1) I'm a big wuss and I'm rwally not sure I can lie there while someone slices my eye open and burns the stuff underneath, while I'm thinking " mm.. bacon"
I've had LASIK done about 4 years ago. My vision was roughly 4.25 diopters in my left eye and 3.75 diopters with some astigmatism in my left (not sure whether those measures are + or - but I was nearsighted) prior to the procedure. I now have slightly better than 20/20 vision. My general advice from a comfort standpoint is that if you are comfortable with glasses and have no compelling reason (such as athletics in my case) to need the procedure, you might not want to do it if it makes you uncomfortable. The risks are small but not negligible so if it makes you uncomfortable, that's a fine reason not to do it. On the other hand it is the best money I've ever spend and I'm glad every day I had it done. They do give you some relaxing druge before the procedure to calm anxious nerves.
2) with most normal procedures, if it goes wrong, then you're back where you used to be, with lasik, you could be horribly worse off
Highly unlikely you will be much worse off. A small fraction of 1% of patients actually end up with worse vision. As surgical procedures go, the success rates are actually quite good. The statistics are widely available on the web so don't take my word for it. However, I did a TON of research prior to my procedure and I'm married to a doctor, so I'm confident in my assertion.
3) I beleive that a massive percentage lose alot of night vision, you might not be able to legally drive at night for example
This is incorrect. LASIK does NOT normally impact night vision. You are confusing LASIK with other procedures such as radial keratotomies which do affect night vision. The only significant effect LASIK has is that you tend to get some "starbursting" around bright lights at night for a year or so after the procedure. The amount varies by person and usually goes away. In my case it wasn't bad and no longer is a problem. Some people are affected more strongly than others.
4) the eye is much more prone to infection
True, but only for a short time after the procedure. This is true of any surgical procedure.
5) the army and police won't let you join if you've had it, rather tellling I think
Not sure but I don't think this is as true as it once was.
LASIK surgery can have great benefits but it isn't for everyone. It will not prevent you from needing reading glasses when you get older and it isn't a cure-all without any risk. If it makes you uncomforable, that is reason enough to not do it. The chance of you having 20/20 or better vision is roughly 50% and the chance of you having 20/40 or better (good enough to drive without glasses legally) is close to 95-98%. Serious complications occur in less than 1% of cases. No one has ever gone blind as a result of this procedure. Your eyes are very dry afterwards so staring at a computer screen for long periods of time can be pretty uncomfortable for a while after the procedure, though this does get better in time.
I won't say it was a fun experience, but I'm glad I did it. Whether it is something to pursue depends on your risk tolerance and whether your lifestyle requires it. I'm an athlete so it really helps me. Your milage may vary. Research the heck out of it, pick a doctor that has done a TON of procedures (mine had done over 3000) and ask a lot of questions.
The major network coverage of the Olympics stinks anyway. Endless fluff pieces about athletes, almost no coverage of anyone who is not from the US, and heaven forbid they spend time on anything but track, volleyball, swimming, diving and gymnastics (again especially if no americans figure for a gold) and tape delayed coverage. Last olympics I was lucky enough to have CBC coverage since I lived near Canada but no such luck now. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the sports that do get the airtime but the coverage is usually horrible for anyone who actually knows/cares about a given sport.
For example, the bicyling time trial last time was "The Lance Armstrong Show". I don't have anything against Lance but he didn't even win and there were lots of other good riders I would have liked to see. What little coverage was shown was poor and basically an expose about Lance's life. I wanted to see the event. If I wanted information about a rider there are plenty of ways to find out. (Yes I know why they do this but I don't have to like it)
Anyway I seriously doubt I'll be watching much of the Olympics. The coverage will be annoying and instead of seeing a variety of sports I'll be subjected to every qualifying round of the men's volleyball team. Ugh...
why would anyone need a single monitor that does this resolution, and not use multiple smaller, cheaper ones to acheive the same, if not better, resolution?
I'm not saying your wrong or that there is anything bad about using multiple monitors but there are reasons to want a single screen, such as:
Desktop space. Multiple monitors take up more space than one.
Power consumption. This thing might be a power hog (I have no idea if it actually is), but 5 smaller monitors will almost certainly consume more power.
Aesthetics. In general, one large high res monitor looks nicer, even if functionaly it doesn't matter.
Easier for some tasks. A single screen makes it much easier to work with large images (CAD, graphics) than if the image is spread over multiple screens.
Features. High end monitors often have some nifty features that lower end monitors don't.
Color calibration. Tougher to make 5 monitors calibrate to exactly the same color than it is to make one.
I'm sure there are other reasons. I'll readily grant that a 30" high $ monitor isn't for everyone, but there are reasons to prefer it over alternatives.
Personally, I feel that software patents should only be awarded if the source code is open.
I hear you, though in a fairly literal interpretation of the existing rules, this already is the case, sort of. Patents are (supposed to be) for a particular implementation of an invention. Part of the requirement of getting the patent (software or otherwise) is that it has to be described in sufficient detail that someone with "ordinary skill in the art" could recreate it.
So if the patent office is following the rules they are supposed to (and we all know they aren't but bear with me) a software patent essentially should provide a psuedo-code implentation. While this doesn't fit the Stallman definition of Free Software, patents are supposed to make the internal workings public knowledge in exchange for a temporary (hah!) monopoly.
Others have mentioned some of this but there are a few things gmail needs (IMO) before it is something I'll use full time. Your needs may be different from mine. In my case I'm looking for a good web interface to consolidate emails from several addresses. I also want access via a client (mozilla or thunderbird in my case) as well, for offline access and backup.
In no particular order I'd like to see: 1) POP/IMAP access to account 2) Easy address book importing (and for more than just Outlook & Lotus Notes - I need Mozilla dammit) 3) Enhanced contact management 4) Mail backup/upload mechanism - If something does go wrong I want to be able to recover and quickly repopulate my account. 5) More filters & categories
I understand that Google is working on at least some of these. What they've got so far works brilliantly for what it is. It's just feature incomplete for me to use full time. The ads are much less obnoxious than I feared and I've even see one or two actually useful ones, which surprised me. Your milage may vary...
I'm currently a SuSE user and am looking at upgrading. I could get the upgrade version for 9.1 but there is a convenience factor for reinstalls for the full version. Anyone know if I can use the full version for upgrades? (SusE web site isn't clear on the matter)
Because the school is in Ohio they needed some new attraction. What other reason is there to go to Ohio for?
I'll bite. There are plenty of reasons to go to Ohio. I'm from Cleveland so I know the attractions there better but Cincinatti and Columbus are pretty fun cities too. In no particular order and just off the top of my head:
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Cedar Point (most roller coasters in the world) Cleveland Indians/Browns/Cavaliers Cincinatti Reds/Bengals Columbus Crew/Ohio State Buckeyes Toledo Mudhens
(I know, sports are lost on this crowd) Origins International Game Expo Cleveland Orchestra (among the best in the world) Cleveland Museum of Art Cleveland Museum of Natural History
(fyi, the orchestra and museums are all within walking distance of CWRU's campus) Playhouse Square Center (second largest performing arts center in the US) Great Lakes Science Center Wineries along the south shore of Lake Erie Boating/Fishing/Watersports on Lake Erie Wright-Patterson Airforce Base Birthplace museums for the Wright Bros, Edison and 6 presidents (for history buffs) Several excellent colleges, including CWRU The Cleveland Clinic (premier heart medicine hospital in the world. Hope you don't have to go for this though...) Metroparks (a ring of public parks surrounding many of the major cities, including Cleveland and Toledo)
And there's plenty more. Cleveland in particular has really turned around in the last 25 years. It can be a pretty fun town to visit these days. If you've done all the stuff I list above and still think Ohio is boring, then we clearly have different definitions of entertainment.
Here is a prime example of why we are all SubGenii. We all knew that SCO would tank. We had a golden opportunity to make some serious cash. And you know what? I'll betcha not a single person on all of Slashdot cashed in on these fools. Damn.
This is a bit of bragging I guess but I shorted a few hundred shares from just under $14 down to just under $6. (you can find old posts of mine where I suggest shorting SCOX here on slashdot) Didn't make a fortune because I didn't have enough cash to short a huge amount (grad school) but it basically paid for my next computer. Thanks SCOX!
I've had a bit of luck in the past with "story stocks" like this one. Corel a few years back when they were getting into linux. I've had my eye on Rambus (to short) and Novell (to long) recently. I would have done Novell a few months back but ironically my money was tied up in SCOX. When a small company like these gets sufficent buzz the stock can do some pretty spectacular things regardless of the underlying fundamentals. Not stuff for the faint of heart but when you get it right...
They made the decision to make the printer as cheap as possible and instead make their money selling ink. It's a very similar strategy to Gillette's famous (almost) give away the razor and sell the blades strategy. However this really means HP is in the ink business moreso than the printer business. And ink is a commodity far more than cheap printers. And the printers aren't really highly differentiated either. HP printers are good but most of the time there are competing products that are technologically just as good. It might be the case that HP chased profits and marketshare but opened themselves to competition from Dell in the process.
If I were HP, I would be very concerned about my cost structure right now. Dell is a reseller of commodity products. Yes they do some R&D but realistically they mostly just manufacture and resell products developed elsewhere. In a battle of selling commodity products, Dell's cost structure is just better. Dell actually gets paid days before they have to pay for products and they have only a few days of inventory on hand at any time. HP does pretty well with commodity products but they are much more similar to IBM than to Dell with multiple divisions, heavy R&D, high end servers and support organizations. This isn't a bad thing necessarily but it does mean that they may eventually have to exit the low end printer business if it becomes any more commoditized much like IBM has had to move upmarket in PC and focus on business customers.
Fortunately for HP, they do have a great brand, strong R&D and a pretty substantial computer business of their own. HP is hardly defenseless. But if this becomes a pure cost battle, HP probably will lose. I think the most interesting part of this battle will be to see how much brand matters here.
both devices are also a sort of a sample of the general technical culture for both companies. And guess which company's products I'll tend to buy in the future...
You do realize that Lucent makes (or made) the electronic guts for the Airport, right? Granted, Lucent may not be winning any awards for industrial design, but in a very real way these products were both made by Lucent. Not such an easy decision is it?
Given the fact that we haven't even yet created a single bacterium from scratch...
I'm no bio-engineering expert but we have created a synthetic virus, synthetic blood vessels, synthetic hormones, and even have made some progress towards synthetic organs. Granted, it's not quite creating life, but if you aren't impressed you are either an incurable cynic or doesn't understand the technology. (and probably both) Give it time. Just because we can't do something now doesn't mean we can't enjoy speculating about what might be possible.
VRML files are huge. VRML was designed to be human readable (a laudable goal) but this meant that a VRML of any complexity made an enormous file. I used to use VRML files out of ProEngineer in a 3D simulation package and the smallest files were usually about 20 megabytes and it went up to 200 at times.
VRML lacked the precision to be useful as a CAD quality 3D data interchange format. Not that any of the alternatives are great (IGES) but VRML didn't solve the very real problem of interchange between incompatible 3D modeling systems.
VRML was designed (partly) with the idea of moving the web to 3D, but this isn't very useful for real world interfaces. Even where 3D interfaces might be useful (rare) there isn't the infrastructure (bandwidth, control systems, etc) to make it useful
Unrealistic (read poor) image quality. You will never see a VRML file that looks anything close to as good as a modern 3D shooter.
Basically VRML wasn't designed to scratch a real itch, just a theoretical one. It was just a neat idea that was designed by committee, with predictable results.
If cells are wrecking emergency services, I for one would rather an ambulance make it to me in time rather than the bitch driving a car knowing what Tammy wore yesterday and what color eye shadow to put on while driving AND yip yapping.
Though harsh (and maybe sexist), your sentiment is understandable. You're right that emergency services should not be interfered with, especially by people who are just taking up the airwaves for no real purpose. However Nextel customers are usually businesses and contractors, not a "bitch driving a car". They don't buy Nextel for the phone either, they buy it for the "walkie-talkie" features. Your comment might be fair for a typical Verizon customer but it really isn't for a typical Nextel customer.
A national sales tax is a good idea with three major reasons why it will never be implemented.
1) It is disproportionately hard on poor people. This makes it a political hot potato. No politician wants to be seen as being against poor people. (regardless of what their actual opinion is)
2) There are two reasons for having taxes the way we do. One is raising money and the other is social engineering. The government provides all kinds of tax benefits for behavior they want to encourage. (like marriage)
3) Ever wonder why we have that "Other Income" line right above the adjusted gross income? It's to catch drug dealers and other criminals. That's how they caught Al Capone. Not for a crime but for not declaring (illegally gotten) income on his taxes. Can't do that with a sales tax.
They have my nomination for understatement of the year (& it's only January). Second, anyone? It's a bad sign when you start putting disclaimers in your press releases.
I realize you may be joking but in the interest of being sufficiently pedantic, SCO actually is legally required to put disclaimers like this in. Whenever a company releases information about the managament's expectations for future events they have to identify "forward looking" information with a disclaimer like this. If they do not put this sort of disclaimer in the press release, the could be subject to discipline by the SEC or shareholder lawsuits. (I know, I know, that would be a good thing here...) SCO is just following the law and giving investors a disclosure of risks.
That's true in the general case, but if I were you, I'd dig out whatever agreement or contract you signed when you were accepted into your school/college/university and have a good read of the small print. I suspect you may find that you've signed copyright over to the institution on anything that you produce in the course of your studies.
I cannot speak for every or even most academic institutions firsthand. That said, I think this statement is completely false for virtually all universities here in the United States.
I know I'm pretty darn careful about what I sign and I'm quite sure I've never assigned any copyrights to any of the universities I've attended. It's simply not a common or accepted practice. I think most students are not particularly aware of the fact that they have created copyrighted material, but that has no bearing under the law. If a student wants to prohibit reproduction of his/her work, that student can (and does) have that right.
My personal experience has been when I've written material professors wanted to reuse, the've always been quite careful to ask permission. (cheerfully granted of course) Most professors I know are actually quite sensitive to this sort of thing.
While IANAL, I'm pretty certain that absent any explicit agreement between the university and a student, the student retains the copyright to all his/her work. The university would be entitled to material produced as a "work-for-hire", say for example materials produced in a work-study program. But otherwise the copyright remains with the creator. The university would have to get the student's permission to reproduce their work.
Wait and watch how iMacs and such won't be licensed out. Jobs is probably taking medication to avoid exploding while HP makes stuff based on Apple technology.
Licensing out the technology for iPods and iTMS makes a tremendous amount of sense because they are dangerously close to being commodity products. There already are competing and very similar products for both services, many of which are of at least acceptable quality. Apple probably has the better products right now (hence their price premium) but there is little reason to believe that their current technology advantage is sustainable. They are the first movers, but our good friends at Microsoft have proven time and again how little that really means. Apples computers are different enough to avoid much of the direct competition but I would propose that the iPod and iTMS do not share this advantage.
So what can Apple do to combat this inevitable erosion of marketshare due to competition? Either they have to keep some form of value advantage (such as features not available elsewhere), have network effects which make switching other services less attractive or they have to scale the business to gain cost efficiencies from economies of scale/scope.
Apple appears to be doing a little of all three. They keep improving the iPod and iTMS which gives them a technology advantage for now. I do not believe this is sustainable in the long run (lots of other smart engineers out there) but it gives them good margins and a big head start. They've got a better mousetrap but that is only useful to a point.
By producing a Windows iPod, making it work with iTMS and licensing it to HP they are trying to build up network effects that make them the platform of choice. It's the same reason everyone chooses Microsoft Office; not because it is great, but because everyone else has it. Again I'm not conviced that the network effects here are the strongest, but if "everyone" buys iPods, that will make iTMS more attractive and vice versa. HP will undoubtable sell more so we might see people buying iPods and using iTMS because their family and friends use them. Not clear, but possible.
The other advantage of licensing to HP is they gain some economies of scale/scope. HP will sell more, making Apple's per-unit costs better, meaning they can fight low cost competition more effectively. The scariest opponent for Apple here is Microsoft because they can bundle with Windows and gain instant economies of scale and they have a much bigger war chest than Apple. If apple can sign up a few of the major OEMs (Dell, Toshiba, IBM, etc) to the same deal as HP, then Apple will be less vulnerable to Microsoft, though it would still be a problem.
In short, licensing iPods and iTMS makes a lot of sense. They don't need/want to do it for their computers because they are not easily duplicated and have significant strategic protection beyond simply the hardware and software. iPods and iTMS are much more vulnerable to competition and need to be treated as the different business it is.
Poster 1: "Wow that was a dupe" Poster 2: "Hey everyone, this is a duplicate" Poster 3: "Stupid editors don't read before posting" Poster 4: "Only idiots duplicate the previous post." etc... ad nauseum...
It seems we get a fairly regular drip-feed of "No look, this is what it REALLY is" articles in the computer press, and yet people still don't "get it".
What's wrong with what's happening here ? Is the coverage in the wrong area ("preaching to the converted") ? Is the message simply being disbelieved ("TANSTAAFL") ? Is the lobbying by the closed-source community simply better (all those expense accounts...).
They don't "get it" because the message is simultaneously complicated and unusual. Think about it. It's really hard to explain to a random business person how open source makes sense. ("Why would I give stuff away?...") More importantly the argument for open source is powerful, but it's not simple. When you are trying to convinve people, simplicity of the message matters.
This is something I've noticed with companies. As a rule of thumb the ones that can explain in a few words what they do, tend to do pretty well. Microsoft sells software, IBM sells computers & services, Wal*mart is a retailer, etc. When they try to get fancy it's much harder to communicate to investors and customers why they should care about you. All those fancy "exchanges" we saw during the dot com boom? Really tough message to get across.
While they have other advantages, message simplicity is one reason the RIAA is so effective in lobbying against filesharing. Their message (correct or not is beside the point) is summed up in one word, "theft". I haven't heard anyone make an equally coherent one word counter argument. Not for lack of trying trying either.
Open source to some degree suffers from the same problem. It's hard to explain concisely and coherently why it's good. Not for lack of trying mind you. Think about "free as in speach/free as in beer". That's an explanation that we almost always have to explain. Not good.
We make fun of them a lot but this is what marketing folks are (supposedly) good at. They spend enormous amounts of time trying to figure out how to get exactly the right message across in the most concise manner possible. And it's really, really hard to do well. It's an art form in some ways like making really tight reliable code. The really good stuff takes a lot of time and smarts to come up with, but is amazing to watch when it works.
"A developer of tools for Microsoft's web server software..."
Come on. I expect them to pull for their team but let's get real. They are not a neutral party and it is in their interest for people to believe that IIS is more common, whether or not that is actually the case. I don't exactly blame them for trying to spin the "facts" in their favor but following the money does hurt their credibility in this matter.
Slashdot Mirror
1) I'm a big wuss and I'm rwally not sure I can lie there while someone slices my eye open and burns the stuff underneath, while I'm thinking " mm.. bacon"
I've had LASIK done about 4 years ago. My vision was roughly 4.25 diopters in my left eye and 3.75 diopters with some astigmatism in my left (not sure whether those measures are + or - but I was nearsighted) prior to the procedure. I now have slightly better than 20/20 vision. My general advice from a comfort standpoint is that if you are comfortable with glasses and have no compelling reason (such as athletics in my case) to need the procedure, you might not want to do it if it makes you uncomfortable. The risks are small but not negligible so if it makes you uncomfortable, that's a fine reason not to do it. On the other hand it is the best money I've ever spend and I'm glad every day I had it done. They do give you some relaxing druge before the procedure to calm anxious nerves.
2) with most normal procedures, if it goes wrong, then you're back where you used to be, with lasik, you could be horribly worse off
Highly unlikely you will be much worse off. A small fraction of 1% of patients actually end up with worse vision. As surgical procedures go, the success rates are actually quite good. The statistics are widely available on the web so don't take my word for it. However, I did a TON of research prior to my procedure and I'm married to a doctor, so I'm confident in my assertion.
3) I beleive that a massive percentage lose alot of night vision, you might not be able to legally drive at night for example
This is incorrect. LASIK does NOT normally impact night vision. You are confusing LASIK with other procedures such as radial keratotomies which do affect night vision. The only significant effect LASIK has is that you tend to get some "starbursting" around bright lights at night for a year or so after the procedure. The amount varies by person and usually goes away. In my case it wasn't bad and no longer is a problem. Some people are affected more strongly than others.
4) the eye is much more prone to infection
True, but only for a short time after the procedure. This is true of any surgical procedure.
5) the army and police won't let you join if you've had it, rather tellling I think
Not sure but I don't think this is as true as it once was.
LASIK surgery can have great benefits but it isn't for everyone. It will not prevent you from needing reading glasses when you get older and it isn't a cure-all without any risk. If it makes you uncomforable, that is reason enough to not do it. The chance of you having 20/20 or better vision is roughly 50% and the chance of you having 20/40 or better (good enough to drive without glasses legally) is close to 95-98%. Serious complications occur in less than 1% of cases. No one has ever gone blind as a result of this procedure. Your eyes are very dry afterwards so staring at a computer screen for long periods of time can be pretty uncomfortable for a while after the procedure, though this does get better in time.
I won't say it was a fun experience, but I'm glad I did it. Whether it is something to pursue depends on your risk tolerance and whether your lifestyle requires it. I'm an athlete so it really helps me. Your milage may vary. Research the heck out of it, pick a doctor that has done a TON of procedures (mine had done over 3000) and ask a lot of questions.
The major network coverage of the Olympics stinks anyway. Endless fluff pieces about athletes, almost no coverage of anyone who is not from the US, and heaven forbid they spend time on anything but track, volleyball, swimming, diving and gymnastics (again especially if no americans figure for a gold) and tape delayed coverage. Last olympics I was lucky enough to have CBC coverage since I lived near Canada but no such luck now. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the sports that do get the airtime but the coverage is usually horrible for anyone who actually knows/cares about a given sport.
For example, the bicyling time trial last time was "The Lance Armstrong Show". I don't have anything against Lance but he didn't even win and there were lots of other good riders I would have liked to see. What little coverage was shown was poor and basically an expose about Lance's life. I wanted to see the event. If I wanted information about a rider there are plenty of ways to find out. (Yes I know why they do this but I don't have to like it)
Anyway I seriously doubt I'll be watching much of the Olympics. The coverage will be annoying and instead of seeing a variety of sports I'll be subjected to every qualifying round of the men's volleyball team. Ugh...
I'm not saying your wrong or that there is anything bad about using multiple monitors but there are reasons to want a single screen, such as:
I'm sure there are other reasons. I'll readily grant that a 30" high $ monitor isn't for everyone, but there are reasons to prefer it over alternatives.
Personally, I feel that software patents should only be awarded if the source code is open.
I hear you, though in a fairly literal interpretation of the existing rules, this already is the case, sort of. Patents are (supposed to be) for a particular implementation of an invention. Part of the requirement of getting the patent (software or otherwise) is that it has to be described in sufficient detail that someone with "ordinary skill in the art" could recreate it.
So if the patent office is following the rules they are supposed to (and we all know they aren't but bear with me) a software patent essentially should provide a psuedo-code implentation. While this doesn't fit the Stallman definition of Free Software, patents are supposed to make the internal workings public knowledge in exchange for a temporary (hah!) monopoly.
Others have mentioned some of this but there are a few things gmail needs (IMO) before it is something I'll use full time. Your needs may be different from mine. In my case I'm looking for a good web interface to consolidate emails from several addresses. I also want access via a client (mozilla or thunderbird in my case) as well, for offline access and backup.
In no particular order I'd like to see:
1) POP/IMAP access to account
2) Easy address book importing (and for more than just Outlook & Lotus Notes - I need Mozilla dammit)
3) Enhanced contact management
4) Mail backup/upload mechanism - If something does go wrong I want to be able to recover and quickly repopulate my account.
5) More filters & categories
I understand that Google is working on at least some of these. What they've got so far works brilliantly for what it is. It's just feature incomplete for me to use full time. The ads are much less obnoxious than I feared and I've even see one or two actually useful ones, which surprised me. Your milage may vary...
My laptop is my birth control method
I think that goes without saying in this crowd...
I'm currently a SuSE user and am looking at upgrading. I could get the upgrade version for 9.1 but there is a convenience factor for reinstalls for the full version. Anyone know if I can use the full version for upgrades? (SusE web site isn't clear on the matter)
Because the school is in Ohio they needed some new attraction. What other reason is there to go to Ohio for?
I'll bite. There are plenty of reasons to go to Ohio. I'm from Cleveland so I know the attractions there better but Cincinatti and Columbus are pretty fun cities too. In no particular order and just off the top of my head:
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Cedar Point (most roller coasters in the world)
Cleveland Indians/Browns/Cavaliers
Cincinatti Reds/Bengals
Columbus Crew/Ohio State Buckeyes
Toledo Mudhens
(I know, sports are lost on this crowd)
Origins International Game Expo
Cleveland Orchestra (among the best in the world)
Cleveland Museum of Art
Cleveland Museum of Natural History
(fyi, the orchestra and museums are all within walking distance of CWRU's campus)
Playhouse Square Center (second largest performing arts center in the US)
Great Lakes Science Center
Wineries along the south shore of Lake Erie
Boating/Fishing/Watersports on Lake Erie
Wright-Patterson Airforce Base
Birthplace museums for the Wright Bros, Edison and 6 presidents (for history buffs)
Several excellent colleges, including CWRU
The Cleveland Clinic (premier heart medicine hospital in the world. Hope you don't have to go for this though...)
Metroparks (a ring of public parks surrounding many of the major cities, including Cleveland and Toledo)
And there's plenty more. Cleveland in particular has really turned around in the last 25 years. It can be a pretty fun town to visit these days. If you've done all the stuff I list above and still think Ohio is boring, then we clearly have different definitions of entertainment.
You can buy an option to insure that a short doesn't eat your lunch. I would have shorted the stock, but the options were sold out.
No offense but I doubt that is the reason. There are no options publicly traded on SCOX. Wish that there were, I could have made a killing.
Here is a prime example of why we are all SubGenii. We all knew that SCO would tank. We had a golden opportunity to make some serious cash. And you know what? I'll betcha not a single person on all of Slashdot cashed in on these fools. Damn.
This is a bit of bragging I guess but I shorted a few hundred shares from just under $14 down to just under $6. (you can find old posts of mine where I suggest shorting SCOX here on slashdot) Didn't make a fortune because I didn't have enough cash to short a huge amount (grad school) but it basically paid for my next computer. Thanks SCOX!
I've had a bit of luck in the past with "story stocks" like this one. Corel a few years back when they were getting into linux. I've had my eye on Rambus (to short) and Novell (to long) recently. I would have done Novell a few months back but ironically my money was tied up in SCOX. When a small company like these gets sufficent buzz the stock can do some pretty spectacular things regardless of the underlying fundamentals. Not stuff for the faint of heart but when you get it right...
They made the decision to make the printer as cheap as possible and instead make their money selling ink. It's a very similar strategy to Gillette's famous (almost) give away the razor and sell the blades strategy. However this really means HP is in the ink business moreso than the printer business. And ink is a commodity far more than cheap printers. And the printers aren't really highly differentiated either. HP printers are good but most of the time there are competing products that are technologically just as good. It might be the case that HP chased profits and marketshare but opened themselves to competition from Dell in the process.
If I were HP, I would be very concerned about my cost structure right now. Dell is a reseller of commodity products. Yes they do some R&D but realistically they mostly just manufacture and resell products developed elsewhere. In a battle of selling commodity products, Dell's cost structure is just better. Dell actually gets paid days before they have to pay for products and they have only a few days of inventory on hand at any time. HP does pretty well with commodity products but they are much more similar to IBM than to Dell with multiple divisions, heavy R&D, high end servers and support organizations. This isn't a bad thing necessarily but it does mean that they may eventually have to exit the low end printer business if it becomes any more commoditized much like IBM has had to move upmarket in PC and focus on business customers.
Fortunately for HP, they do have a great brand, strong R&D and a pretty substantial computer business of their own. HP is hardly defenseless. But if this becomes a pure cost battle, HP probably will lose. I think the most interesting part of this battle will be to see how much brand matters here.
both devices are also a sort of a sample of the general technical culture for both companies. And guess which company's products I'll tend to buy in the future...
You do realize that Lucent makes (or made) the electronic guts for the Airport, right? Granted, Lucent may not be winning any awards for industrial design, but in a very real way these products were both made by Lucent. Not such an easy decision is it?
Given the fact that we haven't even yet created a single bacterium from scratch...
I'm no bio-engineering expert but we have created a synthetic virus, synthetic blood vessels, synthetic hormones, and even have made some progress towards synthetic organs. Granted, it's not quite creating life, but if you aren't impressed you are either an incurable cynic or doesn't understand the technology. (and probably both) Give it time. Just because we can't do something now doesn't mean we can't enjoy speculating about what might be possible.
Basically VRML wasn't designed to scratch a real itch, just a theoretical one. It was just a neat idea that was designed by committee, with predictable results.
If cells are wrecking emergency services, I for one would rather an ambulance make it to me in time rather than the bitch driving a car knowing what Tammy wore yesterday and what color eye shadow to put on while driving AND yip yapping.
Though harsh (and maybe sexist), your sentiment is understandable. You're right that emergency services should not be interfered with, especially by people who are just taking up the airwaves for no real purpose. However Nextel customers are usually businesses and contractors, not a "bitch driving a car". They don't buy Nextel for the phone either, they buy it for the "walkie-talkie" features. Your comment might be fair for a typical Verizon customer but it really isn't for a typical Nextel customer.
A national sales tax is a good idea with three major reasons why it will never be implemented.
1) It is disproportionately hard on poor people. This makes it a political hot potato. No politician wants to be seen as being against poor people. (regardless of what their actual opinion is)
2) There are two reasons for having taxes the way we do. One is raising money and the other is social engineering. The government provides all kinds of tax benefits for behavior they want to encourage. (like marriage)
3) Ever wonder why we have that "Other Income" line right above the adjusted gross income? It's to catch drug dealers and other criminals. That's how they caught Al Capone. Not for a crime but for not declaring (illegally gotten) income on his taxes. Can't do that with a sales tax.
Apparently investors are none too thrilled about this announcement:
SCOX is down 10% in early trading
They have my nomination for understatement of the year (& it's only January). Second, anyone? It's a bad sign when you start putting disclaimers in your press releases.
I realize you may be joking but in the interest of being sufficiently pedantic, SCO actually is legally required to put disclaimers like this in. Whenever a company releases information about the managament's expectations for future events they have to identify "forward looking" information with a disclaimer like this. If they do not put this sort of disclaimer in the press release, the could be subject to discipline by the SEC or shareholder lawsuits. (I know, I know, that would be a good thing here...) SCO is just following the law and giving investors a disclosure of risks.
In other words nothing to see here. Move along...
That's true in the general case, but if I were you, I'd dig out whatever agreement or contract you signed when you were accepted into your school/college/university and have a good read of the small print. I suspect you may find that you've signed copyright over to the institution on anything that you produce in the course of your studies.
I cannot speak for every or even most academic institutions firsthand. That said, I think this statement is completely false for virtually all universities here in the United States.
I know I'm pretty darn careful about what I sign and I'm quite sure I've never assigned any copyrights to any of the universities I've attended. It's simply not a common or accepted practice. I think most students are not particularly aware of the fact that they have created copyrighted material, but that has no bearing under the law. If a student wants to prohibit reproduction of his/her work, that student can (and does) have that right.
My personal experience has been when I've written material professors wanted to reuse, the've always been quite careful to ask permission. (cheerfully granted of course) Most professors I know are actually quite sensitive to this sort of thing.
While IANAL, I'm pretty certain that absent any explicit agreement between the university and a student, the student retains the copyright to all his/her work. The university would be entitled to material produced as a "work-for-hire", say for example materials produced in a work-study program. But otherwise the copyright remains with the creator. The university would have to get the student's permission to reproduce their work.
Wait and watch how iMacs and such won't be licensed out. Jobs is probably taking medication to avoid exploding while HP makes stuff based on Apple technology.
Licensing out the technology for iPods and iTMS makes a tremendous amount of sense because they are dangerously close to being commodity products. There already are competing and very similar products for both services, many of which are of at least acceptable quality. Apple probably has the better products right now (hence their price premium) but there is little reason to believe that their current technology advantage is sustainable. They are the first movers, but our good friends at Microsoft have proven time and again how little that really means. Apples computers are different enough to avoid much of the direct competition but I would propose that the iPod and iTMS do not share this advantage.
So what can Apple do to combat this inevitable erosion of marketshare due to competition? Either they have to keep some form of value advantage (such as features not available elsewhere), have network effects which make switching other services less attractive or they have to scale the business to gain cost efficiencies from economies of scale/scope.
Apple appears to be doing a little of all three. They keep improving the iPod and iTMS which gives them a technology advantage for now. I do not believe this is sustainable in the long run (lots of other smart engineers out there) but it gives them good margins and a big head start. They've got a better mousetrap but that is only useful to a point.
By producing a Windows iPod, making it work with iTMS and licensing it to HP they are trying to build up network effects that make them the platform of choice. It's the same reason everyone chooses Microsoft Office; not because it is great, but because everyone else has it. Again I'm not conviced that the network effects here are the strongest, but if "everyone" buys iPods, that will make iTMS more attractive and vice versa. HP will undoubtable sell more so we might see people buying iPods and using iTMS because their family and friends use them. Not clear, but possible.
The other advantage of licensing to HP is they gain some economies of scale/scope. HP will sell more, making Apple's per-unit costs better, meaning they can fight low cost competition more effectively. The scariest opponent for Apple here is Microsoft because they can bundle with Windows and gain instant economies of scale and they have a much bigger war chest than Apple. If apple can sign up a few of the major OEMs (Dell, Toshiba, IBM, etc) to the same deal as HP, then Apple will be less vulnerable to Microsoft, though it would still be a problem.
In short, licensing iPods and iTMS makes a lot of sense. They don't need/want to do it for their computers because they are not easily duplicated and have significant strategic protection beyond simply the hardware and software. iPods and iTMS are much more vulnerable to competition and need to be treated as the different business it is.
Poster 1: "Wow that was a dupe"
Poster 2: "Hey everyone, this is a duplicate"
Poster 3: "Stupid editors don't read before posting"
Poster 4: "Only idiots duplicate the previous post."
etc... ad nauseum...
Pot, Kettle, Black.
It seems we get a fairly regular drip-feed of "No look, this is what it REALLY is" articles in the computer press, and yet people still don't "get it".
What's wrong with what's happening here ? Is the coverage in the wrong area ("preaching to the converted") ? Is the message simply being disbelieved ("TANSTAAFL") ? Is the lobbying by the closed-source community simply better (all those expense accounts...).
They don't "get it" because the message is simultaneously complicated and unusual. Think about it. It's really hard to explain to a random business person how open source makes sense. ("Why would I give stuff away?...") More importantly the argument for open source is powerful, but it's not simple. When you are trying to convinve people, simplicity of the message matters.
This is something I've noticed with companies. As a rule of thumb the ones that can explain in a few words what they do, tend to do pretty well. Microsoft sells software, IBM sells computers & services, Wal*mart is a retailer, etc. When they try to get fancy it's much harder to communicate to investors and customers why they should care about you. All those fancy "exchanges" we saw during the dot com boom? Really tough message to get across.
While they have other advantages, message simplicity is one reason the RIAA is so effective in lobbying against filesharing. Their message (correct or not is beside the point) is summed up in one word, "theft". I haven't heard anyone make an equally coherent one word counter argument. Not for lack of trying trying either.
Open source to some degree suffers from the same problem. It's hard to explain concisely and coherently why it's good. Not for lack of trying mind you. Think about "free as in speach/free as in beer". That's an explanation that we almost always have to explain. Not good.
We make fun of them a lot but this is what marketing folks are (supposedly) good at. They spend enormous amounts of time trying to figure out how to get exactly the right message across in the most concise manner possible. And it's really, really hard to do well. It's an art form in some ways like making really tight reliable code. The really good stuff takes a lot of time and smarts to come up with, but is amazing to watch when it works.
"A developer of tools for Microsoft's web server software..."
Come on. I expect them to pull for their team but let's get real. They are not a neutral party and it is in their interest for people to believe that IIS is more common, whether or not that is actually the case. I don't exactly blame them for trying to spin the "facts" in their favor but following the money does hurt their credibility in this matter.
Forget batteries. The machines need humans as bacteria fabrication facilities! Poop out IC like chickens laying eggs.
And right after AMD makes that new chip fab too...
We don't. We hate you because you're a conceited bastard.