i swear, if one more company promises to enhance my:
1. musical experience
2. shopping experience
3. dining experience
I am gonna get me a gun and enhance their salvation experience.
you could actually run song lyrics off a CD booklet into this device and determine whether or not the CD deserves the advisory label without having to listen to the songs themselves.
Next up: preventing misuse of your X-Ray vision
Application software vendors like Ariba, Webmethods and many others have been doing it for the last 2-3 years. Many customers (CIOs) actually like the idea - though it is one thing to upgrade an OS or introduce a new OS into the company, it is another to replace an entire procurement app or a supply chain app. Wonder how many CIOs are prepared for that scenario? Does this also signal the coming of truly inter-changeable, replaceable applications? Hope so. It would be interesting to see how MS would react to that threat.
of course, my remark was meant in jest, but still, calling a lawyer to discuss OSS is akin to calling the pope to write about rock music. You will get an interesting pov, but more likely than not, the subject maketh the expert nervous, doesn't it?:)
that is deliciously thick irony, isnt it, that we now have lawyers representing the interests of people who wish to adopt open source methodologies.
Its like hiring a corporate trainer to make your employees more productive, spontaneous and creative.
And why isnt this article titled "Its Funny. Laugh"???
enough already, .com tragedies are passe in 2001
on
The Worst Of Times
·
· Score: 3
One clever.tragedy in salon was fun. One more in cnet, red herring, upside or nytimes.com was tolerable. And this was in January 2001.
For cryin' out loud, we are in May of 2001. And we are still laughing at these dot coms or shedding tears for them??? Havent we passed that point where parodies fail to amuse us and elegies fail to make us cry?/. should go back to talking about technology, rather than focusing on the business of technology coz its writers do *not* have the insight to write about management and business.
LOL.....The Star Wars series (esp. Episode 1) are simply bad movies. Period. OK, the first movie has a certain charm, but come on, Lucas aint no Kurosawa or Truffaut.
So if the tool/technology isnt popular, there arent enough people who are familiar with it. And OTOH, if there arent enough people familiar with it, the tool doesnt gain popularity:)
Since when did interpreting a song or a guitar solo come to mean copyright infringement?
If i publish my interpretation of a band's lyrics, is that infringement? Is it an infringement to analyze a poem? How is a tablature any different?
By giving people easy and free access to tabs, the industry could actually help popularize the music. Of course, any half-decent guitarist wouldnt depend on tabs, but sometimes, they are convenient, cheap and fast. Period. Its not as if someone's gonna make a boat-load of cash by publishing (often hilariously incorrect) tabs.
For the more serious, discerning players, the choice of buying a full-blown sheet music is *always* there. But let's be realistic here too. How much sheet music does one need to play rock and roll? If I can get the basic chord progressions, I can play. If I want to learn the solo, I will noodle around till I get it right. If it sounds really complex, I will ask a friend. If I dont have a friend who knows it, I will ask guitarists who have internet access.
The real problem, it seems to me, is that the law enforcers are unable to understand that these tab sites are not any different from me calling up a friend to ask him about some tabs.
Another question - would the law-enforcers call it illegal if someone ran a "tabs-by-email" service for free?
lol....they also forgot to turn off the default "one-chord" structure in their song-writing software:)
Looks like the world hates them not for writing abysmally boring music but for attempting to be like the beatles. Not even the Beatles can be like the beatles.
oh, your solitary voice of reason...:)
Of course, what BNSF is doing isn't wrong. Suppose a music label were looking for signing up new talent. And let's assume there was a gene for song writing and playing. Wouldn't the label love to test people for that gene? or let's say the music label could test singers for the drug addiction gene? wouldnt testing for such a gene make their lives easier (just think - they could actually plan a Behind the Music and Where are they Now, not to mention a posthumous compilation wayyyy in advance).
BNSF requires people to perform physical tasks. Physical tasks require fitness. Period. As an entity that exists to make money for shareholders (yeah, surprised, arent you, slashdotters, that companies do not exist to guarantee employment), they are merely protecting their liabilities and risks.
OTOH, it would be utterly wrong if they were testing for the gay gene.
an easier solution might be.
on
Mood Home
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· Score: 1
moving to a temperate part of the world, where its a nice 70 degrees all year around. And I dont mean Florida either.
"your house is out of white paint. If you wish to continue changing hues, please press yes. Otherwise, add paint to the paint cartridge and press any wall when ready"
Most people hide behind e-mail and voice mail.
on
Buried in email?
·
· Score: 1
Classic "misuse of e-mail" situations:
1. two workers, sitting exactly one cubicle apart, exchange e-mail about a project/meeting/presentation. Why? Because they want to avoid having to confront one another and gasp, actually make eye contact.
2. CYA - Cover your Ass. Document the heck out of every thing you do in the office. And what better tool than e-mail to do this (Bill: Bob, this is to confirm the receipt of your mail in response to my mail about the excess hours reported on the time sheet. Bob: Bill, re your mail about my response to your mail about the time sheets...ad infinitum)
3. Imprecise communication - "did you say the conference call was at 8:30AM CST or EST?"
4. Oops- forgot the attachment!
5. Revised version of the last budget spreadsheet - ignore the previous version.
6. Reply All
7. Bcc your boss on every little thing
8. Accidental "to all employees" type mail shots
9. Intentional "to all employees" type mail shots - "w.e.f April 21, no more pizzas", "w.e.f Jan 1, all expenses shall be..." blah blah blah.
Most office communication should be done face to face or over the phone, not e-mail. Really important issues are *always* communicated in person.
yeah, monster trucks, kack daniels, linux and a cute penguin for a mascot...hmmmm....let me think for a moment....
Nah. It would have to be a pit bull.
that's what most of us seek - a factor of trust with the advertiser....or maybe that's what we sought between, umm...1997 to 2000 when there were more advertisers on the web than consumers. Maybe, with all these crappy dot bombs disappearing, we are going to be left with fewer choices (is that a bad thing or a good thing?), real product offerings, value etc, people actually wouldnt mind clicking on a banner - but they gotta do away with bad links, pop-ups, malicious spyware...
is to motivate people to take action - be it buying a can of soda or a car or clothes or a new operating system. This is usually achieved by invoking one or more of our basic instincts - fear, envy, lust, pride, insecurity...In addition to these emotional aspects, there is also the matter of delivering the ad in the right place at the right time (little point putting up a LINUX ad on a site meant for senior citizens...)
IMHO, most banner advertising seems to be focused on the "eye-catching" aspect of advertisements - and hence the monkeys, the oh-so-precious psychedelic-flashing icons, the cute MS Windows dialog boxes....but *none* of these seem to invoke the basic emotions...
Tell me, what does that "can of whoopass" banner ad do for you? Doesnt even make me want to remember the advertiser's name...I think the brilliant designers who conceived that banner ad just ought to suppress their humor a tad and work on understanding what makes the/. crowd tick and then design an ad around it.
Isnt this marketing communications 101? Isnt this the premise of ANY communication (including User interface design - first find out what your user does, then find out how he does what he does, then design your interface...)?
Banner ads, while they are painful, are not necessarily a failure. The incompetent marketing folks who control the ad budgets, designers and copywriters should take up the blame for failing to understand their target audience. There are good banner ads that make me click on 'em or at least, make me remember the URL (tryin' to remember which ones...:P)
you are right....hanging in there is probably the *only* way out. Of course, some times, not every one has that option, and sometimes, the dam breaks open..
Hind sight and nostalgia might make my high school years seem positively beautiful, but yeah, who can forget barbs about height/weight/hair/clothes/speech impediments blah blah blah...But seriously, how does it matter now? In fact, I will argue that this obstacle actually made us better people. Some kids chose to work harder on their grades, some picked up the computer, some picked up a guitar (and all those Rush albums). However, I do feel bad for some kids who just decided to fade into the background, hoping no one would ever notice them.
You do have a valid point there... However, these bullies themselves are, in my experience, usually screwed up pretty badly. Deep-rooted inferiority complex, insecurities, a fear of smart people, frustration over their inability to do anything decent....this is what leads them to pick on kids (ok, those factors and bigger muscles). Maybe its those kids that need more help from people????
Given the recent well-publicized high school incidents, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone at all that this kid was expelled. The school authorities are merely reacting (over-reacting), but think of how much furore it would have raised in the media had they chosen to ignore this kid's threat (and he went to do something stupid involving a gun)....
So, for a moment, for just one brief moment, let us suspend our knee-jerk reaction (geeks are good/establishment evil/why oh why do bullies pick on geeks) and think if we are not being unduly harsh in our criticism of the system here.
What is the system to do? If they turn away from the problem and, some poor boy, in an act of desparation pulls out a gun, the school gets slammed. If they choose to isolate the boy from the rest of the students, the school still gets slammed.
Where is the answer to be found, then? To banish bullies and jocks and non-geeks from this planet (heck, i would love that but that would be another form of harassment and racism)? To develop an alternate educational system catering only to the geek, the meek and the ones who do not speak?
Sadly, it is my belief that the American education system and our society are up against a wall. Extreme solutions (such as expelling this boy) will bring torment and pain to many. Extreme non-interference will also hurt (and kill)many.
I do not have children, and therefore, perhaps I sound objective and distant in my argument. The kid's dad, of course, knows the anguish and the frustration first hand, and therefore, it would be interesting to hear his pov.
But I fail to see why this story has to be covered in/.
Re:UDDI - this is why I am sceptical about it.
on
Why UDDI Will Work
·
· Score: 1
Then hopefully soon people layer on some kind of trust mechanism and some better filtering capability and the query becomes "the cheapest company that does X and has been in business for Y years and offers so-and-so guarantee", cutting down the research part significantly.
This function is typically performed by vendor management/supplier management/QC/Purchasing departments in companies. Aren't we being a bit hasty in assuming that all of this, and human judgement, will be replaced by, gulp, software and a better search engine?
Re:UDDI - this is why I am sceptical about it.
on
Why UDDI Will Work
·
· Score: 1
ebay customer feedback and credit ratings is not how businesses transact, my friend...you are talking about a direct to consumer type model (ok, i will say it: b2c)...
Companies today can use D&B reports, credit ratings from reputed third party sources etc...how will UDDI replace the existing system or make it better????
How does one test a supplier's reliability online? And if I use a supplier to buy, let's say, copper, why would I want to publicly rate him (and thus expose a low-cost supplier to my competition????)
Remember, b2b is TOTALLY different from the consumer world. B2B is really a zero-sum game. If I award a million dollar contract to a supplier, it means every other supplier lost the million bucks. UDDI forgets this basic business fact.
UDDI - this is why I am sceptical about it.
on
Why UDDI Will Work
·
· Score: 3
Discovering a business partner is only a miniscule part of the b2b equation - think of the "business partner discovery" phase as reading about a person on a personals site. Merely reading about it doesn't constitute a successful "transaction".
Similarly, just because GE or GM can locate my products on the web doesnt mean they can transact with me. The ability to transact depends on my e-biz infrastructure and my back office ERP system.
Just type the words "laptop + 550MHZ" in Google. It will throw up hundreds of results. Does this constitute enough information for one to buy a laptop from these vendors or resellers?
Also, what are the odds of industrial procurement managers typing in the words "concentrated sulfuric acid" or "3 inch valve" in Google? These companies have existing relationship with suppliers. It is the supplier who has to reach out to more customers, not the other way around. For a supplier to transact with a large corporation, it has to be of a certain size/credibility/revenue et al. No amount of web-based description/discovery will ever replace this.
UDDI is old hat, being rehashed by a group of companies that are desparately trying to keep stock market's interest alive in the B2B sector.
I have no doubts - b2b is here to stay and it will become a viable channel for companies to participate in. UDDI represents a really, small step in that direction.
interesting...I always thought that many of the so-called rebels were just being a tad pompous - touting free speech in a country where free speech is *more or less* guaranteed by the constitution. This was probably their chance to play the glamorous activist role. Maybe it makes good dinner table conversation - yeah, I fought for free speech in the 60s....we had to battle the evil establishment and mean people over 30....and good lord, we had to consume all that LSD while listening to Sgt. Pepper.
I am not totally dissing them - just trying to say that these student activists had their 15 minutes, so what's the big deal now?
Now the politicos will have to deliver what they promise in their campaigns. E-governance is one of the greatest "side-effects" of the internet (not the shopping cart and the banner ad, as many think). Think of the version of democracy that was practiced in smaller villages, where the leader had a direct connection to his/her subjects and issues were settled with immediacy and humanness. This could mean that the common man (yes, you and me and other / dotters) could well develop lobbying powers that are unimaginable today. But does this mean instead of "earn 10,000/month" and "lose 50 lbs in 10 weeks" we will receive "sign the anti-abortion bill" spam in our mail-boxes? On a darker note, does this mean that the individual's fears and concerns will be replaced by "what's good for the majority is good for everyone"?
Slashdot Mirror
i swear, if one more company promises to enhance my: 1. musical experience 2. shopping experience 3. dining experience I am gonna get me a gun and enhance their salvation experience.
you could actually run song lyrics off a CD booklet into this device and determine whether or not the CD deserves the advisory label without having to listen to the songs themselves. Next up: preventing misuse of your X-Ray vision
Application software vendors like Ariba, Webmethods and many others have been doing it for the last 2-3 years. Many customers (CIOs) actually like the idea - though it is one thing to upgrade an OS or introduce a new OS into the company, it is another to replace an entire procurement app or a supply chain app. Wonder how many CIOs are prepared for that scenario? Does this also signal the coming of truly inter-changeable, replaceable applications? Hope so. It would be interesting to see how MS would react to that threat.
of course, my remark was meant in jest, but still, calling a lawyer to discuss OSS is akin to calling the pope to write about rock music. You will get an interesting pov, but more likely than not, the subject maketh the expert nervous, doesn't it? :)
that is deliciously thick irony, isnt it, that we now have lawyers representing the interests of people who wish to adopt open source methodologies. Its like hiring a corporate trainer to make your employees more productive, spontaneous and creative. And why isnt this article titled "Its Funny. Laugh"???
One clever .tragedy in salon was fun. One more in cnet, red herring, upside or nytimes.com was tolerable. And this was in January 2001.
For cryin' out loud, we are in May of 2001. And we are still laughing at these dot coms or shedding tears for them??? Havent we passed that point where parodies fail to amuse us and elegies fail to make us cry? /. should go back to talking about technology, rather than focusing on the business of technology coz its writers do *not* have the insight to write about management and business.
LOL.....The Star Wars series (esp. Episode 1) are simply bad movies. Period. OK, the first movie has a certain charm, but come on, Lucas aint no Kurosawa or Truffaut.
So if the tool/technology isnt popular, there arent enough people who are familiar with it. And OTOH, if there arent enough people familiar with it, the tool doesnt gain popularity :)
Since when did interpreting a song or a guitar solo come to mean copyright infringement? If i publish my interpretation of a band's lyrics, is that infringement? Is it an infringement to analyze a poem? How is a tablature any different? By giving people easy and free access to tabs, the industry could actually help popularize the music. Of course, any half-decent guitarist wouldnt depend on tabs, but sometimes, they are convenient, cheap and fast. Period. Its not as if someone's gonna make a boat-load of cash by publishing (often hilariously incorrect) tabs. For the more serious, discerning players, the choice of buying a full-blown sheet music is *always* there. But let's be realistic here too. How much sheet music does one need to play rock and roll? If I can get the basic chord progressions, I can play. If I want to learn the solo, I will noodle around till I get it right. If it sounds really complex, I will ask a friend. If I dont have a friend who knows it, I will ask guitarists who have internet access. The real problem, it seems to me, is that the law enforcers are unable to understand that these tab sites are not any different from me calling up a friend to ask him about some tabs. Another question - would the law-enforcers call it illegal if someone ran a "tabs-by-email" service for free?
lol....they also forgot to turn off the default "one-chord" structure in their song-writing software :)
Looks like the world hates them not for writing abysmally boring music but for attempting to be like the beatles. Not even the Beatles can be like the beatles.
oh, your solitary voice of reason...:) Of course, what BNSF is doing isn't wrong. Suppose a music label were looking for signing up new talent. And let's assume there was a gene for song writing and playing. Wouldn't the label love to test people for that gene? or let's say the music label could test singers for the drug addiction gene? wouldnt testing for such a gene make their lives easier (just think - they could actually plan a Behind the Music and Where are they Now, not to mention a posthumous compilation wayyyy in advance). BNSF requires people to perform physical tasks. Physical tasks require fitness. Period. As an entity that exists to make money for shareholders (yeah, surprised, arent you, slashdotters, that companies do not exist to guarantee employment), they are merely protecting their liabilities and risks. OTOH, it would be utterly wrong if they were testing for the gay gene.
moving to a temperate part of the world, where its a nice 70 degrees all year around. And I dont mean Florida either. "your house is out of white paint. If you wish to continue changing hues, please press yes. Otherwise, add paint to the paint cartridge and press any wall when ready"
Classic "misuse of e-mail" situations: 1. two workers, sitting exactly one cubicle apart, exchange e-mail about a project/meeting/presentation. Why? Because they want to avoid having to confront one another and gasp, actually make eye contact. 2. CYA - Cover your Ass. Document the heck out of every thing you do in the office. And what better tool than e-mail to do this (Bill: Bob, this is to confirm the receipt of your mail in response to my mail about the excess hours reported on the time sheet. Bob: Bill, re your mail about my response to your mail about the time sheets...ad infinitum) 3. Imprecise communication - "did you say the conference call was at 8:30AM CST or EST?" 4. Oops- forgot the attachment! 5. Revised version of the last budget spreadsheet - ignore the previous version. 6. Reply All 7. Bcc your boss on every little thing 8. Accidental "to all employees" type mail shots 9. Intentional "to all employees" type mail shots - "w.e.f April 21, no more pizzas", "w.e.f Jan 1, all expenses shall be..." blah blah blah. Most office communication should be done face to face or over the phone, not e-mail. Really important issues are *always* communicated in person.
yeah, monster trucks, kack daniels, linux and a cute penguin for a mascot...hmmmm....let me think for a moment.... Nah. It would have to be a pit bull.
that's what most of us seek - a factor of trust with the advertiser....or maybe that's what we sought between, umm...1997 to 2000 when there were more advertisers on the web than consumers. Maybe, with all these crappy dot bombs disappearing, we are going to be left with fewer choices (is that a bad thing or a good thing?), real product offerings, value etc, people actually wouldnt mind clicking on a banner - but they gotta do away with bad links, pop-ups, malicious spyware...
is to motivate people to take action - be it buying a can of soda or a car or clothes or a new operating system. This is usually achieved by invoking one or more of our basic instincts - fear, envy, lust, pride, insecurity...In addition to these emotional aspects, there is also the matter of delivering the ad in the right place at the right time (little point putting up a LINUX ad on a site meant for senior citizens...) IMHO, most banner advertising seems to be focused on the "eye-catching" aspect of advertisements - and hence the monkeys, the oh-so-precious psychedelic-flashing icons, the cute MS Windows dialog boxes....but *none* of these seem to invoke the basic emotions... Tell me, what does that "can of whoopass" banner ad do for you? Doesnt even make me want to remember the advertiser's name...I think the brilliant designers who conceived that banner ad just ought to suppress their humor a tad and work on understanding what makes the /. crowd tick and then design an ad around it.
Isnt this marketing communications 101? Isnt this the premise of ANY communication (including User interface design - first find out what your user does, then find out how he does what he does, then design your interface...)?
Banner ads, while they are painful, are not necessarily a failure. The incompetent marketing folks who control the ad budgets, designers and copywriters should take up the blame for failing to understand their target audience. There are good banner ads that make me click on 'em or at least, make me remember the URL (tryin' to remember which ones...:P)
you are right....hanging in there is probably the *only* way out. Of course, some times, not every one has that option, and sometimes, the dam breaks open.. Hind sight and nostalgia might make my high school years seem positively beautiful, but yeah, who can forget barbs about height/weight/hair/clothes/speech impediments blah blah blah...But seriously, how does it matter now? In fact, I will argue that this obstacle actually made us better people. Some kids chose to work harder on their grades, some picked up the computer, some picked up a guitar (and all those Rush albums). However, I do feel bad for some kids who just decided to fade into the background, hoping no one would ever notice them.
You do have a valid point there... However, these bullies themselves are, in my experience, usually screwed up pretty badly. Deep-rooted inferiority complex, insecurities, a fear of smart people, frustration over their inability to do anything decent....this is what leads them to pick on kids (ok, those factors and bigger muscles). Maybe its those kids that need more help from people????
Given the recent well-publicized high school incidents, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone at all that this kid was expelled. The school authorities are merely reacting (over-reacting), but think of how much furore it would have raised in the media had they chosen to ignore this kid's threat (and he went to do something stupid involving a gun).... So, for a moment, for just one brief moment, let us suspend our knee-jerk reaction (geeks are good/establishment evil/why oh why do bullies pick on geeks) and think if we are not being unduly harsh in our criticism of the system here. What is the system to do? If they turn away from the problem and, some poor boy, in an act of desparation pulls out a gun, the school gets slammed. If they choose to isolate the boy from the rest of the students, the school still gets slammed. Where is the answer to be found, then? To banish bullies and jocks and non-geeks from this planet (heck, i would love that but that would be another form of harassment and racism)? To develop an alternate educational system catering only to the geek, the meek and the ones who do not speak? Sadly, it is my belief that the American education system and our society are up against a wall. Extreme solutions (such as expelling this boy) will bring torment and pain to many. Extreme non-interference will also hurt (and kill)many. I do not have children, and therefore, perhaps I sound objective and distant in my argument. The kid's dad, of course, knows the anguish and the frustration first hand, and therefore, it would be interesting to hear his pov. But I fail to see why this story has to be covered in /.
ebay customer feedback and credit ratings is not how businesses transact, my friend...you are talking about a direct to consumer type model (ok, i will say it: b2c)... Companies today can use D&B reports, credit ratings from reputed third party sources etc...how will UDDI replace the existing system or make it better???? How does one test a supplier's reliability online? And if I use a supplier to buy, let's say, copper, why would I want to publicly rate him (and thus expose a low-cost supplier to my competition????) Remember, b2b is TOTALLY different from the consumer world. B2B is really a zero-sum game. If I award a million dollar contract to a supplier, it means every other supplier lost the million bucks. UDDI forgets this basic business fact.
Discovering a business partner is only a miniscule part of the b2b equation - think of the "business partner discovery" phase as reading about a person on a personals site. Merely reading about it doesn't constitute a successful "transaction". Similarly, just because GE or GM can locate my products on the web doesnt mean they can transact with me. The ability to transact depends on my e-biz infrastructure and my back office ERP system. Just type the words "laptop + 550MHZ" in Google. It will throw up hundreds of results. Does this constitute enough information for one to buy a laptop from these vendors or resellers? Also, what are the odds of industrial procurement managers typing in the words "concentrated sulfuric acid" or "3 inch valve" in Google? These companies have existing relationship with suppliers. It is the supplier who has to reach out to more customers, not the other way around. For a supplier to transact with a large corporation, it has to be of a certain size/credibility/revenue et al. No amount of web-based description/discovery will ever replace this. UDDI is old hat, being rehashed by a group of companies that are desparately trying to keep stock market's interest alive in the B2B sector. I have no doubts - b2b is here to stay and it will become a viable channel for companies to participate in. UDDI represents a really, small step in that direction.
interesting...I always thought that many of the so-called rebels were just being a tad pompous - touting free speech in a country where free speech is *more or less* guaranteed by the constitution. This was probably their chance to play the glamorous activist role. Maybe it makes good dinner table conversation - yeah, I fought for free speech in the 60s....we had to battle the evil establishment and mean people over 30....and good lord, we had to consume all that LSD while listening to Sgt. Pepper. I am not totally dissing them - just trying to say that these student activists had their 15 minutes, so what's the big deal now?
and can we see the the northern lights again soon? With NYC only 20 miles away, I am a little doubtful.
Now the politicos will have to deliver what they promise in their campaigns. E-governance is one of the greatest "side-effects" of the internet (not the shopping cart and the banner ad, as many think). Think of the version of democracy that was practiced in smaller villages, where the leader had a direct connection to his/her subjects and issues were settled with immediacy and humanness. This could mean that the common man (yes, you and me and other / dotters) could well develop lobbying powers that are unimaginable today. But does this mean instead of "earn 10,000/month" and "lose 50 lbs in 10 weeks" we will receive "sign the anti-abortion bill" spam in our mail-boxes? On a darker note, does this mean that the individual's fears and concerns will be replaced by "what's good for the majority is good for everyone"?