so a bunch of private businesses want to keep a private network of patrons who choose to enter their bar? this isn't just for their own protection, but if they do indeed have the support of patrons, then its obviously perceived as being for their benefit as well.
Sure, and the point of technology is that it's supposed to enable new methods of executing common business procedures - most of the important processes like communication, book-keeping, data storage/access, etc., are the same as before, only they're done easier, &&|| quicker, &&|| more efficiently than they are without technology.
To summarize, I think you're getting caught up in semantics, because the technology is there TO enhance the business process, which is exactly the leap the author made when he went from 'to be successful' to 'have to incorporate technology'.
If you contribute to your company's success and help it to advance its interests and financial health, often making sacrifices of your own time to do so, then your company will reciprocate by making sacrifices in bad times to take care of you by not depriving you of your paycheck and benefits. That's the way I thought it worked.
Funny that, we got a nice speech today from our CTO or some guy who can walk around happily because he won't get outsourced. The speech focused on how we need to keep our performance levels "above the bar", or we'd be managed up or out. [Tangent: GOD I love that term, 'managed out' - HOW FREAKING AWESOME is that?! That's even better than right-sized!] then he goes on to tell us that no job is sacred, and that as a company who has to strive to cut a profit, if outsourcing is a more fiscal option, then they'll take it.
I'm pretty new so I didn't even think to point out the catch-22 he had presented us with. Work hard or get fired, but even if you do work hard, you may get outsourced.
Of course this is the truth, there's no two ways about it. Nevermind the questionable nature of a US company (enjoying US corporate laws, tariffs, quotas, et. al.) that has a majority of its workforce offshores, it's a simple fact that until something changes, be it now or thirty years from now, this is how it is. The flipside is that I have the right to work wherever the hell I want (provided they want me of course), and can leave them at any time.
Fresh out of college, yes, but I think I'll catch on to this twisted game soon enough. The question, however, is how do you maintain a sense of optimism in spite of all this?
NDA's may be frivolous, but given the frequency with which companies are dropping lawsuits these days would certainly inspire me to a more conservative approach to what I do and don't let people disclose.
Plus, startups aren't so much a dime-a-dozen these days, so it would seem not so likely that a million other people have the same idea you do.
I can't argue with most of the points in this article, but I think it's missing the real reason behind NDA's. If someone else who can do exactly what you can do, only better, comes along and does so, then they DO have an advantage over you.
The logical response to this might be "but then if they can do it better than you, then you're doing something wrong" - which might be true, except that some of your potential competitors might be well-established in other markets, and are interested in venturing into the market you're entering or creating.
2) The first company to capitalize on a new product or idea has a unique and sustainable advantage.
Many of the most successful technology companies were not the first in their markets, but successful followers which learned from the mistakes of earlier trailblazers.
To take the most obvious example, Microsoft was not the first software company, the first OS vendor, or the first productivity software vendor.
IBM was not the first computer company....
Not to get pedantic, but this argument doesn't hold water - just because the first company to an idea doesn't ALWAYS succeed doesn't mean that they don't have an advantage.
NO google wasn't the first search engine, but Texas Instruments designed and developed the first Integrated Circuit in 1958, and they're still very active in that market (did a report on TI a year ago). There are certainly other examples out there. The point is, for every company that doesn't make it despite being #1 to market, I'd be willing to bet there are a nearly proportionate amount of counter examples to support the claim that being first to market is an advantage - just not the end-all of success.
Legally speaking, I believe they are. IANAL, but I did take a business law course which discussed the *real* necessities for a copyright infringement lawsuit, and, while I don't remember precise details, I do remember that having to document dollar-value losses is not a part of the requirement. Tarnishment is considered a viable 'loss' as are several other intangibles.
Think for a moment that you're a company who's copyrighted work is being subjected to a fan-imitation work that you've AUTHORIZED. Someone else comes along and does the same thing and finishes there work before the authorized fan-mimicked work is released. The second one comes out, and your attempts to market it have now been cut short.
In addition, you may not want people dilluting your trademarked logo, fictitious world, or concepts. Trademark is a whole new can of worms, though, and I don't remember enough of that to really get deep into it, either.
Suffice it to say that your two reasons wouldn't cut the mustard, unfortunately.
Simulate an 'address not found' daemon in a reply to the spam sender. It may not always work but if they think they're getting a bad address, sometimes they've been known to take that address off their list, so I've heard (during my stint as customer/tech support for an ISP).
But it strikes me as funny that someone who really seems to be limited, by choice, to the technology, would be looked to as a ideological leader, as well.
When did he get elected to ideological leader status? Don't you have to take a stand to be a leader? Maybe I'm not versed enough in my Linus-lore, but I don't recall him ever making a big push to be 'heard' on anything very ideological in nature.
This is both a critique and a request for more information, mind you - I am fully aware of the possibility that I simply might not have heard of times when Linus was looked to in such a manner.
Why assume that MS had ANYTHING to do with his getting fired - it could've just as easily been some nervous CEO who perceived, rightly or not, that firing this guy would be a better move than keeping him on board.
Think about whatever company you may work at, if not now then some day. If you wrote something critical of one of your company's main sponsors, or a frequent collaborative partner, it wouldn't be likely to go over well with the President, would it?
If you're at all worried that there's competition for your position in a collaborative partnership with, in this case MS, you're going to take pre-emptive steps to ensure that your partner knows how devoted you are, and if it gets to the point that they're pressuring you to do these things, then it probably means you're behind, which is a bad sign.
It's very possible that Microsoft didn't give a whit about this guy, or at least didn't care enough to tell the company to "do something about him!". Let's be honest, we do have a tendency to overhype the anti-MS sentiment in this community sometimes.
I've probably posted this too late for anyone to notice, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to simply tell your professor, who wouldn't feel inclined to sue, explain to him why you didn't tell the company themselves, and request that he tell the company himself, and that he suggest he was told anonymously, so that he can't be forced to implicate you (if they do get sue-happy, they might subpoena him).
Anyone else wonder how these two will play out in respect to each other?
They're essentially done for the same purpose. Presumably genetics has more discernible limitations as to what enhancements can be made on a person, but I don't imagine we've come anywhere near reaching that, or that we probably will anytime soon, so at least for the time being, it seems these two may be headed straight for each other.
Will we be seeing mixtures of the two, or will it be similar to VHS/Betamax?
In return I will argue with a trivial detail of your conjectures about the German legal system, and, immediately after claiming IANAL-Protected Status, assume the posture that I too know what I'm talking about.
This brief dialogue will spawn a completely off-topic thread of which dozens participate, most likely on the terrible ills of the neanderthal US legal system as compared to those of the enlightened European nations.
Despite having little to nothing to do with the actual topic of the article, the rhetoric that follows will undoubtedly get moderated up, increasing its visibility tenfold, and therefore granting us a perverse status of legitimacy.
Then I will offer forth a silly, contrived quote for a signature.
I switched to SBC because Speakeasy refused to give me ADSL and was telling me that I was too far from the CO to get anything but slow ass SDSL. They had just installed a new CO across the street from my house.
And with a new CO across the street from your house, the chances that Covad had a chance to put their own cage in there yet are not 100%. Having done support - for Speakeasy in fact - but never having been involved in putting a DSLAM in a CO (that would be Covad, not Speakeasy), I can tell you with absolute certainty that if there was a problem getting ADSL to you, it was not because Speakeasy was incompetent.
You would not BELIEVE the things that can happen - Remote Terminal Units, fiber on the line, bridge taps, you name it. Some of these, the ILEC (SBC or whoever else) can get around with equipment they own, but are not required to give outside access to - meaning Covad is SOL.
If ADSL was not available but SDSL was, its possible that there may not have been appropriate line-sharing facilities at this 'new CO they put in across the street' (how exactly do you know it was a new CO, did you go over and ask the construction workers what they were building? I'm not 100% sure I believe your claim here), meaning you could get ADSL from a nearby Remote Terminal, but not through Speakeasy.
Either way, Speakeasy may've screwed up your bill, but you have to understand that they also saved your circuit. They did not buy Northpoint, or its accounts, the took the accounts over when your original ISP went out of business, as a means of keeping people online.
Since provisioning and activation is easily the biggest single expenditure in most circuits' lifetimes, it was beneficial for everyone involved when Speakeasy provided some means of staying online without everybody's circuit getting completely shut down.
Lastly, I doubt SBC was offering you full T1 speed ADSL, unless you're talking solely about your downstream, in which case its not full T1 speed.
The DSL reseller is presumably providing the DSLAM, so where exactly is SBC's loss? Is it like one those studies IBM did way back when that determined that it would cost them $40 to develop and ship an empty box?
Just to clarify - the LEC, be it an ILEC like SBC or Verizon, or a CLEC like Covad or Worldcom, provides the DSLAM. DSL Resellers rely on whoever their LEC is (sometimes themselves, as Covad provides its own service, for example) for that.
There's a good chance it may have more to do with refresh rates and the difference between a CRT/LCD screen, if that plays into it at all. I've known several people of the male persuasion who get motion sickness playing FPS games unless their framerate is higher than 50, or 60, or whatever their magic framerate is.
Refresh rate on a monitor is the practical limit at which it simply cannot display any more frames per second. So while you may be on a 2ghz machine playing Quake 1, if you're on a monitor that's only displaying at ar refresh rate of 40 hz (hypothetically), you're not going to display more than 40 frames a second. However if you can bump that refresh rate up to 100 hz, you suddenly display 100/s which is more or less beyond the point at which a human can consciously notice, and often times farther than they can subconsciously notice, I would venture.
Anybody who's "been in the field" for more than a few years need not answer unless you're a hiring manager or have some clue just how difficult it is to get a job in this market, fresh out of college (of fooc'd, as I like to call it). If you're "that guy/girl" who thinks you know how easy it is: It's very possibly not as easy as you think, because its nothing like it was 2001. I know hiring managers that open up a single position and get over a thousand responses in less than 2 weeks. This from the industry that used to scramble just to be sure they'd hired enough to accomodate their future growth plans.
Please spare me, and anyone else interested in this question, the condescending 'elbow grease and hard work' story. Truth of the matter is, if you tried to get a job in the software industry from, say, 1995 to 2000, and haven't tried to get into the industry with no experience listed on your resume, you have NO IDEA what 'elbow grease and hard work' entails anymore. Your pov is obsolete.
Sorry to be so aggressive, but I'm getting sick of the speeches and lines I've been fed by a bunch of people who simply have no clue.
Some people use cell phones as a means to contact people when it is most convenient. They do not project some sort of social status upon it, they do not attempt to impress people with it, they do not answer it when they don't want to, and they don't perceive their friends hate them if they don't answer immediately.
I can't understand why everybody (who's posting, at least) has this big hang-up on cell phones. It's like this approach to being 'cool' by hating that which is perceived as 'cool'. Is it okay to be 'geek' and not be a social troglodyte?
It feels like middle school, where everyone was so afraid that they saw uncertainty through 'threat' goggles.
Slashdot Mirror
so a bunch of private businesses want to keep a private network of patrons who choose to enter their bar? this isn't just for their own protection, but if they do indeed have the support of patrons, then its obviously perceived as being for their benefit as well.
big brother? please, put the tin hat away.
Sure, and the point of technology is that it's supposed to enable new methods of executing common business procedures - most of the important processes like communication, book-keeping, data storage/access, etc., are the same as before, only they're done easier, &&|| quicker, &&|| more efficiently than they are without technology.
To summarize, I think you're getting caught up in semantics, because the technology is there TO enhance the business process, which is exactly the leap the author made when he went from 'to be successful' to 'have to incorporate technology'.
It's truly tragic that there's no trickle down karma at play here. You owe it all to me, and what do I get? Nothing, nada, zilch!
there's an acronym for that?
Uh.. for the sake of those of us who haven't quite learned every new acronym, what is FP? :[
I hate myself for having to ask. Hate!
I'm waiting for the Dilbert strip where the board of directors decides to outsource the CEO.
If you contribute to your company's success and help it to advance its interests and financial health, often making sacrifices of your own time to do so, then your company will reciprocate by making sacrifices in bad times to take care of you by not depriving you of your paycheck and benefits. That's the way I thought it worked.
Funny that, we got a nice speech today from our CTO or some guy who can walk around happily because he won't get outsourced. The speech focused on how we need to keep our performance levels "above the bar", or we'd be managed up or out. [Tangent: GOD I love that term, 'managed out' - HOW FREAKING AWESOME is that?! That's even better than right-sized!] then he goes on to tell us that no job is sacred, and that as a company who has to strive to cut a profit, if outsourcing is a more fiscal option, then they'll take it.
I'm pretty new so I didn't even think to point out the catch-22 he had presented us with. Work hard or get fired, but even if you do work hard, you may get outsourced.
Of course this is the truth, there's no two ways about it. Nevermind the questionable nature of a US company (enjoying US corporate laws, tariffs, quotas, et. al.) that has a majority of its workforce offshores, it's a simple fact that until something changes, be it now or thirty years from now, this is how it is. The flipside is that I have the right to work wherever the hell I want (provided they want me of course), and can leave them at any time.
Fresh out of college, yes, but I think I'll catch on to this twisted game soon enough. The question, however, is how do you maintain a sense of optimism in spite of all this?
NDA's may be frivolous, but given the frequency with which companies are dropping lawsuits these days would certainly inspire me to a more conservative approach to what I do and don't let people disclose.
...
Plus, startups aren't so much a dime-a-dozen these days, so it would seem not so likely that a million other people have the same idea you do.
I can't argue with most of the points in this article, but I think it's missing the real reason behind NDA's. If someone else who can do exactly what you can do, only better, comes along and does so, then they DO have an advantage over you.
The logical response to this might be "but then if they can do it better than you, then you're doing something wrong" - which might be true, except that some of your potential competitors might be well-established in other markets, and are interested in venturing into the market you're entering or creating.
2) The first company to capitalize on a new product or idea has a unique and sustainable advantage.
Many of the most successful technology companies were not the first in their markets, but successful followers which learned from the mistakes of earlier trailblazers.
To take the most obvious example, Microsoft was not the first software company, the first OS vendor, or the first productivity software vendor.
IBM was not the first computer company.
Not to get pedantic, but this argument doesn't hold water - just because the first company to an idea doesn't ALWAYS succeed doesn't mean that they don't have an advantage.
NO google wasn't the first search engine, but Texas Instruments designed and developed the first Integrated Circuit in 1958, and they're still very active in that market (did a report on TI a year ago). There are certainly other examples out there. The point is, for every company that doesn't make it despite being #1 to market, I'd be willing to bet there are a nearly proportionate amount of counter examples to support the claim that being first to market is an advantage - just not the end-all of success.
Legally speaking, I believe they are. IANAL, but I did take a business law course which discussed the *real* necessities for a copyright infringement lawsuit, and, while I don't remember precise details, I do remember that having to document dollar-value losses is not a part of the requirement. Tarnishment is considered a viable 'loss' as are several other intangibles.
Think for a moment that you're a company who's copyrighted work is being subjected to a fan-imitation work that you've AUTHORIZED. Someone else comes along and does the same thing and finishes there work before the authorized fan-mimicked work is released. The second one comes out, and your attempts to market it have now been cut short.
In addition, you may not want people dilluting your trademarked logo, fictitious world, or concepts. Trademark is a whole new can of worms, though, and I don't remember enough of that to really get deep into it, either.
Suffice it to say that your two reasons wouldn't cut the mustard, unfortunately.
Simulate an 'address not found' daemon in a reply to the spam sender. It may not always work but if they think they're getting a bad address, sometimes they've been known to take that address off their list, so I've heard (during my stint as customer/tech support for an ISP).
Sure, but so does the President.. .. ..okay, point taken.
just marketed it better
Which is, for both direct and indirect reasons, 'doing it better'.
But it strikes me as funny that someone who really seems to be limited, by choice, to the technology, would be looked to as a ideological leader, as well.
When did he get elected to ideological leader status? Don't you have to take a stand to be a leader? Maybe I'm not versed enough in my Linus-lore, but I don't recall him ever making a big push to be 'heard' on anything very ideological in nature.
This is both a critique and a request for more information, mind you - I am fully aware of the possibility that I simply might not have heard of times when Linus was looked to in such a manner.
Why assume that MS had ANYTHING to do with his getting fired - it could've just as easily been some nervous CEO who perceived, rightly or not, that firing this guy would be a better move than keeping him on board.
Think about whatever company you may work at, if not now then some day. If you wrote something critical of one of your company's main sponsors, or a frequent collaborative partner, it wouldn't be likely to go over well with the President, would it?
If you're at all worried that there's competition for your position in a collaborative partnership with, in this case MS, you're going to take pre-emptive steps to ensure that your partner knows how devoted you are, and if it gets to the point that they're pressuring you to do these things, then it probably means you're behind, which is a bad sign.
It's very possible that Microsoft didn't give a whit about this guy, or at least didn't care enough to tell the company to "do something about him!". Let's be honest, we do have a tendency to overhype the anti-MS sentiment in this community sometimes.
I've probably posted this too late for anyone to notice, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to simply tell your professor, who wouldn't feel inclined to sue, explain to him why you didn't tell the company themselves, and request that he tell the company himself, and that he suggest he was told anonymously, so that he can't be forced to implicate you (if they do get sue-happy, they might subpoena him).
Anyone else wonder how these two will play out in respect to each other?
They're essentially done for the same purpose. Presumably genetics has more discernible limitations as to what enhancements can be made on a person, but I don't imagine we've come anywhere near reaching that, or that we probably will anytime soon, so at least for the time being, it seems these two may be headed straight for each other.
Will we be seeing mixtures of the two, or will it be similar to VHS/Betamax?
In return I will argue with a trivial detail of your conjectures about the German legal system, and, immediately after claiming IANAL-Protected Status, assume the posture that I too know what I'm talking about.
This brief dialogue will spawn a completely off-topic thread of which dozens participate, most likely on the terrible ills of the neanderthal US legal system as compared to those of the enlightened European nations.
Despite having little to nothing to do with the actual topic of the article, the rhetoric that follows will undoubtedly get moderated up, increasing its visibility tenfold, and therefore granting us a perverse status of legitimacy.
Then I will offer forth a silly, contrived quote for a signature.
I switched to SBC because Speakeasy refused to give me ADSL and was telling me that I was too far from the CO to get anything but slow ass SDSL. They had just installed a new CO across the street from my house.
And with a new CO across the street from your house, the chances that Covad had a chance to put their own cage in there yet are not 100%. Having done support - for Speakeasy in fact - but never having been involved in putting a DSLAM in a CO (that would be Covad, not Speakeasy), I can tell you with absolute certainty that if there was a problem getting ADSL to you, it was not because Speakeasy was incompetent.
You would not BELIEVE the things that can happen - Remote Terminal Units, fiber on the line, bridge taps, you name it. Some of these, the ILEC (SBC or whoever else) can get around with equipment they own, but are not required to give outside access to - meaning Covad is SOL.
If ADSL was not available but SDSL was, its possible that there may not have been appropriate line-sharing facilities at this 'new CO they put in across the street' (how exactly do you know it was a new CO, did you go over and ask the construction workers what they were building? I'm not 100% sure I believe your claim here), meaning you could get ADSL from a nearby Remote Terminal, but not through Speakeasy.
Either way, Speakeasy may've screwed up your bill, but you have to understand that they also saved your circuit. They did not buy Northpoint, or its accounts, the took the accounts over when your original ISP went out of business, as a means of keeping people online.
Since provisioning and activation is easily the biggest single expenditure in most circuits' lifetimes, it was beneficial for everyone involved when Speakeasy provided some means of staying online without everybody's circuit getting completely shut down.
Lastly, I doubt SBC was offering you full T1 speed ADSL, unless you're talking solely about your downstream, in which case its not full T1 speed.
The DSL reseller is presumably providing the DSLAM, so where exactly is SBC's loss? Is it like one those studies IBM did way back when that determined that it would cost them $40 to develop and ship an empty box?
Just to clarify - the LEC, be it an ILEC like SBC or Verizon, or a CLEC like Covad or Worldcom, provides the DSLAM. DSL Resellers rely on whoever their LEC is (sometimes themselves, as Covad provides its own service, for example) for that.
Yes, because those darn urban terrorists keep trying to stall your car with their HERF guns to NO AVAIL! HEAAH!
?
There's a good chance it may have more to do with refresh rates and the difference between a CRT/LCD screen, if that plays into it at all. I've known several people of the male persuasion who get motion sickness playing FPS games unless their framerate is higher than 50, or 60, or whatever their magic framerate is.
Refresh rate on a monitor is the practical limit at which it simply cannot display any more frames per second. So while you may be on a 2ghz machine playing Quake 1, if you're on a monitor that's only displaying at ar refresh rate of 40 hz (hypothetically), you're not going to display more than 40 frames a second. However if you can bump that refresh rate up to 100 hz, you suddenly display 100/s which is more or less beyond the point at which a human can consciously notice, and often times farther than they can subconsciously notice, I would venture.
Anybody who's "been in the field" for more than a few years need not answer unless you're a hiring manager or have some clue just how difficult it is to get a job in this market, fresh out of college (of fooc'd, as I like to call it). If you're "that guy/girl" who thinks you know how easy it is: It's very possibly not as easy as you think, because its nothing like it was 2001. I know hiring managers that open up a single position and get over a thousand responses in less than 2 weeks. This from the industry that used to scramble just to be sure they'd hired enough to accomodate their future growth plans.
Please spare me, and anyone else interested in this question, the condescending 'elbow grease and hard work' story. Truth of the matter is, if you tried to get a job in the software industry from, say, 1995 to 2000, and haven't tried to get into the industry with no experience listed on your resume, you have NO IDEA what 'elbow grease and hard work' entails anymore. Your pov is obsolete.
Sorry to be so aggressive, but I'm getting sick of the speeches and lines I've been fed by a bunch of people who simply have no clue.
Some people use cell phones as a means to contact people when it is most convenient. They do not project some sort of social status upon it, they do not attempt to impress people with it, they do not answer it when they don't want to, and they don't perceive their friends hate them if they don't answer immediately.
I can't understand why everybody (who's posting, at least) has this big hang-up on cell phones. It's like this approach to being 'cool' by hating that which is perceived as 'cool'. Is it okay to be 'geek' and not be a social troglodyte?
It feels like middle school, where everyone was so afraid that they saw uncertainty through 'threat' goggles.
There's the threat of tripping people when you install a bench...
Strom Thurmond to be fitted with prosthetic walking aids.