I think the US just have different priorities, and is having trouble competing in a more connected world. One theory suggests that the great US university was grew because a combination of interesting event. First, too many rich kids in the new world would die of plague when sent to England, so we started setting up 'good' schools here. Second, as we became industrialized, we had the cash to entice investors to come to the new world. At least one stayed because it was easier than going back. The greatest push for public higher education, however, was likely WWII, in which we had all these farmboys coming back with not much to do. And the unique thing about is that they had seen the world outside of their town. They had a perspective greater than their parents, and were curious. They knew what hard work was, and the advantages of not having to do the hard work. So they got degrees in engineering, math and science. And many made the discoveries that made the US a leader.
At the same time, during and after WWII, many great minds were coming to the relatively freedom of the US. It is often say the Allies won WWII because we had the smarter Germans. This continued to the end of the the 20th century, when changes in the US and foreign rules, the increasing cost of a US education, and the availability of other options, reduced the influx of foreign talent.
Even with all this, I think there are three critical factors that makes the US less competitive, beyond the general presence of anti-intellectualism and the president that is proud that he cannot read complex prose. The first is that funding priorities are focused more on war and less on education, therefore most Universities have less money with which to educate. Second, though I think the WWII vets communicated the wonder of the world to their kids, the grandkids do not seem to understand. I know too many kids of successful people decline to the bum slacker status, never creating anything more complex than a cup of coffee at Starbucks.
Third, we are not communicated the wonder of the world to average kids. They grow up believing that a worker and consumer is all they can be. That is what most will be, but some can be more, and it is these resources that we are wasting. And as the US returns to protectionism, there will be less chance for a kid to be exposed to the wonder of the world. Worse, i see television shows where contestants say the most wonderful thing they have done in their life is to hold their breaths for a couple minutes, or stay still while bugs crawl on. I often did the later when I was a kid, and I never thought is was so great. What is great is launching a satellite, or helping a factory stay in the US, or helping a company stay afloat so those jobs are saved, and more are created. or a new school of art, or a new way of communicating information. And everyone will say a normal person cannot do these things, but normal people do all things everyday. All anyone thinks can be done is new and more complex ways of stealing money or cheating on taxes so our boys do not have the equipment they need, the medical care, or the education facilities when they return.
Of course several things have to happen first. There has to be a job available. The person applying for the job has to have the social skills to work in an office setting, and must be productive nearly every day, not just when he or she feels like it.
Take the current 'skills shortage' in america. It is not the technical skills that are in short supply, it is the social office skills that say you get to work on time, work for whatever you are given, and do what you are told. It is often easier to import indentured servants that to work with the local population. This is fair. It is just not fair to claim that the every person who is writing malware has a choice of another code writing job. Sure, they still have a choice, but often not an equal, or even slightly worse, one.
It would be nice if we all could be robots that were always able to get to where we are supposed to be, say yes sir and no sir, and never question company policy. Of course amny of us with skills, and options, just go and do something more meaningful. We do not have the constraints that force us into the corporate mold.
Well, from the sig it would seem that the poster might lack a basic understanding of reality. To wit, if something has been done, then, at least under those circumstances, it is possible to do so. This does not mean that it can always be done, or that it has in fact been done elsewhere, but does raise the status of the event to possible. One of the great mental illnesses of our time, or perhaps any other, it that of denial. It halts progress by claiming that something cannot be done, even though it in fact already has. For instance, American automakers are in such trouble becuase they claimed a quality car could not be made, even though such a car was being made in Japan. Perhaps a quality car cannot be made in America, but America is not everywhere.
So, a dubious group called mythbusters claims that a mirror cannot be used to destroy a ship simply becuase this dubious group could not figure out how to do. The fine folks at a major university, OTOH, were able to cause significant damage to a scale model using reflected sunlight. Does this mean that mythbusters is wrong. No, of course not. Perhaps their simulation was more accurate. But the fact remains that a scale model of a ship was set alight with reflected sunlight. Perhaps the person who discovered some basic physics was able to figure this out as well, and at least annoy the ships enough to cause them to move away.
Now the importance of the sig. One is in a bar with girls from size 0 to size 6, the second fattest is size 5. For many of us, size 5 is pretty skinny. Now, the guy without a grasp of reality might shun the size 5 in the hope of getting a size zero. Perhpas this clueless guy strikes out and then proclaims that all pretty girls are stuck up, and there does not exist a girl that is willing to go home a normal guy for some string free sex. And perhaps for that guy it is true. This, however, does not negate that fact that someone else got some hot size 5, or heaver forbid, even 6, sex.
MS has done some interesting things. Excel was a wonderful product. It really did redefine the catagory. It is true that Visiscalc, Lotus 123, Quattro, etc did do all those things, and I used all those poducts extensively, the graphical and three dimensional quality was a wonderful use of technology. Excel, like Visicalc, was largely responsible for Apples in the Office. The next big interesting thing was probably Powerpoint, another good use of then current technology. You are, however, almost correct about the 10 year thing. The hieght of basic functionality and usability for Office was the mid 90's. Everything since then is equal amount of interesting feature and bloat, depending on what one needs.
Mostly everyhting else they do simply makes state of the art affordable and usable to the common person, which is innovative and creative in a certain. I mean stripping down FoxPro to the basics and redeploying as Acess is no simple task. Copying a webserver and making it usable to the average tech school graduatge is equally interesting.
The real problem is that MS wants to be known as a high tech leader, which in some ways they are, and perhaps were more than now. OTOH, Toyota makes a pretty penny delivery cars of adequate quality to consumers, and though they might exagerate, they are not going to say they know thier place.
MS is 100% focused to getting MS Office working on the MS platform, and has been 20 years. Office, at it's heart, and at it's best, is a Mac applications. Anyone who had the unfortunate experience of using the early MS Office for DOS or MS Windows, or the failed effort to combine the code bases, knows that all MS efforts have gone to making the MS Windows version appear superior. If MS Windows is to survive, MS must continue to put all efforts into the MS Windows version of MS Office.
I have iPods, but have not bought the full version. For the large size, I want more than just a music player. Now, with the 60 gig hard disk, and video capability, and slightly thinner, Apple may have come up with a good combo for that form factor. It is not that I will watch movies on it often, but that I can watch movies on it, and thereby has it has a significant advantage over the mini.
the only issue is that of the Firewire port. USB, it seems, is slow on the Mac. Also, I still have a machine that I use regularly that is the USB 1.1, so transferring anything over a gig is terribly slow. I do use my iPod to transfer large files. Therefore, if the iPod does not have Firewire, it is currently of less use. Otherwsie I would buy it as soon as the bugs are worked out.
OTOH, if you use ITMS, you can use virtually any player, once you make your fair use backup. On a related note, there are a few services that are not DRM constrainted.
Besides a small savings at walmart, which you pay for with reduced rights, and Yahoo subscriptins, I do not see ITMS any better or worse than anything else.
Many have been concerned about google for quite some time. They have been quiently and not so quietly consuming the advertised-paid-for search market, thier algorithm is aging and increasingly easy to attack, and many portal products, like froogle, seem to be in a constant beta state, while other products like toolbar seem less like a useful and more like an intrusive ploy.
What is most worrying is that few seem to be worried about the lack of real compitition. Given google declinng result quality, where is the compitition. Though the results seem to be getting no worse, there must be better ways to do searching. However, with MS pushing thier solution, and Google seeming like the new big thing, I gues no one wants to fund it.
So just like 15 and 20 years ago when many of us were saying that MS was good for some things, not everything, and the market should encourage options, history is now repeating itself when we will give up diversity for some immidiate percieved simplicity.
I wonder why Apple does not do a direct link from CDBaby. There are albums that are no longer in print, but would not be so expensive to keep on disk. The consumer goes to CDBaby, and can be redirected to ITMS. Perhaps even have the option to order cover art for you own case.
Which brings up a big question. Why are we not doing on demand publishing for CDs?
What would help the most if the religious freaks did not get away with attacking science. It is very hard to do quality engineering when you are raised to believe that there is no cause and effect, merely god. Or that math and science is the devils work.
Alternatively, kids are increasingly being told that they must make money fast. We have spoiled children and criminals who have done little if any work at all levels of government, while the ones who have genuinely studied and work hard to advance human knowledge, and in the process create the knowledge that allows engineers and businessmen to create all the products we rely on, are vilified.
I mean who wants to be a science teacher if parents are going to say you are a devil worshipper. Who wants to be a math teacher if all the people in power say they never were good at math and it never did them any harm. Who wants to be an english teacher if the highest authorities are saying they never read. And without someone to teach kids these skills, there really are no engineers. And increasing the hostile environment, at leas in the US, is causing fewer students to enter American universities from abroad, which ultimately has a significant impact on the ability of the US to peacefully spread it's message of democracy.
A less touchy issue is simply the time needed to get an engineering degree and funding. A student will often need 5 years to get an undergraduate, and, if he or she wants job security, will probably wish a masters which is two more years. There are fields in which one can make as much money after going to school for less time. There are many degrees in which you can still party your freshman year and pass your classes. There are many degrees that you can finish in four years, and not risk having your funding cut off because you are not making suitable progress.
In the end, we are not training engineers. When I was in school, the number of qualified students at the high school and college level were high. It was a challenge to get into programs. The focus on national testing is reducing the number of students who can independently and creatively solve problems, and as a result reducing the number of students that are currently qualified to enter the programs. Popular schools have to turn people away, but the rest go out begging for minimally qualified students.
If we, as a nation or world, believe we already know everything, that everything can be gotten from a single book, then no engineering is needed. IMHO, we need to be curious, know that the universe is more interesting than a story told in a few pages, and be humble enough to admit that we cannot completely understand the mind, intent, or complete working of what we each consider holy.
Of course everyone will say get a good lawyer. Even so, the question is vaild as someone may have some personal experience with this situation, and though a lawyer may know portions of the law, they may not be familiar with unexpected consequences.
So, here is my question of unexpected consequences. On every job, the code I wrote was the companies, and i was happy with that. The reason was that the company would be liable for any consequences of the code, and I would not have to worry about the code after I left. The flip side is that I could not use the code I wrote, but i could always rewrite if I had to. So, is there any legitimate worry about liability in this situation? Is ownership what one is looking for, or merely a license? Is it better for the company to license from you, of you from the company? This goes beyond
the company doesn't own unrelated code i wrote in my own time' to 'I own the code the company uses and paid for me to write'. This seems kind of dangerous to all parties.
Given that these products are designed by humans who have likely gone to school to learn designs that work, or at least have looked around to see what designs work and what modes are familiar, there is going to be a great similarity in products.
For instance, almost every handheld product, including music players, are a rectangle. The short is sized to fit across the hand, while the long end is made form a pleasing proportion. This works, is comfortable, and many people already know how to utilize it.
Second, the wheel is round because that is how many of us know how to control things. This comes from the fact that in pre-digital age many things were controlled by rheostats. Rheostats used rotational motion to control things like radio tuning, volume, and the like. In the case mention, the radio was likely tuned by turning a large gear on the wheel, which turned a rheostat, which adjusted the resistance in a circuit that tuned the radio. Under a piece of clear plastic, which was marked with an indicator line, the frequency numbers were printed so the user might know approximately the tune frequency. This was a great design,as it provided a simple way to make the radio usable, but was probably more a result of expedient. The combination of the need to fit in the hand, and the need to simply and reliably indicate the radio tuning, gave the device in question it's shape and characteristics.
Over time changes were made. Some mechanisms were added so the rotational motion of the rheostat could be converted to linear motion so a linear indicator might be utilized. Digital electronics made the rheostat obsolete, but since people knew how to turn knobs, the knob motif continued to be used. Which leads to the iPod. It fits in the hand, which gives it the shape. People know how to use knobs to select, and the knob provides a more continuous experience than up and down buttons. So the big circle transforms from the display to the selector, while the display becomes a square LED. The colors are added to differentiate the product in the market, but are expensive to stock. Really, there is not similarity between the radio and the iPod, except that both devices fit in the hand, and the transistor radio perhaps taught us how to use knobs.
The article stated that the phone can function as a home PC, which I think, if we define a home PC with sufficient limits, is true. Increasingly, the two unique functions that a person uses a PC for is web browsing and email. The other features like texting and talking are already well placed on the phone. Can everyone use the phone as a home pc? Of course not. Does everyone that with home PC fully loaded with XP gain value from that power? Of course not.
Your second point stems from amateur design of web sites, even with ten years of experience. I still see allegedly professionally designed web sites with the notice 'best viewed at "780 X 1024", even though any webmonkey should be able to abstract enough to use width="10%" instead of width="100". Even apparently well funded sites are pitiful. The cingular site barely functions due to poor authentication and confusion of provided customer support and enticing more customer purchases. I think we have gotten ourselves into a situation where all the bad habits have become entrenched, and this make transitions to larger and smaller screens, and even universal access, painful. This does not even address the issue of using internal org charts as the basis of web site architechture.
The point is that we may soon have VGA resolution on many phones, and the factor is if web sites, native GUI, and other applications are designed to utilize a wide range of output devices or only the typical size of the day. I am not saying it has to run on the command line and lynx, but should not be like some MS Outlook interfaces where half the text is off screen, or other current GUI where 30% of the screen is used for non-fuctional elements.
I know this is a funny, but i do not find the mini scratches easily. I have several knicks around the edge of my mini, but only a vey few scratches on the case. The screen has a scuff and a few scrachtes. This is after some fairly heavy use, sometimes without a case. I do not expect apple to ship a product that easily suffers cosmetic damage. But, as i mentioned before, the iPod is now becoming part of thier low end consumer line, and is suffering the quality issues asscociated with using price as a primary engineering spec.
However this and the firewire issue is yet another reason to wait a long time before buying a nano.
My shuffle is sad shape, but that is because it is in my pocket with my keys, or in a bag with cables and such, or just clipped to me or a bag. However, it still works perfectly.
Well, this list is clearly just a cheap method to generate ad revenue, but if we give the paper the benifit of the doubt, I think the list is a bit daft.
Xena, though a fine show, is hardly a science fiction. It has none of the technology, exploration of current social problems, or even exploration of various cultures. Pretty much it just a medeival cop show.
Sliders was not ahead of it's time. It was just another huckleberry finn, star trek, docotor who knockoff with none of the redeeming factors. It is quite suitable for the adolecent maile, with a good role model, a pretty girl into geeks, and trivial story line. However, there are no layers that might make it interesting to an adult. The writing was woodden, even by scifi standards.
One contemporary scifi show that is seldom mentioned is 'The Cape'. Based on reality, good exploration life, and how we might move forward. Much more interesting than anything I saw on that list, though the show only works if you ignore current reality, as is true for most scifi.
Others have mentioned the reasons for the MA decision, and other articles on/. have tracked the progress, but at the base the reason is portability.
I, and anyone else who have creating word documents for the past decade or so, know how fustrating it is to go back and try to edit old work. Now, if one is using word as a toy, i.e. school papers or memos that no one really reads, then it doesn't matter how the work is saved, because the computer is just a fnacy typewriter, and no one will care about the document the day after tommorow. But when using Word to edit documents that will need to be revised for years to come, or that others will have to interact with, it is really a waste of time to have to fight to read in those docs when MS chooses to change the formats.
And it really is between MS closed format and something not so insane. The current state of the world is that most things are in MS format, and MS format is really a problem. I like MS Word 97, so, until a few years ago, that is what I used. I could use the latest version, as it would cost me very little to upgrade, but the money would buy me nothing but file compatibility with other users. The biggest prolem with word '97 is that the current MS word has difficulty reading the files. So I can upgrade to the current format, or I can find another solution. It shouldn't be hard for MS to provide the solution, as it is a MS product, in the form of backwards compatibility, but the choose not to. MS instead chooses to screw it's customers. Like 10 years ago when i had to reinstall and mess with filter to get the then current version of word to read files that were a year old.
Which is really what I think this is about. It is not so much that we want an open format. Many are happy using PDF files because PDF files have seldom let us down. What we don't want is a format that is so insanely closed that not even the company that controls it can keep up with from version to version. Everyone hates insecurity, and what MS has shown us since MS Word the first is that we cannot count on the security of reading our old files. This is why I use OO.org, and why it is not worth it to save anything important in any MS format.
At this point people usually reply that I am lying. But I was perfectly happy with MS Word until i woke up one morning and realized that nothing was going to change and i was putting all my writing in a black hole. MS Office is good, it is not overpriced, but in terms of file security, it is a very bad value.
The problem with this is that there is probably more documentation of what is going on now than every before. Everyone wants to harp on a stone tablet that survived. We spend millions of people hours studying it, extrapolating information, but what have we got? A list of goods sold at one time during a particular regime? I mean we assume that was is written is true, but where is coroboration? It is not like we often have hundreds of stone tablets from each year and territory. We tend to assume things and hope our results are correct.
Then we deal with letters written hundreds of years ago. That is treasure trove, but how many letters were destroyed for every letter that is found? Do historians really want to go through every letter that has ever been written? Do historians read every non-fiction book available?
Even with phones and email, we probably have a better archieve than ever before in history, at least at the official level. Phone calls are recorded, a la Nixon and Kennedy and the Katrina discussions. So much is on email. So many books are going to survive. The future historians are not going to have trouble gaining original documents, baring armagedeon, they will only have problems working through them.
One last thing. The dark ages, IMHO, were a result of certain embeeded interests that saw thier fortunes were to be destroyed by certain advances, or certain forces who wished to conquer other more advanced forces. The dark ages ended only when human curiosity won over the forces of human stagnation and starting exploring the world without hubris. Some of this was kick started by the reading of the old texts, but much of it was merely the victory of those who wanted to learn over those that thought we already knew everyhting.
Well. when you paid the licensing fee to legally rip the CD, as opposed to the licensing fee to privately listen to the CD in your comfort of your home with the very few people you directly know, I am sure you received a code. You may enter this code for each MP3 to prove you have a legal copy.
When was the last time children enjoyed music responsibly. Are we so far back into the conservative era that even our kids are just boring do goodders in a three piece suite listening to how horrible it is to lie? God I hope not. For the past 40 years or so music has been one thing that kids can do irresponsibly without causing massive destruction. Take that away from them and they will have to turn to drugs and such, which will mean the kids will have no money to buy music.
While there is some security issues for a person who knows better, many users are clueless. For example, my mother had a few hundred spyware, malware, and other process on her box. I still do not know if I got rid of them all. She is typical in that runs just a few applications, and for just a few hours a week. She wants to send mail, browse the web, and write some notes. For this she had to invest several hundred dollars, along with the opportunity costs. And 50% of the time the darn thing runs so badly that she can't use. I can and do fix the problems, but the machine is overly complex.
For many people inthis situation, a very cheap box, and DSL service that includes basic remotely hosted apps, is a good thing. I know all you are saying terminals. But terminals worked, and they allowed central management so every user was not having to mess with thier own box. Defrag your hard disk, get rid of worms, follow these 'simple' instructions.
Absolutely I would not use such a service for the same reason I don't use hotmail or gmail or any of the other 'free' services. I can afford to pay for privacy, and have the technical acumen to support it. However, just imagine what it would do to the spam and bot problem if we migrated all these lusers off machines they do not know how to run? It might hurt the profits of MS and Apple, but think about it.
We could have everyone running to a new open standard. The host machine could be on any processor, and of older age. Schools could have a central server,and just use whatever gets donated, and run a free OS, not worrying about MS launching an attack. I think apple could survive, as so many of the machines sold are used for more than three apps. The PC manufacturers would still manufacture the terminals. Open standards would hopefully prevent monopolies. And innovation would thrive. Services could either sell based on price or privacy, and the user could choose.\
(and BTW, to anticipate a quandry, I also think subscrition music is good for certain populations, expecially the young that just want top 40. it would be sad when they get older and have nothing to show for it, but if we are in a singles world, perhaps they won't care. I certainly do not know what to do with a peice of plastic anymore.)
I agree that playing a CD a certain device is a privilege. But that privilege is paid for. And while it is the right of everyone, at least in the US, to peruse profit, it is a privilege to actually profit. Therefore, in reality, the modern civilized world can be seen as an interlocking set of privileges, that, as long as we do not abuse them, result in a world that in not totally unfair. To wit, the industry has pushed the idea that a piece of plastic with a CD logo on it will reliable play on a device that has a similar logo. Initially it was also stated that CD would last a long time, but now 'long time' is modified with 'if proper care is taken'.
So, the music industry has the privilege to make a profit, but only so long as do not abuse the privilege, by, for example, deceptive practices, one of which could be saying that not all CD players will play a CD. Perhaps they can fix this by not calling the plastic discs CDs, and claiming that the new format is largely compatible with the CD, but not 100%.
If, they however, start violating the established privileges of their customers, then they no long have the privilege of making a profit, only the right to pursue it.
This is pretty typical. Many companies have a a product or two that actually generates profits, while the other products pay for fixed costs and development. Now, one can't say which dollar pays for which item, but one can say which products have high proft margins and which reltively low development costs. The iPod is likely such a product, and is likely what allows Apple to remain a productive firm. OTOH, the computer side probably pays for enough fixed costs and has shown enough long term viabiliy that it will continue to be a major part of apple.
I am trying to come up with some common examples. Certainly grocery stores have higher markups on certain products. American automakers are making little on the sales of automobiles, while hoping to generate a profit on the finance side. I have seen some manfucaturing firms price older products to pay fixed costs, newer products to pay for development and some profit, while the custom products were profit. Therefore I would say that it is a good thing that this little consumer device can generate some profit, which allows them to concentrate on volume on the computer side.
Sony has some of the finest electronics on the planet. They do a really good job of design and manufacturing. What has happened seems to be the standard bussness cycle. Small firm becomes succesful by playing fast and loose, then, as they grow, these same entities become addicted to those same rules they shunned in the first place, or, even worse, start creating rules that insure that other firms cannot be as innovative.
This was the case of Disney, IBM, MS, and all these companies are now suffer, or will likely soon suffer, because of it. In the case of Sony, their succes was based on IP infringement. People bought walkmen because they were small. Then these same people made copies of Albums for thier walkmans, for thier freinds walkmans, left them behind as they could just make another copy, pretty much decimated album sales. The fact that sales actually started to slump a few years before the walkman was ignored.
Now Sony has gotten religion and can't play fast and loose, and therefore wants to prevent others from playing fast and loose. They can't compete on innovation, because IP laws forbids them from innovated, so no one else can either. There is only so much one can do when one buys into the stogid status quo.
One thing I find most interesting is that Sony makes one of the best laptops, but, because they sell them with MS Windows, they must compete with the rest of the Windows crowd, which is mostly junk. One can imagine Sony having the resources, and Asia having the market, for a third OS, a la Apple, that could run the MS stuff, but interoperate and be friendly in such a way that Sony could differentiate the machine. That, however, would be innovation, and likely involve open source projects that would imperil the sanctity of abolsute IP, which would not go over well with the people who produce nothing at all, but still want to get paid.
not to mention the movie and safety talk. I think Red Dwarf said it best
Welcome to Xpress Lifts, descent to floor sixteen. You will be going down two thousand, five hundred and sixty-seven floors and, for a small extra charge, you can enjoy the in-lift movie 'Gone With the Wind'. If you look to your right and to your left, you will notice there are no exits. In the highly unlikely event of the lift having to make a crash-landing, death is certain. Under your seats you will find a cassette for recording your last-minute testament, and from above your head a bag will drop containing sedatives and cyanide capsules.
I would think the biggest issue would be safety. Two shuttle breakups in 15 some odd years is bad enough, but what will be required when we really have the promised trip to space every week.
You forgot the difficulty of installing any hardware, the lack of compatibility, the reboot for any change, and the general lack of software. Which are all non-issues, including those you mention.
In reality, MS Windows is still difficult in all these areas. I setup a wireless card on XP and I could not use the downloaded update, I had to use the CD. I just helped a collegue install a USB printer on XP, and it took like three installs/unintalls to work. My reletively new XP machines at home will not work relibly with my USB keyboard, at least without the old fashioned keyboard. OTOH, my macs has none of these issues.
What we have to remember is that MS Windows had and still has many of these problems, and people still flocked to the OS. Only ten years ago one had to go to the command line to install an external mass storage device, and one to know all these magical numbers to get an internal drive to work. There were machines that did not require you to do so much work. Changing anything required 10 reboots.
But we bought the emerging Wintel machines not becuase they were perfect, but because they were the cheap solution. and we lived without, or paid huge amounts, for things that were not included, like basic networking. We were told that MS would have these things, and they were cheapest, so we waited.
Now MS Windows is not the all out cheapest OS, and there are options that can use the current hardware. There will be issues, but there were issues with MS, and we bought because it was cheap. The problem that MS has is that they choose not play the quality game, but continue to play the cheap game, claiming lower TCO. Which is kind of sad for the mature market leader.
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At the same time, during and after WWII, many great minds were coming to the relatively freedom of the US. It is often say the Allies won WWII because we had the smarter Germans. This continued to the end of the the 20th century, when changes in the US and foreign rules, the increasing cost of a US education, and the availability of other options, reduced the influx of foreign talent.
Even with all this, I think there are three critical factors that makes the US less competitive, beyond the general presence of anti-intellectualism and the president that is proud that he cannot read complex prose. The first is that funding priorities are focused more on war and less on education, therefore most Universities have less money with which to educate. Second, though I think the WWII vets communicated the wonder of the world to their kids, the grandkids do not seem to understand. I know too many kids of successful people decline to the bum slacker status, never creating anything more complex than a cup of coffee at Starbucks.
Third, we are not communicated the wonder of the world to average kids. They grow up believing that a worker and consumer is all they can be. That is what most will be, but some can be more, and it is these resources that we are wasting. And as the US returns to protectionism, there will be less chance for a kid to be exposed to the wonder of the world. Worse, i see television shows where contestants say the most wonderful thing they have done in their life is to hold their breaths for a couple minutes, or stay still while bugs crawl on. I often did the later when I was a kid, and I never thought is was so great. What is great is launching a satellite, or helping a factory stay in the US, or helping a company stay afloat so those jobs are saved, and more are created. or a new school of art, or a new way of communicating information. And everyone will say a normal person cannot do these things, but normal people do all things everyday. All anyone thinks can be done is new and more complex ways of stealing money or cheating on taxes so our boys do not have the equipment they need, the medical care, or the education facilities when they return.
Take the current 'skills shortage' in america. It is not the technical skills that are in short supply, it is the social office skills that say you get to work on time, work for whatever you are given, and do what you are told. It is often easier to import indentured servants that to work with the local population. This is fair. It is just not fair to claim that the every person who is writing malware has a choice of another code writing job. Sure, they still have a choice, but often not an equal, or even slightly worse, one.
It would be nice if we all could be robots that were always able to get to where we are supposed to be, say yes sir and no sir, and never question company policy. Of course amny of us with skills, and options, just go and do something more meaningful. We do not have the constraints that force us into the corporate mold.
So, a dubious group called mythbusters claims that a mirror cannot be used to destroy a ship simply becuase this dubious group could not figure out how to do. The fine folks at a major university, OTOH, were able to cause significant damage to a scale model using reflected sunlight. Does this mean that mythbusters is wrong. No, of course not. Perhaps their simulation was more accurate. But the fact remains that a scale model of a ship was set alight with reflected sunlight. Perhaps the person who discovered some basic physics was able to figure this out as well, and at least annoy the ships enough to cause them to move away.
Now the importance of the sig. One is in a bar with girls from size 0 to size 6, the second fattest is size 5. For many of us, size 5 is pretty skinny. Now, the guy without a grasp of reality might shun the size 5 in the hope of getting a size zero. Perhpas this clueless guy strikes out and then proclaims that all pretty girls are stuck up, and there does not exist a girl that is willing to go home a normal guy for some string free sex. And perhaps for that guy it is true. This, however, does not negate that fact that someone else got some hot size 5, or heaver forbid, even 6, sex.
Mostly everyhting else they do simply makes state of the art affordable and usable to the common person, which is innovative and creative in a certain. I mean stripping down FoxPro to the basics and redeploying as Acess is no simple task. Copying a webserver and making it usable to the average tech school graduatge is equally interesting.
The real problem is that MS wants to be known as a high tech leader, which in some ways they are, and perhaps were more than now. OTOH, Toyota makes a pretty penny delivery cars of adequate quality to consumers, and though they might exagerate, they are not going to say they know thier place.
MS is 100% focused to getting MS Office working on the MS platform, and has been 20 years. Office, at it's heart, and at it's best, is a Mac applications. Anyone who had the unfortunate experience of using the early MS Office for DOS or MS Windows, or the failed effort to combine the code bases, knows that all MS efforts have gone to making the MS Windows version appear superior. If MS Windows is to survive, MS must continue to put all efforts into the MS Windows version of MS Office.
the only issue is that of the Firewire port. USB, it seems, is slow on the Mac. Also, I still have a machine that I use regularly that is the USB 1.1, so transferring anything over a gig is terribly slow. I do use my iPod to transfer large files. Therefore, if the iPod does not have Firewire, it is currently of less use. Otherwsie I would buy it as soon as the bugs are worked out.
Besides a small savings at walmart, which you pay for with reduced rights, and Yahoo subscriptins, I do not see ITMS any better or worse than anything else.
What is most worrying is that few seem to be worried about the lack of real compitition. Given google declinng result quality, where is the compitition. Though the results seem to be getting no worse, there must be better ways to do searching. However, with MS pushing thier solution, and Google seeming like the new big thing, I gues no one wants to fund it.
So just like 15 and 20 years ago when many of us were saying that MS was good for some things, not everything, and the market should encourage options, history is now repeating itself when we will give up diversity for some immidiate percieved simplicity.
Which brings up a big question. Why are we not doing on demand publishing for CDs?
Alternatively, kids are increasingly being told that they must make money fast. We have spoiled children and criminals who have done little if any work at all levels of government, while the ones who have genuinely studied and work hard to advance human knowledge, and in the process create the knowledge that allows engineers and businessmen to create all the products we rely on, are vilified.
I mean who wants to be a science teacher if parents are going to say you are a devil worshipper. Who wants to be a math teacher if all the people in power say they never were good at math and it never did them any harm. Who wants to be an english teacher if the highest authorities are saying they never read. And without someone to teach kids these skills, there really are no engineers. And increasing the hostile environment, at leas in the US, is causing fewer students to enter American universities from abroad, which ultimately has a significant impact on the ability of the US to peacefully spread it's message of democracy.
A less touchy issue is simply the time needed to get an engineering degree and funding. A student will often need 5 years to get an undergraduate, and, if he or she wants job security, will probably wish a masters which is two more years. There are fields in which one can make as much money after going to school for less time. There are many degrees in which you can still party your freshman year and pass your classes. There are many degrees that you can finish in four years, and not risk having your funding cut off because you are not making suitable progress.
In the end, we are not training engineers. When I was in school, the number of qualified students at the high school and college level were high. It was a challenge to get into programs. The focus on national testing is reducing the number of students who can independently and creatively solve problems, and as a result reducing the number of students that are currently qualified to enter the programs. Popular schools have to turn people away, but the rest go out begging for minimally qualified students.
If we, as a nation or world, believe we already know everything, that everything can be gotten from a single book, then no engineering is needed. IMHO, we need to be curious, know that the universe is more interesting than a story told in a few pages, and be humble enough to admit that we cannot completely understand the mind, intent, or complete working of what we each consider holy.
So, here is my question of unexpected consequences. On every job, the code I wrote was the companies, and i was happy with that. The reason was that the company would be liable for any consequences of the code, and I would not have to worry about the code after I left. The flip side is that I could not use the code I wrote, but i could always rewrite if I had to. So, is there any legitimate worry about liability in this situation? Is ownership what one is looking for, or merely a license? Is it better for the company to license from you, of you from the company? This goes beyond the company doesn't own unrelated code i wrote in my own time' to 'I own the code the company uses and paid for me to write'. This seems kind of dangerous to all parties.
For instance, almost every handheld product, including music players, are a rectangle. The short is sized to fit across the hand, while the long end is made form a pleasing proportion. This works, is comfortable, and many people already know how to utilize it.
Second, the wheel is round because that is how many of us know how to control things. This comes from the fact that in pre-digital age many things were controlled by rheostats. Rheostats used rotational motion to control things like radio tuning, volume, and the like. In the case mention, the radio was likely tuned by turning a large gear on the wheel, which turned a rheostat, which adjusted the resistance in a circuit that tuned the radio. Under a piece of clear plastic, which was marked with an indicator line, the frequency numbers were printed so the user might know approximately the tune frequency. This was a great design,as it provided a simple way to make the radio usable, but was probably more a result of expedient. The combination of the need to fit in the hand, and the need to simply and reliably indicate the radio tuning, gave the device in question it's shape and characteristics.
Over time changes were made. Some mechanisms were added so the rotational motion of the rheostat could be converted to linear motion so a linear indicator might be utilized. Digital electronics made the rheostat obsolete, but since people knew how to turn knobs, the knob motif continued to be used. Which leads to the iPod. It fits in the hand, which gives it the shape. People know how to use knobs to select, and the knob provides a more continuous experience than up and down buttons. So the big circle transforms from the display to the selector, while the display becomes a square LED. The colors are added to differentiate the product in the market, but are expensive to stock. Really, there is not similarity between the radio and the iPod, except that both devices fit in the hand, and the transistor radio perhaps taught us how to use knobs.
Your second point stems from amateur design of web sites, even with ten years of experience. I still see allegedly professionally designed web sites with the notice 'best viewed at "780 X 1024", even though any webmonkey should be able to abstract enough to use width="10%" instead of width="100". Even apparently well funded sites are pitiful. The cingular site barely functions due to poor authentication and confusion of provided customer support and enticing more customer purchases. I think we have gotten ourselves into a situation where all the bad habits have become entrenched, and this make transitions to larger and smaller screens, and even universal access, painful. This does not even address the issue of using internal org charts as the basis of web site architechture.
The point is that we may soon have VGA resolution on many phones, and the factor is if web sites, native GUI, and other applications are designed to utilize a wide range of output devices or only the typical size of the day. I am not saying it has to run on the command line and lynx, but should not be like some MS Outlook interfaces where half the text is off screen, or other current GUI where 30% of the screen is used for non-fuctional elements.
However this and the firewire issue is yet another reason to wait a long time before buying a nano.
My shuffle is sad shape, but that is because it is in my pocket with my keys, or in a bag with cables and such, or just clipped to me or a bag. However, it still works perfectly.
Xena, though a fine show, is hardly a science fiction. It has none of the technology, exploration of current social problems, or even exploration of various cultures. Pretty much it just a medeival cop show.
Sliders was not ahead of it's time. It was just another huckleberry finn, star trek, docotor who knockoff with none of the redeeming factors. It is quite suitable for the adolecent maile, with a good role model, a pretty girl into geeks, and trivial story line. However, there are no layers that might make it interesting to an adult. The writing was woodden, even by scifi standards.
One contemporary scifi show that is seldom mentioned is 'The Cape'. Based on reality, good exploration life, and how we might move forward. Much more interesting than anything I saw on that list, though the show only works if you ignore current reality, as is true for most scifi.
I, and anyone else who have creating word documents for the past decade or so, know how fustrating it is to go back and try to edit old work. Now, if one is using word as a toy, i.e. school papers or memos that no one really reads, then it doesn't matter how the work is saved, because the computer is just a fnacy typewriter, and no one will care about the document the day after tommorow. But when using Word to edit documents that will need to be revised for years to come, or that others will have to interact with, it is really a waste of time to have to fight to read in those docs when MS chooses to change the formats.
And it really is between MS closed format and something not so insane. The current state of the world is that most things are in MS format, and MS format is really a problem. I like MS Word 97, so, until a few years ago, that is what I used. I could use the latest version, as it would cost me very little to upgrade, but the money would buy me nothing but file compatibility with other users. The biggest prolem with word '97 is that the current MS word has difficulty reading the files. So I can upgrade to the current format, or I can find another solution. It shouldn't be hard for MS to provide the solution, as it is a MS product, in the form of backwards compatibility, but the choose not to. MS instead chooses to screw it's customers. Like 10 years ago when i had to reinstall and mess with filter to get the then current version of word to read files that were a year old.
Which is really what I think this is about. It is not so much that we want an open format. Many are happy using PDF files because PDF files have seldom let us down. What we don't want is a format that is so insanely closed that not even the company that controls it can keep up with from version to version. Everyone hates insecurity, and what MS has shown us since MS Word the first is that we cannot count on the security of reading our old files. This is why I use OO.org, and why it is not worth it to save anything important in any MS format.
At this point people usually reply that I am lying. But I was perfectly happy with MS Word until i woke up one morning and realized that nothing was going to change and i was putting all my writing in a black hole. MS Office is good, it is not overpriced, but in terms of file security, it is a very bad value.
Then we deal with letters written hundreds of years ago. That is treasure trove, but how many letters were destroyed for every letter that is found? Do historians really want to go through every letter that has ever been written? Do historians read every non-fiction book available?
Even with phones and email, we probably have a better archieve than ever before in history, at least at the official level. Phone calls are recorded, a la Nixon and Kennedy and the Katrina discussions. So much is on email. So many books are going to survive. The future historians are not going to have trouble gaining original documents, baring armagedeon, they will only have problems working through them.
One last thing. The dark ages, IMHO, were a result of certain embeeded interests that saw thier fortunes were to be destroyed by certain advances, or certain forces who wished to conquer other more advanced forces. The dark ages ended only when human curiosity won over the forces of human stagnation and starting exploring the world without hubris. Some of this was kick started by the reading of the old texts, but much of it was merely the victory of those who wanted to learn over those that thought we already knew everyhting.
Well. when you paid the licensing fee to legally rip the CD, as opposed to the licensing fee to privately listen to the CD in your comfort of your home with the very few people you directly know, I am sure you received a code. You may enter this code for each MP3 to prove you have a legal copy.
When was the last time children enjoyed music responsibly. Are we so far back into the conservative era that even our kids are just boring do goodders in a three piece suite listening to how horrible it is to lie? God I hope not. For the past 40 years or so music has been one thing that kids can do irresponsibly without causing massive destruction. Take that away from them and they will have to turn to drugs and such, which will mean the kids will have no money to buy music.
For many people inthis situation, a very cheap box, and DSL service that includes basic remotely hosted apps, is a good thing. I know all you are saying terminals. But terminals worked, and they allowed central management so every user was not having to mess with thier own box. Defrag your hard disk, get rid of worms, follow these 'simple' instructions.
Absolutely I would not use such a service for the same reason I don't use hotmail or gmail or any of the other 'free' services. I can afford to pay for privacy, and have the technical acumen to support it. However, just imagine what it would do to the spam and bot problem if we migrated all these lusers off machines they do not know how to run? It might hurt the profits of MS and Apple, but think about it.
We could have everyone running to a new open standard. The host machine could be on any processor, and of older age. Schools could have a central server,and just use whatever gets donated, and run a free OS, not worrying about MS launching an attack. I think apple could survive, as so many of the machines sold are used for more than three apps. The PC manufacturers would still manufacture the terminals. Open standards would hopefully prevent monopolies. And innovation would thrive. Services could either sell based on price or privacy, and the user could choose.\
(and BTW, to anticipate a quandry, I also think subscrition music is good for certain populations, expecially the young that just want top 40. it would be sad when they get older and have nothing to show for it, but if we are in a singles world, perhaps they won't care. I certainly do not know what to do with a peice of plastic anymore.)
So, the music industry has the privilege to make a profit, but only so long as do not abuse the privilege, by, for example, deceptive practices, one of which could be saying that not all CD players will play a CD. Perhaps they can fix this by not calling the plastic discs CDs, and claiming that the new format is largely compatible with the CD, but not 100%.
If, they however, start violating the established privileges of their customers, then they no long have the privilege of making a profit, only the right to pursue it.
I am trying to come up with some common examples. Certainly grocery stores have higher markups on certain products. American automakers are making little on the sales of automobiles, while hoping to generate a profit on the finance side. I have seen some manfucaturing firms price older products to pay fixed costs, newer products to pay for development and some profit, while the custom products were profit. Therefore I would say that it is a good thing that this little consumer device can generate some profit, which allows them to concentrate on volume on the computer side.
This was the case of Disney, IBM, MS, and all these companies are now suffer, or will likely soon suffer, because of it. In the case of Sony, their succes was based on IP infringement. People bought walkmen because they were small. Then these same people made copies of Albums for thier walkmans, for thier freinds walkmans, left them behind as they could just make another copy, pretty much decimated album sales. The fact that sales actually started to slump a few years before the walkman was ignored.
Now Sony has gotten religion and can't play fast and loose, and therefore wants to prevent others from playing fast and loose. They can't compete on innovation, because IP laws forbids them from innovated, so no one else can either. There is only so much one can do when one buys into the stogid status quo.
One thing I find most interesting is that Sony makes one of the best laptops, but, because they sell them with MS Windows, they must compete with the rest of the Windows crowd, which is mostly junk. One can imagine Sony having the resources, and Asia having the market, for a third OS, a la Apple, that could run the MS stuff, but interoperate and be friendly in such a way that Sony could differentiate the machine. That, however, would be innovation, and likely involve open source projects that would imperil the sanctity of abolsute IP, which would not go over well with the people who produce nothing at all, but still want to get paid.
I would think the biggest issue would be safety. Two shuttle breakups in 15 some odd years is bad enough, but what will be required when we really have the promised trip to space every week.
In reality, MS Windows is still difficult in all these areas. I setup a wireless card on XP and I could not use the downloaded update, I had to use the CD. I just helped a collegue install a USB printer on XP, and it took like three installs/unintalls to work. My reletively new XP machines at home will not work relibly with my USB keyboard, at least without the old fashioned keyboard. OTOH, my macs has none of these issues.
What we have to remember is that MS Windows had and still has many of these problems, and people still flocked to the OS. Only ten years ago one had to go to the command line to install an external mass storage device, and one to know all these magical numbers to get an internal drive to work. There were machines that did not require you to do so much work. Changing anything required 10 reboots.
But we bought the emerging Wintel machines not becuase they were perfect, but because they were the cheap solution. and we lived without, or paid huge amounts, for things that were not included, like basic networking. We were told that MS would have these things, and they were cheapest, so we waited.
Now MS Windows is not the all out cheapest OS, and there are options that can use the current hardware. There will be issues, but there were issues with MS, and we bought because it was cheap. The problem that MS has is that they choose not play the quality game, but continue to play the cheap game, claiming lower TCO. Which is kind of sad for the mature market leader.