of the 20th Century.
I've seriously considered buying an X-BOX, and I almost did on a couple of occasions, but I've decided against it for now. Here's my reasoning.
I am not an open source zealot, but I do have serious concerns about many of the projects that Microsoft has on the horizon, such as Palladium, the whole Trustyworthy Computing scheme, and Microsoft's push toward their proprietary Windows Media format. I see the purchase of an X-BOX as a $200 endorsement of Microsoft. And that's not something I am comfortable doing.
The whole DCMA debate leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I follow most of the discussions pertaining to the DCMA on Slashdot. In fact, it seems like the X-BOX is the focal point of much of the DCMA debate on this site. And while I agree that the DCMA is a terrible piece of legislation, I don't see the logic of buying and modding an X-BOX to protest the DCMA. It seems like the easiest thing to do is to avoid the DCMA entirely, or at least, to avoid the corporations that use the DCMA to prosecute consumers. I can render Microsoft's enforcement of the DCMA moot by not purchasing an X-BOX. If I want to hack around on a console, I think the best choice is a Dreamcast. I can run NetBSD on it, and since it is no longer a revenue stream for Sega, they are not going to go to legal expense of throwing the DCMA at enthusiasts who hack around on it.
Microsoft is making it difficult to buy an X-BOX without also making additional purchases, namely X-BOX Live! Some of the newer games, and especially many games on the horizon and in development, will simply not be playable without an X-BOX Live subscription. There is also at least one game out now for the X-BOX that virutally requires the purchase of an additional controller which costs nearly $100.00. It seems that this is a trend that Microsoft will continue. And it's a trend I have no desire to endorse.
Simply, I can write all of the vehement arguments I want against Microsoft and the DCMA. But if I were to open my wallet and plunk down the cash to buy one, I'd feel very hypocritical because the best way for me to protest the DCMA is to avoid the X-BOX altogether.
This is the solution I use. I bought a Leadtek WinFast TV2000 PCI Video Capture card for $29.95. Then made a trip to Radio Shack for the necessary RCA cables. You'll need one male RCA to male RCA for the video and another dual male RCA to headphone jack for your sound card. The cables were about $15.00 for both. So, for less than $50 bucks, you have a solution in place for transferring VHS to a digital format. The cool thing about the Leadtek card is that it includes software that lets you choose the format you want to use. The options are MPEG-1, MPEG-2, NTSC VCD, PAL VCD, DVD, or AVI. It also syncs the audio for you, so you avoid that very time-consuming task of ripping video and audio separately and then having to synch them up again.
The main thing is getting the VHS tapes converted in some fashion to your hard drive. Then, you really have many choices on how to proceed. I bought a Plextor DVD+R/W drive because I wanted the maximum compatibility with home DVD players. DVD-R is OK, but not quite as reliable as DVD+R, in my experience.
But a DVD burner is not an absolute requirement if you decide to burn SVCD or VCDs. You can use regular CD-R's which play in most home DVD players. I choose DVD+R just to cut down on the number of discs necessary to transfer a standard VHS tape.
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Often, there is additional expense to manufacture in the US. However, my experience working at a now-defunct US contract manufacturer points to other factors than labor costs. First, any new project required "lawyering up" when a newer technology was involved. The patent maze is a very costly to pass through in the US, and that cost cannot be blamed on higher labor costs. Also, I take issue with the idea that "Made in the USA" means lower quality. Again, in my experience, companies would bring their new products ideas to us. We would develop then business and manufacturing processes necessary to produce a reliable and high quality product. Then, those companies (our customers) would take that process either South of the Border or to SE Asia and start churning out product, but make no change or improvements to the initial process... so over time, QA would suffer. The fall-off rate (that is bad items vs good items) would be very small when manufactured here in the US, but inevitably, it would increase dramatically once moved out of the country. Again, that cannot be blamed on the US workforce.
I've found Microsoft's Live Mesh to be an idea in search of an application... whereas Google's product seems more the reverse, an application in search of an idea. I prefer the later. But also, I have no idea what Live Mesh is for. I don't know what the thing is supposed to do.
You said: "Family guy has no geek crediential."
I disagree. The entire Blue Harvest episode is an hour's worth of "greek credential." They riff on Star Trek often. There's been TRON, Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, and Poltergeist segments that were not only hilarious but also very true to the originals. I've not counted, but it seems like a quarter of the jokes are references to science fiction TV shows or movies. MacFarlane comes across in many interviews as a geek. Sure, he has his political points to make, and his jokes are often no more than riffs on popular culture. But Star Wars, Star Trek, et. al. are points where geek culture intersects with pop culture.
It's seems supremely ironic to me that the Internet is killing the best "Geek" magazines.
You must consider, though, that at many schools, the CS department would not repsond to a request from the IT department for any sort of consultation. I am certainly not painting all faculty with the same brush; however, many of them hold tighter to their "job descriptions" than those parodies of union workers on Futurama. They teach, and they publish. Don't ask them to participate in anything outside of those two primary activities.
Granted, there are many college IT shops who would never make the call to the CS department, but in fairness to those who have, often that call is never returned.
I think we are seeing what happens when products try to be all things to all people. The muddled information about the PS3's launch is understandable because everything else about the system is so muddled. How much will it cost? Will it be backwards-compatible? I've not seen answers to those are very simple questions yet.
And I think the reason we don't know the answers to the simple questions is because Sony hasn't yet answered all the hard questions internally. It just doesn't seem like there is a solid plan or a road map for the PS3 other than being "faster." Why are they using blu-ray? What is the H-D plan for the PS3? Why are they using bluetooth? What are their online plans? I should not have to dig through countless gaming sites to find out these details.
I think Sony has taken a lot of things for granted with the PS3. It could be that the installed base of the PS2 has clouded their thinking. But Sega proved that a next-gen machine had to have more than just technical superiority to succeed (and they were first to market with the Dreamcast!)
Sony needs to get the public informed about the PS3, and they need to do it soon. Else, the XBOX 360 may do to the PS3 what the PS2 did to the Dreamcast.
I agree that he probably has no plans to bring it back. If he did, then he really hurt his chances by messing with the cast chemistry by killing off characters in this movie.
If there were plans to take it to Sci-Fi or even back to Fox or another network, I doubt Joss would have (or been allowed to) killed those characters.
I have to say I was terribly dissapointed in the movie. It seems like Joss just killed them because he could.
What a sad end for characters I'd grown to like... just because he could.
I'd read quite a bit about the movie before seeing it, and I think that needs mentioning because I might have been much less receptive to the changes from the books if I hadn't known about them before-hand. Still, I give the movie 3.5 out of 5 stars. There was a lot to like about the movie, even for the hardcore fans. And I could see Adams' hands on the movie in a number of places -- and that really helped calm down the parts of me that cringed at the changes and additions.
When things started *really* diverging from the book, I almost got upset. "This isn't like the TV Show at all! None of this was in it!" Yes. True, that. BUT then I thought, "Well, watch the TV Show again, if that is what you want. Or re-read the books!" Movies naturally divurge at points from their source material. And some of that divergence was inspired.
At the top of the list is Sam Rockwell's choice to put a healthy serving as George W. Bush in his portrayal of Zaphod. It just worked. It made the movie feel contemporay, somehow. The TV and radio series poked fun at digital watches -- a fad among many at the time -- and the movie cleverly poked fun at W, another fad among many today. Rockwell was just dead-on.
And hearing the theme music from the TV Series and seeing the original Marvin in the queue on the Volgon planet were nice tributes to the shows that I just love dearly.
And the Volgon character design made me think especially of Douglas Adams. Why? Because they looked like hideous distorted charcicatures of the British upperclass. The leader reminded me so much of John Houseman that I had "Paper Chase" flashbacks in between bites of popcorn.
And I quite enjoyed Mos Def as Ford. I had reservations at first, but Mos Def really made the character his own. I was afraid he'd try to play Ford the same as in the TV series and that would have been disastrous.
Yes, there were many things I liked. But some I didn't. For me, the Guide voice-overs would have worked better had they been illustrated. And the scene with the warhead-turned-whale wasn't given enough time to build. That was true of many of the Guide scenes: they just felt rushed to me.
And Bill Nighy just did not have enough screentime.
But overall, the movie worked for me. I probably will never have the same fondness for it as I do the TV Series, but that's probably more a time-of-life thing. I saw the TV show when I was in high school, and those times are always more fondly remembered than things that happened last night.
The article states that this could become a situation where one monopoly supplants another; however, I don't see Google ever getting into a monopoly situation as long as Microsoft exists, because all they have to do is break JavaScript in IE, and Google's AJAX framework becomes unusable.
You say people would just use Firefox, and that is true to a point, but I think MS would take steps to disable AJAX working in IE before Firefox/Google usage ever reaches the critical mass it would need to displace them as numero uno.
Just look at what MS did when Java was a perceived threat. They'll discover a way to dismiss the AJAX/Google threat before it ever begins to threaten their home/desktop dominance.
MS may have lost the search engine race, but they'll do what it takes to hold onto the desktop. That's been proven.
The advance press for the mini-series really made me worry, so much so that I almost decided I would not watch. Hearing that Starbuck would be a woman struck me as modern-day Hollywood political correctness with a very heavy hand. Learning that the Cylons would indistinguishable from humans just seemed like a way to save money, since there would be no costumes.
But I did watch, and I am glad I did. I think it did a very admirable job of respecting the first series while taking the basic premise and making it edgier and somewhat thought-provoking. The dialogue was far better than I expected; in fact, there were only a handful of "cheese" moments in the four-hours series. But even those potentially dreadful moments were rescued by very solid performances from the actors.
I have to say that Sci-Fi did a very admirable job converting my skepticism into anticipation. I would like to see more.
Fearfully, I know that the side which is right and just is not always the side which wins, especially in the legal system.
So I wonder, what next? What happens if SCO's FUD campaign convinces a jury that the GPL is invalid?
Does Linus start over? Or in understood frustration, does he wash his hands of the whole thing and just code for himself?! Without the GPL, is it even possible to start over again?!
I am at a loss here. I fear that many on Slashdot is underestimating the shear ignornace of the legal system and the ineptitude of its judges. I think we need to have a plan just in case the worst happens.
First, the purpose of these lawsuits is to scare all of those who do not receive a subpeona. The RIAA has hinted that they are first targetting those who share files, but in reality, they really want to scare away the sporatic downloaders. These are the people, who in the RIAA's estimation, are turning to P2P for songs they would otherwise be purchasing. P2P users who share files already have the songs, so it's too late to do anything about those assumed lost sales except sue. The important ones to scare away from P2P are the ones who have recently heard a new song that they like, but who have not yet downloaded it. That's the RIAA's bread and butter and they are going to be relentless in getting these people off P2P and back in the stores.
The assumption that the RIAA is trying to force the hand of Congress is very interesting, from a purely political standpoint. The record industry, much like the movie industry, has a solid history of supporting the Democratic party more than the Republicans. So, there is basis for your assumption that the RIAA is trying to get something from Congress. It's a Republican controlled Congress, and it's close to a presidential election year, where a popular Republican president will be running for re-election. I have to think that if the RIAA gets its way, it could be a very troublesome topic for the Republicans in power as the election draws closer.
Could the RIAA's actions have the tacit approval of House and Senate Democrats? Could they see this as an issue that could get them back into the White House?
PIXAR has what really counts: audience mindshare.
They also have something else that really counts with the paying public, which is a terrific track record. If a PIXAR movie and a TDRL movie were released on the same weekend, which one would you choose? 99% would go with the sure bet, and that's PIXAR.
TDRL/IBM would be better served going after the Dreamworks market. Other than Shrek, Dreamworks last couple of animated films were box-office disappointments. Sinbad, in particular, has been a collossal bomb for them. But that just proves my point, Sinbad was released so close to Finding Nemo that the audience for animated features choose the one they knew would not disappoint.
The dynamics of what makes PIXAR the undisputed king of computer animated movies has very little to do with technology and everything to do with satisfying audience expectations.
Investment and reinvestment. Those two words are the root cause of the decline and the ultimate collapse of the IT industry. Read the article. Then read other articles about US companies outsourcing development to foreign countries and off-shore locations. In every one of them, the word investment is frequently used. In this case, it is the Carribean countries who may be able to invest the savings realized from moving off MS Office to OpenOffice.org in development of an IT infratructure and education.
But the problem is not these foreign nationalities investing and reinvesting in themselves and their citizens. That's how it should be. The problem is the substantial investment that US companies and even the US government are making in other countries. IBM's investment in India tops a billion dollars. General Motors investment in India matches that, and GM has said they'll probably begin moving their R&D operations to India. And worse, US politicians, for some reason I still cannot fathom, are urging companies to follow IBM and GM's example. New York senator Hillary Clinton is one such proponent, and she sees it as a popular stand to take on the issue!
This investment by US companies, cheered on by US politicians, in just a few years time, maybe even less, will hit a critical mass from which there will be no coming back. There's no other way to say it... to save a few bucks now, US companies are virtually guaranteeing that in a few years time, there will be limited to no opportunity for US citizens in the IT industry.
is that "our kids are bad, and something is to blame." Violent video games are just the something du jour. It boils down to the fact that parents, legislators and teachers are trying to deny the fact that they are clueless when it comes to the rash of violent incidents involving teenagers. They must rally to some cause, else they would be forced to look to themselves for answers and solutions. Introspection and awareness are anathema for most politicians and many teachers and parents. It is so much easier to find something to blame. Better even when they find something to blame, like the video game industry, which doesn't have a well-established lobbying effort in Congress and the state legislatures.
This bill, or one akin to it, will eventually be passed. First, in a state legislature, and then, when the shootings and spree killings continue, by Congress. There's too much momemtum to it from those in power.
The intriguing (and possibly scary) question is this: when this bill is made law, and the killings don't stop, what are these cowards going to blame next?
I think O'Reilly is right, but it points to a very disturbing trend, especially if you are someone who makes a living writing code.
What he is saying is that business solutions in the immediate future are no longer going to be development and integrated applications (basically, code), but ideas. Why is this disturbing? Because it removes the an entire industry from the equation, or at least, it shifts the software industry down in terms of relevance and importance.
He is saying that innovation will no longer come from companies like IBM or Oracle, but from the development of new business processes.
In fact, if you replace the word commodity with the word marginalization in his interview, you'll better see my point. And as software becomes more and more marginalized, the value of the software as well as those of us who write the software drops.
Frankly, it scares me to think that the skills I've worked so hard and spend so much to develop (and continue to develop) have nothing but marginal value.
I don't think eCash or iCash (which term is prefered?) can work globally, across the internet on an anonymous or even a somewhat anonymous basis, the way regular currency does. Here's my thinking...
To be accepted, whole and undisputed, currency needs to be backed by someone or something that we trust. That's why a $5.00 bill is accepted as being worth $5.00 by Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Joe Schmoe. The US Government backs the bill. The reason eCash won't work is because it's not backed by the government, but by corporations. And corportate eCash simply doesn't instill the same sense of trust that government-backed currency does.
I see no future for concepts such as eCash without the backing of the government.
The biggest argument made against Lindows was that people who bought the system would be turned off once they got it home and realized it wouldn't let them do what they expected. In this case, running MS Office, games, etc. As a result, Lindows has since abandoned much of their early claims about MS-compatibility.
What happens when a someone gets one of these new Trusted systems home and realizes that they can't use it as expected? What happens when it doesn't let them them burn audio CD's or play previous burned songs on CD-R/W's? What happens when they have trouble just opening word processing or spreadsheet files, because they are not considered "trusted"? Even email could become a problem.
I see this whole "Trusted" initiative by Microsoft as a potential boon to open source software developers and even "white box" computer manufacturers.
Word will get out: "Don't buy any of the new Hewlett-Packards with that new Windows. They just don't work!" Microsoft has already turned many corporations against them with the new License 6.0 scheme. "Trusted" computing could turn many home users against Microsoft and all of the hardware manufacturers who have thrown their lot in with them.
The users in our company are heavily dependent upon Public Folders and the Calendar in Outlook. Yet, we were being eaten up by Spam and the odd virus that would get through our filtering on the Exchange server. It got to the point where we had daily downtime and two scheduled daily reboots of the Exchange server.
Our solution was to remove the load of incoming email from the Exchange server, moving over to a FreeBSD/SendMail/SpamAssassin POP server. Internally, the Exchange server is still available for Public Folder, Calendars and in-house email, but all outgoing and incoming email never hits the Exchange server.
We didn't remove Exchange from our organization, but we did remove it's biggest liability: MS-specific virii and Spam.
I keep seeing posts on Slashdot that say the RIAA is crazy. That sueing their customers is crazy. That this will kill them.
It won't for two reasons. They have money, and they are an established business. Or more precisely put, they are viewed by *Congress* as an established business.
Congress is where this will be decided. Not in the myth of the free market. True free markets don't exist in America any more. Farm subsidies, tariffs, taxes, all of those and similar government intervention make the economy more state-driven than the average American knows.
Congress is going to rule in favor of the RIAA, of the MPAA, and any other well-established organization with deep pockets.
If Slashdot readers ran things, it might be different. But we don't. They do. And they always win.
Wal-Mart destroyed the competition. And, yes, some say Wal-Mart is evil. But all they did is healthy, normal competition, no?
You cannot use the words healthy and normal to describe Wal-Mart's competitive practices. Those words do not fit. Here is one that does: destroy.
Wal-Mart is the destroyer of the supply chain. When they move into a community, it's over for most of the small businesses still surviving on Main Street. It's seems innocuous at first. In fact, most of the community flock to Wally World because the prices are low. But as more and more of the small businesses fail, Wal-Mart becomes the only choice. That's how they destroy the top of the supply chain, by driving under all of the small businesses in the community which sell the same products they do: lawn and garden stores, small electronic stores, jewelry stores, small automotive and tire stores.
Then, they work their way back down the supply chain. Because of the dwindling number of viable small businesses, suppliers have fewer and fewer customers to sell their wares to, and because of this, they lose the ability to set their own price for their goods. In essence, Wal-Mart is in a position to set the price for both the customer and the supplier.
It gets nasty when Wal-Mart demands a price that the supplier simply cannot meet. Then, Wal-Mart sometimes absorbs the supplier into their "Sam's Choice" brand. And that's the best case scenario.
What usually happens, is that the supplier goes under, and Wal-Mart moves on to another supplier, and the process starts again until that supplier is either gone or absorbed.
Does that sound healthy or normal?
The history of the textile industry, I think, gives a pretty clear indication where the future of IT is headed, particularly due to the big trend of American corporations to outsource to India over the past few years.
The textile industry, at least what I consider the modern, industrialized version of it, began in and generated considerable wealth for England. Then, with the promise of cheaper labor, the bulk of textile manufacturing moved to the Americas, specifically the Carolinas, Georgia and a few New England states. The total generated wealth of the industry started to decline at this point, and another disturbing trend started as well. The distribution of the wealth began moving to a smaller percentage of people, namely the factory owners. Again, the prospect of cheaper labor induced the factory owners to move the bulk of textile manufacturing first to Mexico from the United States, then to the Far East from Mexico.
The important things to remember is that the total wealth generated by the textile industry declined with each geographic hop around the globe, and that fewer and fewer people got a larger and larger percentage of the total wealth of the textile industry.
How does this relate to IT? Well, considering that in the late 1990's we saw a mass movement of IT jobs for the US to India, and the associated wealth generated by the IT industry decline, I think the example of the textile industry is playing out again. Soon, the Indians who offered such low labor rates to win contracts and jobs away from American workers will be on the other side of the equation.
Russia, Eastern Europe and probably some African countries will do to India what they have done to America. The sad thing is that while India has been "carpet-bombing" the IT industry in the United States over the past few years with cheap labor and low costs, ultimately they've been laying the ground work for their own, future demise.
If all you offer is low costs and a cheaper price, then there is nothing to keep customers loyal. As soon as someone else comes along with a cheaper price, your customers will move to them. All because of the trend you started!
Although I try to get outside of the sci-fi/fantasy genre, I find that I often don't make it very far. This summer will probably be no exception, because there are two very good fantasy books on the horizon.
Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth saga continues in Naked Empire . If you are not familiar with series, pick up Wizard's First Rule . Give it a few pages because it starts kind of slow, but it's definitely worth it.
The book I am most eagerly awaiting is A Feast For Crows , which is the fourth book in George R.R. Martin's spectacularly dismal A Song of Fire and Ice series. The series is a fantastic read, without the maudlin smoltz and pedantic melodrama often associated with epic fantasy. People die. Life is harsh. And the characters act, speak and behave with gritty realism. Pick up the first book, A Game of Thrones , and you'll see for yourself.
Outside of the strict confines of sci-fi and fantasy, Anne Rice has another book out in the Vampire Chronicles series. Blackwood Farm is not the best book in the series, but it is certainly a step above her last couple of books in the series.
Also, Larry McMurty has a new book coming out soon. The Wandering Hill continues The Berrybender Narrative begun in Sin Killer . Not familar with McMurtry? Read Lonesome Dove and then The Last Picture Show . You'll be hooked. This guy is one of the greatest American novelists of the last half of the 20th Century.
I am not an open source zealot, but I do have serious concerns about many of the projects that Microsoft has on the horizon, such as Palladium, the whole Trustyworthy Computing scheme, and Microsoft's push toward their proprietary Windows Media format. I see the purchase of an X-BOX as a $200 endorsement of Microsoft. And that's not something I am comfortable doing.
The whole DCMA debate leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I follow most of the discussions pertaining to the DCMA on Slashdot. In fact, it seems like the X-BOX is the focal point of much of the DCMA debate on this site. And while I agree that the DCMA is a terrible piece of legislation, I don't see the logic of buying and modding an X-BOX to protest the DCMA. It seems like the easiest thing to do is to avoid the DCMA entirely, or at least, to avoid the corporations that use the DCMA to prosecute consumers. I can render Microsoft's enforcement of the DCMA moot by not purchasing an X-BOX. If I want to hack around on a console, I think the best choice is a Dreamcast. I can run NetBSD on it, and since it is no longer a revenue stream for Sega, they are not going to go to legal expense of throwing the DCMA at enthusiasts who hack around on it.
Microsoft is making it difficult to buy an X-BOX without also making additional purchases, namely X-BOX Live! Some of the newer games, and especially many games on the horizon and in development, will simply not be playable without an X-BOX Live subscription. There is also at least one game out now for the X-BOX that virutally requires the purchase of an additional controller which costs nearly $100.00. It seems that this is a trend that Microsoft will continue. And it's a trend I have no desire to endorse.
Simply, I can write all of the vehement arguments I want against Microsoft and the DCMA. But if I were to open my wallet and plunk down the cash to buy one, I'd feel very hypocritical because the best way for me to protest the DCMA is to avoid the X-BOX altogether.
This is the solution I use. I bought a Leadtek WinFast TV2000 PCI Video Capture card for $29.95. Then made a trip to Radio Shack for the necessary RCA cables. You'll need one male RCA to male RCA for the video and another dual male RCA to headphone jack for your sound card. The cables were about $15.00 for both. So, for less than $50 bucks, you have a solution in place for transferring VHS to a digital format. The cool thing about the Leadtek card is that it includes software that lets you choose the format you want to use. The options are MPEG-1, MPEG-2, NTSC VCD, PAL VCD, DVD, or AVI. It also syncs the audio for you, so you avoid that very time-consuming task of ripping video and audio separately and then having to synch them up again.
The main thing is getting the VHS tapes converted in some fashion to your hard drive. Then, you really have many choices on how to proceed. I bought a Plextor DVD+R/W drive because I wanted the maximum compatibility with home DVD players. DVD-R is OK, but not quite as reliable as DVD+R, in my experience.
But a DVD burner is not an absolute requirement if you decide to burn SVCD or VCDs. You can use regular CD-R's which play in most home DVD players. I choose DVD+R just to cut down on the number of discs necessary to transfer a standard VHS tape.