I realize that you most probably know your environment - certainly better than I do - and that you have been given a task to do (implement scheduled noise alerts), but from your brief description I can't help but wonder if the degree of, um, discipline that you seek to enforce is really counter-productive. Environments where I've worked where employees are free to decide where their breaks will be, how long they are, or if they should skip them to finish this detail they are working on, things seem to be happier and more in control. I know, I'm being idealistic and probably unrealistic, but it needs to be said, and there, I said it.
While this is potentially redundant (I saw it above, but not prominently) it deserves repeating: you can't upload music that you download onto this device. This feature was omitted to keep us from spreading content. Personally, I would not pay several hundred dollars for a device crippled for no other reason than the makers appear to fear the wrath of the copyright holders. I would like to handle and copy all my legal content as I see fit, not be treated as a criminal out-of-the-box, so to speak.
Major Device Flaw, meet Private Interests: attention!.
>>"The frightening thing is that we are getting an animal like this newly reported in New Zealand waters today...so new and large, you've got to sit down and ask yourself 'What is it we know about the deep sea environment?'," O'Shea said.
The frightening thing is that we've been (people have been) fine-net trolling those depths and deeper, cleaning out species we know little about in an environment we know less about.
Um, I'll have the orange roughy please, extra tartar sauce.
...the form factor and functions of this device, but with 802.11b instead of a camera, and SD/MMC instead of a gumstick. Palm, are you listening? This seems *just about* a prime functional contender for Palm's introduction of their OS 5. Only by the time OS5 is ready this will be old and will need something a little bit newer on it - maybe more multimedia apps.
And thank you Sony for taking back the lead in the over-$500-handheld market.
According to the article, too much physics and too little IT: >> Though Darpa refused yesterday to confirm the dispute over the nominees, a spokeswoman said the move was in fact a reflection of Jason's inability to adjust its priorities to a post-cold-war world, where the physical sciences are no longer as important as information and computer sciences to the nation's security.
Wow. You can be a nobel laureate but without your MS Certification, you're out of a government job!
.... utility packages (costing millions!), the salesman of the vastly inferior product promised me that it would be rewritten to completely match the features of the product I preferred (it had nearly none of them), and that most of it would be done by the next release less than 6 months away. I was then flown to the "developent center" and introduced to the (1) developer who had just been hired, who was told to promise me the same thing. When I asked, I was told there were no plans in place, no direction, no schedule yet to make this happen "but you can be our model customer and drive it!".
It boggles my mind, but many within my own organization believed these people and I had quite the fight to keep from buying this and then being the one whose job it would be to make it work.
Put a wireless interface (802.11? or telco) on this device and the camera begins to make sense: a few FPS of the surroundings, or the owner.
Let's hope the urge passes to use these services.
on
Web Access on Handhelds
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
AvantGo does 2 things: transcodes content to fit the abysmally bad PDA screens (both pocket PC and Palm screens suck for web content display), and cache the content so you have it when you're walking around away from your cradle (which is where your desktop or laptop probably is located anyway). Can we all agree that sooner or later both of these problems will be resolved by improvements in technology and delivery? As others here have noted wireless connections will make the second need go away. Better PDAs and a solution to the screen issue will make the first unecessary. Neither of these needs are going away this week, but perhaps those at Avantgo see their product for what it is and are preparing to give up;-). Avantgo is not a solution, but a technical bandaid with a widow-of-life based on how long it takes these problems to be fixed at the source. Let's hope those that can will address the real problems.
I say this loving Avantgo: it does what it does amazingly well. Things would just be so much easier if it didn't need to be there, and it doesn't.
"Microsoft said this change would "make crystal clear what is now clear."
In other words, v2.0 of the settlement runs faster and with fewer bugs than ever before.
"Critics of Microsoft's disclosures -- including former Sen. John Tunney, D-Calif., who wrote the law -- accused the company of failing to disclose all its conversations with U.S. government officials. Microsoft called those "meritless complaints," and said Tunney's opinion, "coming over 25 years after enactment of the statute, is irrelevant as a legal matter."
In other words, this version of the law is no longer supported and you need to upgrade to the current version.
Why are we listening to con artists when determining the punishments for their crimes?
Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler said the company had proved during the trial that it is impossible to remove software features from Windows without damaging the operating system.
This has been incontrovertibly proven already: they removed common sense and reliability, and look at the mess they made.
Another solution as commercials become irrelevant because of technology: commericials evolve into product placement and lifestyle branding. Watch Friends or Ally Macbeal and the suits, food, furniture, shoes, toys, coffee, etc. replace the commericials. Truman-Show-esque. How this happens is up to the director (an open pitch for product, or a 'subtle' placement of a branded car).
Which of course happens now. But is an option if commercials get stripped out.
And as long as it takes intervention to strip out a commercial they will remain there and be effective to those that don't or can't take the trouble to strip them.
So (like Napster in the audio sphere) there is this incredible new video technology that makes the viewing experience fresh and convenient for people and results in more time spent in front of the TV, and the content providers want to crush it. They are squandering their opportunity to drive it to new places. This may be a good thing because I'm not sure I want to go where them that make this kinda decision would drive it.
Reminds me of Gillette and the Track3. They understood that there was a technology potential out there that would yield a much better consumer experience - a smoother shave and a longer lasting blade - and they made the smart choice to develop it themselves (at a cost of hundreds of millions), knowing it would cannibalize the market they already owned. They knew that it was inevitable and they better do something with it or the opportunity would be lost. They could have said "we own this already, it's cheaper to beat back the challengers than to develop this right now". So they move forward and everyone wins - they remain in control, consumers get a cheaper and better product.
Beat back the challengers, stifle technology, limit choice, hide behind copy protection - everyone loses.
>>Doyle said it was unlikely the shells passed through the ichthyosaur's intestines because they would have damaged the soft tissue.
>>``The only alternative is that the shells were vomited out, in much the same way that modern-day sperm whales regurgitate the indigestible beaks of squid they have eaten,'' he said.
So the reaction I get when I eat at Taco Bell, I have evolution to thank for that?
...(Biologist) and I don't know what most of the jargon in this song is about. But since hearing it on a Prairie Home Companion years ago, "It's a Long Way From Amphioxus" (sung to "It's a long way to Tipperary")has been my favorite science song.
http://newfish.mbl.edu/Course/Resources/amphioxu s. html
Your requirements are probably different from these, but I think anyone thinking about storing a large amount of data cost-effectively will benefit from reading about Brewster Kahle and the Wayback machine:
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/webservices/2002 /0 1/18/brewster.html
and at www.archive.org
I was lucky enough to get a tour through the facilities several weeks ago. It can reset your perspective to understand that fast archive and retrieval in a multi-terabyte database is being reliably done using cheap networked clone PCs with IDE hard drives and (mostly) free software. Buy a system that can handle terabytes, and fast, for the cost of one high-end database server!
Roughly, your education is what you study. The work you're paid to do you get to do by convincing someone you can do it (and then continuing to be able to do it) - it can have little to do with your degree or what you spent time studying. The fact that your field of study has little to do with what you might find yourself working on later is difficult for students to envision. Most haven't worked full-time for any length of time before. Counselors and curriculum planners leave you feeling that all these educational paths are really there to take you somewhere specific. Not!
It's very important to get a degree, any degree, but if your degree is in CS or Math or Heuristics or even (something non technical like) music it will mean little difference to someone who hires you to build a network, create an application, or run a server farm.
The biggest correlations between field-of-study and job lie in academics and professions like law and medicine and other obvious routes that have defined academic prereqs.
My advice: study what you enjoy studying and get any degree(s) until it's no longer fun. When it's time to find work look for something you feel is fun to work on. If the two don't match you'll figure out how to make it happen, because it's fun and you want to.
Simplistic, but true. But Whaddo I know?
Enjoy.
DB
Slashdot Mirror
I realize that you most probably know your environment - certainly better than I do - and that you have been given a task to do (implement scheduled noise alerts), but from your brief description I can't help but wonder if the degree of, um, discipline that you seek to enforce is really counter-productive. Environments where I've worked where employees are free to decide where their breaks will be, how long they are, or if they should skip them to finish this detail they are working on, things seem to be happier and more in control.
I know, I'm being idealistic and probably unrealistic, but it needs to be said, and there, I said it.
Good luck.
DB
The Archos can upload and download without restriction, like an external hard drive with an MP3 player built-on.
While this is potentially redundant (I saw it above, but not prominently) it deserves repeating: you can't upload music that you download onto this device. This feature was omitted to keep us from spreading content.
Personally, I would not pay several hundred dollars for a device crippled for no other reason than the makers appear to fear the wrath of the copyright holders. I would like to handle and copy all my legal content as I see fit, not be treated as a criminal out-of-the-box, so to speak.
Major Device Flaw, meet Private Interests: attention!.
>>"The frightening thing is that we are getting an animal like this newly reported in New Zealand waters today...so new and large, you've got to sit down and ask yourself 'What is it we know about the deep sea environment?'," O'Shea said.
The frightening thing is that we've been (people have been) fine-net trolling those depths and deeper, cleaning out species we know little about in an environment we know less about.
Um, I'll have the orange roughy please, extra tartar sauce.
...the form factor and functions of this device, but with 802.11b instead of a camera, and SD/MMC instead of a gumstick. Palm, are you listening? This seems *just about* a prime functional contender for Palm's introduction of their OS 5. Only by the time OS5 is ready this will be old and will need something a little bit newer on it - maybe more multimedia apps.
And thank you Sony for taking back the lead in the over-$500-handheld market.
According to the article, too much physics and too little IT:
>>
Though Darpa refused yesterday to confirm the dispute over the nominees, a spokeswoman said the move was in fact a reflection of Jason's inability to adjust its priorities to a post-cold-war world, where the physical sciences are no longer as important as information and computer sciences to the nation's security.
Wow. You can be a nobel laureate but without your MS Certification, you're out of a government job!
.... utility packages (costing millions!), the salesman of the vastly inferior product promised me that it would be rewritten to completely match the features of the product I preferred (it had nearly none of them), and that most of it would be done by the next release less than 6 months away. I was then flown to the "developent center" and introduced to the (1) developer who had just been hired, who was told to promise me the same thing. When I asked, I was told there were no plans in place, no direction, no schedule yet to make this happen "but you can be our model customer and drive it!".
It boggles my mind, but many within my own organization believed these people and I had quite the fight to keep from buying this and then being the one whose job it would be to make it work.
Go figure.
I want a set of pots and pans in this stuff!
Too many people here are confusing tides with waves.
Tides are the result of gravity from the moon and Sun.
Waves come mostly from wind blowing over the water, and that derives from Solar (illuminative) energy.
So we won't slow the Earth down by stopping the waves, not the way you fear.
realtime is a long way away.
And 15 seconds is a long time to wait. In my car I would be a 1/4 mile away by the time I knew where I had decided to go.
"The key is the repetitive chewing motion."
I'm off the diet right now.
Pass the pallet of Oreos, please.
Viaducts?
Via - ducts?
Via-no-chicken?
Via-no-horse?
Put a wireless interface (802.11? or telco) on this device and the camera begins to make sense: a few FPS of the surroundings, or the owner.
AvantGo does 2 things: transcodes content to fit the abysmally bad PDA screens (both pocket PC and Palm screens suck for web content display), and cache the content so you have it when you're walking around away from your cradle (which is where your desktop or laptop probably is located anyway). Can we all agree that sooner or later both of these problems will be resolved by improvements in technology and delivery? ;-). Avantgo is not a solution, but a technical bandaid with a widow-of-life based on how long it takes these problems to be fixed at the source.
As others here have noted wireless connections will make the second need go away. Better PDAs and a solution to the screen issue will make the first unecessary.
Neither of these needs are going away this week, but perhaps those at Avantgo see their product for what it is and are preparing to give up
Let's hope those that can will address the real problems.
I say this loving Avantgo: it does what it does amazingly well. Things would just be so much easier if it didn't need to be there, and it doesn't.
Is this all it takes to keep Windows off the market? Let's settle this puppy, call his bluff, and move on.
The world will be a better place.
Consider:
"Microsoft said this change would "make crystal clear what is now clear."
In other words, v2.0 of the settlement runs faster and with fewer bugs than ever before.
"Critics of Microsoft's disclosures -- including former Sen. John Tunney, D-Calif., who wrote the law -- accused the company of failing to disclose all its conversations with U.S. government officials. Microsoft called those "meritless complaints," and said Tunney's opinion, "coming over 25 years after enactment of the statute, is irrelevant as a legal matter."
In other words, this version of the law is no longer supported and you need to upgrade to the current version.
Why are we listening to con artists when determining the punishments for their crimes?
This could be a killer app: harness the power of my swift kicks to the case when it freezes.
Finally a reason to load Windows!
Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler said the company had proved during the trial that it is impossible to remove software features from Windows without damaging the operating system.
This has been incontrovertibly proven already: they removed common sense and reliability, and look at the mess they made.
Another solution as commercials become irrelevant because of technology: commericials evolve into product placement and lifestyle branding. Watch Friends or Ally Macbeal and the suits, food, furniture, shoes, toys, coffee, etc. replace the commericials. Truman-Show-esque. How this happens is up to the director (an open pitch for product, or a 'subtle' placement of a branded car).
Which of course happens now. But is an option if commercials get stripped out.
And as long as it takes intervention to strip out a commercial they will remain there and be effective to those that don't or can't take the trouble to strip them.
So (like Napster in the audio sphere) there is this incredible new video technology that makes the viewing experience fresh and convenient for people and results in more time spent in front of the TV, and the content providers want to crush it. They are squandering their opportunity to drive it to new places. This may be a good thing because I'm not sure I want to go where them that make this kinda decision would drive it.
Reminds me of Gillette and the Track3. They understood that there was a technology potential out there that would yield a much better consumer experience - a smoother shave and a longer lasting blade - and they made the smart choice to develop it themselves (at a cost of hundreds of millions), knowing it would cannibalize the market they already owned. They knew that it was inevitable and they better do something with it or the opportunity would be lost. They could have said "we own this already, it's cheaper to beat back the challengers than to develop this right now". So they move forward and everyone wins - they remain in control, consumers get a cheaper and better product.
Beat back the challengers, stifle technology, limit choice, hide behind copy protection - everyone loses.
>>Doyle said it was unlikely the shells passed through the ichthyosaur's intestines because they would have damaged the soft tissue.
>>``The only alternative is that the shells were vomited out, in much the same way that modern-day sperm whales regurgitate the indigestible beaks of squid they have eaten,'' he said.
So the reaction I get when I eat at Taco Bell, I have evolution to thank for that?
...(Biologist) and I don't know what most of the jargon in this song is about. But since hearing it on a Prairie Home Companion years ago, "It's a Long Way From Amphioxus" (sung to "It's a long way to Tipperary")has been my favorite science song.
u s. html
http://newfish.mbl.edu/Course/Resources/amphiox
Cheers,
DB
Oops! I thought this was familiar. The Wayback Machine was Slashdotted (!) recently:2 40
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/23/139
Your requirements are probably different from these, but I think anyone thinking about storing a large amount of data cost-effectively will benefit from reading about Brewster Kahle and the Wayback machine:2 /0 1/18/brewster.html
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/webservices/200
and at www.archive.org
I was lucky enough to get a tour through the facilities several weeks ago. It can reset your perspective to understand that fast archive and retrieval in a multi-terabyte database is being reliably done using cheap networked clone PCs with IDE hard drives and (mostly) free software. Buy a system that can handle terabytes, and fast, for the cost of one high-end database server!
Roughly, your education is what you study. The work you're paid to do you get to do by convincing someone you can do it (and then continuing to be able to do it) - it can have little to do with your degree or what you spent time studying. The fact that your field of study has little to do with what you might find yourself working on later is difficult for students to envision. Most haven't worked full-time for any length of time before. Counselors and curriculum planners leave you feeling that all these educational paths are really there to take you somewhere specific. Not!
It's very important to get a degree, any degree, but if your degree is in CS or Math or Heuristics or even (something non technical like) music it will mean little difference to someone who hires you to build a network, create an application, or run a server farm.
The biggest correlations between field-of-study and job lie in academics and professions like law and medicine and other obvious routes that have defined academic prereqs.
My advice: study what you enjoy studying and get any degree(s) until it's no longer fun. When it's time to find work look for something you feel is fun to work on. If the two don't match you'll figure out how to make it happen, because it's fun and you want to.
Simplistic, but true. But Whaddo I know?
Enjoy.
DB