Why not download it all for free - seems to me like they're just presenting a dumbed down Capability Maturity Matrix concept.
To achieve the highest levels of profitability, the authors say, IT organizations must be well-tuned and in alignment with the goals of the enterprise to which they belong. Who'd have thought, eh?
It would be most unfortunate if intemporate people used the information in the linked article to email the spammer to suggest that he's somewhat lacking in self-knowledge, and a resembles some low form of pond-life.
So he created and began maintaining an e-commerce Web site, www.defibworld.com, on which they sell the devices worldwide.
10,000-foot view? What was wrong with the last cruddy neogism, helicoptor view, or, heaven forefend, an overview? Still. I'm quite happy to run it up the old flagpole and see if anyone salutes it.
That you cannot consider the subject merely in the context of US IT jobs, but rather, you need to see your single-issue tarriff in the overall context of US-World trade.
The US can, or course, impose a tarriff. However the cost of so-doing will be whatever penalty is levied by the World Trade Organisation. That penalty will be in terms of explicit permissions given to other nations to impose retaliatory tarrifs on US imports.
The US is a member of the WTO for self-interested reasons (as are all members, presumably). It has to accept the obligations of membership as well as the benefits.
An illustration of the immediate effect of the unilateral imposition of tarriffs is yesterday's ruling indicating that the US will be severely penalised for imposing tarriffs on certain sorts of steel imports. (The US is appealing...)
Another was the recent WTO award to Europe of the right to impose $4 billion worth of trade sanctions against the US for giving tax breaks to American exporters through foreign sales corporations.
Meanwhilse the historical perspective (and reasonably orthodox economic market theory) is that protectionism is not a good thing; specifically, that it generally fails to protect whatever it was that needed to be protected; that it adds costs & disbenefits to all sorts of other things; and that it impedes global trade, which itself is a bad thing, since trade is normally profitable.
Ultimately, I see your question as being not so much about the narrow issue of jobs in the IT sector, but rather whether it would or would not be in the US national interest to adopt an isolationist trade policy. The orthodoxy is that it would be peverse in the extreme for it to do so; and by that yardstick, it would be peverse in the extreme to sanction tarrifs to protect one industry sector - even our own sector.
And whilst it does remain in the US national interest to take part in the WTO, then it must anticipate the possibility that specific sectors - IT jobs, for instance - will from time to time be affected adversely.
Of course, there is wide scope for debate; not least, about what will be the makeup of regions, states, supranational bodies, and how will trade work, in the future. Many of the scenarios painted are not particularly pleasant. Your question - and apparent supposition that the idea of protecting US IT jobs by the imposition of tarriffs is even worth considering is, perhaps, a harbinger of the sort of unenlightened self-interest postulated as being one of the drivers for the future.
What we need now is a campaign to get the Beeb to drop its use of Real as the preferred format for audio & video, in favour of, say, MP3 and MPEG.
I cannot abide the scumsucking Real player - not least since it appears wantonly to steal file associations (okay, in Windoze) each time it is used, appearing to ignore any preference settings which suggest the me (the mere user) would prefer to keep my MP3 association with, say, Winamp.
I should like to nominate SCART connectors as the crappiest ever. Generally made out of cheap thin metal plates, completely easy to bend & distort. Generally overloaded with a relatively heavy cable loom which the connection friction is incapable bearing. French. Ugly. Stupid. Did I say French?
I think we've been here before, several times during succesive agrarian, industrial & other revolutions.
Which part of "demand for them falls; they retrain and do other things; there's a modicum of structural unemployment until they find other things to do; there's some individual hardship but society adjusts fairly smoothly" were you unable to dream up for yourself?
Husky (as was) and Itronix (as is)... and about 1,001 other companies build to the various levels of MIL STD 810E, allowing them to flaunt credentials like:
Rain at 4 in./hr. at approximately 40 psi for 40 minutes per axis for all axes per MIL STD 810E, 506.3, Proc. III
54 repeated 1M drops on all surfaces, edges and corners with the display open and closed, exceeding MIL STD 810E, 516.4, Proc. IV (all tests on a single unit)
The fact that Nominet signed, kind of invalidates your argument.
Nominet is a not-for-profit company; charges circa $7 per two years; publishes its accounts; is the model of transparacy that ICANN is not... indeed, is something like ICANN's mirror image.
When a very well run common-good organisation such as Nominet speaks on an issue like this, it behoves us to listen.
Setting aside the privacy concerns, I'd love a data logger for my car, attached to a GPS, that would allow me to replay my journies on the PC when I got home. I'm sure I'm sad enough to find the variations in speed, braking, acceleration between the same journies somewhat fascinating. I can see endless possibilities in being able to manipulate a record of my car use. Bring it on.
Picking up on your why the hell wasn't all of that software open-sourced so that the state and city governments could have used it, the UK can point to a (first?) example of this - a GPL'd content management system for local government:
Let's recheck the facts: portable laser device that:
a) cannot penetrate soil
b) is judged useless for civilian mine clearing
c) is presumably 1,000,000 less efficient than a tank mounted flail
So. Perhaps what we're looking at is the normal machinery of death industry dressing up some weapons R&D in a quasi-humanitarian guise? How much more likely that there are 101 offensive uses of this device to each defensive use?
I'd commend a read of the cited QinetiQ Report cited as background to the current consultation. In fact, I'm quite shocked at how well considered it is; I'm sure it will help readers seeking to convince their management to consider the adoption of OSS.
Its more than easy to diss Govtalk for its many failings - such as the failure to embrace text and RTF when it has the opportunity; hotchingly bad HTML on the website, &c.
But there's a great deal of good going on, too; not least the RFC process of which this consultation is a part; and the strong support for XML in the eGovernment Interoperability framework (itself a coherent position statement).
As food for further debate, here are the main recommendations under which the current consultation was predicated:
1. OSS is indeed the start of a fundamental change in the software infrastructure marketplace, and is not a hype bubble that will burst.
2. Within five years, 50% of the volume of the software infrastructure market could be taken by OSS.
3. OSS's position in large servers (e.g. those managing massive multi-user databases), such as those that underpin many large Government procurements, will grow from its current position of near zero penetration, to a position where OSS is a viable option, within 2 - 3 years.
4. Within the developed world, we as yet see no sign that OSS will become a viable alternative to Microsoft Windows, for user's (general purpose) desktop machines in the corporate or home PC markets. However, OSS on the desktop may soon become a significant player in the developing world. For these reasons we recommend against any preference for OSS on the desktop, but also recommend that this issue be reassessed by the end of 2002, by which time early trials of the use of OSS desktops may have generated sufficient evidence to warrant a reassessment.
5. We see no benefit that the Government would gain from expressing a general preference for OSS within server infrastructures.
6. The Government could clarify its position as to whether there are circumstances in which Microsoft products are to be preferred.
7. The Government could consider publishing policy as to how the risk of lock-in to proprietary protocols is to be managed.
8. As yet it is not possible to predict that OSS will make a major contribution to the software applications market.
9. Many of the Government's risks that arise from over-dependence on proprietary protocols and data formats for interoperability can be controlled by the selective use of open data standards.
10. The existence of an OSS reference implementation of a data standard has often accelerated the adoption of such standards, and we recommend that the Government consider selective sponsorship of OSS reference implementations.
11. The rise of OSS, offers the possibility that non-US players will find it easier to influence the future direction of IT infrastructure technology.
12. The Government should consider using OSS as the default exploitation route for UK Government funded software.
13. The differences between OSS and proprietary software are not a major factor in either improving or degrading the vulnerability of a nation's IT infrastructure.
14. We recommend that the Government obtain full rights to bespoke software that it procures - this includes any customisation of off-the-shelf software packages.
15. The Open Source model offers a new paradigm for funding software in communities-of-interest (e.g. Health and Education). The Government could consider running pilot projects to test the viability of the OSS approach to such software.
16. We recommend that the Medical Records data standard be examined by appropriate domain experts for possible inclusion in the e-GIF.
But he runs one of few cybernetics departments in the entire world. You'd expect his ideas and focus to be completely different from computer science AI departments around the world. The difference is subtle but important.
And what is that difference?
You can't comment on what his department do internally, because as a former student - to coin a phrase - it's very, very good shit they get up to, if a little more grounded than Kevin's bluesky concepts.
I can, you know. I worked with Reading people long before you did your 'O' Levels; and still drink, regularly enough, with people in the department. They see Warwick as a threat to their research funding - which is why he's a wee bit semi-detached nowadays. However, we were not commenting on the Department (though don't tempt me into an MIT versus Reading rant), but on the person (don't tempt me into a Rod Brooks vs Warwick rant).
Warwick is a media whore, and deserves the contempt that goes with that tag. Based on his own work, he deserves (at best) to be a plodding lecturer; he debases the currency of the Chair.
Re:The correct name for these bricks is LEGO
on
When Lego Meet Rubik
·
· Score: 2
The Lego company is very firm on this point. Page 11 of http://www.lego.com/info/pdf/presskituk.pdf states that "The LEGO trademark should not be referred to in a generic way such as
"LEGOS" or "legos," or as plural or possessive words like "LEGO's."
From the article: If all goes as planned, the academy would become the third undergraduate institution to send a satellite into space, after Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, and the U.S. Air Force Academy, which launched a satellite in January 2000. That satellite stopped responding after several days because of what professors there believe was a power supply problem.
So the answer is, maybe not. And who exactly wants that sort of pollution flying around up there anyway?
Good to see that "Reader Brian McWilliam" was also the author of the Newsbytes story he asked you to link to.
Odd for me to have seen much of the bones of his story already discussed at length in The Register, on the day before McWilliam's posted his Newsbytes contribution.
Still; I'm sure the slashdot effect will please his employers & increase his marketability.
Here, meanwhile, is what TheReg thinks of mcWilliams and his half-assed understanding of things technical.
According to www.speedsailing.com the current record for 10 sq metre sail craft over a 500 metre course, is 45.34 knots - in 1993.
As the site's name suggests, there is more infomation on most aspects of speedsailing - including hydrofoil design - at the above address.
Slashdot Mirror
Who'd have thought? CDs honor the traditional price elacticity of demand for commodity goods: don't rip off your punters and they'll buy your product.
5 8767.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/31
To achieve the highest levels of profitability, the authors say, IT organizations must be well-tuned and in alignment with the goals of the enterprise to which they belong. Who'd have thought, eh?
This was already common enough knowledge for those interested in the subject ... the south east & east anglia are sinking, the north west rising.
It would be most unfortunate if intemporate people used the information in the linked article to email the spammer to suggest that he's somewhat lacking in self-knowledge, and a resembles some low form of pond-life.
So he created and began maintaining an e-commerce Web site, www.defibworld.com, on which they sell the devices worldwide.
Much worse, of course, if someone did a whois to find Mr. Shiels email address.
10,000-foot view? What was wrong with the last cruddy neogism, helicoptor view, or, heaven forefend, an overview ? Still. I'm quite happy to run it up the old flagpole and see if anyone salutes it.
What does Slashdot think?"
That you cannot consider the subject merely in the context of US IT jobs, but rather, you need to see your single-issue tarriff in the overall context of US-World trade.
The US can, or course, impose a tarriff. However the cost of so-doing will be whatever penalty is levied by the World Trade Organisation. That penalty will be in terms of explicit permissions given to other nations to impose retaliatory tarrifs on US imports.
The US is a member of the WTO for self-interested reasons (as are all members, presumably). It has to accept the obligations of membership as well as the benefits.
An illustration of the immediate effect of the unilateral imposition of tarriffs is yesterday's ruling indicating that the US will be severely penalised for imposing tarriffs on certain sorts of steel imports. (The US is appealing...)
Another was the recent WTO award to Europe of the right to impose $4 billion worth of trade sanctions against the US for giving tax breaks to American exporters through foreign sales corporations.
Meanwhilse the historical perspective (and reasonably orthodox economic market theory) is that protectionism is not a good thing; specifically, that it generally fails to protect whatever it was that needed to be protected; that it adds costs & disbenefits to all sorts of other things; and that it impedes global trade, which itself is a bad thing, since trade is normally profitable.
Ultimately, I see your question as being not so much about the narrow issue of jobs in the IT sector, but rather whether it would or would not be in the US national interest to adopt an isolationist trade policy. The orthodoxy is that it would be peverse in the extreme for it to do so; and by that yardstick, it would be peverse in the extreme to sanction tarrifs to protect one industry sector - even our own sector.
And whilst it does remain in the US national interest to take part in the WTO, then it must anticipate the possibility that specific sectors - IT jobs, for instance - will from time to time be affected adversely.
Of course, there is wide scope for debate; not least, about what will be the makeup of regions, states, supranational bodies, and how will trade work, in the future. Many of the scenarios painted are not particularly pleasant. Your question - and apparent supposition that the idea of protecting US IT jobs by the imposition of tarriffs is even worth considering is, perhaps, a harbinger of the sort of unenlightened self-interest postulated as being one of the drivers for the future.
What we need now is a campaign to get the Beeb to drop its use of Real as the preferred format for audio & video, in favour of, say, MP3 and MPEG.
I cannot abide the scumsucking Real player - not least since it appears wantonly to steal file associations (okay, in Windoze) each time it is used, appearing to ignore any preference settings which suggest the me (the mere user) would prefer to keep my MP3 association with, say, Winamp.
I should like to nominate SCART connectors as the crappiest ever. Generally made out of cheap thin metal plates, completely easy to bend & distort. Generally overloaded with a relatively heavy cable loom which the connection friction is incapable bearing. French. Ugly. Stupid. Did I say French?
I think we've been here before, several times during succesive agrarian, industrial & other revolutions.
Which part of "demand for them falls; they retrain and do other things; there's a modicum of structural unemployment until they find other things to do; there's some individual hardship but society adjusts fairly smoothly" were you unable to dream up for yourself?
Now, where's that confounded Stocking Loom
The fact that Nominet signed, kind of invalidates your argument.
... indeed, is something like ICANN's mirror image.
Nominet is a not-for-profit company; charges circa $7 per two years; publishes its accounts; is the model of transparacy that ICANN is not
When a very well run common-good organisation such as Nominet speaks on an issue like this, it behoves us to listen.
Setting aside the privacy concerns, I'd love a data logger for my car, attached to a GPS, that would allow me to replay my journies on the PC when I got home. I'm sure I'm sad enough to find the variations in speed, braking, acceleration between the same journies somewhat fascinating. I can see endless possibilities in being able to manipulate a record of my car use. Bring it on.
Sorry. Still asleep. Try:
http://www.aplaws.org.uk
Picking up on your why the hell wasn't all of that software open-sourced so that the state and city governments could have used it, the UK can point to a (first?) example of this - a GPL'd content management system for local government:
http://www.aplaws.org.uk/
Only in America, eh!
Ahem.
I mean, this is a threat to internet freedom only in one (increasingly reactionary) country, the US of A.
a) cannot penetrate soil
b) is judged useless for civilian mine clearing
c) is presumably 1,000,000 less efficient than a tank mounted flail
So. Perhaps what we're looking at is the normal machinery of death industry dressing up some weapons R&D in a quasi-humanitarian guise? How much more likely that there are 101 offensive uses of this device to each defensive use?
Alternate conclusion #2: Microsoft is a supplier. Suppliers supply goods. Contractors supply services.
Just a guess: Gartner. Shame it ain't attributed.
I'd commend a read of the cited QinetiQ Report cited as background to the current consultation. In fact, I'm quite shocked at how well considered it is; I'm sure it will help readers seeking to convince their management to consider the adoption of OSS.
Its more than easy to diss Govtalk for its many failings - such as the failure to embrace text and RTF when it has the opportunity; hotchingly bad HTML on the website, &c.
But there's a great deal of good going on, too; not least the RFC process of which this consultation is a part; and the strong support for XML in the eGovernment Interoperability framework (itself a coherent position statement).
As food for further debate, here are the main recommendations under which the current consultation was predicated:
1. OSS is indeed the start of a fundamental change in the software infrastructure marketplace, and is not a hype bubble that will burst.
2. Within five years, 50% of the volume of the software infrastructure market could be taken by OSS.
3. OSS's position in large servers (e.g. those managing massive multi-user databases), such as those that underpin many large Government procurements, will grow from its current position of near zero penetration, to a position where OSS is a viable option, within 2 - 3 years.
4. Within the developed world, we as yet see no sign that OSS will become a viable alternative to Microsoft Windows, for user's (general purpose) desktop machines in the corporate or home PC markets. However, OSS on the desktop may soon become a significant player in the developing world. For these reasons we recommend against any preference for OSS on the desktop, but also recommend that this issue be reassessed by the end of 2002, by which time early trials of the use of OSS desktops may have generated sufficient evidence to warrant a reassessment.
5. We see no benefit that the Government would gain from expressing a general preference for OSS within server infrastructures.
6. The Government could clarify its position as to whether there are circumstances in which Microsoft products are to be preferred.
7. The Government could consider publishing policy as to how the risk of lock-in to proprietary protocols is to be managed.
8. As yet it is not possible to predict that OSS will make a major contribution to the software applications market.
9. Many of the Government's risks that arise from over-dependence on proprietary protocols and data formats for interoperability can be controlled by the selective use of open data standards.
10. The existence of an OSS reference implementation of a data standard has often accelerated the adoption of such standards, and we recommend that the Government consider selective sponsorship of OSS reference implementations.
11. The rise of OSS, offers the possibility that non-US players will find it easier to influence the future direction of IT infrastructure technology.
12. The Government should consider using OSS as the default exploitation route for UK Government funded software.
13. The differences between OSS and proprietary software are not a major factor in either improving or degrading the vulnerability of a nation's IT infrastructure.
14. We recommend that the Government obtain full rights to bespoke software that it procures - this includes any customisation of off-the-shelf software packages.
15. The Open Source model offers a new paradigm for funding software in communities-of-interest (e.g. Health and Education). The Government could consider running pilot projects to test the viability of the OSS approach to such software.
16. We recommend that the Medical Records data standard be examined by appropriate domain experts for possible inclusion in the e-GIF.
And what is that difference?
You can't comment on what his department do internally, because as a former student - to coin a phrase - it's very, very good shit they get up to, if a little more grounded than Kevin's bluesky concepts.
I can, you know. I worked with Reading people long before you did your 'O' Levels; and still drink, regularly enough, with people in the department. They see Warwick as a threat to their research funding - which is why he's a wee bit semi-detached nowadays. However, we were not commenting on the Department (though don't tempt me into an MIT versus Reading rant), but on the person (don't tempt me into a Rod Brooks vs Warwick rant).
Warwick is a media whore, and deserves the contempt that goes with that tag. Based on his own work, he deserves (at best) to be a plodding lecturer; he debases the currency of the Chair.
The Lego company is very firm on this point. Page 11 of http://www.lego.com/info/pdf/presskituk.pdf states that "The LEGO trademark should not be referred to in a generic way such as "LEGOS" or "legos," or as plural or possessive words like "LEGO's."
So the answer is, maybe not. And who exactly wants that sort of pollution flying around up there anyway?
Odd for me to have seen much of the bones of his story already discussed at length in The Register, on the day before McWilliam's posted his Newsbytes contribution.
Still; I'm sure the slashdot effect will please his employers & increase his marketability.
Here, meanwhile, is what TheReg thinks of mcWilliams and his half-assed understanding of things technical.
According to www.speedsailing.com the current record for 10 sq metre sail craft over a 500 metre course, is 45.34 knots - in 1993. As the site's name suggests, there is more infomation on most aspects of speedsailing - including hydrofoil design - at the above address.
Your gransfather was a leg man, heh?