SGI has been in trouble for a long time. Now that commodity computers are so powerful, nobody goes to them for graphics workstations. That leaves them with supercomputer/servers, and "visualization stations" (basically supercomputers configured as very expensive workstations). They've never done well in the server market: it's hard to compete with IBM and Sun, plus their "Jurassic Park" image is a hard sell in the coporate world. They do better with the VW market, but that's not enough to keep them in espresso.
When I worked for them in 99, they already had cash flow issues, and had had them for some time. But Wall Street has always loved them, so they always got more cash when they needed it. Many people who worked there thought this was actually a bad thing. I guess Wall Street has finally figured out that their business model is just not working.
I went from SGI to Borland, which has cash up the wazoo. They got a huge patent settlement (disguised as an investment) from Microsoft, and have mostly been in the black lately. But Wall Street doesn't trust Borland: too much weirdness. (Personal trauma prevents me from being specific.) So we were always under pressure to cut costs. I once had to go all the way to Dale Fuller for a $200 memory upgrade!
Publically held companies live and die at the sufferance of Wall Street, no matter how well, or how badly, they're doing. I imagine that's why Google is still privately held, even though an IPO would make a lot of the people there -- maybe not rich, but certainly comfortable.
Actually you have. Thicknet cable was just CATV-grade coaxial cable. I don't know how similar this is to the coaxial jumpers that comes with a VCR. I seem to recall it was harder to bend. In this 1976 paper, Metcalfe and colleague explain that they used this stuff because it was readily available. But even then they foresaw the use of twisted pair.
I shouldn't spoil a perfectly good joke, but I just realized that twisted-pair Ethernet, which is what everybody uses today, is only about 12 years old. Thirty years ago, you would have been looking for something to drive a spike into a CATV cable, which is how early Ethernet was implemented.
Oh hey, found a Commmunications of the ACMarticle by Metcalf and Boggs about their early work on Ethernet. Good read.
I can see where the Segway works for you. You live just close enough to work to make the Segway a practical commute vehicle. And from what I recall of your neighborhood (only saw it briefly and some time ago) it's an idea place an 8mph vehicle (you do drive with the "sidewalk" key, right?).
Alas, you're not very typical. Most people live farther from work than you do, or in less hospitible environments. Mostly both!
It's interesting that you count increased human interaction as a plus for Segway commuting. I applaud your attitude, but you've probably heard all the people who say, "My car is the only place I can be alone!"
Hey, does Fallon need a tech writer? No? Had to ask.
Well, if we don't have to give specifics about anything, let me just proclaim that everything I say is totally correct and I never am wrong about anything! I win all arguments, forever!
Two interesting bits of trivia. First, note that Xerox, which did all the early R&D for Ethernet, is mentioned only in passing. As with the GUI revolution and OOP, Xerox did all the pioneering, but dropped the ball when it came to actually profitting from it.
Second, Metcalfe defines "broadband" to mean "high bitrate" rather than "uses a broad frequency band". Nitpickers like me have been quibbling over this change in definitions, but if someone like Metcalfe has gone over, it's time to let it drop!
It's funny. My nephew wanted to network his house. I've never done anything like that but I knew what was involved. So I naively said, "OK, let's go down to CompUSA, get some Cat5, some rj45 connectors, and a crimper." CompUSA had the cable and the connectors, but no crimpers! We went down the street to a Radio Shack, which had crimpers and cable, but the cable wasn't pre-packaged, and the clerks were clueless as to how to sell it. They had connectors too, but they were absurdly expensive.
Is there an IQ ceiling on electronics retailing or what?
I certainly agree that the penny is way overdue for retirement. Although your $n.99 argument is a little spurious, at least in places where they charge sales tax.
Anyway, getting rid of the penny would be just the thing to save the dollar coin. Consider how most people get coins: they receive them from merchants as change. Merchants don't like stocking more than 4 kinds of coins, which is why nobody uses half-dollar or dollar coins.
(Yes, we (the U.S.) have half-dollar coins! Haven't even seen one for years. They're too big for vending machines, as were the old Eisenhower dollars. But they're still available.)
If we did away with pennies, that would make room in the cash registers for dollar coins. Having those would make it a lot easier to pay transit fares, tolls, and to buy those overpriced soft drinks everybody guzzles.
Yikes! I knew it was big (used to work next door to the microprocessor campus in Mountain View), but bigger than IBM, Motorola, AMD? I assume #1 is Intel.
I wonder how much of this is ego and politics. How many companies besides Sun use the Sparc processor any more? Of course, they have other products, like picoJava, but none of these have taken off. It might be difficult to justify such a huge R&D operation as commodity processors grab more and more of the server and workstation market.
Well, at least we agree on some things. How can you not worship a Goddess whose "issues" include "selfish mortals" who won't let her destroy their universe?!
One thing Joss Whedon absolutely does better than anybody else is bad guys. They're so damned self-righteous!
From what I've heard, Whedon is trying very, very hard to revive Firefly in some form. Most people in his position would have given up by now. I think this particular show is very important to him.
Possibly he thinks he could have saved the series if he hadn't been so overcommitted (three active series, and development work on two more). Probably not true: I think a lot of Fox people either didn't understand Firefly or just didn't think such a high-budget series could be profitable. (Reality shows are so much cheaper to produce!) Still, it would have had a better chance if Whedon had been able to fight the network's creative meddling and idiotic scheduling.
I once read an interview with him, where's he's standing on the bridge of Serenity (the set is a complete mockup of the ship) and proclaiming that he's in "Geek Heaven". Ever since Fox pulled the series, I've been watching the news for reports that the set has been broken up. Unless I missed that report, he's keeping that set around, which must be costing him a mint. If he gives up and gets rid of the set, then we'll know that Firefly is dead, no mouth-to-mouth, no resurrection spell!
Dude, I did see the episode. But it doesn't sound like you've seen any of the other episodes in which the character evolved, building up his self-confidence and coping skills as he went.
But it's got a damned USB cable dangling from it! Yeah, it tucks into the wristband. But it's still pretty ugly. Probably get damaged pretty quickly too.
The connector problem makes me think that the concept of a USB watch is pretty dumb. You have to provide the connector. With a USB key fob, you just build it into the fob, and provide a cover or make it retractable. Can't do that with a watch.
And a person can forget his watch (God knows I do) but you can't go anywhere without your keys.
But what do I know? I thought nobody would buy those remote control watches.
Responding to viewer feedback is all very well, but that's not what I was talking about. When I say that TV shows and movies are collaborations, I'm talking about the people who work on the production. For example, it's pretty common for actors to have some say as to how their characters develop. If the actor's intelligent, and not just playing star ego games, this is a good thing, because it assures that somebody is keeping track of the character's evolution. But Whedon is firmly in the "just hit your marks and say your lines" camp.
(It's probably worth mentioning that Whedon passionately believes that some of the actors in the Buffy movie wereplaying star ego games. Even if its true, it doesn't validate a Kremlin model of production.)
I think that's a big reason Season 6 went so thoroughly wrong. It wasn't because it was "dark" -- Buffy has always been dark. What made it unbearable is that none of the characters seemed to be going anywhere.
One thing that particularly bugged me was Xander's poorly explained attack of cowardice in the wedding episode. (I guess this is an issue for me because "The Zeppo" is pretty much my favorite episode -- especially Xander's non-dialogue with Cordelia at the end.) If anybody had been tracking the character properly, they would have realized that it made no sense for him to suddenly lose his nerve. They would have found another way to break up his relationship with Anya, or simply eliminated the (not very interesting) subarc about their subsequent conflict and reconciliation. Instead, Whedon and the other writers just said, "Sorry, Nic, Emma, we need the marriage not to happen. Not open to debate." Big mistake.
Mind you, I'm not saying that Whedon should become one of those dweebs at the beck and call of soulless studio/network execs and idiotic focus groups. He has his vision, and he needs to defend it -- it's why we all love him. But he needs to understand that he can't realize that vision alone.
I once heard Jodie Foster say that making a movie is like raising a child. It's something nobody can do alone, and if the whole thing is successful, your project has a life all it's own. Not just true for kids and movies!
I'm forced to agree. Except that Whedon's basic problem isn't fatigue -- that's just a symptom. It's that he keeps overreaching himself.
Consider the "First Evil" arc. They started that one over four years ago!!! Yeah, I know we you like the way he plants clues and goes for a slow buildup. So do I. But that buildup looks like the workers were drunk and AWOL half the time!
The whole series is full of stuff like that. My favorite villain in all of genre fiction is Glorificus, The Fashion Queen from Another Dimension. But I was only able to enjoy her arc by nodding at the plot inconsistencies you could drive a truck through. A willing fan can do that for a while (hence Star Trek), but Buffy fans have less patience.
I think if Joss Whedon is going to remain a major player (and I do hope he manages to revive Firefly) he's gonna have to rethink his working style. TV and movies are collaborative media, yet he insists that all the big insights be his and his alone. That prevents people from hijacking his vehicles (as happened with the Buffy movie) but also prevents people from telling him when his clothes are no invisible, but missing. No wonder Buffy got so far off track.
Seems to me that the only way out is to be very smart consumers and to insist on life-cycle resource accounting to correctly allocate costs.
Nice idea. But right now we can't even get companies to properly expense more straightforward costs.
If the cost of a car included all the environmental impact of the car, there'd be a lot fewer cars sold. Might be just as well in the long run, but in the mean time a lot of auto industry people will be out of work. Except things will never get that far: as soon as you start agitating for LCRA, everybody will denounce it as "tree-hugger mumbo jumbo". I can already see the Rush Limbaugh diatribe.
Slashdot Mirror
When I worked for them in 99, they already had cash flow issues, and had had them for some time. But Wall Street has always loved them, so they always got more cash when they needed it. Many people who worked there thought this was actually a bad thing. I guess Wall Street has finally figured out that their business model is just not working.
I went from SGI to Borland, which has cash up the wazoo. They got a huge patent settlement (disguised as an investment) from Microsoft, and have mostly been in the black lately. But Wall Street doesn't trust Borland: too much weirdness. (Personal trauma prevents me from being specific.) So we were always under pressure to cut costs. I once had to go all the way to Dale Fuller for a $200 memory upgrade!
Publically held companies live and die at the sufferance of Wall Street, no matter how well, or how badly, they're doing. I imagine that's why Google is still privately held, even though an IPO would make a lot of the people there -- maybe not rich, but certainly comfortable.
I wonder how long we can keep this up?
Oh hey, found a Commmunications of the ACM article by Metcalf and Boggs about their early work on Ethernet. Good read.
Oh, you speak for all of Slashdot, do you? How nice!
Alas, you're not very typical. Most people live farther from work than you do, or in less hospitible environments. Mostly both!
It's interesting that you count increased human interaction as a plus for Segway commuting. I applaud your attitude, but you've probably heard all the people who say, "My car is the only place I can be alone!"
Hey, does Fallon need a tech writer? No? Had to ask.
Other definitions appear on the net, but none of them make any sense!
Well, if we don't have to give specifics about anything, let me just proclaim that everything I say is totally correct and I never am wrong about anything! I win all arguments, forever!
Hey, let's distinguish between stupidity and catatonia!
Second, Metcalfe defines "broadband" to mean "high bitrate" rather than "uses a broad frequency band". Nitpickers like me have been quibbling over this change in definitions, but if someone like Metcalfe has gone over, it's time to let it drop!
Is there an IQ ceiling on electronics retailing or what?
If you're a "free software" true believer, I guess that column must irritate. But I don't see anything stupid about it. Care to get specific?
Anyway, getting rid of the penny would be just the thing to save the dollar coin. Consider how most people get coins: they receive them from merchants as change. Merchants don't like stocking more than 4 kinds of coins, which is why nobody uses half-dollar or dollar coins.
(Yes, we (the U.S.) have half-dollar coins! Haven't even seen one for years. They're too big for vending machines, as were the old Eisenhower dollars. But they're still available.)
If we did away with pennies, that would make room in the cash registers for dollar coins. Having those would make it a lot easier to pay transit fares, tolls, and to buy those overpriced soft drinks everybody guzzles.
I wonder how much of this is ego and politics. How many companies besides Sun use the Sparc processor any more? Of course, they have other products, like picoJava, but none of these have taken off. It might be difficult to justify such a huge R&D operation as commodity processors grab more and more of the server and workstation market.
One thing Joss Whedon absolutely does better than anybody else is bad guys. They're so damned self-righteous!
Possibly he thinks he could have saved the series if he hadn't been so overcommitted (three active series, and development work on two more). Probably not true: I think a lot of Fox people either didn't understand Firefly or just didn't think such a high-budget series could be profitable. (Reality shows are so much cheaper to produce!) Still, it would have had a better chance if Whedon had been able to fight the network's creative meddling and idiotic scheduling.
I once read an interview with him, where's he's standing on the bridge of Serenity (the set is a complete mockup of the ship) and proclaiming that he's in "Geek Heaven". Ever since Fox pulled the series, I've been watching the news for reports that the set has been broken up. Unless I missed that report, he's keeping that set around, which must be costing him a mint. If he gives up and gets rid of the set, then we'll know that Firefly is dead, no mouth-to-mouth, no resurrection spell!
Dude, I did see the episode. But it doesn't sound like you've seen any of the other episodes in which the character evolved, building up his self-confidence and coping skills as he went.
The connector problem makes me think that the concept of a USB watch is pretty dumb. You have to provide the connector. With a USB key fob, you just build it into the fob, and provide a cover or make it retractable. Can't do that with a watch.
And a person can forget his watch (God knows I do) but you can't go anywhere without your keys.
But what do I know? I thought nobody would buy those remote control watches.
There do seem to be some people who loved S6. I don't know what to say to them. Maybe it's just that even a bad Buffy ep is better than most TV.
(It's probably worth mentioning that Whedon passionately believes that some of the actors in the Buffy movie were playing star ego games. Even if its true, it doesn't validate a Kremlin model of production.)
I think that's a big reason Season 6 went so thoroughly wrong. It wasn't because it was "dark" -- Buffy has always been dark. What made it unbearable is that none of the characters seemed to be going anywhere.
One thing that particularly bugged me was Xander's poorly explained attack of cowardice in the wedding episode. (I guess this is an issue for me because "The Zeppo" is pretty much my favorite episode -- especially Xander's non-dialogue with Cordelia at the end.) If anybody had been tracking the character properly, they would have realized that it made no sense for him to suddenly lose his nerve. They would have found another way to break up his relationship with Anya, or simply eliminated the (not very interesting) subarc about their subsequent conflict and reconciliation. Instead, Whedon and the other writers just said, "Sorry, Nic, Emma, we need the marriage not to happen. Not open to debate." Big mistake.
Mind you, I'm not saying that Whedon should become one of those dweebs at the beck and call of soulless studio/network execs and idiotic focus groups. He has his vision, and he needs to defend it -- it's why we all love him. But he needs to understand that he can't realize that vision alone.
I once heard Jodie Foster say that making a movie is like raising a child. It's something nobody can do alone, and if the whole thing is successful, your project has a life all it's own. Not just true for kids and movies!
You have me confused with somebody who can watch B5 without nausea. No, let's not get into the usual flame war. Been there, done that.
Consider the "First Evil" arc. They started that one over four years ago!!! Yeah, I know we you like the way he plants clues and goes for a slow buildup. So do I. But that buildup looks like the workers were drunk and AWOL half the time!
The whole series is full of stuff like that. My favorite villain in all of genre fiction is Glorificus, The Fashion Queen from Another Dimension. But I was only able to enjoy her arc by nodding at the plot inconsistencies you could drive a truck through. A willing fan can do that for a while (hence Star Trek), but Buffy fans have less patience.
I think if Joss Whedon is going to remain a major player (and I do hope he manages to revive Firefly) he's gonna have to rethink his working style. TV and movies are collaborative media, yet he insists that all the big insights be his and his alone. That prevents people from hijacking his vehicles (as happened with the Buffy movie) but also prevents people from telling him when his clothes are no invisible, but missing. No wonder Buffy got so far off track.
If the cost of a car included all the environmental impact of the car, there'd be a lot fewer cars sold. Might be just as well in the long run, but in the mean time a lot of auto industry people will be out of work. Except things will never get that far: as soon as you start agitating for LCRA, everybody will denounce it as "tree-hugger mumbo jumbo". I can already see the Rush Limbaugh diatribe.