Having read a lot of the responses (though not all), I am surprised this point does not come up.
When Linus Torvalds started Linux, he obviously did it for love not money. Indeed the early contributors were driven by their ideals.
But the SUCCESS of Linux is because a lot of those big companies (IBM, Sun/Oracle, Intel, Google,...) need a way to keep the Microsoft Windows monopoly in line.
Remember that for decades (1980-2000) they tried to do that by offering their proprietary UNIX operating systems. That failed miserably, which is the main reason they were forced to learn and band together around Linux.
I like Linux, I think its great. But the SUCCESS of the open source movement, and especially Linux, owes everything to the scare Microsoft has given the entire industry.
So: the people who are being payed to write Linux, are getting the money because they are producing the most credible challenge to MS. It has nothing at all to do with high ideals.
OK, better late then never. Good that Google has finally introduced HTTPS as a default.
Now the next feature we all need is encryption of the content of our data when it is at rest on disks in Google's data center. That way even Google employees cannot read our mail. Not for serving up ads. Not for any reason whatsoever.
Wow, that is simply the most pathetic attempt at creating a human-centric definition of life Ive seen... and Im a biologist, so Ive seen plenty of strange ideas.
You know - the simple fact that you need to be rude already shows your argument will be full of holes. And as to being a Biologist, well my training is in Physics and Math. Your training does not make you a more profound philosopher, nor do your manners.
But I want to argue about the substance, not just the style. So here goes.
To make a very direct point: sure its true that we are
just made up of 1 part living stuff and the other 10 parts are non-living
.
In fact, if you come to it from the point of view of a Physicist, its even a higher ratio. Most of what we are is chemistry and matter. That is 99.9% of what we are.
But that matter and its chemistry is configured by its DNA so that it can process information. If you measure it by "bulk", processing of information is a tiny part of what we do, barely visible externally.
Which means to say that "bulk" isn't everything. Being able to perceive is a significant "phase shift" in our state of being. It is a big big thing, just not bulky...
You are wrong on one more point. This is not an argument for a human-centric world. Cats and Lizards and Jellyfish can also perceive. They are just as much alive.
OK, enough said. Try to be more polite and thoughtful. Not for my sake but your own. You'll get more out of life.
As posts above testify, the word "evolution" is used more and more in contexts that have nothing to do with life.
For example people talk a lot about the evolution of ideas, societies, and so on... Quite possibly, the philosopher Wilson is one of the popularizers of this approach.
Anyway, this also leads to a different point - Evolution by itself is not a proof of the existence of Life. For example, Ideas or Societies are not living organisms, yet they do evolve.
So the fact that prions evolve does not mean they are alive! One can fairly say that they are just a chemical (a protein) that can reproduce itself, evolve, and do damage.
In Science, Mathematics and Philosophy, it is very common to take "edge cases" in order to better understand the limits of an idea. Prions give us a good example of something that can reproduce and evolve, yet its a chemical not a living organism.
So what is "Life" ? Perhaps we should require the ability to perceive - awareness of ones surroundings - in order to define true life? In that case Bacteria aren't alive either, which is fine by me.
Jellyfish and Lizards do qualify as alive. More generally, you would need some sort of functioning nervous system (however primitive) to be "alive". Brain-dead people would possibly not be "alive" by this definition.
Alzoron has it right! In fact, in any NEW project, even for a large company, trying to get the myriad payments right is extremely onerous.
I happen to have experience with the topic from a project I did - even if you have a big budget and months of time its not easy.
Remember that the internet is global. If the USA charges sales tax based on the location of the CUSTOMER, then all countries in the world can and would do the same.
Imagine trying to get that right given millions of towns and counties all over the world.
I wish I knew enough about how we evolved to become such flexible animals. You may be right that learning to use fire was a milestone.
Others may feel that walking upright was the critical factor; or perhaps omnivore behavior; or perhaps the development of our language skills.
I don't know; and your take may be correct. I am just saying that we ARE flexible animals, and that - however it came to be - is a big part of what makes us human.
Well, novar21, I see your point. But if we are dependant on TV etc then we have lost the fight without a struggle.
True fact: my family does not have a TV at our home, though we do have a DVD. The result: my children actually read books, as well as watch relatively high-quality movies.
In other words: education is not just about the educational "system". We as parents can and should take control.
Lets all look around us; people who read books have not moved en-masse to e-books. So how come Amazon is announcing sales of e-books have surpassed regular books?
There is a trendiness effect. People who usually do NOT read books may still buy an e-book reader for someone else... esepcially on official toy-giving day a.k.a xmas.
Sure, eventually e-book readers make sense and will replace paper. I'm just saying that day is not now.
In fact, by the time e-book readers replace paper, they may look like paper themselves. There is a tech trend towards computers that are as thin as a sheet of paper...
Personally I like paper, so I will buy an e-book when it catches up and becomes as thin as paper. Not long to wait - a year or three.
The interesting bit in the article is about modern-day Cybrogs and how we and machines are getting integrated. Of course the article is designed to startle - after all people will read it only if it challenges them. But should we really be scared?
It is not really any more alarming then "machines that can actually create cloth" were in the early 19th century. That too was a ceding of a human ability to machine enhancement.
We need to realize that we always were part machine - albeit chemical and biological ones, rather than electrical and metal ones.
So what makes us human? Certainly not emotion, that is easy to simulate. Perhaps it is free will, social intelligence and an inquisitive inventive mind ? Perhaps it is the combination of all this in a single package: we are multi-purpose, FLEXIBLE, animals.
And what if a machine can be built that would do all that, and would be just as multi-purpose? Intellectually that would simply prove our own nature: multi-purpose flexible machines is what we are. Politically it would be something we can legislate against if we dislike it: after all we already have humans; why build a "mark II" if we like "mark I" ?
Our humanity is in danger from only one thing: laziness. If, due to our own laziness we give away our free will, social intelligence and inquisitive inventive mind - then we are in trouble.
That would happen if we allow educational standards to keep slipping. It certainly could happen, but its up to us.
Come on, be fair.
Look - I am not a Microsoft employee and not a relative of the Gates family. But still, why so bitter?
You can check and see that billions of USD have really truly gone from the 'Bill and Melinda Gates' foundation to various health research causes around the world.
Its easy to check, its public information.
Remember the days when Microsoft was "evil" and Google everyone's darling?
Then Bill Gates contributed $40bn to the world in history's single biggest act of charity, Microsoft's domination looked for a while like it really was slipping, and Google simply became too big.
Google has simply become everybody's competitor.
Example: the Chrome browser competes directly with Mozilla's Firefox. Not that this was the reason for that blog post, of course;-)
Another example: Google is so big that its people don't talk to each other, to the extent that they are building two incompatible operating systems (Android and Chrome OS).
Another example: the publishing industry has set its sights on Google, for the crime of taking away too much of their Ad revenue. They are contemplating de-indexing Google.
So Microsoft, once the "evil empire", is now champion of Liberty. Well, that is good; because they never were that evil, so some redress is in order.
And Bill Gates did contribute $40bn to the world. When Sergei Brin, Larry page and Eric Schmidt do the same with their personal fortunes, we can all go back to normal.
Bottom line: businesses are for-profit affairs. The best restraint on them is competition. We the people should keep Microsoft and Google both on their toes, for our own best interest.
And we should remember that people like Gates, Brin, Schmidt & Page are good good people at heart. They are creative. They contribute. Just like everyone, we need to set them straight from time to time.
(sorry may be some confusion - a double post since the previous one inadvertently was anonymous)
To better understand how this works, I went to the Tehnion website.
Sand is actually Silicon-dioxide (combined silicon and oxygen). Pure silicon interacts with oxygen form the air to create sand. That's first-year normal chemistry. Usually such an interaction produces heat not electricity.
They built the battery from pure silicon, and the trick is that Oxygen from the air has to pass through a membrane to get to the silicon and oxidize it. The membrane will allow only oxygen ions through, so electrons have to flow the other way to match up with the ions and maintain overall neutrality. Hence you get a current instead of only heat.
Of course it will take some years to commercialize. Small applications will come first (small batteries), only later will we get big batteries (for cars?) and even later rechargeable stuff (if at all).
I noticed many people are skeptical - but this is normal in science and engineering. Any real innovation raises new questions that must be answered.
Kudos to the Israeli team, and their collaborators from USA & Japan.
You got a lot of posts pointing out the error of your ways; basically what people are saying - it sounds gung ho, there is no clear reasoning in the post justifying your shift.
Maybe they are a bit strong but note there is a lot of experience behind them.
Having said that, I would like to take a kinder gentler tone. Once you go through your fundamental reasons for wanting change, I'd suggest you choose ONE big thing that you want to do. Changing everything at once is usually not so hot.
So what could be a goal that would make your users happier and you a hero? Well, don't know, but I can tell what is typical in many such cases
- lowering capital costs (less spending on physical servers and their maintenance) while keeping everything running is one; cloud computing may help on that
- faster performance is one, but only in those places were users are actually complaining. Making a list of those places and fixing them one at a time would be an approach.
- new business needs is another one, but for that - leave everything that works alone and focus on solving very well the new business need. Your partners are your CEO, CFO, marketing etc...
For example, seems from your post that the overall architecture of the system is actually quite decent. So you may want to just repeat that same architecture in an updated way in a cloud computing approach, save some money and prepare for the next computing trend. If you decide that is for you, move one server at a time, arrange fail-over in the cloud, and prove one-at-a-time that it works as fast as the old stuff.
Bit of advice: don't just do virtualization without knowing why. If the business reason is economics, then jump over virtualization to the next trend, cloud computing. If it isn't economics, don't bother with virtualization at all.
Many mobile handsets on the market have wifi abilities. This means - when you are at home - they can talk with your home wifi router to do home-based calling rather than using the cell network.
Quite separately, many of these mobiles also have the ability for software installations that will sync your mobile phone with your contacts, calendar and email.
I use an app called "RoadSync" - they have a website, google them. It works pretty well for me.
The combination of these two separate abilities means:
- You can use mobile sets also as your home phone without paying cellular prices.
- When they are on your home wifi net, you are also using less intense radiation
- You are fully sync-ed with your email contacts and calendar
The drawback is that mobile sets can be a bit more expensive then home cordless phones. You need to research the features and prices.
Umm, just to set things straight, I certainly don't think its about magic. Evolution happened. Maybe you believe Darwin was exactly right, maybe you are a neo-Darwinist looking to do better, but either way Evolution has plenty of empirical proof on its side.
We do have some empirical info. For example:
- the failure of radio astronomy to detect signals coming from other civilizations
- the calculations being done by several people, based on evolutionary science and bio-chemistry, of the probability of life forming spontaneously
These data are not much, that is true; but they are sufficient to make the rough estimate I made.
This is important for practical reasons. Missions to Mars can carry only so many experiments. I am saying, lets dump the experiment for "little green bacteria" and include a couple more likely to really teach us something new.
The current priority for "little green bacteria" experiments is a result of the faith-based process described above. I like science at its most empirical.
"Because, that's why" is a great answer, agreed, for a scientist pursuing his/her own personal vision. Albert Einstein at the Bern post office or a 100,000 other people use that answer, and it has delivered great results for humanity.
But in this case - its not a case of pursuing a personal vision. Obtaining empirical evidence would require a mission to Mars, and it can carry only so many experiments at so much cost.
Personally I am more interested in experiments that will shed light on - for example - planetary formation - then little green bacteria.
The moment the public has to finance the research, the public has the right to talk about its priorities.
The "life on Mars" science-fiction has been with us since the "Canals on Mars" bunk. Little green bacteria are one more step in that chain of debunked claims.
Its a faith-based process of prioritization, sucking up time and money that would be better spent elsewhere. Not a science-based empiricism-driven process. Enough already.
The currently known empirical facts are sketchy, but they include a few known data points:
- the failure of radio astronomy to detect signals coming from other civilizations
- the calculations being done by several people, based on evolutionary science and bio-chemistry, of the probability of life forming spontaneously
These data are not much, that is true; but they are sufficient to make the estimate I made.
I think that is also pretty rational; so no need to make comments about my "rationality" just because you do not like the conclusion.
Why do we expect or hope that earth-like life forms will be found elsewhere?
The question of whether life in the form of bacteria (or something even more exotic) exists on Mars is hotly debated, and still requires a resolute yes or no
Ho hummm... We have had this debate going on since the "canals" were discovered on mars only to be debunked.
Once upon a time 600 years ago, people "knew" they are at the center of the universe. We were unique, chosen by heaven to lord it over the animals and created in the image of heaven. That was the view of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and also of the eastern empires (remember the "Emperor of Heaven") ?
Nowadays there is a large substantial minority of people whose thinking is guided by science. For this very substantial minority - debunking the "humans are at the center" myth is an article of faith. Finding the aliens - little green men or bacteria on mars - is important as an act of faith not just science.
It is important to separate real empirical science from the pseudo-science that is really an alternative system of belief. If we just look at empirical facts, the probability of finding life twice in the same solar system is not huge.
Anthropo-centric theology/philosophy was rightly debunked by Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin and Einstein.
Anti-anthropo-centric thinking equally deserves to be debunked. Science is about empirical evidence. Full stop.
Most of the people here - including the author of the article - are not legal experts. Lets talk of public interest rather than about legalities. Once the public interest is clarified - either case law and appeals will get us to the right place, or if necessary laws can be changed.
The internet has certainly made life easier for everybody. And sadly that includes the bad guys. The benefits we all enjoy - instant communication, enormous growth in available information, enormous improvement in the timeliness of information, ability to get answers to many questions, unprecedented marketing and advertising possibilities - help the bad guys just as much.
And I am not even talking of terrorists, pedophiles, and the like...
Having said that - its not repeat not enough of an argument to justify a policy of unrestricted search and seizure when data is stored at a third party. Some reasons:
the bad guys are clever at gaming the system; for example THEY do know how to encrypt their sensitive emails. So the damage will hit ordinary folks disproportionally while the crooks will often be able to evade
we all benefit from the growth of the internet, for example the recent surge in cloud computing. Do we really want to dampen this progress with legal concerns about privacy?
This is not to say that we should let the bad guys off the hook entirely. It may be new laws are needed.
Yup, everybody commenting that publishing eBooks is not the same as buying eBooks - is right. Absolutely.
But its still interesting because people would not be spending time on it - unless they thought there is a market.
The underlying trend is that mobile internet usage is very much going mainstream. This means the audience is not just fanboys and gamers. People who like reading a book - are joining up.
One wonders how this will impact the wider real-time web. SMS-ing from your mobile to twitter is a big thing right now. As people who actually read books - something longer than 140 chars - join the trend, the center of the market may shift.
Worth watching.
Privacy and the real-time web
on
D&D On Google Wave
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Google Wave has one huge advantage IMO.
Lots of us get along fine with email, for 1:1 and 1:n communication, mailing lists, the works. So OK email misses the "wall" or "real time web" effect were everybody can see what everyone else is posting. But email works.
And the really big deal about email is the standards - I can use outlook yesterday, gmail today, and yahoo mail tomorrow. I can move my stuff among vendors and keep my stuff from years back. Because everyone must stick to standards.
Trouble is there is an insidious conspiracy to make email uncool. Its led by the hordes of Facebook-ers and lately Tweet-ers. Like, I mean, do you really want to spend your life tweet-ing your latest embarrasing whatever to the world at large? But lets face it - the pressure is on bigtime. If you're not there you don't exist. Talk about peer pressure - the most obvious success of the social realtime web is the use of peer pressure to force everyone on board.:-(
Now along comes wave. Google Wave is basically email on steroids, with a "wall / real time web" capability thrown in. You can be totally private or you can be totally public or any combo in between. Nice. And oh yes you also get media richness.
And the Facebook-ers and Tweet-ers can't claim its uncool; actually you can one-up 'em - they're old hat.
Finally. Privacy is back (at least when you want it).
Now they just need to reintroduce standards. Is anyone listening?
Reception for things like radios is a EXTERNAL antenna on the car. Same is true if you've properly installed a stand for your mobile phone.
As for your remote-control for opening the parking gate, that is so short range I doubt it will be affected (and you can always open the window).
Sorry, this alarmist report sounds like nonsense to me.
Slashdot Mirror
There is an interesting debate going on world wide about how best to manage privatization.
Many successful examples follow the example of government regulating the private sector, but the actual provision of the services being private.
Just as an example, it seems education in Scandinavian countries is provided like that.
So why is that bad for IT? It could be a good thing.
Having read a lot of the responses (though not all), I am surprised this point does not come up.
...) need a way to keep the Microsoft Windows monopoly in line.
When Linus Torvalds started Linux, he obviously did it for love not money. Indeed the early contributors were driven by their ideals.
But the SUCCESS of Linux is because a lot of those big companies (IBM, Sun/Oracle, Intel, Google,
Remember that for decades (1980-2000) they tried to do that by offering their proprietary UNIX operating systems. That failed miserably, which is the main reason they were forced to learn and band together around Linux.
I like Linux, I think its great. But the SUCCESS of the open source movement, and especially Linux, owes everything to the scare Microsoft has given the entire industry.
So: the people who are being payed to write Linux, are getting the money because they are producing the most credible challenge to MS. It has nothing at all to do with high ideals.
OK, better late then never. Good that Google has finally introduced HTTPS as a default.
Now the next feature we all need is encryption of the content of our data when it is at rest on disks in Google's data center. That way even Google employees cannot read our mail. Not for serving up ads. Not for any reason whatsoever.
And after that, Facebook and Twitter...
Nah, I'm dreaming.
Wow, that is simply the most pathetic attempt at creating a human-centric definition of life Ive seen... and Im a biologist, so Ive seen plenty of strange ideas.
You know - the simple fact that you need to be rude already shows your argument will be full of holes. And as to being a Biologist, well my training is in Physics and Math. Your training does not make you a more profound philosopher, nor do your manners.
But I want to argue about the substance, not just the style. So here goes.
To make a very direct point: sure its true that we are
just made up of 1 part living stuff and the other 10 parts are non-living
.
In fact, if you come to it from the point of view of a Physicist, its even a higher ratio. Most of what we are is chemistry and matter. That is 99.9% of what we are.
But that matter and its chemistry is configured by its DNA so that it can process information. If you measure it by "bulk", processing of information is a tiny part of what we do, barely visible externally.
Which means to say that "bulk" isn't everything. Being able to perceive is a significant "phase shift" in our state of being. It is a big big thing, just not bulky...
You are wrong on one more point. This is not an argument for a human-centric world. Cats and Lizards and Jellyfish can also perceive. They are just as much alive.
OK, enough said. Try to be more polite and thoughtful. Not for my sake but your own. You'll get more out of life.
Thank you. That is an intelligent addition to the discussion.
As posts above testify, the word "evolution" is used more and more in contexts that have nothing to do with life.
For example people talk a lot about the evolution of ideas, societies, and so on... Quite possibly, the philosopher Wilson is one of the popularizers of this approach.
Anyway, this also leads to a different point - Evolution by itself is not a proof of the existence of Life. For example, Ideas or Societies are not living organisms, yet they do evolve.
So the fact that prions evolve does not mean they are alive! One can fairly say that they are just a chemical (a protein) that can reproduce itself, evolve, and do damage.
In Science, Mathematics and Philosophy, it is very common to take "edge cases" in order to better understand the limits of an idea. Prions give us a good example of something that can reproduce and evolve, yet its a chemical not a living organism.
So what is "Life" ? Perhaps we should require the ability to perceive - awareness of ones surroundings - in order to define true life? In that case Bacteria aren't alive either, which is fine by me.
Jellyfish and Lizards do qualify as alive. More generally, you would need some sort of functioning nervous system (however primitive) to be "alive". Brain-dead people would possibly not be "alive" by this definition.
The NY Times and other paper publications are right now on a crusade to attack the low cost base of internet business.
They are talking about de-indexing Google for similar reasons.
We should understand the interests behind such attacks.
Alzoron has it right! In fact, in any NEW project, even for a large company, trying to get the myriad payments right is extremely onerous.
I happen to have experience with the topic from a project I did - even if you have a big budget and months of time its not easy.
Remember that the internet is global. If the USA charges sales tax based on the location of the CUSTOMER, then all countries in the world can and would do the same.
Imagine trying to get that right given millions of towns and counties all over the world.
I wish I knew enough about how we evolved to become such flexible animals. You may be right that learning to use fire was a milestone.
Others may feel that walking upright was the critical factor; or perhaps omnivore behavior; or perhaps the development of our language skills.
I don't know; and your take may be correct. I am just saying that we ARE flexible animals, and that - however it came to be - is a big part of what makes us human.
Well, novar21, I see your point. But if we are dependant on TV etc then we have lost the fight without a struggle.
True fact: my family does not have a TV at our home, though we do have a DVD. The result: my children actually read books, as well as watch relatively high-quality movies.
In other words: education is not just about the educational "system". We as parents can and should take control.
Lets all look around us; people who read books have not moved en-masse to e-books. So how come Amazon is announcing sales of e-books have surpassed regular books?
There is a trendiness effect. People who usually do NOT read books may still buy an e-book reader for someone else... esepcially on official toy-giving day a.k.a xmas.
Sure, eventually e-book readers make sense and will replace paper. I'm just saying that day is not now.
In fact, by the time e-book readers replace paper, they may look like paper themselves. There is a tech trend towards computers that are as thin as a sheet of paper...
Personally I like paper, so I will buy an e-book when it catches up and becomes as thin as paper. Not long to wait - a year or three.
The interesting bit in the article is about modern-day Cybrogs and how we and machines are getting integrated. Of course the article is designed to startle - after all people will read it only if it challenges them. But should we really be scared?
It is not really any more alarming then "machines that can actually create cloth" were in the early 19th century. That too was a ceding of a human ability to machine enhancement.
We need to realize that we always were part machine - albeit chemical and biological ones, rather than electrical and metal ones.
So what makes us human? Certainly not emotion, that is easy to simulate. Perhaps it is free will, social intelligence and an inquisitive inventive mind ? Perhaps it is the combination of all this in a single package: we are multi-purpose, FLEXIBLE, animals.
And what if a machine can be built that would do all that, and would be just as multi-purpose? Intellectually that would simply prove our own nature: multi-purpose flexible machines is what we are. Politically it would be something we can legislate against if we dislike it: after all we already have humans; why build a "mark II" if we like "mark I" ?
Our humanity is in danger from only one thing: laziness. If, due to our own laziness we give away our free will, social intelligence and inquisitive inventive mind - then we are in trouble.
That would happen if we allow educational standards to keep slipping. It certainly could happen, but its up to us.
Come on, be fair. Look - I am not a Microsoft employee and not a relative of the Gates family. But still, why so bitter? You can check and see that billions of USD have really truly gone from the 'Bill and Melinda Gates' foundation to various health research causes around the world. Its easy to check, its public information.
Remember the days when Microsoft was "evil" and Google everyone's darling?
;-)
Then Bill Gates contributed $40bn to the world in history's single biggest act of charity, Microsoft's domination looked for a while like it really was slipping, and Google simply became too big.
Google has simply become everybody's competitor.
Example: the Chrome browser competes directly with Mozilla's Firefox. Not that this was the reason for that blog post, of course
Another example: Google is so big that its people don't talk to each other, to the extent that they are building two incompatible operating systems (Android and Chrome OS).
Another example: the publishing industry has set its sights on Google, for the crime of taking away too much of their Ad revenue. They are contemplating de-indexing Google.
So Microsoft, once the "evil empire", is now champion of Liberty. Well, that is good; because they never were that evil, so some redress is in order.
And Bill Gates did contribute $40bn to the world. When Sergei Brin, Larry page and Eric Schmidt do the same with their personal fortunes, we can all go back to normal.
Bottom line: businesses are for-profit affairs. The best restraint on them is competition. We the people should keep Microsoft and Google both on their toes, for our own best interest.
And we should remember that people like Gates, Brin, Schmidt & Page are good good people at heart. They are creative. They contribute. Just like everyone, we need to set them straight from time to time.
(sorry may be some confusion - a double post since the previous one inadvertently was anonymous)
To better understand how this works, I went to the Tehnion website.
Sand is actually Silicon-dioxide (combined silicon and oxygen). Pure silicon interacts with oxygen form the air to create sand. That's first-year normal chemistry. Usually such an interaction produces heat not electricity.
They built the battery from pure silicon, and the trick is that Oxygen from the air has to pass through a membrane to get to the silicon and oxidize it. The membrane will allow only oxygen ions through, so electrons have to flow the other way to match up with the ions and maintain overall neutrality. Hence you get a current instead of only heat.
Of course it will take some years to commercialize. Small applications will come first (small batteries), only later will we get big batteries (for cars?) and even later rechargeable stuff (if at all). I noticed many people are skeptical - but this is normal in science and engineering. Any real innovation raises new questions that must be answered. Kudos to the Israeli team, and their collaborators from USA & Japan.
You got a lot of posts pointing out the error of your ways; basically what people are saying - it sounds gung ho, there is no clear reasoning in the post justifying your shift.
Maybe they are a bit strong but note there is a lot of experience behind them.
Having said that, I would like to take a kinder gentler tone. Once you go through your fundamental reasons for wanting change, I'd suggest you choose ONE big thing that you want to do. Changing everything at once is usually not so hot.
So what could be a goal that would make your users happier and you a hero? Well, don't know, but I can tell what is typical in many such cases
- lowering capital costs (less spending on physical servers and their maintenance) while keeping everything running is one; cloud computing may help on that
- faster performance is one, but only in those places were users are actually complaining. Making a list of those places and fixing them one at a time would be an approach.
- new business needs is another one, but for that - leave everything that works alone and focus on solving very well the new business need. Your partners are your CEO, CFO, marketing etc...
For example, seems from your post that the overall architecture of the system is actually quite decent. So you may want to just repeat that same architecture in an updated way in a cloud computing approach, save some money and prepare for the next computing trend. If you decide that is for you, move one server at a time, arrange fail-over in the cloud, and prove one-at-a-time that it works as fast as the old stuff.
Bit of advice: don't just do virtualization without knowing why. If the business reason is economics, then jump over virtualization to the next trend, cloud computing. If it isn't economics, don't bother with virtualization at all.
Consider your goals and choose ONE. 'Nuff said.
Many mobile handsets on the market have wifi abilities. This means - when you are at home - they can talk with your home wifi router to do home-based calling rather than using the cell network.
Quite separately, many of these mobiles also have the ability for software installations that will sync your mobile phone with your contacts, calendar and email. I use an app called "RoadSync" - they have a website, google them. It works pretty well for me.
The combination of these two separate abilities means:
- You can use mobile sets also as your home phone without paying cellular prices.
- When they are on your home wifi net, you are also using less intense radiation
- You are fully sync-ed with your email contacts and calendar
The drawback is that mobile sets can be a bit more expensive then home cordless phones. You need to research the features and prices.
Umm, just to set things straight, I certainly don't think its about magic. Evolution happened. Maybe you believe Darwin was exactly right, maybe you are a neo-Darwinist looking to do better, but either way Evolution has plenty of empirical proof on its side.
We do have some empirical info. For example:
- the failure of radio astronomy to detect signals coming from other civilizations
- the calculations being done by several people, based on evolutionary science and bio-chemistry, of the probability of life forming spontaneously
These data are not much, that is true; but they are sufficient to make the rough estimate I made.
This is important for practical reasons. Missions to Mars can carry only so many experiments. I am saying, lets dump the experiment for "little green bacteria" and include a couple more likely to really teach us something new.
The current priority for "little green bacteria" experiments is a result of the faith-based process described above. I like science at its most empirical.
"Because, that's why" is a great answer, agreed, for a scientist pursuing his/her own personal vision. Albert Einstein at the Bern post office or a 100,000 other people use that answer, and it has delivered great results for humanity.
But in this case - its not a case of pursuing a personal vision. Obtaining empirical evidence would require a mission to Mars, and it can carry only so many experiments at so much cost.
Personally I am more interested in experiments that will shed light on - for example - planetary formation - then little green bacteria.
The moment the public has to finance the research, the public has the right to talk about its priorities.
The "life on Mars" science-fiction has been with us since the "Canals on Mars" bunk. Little green bacteria are one more step in that chain of debunked claims.
Its a faith-based process of prioritization, sucking up time and money that would be better spent elsewhere. Not a science-based empiricism-driven process. Enough already.
The currently known empirical facts are sketchy, but they include a few known data points: - the failure of radio astronomy to detect signals coming from other civilizations - the calculations being done by several people, based on evolutionary science and bio-chemistry, of the probability of life forming spontaneously These data are not much, that is true; but they are sufficient to make the estimate I made. I think that is also pretty rational; so no need to make comments about my "rationality" just because you do not like the conclusion.
The question of whether life in the form of bacteria (or something even more exotic) exists on Mars is hotly debated, and still requires a resolute yes or no
Ho hummm... We have had this debate going on since the "canals" were discovered on mars only to be debunked.
Once upon a time 600 years ago, people "knew" they are at the center of the universe. We were unique, chosen by heaven to lord it over the animals and created in the image of heaven. That was the view of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and also of the eastern empires (remember the "Emperor of Heaven") ?
Nowadays there is a large substantial minority of people whose thinking is guided by science. For this very substantial minority - debunking the "humans are at the center" myth is an article of faith. Finding the aliens - little green men or bacteria on mars - is important as an act of faith not just science.
It is important to separate real empirical science from the pseudo-science that is really an alternative system of belief. If we just look at empirical facts, the probability of finding life twice in the same solar system is not huge.
Anthropo-centric theology/philosophy was rightly debunked by Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin and Einstein.
Anti-anthropo-centric thinking equally deserves to be debunked. Science is about empirical evidence. Full stop.
The internet has certainly made life easier for everybody. And sadly that includes the bad guys. The benefits we all enjoy - instant communication, enormous growth in available information, enormous improvement in the timeliness of information, ability to get answers to many questions, unprecedented marketing and advertising possibilities - help the bad guys just as much.
Want a recent example? See this somewhat self-serving article by a "reformed" advertising scammer: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/01/how-to-spam-facebook-like-a-pro-an-insiders-confession/
And I am not even talking of terrorists, pedophiles, and the like...
Having said that - its not repeat not enough of an argument to justify a policy of unrestricted search and seizure when data is stored at a third party. Some reasons:
the bad guys are clever at gaming the system; for example THEY do know how to encrypt their sensitive emails. So the damage will hit ordinary folks disproportionally while the crooks will often be able to evade
we all benefit from the growth of the internet, for example the recent surge in cloud computing. Do we really want to dampen this progress with legal concerns about privacy?
This is not to say that we should let the bad guys off the hook entirely. It may be new laws are needed.
Yup, everybody commenting that publishing eBooks is not the same as buying eBooks - is right. Absolutely.
But its still interesting because people would not be spending time on it - unless they thought there is a market.
The underlying trend is that mobile internet usage is very much going mainstream. This means the audience is not just fanboys and gamers. People who like reading a book - are joining up.
One wonders how this will impact the wider real-time web. SMS-ing from your mobile to twitter is a big thing right now. As people who actually read books - something longer than 140 chars - join the trend, the center of the market may shift.
Worth watching.
Google Wave has one huge advantage IMO.
Lots of us get along fine with email, for 1:1 and 1:n communication, mailing lists, the works. So OK email misses the "wall" or "real time web" effect were everybody can see what everyone else is posting. But email works.
And the really big deal about email is the standards - I can use outlook yesterday, gmail today, and yahoo mail tomorrow. I can move my stuff among vendors and keep my stuff from years back. Because everyone must stick to standards.
Trouble is there is an insidious conspiracy to make email uncool. Its led by the hordes of Facebook-ers and lately Tweet-ers. Like, I mean, do you really want to spend your life tweet-ing your latest embarrasing whatever to the world at large? But lets face it - the pressure is on bigtime. If you're not there you don't exist. Talk about peer pressure - the most obvious success of the social realtime web is the use of peer pressure to force everyone on board.:-(
Now along comes wave. Google Wave is basically email on steroids, with a "wall / real time web" capability thrown in. You can be totally private or you can be totally public or any combo in between. Nice. And oh yes you also get media richness.
And the Facebook-ers and Tweet-ers can't claim its uncool; actually you can one-up 'em - they're old hat.
Finally. Privacy is back (at least when you want it).
Now they just need to reintroduce standards. Is anyone listening?
Reception for things like radios is a EXTERNAL antenna on the car. Same is true if you've properly installed a stand for your mobile phone. As for your remote-control for opening the parking gate, that is so short range I doubt it will be affected (and you can always open the window). Sorry, this alarmist report sounds like nonsense to me.